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Assistant: Title: No Fate Only Family
        Author: Janoha Janoha 
        Chapter: 44/46 
        Summary: Luz' parents had their secrets. Camila had a rough time growing up, but she never told anyone how bad for fear they would not believe her. Manny looked and acted human, but knew more about the Demon Realm and the workings of magic than any human should.Now that Luz has found the Boiling Isles, those secrets will come to light, and the realms will never be the same.Now on TVTropes, courtesy of The_Literary_Lord and friend:https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/NoFateOnlyFamilyNow with a Discord Server! https://discord.gg/R2DETBPBua
        Contents: Chapter 44: Screaming Souls in a Hollow Heart
    

    

        
          
          
            With the Eclipse only a week away, the CATTs make a desperate gamble with experimental magic to try to find Belos' secret base.
          
        

      
        
          Content Warnings:AbuseAnimal DeathsBloodCharacter DeathsDeadnamingDismembermentGenocideMisgenderingPanic AttackPossessionReligion Used to Justify AtrocitiesTraumaWitch HuntsZombies
            
            (See the end of the chapter for  more notes.)
            
      
  

  
  
    
    
  Masha bid their coworker a good evening, having promised to handle closing for the day. They had already finished their homework, and was reading through the Creatures and Caverns player’s handbook when the bell rang to admit their visitors.

  The group of five was only partly those they expected. Luz led the group, having noticeably tied her hair back in a short ponytail, while Gus and Helyna stood at her sides, the latter holding hands with her. 

  ‘Good for them’, Masha thought to themself; Vee had told them about the recent relationship developments the last time they had hung out. Behind the kids were two adults. The older of the two was looking around with what seemed to be nostalgia, while the younger of the adults had curiosity and contempt in equal parts of his expression.

  What caught Masha’s attention most was that he was the spitting image of Caleb Wittebane, save his hazel eyes and wild auburn hair kept in a loose tail. He was dressed fairly nondescript, a sweater and slacks with a knee-length coat.

  “Hey Luz, Helyna, Gus!” Masha waved. “Who’re your friends?”

  “Ah, it’s been a long time since I last walked this town, it’s certainly much nicer than back then, even if that statue is an eyesore,” the lady commented, the bluebird on her shoulder chirping.

  “Oh, this is Evelyn and Rowyn,” Luz introduced them. “Yes, 
  
    that
  
   Evelyn.”

  “...How!?” Masha asked after a moment of realization.

  “A curse to see things through,” Evelyn answered cryptically.

  Noticing the attention directed at him, Rowyn sighed. “Caleb was my father. My younger sister went on to found the modern Clawthorne line, while I spent the last few hundred years in a sleeping vigil, encased in crystal. This is my first time in the realm of my father’s birth.”

  “How are you liking it so far?” Masha asked diplomatically, putting on their best customer service face.

  “I feel the modern Gravesfield would not have produced my father,” Rowyn noted.

  “Yeah, things are certainly better, though you can’t ignore the past entirely,” Masha nodded.

  “Which is why we’re here,” Luz informed.

  “Right,” Masha nodded. “Would you like the tour first, or get right down to business?”

  “I think a tour would be lovely,” Evelyn spoke up. “Might as well see how history remembers me.”

  “In all honesty, a lot of the records from that time didn’t survive the courthouse fire of Sixteen…well, even the exact year of the fire was lost,” Masha gave a shrug as they led the group through the display hall.

  Rowyn responded with a snort of a laugh. “Pyromania really runs in the family, huh?”

  “Says the one with Dad’s fire glyph,” Luz rolled her eyes.

  “They really went all-in with the imagery, didn’t they?” Gus commented on seeing a print of a fire-damaged sketch.

  Evelyn leaned in for a closer look. “Oh yeah, my old brewing hat. Forgot about that old thing,” she commented. “And whoever drew that actually got my tail.”

  “Wait, you had a tail?” Luz started.

  “Last bit of visible demon heritage from my dad’s side. Philip chopped it off in our duel, the rotted b@st@rd. Wasn’t enough to take the love of my life, he had to take my pride too,” Evelyn growled.

  “If you’ll follow me through the staff room, we can look at the special collection, which I believe has what you’re looking for,” Masha directed.

  Jacob’s conspiracy board had been taken down and replaced, the Flat-Earther’s mad ramblings replaced with a slightly more organized corkboard with multiple colors of string, helpfully decoded by a legend pinned to the frame.

  “Don’t mind the board, I’ve just been trying to make sense of all the supernatural weirdness that myself and my friends have gotten involved in since camp,” Masha brushed off. The monitor showed an open chat window, which the enby was quick to minimize, but not before Luz noticed that they were chatting with one of the Pines.

  Unlocking the door at the back of the room, they pulled a chain to light the stairs down, leading them single file to the private part of the collection.

  A shudder ran through the witches as they entered the basement. Along one wall, over a dozen stone busts were set on a counter, each one covered with a wooden mask, the eyeholes feeling like they were staring back.

  “The Witch Hunters of Gravesfield believed that the devil could not be allowed to know their faces, so they wore masks modelled on the creatures of the forest to keep the witches from stealing their souls, carved from what they claimed was wood from a holy grove, one that the native peoples had avoided,” Masha explained.

  “How wrong they could be,” Evelyn shook her head. “In using Arborgeist wood to make their masks, all they succeeded in was trapping an echo of the worst of themselves.”

  Helyna stared at a mask that bore the vague owl shape of the helmet she wore as the Golden Guard, a crack running through the left eye stained black with long-dried blood.

  “He thought the masks would keep Him out,” Evelyn lay a hand on her shoulder. “It wasn’t enough, but the Judge was happy to take anything that would give himself and his lackeys the illusion of control. He gave so much of himself trying to keep his brother safe, and he paid him back with fratricide.”

  “Found it,” Luz announced. She locked eyes with the antlered mask, older than the rest. Removing it from the bust, she could feel the echoes still clinging to the centuries-old wood.

  Luz allowed some of her Titan side to bleed through, her eyes lighting up and the shadows deepening as a quote sprang to mind.

  “This is the beginning of the end, Philip. And I can’t wait to watch you burn.”

  “I don’t like how exposed we are.”

  Yunan stared out at the blood pines, her lips pursed in a grimace. She was on lookout duty a part of the still-being-formalized alliance between the provisional government of the Isles and the Amphibian Council. 

  The ancient ruins that filled the clearing gave the area an air of mystique, and the unnerving dread of some long-forgotten atrocity. The clearing itself was a large crater, with the ruins rising from the fog-obscured base of the crater, somewhere between a tower, a city, and a cathedral, now fallen to ruin. The floors of the ruins were covered in glassy tiles, arranged in what would be a stunning mosaic from the air, with winding strings of ancient runes running between the tiles. Pillars of carved bone and ossified flesh held up each level of the tower, and formed the structure of the bridges that spanned the crater. The Pillars themselves were largely hollow, having been carved into living spaces by the original builders. At the top of the ruins, a large altar stood above all, where ancient witches and demons had once worked their magic.

  In her time as a soldier of Newtopia, Yunan had a lot of experience with old ruins, given their tendency for occupation by marauders and dangerous beasts. Those ruins that did not become inhabited by such dangers tended to be the danger in itself, like the Ruins of Despair. As a soldier and later general, she had been tasked with clearing out such places with enough regularity that the mystique had been lost.

  The Boiling Isles had restored that sense of mystique. On Amphibia, magic had been the domain of the Bizarre Bazaar, backwoods frog witches, and the worst bandit warlocks who had fallen at her hands. Miss Flour had opened her eyes to the usefulness of magic, but the realm of demons had shown her how magic could shape an entire civilization. Though consulting with the locals had been heartening having her skills and experience respected - though beating one of their leaders in a sparring match may have been a factor.

  And while she appreciated the vote of confidence, her allies would take some getting used to.

  “Interossi is a place of power,” one of the Seekers stated, his hood down to reveal his compound cycloptic eye and prominent mandibles. “The original settlement was built atop an open vein, from which they harvested the Titan’s blood, bone, and ichor to raise a great temple. It was abandoned long before even Belos, and was lost to the increasingly hostile woods. By the Deadwardian Era, only the Seekers remembered it existed. But that power is still there, waiting to be tapped into.”

  “Why was it abandoned?” Yunan asked.

  “I’m surprised you don’t know,” the Seeker clicked. “Then again, your people must have lost their records to history too.” At Yunan’s look of dawning horror, he continued. “Great amphibian beasts and warriors emerging from glowing portals, wreaking havoc upon the demons and witches of the Isles. D@mn near wiped out the witches even after their troops were driven off. Their numbers only recovered after a sudden population boom that we now realize was from humans fleeing some disaster in their realm.”

  “Oh, I’m… sorry?” Yunan replied awkwardly.

