11:07 PM, 17th of December, 1728.
Alexander opened his bedroom window and prepared to climb down the siding of his home. Under no circumstances would his parents allow him to leave this late at night, and they were already asleep, unlikely to find him missing from his room. He grabbed ahold of the gutter and planted his feet on the textured siding that led all the way to the ground, closing the window on his way out. The street was dark, and not a soul was in sight; everyone was sound asleep in their beds.
He made his way to Aisha's home and met up with her before continuing on to the city hall. All the lights were off in the building, meaning it was likely that Cain, who lived alone inside, was asleep as well.
With obvious hesitance lacing his voice, Alexander spoke. "So we're really doing this?"
"I don't see any other way we find out what's in that book. I don't know what it is, but something here isn't right. You see that, don't you?"
Her argument was convincing enough, and so the two tried the window connecting directly to Cain's office. The city hall was surrounded on all sides by large hedging, making it nearly impossible for any onlookers to spot what the two were up to. Hoisting Aisha up to the window with his hands, Alexander heard her pull open the window. It was unlocked. She then helped pull him up into the office, both of them making sure to be as quiet as possible.
For once, Alexander was going to rely on his Authority. It was unreliable, warning him about possible reactions to his own actions, but only because he was unsure what he was being warned about. In such a situation, the warnings should be obvious.
He quietly walked towards the desk that Cain had sat at only earlier that day. The book was nowhere to be seen.
"It's not here. It's probably in the back room. Can you stay here and warn me if you hear anything?"
After a confirming nod, Alexander tried the door. He reached down to the doorknob and attempted to turn it, but it didn't budge. It was locked. Making his way back over to Cain's desk, he crouched down and looked through the singular drawer. There was no key, and just as he was about to close the drawer, disappointed in his findings, his Authority acted up.
Was Cain coming? Were they about to be caught? No. The feeling in his chest was subtle, not at all like a warning, but more like a hint, telling him he had missed something.
He went back to the drawer, feeling along the sides of the interior. He felt a difference in material along the back wall, rougher than the rest. There it was. Alexander pressed against the back panel of wood, and it disconnected, revealing a hidden compartment along with the bronze key Cain had used to open the door. Alexander made his way back to the locked door and inserted the key, leaving it in the doorknob and swinging the door inwards.
The room was dark, but moonlight cascaded into it, coming through the window they had used to enter the office, illuminating the lower half of the room. The room was cramped and unreasonably messy, with a table occupying most of the space and items scattered about it. The only one of interest on the table was a globe, something deemed useless now that the outside world was supposedly uninhabitable, so it was interesting that it was locked up in the city hall. Above the table was a shelf, holding a dozen books, one of which was the very book they were searching for. Alexander looked over the titles of the other books, but saw nothing of interest.
Grabbing the book, he left the back room and went over to Aisha. She leaned over, silently observing the book with him. Without a word, he opened the book under the moonlight and began reading.
Skimming through the book, he found nothing of importance. It was meant to be about the end of the world, but it spoke more about the upbringing of the dome than anything else, specifically how they took in any and all refugees who happened to find it. On the final page, however, was a map. It displayed the city in full, of course, missing a lot of the detail pertaining to the present. But the most interesting detail was what was displayed outside of the dome. Far out on the edge of the map was another city, much larger than their own. The city was labeled with a script Alexander had never seen before, with more of the script written below the map, though only a single sentence.
With how outdated the map was, the city was likely to be where Dolon and others came from, one of the last few standing. What was most interesting to Alexander was the script. He grabbed an empty sheet out of Cain's drawer and wrote down the text letter by letter, hoping to look into it later.
Aisha, who was standing over his shoulder now, peered over with interest. "What's it say?"
"I have no idea, but honestly, it's the only thing that seems interesting in this book, so I might as well copy it down to try to figure out what it says." He handed over the novel to her so that she could look over it herself, maybe to find something he had missed, but she found nothing else of importance.
"So why did he even lie to us? There's nothing here, not a single piece of information we can use." She was obviously frustrated, hoping this would give some hint as to what was off about the city, or maybe even about her mother's death.
"I wouldn't say that. Yeah, we might not have anything right now, but what if we're able to translate this? It could be the very reason Cain was acting like this book doesn't exist." He paused for a moment, thinking over what to do. "If you're free tomorrow, we should head to the library to see if they have anything on foreign languages. Before that, I'll try to see if it's a simple cipher instead of another language."
While walking back over to the desk, Alexander's foot suddenly caught on the rug in the center of the room, causing him to fall face-first into the arm of a chair. Just a moment later, his Authority sent a jolt of pain to his chest, as if he didn't already know that they were about to be caught from the sheer amount of noise he had just made. Anxiously, Aisha was already at the window and ready to jump out at a moment's notice, but he knew he had to make it look like they were never there. He put the book back on its shelf, making sure to close the door behind him. All that was left were the papers he had used to write down the script. After quickly squaring up the papers and closing the drawer, the two jumped out of the window, closing it behind them.
They now had no chance of Cain finding them, and yet the pain in Alexander's chest didn't subside; instead, it slowly increased the further they got away from the city hall, becoming almost unbearable. After a few minutes of walking, he realized why.
"I left the key in the door."
How could he be so careless? The most obvious thing was the one thing he forgot to put back in its place. Cain would know for a fact that someone was in his office.
Though she looked a little worried, too, Aisha tried to calm him down. "Well, it's not like we can go back and fix it now. He'll know we were there, but he can't prove it. Don't worry about it too much."
The pain in his chest receded, and his mind cleared.
Aisha spoke again. "Actually, if that leaves a mark on your face, he might have some evidence. Let me heal it?"
She stepped towards him and put her hand on his cheek, right where his face had come into contact with the chair. Suddenly, his mind wasn't so clear anymore, and his heart was like a running stampede. He couldn't help but notice how close to his face she was. As her Authority activated, his entire body was filled with warmth, and the ache in his face instantly vanished. Now all he felt was the warmth of her hand on his cheek.
A little embarrassed, he stepped back and continued walking toward Aisha's home, where he would drop her off. "Well… thanks."