Silas' craned his head towards the voice, and there on the opposite side of the landing near the stairwell door frame stood Miss Yona, holding another bundle of files and a look of annoyance. Fluid like water, he stepped back off the banister, his black eyes locked on the figure of the Dæmon woman. The chains kept the Collector steady, and in perfect poise, both his feet returned to the landing.

He stepped towards her. He looked as though he would kill her. 

"Mistress Yona," Silas' hissed, bowing his head in mock greeting. "What il-timing. Yet since she has arrived, this one would like her to make note of the lack of information in the files given of Faust and his followers. This one would also like to know what else has Hell's secretary failed to disclose? Why does she come now with her mocking words?"

His towering body stopped inches from her while Sky watched from a distance.  

"Il-timing?" Yona said flatly. "Are you joking? Please tell me you're joking. I'm here because I'm on extended overtime and desk work until you finish this. As much as I hate daylight, my job is to keep an eye on you and I will show up at any time during these final collections. So I chose to show up now to show you what you've done!"

Yona held up the pile of folders in her hand and in annoyance, dropped them to the floor at Silas' feet. A file for each soul Sky had brought to death in the Youth's dream. There were dozens. 

"Thirty eight unsanctioned souls consumed and now I'm in damage control." She hissed, not in the least phased by Silas' domineering intimidation. When he opened his mouth to bark his reply, Yona held her hand up to silence him. "Before either of you say a word, I want you to know that I had to make magic happen so that no punishment befell you. Your only saving grace was the fact that these souls were already considered lost and that paperwork had already been filed nearly a year ago. But let me just say, so neither of you think you are off the hook is that twenty-nine of those souls belonged to Heaven and its going to take weeks to sort out. Sky, I warned you yesterday of the dangers of your hunger. And Silas, I can see the stains on your skin. I know this was your doing. Do you think you're being clever? Are you proud of this train wreck you've made? Lucifer is pissed because he is stuck in meetings with the Divine Authority over this. And we all know they already hate you. This may be a tipping point for the future of Lucifer employing men who are willing to sell their souls. It's getting too messy and there is too much overtime in cleaning up mistakes. Thanks, by the way, I'll send you the bill."

Letting out an irritated huff, she turned, half looking at Silas and Sky through the corner of her eye. 

"Don't you get it? You are being baited by Faust into making mistakes. I told you to go to the Archives as I didn't have more information for you. Instead, you went to those strange Markets. Why? Why won't you listen? You're so stubborn." She glanced back in time to see the seething rage within Silas' shadow. She released a breath of air. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she closed her eyes. "Look, Silas, I'm telling you to go to the Archives before you face the three left or Faust again. There was a reason why I got you permission to go there in the first place."

Yona spoke in her own defense but relented at the sight of Sky's heavy expression, staring at her through locks of flowing hair.

"I can't help you more than this. But I know Lucius can." Yona said, stepping away from Silas' seething form. She needed her space, especially from the Collector's gloom. Walking freely around the landing, Yona continued to talk, echoing her warnings and instructions while Sky became suddenly disconnected from any further words Lucifer's secretary spoke because of her own tortured thoughts. The souls had been real. She had consumed and killed them against the rules of their contract. Yona had reminded her of just what she was. As Yona spoke to Silas, Sky turned in the air, floating lower out of view to give herself a moment of thought. Looking down the well of the tower to the ground floor, she sank out of view in order to find a perch on a banister a level below the loft of the atrium.

Miss Yona's interruption took away a very rare moment in order to remind her of the monster she had become. Looking across the chasm, Sky stared through the open doorways of the opposite wall into their black halls and the building's outer windows beyond them.

Freedom was both close and a universe away.

In her sight, something moved in the black beyond the doorway opposite to where she sat. Her attention was caught in an instant and it was now impossible to pull her sightline away. Pushing away from the banister, with the slack of the chains, Sky drifted forward. There was a vibration. The voices of Silas and Yona faded in her ears and floating further, Sky moved towards the broken door frame of the room ahead of her.

Looking through the door, there was nothing that she could see. Looking back and to the side, Sky's eyes furrowed. It could have been the reeling thoughts she had left from the dream that left her questioning her own senses. Shaking her mind clear, Sky closed her eyes to focus. It was all just a trick of shadow and light.

She turned back, glancing over to the door way of the stairwell that opened to every floor. There Sky found herself staring eye to eye with the Child.

