For the first time in weeks, breathing did not hurt.
I tested that twice.
Then a third time because Elisabeth had taught me that confidence was not a medical instrument.
No pull beneath the ribs. No complaint from the shoulder. My thigh had stopped reminding me about the bakery every time I changed direction too quickly, and the shallow cuts left by the Patronage attack had become thin marks rather than arguments.
Operationally restored.
Elisabeth had used a different phrase.
"Fully fit."
She had sounded almost angry when she said it.
I suspected that was because the result removed one of the more legitimate arguments she intended to use against our departure.
Dawn had not yet cleared the eastern roofs when I stood in Sierra's cargo compartment with Marcus, Balthazar, three locked cases and a ring worth more than Maison Vaudrin had been when I first walked through its door.
The ring was ugly.
I appreciated that.
No jewel.
No ridiculous crown-shaped setting.
A band of dark gray metal with three narrow channels cut around its circumference. Balthazar had spent nearly an hour testing the spatial seam before allowing me to put anything important inside.
He still looked offended by the entire concept.
"I hate expensive artifacts."
"You make expensive artifacts."
"Exactly. I know what can go wrong."
Marcus stood beside a long table covered with account sheets.
He tapped the first page.
"Before you touch anything, repeat it."
I sighed.
"My companies are not my wallet."
"Again."
"My companies are not my wallet."
"Good."
Balthazar looked between us.
"Has he needed this lesson often?"
Marcus turned several pages.
"I am considering engraving it onto the ship."
Cruel men always found one another.
The distinction mattered today.
On paper, I had become wealthy enough to make the boy who first arrived in Catington stare at the numbers for several minutes.
Maison Vaudrin equity.
Riverglass.
Westbridge.
Personal receivables.
Sierra.
Other positions acquired through the last months.
But a restaurant was not something I could slide into a ring.
Neither was Mara's competence.
Or Céliane's management.
Or Korr's people.
Héloïse would probably have objected if I attempted to fold Westbridge into jewelry.
Marcus separated the ledgers into two stacks.
"This remains."
Maison Vaudrin repair reserve.
Payroll.
Supplier obligations.
Three months of conservative operating expenses, plus additional repair contingency because Céliane had refused to reopen until the structural inspection was complete.
Riverglass maintenance reserve remained untouched.
So did its payroll, delayed exchanger reserve and medical cold-chain obligations.
Westbridge retained enough working capital to service existing contracts, hire within board-approved limits and survive another quarter even if growth stopped completely.
La Baronna had never entered the discussion.
Its money was not mine.
I had finally learned that sentence without being prompted.
Mostly.
"And this," Marcus said, touching the smaller pile, "is yours."
Personal liquid capital.
Portable metals.
Exchange instruments accepted across several major commercial houses.
Gemstones chosen for value density rather than beauty.
Emergency foreign coin.
Several personal receivables converted at discounts because I preferred certainty now over theoretical value later.
I looked at the number.
Then at the ring.
"Everything."
Marcus nodded.
"Everything that is actually yours and movable."
A distinction that would have irritated me a month ago.
Now it only seemed precise.
Balthazar opened the first alchemical case.
Glassware locked into felt channels.
Compact condenser.
Precision scales.
Catalyst plates.
Field-testing crystals.
Sterile tools.
Protective seals.
Raw reagent packets labeled in his handwriting because apparently mine could not be trusted after three consecutive sleepless nights.
The second case contained rare components.
Nacre Salt.
Treated mineral stabilizers.
Neutral mana substrates.
Manticore-derived material I had preserved under strict seals from earlier work.
Several substances acquired from Celcium laboratories.
Nothing from the Éthérite project that Elisabeth or Balthazar considered medically cleared for human use.
I had asked once.
They had both said no.
Character growth is largely a collection of people who learn how to deny you efficiently.
The third case was equipment I hoped never to need.
Field surgical material.
Repair tools.
Ward chalk.
Replacement crystals.
Water filters.
Climbing hardware.
Portable lights.
Thread.
Needles.
Cord.
Some people imagine legendary expeditions are built from swords.
Those people have never lost a button three days from civilization.
Balthazar held out his hand.
"Ring."
I gave it to him.
He opened the spatial seam.
Not dramatically.
The air above his palm folded inward with a faint glassy distortion.
Inside was not darkness.
There was simply somewhere else.
