I leave Germaine and return to my previous hiding spot. My mask is damp with sweat, the heat of spring not fully tempered by proximity to the bay. I pull it off my face, running fingers through my hair.

Germaine...Y’jeni, I wasn’t careful enough.

In hindsight, I should’ve taken precautions against a decemancer thralling insects. What I’d seen previously indicated expertise with arrays and souls–both characteristic of necromancy. But this latest attack suggested our adversary also had excellent skills as a conventional decemancer.

The practitioner had set up three layers of attack: first, the vessel, sent directly to the Bridoc Yacht Club; second, the soul swarm off in the distance, approaching only near the conclusion of the event; and third, the scouting mosquitos, searching the area for suspicious individuals and laying passive until triggered. I could imagine the strategy in my mind: detonate the vessel, send in the swarm to attack survivors, and use the mosquitos to kill witnesses or stymie those planning to intervene.

And it had been done carefully: the vessel, in particular, was practically a work of art, its surface covered in inscriptions and what looked like foreign calligraphy. Even the Death energy visible on its surface served to obscure, rather than signal its presence; if I hadn’t been specifically looking for an intruder, attending the party instead as a guest, I might have missed it completely.

Whoever this practitioner is, they’ve taken precautions to avoid the combined observational skills of the entire family.

Suddenly, the quantum channel opens up. It’s a bit jarring having Germaine’s voice storm into my head without any warning, her anxious tone causing me to hit my head on the underside of the yacht club.

“Ian!”

“What?” I crane my head in the direction of Germaine’s overlook, though I can't make out much from this distance. “Don’t tell me there are more mosquitos–”

“You forgot the shadow vessel.”

“I did?” I look around, it’s clear that the vessel is nowhere in sight. “Is that a problem...?”

As I did with the child sacrifice, I’ve already siphoned most of the energy from the vessel. Though its surface is still veiled in obfuscating whorls, its hollow interior has been divested of energy.

“It’s standing right in front of the telescope. And when I come close, the shadowy bits on its surface start to reach in my direction.”

Hmm. The “shadowy bits” are harmless, though I can see why they might be intimidating.

“Can you go around it, from the other side?” I ask.

“...Uh, yeah, I guess. Ok, I actually kicked it away, and nothing happened. I’m back in position.”

“Great. Let me know if you notice anything out of place.”

The guests at the yacht club slowly trickle out, many probably heading over to Zebede’s for continued revelry. Unlike the rehearsal dinner, Germaine and I are welcome. I originally opted to continue the lurker plan, but Germaine convinced me to bring a change of clothes “just in case” I changed my mind.

I have to admit, after a few hours of sheltering in the fragrant mulch of the yacht club, attending Zebede’s after party as a guest sounds significantly more appealing.

“Aunt Julia’s leaving,” Germaine reports.

“Be over in a moment.” Aunt Julia’s departure was my sign to reconvene at Germaine’s location. Aunt Julia would meet us there shortly after detouring around the property.

I shake off as many wood chips and soil bits as I can before kicking off the ground and dragging myself into the air by the scaffolding of my own bones. Controlling my body in such a way allows me to decelerate before touching down; using a bit more Death energy to bleed my acceleration is much more cost effective than protecting myself against a forceful fall.

“Can you do something about the vessel?” Germaine says out loud, no longer using the quantum channel.

“What did you have in mind?”

She looks up from disassembling the scope. “Get rid of the shadows around it.”

I shake my head. “I can’t do that without ruining the array, but I’m hoping to study it a bit.”

“Do you think you can use it to trace back to its creator?”

I shrug and remove the mask, using it as a fan to cool down my face. “I’ve never had to deal with any necromancer ritualists in the past who did these kinds of inscriptions.” The blood array used to summon and control the leviathan back in the Godora layer was similar, but I also have very little understanding regarding that array.

It’s at this point that Aunt Julia arrives, leaping from a root snaking up from below. Her eyes glow green as she steps toward us, the root she used to scale the bluff withdrawing behind her.

“Why is your sister covered in blood?” she asks me.

“Aunt Julia–” Germaine begins, her voice anxious.

“It’s my fault,” I interrupt. “A decemancer skilled in thralling insects controlled a few mosquitoes to bite Germaine without me noticing. Then, while I was distracted by a soul swarm, Death energy entered her body through the mosquito bites.”

“Mosquitos?” Aunt Julia echoes. “Be more careful next time. Tell Ian if you see anything out of the ordinary.”

“Not that it really matters...” Germaine mutters bitterly.

I sigh at the remark, then pivot the conversation. “Tomorrow’s the wedding. It’s the last real chance for whoever we’re up against to make their move.”

“We’ll need to be vigilant now that we’re certain someone’s actively targeting the family,” Aunt Julia adds. “We also now know that they’re after the immediate family, else they would have waited until Zebede’s party or the wedding to attack.”

Germaine’s eyes dart between the two of us. “Aunt Julia, who do you think is the target?”

“It’s probably Adricaius,” Aunt Julia smirks. “He probably insulted someone he shouldn't have. Who knows, maybe someone feels slighted that they weren’t invited to the wedding.” Her smirk quickly turns into a grimace. “But even if it’s because of Adricaius, they’ve made the mistake of targeting his entire family.”

As Aunt Julia says this, Germaine’s eyes meet mine, her expression strange. I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing I am: the extended Dunai-Adricaius-Fiorencia clan would have suffered an attack that first night without my intervention.

