Weeks passed, and things steadily got better for Ruyi. She was making little breakthroughs in Operation Phoenix, which was what she named the project, mostly because it sounded cool and important—the sort of thing that might get featured in a history book one day. She was feeling stable, pretty good.

Marcus, on the other hand, grew steadily more tired-looking as the weeks passed. Before, she noticed that when he spoke to folks like Claudia, he would sometimes take a moment and pretend to think, even though he knew exactly what to say pretty much instantly. She figured it was to make the other person comfortable.

But now when she spoke to him, he didn't feign his confusion. She usually had to repeat herself; he wasn't listening the first time. He was haggard, constantly ruminating. She thought she was a pretty bad worrier, but Marcus might be the world's leading expert at catastrophizing. Sometimes he described demon society to her, and she wasn't sure they’d lived in the same world. In his account everyone was so much more savage and greedy than they seemed to her.

For Marcus, this pessimism paired badly with an uncanny ability to project into the future. He could just think and think and think, and plan and plan and plan, and hold two plans against each other, and discard them, and make new ones, and reshuffle them, and he said this was happening constantly, whether he wanted it to or not. It seemed exhausting being in his head in a totally different way than it was exhausting being in her head.

Even worse, his worries kept coming to pass.

When Ruyi came to visit yesterday, and a crow came flying by the window carrying a letter, Marcus visibly flinched and sighed. He grabbed hold of it and read it, his expression didn't change, like it had only confirmed what he expected.

"Another loss," said Ruyi.

"I'm afraid so," said Marcus. "They're pushing us to the Thousand Whispers Gorge. That is the final bottleneck left between east and west. If we lose there…" He didn't finish. He just stood there.

"If my projections hold," he said, "a battle will take place in two days. A battle where Lucius Octavius and all their allied forces bring the full brunt of their powers to bear on ours. That will decide the course of this war."

"So, what are we going to do?" said Ruyi.

"You are going to stay put," said Marcus. "I must go. I must aid my allies in their strategizing."

"…You'll win, right?"

Marcus paused and smiled wearily. "I will try."

There was a long silence. "What happens if you lose?"

"I have plans for that too," he said grimly. "Do not fret. Whatever happens, you and your loved ones will be seen to safety. Please leave the war to me. If you wish to help, then do exactly as you are doing. Work on Project Phoenix, see what you can deliver. Alright? Junius will defend the palace while I'm gone. You will be in good hands."

It wasn't herself she was worried about.

***

She spent the rest of that day poring over old tomes, trying to sift out clues from texts whose ink was so faded you could scarcely make out the letters. She was making progress, but it was just too slow! Finally, she felt she got the puzzle pieces—at least the ingredients. A list of about 20 of them: Netherwort, Ignatius' Folly, Blue Ginseng, Dragon's Blood, it went on and on.

But she felt she'd only reached the starting line. How many combinations could you make out of these things? There were far too many to try. She could feel the answer there, hovering unseen just over the horizon of her knowledge, and with Marcus's past notes to help her, she felt so, so close.

Close just wasn't good enough; she might be too late already.

That evening, she mumbled a goodbye to Claudia as Claudia went to sleep. A little later, Claudia came back, and she mumbled a hello.

"You're still here?" said Claudia.

"Huh?"

"Ruyi," she said, "it's morning."

Ruyi blinked at her; she couldn't even see Claudia's face—they were hidden behind a web of ingredients, a web she'd stared at so long they felt burned into her eyes.

"Oh," said Ruyi.

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And she turned and kept staring at it.

One day passed. Well, Claudia said it did. Ruyi hadn't gone outside all day. Claudia brought her blood fruit and meat. "You should rest," said Claudia. "You can come back tomorrow when you're fresh—you'll do better work that way."

Ruyi shook her head. Maybe this was true for Claudia, maybe this was true for most people—it seemed most people worked best when they were healthy. But she knew she did her best work in her worst places. Every time she made anything worthwhile, she didn't remember the joy of the breakthrough; what she remembered was how badly she was suffering when she made it. She had to go there again.

Another day, and she wasn’t any closer to an answer.

She spent another day mostly lying on the ground, making snow angels on concrete. She badly wanted a drink, but she knew that was the easy way out, was turning away from feeling. She had to go toward it.

