Author's Note: So, this is embarrassing...

I forgot to include the fact that Penance was wearing that carlanca collar during the whole "Battle of the Sunset Lounge" scene. I'm going back to the previous chapter to insert some mention of him wearing it, but there's no need to re-read it; it's just a setup detail that isn't very important for that chapter.

But for this chapter? Well...

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"This Side of the Mirror"

Trenton – 1984

The elevator doors slid open, casting harsh yellow light into the dark room. As soon as the first slim ray of light hit Penance's face the bullets flew: one tore into his shoulder, another grazed his ear, and a final one clipped the top of his skull.

In other words, not too bad, but in his exhausted state it was more than enough to knock him on his ass.

"Fuck!" He screamed, cradling his shoulder.

The figure emerged with their gun at the ready, smoke curling from the barrel. They looked to their left, then right, and finally down at the boy on the floor. A cocked brow and disinterested drawl were their only expressions on display.

"What? You want me to find a nursemaid to kiss it well, white bread?"

Penance stared at the ceiling, teeth still grit in pain, but he had to smile. He went so far as to scoff.

"Am I being rescued?" He grumbled.

"Wouldn't go that far." Whip surveyed the boy from head to toe: his blood-drenched face and mouth, ashen skin, bent and bloodied carlanca around his neck, complete with bloodied bits of skin dangling from some of the spines, burnt shorts and all. She extended a hand for him. "You seem to be doin' well for yourself."

The boy took her hand and tried to get to his feet, but one of the spines of his carlanca was caught in the floorboards. He had to wrench himself forward as Whip steadied her feet.

"I've managed. How'd you escape?" He asked. "And how in the hell did you know to look for me up here?"

Whip shrugged.

"Creepy giant tower, right? With an evil witch doin' mystical, blasphemous an' unnatural rituals on a human sacrifice, right? Yeah: that kinda shit's either done deep in a basement or as close to the rooftop as possible. They were keeping me in the basement, so, process of elimination an' all..."

Penance arched his brow.

"You bet my rescue on corny storytelling tropes?"

Again the girl shrugged.

"Seemed a safe bet at the time."

Penance still rubbed his shoulder. He cocked his head at the gun in Whip's hand.

"You coulda just shot once, you know..."

The girl held up the pistol.

"I only pulled the trigger once. The damn thing just rattled off those other two shots all by itself. I don't know why."

The boy took the weapon from her and turned it over in his hands. His eyes lighted on a certain switch on the right side of the gun and he sighed. He flipped it up while shaking his head. He also noted the hinged metal handle under the gun's barrel with disdain.

"Stupid gimmicks," he grumbled.

"I managed to lock myself up in the basement," Whip explained. "They were on that door trying to force me out for a while, but then they all just backed off and left for some reason."

"Mmm," Penance nodded. He put his thumb to his chest. "This reason."

Whip looked up the flight of stairs beside the elevator, noticing the smoke pouring from the door and the flickering orange light.

"I thought that might've been an earthquake before," she said. "I'm guessin' not? You manage to blow-up Nicnevin's goons, or something?"

"A few of them. The rest..." Penance brushed his fingers along the side of his mouth, making a futile effort to wipe some of the gore from his face. His eyes trailed to one side for a moment, but then he slapped his cheek and forced himself back to the matter at hand.

"Doubt it was everyone," he said. "So we have to—"

The elevator's panel made a dinging sound and the yellow bulbs in its ceiling went out. Whip examined the panel, but none of the buttons worked.

"Mmmm," Penance grunted. "We have to take the stairs, for one thing."

Whip took up the pistol and nodded.

"Right. I'll have your back and we can—"

"No you won't," Penance shook his head. "Not with that, at least."

He took the gun from her, and before she could protest he handed her his little knife, holding out the charred staghorn grip. She blinked at this, taking it up in uncertain hands. She watched as Penance inched open the pistol's slide and examined the chamber for a properly-loaded round.

"Walk behind me," he instructed. "Keep that close to your chest. Anyone gets in grabbing range and you slash at them." He snapped the slide shut and then moved closer to the girl; he went so far as to grab her shoulder with one hand, staring up at her with very serious eyes. "And do not accidentally cut any of your fingers off, 'kay?"