  “You don’t need to apologize. I recall hearing you fought against the Empire responsible,” the Seeker waved off. “And even if you did fight for them once, well, you wouldn’t be the first defector we count among our allies.”

  Yunan broke eye contact, returning to her watch as her regrets weighed on her. When Andrias had dropped the facade of the good king and revealed his plans to conquer another world, Yunan had been too frozen with terror and trauma from watching Olivia’s human ward be run through to anything but nod and supplicate when he turned his attention to them. In those first few weeks, she had been complicit in his reign of terror, even relishing when he ordered the nobility to be brought in line by force. It had taken seeing the devastation of the land she’d sworn to protect to build the courage to defy her liege, which only resulted in her spending months in a violet haze, Darcy’s insistence that she and Yunan be kept in the castle as guards a small mercy.

  Above their heads, the sky grew dark as the sun dipped below the horizon, evening giving way to proper night. The moon took its position, a shining crescent as the light of its orbit waned. Around the ruin, fresh pillars of stone had been erected with magic, capped with torch-like braziers that banished the gloom with their autumnal glow. Scattered glowing eyes peered from the shadows of the trees, and Yunan shot a glare their way as the air shifted behind her.

  Atop the ritual altar, the ones performing the magic of the hour stood, illuminated by the torches ringing the stone plinth. Luz had raised a stone column to waist-height, carving the barrel with winding glyphs and runic channels, with a shallow bowl forming the top. Within the bowl sat a simple wooden mask, one weathered with age by a few centuries, but carrying an eerie air to it.

  Eda, surprisingly, was the first to voice her concern. “I may be the biggest proponent for mixing magic, but this is insane.”

  Luz double-checked her work, making sure each circle, curve, and line were mathematically precise. “Desperate time calls for desperate measures, Mom. We have a week until the eclipse, and no idea where Belos is hiding. None of the Trappers we’ve captured know where he’s hiding, either - almost like they’ve had their memories blocked or wiped.”

  “And he’s not talking to the Collector anymore,” King added. “Best we can tell, he’s been keeping his mirror covered except when he’s showing the Trapper leader, and he can’t bring himself to face that monster again.”

  Eda’s gaze softened at her son’s words. “I sometimes forget that for all their knowledge, the Collector is still a traumatized kid.”

  King’s eyes narrowed in a way that indicated a frown. Eda kneeled down to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure out where Belos is, and we’ll free your friend.”

  “Promise?” King looked up to meet her eyes.

  “Wild Witch’s honor,” Eda smiled.

  Helyna’s voice pulled their attention.

  “Alright everyone! The moon is high and the planets are aligned. It’s showtime!”

  King climbed to his mom’s shoulder, as she stood on the periphery of the altar.

  Unstopping a vial, Helyna poured a pearlescent violet potion into the shallow basin, which rippled and sparked where it ran into the wood of Philip’s mask.

  Camila stepped up, drawing on memories not her own to shape the magic in the air into a wireframe construct. A ring formed in the center for Luz to place her hand through, aligning her arm with that of the Isles.

  A charge built in the air as they began to chant, ancient words granted power by even older entities.

  A vulture’s call was ignored by those within, while those outside the circle tensed, on alert as they sought the source of the sound. Keen eyes picked out a shimmering specter among the dark foliage, a lasso of crackling light being thrown to drag the creature into the light.

  It was the spectral form of a large bird, the kind favored by only one witch on the Isles.

  Bolts of light filled the night as Trappers, Scouts, and Beast Demons flowed from the trees toward the ruins.

  Atop the rotted specter of an Emperor Teratorn, the former Lieutenant of the Oracle Coven stood, hovering over the treetops. Lituus Palatine had always been one of the more unnerving members of the Oracle Coven, and he had only become more so since he had last been seen. His protruding pearly eyes were ringed with dark bags that stood out against his sallow yellowed skin, with peg-like black teeth lining his beak. His feathered ruff was looking pale and disheveled, making the feather-hilted daggers concealed within it obvious, while the robes he wore over his emaciated form were trimmed with glowing runic script.

  Osran noticed the way many of those clad in the garb of Coven Scouts were shambling in their movements, and scowled at the aves demon, summoning a dozen of the Oracle Spirits he had contracted with over the years, setting them on the zombies bound by his former subordinate. Ghostly talons raked through the decayed flesh, throwing them down the chasm between the ruins and crater walls.

  Their Amphibian allies danced through the wave of Trappers, flashes of steel and plasma drowning out the noise of the ritual, even as every torch in the ruins flickered with baleful blue flames that cast the battlefield in their eerie light.

  A column of gold pierced the sky from the altar.

  Osran smirked beneath his mustache.

  “You’re too late Lituus!” he announced. Osran was ancient even by the standards of dextran demons, and he prided himself on his power of prophecy and ability to commune with the spirits of the dead. Being swindled by Belos had been a tough pill for him to swallow, and he had thrown himself to the CATTs to atone for his work as Coven Head, and to track down the hole Belos had crawled away to. When it became clear that his normal methods would not work, he had been forced to acquiesce to more experimental methods, and he could not be more proud of the advances in Oracle Magic that had been made, even if the nature of his allies made their future’s obscured to him.

   As the column of light faded, and those who looked right at it blinked off the temporary blindness, three Palisman landed on the floor of the altar. Eda swept them up along with the mask, and took to the air, her form blurring into a comet-like streak of light.

  “They’re in!” the Owl Lady shouted, flying towards the Owl House while Lituus and his remaining forces were driven into a wounded retreat, their objective failed.

  Osran summoned his Giant’s Grimoire, and took flight after the necromancer.

  It wouldn’t do for Belos to learn 
  
    too
  
   quickly that his mind had been broken into.

  Having used mind magic like this twice before, Luz was prepared for the abyssal void that the three found themselves in, which quickly gave way to a rapidly-approaching light. The light resolved into a landscape.

  Of the mindscapes she’d been in, Belos truly had the most disconcerting. Eda and Willow had both manifested vibrant forests, even if Willow’s had been a bit scorched at the time. But the mind of Belos was a dark forest, the trees bereft of leaves and the bark dull, twisted, and lifelessly gray.

  It reminded Luz of the woods around Gravesfield in the late fall, when the leaves had all fallen but the first snows had yet to. The trees bowed into a tunnel, the cold earthen path leading to a very familiar cabin.

  Luz checked her wrist, her mom and Helyna doing the same. Her cousin was an expert in Mind Magic, and he and Mabel had gotten together with Amity and Vee’s friend Hannah to create a set of protective charms for the mission. Mabel had provided the rainbow unicorn hair, Amity provided the Oracle magic, and Hannah had woven them together and sealed them with a drop of her own blood. The result was a set of three corded bracelets clasped with a pale metal spider and a red-violet gem. With any luck, the charms would make it more difficult for the Inner Belos to detect them, and differentiate their presence from his own mind.

  Sometimes it paid to be friends with one of the few decent descendants of Philip Wittebane.

  The cold weight in her pocket was another reminder.

  Bracing themselves, the three approached the cabin. Luz opened the door, and there was another flash of light.

  When the light faded, they were still outside the cabin, but the dark forest had changed. The trunks of the trees had split, twisting open to expose ornately framed portraits.

  Helyna’s ear twitched.

  “We’re not alone here.”

  A shadow flit between the trees, a glint of too many baleful blue eyes the only thing to mark its passage. Camila shaped her living metal bracer into a spear, which she brandished defensively. The shadow flowed into the open from around a memory tree, raising an antlered head to roar with a hundred voices.

  The three leapt back, falling into the memory portrait behind them.

  They landed on a hardwood floor.

  Standing up, they took stock of their surroundings as the memory played. They were in the main room of a cabin, a fireplace against the wall. A disconcerting number of dark glass bottles lay strewn about, the air heavy with the stench of spilled beer. Against one wall, a six year old boy sat, blue eyes dazed and a red mark on his cheek. His brown hair was unhealthily unkempt, and his clothes were ragged. Against the fireplace, an older boy, around twelve or so, had fallen, his pale blond hair stained at the back with blood that matched the spatter on the brick behind him.

  Above the younger boy, the shadow of a larger man loomed, inarticulate yelling ringing as a red hot fireplace poker swung through the air.

  The older boy sprang to his feet, imposing himself between the man and the child. The poker came down on his shoulder, battering him to the side with the sickening crack of broken bone. His eyes shut in pain as his consciousness faded.

  Then he jolted awake, staggering to his feet with a mad cackle. His bleary brown eyes had been replaced by glowing sulfur and slit pupils like the heart of a black hole. The man staggered back as the pre-teen lunged, wresting the weapon from his assailant’s hand and bringing it down on his skull.

  The younger boy shut his eyes, and the memory went dark, only the sound of crackling fire and splitting wood filling the void.

  When the memory became visible again, it was to the blond kid pulling a fallen plank off of the boy.

  “It’s okay Pip, you’ll be okay. He can’t hurt us anymore.”

