Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Chapter 309: The Midas Touch

Chapter 309: The Midas Touch

The dazzling light show ended, another star returned to youth and vitality, and we were brought back to reality. Back to one of the private Senate rooms and another one of Augustus’s minions.

Not that we ever left, but the stunning visuals of [The Stars Never Fade] was like a world of its own.

A now-familiar weight landed on my shoulder.

“Lucius Chryseius Fotios.” White Dove intoned, the very fabric of the world seeming to resonate with her every word. Guess we were skipping the usual White Dove throwing shade at me part. Not that I minded. “[Merchant of the Nostrum Sea].” She got halfway through her declamation, when another familiar noise occurred.

“Brrrrpt! BRRRRPT!”

Auri, my lovable bond-mate who was going to GET ME KILLED, decided now was the time to fly off my shoulder and hover in front of White Dove.

“Brrpt! Brrpt brrrpt brrrrrrpt!”

The only thing that kept me from facepalming or just flat-out running away, was that White Dove was on my shoulder, and Auri was scolding her.

We were soooooo dead.

Auri thought that White Dove was being a big meanie and should just leave people alone.

I was frankly impressed with her. The companion bond had clearly done good things for her knowledge, and her lessons with Plato had her articulating as well as a bird with a single note could.

STILL.

One did not simply interrupt Death to give her a lecture!

Chryseius remained kneeling, and I could feel the sweat beading up under my hand. He had no idea what Auri was saying, but clearly had the same idea as me.

White Dove being yelled at was no way to get a gentle curse.

“Enough.” White Dove’s single word made the whole room shake. Priceless vases shattered, marble busts fell over, the table practically disintegrated along with the chairs, and my clothes got shredded.

It had been such a nice tunic to boot.

“I curse you.” She spoke, and the tattered remains of Chryseius’s clothing instantly turned to gold. The ruined pieces of the room touching him also turned to gold, and I saw the floor slowly turning to gold under him, the individual tiles touching him steadily converting over.

“Everything you touch shall turn to gold.” She vanished off my shoulder without another word, and I jerked my hand back.

There was a lot to unpack. White Dove clearly didn’t need to do her full ritual – she just liked to. She could impact the physical world hard.

And my hand –

“Thank you!” Chryseius awkwardly got up – his thin gold clothes breaking under his strength – and tried to hug me.

“Whoa! No!” I leapt back, throwing up [Mantle of the Stars] between us. “Do not touch!”

“You’ve given me something priceless. The-”

“I really don’t care.” I interrupted him, looking at my hand. “You turned my hand to gold. Your touch is lethal.”

What was making me sweat – my healing was on, active, and persistent, but my hand was still made of gold. Speaking of sweat, looking at him, he was coated in a thousand tiny pinpricks of gold, shedding hundreds of them with every movement he made.

My hand wasn’t turning back. I’d pulled back before he’d gotten my wrist, but my right hand was frozen, palm out, in the shape it’d been when I was touching him during the skill. It took serious effort to keep it upright, and I let it drop to my side. Gold was heavy.

“I would-”

“You need to adjust. Now, and fast. You’ve gotten one of the worst curses I’ve ever heard of. The only curse I know of that’s worse is the troll’s curse, which makes sunlight turn them to stone. Even then that’s a toss up. Don’t hug your wife. Don’t touch your kids. Don’t touch anybody.”

My words were harsh, but he needed the wakeup call. He’d gotten screwed hard.

I had to hand it to White Dove. This was a nasty curse. Chryseius wasn’t understanding why I was keeping him at arm’s length.

I also had a deep wellspring of fear erupting inside of me, and the fear was translating to anger. I was working on my anger issues, and instead of trying to keep an impossible lid on it then erupting, I was trying to channel and harness it. Direct where and how I blew up to minimize harm – or even make it into something useful!

“Let’s go, Auri.” I turned on my heel and shoved the door open, snarling as I automatically tried to use my right hand and got a brutal reminder that it was now gold.

“Guards!” I shouted down the hallway, getting more than a few stares, and rapidly getting space cleared.

Anyone shouting for the guards in the Senate got an immediate response. A recognized Sentinel, one of the problem-solvers, calling for the guard? A team swiftly appeared, weapons bared.

“Elaine? Sentinel? What’s the issue?” The captain asked me, cocking his head inquisitively.

Damnit, he was one of dad’s friends, but I’d never caught his name! It was too late to ask at this point.