For all Aunt Julia’s talk of the power of our family, the one protecting them is essentially an outsider, the talentless scion they cast out. I feel a sense of strong indignation rise up within me, followed by disgust.

Why am I even bothering to help them? Why did I assume that just because I was on my way to a family wedding, I was supposed to protect my relatives?

My eyes are still locked onto Germaine, studying her face. I have a powerful, inexplicable feeling that just saving her would be enough.

“What next?”

Germaine turns my way, eyes narrowing. “We head to Zebede’s estate for another stakeout...unless you’re willing to dress up.”

Aunt Julia crosses her arms. “Julian, stop acting so stubborn.”

I sigh. I just...can’t see the point of forcing myself to socialize with people who look down on myself and Germaine, not to mention Mother. If becoming a practitioner is all it would require to gain their favor, I’d rather cut myself off from them completely.

“I don’t think there’s going to be a second attempt at an attack tonight,” Germaine continues. “There’s really no need to hide in the bushes or dirt on the off chance something will happen...”

I can see her perspective, but I can’t agree with it. There were numerous times back in the first loop layer when I thought something couldn’t be so complicated, so convoluted. At every step, I questioned how I was ever expected to find the correct approach, the right answer. Was I really supposed to assemble the strewn pieces of a torn up map within the captain’s chambers, just to determine the approximate location of the ship? And how was I ever supposed to guess that the next step of the puzzle was changing the course of the cruise ship for Menocht Bay? The list goes on and on.

It’s easy to think that there won’t be another attack...but that’s just what our opponent would want us to think.

“You can go in and do some scouting on the inside with Aunt Julia. I’ll stay outside to keep watch.”

—

I eventually convince them to attend the party while I keep watch outside. The itinerary for the wedding claimed that Zebede Dunai’s party would commence at 8 pm, though that failed to account for the rehearsal dinner running late. By the time we arrive at the expansive estate, it’s already half-past 9.

“It’s just you and me, now,” I murmur, giving the vessel a knock on the shoulder. The two of us are hiding out in a large tree at the edge of the estate, between the entrance gate and the right-most boundary. Zebede’s property is larger than the Bridoc Yacht Club by a wide margin, though it isn’t overlooking the ocean. It’s immediately surrounded by forests and pastoral fields, though half a mile down the road in either direction lies another similar property.

While lying in wait, I decide to inspect the vessel a bit more thoroughly.

Just how does the obfuscation work? I wonder, rotating the vessel’s torso between my hands. Death energy is normally conspicuous; normally, I’d ascribe this kind of shadowy concealment to a Dark practitioner.

Why couldn’t this be the work of a Dark practitioner? I ask myself, thinking of the most obvious question. I frown, dragging my fingers lightly across the vessel’s featureless face and neck. I know that it’s a product of decemancy, though it’s difficult to articulate why, if someone like Germaine were to ask.

A Life practitioner like Aunt Julia would likely agree with me. While Germaine can see the shadowy whorls on the vessel’s surface with her bare eyes, the shadows appear to me like thin, overlapping strips of dirty, gray gauze. I presume that Aunt Julia sees something similar.

There’s something about it...something peculiar that renders it particularly difficult to focus on.

As I run my hands along its smooth, wood-like surface, I suddenly hear a small click. The strands of Death-energy-gauze freeze in place before melting away into nothing, giving me the first unobstructed view of the vessel. The inscriptions I could see vaguely through the shadowy exterior now look like dark wounds, stretching across the vessel’s entire body. It’s almost as if someone decided to take a human cadaver and carve a ritual array across its surface, using brown blood and broken skin as ink.

Though the vessel looks and feels like sanded pine, pairing its human contours with violent inscriptions creates a disturbing image.

Good thing Germaine couldn’t see what it really looked like when it was just the two of them, I muse. It looks far spookier now than it looked originally.

After the removal of the obfuscating shadows, I notice the presence of a small oval embedded in the hollow of the vessel’s neck. I hover a finger over it, then tentatively begin to feed it energy, hoping to observe some kind of reaction.

What I didn’t expect was to be drawn into a vision. I blink, and the world becomes black. For a moment, I’m left wondering if I’ve somehow already satisfied the conditions to move on to the next loop layer.

Before I can do anything, the world blinks into focus. I’m standing still within the halls of a grand estate, resting against the wall. I can see in my peripheral vision that I’m wearing a suit of historic armor. Across from me lies a matching suit of armor dressing a mannequin.

Where am I?

The scene shifts again. This time, I’m lying in what appears to be a dark closet; around me are other wooden mannequins and puppets, though my vision is restricted to what’s directly in front of me.

The closet opens with a flash of light. I’m facing the wrong direction, and am unable to see the face of the figure that grabs me from behind, snagging me by my shoulders and hoisting me onto the floor. I collapse in a heap, my line of sight unfortunately restricted to the floral pattern on the rug below.

The floral pattern shifts as I’m dragged down a long hallway. The person dragging me turns the corner, knocking me across a small wooden bump marking the transition between the hall and an enclosed room. Bumping shifts the position of my head, allowing me to get a better sense of where I’ve been dragged.

At the center of the room are two metal tables covered in straps. I see that a naked human body is fixed to one of the tables, though from my low vantage point, I can’t tell whether they’re dead or alive.

After listening to a few minutes of shuffling sounds, the person who brought me to the room returns, lifting me up under my armpits and dragging me over to the base of the other table. With a grunt and a drawn out groan, they heave me onto the empty table and strap me down. Now I can see the human strapped to the other table more clearly.

They’re most-certainly alive.

I hope I’m wrong about what’s going to happen next.