Fade Into Black - Shadows of the Night 5

Chapter 15

Hi,

Anna is learning more about herself and, in my opinion, continues to grow as a person, particularly in this chapter. So, I have a question for you.

Has this ever happened to you? You do something and it takes you months or maybe even years to understand why you did it? Something that maybe didn't make sense at first, but when you look back - it just clicks?

Lara

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Chapter 15

I paused. Listened.

Even slow intakes of breath. Turned out not all rumors were true. Raphael Medici was there, collapsed beside the table strewn with city maps and what might have been war plans – or the scribble of a half-mad conqueror with a mind sharp as a blade.

He did sleep, and just as I anticipated, once and if he did, it was because he was utterly exhausted. I knew that the last three days had been taxing, even for someone like Medici.

I approached him, slowly, and stopped in front of the table.

A two-day old newspaper, a silver pen, and a car magazine; small details that struck me as hilariously out of place in the Raven's own study. There was more. A city map, laid out carefully on the make-shift table I'd seen him bent over every time I entered.

I stared at the marked spots on the city map. Stared at them for a long moment. Things were beginning to make sense. His constant moving was indeed planned and systematic, and judging from the many marked spots around the city he was running out of safe options – at least above ground.

There was more. Dates and locations – other than hiding places...

I frowned. What was he up to?

My eyes went back to the table and got caught up on a bulge underneath the city map. I gently pushed aside papers. The book was leather bound. I opened it, glimpsed the outlines of a familiar handwriting. Elena Larosa's diary. My pulse leapt into my throat as I picked it up.

Out out out. Get out.

But I couldn't. Not yet. I glanced back to the still shape of the Raven.

Not yet.

My eyes went to the leather coat slung over the chair, then to its pockets. It was a coat the Raven had begun to wear ever since we retrieved the null bombs. Why, when before I'd seen him walking around with nothing but pants and a thin shirt? I thought I knew.

I closed my eyes and dropped the magic. The invisibility spell fell away from me in a sudden rush, like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

I didn't give myself time to revel in it but shoved myself into second sight and even further. There was a stillness and a sense of peace in the auratic gray of the in between unlike anywhere else. Layers of reality you could sink into. If I could push far enough, I could vanish, blot out from reality and get lost in them.

I slipped under and right into another layer of reality. In auratic sight the Raven looked like a blinking Christmas tree. Or, rather, his jacket did. The pockets were filled with the null bombs. And more objects of power. I stilled. Among them my cuff, and my pendant. He must have kept them invisible whenever others were around.

I stepped closer, so close I could have touched the Raven's shoulder. I did no such thing. Instead I grabbed the collar of the jacket, lifting it off the chair inch for inch.