Where Shadows Lurk and Darkness Dwells

1

Paris, Term of the Yellowtail - Child's Moon

Crane's Pace, Sojourn of the Columbine, at the Candlemoth Pass

Run 306 after the First Cataclism

The view was nothing short of extraordinary - and didn't fail to catch his breath. He'd sat many a rooftop at the Sinbijuui Haggyo in Joseon's capital, or at Huangshan, where his mother's Sickle Moon Sect was nestled within the mountains. He'd also climbed several rooftops of the Houses of Parliament, now the grounds of London's Chapter of the Confederation of Nations and the Academy of Occult and Conjuring Arts, where he and his younger brother had enrolled as students, before joining a Covenant.

But there was something special about Parisian rooftops, enhanced by the scene sprawling at his feet.Kwan Daejin stood in the parapet, eyes cast at the distance, the Yellowtail breeze whispering around his ears, kissing the shaved sides of his head while playing with the platinum streaks of his mohawk. Leaves rustled on the grounds bellow, and yet, he still caught sound of feet crushing them along the pavement. He listened closer: those were Zachariah's footsteps, trailing his prey. Not yet time for them to intervene. Dropping to his haunches, he joined his brother and their companion, her chin-length bob and thick fringe casting shadows across her face.

"Not long, now," he whispered, and his brother gave him a rare grin.Song YiJun was three years his junior - closer to four, he'd throw at his face whenever Daejin meant to tease him - and he often felt protective of him. Though they hadn't grown up together, only meeting during the long Albacore Paces, when their mother insisted on dragging Daejin to the mountains of Huangshan - they'd forged a deep connection, the two spending all their free time together. And after Daejin had left Hanseong for good, on the wake of what he called his personal catastrophes, YiJun had been predominant in keeping his spirits. And not letting him fall into the black void he often liked to stare at.

If it hadn't been for his younger brother, he'd have lost his head, back then.

Stealing a glance, tenderness dripping out of the black-lined rims of his eyes, he smirked and watched YiJun rest against the ugly carved stone head he was leaning on.

"At least these nasty gargoyles have a use," YiJun said. "Though they could be comfier.""It's not a gargoyle, it's a grotesque," the girl on his other side said."It is grotesque, just look at the thing, ever seen a worse-looking chap?"

She giggled, trying to hide her amusement behind a hand covering thick lips that looked a little chapped.

"The term, architecturally speaking, isn't gargoyle," she went on to explain, "but grotesque, meaning that..."

"Simone, please, not another lesson," Daejin begged, winking at his brother.

Simone Bertrand was said to be something of a genius, best student of her year at the Academy, having jumped levels while most toiled away. She had photographic memory and an uncanny love for research, having amassed worlds of information in what looked like such a tiny head. She was tiny, all of her, and Daejin wasn't a tall man. But Simone looked small, next to him. Smaller even, when standing by his brother, which she tended to do a lot - the outcome of the infatuation she nursed for Song YiJun.

"Can you hear the music from the Moulin Rouge?" she asked, ignoring the comment. "Almost makes you wish you were there, dancing, instead of dangling from a roof." Blowing out a sigh, the girl turned in Pigalle's direction with a longing in her eyes. "Maybe Henrietta won't mind if we stretch out the night, after we're done with this hunt. What do you say, Leon, wanna go dancing?"

Daejin grinned, no longer confused by the use of his Western name. Leon, to match the tattoo on his back, a work of art YiJun's father had gifted him with on the night of his twenty-first birthday. He could feel it skulking across his shoulders, down his spine, preparing itself for battle.