Welcome to Chapter 14.

A quick thanks to my amazing editing team. Your grasp of the English language allows these stories to be what they are. Thank you to the rest of you for your comments, feedback, and high ratings for each chapter as well, not to mention a huge thank you for your participation on the Discord server.

Now, on with the story.

********

I couldn't bring myself to check in with Uri when I arrived back home.

I know I was supposed to, but I was pissed off. More than that, the revelations uncovered in Malaga had seriously knocked my already diminished trust in both him and the organization he represented. The fact that he wanted me to report to him only, a concept that seemed perfectly reasonable when I was just looking for a mole, suddenly sounded very suspicious based on everything I had learned. My mood was hovering somewhere between dark and brooding and downright homicidal.

Meeting Uri in my current demeanor had a high probability of turning ugly.

I had no doubt he would be waiting. There was no question that, despite his resistance to my plan of action, he was as interested in its results. I didn't think he was pacing the floors waiting for me to get in touch, and I seriously doubted he was even remotely concerned about my welfare. I simply had the information that he wanted. Not that I cared; neither he, nor anyone else in the Conclave, would be getting it until they answered my questions to my satisfaction. That was not going to be a small ask.

What I needed was time to process. Time to let this new information percolate and settle. Time to come up with a plan.

Of course, life never quite works out that way.

"Pete! Where the fuck have you been??" Charlotte shrieked as I walked through my apartment door. Leaping to her feet from her place on the sofa, hurtling across the room, and flinging her arms around me.

As inordinately happy as I had always been to see her, my mood had me fighting the urge to ask what she was doing here. The answer was obvious. I hadn't seen my strawberry-blonde friend since the morning after the party, I hadn't messaged her more than a handful of times since then, and as soon as I had left the country, I had turned my phone off. As far as she was concerned, I had disappeared from the face of the earth. As for how she got in, she was an Evo. The lock on my front door would barely have slowed her down.

It was instinct, it was a product of my absolute distrust, but I quickly scanned through her mind as secretly as possible. There was nothing. No signs of deception, no ulterior motives, only genuine concern. She was worried about me. It had started a few days ago; she had called, only to be repeatedly put through to my voicemail. It had steadily grown since then.

The person you are calling is not available...

After days of unread messages and dozens of times hearing that phrase down the phone, she had grown to hate that synthetic woman's voice. She had dropped subtle questions to Becky and Philippa whilst at work. Neither of them knew about our friendship, so she couldn't outright ask them about me, and she was absolutely certain they didn't know what had happened at the party. But they hadn't heard from me either. In an act akin to desperation, she had just come over. When I hadn't answered the door, she had feared the worst. She had let herself in, honestly expecting to find my lifeless body hanging by the neck from the rafters.

She had never experienced a bonding herself, but she had heard the tales of one half of a bonding pair passing away, even through natural causes, and the other being so consumed with grief that they had committed suicide just to escape a pain that they knew would never ease. Human love was a powerful force, but an Evo bond was unbreakable. Except by death. It didn't just leave an Evo with a broken, irreparable heart; it could shatter their minds as well. Two joined cities suddenly being ripped apart, two halves of a whole being separated forever. It was enough to make even the strongest of characters choose death over the indescribable pain.

Finding my apartment empty, she had just sat and let the panic overtake her. She had scanned for me, as far as her abilities would reach. Hundreds, thousands of miles worth of minds, just looking for mine. That activity was strictly forbidden in the Sect. As far as they were aware, that was the easiest way to attract Inquisitor attention. It wasn't, I had stood in a room with 200 of them and scanned them all from a few feet away, and none of them had noticed a thing. It had taken an extraordinary amount of power for them to acknowledge my presence. Besides, she wouldn't have found me if I had been in the next room; I had been blocking since I left the country. She hadn't known that and had taken the risk anyway.

I felt the tension, the anger, the mistrust, and the suspicion melting away as I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her into me.

"Where have you been?" She repeated, her voice quivering slightly in relief. I could feel her heart racing through her chest as it pressed into mine. Charlotte loved me; she absolutely, unquestioningly loved me. Not in a romantic way, not in a sexual way, but it was a deep, profound friendship, the sort that made me as close to her as family. The thought of anything happening to me was too much for her to bear.

"I... It's a long story," I sighed back. "I'm happy to see you."

