Silence was an old friend, a quiet friend. In the last few days that had seemed like forever, Naymond had sat in it, allowing its presence comfort him, envelope him.

  It would come as a surprise to most people who knew him, but Naymond didn’t like noise. He didn’t like the constant existence of bustling life as people tried to live as they slowly died. The only noise he liked was the one he was making or orchestrating.

  If he was not responsible for the noise, then silence was best. And he hadn’t had silence in a long while. Not until he’d returned from the portal he’d fallen into with Melmarc and come out alive.

  Everything had been a sob story. He had made plans, done things, failed, and almost cost a very important child his life. All this in the name of catching the Romanians. People who knew of them thought they were some kind of secret organization hiding in the shadows. They were right, but only halfway so.

  In truth, the secret organization hiding in the shadows was also the very organization that ruled the country. They owned the president and the entire government. In fact, it was safe to say that they were the government.

  Ten years, he thought.

  Ten years he had been chasing ghosts, knowing of their existence but not of any faces. He had been shining a torch in a room so dark that even the light did not penetrate. Maybe he had been a little too rushed, maybe a little too cocky. But the delivery deal had been his way, a chance to put a face to this group.

  Now, it was all for naught. He would have to pick up the threads he’d managed to gather and follow them all the way to Romania now. it was the only way. Any other plan would take another handful of years.

  Naymond didn’t have time for years, his world was running out of time. More annoying was the fact that he knew too little. All he knew of the Romanians perpetrating this crime was that their goal was to learn how to increase a person’s rank through the sacrifice of another. They were vampiric, using human parts and blood to grow.

  A few months ago, when the snow still filled the ground and the air still chilled the bones, he had found another trace, someone who had been close to the organization in some way.

  The report he’d read had said that the man’s name was Turin. He had been found, defeated after a fight in the mansion of Vlad Alexandru, a retired Delver from Romania.

  At Naymond’s incessant pleading and determined annoying pestering, Alfa had finally agreed to request his transfer for the vaguest purposes. Naymond had called in favors and played his card all the way up to the commissioner to have the transfer approved.

  Tony had been sent to bring him in along with another detective. In the most annoying summary of all, Turin had died in transit. His body hadn’t even made it to Brooklyn.

  Once more, Naymond’s plans had been thrown into disarray. But for the world around him, for Alfa, he had played the part of an unbothered [Sage].

  “But you bickered and fought so hard to get him here,” Alfa had said in annoyance as he’d sipped from a cup of cold coffee.

  Naymond had shrugged, given the illusion of nonchalance. “He was a Gifted who ranked up a little too quickly. I was curious.”

  Alfa had lost it and stormed out of the office they had been in and that had been the last he’d heard of the matter.

  Personally, now that he had regained sanctuary under Melmarc’s protection, he no longer needed to keep trying to accomplish this task to survive here. It was a quest given to him by War, a task to indulge in to prove his usefulness to the world to ensure that he retained his [Prisoner of War] designation.

  It had remained active even after she’d lost her Oath and was the only thing still keeping him in a state capable of replenishing his mana so easily in a foreign world. It kept him alive somehow.

  Now that he no longer needed the quest, he could stop. The question was if he wanted to. Even as a child, Naymond had hated questions that he could not answer. They plagued him to no end, so much so that he could be strolling down a road or playing a sport when the answer would come to him.

  His sister always said that when he set his eyes on a problem, he was like a dog with a bone, compulsive. He always had to find the answer.

  Now, here he was, still planning on how to take down a shadowy organization that he had no reason to try and take down anymore.

  You secured sanctuary once more, he thought to himself. A better one.

  Still, he shook his head.

  Melmarc is the son of War.

  Naymond was fairly certain that her desire would ultimately be Melmarc’s desire. If she spoke to him about Naymond, then the task of finding the Romanians would simply continue. So he couldn’t stop now.

  Maybe it was an excuse, though. Maybe he was simply telling himself tall tales to excuse his inability to let the pursuit of the Romanians go.

  But it mattered very little. What mattered were the tasks he had to complete.

  He had a shadowy organization to bring into the light.

  Naymond sat in his quiet cell, knees propped up and his arms resting casually on them. The cell was clean, but empty. The kind of clean that felt deliberate—like someone had scrubbed away anything human. There was no bed, no window, not even the echo of a previous inhabitant. Just pale walls, metal bars that kept him away from the rest of the world, and a silence that hung heavy in the air.

  At least he liked the silence. It helped him hear his own thoughts.