  Helyna froze at the familiarity of his voice.

  The same voice she’d once heard from herself, when she was that age.

  This was Caleb Wittebane.

  Which meant the other boy was Philip.

  “Come on!” Caleb urged his brother as he pulled him out of the rubble of the cabin. Smoke filled the air, choking out the fires that had consumed the other cabins of their settlement, the only warmth against the chill of the winter night.

  Picking through the rubble, Caleb gathered some tattered furs that he wrapped around himself and Philip, making sure his brother got the most of them.

  As the wind howled, bringing the snow, Philip and Caleb began to trudge into the wilderness.

  As they carefully exited the memory, Luz’ eyes were wide and unfocused, lost in her own recollection.

  “Those furs…that storm…those eyes…” she muttered.

  “Luz?” Camila gently reached for her daughter.

  “Of course that wasn’t a random pair of kids,” she muttered, her voice growing sharp. “Of course 
  
    I
  
   had to be the reason they ended up in Gravesfield.”

  The next memory was of a dark figure standing out in the whiteout of a blizzard.

  She knew exactly what the memory was of, but felt drawn to it regardless, seeing the first time Philip had met her from his perspective, banishing the monster puppeting Caleb’s body and bringing them to the safety of a church house.

  Her frown deepened as she saw the face of the man who found them. A face etched into her memory from the local history books.

  Righteous-Hand Court.

  Luz clenched her fists hard enough to draw blood, before her mother’s hand on her shoulder grounded her.

  “You couldn’t have known, mija,” she told her. “You were doing what you thought was right, saving a pair of innocent children from freezing to death.”

  “And I gave them to the man who made one of them a monster,” Luz spat bitterly.

  “That’s on him, not you.” Helyna’s voice was firm, her magenta gaze piercing as she took her hand. “And if you hadn’t saved Caleb, the Clawthornes we know wouldn’t exist. 
  
    I
  
   wouldn’t exist. And as bad as everything that’s happened has been, I’d prefer the timeline where I exist.”

  Luz wiped the tears beginning to gather at her eyes. “Thanks, ‘Lyna. I prefer the timeline where you exist too.”

  The growling of the beast reminded them that they were far from out the woods, and urged them into the next notable memory.

  Caleb and Philip were out in the woods, the latter playing with a toy sword, while the former carved at a bowed plank of wood. Tying a leather cord to the finished piece, Caleb called his brother’s nickname.

  “It’s done, Pip!” He held out the mask in his hands as his brother stopped playing for a moment to see his handiwork.

  “Wait a second, these are arborgeist trees,” Helyna noted their surroundings.

  Philip’s features were hidden beneath the deer-like mask.

  “There you go Pip, now none of those witches will be able to hurt you.”

  “I thought I’d find you here, Caleb,” a harsh baritone announced the arrival of Righteous-Hand Court, holding a lantern aloft.

  “What, pray-tell, are ye doing in the woods this God-blessed evening, my son?” He noticed Philip’s mask, and took it off him, appraising it with a critical eye. “And what manner of witchcraft is this?”

  “Not witchcraft, sir!” Caleb exclaimed defensively. “It’s to protect him from the devil’s eye. If he cannot see his face, he cannot work his witchcraft.”

  Righteous-Hand’s eyes glinted as a calculating smile crossed his sharply-hewn face. “Is that so, Caleb?” He returned the mask to Philip. “In that case, perhaps more of us should don these masks, if you can provide.”

  “Of course, sir!” Caleb nodded. “I’ll get started right away, sir!”

  “That’s a good lad,” Righteous-Hand patted Caleb’s shoulder, before ruffling Philip’s hair.

  Unseen to all but the observers, a triangular shadow flickered in the lantern-light.

  The memory they entered afterward took them a few years ahead. Caleb looked older, at least sixteen, while Philip looked to be around ten. Gravesfield was a small town, in the English Colonial style.

  A girl was flirting with Caleb, and Philip scowled. Once they had parted ways, Philip left for the church that formed the metaphorical center of the town.

  “What troubles you, my son?” Righteous-Hand asked.

  Philip was stoic as he spoke. “Reverend, I fear Joy Howell is consorting with the devil to seduce my brother Caleb from the path of righteousness.”

  “That is a very serious accusation, my son. We cannot have our whittler falling prey to the devil’s work,” the reverend smiled, and those observing felt their skin crawl.

  Joy had been arrested, tried through ordeal by water, and when she swam, she had scarcely time to breathe before she hanged.

  Helyna forced Luz to avert her gaze, while her own sight focused on the pale, sickened look on the face of her ortet, a look that went unnoticed by the cruel glint of a smile in Philip’s eyes.

  Leaving the memory, Helyna growled.

  “Even as a child, Belos was manipulating people.”

  “And the reverend was enabling him,” Camila commented with naked disgust for the Court patriarch.

  Helyna tried to ignore how the reverend had looked at Philip, the same way Belos had looked at her when she had done his foul bidding.

  Stumbling into another memory, it was clear at least a couple years had passed.

  Caleb had grown more pale and sickly, with distinct bags under his eyes, and the number of unmarked graves around town had more than tripled.

  “Brother please, tell me who has cursed you, and we can bring the witch to justice!” Philip followed his brother on the edge of town. 

  Caleb coughed into his fist, wiping off the phlegm on his shirt.

  “No witch has worked their sorcery on me, Pip, these nightmares are my own to suffer.”

  “That can’t be true, Caleb!” Philip whined back. “Trust me, I will find the witch who has cursed you and free you of these nightmares!”

  “Just like you did the last nine times!?” Caleb spun on his brother. “This is an earthly sickness, Philip, and murder will not cure it.”

  “We are doing the Lord’s work, Caleb, rooting out the devil from our borders. Or has your curse so blinded you cannot see the Lord’s light?” Philip countered sharply.

  “If I’m blinded, it’s by your radiance, 
  
    Golden Guard
  
  ,” Caleb scowled before stalking deeper into the forest, clutching the edges of his coat - The same coat, Luz realized, that Philip had worn when she’d met him in the past.

  Undeterred by his brother’s words, Philip followed him into the woods, albeit at a distance.

  “Ugh, why did we ever come to this horrible town?” Caleb muttered. “Should’ve left once the blizzard passed….”

  Suddenly, Caleb froze, the tone of voice changing with the way he carried himself, staggering as though intoxicated.

  “Now where’s the fun in that, Forelock?” Caleb’s eyes had become that dreadfully familiar sulfur shade, as a tear of blood began welling from his left eye. “Told you you couldn’t get rid of me that easily, pal!”

  “Unhand my brother, foul demon!” Philip bellowed as he confronted his possessed older sibling.

  Baleb threw his head back and laughed.

  “Oh yeah, you and what army?” he taunted. “You kids have some serious power, not gonna lie - gram-gram must’a shacked up with one of my drinking buddies - but I’ve been here since your kind was still splashing in the mud, and this little piggy's got enough oomph to take your whole podunk town outta the census!”

  Philip brandished his knife, a gift from his mentor, prompting another laugh from Baleb.

  “Ha! What’re ya gonna do? Stab your own idiot brother? Bit early for that, don’t ya think?” Baleb’s wicked smile shifted. “What do you say we make a deal, kid? I spare your worthless life, and you keep on killing in the name of that big man you humans love so much.”

  A bird chirped overhead, and Baleb winced, even as Philip’s dagger wavered in his hand.

  “Caleb?” a woman’s voice could be heard through the trees.

  Baleb scowled. “Ugh, this thorne up my backside.”

  The bird chirped again, louder. The foliage rustled as the woman appeared before them.

  Luz, Camila, and Helyna gasped with recognition, while Philip in the memory gasped with shock and more than a little Puritan indignation.

  It was Evelyn. Her ears were hidden under the hood of her crimson cloak. What was visible of her outfit was a combination of a men’s jerkin and a long embroidered skirt.

  For Philip, it was an unthinkable affront to the standards of decency he had been raised with.

  For Luz, it was a reminder to ask her for style advice.

  The arrival of the Boiling Isles witch gave the brothers pause, before Baleb conjured a ball of blue fire in his hand that he threw at her. The witch caught the fire and dispelled it with her bare hands, her olivine eyes narrowing at the possessed human.

  “Cipher,” she hissed.

  “You consort with this devil!?” Philip pointed his dagger at Evelyn, who barely gave him a second glance.

  “I’d hardly call this equilateral b@st@rd a consort,” she scowled, directing her attention back to Baleb. “Now leave him, or else.”

  “Or else what, Evie? It’s not like any of your magic can actually do anything to me!” Baleb taunted.

  Evelyn’s scowl turned into a cocky smirk. “I think you’ll find I’m full of surprises.”

  The witch lunged toward Baleb, who tripped up Philip as he dodged. The witch hunter fell into the bushes. Then a spade-tipped tail wrapped around Baleb’s ankle and dragged him to the dirt with a thud.