"Pete, please," The relief was starting to erode the adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins, and her tears were starting to wet my shirt as she trembled in my arms. "What is going on? It feels like I'm losing you."

"You're not losing me," I said softly. "I love you. You are all I have."

"I love you, too," she sobbed, pulling me closer. "Please talk to me."

"I want to, but... It's a lot."

"Tell me, please. I need to know what is going on. I need to know you are okay."

I took a deep breath and nodded, relaxing my arms around her and letting one of my hands take hers. "Okay," I said, turning her back toward the sofa. "But you are going to want to sit down for this."

********

I showed her everything.

I showed her the conclave, I showed her the meeting, I showed her Uri's direction to go to Malaga, I showed her my computer and how I had used it to find and track Inquisitors. I showed her the city, I showed her the office, the Inquisitors there, and I showed her what Miguel had told me. Then I showed her the Villa, the flames - and the note.

I showed her everything.... Six times.

The shock, the confusion, the suspicion, and the anger washed over her face in waves. Between each replay, she would sit in silence, frowning at the floor as her thoughts bounced around her head. She would open her mouth to say something, to ask something, to make an observation based on her own knowledge of Evo history, only for another thought to come along and silence it. Her mouth would close again before she would ask for me to show her one more time.

I had expected her to come to the defense of the Sect, railing against the idea that they had intentionally started the War of American Independence. Or that they had been clueless about their real assailants during the War of 1812 when they had been hunted down by their former brethren. But she said nothing. Miguel's revelations had silenced any ability to defend her order, and they had rocked her to her core.

I could tell, just by the look on her face, that she had retreated into her equivalent of my bunker if only to allow the time-dilation properties of her mind to give her time to think. I had done plenty of that myself in the eighteen hours since I had stood outside that burning Villa.

I had Jeeves and the computer scan every square inch of land around me during my entire journey home to make sure that not a single Inquisitor was following me. Friend or foe, anyone caught trying would have been subjected to the full measure of my wrath. But both of them had come up empty, and I had made it home without issue. Still, an extraordinarily high proportion of that travel time had been spent pacing around my bunker, processing what had been said and trying, in vain, to come up with my next step.

It was a few hours before I dared to break the silence.

"So, what do you think?"

There was a long pause. "He wasn't lying, was he," she said without really asking the question. "It all sounds so... so obscene. Yet the more I think about it, the more sense it makes."

"What do you mean?"

She took another deep breath. "Before the party, I've never really known anyone who has been attacked by the Inquisition. I've known of a few people, people I had known in passing, or people I had met once or twice while I was considering Conclave membership, but never anyone personally. There never seemed to be any sense to their deaths. They were as careful with their powers as everybody else; they kept their heads down. They were... small fish. At the same time, I know of people who have been wildly, dangerously careless with the use of their abilities. Recklessly so. Yet they are alive and well. If we were at war with the Inquisition, they wouldn't kill small fish. They would use them to find bigger ones. I'm not a soldier, but that is simple intelligence gathering. That is really basic-level stuff, yet they weren't doing that. From the outside, it always seemed like they were stumbling around in the dark. The Inquisition was a threat, a dangerous one, but it always seemed to me like their finding one of us was a question of luck, which makes their killing of insignificant Evos make even less sense."

I nodded but let her carry on.

"Then there is the history of the Sect," she continued. "There aren't many left now who were still alive back then; my grandmother is one of them, she is almost 300 years old, but anytime she is ever asked about the Schism or the Conclave's attacks on the Sect, she clams up. None of them want to talk about it, not with any amount of specificity anyway. The Sect starting that war, costing all those lives, does explain quite a lot. The same goes for the Conclave attacks on us. The first thing I told you about fighting is that it takes a lot for one Evo to kill another; I always wondered how those attacks were stopped. It was just like, one day, they gave up. Marco said that it was a Rogue faction and the Conclave stopped them, which made a little more sense, but the same flaw is still in that logic; it is still one Evo killing another. But the Inquisitors doing it, especially with Conclave help...."

"Explains a lot more," I finished for her.

"Yeah." She finally looked up from the floor and into my eyes. "But if that is true...."

"Then the rest of it may be true as well. That would mean that the Inquisition hasn't been responsible for more than a handful of deaths in the last two centuries, and even those were authorized, maybe even aided, by the Conclave."

