Hull was alive, alive. Who else could it be in the Lows, summoning demons, and strong enough to defeat an Epic? When that suited vampire had come asking after such a personage, I knew precisely who it had to be. Of course, I hadn't given up Hull's name or likely whereabouts – I made it clear that would only happen once I had Esmi's card in hand – and this time the hulking vampire seemed keen to agree.

As flush with excitement as the news made me, regaining my love's card was only one third of my plans, and I still had a great deal of work to do to uncover Felstrife's secret. I was getting better at shoving my way through the slushpile she dumped through my mind, even when there were Legendaries in the mix that would have sent any deck builder worth their salt into a spiral of theorycrafting.

My next glimpse past the cards into Felstrife's mind showed a field of daisies – hardly useful – and hours later, sweat pouring from my face, I saw the gravestone of a woman called Charlotta. Was I just seeing her memories at random? If so, the likelihood I would ever chance upon the information I required was dreadfully small.

Taking a break from my efforts, I let cards rain down on me while I ruminated on what little I knew about how the paired artifact worked. The helmet only activated when Felstrife was close enough and when she placed the amber ring next to her skull. Felstrife had also specifically said that these were cards she had seen, so all signs pointed to the idea I was already working with that the images were coming from her mind and sent to mine. However, if they were normal memories, I would have expected to see more than just the static image of each card, such as a table they were placed on or a hand holding them. Because I wasn't, that supported the notion that Felstrife was trimming the memory to only show me what she wished. And if she was able to control what she was sending to such a specific degree, perhaps that meant I could do the same with regards to what I was receiving.

So thinking, this time when wading through the cards, I kept at the forefront of my thoughts a desire to learn how Felstrife had become a lich, to see that very memory. Prying my way past a rather gruesome Chaos Epic –

– after a string of Chaos cards, I saw the inside of a perfectly ordered workroom. There were shelves aplenty and a series of slotted racks, all used to hold various tools and tinctures in narrow vials. A middle-aged man was at a table, carefully pouring one mixture into a tray, followed by another. His brows were knitted in concentration as he added two drops of an indigo colored liquid, no more, quickly stoppering as if he wished to avoid inhaling the fumes. I couldn't tell what was in the tray because I was seeing everything from a rather low perspective. That of a child, perhaps?

That question broke my concentration, cards fluttering back into my vision and pushing me away from the place I had briefly visited. I sensed no change from Felstrife or in the pacing of the cards she sent me, our session lasting at least another half hour, which I spent resting in the shelter of Esmi's card and pondering what I had seen. While I wanted to believe that vision had been a success, it seemed just as possible that Felstrife would be thinking about cards being broken down to shards – assuming that's what the man had been working on – since the lich and her allies were doing that very thing to the King's Soul card.

Either way, I needed to learn a great deal more to be sure, and I readied myself to accomplish just that during our next meeting. But Felstrife, fiend that she was, changed tactics on me. When the Ballroom vanished from my sight, instead of seeing a parade of cards as I had grown accustomed to, I was in an outdoor arena with people at my side and two duelists down below. Like in all of these visions so far, I couldn't hear anything, but the sights were just as crisp as if I was experiencing them in truth. The only noticeable restriction was that the decision of where to look was not my own. Even so, it seemed to me that I was in Treledyne's Colosseum, but a very early build of it: the structure was only a quarter of the size and much more of the seating was rickety-looking wood than stone.

One of the duelists was a man in armor – a paladin like Edaine, unless I missed my guess – who summoned Order Souls of a nature I was already quite familiar with.

He also used a Relic Weapon that was new to me, which benefited from his increased number of Source.

The attention of the watcher – Felstrife when she was still a human, I assumed – was much more engaged by the other duelist, though. This one was an armadillo-looking creature the likes of which I had never encountered before. It was playing Earth Source and using a similar ramping strategy.

However, as we watched, the armadillo summoner added some Air Source to the mix, bringing out an Artifact I had seen during my time at War Camp.

I was still puzzling out the why behind that particular play, when they summoned an impressive Epic.

