I shook my head. "What happens if he descends?"

Within Amelie in Yellow, the Captain had told me that if the demon lord manifested within the city, his wings would flatten the world from horizon to horizon, and his breath would distort reality into chaos. Such a cataclysmic event would spell the end of Odena.

"The Goetia cannot manifest in the Physical Realm at their full strength," said Augur. "There are stories of their avatars directly interacting with our world, the most recent being within the lost city of Arostara. It is exceptionally rare and typically does not last long. The time dilation from the tesseract is likely intended to help Astaroth achieve his goals."

That made sense, considering that in the tale I had read, Prince Sitri had appeared in the form of a child on the night of the winter solstice. As deranged as the philosopher may be, nothing he had told me contradicted what I already knew.

Brother Augur speaking so plainly about all of this meant that at least no outside entities were listening in on our conversation. Still, I did not feel comfortable using Astaroth's name out loud.

The buzzing of flies made it difficult to concentrate. Augur's expression remained neutral even when several of the insects bounced off his face. There was something disturbing about his casual disregard, as if such sights meant nothing to him. A sudden thought occurred to me: what if some demon had merely taken on the philosopher's form, and I had spilled my secrets to him? Paimon already knew about my time magic, but the extent to which Astaroth was aware of me remained a mystery. If that was truly the case, things were more helpless than they already seemed.

"What are we supposed to do?" I said.

Augur touched his chin, a little smile growing across his face. "The tesseracts were designed with a specific purpose. The last survivor would be selected from the chosen participants to become one of Astaroth's Echoes. So, we find the survivor from this one and ask some questions."

"Are you really not going to tell us how you know all of this?" said Felix.

The philosopher spread his hands out. "No. If I thought it would accomplish anything, I would do so. For the time being, I recommend we focus on the task at hand."

Brother Augur strolled down the hallway, daintily avoiding puddles of blood as he stepped around the corpses. Among the bodies, a young man with a slit throat seemed to stare at me with dead eyes. Something about him almost seemed familiar. Bulky, with a shock of black hair. One of Lyra's friends, maybe?

That could have been me if I had not been fortunate enough to have the keys to unravel the tesseract. Avoiding the corpse's gaze, I made my way down the corridor, one sleeve pressed against my face to ward off the flies and the stench of decomposing bodies. From the decor and layout of the manor, we could have been in one of a hundred different homes within the city.

"Do you sense them?" Augur said to us.

Taking a deep breath, I gathered my thoughts enough to spread my magical awareness through the manor. The swarm of flies registered as motes of black dancing through the air. Strange. Primitive lifeforms like insects never caught my attention before. Either my senses were improving or their sheer quantity left an indelible mark on reality.

Besides that, nothing within our immediate vicinity appeared alive. Augur kept glancing back over his shoulder with a disappointed look on his face. After everything I had gone through in the past day, I thought it was remarkable I was still on my feet. What did he expect me to discover?

After we left the sitting room, we encountered only the occasional corpse. Against the wall slumped the body of elderly gentleman with a wilted flower pinned to the breast of his suit jacket. His jaw hung open, swollen tongue dangling out. A fly crawled around on the chunk of ripe meat. In fact, the swarm continued to follow us, abandoning the bodies in favor of the taste of life.

That did not seem right. Before I could narrow my focus on the swarm, another person appeared within the perimeter of my senses. Their aura seemed weak, a sickly yellow-green that guttered like a candle. I drew my sword and Felix followed suit.

Brother Augur nodded in approval. He stood off to the side, hands clasped behind his back. After a moment he gestured toward the door, urging me to get on with it and see what lay beyond. Clenching my teeth, I turned the doorknob and pushed, stepping away from the entrance in case the person was immediately hostile. Nothing happened.

The room beyond was an office, small and tidy. A gaunt figure leaned over the oakwood desk, hunched over a stack of papers, writing with a feverish intensity. For a second I could do nothing but stare. Despite the lank hair hanging across his face and the unnatural pallor of his skin, I would have recognized him anywhere.

When he noticed us, the quill in his hand paused.

"Caedius," I said.

The fragile mask of his face cracked at the sound of my voice. It crumpled into something entirely pathetic. His lips quivered, tears streaming down his cheeks. The sight of him was so unsettling I took a step back into Felix. My friend steadied me with a hand.

We all stood there for a while, waiting for the other to speak. Caedius instead returned to his writing, pretending that we were nothing more than a hallucination.

