WWW #53: The Queen of Swords

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

Standing in the darkness of a crowded Tilliver Mill after sunset.

The few late workers here

wrapping up odds and ends as some have already been released home, but those remaining working well past the hour of the night where they should be released.

It's a skeleton crew because there's so much work that can't be done, but they have to try to make ends meet.

And in a back office across from the room where Ursulan's golden shield was first discovered before he painted it, Ursulan and Amay stand with a confused Hana, looking at you both, weeping.

He's okay?

He's okay.

Yes, and we're going to take you to him.

Oh,

where?

Okay,

where is he right now?

I mean, got the city.

He's in the village of Toma.

Okay.

And you will be there soon as well.

Ame's capabilities are great.

Okay, okay, excellent.

I would like to start putting the doorknobs of common cause on the office door.

You begin putting them on the office door, working as fast as you can.

The fox here, Ursulan, you are here as well.

And very quickly, you see Hannah says, oh my goodness, okay, and takes Galt's gloves and begins to modify them a little bit.

And she has modified them to be your size.

Honestly, on your hands, they look like good, like workman's gloves or gardening gloves, and just with these little rails of iridium iridescent uh metal on the palms uh and she's going to hand you a pair of gloves that she has enchanted

and says

i know that you speak to spirits true um

with these gloves if ever you wish

you will be able to speak to the spells that animate constructs.

Oh, thank you.

What these gloves are basically going to allow you to do is allow you to roll persuasion checks against constructs if you are in contact with them.

I have so many questions for them.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

This is the most magic I could do in a short time, but this is marvelous.

Thank you.

You open a door.

There is no hallway.

Instead, there is a sunrise in the cottage.

Gult turns around, looks at the open door.

Hannah goes, Dad!

Sorry.

And you see, Gult turns around and goes, Hannah!

And he rushes forward, lifts her up in his arms in the doorway, pulling her into the cottage.

He turns around and says,

There's a huge amount of baguettes and cake here.

Is that just for anybody?

It was 480 children, but they are now gone.

So it's for you.

Okay, the kids alright?

Well, I have to assume so.

Yes, they're quite fine.

Oh, good.

You two do

a lot for people.

Well, it's in our nature.

We must go.

You sort of lovingly shove Hanna through the door, and she says, okay, well, we'll try to be useful while we're here.

And then you close the door.

As you do, you see the fox looks around and says, they call that heroes.

And you see that the door closes.

And the fox looks up and says, people that do a lot for people, they call that heroes, I think.

I wouldn't give myself the title.

Yeah, real heroes don't call themselves heroes.

Yeah, that's why I'm doing it.

Okay, but in a way, aren't you calling yourself a hero by describing yourself as a real hero?

Well, I'm talking to you, Ahme.

I feel like by calling yourself a real hero who doesn't call themselves a hero, aren't you admitting that you think of yourself as a hero?

I don't consider myself a hero.

And you see the fox bugs his eyes out and leans his head forward, looking at you both.

So you think you're a hero?

No, no, I would never refer to myself as a hero.

How do other people feel?

You're so heroic, little boy.

Hooray!

As you take the doorknobs off, hearing suddenly the noises of crickets and Hana and Galt vanish as you break the doorknobs off and open it to put the other doorknobs on, you see standing in the hallway are a tall,

scholarly, mustachioed black academic.

He has sort of spectacles and very regal looking, and a short, middle-parted, sort of lush, kind of like cafe poet.

Oh, I pull them in and close the door again.

As you pull them in and close them in,

also with them, you see there is a young, what looks like a street tough who has some like arcane graffiti on his arms.

As you pull this young, sort of brash teenager in, all of them drop their glamours and Enzo, Cyril, and Vandal are flitting around.

Vandal!

Bye, you

And you see that Enzo is carrying a stack of books from Suvi's sanctum in the top of the Tower of the Glove.

Give me perception checks, both of you.

15.

21.

Ursulan, of the books, many are abjurative spell books, but you see that there is a single tome on art history here.

It is good to see you.

Uh, what is the nature of these books?

These are a number of books of great interest to me.

To you?

Yes.

The Wizard Sky has seen fit to give us our freedom.

Vandal, the most newly freed.

She is

in the process of shattering her own bottle, I think.

I watched her finish the transcribing of some important spells.

You see, Vandal goes, Yeah, she took that shitty Guild Mage counter spell and she made it looking shine.

Hell yeah.

She's got glass in her fingers.

In a good way.

What?

I can't tell what is real and what is metaphor.

C.

Cyril goes, Alas and alack, my biggest problem with metaphor.

Um, I noticed one of the books is on art history.

You see, Enzo says, That it is.

My business after this will well and truly be my own.

After we are concluded here, my business takes me

right in the eyes, Ursula and says, elsewhere in the citadel.

But

I come as one last favor to say that the wizard Sky knows that you are present.

She has called Task the Spider back to her side once more and expects you in the Tower of the Glove at your nearest convenience.

Ursulan and Ame, you guys give me insight checks.

14.

23.

Ursulan pointing out the Book of Art History.

You see that Enzo has some malevolent designs within the citadel.

Oh, Enzo, you might also want to look up a couple of spirits.

Kashali, Rombu, and Totom.

I will of course keep those names in mind, Witch of the Worlds Heart.

Are there any other names you would be willing to part with?

Names of a truer nature?

Oh,

yes, and I write down on the scrap of paper

Gwynfelm Ruth Rahir.

You give Enzo Pomeroy's true name.

As you go to describe it, Enzo puts one finger on the corner of the page, and rather than the name staying put, the ink slithers letter by letter across the page into Enzo's finger as his eyes roll back in his head.

I would see yourself safely from this citadel before the witching hour.

Thank you.

Good evening to you all, brothers.

Our job here is finished.

We'll be on our way.

Three glamours assumed as the three ink demons move down the hallway.

Goodbye, you titchies, you fart pucker, you ass umbrella.

Goodbye, Witch of the World's Heart.

Goodbye, brave spirit, free and true.

Goodbye, Fox.

Goodbye, room.

Goodbye, hallway.

And you see that he continues off down

through the doors.

Televisor Mill, it once was said, a place where artifice could gain its bread.

Those who here in daily stead found a little...

You see,

head up, left, and it gets yanked up into the sky as they hit the street and fly off.

I didn't finish.

It was all the same rhyme.

Some small part of me will miss them.

Where do you head head now in this moment?

Well, it seems that we are awaited at the Tower of the Glove.

Returning to Malacanth Court,

leaving, you see, Malacanth Court is returning to you.

There is only one court in front of it as the witching hour approaches, and it will touch down in Haverward at midnight.

Screams, claxons,

shouted warnings, see invisibility cast to and fro, mages take to the sky to see if there are other attackers hidden away invisibly.

Silver's body on the ground, hit by so many spells.

