The sensation of waking was not a gentle awakening, but a sluggish, heavy drag upward from a dark abyss.
Elias's eyelids felt like lead.
Above him stretched a ceiling he did not recognize—a vaulted, grand expanse of pristine alabaster plaster, adorned with delicate gold-leaf trim and an intricate, hand-painted fresco depicting mythical beasts in celestial flight. A massive, crystal chandelier hung suspended from the center, catching the faint afternoon sunlight that filtered through heavy, velvet drapes.
He lay there for a long, silent moment, staring blankly at the ornate moldings. His head throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache behind his temples, and every muscle across his back and shoulders burned as if he had been dragged through a gravel pit. His mind was a muddy soup of fragmented memories: golden flames, screaming crowds, the heavy weight of the First Prince slung over his shoulder, and the sudden, exhausting drain of the Yako form snapping shut.
'Where am I...?' Elias thought, his breath coming slow and shallow.
He closed his eyes and began to circulate his Flow, deliberately tracing the familiar, warming paths of his energy channels to purge the lingering fatigue from his nervous system. As the faint current began to stir in his chest, a sudden realization sparked through his mind.
The first time he had ever unleashed the Yako transformation, he had completely blacked out and woken up in an unfamiliar room, completely at the mercy of whoever had found him.
"Great," Elias gritted out, his brow furrowing beneath his bangs.
"Did I get dragged into another stranger's house?"
"It's my house," a cool, crisp voice answered from the darkness beside the bed.
Elias gasped, his eyes snapping open as he bolted upright on instinct.
THROB!
The sudden movement sent a violent spike of sheer agony shooting straight through his cranium. The world spun erratically, his vision blurring into smeared watercolor as involuntary tears filled his eyes from the blinding headache. He clutched his temples, letting out a soft, pathetic groan as he doubled over onto his knees against the plush mattress.
"Ow—"
A sharp, exasperated sigh echoed from the side of the bed.
A moment later, a tall glass of crystal-clear, ice-cold water was thrust into his field of vision.
"Drink."
Elias didn't hesitate.
He reached out with a trembling hand, snatched the glass, and downed half of it in three greedy gulps.
The effect was instantaneous.
A soothing, cooling sensation washed down his throat, spreading rapidly through his upper torso before surging into his mind. The throbbing ache in his temples receded like a retreating tide, his vision snapping back into sharp, crisp focus.
Elias lowered the glass, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and looked up.
Sitting in a high-backed velvet armchair beside the four-poster bed was Quinlan Rustmark.
Elias blinked. "Quin?"
"Don't call me that."
Quinlan was leaning back, one hand resting on his knee, his immaculate silk vest and pristine cravat without a single speck of dust. The other held a strange looking a thick, leather-bound book. It was dark navy in color and his finger was in-between some pages.
He was glaring at Elias with an expression of intense, sharp-edged annoyance.
It was then that the final pieces clicked into place in Elias's mind.
'Right... I passed out right in front of him in the ruins of those burned-out warehouses.'
Elias glanced past Quinlan toward the nightstand beside the bed. Resting next to an elegant porcelain vase filled with fresh, white lilies was his Kitsune mask—the very mask he had worn while rampaging across the palace walls as "Agent Orange."
Quinlan followed his gaze, his dark eyes flicking to the mask before returning to Elias's face.
"I haven't informed anyone about your theatrical alter ego," Quinlan said, his tone dry and laced with superior disdain.
"Not the knights, not the Enforcers, and certainly not the Inquisitors who are currently combing the districts for the 'masked terrorist'..."
Elias exhaled, resting his elbows on his knees. "Good to know."
"...Yet."
Quinlan suddenly leaned forward. The ambient light from the high stained-glass window caught the thin frames of his spectacles, causing the glass to reflect a blinding, silver glare that completely obscured his eyes.
"Tell me, Dukker..." Quinlan murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet register.
"Where, precisely, did you find the absurd confidence that I wouldn't simply bind your hands and turn you over to the authorities the moment you lost consciousness?"
Elias blinked, his face remaining entirely calm. He took another small sip of the cold water, his voice nonchalant.
"Honestly? I didn't know for sure. But... I trusted in my alliance with Maria. I figured her partner wouldn't throw a wrench into her plans."
Quinlan's expression hardened. He stood up abruptly.
"So," Quinlan rasped, his jaw tightening. "She actually told you. She admitted to you that she's an Itinerant."
Elias offered a slow, simple nod. "Yeah. She did."
