The Beast sighs. “I was afraid of that. You do realize this may be your best opportunity to rid yourself of Cheshire, don’t you? If you take my offer, you’ll never have to worry about her betraying you. Isn’t that peace of mind worth it on its own?”

“Hey. I may not trust Cheshire, but I don’t trust you either; there’s no ‘peace of mind’ in your deal. And you know, maybe you’re right about me. Maybe the core of me isn’t fear, or hunger; maybe it’s pride. And I have too much pride to accept your gilded cage.”

“Mm.” She seems oddly pleased with that answer for someone I’ve just denied. “Remember that, then, when she leads you to water.”

What does that mean? Is that literal or metaphorical? “Whatever. Let me leave.”

The Beast gestures and I see an empty doorframe in the middle of the chessboard. “You were never my prisoner, Maven. But, please, before you go: I have a parting gift, to be offered in good faith. Will you hear me out?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Perhaps. If you’ll swear by the Weaver that it really is good faith, whatever it is.”

“Of course. I offer you a gift in good faith, and my words to follow contain no trap or will to harm. I offer you something that you have desired, in the manner that you have desired or more pleasing to your desires. This and these I swear by Azathoth, Dreamweaver, All-Mother, Origin. Weaver take me if I forswear.”

I feel Azathoth’s touch, the sign of her passing interest and acknowledgement of the Beast’s vow. I breathe it in. “Okay. What’s this about?”

My doppelganger points at the anatomical heart around my neck. “That locket: it's a clever idea, but it won't work. Constructing an artifact that precise and complex would take a level of proficiency you're nowhere near approaching. At least, not in the kinds of conditions you'd be consuming your first soul. But I can help.”

I blink a few times. “Wait, what? Why and how? And what do you mean, why won’t it work?”

The Beast gives me a chiding look. “Do you remember what happened with your last artifact? How about the artifact two tries before that? You’ve made four artifacts so far, and only one did exactly what you wanted it to. I’m sure you can piece together why.”

I frown, and now I’m actually interested. “It’s the resonances,” I guess. “The crossbow was too contradictory. The hive-rock had a coherent focus, but it wasn’t the one I wanted. The seeker dagger worked because I was copying an exact effect. I don’t have precise enough control to make the resonances do what I want, so I have to rely on finding or making the right resonances.”

“And what resonances do you think you’ll find, when you first cut at your soul and shape its growth?”

I consider the question carefully. “Hunger. Consumption. Change. The process of carving. Interaction with the soul. Which… admittedly, does not seem perfectly correspondent to the preservation and safekeeping of soul fragments.”

“And that’s assuming your artifact isn’t being contaminated by whatever resonances are left over from the fight that earned you that soul. Face it: you don’t have the capacity to create that locket, and you can’t afford to restrain your hunger until you do have that capacity. You’ll need every scrap of power you can get on the hard road.”

I cross my arms and lean back in my chair. “So what’s your solution, then?”

The Beast lifts the mirror-shard and I’m about to complain, but then it twists and cracks and reshapes itself into a flawless glass tuning fork. She withdraws a golden needle from her suit jacket and taps it to the tuning fork once, twice, three times, each tap producing a beautiful and harmonious series of notes. “The metaphysical space around us is now vibrating with resonances that perfectly match the spell effect you’re seeking to achieve. Simply name the artifact and give it life.”

I hesitate, because I’m skeptical that it could be that simple, but I can’t exactly choose now to start doubting the veracity of Weaver-sworn oaths. I breathe deep, hold up the anatomical heart locket, and give it a name. “[My Heart].” The locket warms in my hand, and after a moment I begin to hear a very faint bump-bump, like the beating of a heart.

“You changed the name,” the Beast says, head tilted quizzically.

“Future-proofing,” I explain. “I came here with one name and traded it away, then set Malice behind to be Alice. I may have even been Homura, once upon a time. No reason to think I’ll be an Alice forever.”

The Beast chuckles. “What a clever animal you are.”

I poke at the locket. “I can feel something, but how do I know it actually does what it’s supposed to do? Short of, y’know, carving off a piece of my identity and seeing if it comes back.”

“You could trust my oath,” she says pointedly, “but barring that, I think you’d best start learning how to read artifacts like you read souls.”

Interesting. That seems like a very worthwhile avenue of exploration.

“In any event, thank you for your time, and I sincerely hope you don’t die again any time soon.”

I open my mouth to deliver a snarky reply, but she’s already gone, and everything but the door with her. I sigh, muster myself, and walk through.