Arulean bolts,

fire and lightning,

many of them from panic,

as is clear that Silver attacked first, the injury of the Archimage silence present on his body, bleeding into his white robes.

But you can't also help but wonder,

in the

glee, of the number of spells fired on silver

How many of those wizards, some part of their mind, wondered if saving the life of the Archmage Silence might mean great glory and opportunity for them?

Maybe the wounds on Silver's body represent the same quest for glory that lived in his heart.

Blood pools on the white stone outside of the Tower of the Archmage silence.

Sufi, what do you do?

Oh my god.

And I take a step back to go run down.

And then I remember Steele's words.

Stay in the tower.

And it begins to form a line.

An easy set of jumps to make.

To make all the little things that don't make sense, that didn't make sense make sense.

One more problem to clean up.

Stay in the tower.

I

can't be here.

I know what I promised her.

But I can't stay in my tower.

I

can't stay in this tower with these greedy, hungry, awful things.

And I

throw

the rug back over the null clef

vandalism that I had vandal do,

leaving a little of it peeking.

Because when they eventually come back here,

some enterprising young wizard who volunteered to come clean out my sanctum

will see a bit of magic and maybe set them on the same path.

There's nothing to rush to now.

Silence is fine.

Silver is gone.

And he probably,

if the compulsion was strong enough, he never would have read the letter.

It's over.

One last show.

And I walk

down

to the exit from the Tower of the Glove

with my effects.

And take a couple deep breaths.

And then a couple more.

And work myself into hyperventilation and panic.

And then sprint out to go see the scene and match the energy there.

You exit the tower.

You see the scene unfolding around you.

Guardians of the Pyrran Dome, green-clad war wizards.

Bend down.

Someone is picking up silence, tending to him, frail old man.

I want to rush over to him.

Yeah.

Sky.

Sky.

Sky.

Are you okay?

Are you okay?

Are you alright?

Yeah, I.

Are you?

Are you?

What happened?

I...

I was walking back with some young

pupils, and approaching the tower, as I was, I turned as I heard a shout of the young wizard server who has just been promoted.

And he looked at me with a look of fire in his eyes, raised his hand aloft, and caused a spell of lightning.

Raced towards me.

I thought

to counter it if I could, but he countered my magic.

Gave everything to the power and

badly injured me.

I'm so sorry, I shouldn't.

I shouldn't have.

I shouldn't have been so far away.

I'm sorry.

No, no, no, no, no.

It's alright.

Listen, you've done everything perfectly fine.

This...

You see, he turns and looks at the man and says,

This is the young lad

who had become quite smitten with you.

Yes.

Yes.

You see a warm-age pulling a letter out of his inside pocket.

Unopened.

It's rude, but I am going to slip away from silence and leave him to be ferried off, to to be tended to,

and make my way over to Silver as they are moving him.

If he's still on the ground, I'm going to drop to my knees and just touch his shoulder.

As you do, you see one of the Imperial War Mages

looking at you in a position of leadership.

You have the markings of a sage.

People know that you are simultaneously close to this person, but also an apprentice to silence.

You see that the letter letter in the war mage's hand, silence, a little bit more loud than normal, says,

Deliver that here.

Deliver it to me, the assailant's missive.

And they bring the unopened letter over to Silence,

who opens it to read it.

You are kneeling beside Silver.

Massive injuries on his chest sustained at Twelve Brooks.

It's Aza.

This is my fault.

And I'm gonna let the sort of

sound of silence's yelling and my own

beginning of collapse and the rolling of my shoulders

hide

as I cast identify.

But I'm going to use the secret of alacrity.

So instead of it taking a minute, it will take an action.

I want to know what spells he is under.

He was under.

Fading quickly

from the warm body of Azafizier

is a gayest spell.

Not unlike the one that you have known the touch of yourself.

You catch it in the last moments before

the spell no longer has

a living person to cling to and vanishes on the wind.

Oh God.

I can't stay.

The letter, the letter.

I'm just going back in my head over what I wrote.

I don't care.

I don't care about that.

I wanted to explain.

I wanted him to know

how much I still loved him.

And my love killed him.

Love kills.

Castile did this

through Slate

out of a tremendous love for me.

And I think I'm gonna be sick.

I gotta get out of here.

I'm gonna

get up

and

move.

I don't know where I'm going.

I just have to get out of here.

You just start walking.

You get away.

Give me a perception check as you leave.

Six.

What you don't hear

is

the rumors start to spread as you walk away.

You see Silence

watches you leave,

crumples the letter in his hand, and with a cantrip burns it,

vanishes.

He turns to one of the inspectors and says,

Well,

seems the young lad was

a worm or a mole of some kind.

dedicated to

some kind of destruction.

Oh,

poor girl.

He must have picked her as a target.

You head out

and

find yourself at a Galathopter station.

I

task going back to the tower.

Enzo sending.

I gotta go to Gavril.

Gavril.

Gavril.

Galithopter.

You stand astride it.

Put your hand on it.

Give me an Arcana check.

The advantage.

Thank God.

Dirty 20.

Last time you got in a Galathopter, you couldn't activate it without alerting the Sword of the Citadel.

As you activate it,

just remember that null clef.

It leaps to action.

Having been unlocked by not the Wizard Sky, but simply a servant of the Citadel.

Calithopter takes off, and you head to Gavriel.

Walking across gravelly stones, you see it is now,

you know, truly in the heart of evening.

Lights, festivities.

There are two major victories one.

It's a party here.

Gravel court, long tables in Grim Hall, the beer garden.

And off in a corner, you see the wizard sworn.

There are five glasses around him, only one of which has beer.

I'm gonna do my best to slide up as silently as I can.

Kind of swoop the beer glass and sit and just

absolutely house it.

As you do, you see the little castle of shot glasses he's made in front of himself.

Oh,

okay.

You good?

Catch your ladder.

Is that what did this?

What did this?

No, no, no, no.

You stopped doing

not this.

This is who I was

before

the sky shone brightly.

So

this didn't happen.

Not this.

Stopped happening.

I feel like you feel like that made sense.

It doesn't have to make sense.

It's just true.

You see the

kids

shouting at you from the

I Was guarding your room in case you tried to go out the window of the Epiphany.

I was stationed right above you.

You see those girls hooting at you?

I know the prince did, but did you see the young girls hooting at you at the window?

I did.

Dossett's.

There's a lot of nobles in the inner city there, Sarazmir.

Never asked.

Where are you from?

Takes three guesses.

Have a word.

Serazmir,

you're like the third born of a very noble family.

No, no, no, no.

You were close.

You should have stopped your guess at the beginning.

You would have gotten it right.

You should have just said, Sarazmir, you would have gotten it right.

You're from Sarazmir?

Yeah.

Neelan to me.

I don't know.

You tell me.

