EMMA
Silence in the Roche-Aegis tower wasn't empty; it was pressurized. The air felt heavy, like the atmosphere at the bottom of an ocean I hadn't realized I was drowning in. Gabriel was still on his knees, his forehead pressed against the polished marble floor. The sight of him—this apex predator, this man who had faced down an inquisition without blinking—shaking in the presence of the figure before us made the silver in my veins turn to ice.
The man who called himself the "real" Julian didn't look like a god. He looked like an architect who had seen too many sunrises. He wore a suit of charcoal wool that seemed to shift between gray and obsidian, and his hands were stained with what looked like drafting ink. But his eyes... they weren't eyes. They were apertures into a cold, celestial
