Episode 128

☽☽☽

MIKAEL'S POV

☾☾☾

"What the...fucking...hell was that?" I scramble to rise, but my efforts are thwarted by a force field smashing my length to the ground. It all clicks in at once: magic. The weight on my spine, crushing my neck and torso to the ground, is of a mammoth's mass in thousands of tonnes.

I snarl as the invisible load intensifies at my joints, breaking my bones. Whatever witch is responsible must be incredibly skillful. It's a hellish experience that might have had a more inexperienced version of myself centuries ago whimpering in pain. I've long learnt to endure worse.

Warning bells wail in my head. It's evident Cillian and Whelan planned this from the genesis of our interaction. I'd been too blinded by my fury to see through their plan. Cillian hammers on this point with his utterance, "you were an idiot not to suspect the cause of our visit, Mikael."

My hateful gaze pans upward, but it does not land on Cillian. Instead, Absalon's distasteful countenance is caught