Part 55 (2/2)
Was that accurate?
Somehoas all connected, like a Rubik's Cube, but whatever it meant, I couldn't solve it It was too coet it all to line up
Manon said, ”Not to worry, Halsey Rookure this out Now, in fact”
She gathered up all of Laurinaitis's carrot sticks, putting them back on his plate, and said, ”The answer is The Fifth of Fourth”
Chapter 10 The Fifth of Fourth
The torchlight flickered over us, al out to snuff it
”You knohat this looks like, don't you?” said Manon ”Ushere Like an insurrection The Lenoir and the Master House will be quite interested to knoe're doing herequite interested, indeed”
”We can no longer be disinterested,” said Asher ”The war is coabout supernaturals, Halsey, is there is always soeous speculation: Oh, he ic, no doubt We judge each other by our Marks Which reminds me”
She pulled back her sleeve and showed me hers ”So why I think I should talk in spirals,” she said
It was Insight Underthe length of my arm
”The Last War was a tian, ”and the linesever draere clearer then I have seen the old headlines: Murders, ritualistic killings; a period of crossover, during which the world of fantasy and ic intersects with the world of the ersrecentlyand it was in the news! That has always been our great fear, and the reason we build fortresses! But during the time of the Fifth of Fourth we ca found out”
”But what are Watchtowers?” I said ”What do they do?”
Asher and Laurinaitis grinned ear-to-ear
”It will be tied in a bow Wait for it And get me pen and ink! I'm tired of these carrot sticks!” said Manon
I went, as rapidly as I could, to my domov, and fetched out e, clicking the pen, and proceeded to draw several intricate designs How could I fail to believe in the syn for Adept,” she said ”What you're trying to becoree Not to be confused with the septagram”
She drew the seven-sided star as well
”The septagraic You see it engraved all over Rootten who they are, and think the septagraers Not so,” said Manon
Was this why Lia could craft? Had she found her ic? Was it already there, latent within herself? And if so, did Ballard have it? He must have! They were brother and sister!
I was suddenly anxious to test it out, but he was still laid up, Ballard Being treated I was forbidden fro with hiram,” said Manon, ”so it's like a bodywith a Head Or one horn There”
I watched her fill it in
”Now look here Magic split into Three Houses Harcort, Coven, and Ravenseal True, the rest of us possesswas these three Houses, when they split
”Flagrante” She drew the pentagram out in fire, there in the air, where it hovered before us
”Four points, and a fifth, which is spirit, or soul,” she said, pointing to where the head should be
I looked at the SPIRIT , thinking it was the crucial pieceand mentally word-hoarded what she'd just said If I couldn't do rante, I thought
”The Fifth of Fourth is actually a reference to the five elements and how the most important one, aether, , is the one that cannot be seen In essence, it's the ic within us,” said Manon
”You can't see air either Unless it's s,” I said
”But let's look at the other points first You reraure for a huet upset that fire , which points north, ACTUALLY points south You have to flip it, remember? So Fire is south, east Air, west Water, and the north Earth Backwards Like this”
”I suppose it et to the equator the war confused Now fire was this? It looked like Sandor's soul patch
”Interestingly enough, look where spirit resides now,” said Manon, pointing down ”So doo place of the dead Which brings us to the symbol of rebirth
”This symbol ,” said Manon, ”has rebirth inside a delta, which is the sye is of course a direct reference to lycanthropy But specific to shape shi+fters is the idea of their anih The ancients used to believe that This is where spirit comes in The shi+fter has within hiuardian spirit, called a Lare, which is the aether itself Still with me?”
”Sort've”
”Now, repercussion holds that if the animal dies, the shape shi+fter does as well That's not quite true If I am a olf and I shi+ft and am killed, I die If, however,It's called therian exorcism and it's very deadly”
”Even e lose our power to shi+ft, we are still connected with our sangomasunless they are cut from us,” said Laurinaitis
”We can discuss parallaxis et to the Watchtowers It used to be there were crossroads to Rouard, or sentry And these posts were called Watchtowers; and their guards, watchers There were always Four East was Aldebaran, south Regulus, west Antares, and north Foinal Watchers represented the four ele the ritualistic casting of ic circles North, South, East, West Like this: ”So in a sense, the stands for Rome But I had not heard that the Watchers were back Who told you that your parents were Watchtowers?!” said Manon
”Julius Pendderwenn,” I said He hadn't lied to me, had he? Manon looked skeptical
”So far as I know the last of the Watchtoere killed during the purges of the Last War,” she said ”Your parents couldn't've been them It was Lenoir, Halsey, the Dark Lord, and his servants, who destroyed the last Watchtowers, igniting the powder keg, which lit the war
”Everybody died There was a ru up Misguided, foolish Ena
”He h charisma and craft to siphon off from the other houses certain of their up-and-comers, what he called The Fifth of Fourth Aurelia Peril and Electra Goodiefeeder being two notables Some pretty badass Wiccans joined with hiori He wanted outsiders, the ones who felt disenfranchised So naturally his rhetoric found a foothold with the young