They couldn’t remain under the brilliance of the Angel, so they rowed. Oriz sat on a bench and extended grass to the other oars, while the humans retreated to the cabin. The cool, clean air of Anton’s storm passed as the temperature returned to a hellish normal. The ship drifted around the cliff and closer to a small rocky shore where they could think without the Angel’s burning scrutiny.

Zoe remained asleep, much to everyone’s displeasure, but they didn’t know what to do to wake her. How could they? When they barely understood what made her collapse.

Bella paced back and forth in the cabin, checking on Zoe every time the boat rocked, until at last a shuddering grind reverberated through the hull and made the mushrooms on the wall shiver with excitement.

They were on the island.

Bella strode out onto the deck as a hatch flew open. The Four-Hearted Wasp sprung out from below and cavorted on the deck.

“The deal is done! The deal is done! I am free!”

Bella glanced back at Zoe, should she ask for another deal? But Oriz walked past her and stood before the demon.

“You are free to go,” she said. “So, go.”

The demon froze in its dancing.

“Of course, of course…”

A terrible buzzing filled the air, and wasp after wasp crawled from the papery holes in its torso. They gripped its bony arms and legs like black and bulging armor before their wings thrummed and lifted the demon off the deck.

“So long fools!” shouted the demon. “I hope you all rot! I hope you all die! I hope you never get home!”

The demon continued to curse them and laugh as it vanished into the steaming clouds. Soon its voice faded, and then too faded the buzzing of wings, and only the lapping of water on the shore remained.

“I hate demons,” said Oriz.

“I don’t think the One-Eyed Crow was as bad as…” Bella trailed off. “No, you’re right. Demons suck.”

“The absolute worst,” added Skidmark. “Now, I would love to know what our plan is?”

Anton shivered.

“Usually, the boss, uh, Zoe comes up with those.”

“She’s still asleep.”

“Is there anything we can do about that?” Bella asked. “I’m starting to worry.”

Oriz shook her head.

“She overtaxed her Skein,” she said with confidence. “The same thing affected me after exiting the [Mirror Bell] dungeon. She will wake, and she will be fine. Right now, she needs rest.”

“Alright…” Bella wasn’t completely convinced, but she pushed on. “We need to complete the [Epiphany of the Flesh], that’s why we’re here. Do we… just cut off pieces of the angel and eat them?”

Oriz tapped her chin in thought.

“I don’t see why not. Some worlds might consider it heresy, but… Anton, what do you think?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You met with the Smith, right?”

He shivered again.

“I…”

“Did he say anything about our situation?”

“He said it was a check-up, that I shouldn’t be able to look upon the Angel, but that because of this,” he showed the eye in the center of his chest. “Because of Zoe’s surgery, I’ve sort of cheated my way to getting there.”

Oriz’s eyes widened.

“You can look upon the Angel?”

He shrugged.

“It hurts, but I can look.”

“What does that thing do?” Skidmark said, staring at his chest with fascination. “Surely it does more than just look.”

Anton stiffened.

“The system delayed the [Epiphany of the Eye] reward, but… I still feel it digging through my skin. Whatever is happening to me, it hasn’t stopped, not yet. I’m not sure what it will do.”

They all stared at his chest for a moment, and the eye staring out from between the cloth of grass Oriz had conjured. The eye winked, and they recoiled.

“I wonder if delayed rewards have anything to do with the Gambler’s death?” Bella mused. “He was in charge of that department.”

“Alright,” Oriz said as she snapped her fingers and wove Anton’s vest into a shirt. “From what I saw, climbing down from the top will be easier than climbing up from the shore. Less danger of that blood dripping on us as well. I will cut the flesh and retrieve it for the rest of you.”

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“Do we know how much it will take to complete the epiphany?” Skidmark asked. “I don’t know how comfortable I am eating an Angel…”

“You ate God earlier,” Bella said.

“That’s different. Communion is an established practice.”

“Are you religious or aren’t you?”

Skidmark ignored the question.

“I want to walk up the island with you. I’m sick of this boat.”

“Me too,” Anton said. “I can look upon the Angel, I want to help.”

“I guess…” Bella gazed into the cabin. “I’ll keep an eye on Zoe,” she said as her voice fell into a whisper. “She’s earned some rest.”

“We’ve all earned rest,” Skidmark said, but as the joke fell flat, she walked to the edge of the boat and set about lowering the ramp.

Anton walked over to help.

Oriz and Bella stood there for a moment.

“I’m so happy —” Bella started.

“I don’t want —” Oriz said at the same time.

They paused, started, and stopped. Oriz held up her hand.

“You first.”

“I’m happy you have your Skein back,” she said. “I know you’re strong and capable anyway, but it’s good to know you have all your tricks back.”

Oriz smiled.

“There are a lot of tricks.”

“What did you want to say?”

Oriz glanced at the cabin.

“I don’t want you to think things will change, now that I have my power back.”

“Why would things change?”

Oriz’s lips quirked into a smile.

“I don’t know, I just didn’t want you to think they would.”

“OK, you better get going. Maybe the flesh will wake, Zoe?”

“Maybe.”

They kissed and hugged fiercely, and their lips met again pressed so tight until they pulled away and Bella tasted a prick of blood upon her lips. Oriz’s perfect white smile had sharper teeth than any human. She dabbed at it while her heart fluttered.

