FIVE HOURS AGO - PHILLP QUESTORM

I slowly opened my eyes.

I could still feel my heart pounding under the gear Crowley gave me. My neck was cold, my forehead soaked with sweat. My hands were clenched into fists, my nails digging into my palms so hard they drew blood. Sitting with my back against a stone wall, I raised my head to look around.

The room was dimly lit. Shadows swept around every corner, and shafts of soft light penetrated the ceiling, seeping in with weak energy. The floor and four walls was made of cold stone; the room was bare.

Where was I?

I could hear something. A movement, near the opposite stone wall. I rose, pressing myself to the wall at my back.

A hidden door swished open, and I sucked in my breath with surprise. My legs shook beneath me; I gripped the wall behind me to keep myself upright.

In walked a young woman, wearing a tight black suit that covered her from neck to toe. Black boots laced up to her knees; there was no sound as the soles met the stone floor. Her face was hidden behind a matching black mask, wrapped around her head so tight that even her hair was completely masked. I found myself wondering vaguely if she ever got a - er - hairpin headache.

"Why did you bring me here?" I asked her.

She didn't answer, walking up to me in a lilting, catlike way. It was graceful in a feline, menacing way, but a shiver ran up my back. It did not seem natural.

Her eyes were the only things that were not covered. I could feel them surveying me, sweeping her glance back and forth over me.

Her eyes were silver.

Realisation dawned on me, and sweat break along my hairline. I knew, suddenly, who she was. What I was facing. A shiver ran through me.

A shiver of anticipation.

"You're one of the Wendelin," I said. "The last of the Kelandir race."

Those silver eyes glared at me. I couldn't see her expression, but her eyes, latching on mine, where curious and fascinated.

I sighed, trying to seem nonchalant, although something caught in my throat and strangled the air in my windpipe. "Why don't you... you take of that mask and let's have a chat?" I suggested, somewhat feebly.

The woman just stared at me for a moment, tilting her head to one side, narrowing her eyes, as if seriously considering my suggestion. Then, to my surprise, she reached up - I flinched - and yanked at the mask from the top of her head. It came off smoothly, and suddenly I was staring at her full in the face.

Her skin was astonishingly pale, though I could see that she did not seem white. Perhaps yellow, one of the Asians from the last era. Her silver eyes were like two moons, almost glassy but with astonishing depths. Her hair tumbled down - platinum blonde locks, running down her back like a silvery-gold river, shining in the dim light. Ringlets of her hair framed her face; in the dim light her shining hair made her almost glow.

I found myself staring blankly at her. Because I felt that I knew that face. One from a very long time ago. A face that I loved. Before Lenore.

"Phillip Questorm," she said, and her voice was husky but rich. Her eyes pierced me. "Son of Edwin Brooke and Clarity Questorm, brother of Jeremy and Kathy Questorm."

My brother's name pulled me back into my senses.

"Jeremy," I said roughly. "What did you do to him?"

She ignored my question. "I am the Black Shadow, apprentice of the Raven."

I shuddered, feeling that information sink in, but my mind was on something else. "That's not my point. Where's Jeremy? What did you do to him?"

"Jeremy Questorm is not dead," she answered.

That sentence, those simple words, was enough to send my heart rate accelerating into an upwards spiral. He is not dead. He is not dead. There was still hope. For him, for my father, for my sister.

For Lenore.

"Where is he?" My words came out of my mouth sounding ragged.

She did not answer. Her eyes were directed downward, at my feet. I resisted the urge to shout at her, shake her, until she showed me where my brother was.

"Tell me," I said, and my lowered voice, suppressed by ecstasy and anger, shook under the pressure.

The woman, the Black Shadow, looked up at me calmly.

"I will take you to him when you are ready," she said. "The Raven is merciful. She will allow you one last meeting with your brother before..."

Foreboding smacks me full in the face. But I could not care for my own fate, not now. I shook it off and addressed her again. "Just take me to Jeremy."

She squinted at me for a frustratingly long time. "Only if you will answer what I ask of you."

My hands were trembling. I wanted to answer, oh, I would answer anything - anything! - if it meant I could see Jeremy again. But the hackles rose on my neck; sweat rose along my hairline.

"Speak," I said carefully.

"Firstly," she said, and she backed up to the opposite wall. She leaned against it and slid down the stone until she was sitting against the wall. "Firstly," she said again.

"Get on with it." I sat down too.

"Did you know of the Eyras and the Ethi before Solum took you?"

The Eyras. The Ethi. My mind pieced them together immediately. Biting down hard on my tongue, I made a split-second decision. "No."

She smiled then, a chilling smile that sent ice jolting through my veins. "You're lying."

Cold sweat beaded my forehead.

"I can tell when you're lying, you know," she said. "That's what makes me such a good interrogator. I can tell if what you're saying is the truth."

