“Get out of the way now!”

Lay slammed hard into the solid, painfully armored body of a nearby guard, bounced off and continued running. His chest was burning from how hard he was trying to breathe and his legs were aching from the run. He’d come from nearly the other side of the palace, a distance that probably should have taken him three times the time he’d made it in.

“Over here!”

From among the identically dressed guards, Sehun stood out, waving his arms almost frantically, motioning him over.

Lay dashed past even him before Sehun could even say a word, his shoes crunching on broken glass as he surveyed the scene.

“How long ago?” Lay demanded, wasting no time in kneeling down next to Luhan’s sprawled out form. He couldn’t help mumbling, taking in exactly the way he was positioned, and the glass, “You little fool, Luhan. What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know what he was,” Sehun said, shaking with fear. “I wasn’t the one who found him.”

“Well?” Lay demanded, looking between the faces that were closest. “Who found him then?” While he waited for a response he knelt carefully over Luhan, trying to avoid the glass as much as possible. Luhan’s breathing was steady, and while there was a horrible smear of blood from his nose and down across his cheek, the flow seemed to have stopped and was looking hopeful. For all intents and purposes, he looked like he was simply sleeping.

A voice cleared, and then a man with the rank of officer on his plate told Lay, “There were reports of a disturbance nearby. I dispatched several of my men to check it out while the rest of us stayed here, to guard the treasury.”

“And you found him?” Lay carefully took Luhan’s hand in his own, concentrating on drawing out his healing ability.

The officer gave a grunt of agreement. “He found us, actually, as he was apparently passing through this vicinity at the time. With the possible threat in the area, we were more concerned with protecting him, and ushered him into the treasury in order to take a more defensible stance. It wasn’t hard for his majesty to overpower us. We never saw him coming.”

Lay frowned, eyes closing as he pulled harder at his ability. It wasn’t responding, and he couldn’t feel the backlash from the healing process. This had never happened before. Ever.

“He overpowered you?” Sehun asked, the concern evident in his tone. “You’re supposed to be protecting him. And you’re twice his size!”

“Why are you even here, Sehun?” Lay asked, distracted.

Sehun knelt down next to him. “I was meeting Luhan nearby. When he didn’t show, I came looking for him. He’s always on time, so I knew something was wrong. And I found these guys just standing around, not even doing anything to help.”

Slowly, Lay opened his eyes, gently telling Sehun, “They followed procedure. Luhan’s obviously had some sort of vision. He’s out cold now. More often than not his visions leave him injured, and the guards are under strict orders not to so much as touch him, unless absolutely necessary. They could hurt him further by mishandling him.”

With a frown, Sehun asked, “Are you healing him right now?”

“Something is wrong.” Something was terribly wrong. “I can’t heal him. I mean, I don’t think he’s hurt much, but when I try to channel any of my ability into him, which should be possible regardless of his physical state, it stops before it even starts. It bounces right back to me.”

“What’s that mean?” Sehun looked down at Luhan worriedly. “He’s okay?”

“Give me your hand.” Lay reached for it without waiting for Sehun’s response, and immediately he felt the flare of his ability surging to the surface. Sehun wasn’t injured in any way, other than the tiniest bit of soreness to his feet from the amount of walking and exploring he’d been doing recently, but Lay could still feel the passage of energy from himself to Sehun. “It’s Luhan. Luhan is blocking me. Or something is blocking me from connecting with Luhan.”

Once more Lay checked Luhan’s breathing, brushing his bangs aside, at least pleased with his coloring and the ease at which he was sleeping. He was in no immediate danger, from all Lay could tell.

“Why would Luhan turn on the guards who were supposed to be protecting him?” Sehun wondered.

Once again Lay questioned the solider, “Was the threat real? Or was it something fabricated by his majesty to get him to let you in here?”

