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“So we should probably figure out some kind of plan of action,” Soren pointed out, as they walked. Walk and talk was right; without knowing how much time they had left, they were pretty limited in what they could do. 

Augustus nodded. “Soren, do you have any charms prepped? I’m out  after all the investigation I’ve done over the last few days.” Unfortunately, very few professors carried more than a few, since too much firepower on one’s person could trip alarms around the school, and the ‘bake time’ and material cost for turning a spell into a charm was considerably higher than simply having the time to set up sigils and cast. 

Gathering materials to cast a spell in person was unlikely to be beneficial either; magic was rarely the instant spell-slinging from the theater, and instead took time to draw and write out the effect before one cast. It could sometimes be forced, but to live-cast a spell in that matter, with no written or material components, could cause a lot of damage. 

Of course, he could use some of his contract to draw on Enmity and live-cast that way—but that was pointless with Emmet here. The more Emmet did, which included providing power while on this plane, the sooner the plane would recognize him as an intruder.

 “I don’t carry much,” Soren admitted. “I have a Secret Bind that I whipped up in case we discovered something and I needed to force you not to talk about it, but that’d only be useful if we talk to Olivia and need her to keep some part of this secret. I’ve got one Lock Break too; I’ve been keeping one on me since … well, I simply don’t like to be trapped anywhere.”

Augustus winced understandingly. “That Lock Break will probably be of use at the shop. We’ll need to get in the front door, and I’m not sure we want to be standing in front of a jewelry shop picking a lock if we don’t want to attract attention.”

“Just so.” Soren turned to Emmet. “And yourself? I know you likely have access to a different sort of magic … can you tell me exactly the limits of that?” 

Emmet let out an ugly little laugh. “Only if you’re willing to use the Secret Bind on yourself.“

It was hard to blame Soren for the distrustful look he gave Emmet at that. If Augustus hadn’t already known this dark secret, he’d likely have done the same. “Well …”

“Let’s just say that I’m confident I can get us past the magical wards up on the jewelry shop, if you’re confident in breaking the lock,” Emmet said brightly. “We’ll have to move fast after, because she’ll know we’re there.” She might not be the only thing that would know, but he was right that dealing with the wards one at a time, especially with no prepared Mage Eyes to detect them, might take too long regardless. “And depending on what’s left of Violin, there’s a few things I alone might be able to do to help him. Though you might consider that a fate worse than the one that currently faces him.”

“Do you enjoy sounding ominous?” Soren demanded.

“Oh yes,” Emmet said at once. “Absolutely.”

Augustus spared a moment to just enjoy the clench of love in his heart. And then fear trickled in around the edges. “Emmet, now that I think about it, there’s been the odd hint Olivia might be targeting you for some reason. Trying to steal the ambrotype of the two of us and all that. Do you think they’d actually be able to do anything against you?”

Em’s answer was flat and immediate. “No, they can’t. They didn’t actually get hold of the ambrotype of the two of us—you took it home quite early on. I suspect she was after that picture specifically because you were in it, not me, given that apparently the class picture that Soren had was one that would ‘work better’. If anything, I think you two are in more danger than I am. Even if Olivia did try to target me directly, they would have no way to have prepared for what they found.”

Even so, it was hard to banish the moment of fear. “Put on your wedding band. I know you don’t usually wear it, but it’s the sign of our union. If something does happen to you, I can use the connected bands to help you.” 

“Thou envious—” Emmet began, then cut himself off and fished the band out of a pocket, sliding it on to his finger. “There.”

It did make Augustus feel better to see it there. “Thank you.” 

Soren cut into the moment they were sharing. “You’re the expert in divination, Emmet. Do you think that Olivia’s trying to use me and Augustus, then?”

“Probably in some way,” Emmet agreed. “Having some essence or element of you there might make the spell stronger. It could drain you to pull him through. But on the other hand, having you there might also make it more possible for Violin to come out if there is any of him left in the Beast. Having that connection could be a symbolic tie or a call. If there’s none of him left, it will only do harm, but … well, just don’t walk into any suspicious magic circles if she tells you to stand somewhere. Don’t want you to get locked into any cages that will drain your energy or anything like that. Here we are.”

They were standing outside a nice-looking jewelry shop; a small path led up to the door, and diamond-latticed windows stood on either side; they were slightly frosted, presumably so thieves couldn’t see inside.

“I can get the lock,” Soren said.

“First, let me—” Emmet put a hand on the wall and dark fire curled under his palm, climbing the bricks, running over the latticework, trembling through what Augustus could see of the building inside. And then it was rushing back in as he drank the magic of the wards. Augustus imagined he could hear an actual slurping sound with it. Reality seemed to shiver for a moment. “There,” Emmet said, pulling his hand back and shaking it out. “Her wards are down, but she’ll know you’re here now. Like I said, let’s move fast.”

Soren pulled out his charm and snapped it; the lock let out a loud click when he did so. The lock would be broken now, not simply unlocked, which was a shame for Olivia’s sister, but again; they didn’t have the time to be discerning. Augustus opened the door, gesturing the others in, shutting it firmly behind them.

The darkened jewelry shop looked quite nice; there was a little counter with some weights and measures and lenses, and the rest of the furniture was glass-covered tables and display cases that would-be buyers could walk around and look at. It felt odd to be in here at night, as if they truly were robbers.

But it wasn’t the jewels they were interested in here, and Olivia obviously wasn’t on the shop floor. “There,” Soren said, nodding to a door.

That door led to a set of steps down, and they followed these into a basement of what was clearly the metalwork forge for the jewelry that was made in-shop. But all those materials had been put to the side.

Instead, magic circles were drawn over everything, strange swoops and sigils. It was familiar to what Augustus remembered from delving his memories, yet different. It was clear Olivia had done their research as well; where previously the drawing of a gate had been left unspecified, this gate was narrowed and specific to the Beast Beyond, and in addition, contract text was scribbled all over and around it. Augustus couldn’t quickly read enough of it to be sure of the details, not in the heat of things, but it looked as if it was specifying that the Beast could only breach the gate if Vii’s soul were still contained in it.

