Content Warnings

Blatant allusions to conversion therapy
Religious trauma
Religious fundamentalism
Fascism
Fascist conspiracy theories
Threats of fascist violence
Fantasy racism
Bioessentialism
Misogyny / Internalized misogyny
The ever-present specter of queerphobic violence
Implied pluralphobia

Unlike the second floor, these sets of dorms are far more populated. A few clerics move back and forth down the hall, tending to busywork with crying people, and bringing trays of food into open doors. Radiant light magic shines in the ceiling above us, giving the hall a glow like day. It burns just a touch. It’s nothing debilitating or scarring; no worse than a hot shower, but all the same, I tuck further into my hood.

Alabastra walks with confidence, to not draw the attention of the non-faux priests. Despite this being a temple to Maiea, it seems this current revival isn’t based on her faith alone. Instead, these are priests of the entire Effigial pantheon, as an amulet of a wheel with eleven spokes, symbolizing the unity of the Dozen-Minus-One, swing from their necks.

We pass room after room of individuals sitting in beds, staring into corners, weeping, reading from The Tributines, or praying. One young boy rocks back and forth, holding his knees to his chest. A girl of like-mine pale, undead skin stares out the window at the raging storm beyond. A cleric comforts a peculiar-looking man, with round rat ears atop his head and a long naked tail trailing off the bed in a lazy twirl.

There are no guards here; these people are only trapped by implication, but this isn’t so explicitly a jail. A well-fortified sort of nunnery, perhaps, or even a hospital. The dwarven woman had called it a ‘care facility‘—but care is as susceptible to mortal scattering as any emotion. Twisted like prismatic light to shine a thousand ways, care is not unimpeachable. Not if it’s turned to hurt.

These people are scared. Not one is happy to be here, from what I can see.

We stop before a doorway at the sight of who we’ve come searching for. And beside her… not even Thassalia Demetrix looks pleased.

Tegan sits on a bed beside the actress, leaning in as she listens intently to the other lycanthrope. Tegan’s armor is gone—they must have taken it somewhere. She’s sitting there in her sleeveless top, belly poking above her breeches, and though she’s never quite as confident out of her armor as she seems in it, it hardly matters in this moment. Our knight is a protector now all the same, only for someone who until this second I was sure would not have wanted or deserved it.

Thassalia is rubbing her own shoulders, her blue hair messed and unkempt, and she wears a threadbare white robe. Without the stage lights or the makeup, what had been an ethereal sort of affect is laid bare—she’s gaunt and thin like a skeleton. Thassalia isn’t quite leaning into Tegan, but accepts the knight driving circles into her back. And her eyes are pitch black, and underneath her open-mouthed huffing there are rows of razor-blade shark teeth.

Neither seem to recognize us as anything more than priests out of the peripheries of their vision. We step into the room, closing the door behind us. The second Tegan looks up to get proper sight on her visitors.

Her shocked and thanks gasp signals that she recognizes us in an instant. She stands to full attention and launches into us. Her large arms squeeze us tight against the folds of her form, and she says, “Oh, thank fuck.”

“Hi, Stardust”, sighs Alabastra, with relief beyond words.

“I was so worried about you two”, she almost sobs. It’s odd to be included, both in the hug and in her gratitude, but I’m not out to complain. Not much, anyways. Though she is starting to crush my ribcage.

Alabastra pulls away, grabbing her lover’s forearms. “They didn’t hurt you, did they, Dusty?”

Tegan shakes her head. “Not physically, no. Though… being in a place like this again, it’s…” She looks far away for a moment, then steels herself. “If it weren’t so important, I’d be freaking out. Allie, they’re… it’s the same fucking shit. The ‘cure’, the bullshit, it’s all the same!” Despite her words, she is in fact starting to freak out.

I don’t blame her—my slow-beating heart is breaking for her, in fact. Having to sit through all of this again, the same process that hurt her as a child; I’d thought I couldn’t hate these Lupines more, but I’m realizing now I haven’t scratched the surface.

Still, it is an essential revelation. It seems clear now that this ‘cure’ of the Lupines was never about the afflictions, the urges, but about the supposed ‘curse’ of monstrous origins itself. Lycanthropy and vampirism, demon’s and devil’s and dragon’s blood, shapeshifting—I think they see these as the afflictions, not the urges or the forced transformations. I wonder if those tribulations even figure into the Lupine world view.

In the corner of the room, Thassalia has backed into a corner, holding her knees and eyeing us suspiciously. I hadn’t even fully processed that Tegan was comforting her until this moment—just yesterday this girl was trying to kill us. The day before she’d turned our knight. I’m the first to admit—I’ve always had forgiveness issues. I brand my grudge into her with a glower. And beside me, the rogue has a similar jumpy reaction.

Looking back at the girl, then to us again, Tegan says, “Woah, okay, everybody calm down. She’s a victim. Like us.”

Alabastra’s arms cross. “That doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous. Seemed like a true believer to me last we saw her.”

“Allie. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?” She speaks with a paladin’s conviction. Tegan isn’t wrong, but neither is Alabastra. I don’t doubt Thassalia’s seen too much in this place, but I know better than most now that trauma only really begets more trauma. She has to want to change.

As for if she does… Thassalia’s lower jaw quivers. Her expression is a confused cross of anger and terror and pleading. I’m not sure she knows where her chips will fall. I know that means I can’t trust her.

But I can trust Tegan. If she thinks she can make the attempt, then that has to be enough. I look to our werewolf. “I believe you.”