The girl, mouth agape, could only nod.

They went out into the stairwell. By now the regular lighting had cut out and only ruddy emergency floods lit the landings. Another small explosion sounded from somewhere above them and the building gave a long, yawning groan along its right side. Clearly Penance's little fire wasn't so little anymore, and it wasn't content to stay on the upper floors.

"Looks like you got some use out of Ikey's little 'gift', huh?" Whip flicked one of the unbloodied spines of the boy's collar.

"Mmm. I'll have to send him a thank-you note."

"Just don't expect me to deliver it, all things considered..."

Their first encounter was five flights down; two cultists bounded up the stairs. One of them cried out to the other when he saw the pair on their way down, but even as he opened his mouth Penance stopped in his tracks and squeezed off a single shot right into the center of the man's forehead. His companion returned fire and clipped the boy's left leg, but that didn't stop him from calmly firing a second shot into that man's throat.

A door on their landing suddenly burst open and a cultist barged out into the stairwell just behind Whip. He barely had time to register their presence when the girl jumped back and screamed, flailing Penance's knife in the man's direction with tightly shut eyes. Her wild slash seemed to meet no resistance at all and with dread she realized she must have missed him entirely. She was ready to follow up with another slash when she heard the man's scream.

When he stumbled backwards and hit the wall he held his chest with two hands. More accurately he was trying to hold in his chest with two hands. He didn't have long to do so, as Penance instantly whipped around and fired off a shot into his forehead as well.

Whip stared down at the dead man, her chest heaving ragged breaths and her cinnamon eyes bugged. Only when the boy took her hand did she move, and even then it was in robotic fashion. She focused her eyes on the dour wall paint of each landing and made a game of touching each stair railing's edge as they descended the floors. By the time another cultist met them on the stairs— and Penance greeted him with another snap headshot— Whip's brain was dissociated enough from the situation at hand that she could start asking asinine and unimportant questions.

"Since when the fuck're you such a crack shot with a gun, kid?"

"I've lived in really rural, 'outdoorsy' places before," he explained. "Y'know: remote places. One of the favorite things that men in those places like to do is go shooting. Another favorite thing they like to do is teach young boys how to shoot, so..."

"You shoulda switched your weapon of choice years ago, then."

Penance smirked.

"I can barely get away with hiding a knife on me as it is, and if someone finds it I can usually salvage the situation, somehow. Can't do that with a gun. Anyway, a knife is more reliable; it doesn't break down or jam or anything like that..."

A door burst open on the next landing and hit Penance in the side, sending the boy careening into the stairway railing. Whip tried slashing at the man who emerged from the door but he grabbed her wrist and pressed her against the wall. Two cultists running up the stairs managed to grab Penance as he tried getting up from the ground and in the scuffle his pistol dropped over the edge and went clanging down the center of the stairwell shaft, bouncing down endless floors into the abyssal darkness below.

"Pen!" Whip deliberately dropped the knife from her seized hand and it went clattering to the ground. Penance rolled to retrieve it but the two men struggled to hold him in place. When one of them managed to pull the boy back, holding him in a bear hug against the railing, Whip kicked the knife over. As the boy grabbed it the other man tried holding his arms down, preventing Penance from slashing behind him.

So he stabbed himself through the shoulder, instead.

As the man behind him screamed in pain he lost his grip, letting the boy wriggle free. He spun about like a Cuisinart, and after dispatching those two he turned to face the man holding Whip, who by now had grabbed the girl's neck and held her tight against his chest.

"Now then," he snarled, "you drop that knife, boy, or I swear by anything you find holy I'll snap this little bitch's neck like a—"

The girl slowly started descending the stairs as Penance retrieved his blade from the man's skull. She looked back up at him with that same disassociated, dazed look as before, pointing one finger at him.

"And it'd be harder to take off other immortals' heads if you just had a gun, right?"

"Mmmm. There's that, too," he nodded as he joined her. "I mean, I don't really like guns that much anyway." He winced as he rubbed his shoulder. "Case in point: right now I've got enough lead inside me to open up a foundry, so..."

Whip blinked, looking over at him.

"So, when you get shot like that... I mean, the wound heals, sure, but where does the lead, y'know..."

