"Culex?" Arada excimed. "Is that his name?"

  "That's what he calls himself," Aplin said. "No one knows his real name, and his followers call him their 'Master.'"

  Irgos shifted his position. "So... who is this Culex?" he asked. "How do you know him?"

  Aplin cleared his throat. "For a long time, we lived underground to stay hidden from the jelly monsters. But every time someone of us came above ground to hunt for food, they saw people building a wooden bridge across the Ebros." He gestured at the ceiling, in the dire of the river. "It took at least a few years, but a few months ago they finally fi: their bridge reached the eastern nd of Catsroes. I remember it like yesterday, we all came above ground to greet the newers. A rge group of people approached us. As soon as they were close enough, we could see them more clearly. They were all bald and had their eyes closed. Except for one. A skinny man with long bck curls, who turned out to be the leader of the group."

  Irgos felt chills run down his spihe Master—Culex.

  "We wao greet them at first, but we didn't realize in time that they meant no good for us. Most of them were carrying huge hammers. Some began smashing houses randomly. Others charged at us and crushed our skulls before we even realized what was happening. The rest of us fled in panic, but Culex's men caught up to us. They mowed everyone down without mercy."

  Irgos pced a hand over his mouth. All of a sudden, the same horrific images from Overmore came flooding back.

  "Only a handful of us mao escape underground. We stayed hidden and only came above ground when absolutely necessary. But the lohe days passed, the more of us he captured. He had his followers hidden all over the city, just like today. That's how he wiped us out, one by one."

  "City?" Irgos asked at the unknown word.

  "A big vilge," Aplin expined. "Like Aquinox."

  Arada touched her wound, her face twisting in pain once more. "And what about the w-woman who... this afternoon..." She couldn't find the right words for what they had seen.

  "Riuna was one of us," Aplin said with a sad expression. "Culex's goons had already decimated a lot of our people. But it was a few months ago that our popution dropped from three to two. And today..." He didn't finish the sentence. Sniffling, he raised two fingers, then slowly lowered one. "She was in the forest this afternoon to gather supplies," Aplin tinued. "It all went wrong. Her scream could be heard all the way here, so I came out of the sewer and followed where she was taken. On the square, I hid in an adjat building and waited for the right moment to strike..."

  So that was the 'smoke grenade' a.

  "...But I was too te. I hadn't ted on two other captives." He oward Arada and Irgos. "Before I k, his finger was in her skull. I had to watch her join him and his blind army." He covered his eyes with his hands. "The rest is kn-known."

  A creepy groan escaped from his throat, and he could no longer hold it back. He burst into tears. Arada and Irgos allowed him to grieve the realization of his loss.

  "Yes, about that," Irgos began when Aplin had calmed down again. "How is that even possible? What is it that he does to people that makes their hair fall out?"

  Aplin scratched through his curls with one hand. "I suspect there's something in his blood that makes him stronger, allowing him to exert abnormal amounts of strength. We've also seen several times how he expands his cult. I think his blood tains some sort of disease, and when people e into tact with it, they join him. Whether they want to or not."

  Irgos didn't know that word. "Cult?"

  Aplin sighed at his ck of vocabury. "An anized group of people," he expined, wiping the tears from his red eyes. "Mostly with ill iions."

  Irgos remembered how Culex pricked his finger with the knife before he was about to pierce Arada's skull. "And his blood makes their hair fall out and their eyes close?" he asked.

  Aplin shrugged. "Apparently."

  "But how they see, then?" Arada asked.

  "Simple: they 't. They use their other seo take in the world."

  What? How's that possible?

  Aplin saw his surprised look and shook his head. "I don't kly how it works. Culex's blood shouldn't be uimated. It gives them unusual abilities."

  Irgos took another sip from the water bottle Aplin had given them. It felt strange, sitting safely underground with their savior, yet learning more about the man who had ruiheir entire lives in just two days.

