Divinity seeks out divinity. This is something the early philosophers of Shatter discussed at length, themselves still reeling from the fact that they were now, in their own small way, divine. Divinity seeks itself out, and from there it either merges into one great power, or, if it’s manifestations are particularly strong, it coalesces into a pantheon. What this might mean for the future of Shatter was a hotly debated topic in the first century post breaking. Would those divine sparks draw back in, would the seven re-emerge? Would they remain seven? In the end, however, there was no real way to tell, and the focus was redistributed to more mundane questions of survival, and growth. To the best of my knowledge, all but one of the inhabitants of Shatter have at least a hint of holy power. The other, whom we know as Rico, has power of a different sort. It is growing within him. Watch. He walks as if in a daze, circling the cargo hold of the Kingfisher. His eyes seem to flicker and spark, a delicate golden light that washes over the empty hold for no-one to see. Since arriving in Lincoln, he has felt a strange tugging in his navel, an unexplainable hook, pulling him towards the Wrathhowl. No. I see much, that’s true. That’s the only reason I’m in this position, I see more than most. My own little gift of Divinity. Rico wasn’t being pulled towards the Wrathhowl, specifically. He was being pulled towards me. You may well wonder why, or how. That information is not yet mine to share. All I know is that, somehow, something within Rico knew me. There was a connection there, that neither of us had recognized before. He tells me since that it is because I belonged with them, on the Kingfisher. I do not know whether that answer satisfies you, it certainly didn’t satisfy me, but sometimes that is the way of things. Either way, Rico, with no distractions around, centered himself on that tugging, and ripped. The Kingfisher sits quietly in the water, while the docks grow noisome and brash with fear and panic. This is enough to obscure the sound Rico makes, a tearing of something deep, a pained scream. And then, when I least expect it - with no knowledge of the dangers going on outside my prison - there is a young boy standing outside of my cage. The Wolfpack do not watch me, not day and night. I am no danger to them, and though the antics of my mindless companion entertained them for some time, once their captain ordered him tied up for his own protection, they stopped coming, bar for meal times and to occasionally clean the straw from my cell. Perhaps this is the main reason Rico arrives unseen. Though of course, unbeknown to me, the chaos outside was likely helping our luck. “Why am I here?” Rico says, his voice soft and croaky. He sways, dizzy, and steadies himself with a hand on the bars of my cell. Well, what am I to say to that? Me, a humble man whose life has taken several sharp downhill turns over the last week. “Perhaps you’re here to rescue me?” I ask, my voice is weak, scratchy. Water has been sparse at best. “Who-who are you?” When I was initially kidnapped, my spectacles were lost, possibly broken, and so since then I have seen the world as a blurry mess of hues and shapes. Though it may be anti-climactic, the truth is reader that at this moment, looking at young Rico, all I saw was a fuzzy young man of little definition or distinction. I didn’t know whether he was a Wolfpack pup sent to torment me or a fellow prisoner. Perhaps he was the ship’s cook, here to take my order for a last meal. “I don’t know who you are,” he says. “I don’t know if I can - Or if I should. I was doing so well… I felt almost-” he pauses, looking around as the words die in his throat. “But now…” “Why don’t we start simple,” I say, speaking as I might to an injured bird who had landed in my garden. “What’s your name?” “I’m…” he seems to consider it for a long while. “…Rico.” “Pleased to meet you, Rico, I’m Izaac. Welcome to my humble abode,” the tasteless joke seems to drift through the air between us and out away down the hallway, unnoticed, until a hacking laugh sounds. Rico startles like a deer. “No worry, Rico, don’t fret. That is my constant companion. He’s quite mad, I believe. He kidnapped me, actually, so if anyone should be worried, it is me.” I can almost make out a blurry Rico’s mental cogs spinning as he attempts to piece things together. I’ve gone and said too much again. The laughter dies with a hacking cough. “Tell me, Rico, if you