  Sitting with his hands resting on his knees, he didn’t move much, not even an inch. He didn’t need to. All the movements and life existed in his mind. He planned and plotted, joked and solemnized. He did it all in his head. Spoke to himself for sagely advice and cracked the oldest joke known to himself. It was a tale of Sherlock Holmes and his good friend Watson.

  It was a joke about a camping trip. Two men go to bed in their tent and wake up to a conversation of depth and…

  Naymond smiled just thinking about it.

  He missed his world.

  But sacrifices had to be made to save his world. His sacrifice was leaving his world and coming to a foreign one. His sacrifice was bearing the designation of [Prisoner of War].

  The noise in his mind fell silent when his passive skill [World of Insight] picked something out. His eyes narrowed, focusing as if he was looking at something.

  That’s new, he thought, surprised.

  Since being confined to this cell, he’d only had two visitors: Alfa and the person that brought him his meals. But now, there was a third.

  Footsteps echoed gently in his ears as if the man walked right in front of his cell. But the man was not so close. He was still at the entrance, quite a distance away, practically as far as five other cells away.

  Naymond almost chuckled. He had been in here not very long, yet he was calculating distance by cells. Lifting his head, he already knew who the man was. It could’ve been anyone else, but it was someone new, someone he knew while the person didn’t know him.

  The door to his cell area opened with a low, mechanical groan.

  Detective Dantani from New York stepped into view a moment later. He stood on the other side of the cell, the side designed for the free, and looked at Naymond. His coat was damp at the edges. He paused just beyond the cell as if he would open the door and walk in. His gaze swept the room with the calm detachment of someone who’d already judged everything in it. His face gave little away, but his eyes—sharp, dark, and practiced—missed nothing.

  He took a single step closer and rested his head on one of the metal bars.

  “You look better than I expected from a prisoner,” Dantani said, his voice calm, measured.

  Naymond cocked his head to the side. His mouth twitched, something of a smile almost settling on it, maybe it was a smirk.

  In the end, he shrugged. “Definitely worse than I look. Haven’t had a shower or a change of clothes in weeks. Barbaric, these people.”

  Dantani gave him a look. “But they have been feeding you.”

  “Meh.” Naymond pursed his lips. “Only the most basic things. You know, I like my meals high class and spontaneous.”

  Dantani shook his head, a small smile cracking his face. “What does a spontaneous meal look like, Mr. Hitchcock? May I call you Mr. Hitchcock?”

  “Cold and waiting,” Naymond answered. “And Mr. Hitchcock is just fine.”

  Dantani pushed his head off the iron bar and pulled a small notebook from his coat pocket. It looked new, unused. Its edges were pristine and sharp, its pages clean and yellow. He flipped it open with a flick of his thumb but didn’t write anything down.

  “Is it raining outside?” Naymond asked, looking at the shoulder of Dantani’s coat.

  Dantani paused, looked at the shoulder of his coat that still had droplets of water settling on it as well. “It is.”

  “That’s interesting,” Naymond commented, not finding anything interesting about it. “Don’t you need a pen for your notebook?”

  Dantani’s lips twitched again. The detective almost cracked a smile, but he schooled his expression. Instead, he raised his attention from the notebook and looked at Naymond.

  Naymond gave him a cheery smile.

  “I’ve been told a lot about you,” Dantani said simply. “Some say you’re brilliant. Others say you’re just cracked in the head. But what stood out most—someone said you almost got a kid killed trying to bring down a gang.”

  “I did.”

  Dantani cocked a brow. Just a little. “Why?”

  Naymond leaned back against the wall. The chill of the wall would’ve pressed through his clothes and into his skin if he could feel it. But he was a Gifted, B-rank. A simple cold wall was not cold enough for his skin to call cold.

  His eyes stayed fixed on Dantani.

  “You say it as if I almost got the boy killed on purpose,” he said, voice cheery, eyes smiling. “Just so you know, I didn’t. I had a plan focused more on the boy’s safety than the success of the operation. Things just kind of…” he made a vague gesture with his hands. “Went awry.”

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  Dantani stared at him for a long moment.

  Then he closed the notebook and slipped it back into his coat. He looked to his side, down the path he had come from, then back to Naymond.

  He cocked a brow again in an unspoken question.

  “No,” Naymond said after a moment. “They are no longer listening.”

  Immediately Naymond’s words left his lips, Dantani deflated like a popped balloon. All the tension and stiffness left him like flint blown off into the wind. He relaxed like a man just coming back from work. His once sharp and serious fa?ade was gone.

  “What the hell, Nay?” he snapped. “Why’d you go and almost get a kid killed. And why did it take you so long to get me?”

  “Good to see you, too, Dan,” Naymond said, ignoring his question. “How’s the wife?”