Another day, and another. The rain felt wrong, dry. She was falling over herself as she walked, sometimes she slipped into these half-second sleeps, and then jerked awake again, and she found herself falling. She didn't trust herself to stand anymore, so she sat down, stared at the ground, and tried to make the pieces fit.

One last day.

She had to do it. She had to do it. She had to do it. She just had to.

She crawled over to her workstation desk, put her face in her hands, and sobbed for a little.

When she looked up again, eyes rimmed red, she saw a familiar box. She crawled toward it, scarcely believing it.

It was those shock pieces, the same ones Gao used to train her. They weren't unique. She grabbed it, feeling as though in a dream, and dumped out the pieces: red, blue, yellow, white, all in squirming volatile shapes. Hesitantly, she sorted through them. She picked out the ones she needed and molded them to make the shapes: the shape of Nether Ward, Ignatius Folly, Blue Ginseng, and Drake's Blood…

And then she started to combine.

She wasn't even conscious anymore; she was floating somewhere void of feeling, this endless foggy greatness where the only color was the puzzle pieces in front of her. A shock jolted her out of it, but it was easy to slip back in, try again.

She could do this. She had done it before, and she would do it again.

***

It was over.

All Marcus could do was watch as their forces were swamped by the darkness, driven back down the valley. He had suggested their offensive maneuver: thrust up, then flank them, and drive down the sides. But there must have been some butchered communication; the left flank went too early, and the strategy fell apart before it could even begin. It didn't matter. If Marcus was honest, Lucius and Octavius had gathered a horde so great, it looked like the night sky brought to earth, stretching endlessly into the horizon, horizon to horizon, the stars their bared white teeth.

Marcus had done the best with what he had. It was a sad truth of life that sometimes you can make all the best moves and still lose.

Which left him no choice.

As his armies streamed past him, Marcus walked forth. In his hand was a Blackwood scepter crowned with a gleaming ruby; its color swirled like blood circulating. It was to the demons what the crown was to mankind. The Lord's Scepter.

The other army saw him come and were shocked into stillness. He stood there alone, facing them all, and spoke.

"I have a proposal for Lucius and Octavius," he said. “Kindly bring me your leaders."

It was just a few breaths, then the dark sea parted, and they came; Octavius strode at the fore, wearing a winner's smile. Lucius walked straight ahead, hands crossed behind his back, face an impassive mask.

"So. Have you come to beg for mercy? Octavius sneered.

"Yes," said Marcus simply. "Would you like the realm? You may have it."

Octavius blinked, then frowned, then barked out a laugh. "What?!"

"I mean every word I say," said Marcus. "There is no trick. All I ask is you grant us 30 days to flee west. We mean to exile ourselves into the Desolate Range—outside of the demon lands. I and all my allies. The realm shall be yours to rule."

"And you ask that I trust you, is that it?

"I ask us all to swear a vow, witnessed by all your tribesmen and all of mine," said Marcus. "If you do, I shall gladly give you the sceptre here and now. You will be the new Lord of Demons."

Another heavier silence.

"You… are serious," said Lucius.

Marcus nodded.

Octavius burst out into another peal of laughter. "You have gone senile, old man. The realm shall be mine regardless."

"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps not. Regardless, you will pay a high price for it."

"The price you pay,” breathed Octavius, “Will be higher."

"Is that your true goal?" said Marcus, sadly. "Vengeance? You would bring suffering to your own folk and jeopardize your cause—to sate your ego.”

"We shall see how long your moral superiority lasts as I roast you on the rack," snarled Octavius. "I refuse your offer!”

He did not notice the shadow growing across him as he spoke until it was too late. He looked up—

—and Lucius's fangs took him clean through the throat. There was no time to even demonform. Octavius thrashed, but the poison got in him so fast there was little he could do. He clawed, he tried to bite, but his face was starting to blacken, his mouth foaming. The great serpent bit down harder, and there was a crunch.

Octavius fell still.

Lucius morphed back to humanform. He glanced dispassionately at Octavius’ withered body, then back up at Marcus.

"It seems Octavius is indisposed. I accept your offer in his stead,” said Lucius calmly. "Thirty days. On my soul and my honor, on the souls of my ancestors, you have thirty days."

“…” Marcus shook his head. And sighed, and handed over his scepter.

“Thirty days,” Lucius repeated, taking it. “As for what comes after—you have only yourself to blame.”