"Which begs the question, who the fuck is Reniard Montreaux, and why the fuck did he attack you at the party?" Neither of us could even begin to answer. "Pete, this is beyond huge. This is the sort of information that could bring down the Conclave, maybe even the Sect as well. This is societal shift sort of stuff."

"This is the sort of thing that people kill for," I added, leveling my stare at her. The gulp of her throat told me she understood the implication. We were in danger just for knowing what we knew. And we had no idea who we were in danger from.

"We need to go to see the elders," She finally said after another long pause and a deep breath. She waited for my inevitable dubious look. "I know, but I have known them all my life. I trust them."

I sighed again; although I could concede that they seemed the least guilty out of everyone, so far, I still didn't have enough information to count them as either allies or enemies. The simple fact was that I trusted nobody, with the exception of Charlotte. The Sect was definitely included. However, in the absence of a better idea, I agreed.

"C'mon, I'll take you," she smiled and stood, holding out her hand to help me up.

"What? Now?" I arched an eyebrow yet took her hand regardless.

"Do you have something better to do?"

"I mean, I was hoping for a shower and something to eat."

She rolled her eyes but smiled. "Okay, fine. Wash the stink off you, then we go. We can pick up food on the way."

********

The Sect, Charlotte explained to me as I groaned around a mouthful of burger, has stayed in the US up until the 1960s. But with the racial inequalities, the riots, and strife on the streets over civil rights and the whole Vietnam thing, with many of their members being of African American decent, the whole order packed up their shit and moved to - of all places - the UK. Their reasoning was that the Inquisition had confined itself mainly to the continent, and the Conclave had a presence pretty much everywhere, so the US was no more or less safe, by the mid-twentieth century, as anywhere else. Geographical proximity was seen as a net benefit to the Sect. Keeping everyone close ensured security. But with their Order spread all across the States, and with no consensus able to be reached on who moved and who didn't, who moved to which cities, and so on, it was decided, and agreed, that everyone should relocate.

Plus, compared to the area the Sect was spread over, Britain was tiny.

Although she had mentioned they were all in the UK when she had first told me about them, Miguel's revelation that they had started the Revolutionary War to escape Britain and the Conclave was one of those details that had flown under the radar in my mind. At least compared to everything else.

Even still, knowing that they were in the country, knowing that they couldn't have been far away, I was surprised when less than 20 minutes after leaving the Queen's Head, we pulled up outside the gates of a large, gated, elaborate stately home.

Sure! The Conclave meets in backwater labor clubs, and the Sect have fucking mansions. Who is trying to keep the low profile here? Why does this place reek of people who know they don't have to worry about being discovered?

I mean, seriously! This place was fucking Huge. I had been to Longleat manor and Blenheim Palace as part of school trips like a lot of other kids when I was younger, this may not have quite rivaled them, but it was damn close. Well, in terms of the scale of the building, anyway. Longleat had grounds big enough to fit a safari park in it. Blenheim was even bigger. This place - I had no idea of the name - probably sat on grounds of about three-quarters of a square mile. Privacy was not going to be an issue here.

I was less surprised when the gates seemed to open of their own accord before the car came to a stop outside them. I'm sure the security of this place would have sensed Charlotte coming for quite some time before we actually arrived. I was a little more curious about what they would think of the tense, mistrustful ball of burning anger that was sitting in the car with her. If they could sense her, they sure as shit would be able to sense me.

Charlotte's car pulled to a stop at the top of a curved, gravel driveway outside a pillared, alcoved entryway sitting atop three stone steps. Gargoyles stood on guard from the parapets of the manor, keeping watch over the driveway as the pair of us climbed out of the car. They must have been doing a pretty decent job because we hadn't taken more than a few steps toward the door when it opened, and a woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties with platinum blonde hair stepped through it.

"Charlotte, darrrling." she stretched out the last word in a way that made my skin crawl. Like one of those over-posh cretins that you see on bad TV shows. You know the type, the ones who try to appear to be rich and upper-class assholes if only to be seen as rich and upper-class. "It is always so lovely to see you."

"Hello, Margaret," Charlotte said as she flashed a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. The two women embraced and performed that ridiculous little ritual where they pretended to kiss each other's cheeks without their lips actually touching skin. I looked on with an arched eyebrow. "This is Pete," Charlotte finished after the little dance was complete. "He was the one I told you about."

