“Heavenly housekeepers? Who’d have thought it?”
“From what I’ve read, and connecting the dots,” Alexis continues, “Obex started letting the dark energy loose into our realm. Golem Obex was not created to make or hold the Lumina, and all the handling of the darkness broke and twisted him.”
“He’s malfunctioning at our expense.”
“Exactly.”
"As Maximus would say, ruh-roh,” I say quietly.
“Indeed. Amirene sent some of her Lumina into the Earth Realm, hoping a mortal could hold it and use it to combat the dark energy, and pulu?”
I think I know what’s coming. “Yes?”
“You are that mortal. One section of the documents contained dozens and dozens of prophecies. This one stood out like a shining beacon.”
He clears his throat.
“For a thousand years, a thousand seasons of ice or bloom,
The shadows in the room seem to lengthen, and the air grows cold.
a fading Guardian will send her essence to seek its home.
As he speaks, hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It’s Alexis’s voice, but it’s also not.
This mote shall pass through a thousand hearts, leaving mourning mothers in its wake. But onthe final day, in the final hour, the Lumina finds a home for its power.
One human, but not alone, holds the light to restore the realms. The scales tilt in either way, waiting for fate to have her say.”
Alexis blinks several times, still looking a little green.
“That was highly odd, like the gryphon was speaking through my human form.”
“Does your gryphon know what our next steps are?” I ask, then an idea occurs to me. “Maybe we can transfer the Lumina to you? You’d do a way better job than me as this whole savior thing. I’m such an ordinary person with a track record of disasters.”
Alexis pulls me into his arms. “You don’t see yourself as I do, pulu. I wish you could. You are made to carry the Lumina because you are already so perfectly full of light and goodness. Without you being so incredibly special, the Lumina would never have found its home in you. You, my dearest Theo, are the one. Only you.”
“But it’s all so terrifying.”
“It is, but remember you are not alone in this. You have me, Ludo and Donavon ready to lay down our lives for you. Max is team-Theo as well.”
I lean back into him, trying to take comfort in his words, but feeling so sad that Wes is not listed as one of my team members.
Still, nothing to be done about it at the moment. We just have to keep working.
Huh, something occurs to me. “Can you translate what Professor Amos was talking about now?”
“One moment, pulu, sorry.” Alexis has gone really pale, and now he sways, eyes drooping.
“Are you sick?”
“The shift was challenging.” He grits his teeth as he talks. “But I’m fine.”
He’s not. I can tell he’s in real pain. Why? Cosmo, Ludo and Donovan weren’t in agony after their first shifts.
Even as I’m thinking that, Alexis slides sideways off the small sofa and collapses onto the floor with a grunt.
“Lexi?” As I drop to my knees beside him, the sound of the library door opening has me leaping up again.