That was promising, actually. Olivia looked up from where she was sitting with the bowl in front of her. “I hope you two haven’t come to ruin things,” she said bluntly. “Hi, Soren.”

“Hi, Liv,” Soren said, his voice almost wobbling. 

This was probably going to be hard for Soren, Augustus thought. He would be in a better position to decide what they did going forward than Soren would, given their friendship. “I certainly hope I haven’t either,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t know about your relationship with him. I only just regained even a fraction of my memories or I would have known what you wanted. I understand why you went to the lengths you did.”

“And the lengths were so—blackmail, Liv?” Soren asked. “What about you and me, was it all a lie?”

They closed their eyes, seeming tired, and pushed some of their hair back over their shoulder. It looked shorter; Augustus saw a few locks in the bowl, along with a variety of other offerings. “Of course not, Soren,” Olivia said. “We were friends. I hope we’re still able to be friends after this. But you were friends with my brother before I was friends with you, and my brother was my brother before you were friends with him. So that had to take priority. Once I found out the truth, our friendship just had to take a step back from doing what was necessary to help him.”

Soren seemed to sway a little at that. “That’s true. That makes sense.”

“I hadn’t remembered your brother at all,” Augustus said. “All my memories were taken. But you’ve seen my involvement as well?”

“Of course, Soren knew that he had vague memories of you,” Olivia said. “And there was that ambrotype on his desk. When I realized you were in it, things started to come together. I didn’t have the whole picture until very recently, when I hired a diviner. I was hoping to be able to Secret Bind him so only I would know the results of the divination, but viewing the past killed the poor man.” She pinched her brows, letting out a slow breath. “I hate that, but at least I got the truth out of it.”

Briefly, Soren glanced at Enmity again, a bit of confusion and horror in his expression. He must be wondering how Enmity had come out of viewing the memories without any ill effects, if it killed a diviner who should be specialized in these things. That was fine. Augustus could try to deal with his suspicions later.

“You saw what happened?” Augustus asked.

“I heard about it, though it was somewhat garbled,” Olivia said briefly. “Don’t get me wrong, Augustus, I’m furious at you for breaking the  wards, but I also can’t exactly blame you, can I? I’d love to blame you. My heart blames you. But the three of you were fools for trying this. So it goes.”

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but it wasn’t time to worry about his own feelings. “Olivia,” he said slowly, “if you think we were foolish, you should know how risky this is. No matter how much of Vii’s consciousness remains, there will be consequences if you go through with this. Our brief interactions with the beast shattered our memories. If it can’t get put back by us, and if it isn’t sucked back by the planar interference, it’ll cause so much damage. It’ll leave this room and spread its damage everywhere it goes. Promise me that you’ve planned a way around this.”

“Of course I have,” she said flatly. “What do you take me for? There are two failsafes. First, the redefinition won’t hold. You know how much I sped to publish, given how little writing you got done comparatively. The premises won’t hold up long term. People who’ve invested so much time into working with the old system will find the gaps and compose arguments as soon as they can. Maybe you’d have had better luck; I don’t know what you were looking into this for and frankly I don’t care. It won’t hold, and then the plane itself will get rid of the Beast. And then there’s the second failsafe; I just need to have it here long enough to cut Vii loose from it. My summoning requires that they’re together; if I pull Vii out of it, the Beast will have violated the terms of its summoning and be sent back.”

“Cut Vii out?” Soren echoed. “Cut him out with what?”

“Vii is surely dead,” Olivia said. “Even if he’s still in there, his physical material was absorbed by the Beast, which is not a material being. But I truly believe there’s a chance his soul might have survived—changed, maybe, different or wrong or scarred, but I believe he’s still in there. The Beast won’t be able to come through from this particular call if it isn’t! And so, what I’d need to do is use his connection to the past to take him out of it. A soul without a body is a ghost, you see, an echo of the past that is clinging onto the present. I have the ambrotype, and thanks to your showing up, the people he’d known are here too. His twin sister, his lover, his … rival? Friend, at least. I have his blood running through my veins, and all these things with me are reminders of who he once was. So I have prepared a contract to redefine who and what he is as that person from the past, rather than as part of the Beast. People don’t last long after possession, but I’ve seen someone who has been surviving it so far, which gives me some hope. Given time, I think I can build something to cause equilibrium. I don’t know if he’ll accept my body, but even if not, getting free and being able to move on is better.”

“I’d offer mine too,” Soren said, without hesitation.

Augustus wouldn’t. He didn’t say that, though. “Have you ever done this before?”

“Of course not. This isn’t my field,” Olivia pointed out. “But I know the theory. And I think I have enough anchors here to lend weight to the paperwork. Legal definitions are everything in what we do.”

“And what if something isn’t just so?” Augustus insisted. “I want this, Olivia, but what if not every t is crossed and i is dotted? What if the Beast makes it through, with or without his soul? What if it’s not sent back?” 

Olivia sighed. “That won’t happen. If it did, it would be a real shame, of course, but there’s an entire college of magicians just up the hill. I’m sure somebody would be able to do something.”

He spared a moment to wish that they’d won over someone in Wards to come help shore this place up.

But no time for reflection. Reality crackled, and Olivia perked up. “Oh!” she gasped. “It’s time!”

The gate flared from illustration into sudden shimmering reality, and Augustus realized that he’d overlooked something. In his divination, when he’d gone away to talk to Soren, something happened back in the main cave, even though they weren’t actively performing the ritual at that point. Setting up the ritual had been enough to cause it to happen.

He was out of time to argue Olivia around, but at least he knew their plans and her failsafes, now. That had to count for something.

Reality warped fully, and the Beast began to crawl through, broken in the wrong places, with hands on its hooves and a too-long neck and a panicked, human face where a deer face should be. The sounds nearly sent him into a blind panic again, but perhaps his familiarity with it from his memory helped steady him, or perhaps age had given him distance, or perhaps Olivia’s redefinitions were making it less of an atrocity to interact with than it had been previously. 