"Ah, yes, Mr. Roberts," Margaret smiled politely. "It is very nice to meet you. The council of elders does not meet very often. You should feel honored that they have chosen to meet for you." There was a challenge in her voice or at least a hint of disapproval. Unfortunately for her, her opinion of me meant absolutely nothing to me.

I gave my best impression of a polite smile back, one that didn't only make no attempt to reach my own eyes but seemed to be actively avoiding them. I said nothing.

"Hmmmm," she frowned. "Well, I should show you to the drawing room. The council is waiting for you."

I nodded and gestured an arm toward the door, allowing her to go first. I flashed a glance to Charlotte, who was watching me with an amused-looking smirk on her face. She gave me a little nudge with her elbow as we fell in beside each other, a few steps behind Margaret.

Jesus, this woman even walks like she is looking down her nose at something.

After a few twists and turns down a mahogany-lined hallway, we approached a set of carved, ornate, and equally mahogany doors. Margaret pushed them both open and swept into the room, flashed her gaze around the group of men and women sitting at a large table, and then cleared her throat despite them all already looking at her. It was as if she was expecting credit for simply walking us this far.

"Ah, Mr. Roberts, thank you for agreeing to meet with us," One of the men said as he stood. The suit he was wearing looked like it was worth more than most people's houses. His thinning white hair was swept back on his scalp and perfectly groomed. I had no idea how old the man actually was; he was certainly an Evo - meaning he could realistically be any age - but he looked to be at least in his late sixties. Not only was he an Evo, but a powerful one at that; all of the people in the room were. They may not be anywhere near my power levels, but none of them were too far off from being able to give Uri a run for his money. "Thank you, Margaret," He finished, giving the woman a cursory glance.

The woman nodded deeply, almost a bow, before turning to Charlotte. "Come along, dear," she gave one of those hollow smiles.

"She stays," The man said, leaving no mistake as to who was in charge. Margaret gave him a look like this was the most offensive thing she had ever heard. Like the elder had run over her cat and then slapped her across the face for making a mess of his tires.

"But..." she tried to speak, but another glance from the elder was enough to silence her words in her mouth. It was not like he was being harsh, or rude, or even condescending. He was simply speaking. Margaret, on the other hand, seemed to have a much higher opinion of her own importance than reality dictated, and if she wasn't important, then the likes of Charlotte being more important than her was just too much to stomach. She huffed, turned, and stormed out of the room. I turned back to the man as he approached me, holding out his hand.

"Do you know the historical origins of a handshake?" He asked as he stepped closer. "It was a sign of trust, a gesture to show that you were not armed, or if you were, that you had no intention of using your weapon. Of course, modern times have rendered the sentiment of that act meaningless, but I am always intrigued by which traditions are lost to history and which ones endure. To us, though, it means something different. You are aware, by now, that if you take my hand, there will be no secrets between us, you will be granting me access to the deepest parts of your mind, and I will be offering the same trust to you."

I looked at his hand. The simple, unmistakable truth was that I didn't trust him. I didn't trust anybody. My eyes flicked hesitantly up to Charlotte. She smiled and nodded as the memory of her voice echoed through my mind.

I have known them all my life. I trust them.

With a deep breath, I reached out and took his hand. As soon as I did, existence melted away.

********

I blinked as I looked around. With the exception of the Conclave's cathedral, I had only ever materialized into the mindscape in one of two places. Either inside my city or just outside it in the lush, green meadow. Charlottes had been the only other city I had been in; technically, you could say I had been inside Rhodri's during the duel at the party, but I had literally been only a few feet inside his walls and was kind of busy at the time. I wasn't sure that counted. This, however, was very, very different.

I stared in wide-eyed wonder as I looked around the scene before me, probably looking just as awe-struck as most people did when they first saw my city. Charlotte, looking equally shocked, slid up next to me and slipped her hand reassuringly next to mine. Of all the things around me, her presence with me in this place was the least surprising thing about it.

"I didn't expect him to bring you here," She whispered to me. "I don't think I've even heard of an outsider being allowed here.

Buildings, all of them looking like they had been pulled out of the mid-1700s, stretched for as far as the eye could see. Even compared to my city, this place was enormous. Yet I could tell it wasn't a city. We were still in the mindscape, or at least a version of it. The Conclave had their cathedral; the Sect had this. There were no walls, no functional buildings like the palace or the library, and there were no ghosts - the phantom-like representations of people who had made an impact on a person's life that inhabited a city. Between the buildings, around the simple cobblestone streets that intersect them, was something that I suddenly realized I had never seen in a city before, not even my own. Grass.

