“How am I supposed to answer that?” Damien asked. “I have no idea. I don’t know how the Cycle works or what the proper methods are to reset it. Henry, care to fill me in?”

“It’s through the Ether,” Henry said, rising up from Damien’s shadow and sitting down in a cross-legged position beside him. “You’ve noticed how Ether seems drawn to certain points, right? Well, there are several points throughout the Mortal Plane that the majority of the Ether stems from. They’re the weakest points in the Plane, and if all of them are overloaded at once, the Ether will fry everything on this plane and initiate the restart.”

“That’s it?” Damien asked. “How does it know what to do? How does it make the same thing every time? The Ether isn’t intelligent.”

“Is it not?” Henry asked, cocking his head to the side. “How do you know that?”

“Well, is it?”

“I have no idea,” Henry admitted. “It’s one of the great mysteries. Now that you’ve met the Faceless, perhaps he could answer that question. But I don’t know myself. It hasn’t shown any direct signs of intelligence, but the Cycle restart is a fascinating thing to behold. If you didn’t know better, it certainly looks like someone is doing everything intentionally.”

“Well, we’ll put a pin on that I guess,” Damien said as he rubbed his brow in frustration. “How difficult is it for these points of Ether to be activated? And how many are there – or rather, how many need to activate at the same time for this process to start?”

“There are ten,” Henry replied. “But only three have to be active at once. The others will chain themselves into activation once the first three activate.”

“So how do we know It Who Stills The Seas hasn’t already activated any of them?”

“I’ve been monitoring the nearest ones, and there would have been a huge disturbance in the world if any were active, trust me,” Henry said.

“Delph and I have been watching them as well,” Havel said. “Although Delph has no idea what he’s actually watching for.”

“That’s another question.” Damien pointed an accusatory finger at Havel. “Why haven’t you told Delph this? What’s the point of making him think you’re just a goofy artifact rather than a Void creature?”

“Because I love Delph like a brother,” Havel replied. “And I know that he’s a loose cannon. If he thought the Mortal Plane was this close to collapse, he’d never enjoy himself again. He’d just work himself to death, and he wouldn’t even be able to make a significant difference. I give him enough information so that he can do everything he can to help, but I will not pointlessly cause him trouble.”

“That’s cold,” Damien said. “But you told me. Is that because I can actually do something about it?”

“That, and I also don’t care about you,” Havel said. “No harm meant by that, of course. You have great influence over the fate of this Cycle. I care about that. But I do not care about you – in the same way that Henry doesn’t care about anyone other than you.”

“That’s hardly true,” Henry said. “I think I’ve rather started enjoying the company of a few of Damien’s friends.”

“Then you are far more human than I,” Havel said. “This will not matter for our purposes, though. Both of our goals are to maintain the Cycle in its current state and stop the Corruption. We are on the same side.”

“So we are,” Damien agreed, although it took him a second to answer. “We’re going to need Delph, though. He’s powerful, and he’s one of the few teachers at Blackmist that I think will be strong enough and actually listen to us. I would have said I trusted him at one point, but I’m not sure anymore.”

Havel’s body rippled as he nodded. “He’d have my head if he found out I kept him from an interesting fight. I will be keeping him out of situations I know he cannot win, though.”

“What in the Planes can I do?” Damien asked. “Even with the Void, I can’t control it much yet. I doubt I’m going to be able to do anything Delph can’t.”

“You won’t have a choice,” Havel said with a shrug. “Either succeed or the Cycle will end, one way or another. There is no more option for failure.”

“Lovely,” Damien said. Sylph squeezed his hand. “So, back to It Who Stills the Seas. You said none of these ten nodes have been activated.”

“Correct. And, as such, I have no idea what It Who Stills the Seas is doing. The other Void creatures are all sealed as well. Moon took care of that when they arrived, and his bindings are not easily undone. One fell to the Corruption, but the others were still in their normal form last I checked.”

“Could it be waiting for something?” Sylph asked. “If it hasn’t acted yet, there’s probably something it’s either planning for or worried about. Is there any time when activating the nodes would be easier?”

“No. They are always the same difficulty to use – and that is not a low bar to reach. It requires five Void creatures using all of their strength to properly reset the Cycle quickly. The less there are, the longer it takes. With only one, you would have to break yourself up into three parts and send each to a node. Activating it could easily take over a year.”

“That’s probably not what it’s going for, then,” Damien said, rubbing his chin. “What about some big blast or detonation of Ether? Could it somehow be harnessed to activate a node? Or perhaps slowly storing up Ether in something, then using it all at once?”