“Chryseius in the room behind me has developed a new, incredibly lethal skill.” I gave a mostly true rundown of the situation. Technically, it was a curse, not a skill, but practically, it was a skill. Keeping the messaging simple would cut straight to the heart of the problem, instead of creating a massive gordian knot of questions.

I held up my hand, showing off the stiff gold.

“For various reasons, he can’t turn it off. It’s permanently on. He needs to be kept away from other people until he’s gotten it in hand. Anything he touches will turn to gold. His clothes, the floor, armor. Flesh.”

The guards traded looks with each other. Chryseius tried to exit the room.

“Brrrpt!” Auri protested, throwing up a small wall of flames between us and him. Good girl.

“As you command, Sentinel.” The captain saluted me, and I started to leave.

“This is outrageous! It’s unfair! I demand to speak with Imperator Augustus at ONCE!” Chryseius screamed.

My job here was done. I’d fulfilled another part of my agreement with Augustus. I’d properly reversed Chryseius. I’d informed the guards of the issue.

I was washing my hands of the rest. Chryseius was on his own.

Metaphorically, because I couldn’t wash my hands anymore!

“Brrrpt? Brrrpt?” Auri chirped in my ear, feeling my concern.

“It’s my hand.” I showed her.

“Brrrpt!”

I thought about it for a moment.

“Let’s try some other stuff first. If that doesn’t work, you can try to burn it off.”

My primary method would’ve been to just cut my hand off and see what happened, but I saw no reason Auri couldn’t give me a hand and have a crack at it first.

“Brrrrrrpt…” Auri gave me an unamused noise.

She had NOT been happy to discover that I was immune to fire, as hilarious as that encounter had been.

I would’ve loved to go straight to Ranger HQ, but there was no way I was running around the city in rags. Already I was getting Looks from people dressed in their Senate best, while I was running around in tatters. Streaking naked would’ve gotten me fewer strange looks.

[Mantle of the Stars] to the rescue! It was flexible now, if a bit more see-through than I’d like, but a tunic made out of a skill looked good.

“Elaine! I was hoping to catch you!” The emperor’s wife, Sextia, half-ambushed me.

“Sextia! Perfect, I was looking for you or Augustus. Here.” I passed her the Moonstone I’d charged on my latest mission. A cast of [The Stars Never Fade] for Emperor Augustus. He didn’t want anyone to know what his curse was going to be.

Also, Sextia didn’t smell terrible, yet the full moons weren’t due for another few days.

“Brrrpt?”

Auri had a good question.

“Did you figure a way around your curse?” I asked her with the tact of a stampeding rhino. Just a few notches down from a herd of brontosauruses.

Sextia gave me a self-satisfied smirk.

“I did! Turns out if two slaves shine their bare arses at me with an [Illuminate] skill on them, it counts!”

What had White Dove said again? Right, “You can only bathe in the light of two full moons at once.”

I wanted to facepalm. White Dove had never specified which moons, and apparently had a sense of humor. A terrible, awful sense of humor, but all in all it sounded like Sextia got off incredibly lightly.

I could only hope my curse was so gentle when the time came.

“That’s great, but I need to run. A bit busy.” I held up my hand.

“Understood. Are you sure you can’t sneak out to one of my parties?” Sextia asked.

I was halfway out the door, having no time for her, but not wanting to be rude to arguably the second most powerful person in the Empire.

“Rules are rules!” I called out over my shoulder.

Right. With that out of the way, I thought furiously as I strode out of the Senate building.

My hand was now made out of gold, courtesy of the side-effect of White Dove’s curse.

Ideally, I’d get a chance to work with Night, the foremost expert on curses. He’d also been around a long, long time, and I hoped he had some information that could give me a hand with the situation.

Barring that, I could wait, or figure out a solution on my own.

I’d always been something of a self-starter, inclined to rely on myself instead of waiting for other people to bail me out of trouble. I got to thinking.

My healing wasn’t working. Ok, fine. However, there were dozens of possible reasons why.

What was the worst-case scenario?

Worst-case, my magic thought my hand was supposed to be made out of gold, and it was “healing” it back to that state. Also in the worst-case thinking, the gold would slowly be spreading, and I’d eventually turn into a nice statue.

Ok. Worst-case was lethal, and I had no idea how to fix it. I’d need to consult with experts.