The meadow of the mindscape was a black canvas. A lush and verdant field on which anything could be built, battles could be fought, or love could be made. But once inside a city, everything had a function. There was absolutely zero wasted space. Even in my own city, with its broad, tree-lined avenues separating tall and expansive apartment blocks, all of it had a function. The streets represented travel around my mind. The breadth of a street represented its capacity to carry information. The apartment blocks were placeholders for my mind's ability to grow. Plazas were a physical manifestation of the core memories around which my psyche had developed. It was grand, it was imposing, it was on a scale that dropped the jaws of almost everyone who had seen it. Yet all of it was functional.

This was different. I had never worked out what the trees in my city represented. Perhaps they were purely decorative, or maybe they suited a purpose, but this place seemed to have been built with decoration and wide, open spaces as part of its makeup.

Each building seemed to be on its own plot of land. Each plot of land was filled with decorative trees and well-manicured flower beds. Each blossom, every tree, and every blade of grass felt vibrant and alive. Like each one was a node on a massive synaptic web.

Between the buildings and the gardens and the flowers, there were people.

Lots and lots of people

Hundreds of them.

What was more, I could immediately tell that they were all real people, real minds, just as I could at the party. Those soft caresses of curious minds reaching out to investigate my own, and mine reaching out to theirs.

"Welcome to the Sect," the man said, stepping in from behind me. "The Conclave prides themselves on power; it is how they define their place, not only within the Order but in the world. Here, we don't measure the strength of the individual but of the community as a whole. Each one of us adds something to the collective, and as such, the collective..." he gestured his arm out to the scene around us, "...represents each one of us. This place is part of all of us, and, as such, each of us gives a part of ourselves to it."

I turned my head to look at him. His face was smiling softly with pride at what they had built. Looking the other way, I found Charlotte's face smiling happily as her hand gave mine the softest of squeezes. Looking back ahead, I started to notice that, just like it had in the Conclave, my presence had been noticed, and a multitude of faces all turned to look at me. Warm, smiling, happy faces contrasted the memory of nervous curiosity that had washed through the Cathedral at my arrival a week earlier.

"Please, come with us to the Great Hall," The man said, directing me to a large central structure a little way ahead of us, "The council are ready for us to join them there." I nodded and allowed him to lead the way.

There was an enormous difference in the way that the other people within this township reacted to me as I passed compared to how the lower ranks of the Conclave had. During the party and while at the Cathedral, every tendril that stroked at my city walls was trying to measure me, working on trying to gain a full appreciation of the size of my walls and the full extent of my power. The only exception had been Faye. At no point had Faye felt like she was even remotely interested in how powerful I was, except indirectly when she had been cheering me on during the duel with Rhodri? She had been interested in me.

These people, although their interest was nowhere near as intimate, were very similar in their intent. The measure of my power was little more than a curiosity to them. What really mattered to the masses of Sect members was my character, who I was as a man and as an Evo.

It was a good question, one that I had never really thought to ask myself before. At that moment, walking through those streets, I was a ball of paranoid, vengeful, sorrowful rage. I had been lied to, manipulated, and robbed of the love of my life. I was the hunter and the butcher of Inquisitors, I was the man who would destroy the Conclave, obliterate the Inquisition and bring down the Sect with less than a moment's hesitation if it meant avenging my Faye. Yet, at the same time, I knew that this is not who I wanted to be, certainly not how I would want to be seen, and not the man that Faye would have wanted me to become.

Despite that, I had chosen my path and would see it through to its end. I would avoid violence if I could, but I would meet it with the full weight of force I could muster if I could not.

They say it is better to be on the right side of the devil than to be in his way...

Perhaps this was what the Sect was trying to do.

The Great Hall was as aesthetically muted and non-expressive as the rest of the buildings in the collective. As wondrous and beautiful as the collective was, the architecture was basic at best. The township was not filled with a city's normal buildings, just homes, and yet they seemed to be built with function over fashion in mind. Four walls, a roof, a few windows, and a door. That was it. The Great Hall followed the same logic; it was just bigger. It was hard to reconcile the splendor and grandeur of the mansion in the real world with the understated nature of all the buildings in the Sect's home. Out front, however, was an elaborate, carved white-marble statue. Three naked cherubs, their eyes to the sky, spurting water into the air from their lips. The three streams fell gently back into the fountain's base. If the township could be said to have a center, the fountain, rather than the Great Hall, was it.