"And yet you threw yourself into the middle of a city-wide riot!" Quinlan snapped, stepping forward, his hands clenching into tight fists at his sides.
"Why would you recklessly gamble with her dream like that?! Do you have any idea how much effort, how many resources, and how much delicate maneuvering it took to coverup her secret?! Do you have any idea what that means for her?"
Elias set the glass of water down on the nightstand, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Hey. Take a breath, Rustmark. This isn't about Maria, and it isn't about her dream. There are things going on in this city right now that are a hell of a lot bigger than our agreement"
"Bigger?!" Quinlan echoed, a bitter, disbelieving laugh escaping his lips. He turned away, pacing toward the massive floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the opulent, manicured gardens of the Rustmark estate.
"You truly have no concept of reality, do you?"
"You sleep under a ceiling imagining what I'm assuming are fairy tales. With that much aura loss I don't think you can talk to me about reality."
Quinlan halted at the glass, staring out at the distant smoke rising over the city.
"Tell me, boy... do you even know what the Inquisition actually does?"
"Did you just call me boy?"
"Answer the question."
Elias leaned back against the plush velvet pillows, giving a lazy shrug.
"Sure, I guess? They're detectives. They investigate matters of importance."
Quinlan chuckled—a cold, humorless sound.
"Naïve."
He turned back to face Elias.
"On paper, the Inquisition is an investigative body under the direct authority of the Privy Council. Their real purpose is to root out threats to the kingdom—treason, corruption, and any force that undermines the stability of Aerthos from the shadows."
"That's basically what I said. That's literally the job description of a government detective!" Elias pointed out.
"Ok, minus the 'shadows' part."
"You still don't get it!" Quinlan yelled, snapping his fingers sharply as he spun around to face the bed. The usual calm, arrogant composure of the noble youth was completely shattered, replaced by a raw, boiling fury.
"I have heard all about your actions, Dukker! Kidnapping the First Prince of the realm?! Parading him through the streets like a prize trophy while masked as some unhinged revolutionary?! You should be dropping to your knees and thanking whatever stars you worship that you weren't dragged off in chains!"
Elias sat up a little straighter, genuinely bewildered by the intensity of the reaction.
"Why are you getting so worked up over this? I got away with it, didn't I?"
"Because if they had apprehended you anywhere within the vicinity of the Rustmark territory!" Quinlan shouted, his voice echoing off the high, gold-leaf ceiling, "they would have placed every single person present under intense interrogation! And the Inquisition does not simply ask questions and wait for a response, Dukker. They possess... methods for wringing the absolute truth out of a soul!"
Elias's eyes darkened slightly as a memory flashed through his mind—the Forbidden Artifact: the Witness Lamp the Inquisition had used to interrogate Blackwave when he broke into the Forbidden Vault a while back.
"But Quin, don't you think you're being selfish?"
"Excuse me?"
"I see where you're coming from, but don't act as if I was doing it for fun, OK? I was doing it for the sake of—"
He cut himself off, catching the name Raileigh before it slipped past his teeth. He shook his head, sighing.
"Look, I can't tell you everything. But you don't understand the powers at play here. The scale of what's happening beneath this city—"
Before he could finish, Quinlan crossed the room in three furious strides. He reached down, grabbing Elias by the collar of his linen shirt, yanking the younger boy forward until their faces were inches apart.
"I do not care about your grand, dramatic powers at play!" Quinlan hissed through gritted teeth, his dark eyes blazing behind his lenses.
"Whatever absurd, suicidal game you are playing, be damned! An investigation into my affairs would inevitably drag Maria into the light! Her father—our parents—may hold immense physical and financial power, but in this godforsaken capital, political leverage is all it takes to dismantle everything! One slip from you, one stray thread linking her to your madness, and her entire ambition will evaporate like a dream in waking!"
Quinlan shoved Elias back against the pillows, breathing heavily as he straightened his vest.
"I'm going to let you off the hook for now. But next time, think about others before you act."
Elias lay there, momentarily stunned into complete silence.
He stared at the proud, immaculate heir of House Rustmark. Ever since he had met Quinlan, the boy had been the absolute picture of insufferable arrogance—prideful, dismissive, and looking down his nose at everyone around him. To see him completely lose his composure, shouting until his throat was raw, all out of sheer, desperate worry for Maria's safety... it was mind-boggling.
A slow, wry smirk began to creep onto Elias's face.
