They all turned to see Ocyl striding through the gardens adorned in elegant steel armor inlaid with pure white ivory or perhaps white jade. A hundred-odd Porcelain Guard filled the garden about him. By the power thrumming in his voice, he wore strings as well.

"You weren't invited," Jaxe said, his pleasant tone suddenly much more forced. "This is a private affair."

"Not so private as you think," Ocyl said, glancing at Aida with an indecipherable look then looking among the children and Wretches. "Seems like there's a few dozen too many onlookers present for this to be entirely private."

"Stay out of it or I kill them," Jaxe snarled, his knife point dropping just below the girl Avani's eye.

"Hm," Ocyl said, rubbing his lips. "I may see a small problem here..."

He leaned forward, his voice falling flat. "You see, I don't happen to care if you kill a bunch of tiny Pale menials and Wretched plague carriers. I do kind of feel like killing a Dynast who's as ugly on the inside as the out, just so I can cut him open and confirm my suspicions to that affect."

Jaxe took half a step back, his blade lowering. "Ocyl, Ocyl. My friend. Be reasonable..."

"The count of my friends is lower than the fingers of one hand and I assure you, the only hand I'm inclined to offer you is a fist. As for being reasonable, I have more reasons that you can imagine, my dear Jaxe," he replied. With a tiny flicking gesture, his Porcelain Guard rushed forward, silent but for the clank of their armor on the stone.

"I'll gut you, dice you, and let you regrow to do it again for this!" Jaxe shouted, backpedaling. His men glanced at him uncertainly and Jaxe thrust a finger at the Porcelain Guard. "Kill them!"

His men shoved the children and Wretches aside to create room for fighting as they readied their weapons. They formed a rough line, spears and swords bristling towards Ocyl's Ferals as javelins, arrows, and crossbow bolts flew both directions. The Wretches proved to have the good sense to grab the kids and drag them from the battleground.

Jaxe, meanwhile, fled into the dome. Huge brass doors slammed into the archways as soon as he was through, sealing it tight.

Aida growled, the sound layering and amplifying as she dark memories roiled through her head. Broadaxe hewed by Jaxe's huge sword back in the Jadeye Cupola. The Professor impaled alive by Cleft Hand in the Tangle. Viviana struck down in Berujat by an arbitrary spear cast by the Ancients' command. Stiller and the falling stone that crushed his voice. All of her people who suffered, starved, and died in Heaven's Tread, the One-Eighth, and Berujat. Each in turn looked at her imploringly with every shift of her minds eye to focus on them, each memory folding another layer of sound into the crescendoing build of her voice.

When Ryk turned to look at her in her mind, the Ryk she fell in love with and who died for her, the sound broke in a tsunami of pain and anguish. As Jaxe's troops rushed forward and slammed into Ocyl's, she detonated the smaller dome. She'd envisioned blasting the doors open so she could chase Jaxe, but the fury of her voice struck a resonant chord with the crystal. Every meter of it exploded separately, hurtling ringing chunks of jagged quartz shrapnel in every direction.

Ghillie shielded Aida with her body and slammed her down as Ocyl and Jaxe's forces alike shouted, screamed, and tumbled away from the structure like bits of rag in a hurricane.

Bewildered, dazed, and half-deaf, Aida pushed Ghillie off of her and stood up, staring at the jagged circle of broken-off dome serving as the origin of a sprayed fan of white quartz debris arcing away from Aida through the remnants of what had been the crystal garden on the far side. Her shout had rung out with such force, the hunks of flying stone knocked holes in, jutted from, and crept a huge, popping crack across the top of the larger white dome capping the Jaxestack.

The should do it, Ghillie signed, wincing and dusting quartz shards and pebbles from her suit.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Want to be sure. He's like a cockroach," Aida mumbled, walking unsteadily towards the remains of the inner dome.

Ocyl grabbed her shoulders and turned her away after only a few steps towards it. "I think not. Not even a cockroach could survive that."