The three of us walked past it, listening to the tinkling splashes of the water hitting the pool, before we climbed the few steps and into the Great Hall. Inside, a large oval wooden table, easily large enough to fit twenty people, sat in the center of a large room. Upper balconies hung over each side of the room, allowing people in the galleries to observe the proceedings, but these looked to be empty today. Around the table were large, cushioned wooden chairs, and all but three of them were occupied. Men and women, none of them appearing - outwardly at least - to be under the age of fifty, all stood from their chairs as we entered. Although I had no idea who these people were as individuals, I deduced that these were the Sect elders.

I could also tell that they were not standing as a sign of respect to the man who had led us in, nor to the relatively low-ranked Charlotte. They were standing as a welcome to me.

The man took his seat at the head of the table, Charlotte taking the empty seat to his right while I took the only remaining option on his left. "Please, Mr. Roberts, place your hands on the table." The man said with a friendly and warm smile. I looked over to Charlotte, who already had the palms of her hands resting on the oaken tabletop. I rested my hands on the surface and watched as the rest of the council moved in front of their seats and did the same.

A wash of power ran over me, nothing - I instinctively knew - to be worried about; it was just unexpected. But in half a heartbeat, I suddenly knew everything I needed to know about every member of the council. Likewise, they knew everything they needed to know about me. Nothing in-depth, they didn't have access to my memories, nor could they bypass my defenses, but they knew enough to understand who I was... just like I could understand that, at least on the surface, I was among friends.

The man who had led us in was called Arthur; he was the declared leader of the council and its spokesman. Yet he was also one of the newest members, only having served on it for the past seven years. More than that, he was by far the youngest council member at only - only - ninety-eight years young. The oldest and longest-serving member of the council was an honor that belonged to a woman named Agatha. She had been an old lady at the time of the Schism and was clocking in at almost 400 years old, and had been one of the primary fighters of the resistance before they had broken away from the Conclave. She had helped to found the Sect after the separation, had been one of the main combatants against the attacks they had assumed came from the Conclave, and had helped to set up the very council on which she now sat. She had served on the board ever since. She had never served as, nor sought the position of, leader of the council.

In no way a guaranteed position; each member was able to be voted off by the rest of the council if they did something disagreeable. Agatha just never had. The man directly across from her, Matthew, was her grandson. Far from being an act of nepotism that earned him his seat, Agatha had actually voted against it, saying that one of them should stand down from their chair if only to avoid even the appearance of favoritism within the Sect leadership. Matthew had taken the place of Charlotte's late grandfather and had been serving for only a year longer than Arthur. Perhaps more apt for this meeting, the man that Arthur had replaced had been killed by an Inquisitor.

"Thank you, Pete," Agatha said as, one by one, the council members absorbed the knowledge about me and opened their eyes. "After Charlotte showed us what happened to you at the party, I would like to be the first to offer my deepest, most heartfelt condolences. We here have all lost at the hands of the Inquisition. It is a pain I would wish on no man." There was a wave of rolling head nods as the other members added their weight to the sentiment.

I nodded my thanks before answering. "I'm not sure that it was."

Agatha tilted her head in confusion. "I do not understand," she said with a frown and briefly wondered if her sympathies had offended me. "Not sure that it was what?"

"I don't think it was at the hands of the Inquisition," I clarified.

A murmur rippled around the table, and a few glances were exchanged between the members.

"What do you mean it wasn't the Inquisition?" Agatha asked with a frown. "You saw them."

"Who else could it be?" someone else said

"I'm not sure we understand what you mean, Pete," It was Arthur who spoke this time.

I flashed a look over to Charlotte. She shook her head at me. "I haven't shown them that yet. They have only seen the party."

"Oh, well, that makes more sense." I'm not sure why I was so surprised. Charlotte had not left my side since showing her Miguel's revelation, and we had come straight here. Perhaps I thought she had shared it with them before the meeting began, but now I could see the flaw in my logic, and none of these people had a clue what I was talking about. I turned back to Arthur. "I think you all have a little catching up to do."