"Don't wanna talk about it," he grumbled. "But I'll say this: it hurts coming, and it hurts going..."

Another loud boom sounded overhead, this one far less muted than before. A mess of flaming rebar tumbled down the stairwell, bouncing off the railings. Penance dragged Whip to the far side of the stairs and pressed her against the wall; he barely made a sound as the edges of the flaming metal scraped his back.

"We're gonna get buried if we stay here." The boy watched the flaming debris as it tumbled further down the stairwell shaft. He motioned to the door at the next landing. It was locked, but it couldn't withstand a few spirited kicks by both of them working in concert.

They dashed down an unfinished corridor until they reached a small workman's elevator. Penance peeked his head inside and checked that it was operational. Right before he ushered Whip inside he took note of a control box next to the elevator, including a switch to stop and recall the elevator. When he looked back they way they came he could hear shouts and footfalls throughout the floor.

The boy narrowed his eyes.

"Let's go!" Whip leapt into the elevator and motioned for the boy. "We're almost home free!"

Penance shut the gate on the elevator, putting the metal fencing between himself and the girl.

"What're you doing?" Whip grabbed the gate with her fingers. "Get in!"

"Can't." He shook his head, motioning to the control box. "There's controls for this thing up here, and if any of the cultists manage to get to them while we're riding it they can probably bring us back up. And if I destroy the control box I don't know if the elevator would still work at all."

"But if we hurry—"

"No guarantees we get down to the ground floor." The boy thumped his chest. "But I'm theguarantee that you will."

The girl's brow furrowed; she slammed her hands against the gate.

"We came here together, you little shit, and we're leaving together!"

"You're leaving now," the boy said. "Before this place comes down on your head and kills you. That's kinda less of a problem for me. And I'll be right behind you; I plan on jumping out the first window I find, and you can't do that." He crossed his arms and smirked. "I mean, you can, if you really wanted to, but I don't recommend it."

The girl's eyes softened. Still she clung to the gate, and she tried making a rambling objection, but Penance took one of her hands through the metal barrier in a gentle grip.

"I'll be fine, Whip. Get away from the building and follow the Delaware downstream for a bit; I'll catch up to you before you know it."

Whip swallowed, eyes trembling. She grit her teeth and shook her head, looking away from the boy.

"All the trouble you've been to me, white bread, an' all the aggravation..."

"I know, and I'm s—"

The girl tightened her grip on his hand and glared at the boy.

"You go dyin' on me after all that, kid, and I swear to God I'll kill you. Got it?"

Penance smiled. He gave Whip's hand a squeeze before backing away from the gate. He cleared his throat and nodded at the girl.

"Thanks for coming to the rescue. And I'll see you soon."

"You better," Whip grumbled. She pushed the button for the ground floor, still flashing an angry glare at the boy as the elevator descended. Just before she disappeared out of sight, however, that glare turned anxious.

And after she was gone Penance's confident smile disappeared.

Loud footsteps sounded just down the hall from the elevator; a group of four cultists rounded the corner. Penance slowly turned to face them, flipping his knife in the air and grabbing it in a reverse grip. He nodded at the men.

"How's it goin'?"

X

X

X

He didn't know where he was running to at first. And he didn't know why, either. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs he figured out a 'where'— the banrigh's quarters— and he was starting to realize the 'why'.

It wasn't the sight of Measan's severed head looking up at him like he was stumped on a question watching Jeopardy! It wasn't even the prospect of being hurt trying to subdue a very dangerous immortal child like Penance. It wasn't even the thought of being killed, in fact.

No, it was his eyes.

It was that stare: cold, distant but also somehow hotter than a forge. The sight of it was somehow like touching a blazing stove burner and getting that strange sensation of cold at first, a body unable to initially distinguish between the sensations other than telling you there was a blinding pain of some kind, somewhere.

And those eyes held pain.

In Penance's stare Diùlt could see all the eyes of all the hunted he'd ever encountered. It sank into his gut like a heavy stone and sent a kind of electric tingle through his lungs. There was something about that boy's eyes at even the best of times, but what was in them now cowed Diùlt's nerves to their core.

He found the word he was looking for just as he stumbled into the grandeur of the marble gallery: 'judgment'.