The gold was obviously not moving fast enough to be a problem right now. It gave me time to think and properly process everything. If it was moving, it was moving at a rate that gave me weeks or months to solve the problem.

I was remembering barging in on Augustus only half-prepared, and my hand being gold was literally a direct consequence of that action. A reminder that when I was out of my depths to slow down, think, and consult with others.

The next possibility was my hand was now made out of gold, my magic thought that, but it wasn’t spreading. Significantly more likely, but that wasn’t an emergency. It might be a few years figuring out how to get a real biological hand again, but it wasn’t going to kill me.

I hadn’t heard of anyone getting classes and skills that allowed a person to turn metal parts of their body to flesh and blood, but the System seemed to have all sorts of magic. I could believe there was a class like that. I suppose the upgrade to my skills allowing me to cure petrification might count? I hadn’t taken it, which could be why my healing wasn’t working.

Heck, the spinosaurus that had tried to eat Aegion had kept morphing its body parts around! Clearly biological manipulation was a thing, although healing generally reverted back to the base.

It was how I was able to destroy the dwarven implants.

Although, they’d already removed the implant. This was a transformation. Was it really that simple? My hand had been transformed, so my healing didn’t work. If I chopped it off, my healing would instantly make a new hand. That was almost the best-case scenario.

Cases that were even better than that I didn’t want to get into, because they were varying degrees of fantastic benefit to me, and I was never that lucky.

Still, all roads led to ‘cut off my hand and try growing a new one.’ I was still going to ask Night about it. No sense in taking a dumb risk and making assumptions on a school of magic I had zero practical experience with.

Just in case, I trailed my hand along a wall, seeing if I’d gotten the golden touch transferred to me.

Might be kind of fun, being able to –

I paled at the thought.

If White Dove’s curse was so potent as to make other objects it touched also gain the ‘golden touch’ property, we could be at the start of a goldpocalypse. It would spread like a plague through the city, because it’d be a plague of an entirely magical nature.

White Dove, after all, had been surprisingly taciturn with this particular curse.

Most healers wouldn’t be able to handle it, and I could only pray that [Cursebreakers] could solve the issue.

My eyes narrowed at the wall I was trailing my hand on.

Was that a small yellow speck? Did something fall off my hand, or was it slowly spreading?

Either way, what started as a minor annoyance had just jumped from ‘politely ask Night when he was next awake’ to ‘potential emergency.’

And while I didn’t normally go straight to Night for issues, he was the expert in this field.

All roads led to ‘chop off my hand and try growing a new one.’ The only minor roadblock was a potential for [Oath] to consider it self-mutilation, no matter how much I believed otherwise.

The odds of that seemed slim. I did firmly believe it was a problem, and had to be removed.

I was out of the Senate, but had some minor appreciation that self-immolation on the Senate steps might not get the reaction I was hoping for.

“Up we go!” I told Auri, snapping my wings open and flying to the roof.

“Brrrpt!”

It was nearby, and somewhat private.

“Ok Auri, see if you can melt this off.” I held out my golden hand.

“Brrrrpt!! Brrrpt?”

I wanted to facepalm. Her question was legitimate though.

“I promise I’m not trying to prank you this time.”

“Brrrpt!”

My hand erupted in flames, feeling like a vaguely warm tickle. Immunity to fire was weird. I barely even felt the heat, which had me a little worried if I ended up in the cold and snow again. If the warmth of a fire couldn’t help me, I might be in trouble.

The System giveth, and the System taketh.

After a few seconds of focused flames – Auri had the same issue all mages did, a lack of sustainability at full power – Auri petered out, having run out of mana.

“Brrrpt! BRRRPT!” Auri was crying over her failure to… burn? My hand off.

“Did you mean melt it off?” I asked her.

She shook her head as fast as she could, her eyes rolling around after she stopped like she was dizzy.

“Brrrpt!”

Interesting. Auri believed she could flat-out burn metal, not just melt it.

Things to look into another day.

“Right, be right back.” I flew back down to the Senate, finding the usual set of guards at the door.

I used [Long-Range Identify] to quickly scan all their levels, grabbing the lowest-leveled [Warrior] I could find.

“You.” I pointed to him. “I need your assistance.”

The guards traded a look with each other, and I mentally cursed. I was still wearing [Mantle], and I didn’t have my Sentinel badge.