********

There was a look of abject shock on the faces of every council member as they opened their eyes. I had shared everything with them, just like I had with Charlotte. There was silence for a long few minutes, each of them processing, through the prisms of their own experiences, what they had learned. More than a few of them could still remember the fighting of the War of 1812; almost all of them had known, or had been related to, people who had been lost. But not one of them had ever considered that those attacks had not been carried out by the Conclave, let alone entertained the idea that the Conclave had actually fought ferociously hard to protect them. They had known these people from before the Schism; they had all been members of the Conclave together. When those familiar faces attacked them, they just put two and two together and expected to come up with four. It had never even occurred to them that there had been another split.

The peace accords signed in Philadelphia was also completely new information to them. They had no idea. I had wondered, in the time since my time with Miguel, why the Sect was not invited or included in the talks. Now the council was wondering the same thing. But, like me, the most concerning part of the revelations revolved around the supposed ongoing communications between the Conclave and the Inquisition and the implication that at least some of the deaths attributed to the Inquisitors over the past 200 years were, in fact, Conclave sanctioned.

They didn't even know where to start dissecting the former existence of Reinard Montreaux. The general concept of a Royal made sense to them, but the idea that one had gone rogue and was responsible for the attack on the party seemed to only add fuel to the confusion about previous Inquisition attacks.

And also, like me, they didn't even try to convince themselves that Miguel had been lying. They could see as easily as I could that he had been telling the truth.

"So, is it true?" Charlotte was the first to speak. "Did the Sect intentionally start the War of Independence?"

The entire council turned to look at Agatha. The aged lady just sighed and nodded. "It's true. It was a different time, back then, my child. Politics was not what it is now, only the landowners had a vote, and the common man had no say at all. Let alone women. We could see what the country could become, but it would never happen under the yolk of the Conclave controlled British. The war was inevitable. We just lit the fuse before the British were ready. We gave the revolutionaries a fighting chance."

"Then why isn't that part of our history?" Charlotte pressed.

Agatha paused for another long moment. "Nations, especially ones like the UK and the US, alter their own histories to make themselves look better. Britain forgets that they were the ones who invented the concept of the concentration camp during the Boer War, just like they don't teach their children about the crimes committed during their occupation of India. The Americans convinced themselves that they had won World War II with the dropping of the bomb when the use of nuclear weapons had almost nothing to do with Japan's surrender. They surrendered when the Russians invaded Manchuria. They knew they would get better terms from the West. That was it. Russia doesn't teach its children about the Pogroms that were happening in their country decades before Hitler came along, and the Japanese, to this day, refuse to acknowledge the atrocities carried out in Nanking. No society likes to be seen as the bad guy by its own people. We were no different. We were... we were wrong."

Charlotte nodded slowly but remained silent, as did the rest of the elders.

"Pete, Charlotte, the council is going to need some time to discuss this," Arthur finally said. "You have given us a lot to think about."

I nodded, already half expecting something like this, and made to stand up. "Before you leave, Pete...." Agatha said, pulling her aged body from her chair as I did. "Could I have a moment of your time in private?"

"Of course, Councilwoman," I answered after flashing a glance to Charlotte. She smiled and nodded, then left the hall as Agatha directed me over to one corner.

"I truly am sorry about Faye," she started, suddenly looking very somber. "But for more reasons than you know. Genetic inheritance of the Evo gene is rare, but it happens. Faye was my great-great-grand-neice. My sister never joined us during the Schism; she was killed by an Inquisitor a few decades after the split, and I never got to see her again. Faye was her Great Granddaughter."

"I'm... I'm sorry to hear that," I said.

"You haven't been back to your city since the party, have you?" She asked, a sad smile on her face.

I thought about it for a moment. "Actually, no, I haven't. I spent a week in my bunker, but I haven't actually been inside my city."

"You had started the bonding process; you became part of each other. Not completely, but certainly enough."

"Certainly enough for what?" I frowned.

Agatha reached out and took my hand. "Enough for her to be there waiting for you, my child."

********

And that's a wrap for chapter 14.

The plot is thickening; with no idea who he can trust, Pete is muddling and stumbling through the tempest of grief and paranoia with little sense of direction. But his quest to find answers is not far away from bearing fruit.

Thank you for your comments and feedback. It never ceases to amaze me how supportive and receptive the readers of lit can be. I look forward to hearing what you think of this, and my other story - The Island - in the comments or on the Discord Server.

Stay Awesome.

Nova