A/N The scrolls unlocked. Will copes with having another person's memories in his brain. Nikola and Helen talk immortality, and he makes her a promise.

TEN

"Hey Will, I don't want to nag you or anything, but you've had my copy of Black Ops for a month now and I kinda have a co-op game starting in half an hour with these crazy aces from Singapore—" Henry stopped mid-sentence, realizing that he'd been babbling into an empty room.

"Will?"

Henry poked his head around for a few seconds more before pulling out his tablet. Flipping through security feeds he noticed someone wandering around the corridors in a daze. It was Will, and it looked like he had jumped into a pool.

Confused, Henry set off, hoping to cut Will off before he reached an elevator. In his hurry, he almost collided right into Will as he dashed through the East wing.

"Jesus, Will—"

"La Familia!" That was the last thing Henry heard before he felt something heavy hit the back of his head and blacked out.

"How are you feeling?"

Will winced, gingerly massaging his temples. He felt like his head was going to split open. "What happened?"

Henry smiled ruefully at him, similarly massaging the back of his head. "I saw you on the security feed wandering around like a coked up raccoon. When I went to see what was up, you yelled at me in Spanish and went Mexican Rambo on my ass."

"Sorry."

"You owe me a case of Guinness, that's all I'm saying."

"Done." Will blinked sluggishly as Helen checked him over. She had a slight disapproving look on her face.

"You went to the Sybarites."

"Believe me, Magnus, I didn't mean for this to happen."

"Skip the lecture, Helen. Young William has work to do." Nikola strode into the room with the three scrolls tucked under his arm. Pushing Henry aside, he laid the first one flat across Will's lap.

"Read."

Will was about to protest that he wouldn't be able to make head nor tail of them, when he looked down at the pictographs and realized he understood them. It was a peculiar sensation, as if there was a three second delay on his comprehension. He saw the pictograph, felt it filter through someone else's memory, and then grasped its meaning.

He didn't realize he'd been staring at the scroll dumbfounded for a silent minute until Tesla growled, "Out loud, please."

"The Silver Children were placed upon the Earth thousands of moons ago. The Silver Lady gave them the gift to steal souls so that they could remain strong. The Children shall remain under the cloak of darkness, where the Lady can watch over them."

Fascinated, Will quickly unrolled the second scroll without prompting, getting used to the information filter in his brain.

"The Blood Family came with their armies, hungry for land and humans. They brought the Skull worshippers as their soldiers. The Children prayed to the Silver Lady for help, but the Family sacked her temple. Lost to her light, the war was lost, and the Children are slaves. The Family taints the Silver Gift, tying the Children to the Earth and further away from Her Grace."

Everyone in the room was silent, listening with rapt attention as Will carefully unwrapped the final scroll.

"The Children must never forget the Silver Lady, who will never abandon her brood. The Lady leaves us one final gift, for those who are worthy and have not forgotten her ways. Walk the Silver Path to the Chamber of Silver. If deemed worthy, the Lady shall grant her champion one wish. Blood will fail while spirit endures."

A hush fell over the room as Will finished reading. Helen and Tesla stood quietly with profound looks on their faces. Only Henry stood there awkwardly, feeling left out.

"What the hell does any of that even mean?"

"This … this gift. It's amazing." The male Sybarite merely nodded at Will in acknowledgement. While he betrayed none of the boyish enthusiasm bouncing through Will, an amused smirk graced his features.

"I mean … I have memories of things I've never seen, of this incredible city, of all these different people … they're your memories, aren't they?"

The Sybarite nodded gravely.

"Thank you. For sharing so much of yourself with me." Will paused, something surfacing to his mind unbidden.

"Aurelian." The strange word rolled past his lips. The male Sybarite closed his eyes for a second. "That's your name, isn't it?"

"One I haven't heard for a very long time."

The female Sybarite was wandering through the library, her fingertips skimming over the spines of leather-bound books, when she felt fingers enclose around her wrist. She was ready to lash out, only to see Nikola with a finger to his lips in a gesture of silence. He released his grip and nodded his head to the direction of the wine cellar.

They crept in, and Nikola closed the door behind him. "Your friend gave Will the ability to read those scrolls for a reason, but I smell a trap."

"You see deceit everywhere," She scorned.

"And with good reason. The Chamber of Silver sounds like a siren call for any explorer. Any wish granted by the Goddess? There has to be a catch."

The female Sybarite stared blankly back at him, not understanding the phrase.

"What does it take to be the Lady's Champion? What kind of wish will she grant?"

"I was never a Champion … so I do not know. I know that only our kind have attempted it. And – she will grant anything. Anything."

Nikola worried the bottom of his lip, still feeling as if the entire truth hadn't come out yet. "What are her ways?"

"Balance. Without day, there is no night. Without the sun, there is no moon. Should one become more powerful than the other, all is chaos."

"Can … can one of the Family, a blood vampire, enter the Silver Chamber?"

A dark look passed over the Sybarite's face. Glee, pleasure, shame and hatred. She grew quiet, until Nikola stepped closer. "Yes, they can. Balance. She can give, she can also take away. But it must come from somewhere, or it must go someplace."

Nikola frowned slightly, trying to work through the riddles, but luckily her swinging emotions told him more than her cryptic words. "You would bring them to the chamber as sacrifices…"

"Yes," Her voice burned hotly, "and I will not regret it."

Nikola held his hands up in peace before pressing on. "So what would your Champions wish for? Do you know?"

