What laid beyond the blue veneer? The umbral zenith? The shimmering, transparent cape the world wore across its surface?

  Ma’at stood and stared through the wide window in the main section of the airship. She stared at the sky and the cloves of cumulonimbi gathered across it. How long has it been? Her inward question wasn’t about how long they’d been flying. That was easy. They had departed and reached a stable altitude about forty minutes ago.

  Rather, she wondered just how long ago she had begun her search for Camelia and coincidentally became a regular working mercenary for Vroque Company and Firm. Five, six months? And what, really, did she have to show for it? Granted, they had just scraped together the funds for the current excursion and had very little time to venture outside the city at all. Even then, she couldn’t help but feel a gnawing sense of self-loathing. Had she really used all her time wisely? Was she truly and wholly devoted to tracking her down?

  “Why the long face?” Tien walked up to her and stared at the crawling clouds too.

  Ma’at shook her head. “It’s nothing. Just a bit nauseous still, I think.” Another one of her staple half-truths.

  Tien giggled. “Mhm, the first flight is always rough. I remember mine. I had my face buried in a bucket till we landed.”

  “That’s a long time. And a lot of vomit.”

  She smiled. “It wasn’t as if I was puking the whole time, haha. I just felt like if I left it, I’d hurl all over my shoes.”

  “...Do they always take off like that?” Ma’at recalled the accelerated flight rail and the rollercoaster-like ascent.

  “Yep. Saves a massive amount of fuel.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Manually landing and taking off without a specialized docking port expends a lot of it. Any amount they can save… Well, you get it. The ramp and takeoff procedure saves a ton of fuel and equally a lot of money.”

  “More than it took building all of that? Is it really worth it in the long run?”

  Tien shrugged her shoulders. “Seems like it. I don’t think the higher-ups would’ve signed off on it otherwise.”

  A tiny suspicion had been building in Ma’at since they’d arrived at the Port of Aerodynamics. Tien, who normally was book-smart and logical, knew an awful lot about vehicles and the port in particular. Perhaps she knew a great deal about boats and the like as well, seeing as she loved fishing so much. An adjacent interest in the vessels themselves could have led her to developing a fascination for fishing too. But that wasn’t the point. Tien seemed to have hands-on experience with airship mechanics, that much she made clear, but to what extent?

  “They sure love to waste the funds on making everything visually appealing, though.” Tien shook her head disapprovingly. “Would have been worth it a long time ago if they didn’t bother with prettying everything up. But, I suppose the nobles love it. And it’s all about them.”

  “You really know a lot about this stuff, huh?” Ma’at crossed her arms leisurely and turned her head to look at her.

  “Hmm… We really aren’t supposed to talk about our past occupations, but… I think it’d be fine just this once. Before I became a full-time mercenary, I was one of the head mechanics who worked on ships like this one.”

  “Wow. Head mechanic, eh? Did you work on the prototypes…?” Ma’at raised an eyebrow.

  “No, no! That was way before my time. How old do you think I am!?” It seemed like she was actually a bit angry, an emotion Ma’at hadn’t seen from Tien up until now. “No… I worked on the line of newer models when Reville transitioned from advancements in warfare to advancements in travel.”

  “From warfare…”

  “After the Advent,” she said with a knowing nod. A drop of solemnness was in her voice. Whether it was for the actual people who died during the event or the airship that was destroyed was unclear.

  “I once heard a rumor about an airship being involved, but I wasn’t sure if it was really true or not. Draig might’ve told me…”

  “Then he was right,” she confirmed with another little nod. “Like most people, I don’t know the finer details, either. But my superiors told me about the incident some time later. Apparently, there were no survivors. The wreckage confirmed that the ship had been downed by a single strike.”

  “Strike? Another ship?”

  She shook her head. “No one knows, but my old boss thought it might’ve been magical in origin. There wasn’t any evidence left behind, and certainly none to dispute the theory.”

  The Advent. An event that occurred some time ago. Most people were unrelated, but an endless stream of rumors and warnings had begun to rampage throughout the land like a tidal wave. It seemed as though some cities had gone to investigate the cause of a series of strange quakes and tremors back then and hadn’t returned. What was left in its wake… Well, from testimonies the minority who managed to cling to their lives and sanity had given following it, there was little left. Not only that, but the world seemed to be impacted by it in ways unfathomable to most.

  Ma’at’s curiosity got the better of her. “Tien, what do you know about the Advent?”

