“I wish to send you away, brother, unless you state your purpose,” I said coolly.

I watched as Raziel's owl eyes grew blacker and larger. He hooted again, except this time it was truly to mimic an owl. Then, the two black orbs in his head merged into a single eye. For a moment, he looked like a Cyclopean bird. My attention was fixated on the eye, as if he had hypnotized me in a flash. I thought I saw stars in the eye, constellations. His eye was a crystal ball into infinity. I could see all of the cosmos, all of the world and beyond.

Then, just when I felt sucked into a trance and he had paralyzed me with his power, I realized his eye was no longer a pool of stars. His eye was just red. It was as scarlet and artificial as a tail light. My brother did not have good intentions for me. He had mesmerized me to obtain my secrets. I had just enough sense to escape his control before I felt anything important slip from me. I felt his desires needle my insides like tiny fish feeding on a carcass. He wanted to know about Noah and all my other pet projects. He wanted information on Wendy, who she was and what I was doing with her. He wanted to know all of my experiments past and present. I felt him rooting around inside me like a thug; he wanted to break in and steal anything he could grab, careless if the information was valuable.

“I know what you're hiding, Meresin,” I heard him say in my head, as if it was a warning.

Raziel was known for this and I steeled myself from his efforts. I deflected him and dashed away, not unlike a cephalopod releasing ink to escape danger. I flung myself into the Void, knowing he could not follow me there.

Raziel, the keeper of secrets, was a known liar. It was also true that he kept things in his Book of Secrets that not even the Creator knew. The truth was, I did not know what he knew. I did not know if he already knew about Wendy. It seemed dangerous that he even knew her name at all. I did not know how much he knew about Noah, or how much I had meddled and experimented in his ancestry. I did not know if Raziel knew about any or all of my personal pet projects.

I knew he could be dangerous. The best course of action seemed to stay away. Raziel possessed the power to charm and hypnotize his brothers, including me. I did not want to be hypnotized into agreeing to be consumed, or anything else that he perhaps had in mind. Since Raziel was not truly counted among the fallen, he had access to troves of information and influences that I did not have.

It did not bode well to have his attention since he was a mild threat. I also did not want to ask Azazel for help. I still had a mission to follow through, and it would be just like Raziel to worm his way in to either sabotage my mission or simply take it for himself.

I decided to remain in the Void and contemplate my standing.