Vii’s face wheeled around wildly on the end of that neck, free-floating instead of bound to a skull. “Oh look,” he said, in that breezy familiar/unfamiliar voice of his. “All my favorite people are here. Is this another hallucination? Am I in hell? Am I finally dying? Am I finally free? You’re here, and you’re here, and you’re here. And—I don’t know you. But Liv, Auggie, Soren. You I know. Is this real? Is it another hallucination?”

Augustus’s head throbbed at the sound of Vii’s voice, the Beast’s voice; it was a sawblade through his mind, and it felt like it was going to split him in two with every syllable. Reality was thrumming hard, but thanks to the redefinitions, it held for now.

So Vii’s soul did still exist in there.

Olivia scrambled to their feet, that cheerful, put-upon calm finally breaking. They burst into sobs, stepping forward. “Vii! Vii, you bastard, I’ve come to get you out!” 

She held the contract like she was prepared to serve him divorce papers from the life he’d lived so far, but in the same way as when Augustus had looked at the initial warding against the Beast in the divination, he was suddenly convinced that it wouldn’t be enough. Olivia was a specialist in Contract Law, so it might work. It might be enough. 

But he was afraid it wouldn’t. How could the past be enough to bring Vii back? Vii hated the past. Augustus remembered him saying that he just desperately needed more, needed whatever was next, not to be constantly restricted to the rules of his past and his upbringing. Augustus remembered Vii saying that he and Olivia didn’t see eye to eye about this. Could a contract based on the ties of the past be enough, or was there something of the future that Augustus could offer in addition to it to try to guarantee that it would work?

Emmet stepped between Augustus and the Beast beyond, arms spread wide to protect him, and a second option also sprang to mind. There was someone right here who was a specialist in taking souls, separating them from the current thing that bound them and making them his property instead. That would be the worse fate which Emmet had jokingly referred to. The others would surely think it was. But Augustus had chosen to love and trust Enmity of the Dark Phlogiston. He could tell Enmity to barter with Vii for his soul. He’d probably do it, if Augustus asked.

So which should he do? Support Olivia, try to find something of the future to add to her bid? Turn to Enmity, who knew what to do with a soul? Try to combine the two? Or was there another option that he hadn’t seen?

Enmity’s hands were crackling with dark fire, black flames forming familiar sigils. If he wasn’t given the order, and if Olivia’s actions didn’t work, he’d fight to destroy the Beast instead. Olivia lifted the papers and began to recite: Violin’s names, legal text demanding he present himself in this reality rather than the planes beyond. Soren stood at the ready, probably preparing to receive Vii’s soul, become a vessel for it as Yujin was a vessel for Skylar, for however long he could maintain it until the possession killed him.

“What are we doing?” Vii wailed. “What are you doing? I can’t see much. I’m everywhere and nowhere and it hurts. I can barely see you. What are you saying? You want me to do what?” 

Enmity’s disguise was peeling off of him in iridescent glimmers, flaking, hanging in the air around himself. He glanced back at Augustus over his shoulder. “It is in thine hands, thou brilliant creature,” Enmity said.

[What should Augustus do?
Comment with details.
Tomorrow will be the finale.]

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Hate to break so close to the end, but I’m not feeling very well today, so no part today. Please turn in on Day 33 by 4 pm PST Fri, Nov 4th, 2022! We’re getting into the climax here so if you’ve been on the fence about posting your suggestions, now ‘s the time to get your chance to tell Augustus what to do!

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“Wait a second,” Yujin protested. “What’s she going to summon? When? Why are we worrying about this?”

Augustus still couldn’t in good conscience out Soren as being part of this without Soren confessing to it first, which made describing it more annoying. Felt like he was taking more sole responsibility than was fair. “It has to do with the memories I’ve been divining for. In the past, I was part of a small group of individuals who tried to summon this creature from in between planar space. The Beast Beyond. We were with it for a matter of minutes and it tore out my memory, shattered one of the participants’ minds, and absorbed the last of the participants. This final participant was a boy named Violin Spiders.”

“Violin Spiders,” Yujin repeated, incredulous. Then, “Wait, Spiders. So you think they’re related?”

“They were twins,” Augustus said. “I didn’t know it until, well, tonight, when we went searching for those memories. So I assume Olivia wants him back. I can’t blame them, exactly—I know he and I were close back then too, for all that my memories are still largely lost, and he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

Soren finally spoke up, lifting his head very slightly. “Why are we going to stop her?”

It was like running straight into a wall, the way his mind, whirling with thoughts and worries and possibilities, was suddenly brought up short. “What?”

“Why are we stopping her?” Soren repeated. “Do we really want to? We want him back also. Maybe we should be helping Olivia.”

It was hard to find a reason when it was put so bluntly. Augustus scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I guess, for starters, I have no reason to believe Olivia’s done a more thorough job building protections than we had. It’s harder to protect against something that’s considered as being from the same planar space as you; otherwise I could ward against, well, Yujin. Not impossible, but harder; wards love a dichotomy. And I might have more faith in a ward being up that could hold if Olivia were actively working in Warding, but they’re in Contract Law. Contract Law obviously has very entity-specific binding abilities in general, but it requires something you can reason with that stops and agrees to do things set out in specific terms. That’s why when you deal with demons you both put up warding and write a contract. One holds before the other’s in place. Even if Olivia has come up with more specific protections, that’s betting a lot that the protections actually hold. Because if they don’t? By changing the definitions, it’ll be easier for it to stay here longer. Potentially indefinitely! It won’t get dragged back the way it was last time. It’d be easier to stay, easier to get loose, and harder for it to be banished. I know this because—” Because it’s what he’d been planning for Enmity. Making this world his. Not in terms of handing it to him to rule, but making planar space acknowledge him as belonging to it, and the impact that would have. “—it’s my specialty.” 

“So what?” Soren asked. “What if she has figured it out, Augustus? Don’t we want Vii back, just like Olivia does?”

