Okay, cool, well, I guess that swings a hammer through all of my speculation.

I sit up with a groan in my Myriad-donated bed, attempting to process yet another information-packed dream sequence. It almost doesn’t feel worth it to try and piece things together given my last guess was incredibly, wildly wrong.

Reska is not, in fact, Katoptris, nor do they seem to have any connection to each other beyond their relationship with Homura, my dream vision evil twin. And wow, that’s one hell of a connection, actually. My dreams of Reska, which are addressed to Homura who is also me, have now warned me against believing Homura’s lies, because she did horrible things to Reska and also possibly to Katoptris???

So the Reska-Katoptris theory has been disproven but the “Katoptris hates me and wants revenge” theory is still probably looking solid, great. And that “Katoptris is the daughter of the Demiurge” theory is just, like, almost fully confirmed now. Okay, this is a lot, so let’s take this from the top.

The first part of that vision was just Homura being a charming liar and Reska being a poor little meow meow pathetic uwu bean, so nothing new there. The interesting stuff started when Homura talked about a labyrinth appearing. Not the Labyrinth like I’m trapped in now, but a labyrinth, something that there are multiple of and which isn’t explicitly tied to Katoptris.

That doesn’t mean it’s not implicitly tied to her, though, because it was also mentioned that labyrinths only appeared in the lands around Katoptris’ tower. I wonder, are these labyrinths like prototype versions of throne worlds? I’d need to see inside one to be certain, but my gut says that’s the case, since they both create monsters.

Then there was that little bit about the king making a mistake with his writ. That doesn’t seem connected to any of the lore I care about, but it is interesting: the king was afraid that Reska would take the throne, and judging by the start of the very first dream he was right to be afraid; Reska would go on to kill him, after all.

Then the duel, where Homura showed off a whole lot of magic that I sorely want for myself. I’m itching to pull out Vorpal and see if I can shake out any of those spells from it, but it might even be worth it to dedicate my next spell slot to learning a variant of that boosting magic that served Homura so well. I have Blood, and I’m sure I could tie in Fear or Gluttony to make it stronger. Keeping my blood in my body also seems neat, though possibly redundant considering how powerful my self-healing already is… and considering I’m not really human anymore and I’m not entirely sure blood loss could actually kill me.

The reflection spell, though… now there’s something that divides my magic from Homura’s, because nothing in my Truths matches up with her affinity for Glass. That means I don’t see a way to learn that bond reflection trick, much as I’d like to have it, unless Homura managed to store a version of it in Vorpal.

There’s a great deal of experimentation I want to perform on Vorpal, but that can wait ‘till after breakfast. No, there’s one last piece of that dream I need to interrogate: Homura’s tale of Katoptris.

Homura is, according to Reska, a horrible liar, but Reska’s narration did not seem to suggest that the story itself was a lie. So Homura found herself in a city that was very much like the Sanctuary I’m in now, full of figments offering her the world… but those figments were also in some way opposed to Katoptris, trying to keep Homura from reaching her. Or, perhaps, they were trying to protect Katoptris from her. Hard to tell.

But, Katoptris herself, that’s the real fascinating detail: she was crying and alone. The entity I was introduced to as the Nightmare Queen and Lady of Shards was once the divine protector of the world before the Labyrinth, and someone hurt her before Homura even met her. Someone shattered her mirror and left her crying, and I know who: the Emissary.

The Beast told me as much, when we had our little chat, though I didn’t understand it at the time. She told me that her shard, the shard this death game is fighting over, a piece of Katoptris, came from the mirror that the Emissary shattered. And now, thanks to Reska, I know that the Emissary is an archon, like the Intercessor and the Adversary and Katoptris, but in sworn service to the Leviathans.

I could dig into the weirdness of Reska mentioning an unnamed third archon but no mention of the Intercessor or Adversary, because to me that suggests these dreams are taking place before the Adversary fell and wow is that a can of worms, but… I think I’m more immediately interested in the Emissary’s role in all this.

