No Apostle had ever met the Seekers in person, nor had ever exchanged any form of contact with any of them first. Nobody couldn't find them, they were the ones that found you first. They crept out of the Underworld only after the sun went down, with their ominous deals the only trace left in their wake.

People couldn't hide from them, like rats they waited inside their holes for the day they would have knocked on their home's door, ready to collect what had been promised to them.

Could be money, could be a soul, or could be that last sparkle of hope.

The only Apostle who'd been connected prior had been Apostle I. And for what Rosalynde seemed to recall, his lordship didn't seem to possess any semblance of pleasant memories of them.

There had been times when Lord Regulus had exchanged correspondence with one of them - a certain Black Jack, or that was how he signed itself. She'd never read those letters, her young and curious eyes only finding the black lacquer wax with which the letters had been sealed before the delivery.

Black Jack, Crimson Marionette, Viridian Judge, and Azure Admiral.

And she'd received an invitation from one of them.

Rosalynde couldn't decide if to consider it a once-in-a-lifetime honor or an unofficial death sentence pending over her head.

She still had a few hours before Katherine's ointment would have started wearing off, meaning that she would have very little time to do everything.

A shadow suddenly reached her at the end of the staircase, engulfing her body as a husked voice dangerously whispered to her ear. "And where do you think you're going all alone?"

She turned around, raising her chin enough to make their eyes meet. "Still here?" She replied, her smile coated with poisonous honey.

"Talks the woman who didn't tell me she got poisoned last night," his partner didn't even bother asking how he'd found out.

"It didn't seem so bad yesterday night," she muttered, applying some more weight to test how much was left of the mobility.

The only reaction her body gave in reply was a spasm of pain quickly followed by a singular chill cutting her spine in two perfect halves.

She staggered, hands shooting forward, gripping the railing. Steadying her body as best as she could. She knew her pale face hadn't dropped to a paler shade, competing with the apparition of death itself.

Sometimes she wondered if her cheeks would have been stained sweet red only after her death. Surely not in her dreams, those had been from time immemorial in black and white.

"For someone who just got poisoned you sound too lively," Gray commented as he caught up with her.

All he got as reply was an annoyed grunt from Steel. Who, schooling her wounded smile into a tender one, went to pat Gray's covered shoulder. Her gloved hand slowly sliding down his back as he eyed her with a look filled with nothing but uncertainty.

She continued tapping his back, with him taking a step forward to escape that silent torture.

"Stop," He spelled out, word veiled with a subtle tone of tease combined with what Rosalynde could detect as his finest form of mockery.

She briefly halted her movement, pale eyes narrowing as she huffed in amusement, waiting for another reaction to come out of him.

Her mind still struggled to keep track with what had happened mere minutes before, and she wanted to see what reaction he was going to show her.

He'd been way to calm, calmer than her even, but his body? That'd betrayed him, and had thrown her off guard completely.

It'd happened in the blink of an eye: the news regarding the Seekers had come crashing over them like a silent wave, tearing their minds apart before throwing them into a vast oblivion of the mind.

Impulsive reactions varied with expectational knowledge possessed by one soul, and could not be mimicked by others.

She'd witnessed something out of character coming from him, something out of tune, something that'd with singular elegance had broken the melody he'd taught her into hearing.

His eerie and unusual silence, followed by a broken sight leaving his soul. He had history, Cleia had been able to gather some intel on his past before opening the back, but it hadn't been enough for her to draw a precise conclusion.

More, she needed more time to analyze, more intent to tear apart with her reasoning before drawing to the only right conclusion.

"What are you waiting for now? A charming prince to come and sweep you away to a faraway land?"

His voice felt like clear water rushing down a stream, making her thoughts slip between the folds of her mind as she flipped him off with a feline smile reaching her eyes.

"Waiting for you to get out of my face." She replied grinning with cold trepidation, stretching her arms to roll off the stiffness brought with rest her body had forced on itself.

"Are you able to get there without dropping dead or do I have to carry you?" He mused after her, his usual tone back into place.

"Then I suggest we start going. The road we're going to take isn't exactly amicable." Both Apostle IV and Apostle IX turned around as Cleia's golden hair seemed to entrap the light coming from the multiple chandeliers hanging over their heads.

The informant passed beside Grey, who taking a step backwards crossed his hands together in an obvious sign of displeasure.