Sehun was obviously unable to follow the conversation, but the guard seemed to know exactly what Lay was implying, and gave a firm nod. “We think he reported the threat in order to divide our numbers and force our hand. He would have known that a threat to his safety would be prioritized over the king’s orders to keep him out of the treasury. His majesty likely gave this some thought before hand.”

For the first time Sehun took a real look around. “Why would he want to get into the treasury so bad?”

Lay sighed, tucking Luhan’s hands up on his stomach and then sitting back. “Because this is where the king put the life tree’s seed under guard. The one you brought back from the life tree itself. And Luhan knew that from the start.”

The guard reported, “His majesty was in here earlier. I think he was scouting the area, looking for in particular where the seed was, and mapping out how long it would take to get to it.”

That didn’t seem right. Luhan shouldn’t have been anywhere near the seed. Everyone had agreed to keep him away, knowing there was a strong chance that any connection Luhan had with the life tree would bleed over to the seed.

“How?” Lay demanded, shooting to his feet and snapping angrily at the guard. “It’s your job to protect his majesty, even if that means from himself! The king is dealing with an emergency outside the palace right now. His majesty’s life falls on your watch, and you--”

The guard interrupted strongly, “His majesty was accompanied by the captain of the guard earlier! We answer to the captain and he gave the okay.”

“Tao?” Lay questioned. “Hs majesty was here with Tao? Why would Tao ignore the king’s orders?” Tao of all people was the very last person Lay would ever think to do such a thing.

The guard insisted, “His majesty was with the captain when they came early this morning. Later this evening, when his majesty returned by himself, he knew where the seed was, and it took him little to no effort to disarm us and reach it.”

“So that’s the glass on the floor,” Sehun remarked, his feet shifting under him.

“And,” Lay said, dropping to a knee to hold up one of Luhan’s hands, “I’ll bet anything that he’s got the seed in his hand right now.” He hadn’t paid any mind to the way one of Luhan’s hands was clenched into a fist moments earlier, but now he was beginning to suspect that Luhan had the tiny seed clenched tightly in his palm.

Sehun guessed, “So Luhan gets in here, takes out the guards, smashes the glass, grabs the seed and then what? Has a vision? Because I’ve seen him have two before. After one he was up on his feet in a matter of seconds, and after the second he was seriously hurt. This … I’ve never seen this. Just sleeping.”

Lay bent all the way over Luhan, pressing their foreheads together, desperately hoping for some insight into what was happening with his friend. “Tell me everything you saw from the moment his majesty made his move.” Lay turned pleading eyes on the guard. “What did you see happen to him?”

The guard ran a hand across the back of his head an sighed heavily before saying, “There isn’t much to say at all. There were five of us in the room with his majesty and he gave us all a pretty severe telekinetic push. I have the goose egg on the back of my head to prove it. He shattered the glass by pushing it over, and then I saw him reach down for something in the glass--obviously the seed.”

“What happened right after?”

“His majesty froze up,” the guard said, struggling to explain it properly. “I knew he was having a vision, I’ve seen it before, but it only lasted for a second, maybe two, and then he just fell over.”

The fear in the guard’s eyes was clouded with shame, and Lay didn’t think he could bring himself to blame someone who hadn’t expected to be ambushed by his own charge.

Medics were streaming in the door and Lay said almost tiredly, “It wasn’t your fault. His majesty does what he wants, and I think even the king knew that keeping the seed under guard was only going to work for so long. You should return to your post. I’ll inform the king of what’s happened the second he’s back.”

The medics moved Luhan carefully onto a carrying stretcher, and Lay was about to depart with him when he felt Sehun tugging sharply on his sleeve. The younger boy wanted to know, “Can I come with you?”

Lay insisted, “He’s going to be okay. You don’t have to. You should go to dinner.”

Determination crossed Sehun’s face. “Luhan is my friend. He’s pretty much my best friend at this point.”

“And you,” Lay reminded, “are representing a country that the people at that dinner have spent a good portion of their lives considering the enemy. Commander Suho left you here to alleviate their concerns. You are responsible for the image of K at this moment. And you can come and see Luhan afterwards. I’ll leave word with the guards that you’ll be allowed in to see him.”