  "About those abilities," Aplin tinued. "Don't ask me how, but he sense people. Presences, I suppose. He knows where people are located at any given moment in the nd."

  Irgos's heart skipped a beat. So it's true that he sense. So that's how he found Overmore.

  "Don't worry," he quickly added. "This space is protected." He gestured toward the ceiling with his hands. "Long ago, during the five-year war from previous tury, all these sewer rooms were designed in such a way to keep radio signals from moving in and out. It was a way to stay hidden for the Asroan spies, they say. It's like aric cage from Fara—uhm... I mean, it uses the energy from the sor panels—devices above ground that turn sunlight to electricity—to create a special force field around the walls of this bunker. Not only does it block various kinds of eleagic radiation, but it also disrupts Culex's ability to sense."

  Arada and Irgos both stared at him as if he eaking an alien nguage.

  "Fet it," Aplin said wheiced their fused looks. "All you have to remember is that he 't sense us here."

  Arada frowned. "If it's true that he only detect us outside of this room... then why didn't Culex notice your presence earlier, when he'd captured us on the square?"

  Aplin paused, looking at the ground. "Uhm..." He waited, as if hesitating about what to reveal. "He 't sense me."

  "Why is that?"

  "That's just... how it is. I don't know why. Otherwise, he would've noticed me long ago."

  Strange.

  "It's just that he knew I must have been hiding somewhere iown. But he couldn't feel exactly where. That's why he interrogated Riuna and, uhm... verted her." His face twisted in pain at her name. "Now that she's on Culex's side, she'll try to help him find me. She'll undoubtedly tell him about the underground bunkers in the sewer."

  Once again, Irgos's heart skipped a beat. Right where we are.

  "Oh, great," Arada said sarcastically. "And I thought we were safe here. It was too good to be true."

  Aplin reassured her. "They won't find us today—the work of tunnels is te. But I expect them to turn the whole sewer upside down. We 't stay here for more than a week."

  Arada shifted. "Ow," she said, feeling her wound again.

  "Let me take a look," said Aplin, sittio her. He peeked uhe bahat doesn't seem good."

  Irgos deliberately looked the other way.

  "This is what I was afraid of," said Aplin. "We'll need extra supplies to help the wound heal faster."

  Arada looked at him with wide eyes. "How?"

  "Herbs. Medial pnts."

  Irghe term. In Overmore, there were also many of these 'wonder pnts,' whose leaves could be made into tea that could make almost any ailment disappear ht. Alexander knew a lot of recipes, and he was known throughout the whole vilge for his pnt-healing skills.

  "We'll have to go above ground," suggested Aplin.

  Arada groaned. "Oh, no. Not again. I really 't—"

  "I wasn't talking about you, Arada. Your brother and I will go. You have to stay here a. I'll give you a sleeping pill so your body rest naturally."

  "And what if Culex and his blind people find me?"

  Aplin stayed silent.

  "We'll be right back," he said eventually. "Promised."

  * * *

  Irgos looked up from below at the dder as Aplin moved the manhole cover aside.

  "Remember, Irgos. From now on, Culex will be able to sense you. We'll have to be extra cautious."

  Irgos nodded in uanding.

  "We do this," said Aplin, poking his head above ground.

  We do this, Irgos repeated to himself in his mind.

  Aplin climbed entirely out of the manhole. "Safe shores, e on."

  As soon as Irgos was above ground, Aplin repced the cover.

  They had goo a sewer exit all the way at the edge of Ebrotown. They stood on a street in the same style as in Tusin. Abandoned, silent, and overtaken by nature. Where the street ended, a small path tinued into the forest.

  Aplin walked towards it. "Here," he said. Irgos followed him.

  "Remember: we do this for Arada," Aplin said. "Theurn back like lightning."

  Irgos nodded. His attention was drawn to a sign at the entrance of the forest. The text had faded but was still readable.

  Ebrodam's Forest, he read. Hiking allowed from suo su.