“So—it’s not just Vii coming back, Soren! It might not be Vii coming back at all, given the state he was last in and how long ago that was! It’d be the Beast Beyond, and you know what happened in the few minutes we were exposed to it! It could rake its claws through our reality and destroy all memories of how to stop it!” 

“But what if there is some of Vii left? What if Vii managed to consume the Beast Beyond? Don’t you want to try to take this chance to get him back?” Soren demanded, half-rising from his seat. “Do you even want him back? Yes, Olivia’s been using dirty methods so far, but if it brings Vii’s back, can we blame her? Will you do this just to spite Olivia Spiders for blackmailing your assistant and stealing your work? Or is it that you don’t want Vii back now that you’ve found happiness and a husband?” Soren waved an arm wildly at Emmet. “Are you content in leaving him locked between the planes, leaving him forgotten? I’m not!”

Augustus was shocked into silence. It took him a few moments to find his tongue. “It’s not that! The risk is just so—”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions about what she has and hasn’t done! Why don’t we just ask her?” Soren said.

Slowly, Augustus put his head in his hands, pinching the spot in between his brows. Soren had a point. If Vii could be brought back—if Olivia, in all this planning and secretiveness, did have a good plan that could work—then why stop her? “You’re right. Not about my happiness, that’s not the point, I’ll be happy with Emmet whether or not an old flame from my past exists. But you’re right that we need to know more before we assume that we need to stop Olivia. From their point of view, we’re probably the weird cult who dragged their brother into trouble and would now be interfering with their attempts to get him back.”

Soren slowly sank into his seat again. “Yeah. Exactly. I’m not saying we don’t stop her if it comes to it. I’m saying that going ahead like that’s the only option is just sacrificing Vii a second time. He gave himself up to protect me. I owe him at least the chance to hear Olivia out.”

“Right. Well.” Augustus scrubbed his face again, then made himself sit upright. “One way or another, we still need to find her before we can come to that kind of decision. Maybe she’s got it under control and we can beg forgiveness for our actions of the past and see if we can help. And if we go and she hasn’t prepared for it—remember that we’ve seen what it can do and she hasn’t—we can talk her down, or mitigate things, or stop her. We won’t know until we’ve talked to her. Yujin.”

Yujin jumped; they’d clearly been attempting to vanish during this argument, and didn’t look happy to be remembered. “Yes?”

“You should go home and get some rest. You don’t need to be more involved in this, though even so, we might need your help.” Augustus pushed his plate back. “If we decide to stop Olivia, we need to put the brakes on their public sway on the definitions as soon as possible. We’ll need someone to publish about how they’re a lousy thief, and share evidence of it. You’re in the best position to do that. Just … wait for a signal of some kind before sending that out, because if we do want to help her we need to not interfere.”

Emmet spoke up, his tone still light, unaffected. “Give me something of yours, Yujin. I can contact you if I have something in hand.”

“Like—something personal?” Yujin seemed understandably dubious.

“Anything that you’ve owned,” Emmet said. “Knowledge-based magic is my specialty. I can communicate over vast distances, etc etc.” But he could only communicate so easily if he was on the same plane as the target, Augustus mentally added with only a little bitterness.

Yujin dug around in a pocket and pulled out a hair tie. “Okay. Here. I’ll go home and … uh, get that ready? Try to sleep? Rest up?”

“All of the above, I hope,” Augustus said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done so far. I appreciate you,” he added, in case he died before seeing Yujin again.

Yujin gave Augustus a spooked look and said, “Uh, well, great to meet all of you,” before quickly heading for the front door.

“Meanwhile,” Augustus said, rising himself, “the three of us don’t need to sleep, so we shouldn’t waste any more time. We should go see what Fitzfleming heard from the blackmailer, then go find Olivia. Not that we have any leads on the latter; I know where Fitzfleming lives, at least. We could always break into Olivia’s house or office to try to find something of theirs that we can use to track them by.”

Emmet laughed, soft. “No need, right? You have blackmail notes with her handwriting on it.”

“Brilliant! Yes. Okay. That’ll help. I was trying to figure out where she could be, but—it could be anywhere.” 

“Their workshop or house are obvious choices, but maybe too obvious,” Soren said.

Emmet shook his head. “Just give me a few minutes with the paper to peel her handwriting off of it and we’re good to go. In the meantime, your other blackmail victim?”

“She lives a few doors down. Come on.”

They put on jackets and tried not to look overly suspicious as the three of them went to knock on Fitzfleming’s door. It was late enough now that she didn’t answer at once, and Augustus was starting to worry that she wasn’t at home by the time the door actually opened.

She was still dressed in day clothes, but clearly had been in the middle of a meal. “Fantastic,” she said, looking over the three of them. “What do you want?”

“Just a word and then I’ll be out of your hair,” Augustus said. She jerked her head to invite him in—just him, it seemed—and shut the door behind him. “The others are helping me.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want any more involvement in this than I have to have,” Fitzfleming said. “I assume you’re here to see how it went?”

He nodded. “Nothing more, I think.” He probably couldn’t convince her to decry Olivia, even if he revealed them as the blackmailer; she had too much at stake if Olivia shared her past. “We’ll be gone as soon as you say.”

Fitzfleming sighed, hugging her arms tight around herself, clutching her own elbows. Her gaze darted toward the front window, then back to Augustus. “I did receive another demand. This time it was to break into his office. Soren’s. I assume he’s involved in this mess too, given all this.”

“You could say that,” Augustus said, frowning. “How’d you get in? I know how you might have got hold of my keys, but…”

“The blackmailer had their own copy of the keys and left them for me. I let myself in, took the ambrotype, and left.”

Oh, yes, of course Liv would have a copy of Soren’s keys. That just made sense. Probably didn’t go herself to avoid being seen near the place. “Wait—another ambrotype?” Augustus asked.

“Yes. It was a school picture of him with his class as a young man.” She paused, considering. “Was that you with him, Pennywright?”

“It could have been,” Augustus said. “Anything else?”

