18th December (Thursday), past two in the morning.

I used all of my willpower to move away from that woman. The way she turned me on was unexpected—but I wasn't ready to throw myself into some wild night. Not tonight. So I hurried toward the Opening under the scattered moonlight, the fractured Moon watching me like a split eyes in the sky.

As I approached, the guards straightened. They noticed me but didn't react, and that small mercy confirmed what I'd hoped—that Natalie's presence had, at least for now, bought me some weight in this place.

"Thank you for not killing me, guys. I appreciate it," I said, half-joking as I neared the steel hollow.

My thoughts, however, betrayed me—circling back to the warmth still crawling under my skin. My pulse throbbed with unwanted rhythm. Was I secretly bisexual this whole time and only realizing it now? Maybe. But I wasn't about to test it here, not with a woman who could easily hold it over me—or against me—if we ever ended up working together.

"Don't take it personally," one of the guards said—the same one who'd been all too eager to slice my throat a few hours earlier. "We have to follow the rules."

That made me stop.

"I get it. Is there a list of them somewhere? So I can avoid another execution attempt next time?"

He tilted his masked face down slightly, aligning his gaze with mine. "You mean the Pax Arcana?"

"If that's what you call the laws, then yes."

"Yes," he replied evenly. "Each one of us carries them."

"Can I look at them?" I asked, trying to focus on the words—but Natalie's legs, the way her voice had curved around that last maybe next time, slipped into my thoughts again.

Fuck. Oh yes. Fuck indeed…

"I can do you one better."

Oh, she would do me better, I bet.

"I can give you a copy. It's only a few pages, but you ought to know them if you plan on coming—" Please stop putting images into my head.

"—into places like this one."

"Thank you, that would be fantastic," I said quickly, taking the small leather-bound booklet from his gloved hand. The title, embossed in silver, read Pax Arcana.

"I'll read them and know them by heart next time we meet."

He didn't respond—just turned away, returning to his silent post, as if our conversation had never happened.

I continued down the hollow toward the Opening, tucking the book safely into my bag. My palms were damp, my skin hot—my mind still too loud with thoughts I shouldn't be having.

Passing through the tear between worlds didn't help. The stomach-twisting pull, that gut-deep folding of reality, barely registered. She was still in my head. Natalie—her smile, her laugh, the way she'd looked at me like I was something to unwrap. I felt like a teenager again, discovering something about myself I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

When the cold, snow-dusted pavement of Harvard melted beneath my feet into the warm black obsidian of my Domain, I let out a long breath and clutched the necklace at my chest. The world obeyed my wish, reshaping itself around me.

My soul core's gentle glow welcomed me, filling the air with its rainbow hues as it replenished my authority. I took a step toward my bedroom—half intending to ease myself, half just desperate to rest—but with each breath, the intensity began to fade.

By the time I reached the door, I was calm again.

I placed a hand against the wall and sighed, thinking.

Was it arousal that had gripped me—or agitation? Maybe something deeper. Whatever it was, the feeling receded now, leaving only the soft pulse of exhaustion behind.

The time was right to surrender to sleep.

**********

I dressed myself in my magical-girl transformation the moment I dried off and pulled on my panties after the shower. The suit shimmered to life and snapped into place around me with practiced ease, sealing me inside its silver, body-enhancing skin.

The apartment was quiet. I moved carefully, not wanting to wake anyone. Peter would still be in his room. Sophie probably with Nick—and Liora's presence thrummed faintly, a low, steady chord deep in my soul. He lay there unmoving, as if asleep. But shadows didn't sleep. So most likely he was just waiting, his mind drifting.

It was a few minutes past two. The night outside was pitch-black, thick as velvet. My suit hummed against my skin, its seams warm with the authority I'd stored inside. My senses flared outward, and the world unfolded—every edge, every shift of air in a 360-degree field of view. I'd grown used to that kind of sight, addicted to it. Going back to two eyes now felt like living half-blind, like being punished.