Her shoulders relax. “Thanks, Moodie.” She looks back to the actress. “It’s okay. They’re not gonna judge you.”

Well I didn’t say that.

Grinding her jaw into dust, Alabastra still doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t make a further fuss. She nods to her girlfriend. “Fine.” Then her eyes start to dart. “Wait. Where’s Faylie?!”

“Right here!”, a voice chirps from the corner.

We turn to see… nothing, but invisible arms wrap around us. Of course. I could concoct some reason to be annoyed, but all I can feel is a release. Finally I feel like I can breathe again. We’re all accounted for.

Thassalia says her first words since we arrived, “Was she here the whole time?!“

“… Sorry”, says the unseen faun. “I kinda heard that whole thing, yeah.” ‘Whole thing‘? I have a feeling we just interrupted something far more profound than I was expecting, especially to have won Tegan over so quickly.

Alabastra sighs. “How ’bout you put us wise? The more we know the better.” Then she pinches her nose. “To start—what happened to our rendezvous, girls? You had us worried sick.”

Tegan pouts, “It was my fault. We got to the entrance and got distracted by the storm, and… a guard saw me.”

Still not having dropped her spell, Faylie concurs, “I cast this on us both, but this gollumpus—”

“I dropped it since they already spotted us and I wasn’t gonna be able to hide the sound anyways.” She grabs the back of her neck. “They saw the ears and, I guess, assumed I was here for healing. Or at least what they call healing. I just went along with it.”

“And I followed!”

“They brought me inside, took my things, then said I was free to introduce myself to the others.” Tegan gestures to the cowering actress on the bed. “And then I found her.”

We all stare for a moment at Thassalia Demetrix. She’d seemed so smug before at her little victory at the Sutolli Theatre. So ready to tear us apart in Medi Park. Now, it’s as if she’s exhausted her supply of confidence.

She leans forward. “They said I was cured—you all took that away”, she laments. Alabastra looks like she’s going to object, but stops herself when the blue-haired woman continues, “But it was a lie. They had all these words and mantras and prayers—and spells—but it wasn’t really a cure, it was…” She trails off.

It all sounds eerily familiar. Lyla wasn’t lying—they’ve been doing what I’d done to myself en masse.

I speak up, “Cure is the wrong word. It doesn’t excise the root cause. Merely staunches the bleeding—and all the while infects the wound with tetanus and poison.” Phantom pains of the past week crawl up my back. “Some remedies are worse than the disease.”

Tegan adds, “And that’s if you even accept that it is a disease.” She locks eyes with me. “And we don’t anymore.”

I shrink. That’s still an idea I’ve not quite internalized to my core. I’m getting there.

Thassalia folds up again. “They don’t give you the spell that makes the transformations go away until they’ve broken you down. Made you believe them when they say what’s inside of you is wicked. Then to make it last, they seal it with that gem you broke.”

“They didn’t have to use spells or gems at the priory”, says Tegan. “Guess they haven’t had a lot of time here—took shortcuts or something.”

The actress continues with a concerned look, “And they asked questions. Insisted that some shadowy force was doing this to us. Putting orders in our head. They say it so convincingly you start to believe them.”

Forsyth had mentioned they were looking for answers. Some shadowy other… is that possible? Did someone else create this storm above our heads? I can’t begin to imagine why, if that’s even true.

Alabastra chimes in, “Seems like you really turned a new leaf. What spurred that on?”

“I guess after everything, I didn’t see the point anymore. Lyla was ranting and raving incoherent and I… was reminded of an old poem I’d read, once.” And Thassalia recites from memory,

“Seek not truth inside but words
Lest words be all thou knows.
There art more to stars and light
And Heavens, Hells, and Vaunder nights
And forests, mountains, birds in flight,
Than what thou sayeth goes.“

Though I don’t think I’ll fully relinquish my suspicion for some time, I do find it difficult to hate a scholar of Stakestane. Dammit.

She continues, “After you destroyed that gem, it was like I was back at square one again. Once I’d calmed down it was almost a relief.” Sounds familiar.

Alabastra leans forward, catching onto a new line of questioning. “Seems like you know Lyla pretty well. What can you tell us about her? Any indications that she had ulterior motives?”

Thassalia shrugs. “Other than her insisting that someone had compelled us, somehow…? I’m not sure.” Her eyes dart. “Lyla’s a true follower of the Effigial, but I’m sure you know that by now. My family referred to women like her as iconic visions of traditional femininity—something I never thought I’d strive for, until I was caught with lycanthropy. She made subjugation seem like a path out of this curse.” She starts to rub at her own hands in self-comfort. “But she seemed like she cared. Really. Do you know how rare that is? To find someone that, when they speak, it’s like you’re the only person in the world?

“But looking back? She was paranoid. She taught me that spell I had cast on you.” She looks to Tegan. “She said it was supposed to show one’s true form. I was too afraid to ask why it looked like the storm at the time.” At our confused glances she says, “I know—the logic didn’t make sense to me, either. Once more, I apologize.”

Tegan waves a hand through the air. “I’m over it.” I sincerely wish I knew if that were true.

That is yet another point in Alabastra’s camp, however. It’s the first solid connection between Lyla and the plague. There’s… a level of contradictory logic at play here that I can’t quite follow. Lyla’s actions, and her beliefs—without some kind of throughline, it’s starting to like she operates at random. We’re still missing something.

