Chương 153: Act 3, Chapter 7: What we see when we look

Day in the story: 31st December (Wednesday), afternoon"Alexa?" Peter's voice reached me like a faint echo, bouncing off some faraway wall.

"I was lost in thought," I said, tearing my gaze away from the city.

"You guys were right about me being an ass. I really will do better. You deserve that from me."

"That's not why I called you," he replied, but there was warmth in his voice.

"Still, I'm glad you took the time to reflect."

"Then why did you call me?"

"To wake you up," he said, pointing downhill.

"The gang's here. Look." At the base of the hill, Jason was gesticulating wildly, his whole body involved in whatever story he was telling. Peaches stood beside him with her arms crossed tight against her chest, shaking her head in emphatic disbelief. Tyler had his face buried in his hands, already defeated, while Sophie leaned close to Nick, whispering something that made his ears turn faintly red. They moved as a single, chaotic organism. Evan was the first to notice us.

He pointed in our direction, and almost immediately they all started waving—everyone except Hannah, who was frantically digging through her purse. She only joined in after Elena patted her shoulder and pointed us out again. Seeing them like that sent something warm through my chest. Their presence grounded me and lifted me at the same time. They were my light too.

"It's great to see you on your feet again," Sophie said as they joined us.

"Speak for yourself. I wouldn't mind seeing her in a horizontal position," Jason decided to add, much to my annoyance.

"Me too," Peaches whispered—but loud enough for everyone to hear. Every single one of them turned to look at her.

"What?" she said, throwing her arms slightly in the air.

"I like her."

"I like you too," I said back with a smile. She grinned from ear to ear, which made me that much happier.

"Don't let those confessions distract you from the real deal, which is obviously me. I'm also glad you're okay."

"Thanks, Jason," I said.

"Can we, like, go see this church already?" Tyler asked, clearly bored out of his mind.

"We didn't travel all the way to France just to sightsee, right? There's gonna be some partying after this?" Reality worked fast when it came to pushing magic out of people's minds.

"Man after my own heart!"—you damn well know who said that—throwing his arm around Ty.

"It's not a church, it's a basilica," Sophie corrected him.

"Isn't it still a church?" Ty insisted, but no one entertained the question.

"How are you, Hannah?" I asked as we closed ranks in the line. She was wearing a warm white jacket with fashionable embroidery around oversized pockets, and a wool gray hat over her fabulous hair.

"It's wild that we're in Paris, but honestly, I keep trying to focus on how we got here and my mind gets kind of foggy. Every time I do, something distracts me. Strange."

"That's the universe telling you to relax for once," Elena chimed in from behind us. She was happily squeezing Tyler's arm, grinning from ear to ear.

"I am relaxed. I like seeing all the landmarks. But I'm excited for the night too. We're going dancing, right?" Hannah replied, already having forgotten her concern.

"I hope so. I could use some unwinding myself. Dancing doesn't sound half bad."

"Just be careful around Jason. We don't want to lose you like that ever again."

"I think I'm pretty safe on that front."

"Not as safe as Elena, who could dump Tyler any moment now. So many handsome French men around."

"Don't tease me," Tyler hissed from the back.

"Ain't that the truth?" Elena slipped out of his grasp and joined us.

"We saw the best-looking man I've ever seen at Moulin Rouge. Seriously. He was like an actor from a movie. Dreamy!"

"I'm still here," he mumbled under his breath.

"And I like you for different qualities than looks. Be happy about it!"

"You should be the one to get away from that relationship," Evan said.

"It's good to be free, you know?" Jason half-shouted from somewhere in the back.

"Can we do this some other time?" Sophie asked.

"It's a sacred place." Nickolas just nodded in agreement. We stepped into the Sacré-Cœur Basilica in a slow-moving line of people. The cold of the evening stayed behind the doors, replaced by warm, incense-heavy air and a low hush—people trying to remain silent for the sake of something supposedly sacred that lay dormant in the walls, the floors, the ceilings, and the very air filling the building.

Light filtered down from high above, catching on gold mosaics and pale stone, turning the space into something almost unreal. That much was certain—but was it holy? My bet was on not so much, given that Reality didn't seem to care about worship. The craftsmanship, however, was worthy of reverence. My footsteps echoed softly against the marble floor as I moved inward, aware of my own smallness beneath the vast dome of art itself.