Up until now, everyone has been presenting the Labyrinth and all its horrors as the unique fault of Katoptris, but these dreams are starting to paint her as a victim instead. Maybe that’s why I’m receiving these visions, to show me a different side of Katoptris, but then again there are easier ways to do that. Why was Homura taken directly to her tower? Why are we both receiving dream visions, but very different kinds?

Regardless, one thing seems clear: I won’t understand the Labyrinth until I understand the Emissary, and I can’t even begin to understand the Emissary without access to a lot more information than I have now.

I sigh aloud, and this gets Cheshire to show her face, popping into existence beside me and tilting her head. “What’s up, Allie?”

“Too much,” I mutter. “Let’s eat something, I’m hungry.”

I push out of bed and—wait, have I been naked since fighting the Mourner last night? Shit, that would be embarrassing if I weren’t an unholy abomination in flagrant violation of several far more serious taboos than doll-bodied nudity. I should still probably put some clothes on, though.

I get dressed in my more vampiric outfit: faux-corset vest over poofy blouse, denim shorts over diamond tights, magician’s gloves and a high-collared cape, all in black and white and red. It seems fitting for playing with Vorpal.

I grab a bit of fruit and cheese from my throne world and snack on it, enjoying the easy access to humanity’s two greatest discoveries. My breakfast is delicious, though my hunger is of course now completely and utterly insatiable.

I conjure another item, a bottle of red wine, but instead of opening it and pouring it I just stare at it and stew in my thoughts. Homura was drinking a lot, in that vision. Social drinking, mostly, but a hint of more with those gifts in her bedroom.

How old are you? I wonder. What have you experienced, by your point in our personal timeline?

The first time I ever drank, I was a few months from my 21st and in the company of my shitty, abusive ex-girlfriend. I had been scared of alcohol, before that. I was wary of anything that messed with my brain chemistry, and I was wary of its addictive properties as someone with incredibly poor impulse control, and I just knew too many people who became incredibly shitty when drunk.

I did not, as it happens, fall into any kind of alcoholism, but I think that’s mostly because my cutting habit provided a better high for cheaper, and then weed after that. But I have felt cravings for it, every now and then, when I see it on the grocery shelf and tempt myself with a night of indulgence.

I dislike the kind of person I am while drunk. I need control of myself, and alcohol takes that away. Makes me pushier, bolder, and worse at reading people, which is a disastrous combination. Homura, from what I’ve seen of her, does not seem to have that problem.

Hmm. Maybe she’s using blood magic to regulate her own bloodstream? If she can keep it flowing despite an open wound, maybe she can flush impurities to detoxicate herself.

An ingenious solution, if accurate. And it would be entirely in-character for her to indulge in pleasure and present weakness but secretly magick away the actual downsides. Something to learn from, perhaps.

I banish the wine and grab a water bottle instead, then go looking for an attendant. I ask for a good place to practice my sword skills, which they direct me to, and then I remember those items I was having the woodworker make for me.

“Hey, there was a drow in the mall who was working on a project for me, one of yours. Could you send someone to check up on that? Dunno if the big death game announcement make them decide to work quicker or to put their projects on hold, and it’d be useful to know.”

The attendant bows and promises to look into that, and then I’m off to practice.

The place I’m sent to is an enclosed open air space like the courtyard I found Esha and Bashe talking in, complete with garden vegetation ringing the area, but there’s more open space in the center for someone to move around in freely.

I let Cheshire incarnate and she leans against a tree as she watches me work. I still know basically nothing about how to use a sword, so my practice doesn’t even begin to resemble formal drills and professional sequences, but I get the feeling that my moves aren’t as sloppy as they should be. I don’t consciously understand what I’m doing any better, but there’s a level of instinct at play as I thrust and parry and pirouette around an invisible foe.

The influence of Mahiri’s soul, perhaps? Or a product of the blade itself, absorbing some of the experience that Homura stole? I don’t tire, I don’t feel winded, I don’t even sweat as I slash and stab and dodge. I’m a demon now, and demons do not need to breathe.