“That’s possible, but it would likely take a very long time,” Havel said. “It would also require a powerful artifact. There are almost certainly enough in existence, but I don’t know what they might be.”

“Don’t you have your all-knowing Void information or whatever?” Damien asked.

“Hardly all-knowing,” Havel said with a chuckle. “We’re just much older than you. However, even that knowledge has been largely lost to me. Unlike Henry, I am truly a resident of this Plane. Such an action required a significant sacrifice, and I lost a large portion of my knowledge and power. I don’t regret it for a moment, mind you, but it has made things slightly more complicated. I will look into this.”

“What are we supposed to do until then?” Damien asked.

“What you were already planning to do. Train. Continue as if everything is normal,” Havel replied. “Second is watching us. His vision is not absolute, but he has eyes everywhere. If he believes there is any true threat to him, he won’t show himself. We need to bait him into complacency. Then, once he has been injured, we can try to go for the kill.”

“So we just keep going to school?” Sylph raised an eyebrow. “With Damien’s current abilities, any tournaments are going to be pretty funny.”

“As with yours,” Havel said. “That might be for the best, though. You’ll need to get as much mortal support as possible. If you stop both the Corruption and the Void, but this Plane is torn to pieces in the process, you’ll be left with nothing. Someone has to fight the remaining Seeds and the other Corrupted monsters while we take on Second and the Void.”

“That’s a great idea, so long as we don’t accidentally out that I’m using Void magic,” Damien muttered. “I don’t think Whisp would take kindly to that.”

“She’ll come around. Whisp is more reasonable than you believe – when the right buttons are pressed,” Havel said. “Leave that to Delph and I as well. Just focus on continuing your studies in the proper areas. Garner support and be ready. You will both need to be at the peak of your abilities if we are to win this.”

Havel glanced to the side. He nodded to Henry, who dropped the anti-sound shield. A few moments later, Mel walked into the clearing.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Mel said. “The others have just about wrapped up their training as well.”

Henry watched her through half-lidded eyes. He looked utterly bored, but Damien could feel the fury radiating off his companion.

“We’ve covered what we need to,” Havel said. “For now, at least. Both Damien and Sylph have gained a path to continue growing their strength. I will go get Delph shortly.”

“Good. I’m just about done with this place,” Henry said. He turned into a stream of smoke and shot back into Damien’s shadow. Havel disappeared through a flickering gray portal. Damien and Sylph both followed Mel out of the clearing and back toward her cabin.

“How’d your training go?” Nolan asked as the three stepped through the door. He and Loretta were sitting next to each other on a couch, covered with small cuts and with dark bags under their eyes. However, they both looked content.

“Successful, I suppose,” Damien said. “Yours?”

“Likewise,” Nolan said.

“And then some,” Loretta added. “Mel is a very good teacher.”

Damien grunted. “I can’t say I enjoy her lesson plans, but she is effective.”

“I wonder where we stand against the other students now,” Nolan said, rubbing his chin. “I haven’t seen Mark go all out in a while. I feel a lot stronger, but I still don’t know if that’s enough to fight him.”

“I think we’d both have a chance, at the least,” Loretta said, rubbing her chin. “I haven’t seen Damien or Sylph fight in a while either. Are you both still ahead of Mark?”

Sylph hid a smile. “At least a little bit, I think.”

“She’s being modest,” Nolan said. “Both of them are significantly ahead of everyone else in our year – and probably the year above it as well. The only students I’ve met that I’m not confident Damien and Sylph would win against would be the Year Fours.”

“Seriously?” Loretta asked, her eyes widening. “We have to spar sometime. I haven’t seen Damien’s strength firsthand since the tournament in Year One. Evolving my core made me feel so much stronger. I feel like I could take anyone one at this point.”

“As tempted as I am to take you up on that right here in Mel’s house, I’d imagine we should at least wait until we get back to Blackmist,” Damien said with a chuckle. “You both look pretty tired, so I’d rather have a fair fight.”

“Like any fight with you would be fair,” Nolan said, shaking his head with a good natured grin. “But if you’re taking challenges, add me to the list. I want to see if I’ll last any longer against you now.”

“What about me?” Sylph asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Absolutely not,” Nolan said. “You’d just take me out instantly. I’ve seen how you fight. I want to see the person I’m up against and at least feel like there’s a fight happening.”

Sylph smirked and gave him a shrug. The four continued their idle chatter for a few minutes, catching up on the basics of what Mel had done and what their plans were for the rest of the semester.

