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Nothing I ought to, until the others are ready.

[ Which won't remotely stop him at all. He looks up at her, musing over where he should start.

With the most shocking fact, clearly. ]

There's something worse than COMPASS here. Something much worse, and we are all in danger from it. We have always been in danger from it.

You are the least comforting person. [ She tells him. Really, she's just trying to process. Worse than COMPASS? She feels like she's suffered enough at COMPASS's hands. What could be worse?

She takes a deep breath and finally asks. ]

What is it?

Clary told me the same thing not two weeks ago. At least I'm consistent.

[ He looks up at her, smiling faintly, and then shrugs. ]

Something I can't pronounce. Apparently, COMPASS made a deal with it, to house their experiment here. This world doesn't belong to COMPASS, it belongs to that other thing.

The informant expired before we could get much more than that. Everything we got will be collated, and shared. Honestly, I didn't think we'd get as much as we did.

[ Expired. He says it so easily. She knows it's a must. All of this has been made necessary. But it sends a chill through her all the same. ]

At least it's something. [ But should they fear this other thing more? Or try to make an ally of it? ]

Was that all you found out?

[ A brief little shake of his head. ]

Apparently, whatever bargain COMPASS made with these entities was dependent on their having a representative here on campus.

[ A beat. ]

The representative we currently have incarcerated, in point of fact. I'm somewhat glad we didn't kill him, now.

The Janitor? [ She sounds a little incredulous. She thought he was just... well actually she didn't know what she thought. No one seemed to think about it. ]

Nikolai... be careful. Remember the last time people did something COMPASS wasn't okay with?

[ Yes, well, speaking of the Janitor. His smile turns grim, and completely humourless. ]

He's not the Janitor, Alina.

He's the Project Head. That's what he's been all along.

What's a Project Head? [ Not that she really needs to ask to know it's nothing good. ]

From what I understand, it means he's COMPASS' representative here, in charge of the day to day management of their experiment on us.

Though, in truth, once we had him, he seemed afraid of us. [ Possibly because Nikolai kept threatening to torture him, even though they had no intention of that. Still. ] I don't think previous Project Heads were anything like that fearful. The last one was killed in battle.

At any rate, that's what he represents. He's no ally of ours. He's been working for them.

Of course. [ She sighs. ] Because anything nice here comes with strings somewhere.

Yes.

[ He props himself up on his elbows. Sleep isn't going to come yet, no matter how much he wants it. His mind is far too active, going over everything he's seen and heard. ]

So it is in most walks of life. But there's a delicate balance here. The cultist we took prisoner spoke of a veil, protecting us from his masters. He implied they'd been able to break through it, and spirit us away.

When we leave this place, Alina, I'm not sure that's the doing of COMPASS at all.

Is it any better? [ She asks. ]

The only way it's better is if we could somehow harness and control that energy. Otherwise we're just someone else's victims.

No.

[ Eyes opening further, he looks up at her. ]

It's worse, much worse.

I had hope that we could ally with them, at first. With enough persuasion. I thought them the lesser of two evils. Now I can't say that for certain at all. My instinct is to ally with neither of them.

No matter how impractical that may be.

[ She shakes her head. ] We couldn't trust them. We couldn't ally with them.

[ She lays her head back down and stares at the ceiling. ] Did you learn anything else?

Two things. The first being rather pertinent.

[ He sighs. ]

The veil they've been breaking through. It seems they don't just want to take us to other worlds, though when they do that, it increases their power.

They want to destroy the veil completely, and with enough time and effort, they believe they can do it. We need to be ready for that, Alina. We need to be ready to fight them.

The sacrifices. [ She nods her head. ] When we first got here, they sacrificed a bunch of us in fire.

I always thought they were working with COMPASS to terrorize us.

No, it would seem not. They and COMPASS seem to be rivals, though they hold a tenuous agreement as to our staying here. But this is their world, Alina. To be frank, it seems that COMPASS are the only thing preventing them from damaging us even more.

[ The strange part about this is, it implies to him that COMPASS, in truth, are the lesser of two evils. But given that COMPASS are his actual kidnappers, that's more than a little difficult to stomach. ]

I wonder if we could pit them against each other... [ She frowns slightly. ] That would be betting that we're that valuable to COMPASS, though.

Let them destroy each other, while we somehow avoid being caught in the middle?

[ He looks up at her with a suspiciously pleased smile. ]

That's a terrible idea. Highly dangerous. But then, you know what I think about bad ideas.

Anything worth doing... [ She smiles slightly. It's a really terrible idea, but what's not terrible here anyway? ]

It was just thoughtless wondering.

[ He reaches his hand up, touching the corner of that smile with the tip of his thumb. ]

No, it wasn't. You're thinking like a strategist, Alina. Like we're back in the war room, planning an impossible war.

[ Making plans that never got fully utilised, thanks to Vasily. Nikolai's smile falters a little, but then he sighs. ]

There's one more thing. The Void that everyone talks about. It's not what we thought. It's part of the planet itself. It's the planet's own atmosphere.

[ She paused briefly as he touched her smile like that. Then her own smile disappeared as she frowned again, thinking about what he said. ]

I thought the Void was around before we came to this city? At least, people talk about it like it was.

I know, I've heard the same.

Or at least I've heard that it was on the ship they used before. Perhaps that ship sailed the oceans of this world. We've never really been clear on that.

The ship was here once. As a casino with games where you could win things. [ She winces. She forgot about that. That was how she got tortured that one time. ]

Maybe it was on this world before. Wherever we are.

You all right?

[ He noticed that wincing, and he studies her face carefully. ]

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