My strides in conventional swordwork are promising, but unexciting. I want to pull the crazy finishing moves that Homura and Ruzica threw at each other. I want anime bullshit super attacks. I try in vain to replicate either of their techniques, but I’m not surprised that it doesn’t work.

I throw out all kinds of hypothetical spell names as I swing Vorpal around, trying to reach for the blade with my mind and get any kind of reaction out of it, but nothing works. I shout, “Vorpal, the Bloodstained Blade!” over and over, but it doesn’t respond. This is a Crest, not a Throne-made magic item, and it doesn’t seem to play by the same rules.

The sword responded to its name only the very first time, when I “woke it up” from its long slumber. I wonder, though, if it is truly awake or simply stirring. It recognized me, it called to me, but it has been so very long since it tasted blood.

It seems only logical to feed it.

I remove my gloves, flex a hand, and turn my fingertips into claws. I scrape those claws delicately along my forearm, using just enough force to draw blood. The pain is a familiar friend, almost closer to pleasure, and the sight of red droplets beading is absolutely transfixing. I slide the flat of my blade gently across the shallow incisions, letting it taste my blood and drink as deep as it likes.

When I finish the motion, my arm is unbloodied, not even a smear, just little pale red lines no longer dotted with droplets. Vorpal shines a deeper, truer red, and I can feel its hunger for more. There is a power in this blade, and it is slowly waking, but it is still so terribly parched.

…I think I’ll need a great deal more blood for Vorpal to reveal its secrets to me.

I sigh. “I suppose it was too much to hope that I’d unlock a superweapon with a few pinpricks of crimson.”

“We’re lucky the Crest responded to you at all,” Cheshire offers. “They’re not made for interfacing with Throne magic. One of the littler artifacts, that might half function, but Crests are pure amplifiers.”

I frown at the blade and swing it in the air again. “I do feel something from it, is the thing. It wants me to wield it. And I think it’s helping me use it, at least on some level.”

Cheshire bites her lip and thinks about it. “That makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose. The frameworks are very different but you are manipulating some of the same oneiros. It’s possible that the Crest is having a diluted amplification effect on your Truth of Blood, enhancing your capacity for violence while you wield it.”

“Violence has been useful to us, and I suspect will continue to be useful. Vorpal wants more blood,” I tell the geist, “and I think giving it more blood will strengthen that amplification. So, worth using it when we can, and worth involving Blood in whatever spell we make next.”

She nods. “I can definitely keep that in mind.”

I’m disappointed that I can’t do anything more with Vorpal yet… ah, but there is one thing I haven’t checked. A secret revealed to me in my last dream: the marbles of power that Homura stored within her sword. If any of those crystallized affinities still exist, they could be a tremendous boon to my quest… but opening the compartment would invite all kinds of questions from Cheshire.

I know she’s noticed something about my odd behavior each time I wake. The more I learn from my dreams, the harder it’ll be to keep from slipping up and mentioning something I shouldn’t know. Even my familiarity with Vorpal is hard to excuse as just some property of the sword.

Didn’t you promise to trust her?

I grimace and lower my blade to the ground. I took a risk. I’m taking risks. That doesn’t mean I should just throw away every possible advantage!

Is there really any point to hiding this from her? If she means to hurt me, I can’t stop her. If she truly does want to help me, I’m self-sabotaging by keeping secrets from her.

She has her secrets too, you know she does.

But her secrets may be the fault of a bastard god who is laughing at my paranoia. If we tell her the truth, if we bare it all, that may help us win her over. If she’s keeping secrets and we’re not, that creates pressure, motivates her to resolve that tension. If we want her trust, we need to show it first.

I breathe out. Am I really doing this now? Before I’ve seen what these dreams are all building toward? There are so many ways this could go wrong.

Remember the animus we chose to live by: she who is not willing to give everything will be forever left with nothing. Are you the demon that bares her soul to the knife for a chance at the ultimate reward, or are you the little girl crying for her poor dead mother?

My fists clench, and the choice is made.