This Elemental was easily ten feet tall and just as easily weathered the charge of one summoned Paladin while aiding the armadillo's Source generation, so that the summoner could protect themselves with Earth Source Power against a Unit of Souls that charged them directly.

Despite this solid defense, the armadillo had nearly exhausted all of their resources, only a single Air Source at the ready. They devoted it, generating 3 Air Source thanks to the Epic's Aura, and proceeded to summon a much less impressive Soul.

Curiously, it vanished back to Hand, due to the Warhorn, and then was summoned a second time, a third, a fourth, flitting back and forth from being corporeal to just a card. With each appearance, the Sources and Souls the armadillo had in play gradually became refreshed. The combo was played with such familiarity it took me a moment to catch up, and when I did, I found myself thoroughly wowed.

It's an infinite.

Since the Devoted Air Source generated 3, that allowed the Lesser Air Elemental to be summoned three times. The first two instances were enough to bring the Source that fueled it back to ready, allowing the process to repeat, while still leaving one instance of its Arrival to use on something else, which the armadillo performed with glee, their plated body bouncing happily as their entire board finished the turn ready.

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The knight summoner charged with everything he had, but the health-heavy Earth Souls had no trouble absorbing the damage with their Armor and increasingly powerful Earth Source Power.

As dazzled as I was by the armadillo's deck construction, I wasn't sure how they planned to go on the offensive. Only the Earth Elemental did any sort of damage, and it would hardly be sufficient.

It turned out that the Air part of their deck was the answer again, a Greater Air Elemental making an appearance, which, due to the yo-yoing Lesser Air Elemental, could be summoned as many times as the Armadillo liked, taking the paladin summoner, which hadn't yet received a single point of damage, all the way down to 0.

Like waking from a dream, the candlelit ballroom returned to me. While I felt the ever-present – and ever uncomfortable – weight of the helmet, I had none of the usual sickness that a session spent weathering cards would normally lead to. If anything, I had found the experience enjoyable.

Felstrife hovered nearby, watching me, as if expecting that I would have a reaction to this unannounced change. I licked my vomit-chapped lips, trying to collect my thoughts. "You showed me a match. Why?"

"You cannot duel while wearing that particular artifact," she hissed, a skeletal finger pointing to my head. "This will have to suffice in its stead."

So, she had been listening closely when I told her of how I had leveled my Soul: study of cards and participating in duels. For once, I found myself wishing that my adversary wasn't quite so sharp-witted. Why couldn't the centuries have dulled her as they did everything else, thus giving me more time before Azure came to snap my neck?

Felstrife drifted away, having lost interest in me, and I scooted back to the nearest wall so I had something to lean on, feeling somewhat defeated. I had been so caught up in the duel, I had completely forgotten to dig for information, curse her. And if this was to be the new normal, how in the Twelve was I going to move through a memory I was immersed in faster?

"Basil?" a hushed voice said, and I started at how near it was. I turned to, expecting to see Justine crouched down beside me, but instead, Afi, my erstwhile War Camp compatriot, stared back at me. She had the same sharp-eyed look I remembered, though her battle attire had seen more wear since last we had parted ways.

"Get out of here!" I hissed, shoving her away on pure instinct. To my great shock, she slipped through the wall, vanishing.

I froze, unsure if I had just hallucinated the encounter and then risked a glance at Felstrife. The lich had floated over to Geb, whose gnarled hands had picked up the pace now that the lich was watching.

Felstrife doesn't know what Afi looks like. That vision couldn't have been from her. Which meant Afi had been her in truth, in the flesh. From the Rising Stars Soiree, I knew that Afi had the ability to vanish into her Mind Home. Perhaps this was an outgrowth of that?

Whatever it was, if Afi had visited me once, she likely would again. So, as surreptitiously as I could, I slipped over to the west side of the ballroom, where Bessamun was sequestered with his fortification of ever growing books – Felstrife insisted that he never 'read' the same one twice. He didn't even look at me when I neared, his projection of blue light continuing to drone on.