It felt like crossing a threshold—not just of place, but of state of mind—as if the city, the noise, and the weight I carried had all been asked to wait outside. And when I closed my eyes, I felt myself connected to this thing deemed art by my very soul. I could make it into what it represented, or ask it to move, to animate according to what it was. I felt compelled to try. To feel my power move through the paint.

So I looked up at the ceiling above the altar, far away, where the painting of Jesus with arms wide-spread hung, gazing down at his supposed flock. I focused on him and sent my Authority through an invisible thread of shadowlight that linked us. Please, I thought. Move those arms. The painted figure waved at me.

"Aaaaaaaa!" A scream cut through the space immediately. A woman to our right fainted—or nearly did—pointing upward as she collapsed. I seized the moment, withdrawing what I had granted, forcing the painting back into stillness. When other eyes followed her gesture, all they saw was paint shaped like the son of god. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"What was that about?" Peaches asked me.

"No idea. Maybe she saw a holy spirit?" I replied, thinking of all the miracles people had claimed to witness over the centuries. Maybe some of those had been the work of curious, bored, or even malicious mages too. The world felt different once you knew there was an invisible current of light that could make it move according to someone's will.

"Can I get you one on one for a second or two?" Jason asked in a calm tone that was so unlike him when he was in a bigger group. He systematically moved closer and closer to me, trying to unlatch himself from the boys, and finally succeeded.

"Go ahead and steal."

"Steal? What are you talkin' 'bout?" he asked, slipping into a weird accent.

"She meant that you can steal her away," Pamela explained for him—Reality bless her.

"Oh, okay." He took me under the arm and led me to a more solitary corner of the Basilica, away from the rest. Only then did he speak again.

"Just to be clear, Pam hit on me during movie night at Elena's?"

"Yes. The boys told you?"

"Peter explained what he remembered about Joan playing me. I cannot believe she'd think there was a chance I'd go with her, you know?"

"Listen, man," I hissed, already angry but keeping my emotions relatively boxed in.

"Why do you have to be such a dick? Pam is a sweet, honest woman. She's funny and quirky, and I happen to like her, so keep those comments to yourself—or better yet, open your eyes and maybe you'll see people for who they are and not how they appear to be."

"I didn't want to insult her. I just prefer more slender women, that's it. Don't I have a right to have a type?"

"You do. You even have the right to insult whomever you like, but I don't have to listen to it. So I'm setting a boundary for you. Cross it, and our talks will become a scarcity."

"I get it. That wasn't why I wanted to take you away, you know?" he said, looking at me intently. Eyes met eyes, but there was no resonant gaze intention on his side, not on mine, so we just looked.

"I figured. That's why I'm still here despite you being an ass. That, and the fact that I happened to be one too today, so I'm in the mood for second chances. Can't add hypocrisy to the long list of my vices."

"It's—" He wanted to say something but stopped himself. His brown eyes looked at me with pity.

"Never mind. I stopped you to say that I've been thinkin' about everything you told me, and I wanted to say that you're not a bad person. Especially not in the way that warranted me treatin' you like an outcast. Ain't it true that you're more of a heroine? To come through a life like that and still want to become better."

"First of all, yeah, I do want to get better—but not because I'm a hero. I just feel like I could be, and want to be, more than I am. Second, fuck you for thinking you can insult and demean me first and then gain relationship points or whatever by taking it back."

"That's not—""And third, what is the matter with you? Why are you talking that way? What do you actually want from me?"

"I don't know. I still love you. I can't stop lookin' at you, thinkin' about you—somehow even more than before. And yet, those things you had to do in your life still repulse a part of me, you know? It ain't possible to just turn that part of me off." He kept looking at me, and there was something like begging in his gaze. His cheeks sagged slightly, eyes unsure, mouth just barely open.

"That doesn't answer my question, Jason. What do you want from me?" I said.

"You play the ardent lover in front of our friends, as if you're still trying to win me back, but when we're actually intimate—like now—you love me and push me away. I don't want that. I don't need that. I could bear trying before, for the sake of your feelings and because I really was attracted to you physically. But now? When you layer love over repulsion—what's in it for me to try anymore?" Not to mention that he was some kind of supernatural fraud and a domain stealer.

"Just give me a chance to understand that mess in my head and my heart."

"Jason, you have all the chances in the world and all the time it's offering you. But don't think I'll be waiting for you like some kind of sleeping princess. We might still have a chance to be friends, but I don't think anything more is on the table."

"You don't think. That doesn't mean it's never gonna happen."

"Think what you will. I'm going back to the group. I don't want to spend more time being a webbing in a forsaken corner with you."

