Seconds stretched along with silence, and Torix wrestled with the realisation that she did not know where to begin to look.

"We need to find Murchadh and Eviaus. The rest can wait, if she needs the key to do what she wants to do." Ferya was still sitting on the couch, one hand placed over her throat, as if looking for the necklace that was no longer there.

Ferya lifted her eyes slowly, and Torix initially assumed that the girl's shock was making her slow to realise that her statement made little sense. Ferya watched them, her eyes shifting back and forth between gold and black.

Then Lokael grinned.

It was faint and there was not much humour in it, but he murmured softly. "She took the necklace I made."

Ferya nodded, before turning her gaze to the rest of the room. "The key is safe. I could feel its purpose. Not in a knowing way, but I could feel that it wasn't something I should wear around all the time. And I remembered the World Eater, and how it focused on me and Murchadh when I had it and Murchadh had the cǣge, and grandfather had explained that he had trusted me to protect something incredibly valuable. So my father made me a decoy, with enough magic that it would feel like something important, for those that were looking for it."

For a moment, the feeling in the room relaxed, and Torix let out a breath of relief.

They weren't as far behind as she had assumed.

They still had time.

"Which means that Roisin is going to be coming back for you." Quinn broke that silent optimism with his realism, his expression unreadable. "You should find somewhere safe, while we try to hunt her down and find Murchadh. It's possible that he missed her if she doesn't have the key. They could quite simply be in some far off place, without enough power to get home."

"The best place for me to be, is to be moving, I think." Ferya shook her head before glancing over to Lokael. "I think you should go to grandfather. You'd be able to know if Roisin goes back to him, and you could let us know if she does. And he shouldn't be alone."

Torix watched Lokael hesitate, could almost see him wanting to object.

There were a million reasons why Lokael would want to stay with his daughter. And some arguments about Roisin using Lokael against Lucifer if she got the chance. Lokael's power had recovered a little. Much like Ferya had been before the wings that had been made for her, he still had power. He was not helpless, though Torix did not know just how much power he could use, and if it were more of a liability because of Roisin's blade.

Then the man offered a nod and moved to hug Ferya quickly. "I'll make sure they know we understand."

Torix turned away from the embrace, forcing her brain to think of the problem they still had while allowing the two of them some privacy.

No one in their group knew where Zylinnium was.

Torix rubbed her forehead in consternation, her gaze settling on Gavin, who was still holding Baltha's book, though he didn't appear to know he was. As Ferya and Lokael said their goodbyes, Torix stepped close to Gavin and reached for the book, feeling a desire to touch it, as if it were a connection to Baltha.

The man she loved would have known.

Gavin handed it to her silently, his expression lost. Just like Torix felt.

Even if he didn't directly know, Baltha would have been able to pull on his vast stores of knowledge and given them an idea of where to start. This would have been a simple task for a demon who had collected knowledge for centuries. Torix's heart twanged in regret as she traced her claws over the cover, fighting off the overwhelming feeling of loss from not having him at her side right at that moment.

There was a flash of Lokael's power, and he was gone.

But nothing else in the room changed. There was silence around her as she fought off the waves of self-pity and longing for her mate, who was out of her reach because of the enemy.

Torix shook her head and forced her mind to focus once again on the problem, searching the cover of the book idly as she sought inspiration for how they were going to start their task. They needed to think about their plan and act as a team, it seems that when they tried to tackle things on their own, the enemy could easily defeat them.

Torix's eyes stopped on the picture of a rondel of standing stones on the cover and she let out a curse. "Gates."

"Yes. It's probably a gate to Zylinnium that we will find here on earth." Connaugh offered impatiently, though Riari shushed him.

Torix frowned at the book, trying to pull up the memory of what she was thinking of and why the book tickled the back of her mind. Then it hit her. She recognized the picture that she was looking at. She had seen that rondel in person.

All the Tuath Dé had.

Even as the idea formed in her head, Torix turned the book around to show the room, one clawed finger tapping on the picture. "This is the gate to Baile."

"Humans sensed the magic of the gates for all the realms. They worshipped the stones for millennia. All over the world." Andraste nodded, though something akin to understanding formed on her features.

"Baltha said there were nine gates on Earth." Torix grinned slowly, wishing she could kiss the demon right at that moment. "He was talking about this book. He said there were nine gates. Not eight. Nine. This book talks about the humans who worshipped the areas of power, and some of those were the gates that connected Earth to other realms. Humans thought they connected to what they thought was their Goddess. In various cultures and locations, separated by thousands of kilometres, they all knew where the gates were. Lucifer opened up these gates after he rebalanced Earth. He brought humans to Earth after convincing them to reject their enslavement by the angels. But eight gates go to the eight other realms. Earth wasn't just the centre of that. It was the centre of wherever the ninth gate went."

