1

The abandoned church had been designated as a temporary dining hall. It was conveniently located just south of Lilac’s lab, a few minutes east of the crystal spire, and just west of Elkroot and Egret’s lodgings. Little of what deemed the building a church was left; pews were broken down and refashioned into long tables and the delicately crafted stained glass windows were cracked and caked with dust. Even parts of the roof were missing.

“Not bad,” Akari skewered a thick chunk of boiled pork and swallowed it without chewing. “It could use more seasoning.”

“Enjoy it while you can. The meat supply runs cold next week.” Emily remarked. She placed a small portion of each dish on her well-partitioned plate in her mouth. She washed it down with a sip of water. “Soon it will all be oats and bread.”

Egret sat at the edge of the table. Her milky-white skin was pale and the plate before her was untouched. “I will be leaving at dawn. The city is lost.” she said in a low whisper. The rest of the hall grew quiet.

“Why is that?” Emily asked from the opposite end.

“Great evils approach. I feel their presence. One may be stalking us from the shadows, even now.” Egret rubbed the back of her neck with her hand. “We should retreat. It is better that we lose the city and those that fight for our escape than for us to all be slaughtered.”

“You would abandon the lady?” Akari shouted angrily. She stood up with her left hand on the hilt of her shortsword.

Egret’s blank expression didn’t flinch. “You couldn’t pierce me through if you tried. Brother, we’ll be going.” she looked down at Elkroot, who had finished his meal and quietly sat beside her.

“It’s all right. Akari, sit down. Broken down as it is, this is still a church, and I won’t have you drawing blood here. Elkroot, your sister wants to leave because she fears our enemy. What will you do?” Emily calmly placed her hand on Akari’s shoulder. Akari released a low grumble and relented.

“I’ll remain here. As my sister seems to have forgotten, we still owe you a debt. One that after this campaign is complete, will be paid.” Elkroot quietly responded without looking back at his sibling. Egret, with a despondent sigh, left through a small door in the back of the building.

“I would have liked to ask more about what she’s afraid of. Elkroot, do you know?” Emily shifted her plate to the side.

“The dead tell her many things,” he replied. “Most of it is nonsense, some of it is told in riddles, and a small fraction is truly useful information. I believe she told us everything she could. She was truly frightened.”

“Why are you staying then? Are you not afraid too?”

“She forgets who we are. We will not be killed so easily. We may be twins, but she acts the part of the younger one, all the same.” Elkroot poked the end of his fork into a crack in the wooden table. “Her time spent with the dead weakens her mind and affects her judgement. For that, I am glad I was not born the way she was.”

2

It was midday. Elkroot laid in alone at the top of the spire, his eyes closed. In protection of the city from skyward attacks, light touching his faded pupils was little more than a distraction. The work had grown more tiresome than before; a greater load of damage to the barrier resulted from his sister’s absence. Yet it was more than manageable.

He recalled the debt he owed to the academy’s master. On her scholarly expeditions she’d come across an underground city. It stretched endlessly in all directions, yet took up no more room than a child’s playpen. Its inhabitants lived their days growing food without sustenance, trading goods of no value, and wandering its endless alleyways in search of nothing. The twins had been born there. When the lady blew open the lid covering the city with a bolt of golden fire, the city itself quickly turned to dust and melted away. The two twins, untouched by the curse of their birthplace, remained. It could be said that the lady destroyed their kin and their homeland. And yet, they were granted the privilege of walking atop the earth and commanding the elements that shaped it. The only proof of their heritage was their pointed, sideways ears, something shared by the remnants of their people.

“That’s an interesting story.” a girl’s voice called out from beside him. It was soft, and reverberated through his ears like a single piano chord.

“Who’s there!” Elkroot instinctively sat up and pointed his hand in the direction of the voice. The only girl in the city at that age was the lady’s daughter, and this wasn’t her. Instead, this girl had black hair reaching down to her ankles and a pure white dress covering her modest bosom. Her dark eyes seemed to fill his field of view.

A set of rotating silver rings surrounded the girl. They slowly closed closer and closer until they seemed about to graze the girl’s pure pink flesh. The girl fell to her knees and began to cry. Thick glass-like tears fell from her face as the rings closed in and began etching marks into her skin.