Through the side of her mouth, Alabastra says, “Then this really is her show.” She looks to Tegan and I. “Well, if that isn’t what she’s really like, she wouldn’t show it to her congregation, would she? We should find her private quarters. Get a look at the real Lyla.”

With my back to still to her, I hear Thassalia explain, “She stays in the largest tent in the encampment on the other side of the cavern.” And in a smaller voice, “She took me there to ream me out after the speech.”

I look back to our unexpected ally. “Did she mention the watch?”

“… What watch?”

Alabastra confirms with a nod—Lyla seems to be keeping that hidden. Then it strikes me that she’s able to confirm at all. It seems whatever force was keeping Alabastra from reading the actress is gone. I say, “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go.”

We turn to leave.

Only Tegan does not follow. “I… can’t.”

“… Stardust?” Alabastra stares at her lover, curious and scared.

Tegan elaborates, “They’ll see me and know something’s wrong… and, even if you all disappear, they might notice I’m gone. I don’t wanna risk this any further.”

“We kinda already left a trail of guards—”

“But it’s not just that”, the knight, stripped of steel, makes a shield of her voice. “I can help more here. If things start to kick off, I mean. Maybe convince some more of these people to help. Find out where they’re keeping the rest of the gems.” She looks down, a surprisingly maudlin little smile on her face. “You three go be sneaky. I got this.”

Our knight, without her shining armor, still stands resolute, and though she doesn’t say it in so many words, makes an oath of protection. For not just us, but every afflicted in this ruin, bought into the lie of their own wickedness. She is determination manifest. And not a single part of me doubts she’ll stand before the coming pack of wolves and will not falter, nor stand alone.

The other two move to remake the hug circle once more, and before I have a chance to be self-conscious Alabastra pulls me into it as well. She mumbles into the crook of Tegan’s arm, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

The werewolf chuckles. “Says you.”

* * *

The rows of tents are tinted red and gold in the national colors of Anily. Flags drape from the folds of the camps, and torches flicker, burning their crackling fuel. Tables and benches of food, an archery range, carts full of supplies, and even a half-constructed trebuchet, for some ungodsly reason, mark this as a camp for war. In the distance, someone beats unnerving percussions into a drum, to stir the hearts of the men here—Lupine Partisans, who make crude jokes, or push one another, or stare cold and dead at each other, the distant ruin, or the storm above our heads. This small slice of nationalism drips with a machismo I’ve resolved to abandon forever, and I didn’t believe I’d feel so swiftly vindicated for that.

Thanks to Faylie, we’re now all cloaked in magic, and I’m endlessly thankful—these are the last people I’d want to see us. That aching need to disappear from sight is still ever-present, but in this case, I think I’d prefer instead to sear their sights from them, if I could.

Though, this spell will do nothing to hide us from Lyla, so we employ Alabastra’s usual stealthier tactics on top of the invisibility. It won’t matter that she can see through the spell, if we’re never in her sights at all.

We move closer and closer to the largest camp, the one Thassalia had assured us Lyla stays in. Beyond it, and the encampment in general, the exit up to Firvus Heights is close enough to make out in detail. Due to the immense likelihood that it is well-guarded, it would be a folly of an escape plan, but the option is technically there. Though there are potentially better ones—back the way we came most obviously. It’s too bad we can’t fly, or that Faylie’s teleportation takes so much out of her. Otherwise that open chasm up to the water portal heart of the city would suffice, too.

I believe I’m becoming shockingly accustomed to moving unseen. The protocol of keeping our arms wrapped so we don’t lose each other means there’s more room for clumsy error, but I’m practiced, now. Or perhaps that’s just the catastrophic consequences of failure speaking.

Finally, we reach the large tent. Its entrance is guarded by Sables. The black-armored guard of the heights eye the Lupine Partisans with suspicion. They are technically an extra-legal gang, after all. And despite the Sable’s loyalty to the Republic driving them to join such a force, for at least some of these guardsmen, they likely didn’t imagine that would mean working with a group as unsavory as the Partisans. Of course, their sideways glances mean nothing—they’re still here. If we had the opportunity to grow that divide, it may be of use, but for the time being, they’d turn their swords on us far before they would each other.

We skirt around the back of the tent, and an unseen hand lifts up the fabric; only a tiny amount, for viewing. A section of dirt is displaced in an Alabastra-sized indent, laid flat across the ground.

“We’re clear”, she whispers, and the bottom of the tent lifts higher.

Crawling underneath, we enter a surprisingly well-decorated tent. A rug is laid out across the dirt. A four-corner bed is recently made. A lamp lights the interior, powered by a generator churning its electromagic outside the tent in noisy, crackling arcana. And a writing desk is left recently abandoned, the chair still askew from someone having left it in a hurry.

The desk draws my eye—as it does the others, if the near-imperceptible footprints against the rug are any indication. Sitting on the intricately carved wood surface, next to stationary and a pen pot, a diary is left open, recently added to.

Lyla Serrone’s private thoughts are laid bare before us. I move to the book, finding it to be a rather recent journal, dating back not too far. Convenient, for us to start at the beginning. Feeling the other two beside me, I take the initiative, and flip to the first page with writing.