"A what?"

"Never mind. Maybe that simile wasn't the best."

"Nah, I got ya. And despite what you're thinkin' of me, I still consider myself lucky to be close to you."

"Be careful—being lucky can be a dangerous thing," I said as we started walking toward the group ahead.

"That's ridiculous. Enlighten me, please."

"I assume four-leaf clovers are symbols of luck, right?"

"Of course."

"And yet they're probably the ones that get picked the most, while the unlucky ones get to live their lives in peace."

"That's a stretch, you know?"

"Is it?" I laughed.

"Weren't you literally picked up and taken away, lucky boy?" I sped up, leaving him stunned, trying to gather the ego I'd just shattered.

"Maybe," he said as he finally caught up, "you could be right about that. But please don't call me a boy."

"Why? You're certainly acting like one." I teased him, but he looked deeply offended. Out of all the things I'd said over the years, that one seemed to hurt him the most.

"It's a racist thing, Alexa. Racist as fuck. Don't you know that?"

"What? I call every man in my life a boy from time to time."

"In some parts of the U. S. —especially former slave states—that word has been used to address Black men, regardless of age, to imply they lack the maturity or intelligence to be considered men. I know that wasn't your intention, but it still hurts to hear it from you."

"You're hardly a champion of maturity or delicacy with your words either," I said, then sighed.

"But yes. That wasn't my intention. Also since when do you care about you being black?"

"Yeah, I always did. It's not an easy thing to notice when you look the way you do," he muttered, brushing past me and rejoining the group alone. I lingered on the edge, watching him go, trying to understand what his problem really was. He was more erratic than the Jason I knew—speaking differently, reacting strangely. Something had changed during the process the Solitary Twin had begun, but instead of turning him into some calculating mastermind, it seemed to have scrambled him instead. I had my vices.

Racism had never been one of them—and he knew that.

"He's giving you some trouble?" Nick asked after breaking off from the group. He was watching the Pietà at a sacral altar nearby; we stood close to it.

"Christ? No, he's pretty chill."

"Funny much rabbit girl? I was talking about the other resurrected guy."

"Technically, he didn't die—I think. But yes, he is troubling. He's changed, and I can't figure out how or why."

"Why? That's easy, Alexa. Despite how it looks, I think he's part of the Domain of Echoes now, so it's bound to have some influence over him—shape his personality to fit the Domain's character."

"You say that so impersonally, but that's Malik's shadow that constitutes that soul core, right?"

"Yes."

"So he's the one influencing him."

"Yes and no. If he joined the Domain—and I assume he did—his own shadow's soul went inside. It's that soul that will influence him in return, as it learns to play to the Domain's tune."

"That's how it works for mages like you?"

"Yes. The sourcerer sets the precedent, along with the core values of the Domain, but with each person joining over the years, that pool adjusts slightly."

"Are those souls trapped in there forever? For as long as the Domain exists?"

"No. When the mage's physical body dies, their counterpart within the soul core responds to that death. Some disappear immediately, while others hold on, carried by the soul core's power for a time. No one's really sure why, or for what reason."

"You think Malik's other soul was still inside the core when we were there?"

"It's hard to tell with dead Domains. They can persist for a while even without a soul inside the core, but in that case they begin to break down slowly—there's nothing left to govern the world they constitute. But then there's Peter's case. His parents' Domain existed long after they died, waiting for him. I think one of his parents must have lingered in the core before finally drifting away."

"Could they still be there?"

"I think so. But, Alexa—this is more faith than science. As far as I know, no one is certain about any of this."

"Then we're in a good place to be having this conversation, Nick."

"Yes. We are."

"I was wondering about shadowlight too, tonight," I said after a while, still gazing at the artwork before us and the shadows it cast under the light.

"What about it?" he asked, following my gaze.

"I think your father mentioned that mages can consciously cover themselves with it. Direct it around their bodies."

"Yes, that's possible. He's not a master of it, though. Neither am I, nor my mother."

"Why? Is it that difficult?"

"Honestly, I can only repeat what I've heard—I haven't tried it myself yet. Father says it requires a tremendous amount of work, but not the grueling kind of training. It's more conceptual—meditation, reflection, understanding your own nature, something like that. Most mages never fully get it right, even after years of practice."

"Do you remember what exactly you're supposed to understand about yourself?"

"No, sorry. It was something about seeing our choices for what they truly are or something along those lines."

"Oh, damn."

"Yes. I couldn't have put it better myself."