In the minutes before Leland reappeared at the campsite, he had enough time to toy with the soul cloak. Shifting through the Void, green mist swelled in his hands. In its activated form, the cloak was entirely made of mangled body parts and crooked emotions. It was warm to the touch, and prescribed enough plain fear in Leland that he felt sick holding the thing.

But the Soul Lord had given him an overview of what it did and how it worked and while blatantly grotesque looking, the soul cloak had many, many uses Leland could take advantage of. Once he added to it, that was.

The cloak’s true form rested neatly around his neck. A necklace made of cold green metal and a single stunted jewel.

“The cloak is a holding device for souls,” the Lord of Souls had explained moments before kicking Leland out of his domain. “It will grow with you, like a parasitic weapon, but it harbors no feeling or thought. It truly is just a magical item.”

In the end, Leland accepted the pact terms and promised not to mistreat Lodestar when the time came for one of them to win over the other. Many questions were raised about this, although the Lord of Souls answered nearly none of them. Since the pact was Leland’s first, the Lord did explain the consequences of breaking such a contract.

“Death. You will die if you break our pact. Just like I would die if I took back my cloak before you and Lodestar finish your duel.”

“Oh,” Leland had said dejectedly. It made sense, although he didn’t know it made sense until after the fact. A tightness had appeared in his chest, like his heart was wrapped with chains. Information came to him from his Legacy, explaining that the chains were, in fact, real.

Floating through the Void, Leland decided he needed to be careful about pacts. Dying because of a technicality would be, well, dumb of him. Still, he didn’t think the pact with the Soul Lord was anything to worry about. Mistreating a soul? That wasn’t like him, he knew he wasn’t that cruel.

Breakfast was still happening when Leland arrived back in the Mirage Fields. Breakfast sausage and beans, the smell of life and the warmth of the sun. It was right then and there that he decided that the Lord of Soul’s domain was the worst he’d been to so far. And that was including the Lord of Erupting Skies which didn’t have a floor to stand on!

Isobel gave him a long look when he reappeared. He had only been gone for a fraction of a second to them, but she still somehow noticed. Maybe it was the necklace, maybe it was how he stretched like he had just finished an acupuncture massage. Either way, she noticed, which prompted Lucia and Spencer to notice.

“Awake, huh?” Spencer said. “I thought you were going to sleep till noon!”

“What?” Leland murmured, standing and taking a place around the pot of simmering breakfast. “Oh. Right. You think I just woke up. I’ve been up for like an hour or two by now. I was talking with the Lord of Souls.”

All conversation ceased, even Jude, Jude Two, and his parents hushed conversation about his new apprentice-ranked Legacy.

“Honey, I thought we decided that you wouldn’t speak to any Lord without talking to us first.” Lucia said, her face doing that disappointed stare all mothers could somehow do.

“Err,” Leland took a big bite of beans, slowly chewing through them as a point to think through his response. “My Lord suggested I do it sooner than later. We’ve got things to discuss now, and the Soul Lord would have fallen to the background.”

“Leland, you can’t just—”

“Palemarrow Castle and Ivory Reach are under siege by Harbinger Ashford and the Sightless Cult. People are dying. Sybil is in a coma, which is fine apparently. And Lodestar is a transcendent weapon, not a parasitic weapon… which are virtually the same thing except that transcendent weapons have a higher ceiling of power and were created to work with the host, not fight against them.” He thought for a moment, adding, “Lodestar is also the soul of the Soul Lord’s brother.”

Everyone was silent. With mirth,Isobel spoke up, “Is that all?”

“Err. We are not being hunted currently because every Inquisitor was called back to protect the castle and city.”

“At least we’ve got that going for us,” she muttered, sipping a cup of coffee.

“What do you mean ‘under siege?’” asked Carmon.

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“I guess ‘siege’ isn’t the correct term. Ivory Reach has been invaded. An attack has been thwarted on the castle, but the Sightless Cult is sinking their talons into the civilian population and thus creating an army of cultists.”

“And what is Ashford doing during all of this?”

“Don’t know. I do know that he wants Sybil.”

“Why,” Glenny asked, “wouldn’t he just walk through the front gates of the castle? He’s undying.”

Carmon made a tsking sound. “No, he’s not. His self-regeneration does have a limit. During our duel, I thought I was close to striking that limit and actually killing him. Evidently I was not.”