“That’s Sentinel Dawn.” One of the guards recognized me – or more likely, recognized my level.

I could do this myself. My strength, the poor angle, my vitality, and my [Persistent Casting] were all conspiring against me though. It’d get ugly, and I’m sure Bulwark would yell at me for bleeding all over the Senate roof.

Or.

I could get one of the guards to quickly and cleanly chop off my hand and hopefully get them a few levels to boot. We were all on the same team, and self-mutilation didn’t get me any experience.

Physically wounding a Sentinel while helping them for a [Warrior]? Let the experience flow.

We shuffled off to the side, and I offered up my golden hand.

“I’ve gotten into a spot of trouble. Could you please chop off my hand?”

“BRRRRPT!?!?!?!”

“Uh.” The guard looked at me, then my hand, somewhat dumbstruck. I tapped my foot impatiently.

“Sentinel Dawn. Healer, remember? Trying to get you some exp and keep this not-messy?”

“But-”

After a few minutes of convincing the guard that, yes, please, I wanted my hand removed, this wasn’t a prank, or a set up, and getting another guard to watch and confirm what I’d said, he swung his sword.

It was a good thing I knew it was coming, because I had a thousand reflexes jump in and try to hijack my body. From shielding the blow, dodging, blasting a dozen different critical points on his body, summoning a swarm of [Kaleidoscope] butterflies moving into it and tackling him, stealing his knife and slashing his eyes, and more!

Nope. Stood still and took it. My hand – flesh and blood, thank the System and the gods – popped back into existence before the gold hand clattered to the ground.

It was blessedly clean, and he grinned at me.

“Three levels! Many thanks Sentinel.”

Any response I had was interrupted by Auri’s ferocious warcry.

“BRRRRPT!” She shrieked, the gold going up in flames. They petered out after a second – Auri’s mana regeneration was clearly nothing impressive at this stage – but the hand was distinctly black, smoking, and cratered.

Yup. Burn it was.

I would’ve offered it as a souvenir to the guard if Auri didn’t stake her claim, flying down to the golden lump and pecking at it while yelling obscenities.

“Brrrpt! Brrrrpt!!! BRRRPT!”

“Aoife Auri Stentor! Who taught you those words?!”

“Brrrrpt.” Her reply was all-too-smug.

Me.

Blasted companion bond. Auri had some of my knowledge – including a robust vocabulary of Naughty Words.

Instead of arguing with Auri in front of the guards, I decided to get a move on.

I picked up the remains of the golden lump. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but I had a funny thought. I could make it into an engagement ring, so I could metaphorically and literally give someone my hand in marriage. Like, I had no plans in that direction, or even anyone I wanted to spend my life with right now, but the entire joke was funny enough to tuck it away in a back pocket – mentally and literally.

A hop, a skip, and a jump later, and I was at Night’s villa.

At first glance, it looked like a typical luxurious villa, located in the premium heart of the city. Just another incredibly wealthy member of society, with a well-connected family carefully shepherding the generational wealth. The place looked a bit old-fashioned, but at a certain level the location was flaunting money and status enough.

A closer look showed that it was subtly, tastefully fortified. The walls were thicker than the norm, giving the place the ‘old fashioned’ look. Inscriptions were written at the base of the pillars, in the smallest script I’d ever seen. The masterpiece of the best [Inscriptionist] Night could find in a dozen generations. Windows were carefully placed. They both looked nice, and a keen military mind would notice the overlapping fields of fire and the complete lack of blind spots.

I’d flown over, and had noticed from the sky that there wasn’t a single internal garden. No openings to the sky, no way for sunlight to get in.

A fortress, hidden smack in the middle of the city.

Night didn’t take chances.

I politely - mostly out of a minor concern that Night had measures in his garden - and briskly walked through the front gates, knocking on the door.

“Brrrpt brrrrrrrrrrrrrrpt brpt!” Auri cheeped, adding her own musical version of a doorbell.

I waited impatiently, flexing my new hand. It had been a weird feeling, my hand not properly working or responding to me. A different form of being trapped. Finally I heard footsteps. A servant - human, by his pallor - opened the door.

“Sentinel Dawn for Sentinel Night.” I curtly told the man.

Normally I’d be more polite, but I was in a rush. He bowed and closed the door.

Fine, fine, don’t invite me in.

“Brrrpt.” Auri didn’t approve of their hospitality either.

