“Well, instead of zero leads we have six,” said Will, poring over his notes. If he had a pinboard, several photographs, and an abundance of red string, he would have had them strung up like a detective, or possibly a serial killer.

As it was, though, he merely had a dozen books and twice as many loose pages arranged into poorly-balanced stacks.

Virgil was sitting some distance away, as if Will was projecting an invisible barrier he dared not cross.

“Why not seven? Daphnis might still have something.” Virgil asked.

“I don’t think that’s likely,” Will said, grabbing a piece of paper. “We already got the clue in the form of Skullcrusher, so we need to find something somewhere else.”

“I don’t follow,” Virgil said blankly, picking up a scrap of paper that had fallen.

“I think whoever this culprit is, he wants us to find him.”

“What? Why?” Virgil asked, more than a little surprised.

“I don’t know. But if he’s so good at covering his tracks, it’s weird that he left obvious threads to follow. He left just enough information to lead us to the tomb, and Skullcrusher, and then the lead on the Scribes.”

“That’s a very extraordinary claim. If this mystery man is also controlling the Taint, then why would he be leaving clues that lead us to finding and stopping him?”

“I don’t know,” Will said again. “But I think this is the best lead we have, so we should still pursue it.”

“It could very easily be a trap,” Virgil said.

“Traps are only dangerous if you don’t see them coming,” Will countered, his tone perfectly confident. “If we assume it is a trap, we can prepare for that.”

Virgil did not share Will’s unwavering confidence but decided that he didn’t need to. “Okay, what’s our next move? Does anything here give you any ideas?”

“I had a letter here, I swear it was just here a second ago…” Will said.

Virgil finished scanning the paper he was holding and handed it to Will.

“Yes, this one, thanks. It’s addressed to Daphnis, from Polybius. It mentions a mansion that isn’t like anything else here, and that the architect has no idea where the designs came from. It reminds me a bit of the memory-holes Skullcrusher has, and how his master used earth terminology he’d never heard anywhere else.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“So this mansion was designed by the same person, you think?” Virgil asked.

“Or someone connected to them, or something,” Will corrected. “But there’s definitely a similarity there, don’t you think?”

“I can see it,” agreed Virgil. “Arcadia is as good a lead as any. Not my kind of place, but… I trust you.”

“What’s it like?” Will asked.

“Polybius is the Scribe of Pride, so his domain is all about competition and bragging rights and all that kind of nonsense.” Virgil said dismissively. “There’s always games and competitions and leaderboards and arguments… it’s exhausting. Rex and Dio cannot get enough of the place.”

“You’ve been?” Will asked, which he realized was pretty redundant to ask.

“A few times. It’s actually where I met Dio, so if you really want every little detail, ask him about it. He used to literally live there, which sounds like a nightmare.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Will said, thinking of Julia’s hobby of speedrunning generation 4 Pokemon games.

“Your housing is tied to how well you score. If someone breaks your record you get booted down to a worse living space.” Virgil said in a flat, unhappy tone.

“Okay, maybe it can be that bad. But we don’t need to live there, we just need to investigate that mansion.” Will paused, thinking. “The mansion is the house of the highest-ranking competitor, isn’t it?”

Virgil laughed. “Oh, no, no, no. Nobody lives in Pick’s Mansion. It’s like an artificial dungeon where you fight monsters and loot treasure to score points. It’s all a big game.”

“Oh thank god, if I had to run a marathon or something I think I’d just lay down and die,” said Will, forgetting how he now had roughly equivalent speed and stamina to many Olympic athletes.

Virgil got up and headed out of the room. He paused in the doorway and said “You’ve been in here for hours. Why don’t you come get some breakfast?”

“I’m fine, I just ate… several… hours ago. Wait, breakfast? What time is it?” Will asked, checking his watch which he didn’t have.

“Probably about six,” Virgil said. “Were you in here all night?”

“I kind of got into the zone,” Will said half-apologetically. “I took a power nap like two hours ago, so I’m not that tired.”

Virgil looked at Will doubtfully. “At least come get some food, okay? You can’t work on an empty stomach.”

Will started to say something, stopped, and then said something else. “Okay. What’s on the menu?”

“I think I’m gonna make omelets. You like omelets?”

“I love omelets,” Will said, which Virgil already knew.

In fact, Glory was in the kitchen right now cutting up mushrooms for Will’s breakfast, because that was his favorite omelette filling. Sharing a metaphysical link with a mind-reader did have some advantages.