Galliust the 27th, 919 4M, Year of our Luminaries
‘What is the worth of a woman?’
Those are Highdeacon Glorycast’s words. On the day I left for this capital hewn of stone, for good. I was not sure of the meaning of his question at the time. ‘The worth of a woman’. Not man, which could have meant men or mankind, but women. Or, one woman. One in particular, or any one woman? I did not ask, as answering a question with a question is reserved for those with undeserving perspectives.
‘To serve her country’, I answered.
‘To serve her family’, he clarified. ‘But you serve your country, Delyla. You serve the world. All mankind. You are Blessed by our Effigial Luminaries. The Gods chose you and you alone to rise above your frailty. You are the exception. Worthy beyond your station.’
It was he that spoke to me my destiny, at a tender age. In the churchyard in Reverie, with my parents looking on, he gave me a baptism in pure purpose.
When he communed with the Gods, his voice boomed with the Dozen-Minus-One. I will never forget the way his eyes shone.
‘You will see monsters dwelling in the hearts of mortals. And they will thank you, when you burn out what they cannot see inside themselves. You will know in your soul that you have saved our nation of stone. And none will doubt that you were the catalyst of a new age.’
My purpose. My destiny. It is near at hand. I know it. It must be.

Then it seems our research was true—she’s truly destined. Prophesized. I flip the page. Her next entry isn’t for another month.

Septembrea the 20th, 919 4M, Years of our Luminaries
I love my country. I do. Which is why I cannot stand the ways in which its sicknesses manifest. In the enfeebling of our men. In our weakness at relinquishing our western holdings. In the decadence of this grand place I have come to live. It’s all the same sickness. The same source. I am deathly aware of all the places monsters might hide. In the sneering eyes of my husband’s Liberal, Conservative, and most especially Unionist colleagues. In the backrooms of the live-in’s estates, or down in the rat-strewn lower city. In the underburrows. In the cabarets. In the classrooms of the Lazuli Institute. They plot against us. Against me. The schemers. The vampires. All the undying cruelty of a lich, with all the greed of a dragon. They hunger, ever and always. They orchestrate. And worst of all, they have found a way to pass their sickness on to children. Little boys and girls, corrupted forever. It breaks my heart.
I remember my first trip to this city so clearly, years ago. On that venture to bring light to the ever-waning hopes of the City of Marble. How I was brought before those awful, haunted little ones, asked to try and heal their afflictions. That child that attacked me, just a boy, he was turned monstrous at the sight of my light. A valuable lesson—one must be careful, as the unloved do not always want to be saved. Surely that child, and the rest—they’re grown now. What horrors might they have unleashed upon our country since?
How strange, to know already the hand the dagger lies in.

I stare down at the words. My head feels like it’s spinning. It’s… she can’t mean…

My legs threaten to give out under me. I start to stumble back, only for Alabastra to catch me under the arm. “M…”, she whispers. “It’s alright. It’s okay.”

“Is it…?”, I wheeze. I believe I’m genuinely asking.

If I am interpreting this right, then… I think… I might be who she’s referring to…? That’s the logical conclusion, isn’t it—with how precisely she recognized me in Medi Park? How young would I have been? Why do I not remember that? Was it in one of the orphanages I’d been a resident of? If it didn’t make so much sense, I’d think it would make no sense at all.

A smaller set of hands holds my midsection. “Hey…”, Faylie whispers, “Let’s just let Allie read it for a bit. Calm you down.”

My eyes cast over the nothing where her voice comes from. Gods I wish I could see her right now. I close my eyes and let myself imagine Faylie there, rubbing my hand in comfort. I just… I don’t understand. Why would she concoct some grand theory on my complicity in this nonsense based on nothing more than one foul and violent meeting, over a decade ago? Are all of these Lupines truly so paranoid? It would almost make me think Alabastra is right, if I could then explain away how that would lead to them creating this storm above our heads. It just doesn’t track; but then, the idea that their worldview is somehow justified turns my stomach inside itself. I don’t think I want either of us to be correct anymore. I don’t want any of this to be happening anymore. The thought of this horrible person obsessing over me like this, it’s… I might throw up.

I never asked to be anyone’s fucking conspiracy!

For a while I just focus on my breathing, on Faylie by my side, until I’ve gathered myself enough to push the nausea out of my mind. It is at least a skill I’ve honed to a point in the last month.

Alabastra whispers, “Okay, uh… you’re gonna wanna read this.”

We move back to the desk, where she’s flipped the journal over a few entries, to a specific and damnable date.

Octobrea the 12th, 919 4M, Year of our Luminaries
Today the Acta reported on news from Caskia… they are giving their magics away freely, now. Flirting with disaster all over again. Some of my husband’s colleagues praised the action. Have they forgotten our history?
Myself and the ladies at our little get-togethers, we discussed it all through the night—the stories of how the Runeplague manifested. A great and terrible storm, in the heart of the Caskian’s most treasured sanctum. What could be more treasured to us than the heart of our city? The endless wellspring? Or that abandoned church underneath it? We came to the conclusion together—the monsters that caused the first plague, if they were to strike at our city, that’s where they’d do it. It would be vampires, of course—they most scheming of the monsters. They’d call up the hidden forces, waiting to act on orders— the truth of their wickedness written in blood. This would be but the first phase, as they would then unleash the cataclysm upon us all.
Beric agreed. He can be a fool at times, I will admit. I’d thought his lower status and position would assist me when we married, but sometimes I feel I may have chosen poorly in him. He’s weak. He will not protect me when our enemies arrive.
I twist and turn each night, thinking about it. Over and over. I think I must take a visit soon. I cannot discount this feeling.

And the next entry is written on the very next page, in an excited and messy hand.

