Chapter 57
We sleep safely at night because rough men
Stand ready to visit violence
On those who would harm us.
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—Winston Churchill
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MIKHAIL
"Bishamonten, grant me clear-thinking and distance from my pain."
That sense of frantic helplessness recedes into a stream of dispassionate information. The ability to focus; to assess the best path to success, free from the entanglement of emotion, is the gift of the Cherubim god. Jingu taught me feeling can be a weakness. I must learn to suppress it. A Cherubim should feel nothing but duty to the Emperor.
I drop from the sky and flatten my wings against the ground.
"Olly olly oxenfree…" I whisper to the childhood friend who visits my nightmares, for not even the Cherubim were able to wipe her completely from my mind.
I hide in the shad
