Page 47 of Darkness and Deceit
“I am not questioning our role,” I say carefully. “Only the wisdom of hiding something so dangerous near hundreds of students. If we knew, we could have guarded it better. Or warned?—”
Mara lifts a hand. Just a breath of motion, but it cuts me off.
“The Balance makes no mistakes. What you call secrecy, I call sanctity. That holding site remained untouched for years because no one knew to disturb it. That is not a failure. That is proof of the Balance protecting itself.”
She delivers the words like scripture. Measured. Memorized.
But for the first time, I feel the hollowness beneath them.
I nod slowly, even as my stomach turns.
“There is more at work than you understand,” Mara adds. “And more than you need to.”
“I understand,” I say. “But I struggle to accept it.”
She regards me for a long moment. “Then continue to struggle, Augustus. So long as it does not interfere with your duty… it is tolerable.”
I do not know if that is comfort or warning.
Maybe both.
After a pause, she shifts gears. “And Lilith Knight. What is your impression?”
“She is inexperienced,” I answer. “Impulsive. But loyal. She did not hesitate when it mattered. And she is not dangerous—not in the way we feared. She listens to the Balance. I believe that.”
Mara exhales slowly. Almost imperceptibly.
“One Dual nearly unraveled the realm,” she says. “We cannot afford a second.”
“I understand.”
“I want you to keep a close eye on her,” Mara continues. “Observe her behaviors. Track her loyalties. Ensure she stays… cooperative.”
The phrasing snags something in me—not because it is unusual, but because it is so familiar.
This is what we do.
We observe. We measure. We report. We do not interfere.
But Lilith is not something that can be measured.
“Of course,” I reply, because that is what I am expected to say. But the words feel wrong in my mouth. Too sharp-edged to swallow.
If Mara had seen what I did—if she had felt the way Lilith’s power surged in that clearing, wild and unconfined, drawn not by training but by raw instinct—she might realize what I am only beginning to understand:
Lilith does not operate by our rules.
Shefeltthe tether when I could not. She followed it without waiting for permission. And when it broke her open, she did not shield herself in shame. She let it show. All of it. The strength. The pain. The rage.
I have spent my whole life burying those things.
And watching her refuse to? It has unsettled something in me.
She looked at me like I was supposed to do something—not recite protocol, not offer doctrine. Just…see her. Bewithher. And I did not know how to.
That shame clings tighter than the failure to find Magnus.
I thought I understood what the Balance required. What it meant to serve it without question. But standing beside her, watching her break and burn and still get back up—I felt something shift.