He had been staying with his aunt most of this long winter. When was the last time I had seen him? Before I was imprisoned within Amelie in Yellow. Usually recalling something like that would present little trouble for me, but it felt as if the blurring of my memories had intensified as of late.

"Caedius," I said his name again.

He continued writing even as he looked up at me with desperate eyes. "They aren't real, are they?"

Who was he talking to? Himself? Seeing him like that was a blow to the gut. Behind his machismo was a gentle and enthusiastic soul---at least, there used to be one.

A fly landed on my cheek. I slapped at the insect but it evaded the blow with ease. Then I realized the obvious. There was no reason I would sense any normal swarm of flies. Though it had broken into disparate elements, the swarm retained a single consciousness.

Over a hundred of the tiny black motes clung to the walls or drifting in the corridor around us. A few of them made their way into the office, heading towards Caedius. A deafening buzz echoed throughout the area, coming from the direction of the sitting room. I pulled Felix into the office after me, leaving an unconcerned Brother Augur standing in the hallway. Before I slammed the door closed I made out the vanguard of roiling cloud of flies heading towards us.

They collided with the wood with a heavy thump, as if a giant had slammed a fist into the door. Flies crawled through the gaps between the door and wall. Felix yelled at me, but the swarm's buzz was loud enough to drown out his words. Caedius remained at his desk, his hand appearing to write of its own accord as he focused on us. Behind him, Brother Augur had appeared from nowhere, leaning against the wall with crossed arms.

All at once, the buzzing stopped. The flies inside of the office retreated back through the gaps. I sensed them gathering in the hallway into an approximate shape. Thousands of shifting motes rearranged themselves into a humanoid figure, head and shoulders taller than the average man. A pair of bulbous growths erupted from the middle of its back in a parody of wings.

The white orb of Paimon's power was smaller than I had seen it before, but a few necessary uses could be justified. A wave of nullification magic erupted from my hand, passing through the door and impacting the center of the swarm. The figure, almost perfectly formed, collapsed once more into a frantic hive of activity. The buzzing returned, though it was no longer a concerted effort. The effect was discordant, reminding me of nothing more than a frustrated shout.

My eyelids drooped as the physical backlash of using Paimon's power settled in. I pounded a fist into my chest to force myself awake. Felix and I retreated towards the desk, within arm's reach of Caedius. One hand continued writing while he reached out with the other, grabbing me by the wrist. He clenched with all of his strength as if assuring himself I was real.

Nine seconds passed before the swarm began to join together once again, growing silent as they reformed into the humanoid figure. The nullification did nothing to banish the demon's consciousness, though disrupting its form for an extended period could prove useful.

"You shouldn't be here," said Caedius. "No one but us is supposed to be here. We aren't ready. It'll kill you. There's no other way to escape besides the door. You'll die."

"Don't worry about us," I said. "Why are you here? How?"

After twenty seconds, the demon settled into its humanoid form. That was my time window.

The door opened.

The fly-demon looked like a sculpture made from translucent marble, a network of light blue blood vessels standing out in stark relief just beneath the skin. A mosaic of eyes dominated the top half of its face. Mandibles of black chitin twitched around its mouth as if tasting something in the air. Its wings, folded close as to fit through the doorway, unfurled to their full length once the demon stepped into the room. A webbing of grey musculature supported the thin, gauzy membrane of the wings, which looked so fragile they would tear from a gust of wind.

When the demon spoke, its voice seemed to vibrate, as if it had not yet learned to form human words naturally. "These intruders appear to know you, Echo. Uninvited guests are strictly prohibited under our agreement. Eliminate these inconveniences, or I shall."

By now, I had guessed what had happened. This manor belonged to Caedius' aunt, and had become a tesseract at some point. The acolyte had survived. Even at the cost of the rest of his family here. The bulky young man in the living room---who was that? His cousin?

But the demon calling him an Echo turned those suspicions into reality. Caedius, too? How had all of us become so involved in this matter? From what I had been told, only people who had committed grave sins would be trapped within a tesseract. Innocents would not be constrained by the barrier and would merely follow some instinctual drive to leave the area as soon as possible, blind to whatever force drove them forward.

