Jean stood alone, leaning over a railing and looking at the empty black of the nightsea around him. In the distance, islands glittered across the blackness. However, that was just the sideshow. It kept him from looking forward. Eventually, he wouldn't have a choice. The horizon of the Core would be there, waiting for him again.

However, he didn't wait alone.

Cold filled his bones, seeping from his gate and his skeletal body. Two spectral arms wrapped around his shoulder, bare as his own, and a long blonde wisp of hair tickles at his nose. Inside his body, trapped in the memory, Jean wanted to know the face of the creature wrapped around him. He could not turn his head, no matter how much he desired it.

The memory bound him in a fate of its own.

"What do you think, Eliza?" he whispered. "Going back into the Core is dangerous, but that is the path Fate draws us to. We may be able to convince the crew to avoid April and aim for Magnus Hortus with no delays."

Jean recognized those names. Enough of his memory had been left intact to give his facade of a life some legs. He had spent his entire early years, from childhood until he left in April, studying the world's ways in the Academy's cloistered towers. However, he had eventually left to bring that knowledge to everyone. He had left to educate and found himself on Grim Aegis with his daily lectures.

The lie tasted false, but that wasn't why the bitter taste filled his mouth in the memory. Jeand didn't quite know yet, buried in the false memories. Yet, he gathered the information nonetheless.

He knew he was cursed, and that power rested within his gate. He might be able to call his curse without his memories being restored, which would change his fight with Chu.

Jean embraced the feel in his heart as his memory self continued his conversation with the mysterious creature wrapped around his shoulders.

"Jean, we're about to head into the island," from the bulkhead door, a woman spoke, and Jean froze in his memory.

"One moment," he said as he closed his gate. "Goodnight for now, Eliza."

The cold of his gate left him, receding only to be replaced by the empty cold of the nightsea around him. The arms faded around him at the same time as whatever creature had been summoned by his gate disappeared. Jean, internally, would very much like to know Eliza. It was another reason to see his memories restored.

Jean turned and saw Wen, face fully restored, standing by the door. He smiled but couldn't help but notice the large edges of a golden curve behind her.

It was part of a sphere encompassing an impossible distance by any measure of scale. The golden orb in the distance seemed small when far away, but as a ship approached, the true size of the structure was revealed. A massive orb that spanned the corners of four quadrants lay out in the empty nightsea, coated in a golden sheen and glimmering in the light of nearby islands.

The Core, the Empyrean, the Twelve Kingdoms—none of those words described the massive structure that made up the inner regions of the Erth. None of them could encompass the space that the Core occupied. It was beyond mortal minds.

Luckily, considering his body, Jean wasn't sure he was mortal any longer.

"There, now I am ready."

Wen nodded, her brows knitted, but still led the way into the ship. Jean followed after her, ducking his head into the ship's interior. He was thankful that he no longer needed to look at the Core for a moment. There was only so much awe that he could muster.

The stark white interior of the Nighthawk was a pallet cleanser compared to the sight outside. He used that time to take deep breaths, drawing in the strength of the surrounding aether as he followed Wen to the ship's bridge down the long, narrow corridors. Together, they stepped out at the front of the bridge. The rest of the crew had their eyes glued to the monitors, which no doubt displayed the Core.

Having the background knowledge of his lost memories was an odd sensation. Earlier, when he had recovered them in the dream, those ideas hadn't been present. In this memory, though, he knew what was missing and could guess at his old thoughts—a surreal mix of fog and clarity.

Jean would have smiled if he wasn't in a memory.

"I have never seen anything like this in my life, brother." Sayed stood away from his console, his hands loose at his sides and his face revealed.

"I might have paid never to see it again," Alex sighed from the central chair, leaning back and holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the faint golden light shimmering off the view screens. "It's too big."

"To look upon the Empyrean, the abode of the nobles and the Scions, requires the structure itself to inspire awe," Jean said, putting his back to the screen as he made his way to his seat. "While I walked away from the path, the words from the Academy still ring true in that respect."

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"I'd say it was a Dyson Sphere, except I don't think there's a sun in the center."

"I don't know anyone that's ever seen the center." Erin's face was still shadowed. "The closer you get to the center, the tighter the security."

Jean glanced at the massive golden hemisphere in front of them. A single point of light wrapped in a fortified box pushed out of the sphere like a mountain. There were no defenses around it, just the glowing light of an island attached to the massive structure.

That was Grim Aegis.

"I've been in and out a few times," Wen said as she made her way to her own seat. "But it was always through Shining Crown. I don't know what Grim Aegis is like."

"Hey, Mari, can you call Artur up here? I don't know why he's still behind."

"Understood."