I step through space and emerge into a yellow-walled room with a single wooden door, and immediately I’m being hugged by a catgirl.

“Oh thank the Weaver you’re okay,” Cheshire cries, voice muffled from her mouth being shoved into my shoulder.

“Hey, uh, hi. Good to see you too. Uh, what did that look like from your perspective?”

Cheshire looks up at me, still clinging tightly, eyes full and slightly reddened. There’s a tension to her, a full-body nervous energy that I can see in every motion. Another trick of manipulation, or was she actually scared I might not come back? “I… I saw you die, Alice. For a moment you were dead, and I was terrified. But then I felt you again, alive yet distant; separated from me by a power I couldn’t contest. It was the Beast, wasn’t it? What happened to you? What did it do to you?”

I gently extricate myself from Cheshire and look away from her, gathering my thoughts. Do I test her? Do I lie? I’m certainly not going to tell her everything, considering some of what the Beast and I talked about. But… I have to extend some measure of trust, or I’ll miss out on an opportunity to gather information–and besides, the plan is still to guarantee Cheshire’s loyalty, right? I look back at the catgirl, seeming so small and vulnerable. I hate it. I hate not knowing what she’s really thinking, how much of this is an act.

We made our choice; we’re with Cheshire for the hard road. Come hell or high water, it’s us against the universe.

“The Beast wanted to talk. She took my form, then made me an offer. She offered me her ‘animus.’ She called it a shard of Katoptris’ mirror.” And we really need to interrogate that further, at some point. If Reska became Katoptris, was she sealed in a mirror somehow? Our first vision saw Reska shatter a mirror, was that foreshadowing? Symbolically, thematically resonant? “She said it would make me Nobility, a shard-holder, and that the factions of the city are going to start murdering each other to get that shard in just a day or two.”

Cheshire stiffens, then bares her teeth. “They’re going to call a Game of Glass. It’s a custom in the Labyrinth, a way to determine which lucky soul gets to claim the shard of a Beast and ascend to join the ranks of the Nobility. The rules are different every time, but the Games are always violent, and they don’t always have a winner.”

I frown. “Why not? Do they end in a lot of mutual kills?”

She shakes her head. “It’s not even that, though that has happened. The real problem is that whoever wins the Game of Glass still has to confront the presiding Beast before they can claim its shard; see, the Nobles don’t actually control the shard or hand it out, they just control access to the Beast’s lair. Claimants to the shard compete for the right to approach the Beast, and the Nobles guarantee that whoever challenges it is given a fair chance to join their ranks. It’s… you could call it a privilege of Nobility: the Beasts allow the Nobles to call the Games and dictate the terms of selecting the next shard-holder, though its still up to the final candidate to prove capable enough or worthy enough or however the shard is gained. But just giving it away before the Game’s even been called… that doesn’t happen.” Cheshire looks even more nervous now. “What exactly did it say? What kind of offer did it make?”

Again I have to carefully consider how I’m going to phrase this. “She was… evasive about her motives. But she wanted me to become a Noble, and to leave the path I’m currently on. She seemed very interested in making sure I didn’t become an archdemon, and she asked me to turn my back on you. That was the offer: become Nobility and forsake Royalty.”

Cheshire scoffs. “What an absurd deal to present. Did it take you for a fool?”

“Perhaps. Regardless, I learned much from the encounter. I don’t know why this Beast is so interested in me, but we may be able to leverage that. And now I think I know what Averrich was talking about, when he mentioned a ‘big event’ come tomorrow.”

Cheshire’s gaze sharpens. “Yes, I think you’re right. Averrich must have a Noble backer, and he’s been given advance notice of the Game of Glass. That makes it more important than ever that we win this little hunt.”

I walk over to the room’s single door and push it open. “Then let’s walk and talk.”

I step out into a hallway with plain white walls and doors as far as the eye can see. Cheshire follows me out and glances around critically. “This is a bit much,” she says. “Summon the compass, we’re not going to make much progress otherwise.”

“Agreed.” I call the burning wheel to my hand and follow it to a door with dandelions painted on it. I open the door into an identical hallway, down to every door. “Oh, okay, I hate this. This is some Hannah-Barbera bullshit.”

I’m pretty sure this would have been impossible to navigate without the compass, but with the spell active I can just go through doors on autopilot and trust that eventually one of them will lead out of this horrible space-warping hallway. In the meantime, I have room to think, and to worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow.