“So if he walked into the castle, he’d just be killed over and over again by the guards and Inquisitors,” Glenny surmised.

“Or trapped,” Spencer added before turning to his son. “And the Pathways Witch?”

“Don’t know,” Leland said, shaking his head.

“Sybil’s in a coma?” Lucia asked.

“Something to do with the Boneforged Monarch and the death of the current queen.”

Everyone went back to being silent at that, each ignoring the information about Lodestar. That was a box no one truly wanted to open, not with the threat upon Ivory Reach.

Leland quietly said to Glenny and Carmon, “I asked for a contract to bring Annie back from oblivion. The Soul Lord said no.”

He left out the fact that the Soul Lord did say it was possible and that he could do it once he became a Lord. It would only get their hopes up or get them killed trying to become Lords themselves.

Glenny’s shoulders slumped and Carmon’s forehead hardened. Both weren’t caught off guard, per say, but both lost what small shred of hope remained in their hearts. Silently father and son finally stepped over the hill prevalent in their minds after sharing a long look with one another.

Carmon was first to recover. “When are we leaving?”

“Now hold on,” Roy said, entering the conversation for the first time. “Last time we went up against this group, we were outplayed. Ashford and the Witch know us better than anyone, and the cult knows the boys and perhaps more importantly, Isobel. We need a plan first and foremost.”

“The plan is simple,” Leland said. “Dad opens a portal to where Sybil is located, and we take her to Gelo and Floe’s until Ashford’s Lord gets tired of waiting and kills him. Sybil should wake by then and—”

“No,” Spencer interrupted.

“No?”

“That’s not going to work. I can’t just open a portal anywhere in the castle, let alone anywhere near the castle. While I did help set up the spatial securities in the area, I didn’t do them all. I can’t get us into the castle. Sorry.”

Leland looked off into the distance, mechanically slipping a spoon of beans into his mouth. “I see.”

“Leland,” Spencer said tenderly. “I can’t get us into the castle, but I’m not abandoning Sybil or Ivory Reach.”

Lucia piped up, her arm going around her son’s back and squeezing him into a side hug. “Sybil is probably in the safest location she can be. For the time being at least. The castle is a fortress, and the Inquisitors are more than enough to handle some cultists.”

Isobel coughed. “So what then? We just enter the city and announce ourselves to the Inquisitors and tell them not to arrest us and that we can help? Because I don’t see that working out for us.”

“Then we don’t tell them,” Jude said plainly.

Jude Two snapped and pointed at the original. “That’s a good idea. We play in the shadows, hunting down cultists and building an information pool like we did the first time we fought the cult.”

Roy shook his head. “No. If we do it like that, then the Inquisitors would surely find out and try to apprehend us. We’d look too suspicious.”

“What if we go straight for the Witch and Ashford?” Glenny suggested.

“A thought,” his father said. “Dangerous and potentially just a time sink. They would know they are being hunted and would have covered their tracks.”

“What about sending a note?” Leland asked.

“A note?”

“To Aunty P explaining what happened, why it happened, and how Isobel and I got Sybil back.”

“Maybe,” Spencer said, “a gamble. She might heighten the guard because we reach out. There’s no guarantee she’ll believe the note anyway.”

“Then we make her have to believe the note.” Leland was now looking to the endless blue sky, ideas forming.

Isobel smiled. “We show up and help a guard unit when they are about to die.”

“Not exactly what I was thinking, but in essence yes.”

“Then what?”

Leland took another bite. “We take out one of the cult’s hideouts. We already know how they hide them in alleys with sigils. Finding a branch won’t be that hard.”

Jude snapped and pointed. “We play in the shadows until we can make a grand entrance!”

Roy said, “Sounds too close to what was just suggested. If the Inquisitors find out we are in the city, we are going to be apprehended.”

“But do we even have to enter the city?” Leland asked, turning to his father. “We have portals and I can magically see sigils. We remotely search every alley, only opening a portal for a second so I can look around.”

Spencer weighed the options. “It has potential, but I still don’t know if taking out a cult hideout would be a good enough option for Aunty P to accept us with open arms. She’s paranoid. She’d think it was a ploy.” He then added, “Plus, I don’t know what kind of defenses have been set up in the capital. They know my magic well. They surely would be on high alert for portals.”

They continued to discuss, wading well into lunch by the time they came up with anything solid. By the time everyone was finished eating, a portal was opened to the capital and everyone walked in, leaving the mirages behind.