Foggy Bottom Way [m] el mar

cornelius circled at the corner of the writhing shadows.

germanicus watched the cold glassblue eyes crease with pain but refract in hatred, and for a sickening moment he felt that he believed aquillius' shout. it condemned her as witch and had he not understood the effect of adrenaline upon a wartorn body, he might have accepted the thought in melting bitterness.

as it was, he saw valiria's arms tense in skilled hold.

but aquillius had diverged upon a mission of his own, and something unnatural burnt the remaining pupil.

a thin cry rent the air and germanicus growled forward, teeth flashing toward first son and then daughter. 

"let go."

he kept himself even at great cost, though his eyes were now wildling with guilt and anger, worry for aquillius, for it had been his own father which fed him the stories of the witch, and now — and now. "i will not see her die!" he roared at last, meaning to drive them off even if her own teeth cut into the flesh of his own forearms now, anything to see them away from this scene he had painted so long ago.