Messeras waves us over to his kitchen and produces martini glasses for each of us, along with tiny droppers.

“Right now, the glass is filled with clear liquid. The dropper will give the drink a flavor and a color, randomized for excitement, of course. Just a few drops will do it.” He turns to Maria with an uncertain expression, likely because he can tell that she isn’t fully alive. “Are you able to imbibe?”

She can’t taste the beverage, but nods anyway. “Thank you for asking.” She grasps two martini glasses and hands one to me. Before I have the chance to use my own dropper, her hand is over my drink, administering colorless droplets into the liquor. There’s a sultry possessiveness in the gesture. On the fourth drop, the drink suddenly changes color to aquamarine. I use my dropper to turn her drink a light shade of pink.

Maria and I clink our glasses and take sips. It’s bitter and slightly sweet–not bad. But I nearly spit the liquid out when I sense what Karanos and Crystal are doing off to the side. Jimmy has found his way onto Karanos’s head and is sticking out his tongue. He looks every bit the pitiable fish lizard I remember as he wheezes and clings into Karanos’s short hair. Karanos is expressionless, his neck stiff.

But Jimmy isn’t just sitting there–Crystal, standing on her back legs so that her head reaches the ceiling, positions her front paws on Karanos’s chest for balance, threatening to push him over. Karanos narrows his eyes as Crystal clumsily pinches his wrist with her talons, raising it up toward Jimmy.

Messeras, Maria, and I are transfixed as the martini glass approaches Jimmy’s ugly, unfocused face. Jimmy’s tongue darts out and dabs at the liquid before retreating into his mouth. He makes a ridiculous meeping noise and then leaves his egress on Karanos’s head, crawling onto Crystal’s front leg like an old man, his limbs shaking with the effort.

Crystal pushes off Karanos’s chest, standing on three legs while Jimmy perches on the fourth. “Jimmy wanted a taste,” she explains.

Maria’s eyes are narrowed. “Y’jeni, look at it. It might be the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen.”

Karanos shudders as he combs his hand through his hair, as though trying to undo whatever imaginary damage Jimmy inflicted on his hairdo. “Ian, what compelled you to create such an unnatural creature?”

“Jimmy was one of the precursors to me!” Crystal explains. “We are practically brothers.” She’s acting more childish than usual. She can be so disarming when she acts like an innocent fish, but the reality of the matter is that she knows exactly how she’s coming across. Everything with Crystal is a calculated choice.

“You’re not even the same species of fish,” I scoff.

Off to the side, I sense Messeras’s suppressed laughter, a hand strategically covering his mouth. Composing himself, he reaches back into the kitchen and withdraws a wooden bowl. Within float more of the wrinkly balls, like the one already in Messeras’s drink. Why can’t they just be olives?

He ignores my look of alarm and skewers the olive-substitutes onto toothpicks before placing them into each glass. Bobbing in the artificial blue-green drink, my mind imagines the ball as a bloody eyeball suspended in preservative.

Seeing my dubious expression, Messeras plucks up his own toothpick and sticks the ball into his mouth, swallowing with a satisfied expression. “Come on, Ian, I thought you were a bit more adventurous. Look at Maria.”

Maria stirs the drink with the toothpick, wearing an expression of polite disinterest, as though drinking weird martinis with weird balls floating in them is a typical activity. Maybe it’s a blessing she doesn’t have a sense of taste. Giving me an innocent look, she pops the skewer into her mouth and swallows the ball.

“Now you’re just teasing me,” I complain, placing an arm around her and pulling her to me.

She laughs at my expense. “You’re far too easy, Ian. I’m quite certain the ball is just a less-sweet variant of lychee–it tastes quite good.”

You can taste it? I ask her.

Only when wearing Suncloud’s circlet, and even then my sense of taste is greatly muted. It’s still enough to get a general sense of the flavor.