  “Me?” She cocked her head slightly, peering up ponderously. “Mm, like I said, not much more than the average person. People say it coincided with the fall of Aza some time before, but no one knows. They’re probably totally unrelated events.”

  “Ah, that’s why it’s called New Aza, right?”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Briefly,” Ma’at replied. “The locals there told me about a massive tower that used to eclipse everything else in the city. They called it the Imperium.”

  “Mhm,” Tien softly intoned. “The day the Imperium fell, so did Aza. Half the city was bathed in fire and ash.”

  “That so? Sounds like you know a lot about that, too.”

  Tien’s face lit up with a surprised look. “N-No, nothing like that. Anyway, about the Advent.” She changed the topic suddenly. Azure light filtered through the window illuminated her pretty brown hair. She tightened her grip on the handle of her suitcase. “All I know is that Altruin, Frostmaw, and Reville were definitely involved. There were many mercenaries, too, as well as a certain religious group.”

  “Hm? Religious group?”

  “Mhm. The Church of the Goddess. The weirdest thing about the Advent, though, is that anyone fit enough to talk about it had lost almost all memory of what actually happened.”

  “They lost their memories? Right, I remember the Writer said something to that effect. Is that why-”

  “It’s why we really have no idea what happened that day. Anyone involved is either dead, insane, or unable to utter a single word of what truly transpired. It’s one of Vastyliad’s greatest mysteries, in my opinion.”

  The Advent. Tien was right, it truly was a great mystery. But, was it really worth mulling over? It has nothing to do with me. That’s something only the upper class would have to worry about. We have no say in what will happen in this world. “Hmph. You’re right, it is a mystery.” She wasn’t sure why, but she felt as though she needed to wander about and get her bearings. An uneasiness had started to build up in her heart. “Sorry, Tien. I’m going to walk around, get a good look at the place. I’ll see you later.”

  Tien smiled. She took a watch out from one of her stylish overcoat’s pockets and glanced at it. “Okay. Check out our room while you’re at it. Hope we got a good one.” She put the pocketwatch away suddenly and looked at Ma’at as if she had just remembered something. “Oh, and if you see Sato, tell her to find me, alright?”

  Ma’at nodded and left her companion to stand alone in front of the beautiful backdrop of blue.

  The Cloudstriker was unequivocally a work of art. Next to none of the passengers could take a few steps without admiring the constructors’ craft, and Ma’at was no exception. Every plank of wood, every shard of mined metal, every pane of glass was painstakingly cut, warped, polished, and perfected in the building process. It was a sight for sore eyes after so many days and months spent among the decrepit and forsaken buildings of Indigo District. Of course, the buildings of Halei Street, Valeigh Street and such as well as the Port of Aerodynamics were also charming in their own ways. It had been harder for Ma’at to totally appreciate the port’s beauty because of the endless swarm of pedestrians mucking up her vision, however.

  The faint hum of unseen machinery and the scent of engine fluids strode with her senses as she climbed one of the arching stairways to the floor of passenger rooms. There, the airship almost seemed to transform into a miniature hotel. Curving, mazelike hallways and passages led to countless doors all numbered appropriately.

  “Hm. I’m pretty sure our room number was 207,” Ma’at said to herself in a quiet voice. Crossing her arms and wandering through the elaborate, gold-tinged halls, she eyed every door and number plaque she came across until she finally found the one she was looking for.

  Like all the others, it was an oaken brown shade and had eccentric lines around its frame that eventually unfurled into whimsical spirals and dancing designs. The only unique quality it had when compared to the rest was a golden plaque that featured an easy-to-read cursive number ‘207’.

  “207, huh? Did he pick this because we’re from Iteration 7?” She chortled and shook her head. If the Writer really had done such a thing, it wouldn’t surprise her. It was such a ridiculously juvenile yet business-like choice. It fit him perfectly. After a brief moment of deliberation, she knocked on the door a couple times.

  No answer. Her light knocking echoed both in the empty room beyond the door and the hall she stood in.

  Shrugging her shoulders, she turned the metal handle and stepped inside.

  A painfully ordinary room laid before her. Three separate beds were positioned to her right. Fine, hand sewn fabrics wrapped their edges. Unique patterns were stitched into them. They looked like jagged, zig-zagging lizards or dragons. Despite their bizarre designs, they looked exceedingly comfortable, enough for Ma’at to feel a sudden strong sense of sleepiness. An urge to fall into a peaceful slumber. It had been a long day, after all, and it was the perfect way to pass the time as they flew to their destination.