"Zylinnium." Riari breathed out the word, her eyes widening. "Which is why Lucifer has always insisted that Earth needs to remain balanced, that the universe needs it to remain whole."

"We need a map of Earth." Ferya turned to the dinner table, using her power to summon a map, even as Torix began flipping through the pages of the book. "Someone who knows, mark off where all the gates are."

"Not all the gates look the same. Some of them, the buildings and ruins, barely even exist, human history destroyed or buried them." Connaugh offered, though he stepped up beside Ferya and began marking out where the various realms intersected with Earth.

As Torix read through the book, skimming over the descriptions of various cultures and locations, she realised Connaugh was right.

And beyond that, there were also locations where humans had built structures much like the realm gates, as a continuation of a network across the world, though not necessarily connected to another realm. There were far more than nine ancient locations, spread out across all hemispheres and related to nearly every ancient culture that had existed.

Along with the names of countries and peoples that none of them knew, the author had thankfully offered sketches and descriptions of the surrounding areas, along with myths that were half-forgotten memories of the realms that were connected to Earth. And it was the myths and descriptions of the ruins that allowed them to place where the gates belonged across the planet.

All too soon, she finished the chapters that examined the structures that were sometimes the realm gates and Torix stared at a map with twenty different locations marked, stretching thousands of kilometres.

They knew eight, which left twelve options for them to search for Zylinnium.

Some of them had imprecise descriptions that left their best guess to be as large an area as a few hundred kilometres, and others were entire islands in an ocean that none of them had experience with.

Some were caves, others were ruins that humans had excavated, though with the sheer amount of wars fought since the book had undoubtedly been written, there was no telling if those ruins would still be easily discernible.

Twelve haystacks.

And they were limited to two groups to do the searching.

Torix and Ferya could each take a group, as the others did not have the power to travel magically. Riari and Quinn began talking about who would be on each team as Connaugh and Gavin combed through the rest of Baltha's human book collection on the off chance that he had more information on the topic.

Torix stood beside Ferya, watching the woman regard the map with a thoughtful expression on her features. They would have to decide where they went and how much time they would spend at each location. And if Roisin was going to be coming back for the woman, Torix wasn't sure that they should split up.

"Murchadh and Eviaus mentioned water. A river." Andraste murmured to Torix and Ferya, prompting them both to bend over the map and take in the details around the locations.

"This is a desert." Ferya nodded. "We can put it last on the list."

The three of them categorised the twelve locations into six, or three each, that had rivers, and others that didn't appear to, though it was hard to tell if the map had all sizes of rivers recorded, or just the larger ones.

"Maybe we should stick together." Torix murmured, looking at Ferya curiously. "Do we need to be hasty in this? Is the benefit of speeding up worth the risk of Roisin finding you with half of us across the world?"

Ferya paled, and for a moment she looked like the young and naive girl that Torix had met in the bakery all those months ago. She'd already been through a great deal, had already had to fight Roisin and nearly lost. Torix wouldn't have blamed her if she wanted to stick together. It would have been the safer bet.

"I feel like it is." Ferya murmured softly, her eyes going back as her jaw set stubbornly. "A part of me feels like we've wasted too much time already."

Torix hesitated a moment more, then nodded her acceptance of the other woman's opinion. "We stay in contact, regularly. If I don't hear from you, I will come find you."

"And I you." Ferya offered a rueful smile before they both turned to look at the other five. "Gavin..."

"Of course I'm coming with you. Eviaus is out there somewhere with Murchadh, and I know they've both gotten in over their heads somehow." Gavin was trying to be lighthearted, offering a smile as he picked up his helmet and put it on his head, having changed back into his armour during the conversation over the maps.

"Quinn and I will be with Ferya." Andraste nodded, before glancing Torix's way. "You fight smart. No heroics, pixie."

Torix barked a laugh, fighting back the wave of emotion from the woman's words. "Riari, Connaugh?"

"Wait." Ferya stepped up to Torix, pressing something warm into her palm, colour changing eyes meeting Torix's. "Just remember, and have faith, ok? I know you're angry. I'm angry. But... We can do this. Like Andraste says: no heroics."

It was as if Ferya could tell that she was angry at Lucifer, at the entire situation, though Torix was doing her best not to show how impossible the whole task ahead felt. The crystal in Torix's hand hummed with power, and she slipped it into her pocket as she met her friend's gaze.

With a nod, Torix wrapped Riari, Connaugh, and herself in her power and used the darkness to travel to the first location, half a world away.