Octobrea the 13th, 919 4M, Year of our Luminaries
I was right!
And it is horrible. Yet satisfying, to be so vindicated. I stare up at a storm. How long has it been brewing, I wonder?
Beric tells me there is terrible news from the lower and inner city. Several congruent reports of monster turnings. It’s all exactly as I thought. Interesting that it occurs in the night—perhaps leaving them to scheme in the day, a consequence of the duplicitous nature of monsters.
I will stop it. This is the culmination of everything I was fated for. My destiny, I understand it now. Monsters in the hearts of men. They will not poison our land again. We will root them out. Burn out the wickedness. Cure those who can be cured.
And find the orchestraters. They are sneaky, these vampires. We must be careful in kind. I will put up the barriers against mind-reading magics, for myself, and those I can afford to trust. My gifts will ensure our victory.
This is everything I ever feared. But our Luminaries chose me because they knew I could stand against it. I will not falter.

I feel as if I may bite straight through my own jaw. She found this place, knew this storm would brew—from what? Her assumptions? The very night it happened, and the next morning, it seems she was already completely convinced and aware of what was occurring. How is that even possible?

Voice beside mine, Alabastra says, “Shit… I was right.”

What?! “No you’re not! I was right. Though I would prefer I wasn’t. She located this place, and—”

“Moodie. Read between the lines. Alright, why the fuck would any of this be happening if she wasn’t pulling the strings? She thinks there’s some, fucking, biological truth to being a ‘monster? ‘Monster‘ is just a word we made up! We used to call goblins ‘monsters’! Fiendlings and beastfolk and deep elves… it isn’t a real category!” She’s getting worked up, I can tell without even seeing her face. “It doesn’t make sense! The plague never, ever worked like how she’s saying. She just used her fuckin’… God-Blessed powers or whatever to create this whole fucking thing! It’s just smoke and mirrors! Has to be!”

Sighing in her direction, I say, “Well, why would she have created this ‘healing facility’ if she was the antecedent of this mess? Why would she write this diary? I hate that she was correct about so much—”

“A little too correct, hmm? It doesn’t strike you the least bit suspicious that she was right about everything? Down to the location? The people it would affect? You?! It’s almost like she wrote it after the fact!”

“And planted it here for someone to find? For what? Allie, that’s absurd.”

Faylie speaks up, “Well… maybe the truth’s somewhere in the middle?”

Alabastra sighs, “Bug, she either created this, or she’s trying to stop it.” She picks up the book, waving it around invisibly. “You know I ain’t one for binary choices, but we can’t both be right!”

“Right about what?”, says a voice from the front of the tent.

We turn to see that three figures have entered while we were mid-argument. The two Sables from outside, flanking a familiar woman of blonde curls, dressed now in a long-sleeved and elegant robe, decorated in ornate colors of golds and greens and blues, with holy symbols in abstract designs across the surface. Lyla Serrone stares at us through our invisibility, intent and furious.

“… Mother fucker“, says Alabastra.

* * *

Back in the temple, we’re seated at a long dining table in a hall in the northeast section of the building, opposite the dorms where our fourth still waits. Above us, the moss and vines creep down, lit by the blue storm and a generator-powered procession of lightbulbs that set loosely in a wire and the vanishing rays of setting sunlight that still peer through the cracks in the cave wall. A dozen or so chairs are pushed against the table, brought here recently. The furniture isn’t rotted or collapsing—it must have been brought down recently. The table is set with candles, currently being lit by a hard-faced priest of the Effigial pantheon. No meals or cutlery are before us; though it is nearing supper time, we’re not exactly honored guests.

Alabastra, Faylie, and I are sat with space between. Unfortunately, they’re wise enough to separate us. At the head of the table, Lyla Serrone sits prim and proper, hands folded neatly over her lap. And behind us, ringing the table in as many chairs as there are men, Sable Guard stand with spears and shields at the ready.

They’ve taken our things somewhere, stashed them in some side room. We’re unarmed and at their mercy.

Our leader speaks first. “So… I guess I’ll speak for all of us when I ask—why are we not dead?”

Lyla’s eyes roll. “The thieves and conspirators who have been doggedly chasing me would deserve less than a quick death…”, she trails off. “But. I have begun to reconsider whether you are truly as opposed as I’d thought. After all, one of your own was one that I was so convinced would be a driving force, yet you were lost as a lamb.” She stares at me.

Voice like a frozen lake, Alabastra is even and level and freezing. “You’re saying you’d wanna work with us?”

“You could be here to topple us, ensure your plans reach their next stage—that’s what we’re going to find out. I’d love to see what your goals truly are—see if your purpose could align with ours.” Her shoulders shift. “Because if we can cooperate, it is to our mutual misfortune, I am sure, that it will be necessary. You are tenacious. You’re skilled, and you’ve escaped me twice now. And what’s more, you are in a position to answer for us a question that may be the key to our success.”

“And that would be…?”

The Blessed of the Gods bites her cheek. “You held the watch for some time. You know more about it than anyone else in the city, as far as we are aware. At least, anyone in the city still living. So of all possible persons, you would be the only ones who might know”—she leans forward, and there is a pleading desperation in her voice—”Why isn’t it working?!”

I can’t help but balk. “You will… need to elaborate”, I say.

Lyla Serrone’s upper lip curls. “The watch. I’ve tried over and over since yesterday to use it, to no avail.” Her eyes dart. “Did you… do something to it? To make it unwieldable by anyone else?”

