Seeing An in the lab, Kano called out to her. “What’s going on outside?”

An stopped what she was doing and looked over. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why is there energy leaking out of the citadel and creating horrible little things in the process?”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

An smoothed her hair. “Strange. Werisah was supposed to be dealing with the reactor’s excess output. I wonder if something went wrong?”

She was about to return to her work when Kano said, “Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”

“Can’t it wait? It doesn’t sound very pressing.”

“No, it can’t.” Was this how most of the disasters caused by necromancers started? By ignoring problems until they reached a critical stage? “It’s dangerous enough already. Who knows how bad it might get if you leave it alone.”

An shook her head. “When I first came here, I thought this would make for a relatively peaceful place to continue to my research, but it appears I was gravely mistaken. Instead all I have experienced is a constant stream of interruptions.”

“Yeah, yeah, you can complain after you’ve fixed this. Why are you even working with Werisah? He seems completely incapable of dealing with things on his own.” Kano would’ve ditched him long ago in An’s position.

“He has been useful in furthering my research, but truth be told, I am beginning to have doubts about him. Between him and his former partner, we’ve really fallen a long way from our former glory.”

“That’s probably a good thing.”

An laughed. “I’m sure you think so. If only you could have seen all that we accomplished, you may feel differently about it. Admittedly, things didn’t always turn out quite the way we hoped, but there were such wonders to be had. It was as if we held the very spark of creation in our hands.” Eyes wide and shining, An took a breath and regained her composure. “My apologies for getting caught up in the past. Those days are long gone. Though if my work is successful, perhaps we shall enter an even greater age.”

“Uh-huh.” As passionate as An was about it all, her speech made little impression on Kano. She didn’t care about the past, and even if An succeeded, which still seemed very unlikely, Kano had little faith it would have much impact on the world. Whatever she created, it wasn’t going to fix things. Nothing would. “Anyway, let’s go see how Werisah screwed up this time.”

As they were descending through the citadel, Ren slithered up beside An and asked, “What will happen to the world if you do succeed?”

“I can’t possibly predict most of what will occur, but at the very least there shall be new life for the first time in far too many years.”

“Don’t necromancers make ghouls and stuff pretty often?”

“Those are merely pale reflections of life. I’m talking about creatures that are truly alive.”

“Oh. I don’t think Kano or I are truly alive by that definition. Is there really that much of a difference? It doesn’t really seem like it to me.”

“I was not referring to creations such as yourselves, though you can hardly be called new life given that you were created using human souls in the first place. Perhaps I should have said instead that I aim to bring forth new souls into this world.”

“Necromancers sure talk about souls a lot,” Ren said, apparently having lost interest, and she moved back beside Kano.

“Tell me about it.”

They were getting close to the reactor when Kano stopped. This place felt profoundly different than the last time she was here. There was far more energy present than last time, but she’d expected that much. She could sense something else as well, some foreign presence that seemed intrinsically linked with the energy. Was that something Werisah had done? Or was the reactor always like that when it was on?

Kano turned back to An. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“No, not particularly. If the reactor is dangerous, as Karen assured you that it is, then being close to it is probably the most dangerous place to be.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” The buildup of energy was worrying, but Kano didn’t think it posed any danger to her. And she should be able to mitigate it for anyone around her. It was that other presence that concerned her. If something else took direct control of the energy, then her newfound affinity for it might prove to be no protection at all. Not to mention everything else it might be able to do with it.

“Why did Werisah want to work with you, anyway?” If whatever was happening with the reactor was at least partly a result of his deliberate tampering, then understanding his motives might go a long way to understanding what he might’ve done.

“Because he had a chance to see the promise of my work realized.” An sounded surprised that it was even in question. “He was eager to help, as I would think any reasonable being would be if they understood what was at stake.” She gave Kano a meaningful look.

“If you say so.” All An’s answer had given Kano was further confirmation of the necromancer’s arrogance. It didn’t seem to have much to do with reality. At least not the one she lived in. “And he forced his way into the citadel, killing all those ghouls, just to offer you his help?” Given that they were talking about a necromancer, it was possible, but it still sounded ridiculous to Kano.

“I will admit that he didn’t act out of altruism. At first, he was much more concerned with how the citadel might benefit from the development of his transformation virus, but once I explained to him the importance of my work, he was happy to help.”

“And that’s the only reason why he wanted to work with you?”

“That’s right.”

“There’s nothing else he wanted out of it?”

“Well, he was particularly interested in my research into self-sustaining organisms. I believe he hoped to incorporate it into his own work.”

That had to be what he was really after. Kano thought back to how his transformed soldiers had turned to dust. Was that the flaw he was trying to fix? If he succeeded, he’d certainly be a lot more dangerous with an army of such creatures, but Kano imagined he was probably aiming to do more than that.