  The chirping bird, a bright red cardinal, fluttered down to Evelyn’s hand, a wooden staff forming beneath his feet. The cardinal’s eyes glowed, and Evelyn brought the staff down on Baleb’s chest, a flash of light flaring out on contact.

  Caleb’s eyes blinked open, once again their normal shade of brown. Behind him, a triangular shadow wearing a tophat rose on a nearby birch tree, before a dart of light struck the ‘eye’ in the bark. The shadow vanished with a scream.

  The cardinal was sitting on Caleb’s chest, chirping happily.

  “Are you okay, Caleb?” Evelyn asked, sinking to her knees to check him over. His pale complexion had regained some color, with a distinct blush across his cheeks.

  “I’m fine, thanks to you.”

  Evelyn kissed Caleb on the forehead, and the memory flashed red.

  Philip hoofed it back to Gravesfield, to that metaphorically blood-stained steeple.

  “Forgive me Reverend, for I have witnessed my brother fallen to the sorcery of a witch.”

  When Caleb returned to the town, he was clapped in irons and dragged into the courthouse. Surrounding him were the Witch Hunters of Gravesfield, identities hidden behind wooden masks carved to resemble the faces of animals. Bears and birds, with a hauntingly simple worn by their leader. In the evening torchlight, the eyes of the masks seemed to glow red.

  Even from outside, Caleb’s screams could be heard. Philip covered his ears.

  The next memory began in that same courthouse.

  Caleb was bound to the witness stand, resting his weight on one leg. His hands were concealed beneath bl@@dy bandages, and his eyes were hollow and dead inside.

  At the judge’s stand, Righteous-Hand Court stood, imperious in his countenance.

  “Mr. Caleb Wittebane, you have intimate knowledge of the witch who has enthralled you, an enthrallment that we have broken. You are free of her foul craft, so you may speak freely of her deeds and intentions, of the hell where she hails, and how to put an end to her and all the devil’s wicked acolytes. We have saved your soul from her clutches, so please, son, help us save her other victims.”

  Caleb looked down at his mangled hands, broken beyond any ability to heal by human means.

  “It’s almost funny,” Caleb spoke. “All these souls sacrificed on the pyre of these witch hunts, 
  
    and you still think the devil does not dwell within this very building!
  
  ”

  The gallery gasped.

  “Evelyn hails from a world of beauty incomprehensible to our sinful mortal eyes. She is an angel of the Lord made flesh, sent to save us from this cold world, and we have blasphemed in rejecting her blessings. She saved our crops from the worst of the winter, and we burned them, damning ourselves to a famine our own making. She spares our cows of sickness, and the maidens who care for them hang. She saved my soul, and you seek to claim her head,” Caleb’s voice rose with every word, a fire of passion bringing life to his eyes. “It is you who have allowed the devil into your hearts, to murder our brothers and sisters on baseless accusations. You, who have damned your souls, hiding behind the masks you forced me to carve for you from his own wood. The devil need not know your face, for your deeds mark you as his own hands.”

  The gallery had devolved into a cacophony of shouts, as Righteous-Hand called for order.

  Philip stared at his brother, his own pleas for his brother to repent being drowned out by the noise.

  “Order!” Reverend-Judge Court bellowed. “I will have order! Caleb Wittebane, you have pled guilty to blasphemy and consorting with witches, and must be put to death for the good of your soul!”

  No sooner had his gavel struck that the courthouse window exploded. A shower of glass rained over the crowd, as Evelyn flew into the building, her cloak whipping around her and her hood down to reveal her pointed ears and wild mane. The staff she rode upon bore an unfamiliar brown cardinal Palisman.

  “Caleb!” she shouted as she drifted down, drawing a spell circle to break the shackles around his wrists and ankles. Seeing the state of him, her expression fell.

  “Oh my love, what have they done to you?”

  “See! The witch has invaded our town to claim her thrall!”

  Evelyn shot a terrifying glare at the judge. “Put a sock in it, you disgusting excuse for a human being.”

  Judge Court pulled out his gun, which he had kept loaded. Evelyn conjured a shield that deflected the bullet into one of the lanterns, spraying burning oil onto the timbers, which quickly caught alight.

  As the courthouse burned, the people within rushed for the exits, pressing against each other in their frantic haste, even as Judge Court reloaded his pistol.

  Philip was frozen in terror, the flames licking at his memories of the last time he had been caught in a burning building.

  The second bullet ricocheted into the rafters, compromising the burning wood even further.

  Evelyn scowled, sweeping Caleb off his feet. “Only a fool fights in a burning house.”

  Taking flight on her staff, the two rocket through the window she’d come through, untouched by the flames.

  Then the rafter fell, landing directly on Judge Court.

  Philip snapped out of his stupor, and tried to lift the beam crushing his mentor.

  “Philip Wittebane,” Righteous-Hand coughed. “Save yourself, and bring that witch to justice.”

  “I promise, Reverend,” Philip finally said.

  “And one more thing,” there was blood welling from the older Witch Hunter’s mouth. “You have always been like a son to me, and I wish to make that official. My daughter has made no secret of her affection for you, and I wish for you to carry on our family.”

  Philip grimaced, but nodded. “As you wish, Father.”

  “Now go!” Judge Court bellowed his last, before expiring, leaving Philip to charge blindly out of the burning courthouse.

  In the corner of his eye, he saw Caleb and Evelyn flying through the air, and with a furious growl, he pursued.

  They landed in the graveyard, running between the headstones and up the hill with the old stone arch.

  Something flew from Evelyn’s hand, and the archway was filled with an eldritch light, which the two disappeared into.

  “Caleb!” Philip shouted, reaching for his brother. The portal faded before his hand could cross the threshold.

  Trudging back to town, the crowd was rallied around an imposing woman who shared her father’s features and countenance.

  “Ms. Antebella Court!” Philip exclaimed as the young woman approached.

  “That witch stole your brother and murdered my father. Take all the time you need to recover, but we will see that witch burn.”

  At the blazing fury in her steely gaze, a faint dusting of pink crossed Philip’s face.

  “Oh Titan, I think I’m gonna be sick.” Luz looked faintly green at the realization that there was someone fanatical enough to make Belos fall in love with them.

  “We’ve seen enough here,” Camila led the teens out of the memory.

  They were confronted by the spindly form of the beast.

  Helyna put herself between the creature and the Nocedas, her hands glowing with golden power. That same gold replaced the baleful blue of the creature’s many eyes, and it lowered itself until it was eye level with the Grimwalker.

  “I know what you are, and we aren’t enemies,” Helyna told it, much to Luz and Camila’s surprise.

  “I know I’ve made your situation worse in the past, but I’m trying to make things right, and I think we can help each other.”

  The beast made a noise that only Helyna understood, and turned to head deeper into the forest of the mind.

  “That was his curse, wasn’t it? The Bane of Magic?” Camila asked.

  “Not the Bane, the victims,” Helyna answered without meeting her eyes. Luz’ eyes widened.

  “The Palismen…”

  Helyna nodded grimly, before following the Amalgam.

  The manifested souls led them to another region of the forest. The trees here were tightly packed, and they didn’t even need to enter the portraits for their contents to ripple into being around them.

  Philip was much older, resembling more the man who Luz, Lilith, and King had met in the Deadwardian Era, with an even scruffier beard. The witch hunter was staggering amongst the blood pines, his limbs twisting unnaturally as his eyes flared a baleful blue. He saw a pair of figures cresting a hill heading for a magical-looking gate. Philip followed them, making his presence known, arms raised to strike as an unearthly roar tore from his throat and he lunged.

  He tripped on a rock on the way down, and landed at the feet of one of the figures, who startled back.

  “Who--Pip!?” Caleb exclaimed.

  “Caleb?” Philip’s eyes were cloudy and his vision impaired by the glow of his own eyes, even as his spine roiled against him.

  “Philip!” Caleb was quick to wrap his brother in a hug, forcing the tremors to subside for a moment. “How did you get here? What happened to you? And when did you grow a beard?”

  It was clear that whatever had happened, Caleb still cared for his younger brother.

  Philip’s breathing was labored and ragged.

  “Something’s wrong, Philip,” Caleb observed. “You need help. Don’t worry, I know just who can help with this.”

  Caleb turned to the other figure, wearing a familiar red cloak.

  Evelyn’s eyes narrowed at Philip, even as Caleb introduced her.

  Philip held a dagger behind his back, though stayed his hand as they led him through the gate.

  “We’ve actually been working on a portal back to the Human Realm. The gates we used to use are…pretty wasteful, but Evelyn figured out how to build a door that doesn’t need a full vial of Titan’s Blood, just a few drops in the key.” Caleb pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Here’s some of our notes, well, her notes really. A lot of the math here’s gone over my head, but it works, see?”