You're thinking, hey, this guy is half-right.

Wizard.

He's an old piece of bootleather.

This guy's what?

Pushing

early 40s, mid-40s.

Maybe he's in his 30s.

He just looks bad.

But

what you got gotta remember is just because I don't have any class doesn't mean I'm not from the capital.

There's nowhere that nobles can live without their servants.

There's nowhere they go.

There are towns without

nobles.

There's no towns without servants.

Most of the people who live in Sarazmir don't live on a floating chunk of stone.

They live

in between the lakes

far away.

And my folks

spent

half their waking hours on those fucking highways.

I'm so sorry.

A little

thing I saw there.

I hadn't seen one of those in a long time, but I knew about him because my mom used to clean the

shelves.

That little Citadel trophy?

Yeah.

Oh, do you.

What is that?

Well, they do the test for everybody, right?

So

the kids that pass

that don't have to get sent here.

They give them a trophy saying you were good enough.

Oh.

Fuck.

It's nice like that.

And we've got our versions of that here.

They got versions of that everywhere.

You guys should drink?

No.

Um.

No, I'll take a drink.

He raises a hand.

Someone comes over.

He lines up two shot glasses and another two tankards of beer.

Crest of the seventh star,

Siege of the Penumbra.

Congrats.

Thanks.

Why didn't you think I'd come with you?

Would you have?

No, no, no.

Answer my question.

Why didn't you think I'd come with you?

I didn't think you wouldn't.

I didn't think it was fair that I would ask.

Yeah,

taking it easy on me, that's nice.

No.

You kept me alive.

I should be dead in

that palace.

Ripped apart by a witch.

I should be dead in the woods

beneath Mount Korai.

I should be dead in Halaker.

You saved my life

again and again

And it didn't feel fair

to ask you to risk it again

when we were finally safe.

When you'd finally done your duty.

I'm sorry I didn't ask.

Would you have come?

I'll never get a chance to know.

But hey.

You tried to save me, but

Silver

gonna get me killed

well he told me about the grineau

family in halaker outside of stone room

so now i know

that you lied

but

you

matter

and once they remember i exist

he drags a thumb across his throat

You know, downs a shot.

Answer my question.

The one in the letter.

To what are you sworn?

Give me a persuasion check.

Natural one.

Maybe I should be sworn to myself.

Seems like what people do, for the most part, seems sort of like suckers

following people.

But

but

I have to tell you

that the greatest time

I knew

was in those woods, almost dying with you.

Subi

she wants to like

bump his shoulder or just she doesn't have the urge often to physically connect

but just wants to reach out but knows

especially because as

the events on Malakanth the the knowledge of it spreads

Someone's watching, and someone will report this, and it can be.

I have to be more careful.

I wasn't careful with Silver, and now he's dead.

I will not let that happen to Sworn.

CV, like,

she whispers low and like swerves towards him to try to cover the whisper with the sound of like glass hitting polished wood.

We need to go now.

He looks at you and on that one persuasion, he says,

I'm not going fucking anywhere.

I'm going to sit here and drink.

And maybe,

if I work hard at it,

I can do

glory to the Empire.

By killing a problem for them here in the corner of this beer hall.

But I'll tell you what, Sky.

Because you are so nice to me, here's a little bit of treason just for you.

And he waves his hand over your beer,

going, Shut

Chaser, and drops a drop of some kind of arcane liquid

into the beer that swirls,

and you have a sudden memory of the bridge of the meridian.

She's just gonna pull it close to her.

Can I do any kind of arcana check before?

Yeah, do an arcana check.

24.

An antidote

to a memory modification.

We're back in college.

Like, back in college.

We're back in banners, baby.

As fast as possible.

You slam it

and retrieve your memories of the moments leading up to the Gaius on the Bridge of the Meridian.

What Steele told you, how she asked, what was asked of you,

everything laid out with the music box.

He comes rushing back.

The one person drinking in this beer garden who is gaining lucidity.

I'm going to turn and grab him by his, like, the front of his collar and summon whatever leadership, whatever instinct if I can yell past this drunkenness to the part of him that is well trained to listen to orders from people like me.

Got it.

Get the fuck up.

We're getting out of here now.

Give me intimidation.

You've rolled a nap one.

What can you do with a second natural one?

He shoves you bodily off of him.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

He's trying to drink.

Slayed he's hitting people, huh?

How many staff they got?

Sage of the penumbra.

He holds his hands up in a circle.

Zero!

Counterspell to Mori.

Zero!

What they put you in charge of

what they put you in charge of.

Oh, I'm the sage of dying right here.

I'm the provost of running around in a fucking circle chasing my tail.

Wake up,

you fucking.

I want to be here.

I want to be here.

I want my mom and dad to know my name

He that now you've got people's bad attention.

You've rolled two nat once more's not moving with you.

Yeah, I know

I am going to do the like full like a like annoyed

just weird drunk getting into like getting into an argument with someone and she'd be like go yourself and sober up and as i point at him uh turning to walk away i'm gonna cast one last message yeah

i need you to remember this when you wake up get out of here i will find you

The message comes back.

It's like it's strained, nauseous telepathy from a man who hasn't control of his wizardry.

You hear a voice of his simultaneously say,

I'd follow you anywhere.

And another voice says, I can't move.

Captain, I'm sick.

And you hear another voice come in and go,

What do you think Slate was gonna do when she found him?

You wanna know what I think?

And these voices tumble over each other

over and over and over again

as you leave Grim Hall.

Oh,

back to the tower.

I gotta get out of here.

You get in your Galathoctor to head back to your tower.

Ursulan, Ahme, and the Fox

arrive in Malakanth.

And Ursulan, you walk past it.

Candlestreet Bakery.

There it is, Mr.

Callum polishing up, getting ready for the last hour of service before

the clock strikes 12, and Malakanth lands in Haverward, where Candlestreet can't really do that much business because he just landed in Haverward.

The night market's open.

That's where everyone's going to go.

As you land, you can see sort of distantly the edges of Haverward.

The court is low enough in the sky, low enough in the Erian that you can see the tops of the buildings as it slowly glides down.

As you approach the Tower of the Glove, you are protected by shadows, but see heightened security around the tower.

A troubling sight, indeed.

You walk guarded by shadows and Enzo's non-detection.

What do you do as you see security around the bottom of the tower?

What's happening?

I'm not sure.

I'm gonna

eavesdrop and try to listen in.

Ah, give me a perception check.

19.

The guards here speak about an attempt on the Archmage Silence's life by the traitorous wizard Silver,

who is dead.

Oh no.

We should be careful.

Yeah.

There is heightened security

below.

Is there heightened security

above?

It doesn't look like it, and though the Tower of the Glove does not have any base doors, it does have windows on the kitchens and other areas.

Alright.

well,

I've learned a couple of things in my time apart.