Rosalynde too got closer, biting her inner left cheek as she kept on schooling her smile. She was anything but pleased by her informant coming with them, that made her wonder if the final day for her investment had finally arrived.

"I won't come to your rescue this time," Steel reminded her Tilting her head aside as she watched as Cleia's eyes narrowed, a humorous smile gracing her young visage full of vigor.

Her cheeks had gained color too since entering the warm rooms of the palace, a charming shade of light-pink highlighting her face in the same way a master craftsman would have done while working on the last touches of their last piece. A brush here, a stroke there, and a new light would have started unfolding. Life blooming from those colors like a dandelion taking off into the wind aided by a gentle spring breeze.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, Cleia kept her ground, never lowering her chin in front of the life-debtor she was bound with.

"I'll come," it wasn't a cordial suggestion this time, but a groundbreaking statement.

Rosalynde chuckled with unexpected delight at that display of authority. If the circumstances had been different she would have loved whipping that grin from her face.

But alas, that was something she had to keep for later. As Cleia herself had expressed just now - the Seekers didn't like being waited upon.

"If things go the way I expect them to go - you'll have to get out of there by yourself," Rosalynde's lips moved on their own. With Cleia nodding in understanding as reply - a silent deal between them now carved into the back of their minds.

"The more the merrier. That's what people here in Rowlian say, right?" It was the first time Rosalynde heard him openly stating his unconventional origins out in the open.

Anybody could have heard that, and under those golden tiles every ear had a price. There had to be a reason, a reason why he'd said that out loud.

"Where do they want us to meet?" Grey proceeded into asking, starting to move as the two girls stalked him throughout the palace.

"Close to Lake Noor, someone will be waiting for us there," Cleia promptly whispered from her position in the middle of the line between the two Apostles, with Rosalynde closed the line, eyes keeping watch of their surroundings.

They were vulnerable - and she only had a gun on her. Enough for herself alone, but not for her temporary companions traveling on his side.

Her most valuable possession, the first present she'd received to defend herself, an iron that with a bit of luck and favorable occasions had kept her alive up until now. Lord Regulus's gun strapped around her thin waist a boulder chaining her to a past set in stone.

Without realizing it she brought her hand to feel it under the vests, even if separated by an uncountable amount of clothing layers

She could not change the past, that was something bound to remain unchanging throughout the ages.

But that could not be applied with the present. She would have learned bending it like an avalanche disrupting the natural flow of the river.

The present moment could not be set in stone, it flowed without rest - even with the neverending amount of times human greed had tried to disrupt this universal law.

Meanwhile they'd finally reached the first floor, with Grey cordially deviating the attention on himself while Rosalynde kept Cleia's head down, quickening their footsteps as they slipped away from the attention of the servants on duty.

"You do realize that the person that stands out between the two of us is undoubtedly not me," Cleia smirked as the other kept her face facing this expensive pavement, periodically tightening her grip around the golden locks of her informant.

"Remember that officially you shouldn't even be here after what you did," silence surged forward with that.

Cleia bit her lip and kept her head down. With Rosalynde's gloved hand hiding her face from the rest of the crowd.

All eyes periodically turned when a grandfather clock appeared in front of their path, keeping in check the time as it slowly had started its countdown.

They made it out from the stables, nearly getting caught when a black mare mistakened Rosalynde silver for a handful of hale.

She dodge just in time, squatting down as the horse muzzled was met with the moving air, and with her free hand moved to the opposite side her hair. The escaped makeover provoked a heartwarming laughter to escape from Cleia's lip.

The informant raised a hand over her mouth, a poor attempt to usher to silence the broken chunks of laughter.

Her giggles stopped only after Rosalynde forcefully made her shut up, slapping with mild force the informant's head action that made the other bite her tongue without realizing it.

"And to think we only have two years dividing us," Rosalynde muttered with anguish.

"If you want to remark how damned all you are I won't hesitate in calling you old hag," Cleia threatened with a smile, very much imitating Rosalynde style of amusing tease mixed with torture.

"How about getting out of here before I'm the one that." Grey whispered-yelled, forcing the last door - an iron gate encrusted with rust open.

He pushed it with force, but the heavy hinges barely moved, scraping against the dirty ground. Clearing the floor from pebbles and twigs he tried again, but the gate still wouldn't budge.

"Something's blocking it, a substance coated over the iron - here, look." He pointed once more towards the hinges, inviting the other two to look where his hand was pointing.