But there was something else: not just judgment for all that. It was something else he had done— some things else he had done— and he didn't understand what they were at that moment. But the wheels in his brain spun furiously to gain some kind of traction and understand.

Diùlt's black eyes widened. He looked down at the far end of the corridor and the entrance to the ampulla.

"Spinning... wheels..."

A loud rumble sounded overhead. The chandeliers rattled on their chains and the crystal bobs adorning them clinked together. He looked up at the lights as they flickered; the rosy-cheeked cherubs dancing amongst the clouds on the vaulted ceiling seemed to look down at the man with mocking smiles.

He drew a slow breath and sank to his knees.

"'After tonight… we're all done spinning them'..."

He stared down at his reflection in the polished marble floor; the man staring back up at him bore no resemblance.

Diùlt struggled to his feet and lazily looked off to one side, his eyes drawn to the comm room. He shuffled inside, passing a few computer monitors casting harsh green light throughout the dark room, and he approached the security station. He sat down at the bank of grainy screens and watched as more cultists raced upstairs to the ritual room hallway. Still he watched when none returned.

And still he watched when Penance Cameron descended those stairs instead.

He watched as the boy and that girl of his went running down a nearby hallway, and as he watched them running together he suddenly realized the enormity of what he had done without even knowing he'd done it.

"I didn't... I know I didn't know. Didn't I?"

He stared down at his lap as he came to the realization that this was all his fault.

Diùlt knew what he'd done, but he still didn't know why.

And the answer would prove to be all important for what he'd do, next.

Eventually Penance passed a camera on the stairwell just above the entrance to the great marble hallway. He was alone, so either the girl was dead or they were separated. That didn't matter. Instead Diùlt looked to what did matter: remote-control door locks spanning one side of the security console in front of him. The doors below them were currently locked down, preventing the boy's further descent. With this console he could lock-down the marble gallery as well and seal the boy out, trapping him on the stairs. Or he could unlock the lower doors and let the boy continue on his way.

Diùlt gripped the sides of the console, his eyes a million miles away.

Penance was the last hope— her final hope. She knew that, and so Diùlt believed that. He had no choice but to do so. But still he asked himself: did she have any choice, either?

Lock him in the stairs: keep him on ice for recapture and sacrifice. If it works then she'd have everything she ever dreamed of.

If...

He shook his head, forcing that vulgar word from his mind.

Unlock the lower doors: let him leave, and so let the hunt begin, anew. Keep the goal out there, at least. Something worth going after, and something to still hope for. Because...

...because 'if'...

He screwed his eyes shut, his brow trembling.

At that moment Diùlt felt more strongly than ever in his life that he'd been given something he had no interest in having: a choice. The dilemma burned in his very heart, once so certain and unwavering, now reduced to pieces because of two simple letters strung together. He watched Penance progress down the stairs, now coming to the locked doors beneath their level.

Diùlt drew a slow breath, and then he made his decision.

He refused to make any choice at all.

On the monitor Penance tried the door below and found it locked. He looked back up the stairs and then quickly hopped them in threes. Within a few seconds Diùlt heard the door at the end of the hall creak open. He swiveled in his chair and stared at the narrow crack in the comm room door as Penance stalked by, knife at the ready and a horror show of drying gore coating his small body. Almost as soon as he appeared he disappeared further down the hallway.

He disappeared on his way to whatever the hands of fate held for him.

And for her.

A single tear trailed down his cheek, highlighted by the green glare of the monitors beside him. Diùlt sank back in his chair and covered his face with his hands.

No matter what might happen next, there would be no 'if' about what would happen to him.

X

X

X

He stepped out of the half-finished guts of a high-rise flop house and straight into the palace of Versailles.

At first he blinked at the magnificent splendor of the hall stretched before him, his eyes drawn two stories up to the curved ceiling and its cloud-festooned fresco. He noted the naked little cherubs in the sky with a bleak scowl.

Someone's got a dark sense of humor, he thought.

Penance moved through the corridor with his blade at the ready, eyes scanning every creamy column of marble set into the sides of the hallway for a threat. He was uneasy like this: to be out in the open in such a large room. This could make him more vulnerable to gunfire, for certain, and his natural advantage was in close-quarter ambushes.