“Wahh! Stop it!” The girl, desperately contorting her body to avoid being wounded, pleaded for a release of Elkroot’s assault. Elkroot’s quivering lip and twitching eye disrupted his focus. Was he prepared to kill an intruder in cold blood? She could easily be the one his sister gave a warning about. Besides, how would a normal girl have slipped through the locked hatch separating this floor from the rest? Every thought filling his head was a herald of danger. His grip released. The rings, which had come within inches of executing the girl and spraying her blood across the floor, fell to the ground with a clank.

“Name yourself. You can’t be here.” Elkroot sternly warned.

“...” the girl laid silent on the floor, as if sleeping. Her chest slowly rose and fell, and the shallow cuts carved into her body quickly closed. A cold sensation creeped across the back of Elkroot’s neck. His vision blurred and inverted, as if he’d just fallen. Crimson blood seeped into the intricate glass flooring of the spire. He tried to get up, but it seemed neither his arms or legs would react to his commands.

3

Emily Wehrhardt held a fascination for studies of the elements. It was a burning, unquenchable obsession no less powerful than hunger or thirst. Books, reagents, and the expertise of her elders were quickly consumed and incorporated into the stores of the young sorceress’s vast knowledge.

When she learnt of the existence of the Academy she would stop at nothing to go. The mere possibility of forbidden knowledge and long-indecipherable tomes awaiting her appetite were enough that she left her home and wandered in the wilderness for months, foraging for food and raiding the cargo of passerby to survive until she reached the capital. From the very moment she held out her outstretched palm, it was clear that she held no particular affinity or talents. The ice, fire, and lightning escaping her fingertips was altogether unremarkable. However, what caught the eye of classmates and instructors alike was the presence of all three, as well as the uncharacteristic golden glow radiating from her tar-black eyes and circle tree roots reaching out from under her collar.

From nothing she came, but as her name and position became established, she felt an unfamiliar weight on her shoulders. Pupils looked up to her instruction, superiors expected results, and officials demanded soldiers. The weight of leadership was something she hadn’t asked for. In return for access to ancient incantations and nearly endless libraries of text, she was shackled to the institution she’d come to lead. The chains were ephemeral and inescapable, and only grew heavier as she amassed more knowledge. Even now, with the chains so heavy she felt she could barely stand, they felt close, such that they existed as proof of her accomplishments. She would never cast aside these chains, as doing so would be the same as casting aside the craft she’d carefully refined for her entire life.

“Lady!” the soldier before her, his head and body obscured by a suit of plate armor, called her name. She had been staring at the sands in the distance from inside her room. She briefly shook her head to clear her mind and looked back at him.

“Hm. What is it?”

“The walls continue holding firm, but…” he paused. There was a nervousness to his voice.

“Come now, spit it out.”

“We’ve had our first casualties.” he said with a beleaguered sigh. “Two dead. Inside the walls, two men were found. Their heads were cleanly separated from their bodies.”

Emily grabbed the man by the collar and held him close. From an inch away, she could see his eyes, darting back and forth in fear and bewilderment.

“Get them identified if you haven’t already. And don’t tell anyone that doesn’t need to know.” Her expression softened. “If there’s anyone that knew the deceased, give them the day off.”

After sending the soldier away she sunk into a deep thought. Whatever enemy she was facing was no assassin. It would take too long to saw off a head, and there hadn’t been any reports of broken windows or picked locks. Beheading someone behind enemy lines was a sign of confidence, an absolute certainty that one wouldn’t be caught.

The gentle blue barrier flicked for just a moment and faded away. The full force of the desert sun again struck the city. She stared down at the desert battle and the soldiers manning the walls. It was faint, but they were different from the enemies from just a day or two before. Their movements were smooth and sharp, their limbs properly defined arms and legs, and the dismembered body parts incorporated into their bodies moved as if they were still living. It was unsettling how they were roasted alive by Lilac’s concoctions, writhing and shaking as they burned.

These thoughts only served to distract Emily from the truth. There was no need to check the top floor of the spire. Her direct subordinate was dead, a third casualty. It was almost a blessing that his sister had already left such that Emily wouldn’t need to see her grieving face. Surely she was prepared for this outcome.

