When the hug finally ends and we separate, Cheshire says, “There’s one more thing we should take care of before we leave the deepest recesses of your soul.”

“I was wondering where we were and why it looked so edgy,” I snark in a blatant attempt to distance myself from my brief moment of emotional vulnerability. “Damn, if this is what my soul looks like, what does that say about me?”

Cheshire grins. “The creation of the inner world is an act of self-definition.” The catgirl gestures at the wasteland and the maelstrom and the book pile. “This isn’t a reflection of your true nature, it’s a reflection of how you perceive your true nature. In other words, your inner world looks so edgy because you think it should look this edgy.”

I wince. “Ouch. That’s a rough hit. This is like taking a girl home and accidentally showing her your cringe fanfiction. Now instead of feeling embarrassed by my haunted soul I feel embarrassed by the unnecessary melodrama of it all.”

Cheshire clicks her tongue disapprovingly and says, “Don’t you dare; a little melodrama is perfect for our purposes. Remember: the essence of magic is the manipulation of meaning. A little flair goes a long way in making that meaning ‘stickier,’ for lack of a better word.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “So, let me make sure I’m understanding you right: you’re saying that my magic will be more effective if I’m more theatrical with it?” My eyes widen as I suddenly make a connection. “Wait, hold on a second, does that mean… is that why saying the name of a spell makes it work better!?”

“Precisely! In fact, that isn’t the only way to bolster sorcery; how you act, how you dress, choosing the right moment, these can all have a noticeable impact on the efficacy of a given spell.”

“How I dress?”

“Of course!” Cheshire tugs on my fancy dream-clothes. “Think about it, Alice: when you see someone dressed head-to-toe in skull motifs and someone else wearing khakis and a polo, which would you take for a necromancer? Those assumptions have meaning, and all meaning has weight when it comes to magic. To maximize your sorcery you should be stacking as much relevant meaning as you can.”

I laugh. “Holy shit. You know what? I take back every bad thing I said about this setting. I get to minmax being a mage by picking the right clothing. That’s great.” As an afterthought I add, “Aside from the part where I don’t know shit about fashion.”

“Don’t worry,” Cheshire assures me, “that’s one of the many things I’m here to help with. Ah, but that does bring me to that one last thing I mentioned: your appearance.”

Immediately I tense up. “What about it?”

Cheshire’s hand on my shoulder is gentle, light. “I know how you feel. I know why you feel that way. I’m not going to ask you to confront it now. I won’t even make you look at a mirror. We can save the big changes for later, once you feel more comfortable. Okay?”

I hesitate, but nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

Cheshire smiles at me warmly. “I’ll make this easy: just pick two things you want to change about your appearance. Two things you’ve fantasized about adding, perhaps.”

Oh! I know exactly what she’s talking about. “Pointed ears and sharp fangs!” I blush a little. “I mean… I know the ears are usually an elf thing but they look great on everyone and especially vampires… and I maybe may have once looked up how much it would cost to get the cosmetic surgery that gives you elf ears.” Answer: a lot.

Cheshire giggles. “You’re adorable. Pointy ears and pointy fangs coming up.” Cheshire snaps her fingers and I feel the subtle shift in my biology: ears lengthening and tapering, teeth growing and sharpening.

I run my fingers over my new ears and tease the shape of my fangs with my tongue. Beautiful, gorgeous, throat-piercing fangs. Mine. “Fangs. I have fangs. I have fangs!” I squeal and bare my new fangs gleefully.

Cheshire grins. “They look great.” She flashes her own fangs, a bit smaller but still sharp (of course the catgirl has pointy teeth).

I hug myself and wiggle in place. “Fangs! Fangs fangs fangs! And pointy ears!” I squeal again.

Cheshire pokes me in the cheek. “Boop. Look at that cute face.” I stick my tongue out at her and her expression softens. “You look lovely, Alice. I mean it.”

The catgirl’s faked affection makes me uncomfortable–there’s a new pain in my chest–so I look away. Shut up, shut up, you’re lying, you don’t mean that. I feel warm all over from her compliments and I hate that. “Yeah, well, whatever. It’s done. Can we go?”

“Of course.” Cheshire grins and takes my hand, and when I blink I’m staring at the walls of the apartment. I lift my head from the dining room table, returned from the world within my soul.

The disorientation is sharp but brief; this is not the book pile amid the wasteland and the storm, this is not the table engraved with my new affinities, and I am not wearing the poofy dress or the stripey tights. I’m back in the bloodied schoolgirl uniform (plus cloak), sitting in the dining room of a modern apartment.

