Page 84 of Office of the Lost

Crispin stared at his mother.“What did she see?”

“From Chaos comes beauty.She saw into his soul.”There was a deep longing and sadness behind her words that tugged at Crispin’s heart.

The mercenaries were staring at one another, unsure what to do now that their employer had decided to take a little floor nap.

Cerillia snapped her fingers.“Come with us.I’ll pay you double what the Office offered.”

The leader—a woman dressed in black with a red sash, her black hair shaved close to her skull—cleared her throat.“Your Highness.”She essayed a deep bow and the others followed her lead.

Crispin stifled a laugh.Power and money could buy almost anything.“Where is the Oracle?”He looked ahead down the hall and then back the way they had come.“It could take all day searching this place to find it.”

Leo frowned.“Needle in a haystack.”

Such cute colloquialisms.A thought came to him.“Leo, take my hand.”

Leo practically leapt up from where he’d been kneeling next to their fallen nemesis and he reached out.

Their touch was electric, sending a surge of love and potential through Crispin.He felt a foot taller and twice as strong as Aspin.“First, you need to let out all that extra Chaos you’ve been holding in.Send it back where it came from.Can you do that?”

Leo frowned.“I don’t know.There’s no television?—”

“Just let go, Chaos Man.”Minkis hopped onto Leo’s shoulder and chittered something into his ear.

Leo’s eyebrow shot up.“Just like that?”

Minkis bobbed his head.“Easy peasy.”

Leo closed his eyes, and the air around him swirled as if he were surrounded by a heat wave.

Crispin knew his part.He reached out, drew in the growing flood of Chaos, setting it in order, and channeled it back to where it had come from.

He could feel it, rolling through him like a flood and then back out into the Connected Worlds.Buildings and streets, trees and people, birds and sky filling with color, plumping out with restored vigor and life, with curvy lines and conflicting impulses.

The entire building shook with the power as it poured from Leo into Crispin and then found its home once again.

It lasted for an eternity, or maybe five minutes, but the thrill of working with Leo like that….

Crispin opened his eyes.A beatific smile lit up Leo’s face, and Crispin saw, for just an instant, what Bidulla must have seen in him.

Chaos wasn’t the enemy.It was impulse and change and complicated, conflicted beauty.Free will and love and brilliant colors.And it was war and hatred and jealousy and strife, and all the million other things that made life… well,life.

All during his own life, Crispin had struggled to stamp out chaos, to put things in perfect order in his home, his job, and his heart.But Order without Chaos was flat and dead and boring.

And Chaos without Order was insanity.

All of these thoughts passed through him in an instant, and then it was done.

“Did I do it?Is it fixed?”Leo, waiting for his answer, looked as eager as a puppy.

Crispin smiled.“Yes.Yes, you did.”

“What just happened?”Aspin looked from Leo to Crispin and then to his mother.

“Your brother and his future husband just figured out who they are.Together.”Cerillia’s smile was tinged with sadness.

Perhaps she regrets exiling her own other half.

Crispin nodded.“Leo set things right.”

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