Rosalynde left Cleia's side, crouching down slowly while starting to examine the scene, shifting all her weight; her eyes quickly spotted what Grey had noticed. It appeared someone had recently oiled the gears, not with oil, but with some unknown substance.

It seemed to have a similar effect to the first acids, containing the same effects, but the strength of the components didn't seem to have the same power ranger.

Something similar yet different from what the mind was used too - if not acid what could it be.

"You won't be able to open it without this," Cleia's body stilled as if being changed against her will into an old log. Shrinking slowly to the ground with each distinctive footsteps tearing her courage apart.

Katherine had emerged from the stables herself, in her hand a small vial containing a translucent substance. And her visage free from any type of amicable expression Rosalynde was used into seeing on her.

Carter then started advancing once more, her hazel eyes narrowing at the sight of Cleia's silhouette promptly hidden by Rosalynde's cape.

She twisted the vial in her hands, shaking it clockwise while keeping her eyes dead set on the informants hidden back.

"It hurts, you know?" She then said, pursuing her lips at her comrade.

Rosalyde said nothing to that, and kept quiet long enough for Katherine to continue her well deserved rant against her person.

"You thought Pharah was the only one that knew something was wrong? We've known each other for years Rosalynde, years," the fact she'd called her with her full name hadn't gone unnoticed.

But her reasons still stood taller and stronger than an millennial oak battling against the mountain winds, and taking a step forwards she extended her hand.

"The vial," a deadly order, however that seemed to have no effect on the Ivory Muse, who chuckling humorously shook her head in reply. She switches the hand containing the vial, making it fall into her weak left hand.

"Start speaking, or I'll make this fall to the ground."

Speak, or you'll have to find a new place to escape from the Citadel.

"I will - after everything's over and the menace has passed," Rosalynde promised with unfaithful commitment. A bland lie that hopefully would have worked. Even if Steel had little assurance of actually working on her comrade.

She could feel the judging eyes of Grey on her after the lie, lighting up a spark of humorous laughter inside her blood.

"Liar," Katherine took three fingers from holding the vial, leaving the thumb and pinkie as last strongholds. Without them the vial would have unmistakably fallen to the ground and shattered.

They may have found another exit without being seen, but it would have taken too long, and the Seekers weren't known for being forgiving after being waited upon.

"So?" A dead end was all Rosalynde could see in her imminent future, and so did Katherine and Grey.

"We're going to meet the Seekers," if that had led to any form of instigation caged in between Katherine's bones and blood then she'd kept it hidden well. If so then she'd fooled Rosalynde too.

Carter kept silent for a while, no doubt evaluating the information she'd just received.

"Why the Seekers? Only Lord Regulus keeps in contact with them."

"Because they know something that we don't. If you want to know more, then, you'll have to come with us," A choked sound came from behind, Cleia hadn't apparently reacted well to that proposal.

The sound of chirping birds fighting the cold seemed to become one with the beating hearts of all four, the quiet of the mind too, struggling to maintain its peace.

"Move."

Rosalynde moved just in time to let Katheirne pass through, restlessly slowing down while passing beside Cleia, who'd started getting up. Cleaned her hands on the inner vest and took her and drew closer to Rosalynde.

Grey was the only one that watched Katherine sprinkle the solution over the gate, which as if in a form of agreement had decided to magically open up. Grey and Carter pushed with all their might, their shoes sank in the slippery gelid mud.

They all got out before the stables boy patrol would have discovered them, the vapors and gasses of the main streets welcoming them on the High Strands.

"Now where do we go?" Katherine asked impatiently.

"Noor Lake," Cleia had been faster than anyone else with her reply, taking by surprise all, including Rosalynde herself.

Katherine hummed, agreeing as she slipped beside Rosalynde at the end. But once again her face had appeared expressionless as the informant had spoken.

"You still can't stand her," Rosalynde stated after losing her head to a loud silencer eating the back of her mind.

All the Ivory Muse gave her comrade was disgusted gaze, her hazel eyes slowly settling on the background of the street, her ears taking in all the sonorous noise.

"Pardon me for loathing the girl that nearly got you killed," Cleia said nothing at tha, her silence a confirmation of the truth contained inside Apostle V words.

But that statement had lightened up a spark of unknown interest inside Greys chest. He turned around interested, gray eyes silently asking for the story to be told completely - and not only in half.

