Chapter 4
Seph
It just kept going.
The helicopter climbed higher and higher, until Moorshire compound fell away beneath us — carved deep into the mountain’s spine.
All down the sheer face of Mount Vellen, people moved across narrow platforms. Some tended hidden gardens carved into the rock.
Others reinforced walls, hauling stone and steel into place.
“We’re a self-sufficient community,” Elliot said into my headset. “Roughly ten thousand people.”
My stomach tightened. “Are they all Dark magic users?”
“Not everyone,” he replied smoothly. “But most people who come here are running from the Council of Light in some shape or form. Like Sable, for instance.”
I turned slightly. “How did you even meet her?”
Elliot gestured toward Kieran.
He sighed — like this conversation had been waiting for me.
“I was asked to make the introduction,” Kieran said. “That’s one of the reasons I lived next door to your family all those years.”
The world tilted.
“To befriend us?”
“To protect you,” Kieran said. “Before you even knew you needed it.”
Something cold settled in my chest.
“You mean to manipulate us,” I said. “Because you needed access to my father.”
“I never manipulated you, Seph,” Kieran said. “I made decisions you weren’t in a position to make.”
I snorted. “Right. Then answer this—why wasn’t I brought in back then?”
I held his gaze.
“Why did you pick Sable?”
I swallowed, forcing my voice steady, even as the answer burned its way through me.
“Your father was watching you too closely,” Kieran said. “We knew we couldn’t intervene without raising hell around you.”
“Where is my father?” I asked quietly. “I’d like to see him.”
“That’s not a good idea. He’s locked in one of our cells,” Elliot said, cutting in before Kieran could answer.
“I’m not scared of him,” I said.
Kieran blinked. “You’re not?”
“No,” I said. “Not anymore. Not after what he did to me.”
Sy shifted closer to me, as if he could sense the tension in me.
“He handed me to Marr to salvage his own reputation.”
I met Kieran’s gaze. “That’s not what a father does to someone he loves.”
Elliot’s tone cooled. “You should be careful, Seph. Gideon is clever. Being contained doesn’t mean he’s powerless.”
“Could I… talk to him?” I asked.
Kieran turned to me sharply. “Why?”
Elliot cleared his throat, casting him a warning look. “We can discuss it,” he said evenly.
Sy, who had been silent until now, leaned forward, his head tilting slightly as he drew in a breath.
Elliot followed his gaze and smiled.
“Ah. You’ve scented the hot springs.”
“Volcanic water?” Sy asked carefully, testing the words. His eyes lit, unmistakable.
I smiled despite myself. “You want to see it?”
Sy glanced at me — then at Kieran.
“Another time,” he said. Then, quieter, “Tell me, small humans. If you did not create the ferals—where did they come from?”
“There is a group,” Elliot said, his jaw tightening. “Small, for now. But growing. They used to be part of Equinox.”
He hesitated, just long enough for me to catch it.
“They call themselves Libertarians. Their leader—Cara Long—was a close friend of mine. She stole the research and disappeared six months ago. We believe she’s using it on Light users.”
The helicopter hummed around us, steady and loud, but it did nothing to drown out the words.
“She’s deliberately creating the ferals?” I asked, a wave of nausea rolling through me.
Elliot didn’t respond to that. He shifted instead, glancing out the window at the world stretched out far below us, like distance might make it easier to say what came next.
“The Council has been gathering the infected and holding them in units. Studying them. Moving them where they’re… useful.” His lip twisted slightly, like he hated the word even as he said it. “When we heard Gideon was coming to Darkmoor, we released one of those units from a nearby camp.”
The helicopter gave a faint shudder, the rotors chopping steadily overhead.
“You treated them like a distraction,” I said, quieter now. “They were people, Elliot.”
“They aren’t anymore,” he replied, without hesitation.
“That’s convenient.”
His gaze flicked back to me, sharp. “It’s the truth. The virus takes over completely. There’s nothing left to save.”
No.
That wasn’t truth. That was justification.
“You needed a way in,” I said, watching him closely. “So you used them.”