  “Destination, hm?” She closed the door and made her way to the bed, setting her blades down at its side. She took a seat on its edge. “Hmph. I don’t even know where we're going.” She wanted to relent the change of heart she’d had within the past few months. She’d grown far too careless. Far too wistful, going with the flow and rarely questioning the weird happenings around her. At least, far less than she used to. It’s all Sato’s fault, her mind mused as she laid down on the bed fully. The Maiden of the Rain had inspired her to fret not about the details too often. It was Ma’at’s job to protect her and Tien. If she wasn’t focused during a critical moment, it could lead to yet another tragedy atop the mountain the world was already built upon. As that last strand of a thought eked out of her head, it was cut in twain, and following it, Ma’at fell into the rapturous sleep that she had so desired.

  I shut my eyes… I opened them. Then I saw the Aspect.

  The star was unbearably bright in that dark corner of the room. Which room? Whose room was it? Who was in the room? All language is a set of symbols whose use among its speakers assumes a shared past. How, then, could she translate into words the limitless Aspect, which her floundering mind could scarcely encompass?

  Reflections. A complex string of reflections mirroring reflections mirroring reflections mirroring reflections. Colors and lights. A grand display of benevolence and violence. Bloodshed and spirit.

  A mixture of a library and an observatory. As she cast her gaze across all but the orb of everything that was the piercing azure glow, warm oak and cold ivory struck her mind like a mallet. Everything had begun to fade already. She could barely feel her own presence within the place. What was it?

  The Reliquary Room.

  “The Reliquary Room?”

  As she asked herself the name of the place, her mind had simply given her the answer as if she had already known it all along. How could she have known it before, though, if she did not have the words already planted inside her mind nor the memory of learning them?

  Before she would inevitably fade away entirely, she finally drew her gaze back to the dazzling object obscuring her vision with countless colors. On the back part of the step, toward the right, she saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brilliance. Really, what she wanted to do was impossible, for any attempt at understanding an endless series is doomed to be infinitesimal. In that single gigantic instant she saw millions of acts both delightful and awful; not one of them occupied the same point in space, without overlapping or transparency. What her eyes beheld was simultaneous, and everything that could be said to describe it would be successive, because language is successive.

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  At first she thought it was revolving; then she realized that this movement was an illusion created by the dizzying world it bounded. The Aspect’s diameter was probably little more than a couple inches, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror’s face, let us say) was infinite things, since she distinctly saw it from every angle of the universe. She saw the teeming sea; she saw daybreak and nightfall; she saw the multitudes of Vastyliad; she saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; she saw a splintered labyrinth (it was Zul); she saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in her as in a mirror; she saw all the mirrors on Aeos and none of them reflected her; she saw in a backyard of Halei Street the same tiles that twenty years before she’d seen in the entrance of a house in Altruin; she saw bunches of grapes, snow, Tranquility, lodes of metal, steam; she saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand; then she saw nothing. The vision was cut short. Every point and angle of the Aspect had shown her what she hadn’t wished to see, and nothing of the contrary. Nothing she wished to see. Nothing at all.

  The astrolabe revolved.

  Ma’at awoke with a thunderous headache. She grasped at her head as if to pull the sense of pain from her nervous system. It was a horrible scraping, clawing feeling at the base of her occipital lobe and spinal cord. She groaned in pain, misery enveloping her heaving form.

  “Ma’at…! Ma’at!” A clear and pristine song rang in her eardrums. A distant and shaky voice. “Ma’at!”

  The world at first seemed as though it were a pinprick of light in an ocean of vast darkness. Each time the voice rang true, the light grew larger and shone brighter. Larger and brighter still, until, at last, the Sirithisian came back to herself. Her eyes regained their hazel luster and filled with visible comprehension where before they were filled with hazy fog.

  The person at her side placed their hand on her back as a comforting gesture. “Are you okay? What’s wrong? Was it a nightmare?”

  As she opened her eyes, the room came into view. The room aboard the Cloudstriker. Room 207. It was a dream. It must have been. She turned her head and saw Sato sitting beside her with wide eyes full of worry. “What… in Asophi’s name…” Her voice was hoarse and dry.

  “Here,” Sato said, handing her a glass of water. “Drink it.”

  Ma’at nodded, silent in perplexment, and drank from it as told. “Thanks.”