“No. I left it where I was told to and haven’t been contacted since. So unless you need anything else, I’d like you to leave. I don’t want any chance of the blackmailer spotting you at my house, under the circumstances.”

Fair enough. “Good evening, then, Ivory. With any luck we’ll have this dealt with by tomorrow.”

He showed himself out, frowning more heavily. So Olivia had acquired an ambrotype that contained all three of them. It would surely provide some kind of focus for whatever she needed it for—to view the past and use it to finalize protections? For preparation? To help bring the creature through?

“I have the location,” Emmet said, as he emerged. “Talk and walk, darling. Olivia’s in a shop in town. Looks like a jewelry shop.” 

“The sister’s jewelry shop!” Augustus said, startled. “I’d half convinced myself it wasn’t real! Let’s go, then.”

“Right, but,” Soren said, as they began to walk that way. “What should we do when we get there? They’re not likely to answer the door.”

“I can get us in,” Emmet murmured.

Soren glanced aside at him. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Oh, a thing or two, my dear. I’m lousy at bowing out of a situation with good grace, and I don’t know how to take no for an answer,” Emmet shot back with a grin.

But Soren had a point. Even if they broke in, their next step was to confront Olivia. What should they plan to do when they saw her? How should they even approach this whole thing?

[What should Augustus do?
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“You know what?” Augustus said, “Why lie?” There were certainly parts of the truth he could share with Yujin, and it felt like it might make things a little fairer between them, given that Yujin had been forced to share a ruinous secret with him.

Emmet’s brows rose. “You’re certainly changing.”

“Am I?” Augustus asked, surprised. “I don’t think I’ve changed at all.” He cleared his congested throat disgustingly. “My darling, can you get some tea and food together for us? Soren and I haven’t had anything for a day now.”

“And delay your child for you a little longer. Sure, why not?” Emmet sighed, then stubbed out his cigarette into his own palm, making it go up in black flames, before heading out into the main part of the townhouse again.

“I’ll be right back,” Augustus murmured to the still-groggy Soren. He left, using the bathroom and washing his face briefly to try to banish some of the haziness.

When he came back, Soren was sitting up and staring at his palms, deep in thought, but he looked up when Augustus came in. “I think I understand better now,” Soren said slowly.

“Yes, me too,” Augustus said. “What did you see while I was … gone? I couldn’t see it since, well. I wasn’t there.”

Soren briefly gnawed on his lower lip. “Well,” he said slowly, voice low. “As you know, you ran. You scuffed the line as you went. I don’t hold it against you, you know. I … in retrospect, I’m not sure the wards would have held long enough for us to deal with our mistakes anyway.”

The churning in his stomach was simply appetite, having not eaten for so long. “But you don’t know that for sure.”

“No. There’s no way to know.” Soren met his gaze, calm and sad. “We don’t know what we don’t know. You scuffed it, and it felt the gap in our pathetic protections. It lashed out at me. I don’t know why me. Maybe because I was less connected to this world than either of you two, who had each other. But it lashed out at me, and Vii flung himself … flung himself between me and the Beast.”

Augustus drew a breath in. He’d anticipated deliberate sabotage, not panicked mistakes and conscious self-sacrifice.

“It caught him instead, drew him back in, ate him. It … it bulged all over, and its face was peeled off, replaced with Vii’s face. Screaming. He was screaming.” Soren rubbed at his own face with his hands in some kind of unconscious sympathy. “I. I don’t know why he would have done that.”

Augustus had a suspicion, based on what little he could remember of their complex interrelationships and massive personal issues, but he wouldn’t voice it. As Soren had said, there was no way to know. He couldn’t know what he couldn’t know. He let the thought go, not wanting to examine that tender wound any further. “I see. But he did. And you lived.”

“I lived, though for a long time I wished I hadn’t,” Soren said, low-voiced. “That said, I don’t think the Beast had deliberately attacked our minds or our memories. I think we were just underprepared for what it was. We didn’t know enough to ward against it specifically, and we were summoning something that went beyond an intrusion into the world. Planar definitions should have made it impossible for us to do it and any sign of its intrusion to remain in the world after it left. So perhaps that’s why we forgot.”

“Yes,” Augustus said slowly. Something was scratching at the edge of his memory, but he couldn’t quite pin it down, and he soon gave up on pursuing it.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the toilet,” Soren said, pushing himself out of bed. “Sorry. I’m not running from you.”

It’d be only fair, also died unsaid on Augustus’s lips. “It’s just down the hall. Emmet is making breakfast, and my research assistant is here. Come down when you’re ready.”

After Soren left the room, Augustus quickly changed his outfit, distractedly grabbing something morose and rainy-sky blue from his closet, and then went back out to the kitchen. As Emmet had said, Yujin was sitting at the table, knees up and feet pressed to the seat of the chair as if curling up might inexplicably make them more comfortable, a cup of tea in their hands that was no longer steaming. Emmet himself was at the stovetop, making some light breakfast for dinner. He was wearing an apron over his white suit that Augustus knew he didn’t actually own, a coarse thing with Good Morning, Thou Lowly Beast embroidered on the front in actual gold thread. 

Augustus felt his heart swell at the sight, and he sat across from Yujin while still gazing at Emmet. It was like he was falling in love all over again at the incongruity, he thought helplessly. Here was a demon lord cooking him dinner—cooking him breakfast at a completely incorrect hour—in an apron and, yes, slippers. Of course, Em was obliged to obey him to some extent, since he hadn’t yet resolved his part of their agreement—hadn’t yet fully uncovered Augustus’s memory and his past, though at this rate, it was only a matter of time. But that was fine. Regardless of whether Em’s part was done soon, Augustus had sworn himself to Em for eternity in return. He planned to make good on it.

Yujin sipped their tea loudly. “So can I ask exactly what happened? I mean, Mr. Darkfire was very clear about being unable to wake you.”

“Yes, well, about that—thank you darling,” he said, as Emmet put a cup of tea down in front of him as well, this one steaming. He cupped it between his palms. “I’m actually an amnesiac. I have a large part of my past missing, and I was divining for it. I thought it might be related to why a blackmailer might be targeting me. Unfortunately, I was correct. Something went a bit wrong and it took longer than expected to recover from it. Also, Soren Kincaird is here, and will be joining us for our meal. Please do not ask about that.”