“Something’s bugging me,” I tell Cheshire. “If Averrich knows he’s going to war tomorrow, and if he wants to become Nobility and rule the city, then why is he throwing lives away? Why take the risk that I might kill all his hunters and emerge stronger for it? He has to know I’m a rival–he definitely knows, because that concern is probably what he messaged ‘Kasumi’ about.”

Cheshire walks alongside me, manifested through the toy sword she picked out during our shopping trip. “He could just be mad; we saw it in his soul, that ruinous joy. I can imagine that driving him to self-destructive ends.”

I shake my head. “Madness is a cheap justification. I can believe the infection has some influence over him, but he wasn’t acting on random whims in that throne room; that show was calculated, the beats premeditated, all driven toward some goal in mind. I don’t believe it was idle madness to call this hunt.”

“Mm. I think you’re right. There’s an interesting contradiction in this hunt he’s called: reavers like the first one we fought are being thrown to the wolves, but one has been armed with a wealth of power. Why? What does he gain, from any of this? What are the possible outcomes to this hunt, and how do they benefit Averrich?”

I hold up a finger. “Outcome the first: a hunter kills me and takes a trophy from my corpse; Averrich eliminates a rival and adds a new artifact to his faction’s trove. But what’s stopping him from doing that himself, aside from it maybe being less interesting?”

“Power disparity,” Cheshire answers quickly. “As you are now, a fight with Averrich would be horribly one-sided in his favor, and that’s not what earns hunting trophies. It’s part of what slows progression for scions of all stripes: as they get stronger, they face fewer and fewer real challenges, which means fewer opportunities for advancement. Killing you personally would remove a contestant from the Game of Glass, but it wouldn’t meaningfully strengthen his position.”

“Whereas his cronies are all hovering much closer to my power level, hmm. But then, why not stack the deck further in their favor? The Reveler doesn’t seem to discriminate targets, and we utterly destroyed our first reaver opponent. If the goal is to get one of his minions to kill me, why not arm all of them to the degree he’s armed Mahiri, or at least send only the strongest of his forces to do the deed?”

Cheshire taps her chin thoughtfully. “Think about who he sent into the maze: volunteers, one and all. What kind of person volunteers to go fight a demon inside the lair of an eldritch horror?”

I snort. “Someone with more ambition or arrogance than sense.”

“Exactly!” Cheshire says with a clap. “The hunters who signed on–barring Mahiri–are hungry for power and overestimate their own abilities. In a Game of Glass, those hunters are liabilities, not assets. One of them might get the bright idea to try and seize the shard for themself and end up jeopardizing a critical operation.”

“This is a culling,” I realize with horror. “Averrich is using me to get rid of the weak links in his organization. They’re sacrifices. That’s awful.”

“It’s worse than that. Think about how he presented the hunt: like it was a–”

“A gift,” I interrupt, the implications unfolding before me. “His gracious offering to his followers. He talked about it like he was sharing the spoils. He’s trying to reinforce his image as a generous leader who offers fair prospects for advancement.”

“And if they all fail, that just reinforces the gulf between him and them. It reminds them how much they need Averrich and how they can’t survive without him. And then, when you’ve glutted on his followers and proved their inferiority, he gets to swoop in and kill you to prove his superiority–and your triumph over his minions might be enough to earn him a hunting trophy out of the act. That’s the second outcome to this hunt: you eliminate his liabilities, then he eliminates you, and he improves both his control over his faction and his personal power as a scion.”

“Ugh, what a conniving bastard. I really hate dealing with fae. Clever plan, though, I’ll give him that. The only real risk point is if one of those liabilities actually kills me and becomes a much bigger problem.”

“And that is probably why he’s given Mahiri so much support; she’s his guarantee that outcome number one doesn’t backfire on him. She’s his champion pick, the only reaver in the running really allowed to beat you, because she’s so tied down with debt that she’ll have no choice but to behave herself if she does win the grand prize.”

Well, that gives us a good segue. “Which brings us back to the question of the hour: how do we beat Mahiri? You had an idea for that, didn’t you?”

“I did!” she exclaims cheerfully. “And there are parts of my idea that you’ll like, and parts that you may not like, so let’s start with the good stuff: have you ever wanted to be a werewolf?”

That stops me in my tracks in the middle of another identical hallway, hand outstretched to open a lilac-patterned door. “Sorry, what? Like, an actual werewolf? Are you going to make me a werewolf?”