A fixed pocket of space roughly the volume of a small storage room, its interior surfaces impossible to judge properly because perspective behaved badly near the seam.
"Rules," Balthazar said.
"I know."
"Say them."
Apparently this was a cultural disease.
"Fixed volume. No living material."
"Living beings."
"Fine. No living beings."
"Time?"
"Continues."
"Meaning food spoils."
"Slowly if packed properly."
"Meaning food spoils."
"Yes."
"Access?"
"Requires mana."
"Damage?"
"Possible."
"Pandemonium?"
"Unknown."
That stopped the ritual.
Nobody enjoyed that answer.
No record we possessed guaranteed that an artificial spatial pocket would behave normally after crossing into a living lunar fortress whose own architecture refused to remain still.
So Xavier and I would carry the first three days of survival supplies physically.
Water.
Rations.
Medical kits.
Light.
Basic tools.
A few high-value reagents.
Devil's Deceptions would remain on me.
So would the Blacklist.
If the ring survived, wonderful.
If it failed, we would not die before lunch.
A strategy built around one artifact deserved whatever happened to it.
Balthazar loaded the cases.
Marcus transferred the personal wealth containers last.
Watching almost everything I could spend disappear through a hole above a metal ring produced less emotion than expected.
Perhaps wealth became less exciting once one had employees.
I closed the seam.
The ring cooled against my finger.
"That's it?" Marcus asked.
"That's it."
"No last withdrawal?"
"No."
"No emergency authority over Westbridge?"
"I have shareholder rights."
"Not what I asked."
"No."
"No sealed instructions telling Korr how to run La Baronna?"
"She would burn them."
"Correct."
"No secret note to Céliane?"
"She would invoice me for the paper."
Marcus closed the final ledger.
"Then you may actually be ready to leave."
High praise.
Balthazar picked up an empty case and headed toward the hatch.
He stopped once.
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"The castle is not a laboratory."
"That sounds discriminatory."
"I mean it."
He looked at the ring.
"If you find something you don't understand, do not ingest it, inject it, graft it, breathe it deliberately, or decide your body is a more efficient test instrument than glass."
"You've removed most of my hobbies."
"Excellent."
Then he left.
Marcus followed after handing me one last page.
Not numbers.
Authorized succession signatures.
Céliane.
Mara.
Korr.
Héloïse.
Westbridge management.
His own.
People who could continue making decisions after I disappeared.
I folded it.
Did not put it in the ring.
For some reason I kept it in my coat.
---
Eulalie came before the others.
That should have warned me.
She never arrived early by accident.
Sierra's upper deck was still wet from the night rain. The city below had not fully awakened, though repair crews were already moving near the western streets. Temporary roofs had appeared where buildings had burned. Fresh timber covered some broken fronts. The bells had returned to ordinary hours.
No one who had lived through the Patronage attack trusted them quite as easily.
Eulalie stepped from the gangway in a plain dark cloak.
No medical attendants.
No academy companion.
No reason to have come at that hour unless she wanted one.
"You're alone."
"Yes."
"Dangerous habit."
"You're leaving for a changing castle on the moon."
"Point accepted."
She stopped near the rail.
The wind moved the edge of her cloak.
For a few seconds neither of us spoke.
This was unusual enough that I decided to ruin it.
"I have something for you."
Her face changed.
Only slightly.
I went below and returned with a sealed packet.
She stared at it.
"What is that?"
"Contingencies."
The change became larger.
Ah.
Wrong object.
I continued anyway because there are mistakes one recognizes early enough to avoid and mistakes one recognizes only after committing to the presentation.
"Medical fund authorization if Westbridge's current board changes policy. Copies of the agreements protecting the Guild Hall treatment budget. Balthazar's emergency research contact. And a letter stating you have no obligation to use your order's name for any of my organization's work."
She did not take it.
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"I came because I wanted to tell you something."
I lowered the packet.
Her hands were folded in front of her.
Too tightly.
Not fear.
Preparation.
"I've been trying to decide what it is for weeks," she said. "Gratitude would be convenient."
I waited.
"So would irritation."
"That one seems well established."
She looked at me.
I stopped being clever.
"There are moments when I think I understand what I feel around you. Then you do something appalling, and I decide perhaps the gods are simply testing my patience."
"I have inspired worse theology."
"Please."
Right.
She looked toward the eastern sky.
The moon had become pale in the growing light.
"I came to tell you that I think what I feel—"
"Don't wait for me."