I continued flexing my hand, waiting for what felt like an impossibly long time. After way too long, the door opened again to a familiar vampire. Just not the one I was looking for.

“Jaclyn.” My tone could’ve frozen a river, even during the hot Ariminium spring. Still hadn’t forgotten her ruthlessly stomping on my heart during my first real date ever.

Had to wonder if she was partially responsible for my abysmal love life, but eh… that was probably all me.

“Elaine.” Her tone was about as warm as dead flesh which… might just be par for the course.

“I need to urgently talk with Sentinel Night.”

Her eyes flickered all over me.

“Come in.”

We wandered through the villa, and what struck me the most was the art. Mosaics on every wall, busts staring at us from neatly lined shelves in every hallway.

The sheer weight of time and history was suffocating.

Some quick math led to an interesting conclusion.

If Night took a single friend of his every year, and had a bust or piece of art made of them – he’d still need to be picking out his favorites every decade to line the corridors, and have more in storage or in dedicated viewing rooms.

That was before the rest of the vampires.

I was struck with a sudden, irrational fear.

I didn’t want to see Night’s personal Indomitable Wall.

But I needed to make my own. I couldn’t forget, but it’d be easier to start now. A topic for another day.

“Wait here.” Jaclyn pointed to a cozy room, and I wasn’t about to start traipsing through Night’s murder-house. It was uncomfortable to think of my friend and mentor this way, but being a vampire, I had no doubts that there were occasionally “mistakes” made and bodies to dispose of.

Or… I was letting my lurid imagination get away from me. Night had always seemed tightly controlled, and kept the rest of the vampires on a short, short leash. I could see him having equally little tolerance for mistakes. It was bad for the long-term, and Night was all about the long-term.

“Sentinel Dawn.” Night entered the room and greeted me without preamble. “You have come here requesting my attention urgently. What is the issue?”

“White Dove’s latest curse.” I explained. “Turned my hand gold – I fixed it already, don’t worry – but I’m concerned about spread. It’s unclear how potent the curse is.”

Night sat down and leaned forward.

“Not an instant emergency, simply an immediate one. Fascinating. What details were given?”

“Everything you touch turns to gold. White Dove was minimal on details. My skill requires touch, and I wasn’t quick enough to remove my hand. Ended up cutting it off to heal it.”

“Why has this brought you here urgently?”

I grimaced. It sounded stupid, now that I had to explain it to Night.

“My curse knowledge is weak. I had the idea that the gold might be self-spreading, and we could be on the verge of a gold plague. The possibility had me come to the foremost expert on White Dove’s curses, to see if it was a concern.”

“Is that the only action you took?” Night asked, unusually short with his questions.

“No. I tasked the local guard with escorting Chryseius so he wouldn’t touch anyone.”

“Brrrpt!”

“Mmmm. Acceptable response, although the political ramifications will be… displeasing to handle.” Night leaned back in his chair, relaxing, and I narrowed my eyes at him. I better not get another politics lecture!

I continued to have a poor poker face, and Night read me like an open scroll.

“All of your actions were properly reasoned out, and you have been acting as a Sentinel the entire time. You will not hear a single complaint from me on your actions, although I imagine tomorrow’s after action report will be lively and invigorating.” He paused a moment.

“You would do well to give Ocean a word of forewarning once we have resolved this situation. Much of the fallout will land on his shoulders, as it properly should.”

Good. Although, fallout for having guards protect a VIP? This politics stuff was stupid. I suppose, technically, it could look like they were detaining him, but eh. It was for his own good! He could kill a lot of people by sheer accident!

“Any thoughts on other ways I could’ve fixed my hand besides chopping it off? The fact that healing didn’t work has me a hair concerned.”

“Ah. From all my knowledge and understanding, you should simply have had a form of petrification, although gold-based instead of stone-based. It would be highly unusual for the curse to be active and spreading when White Dove is the progenitor. It is intended to be a punishment for the recipient, not a plague designed to end our city. It was not within the words White Dove spoke, and it would be strange for there to be an unstated prominent secondary effect.”

“Do you have any recommendations for other ways I could’ve handled my hand?”

“I do. What thoughts do you have on the matter?”

“I mean. I cut it off and regrew it. It worked, I’d do it again.”

Night nodded.

