An airship streaked across the sky, a golden infinity etched onto its prow. And in it were three creatures of Empyrean power.

The first was the Sky Wolf, a werewolf dressed in a hunter’s leathers, knives sticking out of dozens of pockets, some small as a thumb, others big as a head. They jingled at each move. He hummed tunelessly to himself as he polished his claws with a handkerchief.

Then there was the Nine-Tailed Fox. She was calm, but not like the Sky Wolf. She was like a vat of boiling, scalding water with a lid clamped tight over it. Her eyes were closed, as they’d been for most of the journey.

Kaya was supposed to be leading this expedition. Trouble was she had no clue what that meant. She’d tried talking to both of them to start with. Neither of them seemed very interested in talking back.

After her third flailing effort the Wolf had sighed, the way you do when you’re made to explain something so obvious it ought to be self-evident. “I can’t speak for our dear friend Nujia there,” he’d said. “But I am here because my master promised me a great sum of money for Dorian’s head!” He grinned. Wolfishly. “He is not paying me to make conversation. Or, put more clearly—I am not interested in being your friend, little girl. Fuck off?” He winked.

Her face had burned then. But at least she was used to it by now. Felt like the whole world had been telling her to fuck off these past few months.

The hours slinked by in stale silence.

Whatever. Kaya was used to silence now too. Used to being alone in little places with only her thoughts for company—if only they weren’t such angry little things…

Dorian! The name had her gnashing her teeth. It felt like the bottom of a whirlpool she was slowly circling. Dorian… A name she’d never called the creature she thought was her brother.

There was the anger, and the bitterness, true. But she felt something new as the City of Ur poked out of the horizon. Big slabs of black stone wall, mottled purple like a skin rash. The spire of a castle rising up out the middle, like a rusted needle pricking at the sky.

They were close. And she was nervous.

Soon they’d meet. She knew it. She felt it tugging at her like a string of Fate, and she forced down a lump in her throat.

“Who are you?” She whispered. Somehow she had to know. Memories welled up in her.

Waking after that flood dragon attack back in Rust Tribe. His laugh, so pure, so free—‘Hey, sis! You’re awake!’ His playful grin. ‘I made something for you.’ And he held up a bowl of bone broth, the very same she’d made for him the night of the scorpion attack. ‘You holler at me whenever you need something. Don’t you move a finger, alright? I’ll take care of everything—’ She’d hugged him. She was flooded with relief then, tears pricking at her eyes. She was alive. That was cause enough for relief. But there was something else, something she wouldn’t put a finger on until after, thinking back on it.

It was the first time she could recall her brother actually caring for her. It was so unlike him. She’d burst into tears.

So unlike the sullen sulking spiteful golem prowling Jez’s halls now—her true brother, Io. She’d been so, so, happy when Jez had introduced her to him.

And then so bitterly sad. When he’d shucked her off, and frowned, and said “Ugh! Get off me! Why are you here?,” and she’d realized with a shock that her beautiful idea of her brother, the one rose-tinted in memory, was someone so much closer to Dorian.

Some awful, guilty part of her wished Jez had never resurrected Io—wished he’d stayed the perfect brother of her memories.

She should’ve known something was wrong. There were so many signs.

Another memory welled up. At the Festival, when Io—Dorian—had saved her. The Tribe had bound her up, and he’d come back for her. Why? He didn’t need her. She didn’t help him a whit. But he did anyways.

And then at Azcan, cheering her on after every teensy breakthrough—even though they both knew nothing she did amounted to much. But he made her feel like she was worth something anyways. Making a special trip to surprise her with ice pops, just ‘cause she remembered her sweet tooth.

Maybe it was all the bitterness around that moment, making it seem so much sweeter. She’d felt like she was drowning there was so much self-loathing in her. And then him breaking through the tent flaps like sunshine through dim clouds, grinning, holding out those pops—“Hey sis! Look what I found?”—it was the single sweetest memory she ever had.

And how bitter it all seemed when she found out who he really was. How every tender gesture had all really been a fake. A ruse. And she, dumb silly Kaya, had fallen for it.

Tears welled up in her eyes even now. There was a foreign tenderness in her chest. A shocking feeling, after all these horribly angry months.

She knew why she was nervous. She had to know.

Was any of it real?

Right then she was having a horribly tough time matching the Dorian she knew to be real—the liar, the trickster, the destroyer of lives, the bringer of disaster, the scourge of the Multiverse—the Dorian Jez had opened her eyes to—the Dorian who’d replaced her with some equally silly girl the moment he got a chance.