With one smooth motion I lift Vorpal and twist the necessary components around the hilt and crossguard, popping open the secret compartment that Homura revealed to me through Reska’s eyes. A single marble rolls out into my waiting hand, endless starlight trapped gleaming within. The rest of the chamber is empty.

Only hers. You used them all, but never hers.

I roll the marble around my fingers, staring at it, wondering what it has seen. Did she keep you out of sentiment, or as some harsh reminder? Not useful enough to expend, or too precious to waste? What is the shape of your heart, my time-lost twin?

Cheshire watches with wide eyes as I deposit the marble back in the blade and close the hidden compartment. “How did you do that? Did you know that was there?”

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and when I open them again I meet Cheshire’s gaze. “The first time I fell asleep in this world, after carving open my soul, I dreamed of the world before the Labyrinth, in a time before Firmament, through the eyes of a girl cursed with gifts of blackest Shadow. And through her eyes I saw myself, or a younger version of myself, seduce that girl and lead her to ruin. My counterpart called herself Homura Annatar Bloodfallen, and she forged this weapon with a needle of glass given to her by a crying Katoptris.”

I tell Cheshire everything, starting from the beginning and recounting nearly every detail. I tell her of Reska’s strange powers that went against the magic system of her era, the odd behavior of the king, the labyrinth phenomenon, the Glass Tower, the Lady of Glass, and of course my scheming doppelganger Homura. I tell her of all my speculation about events, from Homura’s choice of name to the mystery of why I’m receiving these dreams, and I even reveal what the Beast told me about an archon called the Emissary shattering Katoptris’ mirror.

With each new revelation, Cheshire’s shock seems to deepen, and when at last my story is finished she turns away from me and begins to pace, hands on her head. I wait nervously for her to say something, anything, after that massive infodump.

After a few minutes of frantic pacing, Cheshire throws herself against the nearest tree and slumps to the ground, head still in her hands, looking utterly exhausted.

I walk over to her and sit down across from her. “Hey, you okay? Uh, you seem to be taking this… poorly. Sorry for not telling you sooner, but, you know, trust issues and all.”

Cheshire laughs. “That’s… that’s fine, really. I get it. I’m not mad, I promise. I just… that’s insane. I don’t even know where to begin.”

I chew on my lip and give it some thought. “Well, I was hoping you could help me answer a few questions. Like who the Emissary is, for one, or if those labyrinths are actually some direct precursor to the Labyrinth. Hell, I’d even appreciate if you could tell me what Homura’s middle name means. I get the two weeb references, but why does ‘Annatar’ sound so familiar?”

Cheshire raises her head, expression still bleak but now furrowing her brow. “It’s… it’s from Lord of the Rings, I think. Yes, got it: it was the name that Sauron used when he was deceiving the elves into forging the Rings of Power.” She rubs her forehead and winces. “I’ve got whole encyclopedias of nerd lore in my brain thanks to Nyara, the least I can do is put them to use.”

Clarity flashes across my mind. “Annatar, Lord of Gifts. I remember now. Fuck, that’s not very subtle of her, is it? She named herself after what was basically Middle-Earth’s version of… the… devil…” I trail off, more connections sparking, pieces falling into place.

The devil. Annatar, Sauron, the devil of Middle-Earth, but that’s not the only devil in her name.

“Homura,” I breathe. “I—I thought she meant the Homura of the main series, the selfish hero who fought to save Madoka, but what if that’s wrong? What if she was naming herself after the Homura of Rebellion? The Homura who became the devil to trap a goddess… inside a labyrinth.”

Cheshire’s gaze sharpens as she immediately seizes the thread, and when she speaks it is with a tone of horror. “A labyrinth, a world of distorted fears and desires, a hellish prison for the witch it belongs to and any lured inside… but Homura’s labyrinth was meant to look like a paradise, trapping the goddess and her closest friends.”

I stand up and look around, peering not with mortal vision but with my demon-granted soul sight. I see the world rendered in paper and ink, this hellish paradise, and aloud I ask, whispering, “Did I create this prison?”