A shiver ran down Emily’s back. The sensation of a fingernail, cold as ice, tracing along her neck circled along her skin. With a snap of her fingers, a hollow shade remained where her body had stood a moment earlier. Red blood ran down from the side of her neck, but the cut was shallow. She was the next target. For a second, she thought she saw the edge of a blade, curved like a crescent moon and tinged scarlet, fade into nothing.

Without pausing for a moment, Emily rushed to the doorway of her room and threw the door open. Producing a withered purple flower, she crushed it beneath her feet as she stepped outside. The wooden door pulsed with a loud creak and slammed shut behind her.

The air around her grew thick like mud, and while the hallway looked the same as it always had; it was composed of cloudy glass floors and ceilings with wooden doors lining the hall. The outside world was sealed off. Even the slight vibrations in the spire caused by wind blowing past were absent beneath Emily’s slippers.

Scraping of metal against glass broke the silence. From beyond the stairs leading down the spire, a man appeared. He was unmistakably human, possessing a bald head and four limbs, yet his awkward gait and improperly bent joints rendered his walk closer to a crawl. In both of his hands were short crescent-shaped blades gripped at the ends, cutting into the man’s hands and leaving two trails of black blood behind him. It turned its head towards Emily in confusion; its empty black eye sockets casting their gaze over her.

Emily felt something pressing against her. The man had lunged at her, but she sensed no movement. The hallway itself had squeezed and stretched to close their distance. She felt three of the protective amulets in her left pocket shatter. She waved her left hand and three bolts of lightning, fire, and ice appeared in the air. They buried themselves in the man, leaving a swirl of flower petals in their path. He disappeared and reappeared a foot behind himself, seemingly unfazed. Emily took the short moment of respite to whisper something.

Her quiet incantation filled the room with a multicolored glow, akin to the surface of a soap bubble. The flowing colors revealed thick, veiny growths that stretched along every inch of the hallway, pulsating with black blood. They all flowed into the man before her, continuously feeding his assault. He attacked again. The room twisted and bent, and the barrier she’d shed used to protect herself released an ear-splitting shatter as its pieces fell to the ground and melted away. The man continued his relentless attack. With every shift and bend of the room, Emily expended another defensive measure. The blades were quick. One caught her on the cheek, another grazed her neck, a third pierced her side. Soon patches of her flesh were raw and bloody, and her fatigue was only one of many signs that the end was near. With a huff of resolution, she held out her left palm. A green seed appeared in her hand and she crushed it with the full force of her grip.

“Hah!”

With Emily’s eyes glowing a golden green, she called forth tree roots lurking within the wooden doors to restrain her foe. The man, as if nothing more than a mirage, easily evaded the roots by leaping along the walls of the hallway, both blades aimed directly for Emily’s exposed neck.

Emily snapped her fingers for the final time. Golden flame expanded from her body and covered the black veins, as well as their host before her.

“Fire is the natural enemy of ghouls and evil spirits. Yet you fancy yourself human, wearing our skin, and walking such that we’re equals. Tell me, who told you to come here? I’ve never seen one of you using a weapon this far south.” Emily smugly asked the man, who writhed on the floor as his limbs and his body burned to dust. The glow in her eyes died down. From the ground beneath her, the crushed pieces of the purple flower floated into her hand and bloomed again. She pulled open the door leading back into her room.

With a roar of water rushing through an orifice, the world melted away and she found herself again in her room overlooking the city, next to a sleeping Vivian.

Emily gently brushed her hand over Vivian’s blonde hair. A tear fell from Emily’s blood-stained cheek.

“It’s good they did not come for you.” She collapsed to the floor.

4

The Archive’s stone figure pierced the horizon. As Anastasia’s party approached, its plainly patterned stone walls and entrance came into view. Hundreds of birds no larger than mice flew to and from a terrace on an upper floor. The group entered the ground floor through a narrow tunnel on the side.

Only after entering was the true expanse of the Archive’s architecture made apparent. Shelves several stories high extended outwards lined with books. At the center, A young girl sat behind a circular desk, donning a sewn uniform leaving her shoulders exposed. Her hair was a pure white, parted to the side with a silver hair clip. Two brown ears poked out from the top of her head. She passed a red ball from hand to hand, seeming not to notice the party’s approach.

“Greetings. We’ve come with orders to retrieve information about a particular topic.” the captain said confidently. She placed both of her hands on the receptionist’s desk.