That's why he was so glad to see a narrow passage at the hall's end: what looked like a workman's corridor plunging into a dark passage. Foxes, after all, are naturally drawn to things like burrows, aren't they?

He slipped into the tight space and moved forward. It wasn't long before a light met his face, and at first he thought it must be cast by a window, waxing and waning as sunlight might do under the cover of periodic clouds. He realized a split-second before emerging into the room beyond that it was anything but sunlight— it was candlelight— and this realization saved his life.

For the moment, at least.

Penance instinctively rolled forward into the room, propelled by a panicky dread in his chest. The blade came down behind him, nipping at one of his heels, and it crashed into the floorboards with a reverberating boom.

He rolled to his feet and stumbled out into the center of the room.

Nicnevin pulled her fat, chrysalis-shaped blade from the floor and stood between Penance and the room's only exit. The gold bands along the blade's fat end burned against the candlelight as if they were afire as well. The liquid steel along its cutting edge glittered like a lake under a full moon.

The woman wore a white nightdress marred with fabric tears and trains of blood in several spots along her arms, legs and torso. The room's wan candlelight danced across her face, casting harsh shadows, making her look like a risen mummy. She stood tall and regal, puffing out her skeletal chest and squaring herself up to be as big a target as possible.

In an instant Penance pulled his knife back behind one ear and prepared to throw, only stopping at the last second. Instead he squared himself into a combat stance and tucked his blade against his chest in a reverse grip.

The ancient woman huffed through her nose and gave the boy a microscopic nod of respect.

And then she came for him.

She swung her blade as if it held no weight for her at all, slashing through the air with the ease of a child playing with a sparkler. Penance was on the defensive from the very start, at first rolling over a nearby tabletop, scattering an assortment of candles all about, and then leaping up onto the woman's bed. He fell against her bedframe— the spindly remains of some twisted old tree branch— and he cut himself on one of the barbs. This halted his trajectory and also saved his life, as Nicnevin's swing landed where he was going to be, and instead just cut into the bed.

On the other side of the bed he landed on a bloodied blanket and rolled over a mess of small knives laid out around it, themselves bloodied with use. Wasting no time, the boy 'sheathed' his own little knife through the fatty part of his thigh, mindful to miss the artery, and then he grabbed for those other blades like his life depended on it.

Well, not 'like', really.

Penance rolled to his knees and roared a challenge at the woman, throwing the knives one after the other in a storm of metal. Nicnevin responded by turning her sword to the side as a shield, but one knife found the side of her gut and another got her across the face. She responded with a scream of her own, snatching the last thrown knife out of the air, spinning about and returning it to the sender, where it lodged into Penance's arm with enough force to send the boy spinning to the ground.

Nicnevin cleared the bed in one leap and brought her blade down on the vulnerable boy, who barely managed to roll to one side just enough so that the brunt of the blade's impact hit his carlanca collar instead of his flesh. The force of impact blasted the collar's links apart and it sloughed off Penance's neck. As he leapt to his feet he kicked the broken collar off to one side and it came to rest beside the woman's tree-branch bedframe, facing a very familiar-looking old mirror.

Not that Penance had time to admire that particular detail at the moment.

The boy 'unsheathed' his blade from his leg and managed to land a blow before Nicnevin could get another swing at him. He got her sword arm at the tendon, forcing the blimpy blade from her hand, and he swung again to slice her neck, only to take a closed-fist punch to the face from her other hand. It sent him reeling back against the bed, stars in his eyes and a ringing in his head.

He struggled to recover before the woman could retrieve her sword, but by the time he came for her she was ready with another quick strike, this one forcing Penance to jump back to avoid being cut in two at the belly. He landed unsteadily and fell square on his back. Nicnevin took the opportunity to quickly loose the knife embedded in her gut at the boy, pulling it from her body and flinging it with one quick motion. It tore through Penance's shoulder with enough force to embed itself in the floor beneath him. Penance struggled to pull himself free.

He wouldn't get a chance before Nicnevin's blade fell, and it would fall clean across his neck.

Penance's eyes went wide as he watched that massive hunk of liquid steel come down to claim his life.

He had no time to throw; he likely couldn't manage it from his awkward position, anyway. He had time to do nothing now but watch as fate doled out his doom.

Nothing he could possibly choose to do would make any difference, now.