“It doesn’t have to be a wolf, but I know you like them and I thought that might get your attention. Put simply, our greatest obstacle to killing Mahiri lies in that sword of hers: the sword banishes summons, and you are primarily a summoner. But if we could get you an extra visceral edge, you could triumph. And anchoring a homunculus isn’t the only way to manifest a geist.”

My confusion and curiosity last for only a moment as I quickly put the pieces together. “You mean to manifest through me. You want to use my body as an anchor, or something like an anchor. You’re talking about possession.” My voice is soft, hollow, almost questioning. I stare at her, lips tight and eyes unblinking.

Cheshire notices my discomfort and rushes to reassure me. “Possession has a lot of negative connotations, I don’t think it’s a useful point of comparison. You’ll still have full control of your body, and you’ll have the power to end the merge at any time.” I keep staring, and she barrels on. “Alice, you’ve seen what my shapeshifting can accomplish with a good anchor. Your form, though, it’s something special. Give me any old body and I’d be able to fight Mahiri without getting banished, but your essence is more potent–more real–than any mortal anchor. You are a scion, an existence above the masses, and with my Gift in your hands you could do things I can’t even begin to attempt. You could become an all-consuming demonic wolf and turn the tables on Mahiri. She made so much noise about being the predator to your prey, so flip the script and hunt her like she’s hunting you. Chase her down, rip her limb from limb, and devour her soul. She framed herself as your rival, your nemesis, your antithesis, and that makes her a perfect target for your first throne duel. Become the god-eater wolf, hunt your prey, and take the next step on the path to your ascension. This is a golden opportunity, Alice.”

I am silent, my mind buzzing with paranoid ideation. Is this the moment my dreams have been warning me about? Is this the fatal choice? If I manifest Cheshire through my body, if I let her possess me, will it give her power over me? Was this outcome her plan all along?

Lines of actions, plots and schemes, the flow from decision to decision. Our first deal, the need to feed, a fateful encounter, everything spiraling out. Did she lead me to the club to forge a conflict with Mahiri that would lead me to this moment? Are even my Truths a clever trap, driving me toward the predator/prey dichotomy and a life as a hungry wolf?

“What parts of it won’t I like?” I ask when I find my voice.

“Well, you’ll be sharing a body with me, and… I know you don’t really like me. Not like I like you, at least.”

The melancholy in her tone elicits a twinge of sympathy that I brutally suppress. This is manipulation. She doesn't really feel sad, or if she does, she's still playing it up to incite a particular response. “The werewolf blood. Were you plotting this, when you urged me to drink from the lycanthrope instead of the fae?” Are you ever not plotting?

“It was the option with the highest utility value,” she says instead of answering plainly. “Averrich was too dangerous, most of the others would lack the same kick, and and between the various retainers she had the highest synergy. Her blood was powerful on its own, but resonant if transformation became a necessary condition of success, which I believe it has.” She’s calm, confident, explaining the steps in her logic in a way that makes perfect sense.

Liar. Betrayer. Untrustworthy. Plotting, scheming, deceiving. “The Beast warned me about you, when she had me in her lair. She told me you were going to turn me into ‘a hungry animal on a leash.’ I didn’t realize how distressingly literal she was being. If I had, I wonder how that would have changed the calculus of her offer.”

Cheshire acts alarmed, concerned, cautious. “The Beast will say many things, if it can get you to listen. You shouldn’t take it at its word, love, it’s not–”

“Don’t call me ‘love!’” I scream. Fists clenched, breathing heavy, tension boiling over. “Don’t call me that, don’t call me that, don’t call me that! I don’t know you! You know me like nobody else knows me, but I don’t know you. You say you know me, but you say you love me, and I don’t believe you.”

Frightened. Wounded. Pleading. Lies, lies, all of it lies. “Alice, I–”

“No!” I bark. “No, no, no. No more lies. You’ve been lying to me over and over, using me, manipulating me, taking advantage of me. You’re guiding me toward some horrible sinister end and I don’t know what it is and I don’t understand why. I don’t know what you want! I–” I break off, choking back… I don’t know what. “There’s always another layer, more secrets, something you’re hiding, something you haven’t told me yet. You told me she remade you, made you love me, and maybe that’s a lie, or maybe that’s true and the lie is that you want good things for me, or maybe the lie is that… is… I don’t know. I just.”

Sorrow on her face. The appearance of heartache and pain. “Please. Please, just give me a bit of trust and I’ll repay it tenfold, I promise.”

