The next panel shows the Cursed One exploding out of the ground, spewing fire and reducing the vibrant city to a blackened, smoking carcass in just two panels. The ruins remind me of Baalboden.

Reaching out, I trace my fingers along the rough paint strokes while grief aches inside of me. So much loss. So much devastation. How many times will we rebuild only to be torn down again by the creature who lives beneath us?

Moving away from that panel, I pass more scenes of destruction. Fire raging through neighborhoods. Roads collapsing. Constant attacks from the Cursed Ones—sometime three or four surfacing at the same time.

The pictures of destruction disappear and in their place is a group of young men, all in military uniform. At their center, set apart from the rest, stands a young version of Commander Jason Chase. I’d recognize him anywhere, though his face is unscarred in this painting. His chin is tilted up like he welcomes the challenge of saving his world, and his eyes look calm and ready. In his hands, he holds what looks like an incendiary device and a remote trigger.

The next panel shows the Commander leading his team into the bowels of the earth, down the original mine shaft that opened the barrier between those who lived above the earth and the creatures that dwelt at its heart. The bomb is still in his hands. Courage is still on his face.

I reach the second-to-last panel and stop to stare for a long moment. Gone is the courage, the calm. Instead, the team is in chaos. A few stand firm, weapons drawn as the lone surviving Cursed One attacks. The rest of the team flee in panic, following the terrified retreat of their leader, whose face is nearly torn in two—as if he got swiped by the Cursed One’s long talons. The Commander climbs the tunnel, the bomb still clutched in his hand, blood flowing over his military uniform, and the fear in his eyes is so sharp, I reach my hand out as if by touching the mural, I can somehow understand what I’m seeing.

Didn’t he detonate the bomb? Didn’t he at least try to remove the threat and save the world? We were raised in Baalboden on stories of the Commander’s heroism in a time when heroes were in short supply.

Apparently, someone else has a different version of events.

The final panel shows the nine remaining team members—those who fled the beast’s lair—standing in a semicircle, surrounded by the destruction of their world. Each of the nine wears an expression of regret and shame, but already the shame on the Commander’s face is hardening into brutal anger, as if daring the survivors to dispute his claim of heroism and pay the consequences.

I wonder if regret over his cowardice still lives somewhere beneath his viciousness. No wonder he refuses to allow anyone to contradict him. No wonder he needs absolute power like the rest of us need air. Without it, he’s just a man who dressed up like a hero only to discover he was a coward at heart.

The conference room is an elegant oval with a huge slab of cherry wood polished to a gleam and surrounded by chairs. Jeremiah is ensconced at the table, a plethora of parchment and quills spread out in front of him, while beside him a short, thin man who resembles a toothpick with a shock of red hair growing wild carefully pens a line on a piece of parchment.

“Mind if I interrupt?” I ask as I step into the room and close the door behind me. It’s easy to make my voice sound calm and confident. It’s much harder to banish the sight of the Commander’s cowardice and its larger implications for our world from my mind.

“Come in, come in.” Jeremiah waves me forward. Darius keeps his eyes on his parchment, his lip caught between his teeth as he concentrates. “I’ve been mapping out what I remember of the northern territory back before Brooksworth refused to allow the Commander to visit. It’s been, what, two decades? My memories of this area are hazy, but Darius was able to fill in the details.” Jeremiah holds up two sheets of parchment as if to show me his progress.

“How’s your progress on Hodenswald and Chelmingford?” I ask. “I need detailed maps to all of the northern city-states.”

“Planning on leaving us so soon?” Darius asks. Setting his quill carefully on its blotter, he looks up at me.

“Darius Griffin, meet our leader, Logan McEntire,” Jeremiah says.

Darius’s eyes widen. “Logan McEntire? Son of Marcus and Julia McEntire in Rowansmark?”

I stare at him. “No, Logan McEntire from Baalboden.”

He slowly rises from his chair, his eyes never leaving my face. “Oh, I have no doubt you’re from Baalboden now. But we both know you were born in Rowansmark.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

LOGAN

“We both know you were born in Rowansmark.” Darius’s words linger in the air between us, and I frown. “You’re mistaken. Now about Hodenswald and Chelmingford—”

“It’s uncanny,” Darius says, leaning forward as if he wants a closer look at me. “You have Marcus’s eyes, but everything else looks like Julia.”

“I don’t think you heard me.” I take a step back as Darius comes around the table. “I’m from Baalboden.”

He stops a yard from me and slowly sizes me up. “How old are you?”

I’m getting very impatient with this whole thing. “Nineteen. Now about the maps—”

“It has to be him.” He turns to Jeremiah, who looks as confused as I feel. “He looks like Julia, he has the same name, and he’s nineteen. Why didn’t you tell me you knew the lost McEntire boy?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeremiah says, but now he’s examining my face like it’s the first time he’s seen it.