The two men stared. Octavius's remaining patience frayed, thread by thread, until only anger remained.
"You seem to know a lot, boy," he said, voice rising, the words sharp enough to cut. "So can you tell us what will become of us now?"
"Why are you speaking to me like that?" The boy's terrifying eyes locked onto Octavius.
Each dark iris held two pupils arranged in the clean mark of infinity, and the weight of that gaze made the newly dead man flinch hard enough that his translucent form flickered.
"Am I the stupid person who bit off more than they can chew?"
Octavius found that he had no answer for it.
Beside him, Janin's arms tightened around Eve, pulling her closer still, as though physical proximity might somehow shield her from whatever this creature was.
He watched the two men grow more wary. Their hands trembled with a fear that had nothing to do with ordinary danger, but the fear of standing before something that existed outside every rule they had ever learned.