The girl, who looked no older than Anastasia, paused for a moment. “And what would that topic be, Miss? If you’re not sure, I can provide a brief introduction to each floor.” she replied cheerfully, wearing a fake smile.

The captain scratched her head. She briefly attempted to recall the details that Reshevsky had provided, but they amounted to little more than a stone gate that couldn’t be broken down by force. “That won’t be necessary. It’s about sealed gates and the like, the type you can’t break down with a hammer.”

“Very well. Do you have a proof of clearance?” the girl responded. A brown tail curled upright behind her.

“Proof of…clearance? Could you elaborate on that?” the captain nervously responded. She briefly flipped through her pockets as she spoke. There was nothing inside them.

“Our rules require either a signature or stamp of approval from a seventh-ranked official or higher to access these materials.” The young girl said. Her ears twitched twice as her attention shifted away.

Canary called out from the back of the group. “I’ve got it.” He handed a sheet of parchment to the girl, scrawled with unintelligible writing and a signature at the bottom. She looked at him once, then at the captain, and finally at the parchment.

“Very well. We’ve received your request. Please go up to the eighth floor on the west tower.” She pointed upwards. In the hollow space at the center of the structure, a network of taught rope crisscrossed from floor to floor. Every few seconds, someone would scurry along one of the ropes on all fours. “Your password is barley. If you require lodging, please make your way to the tenth floor with your payment. Thank you very much.” The girls stood up and bowed. She held up her arm and pointed to the left.

“What was that?” the captain muttered as they trudged up the stairs. “The old man didn’t tell me anything about a proof of clearance for this place.”

“The rules change often to keep out spies.” Canary explained. “This might be a new rule that he didn’t know about.”

“Then what was that paper you handed over?” The captain asked dryly.

“The old man’s signature.”

“Didn’t you say he didn’t know about the rules?”

“He’s not the only one capable of producing his signature.” Canary said with a wild grin.

-

Anastasia pulled a book from the shelf and flipped through its contents. The upper floors were not as tall as the ground floors, and as such, a ladder was unnecessary for accessing volumes on the top shelf.

It was a short book written in an older version of the modern tongue. Anastasia could barely understand the detailed technical text and diagrams filling its pages. It concerned the design of particular drawbridges and castle gates and potential improvements to their function.

Anastasia quickly closed the book and returned it. She moved on to the next in the same fashion, skimming its contents, realizing they held little relevance, and closing it again.

“How long are we going to have to do this?” Anastasia asked the captain, who was occupied with a similar task.

“I’m not sure. This whole section is labeled ‘gates, boundaries, and barriers’ so it’s anyone’s guess. Since we don’t have a name for the gate itself we must look through every volume.”

Anastasia groaned loudly. After a momentary rest, she continued her task.

“You two! I believe I’ve found something.” From the opposite side, Maria called. When the two came to her side, she pointed to a small sketch imprinted on a large page. It depicted a pair of large stone pillars engraved with a flower pattern behind a waterfall. “The Unyielding Doorway is a gate sealed off by a powerful witch near Timofey’s Basin. This should be our destination.”

“Well done, Maria.” the captain replied gladly. “Is there anything about a key?”

“No, not yet. I’ll keep looking.” Maria said.

“Wait!” Anastasia rushed to the opposite shelf and produced a small volume no wider than her hand. It was titled “Locks and keys: Advanced Mechanisms”. “Look here.” Anastasia flipped to a page a little more than halfway through. “It describes here an unyielding doorway that’s opened with a large brass coin with a glass globe at the center.”

“Is ‘wider than a dinner plate’ still a coin?” the captain asked, looking over Anastasia’s shoulder.

“Every large and flat piece of metal is a coin.” Maria drew a large circle in the air as if to prove her point.

“Good work.” The captain ruffled the hair on both of their heads, to Maria’s displeasure and Anastasia’s delight. “Have either of you seen Canary?”

5

“Mikhail Pomarev

Executed on the twenty-first of the first month at approximately six in the evening. It was noted that he said nothing and refused any food and drink in the days leading up to his sentence. Assistance was required to carry him to his execution site. His remaining family and individuals related to them were handed a similar sentence, but their status is currently unknown.”

Canary, standing alone, re-tied the bundle of parchment and returned it to the shelf.