I stood in the bathroom, hand on the cool porcelain sink, staring at my reflection. I'd managed maybe forty minutes of sleep—more than enough to fully refresh under the healing light of my soul core. The face looking back at me from the mirror was that of someone with the sleep regimen of a world-class athlete though: not a single wrinkle, discoloration, or shadow under my eyes.

Then my fingers found the Spellbook at my hip.

With a thought, the mirror rippled. The silver glass stretched and deepened until it became a surface of a tube. Victor's workshop bloomed into view on the other side, reflected from it.

But it wasn't the workshop I remembered.

It was broken.

Shattered equipment and splintered desks. Scattered tools whose shapes hurt to look at. The soft glow of shadowlight gone, leaving only dim half ripped cables. The door's lock was clearly broken but the doors still closed, as if someone had forced their way in and then sealed it again when they left.

The great tube at the center—my replay machine—still stood, but fractured. Only a few curved and now jagged parts of its surface remained, big enough to reflect but not to use for anything worthwhile.

I could call up the Shattered's ocular powers in here. Replay what had happened. But I didn't know which soul to summon, whose eyes would give me the truth.

I had to assume whoever wrecked Victor's place were the same bastards who already had him in their grasp. And hopefully, tonight, I'd find where they were bunkered down.

I gave the ruined workshop a quick sweep, but there was nothing of value—just splintered desks, unrecognizable debris, and a few drops of blood. Someone had probably gotten hurt during the wrecking. No clues, no hidden messages. Time to move.

The corridor beyond was empty. One lone lightbulb hung by its cord, swaying like a hanged man, flickering weak light across the walls. It gave the whole place that cheap horror-movie feel, like something was about to step out from the dark and breathe down my neck.

I unfolded my turtleneck mask and pulled it over my face. My fingers brushed the painted rabbit nose stitched there. With a pulse of Authority, I asked it to become a real one.

Smell rushed in—crashed in.

It had been a while since I'd used my improved scent, and I remembered instantly why. Everything reeked. Mold, rot, old dust, and—faint but there—iron. Blood.

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Anansi weaved the soul threads in the back of my head, helping me sift through the stink, filtering out the noise, sharpening the signal. Focused on what's new. Focused on what mattered.

The trail I wanted started inside the wrecked room, but led outside.

I moved to the door, careful and slow, and eased it open.

The smell hit me like a punch.

Not just blood this time. Piss. Feces. Sweat. Wine and other drinks. All of it tangled into a stench that felt alien, like the scent of a place that shouldn't exist in the civilized world.

Fortunately, Anansi pushed the worst of the stench into the background of my mind, muting it like static on a radio. What stayed sharp was the blood—thin, metallic, stretched like a faint ribbon leading me forward. Toward the park.

Funny, really. My night gigs had drifted into detective work. Same skillset, different targets. Both demanded insight into people's habits, the little tics and choices that betrayed them. Only now my quarry wasn't some businessman or client with a secret—it was something worse. Yet I felt at home following the trail.

The street ahead was washed in lamplight, but I clung to the walls anyway, hugging shadows like my life depended on it. Maybe it did. In Ideworld, you never knew when the street itself might grow teeth and swallow you whole.

At least these streets tried to look semi-normal. Palm trees lined the curbs like lazy sentries, and barrels—so many barrels—were stacked by doorways, smelling faintly of wine and warm nights. The buildings were a strange mix, part wood, part concrete and steel. Usually, but not always, the lower halves were timber, like someone had built them upside down.

Somewhere behind the closed doors, people were cheering, voices sloshed in drink. The sound felt alien in the quiet. I stopped.

Right in front of me, a Shadow in a clearly intoxicated state came stumbling out of the building and threw up a vile mess onto the floor—only to collapse into it a second later. Well, thanks—Thomas kept it in just so a random guy could puke in front of me while I've got enhanced smell on? Can't I get a pass from the gods of irony just once?