“Huh,” Yujin said in a very strange voice. 

Augustus thought about asking what they’d realized there in particular; given the events of the last few days, it could be any number of things, accurate or inaccurate. Then he decided not to bother. What was even the point? “I’m sorry for worrying you,” he said instead.

“I, that’s—” Yujin stared at him for a long moment, then sucked a deep breath in. They ducked their head. “That’s okay. I was, though. Worried, I mean. A-anyway. Anyway. A few things have happened, but I wanted specifically to let you know about the blackmail.”

“Ah, yes, how was your blackmailing experience?”

“Lousy,” Yujin said, but seemed to relax a little, letting out a scoffing laugh and dropping one foot to the floor. “I went to the woods earlier this evening, like you asked, and pretended to be … ready to be blackmailed, I guess. The blackmailer showed up, but they were in disguise. Heavily cloaked, muffled.”

Odd. “That’s interesting,” Augustus said. “The blackmailer hadn’t shown up to Fitzfleming in person and only communicated through notes.”

“Maybe they’re someone Fitzfleming would be more likely to recognize even through their disguise,” Yujin suggested. “Or maybe what they wanted was too complicated for notes, because they asked me for all my thoughts and suspicions about you.”

Augustus lifted his brows at that. “And what did you say?”

Soren came in and moved to join them at the table, listening but not interrupting.

“I didn’t share my actual suspicions about you,” Yujin said hurriedly, but with a sideways glance—at Emmet, of all people. They seemed more nervous now that Soren had come in, but that was fair; they had no idea of how Soren was involved. Augustus didn’t want to share that without Soren’s permission, but it did seem very unfair. “I mean, mostly I said that you were a lazy, undisciplined hedonist who liked stepping on other people’s boundaries just enough to make you both aware of them. Not that that’s true! I just wanted to feed the blackmailer something.”

Soren and Emmet both snorted audibly, simultaneously. Augustus shrugged slowly. “Not that it’s true,” he echoed back. He was still Yujin’s boss, after all, it was fair that they’d try to cover for their honesty. “That was it?”

“No, they asked what I knew about your past. And honestly it’s not very much, it’s not like we had a deep personal relationship,” Yujin pointed out. “I said that I knew you didn’t have family, because you never wrote home and never went on vacations or had anyone come up. That your choices not to talk about your childhood or your student years had become deliberate rather than incidental, from what I could tell. I said I knew your husband doesn’t live with you, and that you had plenty of affairs, but that from what I could tell you were genuinely in love with him, and that I didn’t think he was, like, made up even though I’d never met him. Um. I’d never met him at the time I was saying it, anyway. For some reason, talking about your love life upset the blackmailer.”

Hm. Augustus too glanced at Emmet, but couldn’t see his face as he was at the stove still. He did flip a pancake showily, so he must not be terribly concerned about it himself. Augustus was relieved by that, and even more so to think that if there were to be a confrontation soon, Em would be here for it, both for the support and for the power levels at play here. He knew he’d only have Em for about one day more, give or take a little depending on how much power Em expended and attention he drew from the planes, so he might have to force a confrontation tomorrow if it wasn’t going to be one naturally. But knowing who was doing this might make it possible. “What else?”

“I was pretty nervy at that point, and I asked what else they needed from me to keep my secret.” Yujin made a sidelong glance at Soren, who was accepting his tea and a plate of food from Emmet. “The blackmailer said they needed nothing for now, but to keep an eye out for further letters. They also said that they’d thought of asking me to steal something, but they’d found something that would work better.” Yujin sighed. “Obviously, they didn’t say what it was.”

That wasn’t exactly promising, but was just vague enough to not be worth worrying about. “Well, thank you, Yujin,” he said, and accepted his own plate. “I don’t suppose it’s great, but it’s not as bad as it could be—”

“Tell him about the other part, Yujin,” Emmet said. He put a smaller plate down in front of Yujin. Presumably they’d discussed it beforehand.

Soren was being very quiet, eating and listening. Augustus felt nerves stir in his stomach, but he was too hungry to keep from eating, so he dug in as well.

“I don’t see how it’s really super relevant, and I don’t want to worry the Professor more,” Yujin protested.

“Mm, yeah, tell him anyway,” Emmet said. “It’s important, actually.”

Yujin sighed heavily at that. “Interdepartmental squabbling sounds less important to me than blackmail, even if it’s personal, but sure. Okay.” They ate a strip of bacon, then sighed again. “It looks like Olivia Spiders stole your ideas. They wrote a paper—and it’s been released to the public. Today, actually. Somehow, she found a way to get it put into the magical interlibrary system early, so it was available to academic libraries around the world immediately.”

“Oh dear,” Augustus said, softly.

“Since it’s kind of scandalous and full of very new ideas, a lot of people are definitely reading it,” Yujin said. “I’ve watched the numbers tick up and it’s pretty wild. I’m sure retorts and reviews will start coming in soon, but the barn door is definitely stuck open now. There’s no way you’re getting credit for your own ideas, not given how publicly Spiders’ name is plastered all over it. Which sucks, but—”

“No, no, this is bad,” Augustus said. “It could be a disaster.”

“The thing is, the paper proposed a redefinition,” Emmet cut in, somewhat urgently. “It’s not redefining the ‘other planes’ as simply another part of your own plane, like you‘d wanted to propose,” meaning that Emmet was still considered an intrusive outsider, of course, “but instead it defined non-planar space as being itself of planar substance that might be more similar to this plane than others. As in, it’s filling the gaps that lead up to the other planes, but is hazardous in understandable and manageable ways. The paper set up definitions around interacting with it, and suggested contracts for containing it when creating intrusions. Essentially, Olivia Spiders has made it so summoning something from the space between planes might be as easy as summoning something from standard planar space. Easier, perhaps. More controllable, depending on the specifics of a contract they might have created.”