I catch Alabastra’s eye, trying to gain any indication of how honest I should be. Though we’re heavily monitored by the guard, I can pick up at least one thing from her verdant glare. Trust. She’ll follow my lead on this. Careful and deliberate, I explain, “Not to my knowledge, no. What were you trying to do with it?”

It is bizarre to be parlaying like this. Some part of me thought that we might just storm in here, and she’s be some awaiting figure on a throne, and the three of them would defeat her in some grand battle. Naivete, perhaps. Or hopefulness. This is more complex than I was ever comfortable with this venture getting.

Serrone taps on the table, nails clicking against the varnished wood in a four-tone beat like a horse’s gallop. “What else? To stop this madness. We were going to use the watch to look back in time, learn who created this storm, and how, and find out how to banish it.”

Faylie asks, “Can it even do that?”

“We believe so—”, and she interrupts herself, “Ah. We never did get your names, did we?”

“Polli.”

“Scillia”, says Alabastra.

They all look to me. “… Muhnsker”, I say with a shrug.

Lyla gives a curious glance to me. “Hmm. Rather effeminate, aren’t you? Vampires…” I shrink against her words, and when she’s had her fill of judging me she continues, “We believe it is possible, yes. It is a vitally powerful artifact. Passed through the ages, it must have seen countless crises like this. That it ended up in your hands of all places is proof of no less than our divine mandate. It has been clear since the tower that you are an even more crucial part of this than I’d believed.”

Perhaps it’s a selfish ask, but I’d hardly imagined we’d get the chance to speak like this. So now that it’s here, and what’s more, that we have some tiny amount of leverage, I can’t let the opportunity pass. “What do you know about me? When did we meet?” I need to hear it from her lips—confirm it.

She stares, knowing she holds a critical key of myself in her hands. And it’s a far-too familiar feeling. I am exceedingly tired of being at the end of anyone’s strings. “Upon one of my first visits to this city, where I first met many of the men who would go on to found the Lupine Party, one amongst their number brought me to an orphanage, where a number of children with awful dispositions were being held. Dhampiric children. Cursed from birth. Wandering between a half-dead state, growing ever hungrier, becoming mad from the need to control us like cattle.” Though she’s accusing me of such heinous beliefs, her face is conciliatory. She pities me. I have half a mind to tell her it won’t win her any favors. “You were one of them. I, foolishly in hindsight, attempted to heal you of what ailed you—the curse in your veins. And for the effort, you attacked me.”

The Gods-Blessed woman pulls aside the collar of her robe, exposing a short, healed scar over her clavicle, jagged like a wild cut.

Then she continues, “Since yesterday, I’ve given some thought to your condition—your lucidity. I’ve realized that perhaps I was mistaken in believing you the mastermind. You’re little more than a feral beast. Of course it comes out at night, to claw at the world. It’s just what you types are like, isn’t it?”

These are unhinged allegations. Alabastra’s been right often enough that I cannot discount that she may be right—there isn’t a chance I can believe her on words alone. “All of this from meeting me once as a child? I apologize if I harmed you, but I don’t understand—why would your assumption—”

“I do not assume!”, she interrupts.

Silence hangs over the room like cold winter creeping up glass.

Then she smooths her robe out. “You wouldn’t understand. I am touched by the Gods themselves. I do not create idle theories. My word is edict. My thoughts are fact, plucked from Runo’s Garden of Knowledge. The Dawnlord’s light shines on every dark corner I peer into. Lunara’s brilliant moon is the truth banishing all hidden lies, that I alone am granted divine insight into. I apologize if my Luminary fundament is difficult to embrace, especially for a vampire, and a heretic, and a… fae…, but it does not make it not so.”

The three of us share a bewildered glance. I can’t possibly know what Alabastra and Faylie and thinking, but if it matches a fraction of their stressed and pulled stares, than we’re all coming to a similar conclusion. The way she blew up at us—nobody lying gets that angry when discussing their ideals. I can confirm it to myself now, and without Alabastra’s Insight, to boot; she believes every word of what she’s saying. She’s dangerously committed to her unhinged beliefs. And… hateful. Spiteful in that hate. Aggrieved beyond measure. I’m nauseous at how familiar it is.

She continues, “But to answer your question—half-blood vampires are ticking timebombs. Ever waiting for the day they might yet coalesce into full vampirism. And once that happens, scheming is in your blood.”

My veins turn to ice. “What?” That… couldn’t possibly be true?

Lyla tsk-tsks. “You poor thing. You truly do not understand what’s been done to you, do you?” She leans forward. “You have no soul. You are a hungry animal—a thing of violence. I am sure you have seen it before. You’ve hurt the people who loved you”—my mother’s eyes flash before mine—”You’ve been cruel without knowing why”—Lainey Sedgwick pleads with her face to not let her leave—”You are a walking stain upon this world. Cursed. Destined to destroy.

“It is the curse of all of your kind. You grow obsessive”—hatred crystallizing in unbridled jealousy at their love—”Jealous”—desperate for what they have—”And begin to despise us for what you cannot feel. It’s why you crave our blood. The pathways to our hearts. Our warmth. Our love—”

“Can it!”, yells Alabastra. “That’s not fucking true.”

As we all glance back at Alabastra, her scarf has jostled loose, exposing the dual-wound on her neck. Lyla gives her a rueful headshake. “Ah, and as it ever was. The foolish woman falls for the undead monster. He’ll never love you, darling—he can’t. He’s empty inside.”

