She had to clear her throat before proceeding. Celeste knew that look.

Laini lifted her head and smiled but her eyes were weary:

Laini and Nebedtka both remembered the anger from their parents, the angst they both felt from the idea that Laini had ‘monstrous potential’ and the fact that she would probably be haunted for the rest of her life.

It had been a week since they had their argument and she avoided speaking to her parents for that time. She needed to think.

“Suddenly, Father wanting me to stay out of it all makes sense,” Laini sighed and stared off at the palace in the distance, firelight flickering against the pillars. The day was winding down and Pawah went for a visit to the Pharoah’s court to catch up with him and other priests who had traveled in from Cairo. She lifted her hand to her face where her father hit her and glared.

It was still sore.

“It’s not like you to apologize,” Nebedtka said but she huffed.

“I am not apologizing…” she felt her eye twitch. “It may make sense but it was also inevitable. He should have known better...we're not so different, you and I...I need answers, too.”

She shook her head and glared again at the palace. There was something unsettling about what she was looking at; like a strange haze was surrounding it despite her seeing it as clear as she always had.

Something wasn’t right.

Laini could feel something in the pit of her stomach; a gnawing sensation that she couldn’t shake and it was happening ever since her mother concluded the horrors she witnessed. A man who came through and killed her people in order to prevent a demon from doing it? There was obviously something more to this story.

Nebedtka took her by the hand and squeezed it. She looked up from her thoughts and smiled at him. 

And that's when she saw him. Again.

The same man from before, the one she had seen when he was writing on the ground, suddenly appeared next to him. Laini gasped and turned Nebedtka by the shoulders and shook him hard.

“Do you see that!?” she begged. “He’s here!”

“Who---what are you talking about?” He said, his hands up in defense.

“The man. The Hebrew looking man father was asking me about!”

“The...mal’akh?!” He asked, still ready for something to jump out at him.

“He is standing right next to you!” She shook him again.

“I don’t see him, Laini…!”

This made her angry and she nearly shoved Nebedtka out of the way to try and get a better look at the stranger. He smiled and slowly turned his head to look at her and that’s when she noticed his eyes. They were alight with the most beautiful shade of blue and he was perfectly sculpted, his hair wavy and framed his face in a pleasant way that added to his wonder. But there was something feminine about his look. A softness despite the obvious male figure.

“Who are you…?” she whispered and tried to reach out to touch him but his expression changed from a gentle smile to worry. She followed his eyes toward the direction of the palace when he vanished and she only stared off into the distance.

Laini’s heart suddenly began thudding madly in her chest and a voice rang inside her head like nothing she had ever heard before. She brought her hands to her ears to try and shut it out but it was far too loud.

“He’s here!” it screamed.

Another shock and Laini as launched backward into her brother who caught her.

“Laini!“ he yelled. Aisha came bursting outside from the racket and saw her daughter in her son’s arms as he tried to shake her back into consciousness.

“What’s happening?” she demanded.

“She said she saw the mal’akh again! She then covered her ears and started screaming---!”

Laini gasped and sat up straight before launching back to her feet and into the stone wall. She grabbed on and stared toward the palace.

That haze...!

“Father…!” she rounded on the door and ran past them as fast as she could and toward the family horses. Instantly, she mounted one and raced out of the gate and towards the palace as fast as the horse under her could carry her, her family's voices drowned out by the sound of her heart.

In the excitement, she didn’t notice the hooded figures standing outside her home. 

They watched her run off and a long moment went by before one of them spoke.

“Should we go after her…?” one of them asked, his eyes giving an ethereal sheen in the light of night. His companion tilted his head and scoffed to himself.

“Let us see what happens first,” he replied.