“I mean, yeah, it’s fascinating, but why is that a concern?” Yujin asked.

“Because it’s not theoretical. It’s practical. She’s going to summon something from between the planes, and I know what she’s going to summon,” Augustus said softly. Soren had stopped eating and seemed deep in panicked thought. 

Olivia was going to summon the Beast Beyond into this world, and was going to do it soon. But how soon? Augustus wracked his mind, trying to view this like any other conjuration, trying to make sense of it. Surely Olivia would want there to be enough time to guarantee that a significant number of other magicians had read her paper, but not enough time that they had formed a response to it that might re-stabilize the planar boundaries. 

If it were Augustus, he’d act on it tomorrow. It’d be the ideal amount of time between reading and taking in the redefinition, and people spending their weekend composing retorts.

So what should he do about that, he wondered, half-frantic. It was night now, late evening. Should he go out for the night, try to act now, or wait until things were to go down tomorrow and try to stop it then? Given that it was personal, Olivia would probably try to drag him into it, but he had no way of guaranteeing that. 

And if he were going to act, what exactly should he be doing, given that he had no idea where Olivia was right now or where she was going to do this? It wasn’t like the caves of his old school were anywhere around here; Olivia would have picked a new location, hidden and private. It didn’t even have to be somewhere wild, just somewhere that Olivia could guarantee nobody would wander into.

[What should Augustus do?
Comment with details.]

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[Happy Halloween! I expect this to run another 4-5 days
so keep checking back through the start of November!
Please read the instruction post before commenting]

This was a memory, Augustus reminded himself. It was amazing how hard it was to keep that in mind through all this, like dreaming and forcing yourself to be aware that you were in a dream. He wasn’t actively putting something into a real bowl that would actually affect the ritual itself. That was in the past, and he couldn’t change it.

But he could try to figure it out. To understand it better. Whatever he gave then might have been the cause of the laceration of his mind, or of the ritual going wrong. Perhaps not, given that Soren was in a similar situation, but perhaps so.

What could it have been? It was possible that he’d doubled up on purpose, blended his spend with Soren’s … as some sort of challenge? For enjoying the sort of filth that came with certain types of offerings? He’d certainly had his moments of that! He didn’t think of the Beast Beyond as something sexual, though, and his converations so far hadn’t pointed to the younger him having done so either. Vii was offering up his soul or his heart through his blood, and while Augustus thought it might be romantic to mingle their blood, he knew that he too had clearly found his soul expendable, since he’d later sold it to Enmity. But he’d still had it until then. He’d given his heart to Enmity too. 

No, it wasn’t likely that he’d matched them. The very fact that it had occurred to him that it might be best not to double up probably indicated that he’d thought the same thing back then.

He’d given up access to his thoughts, perhaps, treating it as if this were an eldritch creature, one of the uncanny spirits. What he remembered of the Beast Beyond was uncanny, certainly, even if it was not from the terrible planar space that the horrors came from. He could have written down memories, thoughts, words, and put them in the bowl, given an offering of his own mind. That seemed potentially likely, given the total gap in this time period he had compared to Soren’s madness and later snatches of memory. 

There was no way to be sure what he’d done, he finally decided, unless Soren or he were to later remember it. He couldn’t remember that time, and given how badly the ritual went, it was possible that it didn’t matter, that all the offerings ended up being rejected except for Vii himself.

No, it was better to figure out if there was something he could offer now. Not to the Beast—since that was the past—but in order to inspire the divination to reveal information, allow him to return more. Tears seemed like a good idea, given that goal. He kept being moved to a grief he could barely feel or identify. Perhaps it was time to have the memory help him identify it.

The problem was that he didn’t know how to cry. The last time it had happened was due to the memory of this very moment going wrong, and when he prodded the spot of grief inside himself it mostly turned over in a hot, annoyed pain. 

Augustus’s eyes stung and for a moment he thought he was victorious—and then he realized that the wind had shifted and was blowing the smoke of the fire into his face. But that would do, he thought. He could stick his face in there, and he’d cry as a physiological reaction regardless of what his emotions were doing.

Still. That might move the memory along, and he had other things he had to do first, quickly.

He walked a circuit of the setup, the magic circles drawn all over the cave, and bit the inside of his cheek in frustration. He didn’t recognize any of this, not as a whole, and only barely in parts. The lines were solid, at least, and the sigils he did recognize seemed correctly formed. But their combination, and the reasons for their inclusion, were another language to him, one that he’d forgotten how to speak. He’d need memories he didn’t have of his research and his studies to know more.

There were parts he could understand, he soothed himself. There, drawn on the wall, was a door, a clunky sort of summoning inclusion that wasn’t as refined as other summoning methods but tended to guarantee more certain results. The center should be marked with the symbols identifying the planar space that was being opened, but in its place was a slashed, jagged line, marked for no line at all.

It was dangerous, from his adult perspective. A door onto nothing, capable of inviting in anything. And there were very few wards that could act against something completely unknown, since wards also acted by definition; you determined what could be let across a line, and what must be kept out. They’d clearly done their best, or Soren had—it must have been Soren who had set all this up—but the rough generic warding could easily be overpowered by anything with any strength at all, given a few moments’ efforts. Foolish that they were doing this. 

Yet he could see why it would have excited him.

He pulled away. “Soren, can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Sure,” Soren said. “Vii, keep an eye out.”

“Eye-eye,” Vii said lightly, joking around.

Augustus took Soren’s sleeve, and dragged him a bit deeper into the cave, just around the bend. “Is this you?” he asked without preamble. If this was a memory version of Soren, and not the diviner Soren, he’d just get confusion.

“It’s me,” Soren said instead, urgently. He took Augustus’s hands and squeezed them. “I’ve largely been letting this body do what it wanted to so I could get some idea of what had been happening, but I’ve done a little investigation on my own.”

“Found anything?”

