Chapter Twenty-Three
Milo
Iwas going mad.
Eximius himself was driving me to insanity over four hundred years after his death.
Paxon brought me new pages from the journal at Harlowe every day now that Olympia was busy with her protection detail.
Finally, the narrative was beginning to veer away from resource management and record keeping and toward the issue which had cost him everything in the end; the voice.
He’d heard it for the first time the day after his fifty third birthday.
It had called itself a god.
I stared at that word on the page before me, copied in our finest acolyte’s neat hand. The voice in Eximius’ mind had called itself a god.
Never, in all the stories I’d ever read about the time of the Geist and the dawn of Sanctuary in the Genesis Age, had any one of them communicated with our people in their minds, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t the Geist at all.
Nascha had claimed there were fifteen old gods, fifteen before.
My gaze drifted to the amulet, glowing a soft blue against the dark wood of the desk.
Something pulsed in the light, an uneven rhythm that didn’t seem quite natural.
It wasn’t a steady glow, I’d noticed that the evening my grandmother had given it to me.
It flickered and flared at odd intervals, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly.
It was tumultuous. Something about it put me on edge.
That was why I hadn’t given it to Isla yet.
That and I wanted to discover its origins for myself.
It was a mystery, one other than the journal, and I could never resist a mystery.
I reached for it just before there was a sharp knock at my door. Dropping my hand before my fingers brushed the dark silver casing, I turned and called out for my guest to enter. Olympia strolled in immediately.
“Olympia,” I sighed. “Must we go over this again? You need to remain on the Third. The trial is in three days and–”
My words died in an instant as I noticed the man standing in the threshold of my office.
Harrison’s tall frame took up most of the doorway as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him in a move I thought rather odd given the current company.
My eyes swept from him to my cousin who was now standing in front of my desk, arms crossed and lips set in that firm line I knew meant determination.
Whatever had brought them both here, I wouldn’t be getting out of it.
“You miss home so much you brought your witness up here for the day?” I asked, raising a brow and allowing my displeasure to show at her for not following my orders.
“This isn’t about your witness, Milo,” she snapped. “This is about Harrison. And me.”
I blinked, caught off guard. Harrison and…her.
“I don’t understand–” I started.
“So shut up for a second and let me explain,” she interrupted.
“This is going well,” Harrison muttered before collapsing onto the seat on the other side of my desk.
“What is this exactly?” I asked, gesturing from the Third Ringer lounging in one of my arm chairs to my cousin who looked tightly wound enough to explode in front of me.
“Harrison and I are…we…I didn’t–” Olympia started.
“We’d like your permission to see each other, Sir,” Harrison finished for her when she seemed incapable of completing the sentence herself. “Romantically.”
My gaze snapped to Olympia whose face was a mask of burning red but she held her ground and gave me one firm nod. They were serious.
I looked between them for a moment, trying and failing to hide my shock.
I’d given the Bexleys free reign of House Avus grounds, I’d begun an unprecedented research alliance with the most private Second Ring House in the city, I’d married the Heir of House Lynx and combined the full might of our First Ring power in one move, but this was another matter entirely.
Sometimes Second Ringers fell in love with those on the Third.
Sometimes someone from the Third met someone from the Deck.
So they moved down. They always moved down.
But First Ringers always found other First Ringers or, on rare occasions, one from the minor Houses on the Second.
For Olympia to come to me and seek my permission to have a relationship with a man from not the Second, but the Third, was unheard of, impossible even.
And yet, here she was. I knew my cousin well enough to see it on her face.
Olympia didn’t ask anyone for anything unless she absolutely had to. It was killing her to be here right now, to seek my permission to do anything she wanted, but she was here. There could only be one reason why.
I looked back at the Third Ringer and examined him in a new light.
He was handsome, I supposed, in that tall, lanky, ruggedly goofy way some girls went wild for.
His emotions were written all across his face and there was laughter in his eyes as he looked toward Olympia and offered her a big grin.
He had an ease about him my cousin had never possessed, a level of comfort with the world around him I could see had drawn her in.
My cousin never made friends easily and her relationships had always fallen to ruin the moment there was a question as to her allegiance.
But here she was, asking me for the impossible, because she wanted it and, I could see, because she was afraid of it.
“When did this happen?” I asked because I needed to know, needed to understand, before I put everything even more at risk by tipping the balance in this city even further.
“Well…” Harrison started to answer but, at the look Olympia shot him, changed course. “There’s something between us we’re both interested in exploring but she said the only way to do so legally would be through…you.”
Olympia’s eyes were closed and it looked like it was taking everything in her not to bolt out of the room at that exact moment. But she stayed, and that told me everything I needed to know.
“Are you in love?” I asked.
The room fell utterly still and silent.
Harrison’s eyes trailed to my cousin who tensed and did not open her eyes.
“Olympia,” I spoke into the quiet after a moment.
“No,” she answered.
Harrison blinked but that was the only indication he gave that he’d heard her at all. I looked between them once more before standing.
“You have my permission to see each other in private,” I announced, enunciating the last portion of my decree.
“I can trust you both to use your discretion when it comes to your…intimacy. Ensure there are no witnesses to such moments between you. If, at some point, you decide you are in love, I ask that you come to me and we’ll consider the proper way to move forward together. ”
“We can’t tell anyone we’re seeing each other?” Harrison asked, brows knitting together. “We have to sneak around?”
