76°00'08.2"S 53°43'31.2"E - Nuevo Trujillo, Spanish Antarctic Colonies

  26.05.2024 16:00, UTC+03:00

  Domain dismissal. Sagrado Padre had the means, the authority, and, admittedly, the determination. With a snap of the fingers, a T2 was decimated, alongside eleven other T-Agents.

  “No, traitors,” I whispered.

  Such was the power of the Sagrados, and Padre was not visiting for leisure. He was sent here exactly to uproot imperfection. T2-Azura – no, she died stripped of her title – Azura being condemned of treason, however, did not sit right. I worked with her every time she visited Santiago. She cared. She was one of the good ones.

  She was the one who had insisted I join the Prince on his trip to London. She was the one who put Miguel and Catalina in the Transantarctic with me.

  I looked at the big clock on the wall of my office. I was sitting alone for at least ten minutes, doing nothing but looking at the wall and trying to make sense of things. We had all been ordered to “proceed as we were”. Whatever that meant.

  “As I was” meant completely confused about my being used by the Prince to use my soothing on others and myself, at least in two instances: the ride back from London, and during the beginning of the Blackout.

  “As I was” meant still stuck in Nuevo Trujillo, far from Santiago, assigned to find ángel a.k.a. the lone Survivor, and possible perpetrator, of the Domain Breach.

  “As I was” meant without any remaining familiar faces or allies. Azura was dismissed, permanently and irrevocably. T4-Miguel was comatose under my Soothing, his waking up being the only way for the terrorist linked with him to wake up as well and reveal information crucial to the investigation. However, both of them were key witnesses T4-Catalina’s death, right after she unlocked my memories.

  Twelve minutes.

  If Sagrado Padre learned I was piecing my memories back together again, who knew what he would do? Perhaps, he already knew I was a liability, but I had a use alive. I was a safe bet, still useful if someone needed my Soothing abilities and easy to dispose of if I figured out how I was being used.

  Fourteen minutes, still sitting still.

  I had to act, but that was impossible. My course of action to ensure my survival was clear: kill Miguel and that rebel, in one targeted Soothing hex. He couldn’t stay asleep forever, and I couldn’t erase both of their memories without Sagrado Padre detecting foul play. But last time I tried to hex them, floating words, of all things, begged me not to.

  Seventeen minutes. If only I had more time to figure things out.

  The earpiece screeched and turned on.

  “T3-Elena,” T-4 Palmira spoke in an expressionless transactional voice, “T2-Ricardo requires your report on this morning’s incident. Please bring it in person immediately.”

  I stared at the pile of paperwork on my desk. Somewhere among those papers, there was one with multiple scribbled sixty-sixes—another sign of my impending madness.

  “T3-Elena?”

  “Message received. I will need fifteen minutes.”

  “Please arrive in ten minutes,” Palmira insisted, and turned off the channel.

  I looked at the clock.

  “Fuck.”

  In Santiago, walking across the halls and the lifts as the workday ended usually meant seeing the morning-shift agents grabbing a beer and jeering at the unlucky ones responsible for the night shift. But that afternoon, no one was allowed to finish their shift in the T-HQ of Nuevo Trujillo, for the eighth night in a row.

  And although the morale had been plummeting for days, this night, nobody wanted to talk or complain. All T-Agents proceeded with their orders of trying not to stand out.

  “Come in,” T3-Ricardo’s voice sounded from inside Azura’s office. No. He was T2 now, and Azura was gone.

  I stepped into his office. Ricardo was standing next to his desk, looking at a screen next to him. He had changed into a more formal outerwear, similar in style to what Azura used to, but fitted for his wide build. He seemed tense.

  “You asked for me?” I asked, going in, holding the makeshift last-minute report in hand. “My time was limited, the outcome is hasty, at best…”

  My last words trailed off as I noticed the peculiar woman sitting in an armchair on the other side of the room. She held a pipe and puffed smoke that surrounded her.

  “Se?ora…” I hesitated.

  “Se?ora Maria del Padre has found comfort in providing her skills and guidance to the seat of T2 Ricardo,” she interrupted me. Tobacco ashes fell from her pipe as she waved her hand. Her voice was soft, like a whisper

  I felt my skin stretch. Royals often referred to themselves in the third person, but she was no royal. She was a handmaiden appointed by the Sagrado Padre. A high priestess or a concubine, depending on the context. And she had somehow installed herself at the highest office of the city.

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  “What a pleasant surprise, Se?ora. I expected you by Sagrado Padre, I am sure these dull offices offer no comfort.”

  “I asked Maria for her assistance,” Ricardo interrupted me, before Maria would find a chance to answer to my provocation. “Sagrado Padre is resting from a very eventful and sorrowful day.”

  “Of course,” I said. Maria did not say a word. She huffed from her pipe and puffed a big cloud of smoke. “Here it is. The best I could do in the ten minutes.”

  I extended the report to Ricardo. He took it from my hands and left it on his desk without a look.