If it didn’t hurt so much I’d almost find it morbidly funny how incorrect she’s read the situation.

Alabastra seems to agree. She’s laughing in her face. “What the fuck would you know about love?”

“More than most. This place was built on love. It’s our foundational principle. Love—for the unbreakable human spirit. For the unlovable.” She says it with so much sentimentality, it’s hard to believe she doesn’t believe it. I’m more convinced than ever than I’m correct; but she doesn’t need to be lying to be wrong.

And… I am doing my very best to continue to consider her wrong. To not let her words sink in too deep. I look to the others for comfort, and it’s truly the only thing that saves me from falling down the chasm carved of her claims.

Becoming more and more incensed, Alabastra leans forward, hands on the table. “And what about that dwarven girl, huh? Savina Matricia? Was it love when you kidnapped her? Traumatized her?”

The sorceress wrinkles her nose. “We found that girl wandering the streets, lost and confused. We fed her, clothed her, and removed the sickness of her soul. If you’re trying at some sympathy ploy it is entirely wasted—my only regret when it comes to that poor child is that we had to send her back to that sewer with her harlot mother at all!”

“You fucking—” Alabastra starts to stand. She doesn’t make it three inches out of her seat before every guard in the room moves to attention at once, a dozen spears pointed in her direction. She freezes, and slowly settles back into her chair.

I plead at her with my eyes. We can’t afford to stretch our hospitality like that much further; best we keep the peace until we’re less outmatched. I can only hope Alabastra can see that past her own justifiable fury.

When the tension has laxed enough, I turn to the socialite. “And Nathaniel Latchet? Is he truly so vital to your plan that you needed to imprison him twice-over?”

Lyla rolls her wrist, bracing against the man’s name as if it brings a chill. “The measures with the detective were necessary thrice-fold—for one, he represented a security risk. Thanks to our, in hindsight misguided, attempts to outsource our search for the artifact, the information of its existence and potential importance would have been loose in the world so long as he walked free. Secondly—we thought he might be useful. If he’d gotten on board, he might have rooted out the saboteurs from the generally-afflicted, in the patients we took. And of course—the gem in his spine provided an interesting potential emergency option for solving our problem, should all else have failed.”

The revenant gem Latchet mentioned, that would explode upon his death. “You thought to use him like a bomb? Would that even have an effect?”

For someone who has seemed so confident in her every answer, here she offers only a humble shrug. “It would not hurt to try.”

Well… it would hurt exactly one person, I’m certain.

Alabastra speaks up again, still ticked-off, “‘Root out the saboteurs’? How do you even know they’re out there? You can say you’re Heavens-sent, sure, but down here on Vaunder we need proof to believe things. At least… y’know, we should.”

Serrone scoffs, “Straight from the horse’s mouth. The afflicted we’ve treated here admitted, when we asked, that they had been manipulated.”

“You mean, the people you have in those dorms? What does your process look like, exactly?”

One hand in the other, she explains, eerily serene, “It’s simple, really. We associate the urges, or any behavior deemed too in-line with the patients specific monstrous attributes, with physical or mental pain. A conditioning response, not unlike training a dog. Then we break down the mental barriers that brought them to such sickness in the first place—correcting their delusions and enabling them for a life of rehabilitation. Finally, we cast a transmutation to ensure they cannot physically transform, anchor that spell with a sealing gem, and send them home, where they are expected to continue their studies in The Tributines to ensure they aren’t relapsing.”

We all stare at her, horrified.

Alabastra says, “You’re… that’s heinous. You might as well lobotomize them while you’re fuckin’ at it!”

“It’s only been a month. We haven’t had to employ such measures yet, but—”

The rogue slams her fist into the table, met once again with the guard encroaching toward her. She’s seething now, grinding her teeth.

Faylie speaks up before the sorceress can make any rash decries in response, “Why not just cast the spell first if you can? The rest of it seems so… unnecessary!”

“To ensure the mind is mentally ready to receive such instruction, of course! Otherwise, the treatment wouldn’t stick!”

I’m starting to feel far away from myself. Nothing about this conversation feels right. Operating the machine of my body from afar, I force myself to say, “And at what point in this process do they admit to having been manipulated?”

“When we get to the questioning, after the conditioning has begun—”

Alabastra interrupts, “Well, then of course they ‘confessed’, you fucking tortured them! I woulda too, if you’d done that to me!”

She stares daggers at the rogue. “Confessed… what?”

“Ah, Gods, you are twisted in the fucking head.”

Her patience is wearing thing. “You have quite the mouth on you, young lady!” I’m not sure she realizes the revealing irony that that was her response to being accused of torture.

The rogue continues, “And that’s another thing! Why the fuck would you help the Lupines, anyways? They want nothing more than to turn women into docile, domestic slaves. If they get everything they want, Delyla, how do you think that ends for you?”

Lyla is still infuriatingly calm. “You can’t fight the tides, darling. Isn’t it better to not have to struggle all of the time? I know my life would change very little under a new regime.”

“That’s it? You just wash your hands of it? Everyone else can get fucked, because at least you get to live in a big house and tell people what to do and get your praises sung for bein’ divine and holy?” And breathily Alabastra adds, “Go fuck yourself…”

For a brief moment, Lyla Serrone’s eyes shift. Some imperceptible recognition of a truth she can’t possibly contend with. I don’t know if the others notice, but I’d know it well, now—she’s reached the hard limits of her worldview. Touched the outer edge of the mental prison she’s trapped herself within. Were she wielding The Timekeeper, she’d be treated to a migraine for the insult. But this isn’t a stasis of time-magic make—just the casual cruelty of a woman who’s exchanged her own capacity to change, for power.