It was unlikely he’d be satisfied with something as simplistic as increasing the military force he could bring to bear. Was there even anything left in the world worth conquering? He already had the citadel, so what else could he want? Maybe the idea of commanding wide stretches of wasteland appealed to him. It was hard to say what a necromancer might desire.

“Do these self-sustaining things need a lot of necromantic energy?”

“Currently, yes, though I’m hoping to—”

Ignoring whatever An was rambling about now that she had her answer, Kano hurried off to the reactor. So, he was ultimately just looking to take the reactor’s energy for himself. The realization came as something of a relief to Kano. It made things much simpler. Now that Ren had the orb, all Kano had to do was carry out Himin’s plan herself, and things would more or less be fixed. Or at least, no more broken than usual.

And yet, even as she hurried toward the reactor, she wasn’t certain if she wanted to destroy it. Dubious as she was about An’s ability to change the world for the better, losing access to the reactor’s energy might destroy any possibility of An realizing her vision. Kano shook her head in disbelief. Was she actually considering siding with a necromancer?

Working with Yon for her own benefit had been bad enough. Helping An when there was nothing in it for her personally seemed almost unbearable. Though An had helped with Ren, despite there being seemingly nothing to gain from it. Was repaying her favor in kind such an outlandish concept?

But that assumed she hadn’t freed Ren just to manipulate Kano into being on her side. It was all too possible for someone as clever as An, but somehow it just didn’t seem likely. The more Kano thought about it, the more she wanted to see all this to the end. Would the necromancer bring new life or only destruction? Kano had to know which it would be.

Reaching the reactor door, Kano was surprised to find that the slime was gone. She scanned the corridor around them, but there wasn’t a trace of Eomonsa’s creation to be seen. Had Werisah devised some method of destroying it? It seemed unlikely, given how incapable he’d seemed before. Kano shrugged. It probably didn’t really matter.

She stepped forward, the reactor door sliding open at a touch. A large circle of glass sat on the ground before her, beside the wall from which it had been cut, while the hole it had left behind was filled with a tacky orange substance. Beyond the wall, the reactor had been dramatically reconfigured. Rather than a web of loosely connected, independently moving components, now much of it was tied around one central point—Werisah himself.

His body moved in perfect synchronization with the components around him, though Kano had no idea if he was even alive underneath his robes. Dying off like that would probably be too much to ask for. When were things ever that easy?

“Somehow,” An said from behind Kano, “this is not exactly what I imagined when he told me he was going to deal with the reactor’s excess energy output.”

“It’s also clearly not working,” Kano said, putting her hand against the glass and peering in as she tried to discern what Werisah was trying to accomplish. From what she could sense, the reactor’s output remained largely the same. But given how dramatically its appearance had changed, Werisah’s goal must be something else. Perhaps the reactor was producing more energy, and it was being directed right into Werisah? It didn’t bode well for anyone other than the necromancer himself.

“Any idea how we can get him out of there?” Kano asked.

“I’m not sure that we can, at least not without destroying the reactor. Which, given that it’s running, would be disastrous.”

“Oh.” Kano had forgotten that the reactor needed to be deactivated for it to be destroyed safely. “Well, is there some way to turn it off, then?”

“None that I’ve figured out yet. It’s probably best to just leave it be for now. So long as the reactor remains stable, completing my work takes priority.”

“What about the energy leaking out of the citadel?”

An shrugged. “Not many ghouls approach the citadel in the first place, so the risk should be relatively minimal. If it concerns you so much, you’re free to go out there and warn people away from it.”

“And what if the leak keeps spreading?” The areas adjacent to the citadel were densely populated. If the energy reached them, there might be hundreds of the suffering lumps Kano had encountered on her way here. That or something worse. She wasn’t sure what exactly it might do to ghouls.

“All the more reason why I should get back to work.” An dipped her head to Kano and walked out.

Still staring at the necromancer behind the glass, Kano wished she’d succeeded in killing him. But there was no point dwelling on the past, especially when there were more important things to do. Sighing, she turned to Ren. “Come on, then, let’s go out there and do what we can.”

“I’d rather not. Isn’t it dangerous out there?”

“It’ll be fine, just stay with me.” So long as they were close, Kano was sure she could keep her free from the energy’s influence.

“I still don’t really want to go.”

“I realize that, but I could use your help. There’s a lot of ghouls out there that might be in danger.”

“So? I don’t care about them.”

Kano shook her head. Ren had chosen a poor time to be selfish. “Then just do it for me, okay? If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be languishing alone in your tank.”

The blob let out a long groan but didn’t argue further.