“The Siren of Astervad,” Kezko said, his prosthetic eye dilating as he inspected Momo’s rapier. They sat side by side in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, two undead stallions and a bony coachman carrying them south. “If she’s still alive, she’ll be more than enough for you.”

“It’s that second part I’m concerned about,” Momo said skeptically.

After it was decided that Momo would set out on a monster hunt, Kezko had elected himself pointman for the expedition. After all, besides being an artificer, he was a well-respected monster finder—not a monster hunter, if that wasn’t clear—but a very good locator of beasts. It was what had brought him to the top of the Twin Ivories: a search for dragons.

It wasn’t that Momo doubted his talents. It was just that she doubted his… timeframe. Being in a cryogenic coma for a couple decades was much like getting abruptly released after a long-term jail sentence; things on the outside just weren’t the same.

“The Siren has been around for many more years than I was paralyzed,” Kezko murmured, setting down the rapier on his lap to pick an instrument from his satchel. It was a tiny hammer, one he used to lightly tap at the mana gem embedded in the hilt. It resonated against the stone with a shrill hiss. “She is what they call a myth. And myths do not die.”

Usually because they were never real in the first place, Momo thought, sighing.

Nevertheless, it didn’t really matter. This would be a short trip. They only had to go as far as Bruda, because, if Kezko was to be believed, the Siren resided in the crystal pools located just beneath the mountain village. She would have been more skeptical if she hadn’t sailed the undercanals before, but now she knew from experience that Alois had its wealth of easter eggs.

Also, while she wouldn’t admit it outloud, Momo was quite excited to see Bruda. She hadn’t managed a trip back since the tournament, and the whole ordeal with Nia and Trent. The latter of the two who was still completely AWOL, a fact that kept Momo regularly up at night. She couldn’t help but feel partially responsible for his whole call-to-evil thing. Well, not as responsible as Nia, who orchestrated his entire indoctrination without a smidge of guilt, but still, Momo felt bad. He had been a child.

The horses neighed, bucking as the undead carriage came to a sliding halt.

They had slipped into the town under the cape of night, the village’s only illumination being the effervescent fireflies that hung in the air like floating fairy lights. Momo inhaled, stepping out of the guest compartment and onto the paved, well-manicured city street, and smiled. There was a nostalgic flavor to the cold mountain air; she could still smell the residue of the honeydew milk that was always sold at the market stalls.

Just ahead of her, standing just as imperious as it did during that fateful tournament, was Devola’s School of Dance, even grander now than it was before—taller, with several more floors, and a refurbished red roof. Its studios were seemingly still alive with action, even at night. The flickering shadow of a dancer shuffled from one panel of the panoramic window to the next. Fireflies swarmed around the side of the building, drawn to the motion.

“This is a strange place,” Kezko muttered, and Momo could only laugh in agreement.

“You should have seen it back in the day,” she said. “The giant sentient glob of zombie goo would have been right up your alley, I think.”

“Oh, now I’m just jealous,” he whistled. “How many wonderful things I’ve missed.”

—

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“What I don’t understand,” Momo said between huffing breaths, her muscles straining. “Is why she’s called the Siren of Astervad, if she lives in Bruda.”

“I don’t see why that’s confusing,” he said, then diverted. “Where did you grow up, Momo?”

She tossed another rock over her shoulder.

“How is that related?”

Kezko stood behind her, useless as a blunt knife, as Momo carved her hands into dirt. They had walked past the dance school, ambled through Bruda’s residential neighborhoods, until finally coming to a stop in the deadened field that once held Lione’s haunted manor.

The grass of the estate had been gray and wilted, the trees mere skeletons of bark. The actual residence had been reduced to a crumbling mess of wooden beams and shards of glass. She had been caught in a twisted sort of reverie, just looking at it, wondering what had become of both Lione and her little brother, when Kezko had pointed to the house’s ashes and said:

“Dig.”

Now, with messy piles of debris mounting behind her—many of which included discarded skeletons from Lione’s many failed experiments—she was almost nearing the bottom of the wreckage.

“Just tell me,” he repeated. “Where did you grow up?”

“I don’t see why it matters, but… San Francisco,” she said, biting down the unease she felt even speaking it aloud.

Seeing her clone just a few days ago—all self-assured, smoking thin cigarettes, talking about kissing girls like it was a hobby and not a pipe dream—had unlocked something inside of her.

A curiosity. Like maybe returning to Earth wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to her.

And that was, in its own way, terrifying.

“And was it called San Francisco three thousand years ago?” Kezko cut in.

Momo frowned, getting his point. “No.”

“So Bruda…”

“Used to be Astervad,” she finished. He hummed. “Right.”

It was easy to forget that this world was just as old as her own, its history just as cluttered. She had both witnessed and introduced so much chaos since arriving, so much turbulent change—it was hard to imagine that all she had seen and done was just a blip on the timeline. A small crease to be inevitably straightened out under Morgana’s heel.

Or Kyros’s paw. Depending on how this goes.

She winced as her hand collided with something hard and hot, like molten lava. Thankfully, her hands were made of Nether now, so the nerve endings there were more suggestion than reality, and the feeling faded as quick as it came. Curious, she shoved aside the remaining pieces of plaster and tile and wood, revealing a stone tablet embedded into the soil.

It was a gravestone.

“Here lies Violet Baumfreund of Astervad,” she said slowly as she read the inscription, her eyes widening. She knew that last name. Was this one of Lione’s… ancestors?

She turned to Kezko, skeptical. “How exactly am I supposed to fight a corpse?”

“Oh, Momo,” he said, wistfully, then came to squat by her side. “Don’t judge a grave by its cover. The only dead thing lurking under here is probably a hundred or so naive adventurers.”

He slammed his black staff on the ground twice, the sound reverberating.

Then he called out, “[Raise Undead].”

All at once, dozens of bodies rose from the dry weeds, Lione’s former test subjects clawing their way back into the world of the living. They were humans, mostly, but some were so fatally altered that it was hard to see them that way—skulls located under femurs, hands below feet.

“Skeletons,” he commanded, clearing his throat. He tapped the gravestone with his staff. “Please move the stone out of the way and escort us to Miss. Baumfreund’s resting place.”

The skeletons obediently crawled to the side of their master, moaning as they dug bony digits into the dirt, just like Momo had. As she watched them carve the gravestone out of the soil, a thought occurred to her. She scowled at Kezko.

“Why did you make me dig if you were planning on doing this the whole time?”

He looked at her as if it was obvious.

“Strength training, darling,” he said, huffing. “Didn’t we discuss this?”

After a few minutes, the gravestone was completely ripped from its resting place. The skeletons placed it aside reverently, with such affection, the sort that only the undead would have for a gravestone; after all, most of them were never blessed with a final resting place.

Underneath it, in the space left behind, the ground opened up like a gaping gullet. And a set of stairs, plated with silver, descended down into dark oblivion. Human bones accompanied each step like ornaments.

Momo gawked at it in disbelief.

This had been sitting under the manor the whole time?

She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. Of course Lione had built her house on top of a grave. No better place to concoct undead abominations than in the midst of your ancestor’s ghosts.

“Come on now,” Kezko said, already proceeding down the stairs. “We have a beautiful concert awaiting us, and I’d like to get front row seats.”