She’s going to start lashing out before she’ll ever look inward. And once she starts looking for ways to pull Alabastra apart, she may just stumble into a whole other avenue of hatred to attack us with. Best we seize our opportunity now, before we lose it; we’ve gotten everything we can out of her.

Before she can respond to Alabastra I slam a hand to the table. The whole room looks to me. “I’ve heard enough!”, I say with ersatz venom. And I meet Lyla Serrone’s eyes. “We’ll assist. Take us to the watch.”

A smile curls up her face.

* * *

We are marched up to the top of the priory. A turret tower stands at the northeastern-most corner, the closest the building comes to the storm. As we ascend up the steps, spiraling around the inside of a rounded stairwell, I’m feeling less and less confident in innumerable directions—in the fledgling dregs of a plan I’m starting to concoct. In the likelihood we even live through this. And in the literal structural integrity of these steps. They creak and bend under our weight, and the rickety railing does nothing to ease my nerves.

The stairs open into a hallway, that stretches into the outcropped tower, clinging to the edge of the building like a mosquito. Bricks and tilework are torn from the turret, looking half-constructed, like it might fall away at any moment. Yet there’s a strange sense of stasis about it. Like that moment might never come. I’m reminded of the pristine condition of the basement of Tinker Tack Antiques and Oddities.

And beyond the tower, in the windows and in the holes left in the walls and roof, the storm rages beyond, a cyan tornado of pure arcana that threatens constant violence on the building we’re all standing within. It doesn’t move in the false sky of this cavern, twinkling with arcryst like stars. It doesn’t touch the ground. It doesn’t bend or writhe or threaten to grow or shrink; it just twists upon itself, raging in a too-perfect spin.

The sound of wind grows and whistles through the cracks in the temple, and our hair is buffeted, whipped around by the storm of magic. But beyond, in the tower, in that stasis, it is calm. And sitting on a rotting writing desk, the familiar brass surface of The Timekeeper lays flat against the sodden wood.

It calls to me. Not in a metaphysical or metaphorical way. I can feel the entity inside of it reaching out across the divide. Pulling at me. Even after throwing it away, it wants its ambitionless, listless champion of never-changing back.

I look to Lyla Serrone. “Who has tried to wield it?”

She’s ahead of me, with Alabastra and Faylie to my sides, and several Sables behind and in front of us. They’re watching. Whatever we do here, we’ll need to do it precisely.

Lyla says, “Myself. And… Arthur, once. Neither of us could successfully utilize its magic in any way that mattered. It was as if there was a block, or a… a wall.”

Alabastra says, mostly to herself, “Forsyth wanted it too?”

The Gods-Blessed raises a brow. “You’re aware of who Arthur is, are you?”

“Well, he’s anglin’ for council speaker, ain’t he? I keep up with current events.” She shrugs, having calmed down enough to deliver in an even affect once more.

Staring up at Alabastra a moment too long, Lyla says, “You’re… awfully tall, aren’t you…?”

I should head that off. I step forward. “I’ll do it. I’ll use it to discover who created the storm, and how.”

“You will?”, she asks, genuine curiosity in her voice.

Past her, the watch’s call grows louder and louder. Drawing me in like gravity. “It wants its wielder back. I’ll reclaim it. And I’ll use it like you say.”

Lyla Serrone could refuse, of course. But she brought us to this point for precisely this reason. I wonder if she believed we’d truly agree, or was hoping we wouldn’t. But she nods, and steps aside.

A hand grabs mine as I start to move. Faylie’s looking up at me, that starry look she gives her girlfriend on occasion, pleading with me without words.

And beside her, Alabastra’s brows have sunk into her eyeline, looking between me, the watch, and Lyla. She says in a tiny voice, “M…”

I look between the two. “I know what I’m doing”, I say, empty of emotion. With just my eyes, I try and communicate every last drop of trust I have back into them, shape myself into a mirror of every piece of support they’ve given me. It has to be enough; I need them to believe me.

Then I turn, and march toward the tower. With every step that weight of the artifact that held so tight a grip around me grows, rocks added to my shoulders until I am Atlas, holding the world. I pass into the threshold of the turret. There’s a slight sense of breathlessness, like the air here is too sharp, too cold, devoid of life. Stagnant as still water, with none of the ecosystem underneath its surface. Dead.

The watch is exactly as I remember it. How would it not be? Its single long hand is still stuck at 12, and the glass scatters the storm outside across its own interior. If I had joined with Lyla Serrone yesterday, perhaps I would have been standing here now, under very different circumstances.

For a moment I can only stare at it. I desperately wish I could say that I feel no desire to claim it again. That in the short time I’ve been separated from it I’ve already grown past my craving for that dulling palliation, that easing of the need or even want to grow. That self-imposed denial.

But a larger part of me than I feared still longs for it. Is still horrified, and wants nothing more than the immediate gratification of having those horrors abated, damn the long-term cost. Damn the future. Damn myself. It would be so easy, to throw away my dual promises to Alabastra and hide again.

Some horribly weak part of me desperately seeks control. To bewitch my hand and take it. To reach out and take it. To forget everything. And take it.

My hand hovers towards the watch.

We're so very close now. Thank you for reading. ❤

Next update is (1-45) magnum opus; on Friday, November 22nd.