  “On another tour,” Dantani grumbled. “She still won’t quit.”

  Naymond shrugged. “Important people are important.”

  “Suck a forgotten tit!” Dantani spat. “Just so you know, I still wish I never met you.”

  Naymond couldn’t be bothered by it. “When did you get in?”

  “Not long.” Dantani folded his arms over his chest. “A few days.”

  “And why did it take you so long to find me?”

  Dantani’s jaw dropped. “How was I supposed to know I was here for you?” he snapped. “I was brought in because some nutcase is going around offing gang members, and the detective in charge of keeping an eye on said Gifted gang members isn’t trustworthy.”

  “Alfa’s got a good head on her shoulders,” Naymond said absently. “She was just dealt a bad hand on this one. How many people are dead so far?”

  “Almost all of them,” Dantani said, voice suddenly tired. “Whichever [Mage] is doing this, they are cleaning up Brooklyn for you guys.”

  “A [Mage] is killing them?” Naymond’s eyes narrowed. He got up and walked over to the bars. “Anything specific about this [Mage]?”

  He had ideas, simple ideas. But he needed to confirm a few things first.

  “No,” Dantani refused. “Murder case can wait. That’s if you didn’t plan this entire shebang just to get me here.”

  Naymond couldn’t help but smile. “I wonder how your colleagues will feel if they saw this side of the stiff Detective Dantani.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Dantani shook a warning finger in his face. “You only get this side of me because for some reason my wife thinks you’re a cool guy.”

  “I am a cool guy.”

  “Why didn’t you call for me, Naymond?” Dantani’s expression was serious once more. “I could’ve come sooner.”

  “You’ve got kids, Dan.” Naymond shook his head. “People to take care of.”

  “Then I guess I should be thankful for all this massacre.”

  “How did they die?”

  “Simple.” Dantani frowned. “Efficiently. A lot of mana impact wounds.”

  “Collateral damage?”

  Dantani shook his head. “None. Only gang members. Alfa’s documents brought me up to speed. We’ve accounted for almost all the members of this specific gang and its affiliates except Navari and one…”

  “Let me guess,” Naymond interrupted him. “David Swan.”

  “You know the guy,” Dantani said with a sigh. “Why am I not surprised. Your confidential informant is missing, and you just happened to know from all the way in here. What’s happening?”

  “Retribution.”

  Naymond turned away from Dantani in thought. It didn’t make sense. Madness wouldn’t have sent people because when Madness had a problem that he deemed worthy of fixing by whatever criteria his mind worked up, he dealt with it himself.

  This has to be War.

  But simply being a part of an operation that had caused Melmarc so much stress was not a justifiable reason to have an entire gang wiped out.

  What if it’s not the gang being wiped out?

  He turned back to Dantani. “Have you guys found any pattern? Has there been any torture, delayed deaths, anything like that?”

  “As a matter of fact, just two.” Dantani turned thoughtful. “There were speculations that the killer was asking for intel on everyone’s location.”

  Naymond shook his head. Not everyone.

  War wouldn’t wipe out the entire gang. Whoever War had sent, the person was looking for someone, a specific somebody.

  Navari and David are in the wind.

  Naymond’s money was on David. They were the only people whose names Melmarc would’ve known. David because he’d help catch him. Navari because he’d been in a room with the man.

  “Right now, I’m stumped on what to do,” Dantani groaned. “And I don’t get to go home until I resolve this.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I’m not going home now.” Dantani rolled his eyes. “Obviously, I’ll have to find a way to get you out first if not my wife won’t let me hear the last of it.”

  “Fair,” Naymond agreed. “But I wasn’t talking about you going home. I was talking about resolving the case. Don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s either the Romanians cleaning house, which could leave your wife as a widow, or someone I know has called in a favor which is far worse.”

  “How’s the second one worse?”

  “Because the first one could leave your wife a widow. The second one will leave your wife as a widow. If the killer is who I think it is, then this will be personal for her. she won’t stop until all of them are dead.”

  “Then I’ll have to put her down myself. If she disappears, a bunch of gang members aren’t enough to make me hunt her. If she doesn’t, I’ll just have to arrest her.”

  “A [Mage]?” Naymond gave him an amused look. “You want to arrest a [Mage].”

  “Won’t be my first,” Dantani huffed, puffing his chest out a little. “Won’t be my last.”

  “Then I won’t stop you.” Naymond stepped back, grinning. “Just so you know, if it’s who I think it is, then she’s S-rank.”

  There was a moment of silence between the both of them. It stretched a little too long before Dantani responded.

  “Oh.”