Cheshire rises next to me and puts a hand on my shoulder, and when I turn to face her I see her just as she is to my normal sight. I can see tension lining every crease of her face, in her shaking hands, and when I flick my tongue I taste fear in the air. She’s terrified. My geist is terrified of what she’s about to say. “Alice, I—I don’t think that’s you. Or… not the same you, at least. Because—”

A cruel god descends upon us, and the master of all things steals the breath from Cheshire’s lungs. She chokes on her words as an awful pressure fills the air and pushes down on us, ears popping and head aching. I feel cruelty and contempt, laughter and glee, the hand that moves the world, and I am paralyzed until she allows me to move.

She is Nyarlathotep, the Lucid Demiurge, Crawling Chaos, Soul-Sculptor, Toymaker, Nyara Albaoth Zereth Gremory Lazotep, and she is the tyrant I have sworn to usurp.

Cheshire claws at her own throat, eyes bulging, black tears streaking down her cheeks, black ichor staining the veins in her hands, and with impossible will she chokes out, “Damn… you…” before falling silent and still, slumping like a ragdoll, limbs dangling at her sides, head bowed as if sleeping standing up.

I try to move, twitching fingers and gritted teeth, every motion a struggle but desperate to stop this, to save her. I hiss, that sound afforded me, and though I cannot speak I know that she is listening to my thoughts, so in my mind I tell her, leave Cheshire alone!

Cheshire raises her head, but it is Nyara lurking behind those golden eyes now slick with black ichor, Nyara puppeting that smiling mouth of blackened teeth. The God of Death smiles at me, and her love is like a thousand knives.

Those eyes burn into me, black and gold like two blazing suns in a sea of suffocating darkness. I can’t help but stare into them, drawn to them, and my soul sight takes me deeper, through the connection into what lies behind, to the Demiurge pulling the strings, and I see—

—I break away, screaming, eyes boiling in my head, bursting with pus and fluid, popped like rotten grapes in her too-perfect hands. Mistake. Mistake. Mistake. Mistake. I try to shut my eyes, seek the dark, anything to rid myself of the impossible colors seared into my retinas, the horrid images that cycle endlessly through my vision, the glimpse of a great and terrible infinity.

Then, all at once, it’s gone and I can see again. I see the flagstones beneath my hands and knees, I see the great tree above, and I see Nyara smiling down at me with my only friend’s face.

“I so adore when you stick your hand in the open flame,” she says, Cheshire’s voice but so very wrong in ways that elude my comprehension, like static at the edges of my thoughts. “It’s quite cute.”

I shudder and rasp, “Why are you here, God of Death? What do you want?”

She tuts, actually tuts at me. “Do I really need a reason to check in on my favorite toy?”

Nyara reaches down with Cheshire’s hand and strokes my hair, her touch impossibly warm and terrifyingly soothing. Relief floods my body like a scalding bath after a day of hard labor, traveling from the top of my head to the tips of my extremities and turning my bones to wobbly gelatin. I collapse against the ground, my body too high on her touch to listen to my commands. I can’t even turn my head to look at her cleanly.

Nyara walks over and crouches down in front of my line of sight, looking even more smug. “See? I’m not all bad, really. Remember, pet: if you want to blame me for the pain, you have to thank me for the pleasure. I gave you salve when you were hurting, power when you were weak, companionship when you were lonely, a playground to stretch your limbs in. You should worship me for all I have given you, and yet still you rage against me. What a silly, misguided priestess.”

Her fingers trail across my head and down my spine and everywhere she touches blooms with mind-numbing bliss. She kneels down and pulls me onto her lap and that warmth is all I can feel, almost all I can focus on. Her presence is an ocean, and it would be so easy to drown in it, but I will not be cowed like some beaten dog when given a few scraps of warm food. I fight back the urge to simply let go and fall asleep in her embrace, resisting the comfort she’s trying to lull me with.

I wish so sorely that I could move my mouth just to bite her… but there are some weapons that I don’t need to move to use. I feel her touch glide back up to my neck, tracing patterns of spreading oblivion, and when her finger brushes the skin of my nape I scream the spell in my mind:

[FEAST OR FAMINE]!