  Caleb pulled out the portal key, pressing the eye to summon the door. Sticking the key in the lock in the center, he opened the door, revealing the green trees of the Human Realm. “It even opens to our old cabin, so we can see each other whenever we want! Isn’t that great?”

  Philip stared at his homeworld. “Caleb, I came here to bring you back, and I’m not going back without you, or that witch.”

  “Go back? Why would I go back?” Caleb shook his head. “This is my home now.” 

  Evelyn returned, holding a golden elixir.

  “We’re human, Caleb, we don’t belong here in this hell,” Philip argued. “And I swore on our master’s dying breath that I would bring that witch to justice.”

  He brandished his dagger at Evelyn, his eyes flaring that baleful blue.

  “Get away from him, Caleb!” Evelyn shouted, dropping the elixir in favor of her staff. “That’s not your brother anymore, that’s a Bane of Magic!”

  Philip’s skin seemed to melt as an animalistic snarl hissed through his teeth. His arm stretched unnaturally as he swung at Evelyn, throwing her to the side. Her staff clattered to the ground, being swept up by that rotten arm and dragged to the beast in human skin. Her Palisman chirped in fear as his fingers became impaling spikes, verdant essence spilling from the wounds into Philip’s eyes as the Palisman’s cries fell silent.

  He cast the remains to the ground, Evelyn crawling over to the broken bird with a soul-rending cry. Philip raised his dagger to the distracted witch.

  “No!” Caleb shouted, knocking Philip away with a flash of gold, wielding his own staff in one hand and a woodsman’s knife in the other.

  “Philip, what have you done!” Caleb cried.

  “What I must to see this through, for the good of your soul,” Philip said, his voice taking the familiar tone of Belos. “I will bring you back home, and this temptress will pay for her evil ways.”

  “No, Evelyn has done nothing but save my life,” Caleb told him. “I was already dying before I found her, remember?”

  “These monsters have warped your sense of reality, Caleb. I will bring you back, and we can complete our work in purging the wicked from our land,” Philip growled.

  Caleb dropped his knife, and drew a spell circle. “This is my home, brother, and I won’t let you hurt my people.”

  The ground rose up, forming a hand around Philip and throwing him, aiming to send him through the open Portal Door. Philip caught himself on the frame, launching himself back and slamming the door closed, cracking the oculus.

  Philip finally 
  
    noticed
  
   Calev. Noticed the pointed ears, pinned back in fury; noticed the opal tone to his eyes; noticed the way his lips curled to reveal fangs.

  “These monsters have corrupted you with their foul magic, Caleb. I will purify what they have done, and cleanse this perdition!” Philip lunged, and Caleb summoned his dagger back to his hand, parrying his strike.

  “The only monster here…Is YOU!” Caleb shouted, slashing at Philip and taking a few hairs.

  Philip staggered back out of knife range, and clenched his fist, a sweep of his hand conjuring a wave of fire.

  Caleb split the wave with Flapjack, but the flames caught on the vines, ringing their arena in a deadly orange blaze.

  Evelyn charged Philip from the side, her eyes glowing with blind demonic fury as her nails became rending claws that slashed at his chest, drawing blood.

  The Bane of Magic flowed to the side, catching her by the tail and bringing his dagger down.

  Evelyn’s scream filled the night.

  Caleb’s eyes glowed with fury, the flames bending to his will. 

  Philip cast Evelyn’s severed tail to the side, and caught Caleb’s charge by his wrist. The witch hunter lashed out…

  And Flapjack let out a pained scream of a chirp, the dagger having slashed him across one eye. The cardinal hit the ground, and Caleb made the mistake of turning his back on his brother to check on his Palisman.

  The jagged blade sank into the blond’s back, his breath leaving with a stopped gasp.

  “Ph-Philip…” Caleb gasped.

  The witch hunter took his brother by the shoulder, throwing him to the ground, and drove the dagger into his heart, stabbing until his white gloves were a dripping crimson, blood spattered across his face in a smear so much like the band of rot that would mark him in the present.

  He dropped his dagger, staggering back as his brother lay there, the light leaving his eyes.

  The flames receded, pulled to a single point as Evelyn blasted Philip away from his brother’s corpse. Philip clambered to his feet, and turned to run.

  “D@mn you Philip Wittebane!” Evelyn roared. “With this curse upon my breath, blood haunt you ill until your death!”

  Philip was blinded by the flash of curse-light that engulfed him, and the memory rippled back into the dead forest of the mindscape.

  As the three observers reeled from the events they had just witnessed, Luz felt a buzz in her jacket pocket. King and Marcy had made their own small contribution to the Mind Heist in the form of a pair of old walkie-talkies that Marcy modified to be able to communicate without interference even between the mindscape and the physical world. (King had found the old radios among Eda’s Human Realm junk.)

  :: Demon King to Queen of Sisters, do you copy? :: King’s voice crackled over the radio.

  “Ten-Four Demon King, we copy,” Luz replied. “Infiltration was a success. Camo is working, and the Slime Ball was bad news long before we came along.”

  :: Have you found what we’re looking for? Over. :: Eda asked

  “Not yet, 
  
    Lechuza
  
  ,” Camila answered. “Still chasing ghosts. Over.”

  :: Let us know when you need extraction. We’ve got the retrieval spell on standby. Over. :: Eda told them. The Palismen on the other side of the line chirped and yipped in affirmation. Helyna borrowed the walkie-talkie long enough to give Flapjack an assurance.

  “Copy that, 
  
    Lechuza
  
  . Over and out.” Camila closed the channel.

  “So what’s next in this mind of madness?” Helyna centered herself.

  She quickly regretted her words, as the next memory included a Golden Guard.

  Belos had just taken on his masquerade, a gilded wooden mask hiding his face from those who would recognize it. Luz herself recognized a number of the faces in the crowd from her trip to the past, though many looked a fair bit older. They were whispering about someone being able to talk to the Titan, which could only mean Belos.

  Luz and Helyna realized with matching frowns that Evelyn must have either not known that her patron was the Titan, or had kept it secret either out of some desire to be enigmatic or not be looked at like the sort of prophet Belos cultivated his image to be.

  Atop a makeshift stage, Belos stood, his outfit much more monk-like than his garb as Emperor, and his hair, now a dull, lank, graying blond that spilled over his shoulders, unbound by any cowl.

  “Fellow citizens,” Belos lied with a bow. “We are born into chaos. Our lives anger the Titan. My own family has been devastated by the foul darkness of wild magic.”

  His staff was more rudimentary, with the incandescent lamp of a power source being held between antler-like tines. It still functioned well enough for his smoke-show, dazzling the crowd with the sort of illusion that a witch like Gus or the Blight Twins would consider child’s play. Luz wondered if the smoke had some sort of perception-altering effect layered in.

  As his illusion shone, Belos continued his spiel. “I have been shown the healing light by the Titan himself, and it shines in nine bright hues!”

  The crowd were enthralled.

  Then the street became engulfed in loud and bright explosions.

  “The wild witches!” Belos cried. “They’ve found me, seeking to silence my message and snuff out my cleansing light. Run!”

  The crowd dispersed in a panic, while Belos retreated to an alley where his Golden Guard was waiting for him. This Golden Guard wore a coal-black ruff around his collar, befitting the fashion of the Deadwardian Era.

  Belos was berating him.

  “You incompetent fool! You nearly took my head off with those blasts.”

  “I’m sorry, Lord Belos,” the Golden Guard supplicated.

  Belos stepped past him without a glance. “I’m off to the next town, don’t wait up.”

  “Uh, what should I do with the rest of these?” the Golden Guard pulled the tarp off a small armory’s worth of bombs.

  The cruel smirk was audible in Belos’ voice.

  “Put on a 
  
    bigger
  
   show, and show these heathens the price for wild magic.”

  Camila was swearing in a language not native to Earth as they left the memory.

  Luz couldn’t hide the shudder down her spine.

  “A false-flag attack,” Helyna muttered.

  “Engineer a problem and sell the trap of a solution,” Camila summed up. “One of the oldest tricks in that playbook.”

  “I know that village,” Luz said distantly. “That was where Adegast lured me as part of his phony ‘quest’, my first day on the Isles.

  “How many of the towns destroyed in the Savage Ages were really just Belos wanting chaos?” Helyna closed her eyes. “How many did my brothers kill in his name?”

  A partial answer emerged in the next memory they stumbled into.

  Patellans was burning. The sky over the Knee was blocked out with the smoke, the above-ground level of the city falling to rubble, while more smoke welled from the subterranean portions through the air tunnels.

  Only nine witches stood around Belos and his Golden Guard, one with a different outfit, a turned-down collar trimmed in gold around his neck, and the sigil of the Emperor’s Coven clasping his cloak.

  Belos gestured to the burning ruins. “Look at what wild magic has done to your once-great city. Now imagine what its corruption is doing to you. A city can be rebuilt, can rise again from the ashes, but a soul…”

  He let the question hang, allowing the crowd’s fears to ferment with worried mutterings and gasps of horror.