Not too long later, the house door creaked open and Delph stepped inside his gray cloak wrapped back around him in its rightful place. He chewed on the toothpick in his mouth and locked eyes with Damien for a brief instant before breaking contact.

“Mel told me your training was successful,” Delph said. “I hope you’re all ready to return to school. Break is over.”

“You call this a break?” Damien asked, emotion bubbling in his chest. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about Delph at the moment, but there was more than a little anger at the man’s deception. “I think we have very differing opinions of what that entails.”

“When you get to my age, anything that’s a change from the norm is a break,” Delph said. “Let’s get moving. We’ll need to figure out what you’re doing once you get back.”

“Aren’t we going back into our classes?” Nolan asked. “I’m worried I’ve fallen behind in rune crafting.”

“Oh, you will be,” Delph said, waving his head. He snapped his fingers and a gray portal yawned open behind him. “That was a more general observation. You aren’t too far from Year Three. We’ve skipped ahead with your core evolutions, but for all intents and purposes, I see you all as Year Threes anyway.”

“What does that entail?” Damien asked. “You wouldn’t say something like that if you didn’t have a goal in mind.”

Delph chuckled. He turned on his heel and swept through the gray portal, vanishing with a pop. Damien and Sylph exchanged a glance with each other.

“Can we even trust him?” Sylph asked.

“I’m not sure,” Damien said slowly. “I hate to say it, but I’m not sure. He’s always playing at something, and until he’s level with us, I don’t know what the next thing we’ll lose will be.”

“What’s going on?” Nolan asked. “Did Delph do something?”

“Something like that,” Damien said, considering the portal before them. “I can’t get into details yet, but I’ll tell you some day. Suffice to say that it’s probably only related to me and Sylph, although I wouldn’t put it past him to involve you as well.”

“I don’t even know what it is and that doesn’t surprise me,” Nolan said with a sigh. “How bad are we talking here?”

“Still figuring that out,” Damien replied. “I don’t think he’d try something right after what he just did, though. This probably takes us back to Blackmist.”

“We’re going through it, then?” Sylph asked.

“We’ll trust him this time,” Damien decided. “And it’s the last freebie he gets until we can be absolutely sure of what he’s doing.”

Sylph nodded and the other two students shrugged their agreement. Damien stepped through the portal, Sylph right on his heels.

The world warped and shifted. Damien’s foot fell on something soft and fuzzy – a rug. A lushly decorated office expanded before him as his sight returned. The walls were covered with fine artwork, and a window at the side overlooked the entirety of Blackmist.

Sitting before him at a massive wooden table was Whisp, a peeved expression on her face. There were four chairs in front of her desk and Delph had already grabbed one. He’d spun it backward and was sitting in it, leaning his chin on top of his arms, which were crossed over the backrest.

The other three students popped out of the portal behind Damien. Sylph’s eyes immediately focused on Whisp and she shifted her stance, lowering in preparation to fight. Nolan and Loretta took another second or two to realize that they were standing in the Dean’s office.

“Delph,” Whisp said, rubbing her brow with a hand. “Why have you brought students into my private office?”

“I felt like it,” Delph replied. “And they’ve all evolved their cores.”

“Why have – oh, I don’t care anymore,” Whisp said with an exhausted sigh. She moved some documents back from the front of the table, stopping Damien from reading them. “Why are you playing with students while we’re getting assaulted on every side? The frontlines are losing ground by the day and the Corruption keeps attacking small villages before we can do anything about it. We could really use your talents literally anywhere else.”

Damien’s gaze flicked down to the papers on Whisp’s table.

Henry, could you get a glance at those? I want to see what she’s got.

“Sure,” Henry replied. “It’ll be difficult to sneak something past her, though. We’ll basically just get a quick snapshot of her table before I have to cancel the spell to avoid her tracing it back to us.”

A flicker of purple ballooned behind Whisp’s shoulder, expanding into an eye and snapping open. It peered down at the table for an instant, then vanished. Whisp spun, scouring the office before throwing up her hands and pointing at Delph.

“Seriously? Another prank?”

“Wasn’t me.”

“You say that every time.”

“So I do,” Delph drawled. “Back on topic, Whisp. Unless you want to keep us all here.”

“Fine. What do you want?” Whisp threw herself back into her chair and kicked her legs up onto the desk.

“I propose they be offered the same benefit typical Year Three students receive,” Delph replied, a grin stretching across his lips. “It’s time they tour one of the other mage colleges for a month.”