I take a bite out of God and she tastes so fucking good. She tastes like that giddy moment when the edible hits and your brain melts out your ears and you can’t stop giggling because suddenly everything’s so funny and it just feels so good to lean in. Her soul is like meat and candy so sickeningly sweet you can’t get enough even as your stomach bloats and groans and begs you to stop but you just want one more bite. I drink her in like she’s frozen lemonade on a boiling day in July, like she’s eight shots of espresso before an early day at work, like she’s blood from an open wound gushing and steaming and so damn wasteful if I don’t lap up every drop.

I don’t even feel the pain as I splinter more and more of my soul to keep eating, keep drinking, keep glutting myself on the best thing I’ll ever taste. I want more and I take more, consuming, feasting, more, more, more! I can taste the warm glow of dawn and the peace of fading dusk, the minute vibrations of my body and the crackle of dying stars, a soft hand in mine and the shockwave of a meteorite impact. I can’t remember my first kiss. I can’t remember the face of my mother.

It’s killing me. Eating her is killing me, and I don’t want to stop.

I eat the taste of the first snowfall come winter and I forget my favorite album of my favorite band. I eat the taste of an orchestra’s final performance and I forget my aunt’s home cooking. I eat and eat and eat and I am eaten and eaten and eaten, and I am full to bursting and I am mad with hunger.

I’m eating her whole, but how can you swallow infinity? There’s so much more of her than me, and if I keep going there won’t be any Alice left. Have I even scratched her? Is she missing even a single piece of something that matters to her?

I lose the name of the last gift my mother gave me. I lose my favorite book from childhood, then second favorite, then third. It’s not just the spell, it’s her, it’s her infinity, it’s trying to drink an ocean and having it push out all your blood and guts to make room. I’ll drown before the water level even dips.

Nyara lifts her hand from my neck and I sob as it finally ends. I shudder and shake, wracked with the enormity of what I’ve just experienced, and she watches me with that damnable fucking smile.

“To answer your question,” the smiling goddess says, “I am here because of you. You have exceeded my expectations, little Alice, in revealing your dreams to the geist at this early juncture. This act of unexpectedly deep trust necessitates a significant acceleration of my plans. Ah, but worry not; I think this will make for a far more compelling story. Do stay interesting, my beloved plaything. I’ll see you again soon.”

All at once the black leaves Cheshire’s eyes and one of them turns back to blue, and then the changeling collapses to the ground next to me, shivering just as I am, face awash with horror and revulsion. Black bile dribbles out of the corner of her mouth and that’s all it takes for my stomach to turn and blood to come spilling out, both of us ejecting vile fluids onto the cold stone floor.

We stay there for minutes, trembling and staring at each other, neither willing to be the first to speak. My mind still reels from the taste of Nyara’s soul, my body beginning to ache as the glow of her touch fades away. I feel changed. I am changed.

Something in me has broken, and when I find my voice it is to laugh. I laugh and cry and slowly curl into the fetal position amid my own coughed up blood. My bones feel fragile, my skin taut, ice in my veins, a terrible heat in my core.

I breathe, unnecessary but comforting, desperate for some measure of stability. How do you recover from something like that? How do I go back to this stupid game and this stupid quest? It’s so fucking small.

I’m still shaking, but I finally find real words. “How stupid was I,” I whisper, voice unsteady, “to think I could eat the Demiurge?” I laugh again, harsh and bleak and vicious. “The Adversary is insane. She has to be, right? How can you come face to face with that and think you stand a chance?”

Cheshire chuckles, sounding just as broken as I feel. “I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe it’s just madness.”

Slowly, achingly, we pick ourselves up off the floor.

I stare down at the mess we’ve made and Cheshire comments, “We should probably let someone know this needs to be cleaned.”

“Yeah. Hey, do you think absorbing that black stuff would be bad for Bubbles? It won’t, like, turn them into some nightmare gray goo that eats half the city?”

Cheshire shivers and glances at the awful bile. “I don’t think that would happen, but… best to be safe.”