Something shifted in his expression—small, but there.
“We needed an advantage,” he said. “The ferals provided that.”
I let out a slow breath. “So you’ve weaponised my research against the world.”
“It’s not yours. It belonged to Gideon.”
“It’s my data,” I said, just as steady. “It came from me. That makes it mine.”
Elliot leaned back in his seat, eyeing me carefully. His tone sharpened. “Seph—”
“What exactly was the plan, Elliot?” I shot back.
His eyes widened. “Kieran told us your father was experimenting on you. With Marr involved, we needed to know what that meant.”
“Kieran told you.”
I looked at Kieran.
He swallowed, visibly uncomfortable.
“And what else did you tell them about me?”
Elliot exhaled, clearly trying to regain control. “You’re losing sight of the point, Seph. It doesn’t matter how we found out. Gideon was wrong in what he did—”
“It doesn’t matter?”
I turned fully to Kieran.
“So, you think it’s okay to tell people things like that about me? To decide what parts of my life you get to hand over?”
“What Gideon did to you is bigger than both of us,” Kieran said. “And you know it.”
I stared at him.
“So, who else knows?”
Elliot cut in before Kieran could answer.
“Not many,” Elliot said quickly. “Just Kieran. Sable. And me.”
“And Cara Long,” I said sharply.
Elliot’s jaw tightened. “Cara doesn’t know everything.”
I turned my gaze back to him.
“And you do?”
“Seph – “
“What are you expecting me to do, Elliot? Why am I here?”
Elliot’s expression hardened. He tried to force a calming smile back on his face.
“We are hoping you will help us,” he said evenly.
Beside me Sy growled. The helicopter shuddered as his presence swelled beside me.
“He wishes to unleash you,” Sy said, his gaze fixed on Elliot.
His fingers clenched—claws sliding free.
“Rein your dragon in, Seph,” Kieran snapped.
Sy’s gaze shifted.
It locked onto Kieran.
He moved in a blur—jaws snapping inches from Kieran’s face.
Kieran didn’t move. Sy didn’t pull back.
I reached for him, holding him in check.
“Help you do what?” I asked coldly. “Steal power? What makes you any better than the Council of Light?”
“You really want to know?” Elliot said sharply.
He turned to the pilot and rattled off a set of coordinates.
I clutched the door as the helicopter banked sharply. “Where are we going?”
“You want to see the difference between us and the Council?” Elliot said. “I’ll show you. But be advised — it won’t be easy to look at.”
We flew over the mountain range toward the city of Telluride. As we crossed the canyons at the edge of civilisation, the land below turned dry and scrubbed bare, broken by stone.
The helicopter lowered onto a high outcrop, and we climbed out. Kieran moved to walk beside me, but Sy stepped in front of him, blocking the way until I chose to move first.
For a moment, I saw nothing.
Then Elliot pressed binoculars into my hands.
“Look for yourself,” he said. “And tell me the Council doesn’t need to pay.”
I raised the binoculars.
Below us lay a camp — heavily fortified. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter. Barbed wire topped a tall outer fence, with a second fence inside layered with razor wire.
In the courtyard, I saw people.
Children.
They wore grey rags, clothes that barely covered their skin. They were thin. Malnourished. In their hands were spades and pickaxes, their small bodies bent as they worked the yard.
“What is this?” I asked, nausea rising. “A prison?”
“A holding facility for the children in Telluride who registered too high Dark on the APA during recent raids,” he said flatly.
“Where are their parents?”
He shrugged.
“Dead. Imprisoned. Disappeared. The Council marketed this place as a sanctuary — protection from ferals. Protection from us.”
Sy stepped forward, fury pouring from his tall form.
“You know of this place — and do nothing?”
“Did you not see the cannons?” Kieran snapped. “The ranks of light-magic guards on the walls?”
Sy didn’t look away.
“Your cowardice does not concern me.”
“My cowardice?” Kieran barked. “You arrogant son of a—”
He lunged forward towards Sy.
“Enough!” Elliot snapped, cutting across them both.