I have my broom,

and your shadows can follow us up.

I believe so, yes.

All right,

I would like to attempt to help Ursulan onto my broom, and I know we all have to go slowly, but can still move vertically.

Uh, Ursulan, you get behind Ame, and for the first time.

Do I just stay?

Yeah, just hang on.

Okay.

Try to distribute your weight comfortably.

Alright.

You

feel the pressure of the broom slowly rising up, and suddenly

your feet are off the ground.

The fox looks up at you.

Stop it.

Stop laughing.

Stop laughing.

I'll need stealth checks from both of you.

22.

23 with an at 20.

Whoa, well, 33 with a nat 20.

Yeah, 33 with an at 20.

Wow!

Shadows surround as a witch and wild one take to the sky.

You alight and land

in a kitchen with some fresh lemons and some mushrooms in a corner, like there were the last time you were in this kitchen.

I look around to make sure that there's no alarms or traps or anybody else in the tower.

You see no such alarms or traps?

I mean, it seems the alarms and traps are up at the sanctum, but here in the base of the tower,

it seems, you know, the entry is fine.

Even with all of the Citadel's vast resources, you can't alarm and trap every square inch of 20, 24 cities.

Alright.

I suppose we wait here a while

and

listen for

if and when Suvi returns to the tower

You

both in the kitchen haven't been told to come here and wait

Before long you hear footsteps walking across the skybridge from the tower of the archmage silence a door opens

Abria, I'm gonna need you to come in and reunite this party.

We earned this, you know?

We earned this.

Do I get to come to Looney 2?

Yeah.

Ursulan and Ame

entering the kitchen.

Under the sputtering candlelight, you see your true friend, Sufi, enter.

You're alive.

Are you alright?

Fine.

Silver's dead.

We have to go

now

We heard

he tried to kill silence

Yes, he was under a compulsion spell

Steel did it

She's going for sworn next.

I couldn't

it's my fault

I

keep putting them in harm's way.

I have to.

I have to.

Uh, and you see, like, Suvi, like, goes for her pocket, and I fish out the like seaglass.

I have to get a ghost.

I have to save one.

We have to go.

Why are you here?

I

thought that maybe you might

want

help.

I

I hold forward a pot of coffee.

Sufi, give me an insight to check and do so with advantage, please.

17.

Ame holds a pot of coffee up.

You look in her eyes.

Her

lips are chapped and almost bleeding because she flew across the sky of this continent trying to find you.

You see, reflected in her eyes a promise that she will never leave you behind again.

I slap the pot of coffee out of your hand

and then hug you.

Come here.

Ursulan will complete the trio.

The trio is completed.

You

feel it.

Magic.

Fireflies.

You remember

moments of the summer.

Ame putting flowers in between your toes while you sat in Ren's big chair reading a book about a history of knights, Ursulan swinging a stick around, marching in a parade over a fallen log in a forest somewhere, and then

you and Ahme side by side finding Ursulan on that stage.

Ah,

you seeing Suvi

stand there at dinner, blood on her face, looking at the witch that had killed one of her companions there with her heart broken to save you.

You both see Ursulan getting off his horse, having ridden away from his sister because you were his true friends.

The love you bear for each other has defied spirits, wizards, witches.

And as

much chaos as it has brought into your life,

it is the reason you stand knowing the truth, knowing hope, knowing freedom, and above all, knowing each other.

I love you guys.

You are my family.

If we stay here, you will die.

Do you have everything you need?

From here?

Almost.

The door flies open above you, above the kitchen, and you hear footsteps.

Uh, Wizard Sky of some really interesting discovery.

Fucking Yulia.

Hold on one sec.

Uh, and CB like wipes her face, pulls herself together, uh, and runs upstairs.

Down below, both of you hear the conversation unfold upstairs.

Yulia walks in and says,

I double, triple-checked, and I was very glad to do so because you are not wrong to remember that name,

but it's not a book at the Citadel.

What?

The only record of Stars of the Southern Sky is the name of a project in a scroll kept in the Court of Reverie.

You recognize Reverie as the Court of Illusion.

Oh.

Stars of the Southern Sky is a fabricated text, an illusory text.

What?

Illusory text?

It was requisitioned as part of an extremely large project that they was put together in Reverie that also had, I believe, some

large elements of the schools of enchantment and abjuration as well, as well as divination, a multi-court project.

Thank you so much.

I have to go to the bathroom now.

Please leave.

You've got it, and I'm happy to help.

I knew I didn't miss it.

Yeah, you're perfect.

Wonderful.

Great.

Do you mean that?

Yeah.

She burst into tears.

God damn it.

I'm going to hug her.

Yeah, yeah.

You're good.

You're good.

Yep.

Yep.

We're all touchstarve here.

I get it.

Good.

Go, go, go, go, go.

Okay, I'll see you tomorrow.

I'm ready.

Ready for work.

Yeah, bye, bye, bye, bye.

Ame, bring me that book now.

Start digging through my things.

Ursulan, bring Wavebreaker.

All right.

You get stars of the southern sky.

You pull it out of your bag, and you have Wavebreaker.

You're on the floor of the kitchen.

Here you go.

No, no, no.

Sorry.

Not kitchen.

What is this room?

What is it for?

It's my room.

Making food.

Okay.

And I

run run back upstairs.

And I'm going to get into my sigil because that means I can cast things better and faster.

Hell yeah.

She steps into the chalk sigil, but it's still got the glass staff sand overlaid on it.

So the moment her fingers begin working the notes for identify the ritual version, you just see like bumps like a subwoofer is underneath.

So with each of her movements, it's like you're here like you're feeling the sound, the song, like

the bass from a song in a party in the apartment below you under her feet as she casts identify on this fucking book.

Show me that curse, Brad.

Hell yes.

Glass and

you cast identify on

stars of the southern sky, and the spell comes apart.

The book

is

a vessel.

It is a constructed vessel, and the text unravels under your identify spell.

It is the

illusion of an extremely dry astronomical text.

And the illusion is structured to make one swiftly bored of reading the book upon looking at it.

But what you know from the identify, fundamentally, is that

you're casting identify on an empty glass.

And so, and so, but what you see is the, so the effect of it being boring to read is a part of the construction of the glass and not necessarily what is in it.

Copy.

And you know that that information is in a court called reverie.

Okay, okay.

See, it's not that I'm bad at paying attention to books.

It's that it was enchanted to be boring.

Probably had the curse inside it.

A curse inside it.

There was something in here.

My curse?

It was.

I wouldn't put it past her.

Steal.

Yeah.

You being in the cottage that day.

That is what placed the curse on

Grandma Ren and Ame?

No,

I think we were.

I thought we were cursed before that.

The answer to these questions would be in

reverie.

Yeah, okay.

I want to, as I look up from this, and I'm just going to kind of call out to Task.

