Page 88 of The City Of Fractured Memory

I huff. “Oh, go get another catchphrase will you?”

Riven’s eyes dart between me and Quill, his brows rising into his hairline as he watches our exchange. “How long have you had him?”

I wave my hand dismissively. “Years, I don’t know.”

“And you never wondered why he has sentience?”

I shrug. “Well yeah, but it seemed rude to ask.”

“Octavia…” Riven runs a hand through his hair, sighing heavily before pointing at Quill. “He is the reason I killed the librarian.”

I flinch at the memory. “You’re—you’re saying he had something to do with Quill?”

He nods, his jaw tensing as he studies the pen. “He was an alchemist. Yellow hair, remember? He worked with my father, he was responsible for all sorts of awful experiments on Echofae slaves, one of which was binding their souls to inanimate fucking objects.”

I look between him and Quill, my eyes widening in horror. “Cyril did that to him? That’s why you killed him?”

“What, did you think I just killed him for fun?”

“Well…yeah. Kind of,” I admit with a grimace.

He rubs his hands over his face in exasperation. “This isn’t the time or place for this. Tell me what happened when you were digging around in that seer’s memories.”

I gulp, the tension between us well and truly broken as panic starts to leach back into my veins. His eyes soften as he watches me, stepping forward to cup my cheek.

“Tell me.”

I swallow. “You won’t believe me.”

He breaks out into that infuriating smirk. “I doubt that.”

I turn away from his grasp and start pacing, pawing at my hood as I try to think of a way to tell him about my Shadow without sounding like I’m clinically insane…

Though the jury’s still out on that.

“How long have you seen him? The man in your head? Does he talk to you?”

I stop dead, my blood running cold as I slowly turn to face him. “You…you know?” I breathe.

He nods slowly. “The other day, you snapped at me, asked me why I kept looking over your shoulder…”

I gasp, clapping a hand over my mouth as I nearly lose control of my legs. “You can see him?”

“In a way, yes.”

I shake my head in denial. He can’t be real, he can’t. “I—I—No. It’s a condition I have—this can’t–”

This is officially too much.

He holds up a hand and I silence my rambling. “You’re not the only one who was part of a failed ritual, Octavia.”

My mind spins, my ears ringing. “What are you saying?”

“We were both used as potential vessels for the Faceless God,” he says softly, like he’s trying not to spook me. “Rituals were performed on all of us, including those dead seers I assume, in an attempt to break the God free of the Veil, and each time it failed. But, a tiny part managed to get through each time, lingering with all of us.”

I shake my head, furious. “No. No. You can’t be serious–”

“I am,” he says firmly. “A part of him lives within you. Within everyone in this room. I think those seers were trial runs of a sort. If the ritual were to succeed, and someone became the true vessel for the Faceless God to live amongst us once again, it would put everyone in this city in jeopardy.”