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Xan has not said a word for a long time as Jemel reads, but, at this, he stands, stretches and walks over to the table where Jemel is hunched over a pile of books. He touches Jemel on the shoulder. “Baraboo, please, you must stop now. Come and eat. Rest with me. Let me take you to bed.”

Jemel looks up at Xan. Even with his tired eyes, Xan looks beautiful, dark skin kissed by light from the fire, dancing highlights over his cheekbones. “To bed? That will not involve rest,” he says.

“Perhaps not,” Xan says darkly, “but certainly relaxation. Does your head hurt?” His fingertips find Jemel’s temples, the sweet touch makes Jemel groan with pleasure.

But he cannot stop looking at all the books on the table. More than three quarters of them are yet unread.

Jemel is reading every book he can find in this place about Azurian history and the history of the Amber Forest and the Bellator. He is sure this vast library must have something that can help them. Ur-Durik dwelt here. Sarelik Darek was here when he met Ur-Durik.

Of course it does not help his progress, or his aching head, that all the books are in Ambolk. A language he knows but has had little chance to practice. Although he felt that way about Plumian a moon’s turn ago.

Plumian. For Xan. His lover. His love. He needs to find a way to destroy this demon before it takes everything, before it takes away the life Jemel has only just found for himself.

The thief will be the traitor.

Or, more precisely, the thief will be the one who changes Ur-Durik’s plans. But had that been Lukas killing Selim, surely a traitorous act, or was there more? Now Lukas holds the demon inside him.

Ur-Durik had moved every piece precisely so he could possess Selim and use him to open the vault and destroy the world. But Lukas had upended his plans. Ur-Durik had taken Atticul instead and faced a struggle to get what he wanted. Some of Atticul’s actions had certainly not been the work of Ur-Durik. Atticul had caused chaos for the demon, weakened and delayed him. Given them time. Enough time that they had been able to enact the ritual to kill Atticul, but it had not been enough. The demon is inside Lukas, fighting to get control of him so he will open the vault.

What more can Jemel do? There must be more. What did Pershel understand from what she read on Lyr? There must have been more than simply the fact that the King of the Earth had survived. Doroth had killed her for it. What did she know?

Jemel is sure she knew the true way to destroy the demon. But he has read every word that is written on Lyr again and he has found nothing more.

“I can’t,” Jemel says, wishing it was not so as he brushes Xan’s hands away from his forehead. He looks up at Xan. He feels so torn inside despite his protests. He needs to find a way to solve this, for the world and for himself, but if Xan asks him to come to bed again, he isn’t sure he will find the will to refuse. He’s staring into Xan’s eyes when the door to the library opens. It is Princess Ferra, gently holding the arm of the Immurite, his mother. Yaelin, the priestess mother of Harok follows behind them.

“There he is, see,” Ferra says gently.

The Immurite smiles and pulls away from Ferra, shuffling across the library to Jemel. Xan steps back so she can pull Jemel into an embrace.

Some of the stress and tension seems to melt away from Jemel when he’s in his mother’s arms. Even the scent of her calms him. He finds tears prickling his eyes. He has his mother, his lover, his brothers, a whole family. And he will lose it all when Ur-Durik opens the vault.

“She has been sleeping,” Ferra says to Jemel. “When she woke she was asking for you. It is strange for her to be outside the chamber, stranger still to be here.”

The Immurite sinks to her knees before Jemel. She takes his hand and kisses the back of it. “Jemel,” she says, “Jemel, my sweet son. I have something I must tell you. I dreamt of you while I rested. I slept and a vision came to me. It is time to tell you all I know.”

Jemel keeps his hands in hers and lowers himself onto his knees before her, “A vision? What do you know? Is it about Ur-Durik?”

The Immurite gives a small nod. “The Immurites have visions in prophetic dreams. Since the days of Ferra the Blessed. We see things. Doroth always encouraged me to tell him of any visions I had of the demon. It was always claimed those visions were sent by Zai. But I am the Immurite, privy to many great secrets. I always knew those visions must come from elsewhere. I knew I had to stay in that cell. I knew it was the only way I could help you.”

“You are one of the holiest pillars of Zai. If your visions were not from Zai, then where?”

“Who knows what they could be called,” the Immurite says, “Here they would be called the Triple God, some call them the Sidusia, the fae call them the Aeons. These powers that sent Perl’s father Batreous his visions, that have guided us all.” She smiles. Her hands clasped Jemel’s tighter. “Jemel, my son, when the Rose Palace fell and I was freed from my cell by Zai Brides as they fled the temple, I came to find you. I found Xan, and he told me you were gone. I did not know what had happened. Xan told me of it on our journey north, struggling with our language and my own shocked state. But I learnt it all. I did not know you were imperilled. That the demon had risen and was trying to destroy you. I have many visions, but the powers did not choose to send me any visions about that.

All they told me was that when the palace fell I needed to get to you. And to your brothers and wait for the moment to tell you the great secret of the Immurites.”

Jemel nods. So his mother did not simply come here to be with him. But what could these strange ancient Gods have sent her to him for. Could she possibly have answers? “What secret?” he asks. His voice sounds shaky.

“How to destroy Ur-Durik,” the Immurite says. The words make Jemel’s breath catch. Could this be true? Really true? His mother is the one that holds this truth.

“Is this secret what Pershel knew?”

The Immurite nods. “She came to me,” The Immurite continues, “ after she had read on Lyr’s body that the demon was rising and that Five Fae Princes would fight it. She was Zai Mother and my sister. She had already suspected the secret that was held in the Immurite’s cell and those writings she read on the Juran simply confirmed it. That I would be the one.”

“You would be, what? What would you be?”

“The great secret of the Immurites. The reason the Order was created. What we were. What we were for. The great magic that had been created in that cell over 200 years. When Ferra the Blessed founded our order, she knew all about what her father encountered in the forest. She was his favoured child, unlike her older half brother Damon, who would become King Damon, whose mother was the Twice Traitor, Ferra was privy to Sarelik’s secrets. All his secrets. But when she learned what her father had done, what Zai truly was, she prayed to the Sidusia and those ancient powers answered her. They led her to the writings of Batreous, hidden in the library beneath the Rose Palace. They told her of an ancient ritual; A great sacrifice, many lives, keeping a secret until it was needed. Something she could disguise as a sacred rite of Zai. To put something right in the heart of the thing Ur-Durik had created to empower him, taking that power and wreaking it into something that could destroy him.”

“And what is that?” Jemel says.