Yvette dispatched the report via raven to the Tower of London headquarters that very night. Sleep would elude many—the organization’s psychics would swarm forth, purging memories of the occult ritual from every club affiliate’s mind.

Yet Yvette’s concern lay elsewhere: the lone surviving photograph. After days of scrutiny, the artifact division declared it safe for crafting—a rare relic pulsating with latent power.

“Scholarly gold, this!” Maskin admitted two days later, bloodshot eyes testament to sleepless analysis. “Half my colleagues would duel you for it. But… if you’d consider trading…”

Ulysses’ theory held: the “angel” was a vestigial, a half-summoned entity that trapped souls through ritual games. Defeated by Yvette, it now lay dormant—a macabre trophy.

Unlike the Barnacle Scion’s brute shadow-pulling, this feeble spirit needed willing players. Its unfinished state, however, bound both sides to fair rules: lose the game, forfeit your soul.

“What does the photo create?” Ulysses pressed.

“A proxy amulet,” Maskin explained. “Slight luck, but its true worth lies in diverting harm. Imagine a bullet’s trajectory—the amulet twists fate’s dice, making misses likelier. Useless against expert strikes, but a godsend amidst chaos.”

Yvette frowned. “At what cost?”

“The amulet cracks instead of your ribs—heals slower than flesh. Overload it, and it shatters.” Maskin hesitated. “Also… side effects. Melancholy, perhaps. Or surviving disasters while others drown. Eldritch crafts always bite.”

Yvette weighed options. Her nightmare ring (five uses left) versus this cursed pendant…

“Unless,” Maskin added, “you line it with crown gold—regal consecrations dampen curses. But seven-coronation metals? Myths!”

As Yvette despaired, Ulysses summoned a servant. From his macabre collection room emerged a box—inside, a gnarled golden arrow. Its twisted shaft told of unthinkable battles.

“Melt this,” Ulysses ordered. “St. Edward’s original crown—smashed by Cromwell’s lot. Reforged post-Restoration. Albion’s lost treasure.”

Maskin drooled. “Return unused scraps,” Ulysses warned.

“Sir, this is too—” Yvette protested.

“No petitions. Unless”—cold eyes glinted—“you prefer a collar for future recklessness?”

She gulped. “Necklace suffices.”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Alone later, Ulysses caressed the arrow—old ghosts haunting his gaze. Yvette puzzled: why did a French exile hold Albion’s crown-metal?

“House Fische’s legacy, sir?” she ventured.

“Gone. We shed French titles during exile. Albion honors suffice.”

History here bent oddly: France escaped revolution despite funding American rebels. Monarchy lingered.

“Regrets?” Yvette instantly regretted asking.

“None.” A head-pat dismissed further queries.

As Ulysses left, Yvette sensed half-truths. To lose nobility was shame—yet his reticence hinted deeper secrets.

Fifteen days had elapsed since the crystal-assisted Advancement. With her nightmares and visions subsiding, Yvette judged herself ready for the second dose.

At Ulysses’ and Winslow’s urging, the ritual unfolded in Hampstead Manor’s guarded chambers.

“Master Ives,” Winslow inquired after lighting the ceremonial incense, “if I may—what creed guides you?”

“Creed?” Most contemporaries paid lip service to Trinitarian doctrines—Catholic France, Anglican Albion. But as a time-displaced soul, Yvette answered truthfully: “I was atheist… until Awakening proved gods exist. Now? A materialist, I suppose.”

Winslow’s teacup clattered. While European salons buzzed with Deism’s fashionable half-measures—a Clockmaker God winding creation before retreating—such blunt irreligion marked one as a dangerous radical.

“How… unconventional. Yet beneficial for the Third Source’s trials.”

“Because heretical visions break the pious?”

“Exactly.” The knight’s gaze turned inward. “No Edenic genesis. No paternal God. Only cosmic entities oblivious to our ant-like struggles. When devotees grasp this… minds crumble like overbaked shortbread.”

Yvette connected the dots—Winslow’s confessed lack of purpose, his clinging to chivalric codes as existential armor. Had his own Ascension unveiled truths that unmoored him?

“I reject scripture,” she countered, “not its virtues. Why does a moral code’s origin—god or mortal—matter? Goodness persists regardless. Even your Ulysses walks the Mortal Path!”

Winslow’s startled laugh held self-reproach. “Out-knighted by an heretic! You’re right—Salah ad-Din proved virtue needs no baptism. Perhaps…” He straightened, the stalwart retainer returning. “…a soul’s compass matters more than who forged it.”

As Winslow regained footing, Yvette mused on Awakened fragility. They armored themselves with oaths and disciplines against the Old Gods’ erosive whispers, yet none emerged unscathed—obsessions, tempers, existential dreads. If Winslow’s flaw was doubt… what cracks lay beneath Ulysses’ polished veneer?

The crystal’s prismatic surface caught firelight. It struck her then: Other paths—Kegan’s ascetic vows, Schall’s unyielding justice—demanded sainthood. But the Mortal Path’s endgame wasn’t angelic perfection—it was ordinariness. Flaws intact. Heart still human.

Sleep took her to a mirage-palace where a dual-sexed throne guardian—serpent scepter in one hand, occult lantern in the other—heralded her Third Source awakening: [Grandeur] , the “Primordial Balance” symbolized through androgeny.

Through the guardian’s gaze, she witnessed Earth’s infancy—a sterile hellscape of volcanic tides and methane gales. Lightning lashing primordial soup birthed amino acids, then single-celled pioneers. Eons accelerated: gilled wanderers crawling ashore, dinosaurs ruling then fossilizing… Life’s grand experimental theater.

She awoke clutching crystal dust—the entire odyssey compressed into hours. Miller-Urey’s 1953 experiment echoed this vision: lightning animating life’s building blocks. But here and now, such truths devastated. Ancestry reduced to chemical accidents; humanity a cosmic afterthought beneath indifferent gods… Small wonder minds fractured.

Her 21st-century education cushioned the blow—no shattered paradigms, just dull awe at Time’s scale. Advancement achieved, yet triumph felt… petty. Like an ant boasting of conquering a molehill.