  “Another bad dream? Another recurring nightmare?”

  She shook her head, baffled. “I… don’t remember. I don’t remember what it was about.”

  “You don’t remember? Look, you’re shaking. It must’ve been awful.”

  She was indeed shaking, like an addict would upon going cold turkey. Her body spasmed as if all her senses had been electrified and burnt white. Her eyes hurt and throbbed, strained as if she had just stared directly at the sun. After a few minutes, she calmed down and regained her usual disposition.

  “Are you feeling alright now?” Sato inquired in a little voice.

  “Mhn. Yeah…”

  “Jeez, you scared me. I was just checking out the room and I found you groaning on the bed like you just got beaten up.” She stood and folded her arms, her raincoat making a light scratching sound as she did so.

  “Sorry,” Ma’at replied half-heartedly. She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for. “I don’t know what happened. It must have just been a really, really bad dream. So bad that my mind instantly blocked it out, apparently.”

  Sato tapped against her arm and watched her friend for a while, her thoughts mired in incertitude. “Well, if you’re fine now, that’s all that matters. You know, we should really go find Tien and ask her about it. She’s the smartest person I know. She might know what caused it.”

  “Mm. That reminds me,” Ma’at spoke up. She coughed, her throat still a bit hoarse. “She was looking for you.”

  “Tien was looking for me?”

  Ma’at nodded, rubbing the back of her head. The headache still hadn’t gone away.

  “Perfect! Then we can both go see her. Kill two birds with one stone, right?”

  She didn’t feel like talking to anyone, honestly. The only thing that could cure her pain would be another nap, but she was terrified that the same strange occurrence would happen again. In the end, she decided to follow along. “Alright…” She groaned and continued to grasp at her head as she stood up.

  Ma’at led the way and grabbed the handle of the door with her outstretched hand. Pushing it open and taking a step outside into the hall, a great tragedy struck.

  Thud!

  The miserable, torturous pain already coursing through her brain was multiplied ten times over in the fraction of a second. Someone had come running through the hall and didn’t see her coming. They had run right into her, causing them both to come into a head-on collision and fall to the carpeted floor promptly.

  “Ack!” Ma’at yelped.

  “Agh!” the man cried.

  The sound of two human bodies falling backwards rang throughout the hallway. Then, a moment of silence took hold. Then another. Then…

  “Ah! Fuck. Goddamned reht’ka! Watch where you’re going!” Ma’at cried, touching her face. Nothing was broken, but a burning pain was left on her forehead where the two had come into contact. Not to mention that the incident had greatly worsened her horrible headache.

  “What do ya mean, lady!? You suddenly walked right into the middle of the hallway! Came outta nowhere! How am I supposed to stop in time!?”

  “Calm down you two,” Sato tried to mediate. “It was just an accident! We apologize, sir!” She gave him a little bow.

  “No, we DON’T apologize! You’re lucky I don’t-” Ma’at suddenly stopped, her lashing threat abruptly coming to an end. The man she’d bumped into seemed incredibly familiar, so much so that she nearly forgot everything that just happened. “Eh, huh? Wait, are you…?”

  The man recognized her just as she recognized him. A humorous contrast to his previous behavior manifested on his face. He went from fed-up anger to pleading fright within a millisecond. “It’s… you!? O-Oh, um, no p-problem. It was just an accident, yeah. Haha… haha… I’ll just get going then…” He picked up some odd armament that had fallen from his back and tried to escape the situation.

  Ma’at stopped him with a push to his chest. “No, wait. You’re the guy I met in Indigo that day, aren’t you? The guy that hit on me.”

  “Hit on you!?” The man and Sato exclaimed at the same time.

  “Well, yeah. Grin, wasn’t it? You offered me a smoke and then asked if I wanted to go somewhere with you.”

  How good is this woman’s memory? Grin thought. “Heheh… I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I would never do such a thing. I’m a nice, professional mercenary now. Yeah.” He coughed, awkwardly tugging at his shirt collar.

  “Apologize,” Sato commanded.

  He turned to the Maiden, dumbfounded. The woman that had just bowed to him and attempted to mediate the dispute had shifted to a truly malicious attitude. “Apologize?”

  “Apologize! You ran into Ma’at! You made her headache worse! Apologize!” She wielded her umbrella, pointing its razor-sharp tip at him with ire.

  “Fine, fine! Sorry. I was in a hurry, and I wasn’t looking where I was going. My bad.” He put his hands up in surrender.

