Page 402 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Vasily reaches for one of the journals and opens it to a folded diagram. Names descend in three separate lines before crossing, separating and joining again several generations later.

It looks less like a family tree than strands of hair woven together.

‘Sael, Olek and Elva took turns continuing the lines,’ Vasily explains with a nose wrinkle of disgust. ‘One branch would produce children while the others waited. Later generations crossed back. Sometimes two branches joined. Sometimes all three.’

‘The siblings were… involved?’

‘They had not been blood siblings since the first incarnation, but yes,’ Vasily says. ‘They were much involved. See here, makes a braid.’

‘That’s fucking gross. Are we related then?’ Kade asks.

‘My father says he had withdrawn from the braid for a long time. It had been two centuries for him. He was… I think,’ Vasily says slowly, touching old ink on thin paper, ‘quite lost.’

Mikhail’s handwriting is neat and disciplined at first, but changes over the years. The lines lose their uniformity.

Words are crossed through hard enough to damage the paper.

Whole paragraphs have been aggressively removed.

‘He was angry,’ Kade observes. ‘Becoming distant from them.’

Vasily looks at the photographs. ‘He killed himself one cycle, but he came back. He remembered. It seems inescapable.’

‘Why do they keep finding one another?’ Kade gestures towards the braided generations.

‘I think… maybe they could not let go and something got stuck.’

‘It’s hard to let go of the ones you love,’ Kade muses quietly.

Vasily collects the photographs one by one, aligning their edges before placing them into a careful stack once more. ‘I want my brother back. I want this more than anything.’ Vasily’s voice roughens. ‘But if I cannot save him, then I will at least make sure he dies as himself, not in chains.’

‘That’s fair.’

‘You and I read these so many times together,’ Vasily tells him. ‘I used to have nightmares about it for years after Blaire and I got out.’

‘About what?’

‘About seeing you and Savannah and Roman… possessed. Smiling at me, talking like them.’ Vasily closes the journal. ‘I know this is a good plan. I will do whatever I can, but tomorrow, my friend, we must start to think of how to end this properly. I would not have the children of today fighting our battles twenty years from now.’

‘I understand,’ Kade says gently. ‘But it is tomorrow’s problem.’

‘Yes. And besides,’ Vasily adds with a small smile, ‘today is a good day. I really think things are going to go w—’

Something explodes from beneath the Tower, shaking the foundations.

They both jump up, several journals hitting the floor.

It’s still daylight.

‘That was not my fault!’ Vasily calls out as Kade runs flat out down the stairs, calculating that it’s way too early. There’s no way they’d attack before the sun has set.

‘Control, this is Kade, status report.’

Static tears through his earpiece.

‘Multiple internal detonations,’ Cole answers. Alarms begin screaming throughout the Tower. ‘Lower grid just went dark. We’ve lost visual in the basement, garage and walkables.’

‘External breach?’