“You believe he’ll kill this pair.”
“I don’t know.” Theo eyed the pregnant bulge in Ivy’s bodysuit. “I hope not.”
“Why would you show concern for those who would slaughter you without hesitation?”
“I’m mostly concerned for David. I don’t want to see him go down a dark path.”
“Have you?”
Theo had to think about it. He’d suffered countless premonitions over the last several days, but only just now realized how very few of them involved David. His future seemed to fall in a blind spot.
“No.”
“Have faith in him then,” Azral said. “Let us continue.”
The next jaunt took them up to the fifth-floor walkway that overlooked the lobby. The mist was ten times thicker here. Theo had to stand next to Amanda to see her on the cushioned bench.
“God, her leg . . .”
Azral studied her broken ankle. “Yes. Strange that my mother didn’t heal her. She favors this one. The child must have angered her.”
“You’re talking about Esis.”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t look old enough to be your mother.”
“She would adore you for saying that.”
“I’ve only seen her in visions.” Theo scowled in hot contempt. “She keeps killing Zack.”
Azral frowned. “Trillinger is a buffoon and a nuisance. I see now why Quint found him so vexing.”
“He’s my friend!”
“If you seek to keep him, his fate is easily prevented.”
“How?”
Azral raised a long finger at Amanda. “She knows.”
The white-haired man floated deeper into the fog. Theo scrambled to keep up with him, even as his screaming thoughts urged him to flee.
“Why is it so hazy here?”
“Even in this realm, none of us are omniscient. As we move farther from our own sphere of influence, our view grows weaker. Should we venture but one floor higher, I wager we’d glimpse nothing but mist.”
That’s why you’re teaching me, Theo surmised. You need me to see the things you can’t.
If Azral heard his thoughts, he didn’t acknowledge them. He led Theo into a small office that looked like a low-grade law firm. Through the swirling mist, he spotted Hannah inside a small tempic cage. She gripped the bars, her face contorted in a silent scream.
He had to move closer to spot the source of her anguish.
“Jesus Christ! You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Evan Rander was dressed in the stately beige uniform of a security guard, an ensemble that looked silly on his scrawny frame. Theo could only guess the outfit was part of his personal escape plan. He’d probably put on his best Barney Fife impression for the Deps, give a few shaky statements, and then slip away while no one was looking.
The rogue Silver wore a nasty grin as he fired a bullhorn-shaped device at Hannah.
“What’s he doing to her?”
“He inflicts her with a low electric charge,” Azral replied. “He seeks to torment, not kill.”
“Son of a bitch. Why does he hate her so much?”
“He hates both sisters. The reasons hardly matter. Rander is nothing. A pathetic fool. I only show him to you as a cautionary example.”
“What, you’re afraid I’ll become like him?”
“In mind-set, not temperament. The boy has lived hundreds of years and yet he still fails to grasp the structure of time. He sees the past as his chalkboard, a single line to be erased and redrawn at whim. In truth, he undoes nothing. He merely jumps from train to train, forever dodging the consequences of his actions. I’m hoping you won’t be so linear in your thinking.”
Theo covered his face in hot distress. His friends were all suffering and Azral was giving him a primer in fiftieth-century metaphysics.
“What will it take?”
“For what?”
“For this guy to see consequences!”
Azral jerked a testy shrug. “His talents give him a unique perspective on events, which in turn provides us with helpful information. But perhaps I should reevaluate his usefulness.”
“I don’t want him dead. I just want him to leave us alone.”
“Yes. I thought I’d dissuaded him when last we spoke. Perhaps I need to make myself clearer.”
Azral studied Theo carefully as he reached for Hannah with an intangible hand. “You feel strongly for this one.”
“Yeah, but not the way you think.”
“You don’t know what I think,” Azral snapped. “If I deemed your love to be physical, we’d be having a different conversation.”
Theo looked to him in wide-eyed bother. “What . . . what do you mean?”
“Just take comfort that you won’t lose her. Not anytime soon.”
“I know.” He turned to Hannah again. “I see her all over my future. She’s everywhere I look.”
“You say it like it troubles you.”
“It troubles me that I don’t see the others as clearly. Can you please take me to Mia now?”
Azral nodded obligingly, though his handsome face turned grim.
“Come, then.”