  Sato lowered her umbrella, clearly pleased with herself.

  “Right…” Ma’at leered at the man. A dark black scythe hung from his back, its blade a gleaming silver. “Are you the Reaper?” Ma’at asked, hiding her genuine intrigue.

  “Is that what they’re calling me?” The man with messy, short black hair expressed a look of disgust, as if the moniker itself had vomited on his shoes. “My name’s Grin. Please call me that.”

  “Why are you acting like we just met?”

  “For all intents and purposes, we did just meet. It’s nice to meet you both. Now, I’ve got to get going.” He attempted to run off again, but it was futile with the brick wall that was Ma’at in the way. “What’s the big deal? Quit stopping me.”

  “Why are you of all people aboard an airship? You were peddling Tranquility a few months ago.”

  Sato’s insidious stare distracted him for a moment, then he returned his gaze to the other terrifying woman before him. “That’s none of your business. I’m contractually obligated not to share any information that may diminish my party’s strength.”

  “Were you contractually obligated to flirt with Ma’at, too?” Sato narrowed her eyes as if she were looking at the scum of the earth.

  “I never hit on her!” He shook his head, clearly tired of the conversation. “I mean, I’ve never met this woman in my life. Now, please, let me pass.”

  Ma’at nodded at Sato, then the duo each took a step to the side to allow him to walk past.

  “Thank you,” Grin grumbled, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. He strode past them, eyeing them all the way until he finally passed through and continued down the hall. His scythe glimmered and reflected the dim, magical lights on the ceiling.

  “What a strange guy.”

  “What a jerk,” Sato spat.

  “Why are you so angry all of a sudden?”

  “Why aren’t you? If anything, you should’ve been even angrier with him.”

  “True,” Ma’at agreed. “Hmm… I’m not sure. He’s a bit down on his luck. I guess I just feel a bit sorry for him. But, it seems like he’s landed a real job.”

  “That’s what he said, but what if he’s lying?”

  “Could be. But why would a third-rate drug dealer from Indigo be on a flight for mercenaries and nobles?”

  “Maybe he snuck on?” Sato proposed quietly, shifting her eyes from left to right.

  Ma’at chuckled. “Hmph. Maybe, but I don’t think so. It seemed like he really had improved. I mean, last time I saw him he was so haggard you would have mistaken him for an old man. He wasn’t even smoking when we saw him.”

  “Isn’t smoking prohibited?”

  “Well, yeah. You get my point, though. It seemed like he had his life together, at least somewhat.”

  “I don’t know,” Sato replied, unconvinced. “Whatever. We should go and find Tien, yeah?”

  With a nod, Ma’at led the way again and walked with Sato down the halls and back out onto the second floor of the airship. They spotted Tien still on the first floor speaking with someone. They hurried down the stairs.

  “...I see. Then we’re all here for the same reason. How interesting.” Tien broke from her conversation with Noth, the Frostlander they had met earlier, as she noticed Ma’at and Sato approaching them. “Thank you.” She nodded, and the man left and walked through the far deadbolt door out onto the sky deck.

  “What was that about?” Sato asked.

  “Hm? Oh, nothing important right now. Where have you two been?”

  “Ma’at said you wanted to see me. Oh! And-”

  Ma’at stopped her with the palm of her hand. “Nevermind. It’s alright,” she whispered, “I can figure it out on my own.” She winced from the pounding headache.

  “Hm?”

  Even though her friend was in visible distress, Sato decided to trust her and keep the incident with the nightmare a secret. “Mm. Nothing. What did you need me for?”

  “I wanted to re-review the paperwork on the Ryosai case. It seems the Kirinai monks who survived were eventually arrested by the Union along with Dr. Ryosai.”

  Sato’s face suddenly grew relaxed and sullen, as if a cold wind had just brushed past her face. “I can’t say I’m too surprised. We didn’t learn the full truth about what caused that man’s transformation into an Enigma, but I had an inkling that Ryosai might’ve had a hand in it. Maybe when he mentioned the phantom they were hunting, he pressured him… or tortured him… into giving up the information.”

  “Ryosai tortured him until he turned into that thing?” Ma’at asked.

  “We can’t know for sure, but the evidence says so, yes.” Tien brought out a stack of documents from her case and skimmed through the top few a couple times each. “Transformation into an Enigma is a very specific event. A breakdown has to occur due to a large amount of mental pressure. If Ryosai did commit such a crime, it would line up with everything else he was willing to do.”