The Sybarite's nostrils flared as she calmed down. "The most common gift was to have the taint taken away, so we could be as we were intended. The founder of the temple was the first to escape the Family and bring one of them to the Chamber. Many more escaped through the Lady's Gift after … but not enough."

"The taint … the tests that Helen ran on you have allowed us to see what it is. Your brains were altered, but … it might be reversible."

The Sybarite's eyes lit up, but she remained cautious in her hope, hiding her eagerness. Nikola grinned ruefully, then considered her curiously. "Why do you speak to me so freely? Especially considering what I am?"

The Sybarite pulled out a bottle of wine, much to his chagrin, and passed it to him. He deftly pulled the cork out with his teeth. "I have changed because of them. You have changed because of them. Both for better and for worse. We are not so different."

Nikola held up the bottle to toast that, and took a swig before passing it onto the Sybarite. She imitated his gesture, before drinking. He looked pointedly at the bottle and winked. "Don't tell Helen."

"It's … it's Ylerin."

Helen jotted that down with a smile. "Aurelian and Ylerin. Well, it's finally nice to put names to a face. And these are very similar to common Spanish names as well. Perhaps the halispirus are one of the origins of the language."

Will closed his eyes, delving into Aurelian's memories again. Helen had invited them to sit in, but they blushed and claimed they would find that highly embarrassing. And that any memories Will was not privy to, he had not been given.

"Aurelian, he was a courier of sorts … a spy, I guess. He belonged to a family within the court. There was so much political infighting amongst the blood vamps that it was common to steal information and blackmail for power. He'd sneak into a target's chambers while they slept and try to steal their breath, not enough to be noticed, but enough to learn something.

"During the war, he was a soldier. There's … wow. There's some dark stuff in here, Magnus. Nothing pretty."

Helen smiled sympathetically, and squeezed his arm. "It never is. You can skip past it."

"Okay … well, he managed to escape after his master was assassinated. He fled to the temple, became a guardian, and that's where he was teamed up with Ylerin. She was part of the temple for longer, and worked as an assassin. She was a pleasure slave to the blood vamps, and would try to ingratiate herself into high houses and pick off the leaders. Then … then, I don't know. They're the last two left. Then they ran into us."

"Was there another war? Another battle?"

"No, I don't think so. The blood vamps moved on … envoys from other clans, Egypt I think, came along and they joined forces. They were seized under a new reign, I guess, and decided to overhaul their power system. They killed all of the carniviscus and halispirus under their control as abominations of the species. Most of the halispirus that could run, went to the temple. They've holed up there since."

"Then how is it that only Aurelian and Ylerin remain? By our estimates, they're over five thousand years old."

Will laughed. "Makes you feel young."

"Indeed! Very humbling."

"Hmm … let's see … they passed on? They went to the Silver Lady, something to do with the Path of Silver. The feeling is that they're dead, or moved on to their version of the afterlife willingly. I guess they didn't want anything to do with the material world anymore. And Aurelian and Ylerin stayed behind just in case of any stragglers to guide them along the way."

Helen noticed a small tremble forming in Will's hand. She prodded him playfully to wake him from his reverie. "How are you feeling?"

"Starving."

"Well, come on. Let's have dinner, you've done quite enough for a day."

"You're brooding."

Helen turned to look behind her, rolled her eyes, and looked back out over the city again. Nikola sidled in beside her, both their legs dangling off the roof's edge as they watched the myriad lights dusting Old Town's nightscape.

"So, what's on your mind?" He brought out a wine bottle and poured a glass for her. "Tell me all your secrets."

She took the offered glass, sipping, and enjoying the spread of warmth down to her stomach. "It's just … overwhelming. The mission was meant to be, really, just a small bit of fun for the team. I never expected to find El Dorado … I also didn't expect to stumble onto something so much bigger."

Nikola downed his glass and shook his finger at her as if disciplining a school child. "That's not it. I know you're really interested in something when you consistently side-step around it and refuse to come at it directly."

"Like what?"

"Like me. And the Silver Chamber."

Helen clamped her mouth shut, refusing to betray herself. She took a healthy sip of wine for something to do.

"And why not? It's the most interesting part of this whole ordeal." He nudged her playfully with his shoulder. "Come on, if you were given a magical silver genie – what would you wish for?"

"What would you wish for?" Helen deflected.

"You. Or maybe Edison's rotting corpse so I could reanimate it and put it through several humiliating acts. Or global domination. The usual. But I asked you first."

Helen went quiet for a moment, looking into her glass. She drained the last mouthful and then refilled it to half. "I'll admit, I was thinking about it. My first thoughts turned to having Ashley back … but that's a perverse thought. I know no good comes from trying to reverse death, we saw that with Adam Worth."

"What is it, then?" Nikola asked gently.

"I feel tired. I feel tired of knowing I will always have to bury my friends, my family … that I will outlive them. It gets rather lonely. I feel tired of living with the ramifications of our original experiment, my original experiment. Will was right … the source blood has brought more evil than it was ever worth. What it did to John … to Ashley … even to you."

"I'm not complaining."

"Of course you wouldn't. But I'm exhausted. I wish I could reverse it … know when my time is coming. That Will can take over where I leave off, and I can rest peacefully and know when my time comes it'll be surrounded by my friends."

There was an indiscernible look on Nikola's face. He couldn't bear to even cross the few inches between them to hold her hand. "I won't bury you," He said softly.

Helen smiled, trying to lighten the mood. "Come on, now. I've always wanted a lights show at my funeral."

"The day you die, Helen … I'll make sure the entire world lights up."