I leaned my head back against the stone tiles. What, then, could I do? How could I see Jeremy without answering the questions truthfully, without giving away the secrets of the ones I loved? Lenore's face flashed across my mind again, along with my father's, my mother's, Kathy's, Niro's, Jeremy's. Hers.

"Secondly," said the Black Shadow, as if our previous exchange hadn't happened, "Do you know where Clarity Questorm is?"

I hesitated, knowing what was at stake. She would know if I lied. If I lied, my chances for seeing Jeremy would shrink to nothing. "Yes."

The smile that spread across her face sent a shiver down my spine. Her teeth glinted in the dim light.

"Where?"

"I can't tell you," I said reflexively, and flinched.

She raised an eyebrow, and her voice softened dangerously. "Can't?"

I raised my chin and met her gaze. "Won't."

Her silver eyes flashed, and either out of fear or defiance I did not look away from her dangerously glittering eyes. Her smile widened, becoming a snarl. Her lips curled, baring her teeth at me. A drop of cold sweat rolled down my temple, and I wiped it away as quickly as I could.

"Well then," she said quietly. "That's a pity."

She rose and turned towards the secret, hidden door.

My mouth went dry. As she turned her back on me, I saw so many things, all the chances, all my years of trying to find my brother, walking away from me. Disappearing. I thought of Jeremy, his face as familiar to me as my own, the blonde hair we both inherited from our father, and those blue eyes - the blue eyes that are among the last on the planet. His laughter, his seriousness, his serenity, his determination. That was what I was bidding farewell to. Watching all of that disappear.

"Wait!"

The word burst from my dry lips before I could stop it. My heart was pounding hard against my ribcage. My mind was spinning, awkwardly trying to comprehend what I had done. Trembling, I licked my dry lips.

The Black Shadow turned and levelled her gaze at me. We stared at each other, silver with blue, just like how Lenore and I looked at each other. Her lips curled.

"Yes?"

"There's one thing I can tell you," I said. I was almost panting, my stomach turning flips. "It's about the prophecy of Cecily Ethi."

~

"He's here," said the Black Shadow.

I followed her on shaky legs, my knees almost buckling beneath me. I knew what I had just told the enemy; possibly the one last piece of the puzzle that will give them their victory.

But then again, maybe not.

The corridor was made of stone, just like everything else in here. A row of cells lined the hallway, the cold stone walls. The doorways, though, were completely empty. There was nothing between us and the cells inside. I reached out to put my hand through the empty doorway, but where my hand met an invisible barrier that seemed like solidified air.

"We need no guards here," the Black Shadow told me as she marched me down the hallway. "Those barriers shut out all sound, block all weapons, and prevent any message to be carried in or out."

We walked on several more paces. She took a right, then a left.

"How big is this place?" I asked.

"I will be asking the questions, if you don't mind, Eternal Grace."

I glared at her. The name Crowley gave me got under my skin a lot, and I would not have it uttered by her, this enemy who could knock me out in a split second. "I am not the Eternal Grace. My name is Illusion."

"Just like your brother's is Reality? What opposites you are, even for twins."

I gritted my teeth, but before I could fire back, she stopped abruptly and turned to a single cell on our right. She reached out and placed a hand on the invisible barrier, palm pressed to the solid air. There was a moment of silence, and then the doorway shimmered silver before disappearing entirely.

The Black Shadow nodded at the cell. My heartbeat was accelerating again. Jeremy. He was just inside, just in front of me. A corner of my mind that retained sanity screamed at me, telling me this could all be a trick, that Jeremy could be dead and gone and there would be nothing but an empty cell inside, nothing but the blank stone walls. I could have given away that vital piece of information for nothing. But my mind could not comprehend it. I stepped towards the cell, but the Shadow blocked my way.

"You will be kept in here, with him," she told me. "And we'll get one of you, depending on how circumstances run, when we're ready."

Her words made no sense to me, but I could wait no longer. I shoved her aside roughly, and stepped into the cell. Behind me, I heard a whoosh as the invisible barrier was reenacted.

Two cots were in the cell, but otherwise it was completely bare. I looked around it, heart pounding, until I saw a single figure, crouched in the corner, hugging his knees to his chest, his forehead pressed against his knees. My heart stopped beating.

Chains were wrapped around his wrists and ankles, and as he raised his head to look at me they slipped back to reveal bloody skin that was rubbed raw by the manacles that fettered him to the stone floor, a necklace of blood around his throat. His face was gaunt, his hair matted and his cheeks hollow, but all I saw were the blue eyes, the same as mine, that looked at me. I recognised the serenity and seriousness that was in them, exactly as I had last seen them years ago, that raged with a fire, their spirit unbroken.

"Phillip?" he said.