  …

  Melmarc couldn’t stop looking around. He turned his head one way then the other, taking in the entire place. His mother had just brought him to what looked like an abandoned warehouse.

  There were empty boxes scattered all over the place. Styrofoam used in packaging littered the ground. Melmarc wasn’t sure if the car parked against the wall on his right was even supposed to be inside instead of outside.

  “Some places really work different,” his mother said as if on a side note.

  Melmarc looked at her, taking his eyes away from the algae growing on the wall. “How?”

  “Fendor doesn’t like meeting me in normal places.”

  “Oh.”

  She’d woken him up this morning and driven them for thirty minutes all the way to this place. They hadn’t used her car, entering a car Melmarc had not seen that had mysteriously found its way to their house this morning.

  He’d woken up, stepped outside and just found the car waiting there. His mother had treated it as if it had been their own.

  He’d spent most of the ride wondering if his mother had stolen the car at some point in the middle of the night.

  “You know how much I hate waiting,” his mother called out, her voice filling the entire space of the warehouse. “Your boss won’t like it.” Her voice dropped slightly. “I don’t like it.”

  Fendor came rushing out from a corner that had been hidden away by a small cube of an office. Like the rest of the warehouse, the office looked abandoned.

  “War,” he greeted as he slowed to a stop in front of them. His eyes took Melmarc in and he smiled. “Marc.”

  Melmarc returned his smile. “Hi, Uncle Fendor.”

  Fendor’s attention moved back to Melmarc’s mother.

  “How is he?” he asked, his voice touched with worry.

  “Resting,” she answered. “What happened to him took a lot out of him. He needs his rest. I can’t have him moving around.”

  “He also needs protection then,” Fendor said in a hurry. “If you aren’t there to protect him, someone has to be.”

  “He has all the protection he needs.”

  Fendor paused, then realization settled in his eyes. “The guy I saw when I came.” He looked worried. “What kind of [Mage] is he?”

  Melmarc’s mother chuckled. “If you ever meet him again, don’t call him a [Mage]. He hates it.”

  “Who is he, though?”

  Melmarc’s mother shrugged as if it was not important. “A family friend.”

  “He cancelled my teleportation. No one has ever done that.” Fendor scratched at his forearm. “When I tried to teleport back, I couldn’t.”

  “That’s good.” Melmarc’s mother nodded. “That means the money I paid for the enchantments and spells was money well spent.”

  Fendor paused for a moment, as if trying to think of something. If he had anything to say, Melmarc’s mother beat him to it.

  “Have you heard anything from Deoti?” she asked. “I asked her for a favor but haven’t heard back from her.”

  Fendor’s eyes moved to Melmarc very briefly before shaking his head. “All I know is that she’s fine. I don’t think she has finished the task.”

  Melmarc’s mother sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “I guess that is to be expected. A needle in a haystack.” She looked at Melmarc, frowned a little, then looked away. “We might as well burn the entire haystack then.”

  Fendor pursed his lips in worry.

  Melmarc wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but the direction the analogy was going in right now just didn’t sit well with him.

  “How about we don’t go burning haystacks, mom,” he said simply. “Let’s look for the needle a little longer.”

  She cocked a brow at him for a moment. Her eyes studied him, looking for something. Melmarc knew the look. His mother was trying to gauge what exactly he knew on the issue and how much he knew.

  In the end, she nodded once. “Alright. We’ll give it some more time. Two more days. Since I’ll be there, I can burn it myself.”

  Melmarc’s eyes widened in shock and his mother patted him on the arm with a reassuring smile.

  “I’m not burning anything, Mel,” she chuckled. “Your father would’ve, though.”

  But there was something in her smile, in the way it touched her eyes. It made Melmarc ask a question.

  “Why are we going to Brooklyn, mom?”

  “To get your stuff.”

  Melmarc didn’t feel very satisfied with the answer. But there had been nothing dissonant about it. Still, he held his doubts. Right now, he was faced with a situation where his instincts told him that his mother was lying even though dissonant had nothing to say on the matter.

  “Fendor,” his mother said kindly. “Open a portal for us, please.”

  “One portal to Brooklyn coming up.”

  Fendor held his hand out to the side and made a flourish. Melmarc watched the mana particles in the air bounce about. They scattered, some dimming while others shone brighter. It all happened in the space of a second. Then a portal appeared.

  Fendor’s portal was as tall as two men and as wide as a car was long. A swirling mass of darkness, Melmarc couldn’t see inside it.

  It also acted like something of a vacuum, sucking in the air around it. His mother stood next to Melmarc, unbothered.

  “Ready?” she asked him.