The words came out before I understood what they had interrupted.
She became very still.
I should have stopped there.
Instead my mind continued along the path it had prepared.
"If this takes seven years for us and seven days here, fine. If it takes seven years everywhere, live them. If I don't return, do not let anyone turn my absence into a duty. Don't preserve my chair. Don't preserve an opinion you've outgrown. Don't—"
"Raymond."
I stopped.
There are several ways a person can say your name.
That one contained disappointment.
Not anger.
Anger would have been easier.
Eulalie finally took the packet.
She looked at the seal.
"You planned that speech."
"Some of it."
"Of course."
Her thumb moved over the edge of the paper.
"What were you going to say?" I asked.
She laughed once, quietly.
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You came here to say it."
"I did."
"And now?"
"Now I think you've answered a question I hadn't finished asking."
That sounded unfavorable.
I almost pressed.
Chessmaster offered nothing.
Good.
People were not puzzles merely because silence irritated me.
Eulalie tucked the packet inside her cloak.
"You know," she said, "there is something extraordinarily arrogant about deciding in advance how other people should grieve you."
I considered that.
"Fair."
"And telling someone not to wait does not magically erase the part of them that might want to."
That landed harder.
She looked away before I could decide what to do with it.
Then she smiled, but not the way she had when she arrived.
Smaller.
Guarded.
Whatever she had brought to the ship, she was taking most of it back.
"I hope Pandemonium teaches you something useful."
"Balthazar hopes it teaches me not to taste unknown substances."
"I was thinking of humility."
"Less likely."
This time the smile was real.
Brief.
She stepped toward the gangway.
"Eulalie."
She paused.
"I don't know when I'll return."
"I know."
"I don't know what you were going to say."
"I know."
"If you still want to say it when I come back—"
She looked over her shoulder.
"We'll see who comes back."
Then she left.
No embrace.
No confession.
No object exchanged except a packet of legal contingencies.
I watched her disappear down the gangway and understood, with the irritating clarity reserved for failures of timing, that I had just managed to turn a goodbye into an administrative procedure.
Chessmaster classified nothing.
For once, I was grateful.
---
Elisabeth chose violence.
Administrative violence first.
Her promotion papers were still new enough that the wax seal remained bright.
The post had been created during Catington's reconstruction: clinical and alchemical coordination between emergency shelters, civilian laboratories and the medical network that had performed far better during the attack than anyone had planned.
She had earned it.
That was important.
Nobody had given Elisabeth a title because she was Xavier's sister or because I had once saved her life.
She had spent months learning enough to become useful after nearly losing control of her own body.
Now she stood inside Sierra's chart room wearing the dark formal coat attached to her new office and held Xavier's medical clearance between two fingers.
"You're not going."
Xavier sat opposite her.
"Yes, I am."
"I can revoke this."
"No, you can't."
"I can delay it."
"Why?"
"Because I am the medical authority signing it."
"Am I unfit?"
Silence.
I remained near the door.
This was not my argument.
Elisabeth noticed me anyway.
"Leave."
"Delighted."
"Stay."
Xavier smiled.
I hated families.
Elisabeth looked back at the paper.
"Your shoulder was injured during the Patronage attack."
"Healed."
"Your mana output has been irregular under extended Rhythmic Permutation."
"Improving."
"Not solved."
"Nothing is solved."
"Pandemonium is not a training yard."
"No."
"So stay and train here."
"For how long?"
"Six months."
"We have less than twenty days on the pessimistic Magus window."
"Then Raymond goes."
There it was.
Xavier's expression changed.
Not anger yet.
"Without me."
"Yes."
"No."
"Why?"
Elisabeth put the clearance on the table.
"Because you have nothing to prove."
"That isn't why I'm going."
"You think becoming stronger will fix everything that happened to us."
"I've never said that."
"You don't have to."
She stood.
"Arcachon still exists. The throne still exists. Our brothers still exist. That thing in the sea still exists. And you have somehow convinced yourself that if you walk into a cursed lunar fortress and survive long enough, you'll return as someone none of them can deny."
Xavier stood too.
"Yes."
The simplicity hurt more than denial would have.
Elisabeth stared.
He continued.
"I do want the throne."
The room became quieter.
Not because this was a secret.
Because he finally said it without apology.
"I want to return to Arcachon strong enough that no one decides my place for me. I want enough strength to claim what is mine if I still believe I should claim it when I return."