With her brother who wasn’t her brother.

Dorian had ruined her. She knew that now. If he hadn’t been there there would be no dragon at that Festival. There would’ve been no meddling Gods. No crazy accidents of Fate. Maybe she’d have married Hento. Maybe they’d have started a family, still wandering out there in the Desert, and maybe she’d be happy. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe her being here was all his fault.

It certainly felt good to think it. You can sip on rage and bitterness and hate, let it ferment in you like wine. You can let it grow hot in you and fuel that golden coil deep in your belly, and the hotter it grew the more hotter she felt the hotter it grew—

—and it felt good, so good, to let it all out! She wanted to hurt. She wanted fire. She wanted burning. She wanted things burst apart, exploded, destroyed. She wanted to ruin him just like he ruined her. She wanted him to hurt, and she knew it would feel so so good to do it—

She groaned. A headache was starting to split her skull from the inside, like two sides of her head couldn’t make peace with each other.

It didn’t make sense. You can’t hate and love someone at the same time. She wanted so so bad to hurt him. But she also wanted so so bad to not want to hurt him. She didn’t know what she wanted. Maybe she’d know when they met.

Was any of it real?

She sniffled. Very soon, she would know.

In the sky ahead, a one-eyed girl rode a three-legged White Tiger. The Princess of Ur.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said. “The trap has been lain. This way.”

***

In the week leading up to the heist Dorian managed to grind his [Sunshine Steps] to level 6—a level past intermediate proficiency. Now in his fights he paid lips service to the laws of physics. Gravity was an afterthought. Each time he stepped it was like an invisible trampoline launched him away, and each launch chained nicely into the next, faster and faster, and suddenly it was like being stoned—blows raining in from all angles, too fast and too furious to keep up with. All you could do was cringe and whimper.

When paired with his new Fists of Falling Star, Rising Moon—also up to intermediate proficiency—it was overkill at God!

Throw in Supernova Fist, his stun Technique, and he might even dare challenge for a top spot at Empyrean…

Then he thought about Gerard in his true form, and winced. Maybe not quite that high. But close!

Enough that if Gerard held off Ur’s elites, he cleared out the riffraff, and the bombs blasted them a clear route out… this nutty little heist plan of theirs might just work!

12 hours before the heist…

When Sun walked in the room before the final pre-Heist meeting Gerard insisted on having, Dorian did a double-take.

“What the Hells?”

Lean cords of muscle now ran down her arms. Her forearms looked like gauntlets, and her legs were stocked with slabs of muscle. Somehow in the space of two weeks she’d gone from rail-thin to noticeably hefty. Dorian supposed all that food had to go somewhere. And despite her astonishing metabolism her rate of intake had skyrocketed, what with all the food in the markets.

“What’s up?” said Sun.

He gestured at her vaguely. “You’ve been training?”

“Nah. I’ve been eating dawn-to-dusk all week!” She looked down. “Oh. Yeah—this tends to happen when I eat a lot. I get a lot stronger.”

Of course you do. Dorian snorted. Apparently Heaven lavished all her gifts on the one creature destined to waste them.

“How much stronger?”

“Hmm.” She scratched her chin. “Probably about as strong as that Taotie a while back?”

“…are you saying if we just keep feeding you you’ll be able to beat down Empyreans with your fists?”

“I’ve never tried…. Maybe?” Sun scratched her head. “I mean that’s a lot of food, even for me. And I need to keep eating or it’ll all go away. I’m not sure I can eat that fast…"

She shrugged. "If you get the food I’ll give it a go!”

Just then, Gerard strolled in. “You’re late,” said Dorian.

“I am precisely two seconds early,” said Gerard. “I would have come even earlier, but I was busy finishing up these.”

He held two pamphlets. “For reference, just in case. They include detailed notes on the plan and an array of fallback options, in case things go wrong.”

“Errr—” said Sun. “You should know the longest book I read was three-page Technique manual. And I quit on page two ‘cause by then my brain felt like a tub of warm pudding.”

“Not to worry, Miss Wukong. I have taken this into account. Your pamphlet is a picture book with minimal text.”

He passed them out, though Sun still held hers at arm’s length, like it might bite her at any second.

“Flip to page one, if you please.” Gerard adjusted his glasses. “Let us review the finalized plan.”