The first thing I do is check my ears and teeth, and to my delight their pointiness has carried over from the dreamscape setting. I have fangs and pointy ears! Yes!

A visual sweep of the space around me doesn’t reveal Bashekehi, but I do see Cheshire: she’s sitting across from me, grinning and playing with her hair–and wearing the top-and-skirt outfit from before.

More importantly than any of that, I have magic now. Magic that is mine and no one else’s. I can feel each of my new spells at the edge of awareness, waiting to be called upon. The contracts felt stored within my body, but these spells are nested far deeper.

[Exsanguinate]. [Carrion Swarm]. [Prey Upon].

These will be the foundation of my ascension.

The idea of filling my new apartment with bugs is kind of icky, but I just want to see what the spell diagram looks like. I hold out a hand and murmur, “[Carrion Swarm].”

The matrix of signs and symbols–elements or oneiros, perhaps, represented in some base code of Pandaemonium–blossoms in my mind’s eye. I don’t recognize most of the symbols, and I still have no basis for the organization of this language–if it even is a language–but I think I must have seen at least a couple of these before.

There’s something odd about the diagram, though. I don’t know what, but it’s like when you catch something out of the corner of your eye. It’s knowing something is there but not seeing it. I can’t read the symbols, I can’t parse the connections, but… it’s that headache you get, when you’re looking at something that you know you should be able to figure out, but it isn’t coming to you.

Setting that strangeness aside, the most interesting difference between this diagram and previous diagrams is the empty bar beneath the activation symbol, and the fact that said activation symbol is grayed out.

Bashe said something about mana, back when he was drip-feeding us exposition. I dismiss the spell and raise an eyebrow at Cheshire. “Tank’s empty. How do I fill up on mana?”

Cheshire taps her chin idly. “Take a guess. You’ve got some clues, and I know you like feeling clever.”

I glower at the smug catgirl, but she’s not wrong. Okay, clues, clues. We know Bashe uses mana, and we know that he gets mana from sex, from gambling, and from eating memories that have a “resonance for Indulgence.” Indulgence is the name of the archdemon, but is it also the name of her Truth, or Truths? Indulgence is part of the Throne of Shadow, but does it also occupy some kind of sub-Throne, something halfway between a Throne and a Truth?

The way he talked about what resonates with Indulgence, it certainly sounded like the elements that comprise a Truth. So let’s apply that logic to our own Truths: Blood, Gluttony, and Fear. Which means–

“Do I get mana from drinking someone’s blood!?” I lean over the table and grin at Cheshire. “Fuck yes!”

Cheshire laughs. “That’s certainly one way. You should also be able to feed on fear and love, and any act that could be construed as acting on your hungers should get you at least a little bit of mana.” She pauses, then adds, “I’ll note that all shadowtouched do feed on mana, which requires a personal element. Your incubus companion can’t just wander through a casino or a brothel; he has to be involved in some capacity to drink in all that delicious aspected mana. For you, that means the fear or love you feed on has to be directed at you.”

Interesting. That actually limits our options quite a bit. “So basically, ignoring memory-feeding, I’ve got two ways to get mana: a slow trickle from pursuing lesser hungers, and big bursts of mana from directly feeding on someone. Hey, wait, does that mean [Prey Upon] actually refills my mana?”

Cheshire winks. “I may or may not have constructed the spell with that in mind. With how conditional the spell is and how much it resembles the act of feeding, it should be a near-total refund for the mana you spend. Not quite infinite, sadly, unless you’re willing to sacrifice the long-term benefits for short-term gain.”

I’m a little peeved that my very first spell isn’t a game-breaking infinite loop, but that’s just because I’m a whiny little brat who will never be satisfied with anything less than everything. Also, more importantly: I feel a prickling sensation somewhere inside me.

On a hunch I recast “[Carrion Swarm],” and there it is: the bar beneath the activation symbol is just a tiny bit less empty. I dismiss the spell and cackle. “‘Hunger for knowledge!’ I get mana just by asking questions! Okay, that more than makes up for not getting my broken exploit combo.”

“Of course,” mutters a voice from over in the living room. “Of fucking course that’s how you’d treat your magic.”

“Bashe!” I cheer. I stand up and poke my head over the sofa to find the incubus lying on it with eyes closed and a now-empty bottle of wine in one hand. “Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon. Just couldn’t stay away?”