"And the sea monster?"
His jaw tightened.
"That too."
Elisabeth looked away.
Neither needed to explain it to me.
Their mother was dead.
Their island years had not begun with adventure.
Whatever lived in those waters belonged to the oldest wound between them and home.
Xavier's voice lowered.
"I remember running. I remember being too weak to do anything except survive what stronger people decided. I remember you dying in front of me on Marduk's island and having to wait for Raymond to decide whether you could be saved."
Elisabeth's poison-hand glove creaked when her fingers closed.
"Don't."
"I'm not blaming you."
"Then stop."
"I'm telling you why I'm going."
She looked at him again.
"I already lost Mother."
No argument.
No office.
No medical terminology now.
"I spent months not knowing if I was going to keep my own hand, my own mana, my own mind. I finally have work. A place. People who ask me questions because they think I might know the answer."
Her voice weakened.
She hated it.
Continued anyway.
"And now you want me to stand here and watch you walk into something Marduk failed to understand."
Xavier said nothing.
Good.
Sometimes answering is only another form of escape.
Elisabeth stepped closer.
"I can resign."
That surprised him.
It surprised me.
"I can come."
"No."
Xavier answered before I could.
Her chin lifted.
"You don't decide for me."
"No. You decide for you."
"Then I decide to come."
"You were promoted three days ago."
"I don't care."
"Yes, you do."
That landed.
Her eyes sharpened.
Xavier continued.
"You fought for that work. You built something that isn't me. If I make you throw it away because I'm afraid to go alone, then everything Raymond spent months trying to beat into my head was wasted."
I objected to the phrasing.
Silently.
Elisabeth's eyes became wet.
She wiped them angrily.
"I hate both of you."
"Reasonable," I said.
She pointed at me.
"Do not speak."
I did not.
Xavier moved around the table.
"Mira stays with you."
Elisabeth looked toward the open hatch.
Mira was outside with Rex.
Probably stealing something.
"She'll hate that."
"She might."
"She's attached to you."
"She isn't luggage."
Good.
Xavier had learned.
"If she chooses to stay near you, let her. If she chooses the island, Sierra, Nexus, wherever—"
"You're speaking like you're already dead."
"No."
He took the clearance from the table and placed it back in front of her.
"I'm speaking like you taught me paperwork."
She stared at him.
Then laughed through the tears she had been trying not to show.
Ugly sound.
Real.
After several seconds she signed.
One line.
Hard enough that the pen nearly tore the paper.
**FIT FOR TRANSIT.**
Then she shoved it into his chest.
"If you come back with half your organs missing, I am not treating you."
Xavier folded the paper.
"You will."
"Yes."
She hated him for knowing.
Then she pulled him into a brief, fierce sibling embrace.
I looked out the window.
Not because the moment embarrassed me.
Because it did not belong to me.
---
The others came at noon.
Not together.
That would have made it ceremonial.
Korr arrived first, handed me a three-page operating report and told me she had removed my emergency override from two La Baronna accounts.
"I never used those."
"You tried once."
"Details."
"If you return after seven years and start giving orders before reading the current structure, I will charge you a consultation fee."
"Market rate?"
"Higher."
Excellent.
Mara sent no speech.
She delivered a compact insulated reagent case for materials that could not tolerate large temperature swings.
Invoice attached.
Céliane sent food.
Not luxury.
Travel bread from the cooperative bakery.
Dried meat.
Salted vegetables.
Small hard cakes Lucien claimed would survive "even Raymond's management."
Also invoiced.
Maison Vaudrin was reopening in four days.
Structural inspection passed that morning.
Lucien included one handwritten instruction:
**DO NOT HEAT THE BROTH CONCENTRATE DIRECTLY OVER OPEN FLAME.**
Below it:
**THIS MEANS YOU.**
I packed it physically rather than in the ring.
Anata came with no gift.
"You have enough things."
Correct.
"Half-mask?"
"Nothing confirmed."
"Pale receiver?"
"Nothing confirmed."
"Old contraband binder?"
"Balthazar is still comparing."
"Good."
She looked at Rex.
"Shadow Tether inside Pandemonium?"
"Unknown."
"Then don't make the first attempt during a fight."
"I'll schedule the fight later."
She stared.
"Try to come back less annoying."
"That seems beyond current science."
She left.
Arkad arrived after her.
His hand had stopped trembling.
Mostly.
He inspected Xavier's sword.
