"What matters is not where his power settles in a week. What matters is the fear he has planted. Every Legacy family — every last one of them — is currently hiding behind their walls like mice who have just learned the cat can breathe fire. Even if Phei returns to his so-called 'square one,' they will never forget the night the sky tore open and a boy they once called a charity case made their fellow patriarch scream."
The sigils on the Red Door resumed their slow orbit, each one a dead constellation remembering the shape it used to hold and plotting revenge on the next universe that dared to forget it.
"And even if their bloodlines do awaken," the voice continued, almost purring now, the sound of silk being drawn across the edge of a blade that had already tasted god-flesh, "even if the Angels themselves stir from their long slumber… Phei's bloodline is older. His awakening came early. He has tasted the void, and the void has remembered him."
