At the Altou estate, Yvette observed the two factions "engage in a spirited debate" (a polite way of saying they’d screamed at each other but stopped short of violence). Pleading university duties, she excused herself and rode a carriage to campus.

For centuries, clandestine supernatural cabals had masked their identities at secret meetings. Her own club—a gaggle of aging roleplayers—mimicked these societies, albeit with members fully aware of each other’s backgrounds.

Such groups often adopted thematic aliases: zodiac signs, Greco-Roman gods, Tarot arcana.

But what pattern guided the Black-Cloaked Man and Duran’s faction? The codename "Lord of the Boiling Blood Lake," paired with clues from Pen-Tipped Izla Island, hinted at geographic references. Unraveling this could expose their relics.

Yvette’s edge? She alone knew Duran’s alias. Reverse-engineering their naming rules beat sifting through dead ends.

Yet instinct warned her: "Boiling Blood Lake" must stay hidden from her superiors. Whenever she slew a supernatural being, she dreamed of them—her powers swelling, nearing the brink of Originium’s second stratum. Something unnatural pulsed beneath these gains.

Library first. If I uncover leads, I’ll leak them anonymously to Special Missions.

The Royal University’s classical archives brimmed with knowledge—yet her bookish refuge shattered as she spotted her effusive advisor. She dodged behind shelves, shielding herself with a folio.

Saved. No more enduring empty chatter after that farcical spat. A gasp betrayed her: a ginger-haired student gaped nearby.

“You’re Fis—mmph!”

Her palm stifled his cry. Recognition dawned—a classmate from the advisor’s circle. She withdrew her hand, pressing a finger to her lips.

“Gary, wasn’t it?”

The crimson-faced youth nodded wildly. Gods above—the enigmatic beauty!

Lately, Gary’s cessation of ogling the advisor’s daughter had earned praise for “newfound scholarly focus.” Only he knew his obsession had shifted from the girl to her silver-haired peer.

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“I’d appreciate quiet,” Yvette murmured. “Almost cost me with that shout.”

“S-Sorry!” Gary stood ramrod-stiff, marveling at her: the effortless grace, the commanding gesture—a noblebred scholar with rogueish intensity!

But why rifle through books so briskly? Scanning indexes, flipping pages…

“…Ives?”

“Yes?”

“Are you… researching something?”

“The Boiling Blood Lake. Know any sources—poems, logs, myths?”

Gary blinked. “That’s… infernal. Dante’s seventh circle—Charon ferries souls across it.”

Charon—the centaur guardian. Not a place—a mythic beast!

Lightning struck. Their names follow legendary monsters!

“Brilliant! Dinner’s yours next week!” She dashed off, leaving Gary breathless.

Dinner?! With him?! Saints preserve me—

“The Divine Comedy... Yes, that’s the one.”

Yvette located the rusted filing cabinet deep within Scotland Yard’s archives, just as Chief Superintendent Altair had described. Inside were remnants from the cultists’ lair—most forbidden texts had been seized, leaving behind mundane journals and thrillers. Her fingers finally brushed against a battered copy of The Divine Comedy. There, in faded ink on page 109, glared the damning note: October 9th, Canary Wharf, S.S. Seagull.

Duran’s handwriting. The proof was indisputable—this book had passed from his hands to the cultists’, a ledger of their dark pact.

Canary Wharf... where the ritual dagger had entered the city, according to Winslow. On the 9th, Duran delivered the blade. By the 11th, blood soaked the Moulin Rouge. By the 14th—the day she’d awoken in this world—Duran lay butchered, his stolen Quintessence grafted via the cult’s grisly ritual. The timing fit like a coffin’s nails.

She presented the book to Altair in his cluttered parlor.

“Either you’re clairvoyant,” the Chief Superintendent muttered, squinting at the annotation, “or the rest of us are blind. How did we miss this? Duran’s handiwork, plain as day.”

He tacked the page to his macabre evidence wall. Three crimson threads sprouted like veins: one to Duran’s file, one to the cultist Thomas Simon, and one to a nameless face in an unmarked photograph.

“Consider Scotland Yard, Miss Fisher,” Altair pressed. “Your instincts are wasted on freelance work. I’ll see you rewarded, of course—recommendations, bonuses—”

Escaping his enthusiasm, Yvette retreated to Hampstead Heath. Ulysses’ butler awaited with arctic courtesy.

“Master Ives,” Winslow intoned, smile colder than the Thames in January. “How… fortunate you’ve survived your adventures.”

Dinner was a silent siege. Winslow served her a quivering goblet of punch—the loathsome Albion tradition of raw egg whites, spirits, and cloying spice. Ulysses, ever the provocateur, sniffed theatrically:

“Ah! Notes of garden slugs and fish guts. A classic vintage.”

When he reached for the cup, Winslow materialized like a vengeful specter. “Kindly consume your own punishment, sir. And no transmuting it into gin this time.”

Yvette ate her roast pheasant to the melody of Ulysses’ muted gagging.

———

Days later, under the Tower of London’s shadowed battlements, a prisoner writhed under leeches etched with anti-magical runes—Witch-Leeches, designed to shackle transcendent powers.

He was the man from the photograph. The third thread.

Unseen and unknown, another piece moved on the board.