Chaos erupted around them as everyone started to rush outside towards the screaming. Vera was following after the group of students until she saw the door to the basement swing open. Vera stopped in her tracks and looked back. She couldn't explain the feeling she'd gotten, cold, sick to her stomach, as if someone had walked over her grave. It was unsettling and everything inside Vera's head told her to stay the hell away but she couldn't. It was a compulsion pushing her towards the basement. Heading down the steps Vera narrowed her eyes and tried to look through the darkness. Searching around she found a lightswitch flicking it on and startling when she saw a zombie figure perched up against the wall. "Oh, son of a bitch."

She could see light coming from behind the door where the hide lockers used to be kept, walking inside she looked around seeing the 5 lockers and nearly growling. "Fucking assholes." They had told her they had never recovered the hide lockers. Vera had assumed they had been hidden away with Alpha's locker since they were absent among the things they recovered on raids. Even after all this time she really couldn't trust the wolves? Why had she bothered to trust them this long? Hamish had some serious explanation for lying to her about the lockers. Still, there were only 5 lockers, that meant Alpha's locker wasn't here. Nor was there a locker for Ember, what did that mean exactly?

Vera walked up to one of the lockers grabbing the lid and lifting it up to look inside. Empty as she had expected. Of course it would be empty, all of the knights minus Alpha were accounted for. "You are foolish to trust the mongrels." Vera heard a voice speak behind her, a chill running down her back as she turned to see a dark figure in the doorway behind her. "Debilitetur." The stranger raised his hand as the black glass mask flashed with orange runes. He remained in motion pacing to her and flicking his wrist to slam the door shut behind him. "Inflammetur." Again his mask lit up with runes though he didn't catch fire. He raised a hand pushing Vera back into the lockers making her fall to the ground, never once uttering a word or incantation.

"Compared to me your abilities are childish." His voice was distorted, metallic sounding, breathy behind the strange glass mask. It nearly sounded inhuman, distorted by something unnatural. "Child, Magus, trying to tangle with a real practitioner using cheap parlor tricks. You haven't even begun to grasp this art, toying with it, crawling." He raised his hand flinging the lockers off the table that they had been set on before raising Vera off her feet without so much as touching her. She fell back into the table laying across the top and sitting up glaring at him.

"Who are you? A coward if you can't show your face."

"I'm called the Alchemist." His voice hissed through ragged breathing. Walking up to Vera he grabbed her arm holding it tight in his hand as he raised a gloved hand over her upper forearm. Her skin hissed causing pain and making Vera scream. She clenched her hand, tears in her eyes, feeling as though her very soul was being ripped from her. Looking down to her arm she saw marking rise from her skin like a hidden sigil. The runes were ancient, a language she didn't know, at the center was the silhouette of a black rose. Once he pulled his fingers away her arm returned to normal, the pain gone and allowing her to breath. He seemed stunned, silent, looking at where the marker had been.

Taking the opportunity she grabbed his arm pulling back his black robe and seeing the same mark on his upper arm, branded into his skin and inflamed. He grabbed hold of her throat and threw her down onto the ground though Vera rolled and recovered quickly. Time without magic had actually forced her to learn a little self defense. "Vera Stone." He called her name as she reached to open the door. "Do you even know who you are?" She stepped away from the door, locked by magic and without enough time to undo it before he was pushing her back. "An orphan, a nobody, you fought so hard to get to where you are now. Powerful yet small. You know who you have become but do you know from where you came?"

Vera leaned back against one of the lockers feeling the door swing open behind her. "They claimed you were nobody, they fought so hard to keep you out of the Order. They feared you, they fear you still because they know inside you there has always been something wrong. Something that they can not control. Something that demands to be unleashed." He reached out to her grabbing a strand of her hair. She cringed, afraid of being hurt but he didn't move to harm her. Instead he ran her hair between his fingers, quietly observing her, or at least what she assumed since she could only see her own reflection in the black glossy mask. His fingers reached for her chin, caressing her face with the smooth leather glove. "Do not be frightened child, not harm will come to you."

Vera looked over his shoulder seeing the door slowly creak open. "Too bad I can't say the same about you." Vera jumped to the locker pulling the lid shut as Tundra snarled and jumped at the cloaked figure. Claws tore into the black fabric as the wolf grabbed hold of his arm and shook its head wildly. For a moment Tundra had tasted his blood and then nothing. The robe remained in the wolfs grasp shaking it around and dropping it to the ground. Ears pinned back as Tundra looked around trying to see where he had gone but there was no trace, no smell, no sound. It's as if he was never here at all. Letting out a huff Tundra's shoulders started to pop and snap and Hamish took over and ran to his hide locker. Pulling it open he grabbed Vera and pulled her out holding her tight.

"Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" Hamish grabbed her chin and looked over, not even a scratch. "Thank god." He held her close again. "I was afraid."

"Afraid for my safety or afraid I'd found out you were lying to me?" She didn't seem very grateful for the rescue and looking around the room he remembered why.

"Vera, I was going to tell you eventually. The others, they don't agree you should have control of them. They feel…"

"I know what they feel, they don't trust me." She stopped looking at him. "Do you even trust me?"

"Of course i trust you." Hamish rested his hands on her shoulders. "I trust you with my life."

"But not your hide locker?"

That felt like a knife to his gut, it hurt more than that wendigo attack. "If it would make you feel better to have Tundra's hide locker in the vault then I give you permission but I can't make that agreement with the other wolves to move theirs."

"Hamish, you are their leader and you are my Temple Magus. You shouldn't be asking them, you should be telling them."

"Vera, and if you make them do that then you are proving to them that you can't be trusted." All she ever did was push and force. She was a wrecking ball through everyone's life but sometimes being stern and unmoving wasn't the right tactic. "I'll talk to them but I won't make a promise Vera, I'm sorry. You wanted me to lead the Knights, to keep them loyal to you and I'm trying to do that but you have to understand change takes time. You of all people should know that with the Order."

"And what do you expect me to say to the Gnostic Council? I have very limited control over the wolves? What if they ask me to put you down because you are a risk to us?"

"Ha, limited control." Hamish found that statement a little funny. "You are marrying a member of the Knights, you are a mother to another wolf, I hardly call that limited control. Jack believes in you, Gabrielle has always been loyal, Randal has great respect for you, and Lilith is...well Lilith is Lilith. If the council asks you to put us down I know you, you'll tell them to piss off."

Vera looked down at her arm. "Hamish, I need to go to the reliquary."

"You can say that again, the wendigo are back but this time, this one was different. Bigger, much bigger and it looked off, it acted more intelligent, not not just a mindless monster almost as if it was being obedient."

"I have a blood oath."

"Excuse me, a what?" Hamish asked her.

"A blood oath, it's like a contract with someone or something. It's not made by choice, it's made by birth. Passed down through generations from the original member of your family who made the pact. Every child, grandchild, great grandchild if born to that oath. I need to know what that is, I need to know who I am."

"Vera, is it bad?" He was worried for her now, not only that but Theo. If this was a contract at birth it meant Theo had it too.

"I, I don't know but whoever he is, we share the same oath."

Hamish looked at Vera. "You don't think he's."

"My foster family said they never knew who my father was Hamish. My mother was just some drunk who could hardly look after herself let alone us. Regardless of how we are related to each other we are related."

"We need to get home to Theo Vera. If you have this then so does our daughter." He had a point, if he'd come after her for this reason then he knew Theo had this too.

"I'll deal with this." She motioned to the lockers. "Later, we need to get home."