But he chose to try, anyway.

Penance set the flat end of his little knife against his throat, like an ant holding back the jaws of a lion. Nicnevin's sword landed hard, freely slicing into the boy's knife hand and cutting clean into his chin, moving fast to parts beyond.

He remembered all those centuries ago in Letterewe when he first met Connor MacLeod. Penance had fought the man then, going up against that sword of his: the Masamune. Whatever steel made up that sword was far from normal, to be certain. The boy remembered the bright white sparks given off from its contact with even a regular blade like the one he wielded. That steel was special, and Penance's blade then was wholly inferior.

Back then he really was an ant holding back a lion's jaws.

Steel could be special. He knew that, of course. Penance knew his steel was special, for certain. Nicnevin's was, too. These were both weapons of quality. Maybe he should've known that they didn't much rely on quantity.

Maybe in the back of his mind he did; maybe that's why he chose this as his last act on Earth.

Penance's slender little knife was no 'ant', nor Nicnevin's massive sword a 'lion' in comparison. When, in that lonely little room, those two blades met they met each other as equals, and so it was that, in anger, liquid steel struck liquid steel.

The spark was not white.

The boy's whole body reverberated like a metal pole struck by a hammer. A flash of sickly green light exploded from the point of contact. The upper two-thirds of Nicnevin's blade went flying through the air, slamming into the wall beyond and landing on the floor, smoking. Penance's little knife cracked straight down the middle, and it radiated fractures along its length like the veins of a leaf. The hot metal burned his throat, and its watery silver surface now smoked with an ugly black char.

Both the boy and Nicnevin reeled in the aftermath of this, nauseous and unsteady. Penance had a half-second to get to his feet and he steadied himself against the bed, but then Nicnevin grabbed at him from behind. He tried swinging his ruined blade at her but she resorted to biting his wrist; Penance screamed in agony and his charred knife clattered off to one side.

He tried crawling across the bed on his stomach, desperate to put distance between himself and the woman, but Nicnevin struggled on top of him and her hands found his throat. Penance hissed as she squeezed his neck. The old woman mustered all her remaining strength to strangle him.

And she had enough, at that.

Penance struggled forward, his upper body dangling off the side of the bed. Across from him that ancient mirror stared at the pair. It its dirty glass he could only make out the vaguest of shapes.

Or maybe that was his eyes clouding over as he lost consciousness. Who knows? Penance hung his head, staring down at the floor as his eyes gave out.

And then, right before they did, he mustered the last of his strength and reached for the floor.

He whipped one hand back over his shoulder, wielding the broken carlanca collar like a lion tamer cracking a whip. The metal spines came around and struck Nicnevin in the temple, stunning her. She let up enough for Penance to roll to his belly, and when he lashed out again he went for the neck.

The collar's spines dug into the woman all along her neck and throat, and when she reached up to loosen them Penance kicked her in the ribs, sending her off to one side with the carlanca still stuck along her throat. She fell off the bed, but the collar's chain caught itself on the side of that ancient tree branch she used as a backboard. Nicnevin came to rest with her rear a good foot off the ground, and she clawed at that collar to free herself.

There had been a day, centuries past, when a young boy once got the only scar he'd ever have from jumping around on a bed.

So there was an irony here, one supposes.

Penance's feet came down hard on both the ancient woman's shoulders, with all the force he could muster in his jump. The tree branch backboard cracked at this and it broke, sending both boy and woman sprawling to the floor.

But something else broke first.

Penance rolled along the floor and came to a rest facing away from the bed. He gasped, struggling to flip over as quickly as he could. He needed to get back up as soon as possible.

But when he saw what now lay at the side of the bed he stopped moving entirely.

The phrase he might've thought to use in retrospect would be 'medical impossibility', or something fancy like that. At the moment he had no words, but only an absolute certainty of what he saw. And an absolute certainty of what would happen next.

Penance's knife— what was left of it— was within his grasp, but the boy made no move to retrieve it. He merely watched, mouth agape, as the 'thing' before him moved.

