“Yes, sir. Right away, sir! I’ll give you a full report, sir!” Braun hurried to the door, nearly tripping over his own feet.
“Excellent. And Braun?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Let’s keep this between us.”
Braun sobered, and Luc thought he might refuse, but he nodded and agreed, “Yes, sir. That’s a good idea, sir.”
“And why don’t you bring me some wine to go with these cakes?”
“Of course, sir! I’ll do that, sir!” With equal parts buoyancy and determination, Braun rushed from the house.
Luc felt a twinge of guilt at seeing the boy’s happiness. Of course, the sword would never actually belong to him. But Luc would let him test it when it was finished. He might even let him hold onto it for a while, just until Luc required it. The young warrior was the perfect cover for the work he needed to do.
When Braun had gone, Luc reached through the smashed window of one bookcase and pried open the false back he’d added after it had been built. The hidden compartment was based on one of Hadri’s designs, and there, out of sight of the warriors who’d ransacked the place, sat his most prized possessions: Lila’s first carpentry pin and one of Hadri’s goblets, filled to the brim with that dark, formless substance known as the Void.
First, Luc retrieved Lila’s pin and stuffed it in his pocket along with her crystal. Then he grabbed the goblet and set it on one of his worktables.
The Void was entropy embodied. A system sans energy, sans movement, sans existence. To Luc’s knowledge, it had never been captured before, much less studied, much less fused with any other material. No one knew if it was hot or cold, or wet or dry, or similar to the aether surrounding them. Did it have a boiling point or a melting point? Its only observable reaction with other substances was to annihilate them—the Creator’s power alone kept the Void from destroying the goblet—but Luc had mastered all of the other elements; he could twist and refine and fuse them until they yielded to his will; why not this one?
Swords were always forged from a substance known asos lucis,the same material that made up the angels’ bones. It was the strongest and hardest substance in existence; blessed with the Creator’s power,os lucisrepelled theVoid through properties none could completely understand. Michael put many restrictions on requests for it, probably so the warriors wouldn’t be rendered obsolete, and an ordinary angel would have been at a loss to obtain it.
Fortunately, Luc had a private store—one of those personal requests he’d made of the Creator from time to time. He never knew when a particular material would be useful.
The only sure property ofos luciswas that it couldnotcombine with the Void; like magnets with the same charge, they repelled one another. But what if, to create his sword, Luc first alloyedos luciswith another metal, perhaps steel,then added ina trace amount of the dark matter?
Would the Void strengthen the alloy in a manner Luc could not even imagine? If this element was so powerful that it could snuff out existence in the blink of an eye, what could it do for him?
Luc had always wanted to experiment with the Void; he’d wondered what emergent properties might result from a successful merging of the Creator’s power and the Void’s. He’d even suggested to Michael that the dark matter might be useful for defense against itself, but Michael had wanted nothing to do with the idea. This was why, when Luc had proposed to the Council that they take a sample of the darkness for study and for use in weaponry, he’d been swiftly shot down. This was why the use of dark matter in any Heavenly projects was prohibited.
Michael was scared. Michael was weak. But Luc was neither scared nor weak. And Luc had already captured the Void. And Luc had just been given all the time on Earth to figure out what the Void could do for him.
He now understood that Heaven had abandoned him long ago.
Before he could set his machinations in motion, however, a knock sounded at the door. When Luc opened it, his old mentor, and formerly trusted friend, stood there with an apologetic grimace and solemnly clasped hands.
“Have you also come to tell me what a fool I am?” Luc noted acridly. “Going behind the Council’s back?”
“Not at all, my friend.” Hadri’s brow creased with concern, then softened. “I merely wished to congratulate you. And to say that I believed in the creation of Earth, even if the Council did not. Regardless of how things turned out, I think you made the right decision, and I don’t believe you deserve this.” He gestured to the four walls currently holding Luc.
Despite believing none of his appeasing words, Luc let Hadri in. He didn’t want the old architect to suspect he knew of his betrayal. For now, he went through the motions of greeting Hadri, the same as he always had, but it was as if his soul had fled from his body, and he was floating above, watching himself perform the familiar actions while his heart and his mind stood still.
How could someone he’d known so intimately become someone he didn’t know at all?
Flashes of their friendship, from their first meeting to their last conversation, raced through Luc’s mind like so many lies. Hadri glanced around the ruined study with noticeable discomfort, but not surprise, and Luc tensed, the numbness in his veins giving way to hate.
No doubt, Hadri kneweverything.He must have always known everything. And Hadri never upset the status quo. He would have done anything Michael told him to do, even pretend to be Luc’s friend so he could keep a close eye on him.
Luc was such a fool, and he remained tense when Hadri pulled a scroll from his pocket and unrolled it on a worktable: the blueprints for the Accounting Department.
“I want to show you something,” Hadri continued in the silence, and Luc drew near with caution. “The Accounting Department has been given a new purpose. I fell asleep there amidst my work, and when I awoke, these blueprints had been altered by the Creator Himself. The building will no longer house the overflow from the Library. Instead, it will house all the documents pertaining to Earth. Mostly, accounts of the humans who are born there. I’m not certain what this means, but I believe it to be a safeguard on account of the trees.” He tapped the parchment.
“Trees?” Luc frowned.
“Yes, I know, there are many trees.” Hadri gestured vaguely. “But the ones I refer to are two specific ones in the Garden. One is called the Tree of Life. That’s where Earth’s souls will be born and blossom. The other is called the Tree of Knowledge. That’s where the Creator’s knowledge is stored.”
“How do you know this? I didn’t put those trees there.”