The guy, however, didn't linger in the puddle of his own making. Instead, he pushed himself up with his arms and soon reached a kneeling position. His head tilted slightly downward, but his eyes remained open.

Heavy metal spilled out from the house he'd come from—thick bass and sharp guitar bleeding into the street. Three more people spilled out in vaguely similar shape, but they managed to haul the first guy back inside, not giving a single damn that he was now covered in bile.

As soon as they disappeared through the doorway, I rushed past, Anansi once again working wonders by dimming the smell. Still, the encounter left me wondering: could Shadows even pass out? If they didn't sleep, was such a state even possible for them? What I had just witnessed—was it a moment of unawareness? Or simply another drift?

Further down the street, I noticed that the blood I'd scented back in the workshop had a distinct "flavor" to it, just like any other I'd passed since. All of them shared a similar undertone, but each one carried something unique—something a human nose could never pick up on.

Thankfully, my path up until the outskirts of the park had been uneventful. But as the trees loomed ahead, I began to realize that Van Cortlandt Park could be a difficult place to navigate. There were cemeteries, golf courses, trails, old aqueduct remnants, and a myriad of urban legends—stories of spirits, massacred natives buried beneath paths. I began to wonder what I might face there, and it made me think about my approach to solving those problems.

Instincts—ingrained into me by years of training—told me to run at the first sight of danger. To sneak, find another route. But that wasn't the right approach for me now. Was it? I was a mage now, kind of a fighter, and my soul core would grow stronger when I defeated a powerful enemy. Avoiding danger so much would do nothing for me. I'd need to adjust my approach: prepare contingencies for escape, but push forward to overcome whatever stood in my way.

With access to both short-range teleportation and long-range jumps, I should be relatively safe—especially with enhanced senses: smell, hearing, and eyes all around my head.

Fight first, flight second—that would be my approach to whatever vile creatures the Ideworld decided to throw at me.

Having made that decision, I reached the fence that divided the park area from the proper town. There was a car park here, with a few vehicles left. It was a cemetery area, so it was natural people would park here to visit the graves of their loved ones. On the other hand… this wasn't what happened to Shadows after they died, was it? They were kind of reincarnated when the caster dreamt them anew, so what were the Shadows doing here?

There was one of them in here. Moving slowly from the tree line—pretty normal-looking—approaching their car. An older woman with a flashlight in one hand.

I decided to come closer, making sure she saw me, while lowering the mask covering my face. As much as I didn't like it, I pulled back the hood as well, which gave additional eyes on it a distorted view of the area. But I didn't want to scare her.

"Hello!" I shouted.

She froze. Tense. A freeze response to something she didn't see or hear before. Part of her body moved as if trying to flee from the threat, but her other leg betrayed her, stuck in place, and then the rest of her body gave up. Breath escaped her in a shaky exhale. She wanted to move, but didn't have the strength.

Seeing that made me pity her—and hope I'd never reach that state myself.

"Hello?" she answered in an old, unsure voice, looking around in confusion.

"I'm here," I said, stepping from the main entrance to help her see me. Somehow she'd thought I'd be approaching from the cars. When her eyes finally found me, she eased a bit. Maybe it was the silhouette of a woman in this lamplight, or maybe simply the fact she could finally see me.

"I'm new here," I continued, "and if you don't mind, could I ask you a few questions?"

"Excuse me, but I'm in a rush. I just need to grab some flowers from my trunk."

"Sure, go ahead," I said, but kept watching her.

"You're here to pay respects?"

"No, no final respects yet. This wasn't a rapture. Just a simple return to earth."

Rapture. An interesting word—but given what I knew about how shadows worked, which could just as easily be a bunch of bollocks, it meant the final death, the one where the caster died.

They must have different parting rites when someone dies due to Ideworld-related causes. Maybe I could see one?

"Can I join you?" I asked.