Then my posture.
"You're healed."
"Yes."
"Annoying."
"Yes."
He clasped Xavier's forearm.
No dramatic promise.
"Next time we fight, don't disappear for seven years first."
Xavier nodded.
"I'll put it on the calendar."
Héloïse never came to Sierra.
She sent a board resolution.
Westbridge formally prohibited any extraordinary distribution to me during my absence unless approved under the related-party rules.
Underneath, she had written:
**You asked for something capable of surviving you. Stop testing it.**
I kept that paper too.
By early afternoon the deck emptied again.
Catington stretched below.
Damaged.
Busy.
Alive.
There was no grand farewell crowd.
I preferred it.
The people who mattered had jobs.
---
We flew east before sunset.
Sierra did not take us to the moon.
It took us to the old lunar observation complex where Marduk's recovered notes, Abraham's archives and Celcium's astronomical records agreed that a transit condition had once been produced.
Agreed was perhaps generous.
They disagreed on almost everything else.
The complex stood on a high ridge beyond Catington's dense roofs.
Three stone terraces cut into the hill.
Copper meridian rings taller than houses.
A broken observatory dome repaired with temporary timber.
Crystal mirrors mounted along black stone grooves.
Academy technicians from Nexus and Celcium worked side by side with the expressions of relatives forced to share a funeral.
Abraham waited beneath the largest ring.
He looked at Sierra.
Then at me.
Then Xavier.
"Too late to reconsider?"
"Yes."
"I assumed."
Rex came down the gangway behind us.
Abraham stopped.
"The manticore too?"
Rex stared.
"He insists."
"Does he understand lunar transit?"
"No."
"Do you?"
"No."
Abraham sighed.
"Wonderful."
The sun touched the horizon.
Technicians began rotating the outer rings.
Metal groaned.
Light from the lowering sun reflected across one crystal, then another, until the final beam struck a black circular plate set into the central floor.
Devil's Deceptions rested open in my hands.
Marduk's notes did not describe a door.
They described relationships.
Angle.
Anchor.
Lunar position.
Three references, one of them unverified.
A value he had once carried forward because he lacked a direct measurement.
We were using the corrected pessimistic reconstruction.
Not certainty.
Never certainty.
Xavier stood inside the first marked circle.
His Earth affinity stabilized his footing against the rising vibration in the platform.
Water mana followed.
Then Rhythmic Permutation.
His cadence changed.
Three beats of circulation.
Pause.
One.
Two quicker transitions.
I had watched him use the technique dozens of times.
But this time something happened inside Chessmaster.
Not Board Sight.
Not exactly.
His mana route stopped looking like a route.
It became—
notation.
For less than a second.
**ENTRY: EARTH / LOWER CHANNEL**
**SECONDARY: WATER / LATERAL**
**CADENCE: 3 — 1 — 2**
**DISRUPTION POINT: TRANSITION 4**
**RECOVERY: FLOW-DEPENDENT**
Then another line attempted to form.
**REPRODUCTION—**
It vanished.
I blinked.
Xavier noticed.
"What?"
"Do that again."
"What?"
"The permutation."
"We're opening a portal."
"I'm aware."
"Now?"
"Yes."
He looked at Abraham.
Abraham looked at me as though reconsidering every choice that had led him here.
Xavier repeated the sequence.
Nothing.
Board Sight returned normally.
Mana.
Posture.
Pressure.
No notation.
Interesting.
"Raymond."
Abraham's patience had limits.
"Later."
I opened the Blacklist and wrote one line in the margin.
**CHESSMASTER — spontaneous technical notation during observed Flow. Not reproducible. Trigger unknown. No copied function.**
Evidence first.
The future could wait.
The moon could not.
The central plate lit.
Silver at first.
Then black through the center, as though someone had cut a circle out of the evening.
The air changed.
No wind.
Pressure.
Every loose cloth on the platform pulled toward the opening.
One Celcium technician shouted a measurement.
Another answered.
The third anchor value fluctuated.
Abraham looked toward me.
"Still want to call this a plan?"
"No."
"Good."
The circle stretched vertically.
A doorway without a frame.
Beyond it—
stone.
Gray-white.
No stars.
No lunar landscape.
A corridor.
The castle was already waiting on the other side.
My spatial ring became suddenly cold.
I touched it.
Still responsive.
For now.
Xavier stood beside me.
Elisabeth waited farther back with Mira.