  “I can make your magic pure, as the Titan intended!” Belos announced, his Golden Guard stepping forward with an older model of Branding Glove. Each of the nine received a different sigil, representing the full spectrum.

  “Welcome, to your new Covens!”

  Belos’ declaration was undercut by the lines of magic creeping from the sigils to illuminate their veins, their eyes glowing white as their magic was torn from them and into the sigils. One by one, the witches and demons fell to the snow. The Golden Guard kneeled over one of the fallen witches, checking her pulse.

  “They’re…still alive,” the Golden Guard observed.

  “Then we still have work to do, Hunter. Gather the Palismen,” In a quieter voice, he muttered, “and I have to find a replacement for your brother, the failure.”

  Belos winced and staggered before he snatched one of the offered Palisman right off the staff, breaking it at the foot and draining the essence, regaining his strength.

  The Golden Guard lingered a moment longer, watching the still-breathing witch lay in the snow.

  Averting his gaze, he cast a bolt from his own mechanical staff, and they breathed no more.

  “He must have made multiple Guards when he ramped up his attacks,” Luz theorized.

  Helyna felt a weight straining her shoulders. “He couldn’t even be bothered with an original name.”

  “And you chose your own name, cariño,” Camila offered her support, though there was a visible strain in her eyes.

  “Mamà? What are you remembering?” Luz asked.

  Camila sighed. “Azur found records about the Heart of Etheria. Part of its firing sequence was using those connected to the Runestones, the Princesses, as conduits for their power, at the cost of burning them out. And it looked just like that.”

  “They must have been using the same principles of thaumaturgic conduction,” Helyna grounded herself with the academic side of the magic she had studied, pushing down the twisting knife of unearthing the depths of Belos’ evil.

  “It makes sense,” Luz chimed in, “Belos based the sigils on Archivist Magic, and the Eternians had access to both it and Titan Magic. Now come on, we don’t have all night.”

  They followed the Amalgam to another portrait, one that seemed to hold some place of prominence. The tree was larger, with the remnants of leaves clinging to the scorched branches. There was also a strange golden resin streaking the bark. The portrait itself was uniquely ornate, with triangular corners marked with eyes and a shape evocative of a top hat. The scene depicted in the portrait was a throne room, but not Belos’ throne.

  The throne room of the memory was made of gray stone slabs, with large stained glass windows letting in light from outside. Rather than the Titan’s Heart, the centerpiece of the chamber was a massive cocoon, suspended from the ceiling. Oddly, there was a metal crown on the very bottom, along with a mask that was disturbingly human-like in shape.

  “What is that!?” Luz exclaimed.

  “Oh!” Helyna perked up. “Bonesborough was founded and ruled by a dynasty of Radiance Moths. During the Deadwardian Era, the Councilors chosen to speak for the King Pupa became corrupt, somehow keeping the Royal Moth from emerging from his pupal state.”

  “A corrupt Councilor speaking for an inanimate being while silencing his voice? Where have I heard that one before?” Luz narrowed her eyes, and focused on the scene at hand.

  The room was a battleground. Beneath the Royal Pupa was a massive circular pit, framed with a triangular metal construct. Numerous pipes ran from the device to the walls, some rising up to connect with the cocoon, within which flowed a glowing golden liquid, seeming to power the device, which gave off an unnerving whine. The sounds of fighting rang through the windows, shadows of witches and demons flitting about outside. Inside the room, there were three fighters standing on each side. A number of armor-clad witches had already been knocked out and immobilized in crystal. On the side nearer the Pupa, the Councilors stood, marked by their ornate ceramic helmets and even more ornate cloaks that completely hid their arms, only showing their spindly legs. The Councilors’ helmets were strangely geometric, with a prominent face mask on the front. One had a tear-drop shape, one was cubic, and the witch in the center wore a gilded pyramidal helmet, with a bone-white mask.

  On the other side stood Belos, who had added armor to his robes, and expanded his mask into a full helmet. He also wielded a different staff, one with more visible clockwork components. A Golden Guard was at Belos’ side, clad entirely in shining golden armor, and wielding his own mechanical staff, along with a sword on his belt. The third figure was most surprising in his presence.

  “Rowyn!?” Luz and Helyna exclaimed. The eldest son of Caleb and Evelyn was fighting on the same side as 
  
    Belos
  
  ?The thought that anything could make those two work together sent shivers down their spines. Rowyn had already become a Titan’s Champion, clad in his natural armor and holding a Palisman staff carved to resemble a dove.

  “Councilor Obron, Tyrant of Bonesborough,” Belos accused. You have ruled this city for too long, d@gg@ng my every step. But your reign of wild magic is at an end. In all my time in your fiefdom, you have sought a pure human soul. Well here I am. Try to take it from me.”

  His challenge hung in the air, before Obron laughed.

  “I never needed a human soul for my plans!” he exclaimed. “I’ve already got thousands! All I needed was to keep you and every little wannabe hero occupied looking for humans while I got my puppets to put together this little hole puncher.”

  Rowyn’s eyes narrowed at the Councilor.

  “Oh, it’s been fun ruling over this quirky little town, but the song and dance gets old after a while,” he continued. “So let’s just get to the overture!”

  The device’s whine grew, kicking up a wind that centered on the pit, which gained a deathly blue glow.

  Then the whine abruptly cut off, and the device went dark.

  “Oh, was that important?” Rowyn taunted, having vanished under an invisibility spell and severed the pipes connected to the Royal Pupa.

  “No! You pathetic insect! Do you have any idea what you’ve just done!?”

  Rowyn smirked.

  “I just busted your portal, 
  
    Cipher
  
  .”

  Obron froze. And then he clapped.

  “Bravo, bra-vo. So you figured it out, Dovetail. Only took ya fifteen years. Not like you’ll live another fifteen minutes!”

  Obron and his fellow Councilors leapt into action, reshaping the room against their opponents. Belos and his Golden Guard took on the Councilor with the teardrop-shaped helmet, while Rowyn fought the other two, blasting them back with fire and sound.

  Against the witch hunter and the Grimwalker, the Councilor crumbled in moments, being disarmed of his staff, which lacked a Palisman, and then being petrified and shattered.

  Despite being outnumbered, Rowyn had his enemies on the ropes, deflecting everything they threw at him, and retaliating with overwhelming firepower. The cubic Councilor had his robe burned away, and his helmet shattered, dropping to the ground unconscious.

  “Ready to surrender?” Rowyn pointed his staff at Obron, who was on his knees.

  “Nope, just waiting for the sudden but inevitable betrayal.”

  Rowyn’s eyes widened as Belos’ arm, shaped into a slimy blade of rot, tore through his side. Only his last-minute turn kept the blade from going through his spine.

  The Titan’s Champion staggered to the side, and the Golden Guard ripped his staff from his hands, throwing the dove to his master, who cracked her in half and consumed her soul.

  Rowyn collapsed like a marionette, a wordless scream ripping from his throat.

  “Ah, much better,” Belos said, turning his baleful gaze on his nephew.

  Rowyn tried to rise to his feet, but couldn’t even get his knee under him, as the putrescent green rot festered in his wound. Gritting his teeth, he conjured an array of glyphs, vanishing in a pillar of fire.

  “Ah, I’m gonna miss messing with that kid. His nightmares were a riot!” Obron sighed.

  The Golden Guard marched up to Obron and smashed him over the helmet with an aura-covered fist. His helmet cracked, but he did not drop.

  “Gonna have to try harder than that, one zombie to another,” Obron taunted, before the Golden Guard staggered back, before standing at attention.

  A flash of sulfur crossed the eyeholes of the mask, and the Golden Guard launched himself at Belos, who did not hesitate to separate the Grimwalker’s head from his shoulders.

  Obron laughed.

  Belos growled, his eyes blazing with baleful fury, and he drove his fist into Obron’s mask, splitting the porcelain ceramic. The mask fell away, revealing a long-mummified face and glowing sulfur eyes with abyssal slits for pupils.

  “Ha! Miss me?” Bill Cipher teased, before standing up and throwing Belos back with a wave of telekinesis.

  “I gotta try corpse-possession more often, don’t ya think?” The possessing Dream Demon asked his opponent rhetorically.

  Belos responded by turning half the loose stones in the room into grasping mudclaws.

  “I shall be your end, foul devil!”

  “The name’s Bill Cipher, Pip. Remember it!” Bill jabbed, a tongue of blue flame flicking out, only for Belos to turn it to stone.

  Bill tapped the sculpture. “Turning your victims to stone? Now there’s an idea! I’ve always wanted a people chair.”

  “Begone, foul devil!” Belos roared, conjuring a vortex that left Obron’s body missing both arms and most of one leg.

  “Fine, since you asked so nicely.” Bill crooned. “Besides, I already got what I wanted here.”