Is he in the room?

You

feel

Task is closer than before.

He's not in Malacanth.

You see, Task is running again and again

on a windowsill,

trying to smash through a glass window that he is not strong enough to smash through over and over again.

You see that he looks, this is a bizarre thing to say, he looks full, like of light or spell energy.

It looks like he's like

eaten something.

You remember him saying on his way, and you're like, on your way?

Such a weird way of putting that, you freaky little spider.

What are you up to?

But nothing gets a spirit without getting some willfulness.

And so Task has fucked off and done his own thing, much like his wonderful wizard.

As you reach out to him, Task feels you and goes,

I wanted to get you something.

I wanted to get you something.

I wanted to get you something.

And looks up, and you see on a small door up a kind of plaster stair, like up a sort of white stone staircase, you see the number 28 on a doorframe.

Okay, you stay there, bud.

Don't don't chip yourself.

I'll be there soon.

What's there?

My parents' old spy hideout.

What?

And Task is there.

Task.

And then you also have the C-class.

I have the C-glass.

I want to go to.

I want to get Ghost out.

I.

She's there because of me.

I need one win before we leave.

We'll go with you.

Let's take care of this business here in the Citadel first and then we'll be gone.

The fox looks up and says, boss, why don't I go with Suvi?

I think the big guy should go with you if you're going to like a court court.

Where are you going?

Reverie.

Okay.

You go to Caterwall.

Okay.

While your sword's out, I'm going to fish into my pocket and throw my father's ring at Ursulan's feet.

Would you be so kind?

Yes too.

Break it.

Um

you're sure?

I'm sure.

I strike the ring.

A sword of spirit touches a ring of the citadel.

Cream light.

The crashing of waves.

Emerald sand scatters on the floor of Sky's sanctum.

I reach my hand out and call back the emerald sand along with the mirror staff sand.

If you allow it, I take the hand that has the glove that I gave you and I squeeze it.

You feel a warmth.

The four of you depart from here.

Ursulan and Ahme bound for the Court of Reverie and Suvi and the Fox bound for Haverward.

The Fox calls out to you, Ame, as you stride to the Galathopter deck.

I mean, Haverward's just Haverward, right?

There's not going to be extra security in the place where just the regular people live.

Hopefully.

Okay, but you'll be able to find us, because I'll be there.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Be good.

Be cunning.

Astride their Gallithopter, Ursulan and Ahme wheel through the skies, heading upwards towards one of the many courts of the citadel.

Reverie.

You approach a large platform neighborhood, but something strange about this one.

Everything about it seems ephemeral.

You realize it is made of muslin and canvas.

Its buildings separated like the pages of storybooks, pop-up structures.

All the buildings appear to be made of origami folded paper, and as you look, everything appears to seem almost like optical illusions.

The trees seem two-dimensional, but always present their broadest face to you as you move, these glass

trees.

You see roads lined with

swans that swim in rivers, but the rivers are not of water, they are of painted paper-mâché, and the swans move along them two-dimensionally like art, and yet you can hear the sound of rushing water.

As you move swiftly through the Court of Reverie, having gotten the location of the library where this information was kept,

you arrive in a small cul-de-sac

with various bookshops, even though you realize that the shops have neither register nor payment at them, but something in how they are constructed.

They are adorable.

town home places gilded letters in the front with various

numbers on them that as you look at them, you suddenly feel agog because you're seeing numbers that you can't remember.

What are these symbols?

They mean they're somewhere in between 1 and 10, but they're not 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9.

Which ones are they?

It is a confusing place to be, and you look down,

not even recognizing what was written down in Yulia's notes, but at least being able to match it to one of the bookshops that has been closed for the night.

This looks like the place.

Ursulan's going to try the door.

Locked.

Are there any signs of an occupant?

Give me a perception or Arcana.

19 Perception.

You do not see any occupants within, but this also is the court of illusion, so you can't be perfectly sure.

I'm going to use detect magic.

I run my hands over the bricks of the building,

feeling it

beneath my fingertips.

Detect magic reveals

that there is...

A guardian of spellcraft within the building.

Invisible to the eye.

But stalking the halls and staircases.

And when you say it's spellcraft.

Perhaps a Tamori.

I'm gonna need a stealth check from both of you.

23.

30.

The shadows cover you both.

As you cast the spell on my detect magic, the guardian within

swivels.

Just.

You just notice the auras moving.

You can't see a face or a body or anything.

But there is something guarding this place, which is in some ways an indication that you are in the right place.

The information you seek would not be left unattended if it is as important as it seems.

I'll make I can open the lock.

Alright.

You

open the lock.

Can I.

It hasn't detected us yet.

Can we try to avoid it?

Or is it going to be patrolling in such a way that we'll always bring it into contact with us?

There are multiple levels of the building.

It may, if you give it a moment, patrol elsewhere within, giving you a chance to dart inside.

All right.

I'll keep an eye on the watchman.

Go ahead and start.

You wait for the aura to vanish upstairs on its patrol.

Ursulan.

I cast knock.

Go ahead.

You're going, because of the nature of the spell, I'm going to ask you for a stealth roll without

disadvantage, which will cancel out with your boots, but you are still adding pass without trace.

18.

You roll an 18 for your stealth as you approach the front door.

How do you call on your breath in this moment?

Ursulan wraps wraps one hand around the handle, placing his other hand on the door.

Inhales.

Pushes.

You feel the spirit of the door acknowledge your presence and open.

You move inside and close the door.

behind you unless leaving it open for Ahmed to sneak in after you.

I do, I suppose.

As you do so, I'm going to need an

investigation check and a stealth check.

You can choose Earth because you have that advantage from your boots, but if you wish to pass it on to your investigation, you can enroll the stealth check flat.

I will pass it on to my investigation.

Okay.

Investigation is a five.

Investigation is a seven

Stealth is a 34.

Oh my god!

Both of you move through the bookshop, staying well out of sight of the Guardian, and you are looking in darkness.

Even your night vision, Ursulan, is just not used to pouring over the letters of arcane texts.

And there is too much of a sense of tension, Ursulan, because you.

There's a creature here that you can't see, only Ame can see, and even Ahme can't see it.

She can just detect the presence of an illusion stalking this bookshop.

Something is going to have to change for you to be able to find what you're looking for here.

Ursulan is going to change tack.

And is going to,

because it is related to Grandmother Red, because it is related to a curse, is going to open up his divine sense and try and use Arcana to see if he can just match,

if he sees something with, or can sense something with the essence or scent or feel

of that.

Give me Arcana for free, but actually, we've already connected your breath to your survival skill, so feel free to use that instead if you wish.

Please, let's do that.

22.

Ursulan, as you open your divine sense, your breath,

you smell iron like tusks and blood coming from upstairs.

Ame.

This way.

Go ahead and give me your stealth checks.