  “So the Union has them both now…” Ma’at summarized, trailing off.

  Sato smiled sadly. “If they had malicious intent, they would have killed them already. Who knows…? The Union might actually be helping Enigmas turn back to normal.”

  “We don’t even know if it’s something that can be reversed, Sato.” Tien looked at her friend with a stern expression.

  “But Rosaline-”

  “Rosaline was only halfway through the process when you two put a stop to it, isn’t that right? We have no idea if someone deep into the change like the Lord of Cogs can even return to being human after all that time spent as something else entirely. That’s why we take these jobs. We have to learn more about them.”

  We have to learn more about them. Despite Ma’at’s conflicting desire, she couldn’t lie. The nature of Enigmas did pique her curiosity. More and more had been coming out of the woodwork within the past few years. It was only natural to want to know more about the mysterious metaphysical malady and the entities it birthed.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” The warrior Noth had returned. He towered over them, even Ma’at and Sato who were about average height. With cold blue eyes hidden beneath his featureless mask, he eyed one of them in particular. “My lady has asked for an audience with the one called Ma’at. She is outside gazing at the sky.” He pointed at the bulkhead as if he could see her through the wall.

  “Her again? I don’t get it. Why is she so interested in us?” Sato spoke aloud, asking everyone in earshot.

  Ma’at shrugged. “She wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”

  “Miss Blackthorn simply readies herself for the imminent excursion,” Noth attempted to clarify in his deep voice. “She sees potential in you all as allies. Potential to be one of her pack, as sisters are to Wolves.”

  “‘As sisters are to Wolves,’ huh?” The Sirithisian mercenary sighed, then took a step toward the door leading out to the deck.

  “You’re going?” Sato asked.

  “Of course. I don’t think I have much of a choice.” With that, she turned the handle on the deadbolt hatch and pushed it open to a rush of harsh atmospheric air.

  The woman in a frilly black dress stood defiantly against the waves of wind and stared up at the floating clouds and the infinite sky. She held a beautifully ornate parasol in one hand to block the harsh rays of the sun. A meager amount of fluffy white clouds, those same clouds being the small size they were, meant that there was nothing to stop her palish skin from burning. It was a wonder if every member of the Blackthorn family was so pale and sleepless, or if it was a trait unique to her.

  “You called?” Ma’at cried with a smirk.

  Beatrice turned around, her lifeless gaze instantly wiping the smirk off her face. The woman grinned slightly, and her eyes seemed to grow large enough to swallow everything. They gripped Ma’at’s soul, as if seeing through her entirely. “Congratulations.”

  “For… what?”

  “You’ve met my expectations. You saw it, didn’t you? That elusive place.”

  “Saw what?”

  “Hehe. Everything… and nothing. The birthplace of existence’s vicissitudes.”

  “Vicissitudes…”

  “Life often tortures the most brilliant of minds. I read that once.”

  “You read it? Who wrote that?”

  “I’m not sure. It was written along the curvature of the world.”

  “All you do is spout nonsense, huh? What that Veronica lady said about you was true, after all.”

  “Yes. I hope you’re confused. It’s my goal to point your nose up to the petrichor so that you may know the arrival of rain. You might say it’s my calling, or my destiny.”

  “Your destiny? Well, then… tell me where we’re going. What’s our destination?”

  Beatrice traded her parasol with her other hand and retrieved an item from a hidden pocket. It was a folded, crimson letter. A red envelope. “That friend of yours with the suitcase; I’m sure she has one as well. Everyone does.”

  “What is it?”

  “An invitation.”

  “An invitation to what?”

  “An invitation to the Crimson Castle, the Scarlet Manor, whichever you prefer. An invitation to a bloody dance in a certain lord’s honor. Every person aboard the Cloudstriker rides it with the express purpose of making it on time to such a place. The castle itself is on the border of the Aaskiminuvien Theocracy; in it will be housed the grand event. The Scarlet Masquerade.”

  Ma’at was skeptical. Beatrice had begun to make less and less sense with every word out of her mouth. “And what about it? Why is it so important?”

  “To the world, it is yet another feast for those stronger than their prey. To you, however, it is the next flaming footprint burned into your journey’s path.”

  “F-Flaming footprint? You can’t mean… You don’t know…”

  “The next lighthouse across vicious seas. Camelia is there. Or, she was there.” Beatrice made a pouting face, feigning puzzlement. “You’ll have to figure that out.”