Chapter 4
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 Sleeper that powerful?
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 if they found 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.”
I snatched him by the wrist, pulling his hand down before someone could see.
“My gods, you are an imbecile. Can you go two seconds without trying to get yourself killed?”
“I think three seconds is my record.”
A well-aimed punch to his shoulder, and Cirian grumbled his displeasure.
“The crowd is starting to thin,” I muttered, watching as the mysterious door in the corner opened and the woman with Malachi disappeared through it.
The Sleeper was still in the center of the room, surrounded by those who wished to pledge themselves as new Converts.
An idea began to form in my head, and I pondered the implications.
It was brash. Far more so than I would normally consider.
But this was hardly a normal situation. “Come with me,” I told Cirian, not waiting for him to agree before moving into the dwindling crowd.
We reached the door in the corner without issue, but once we drew closer, I realized there was no handle, nor any hinges for us to glean how it functioned.
Standing before it, I could see the shimmer of distortion over the wooden materials, as if magic permeated the very composition of the door itself.
Reaching out, I pressed my hand against the solid surface, leaning my weight into it. I huffed a breath when it didn’t budge.
“This doesn’t make sense,” I muttered, dragging my fingers across the grain of the door. The other side of this wall should lead to the building next to the café, but that couldn’t be right. The door wasn’t a veil, either. Of that, I was certain.
“I suppose you don’t want to break it down?” Cirian muttered from behind, his teasing doing little to calm the churning in my gut.
“There shouldn’t be anything behind here,” I told him. “Which means there must be something that I’m missing.”
I stepped back from the door, studying the frame.
A trace of color caught my eye running along the outline of the frame.
It was faint, but there, surrounding the edges of the door.
It reminded me of the chalk I used to draw with outside of Gran’s duplex growing up, the linework just as shoddy across the rough stone surface of the wall.
Had someone drawn it?
“Look at this,” I said to Cirian, not bothering to check if he was still behind me. His presence washed over me like the warmth of a fire. I pointed to the outline around the door, careful not to disturb the lines.
“Chalk?” Cirian concluded, leaning closer into the tight corner. His gaze dropped to the floor below, and he dragged the toe of his shoe along the floor. “It’s fresh, too. You can see the residue that fell when it was drawn.”
I crouched down, running a finger through the colored dust, then rubbing it against my thumb. Cirian was right, it was chalk. In any other situation, it would seem innocuous, but my mind would not let go of the detail as it whirred.
“If you’d like to enter, all you need do is knock.”
All heat drained from my body at the sound of the man, and I had to fight the urge to bolt. Beside me, Cirian’s posture went rigid, and I knew that he was weighing the same equation in his head.
Rising back to my full height, I turned slowly to face the Sleeper, his porcelain mask still in place as he stood a few feet back from the door, a half dozen or so Converts flanking either side.
“I would be careful standing so close,” he continued, his voice pleasant enough to keep my panic from rising. “Reina will be back any moment now, and we don’t want her knocking anyone silly with the door, now do we?”
Cirian and I both shifted, sliding along the wall to keep as much distance between the man and us as we could, inching away from the door.
“Where does it lead?” Cirian asked, his tone light as he motioned to the door. “Our friend may have thought it was the exit.”
“If they went through, then your friend must have been with Reina. That means they’re in good hands, I assure you.”
Cirian let out a quiet chuckle. “That didn’t answer my question.”
Before the Sleeper could respond, the door swung open, creaking on non-existent hinges as the woman from before stepped through.
Now that we were closer, I realized the space behind the door was pitch-black, as if the door itself opened onto the starless night sky.
It shut behind her just as quickly, and she eyed the two of us with an expression of curiosity.
Her hair was cut short, styled to stick out in a dozen different directions.
The roots shone through a sandy blonde, but the bulk of her hair had been dyed a soft pink, much like bubblegum.
“Were you lot waiting for me?” she asked.
“Here, Reina. Your next group,” the Sleeper interjected, ushering those standing by his side toward the woman. “If you’ll show them around.”
“What about these two?” she asked, pointing to Cirian and me.
“These new friends may need another moment or two before they’re ready to make any decisions,” the Sleeper answered.