Soren’s eyes shifted away from Augustus’s—a guilty conscience, or just checking the cave entrance to watch Vii? Or maybe just someone who didn’t like eye contact, of course; Augustus usually preferred not to himself. “I explored my dorm room and all my belongings. We seem to have been a close-knit group of friends. We obviously had some emotional issues but in a normal sort of way, and we were otherwise fine. I didn’t find anything to indicate that this was deliberately going to go wrong, nothing that jumped out at me as a red flag.”

Augustus wondered if he believed it. “And any other things? Personal stuff?”

“Sure, but it’s personal.”

“I found a confession letter from you to Vii,” he found himself saying. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if it was the memory taking over or his own inherent and contrary desire to stir the pot.

Soren grimaced. “I had a lot of feelings for my friends, okay. But I didn’t… I found nothing to indicate this was an act of jealousy, Augustus. No sign this was a setup. There would be easier ways to do something like that, anyway!”

That was true enough.  “… Did you actually jerk off to provide ritual materials with your current self piloting this body?”

“Augustus.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Augustus!” Soren was scowling at him fiercely, which was a real shame. Augustus’s heart warmed a little, for just a moment.

“Auggie! Soren!” That was Vii, calling them urgently. “Something’s happening?”

Augustus tightened his hand on Soren’s sleeve. “Grab on to me if I try to run. I don’t know if we can stop it, since last time it was the memory taking over, but try. If it looks like you’re losing yourself to memory I’ll say, uh—” He tried to think of a safeword, failed, and blurted out, “Enmity. I’ll say Enmity. If you hear it, focus up. Remember you’re a grown-ass man with a job, not a kid breaking the laws of known reality.”

“Enmity?” Soren asked. Augustus felt something skitter along the back of his neck, and was relieved.

“Auggie! Soren!“

They ran back, and sure enough, something was happening. Moonlight had fallen over the sigils, and they were glittering and gleaming. Reality felt infected, bulging, like pus under the skin, like botflies. Augustus realized that he hadn’t put anything in the bowl.

Should he let it be? Do it? It was a memory, he reminded himself forcefully again, it didn’t matter—in reality, maybe he’d failed to do it in time. Maybe he’d done it long ago. But no, he’d already decided, he’d use his grief that he barely knew to inspire truth from this divination, and he was running out of time to do that. 

Augustus lunged forward, sticking his face into the smoke of the fire, opening his eyes wide. Impossible not to tear up, stinging and miserable; he fell to his knees, bent over the bowl, let his tears fall into it as reality twisted.

His chest ached and abruptly he realized he was crying for real. He was in love, he was in love, he loved Vii and Vii loved him but Vii also loved Soren but Vii didn’t want Soren because Soren was in love with Augustus even if Soren also wanted Vii, and none of them knew how to navigate this emotional mess and they were all so lonely and so broken, they were all so hungry and so sad, and Augustus was sobbing and sobbing, feeling like his heart had broken. Reality tore and split and it began to come through and it was—

—it was so familiar. Snuffling and growling, sounds he heard with a sudden terror, a sudden recognition. He didn’t expect it to be so familiar, he didn’t expect to lose control like this at this sound from his nightmare, the sound that stole his grief from him, the sound that stole any resemblance of a normal life from him, your fault, your fault. He couldn’t keep himself from fleeing, he broke when he saw it, and knew that it was back then that he’d broken. So he ran. He couldn’t control his movement, not even though he remembered again that fuck, no, this was a memory. It was too visceral a memory, and he was living it all over again. So he ran, and he saw his shoe scuff a line on their already-pathetic warding as he scrambled away.

Soren reached for Augustus, but Augustus wasn’t able to control the body enough to reach back. He could scream, though, so he did, he met Soren’s eyes and yelled his safeword, his trigger word, his lover’s name. Soren reached again. 

But Augustus couldn’t see something he hadn’t been there for, even in his memory. He ran because he hadn’t been there, because he’d ran at the time. 

Hopefully saying the word was enough, hopefully the reminder could keep Soren focusing, hopefully Soren could see what happened back then and have enough of himself around to remember it. If he could process it, he could let Enmity see it too.

 Augustus knew how this went; he remembered it from the last divination. He ran wildly until he hit the cave pool, and the cold water brought him to his senses. In the only brave act of his life, he turned and ran back. He found them, but it was too late to save Vii. He let himself be a passenger for this, too emotionally exhausted to try to interact.

Soren must have seen the things he missed. They could talk about it after. He was too far gone to think about that more than distantly. His mind was shattering all over again. It was worse this time. This time, he made eye contact with Vii’s beastly face on the Beast Beyond as he was dragged back through, and saw Vii mouth his name. Augustus. Augustus.

Augustus screamed. He was screaming and couldn’t stop. Vii looked afraid of what was happening to him and where he was going. Augustus’s screaming felt like it went on forever.

And then, suddenly, Augustus was gasping awake, still shuddering, with tears on his face. He was drenched in sweat. He smelled smoke and deliriously wondered if he was back by the fire, but no, there was Emmet in the chair next to the bed, smoking a cigarette and looking—annoyed.

No, not annoyed. Stressed. Maybe worried. Very unfamiliar expressions on a demon prince, even when wearing a human face.

“What’s wrong?” Augustus asked, and heard it come out in a croak. His mouth had never been so dry. Beside him, Soren was also stirring, groaning.

 “You’re finally awake,” Emmet said, tersely. “You were asleep a whole day.”

“What?!” Oh that hurt his throat. Yes, he must have been asleep a long time. His entire body was aching. He had to piss like a motherfucker. “How?”

“Your minds were—it was worse this time. Your connection together, maybe. We shouldn’t do it again,” Emmet said. He took a long draw on his cigarette. “Your ward is here.”

“Ward? We had no wards,” Augustus said, not understanding.

“Your—assistant. Yujin. They’re here,” Emmet said, with more emphasis. “You slept a whole day. They did the shit you asked for and then came here to report in. I was kind of busy trying to keep your minds where they belonged, so I was only able to hold them off from coming in here by promising you’d tell them everything when you were awake. So you’d better make up a compelling lie fast.”

[What should Augustus do?
Comment with details.]

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