18.

22.

Ame, you see this guardian slink down the staircase, suddenly for the first time, opening higher.

You got up to the second floor with it going up to the third and fourth, but the way it's been patrolling, this is the first time it's going back down to the first floor, which has opened up the higher floors to you.

Can I...

Can I actually

sneak a peek at

whatever it is that's patrolling?

So wait until the aura has passed, but peek out from behind a a bookshelf.

You wait, hidden in shadows on that stealth check.

You look out.

Illusion magic, powerful, Tamori.

Why can't you see this Tamori?

You realize that there is an invisibility Tamori

patrolling this space.

Both of you.

Slink up the stairs carefully, Witch and Wild One, here in the heart of the Citadel.

You arrive here in this.

You realize, not a library, it's an archive.

These matters are resolved.

One guardian set to look over them.

For these are those missions of the Citadel which have been put to bed, marked as done.

You arrive upstairs.

I want each of you to give me a

perception with advantage as you arrive upstairs.

12.

26.

Arriving upstairs, Ursuline, your scent leads you to a corner of the room with a 26

Ame.

You behold an upper story to this place with

a series of marble side tables, small circular side tables, a little bit larger, almost like a cocktail table that drinks will be placed upon.

You see upon them there are hovering bubbles

made of soap, sort of hanging in the air, and within them are objects, many of them scrolls, some folded paper with different crayon drawings, like different painted drawings on each side.

You see that there are a number of other objects throughout.

You see there is a festooned wand of twirling ribbons in one, and you see

a scintillating set of crystal keys floating in space.

At the far end, you see all these wondrous treasures kind of floating here on these tables, each one of them on a table that is then tagged with a list of

arcane illusory numbers, gibberish numbers essentially, that mark it for a number of different project uses.

The different Citadel projects have used them.

On that 26, you also arrive at a thick ledger book in the corner with the exact description of the number that Yulia gave you.

All right.

I'm going to do a cursory check over the book to make sure it's not trapped.

It does not appear trapped.

All right.

I flip through the book quietly.

The book outlines a project in which

a cipher would be created.

Stars of the southern sky.

A

book only in disguise, but actually simply an object capable of carrying magic.

An accompanying object was created to go along with it as a side vessel to the project.

A scroll

with a number of drawings of a creature from spirit known as a Garin.

And as you affirm and see the attached scroll case, the origin of the scent issues forth.

A powerful illusion mimicking Yorin's scent.

And you recall Ame,

the time that Steele turned to you and said, It is trivial to give a witch a vision that I wish for her to have.

You see within that in the final words of this book, the third element

was given

that would be the substance included in the book.

That substance

was going to be a powerful,

mind-altering curse delivered to the Court of Reverie from its crafters in Malakyanth.

That

curse would have to bypass a number of wards.

That its original target would be behind almost impossibly potent protective magic.

In the run-up to the creation of this

curse,

the illusory artifact that would carry it, and the illusory scroll that would accompany it,

there was much discussion had about how to bypass the protections.

It was remarked on

that the magic protecting the intended targets, plural,

would be superseded

by

a counter to the magic of witchcraft,

which would be the open-heartedness of the one that bore it to its intended target.

To bypass those wards of the Witch of the World's heart,

an open heart must be required.

So, Sufi's suspicions were correct?

Yes,

Ursulan.

As you turn to ask that question of Aame,

Aame is levitating slightly off the ground.

As

forms of power

avail themselves to a witch who has come into the knowledge that she was cursed by those she had not wronged.

Amen.

We should go.

Alright.

Yes.

I uh

think I'm going to

take the pages.

You grab them, feels good to steal.

Yeah.

Can I make a perception check?

Yeah.

Is there anything else worth stealing?

Fuck yeah.

Yeah.

I love it here.

Go for it.

Give me a perception check.

I will help.

You described a bunch of beautiful things.

I think you should make your own.

Yeah, I agree.

That's true.

I'm also Ursulan's sister.

Can I leave a bardic inspiration to be like, take this good shit.

Holy moly, that's a 23.

See, I got a five, and you were gonna help me.

I was gonna help you.

God, thank you.

I think Ursula, as he sees you ripping pages out of the ledger, is just trying to get a sense of what was in the bubbles you described.

I think, Ursuline, you're just looking at the things floating in these bubbles just because they're beautiful, which is

these crystalline keys floating here.

You have to take magic up, right?

Yes.

Give me Arcana with advantage.

That's a nine.

Okay.

Ursuline, what did you roll for your perception?

You rolled a five.

I rolled a five.

A five.

You see, these are some really lovely crystal keys here.

They're in a bubble.

I have my divine sense open.

Oh, shit.

Do I pick up any spiritual energy?

Or am I able to learn anything from there?

These keys.

Yes, these keys are connected to the magic of dreams.

Do I...

Can I sense any sort of alarm or?

Yeah, I think on a divine sense, and with the tech magic up, there isn't.

These bubbles are essentially just alarm spells.

Yes.

Ame.

Can we open the windows?

Yes.

I look over and I want to press digitate one of the windows.

Window opens up.

Get the broom ready.

Alright.

on the count of three

one

two

three grab the pop the bubble grab the keys hop on the broom.

Yeah from downstairs you hear

You jump on the broom grab these keys out of this bubble take off out the window at 25 feet per second because we're outside the 200 pound wavelength

just scoot scoot scoot scoot

we drop like a cool 15 feet

I angle it and so even though the velocity is not as fast as it would be on my own, the angle of our trajectory is such that we can make maximum distance falling.

Yeah, you get to the edge of reverie and just fucking drop like a stone.

Walking swiftly down the street, Catterwall Lane, not too far off the night market.

It's good, it's out of the way.

You could get here very easily without being seen, either if you wanted to stick to alleyways and byways, or just vanish like a face in the crowd of the night market.

It's a good apartment for spies.

Walking up the steps,

see the number 28, a boarded up door.

This place has been boarded up for a long time.

And Task bumping against the window.

She turns around to look at you.

Go, go, go, go!

Hi, Blood.

Leaping and skittering up and projecting a little light onto the keyhole.

Oh, okay.

I don't have a key.

No.

How noisy is it right now?

Pretty noisy.

Night market's active.

Malakanth.

Everyone's getting ready for Malakanth to dock at midnight and for all those people to come swinging off the court into the night market.

Sweet.

I'm going to cast Detect Magic on the keyhole.

This, there's so little magic.

You think this place has been like scraped.

It's crazy how unpopulated it is.

It's been left here for years and years and years.

You see, it's actually been officially condemned, and there's a notice of magical residue here, which is not too uncommon in some industrial parts of Howerward.

But you're looking at where the magical residue would be that it's condemned for, and you don't see it anywhere.

There's not any residue here that would condemn it.