Sullenly, Sehun said, “Okay. But I’m coming to see him right after dinner. I’m not staying for the fifteen courses of desert M seems to consider necessary.”

Lay gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder and left with Luhan just after that.

A more thorough examination, performed by a trained medical official, provided no more insight into why Luhan was still out. And an hour later the king’s husband was just as unconscious as he had been when Lay had come upon him. They couldn’t get his hand to open, either, no matter how hard they pulled and tugged.

“So he won’t wake up,” Lay asked the head physician, “but he’s unhurt?”

The older man, responded, “Shouldn’t you be able to tell me that?”

Lay didn’t mention that he still couldn’t reach Luhan through his ability.

By the time dinner was likely over, though how long he meal would last was always a guess, Lay had sent word to the king about Luhan’s condition, and settled the sleeping man into his old room with the sunset coloring ceiling. When Luhan woke he was sure to be confused and disoriented, and Lay wanted him to be in a familiar setting. Luhan had spent well over a decade in the room with the sun tiles on the ceiling, and only a week or so in the king’s bedroom. Lay knew which room he’d be more comfortable in.

“What is wrong with you?” Lay asked, seating himself next to Luhan’s bed, reaching for his hand and sliding his fingers to catch Luhan’s pulse. The steady thump of pulse kept Lay breathing evenly. “You knew that you couldn’t touch that seed. You knew we suspected it would have some affect on you. But you did it anyway. Why? We’re not that desperate, Luhan. And now all you’ve done is hurt yourself and upset the people who care about you.”

He couldn’t even begin to think about the king. His majesty had been called away before sunrise that morning to an emergency out in the countryside. It was apparently something major enough to bring the king out himself, and keep him there for the better part of the day. But he’d have received Lay’s message about Luhan’s condition by now, and Lay predicted he’d be rushing back at the moment, worried out of his mind.

“You’re a pain, Luhan,” Lay said, settling in for the wait. “But if anything happens to you, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Sehun joined him not long after that, eventually climbing in bed next to Luhan and falling into an uneasy sleep. And Xiumin returned to the palace just after him, unaware of what had happened until Lay was forced to deliver the news.

The king was the last, and Lay made himself turn away at the sight he made, standing in the doorway to Luhan’s room, looking so full of despair.

“Why won’t he wake up?” the king asked Lay quietly in the antechamber attached to Luhan’s old room. He was looking for answers, the same as Xiumin, but he was far calmer than Lay would have expected. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s that damned seed,” Xiumin said definitively from where he stood at the archway to the bedroom, his eyes watching Luhan’s chest rise and fall. “We have to get it away from him.”

“Good luck with that,” Lay mumbled. “I’ve been trying for hours and his fingers are like steel. The most we can do now is wait this out, and hope for the best.”

A little annoyed, Xiumin remarked, “I go away for one day and this happens.”

Lay forced a grin. “You do seem to be one of the few people who can keep Luhan in line. But you deserved to spend some time with your parents. How are they?”

The small talk was relief of some sort, and a good distraction.

Then the king surprised the both of them by saying, “Tao’s run into some trouble.”

That made Lay think of how Tao had allowed Luhan into the treasury earlier that day, essentially giving him the opportunity to go through with his plans to access the seed. But now wasn’t the time to say anything, especially with the king looking as stressed as thet all likely were.

Lay dropped his voice and said, “He and Kai were going to the Forbidden City today. Something happened?”

The king shrugged. “I’m not really sure, and neither is he. I’ve only just been briefed. From what I know his call was relatively short and he asked for Luhan. He was told Luhan was indisposed. Nothing more.”

Xiumin asked, “They ran into trouble?”

The king looked a little lost as he said, “They made it safely to the Forbidden City, but not very far in it. Apparently Tao thinks he and Kai may have experienced a shared vision. Maybe even some divine intervention.”