"Are you related to Bibi somehow? You don't look like her child." She squinted, eyes sharp despite her age.

"No, I don't know her. I came here looking for someone else, but since I'm already here, I felt like I could say a prayer."

"Prayer? I told you she wasn't raptured. She's been stabbed. She'll come back."

"Excuse me, I'm from…" I paused, searching for a good answer as I shuffled after her along the gravel path toward what must have been Bibi's grave. "…France. We have different rites there."

"Oh. I might've heard about that once, when I was younger." She nodded slowly. "If you wish, you can join, child. I forgot my flowers so I turned back, but the rest are there—and it's about to start."

I moved in silence alongside her. The walk was slow, and the moment I took off the mask the scent of blood vanished—but this was too interesting to pass on. I could always return to the search afterward.

The graves here were grand, each stone a monument both in shape and in the words etched on it. Some listed dates of creation, deaths—sometimes multiple, sometimes none—and of rapture. Overhead, the trees loomed, their branches black but faintly glowing with dim purple veins. The same light, brighter, pulsed from their roots like a hidden current, enough to keep us from tripping over them.

No more than five minutes from the parking lot, we reached the grave in question. A small crowd had gathered. Most of them looked normal enough, albeit with serious faces. Only one stood out—a changed shadow. I noticed him immediately because of his jaw: the largest I'd ever seen, filled with teeth like chisels, and he was casually chewing literal rocks as if they were bread.

The woman I'd accompanied was taken away by someone younger, a woman who slipped an arm through hers and guided her away. She kept glancing at me over her shoulder, whispering into the old woman's ear. The old one just shrugged.

I took a place a little back, near one of the glowing trees. When a few heads turned my way, I simply jumped up onto a wide branch and sat there, legs dangling. I pulled the hood and mask back on, letting all my senses flare open again.

The scent of blood was still there—faint, but easy enough to pick up when I chose to. For now, though, I focused on the rites.

The priest approached first, draped in long ornate robes of white, gold, and red. His head was cleanly shaven, but his beard hung nearly to the ground. In his hand he carried a staff tipped with a golden orb, using it like a cane as he walked. Behind him, a group of younger men followed, carrying a casket toward the open patch of earth.

The small gathering began to chant:

"From dust to flesh, from body to dust, what didn't rapture return to earth must." Over and over, their voices echoed between the trees and stones like a chorus of ghosts caught in repetition.

The priest spoke then, his words mostly about who Bibi had been and how she'd died—a victim of sudden, unprovoked violence. But what caught my attention came near the end:

"…as we lay her body in this sacred ground, we ask the Earth to take her, so a new body may be granted for her return."

That was interesting. If a shadow was killed here, it seemed they couldn't be reborn until they were buried. But wouldn't the ground eventually overflow with corpses if that were true?

I didn't have to wait long for an answer. As soon as they lowered the body into the pit, the chanting rose again:

"From dust to flesh, from body to dust, what didn't rapture return to earth must."

The moment Bibi's body touched the soil, it began to decay—rapidly, unnaturally. Her skin turned papery, muscles deflated, eyes sank into hollow pits, and her hair withered into brittle strands. Within moments, everything but her clothing had turned to particles.

The priest raised his staff, and the trees' faint violet light brightened. The chant changed, just slightly: "From dust to flesh, from body to dust, what didn't rapture return to us must."

Said only once, but with deep reverence.

For a few moments, they all stood in silence, then laid flowers around the open grave. Conversation resumed softly as they drifted away, the priest leading them back toward the path. Most spoke of ordinary things—daily chores, gossip—only the old woman I'd met earlier mentioned Bibi again, hoping she wouldn't change too much when she returned.

One of the men who'd carried the casket jumped back into the pit, collected the clothes, and tossed them into the empty box. Then he and three others hoisted it onto their shoulders and followed the rest of the group away, leaving behind an open grave and a stone slab ready to cover it when the time came.

And one confused person perched on a branch of a nearby tree.

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