  “Your portal is broken and your vessel soon to join it. I have bested you,” Belos declared.

  Bill threw his head back and laughed, rattling the stonework with the echo.

  “Best me? You’ve become me!” Bill exclaimed, causing Belos to freeze. “Can’t you feel all those souls wriggling inside? Don’t their screams sound just like sweet music to your ears? Face it Pip, the only difference between you and me is that I admit I’m only in it for myself. You? You think you’re some big-shot defender of humanity, when you’ve already forfeit any claim to being anything those dreamless dullards would recognize as one of them!”

  Belos’ eyes flared, and he brought a slimy club of a limb down on Obron’s head, reducing his skull to dust and cutting off that infernal laughter.

  The three observers left the memory.

  Helyna’s hands were shaking.

  “That’s all I ever was to him - a puppet,” she muttered.

  Luz wrapped an arm around her shoulder, leading her away from the tree.

  “You are not a puppet, you are a person. You fought through all the lies Belos told, and become someone entirely new. You are Helyna Clawthorne, and nothing Belos says can change that!”

  Helyna smiled at her, only for her breath to hitch and her magenta eyes to go wide with horror.

  Before them lay an entire corridor of memories, the roots of the trees interspersed with golden masks.

  And every single memory within depicted the death of a Golden Guard.

  Some were blasted with magic, some were cut down with blades of rot and bone. At least one was petrified, being shattered before the Stonesleeper’s ability could kick in. From the two closest to them, they could see the memory play.

  “I know what the Day of Unity is about, Uncle. You’re going to kill us all with the Draining Spell on the Eclipse!” the Golden Guard shouted. He looked older than Helyna, but with similar armor, though he wore his pauldron on his right shoulder, had armor over his knees, and his cloak had a high collar 

  “Have you told anyone else of these baseless accusations?” Belos asked.

  “No, Uncle, I’m the only one who knows. But the truth will come out, and your madness will end.”

  “I’d hoped you would have been more loyal, Hunter.”

  “My name is Gabriel, 
  
    Philip
  
  ,” he cast off his gilded mask, magenta eyes blazing with righteous willpower.

  His defiance was met with wickedly sharp mudclaws.

  He lasted all of a minute before Belos’ magic struck him dead, freezing him from the inside out.

  But it was the newest memory that had Helyna fully transfixed.

  “The Basilisks are innocent demons!” Helyna mouthed along with her past self’s words. “Just because they were made by wild witches doesn’t mean they have to suffer for it!”

  Belos in the memory was every bit the monolith she remembered. “The Titan’s will is clear. The Basilisks have served their purpose, and you know what happens once something is no longer useful.”

  “Please, Uncle, you don’t have to kill them!”

  The memory glitched and skipped forward, to the docks beneath the Conformatorium. A ripple in the water marked the retreat of the last of the Basilisks.

  “Hunter, I gave you everything, and you’ve gone behind my back to unleash these monsters on the world?” Belos was furious.

  “They are born from the Titan just like us!”

  “No, not like us,” Belos growled. “They exist only to serve my will, as do you! You exist to serve me!”

  Helyna gasped as her past self was run through.

  “Now look what you made me do,” Belos bemoaned. The Golden Guard slumped, hands wrapped around the piercing limb. “But not unsalvageable.”

  More of that putrescent green sludge flowed from the limb into the Golden Guard’s body, which stood up, magenta eyes replaced with that baleful blue glow.

  “Finally, a loyal Grimwalker,” Belos swept out of the room, the memory freezing.

  Helyna sank to her knees, eyes locked on the mask caught in the roots.

  And then she raised her face to the heavens and 
  
    screamed
  
  .

  Her scream warped as her body changed, muscles straining as bones lengthened beneath scaly skin. A thick marine tail slammed into the side of the nearest tree, while clawed hooves dug into the dead ground.

  Helyna’s Grimstalker was larger than Amity’s, with a subtle golden hue to her underbelly. That gold extended to the glow within her diamond-shaped pupils, and the leaves of her branch-like crown of antlers. Worst of all were her many scars, which were red with blood from where the wounds were reopened by the stretching skin overstressing the scar tissue.

  The Grimstalker’s bellow of agony rang through the mind forest, accompanied by the burning gold aura of her Calamity powers.

  Luz tackled her to the ground with surprising strength for her human form. “Helyna!” she shouted. “I know you’re in pain, but you need to breathe!”

  The Titan focused on her Fire Glyph, the one connected to Helyna, and began to pulse its energy in time to her heartbeat, creating a sensation that she could focus on through the grief and agony. Slowly, her breathing began to even out, and her Grimstalker form began to shrink, until she was back to normal physically, her breathing giving way to tears as she sobbed in Luz’ arms.

  “This was a bad idea,” Helyna shuddered. “I thought I was strong enough now, but…”

  “Confronting the source of your trauma is never easy,” Camila rested a hand on her back. “But sometimes you have to swallow that pain and keep going. You can break down when we aren’t in the mind of a genocidal maniac.”

  “Right,” Helyna rubbed the tears away with her sleeve. “Let’s find what we’re looking for and get out of here.”

  Luz helped her to her feet, offering a shoulder to lean on.

  Then her heart sank as she noticed that her wrist was bare. The transformation had broken the bracelet.

  Helyna realized it at the exact same moment, as the air in the mindscape grew heavy, the darkness growing more distinct and the temperature plummeting.

  “He knows…” Helyna whispered fearfully. A glint of purple flashed among the trees. The Palisman Amalgam roared.

  A childish laughter filled the air.

  “Move!” Camila urged, dragging the girls by the arm to a random memory.

  “You said the Draining Spell would wipe out all the witches!” Belos roared, a slimy fist striking the wall.

  A shifting shadow curled around the punch, resolving into the two-dimensional form of the Collector.

  “That’s not how our sealing magic works,” the Collector complained. “If you want everyone broken, you need something else.”

  Belos’ eyes shone with curiosity. “Oh? What am I missing?”

  “One of my big brother’s old toys - a beast he once desired most, now bound within a witchy host!” The young Archivist rhymed. “An Owl Beast with claws to slash, her magic burns all bile to ash!”

  “The Owl Lady…” Belos hissed.

  “Nope!” The Collector cheered. “You seek this realm to end in fire; you need the one the Owl sired!”

  “So the Owl Lady sired a spawn of her own. How interesting. I would have thought Lilith or my scouts would have reported her being with child,” Belos questioned. “Unless… 
  
    Luzura
  
  . Oh what providence that the one who showed me the Titan’s light shall be the catalyst for my divine work. Luzura will be purified in the cleansing light, and meet her fate with her dear aunt Lilith helping me find you, Collector.”

  “You won’t even need the eclipse to make!” the Collector added. “Nine hues from nine witches are all it will take!”

  Luz’ look of horror at Belos’ plans turned into a shark-like grin. “Hook, line, and sinker. My baby brother played you like a harp. Remind me to give the Collector a hug when we free him.”

  The sound of the Amalgam’s scream pulled them from the memory.

  The mass of souls had been caught in a trap, bound in burning ropes. The individual souls were now visible, writhing in agony.

  Behind the beast stood the true monster, Philip Wittebane, in the form of a young child, wearing his old witch-hunting mask and holding a wooden sword.

  Then his form shifted into the familiar shape of the modern Belos, his mask gone to show the band of rot across his face.

  “Hello, Hunter. Hello, Luz. And - Camila, was it?”

  Camila stepped in front of her kids, lightning crackling between her fingertips.

  “How fortuitous, that you arrived in my innermost sanctum, granting me the chance to finally capture this thorn in my side. All these weepy Palisman souls, nagging me with their chittering voices,” Belos reached for the bound Amalgam, his hand own aura a bl@@dy red.

  “NO!” Helyna roared, flash-stepping past Camila’s protective stance and throwing a fireball into Inner Belos’ face, sending the witch hunter reeling.

  Her eyes were blazing as she leveled a hateful glare at her Frankenstein, the Amalgam’s countless eyes burning that same solar hue. “We will not be discarded!”

  Helyna’s body lit up like the sun as she reached out for the Amalgam, which flowed out of the ropes and into her. The Grimwalker screamed, falling to her hands and knees and gasping raggedly. The whites of her eyes were still glowing, as was the glyph on her chest, which for the first time felt like it was genuinely burning.

  “Idiot boy,” Belos derided. “You would sacrifice your own life for these pathetic creatures?”

  Staggering to a kneeling position, Helyna grit her fangs. “Better than throwing it away for you, Belos.”

  “Get away from her you b@st@rd!” Camila shouted, lances of emerald and citrine lightning flying from her fingers to stop Belos in his tracks.

  “Helyna, are you okay?” Luz rushed to her side. Her fangs ground against each other as she slammed her eyes shut.

  “I’m sorry, this was the only way to save you,” she told the Palisman souls now within her, her voice strained. “I can make things right, but only if we work together here.”

