Viktor had died six months ago, but Misra was still in ruins because of it. She knew that was normal. No one was expecting her to be alright right away, but she thought that maybe because she hadn’t had as close of a relationship with him, it wouldn’t hurt as much, but she came to realize that was why it hurt so much. Viktor was gone now and Misra would never get the chance to build the bridge that never was with her brother and that hurt. It hurt even more because, with the world in pieces now, her search for Ezrael seemed to be even harder.

Many of the charts and locations that Misra had been trying to decode in Ezrael’s notes were now nowhere to be found in the modern world and would take even more time to decipher. However, other notes that she’d thought useless after the death of Jaynice seemed to potentially still be useless. Avery was a daughter of wind now too, so some of these notes regarding a person with that specific title could still potentially apply to her. Even still, none of them seemed to point to anything that would have drawn Misra. There was even a page that simply had “The daughter of wind will die loved,” but Misra had never been able to fully understand its meaning.

Misra looked around her room, solemnly taking in the sight of a large black box of notes that was sitting on the opposite side of the room from her. Inside were all of the notes that had to do with Viktor. After his death, she had relegated them all to the black box, not wanting to have to see them. She’d already read through all of them thoroughly enough to not need to look at them anymore. They just seemed to remain as a grim reminder of the inevitability of the fate of her brother. Within so many of the awful futures that Ezrael had seen for him, they all seemed to point to his death.

Misra stomped over to the box, tears staining her cheeks as she picked up the box and threw it in to a locked cabinet where she couldn’t see it. She didn’t need anymore distractions in her life right now. Even with the box locked away, her gaze seemed to keep drawing back to the place where it had been.

Misra slammed her fist against the floor, tears streaming down her face as she tried to get some kind of handle on herself.

“Damn it!” she cried out. “Why did you have to leave… Why did both of you have to leave me…” Her eyes widened and she quickly jumped to her feet, scanning the room for her travel gear. It was tucked away in the corner of the room, a pile of notes between it and Misra. She had been so busy with her own grief and note searching that she had been doing that she hadn’t done any travelling to note locations recently.

Misra rushed over to the bag and grabbed it before she quickly stuffed all of the notes she had in to it. She then grabbed the lantern and attached it to a strap that ran around her belt and inner thigh. Finally, she picked up the retractable katana she carried for defense against ser creatures.

With everything all packed and ready she made her way downstairs where she was immediately stopped by a distraught Dameria.

“Misra, where are you going? Do you have a new lead on your brother?” she asked.

Misra shook her head and wrapped her arms around her mother. “I don’t know where Ez is yet, but… I’m not coming back until I have him… If Avery comes by, tell her I’m out and I have the lantern. Alright?”

Dameria was shocked, but returned her daughter’s embrace, nodding softly and giving her a kiss on her forehead. “I love you, dear… Please… bring Ezrael back to us.”

Misra gave her a reassuring smile while knowing she was nowhere near that confident in her ability to find Ezrael, but right now, she knew her moms needed their son back.

“I love you too, mom.”

---

Misra slumped against the table, twiddling with her cup and groaning softly as she stared in to the empty depths of the once full ale vessel.

“Long day?” the tavern owner asked as he poured Misra another drink.

Misra sighed loudly and stared up at the man, dark circles visible underneath her eyes. “More like long week… I’ve been all over the world of essence and no one has seen him… I haven’t slept in the past three days ‘cause I simply can’t stand the fact that he’s out there somewhere and I hate no idea of where…”

“The whole world of essence, really? That’s quite the trek. So, where are you going to go now?”

Misra took a sip from the cup and tried to come up with an answer, but she had none, so she just continued to drink from her glass.

“Well, if you’ve gone through all of our world, doesn’t that make the next step the mortal world? Thanks to the fractures, they’re well aware of us now and while I’ve heard they aren’t super accepting of us still, there are still plenty that have no real issue with us. Plus, if your brother’s description you gave me is anything to go off of, the only thing weird about him would be his eye, but even there, he could just cover it up or say the color is just a condition or something. Mortals are scared and gullible, so feeding them a simple story like that would probably be better for them,” the tavern owner offered.

Misra finished her ale and sat up a bit. “I guess that’s the only place I can go. So… do you know where I can get transport to the mortal world?”

The tavern owner nodded. “There’s a small port just south of here. The lady there provides pretty cheap rides, but her vessels aren’t the most… high class.”

Misra shook her head and got up out of her chair, placing some money on the table. “Thank you for the information and the advice sir. Have a great night.”

With that, Misra headed out of the tavern and down to the port where she found the woman that the tavern owner had been referring to. She was a little hesitant at first. When he’d said the vessels weren’t high class, that was a supreme understatement. She would be surprised if any of them would stay afloat at all, but the woman assured her everything would be fine. Misra didn’t have any better ideas, so she accepted and was on her way to the mortal world. She was apparently headed to some place called “Mexico”. On the way there, she tried to sleep, but much like the previous nights, she wasn’t able to. The woman made a comment that if she didn’t get sleep soon, people would likely mistake her for some kind of raccoon person. Misra ignored and continued to focus on her notes.

Upon arriving in the strange new land, she found herself in a rather arid climate. Misra had never been a huge fan of the heat and it was already rather hot with the sun just starting to rise. Misra needed to find her way to a city and thankfully, after about a half day’s walk, she found one. Much like many of the cities in the world of essence, this one was a mess. There were building that had remained totally untouched, but those were outliers among the many buildings that were missing anywhere from a few bricks to half of their structure.

Many people had holed up in shelters while the world was being rebuilt, but it was clear that the mortals were struggling. The apprentices of the world of essence had supposedly been trying to reach out to the leaders of the mortal world to try and find some kind of compromise, so they could provide help, but the negotiations were slow going.

Thankfully, because of the way most people were concentrated in to less spread out areas, it made talking with an entire city much easier. Unfortunately, no one had any real information that could help her out. Once again faced with night, however, Misra knew that she needed to get some sleep, so she found her way to one of the shelters with an open bed and laid down in it. Even still, she wasn’t able to sleep. The added stress of now being in completely foreign land had her even more on edge before, but most others would be asleep now too, so she could really do anything.

“Hey, are you the lady who was asking about the fallen angel?” a child asked, coming up to Misra, causing her to jump slightly.

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Misra asked.

“You were asking about a guy with a missing eye and super dark hair, right? That sounds like the fallen angel!” the child explained enthusiastically.

Misra gave him a somewhat confused look. “Who’s the fallen angel?”

“He’s this super awesome guy who goes around helping people and saving them from monsters and giving food to shelters! He has a weird eye and folks think he’s one of those magic people because he covers the other one and dresses kinda funky. He wears this cloak with black feathers, so people call him a fallen angel.”

Misra’s eyes widened. “Where is he? Have you ever seen him? Please, you have to tell me.”

The kid shook their head. “I don’t know. He always disappears after he finishes whatever he’s doing so none of us know where he lives or anything.”

Misra sighed and fell back in to bed, a soft smile creeping on to her face as she closed her eyes and allowed sleep to finally take ahold of her after a solid four days of being awake.