Neither of us moves to find an attendant, still simmering in the aftermath of all that just transpired. I hesitate, then ask, “Did Nyara tell you to kill Katoptris? To have me try to kill her? It’s okay if you can’t answer that.”

The geist looks away from me and hugs herself, hands digging into her sides. “She promised salvation, if only I could move you to slay the Labyrinth’s master.” She flinches, as if waiting to be struck down or possessed again, but nothing happens. “I assumed she meant Katoptris, because who else could it be? She never told me about an Emissary, or about Homura. There’s… there’s more to it than that, but, I definitely can’t tell you the rest.”

“Right, yeah. Okay. Well, I think that’s enough to see the shape of it.” I smooth back my hair and take another deep breath to steady myself. “You push me to kill Katoptris because you think that’s what you were told to do, but my dreams tell me there’s something wrong with that plan. If Katoptris is the victim and you’re trying to kill her, that makes you the baddie, which heightens my trust issues. The tension bottles until it bursts, and Nyara enjoys the fireworks.”

Cheshire turns back to me and frowns, seeming pensive. “But… I don’t think she meant for that to end in a true split between us. She said she was accelerating her plans, not changing them. So this conversation was always the end goal, just after a lot more hardship and paranoia.”

Interesting. I pick up Vorpal and shunt it into my throne world, then tilt my head and ask, “Does that comfort you?”

Cheshire laughs. “It’s stupid that it does, but yeah. There was some part of me worried that I was, I don’t know, a sacrifice. A tool to be put aside once I’d gotten the right reaction out of you. Once I’d fulfilled my purpose in the greater narrative. But, here we are.”

“Here we are,” I agree.

We call an attendant, warning them that the spill might be unsafe for Bubbles, and then we go looking for our allies. Esha isn’t hard to find, given she’s still right by the pool in the heart of the temple, light now permanently filling the air.

“Ah, Alice, good to see you,” Esha says as I approach, giving me a genuine smile not shared by her bodyguard.

I wave. “Morning, priestess. Any word on our would-be ‘allies?’”

Esha nods. “The city tells me that Avaya’ari and Imlashi both approach, bringing hands for the mission, though Carnival is approaching at a much more serious pace.”

I tilt my head. “That’s a neat trick. How much intel does the city give you?”

“As much as I need, mostly. The city knows itself and sees itself at all times, except for a few rare spots where the influence of the Beast overrides that of the eidolon. The Beast can create pockets of dead space when it needs to, hiding something from the senses of the city spirit, and its shards naturally create those pockets in their vicinity, which is how Averrich has been able to hide from my sight for so long.” Behind her, Achaia grimaces. “Of course, that’s changed now; I didn’t see it yet yesterday, but it was clear when I consulted the city this morning: the shroud around Averrich’s stronghold is missing, which means the Reveler he had trapped there is dead. Your doing, I would presume from the mask?”

I nod and conjure the mask again. “Averrich threw me into the Reveler’s maze before sending his hunters, but I didn’t just escape the maze; I killed the Reveler at its heart, and every hunter he sent after me. I imagine that’s why they’re afraid of me now.”

Esha frowns and turns to face the pool with her sightless gaze. “And yet they approach, to help you stop the Machinist. I am glad they still see some sense.”

“How close are they now?”

“Close enough that you could meet them by the door, if you set out now and walked slowly.”

“And Avaya’s group?”

“Another thirty minutes, I believe, though she may speed up once she’s actually in our territory.”

I chew my lip and muse on it. “I’ll make sure Dante’s awake and then head for the front.”

Esha smiles and says, “You’ll have one other with you, from my own people. A kindred you’ve met before, actually: Simon, the serpentkin who healed you after your first encounter with King’s Carnival.”

The snake doctor! The snoctor! “Ah, I do I remember him. Happy to have his skills on the team.”

“He also has a contract with the city spirit that allows him to access the city’s information network like I can, so he’ll be your eyes as you chase down the Machinist.”

I grin and rub my hands together. “Even better.”

