Just a few moments ago I felt elated, felt that I could finally rest. Now I could hardly take a single breath without pain lacing through me.

All of the armored maids were standing upright now.

“Erase the last thirty minutes from the minds of the constables,” Amadea told them.

“Yes, Baroness,” the maids answered as one.

They went around the hall firing spells at the downed constables. I noted that they didn't have armaci... instead they were using some kind of... wand-like, white bones encased in silver metal with gold crystals on the ends.

Amadea turned back to me, a sickly, sweet smile back to her lips.

“My dear,” she said in Tokimorimïtul language. “That was very naughty of you. I am impressed that you were able to destroy our Master’s body. You have risen a lot faster than I expected you to.”

I looked at the inexplicably chatty chimera inhabiting an indestructible human body with tears of pain in my eyes. Where was she going with this? I expected her to snap my neck, to awaken in another universe without another Infinite mirror gone, bearing the loss of yet another Juni on my shoulders.

“What was that magic that ripped my soul away from me?” Amadea suddenly asked.

The diamond heart on her necklace ignited, gold threads piercing through me, drawing the words out of me.

“The ancient Barrier hexagram network of Illatius,” I answered without being able to stop myself. “A manifestation of belief that kills Astral Phantoms.”

“Verrrry interesting,” Amadea purred. “A clever way to end chimera cendai. A pity for your wonderful plot that I can exist without a soul.”

My eyes moved to the diamond on her chest, examining it now that it was so close to me. Its crystal matrix seemed to fold into itself on and on and on. The longer I stared at it the more reflections, lustrous faces and corners I observed. It dawned upon me that I could not simply destroy this damned artifact because just like my knife it was… limitless, a child of the Builders of Andross.

The limitlessness had somehow applied to its bearer, making Amadea immortal, utterly invincible to any attack.

“Ah, you like my little, infinite mirror?” Amadea asked. “She is rather nice. She appreciates the beauty of order, of law.”

“Whose law?” I choked out.

“Mine, obviously,” Amadea said. “You see... your daring plan was doomed to fail from the start, my dear. Had my soul not been bound in magical chains by Eunice, I would have simply surrendered to the constables and held a trial in which the Judiciary of my city would have declared me innocent. I own the courts of Illatius. I'm the face of Justice. All of the current Grandmaster Judges answer to me. Two hundred years is a very long time to acquire property and uplift my own lawmakers to positions of prominence.”

As Amadea spoke, I could not draw my eyes away from the diamond heart, lost in its iterating, absolute splendor of infinite, perfect faces and endless crystalline cells within cells. Like Endy, this artifact was incredible, seemed to be so much more than I had foolishly presumed.

“I must thank you,” the Baroness said. “Eunice’s choker was... somewhat bothersome. With my soul gone, it is gone too. For two centuries I was under its binding, under orders to spread her influence across the Empire. Now I can finally… get to what’s really important.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“My body wishes to indulge in pleasures of the flesh,” Amadea said. “But my diamond heart wishes to impose order and law. It is quite the conundrum. I suppose I’ll continue to guide my lawmakers into introducing more binding laws and seduce more bankers until I fully own this city.”

“Why won’t she just kill me and get it over with?” I thought. "Why is she talking to me, revealing all of her grandiose plans?"

“I bet you’re wondering why I won’t just smash your head in?” Amadea asked, seemingly reading my thoughts.

I looked up at her sly, blood-covered smile.

“I’m a high-cendai,” she said. “I saw the shards of endlessness within you. Killing you won’t do me any good. Your little black knife won’t let you go. I do wish that I could simply snap it in half, but alas… things like it cannot be undone or broken. We must learn to share Illatius. Whatever these divine artifacts are that Eunice had bestowed upon us in her wisdom or perhaps foolishness… they will not let us go, will not let us perish. So… I’ll let you go with a slap on the wrist. There is no need for further violence between us. Having no soul is an inconvenience, but now I won’t have to waste so much time on Eunice’s nonsense anymore.”