“I’ve seen enough,” I said. “We’re leaving, Sy.”
Sy’s attention snapped to me, his nostrils flaring. He nodded.
Elliot lifted his hands, as if to stop me.
“Seph—this is only one place,” he said quickly. “There are hundreds like it. All of them tools the Council uses to solve problems.”
“I never said the Council were good people, Elliot,” I said evenly. “But I don’t think you understand what you’re asking me to do.”
“Good?” Kieran cut in sharply. “Try monsters. The Council and the goddamn Order of Light are exactly what’s wrong with this world.”
He gestured toward the camp below.
“We can’t keep living like this. The world has to change.”
His jaw tightened. His eyes sharpened on me.
“And someone has to be willing to change it.”
“Why should it be me?” I said. “What gives you the right to decide that?”
“You have a gift that can take back the power the Light has been stealing for years,” Elliot said. “If you can change the balance… why wouldn’t you?”
I snapped my gaze back to him, something sharp and immediate cutting through the nausea still sitting heavy in my stomach.
“You don’t understand the cost of what you’re asking of me.”
His eyes narrowed.
“My son was killed in a dark magic raid seven years ago. His name was James. He was only fifteen—he’d barely taken the APA. When he did, they saw he was sixty-two D. Too high for them.”
His voice dropped, deadly quiet.
“When he stepped in front of me, they shot him.”
He met my eyes.
“I paid my price. So don’t you dare talk to me about costs.”
My chest tightened. My hands curled into fists before I realised I was doing it.
“I’m… sorry,” I said, the words catching in my throat.
“What happened to your son was unforgivable,” I said quietly. “And I won’t pretend it isn’t.”
Elliot held my gaze, waiting.
“But your pain doesn’t buy my obedience,” I went on. “And it doesn’t give you the right to decide what I become.”
Something flickered across his face. Not anger. Calculation.
“I’m not asking you to be a weapon,” he said. “I’m asking you to make your power mean something for this world.”
“That’s the same thing,” I replied. “You’re just using kinder words.”
Kieran opened his mouth, then stopped. His jaw worked, frustration clear, but he didn’t interrupt.
Sy shifted closer to me, anchoring me.
“You think if you take the power back from the Light,” I said, “if you even the scales, everything fixes itself.”
Elliot didn’t answer.
“Tell me something,” I continued. “After James died—did it help? Did tearing yourself out of that system make it hurt less?”
His silence stretched.
“No,” he said at last.
“But it gave it purpose.”
I nodded slowly. “That’s the difference between us.”
He frowned. “Explain.”
“I don’t want my pain to have purpose,” I said. “I want it to end. I want it to stop being passed on to the next child, and the next, and the next—just because the APA says they’re different.”
I glanced back toward the camp in the distance. Toward the children bent under tools too heavy for their hands.
“You’re right about one thing,” I said. “The Council can’t be allowed to keep doing this. But if the only way you know how to fight them is to burn everything in your path—including me—then you’re not offering a choice.”
Elliot’s voice hardened. “Change has never come without cost.”
“That’s true,” I said. “But you want to decide who pays it.”
The wind swept across the ridge, hot and dry. I felt Sy’s presence at my back, solid as stone.
“I won’t help you steal power,” I said. “And I won’t let you turn me into a justification for war.”
Kieran exhaled sharply. “Seph—”
I held up a hand. He stopped.
“But” I added, and Elliot’s attention snapped back to me. “I will help those children.”
His eyes narrowed. “How?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But I’ll find a way that doesn’t require becoming a monster first.”
For the first time since we’d landed, Elliot looked uncertain.
“That may not be enough,” he said.
I met his gaze without flinching. “Then you’ll have to decide what kind of man you’re willing to be.”
Silence fell between us—thick, uncomfortable, unresolved.
Sy leaned down slightly, his voice meant only for me.
“You choose the path,” he murmured. “I will walk it with you.”
I closed my eyes for a heartbeat. Then I turned back toward the helicopter.
“Take me home,” I said. “If you still want my help, you can start by respecting that.”
I didn’t wait to see if Elliot agreed.