“For now,” I replied before turning my attention back to my cousin. “You know what a relationship like this could do to this city right now. You understand how Cosmo could use this against us.”
She met my gaze with a hardened stare and a nod.
“If it were up to me, I’d give you my blessing and wish you both well, but I’ve made significant moves that could be seen as too progressive lately,” I continued.
“I fear too much, too fast could tip the fragile balance of this city. Explore what’s between you.
If it fizzles out, no one ever needs to know.
If it grows into something more, we will share that with the rest of the city when it’s time, together. ”
Olympia nodded along as I spoke, in complete agreement, but I noticed Harrison’s hesitation.
The boy was an open book. He wasn’t used to being asked to keep such a major part of his life a secret.
He would struggle with that, I knew he would, but this was part of life in the First Ring and, if he wished to be with a First Ringer, he would have to gain some insight into that at some point or other.
“Should I reassign you?” I asked my cousin, raising a brow.
She understood what I meant immediately.
“Our involvement has no bearing on my ability to do my job, Milo,” Olympia responded, gruff and bitter as always. “I’m perfectly capable of keeping Harrison safe.”
Beside her, Harrison smirked.
I just nodded and watched them take their leave, keeping a solid distance apart for appearances sake.
As soon as they were gone, I collapsed back into my chair, staring at the door to my office and running a hand over my face.
That hadn’t been on my list of expected issues for the morning, I had to admit.
I was still in shock that Olympia had come to me for this at all when I set my hand down on my desk having forgotten all about the amulet resting in that corner.
The moment my skin made contact with the glowing metal, I heard the voice.
Mortal, mortal, do as I say.
And let this god come out to play.
I gasped, ripping my hand away from the necklace.
Swaying slightly, I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head.
That hadn’t happened. There was no way that had happened.
I’d been too engrossed in the journals of a madman, too lost in thoughts regarding ancient deities speaking into the minds of men, too absorbed in researching potentially divine mysteries lately.
That was all it was. My brain was making connections that weren’t there, seeking experiences to validate what I’d read, trying to find some understanding of what wasn’t there, what didn’t exist.
Daring to open my eyes once more, I stared down at the amulet with caution.
The blue seemed to pulse a little brighter, a little faster, than it had before as I watched it.
It was impossible. There was no way I’d heard what I thought I’d heard.
A voice in my head that wasn’t Isla’s. A voice who claimed to be a god.
My eyes snapped to the latest excerpt from the Harlowe journal which Paxon had brought me just this morning, the one in which Eximius had first heard the voice claiming to be a god.
My eyes scanned across the acolyte’s writing as fast as they could and found the sentence I’d known was there but had been dreading to see again all the same.
It was right there in black and white, the ink staining the paper where the acolyte’s hand had been.
Let me out.
The voice, whatever it was, had asked Eximius to let it out as well.
I looked back at the amulet. Every instinct I had was urging me to shrink away from it, to put distance between it and myself.
I’d been right. There was something wholly unnatural about that necklace, something wrong, but I was an academic.
I faced problems head on with the knowledge and skills I needed to solve them.
I knew what I needed to do, despite every part of me rebelling at the prospect.
A hypothesis wasn’t a truth until it could be repeated, I knew that from some of the finest scholars of our time.
My mind was associating my touching the amulet with that voice because the two events had happened simultaneously, but it could be unrelated.
I hadn’t slept well last night so maybe I’d imagined the voice.
Maybe someone out in the hall had been speaking and I’d internalized it in my distracted state.
Maybe the mystery of the necklace was getting to me.
Either way, I needed to hear it again to be sure I’d ever heard it at all.
Taking a breath and doing everything in my power to steady my shaking hands, I reached out once more. The moment my fingertips brushed the glowing gem, I heard him.
Don’t run again, child. I can help you see the light.
I released the necklace at once. Shaking and muttering incoherently, I began rifling through my desk drawers.
After a few moments of pushing aside old letters and half dried ink pens, I found a little frilly blue handkerchief.
Draping it over my hand to diminish contact between myself and the amulet, I reached out and took the necklace in hand.
Then, without wasting a moment, I fled from my office in a manic fit, ignoring everyone in my way as I went.
“Sir, I have the–sir?”
I didn’t even glance Paxon’s way as I breezed past him and down the hall toward the residential wing. My eyes remained firmly affixed to the necklace in my hand as I carried the strange gem and its disembodied voice all the way to my own room.
Isla leapt out of her chair when I burst in, abandoning the vanity table she’d been sitting at out of concern for my obvious state.
“Milo?” she asked, brow furrowed. “What in the Geist’s name–”
“I heard it, Isla,” I told her, only partially aware of what I was saying. “The voice. Eximius’ voice. I heard it. I–here. Tell me what you hear. Tell me what he says to you.”
I thrust the necklace out in a hand and she looked down at it, confused.
“Is this for me?” she asked, reaching for it.
I just froze, waiting for her fingers to make contact with the metal, waiting for it to speak to her too.
She picked it up gently, turning it over in her hand. I held my breath. But then she met my gaze and asked, “Can you help me put it on?”
She reached back to gather her hair up and grant access to her neck. I just blinked at her as she turned around.
“Help you…” I started, unable to say more.
“It’s beautiful, Milo,” she informed me, dangling it from a finger by the chain as she held it out for me to take. “And it’s about time you gave me your wedding present. Would you mind clasping it on for me?”
I just stared at her back as she presented it to me, the realization crashing over me in waves.
Isla hadn’t heard the voice.