"Something out of the ordinary may be happening soon," I whispered, crouching down behind the tallest stack. "When it does, try not to react."

Sure enough, after a few more uneven beats of my heart, Afi reappeared. Now that I was looking for it, I was able to watch as she emerged. Unlike when Azure vanished, their body seeming to melt into the surrounding air, or when Felstrife reached into a haze of shadows to extract her artifacts, Afi stepped into being like she was walking through a doorway that we could only see one side of. The process took no time at all, just the length of two steps, and then she was back in the ballroom with us.

She had barely appeared when I grabbed her wrist, yanking her down to where I sat. Afi let out a tiny yelp of surprise that I prayed Felstrife hadn't heard over Bessamun's projection. Bessamun himself let out a strangled gurgle upon seeing her, and I could tell that he was fighting to stop himself from making more noise.

"I take it this place isn't safe?" Afi said to us. She kept her voice blessedly low and spoke in the same no-nonsense way she had often used in class.

"Most definitely not," I confirmed.

"It is hell itself," Bessamun added, both of us talking in a whisper.

I was fairly certain I was right about Afi using her ability to get to us instead of some sort of artifact, but that didn't tell me her purpose. "Why are you here?"

"Hull sent me to find you," she answered.

A warmth I had thought died with Esmi spread in my chest. My friend was looking out for me, even in a situation as dire as this. "I had heard he was alive, but getting confirmation is a balm indeed. Thank you for risking the journey. This is where we are kept, day and night, under constant vigil."

She nodded, as if this deadly foray was no great consequence. "He's with your father, in fact. I'll tell them both that you're in the second-level ballroom."

My breath caught and I nearly coughed. A bevy of questions sprung up in my mind, but we didn't have time for those, so I simply embraced the surprising revelation. "Fortune is favoring the survivors." I hunched forward. "Afi, there is something I must ask of you. It is a message of the utmost importance."

Her attention on me grew even more focused. "Information about the enemy?"

It was the logical question for her to ask but not where I wished our conversation to go. "All we know of value is that Azure is here, hiding from the enemy and disrupting their plans." I didn't bother adding exactly how dangerous for us those actions were, and Bessamun didn't speak up, making me grateful for his quiet nature. "The message is for Hull. I need him to come here, to the Palace." Afi jerked upright at my words, clearly disliking the idea, so I hurried forward. "Hull's mother has the King's Vault key, There's an Epic artifact inside that can revive the dead. Remember it? The one that Gerard chose but the King made him return. With it, as well as a person's Soul card and body, they can be revived, just as Hestorus told us." It felt rather surreal to be saying the plan I had been obsessing over in my head aloud, but I pressed on. "I have already secured Esmi's body, or near enough, and I can do the same with her card, but Hull must make an appearance at a vampire ritual for that trade to go through. On the score of his mother, I have no idea how to make her part with the key, but Hull surely will. She's his mother, after all, no matter how estranged they may be."

"A vampire ritual?" Afi sputtered. "And you expect Hull to… what? Simply march up to the Palace? He could be killed by roving packs of demons or Undead before he gets within a mile of it, let alone whatever those monsters plan to do with him!"

I was still lucid enough to recognize that desperation likely was pushing me into poor decision making, but even having it pointed out, I couldn't bring myself to amend my request. I had accomplished much, but I couldn't see how to bring to completion the various threads I was weaving without Hull's assistance. "He is resourceful. We are resourceful together, I promise you this. As for the vampires, they have assured me that he will not be harmed. They plan to honor him, or something of the sort."

My words were meant to convince her, to bring her to my way of thinking, but with each her face and eyes only grew harder in the candlelight.

"Please say that you will at least ask him," I pressed when she didn't respond.

"No, Basil, I will not," she hissed back at me. "Do you hear yourself? Vampires praising him? Vampires? He's so bullheaded he might actually do it, and I – we – can't afford to risk someone as powerful as him. If we are to manage to retake the city we need him." She looked me up and down, clearly disliking what she was seeing. "I thought you cared for him, Basil."