I track down Dante and rouse him from slumber, then make sure he gets breakfast from the communal kitchen. Over eggs and french toast we banter about Earth media, with Cheshire chiming in whenever she has something to poke a hole in. We’re finished with breakfast and drinking orange juice when an attendant lets us know that Avaya’s crew have arrived, so we head out to meet them.

The snoctor is waiting for us just outside the kitchen, and this time I actually get a good look at him: serpentine lower body, scaled upper body, a grizzled face, and a perfectly modern doctor’s uniform, with a medical bag held in one hand. “Name’s Simon,” he says gruffly. “Let’s get moving.”

I am delighted to be traveling with the snake doctor.

Imlashi meets us just inside the door, and I see who she’s brought with: Kado again, for one, but the other reaver is new, or at least I think they’re new. They look, twitchy, nervous, almost rat-like, but carrying a big ol’ spear to stab with. When they speak, I finally place them: Scratchy! Or, Eren, as they name themself.

Just outside the door, waiting with four arms crossed and a big grin, is Avaya. She’s brought back the empty puppets from before, still wearing their ethereal shifts but now each carrying a vicious-looking sword.

“They will obey Maven Alice in all things,” Avaya tells us. “It is currently their sole purpose in life, until I come to reclaim them.”

The doll-eyed man and woman give me a bow, looking placidly content to be passed off to a new owner for an indefinite time period. I make a mental note to check what they can do in a fight. Having minions like this is exciting, to some extent, but I can’t enjoy that too much or Dante and Simon might start to suspect something.

Imlashi and Avaya leave us, and then it’s time to begin our march. Simon and Kado both step forward to lead the way, each having a means of tracking our quarry, and they glare at each other until I ask the pointed question, “Do your spells actually disagree on where we should be going?”

They briefly turn their glares on me, then discover that their spells do not, in fact, differ in recommended heading. We’re about to set out for real when someone comes rushing toward us from across the square. They’re dressed plainly, and carrying what looks like a staff of some kind and a brown paper bag.

I go to flicker on my soul sight to check if they’re figment or thinking, but when I do I can feel my eyes searing with pain and melting in my skull, and all I can see is a vast and terrible imprint of the infinity I glimpsed within Nyara’s eyes. I have to turn it back off, eyes returning to normal with only a bit of lingering ache.

Fuck. We lost our soul sight.

Further swearing at that discovery is forestalled by the arrival of the courier, who shoves the staff and the pouch toward me with a polite, “Delivery for Ms. Alice, from Torstein.”

It’s the woodworking I asked for! Slender and solid, long and elegant, topped with a carving of a bat wrapping its wings around its body, mouth open with a ruby embedded. The staff is mostly white, with a bit of black trim decorating the bat in key areas. Perfect now that I’ve actually incorporated bats into my spellcasting.

The second item, which I procure from the pouch and then send to my throne world with the staff, is a carving of a unique chimera designed by Cheshire: the body and head of a red-eyed white-furred wolf, with parrot’s wings and talons for back feet, its tail curling and scaled like a chameleon, a crown of antlers bursting from its skull. Cheshire’s anchor, solidly less useful now that I’m mostly using my own body to host Cheshire, but I’m sure it’ll come in handy.

With both items stowed and a heading secured, I set the group to marching.

As we leave the temple behind, my thoughts drift to my encounter with the Crawling Chaos, the Lucid Demiurge, Nyara. She spoke of gifts she had given, and now these items appear so timely. Another gift from my supposed patron?

Maybe it’s delirium from the experience I went through, or maybe there’s just something wrong with me, but… when she was talking about me, complimenting me in her diminutive way, some twisted part of me felt pride at her words. I can feel it now, a strange warmth in my chest when I think to some of what she said. She called me cute. She called me interesting, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.

It’s absurd. It’s absolutely absurd, and stupid, and a clear sign that my brain is compromised or just fucking damaged, but some piece of me is happy at being such a focus of attention for the vile ruler of this universe. The orchestrator of all my triumphs and woes is watching me raptly and cheering me on. Of all her toys across dozens, maybe hundreds of worlds, an entire universe of boundless possibility…

I’m her favorite.