Lay made a face and echoed, “Divine intervention?”

“I’ll have Tao explain it to us all when he returns,” the king continued. “He and Kai were forced to leave very suddenly, almost violently, and they ended up in K. Tao will spend the night there, maybe more for Chen’s benefit than his own, and report back in the morning.”

Lay said, “Luhan and I were supposed to search the archives tomorrow. Even if he does wake before then, I don’t think he’ll be up and ready for such a strenuous activity. I’ll take Sehun tomorrow instead. I’ll look for something that can help us figure out what’s going on with Mama, and Luhan for that matter.”

“Strenuous?” Xiumin laughed. “Looking through some books?”

Crossing his arms, Lay inquired, “Have you ever actually been?”

With a roll of his eyes, Xiumin said, “I might not have come to the palace for training until I was a little older than average, but I did go to school here, once my ability was identified. I’ve been to the library for research purposes plenty of times.”

“I didn’t say the library,” Lay said. “I said the archives.” Then he pointed down.

“What?” Xiumin turned to the king. “The archives aren’t the same as the library?”

“Not even close,” the king said, giving a small laugh. “The archives are underground and they hold some of the more … scandalous texts, I guess you could say, including Exo’s entire history in mathematics, literature, science, philosophy and every other possible category. The archive is literally comprised of everything we know about everything.”

Quietly, Lay confirmed, “Including all the books and scrolls that we could save from before.”

“Before?” Xiumin asked.

“Before the First Renaissance War,” the king said easily. “Before the Forbidden City was forbidden. Mama was a burgeoning religion back then. A zealot’s religion.”

“There may be something there,” Lay said, shoulders slumping. “I have to look. I have to try.” After a moment more, Lay asked the king, “How did your business go? Luhan tired to hide it, but he was worried you left so suddenly.”

The king was holding back. Lay could see it immediately on his face. He was afraid, maybe of what he’d gone out to the countryside for, or maybe just to say it.

The king, looking young and almost boyish, glance between them and then said, “There are things happening that I’ve never seen before. Things that make no sense, that I have no idea how to fight or protect the people from.”

Carefully, Lay asked, “What kinds of things?”

“I left quickly this morning because there was a death that needed to be investigated.”

“A death,” Xiumin eased out.

Lay shared Xiumin’s unspoken sentiment. While murders were somewhat rare in M, deaths were not. People died all the time, for various reasons. A single death didn’t seem to warrant the attention of the king.

As if changing his mind, the king said, “I don’t have enough information on what’s going on just yet. I’ll let the both of you know when I’m more certain. For now, Lay, I want you to stay with Luhan. Keep him comfortable and keep trying to wake him up. Xiumin--”

“I’ll guard the door,” Xiumin said, in a tone that said he would not be persuaded otherwise. “Please, your majesty. I went away for just a single day and entrusted Luhan to people who should have been able to not only protect him, but anticipate his moves. I can’t trust them again. I need to be the one watching for threats tonight, and every night after.”

As soon as the king gave his nod of approval, Xiumin was bounding over to Luhan’s bed, ready to wait the night out.

“Lay,” the king said, voice low as not to be overheard by Xiumin. “When you’re in the archives tomorrow, I need you to look something up for me.”

Lay said, “Of course, your majesty.”

Eyes worried, the king said, “Look for any references to death by … by blackness. Rot. The spread of death along the skin.”

“I don’t understand,” Lay whispered, growing more terrified by the second from the words spilling from the king’s mouth.

After some hesitation, the kings said, “The death that I looked into today was peculiar. It was a young girl who’d barely reached puberty and just begun manifesting an ability. She was due to arrive here, at the palace for training in less than a week. Her mother reported a patch of dark looking skin on her thigh to the local doctor yesterday morning. By that night it had spread to over half her body, and she died quickly after that.”