Before I do something rash, like I was gonna,

I want to search and see if the sort of

condemnedness of this is part of the affect that has kept it secluded in secret and see if there's a way to gain entry without having to like kick the door in which is what i was about to cast i was about to cast uh analog knock with my fucking boot

um give me an investigation check

27.

yeah i mean well you see that there's actually a staircase around the back for a different apartment that has roof access and there is a balcony in this apartment so it wouldn't require too much athletics to go up the other family's staircase.

It's like an apartment building.

You could go up another family's staircase, get up on the roof, and drop into the little like balcony.

This is sort of like clustered little plaster and kind of adobe haverward buildings that are very like top-heavy and kind of on top of each other.

It's very almost Dr.

Soucian, lots of second-story balconies and flower pots and things like that.

This balcony is bare, but it's probably

at least a door that's not boarded up.

Okay, then I'm going to look over at Task and go, Hey, bud, what do you think if we kind of ignore the door?

Go that way.

Oh, I love you.

I missed you so much.

And I grab him,

put him on my shoulder.

You

head over,

hop up on the roof, look out over Haverburg, and see the night market.

There's Chura's, the good one.

Can I see

La Carousel?

Yes!

People shouting as the bar whips through the night market, cheering and

clinking glasses and toasting.

Sounds of joy and revelry.

See if he feels her breath catch in her throat.

The first time she ever had alcohol was sneaking off of banners with some of the older kids.

And Aza was one of them.

This place has a lot of memories,

and she'll turn her back on it and find her way in.

You open a door,

you walk through an apartment

that you've never seen before.

It's totally unfurnished.

They pulled everything out of here.

It's like a small little one-bedroom, little flop house.

But

you're surprised your parents had a beautiful home in Malacanth.

But according to Jorin, this is where they would come when they were supposed to be out of town.

But wanted to stay in town for their own reasons.

Okay.

He mentioned pulling up a floorboard.

I have time.

I will ritually cast, identify, and add the secret of warp and weft.

I want the layout of this building.

Coming to you in white and emerald light, like the sand you now command.

The angles of the apartment.

And suddenly, there

in the bedroom,

in the wall facing the street,

lines of sapphire blue come back.

There is a door in the wall that leads to a room

hanging invisibly

in the street.

But it's not in the street.

It's in the near spirit.

Oh, that's fun.

Near spirit.

I have new, interesting magic, and I want to touch it.

Let's stack a sea invisibility on top of it as we move to the door.

Writing

soft conjuration,

stone abjuration

all around,

in the very center, as you approach this bedroom, the seams of the the door, no longer rendered in the identify spell, but truly glowing in blue, approach as light from your pendant casts upon it.

There is

a secret here that no power of the citadel could find, and it's been waiting in the dark for you all these long years.

The words in writing move around a central point,

A lock.

A password.

Written in the hand of Softenstone.

Around it says,

Our dearest treasure.

Suvi steps forward

and

I just say my name.

Suvren Kadbarikat.

Door opens, and a study filled with books

with windows that look on a beautiful forest of rainbow fire.

The forest of flames around the citadel in the near spirit.

The books are rich and open.

There is one nearby that is open and with hastily scrawled with whatever the last workings of Soft and Stone were.

You see there are desiccated daisy chains,

flowers of the kind that you used to wear in your hair.

There is a giant jar of beads, little beads.

You see that it is a collection, it appears, of

things that were migratory on their way to the main house back up in Malakanth, but your mom couldn't help herself and just collected anything she could find from anywhere she was traveling.

And you see,

hung up around

with no frames to constrict them

are drawings.

You haven't seen them in so many years.

But they wanted this place if they had to be trapped here for weeks on end to feel like home.

Oh.

I'm home.

I move through the space and

where's the fox right now?

The fox has come in behind you with the roof and is sitting in the doorway with his head cocked to one side.

He's been so silent since he got here.

He looks and goes,

Do you want privacy?

No.

Will you come with me?

I'd love to.

Then I hold out my hand.

He comes and jumps into your arms.

He licks your chin.

I love them.

I love them so much.

Oh, God.

I love you too.

I love you too.

I'm sorry.

Why?

For all the stuff.

When I'm not my best.

You have to apologize when you're not your best?

Oh,

no.

I have so many apologies.

Yeah, you do.

And I step forward, a little more bolstered.

Task starts dancing around happily and raising his little hands.

Let's go, let's go.

he did it, Task.

And Task goes and starts to, and you see, pokes the fox, and the fox goes, I'm resting.

It's a soft moment.

And you see that, oh, you guys have a rapport.

What's your thing?

You see that

Task looks up at you and shakes his head disapprovingly and projects three words in quick order over and over again.

Fox, no work.

Fox, no work.

Fox, no work.

Task, I love you.

You see that the fox gets up and says, what, what?

And you see that Task starts to gesture at books, and the fox, who's much bigger and stronger, starts pulling books out.

And Task starts running over them and

just putting light over them and grabbing all of the text from all of the books.

Yes.

Okay, Brandon, I've got a question.

Is there something cute I can do?

I want to steal pages of books and like seam them into my spellbook.

I fucking adore that.

Yeah.

So, wait, this is wait, describe this to me again, real quick, slowly.

I want to know and understand what you're doing.

You're doing it.

So, inside of Subie's, like, very thick spellbook, if she rips out a piece of paper, there's a raw edge.

And I want her to be able to try to, like, to the best of her ability, rip out pages from other texts and using mending, especially

stones mending, and that like interesting sapphire like component to it to like seam and create a like whole page.

Yes, beautiful.

So now the spellbook is made of other pages, but they're not taped in.

It's like it was always bound to be that way.

I love that.

You begin to assemble this beautiful, perfect mended spellbook.

You see that there is a little artifact in here,

which is a small piece of glass, like stained glass, little emerald, a little blue, a little

and you see that Task looks at you as he's getting the books and goes

and sort of bashfully rubs the back of his head and projects

him running around in Malakan

and

finding

a building.

And you see him waiting and spinning a web in a mirror in a room, and beginning to glow, and you see a little mirrored scorpion walk up, get caught in the mirror web, and Task eats the scorpion from the chamber where the resource is.

Shut up!

Amazing!

You see that Task

shows a projects a memory of you

saying

your parents' names to Jorin, which was the first time Task heard them.

And you see Task going and sending a beacon to a scorpion.

To go check the resource with their names?

To go check the resource with their names.

How hard can you hug Task before he breaks?

I want to get right up to the limit.

You hug him as hard as you want.

And you see that he

sort of, well, you remember him feeling full.

Yeah.

You see he rubs his stomach with little mirror legs and projects an image uh and you see a young handsome soft looking at a sort of barrel-chested haverward merchant and being like you guys are asking 80 marks for this place you're uh you say you see he goes i don't like to normally do viewings at night but look if you want it you can have it you see soft says well but you know we're looking at other places in the neighborhood you see stone turns around and says well this is fine i think this is actually lovely um And you can see

haggling.

