Silas didn't read the newspapers. If he had, he would have known that trouble was on its way.
As it was, he was currently deep beneath the ocean's surface, with no opportunity to read anything of the sort. Compared to matters so far removed from his present situation, he much preferred having a chat with the unruly red angel spirit dwelling inside him.
The cabins aboard the Dawn were spacious and comfortable. Silas sat alone on his bunk with his eyes closed, looking as though he were meditating, though in truth he was engaged in conversation with the spirit within.
"If you ask me, that woman is simply coveting whatever is special about your body. She has no intention of helping you advance. She'll bring you back to her lair and slowly work on you until she extracts your secrets."
The red angel spirit reclined at ease within the space inside Silas, yet the words it spoke cut straight to the bone. "And you, naive fool that you are, trust her completely. How utterly stupid."
Its words carried an intangible provocative quality, making it difficult not to react, whether by pushing back or pressing for more.
Silas understood that arguing with it or playing along were both traps set by a hunter, paths of manipulation either way. The right move was to ignore it and steer the conversation somewhere new.
"It seems like you know the secrets inside my body," he said to the spirit.
"Oh? Do I?" Medici paused, then gave a light, easy laugh.
"I recall that when you were surrounded by that tide, you called out a name."
Sasrir. Silas remembered it clearly.
But as a Secrets Suppliant, he knew better than to casually invoke the name of an unknown entity, since doing so could trigger something terrible, much like that so-called Dusk Hermit Society, where calling the name was enough to be detected.
Medici said nothing this time.
"I remember you looked quite panicked in that moment. What's this? Even the great 'God of War' has something to fear?" Silas asked with a smile. "Who is that? The original owner of the tide inside me?"
Medici remained silent and offered no answer.
"What is the nature of that tide?"
"Why did it appear inside me?"
"Say something. Consider it rent for living inside my body."
Silas kept pressing, but the spirit refused to respond. This usually garrulous creature had gone suddenly quiet, as though the secrets surrounding that tide were forbidden territory, too dangerous to name.
"Not willing to answer? Fine, let's talk about something else. How did you die? Were you really captured by the Blood Emperor and turned into the potion he used to ascend to godhood?"
Seeing that it refused to cooperate on that subject, he set it aside for now.
"Alistair Tudor was nothing but an ambitious madman. How could someone like him have possibly caught me on his own?"
Medici finally spoke up, its tone dripping with contempt for the so-called Blood Emperor.
"And yet you were still caught."
"If not for those two idiots dragging me down, there is no way I would have ever ended up in such a state."
"Medici, you were the biggest idiot of all!"
"Your arrogance was the true cause of your death!"
The lingering souls of Soren and Einhorn clearly disagreed, and mouths split open along either side of his cheeks to voice their objections.
"No spine when it matters, petty and nitpicking over trifles, and forever dragging up old grievances. I get it now. You two demigods must have been women before, that's why you're so insufferable."
Medici sneered.
"Shut your mouth! It's revolting enough having to share existence with you even in death."
"It was your showboating that gave those two brothers the opening they needed!"
The three voices bickered without end. Silas sat back and watched with quiet amusement, though one particular phrase suddenly caught his attention.
Two brothers?
So there had been someone else responsible for capturing the three of them?
He had heard the clue, but he didn't ask about it directly, knowing Medici would simply go silent again as it had before.
But the mention of two brothers capable of influencing angels brought to mind the murals he had seen inside the Amorn tomb, where an angel cradled two divine offspring: one dark-haired and dark-eyed, resembling Amorn, and the other golden-haired and golden-eyed, whose identity remained unknown.
To have conspired against an ancient angel... could the masterminds behind it truly have been the children of gods?
Should he try bluffing with Amorn's name?
The thought flickered through his mind and was swiftly suppressed.
Better not. He couldn't be sure yet, and if he threw the name out and it missed, he'd only be showing his hand.
The three souls argued for a while longer before gradually falling quiet.
"Done fighting?" Silas said. "If you are, let me ask you one more thing. The Salvation Rose was your creation, wasn't it? What does your organization have to do with the emergence of the True Creator?"
It was one of the things he most urgently wanted to know. Based on what Blaine had told him at the time, that wretched evil god had come into being because of the Salvation Rose.
So what had the True Creator been like before the Salvation Rose existed? Was it truly a fallen product of the Creator? And what was Medici's connection to those two figures?
He received no answer.
Instead, Medici looked at him with a peculiar expression, somewhere between contempt and something that resembled wistfulness.
"You are not worthy," it said, "to speak of the Lord in my presence."
With that, the red spirit withdrew entirely into its designated space within Silas, and no matter how he called out to it, it did not emerge again.
The negotiation was over.
"Well. That went nowhere again."
Silas ended his meditation, opened his eyes, and rose from the bunk.
Having sat still for so long, his body had grown stiff. He left the cabin and made his way up to the deck.
The daytime sea wind was strong. Silas spotted the Queen Mystic, Bernadette, sitting at the prow, fishing with a peculiar rod whose hook was straight and dangled some distance above the water's surface.
The black cat Luna crouched nearby, eyes fixed ahead with longing.
Waiting for a willing catch?
Once again, Silas sensed something oddly familiar about the Queen, a quality that felt like it belonged to his original world.
There was no doubt in his mind: this had to be the work of her father, Roselle Gustav, his predecessor in crossing over.
"Starting to feel restless, are you? That's just how it is on a ship," the Queen said without turning around.
"Besides, the Dawn is already at full speed. Ordinary vessels can't come close to matching this pace."
Indeed, the massive ship was cutting through the water at a remarkable rate. Standing at the rail and looking out, one could watch the waves sweep backward in a blur, dissolving into hazy, indistinct patterns.
Though that raised a question: if the ship was moving this fast, could she really catch anything?
"Feeling restless is fine. We'll be stopping at a port in another day. That'll give you a chance to stretch your legs."
The Queen's fishing rod snapped taut in an instant. Somehow, a large fish had taken the hook.
Luna's excitement was immediate and vocal.
The Queen reeled it in without effort, smiling as she removed the fish from the hook and tossed it to the black cat.
And the great ship continued to surge ahead.