“That’s terrible,” Lay empathized, “I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

“No,” the king agreed. “And what she looked like when she died … her skin was rotted away to black ash. It cracked, flaked, and then was carried away by the wind. She was a shell of some sort, and I have never seen anything like it. It was horrifying.”

“I’ll look,” Lay said right away. “Do you think it’s contagious? A disease of some sort?”

The king wasn’t sure, but said, “This isn’t the first death, Lay. There have been three others, all dead within a day of the first signs, and all three victims were gifted by Mama. Do you see my concern?”

Lay nodded.

“That’s not the worst of it,” the king said, but Lay couldn’t imagine how anything worse could be said. “All four of the deaths, this last one included, occurred in people who had just recently relocated.”

“Relocated from where?” Lay barely dared to ask.

The king looked a little pale as he said, “Very near the Deadlands. And this illness, it spreads across the skin like a shadow.”

Lay swallowed down the lump in his throat. “I won’t come up from the archives until I find something useful.”

Luhan slept motionlessly through the night, neither improving nor getting worse, and Lay barely slept at all. In fact, as Xiumin paced about, offering small conversations to Lay once in a while, Sehun was the only one who seemed the least bit content. But even he woke every couple of hours, reaching instinctively for Luhan.

“Get up,” Lay said, shaking Sehun awake about an hour after the sun had come up. If they hurried they could grab something quick to eat before setting about their task for the day.

“I don’t want to go,” Sehun said after Lay had explained they were going to go on ahead to the archives without Luhan. “I want to stay here.”

“And what him sleep?” Lay questioned. “No. Get up. You need to be helpful, especially in light of what’s happened to Luhan. We might actually find something down there that helps him. That should be motivation enough for you.”

“Fine,” Sehun said, rolling out of bed and trudging off to eat and dress in clean clothes.

“Xiumin,” Lay said, touching his friend’s shoulder gently. “You should get some sleep.”

“Get some sleep?” Xiumin asked with a laugh. “I’m supposed to sleep soundly while Luhan is stuck like this?”

“Whatever is happening to him,” Lay sighed, “there isn’t anything we can do about it, and there’s no use in worrying until today passes. If he’s like this tomorrow then we’ll have cause to be concerned. But you aren’t doing anyone any good by wearing yourself out. We’re going to need you awake and alert when Luhan comes to. You know he’s going to have something interesting to say.”

Lay could see Xuimin wavering, especially when he said, “Maybe you’re right.”

“I know I’m right,” Lay confirmed. “And Tao will be back any minute. Maybe he already is. He’ll watch over Luhan for you. You need to rest.”

It only took a few more minutes, and an inquiry into whether Tao was actually back at the palace yet, to send Xiumin off to his own bed. Lay suspected he wouldn’t stay there for long, but any amount of time was a victory.

When Tao did arrive, greeting Lay with a firm hug, he asked, “No change in Luhan?” He gave the sleeping form a forlorn look. “It’s eating his majesty up to not be able to be at Luhan’s side. But this thing he’s dealing with, this emergency from the country side, it’s only starting to look worse. He’s had to leave the palace again.”

“We spoke about that last night. It seems … more than worrisome.” Lay put a hand down on Luhan’s wrist, still feeling no spark between them. “I heard about your adventure with Kai. His majesty mentioned you ran into some trouble, so I‘m glad to see you‘re okay. When did you learn the details of Luhan’s condition?”

“Just before I came back,” Tao said, head hanging. “This is my fault.”

Clearly Tao had already worked out what had happened with Luhan, and how they’d all been manipulated to a point.

“You were wrong to let him into the treasury,” Lay agreed. “You should have known he wasn’t going to let the matter go, especially with how hard he was pushing for access to the seed. So you made a mistake there, but we also both know Luhan’s personality. This was going to happen no matter what. No one tells Luhan what to do.”

“Hm,” Tao said, seating himself wearily next to Luhan’s bed. “You’re right about that.”

“I’m heading down to the archives with Sehun in a few minutes, and Xiumin is getting some much needed sleep. If you could stay with Luhan, we’d all feel a little less uneasy.”