They're so stupid.

I love them.

And you see that Task just starts to project any time that your parents were out of doors at night.

Just projecting and projecting.

Getting so dehydrated.

Yeah, Subi's just going to sob and watch.

You see,

as Task looks up and sees this hanging bit of glass, Task projects something

and you see

young, like maybe like 16, 17, something like that

at the edge of Zhao Court, way far away from the Casov Collection.

You see

a young soft

getting up on a series of rafters, these sort of big pagodas out near the edge of this place that aren't super roofed.

The beams go out really far.

And he's got like a cart filled with huge stained glass panels.

He's got like 30 of them.

And he's like 17 years old and jimmying up this thing and putting them on the thing.

And you see, it's like wee hours of the night.

And you see that your mom, who's also like 17, walks out and goes

whatever this is is so stupid you are a stubborn and you see he goes

can i can i help you and she's like you are always slowing class down and if you put half the effort into your work that you're putting in here you wouldn't be uh failing the class And you see, he goes, I'm not failing the class.

I'm failing the teacher.

And you see that.

Oh, I'm my parent.

I'm both of them.

How interesting.

You see that she says, she says, what is the point of this?

Why do you have to

just slow everything down to

prove some kind of point?

What is this?

And you see he looks and says,

I don't have any point to prove, Chandry.

And you see she goes, Chandri.

He goes, whatever.

We're not even in most of the same classes.

She says,

I just want you to have some respect because whatever this is, I know when we come to class tomorrow, it's going to be a whole fight with the professor.

And I just want to come and learn.

And you see, he goes,

Professor Sentinel was insistent that when you're summoning these forces, when you're either conjuring them or you're evoking them, you have to give them specific directions.

And you have to put the outline around all of them in order to summon them here to this place.

And that 90%

of what we do is figuring out how to word requests to these conjured elements.

And she was like, Yeah,

how many legends are there about wizards summoning demons that eat them?

And he's like, Well, don't summon a demon.

Summon something helpful of which the world of spirits has boundless.

All this effort is going to cover up the mistake of picking the wrong thing to summon in the first place.

Subi, by the way, watching this is just nodding along like

she's a part of like, yeah, well, that's a fair point.

I think I'm just narrating for like the fox and for task, like, oh, yeah, he's making a good point.

I see where she's coming from, though.

Both sides, both sides.

And you see, you see, he looks up and he says, when he was talking about the, the, the ritual of, of

summoning and binding the light of the sun or a spirit of the sun, the whole thing was, okay, and this is all the grammar you have to use to get it to shine or to get it to create,

you know, this kind of prismatic effect.

The sun wants to shine.

You don't have to ask the sun to shine.

You just have to ask the sun.

And you see, he just pauses here, and your mom goes, to

not

be mad at you for talking to it.

And he goes, exactly.

You see, she goes, this is so

stupid.

And

Amon just turns and goes,

I'm going to prove a point, okay?

I built all these yesterday.

And you see your mom just cocks her head and goes, you built these yesterday?

And he's like, I think that you put some, you know, basic protections and then you

have the sun

do what it wants to do.

And you see she goes,

well,

you have not basic safety precautions.

And you see that she goes over and starts to inscribe something on one of the panes of glass and immediately can't help herself, but is helping him to hang them up.

And you see that here in the light of the citadel as they hang these,

suddenly the sun starts to rise.

And you know that you only have a few moments left of starlight at the far west of the sky.

They can still see them.

But you see, as they're up in the rafters hanging these panes of glass, the sunlight hits the windows

and transforms.

And magic energy comes through the panes of glass.

A pane of wizardry, lingua arcana, inviting the sun to shine as it will.

And as it does,

music starts to play from light.

You see, your mother puts her hands over her mouth.

It's beautiful.

Why is it doing that?

Where did you tell it to play music?

Your dad takes a little piece of

plum out of his jacket and hands her one.

He goes, I didn't ask it.

It wanted to.

The sun gets a little higher, and the first actual peak of the sun comes out and it hits.

And the music gets loud.

And the panes of glass start to swing.

You go, oh, oh.

And you see that one of them swings in front of some light that is being produced by another window in a row up.

And a bunch of snow blasts out.

The music turns into snow.

And you see your mom goes, uh-uh, uh, that's not supposed to happen.

And the wind, kicked up by the snow, blows a couple of other, and the music picks up and starts to get wilder as light turns into lightning and snow that turns into more music.

Your dad goes, grab it, and jumps up and is swinging around on one as the music picks up.

And the music changes.

It is not regimented.

It is not formal.

It is not

demanded, commanded, or enforced.

It is free.

Wizardry

is free.

And the music picks up.

Snow and light and music all coming through the magic glass.

Your dad riding one, your mother riding another as the chains sway and they each grab onto one And as

snow and light and rainbow and music, the snow turns into doves, the doves fly,

birds fly, made of light and music

all throughout Zhao court.

And you see your mother and father look hanging there, delirious, laughing, and share their first kiss.

Task,

above everything else,

please don't let me forget that.

Task nods his head.

Your eyes move because Task has largely completed his work with the other books, but sees the book that was the last thing they were working on in here.

Give me an Arcana check.

26.

Your mother.

It's in her handwriting.

She had learned to transpose a spell from a dear friend into the lingua arcana.

Inflict wounds from Grandmother Wren.

And you see there's a modification on it that you could immediately apply to your own magic that is a, it seems like something to help it get around.

There's a basically the spell, you need to get skin contact.

And this seems to be a workaround if skin contact is difficult for whatever reason.

If either an opponent is a construct or they're armored or they're some kind of creature that's like ephemeral or something like that.

But you see that you would be able to

have your inflict wounds be modified by this if you wanted to try to pick it up.

On that 26 arcana, I think it'd be effortless too.

And you can feel that like you would be able to, this would be an effective spell for like bypassing normal resistances for that.

That's clever.

You cast it.

Your hand goes translucent, ghostly white, as the spell of wounding gathers, pointed to the very tips of your fingers, moving your hand, reaching forward.

Your hand passes through the wood of the shelf.

like a specter, incorporeal and immaterial.

As you trace the lines, knowing this spell would wound living flesh.

Still upon the wood of the shelf, the stone of the wall are left four jagged scars of white.

Unnatural, magic,

and yet eerily familiar.

So familiar, Suvi.

It's almost as if you had seen these scars before.

Seen them almost every day of your life since that summer.

Your mother's spell of wounding leaves the scars you have seen since that summer on the face

of steel,

sword of the citadel.

I'm going to kill her.

From the bedroom, you hear

you turn from the library of your parents to see the dark figure in the doorway of the sword of the citadel, the wizard steel.

Who are you gonna kill, Suvi?