  Melmarc nodded once. His eyes were still on the portal, watching how the mana particles in the air reacted to it. While the portal seemed to suck in the air, the mana particles did not react to it, simply bobbing around unbothered. Some particles still remained dim while others still shined bright.

  “Alright, then,” his mother said. “All you have to do is just let go.”

  Melmarc looked at her. The last time he had gone through Fendor’s portal, he hadn’t let go. He’d just been sucked into it. It had been the moment they’d stepped out of the portal with the ruins of Caldath and Fendor had teleported them away.

  His mother was sucked into the portal before he could say anything, torn from the world like a ripped piece of paper.

  Fendor went next, but Melmarc remained standing. The suction wasn’t affecting him. It was pulling at his clothes, but not at him specifically.

  “Just let go,” he muttered to himself.

  “Marc?” Fendor prompted. “Ready when you are.”

  Melmarc nodded. Just let go.

  He let out a slow calm breath, allowed his body to relax. All he had to do was surrender. Control, as Uncle Dorthna had once told him, was not just in the ability to control yourself, it was also in the ability to let go of control over yourself.

  He took in another breath. When he let it out, he was welcomed to a surprise.

  [Teleportation portal detected]

  [Destination 08 Macladen, Bedorf Avenue, Brooklyn, NY]

  [Would you like to confirm teleportation?]

  [Y/N?]

  Melmarc looked down at the notification, then at Fendor.

  “Any problem?” Fendor asked.

  Melmarc wasn’t sure if this was normal or if this had something to do with his designation as an [August Intruder] so he shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “It’s fine.”

  Yes, he thought, responding to the notification.

  When he did, the mana particles moved towards the portal. Fendor frowned at it as if surprised.

  I guess this isn’t normal, he thought.

  It also brought problems with it. If he was in a group and they needed to portal out immediately, would he have to go through all these processes? It seemed like too much of a hassle. It had its upside, though. If someone tried to forcefully portal him to another destination, there was a chance that he could reject it.

  If he got the option against an S-rank’s portal, it meant he would not be meeting anyone stronger anytime soon.

  As the portal pulled him in, Melmarc tipped forward, only to regain his footing.

  He looked down at his feet then up at Fendor. Fendor looked as confused as Melmarc was. Shock was written all over his face.

  “What the…” Fendor frowned. “That’s not normal.”

  [Your existence is too heavy.]

  Melmarc’s jaw dropped.

  Did it just call me fat?

  Another notification popped up.

  [Kindly step into designated portal to conclude teleportation]

  Fendor was looking at the air, most likely checking his interface with a frown. He pressed his lips into a thin sheepish line before looking up at Melmarc.

  “Sorry about this, kiddo,” he said. “Your dad had the same issue the first time he used my portal. You might have to walk into it yourself. No idea why that’s happening.”

  Melmarc shrugged and obliged.

  Walking through the portal was like walking through a door. In the blink of an eye, he was in a living room complete with furniture and a flatscreen television.

  His mother stood in front of him and cocked her head in surprise. “You just… walked through it?"

  Melmarc nodded. A moment later, Fendor appeared beside him. The process of his animation was the reverse of his mother’s teleportation. If his mother’s had been like ripping paper, Fendor’s had been like watching the process in reverse.

  “Alright.” His mother looked around. “Fendor, would you be a dear and get us a vehi…” she shook her head. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll get us one. I’ve used your services too long. You’re an S-rank and I’m here using you as a transport service. I am so sorry.”

  “It’s fine, ma’am,” Fendor said with a smile. “I was more than happy to help. I can even get you that vehicle if you—”

  She interrupted him with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll be fine. I’ll get us a car and we’ll be on our way. You may return.”

  Fendor’s portal was still active and he had a worried look on his face. Despite his worry, he turned and allowed his portal rip him away. Only then did the portal disappear.

  “Was it just me or did he look very worried?” Melmarc said.

  “Fendor has always been one to worry,” his mother answered. “He and Deoti worry a lot about you and your siblings. We’ll be fine.”

  Melmarc didn’t doubt that they would be fine. He worried that someone else would not be fine.

  “Mom?”

  His mother was already walking over to the exit door. She stopped to look back at him. “Yes, Mel.”

  “Are we just going to pick up my things?”

  “Of course, then I’ll speak with those at the precinct you worked at.”

  “Speak with them?”

  “Of course.” His mother shrugged. “My son got lost in a portal. I would like an explanation.”

  “Maybe—”

  “Don’t worry, Mel.” His mother turned and opened the door and walked out. “I’ll be civilized.”

  Dissonant.