She had come to the observatory despite promising she would not.
Mira paced between her and Xavier.
When Xavier approached the portal, the young manticore followed.
He stopped.
Crouched.
"Mira."
She nudged him.
He put one hand against her neck.
No order.
No familiar command.
After a long moment, Mira looked toward the portal.
Then toward Rex.
Then back to Elisabeth.
She sneezed.
Turned.
Walked to Elisabeth.
Xavier smiled.
A little painfully.
"Traitor."
Elisabeth scratched Mira's ear.
"Smartest one here."
Rex had made the opposite decision.
He stood directly beside me.
Abraham pointed at him.
"If the portal reacts badly—"
"I know."
"You cannot pull him back from inside."
"I know."
Rex stepped forward before me.
The portal rippled.
No rejection.
His front half vanished.
He paused.
Looked back once.
Then went through.
Xavier stared.
"He didn't even wait."
"He has terrible manners."
"Learned from you."
Possibly.
Xavier turned to Elisabeth.
No second argument.
No last speech.
She simply said:
"Come back."
He nodded.
"I intend to."
Better than a promise.
I looked over the ridge.
Catington below.
Sierra.
The people remaining around it.
Balthazar was not here.
Korr was not here.
Céliane was probably arguing with a carpenter.
Marcus was probably counting money.
Eulalie—
I stopped there.
Some things did not become easier because they were named.
Abraham touched my shoulder once.
"Marduk believed the castle could be understood."
I looked at the incomplete book.
"And?"
"He changed his mind."
Useful final advice.
I stepped into the portal.
---
Cold.
Not temperature.
Pressure.
Then stone under my boots.
My stomach turned once.
The world snapped upright.
Xavier appeared behind me.
The portal shimmered for another second.
Through it I saw the observatory.
Elisabeth.
Abraham.
Mira.
Catington's sky.
Then the circle collapsed.
Silence.
Rex stood ten meters ahead.
His wings were half-open.
The corridor around us was enormous.
White-gray stone rose into arches that vanished in dim silver light.
No torches.
Thin lines inside the walls glowed like veins beneath skin.
The floor was smooth except for long black grooves running parallel toward a distant door.
Devil's Deceptions showed a corridor at the transit point.
That much was correct.
The door was not.
Marduk's sketch showed three arches.
We had one.
Xavier whispered:
"So the map is wrong."
"No."
The wall moved.
Slowly.
Stone shifted without scraping.
The distant door slid sideways.
Not opening.
Relocating.
An arch formed where blank wall had existed.
One of the black floor grooves bent toward it.
Marduk's old correction returned to me.
He had not mapped damage.
He had mapped movement.
The castle had not changed since his visit.
Change was what it did.
Behind us, the section of wall where the portal had been sealed completely.
No seam.
No return marker.
Xavier touched it.
Earth mana entered the stone.
His face changed.
"What?"
"It moved away from me."
"Stone?"
"My mana."
He tried again.
The wall's glowing veins dimmed around his hand.
Then brightened three meters to the left.
Adaptive response.
Maybe.
One observation.
No conclusion.
Chessmaster opened.
Board Sight spread carefully.
Corridor.
Rex.
Xavier.
Mana channels.
Wall flow.
Black grooves.
A faint pulse came from the new arch.
Then another.
My mind caught it.
For one instant the strange notation returned.
**INPUT: UNKNOWN**
**ROUTE: STRUCTURAL**
**TRIGGER: PRESENCE?**
**OUTPUT: RECONFIGURATION**
**COST: UNKNOWN**
**REPRODUCTION: IMPOSSIBLE**
Then pain flashed behind my eyes and the notation shattered.
I closed Chessmaster immediately.
Xavier looked at me.
"You saw something."
"Maybe."
"That word again."
"You'll grow to hate it."
A sound came through the arch.
Not a roar.
Not footsteps.
Something dragging across stone.
Rex lowered himself.
The glowing lines in the walls changed color.
Silver to pale red.
Xavier drew his sword.
I opened Devil's Deceptions.
The first line Marduk had written beside his old transit sketch was still there.
I had read it dozens of times.
Inside Pandemonium, it acquired a very different personality.
IF THE FIRST HALL IS QUIET, YOU ARRIVED TOO LATE.
The dragging sound stopped.
A second door appeared behind us.
Where no door had been.
Then it opened.
Whatever Catington had taught me, Pandemonium had already begun grading the examination.