“I want to trust you,” I admit, bleak and hollow and pained. “I wish that I could trust someone without qualifiers, without fear. I want to trust you. I want to believe that you really do see me for who I really am and love me regardless, and I want to see the real you and fall in love with what I find. I want to believe that there’s something in me to love. I want to believe you’ll hold my hand and walk with me through every blasphemy and risk, but how can I believe that when… when…” I trail off, words not coming. “...everything,” I lamely finish.

I see the fear in Cheshire’s eyes, and I see her open her mouth to say something, to plead or reassure, but then she hesitates, falters, and stops. She slumps against the door opposite me and laughs bitterly. “Yeah. I mean, yeah, what can I really say to that? You’re right: you don’t have any good reason to trust me or believe me beyond brute, ugly necessity.” She stews in that for a moment, eyes dark and downcast. “Y’know, I was gonna argue about that. Point out all I’ve done to help you. Try to build on emotional connections, the pathos of moments we’ve shared. But there’s an easy counter for every example, and we both understand that sentiment can be faked. How can I expect the girl with literal trust issue trauma to take it on faith that I’m safe to trust?”

This… this isn’t what I was expecting. My thoughts are torn and fractured, conflicted between surprise at this new side of Cheshire and suspicion that it’s just another layer of her sick game. “Yeah,” is all I say, unsure of what to say or how to react.

Cheshire laughs again, pained and broken. “I hate every part of this. Do you know what she wanted me to do, when she sent me to meet you for the first time? The Demiurge asked me to make my introduction, ‘Make me a contract with me, and become a magical girl!’” More broken laughter, and a clenched fist. “She stuck her filthy fingers in my brain and made me want nothing more than to be the perfect partner for a girl I’d never met, and then she asked me to poison the well in my first introduction to that girl. She wanted me to sabotage my chances of ever being trustworthy, and all for a fucking anime reference. She still got her way, I guess, with that bait-and-switch stunt.”

Whiplash. I’m thrown back to that first meeting with Cheshire, a mere hour or so after my first vision of another life. I registered Cheshire as a Kyubey type on first sight, but I thought that was because Homura’s name choice had primed me to think about Madoka Magica and look for parallel structures to the story of that show. And now, Cheshire tells me that the Demiurge intended for that connection to be made?

Did the Demiurge send me those dreams? Did she set me up to be suspicious of Cheshire, to distrust the woman I have no choice but to rely on? Is it all some sick game to her? It’s like Nyarlathotep was winking at me, taunting me, saying, “Look what a bad decision this is, and still you jump at it. Pathetic.”

I want to ask what else the Demiurge told Cheshire to do. I want to ask how much of my time in the Labyrinth so far has gone according to her design. “Do you hate me?” I ask instead, the question sounding dumb and petty and absurd as it leaves my lips.

Cheshire is silent for a long moment, still staring into the ground, but at least she looks up at me with soft, sad eyes and admits quietly, “Maybe a little. But not as much as I hate myself. And I love you a lot more than I love myself.”

“I can relate to that,” I say softly. “But… you already knew that.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s the real issue, isn’t it? Hard to have a relationship this one-sided.”

I hesitate, paranoid brain screaming that I’m about to make a mistake, but then I say, “How about… how about this: I don’t know you, but I think I’d like to. Whatever you are, you are fascinating, and appealing, and you may really be my perfect other half. So why don’t we start over? I’m… not really good at this stuff. A lot of things, really.” I laugh awkwardly. “Gods, I don’t actually know where I’m going with this. But, um… yeah. I want to be able to trust you. I want to go on more dates with you, too, because as messy as this whole situation has been I have really enjoyed your company at times. But I’m not ready to trust my body to you.”

She smiles sadly. “That’s… understandable. And, thank you. I look forward to going on more dates with you, Maven. I do love you, even if that didn’t come about organically. I love the way your mind is always so full and frantic. I love the way you dig into systems and try to unravel them like puzzles. I love your yearning for adventure and your reckless impulsivity. I love the way you cry when you think no one can hear you.” Her smile turns wry as she finishes, “And I love the way you flaunt your ego but can’t stand it when someone else starts complimenting you.”

I ignore the blush on my face and cough awkwardly. “Ahem. Yes. Well. Let’s keep moving, and, uh, maybe figure out an alternative to the Mahiri situation. We do still have a hunt to win, after all.”

“Of course.” She rises to her feet, and together we proceed further into the maze.