The crowds beneath the Mortal Cup café stood in statuesque stillness as the Sleeper held us in his eyeless gaze, the porcelain mask that obscured his features leveled at the faces of those who surrounded him.
I tried to move my body, but the weight on my limbs persisted, holding me in place like a vise.
How was this possible? Was the man before us truly the boy from the story? That would make him well over a thousand years old at this point—something that even with the most powerful Reviled magics should have been impossible. Yet, the crushing power of his magic told another story entirely. I hadn’t felt anything that strong since the death of Adoranda Greene, and even she had her limits. This man held a room of well over a hundred people in his clutches without showing a single sign of exertion.
Was this Sleeperthatpowerful?
All at once, the connections—those red threads of magic—dissolved, and the crowd exhaled a collective sigh as we watched on.
“You’ve been shown the truth, friends. It is not with a light heart that I share my story with you. I hope that you’ll consider returning. That you’ll bring those whom you care for with you. That you’ll come back and foster these new connections that bind us together. If you are ready to join the cause, you need merely come and speak with me. And if you need time to decide, then I wish you well as you depart. Either way, there is no going back to the ignorance of the past. Take this new truth and allow it to illuminate the world.”
The pressure on my body vanished, and the crowds once again began to churn. Some moved with haste towards the stairs leading up to the café. Others surged forward to greet the Sleeper with enthusiasm, while most lingered in place, dazed expressions holding them stagnant.
A strong hand on my shoulder roused me to cognizance.
“You two need to get out of here,” Cirian murmured in my ear.
I nodded, casting my gaze over to where I expected Malachi to be but finding only unfamiliar faces.
“Where is Malachi?” I asked, spinning in place as I searched the crowds. A realization hit me then, squarely in the gut. “Oh, gods. Cirian, I’ve dropped the veil.”
Cirian’s nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath. “When?”
“I-I don’t know. It must have happened when that awful pressure hit—we have to find him. We can’t just leave him here?—”
“Lower your voice,” Cirian seethed. “The crowd is still thick. We need to move quickly and get out before they notice him, yes?”
I nodded, my pulse hammering in my ears.
“Stick close to me, and whatever happens, we do not get separated. Now, move.”
My fingers twisted into the fabric of his hoodie as Cirian led us into the mass of churning bodies. The heat had spiked in the room now, and sweat quickly began to bead across my forehead as we pushed our way through the mob. I searched each face as we passed, hoping to find Malachi’s sunken eyes, or the mop of dark, twisted hair.
I’d let this happen to him. I’d walked him straight into the viper’s pit and allowed him to break away. What if our search proved unsuccessful? What iftheyfound him before we did? The first brush with the Converts had robbed Malachi of his mind. What would the second take?
“Stay calm,” Cirian muttered as we reached one of the stone walls, pressing our backs to it to try and gain a different vantage on the huddled participants. “He’s here somewhere.”
“I am calm,” I argued, my eyes burning with focus as I scanned the crowd once more. The faces had started to blend together at that point, and I fought the panic that rose in my gut with every bit of strength I could muster.
“We’ll find him,” Cirian murmured. “And once we know he’s safe, I’ll have a few words with this Sleeper fellow.”
My pulse skipped for an entirely different reason.
“Are you mad?” I asked him, tearing my eyes from the crowd to search for any indication that his statement was a jest. “If he finds out who you are, he’ll never let you walk out of here.”
“If his story is true—which I find hard to believe as it is—then he knows that the Church itself isn’t his enemy. Remember, we came here for a reason. Who better to glean an answer to our Tobias problem than the wanker calling himself the ‘Sleeper?’”
“And if he ends up being some crazed fanatic who murders you on the spot? What then, Cirian? You have to think these things through. You can just act on impulse?—”
“There,” Cirian interrupted me, his eyes locked on something across the room.
I followed his gaze, watching a thin man with dark hair being ushered by a broad-statured woman towards a door tucked in the corner that I didn’t recall ever seeing when I worked here.
“Shit, how do we get to him?”
Cirian raised a hand in front of him, his fingers crackling with cerulean electricity.
“I think something impulsive.”