"Are you secretly in love with Maria or something?" Elias drawled, leaning back against the headboard with a faint, amused chuckle.
Quinlan's face went red. "What? No! That's—that's not—"
"Because this whole act you just did right now is way out of character."
"W-What?! Don't be absurd! That is—that is a completely baseless, idiotic assumption!" Quinlan spluttered.
"I am not in love with anyone! That's ridiculous! I'm simply—I'm being pragmatic! Someone has to be!"
"Yeah, right." Elias chuckled.
"It's not like that!"
"Whatever you say."
Quinlan fumed, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Elias swung his legs over the side of the bed and stepped on the plush, hand-woven carpet. His footwear was beside the bed so he began wearing it before finishing and stretching his arms over his head, feeling his joints pop pleasantly as his energy settled.
"Look... I do owe you a favor for dragging my unconscious body off the street and keeping my mask hidden. And for the record? I did think about everyone else."
Quinlan crossed his arms, snorting softly.
"Oh, really? Is that why you added more pandemonium to the city-wide unrest?"
" Haha, very funny."
He lay back on the bed.
"I created an opening before I dumped the First Prince right in front of your group and then ran back into the Inquisitors," Elias explained casually, standing up and testing his balance.
"Nobody's looking at Rustmark cause it looks like I dropped the prince and ran into the inquisition in my attempt to escape and you guys happened to be there and saved Leon. You even get a bonus and will be in the kings good graces for saving his son from a masked lunatic!"
He took the Kitsune mask off the nightstand got off the bed, dismissing it into his bead storage. His eyes caught sight of a book resting on the velvet chair Quinlan had been sitting in earlier. Now that he got a good look at it, he saw that it was embossed with a fairly familiar symbol.
It was The Scripture—the holy canonical text of the Sacred Orthodox Church.
Elias picked up the book, flipping through the gold-gilded pages with a raised eyebrow.
"As for not dragging you into my problems in the future... well, you happen to be a very convenient, high-resource variable, Quin. So I definitely can't make any promises."
Quinlan's eye twitched.
"You—"
"Hey, look on the bright side," Elias chuckled, waving his hand dismissively.
"You should look forward to me owing you a whole lot more favors in the future. That's real currency right there."
He raised the holy text, tapping the silver star on the cover.
Though I gotta say... I really didn't take you for the religious type. Reading holy scriptures in your spare time?"
Quinlan scoffed loudly, turning his head away with an expression of deep irritation.
"I am not religious. That ridiculous book is my mother's. She has been fruitlessly attempting to convert me for years."
"And you're not interested?"
"I place my faith in cold logic, empirical data, and martial proof—not in unverifiable, ancient supposition."
Elias raised an eyebrow.
"Unverifiable supposition? Quin, we live in a world where people bend reality with their minds, manipulate space bubbles, and fight monsters that can consume the soul. And that's where you decide to draw the line on what's believable?"
"It is a matter of philosophical principle!" Quinlan shot back, his eyes flashing.
"The things you just mentioned can be measured, categorized, and mastered! A supreme, invisible deity directing the fate of mortals cannot! And why are you talking like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you know something I don't."
Elias walked toward the window, chuckling.
"I just didn't take you for an apostate."
"Oh? Have you ever met a god Dukker?" Quinlan asked as he followed him.
Elias paused and smirked at him.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Quinlan scoffed.
Elias hopped up onto the wide stone window sill, the cool afternoon breeze catching his hair. He gestured to the leather-bound book tucked under his arm.
"Hey, do you mind if I borrow this book?"
"Do as you please. My mother has a box full of them." Quinlan waved a hand dismissively.
Elias summoned the Batglider artifact from his storage bead. The wings unfurled, catching the afternoon light.
Channeling a subtle thread of his Flow into his environment, and generated a localized, swirling updraft of air right outside the window.
"Thank you, Quin. For saving me today."
Quinlan's expression softened—just for a moment.
"Don't thank me. Just... don't do anything stupid again."
"No promises."
He stepped off the sill, plunging into the open air before the glider caught the wind, sweeping him upward into the sky in a smooth, majestic arc.
Behind him, Quinlan lunged forward, leaning halfway out the high window, his silk cravat whipping in the wind as he raised a fist and shouted into the sky after the flying boy:
"I'll collect this favor, Elias! And I'd better not hear any excuses when the time comes!"
High above the estate, flying toward the surface districts of Aethelberg, Elias let out a bright, ringing laugh that carried far across the afternoon wind.