A flash of a grin crossed his lips as he looked at Sky. Her eyes widened, becoming round with the same electric awareness of a predator as her prey was standing right before her.

Neither Silas nor Yona had taken notice of Sky's disappearance. There wasn't anything strange in her doing so. Yet, through the conversation they had, Silas was suddenly pulled off balance by the chains that went erect over the edge of the atrium's banister to the floor below where Sky was now savagely pulling on the chains in an attempt to get closer to the Child.

"Silas!" She screamed, trying to keep the Child in sight as he slipped out of her frame of vision and disappeared down the stairs. "They're here!"

He heard her voice loud and clear.

Racing to the banister, both Silas and Yona looked down to the floor below at Sky who was pulling for more slack in the chains at the entrance of the stairwell. When the Soul Collector cast a glance back to the secretary, he wasn't in the least surprised to see she was gone. She never involved herself in any collection or conflict. The interactions she had with Silas were the only relations she had outside Dæmon circles.

Sky was pulling on the chains, while spitting and hissing in aggravation. She could not follow.

"Silas!" Sky screamed again, trying to gain some slack in the line of chains. Looking back towards the loft, her eyes widened even more when the towering black of Soul Collector suddenly come into view as he jumped over the railing towards her. . 

His feet hit the floor below with a loud boom that left a lasting echo that continued to ricochet through the tower's inner spire long after he had found his footing. Hunched forward from his landing, his body rigid, his form uncurled slowly to push himself straight to his full height. Wisps of shadow began to rise like heated flame from his limbs as he walked.

Passing Sky and into the stairwell, the chains at their sides.

What neither of them knew, but was soon to find out was the Woman had followed not far behind the trail of the Child, who was now playing hide and seek. Her shopping was complete and with a gas canister full of petrol, she was on the ground floor of the Temple Court, laughing hysterically while dousing every reachable surface with splashes of gasoline. From the stairwell to the lobby, dozens of surfaces gleamed with the rainbow sheen of the gas. She didn't care about the Child. He could find his own way out.

Once the canister was empty, it was cast to the side, The Woman backed away slowly towards the entrance, patting down her pockets for the small spark she needed to start. Long fingers slipped into her black robes, pulling a flint stone into view. The other hand deftly picking up a piece of broken steel, left on the ground from the lobby stripped bare.

"Enjoy Hell's flames, Collector." She grinned, striking the flint and steel together, sending sparks flying ahead into the room as her body turned and changed into that of a crow, flying out the lobby's broken entrance. Cawing in laughter.   

Fire.

It spread in an instant. Over every surface and into every wooden crevice, flames came to life.

Sky and Silas knew when the rush of heat hit them in the stairwell. When they reached the landing of the next floor down, Silas didn't stop to even look. He began his descent from his tower with his Sky at his side and he wasn't going to stop.

The precious seconds of their escape meant everything. Reaching back, he grabbed Sky's hand, pulling her to him just as the fire came into view. Their home was a sudden inferno and by the time they made it to the third floor, the flames had already taken the first two in a swirling blaze that blocked the way out.

Sky shrieked. The fire was destroying their home yet that mattered little to Silas then. With Sky in tow, he ran back up the staircase to the safety of the fourth landing. There was only one option. Running into one of the rooms, Silas pulled them both to the window. Breaking it with his elbow, he peered out to the descent to the street below.

"Y-you can't jump from here!"

The outer brick layer of the Temple Court had enough ledges that the risks were outweighed. The fire was making its way to the third floor and getting out the entrance in the lobby was no longer an option.

Holding Sky with him to the window ledge, the chains kept them steady.

"Trust this one." Silas whispered, before he pushed his body from the window with Sky at his side. They plummeted like stones, the hand marked with Lucifer sigil, waited with a sense of slowed time. Just as Silas fell, the hand glowed. Grabbing for the brick, his fingertips sank into them. Talons scraping effortlessly into sand. His descent slowed to a stop above the first floor. Pulling his charred hand free, he was forced to jump the rest of the way. A black cat, Silas landed on his feet. His hand was singed but they made it. Smoke and flame billowed from their home but it was clear to Silas that it was their home no longer.

The Others wandering the streets stopped and stared. Another building up in flames in that derelict city was nothing new. It was the fact that before the raging flames, Silas, the Soul Collector of that broken city, stood with his chained ghost, Sky. Both watching the fire that devoured the Temple Court.