“You,” he begins, voice only the teensiest bit slurred, “are an obnoxious little shit. You’re like a cockroach in clown makeup: you skitter beneath people’s feet and when you stubbornly refuse to die you pretend that you’re the life of the party.”

I grin, though he can’t see me yet. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Bashe.”

He finally opens his eyes to glare at me. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about: I’m insulting you to your face and you’re preening about it.”

I shrug. “All attention is good attention when it’s directed at me.”

“And again, I can’t tell if your head is really that messed up or if you’re just acting like that to fuck with me.”

“It’s probably both,” I muse. “I haven’t been able to tell the difference for years.”

Bashe groans and closes his eyes again. “Why did it have to be the crazy girl?”

Cheshire pops her head in and suggests, “Because the Demiurge is a capricious bastard who gets off on tormenting her creations.”

“Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth,” he mutters.

I stroll into the living room and take a seat on the other sofa, facing Bashe. “So, why are you still here? Unless the answer is ‘because this is my home’ in which case the question should be: why haven’t you kicked me out? Did you actually decide to stay with me?”

Bashe slowly sits up and lets the empty bottle drop to the floor. He opens his eyes again and grimaces at me. “This isn’t my home, and I’m not staying for long. I picked this apartment at random because it was close to where we came out of the bubble. Do whatever you want with it when I’m gone.”

“Ah. Where will you go?” I ask.

The incubus shrugs. “I used to have some semblance of a life in this city, and I want to see how much of that I can rebuild. There are people I have to look for, places I have to visit. I’ll figure it out.”

The news isn’t as devastating as it would have been before meeting Cheshire. I’m sure a part of me will miss Bashekehi, at least at first, but I’m well-versed in letting attachments crumble to dust. Besides, he was kind of a dick to me, even if I deserved it. “When are you leaving?”

The imp of temptation sighs. “I would like to say ‘right now,’ but I still owe you some shadow of a debt. For all the pain in my ass you’ve been, you did free me and feed me. The least I can do in return is help you get your bearings in the city.” He glares at me and adds, “And don’t think you were clever about that; I know half the reason you freed me without a contract was to make me feel indebted to you.”

Ah, beautiful reciprocity pressure. I rub my hands together gleefully. “Details, details. What’s important is that I can use this opportunity to extort more exposition out of you! Muahaha!”

Bashe doesn’t even react to that one, which takes some of the fun out of it, but if I let him know that he’ll keep not reacting to try and drive the behavior into extinction, so I continue grinning at him regardless.

“So! Next moves.” I clap my hands together. “As much as I’d love to take a tour of the city and put together a new outfit to replace this horrid little number, I am hungry. I want mana, I want a lot of it, and I want it quickly.” I frown. “Hmm. You know what I need? I need a quest log. Cheshire, is there some fancy magic you can do to give me a quest log?”

Cheshire leans on the couch and points out, “You have writing materials in your backpack, you could just make a quest log yourself.”

“But I want a fancy user interface,” I whine. “I want the parchment-y background and the yellow exclamation marks that turn into yellow question marks when I fulfill quest objectives.”

Cheshire walks over and pats my head. “Aw, you poor thing. Too bad!” She snickers and ruffles my hair.

I stick my tongue out at her rebelliously. “Rude. What good are you if you can’t cater to my every absurd whim? Also, serious question: is that a genuine limitation or personal preference?”

“I’m actually pretty restricted in what I can do,” Cheshire admits. “A geist’s role is to empower and guide, and we are bound to our demon. By default you’re the only person I can interact with physically–in fact unless one of us chooses otherwise you’re the only person who can even see me and hear me–and the only magic I can perform is the magic you give me. If you can’t cast a spell, I can’t cast a spell.”

“Fascinating,” I say as I am rewarded with another trickle of mana. Definitely exploring that in detail at a later date, but for now: quest log!

I return to my new bedroom and find my sparkly backpack slumped against the dresser. The knife is nowhere to be seen, which makes sense given that I apparently ate it as part of the Truth-making process. I dump out the backpack and examine the pile.

Inventory: wait if we’re going to be playing this like an RPG we should make an actual inventory in the journal.

I grab a bloodstained notebook and flip through in search of a page that isn’t completely ruined. The pseudo-water damage is pretty thorough, but it’s worse in the front half so I just turn the book around and treat the back like it’s the front. I grab a pen and start writing.

Inventory: sparkly backpack, miscellaneous school supplies, hooded cloak, schoolgirl clothes, canteen, bandages, needle and thread, antiseptic, and a weird clay heart.