  "Rules from your Old World," Aplin remarked. "No longer relevant."

  They ehe forest. The path was just wide enough for them to walk side by side.

  Aplin was tall, Irgos noticed. And fident. His spotted clothes and sturdy posture made him someone you wouldn't want to have against you. His rge staff and strange wooden on, or 'crossbow,' as he called it, hung dutifully from his backpack.

  Irgos thought about holin had given Arada a sleep aid in the form of small round white stones. "To rest," he had said. "But it's the herbs that o heal your wound."

  That wasn't a lie. Within five minutes, she was asleep.

  The deeper they went into the forest, the less light reached them. Furthermore, they had been talking in the bunker for so long that it was already dusk. That's lin wao be back as quickly as possible. Irgos couldn't think of anything to say to break the silence. Aplin had given them so muformation that it was too much to process in one go. It was as if the history of the past een years had been crammed into oernoon. The flood disaster, the history of Overmore aown, the jelly monsters, and finally Culex. Every question answered gave rise to three more.

  How was the flood disaster caused? Where do the jelly monsters and Culex e from? What oh is his goal?

  "Ssh," Aplin suddenly said, pulling Irgos out of his daydream. He stopped him with a hand. "Dove."

  Silently, he took his crossbow from his back, pced an arroulled back the meism. He aimed the point upwards, toward a branch of a rge oak. Before Irgos had spotted the bird, he heard the arrow whiz, followed by a soft thud on the ground.

  Aplin rummaged among the bushes at the base of the tree and pulled out the dead dove. "For the supplies," he said. "You never know when we'll ." He ed the dove in a cloth and stuffed it into his backpack.

  Aplin and Irgos tinued walking. Aplin had picked up the pace. Though in July it stayed light after suhat wouldn't st much longer.

  A few mier, the forest began thinning. The path ended and the ground turo sand. The trees disappeared, and the path began to rise, surrounded by tall, yellow grass and hills that resembled dunes. At the top of the hill, Irgos saw why.

  Oher side of the hill, they looked out over a stretch of water so vast it could only be the sea. Beyond the sea, the darkness rose with a half-full moon. Waves gently pped at the shore, and the wind was soft but cool.

  "We're here," Aplin said, walking down the dunes.

  Irgos followed him, but Aplin soon stopped at a cluster of mysterious, unknown pnts growing in the sand. "Here," he said, tearing off a few leaves. "inally not an indigenous pnt, but the sea had, long ago, washed seeds from another ti ashore. So it's apparently thrived here."

  Irgos studied the pnt closely. The leaves were pointed with small serrated edges, and purple flowers dotted everywhere.

  "It has all sorts of healing properties," Aplin said. "I dare say that if your sister gets a good night's sleep, she'll be back to normal tomorrow."

  Irgos didn't see how this peculiar pnt could make her better. "What is it good for?"

  "Oh, just about everything. The beauty of this pnt is that it works with your body. It targets the weakest spots, so to speak. Based on that, your body produces substahat ensure all the energy goes to recovery. That's why we his pnt 'Sea Goddess,' because it only grows here."

  Irgos was stunned. He knew from Overmore that some pnts could be very medial, but this was nuts.

  "Okay, that's enough," Aplin said when he had gathered a handful. "Let's hurry back, so I make a solution and—"

  Aplin suddenly fell silent. So abruptly that Irgos was a bit startled. "What?" he asked, puzzled.

  He held a fio his lips and stood pletely still. Nos heard it too. It was a soft hum, a very low to sounded like it was getting louder.

  Culex?

  Aplin quickly turned his head and looked behind, towards the dire where the beach stretched out. Irgos did the same.

  The growling sound came from strange, bck shadows h just above the sand in the distance. Due to the twilight, it was hard to see clearly, but Irgos thought they were getting rger.

  "What is that?" he asked Aplin.

  But the man answered with only one word.

  "Shit."