“It was the best approach with the tools at your disposal. Alternatives include an [Alchemist] brewing the correct potion and a [Cursebreaker] dispelling the magic. Both are suboptimal in the current situation. I eradicated the last petrification monsters from Remus roughly, oh, 1700 years ago or so. [Alchemists] these days have no need, and therefore, no knowledge of the proper potion for the issue, and even then they knew how to dispel stone, not gold. An entirely new potion would need to be found. Similarly, White Dove’s curses are in a league of their own, and the majority of [Cursebreakers] are helpless before her methods. It tends to be incredible experience to attempt such a thing. If you had any friends in the profession, they would be most unhappy with you for solving it without them, although our new friend is likely to give them a steady stream of experience in the near future.”

“Brrrpt!”

“Thank you Night.”

“The pleasure is all mine. Now. If you have some spare time, would you like to stay while I arrange for the fortunate soul to come over? I do not require your presence, but I believe it will be educational.”

Just like old times. Me, Night, and a lesson.

“I’d be delighted.”

Time swiftly passed, and two weeks later I was dealing with Senus, the next person Augustus wanted me to turn back.

I’d learned my lesson, and I’d skipped back from him after the skill faded away. I was NOT having a repeat of Chryseius turning my hand to gold.

“You work hard to suppress your emotions.” White Dove said. “Well, you have it. Nevermore will you feel sadness or anger. Happiness or pride. Joy. Frustration. Satisfaction. Love. Caring. Nothing.”

The ashen look on Senus’s face had me quickly examining my own thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams, and wondering if there was anything in there for White Dove to ironically twist.

Each curse so far had been carefully tailored, hitting the person where it hurt.

I never saw Senus again.

“I’m busy.” White Dove snapped at Ianus another two weeks later. “DOORS.”

She then vanished from existence.

“Do you think she meant I can’t pass through them, or that they’d kill me…” Ianus’s question trailed off as he looked at me.

“I have no idea.” I honestly told him. “But I wouldn’t try it.”

Muttering curses under his breath, Ianus left the room by climbing out of a window.

I’d… be ok with a curse like that. I think. Maybe. White Dove had still been a bit of a knob though.

I barely blinked when I got the news that Chryseius had committed suicide. I didn’t know him, and life in Remus was rough. People died all the time. I’d mourn for those I knew, for those I couldn’t save. For someone I’d only met in passing, who decided he wanted to meet White Dove?

I wouldn’t deny it was a tragedy for his family though, although rumors had it that a member of his family had gone missing.

It was cold, it was heartless, but I only had so much empathy for total strangers.

Night needing a missing finger healed a few hours later did take on an ominous note.

“I curse you. No more shall you understand the written word.” White Dove intoned. I shuddered at the devastating curse, glad I’d dodged that one.

If those were the types of curses being handed out? It was time to see how old I could get before I allowed White Dove to curse me. I didn’t want some critical aspect of my life ripped away from me. I could hopefully make a century before my quality of life degraded enough that I wanted to become young again.

I couldn’t imagine life being unable to read. I needed my scrolls to read!

The man in question bowed to White Dove. The moment White Dove vanished, he spoke to me.

“Well, guess I’m having a slave read everything to me now. Got off lightly.”

I couldn’t find myself able to agree with him.

“Elaine! 21st birthday coming up soon, right? Let me plan and throw you a huge party!” Kallisto gave me his best charming smile.

I rolled my eyes and lightly punched him in the arm.

“An excuse for you and Cordelia I’m guessing?”

He put his hand over his heart.

“You totally got me. My motives are entirely impure, and I’m doing this for my own selfish gain.”

“Let me guess – getting out of the house for an evening?”

“That, and having a good excuse to throw a gigantic bash, yeah.”

I shrugged. Sure, why not?

“Lemme donate, oh, fifty rods to the party planning pot.” That was a ton of money, and Kallisto should be able to throw one hell of a party with that sort of funding from me – on top of whatever else was going on.

Kallisto gave me a crushing, suffocating hug.

“Thanks Elaine! I’ll make sure everyone’s there. We missed your last birthday after all.”

I shuddered. I’d been trapped in the Below Levels last year, my birthday having passed without me noticing.

“I can’t wait.”

“Walking backwards.” White Dove said, and I practically sighed in relief.

With this, I was done.

All eight of Augustus’s requests had been filled, each one two weeks after the last. My birthday was right around the corner, Kallisto had been planning like a fiend, and it even sounded like the other Sentinels were getting in on the planning.

I was looking forward to it.