Gingerly, Tao shook Luhan’s shoulder a little, then said, almost amazed, “He’s just like Baekhyun.”

“Huh?” Lay cocked his head.

Tao gave him a serious look. “This happened yesterday evening, right?” Lay nodded, and Tao continued, “That’s probably the exact time that Baekhyun dropped like a sack too.”

Eyes widening, Lay demanded, “Baekhyun is exhibiting the same condition as Luhan?”

“It looks that way, no one can wake him up,” Tao said. “And hey, I guess that makes some sort of sense, because aren’t they linked?”

“They share dreams and sometimes visions,” Lay said with a frown. “But I didn’t think their physical conditions were mutually exclusive.” Did that mean that they were sharing a dream right now? “Maybe I should make contact with Suho. Does he know about Luhan?”

“He knows,” Tao said, slowly reaching into his coat pocket to hand a letter over to Lay. “He’s just as in the dark about this as we are. All we can say for certain is that they went down at the same time, and no one has been able to wake either of them. And here, this is Commander Suho’s response to your love letter. I’m glad I’m playing errand boy now.”

Lay smacked Tao hard over the back of the head with the heavy paper stock of the envelop and said, “I believe Kai was asked to deliver correspondence, not you.” Then Lay paused, eyes going back to Luhan’s still form. “He must also know about Luhan then. He must be scared for the person he loves. How did you keep him away?”

“Not me,” Tao confided. “The Commander gave him strict orders to drop me off here at the palace and get back to K without any detours. And Kai, despite being the little he is, actually respects his superior. But no, I don’t think that’ll stop him from trying to sneak in and see Luhan if he’s this way for much longer. In fact, you might want to let Xiumin know the next time you see him that if he catches sight of Kai at Luhan’s bedside, not to attack him out of instinct. Look what happened last time.”

Lay gave him a wry look.

“Oh,” Sehun said, slipping into the room just after that. “You’re back.”

Tao leaned back in his chair. “I am.”

“Come along,” Lay said, leading Sehun out of the room. “It’s a little tricky to get into the archives.”

Tricky was maybe a little bit of an understatement. The archives were accessible from only three entry points, and two of those ways were passageways Lay didn’t want to reveal to Sehun. Instead he led the younger boy down an abandoned hallway, one that servants had readily used when the royal family had been much bigger than it was now.

“In here,” Lay said, ducking into a room that was unmarked in everyway and incredibly easy to miss. Lay was only confident that he’d gone the right way because of the slight slope to the room.

“Is this where we move a bookcase out of the way?” Sehun asked, still unhappy to be heading down into the archives and away from Luhan.

“Hardly,” Lay said. He felt along the far wall for a second, fingers picking up dust until they caught a slight indentation. He pressed on it and with a soft hiss the wall swung inward.

“Cool,” Sehun eased out.

They had to go down several flights of stairs and Lay explained, “The air is going to feel a bit dry to you. Take short breaths until you get used to it, and don’t physically exert yourself. Some of the texts down here are hundreds of years older and more, so handle the with care and keep that in mind.”

“Am I even going to be able to read them?” Sehun asked. “We speak Standard most of the time, and I’m fluent in both K’s dialect and M’s, but if the books are a couple hundred years old or more, as you claim, they’re not going to be in any of those.”

“Which is why I’m here,” Lay said. “I studied ancient languages at the university up until a few years ago. I’ll search the older material and you stick to the newer. Divide and conquer.”

“It stinks,” Sehun said when they reached the ground level.

Lay flipped a nearby light switch and suddenly the expansive cavernous space in front of them was illuminated, highlighting seemingly endless rows and shelves stuffed full of books. “Better get used to that smell.”

“What is all this?” Sehun asked, taking a tentative step forward. “This is crazy.”

Lay remembered the first time he’d seen the archive. He’d been younger than Sehun was now and thoroughly unprepared for the hundreds of thousands of texts at his disposal. It was still overwhelming so many years later.

