Alexandra's boots crunched on the gravel next to him. Klaus focused on that sound—normal, steady, human. They were leaving the Eastern Tower behind, all that hammering and shouting from the construction crews fading into the background. The paths of the Lionhart estate were quiet, almost too perfect, but right now Klaus needed the peace.
His mind was a battlefield.
Since Greed told him about Arkadius—about the second Ego hiding somewhere in his soul—Klaus had been waging a war he couldn't win. The enemy was invisible. He couldn't sense it, couldn't find it, couldn't even tell where it was hiding. Just this massive intelligence coiled up in the dark, waiting. All Klaus could do was starve the damn thing: keep his thoughts flat, his ambitions small, his power usage minimal. Don't give it anything to latch onto.