She let go of me and I fell back down to the water-covered floor with a yelp. I stared up at her, feeling distraught.

"I had countless spats just like this with the other cendai over the centuries. Everything is cyclical. Everything follows its predetermined path. Everything is bound to loops within loops. I suggest you learn to enjoy the chain you bear as much as it permits you to," Amadea dropped Endy into my lap. "Find a nice human partner, indulge in the pleasures of the flesh, feed on their brief love and devotion. These pitiful, albeit adorable creatures are but tiny moths drawn to our eternal flame."

I grasped the knife with my shaking left hand as Amadea waved her hand at the pacified constables.

"Well?" The baroness leaned closer to me, so close that I could smell the blood all over her body. "Will you attempt to break my infinite chain again or have I convinced you that fighting amongst us is utterly useless?"

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"I broke Eunice's hold over you," I growled. "I can break your diamond heart too…"

"You are welcome to try," Amadea laughed. "Add some flare to our relationship. Give it a century and we'll end up making out under the violet stars and then fighting again over something like a pretty girl’s affection, or a mountain filled with overpriced shinies, or something equally stupid, vapid and temporary."

I blanched at her words. I had no answer to the problem of Amadea. She was immovable, invincible and worst of all she wished to bind the city under her rule.

“Are you going to put Vows on humans?” I asked her, holding my aching, shattered hand.

“Only the naughty boys and girls,” Amadea answered. “The kind that can’t play nice with others. Murderers, thieves, debitors. They all need to be bound into following the law if they cannot control their natural impulses to interfere with the love of others. You’re welcome to visit Palais De La Solstice to discuss further politics with me, my dear. I am feeling like a nice, warm bath after our little scuffle.”

The Baroness turned away from me. I felt like crying. Everything I had done today had seemingly accomplished nothing at all. I had ripped Amadea’s soul away and yet she still lived. I had carved Eunice’s control out of her and yet she still had her own, similar agenda. Amadea didn’t seem irredeemable like Eunice - her plan for curing the city of crime had merit from a standpoint of pure law and order.

I didn’t know how to stop people from killing each other, and had no real answer for a system of perfect justice. The biggest issue that didn't sit right with me was that by law of Illatius debt passed from parents to children. It created a vile system akin to serfdom, a law that permitted Amadea to add more maidens to her personal army.

“I won’t be shaming you in public, but you will not have my financial support until you learn to behave yourselves, daughters,” Amadea passed by Emerald and Agatha. "If you wish to apologize for your insolent words, you may come to my palace in... two weeks time. Perhaps by then I will be in a better mood to forgive you."

Amadea turned away from her daughters. The armored maids followed after the blood-covered Baroness, marching in unison like ants following after their queen.

“Will you help me stop Eunice if she re-manifests?” I yelled at the departing high-cendai.

“Only if she breaks the laws of my city,” Amadea answered without turning.

“Has she not already...?” I asked.

“Giving people something to believe in isn’t a crime,” the Baroness replied. “Humanity can manifest dangerous gods completely beyond our understanding if we let them believe in things without guidance. Perhaps, when Eunisii returns to the physical, she will be reshaped by belief so much that her personality will become less… dominant, more like the idea of her that I wrote into the The Testament of Eunisii Ei. I very much doubt that our dear arch-cendai expected to be killed so early in the game.”

Amadea and her followers sunk into the gloom on the far side of the arched hall. I watched until the darkness swallowed them up. Then, I let out a long, slow breath and started to whimper softly, stilling the broken parts of myself so that they would stop hurting horribly.

Lambert got off the floor with a groan, walked towards me and fired a spell at my hand. The pain became reduced as ruined flesh kneaded itself back together. He sat down, pulled out a cloth and wrapped it around my arm, binding what his spell did not fix.

"Let me guess, we didn't succeed at what we set out to do?" He asked softly.

"Not entirely," I sniffed.