The bandages are a bit blood-logged too, so I doubt they’ll actually be much use for their intended purpose, but whatever. Maybe I’ll need to wrap something? Meh. I flip the page and title this entry Quest Log.

[Quest Accepted - Filling the Tank]: Gather mana so you can start casting spells. Get a sense of how much mana each activity produces.

[Quest Accepted - Clothes Make the Demon]: Get some new clothes and put together an outfit that says “bloody queen of fear and love” instead of “isekai’d high schooler.” I AM A COLLEGE STUDENT!!! Or was, at least.

[Quest Accepted - Sightseeing in Wonderland]: Accept a tour of the city from Bashekehi and try to get your bearings.

I really wish I had a nice satchel that I could store this in, instead of lugging around that backpack everywhere. Oh, there’s an idea. I flip to a new page.

Shopping List: satchel, new clothes, a new knife, and a smoothie.

Right, that looks like a good start. I guess we’ll just carry this around with us and try to make getting a satchel our top priority. I don’t think we should bother with any of the rest of this junk.

I take the notebook with me and move for the door, but pause. Wait. Am I still covered in blood? I run my hands through my hair and realize that I am absolutely still covered in blood. I can’t do anything about my clothes yet, obviously, but I can at least take a fucking shower.

I pop my head out to the living room and quickly shout, “Washing the blood off be out in five peace!”

I duck back inside, strip off my clothes and the butterfly hairpin–I should probably leave that off, given everything it apparently represents–and hop into the shower.

I take my showers scalding, and it is genuinely blissful to immerse myself in burning-hot water after the past however many hours of filth and suffering. I cleanse my body and luxuriate in the soothing heat, and my mind wanders.

Did my other self take that name to warn me? Did she know I was going to see that vision, and so named herself “Homura” to stop me from taking Cheshire’s deal?

It doesn’t feel like enough of a warning. Sure, I can put the pieces together and compare Cheshire to Kyubey, but I could have done that even if I wasn’t primed to think of her that way. Everything about her introduction to the narrative screamed “Deal with the Devil,” and she wasn’t even being subtle about it after I called her bluff.

But you still made the deal.

And why shouldn’t I take the deal? It’s everything I want. Why should I settle for the struggle? Why should I play by rules that are rigged against me? I’m not going to become a wizard, I’m not going to be some pious heroine, so what other choice do I have?

There’s always a choice. You chose to trust the least trustworthy person you’ve met so far, and I will remind you that one of those people was an actual faerie.

I grimace. Giving up power isn’t an option. That was never going to be an option. So what was I supposed to do? Just turn Cheshire down and hope some better offer shows up? Not going to happen.

Any offer would have been better than the one proposed by the creature that admits it likes manipulating us.

So maybe she has a few schemes lying in wait, so what? This is our best shot at power and immortality. This is our chance. This is a game that can be won.

More than once I’ve thought about what three wishes I would make if I found a genie’s lamp. There are so many stories about getting screwed over by a genie unless you find the right words to trick them with. They’ll use your exact words against you, so you’ve gotta be careful, gotta game it out like a contract. I’ve seen so many people brag about the manner in which they’d cleverly outwit an ancient immortal being. And hey, I’m not immune to that hubris; obviously not, with how I tried and failed to trick the Rider.

But in all the ways I’ve seen to get the most value out of your wishes, I think Aladdin did it best: the thief gets his wishes granted not because he outwits the genie but because he befriends the genie. He offers the genie what it wants, so the genie helps him and doesn’t try to screw him over.

So that’s my answer to the genie puzzle: I would promise to give the genie whatever it desires so long as it helps me achieve my desires. A relationship of mutual interest. And that’s my answer to the Cheshire puzzle too: if she really means to help me, if she really will grant my three wishes…

…Then I would burn the world to make her happy.

And if her desires conflict with yours? If Cheshire’s victory condition is contingent on your suffering, on your powerlessness, on your death? What then?

I clench my fists and mutter out loud, “That’s not going to happen.”

No? Why not? Because she’s pretty, and she’s smart, and she compliments you? Because she talks philosophy with you and calls you adorable? Because she presents herself as the very fantasy you called her out for being? She’s lying to you. She could be lying about everything.

“Stop it!” I hiss. “This isn’t useful.”