I found it hard to believe Caedius also had some sinister past. Out of all of the acolytes he seemed the most normal, the most grounded, unconcerned with anything besides his girlfriend's affection and advancing along the path of the philosophers. I had never even asked him why he chose to become an acolyte, assuming he merely wanted to become a blademaster, or he had no interest in more traditional education methods. His cousin, too, and everyone else in this party---they were all evil sinners as well? Murderers, oathbreakers, the scum of the earth?

Brother Augur uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, confronting the demon in the center of the room. "This is unacceptable."

The fly-demon tilted its head to the side as it considered the philosopher. "What strange words. Tell me, hidden one, how is it that I cannot see your karma? All living beings have some innate tie to the anima. What have you done?"

"You do not get to ask me questions," said Augur. "This betrayer is not supposed to be an Echo. Astaroth has made an unseemly mistake. Such an event is not supposed to pass. He should have suffered for what he has done. Instead he is granted this gift? Unacceptable."

The mandibles of the fly-demon clicked together furiously. Its voice rose to a shrill pitch. "You dare use the Master's name, and question his sacred plan? I sense another aberration with you. Sensi was supposed to bond with the Captain, yet here I see a child without his partner. The Captain is fallen, lost, returned to Desolada. This is all wrong. All wrong. Unfathomably wrong. Kill them, Caedius, or I shall do it and mete out your punishment with glee."

Brother Augur stretched out one hand. He closed it into a fist.

The demon's hands crumpled inward. Gravity forced its fingers closed, forced the fingers back into its palms, forced the palms into the wrist. Slowly, everything retracted inwards, crumpling. The demon held up its ruined lower arms, observing the progression of the gravity magic.

"I do not experience pain," it said. "Such tricks, while amusing, are ultimately pointless. Fall to your knees and submit to your fate."

The destruction of the demon's limbs accelerated, sickening crunches as the forearms compressed into the elbows. Still, the abomination was not a true creature of flesh and bone. It endured the torture without complaint. After its upper arms began to retract into its torso, the demon apparently finished entertaining the game and attempted to make its escape. Its head dissolved into hundreds of black flies.

Before the mass could fly away, Augur extended his other hand and clenched it into a fist. The flies remained locked in place, forced into the same shape as the head, as if a barrier had been erected around the demon's outline. The insects struggled to escape for a few seconds before reforming into the humanoid head.

"This magic---" said the demon.

Its head imploded in a controlled explosion of gore. After a moment the rest of its body compressed inward, coalescing into an orb no larger than a marble. The remains of the formidable demon hovered in the air.

Brother Augur stepped forward, grabbing the marble from the air and letting it rest on the palm of his hand. "Lowly creature."

What had the demon noticed about his magic? By this time I was certain that whatever the philosopher's power may be, it was not earth magic. The protector of mankind, working against Astaroth to prevent this invasion, would not have had such a bizarre conversation with a demon either. Caedius should have suffered, instead of receiving the gift of forming a bond with the Goetia? What?

"Forgive me," said the philosopher. "I do lose my temper sometimes. This should not have happened, but I have decided to allow it. One never truly knows how things will end up. This is a valuable lesson for you to ponder over. What have you learned?"

He smiled.

My world went black.

* * *

The realm of the One Who Rules exists within a point where eleven dimensions meet. As such, to experience it is to have one's mind fractured into unimaginable shapes. No physical thing can exist within it: all interactions occur within the Mental Realm, anchored to this multidimensional nexus. The One Who Rules is banished from existing anywhere within the Increate's wonders; He must find his place within the gaps.

Though Paimon holds no bonds with the One Who Rules, he responds to the summons in respect of the eternal traditions.

The Fifth, the Betrayer, Morningstar. His power is incomprehensible, to be able to create a bridge from his prison to the Mental Realm. He even creates a representation of a physical space, allowing one to anchor their mind to a familiar scene. Such an effort is useless amongst the Goetia, who require no such tricks. Which means The One Who Rules is entertaining a mortal guest.

The physical manifestation Morningstar has chosen is of an aesthetic plot of land from Savra. A little hut in a stand of iridescent trees, with a calm river winding through. A black-haired man, middle-aged, sitting in the lotus position next to a bonfire. Pale lines of scarring cover his flesh. A humble way to present onself, in a place where any form is possible. Neither of the Goetia have yet created a homunculus to interact with him. They wait.

Who is this mortal? says Paimon.

Morningstar's words are neither grand nor overwhelming. He does not force his willpower into them for the purpose of intimidation. Such things are beyond Him. He calls himself Augur.