Adrian was on the run.
The moment his instincts screamed, he moved—no hesitation, no second-guessing. If he stopped now, he would die. That truth felt bone-deep. The alley behind him echoed with the sharp crack of gunfire and shouts, but Adrian didn't turn back to see who was shouting or who was bleeding. Survival wasn't a matter of pride. It was reflex.
He tore through the twisted backstreets of London, breath ragged, boots splashing through puddles on slick cobblestones. With every turn he took, every alley he vanished into, he bought himself a little more distance. But distance wasn't enough. Not against someone like Bishop—a man who had hunted fugitives across time.
So Adrian did the only thing he could: he ran toward the crowd.
Mid-morning had drawn people out of their homes. Market stalls buzzed with activity, street vendors shouted prices, and the scent of baking bread and coal smoke filled the fog-drenched air. It was chaos, the kind that could hide a soul desperate to disappear.
Adrian slipped into the current of bodies, head down, pace calm. His stride changed—less urgent, more aimless. He hunched his shoulders, tucked his hands into his coat pockets. To anyone watching, he was just another man going about his day. A ghost among the living.
He turned corners at random, doubled back through alleys, looped through courtyards. Time became a blur of faces and footfalls. He crossed streets filled with trams and shouting drivers, ducked under bridges, and vanished between buildings like smoke.
And then—his Seer's instinct quieted.
It didn't vanish. Not entirely. But the violent edge of it dulled. That primal scream of danger faded to a murmur. A warning still lingered in the background, but it was no longer deafening.
He kept moving.
Not home. He couldn't go home.
Not with Helen still there.
Adrian finally slowed in the shadowed mouth of a narrow alleyway, back pressed to the cool brick. His pulse was steadying, but his mind raced. He couldn't drag her into this. Helen had already lost her husband—because of him. He wouldn't let her lose anything more.
But that didn't mean she was safe.
Bishop wouldn't hurt her. At least, Adrian didn't think he would. Bishop was many things, but a killer of innocents wasn't one of them. The Nova Roma soldiers, though? That was different. They had no rules. No known allegiance—at least none Adrian could trust. Their mission seemed clear: retrieve Adrian. Or kill him. Civilians were collateral.
He had to protect Helen first. Hide her. Move her, maybe. Then, he needed to find out what the hell was going on.
Why was a future X-Man trying to erase him from the timeline?
What did Nova Roma want?
And most haunting of all—how did she find him?
Selene Gallio. The immortal sorceress whose name was whispered like a curse in hidden books and half-buried lore. How had she learned about him? He had stayed off the grid for three years. No mirrors. No visions. No rituals. He hadn't even thought about Sefirah Castle. No one should have known where he was.
Except Agatha.
But Agatha wouldn't betray him. Would she?
His thoughts spiraled. Unless… it wasn't betrayal. Unless it wasn't the past that revealed him. What if the answer lay in the future? What if something he hadn't done yet was already echoing through time?
What if the problem wasn't that he was known?
What if the problem was what he would become?
Eventually, Adrian found shelter—an old, boarded-up warehouse on the dockside, sunken into a forgotten row of buildings that smelled of salt and mildew. He crawled through a broken window, boots crunching glass as he landed inside.
It was dark. Cold. Still.
Dust floated in shafts of sunlight cutting through holes in the ceiling. Wooden crates lined the walls, half-collapsed. A forgotten place. It would serve.
He crossed the floor quietly and sat down in a dry corner, pressing his back to the wall. His breath shuddered from his chest.
From his coat pocket, he drew out the old silver lighter.
Richards' lighter.
The same one Adrian used to flick open and shut as a child until Mike would sigh, snatch it away, and tell him stories of heroes and lawmen. It was more than metal and spark. It was memory. A promise forged in grief.
A promise to protect Helen.
A promise to live.
His fingers closed around the lighter tightly.
Adrian closed his eyes.
And the world slipped away.
He opened them again in fog.
The stone throne rose beneath him. Cold and vast, perched above the grey abyss. The air was deathly still, the silence absolute. Sefirah Castle. That ancient place that lived beyond reason, outside time. The one thing he thought he'd left behind.
But it had never left him.
Before the throne stood the same table—black marble, polished like glass. And atop it sat the same potion. A small, elegant bottle, half-filled with liquid that shimmered with unnatural color. It pulsed faintly. Like something alive.
The Clown potion.
It had waited.
Just as it had before.
Adrian stared at it. His hand rested on the lighter. That small piece of a broken past. That weight of a dead man's faith.
"Am I really going to do this?" he whispered. "Am I going to walk the path of madness again?"
He remembered what came with the Seer—visions, knowledge, whispers that never left him alone. Would the Clown be worse? Laughter soaked in sorrow? Smiles painted over despair? He knew the legends. He knew what it could cost.
"Am I willing to lose more of my humanity?" he asked the silence.
The castle did not answer.
But the lighter was still warm in his hand.
Helen's face flickered in his mind. The smell of tea. Her tired smile. The way she still set out two cups every morning.
He hadn't survived for power.
He hadn't run for prophecy.
He had done it for her.
He would keep doing it for her.
Adrian reached out.
His fingers wrapped around the bottle.
He brought it to his lips.
And drank.