"I do care for him…" He was my one true friend; the only one in the world besides Esmi who believed in me. What I was asking was dangerous – ridiculously so, I knew – but Hull had survived an army of Orcs chasing after him, defeated a Mythic demon, and together, we had freed the Lows from its oppressors. If we could do all those things, surely we could find a way to do this, too. "Please, Afi. I need my friend. Trust in him if you do not deign to trust in me."

She softened a touch then, showing a side of herself that I had never been privy to. "I am sorry to learn of Esmi's death, truly I am. I guessed as much when I couldn't feel her door, the way I found yours," she added, when she noticed my confused expression. "And I don't pretend to know what you've had to endure at the hands of the Undead. Be that as it may…" The softness fled, as if it had never been. "You must accept that she is gone, no matter what pain it brings you. Better that than more die in an ill-Fated attempt that you yourself have not puzzled out how to solve."

Before I could argue my case further, Bessamun spoke up, his voice barely a whisper. "Take me with you."

Afi turned to my fellow noble, deciding on something before answering. "I don't know if I can," she admitted. "I only recently acquired this ability to travel from one place to another."

"Try," he pleaded, that one word encapsulating all the fear and suffering the young man had been through since this war began.

Unlike with my request, Afi quickly relented. "Of course. Take my hand." He did as she bade, but at the exact same moment, his projection stopped speaking.

"Bessamun," I hissed, and he caught my meaning, a shot of blind panic streaking across his face. With a rush, he did whatever internal command was needed to start the boy made of blue light to talking again.

We sat there for a tense moment, all of us trying to hear past the little voice to see if the lapse would bring anyone down on us. A skeleton did creak into view, twisting my guts, but it just stared at us, making no alert. Apparently it didn't know enough to care about there being an extra human among us.

"Basil," Afi said in the quietest voice possible.

When I looked her way, I saw she was eyeing the skeleton while holding a hand out to me. I didn't hesitate to shake my head, clearly communicating my intent to stay.

I would leave here with Esmi or not at all.

Afi's lips compressed but she didn't waste time arguing, pulling Bessamun after her as she scooted backward in a crouch. She gradually vanished in the same way she had appeared, like she was backing through a doorway only she could use.

Soon, it was just Afi's outstretched hand that remained, connected to Bessamun. Her forearm and palm slipped effortlessly into nothingness but then pulled up short when Bessamun's fingers interwoven with her own reached that same point. Bessamun whimpered, scooting forward, but his nearness to Afi's invisible doorway didn't get him any closer to passing through it. I could tell Afi was pulling at him harder now because he hissed at the treatment and after a few more attempts, twisted his hand out or her grasp.

A bare second later, Afi's head poked back through her doorway, brows furrowed.

"You were hurting me," Bessamun told her. "Like you trying to tug me through a stone wall."

Her face fell at the explanation, and she looked at us in a way I imagine people look at those condemned to death. "I'm sorry," she whispered and then she was gone.

What little composure Bessamun was holding onto left him at her departure, his projection fading away in the wake of his shuddering tears. I wrapped him in my arms as he wept, feeling like I was holding myself from three months ago: just a hopelessly sheltered noble with no understanding of how harsh the world outside of our meticulously Ordered society could actually be.

As I rubbed a hand gently across his back, I forced myself to accept an unpleasant truth. Not the one that Afi asked of me, but that instead, if she wouldn't help me, and by extension Hull, I would have to find another way.

By the time Felstrife finally came to check on us – Bessamun's audible crying and lack of Soul projection practically as good as a shouted invitation – I had the bones of a new plan forming.

"You're not just going to force me to high Gold and call it quits there, are you?" I asked the moment she floated into view. "If I'm going to die anyway, I want to see myself at Epic first."

Felstrife considered me in that frosty manner of hers, every inch of her body still in a way that only the dead could manage. "The process is considerably shortened when the subject is willing," she said, the words sounding like dry leaves skittering over cobblestones.

I looked back at her in a way that I hoped was equally frigid and conveyed the depth of my commitment. "Then what are we waiting for?"

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