It's the gathering member who was looking for the "Crown Hunt." My instincts were right. He really was following me, and he's very good at it. The instant Charlotte saw him, her uncertainty settled into the relief of having her suspicions confirmed.
But according to Pierce's arrangements, the Machinery Hivemind should have been watching from concealment ever since she left through the Ruler Church's back door. Yet this man had not only evaded their surveillance, but circled ahead to wait for her without making a single sound she could detect.
He's probably one of the stronger mid-sequence Beyonders, like Henriette and Nikolai-and he most likely belongs to the Arbiter pathway. He can do everything I can, only better. Am I supposed to charge over, shout at him, and see which of us is more intimidating? Charlotte's thoughts raced, and she quickly abandoned the idea of attacking first.
Seeing that she made no further move, he did not approach either. Instead, he raised both hands and slowly removed his hood, revealing a male face that looked to be in its early thirties, yet was strangely difficult to put an exact age to.
He had neatly combed, medium-length black hair and pale gray eyes. His nose, lips, and jaw lacked any distinctive features-the sort of face that would be hard to recognize again once it disappeared into a crowd.
Yet after looking at him for just a few seconds, Charlotte felt an inexplicable discomfort. Only when she focused and studied him carefully in the crimson moonlight did she discover the problem.
His face was almost perfectly symmetrical. From the curves of his eyebrows and the positions of his eye corners to the contours of his cheeks, there was no difference between the two sides, as though one were a mirror image of