"Care to share the story or will you leave me in the dark?" It was too late to steer the conversation another way.

"It happened in our youth, during the annual parade celebrating the founding of the Rowlian Empire," Rosalynde took the mantle of the storyteller herself, pursing her lips as she made her memory flow in the form of words.

"Me and Kartherine had been selected as attendants to the Empress herself. Everything was going smoothly as an imperial parade could, but you probably know what those kinds of events can lead to." Meanwhile they'd fetch a C.A.R. lavishly paying the driver to lead them on the southern border of Noor Lake.

"An assassination?" Was all Grey could guess, stretching his long legs as Rosalynde took place on the other side of the transport beside Katherine.

"A shot was fired, and to this day we still don't know who exactly was the perpetrator. But we do know what happened after that," Rosalynde confirmed Grey's hypothesis, and comfortably made her gaze fall over the passive one of Cleia. Who from the start of the journey hadn't spoken a single word to the other three.

Rosalynde knew the reason behind such deafening silence. It was the reason behind the loyalty towards her person, the reason which kept the two of them in contact after the events of that summer day filled with flying dandelions and butterflies spreading their wings to pick up speed and ascend to the higher skies.

The true perpetrator had left a bait behind his trace, a young child who in her hands firmly a stainless old fashioned gun.

Cleia, at that time fourteen had been brought in front of their majesties, down on her keeps as the Empress decided what to do with her. Spinster didn't cry, nor did she beg, her eyes kept roaming around as Pharah's mother started reciting her death sentence to appease the crows and her personal lack of enjoyment.

Then, her eyes landed on Rosalynde's scrutinizing ones, and kept them locked with hers as a member of the imperial guard started taking out his curved saber, the ceremonial weapon used only in state processions such as the funerals of the Crown and the Imperial Parade.

Her plea passed through Rosalynde's bones and soul, Steel's heart clenching in a morse of unfair remorse as the young attendant broke free from her position.

She hadn't even noticed it until she'd knelt herself in front of the younger girl, hands raised, blocking the way with her own body.

And she'd stayed there, with her eyes basically touching the ground and her hands raised in a unique form of plea.

All for a girl she'd met minutes ago, and that she would have probably never seen again.

The gesture had seemed to appease the hungry crowd of wolves, who from chanting the demise of the innocent soul had started howling for her liberation. And the Crown couldn't go against the voice of their people.

Cleia was freed, and all seemed to end on that day. But that hadn't been the end, only the beginning,

Cleia found Rosalynde the very next day, after the latter had been beaten in private for defining the will of the Crown in its highest form. An oath of loyalty, a pledge to life.

"Who thought you could be so magnanimous in your youth," Grey stated with honesty.

"She nearly got killed for saving her life," Katherine had always been protective of Rosalynde ever since her arrival at the Imperial Citadel. She was a year older, and had probably always looked towards the Fourth Apostle like a younger sister in need of protection.

"I'll always be in debt," Cleia murmured, looking out of the window to avoid the insistent daggers making up Katherine's death stare.

A knock then resounded over their heads, the carriage slowing down as a sliver of turquoise blue was seen emerging from the left side windows.

Noor Lake had resisted through wars and time, but most of all against the pollution and the contamination of the lakebed. Only a handful of certified people could take their boats and take a stroll around the lake.

"We've arrived," they got out quickly, examining the change of scenery from the High Strands to The Barracks.

"Now where should we go?" Katherine asked as Grey and Rosalynde watched the C.A.R become a dot in the fine between the road and the sky.

"You're early. The Seekers appreciate guests that arrive before their time," All four froze at the voice nominating the Kings of the Underworld. But none dare turn around to look at who had spoken those words.

A female, that was the only thing Rosalynde was sure of.

"It's been a while Lilian, you too Grey," A knot formed at the base of Rosalynde's throat.

She knew who this person was, and so did Grey.

The woman stood tall and proud at the thin line of trees that formed a protective shield around Noor Lake. Her usual green dress blended in with the vegetation behind her.

"Madame Hellenia," Rosalynde acknowledged, nodding her head in greeting.

"Lady Steel, welcome. I'll be your guide. The Seekers are eager to finally meet you in person,"

She'd been wrong all along. All, all along. Madame Hellenia had never sworn her loyalty towards Verity. She'd been playing with them all along, a spy of a spy.

Hellenia was a double agent working for the Seekers, all along she'd played them all.