"I knew this was going to happen," Agatha said darkly, rising from the floor.

"It was worth a try," I shrugged.

"I am not apologizing to her!" Emerald barked, limping over to where Lambert and I were sitting on the floor. "Mother can trip over her butt and fall into the Chasm for all I care. I don't need her useless 'support' to get ahead in life!"

Agatha simply sighed as a response.

Inspector Pomegrad opened his eyes with a groan.

"Damnation," he ground out. "My memory has been tampered with. Can anyone recall what happened in the last thirty minutes?"

"The enemies of the Empire got away," Lambert said. "It was a good try, but we had underestimated them."

"Who was it?" Pomegrad asked. "We were supposed to guide Baroness Amadea down here, right?"

"We did. She left now," Lambert said. "I can tell you the details of the case involving our memory-erasing assailants, but knowing it might jeopardize your career as the Inspector of Diamondias. It involves very big players."

"Erm," Pomegrad gulped. "Keep it to yourself then."

He spotted the chimera warriors rising from the floor.

"These are the men you spoke of, Agent Juni?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said. "They're my personal guard. Magogenic-zone born hunters modified by biomancy."

"Very impressive," the Diamondias Inspector nodded. "Guess they couldn't stop whoever attacked us either?"

"Alas, no," I said. "Like I said before, the cultists I'm hunting down here are extremely dangerous. Unfortunately, some very powerful individuals are protecting them."

"I understand," Pomegrad said. His face paled as he made the connection to Baroness Amadea. His Scrutimancy was probably good enough to guess what we didn't say, to figure out what had transpired beneath his mall.

"Call me anytime you require assistance," he added, rubbing the back of his head and looking concerned.

I nodded. In a way, I was thankful that Amadea owned the constabulary. Without the high-cendai's centuries of machinations, the local system of law enforcement probably wouldn't be as cooperative with me or as independent, seemingly separated from other Imperial departments.

We slowly made our way out of Diamondias, filling the seats of Galissi. The glider shot up from the landing tower of the shopping district and down a level to where the caverns opened up into the Chasm. There, we met chimera hunters emerging out of the caverns leading to Diamondias.

We flew back to Lomb, with hundreds of chimera following the glider on their Bonulich wings. Agatha seemed extremely irate with how things went, so I ignored her for the most part. Emerald was talking with Lambert, trying to hide how terrified she must have felt behind a false facade of a chatty, teenage Princess. The two maids were in Saccy.

"Soooo..." I turned to my chimera father who had also boarded the glider for some reason. "What did you want to speak to me about?"

“It was a good hunt,” my father said from his seat next to me, his clawed right hand rubbing his left, bruised wrist. “Too bad our prey got away. We shall find a way to kill the Astral Phantom inhabiting the tall, pale human female, yes?”

“Someday,” I replied. “Someday, we will hunt her down, dad. We just need to get stronger.”

“Good,” he smiled. “You know… it was not long ago that I had yelled at you about flying. I asked to sit with you in this odd, flying contraption because I wanted to say that..."

I raised my eyebrow at the embarrassed-looking chimera hunter waiting as he recomposed himself enough to finish his sentence.

"I... am sorry for not understanding you, my daughter. I was terrified that you would get hurt. I simply didn’t believe how quickly you grew up, did not know that you bear the brilliant chorus-spark of the All-Mother. I do care for you, my Juni. I am… very proud of you.”

“I know, dad… I… love you too,” I leaned into my father, looking at the ruby gemstone bracelet glittering on his hand that I had made over three years ago. “Thanks for taking care of me and protecting me for the past four winters. You’re a great hunter.”

The dark chimera embraced me. There was a wide smile on his elongated face. I sunk into his warm embrace and finally relaxed. It didn’t matter that I failed to end Amadea. I did accomplish something great today - thanks to the act of the hunt itself, I had finally made a connection with my chimera dad. The little part of Juni within me fluttered with happiness, felt at peace.