She bows her head to Messeras. “Thank you for the drinks. It’s a pleasure to properly meet Ian’s first mentor in Eternity.” She then nods to the little abomination on Crystal’s raised forearm, her lips quirking. “And of course, it’s a pleasure to meet little Jimmy.”

The room falls quiet as we sip our drinks.

“Seems like a lot has happened in very little time,” Messeras observes. “I suppose spending time in dilated planes would do that.” He addresses Karanos next: “I confess I didn’t think much of you when we first met and you torched my jungle while chasing down a new ascendant. Seems like you’ve been treating Ian well, however.” He turns to me, as though looking for confirmation.

“Crystal should have already told you bits and pieces of what traveling with Karanos has been like. You told me I was taking a risk, going with him. You were right. But I have no regrets.”

Messeras plucks the skewer from my drained martini glass and slides it into his mouth, giving me a small grin. “I won’t deny that Crystal has been rather enthusiastic in her communications with me. What she hasn’t explained, however, is the insanity that led you to bring that thing into my plane.”

“It’s...kind of a long story.”

—

We’re all sitting around the living room area, aside from Crystal, whose large body is half sprawled across the couch, her head resting in Messeras’s lap. Jimmy has found his way onto my arm, his legs clamped around my bicep. I rub his dorsal fin absently.

“So that’s what happened after I left the plane,” Karanos mutters. “You made out for the first time in a dusty, sandy pit, surrounded by hostile practitioners? Really?”

I stop the blood vessels in my face from causing an embarrassed blush. “You’re one to talk. I’ve seen what Suncloud did to you when you first met her.”

Maria snickers. “And at every meeting after.”

Karanos rolls his eyes.

Messeras massages his forehead. “I now know where you got this...mysterious dagger, the one that transformed Ian’s skin to be black when he appeared on my plane. But how does that bring you to the faction’s meetup?”

“That part is fairly simple,” Maria says. “We’re approaching the end of our tale. Karanos accepted Ian as his protege, then brought him along as a metaphorical showhorse. He hoped that at the factional gathering, Ian would be able to talk to an artifact expert to better understand the dagger’s abilities.”

Messeras’s brow crinkles. “Wait, Ian is Karanos’s official protege?” He gazes intensely at the older ascendant.

“He is,” Karanos replies simply.

Messeras nods and leans back. There’s something in his expression I can’t read. My status as a protege is a new development, and Messeras is the first non-faction member to react to the news.

Crystal, what was Messeras just thinking?

“He was surprised.”

That’s it?

“His mind went in many directions, though his thoughts were obscured, like fish deep under the surface of a murky pond. I caught flashes of sentiments and images in rapid sequence, but could not make sense of them.”

Maria continues to recount the past week or so of events from our ingress at the faction complex to the unexpected arrival of Ancient Ash. Messeras’s expression grows calculating and stiff as she describes the last-minute organization of the final pageant event.

“And so you came to Vizier’s Crown,” he murmurs.

“It was actually a total coincidence that when I tore the veil, it led to your plane,” I confess. “I was trying to send the centipede to another world that wasn’t yours.”

He shrugs. “At least it isn’t in my literal backyard anymore.”

“The centipede is your responsibility now,” Crystal asserts. “Ancient Ash agreed to recognize your claim to it”

Messeras balks at her. “What on earth am I to do with such a specimen, little fish?”

The mystery behind Crystal’s master plan suddenly clicks into place. I see what you’re up to, I tell her, before launching into conversation. “Messeras...tell Karanos and Maria what you’ve been doing here, with your special breed of beaked bats?”

He grunts. “I’ve been trying my luck at producing a bat that’s sapient, like Crystal.”

I look at the fish. “Crystal, is the centipede sapient?”

“I believe so.”

I hold out my hands and look between the two of them. “Messeras, you said you wanted a sapient that was more intimidating than a rodent. Said you’d love a dragon if they bred faster.”

Maria rubs her neck. “If you’re looking for intimidating, you need not look further. But Crystal, could a person really form a relationship with the centipede? It’s quite–” she struggles for an appropriate word “–alien.”