  “Thank you. Well delivered.”

  I stood awkwardly waiting to be dismissed.

  “Have a seat,” Maria said. Her tone dressed the words more like a suggestion rather than a command, but Ricardo’s eyes carried expectations.

  I sat in the chair across from Ricardo’s desk. He remained standing.

  “When you and Miguel encountered Romero and Vázquez, you were intercepted, right?”

  Was he referring to Catalina? No, he could not be. I had to stick to my story.

  “Yes. A squad of terrorists, led by a masked woman. Known as the Weaver.”

  “Hm,” Maria said. I turned to her, but she kept smoking.

  “And who is this Weaver?”

  “Sir, you were here when I reported everything to T2, sorry, sir, to Azura,” I said, “Azura explained all we know about her.”

  “I was indeed. Can you repeat?”

  “Uhm,” I tried to recollect, “Ex-T-2 Agent. The youngest to achieve such a rank. She is a Luckweaver, with Shadow heritage.”

  “Is that all?” Ricardo asked.

  “Yes. I had never heard of her before, to be honest.”

  Ricardo looked at Maria. Her eyes were hidden behind a thick layer of smoke. She nodded positively.

  “I had to hear you say it. Now I know you are telling the truth,” Ricardo turned back to me.

  “The truth, sir?”

  “The Weaver. She is our lead,” Maria said. Her voice sounded raspy and weak. “The boy and his entourage seem constantly glamoured behind wards and enchantments; the Sagrados have consistently failed to trace him within the Domain.”

  “But now we know that he is by the Weaver’s side,” Ricardo said and paused. He touched on the touchpad in front of him, illuminating a new screen. “And Azura had made sure to leave all critical details out of our round this morning. Her last act of treason, and the one that betrayed her intentions. Have a look.”

  I stood up and leaned closer to the screen: information and reports about Luckweaving tokens.

  “May I?” I asked for permission, and Ricardo nodded positively. I tried to skim through the files, trying to understand the extent of what Azura had hidden. I looked back at Ricardo.

  “Tokens?”

  “Trinkets bound to a Curse. Tokens cannot be created or destroyed. Only owned and hidden. But they can be gifted or lost. The Weaver has such a Token. It was gifted to her,” Ricardo explained.

  I scrolled quickly through the report.

  “By whom?”

  “The files are corrupted irrevocably. We have our best technicians working on it, but we have no clue,” Ricardo said.

  “It was Azura. Or someone Azura knew. It does not matter,” Maria said, raising her voice through the smoke. “It is why she tried to hide this and delete the files. That’s not what matters. What matters is that if we find her token, we can trace her. And trace whoever is with her.”

  I almost smiled. I did not like that woman, nor the fact that Ricardo was my boss. But having any sort of lead for detective work was something I could work with.

  “What is her token?” I asked.

  “We don’t know,” Ricardo said, “but we will figure it out. And once we do, she is out of the picture.”

  I felt my excitement dissipate. Nothing. We had nothing.

  “She does not get it,” Maria said, “show mercy and explain to the girl.”

  I wanted to punch her and her condescending voice.

  “Enlighten me,” I said.

  “Azura gave her life to hide these corrupted files. Gave the lives of her other companions-in-treason. That means that she knew that if we got our hands on these, even redacted as they were, the solution would be obvious for us,” he nodded, “take it. It has everything.”

  “What? Me?”

  “You have worked closely with her for less than a month. This touchpad has everything on Azura and the Weaver. If anyone can crack this case, that’s you. You find Weaver’s Token, we find her. We find the boy, and what these terrorists are planning.”

  I hesitated. After all the internal paranoia and madness I had faced the past week, it had never crossed my mind that I was still seen as trustworthy and capable.

  “Are you up to the task?” Maria taunted me from her armchair on the other side of the room. I did not turn to look, but I heard her smile in her voice.

  I was about to decline. I was not up to the task.

  SAY YES

  TAKE IT

  Dark pencil-drawn scribbles appeared in front of me, floating between Ricardo and me. Letters only I could see. And as an invisible hand drew them, it finally made sense. All the puzzle pieces could fit together, and I could guess why.

  I grabbed the touchpad.

  Ricardo tossed me an access card: “With this, you can exit the building if needed. You will be surveilled, but you are free to leave the T-HQ. You have forty-eight hours.”

  “Make them forty,” I answered, putting the access card in my lanyard. I was already on my way out of the T2 office, and I knew who I had to go meet.

  I ran into the elevator before Maria del Padre could make another snarky remark. As the elevator’s doors closed, I touched my earpiece. I tuned it into the frequency I always used with Prince Marcello.

  Static noise filled the silence. I knew they were listening, but the noise helped me focus my thoughts.

  “Hi. I know you are still there. We have to talk. About you and Azura. And the trip to London.”

  I waited a moment for the answer.

  Letters appeared once again in front of me, and this time I was not surprised.

  YES, WE DO.