What isn’t useful is hiding from what’s right in front of you. She’s using you. What if she’s making you into a sacrifice? Fattening you up for the pot? What if this all ends with you bleeding out because you fell for a pretty face? All your plans rest on the obviously malevolent entity being nice and granting your wishes without caveats, without an attempt to screw you over. We’ve already compared Cheshire to Kyubey; how did that deal work out for Madoka? How many times did she die?

“This isn’t a fucking anime!” I nearly shout, fighting to keep my voice down as the dread and frustration rises. I can only hope the sound of running water keeps Cheshire and Bashekehi from hearing. “She’s offered me the world. How can I say no to that?”

Willpower. But I know you don’t have any of that. So you’ll go along with her, you’ll lie to yourself, you’ll try and pretend that she’s not plotting your downfall, that she’s not setting you up, that she’s not creeping up behind you to stick a knife in your back. And when you are bleeding out and dying you will know that you were wrong and I was right.

My hands are shaking. “You are just a psychological adaptation,” I tell my own maladaptive thought processes. “You are catastrophe and nemesis. You are a liar.”

I’m only you. The part of you that isn’t blind to reality. The part that wants to survive. Do you want to die? Is that why you’re trusting her, because you want her to slit your throat, to cut you open like you lacked the fucking will to go through with? Because she will kill you. She’ll hurt you, she’ll betray you, abandon you, kill you. She will kill you. You are going to die. You are going to–

I wrap my hands around my throat and squeeze until the animal panic chokes out all my bad thoughts. I let go, breathing shakily, and let out a few broken laughs. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong, because I am going to live forever.”

I cut the water and towel off, thankful to find one waiting in the bathroom cupboard. I put the schoolgirl clothes back on and throw the cloak over my shoulders but leave the hairpin with the rest of my rubbish.

With notebook in hand (and pen clipped to the binding) and flesh cleansed of filth (aside from what’s already starting to collect again from my horrid outfit), I return to the living room. Bashekehi lies on the sofa, eyes closed once more, but Cheshire is leaning against the far wall, smiling, staring right at me.

I don’t know you. I don’t know what you really want. I don’t know how you really feel about me. But I know that I need you, and I want you to need me too. So I will do whatever it takes to make you love me for real.

I force a smile, wink at the geist, and say, “Okay, I’m ready. Feeding time.”

Bashe slowly gets to his feet and makes for the door, fidgeting with his hair and outfit as he goes. I don’t see the scourge anywhere on his person, but maybe he has some pocket dimension magic to hide it in. I feel naked without a weapon, and I mentally bump getting a new knife to the top of my shopping list.

Bashe doesn’t lock the door behind him as we step out into the hall of what I presume to be an apartment complex, which has me glaring at him. “You seem to be taking our security pretty lightly.”

The incubus rolls his eyes at me. “Don’t be paranoid, especially when you don’t have a clue how this place operates. It’ll be fine.”

He moves on despite my protests. Cheshire and I follow him into an elevator–or rather I follow him into an elevator and Cheshire melts into wisps of smoke that flow into my shadow and vanish into it. I blink at the sight and tentatively wave at my shadow… which waves back out-of-sync. Okay, that’s pretty cool.

Bashekehi takes us to the ground floor. The trip down isn’t long, so instead of striking up an awkward conversation I continue playing with my shadow.

It’s quite surreal how normal everything is so far. My introduction to the Labyrinth was a gauntlet of otherworldly challenges, but there’s nothing about this apartment building that distinguishes it from the equivalent back home. The elevator opens into a lobby with a perfectly-normal human woman sitting at the help desk. She waves at us as we cross to the exit and I wave back.

…I guess it’s abnormal that she doesn’t even blink at the absolute state of my outfit, but maybe this is the bad part of town.

Bashekehi opens the door and we step outside. I get my first glimpse of the city in the Labyrinth, and it is immense.

It is a city of stone and metal and neon, a sprawling maze of squat tenements and skyward towers. I see arches and pillars and all sorts of fancy architecture I don’t have names for. There are neon signs everywhere advertising restaurants and shops and more in a language that isn’t English but which I can read perfectly.

There are people too, everywhere. People in modern clothes in all sorts of styles, people walking to or from work, people grabbing a bite to eat, people chatting with other people. It’s a sea of humanity, and I idly note that they are all walking; there isn’t a single vehicle in sight.

In the distance, two structures dominate the skyline: in one direction, a massive pyramid of metal and glass and glowing neon circuitry; in another direction, a stone amphitheater larger than the Colosseum back on Earth.

Bashe gestures at the city and says, “Welcome to Sanctuary 7.”