“Like me, the centipede can probe the thoughts of others. In time, it will learn. For now, it is weak, recovering. Now is the time to endear oneself to it, kill it, or leave it be. The choice lies with Messeras.”

Messeras swallows and looks down at his empty glass.

—

We can’t stay with Messeras for long–after a few hours of rest, we head back to the faction as a group. Sah is there waiting for us, the dragon slumbering next to Jeseria, buried up to his neck in the violet-tinged ash. His beady eyes snap open and he erupts from the ground, scattering ash everywhere. Jeseria throws up a shield of wind that protects her, but redirects the dust upward like a small geyser, showering us in a dark snow.

“Sah,” Maria protests, batting at her hair.

Oblivious to the mess, the frost dragon waltzes over to Crystal, his tail curling protectively around her.

Upon rejoining the group of proteges and mentors on Vizier’s Crown, numerous give me and Maria funny looks, as though they’re trying to figure out how us newcomers attained victory by studying our faces.

Ketu comes over to greet us. “Dunai,” he says, his voice low.

I nod. “Ketu.

“I was impressed by your ability,” he says simply. “You’re younger than most, but all of us were young once. I look forward to seeing the growth of you and your lich in the future.”

His stoicness could rival that of Karanos. “Thank you, Ketu. Competing against you, and everyone else, was a valuable learning experience.” I’m not sure if other platitudes are in order, but I’m saved from social paralysis by Ash’s announcement.

“Now that you’ve all had some time to rest, it’s time to return to Voidkeep.” Ash nods at Karanos, no remnants of his earlier ire apparent. Together, they carve into the veil of Vizier’s Crown through one of its vulnerabilities.

The journey back to the faction’s plane passes quickly. Ascendants aren’t the kind of people who need to be shown something twice–everyone here is the best their world had to offer at some point. While some were unfamiliar with traveling through the void across long distances on the initial voyage, now everyone is on the same page.

When we pass through the final threshold and enter into the welcome hangar, I sense a collection of ascendants waiting outside, in the square surrounding the obelisk. Ash leads the way out of the hangar while Karanos falls back with the mentors, Crystal and Sah at his side.

Ian, I think we’re supposed to exit first, after Ash, Maria says, tugging my arm.

Suddenly aware that everyone is waiting for me to make a move, I fast-walk forward, catching up to Ash’s lazy stride. The rest of my team assembles behind me. Behind them file in everyone else.

The ascendant gazes are appraising and rather cold as I approach the obelisk. There are over a hundred present–most of the ascendants who had watched the previous pageant rounds, though a few are absent, likely unable to wait for the final pageant round to finish. As before, they’re seated on elaborate, floating thrones of unique design. The ascendant mentors rejoin the audience. Karanos appears in a flash of light above the obelisk, the only ascendant aside from Ash to be throne-less.

“Hello everyone,” Karanos says. “As the administrator of the third pageant round, I present to you the highlights of the challenge. You will see for yourselves how the victors won.” With that simple, dry introduction out of the way, the scene we saw earlier–the fight between the fire elementalist and the Life practitioner in Vizier’s Crown that led to the plane’s destruction–is recreated above the square, Karanos’s mastery of Light affinity on full display.

I see the hunt’s context with new eyes, now that I know that the faceless Life practitioner in the battle is probably Ash, from long ago, before he’d become an ancient and mastered other affinities. It’s startling how powerful Ash was as only a Life practitioner. He created and controlled a centipede whose size was biologically impossible–no living creature could normally be as wide as a city, as long as a river. The size of Ash’s centipede is far larger than that of its offspring.

When the introduction of the challenge elapses with Ash and the fire elementalist exiting Vizier’s Crown to continue their fight on another plane, Karanos cuts to the ascendant proteges and mentors clustered around the starting position, then setting off to locate the centipede. He shows the ascendants trying in vain to locate their quarry underground and on the plane’s surface.

Then he shows us–me.