The memory stuttered, and Jean clenched his fists as he sucked in a deep breath. The stench of the sewers filled his nose again. The dream felt like it had been shortened. It was incomplete. He shook his head as his eyes adjusted to the dim light around him. He still stood in the tunnel, facing the path Chu had run down.

It hadn't been long, less than a minute, he hoped. He pushed himself up, but instead of rushing forward, he paused. He knew that Chu was setting up a trap, no different from before, and there was something he needed to sort out first.

He closed his eyes and focused. In and out, he breathed, though he had no lungs to deliver the air to. The air was not his focus. What he needed to know was the flow of aether inside him.

Jean was many things, but foremost, he was a scholar. As all its pupils did, he studied many things at the Academy. However, one thing not plucked from his memories was his focus. He knew more about the flow of aether, techniques, and curses than any other person alive, or in his case, unalive.

Even with his memories blocked, he had found his body odd. He thought he might have a curse, but he had never been able to access the power of a gate. He assumed it had been something else, though the origins of his plight were locked away.

"A scholar with a mystery staring him right in the face but no desire to answer it. Now, that is a contradiction, am I right? What was it, Eliza?"

The blonde lock of hair he used as a bookmark. He had no origin for it in his mind, but he used it nonetheless. Another part of the mystery that he was ready to unlock before he faced Chu a final time.

In and out, he focused on his breath. The particles of aether that filled the sewer came in with the stench. Thankfully, he became deaf to the scent after a time and could focus entirely on the aether.

He reached up, tapping his chest and opening his robes. As usual, there were just bones beneath, an empty ribcage with not even a heart inside. However, as he focused on the area, he noticed the flicker of aether entering something inside him. An object hid within his empty chest.

He reached one with one finger and fished inside his ribs like a fisherman searching for a new catch.

Tink.

A soft, almost metallic sound reverberated through his finger and up his shoulder.

"Hidden in plain sight." He shook his head, a smile crooking his face as he touched the object again.

Tink. Tink. Tink.

Every touch disrupted the illusion constructed in his mind. The purple light of a crystal shone through in sputtering gasps as the memories around him disappeared. In moments, he saw the crystal that formed his core.

"I am cursed," Jean whispered. "Oh, happy days."

In truth, being cursed was just as it sounded for most. People who were not cursed saw the gifted for the dangers they might present. A child who became cursed could easily kill many adults by accident alone. A person with malicious intent could do much, much worse. So, they would find the cursed and kill or exile them from the islands.

Yet, he couldn't stop the smile spreading across his face at the news.

He drew in a deep breath, feeding his aether into the crystal at his chest and stretching out his fingers. Though his mind may have still been fractured, that did not mean his body forgot the time he had spent with his power. He only needed to go with the flow.

He needed to follow the strands of fate.

"Spirit Strings."

The words came unbidden. Cold power embraced him, stretching out from his heart and down his shoulders like a lover's embrace. He donned his entire body in the power, letting it flow down through his legs and all the way to his skeletal toes.

Purple light crackled at his fingertips as long strings extended out from his body. He knew it was not the end of his strength; there had to be more to his curse. However, what he had now was a start.

Jean drew back on the strings as he walked out into the light at the end of the tunnel.

As he had suspected, Chu had not been idle in his absence. The man had drawn together twenty men and stood with them between Jean and himself. This time, they looked in no mood for talking. Three guns lay leveled at Jean while the rest bore thick clubs.

"I'm giving you one last chance," Chu said. "You know you can't win out in the end. Even if you beat all these men, there are so many more I can call for backup. That you gave me so much time to gather so many will be your downfall!"

Jean sighed, holding up his hands with a large shrug and turning his head to the side.

"To treat your comrades so childishly, what are they to you, toys?"

"Get him!" Chu yelled.

The time for talking was over. Chu was smart enough to cut off Jean before he could distract them all. He would have had more time to prepare if he had been successful. As it was, he had to focus on his main objective.

It was time to see how far his strings would go.

"Spirit Cage!"

He flung out his fingers, sending his strings shooting around the room from his fingertips. They glimmered slightly in the air as they shot out, and Jean closed his eyes for a moment as his first attackers came. It was unfortunate, but he would have to take the first few blows.

Thud. Crack.

One club hit him across the face, while another cracked him in the stomach. Jean, however, didn't move. He had to focus on his strings, stretching them until his move was complete. He sucked in breath to stop himself from flinching as the strings fell from the ceiling and around the other side of the room.

The strings returned to his hands as he pulled the cage closed, stepping forward inside and closing his fingers. The two men who had hit him backed away, their eyes wide as they saw him approach like their attacks had done nothing.

"Now." Jean smiled as his head pulsed with a steady thump of burning pain. "We can start this dance."

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