can, about the man in the cell down the hall. I don’t know why you’re here, or what you’re supposed to do, but I would very much like to know why I am here, and why he was trying to bundle me off-shard before the Wolfpack… intervened. Perhaps, while you work out what you’re doing here, you wouldn’t mind doing me this small favour.” I see much, that is true enough, but my capacity is not endless. I cannot see the future, I simply see what is there. The truth. When the crew of the Kingfisher tell me their stories, I see enough to put it to paper, and so here we are. I don’t think Rico quite notices how much it bothers me that I cannot see the person who kidnapped me. “This man, he is tall, well built. He looks like he hasn’t eaten in several days. His hands are bound, his hair dark brown, his nose… broken,” I hang my head. Nothing springs to mind. Nobody that I may have accidentally wronged, or angered, too vague by far. I should be able to see more than this. “He’s looking at me-” Rico gasps. “His eyes!” The words are almost strangled in his throat. “They’re wrong. One is completely white,” he says slowly, his breath seems to come in uneven gasps. “The other is completely black.” Certainly less vague. But still, nothing I had seen before. “He’s staring at me…” “He’s insane, Rico, they tied him up after he clawed a splinter of wood and tried to cut himself with it. He hasn’t done anything but laugh or cry for the last few days. I don’t think he can talk.” “I feel like I know those eyes,” he says quietly, before returning to face me. I hear the shuffling straining sound as my prior captor struggles against his bonds. “It doesn’t matter, I’m not here for him. I’m here for you. I think.” “To harm or help?” “Help. You belong with us. I can feel it.” “And what, are you proposing a daring escape? We’d never make it! I don’t know how you got in, but unless you can teach me to fly-” “Tell me your full name,” Rico says. “The last words I hear are the easiest to remember.” I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what any of this means, at the time, and even now, I’m still putting pieces together. But he is earnest. “Izaak Everwright.” He nods, then looks about the brig. We three are the only ones in here. He seems to consider an errant blade hung against the wall for a long while, before shivering, and collecting instead a small ring of cell keys from a nearby hook. I say nothing as they jingle slightly in the young mans hand. “We’ll come find you, Izaak.” He offers me a small smile, then unlocks the cell down the way, with the blank-eyed madman in it. I don’t see what happens, but I hear the screams. A minute later, unbound and bloody, a man leaves the cell. I recognize him finally, as Raymond, though he looks utterly deranged, a stark contrast from the well-kept man I worked with in the waterfall hideout. He stalks past my cell, hands bloody, and has none of Rico’s compunctions about taking the sword on the wall. He turns and stares at me, and I see the same wrong eyes Rico described. In my confusion, I thought he had meant perhaps that the man had a black eye, bruised dark. But it is much, much worse. One eyeball is an entirely opaque white. No retina, no iris. Nothing. The other such a dark black it seems to throw half his face into shadow. The eye nothing but an orb of deepest obsidian. He raises the sword to point at me, a warning, and then turns and steps out into the ship proper. Minutes that feel like hours later, the soldiers bring him back, kicking and screaming, disarmed and beaten bloody. What damage he wrought, I know not. He is out of sight to me. The Wolfpack Legionnaires bring him back to his cell, one steps inside, finds the ring of keys. I hear the jangling, the fierce interrogations, the cackling, wheezing laugh. They get no answers, and they make no mention of a body, or a boy. They come to me next, and ask me what I have seen. I tell them nothing, and they hurt me. And in a distant Skyship, sitting at the Docks of Lincoln, Rico wakes with a gasp. * * * Mudge is lying on the floor the next time someone comes in to check on him. The flower, which had been standing to deadly attention in the center of the room is gone. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Mudge hears Percy’s second, Mercuria say. He lies with his back to the bars, hunched into the fetal position. For effect, a few of the poisonous petals are scattered on the floor in front of him. The rest of the flower is missing. “Shit, shit, shit,” Mudge hears the clatter of keys, more swearing. Finally the door creaks open and the woman who definitely doesn’t go by Mercy, rushes to his side. One hand grips Mudge’s shoulder, forcefully rolling him over. He lets himself be rolled, throwing his weight into the tumble and wrapping his arms around the backs of Mercuria’s knees. He gets his feet under him and powers upward, pulling forward on her legs as he rears up, knocking her backward onto the ground and pinning her. She growls, and Mudge quickly puts a hand to her mouth, wincing as she bites down hard on his palm. “Easy there,” Mudge says, using his free hand to quickly pull a Mournflower petal out of his pocket. It stings the skin of his fingers, an odd fizzing sensation. “You and I are going to have a nice easy conversation, but, I am in a bit of a rush, so why don’t you consider this some helpful motivation.” Mercuria’s eyes lock onto the shimmering petal as Mudge holds it just above her face. “I’d be still, if I were you,” Mudge says quietly. “I’d hate to drop this over your eyes… or your mouth.” His words hang in the air. “Now, is there anyone else in the building?” Mercuria glares at him, but her eyes are transfixed by the petal. She knows how dangerous they can be, Mudge has heard enough to know that touching won’t kill him, though the burning sting in his fingers is growing increasingly sharp. The fight in her flinches back, and she nods. Mudge moves his hand slowly down, holding the petal closer as a ward against Mercuria shouting. “It’s not worth it,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m not responsible for this, surely you can believe that.” She gulps, then speaks, her voice gruff and angry. “We’re spread thin, three of us drew the short straw. Everyone else is clearing the streets. Those are everywhere.” “Where are they?” “Office, where you came in. Between you and the front doors.” “Is there a back exit?” “No.” Mudge cocks his head, dropping the flower petal to graze Mercuria’s cheek. “I saw Shrew and the others leaving in that direction after the root came through. Don’t lie to me again,” Mudge growls. Mercuria screws her face up, wincing in pain, and Mudge lifts the petal away from her skin. “How do I get to the docks from the back exit?” Mercuria looks at him like he’s mad. “It’s easy enough, you can see them from the top of the hill, but you must know you can’t exactly escape! We know your ship, we know you have no fuel! We would have released you eventually. Now you’re going to be a wanted man!” “Nothing new there,” Mudge says, with a shrug and a wink. “I’m the missing link. There’s no way being in captivity gets better for me after this, kid. I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is going to go right to the top, and when the Khep’s come down on Shrew, he’s going to have to give them whatever he has. I’d rather that was just my name, not my whole fucking head on a plate. This is a fucking nightmare scenario, lady, the Faerie are breaking the peace, unless you idiots broke it first. Either way, I am not getting caught in the middle. Nope, I played Shrew’s game, and if it was up to him, I’d probably trust his call. Seems like a good guy, but we’ve all got a Captain to report to, at the end of the day.” “You’re going to bring a tonne of shit down on your Captain if you break out of prison here,” Mercuria says, his eyes flickering up from the petal to Mudge’s tattooed face. “We’ll chase you.” “I’m sure you will. And I’m sure a tonne of shit is coming down no matter what I do today. I trust my Captain to handle it, and I know if I’m there I can help. Now, hold still.” Mudge reaches down to Mercuria’s belt, and she blanches. “Oh don’t be hysterical, you’re hardly my type, and that isn’t my type at all.” He shakes his head as he pulls the manacles clipped onto her belt and quickly snaps them around her wrists. “Now, you can scream bloody murder when I leave, but,” he takes the knife from it’s sheathe at her waist too, “I’m armed now, and it’s not going to go well for your colleagues if they come upon me in the streets. Trust me on that. Or don’t, I wash my hands of this.” Mudge rises to his knees, before chuckling. “Oh, and pass this on to Percy for me,” he says, before leaning forward and placing a soft kiss on the confused woman’s forehead. “In another life…” He shrugs, before stepping out the door. It only takes a second for Mercuria to start shouting, but he’s already fleeing into the chaos of a city under attack.