“Hurry back,” she said.

“Of course I will. Don’t get too bored without me.”

The ramp slid down into the mud.

Oriz, Anton, and Skidmark all used the wooden plank for the formality of it all as they touched down on the shore and started their hike up the rocky slope. Steam swept in and obscured them, as though Anton’s storm had never been.

Soon, Bella could no longer trace their outlines, and then the slapping of their shoes on rock faded. She sighed and walked back into the cabin. The captain’s chair looked rotten — she had no idea how Anton sat in it — and so she sat on the bed beside Zoe.

“I hope you wake up soon,” she said as she stroked Zoe’s cheek. “It’s not the same without you.”

She hoped beyond hope that the gentle sound of her voice would be enough to wake her friend, but Zoe’s face only tightened as she turned over in her sleep, plagued by something that could only be a dream as fevered as the waters outside.

###

Zoe wandered through an unknown land. The damp, scaly ground slipped underfoot as she marched uphill. The peak lay in the distance, rippling in the heat, eternally distant as every step brought her closer. Paradox of dream. She knew she wasn’t awake the same way she knew she was alive; with horrific, gripping, certainty.

For her hands were her own. Brown-wrapped flesh without silver or chain. No clink as her fingers bunched into fists. Her pulse echoed in the bends of her knuckles. Heat in her touch as she cradled her head.

No Black Star chimed in her mind.

No flutter of moth wings upon her heart.

Only herself, and the fire upon her back as she climbed, seeking something she knew must be freedom. It had to be. Must be. Some escape from doom.

Please.

She could not know.

Yet still, she worked her way up, through the sweltering heat of the air, leaning forward to stop herself from sliding back, ever trudging on. The heat increased as she climbed. Air rippled before her eyes. Every breath scorched her lungs. It buckled her, and she crawled, head bowed, not gazing at the zenith but only at her hands as she gripped the pale cracked ground — like clay baked into tessellation. No matter how much weight she put on the scaly ground, it didn’t budge. Her fingers bled from grasping the edges as she climbed ever upward.

Sweat dripped into her eyes. Her fingers cramped. Breathes faltered. She could only take so much before she failed. And she slid back down the slope, losing progress, falling toward the source of the heat on her back, toward the mysterious horror she climbed to evade.

Until chains wrapped around her arms.

No.

Let me slide.

Let me sink away into the nothingness of fire below. Why climb toward uncertainty when oblivion can take away all faltering?

ding!

The chains tightened around her wrists and dragged her until she stopped sliding.

ding!

She rested her cheek against the slope and waited for the Black Star to say something, but no words came. Chains looped around her waist and hugged her to the ground. She couldn’t slide back if she wanted to.

ding!

ding!

ding!

Each chime came like a whisper, like her mother’s hand upon her back when she was a child laid low by fever. That dark room, tangled in the sheets, and her mother a welcoming shadow — reaching out from the dark with love and comfort — but even her mother left.

Abandoned her to die in some corner of the world without another word. She peered through cracked eyes at the alien world; her lashes like a forest of looming pine.

Zoe forced a breath in, and out, and struggled to crawl. The chains weighed her down as much as they held her up. Didn’t she have a technique for this? But in the haze of heat, she could not think, and so she only crawled, like a toddler, like a wounded dog, ever upward.

ding!

Hair hung wet in her eyes, damp with sweat, and at last, she looked up.

The peak lay as distant as ever. Could she ever reach it? The chains loosened slightly, still holding her, but she knew —with horrific living certainty — that she could throw herself free and they would not catch her. The peak, she could leave it behind. The flames beneath would embrace her.

To die in a dream?

Where does that send you if you do not wake?

A cool hand brushed against her cheek. She blinked. Moth crouched before her — perfect reflection made of reflection — and in her face of smiling concern Zoe saw herself — a mess — sweaty — bloodied from her long scraping fall — tired — beaten down — she wanted to scream at the sight of herself but the burning air in her lungs barely let her whimper.

“Go away.”

For how could any of them come here?

She wanted to reach out, touch the Skein around their souls, and drive them away. Away from the ugliness. From the scarred lips that only grinned when she could take something for herself.

Moth’s arms wrapped around her. Her limbs were like frosted glass, and Zoe shuddered. Wanted to pull away, but didn’t.

Didn’t want to pull away.

“We once had an opportunity,” Moth whispered as soft as her fluttering wings. “A choice.”

“No…”

“And you devoured me.”

Zoe wept. Her tears a hideous thing. Steaming like molten iron dripping into water.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, and then, with the paradoxical clarity of a dream. “Come under these chains. Let them take you to the peak. You can do it, I know you can, let me stay here while you go on.”

Please.

Don’t make me keep crawling.

I’m so tired.

I don’t have the strength.

I never did.

Please.

Ding!

Zoe…

Moth’s hand ran along her cheek. So cold, so comforting.

“Is that what you want, Zoe?”

Zoe looked up into Moth’s reflective gaze, ready to answer with the truth in her heart, not knowing what words would come, but not fearing the outcome — finally ready — but she gasped. For in that mirrored face, she spied a fat black wasp crawling along her shoulder. It buzzed its wings and hovered before her face.

“Touching, tragic, truly it is,” said the Four-Hearted Wasp. “But, I can offer another path between struggle and surrender. I can offer strength.”