“This is history,” Lay told Sehun, guiding him down the middle, indicating, “each section is cataloged and clearly marked by region, date and event. The amount of history in this single space is enough to spend a lifetime studying, and then some.”

Blinking rapidly, Sehun breathed out, “There’s no way we can get through even a fraction of this material.”

“No,” Lay agreed. “We’re going to concentrate on two specific areas. We have two missions today, and we can’t fail either.”

“Are you serious?” Sehun asked when Lay put him in front of a medical section. “I thought I was going to be reading an old tome about some ancient battle or something. Not the history of the common cold.”

“We don’t just keep history books down here,” Lay explained patiently.

“Okay, but that doesn’t tell me why you want me to look through this stuff.”

Carefully, keeping in mind how little the king probably wanted others to know about the recent spread of illness, Lay told Sehun about the black patches of infection that were killing people in less than a day.

“Look for any accounts in the past hundred years of the same thing happening. These are the medical accounts of every royal physician that has served Exo since we emerged from the rubble of our previous civilization. The king asked this specifically of us, and he wouldn’t have unless it was of the utmost importance. I want to know if even a single other person in our history exhibited the same symptoms.”

Sehun’s head tipped back as he looked how far up the shelve went. “Sure. This isn’t going to take all day. Nope.”

Feeling bold, Lay reached out and pinched Sehun sharply. “I understand that you are concerned for Luhan, and that you’d rather be by his side, but this is where you’re needed. There are four cases of this illness striking in a very short amount of time, and it has only been hitting those of us with Mama’s gifts. Considering the link that all of these people, having lived or been near the Deadlands at some point, we need to look into this immediately. Grow up and act as if Suho’s trust in you isn’t misplaced.”

“Fine,” Sehun said, rubbing his arm. “But just for the record, the commander told me the most I’d be doing here was attending dinners and being entertained.”

“Start reading,” Lay ordered, then he pointed down the aisle. “I’m going further back, chronologically speaking. We know the language that our ancestors spoke before their cities became forbidden has been lost to us, but a great deal of scholars here in M are confident in what we think it sounded like. I can read it, in any case. I’ll be trying to make my way through those texts while you’re here. We’ll work for the next several hours, and then take a break for lunch. Understood?”

Without waiting for Sehun’s reply, Lay strode off, walking the aisles with ease. It could be a little creepy, and even disorientating after a while, but he had enough practice to navigate his way without much trouble. He could only hope that Sehun stayed where he was supposed to. If Sehun wandered off they could lose precious time.

As Lay reached the desired section he tried to focus his attention on selecting the right place to start, and not on the growing list of things to worry over. The truth was, it wasn’t just Luhan’s condition that had Lay concerned over. The planetary allignment was drawing ever nearer, the recent targeting of gifted people was troubling, and they were still no closer to understanding what the threat to Mama was.

Luhan was their best chance at figuring out those shadows threatening Mama, and he was absolutely no use to them.

It was troubling what was happening to Luhan, but there was a nagging feeling at Lay’s stomach that it was something they’d end up benefiting from.

“Focus, Lay,” he told himself, trailing his fingers along the spines of the books. Some were impossibly old and had to be handled with great care.

He’d just chosen a book to start with when his eyes caught a small symbol etched into the spin of a book up high. Squinting at the book told Lay the symbol was that of Mama’s life tree, and the book’s spine indicated it was a religious text.

As much as he tried to determine it, there was no working out why he’d suddenly looked so far up, especially after already choosing his book.

“Okay, Mama,” he said, appreciation in his voice. “I understand.” He strained for the book for a second, having to wedge himself up on a lower shelf for the extra boost, but without too much of a fuss he was holding it in his hands shortly thereafter.

And prominent on the cover, each one more beautiful than the last, were twelve recognizable symbols.

“That’s more like it,” Lay declared, and prepared to settle in for a long day.