Nicnevin's hands grasped at the wood floor. She pulled herself along by her nails, struggling like a worm. Her eyes twisted about blindly in her head and her mouth yawned with some horrible mix of a soundless scream and a grimace. The carlanca's remains still clung to her neck, each spine holding a mushy, ripped up piece of what used to be her throat dangling in the air. Somewhere inside that ruined horror a tendon or two still trembled with life; somehow her head still clung on like a piece of spit dangling from a salivating mouth.

Her wandering eyes found Penance only once, but they ignored the boy. Instead she turned her gaze to Uallas' dirty old floor-length mirror. She clawed, and clawed, and clawed the floor, inching along until her face was up near the greasy glass. She looked into it, at that nebulous shape staring back at her— more the idea of a human body, rather than the real thing— and her lips twisted about as she cooed at it, her voice gentle and soothing. With the last of her strength she reached up with one hand and touched the image, only for her body to tremble and her hand to fall across the glass. It streaked over the greasy film, exposing the clearer image underneath.

Nicnevin's eyes widened when she saw it. A tortured mewl escaped her lips and she looked up at the ceiling, eyes full of pain. She howled out one long, horrible scream, and it lasted until those tendons finally gave way. White light exploded around the carlanca as the crown of Nicnevin's head dropped back to meet her spine.

The blast hit Penance in the chest and sent him careening across the room and into the far wall. He knew something was wrong the minute the quickening's energy touched him. This was not that well of invigorating electricity he was used to. And it wasn't just 'energizing' him, either. It was doing something else. He felt a pressure gripping his very heart, some kind of smothering coldness burning the insides of his body like frostbite. It welled up his neck and shuttled up into his brain. He gripped the sides of his head, screaming. He shook his head back and forth, eyes screwed shut in pain.

"No... no, no, no, no, no!"

His body fell into a seizure as he fought against that dirty electricity. He lay on his side sputtering foam from his lips, every ounce of his being focused on staying conscious, but he could feel his mind slipping through his fingers like sand grains falling on a beach.

Through the explosive lightshow a figure walked towards him: a woman wearing a white dress.

Penance tried reaching for his knife, but he was unable to move without that dark energy 'attacking' him, heart and mind. He could feel the last tendrils of his mind loosing their grip, much like the last tendons of Nicnevin's neck failing apart.

What abyss awaited him after that, he didn't know.

The figure knelt at Penance's side. The woman in the white mantilla put the boy's head in her lap and she stroked his messy hair. Her delicate, crescent eyebrows sat contentedly over her gentle eyes, and those blue, gold-rimmed orbs showed no worries whatsoever.

She cradled him. She stroked his hair.

His heart and head still burned, but after a time the warm electricity of her touch swelled up over the cold burn of the quickening. When he finally came to his senses Penance was again alone in the room. He sat up, dreamy. Part of the room was now engulfed in flames from those fallen candles. The fire moved for Uallas' old mirror and Nicnevin's grotesque remains.

The boy got to his feet and recovered his charred, cracked knife from the ground. He noticed something sparkling beside it and picked it up: it was Nicnevin's gold butterfly pendant, dangling on its silver chain.

Penance stared at it for a time, then looked back at the dead woman's body. Above her Uallas' old mirror finally started cracking apart under the heat of the flames. Penance watched it fracture for a little while, then he wordlessly turned away. With knife and pendant in hand he strode back out into the marble hall.

Somehow the AV system upstairs must've still been working, as the speakers in the ornate hallway still churned out music. Elton John crooned about 'stocks and bonds' and 'HP demands' as Penance's feet pattered across the cool marble floor.

He was not alone in that cavernous hall. Around him a sea of people stood, all of their eyes on the boy, all of them as silent as statues.

Penance walked through this multitude; he avoided all their gazes, even as most of them were no taller than he. He knew he'd find two familiar faces among their ranks but he had two good reasons not to look for them. For one thing his exhausted body was running on less than fumes, and it would take all his strength just to get out of this building.

And the other reason: seeing them didn't really matter, in the end.

It was enough to know they were here, now.

The boy's dulled, lifeless eyes glassed over with a little water as he made his way through the sea of children: sentinels standing at attention for his passing. For a moment— just a fraction of a second— there was a certain incomprehensible happiness in his eyes. There was a certain joy, even.

Penance's lips trembled as he tried his hand at a smile.

He fell forward and slammed face-first into the cold marble floor, instead.