"I didn't know they had cockroaches in the Book," Aida said, shaking her head and blinking in an attempt to silence the ringing in her ears.

"They don't," Ocyl said, taking her hand and pressing two cloth-wrapped objects into it.

"They don't?" she said dazedly, glancing down at the fine, white silk bags sitting in her hand. One was a bit bigger than her fist, the other much smaller. "More surprises? Not sure how much more I can take."

He said nothing as she unwrapped, merely staring at his Porcelain Guard as they pulled each other to their feet, searched for lost weapons and equipment, chased away what was left of Jaxe's troops, and inspected each other for wounds. Jaxe's surviving Ferals rushed off to scour the dome's remnants for signs of Jaxe. Their initial frantic rush quickly turned to a defeated slump as the extend and thoroughness of the devastation crushed their hopes.

"Sorry about your guards. Didn't mean to be so..."

"Loud?" he suggested, smiling slightly. He made a throwing away gesture. "If the Imminent are to be believed, I won't need my Ferals much longer. Eth just told me to get here about now, keep you from handing yourself over to Jaxe's 'mercies' like a sentimental fool, and then we were only a few moves from tipping the King. Paraphrasing, of course."

The first bag contained a well-polished, much worn empty bean can still wrapped in yellowed "Clover Farm" label showing green beans. Half the rim had come off and the lid was missing. All she could muster was a blank "...what?"

Ocyl reached over towards her neck and plucked at the necklace hidden under her shirt. She lifted the thin silver crescent and, after staring at it for a moment, placed it to meet the missing half of the rim. A near-perfect fit.

"Wait, you've been to... so you were, you are... my..."

"Yes," he said, studying her.

"But... but..." she felt like her already-mushy brain was melting as she looked back at him, her eyes suddenly watery. "Back in Heaven's Tread, with the naked and the gun and..."

"I never said I was a good one," Ocyl said, smiling wryly. He abruptly turned to leave.

"Wait!" she said, reaching for him automatically. He glanced down at her hand on his shoulder, then gently removed it.

"There's still more yet to do before all this ends," he said, staring up at the span of the larger crystalline dome above them. "And you should leave before the demons get here."

"More like... wait, there's demons now?"

"Saw them piling out of the Thorn as we sailed away," he said, pursing his lips tight. "And heard the screams of the people of Thornspire. Fortunately, most of the monsters don't swim, but plenty of those who do will be here eventually."

"When was someone going to tell me about there being demons here?" Aida said, feeling three steps behind again like when she'd first gotten to the Book. "And what the hell am I supposed to do now?"

"Terminus," he said, tossing her a 'nail.

"Terminus?"

"Then home."

"You mean the One-Eighth?" She paused, looking down at the can. "Or the farmhouse? I don't know how to get back there. How am I supposed to find Earth again? If I do, I sure as hell ain't going back to the nursing home. Isn't there a pile of demons at the Thorn? And what important stuff do you have to rush off to do? Got another secret daughter to rescue?"

"There's another Thorn at Jaxe's Spear. Supposed to be Jaxe's little secret, but he is - was now I suppose - not nearly so clever as he thought. As you so thoroughly proved," he said, patting her on the cheek, looking deeply into her eyes for a long moment, then turning away and snapping his fingers to draw his Porcelain Guard back about him. "As for me, I have to ensure I survive until the end so as to make sure it all begins. Apparently."

He rolled his eyes and shot her a flicker of smile. "Imminent, can't live with them, can't perpetuate a looped, fabricated, parasitic reality without them."

"A looped parasitic what?" she said, but he was already striding off amid his small army of Ferals.

She stared down at the can for a long moment, then slowly opened the other bag and dumped its contents into her palm. After so much time in The All, it took a moment for her to realize what she held in her hand. A black queen chess piece.

"'Fucking Queen' my ass," she muttered, smiling in spite of herself. "You knew about chess all along."

When she looked up again, only the last of his Porcelain Guard remained visible through the half-wrecked garden.

"Father."