  The burning of her glyph eased back to its normal warmth. 

  “You’re gonna be okay, Helyna, you’re gonna be okay,” Luz assured her.

  Belos’ unwelcome voice cut in. “You be more concerned about your own well-being, Luz.”

  Luz found herself wrenched from the ground in the crimson aura of Belos’ will, and thrown bodily into a tree. The ground began to give way beneath her like living quicksand.

  “You may have failed as the catalyst before, but my allies have told me the truth of you, spawn of Lucifer, and your role as catalyst for the Day of Unity has not changed.” Belos batted Camila to the side, restraining her with branches as he strode to Luz and leaned over her, forcing her chin up with a gauntleted finger.

  “To think, you, who showed me the light glyph, and opened the way for me to find the Collector, was sired not by the Owl Lady, but by the Titan himself.”

  Belos stood back up. “But your false divinity will not save you from the Lord’s will. On the day of the eclipse, you will open the gates for the instrument of your final judgement, from the purgatory he has languished within.”

  “Dios mío, no…” Camila whispered, her eyes wide.

  “The Titan Trappers speak of the return of their Grand Huntsman, a being of true divine power, capable of cleansing this perdition in holy light,” Belos fell back into the bombastic air of a preacher. “On that day, I will claim my rightful place, and this wretched realm will finally be purged!”

  “You’re insane if you think the Huntsman will do anything less than squash you like a bug!” Camila called out.

  Belos smiled. “He will recognize an agent of His will, and together we will save humanity from evil.”

  “Good grief you are deluded,” Camila spat.

  “You really couldn’t get over the fact that someone else saved your brother’s life, could you?” Luz taunted. “No, wait… You couldn’t stand the thought of not being the most important person in Caleb’s life! That’s why you murdered all those people in Gravesfield, wasn’t it? Because they showed the barest bit of interest in him, you had them killed!”

  “They were corrupting him from the path of righteousness!” Belos shouted, his composure flickering. “I will do whatever it takes to defend humanity from evil!”

  The ground began creeping up Luz’ limbs, dragging her down.

  “The only evil I see is you and your monstrous legacy!” Luz shouted as the ground consumed her.

  “NO!” Camila and Helyna roared.

  “She’s still alive, and will remain that way until it is time for her to fulfill her destiny,” Belos assured. “You, on the other hand, have long outlived your usefulness.”

  The ground began to quake, and the two found themselves knocked over as an occlusion of stone rose beneath them, carved to resemble the three faces of Belos - the bearded ‘explorer’ Philip Wittebane, the smooth ceramic mask of the Emperor, and the screaming, slime-rotted skull of the Bane of Magic.

  “I have had centuries to master my mind and magic,” Belos declared as he descended to the platform, even as Camila tore herself free from the branches, throwing a lance of lightning that Belos deflected. 

  “Why fight for these corrupt creatures?” Belos asked. “They know nothing but depravity.”

  “They’re certainly more human than monsters like you,” Camila hissed, growling as Belos slipped through the strangling vines and stretched his slimy arm to catch her by the collar.

  “Do you know what your sin is?” Belos asked, looming over her.

  Camila grinned, baring fangs as the perfect response sprang from the depths of her memories.

  “Aye, what the hell, I’m a fan of all seven.”

  Belos let out a choked grunt as Camila’s knee met his groin. A flare of magic broke his grip, and gave Camila room to move.

  “But right now, I’m gonna have to go with Wrath,” her cheshire grin was accompanied by the shimmering chime of her living metal armband shifting into a beautifully ornate sword, which she rammed through Belos’ thigh.

  “Argh!” Belos flowed away, reforming with the wound gone.

  “I know your kind, 
  
    Philip
  
  ,” Camila spat the name like a curse. “A petty, small-minded child who never grew up, who takes out their issues on the people closest to them, who can’t stand the thought of not being the center of the universe, so when you don’t get exactly what you want, you throw a tantrum, and when you do get what you want, you move the goalposts so you can never be satisfied.”

  “Who are you to defy the righteous hand of God!” Philip bellowed, swinging wildly.

  “The one who knocked down heaven’s door and took god on his throne,” Camila boasted.

  Belos froze, mind locking up and jaw flailing as he tried to process what she had just said.

  The moment of distraction allowed her to conjure a dozen piercing thorn vines to impale him.

  Unfortunately, pain is a strong reset button, and Belos was back in the fight.

  “Enough!” he shouted, enveloping Camila and Helyna in his crimson aura, forcing them to the stone floor.

  “You will die down here, and every last one of those accursed witches will burn!”

  “You first,” Helyna grit out.

  “Even now you defy me, Hunter?” Belos growled.

  “My name is <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON>,” she growled back, hundreds of voices speaking as one. “And We will not fall by your hand.”

  The solar glow of her Calamity Powers outshone the crimson of Belos’ will, manifesting around her as she hovered above the cold stone. A pair of hoops crossed over her chest, dozens of mismatched animal eyes shining upon the rings of solid gold magic. From her back, three pairs of avian wings flared out, in three different shapes, but alike in the eyes peering from the feathers. A dozen more eyes framed her face, as ever-shifting animal heads formed at her shoulders like living pauldrons. Her hair was similarly shifting, the flame-like mane gaining scattered ethereal eyes.

  And every single eye was glaring at Belos with the fury of a supernova.

  Helyna vanished in a flash, appearing in a ball of fire as her foot connected with Belos’ chin, knocking him to the edge of the platform.

  “We have to find Luz!” she told Camila, whose expression hardened with determination.

  “Luz is a Noceda, and no power in this or any other universe is going to keep her down.”

  At that moment, the platform began to shudder, and Belos dared to look over the edge.

  “
  
    Shoryuken!
  
  ” Luz shouted as her bone-armored knuckles collided with his face, flipping the witch hunter while he clutched his bleeding nose.

  “Can’t keep a good witch down, Belos.” Luz’ talons clacked on the stone, her wings held wide.

  “How!?” he demanded.

  “You may have over three centuries of experience, but you’ve barely scratched the surface of the power of Glyph Magic.” Luz gave a fanged smile. “Besides, I wasn’t about to miss the family reunion.”

  The platform shuddered again, tilting to one side as massive bony digits dug into the edge.

  “What manner of devilry is this?” he stared at the skeletal head rising into view, stringy hair slick with black sludge still rooted to the skull, a small black gem embedded in its forehead.

  “You don’t recognize your own flesh and blood? Forshame, Philip,” Luz 
  
    tsk
  
  ed. “One of your only living descendants who’s actually a decent person gave me the echo of the last dregs of her soul from when she tried to bring about the apocalypse.”

  Rushing to Camila and Helyna’s side, she pulled out the walkie-talkie.

  “Get us out of here Eda!” she shouted to the outside world. “Let’s leave Belos to get acquainted with the Witch in the Web.”

  “No!” Belos turned and swung a slime-formed axe-blade at the trio, only for Helyna’s flames to incinerate the limb. As the platform fractured beneath his feet, the members of the mind heist vanished in a pillar of brilliant Titan light.

  The Owl House was in complete lockdown, no one allowed inside without Eda herself ordering Hooty to lift it. Celestial Iron-plated shutters, a hedge of hybrid razor-thornax bushes, and a crystalline geodesic dome shield ensuring that no unwanted visitors could interfere.

  The living room had been rearranged to make room for the ritual circle. While the spell to enter the mindscape had been heavily modified, the retrieval potion had been far less so, only requiring the Palismen of the ones sent in my the original spell to form a tether by which the retrieval potion could work its magic.

  Eda held the potion in one hand, and the walkie-talkie in her other. King clung to her shoulder, worrying at the bandage around his paw, having enthusiastically donated his own blood to provide the necessary power. Evelyn and Rowyn had joined them, ready to offer Helyna whatever comfort they could provide to one who witnessed the horrors of Belos’ history. Raine had their violin at the ready, while the Pines’ stood by with blankets for moral support.

  At the crackle of the radio and Luz’ loud cry for extraction, Eda did not bother with any countdown, slamming the potion into the center of the array with all the force of a demonically-empowered grudgby star.

  The pillar of light touched down and dispersed in clouds of green-tinted blue, depositing the trio right in the middle of the room.

  The first to react where the Palismen, who leapt to their bonded. Stringbean was quick to slither around Luz, nuzzling her cheek with gentle hisses. Tiberius headbutted Camila’s chin with comforting affection. Flapjack let out a series of chirps that were equal parts concerned for his witch and wary of her new form.

  Helyna groaned, and slumped to the ground, her angel-esque additions collapsing into light and vanishing into her. Evelyn and Rowyn were at her side in an instant, and like a serpent striking, her hands lashed out, wrapping around their hands as their eyes all flashed. Evelyn and Rowyn staggered back, a hand over their hearts.

  Evelyn was the first to collect herself. “Oh, Helyna, what happened in there?”

  She caught her breath. “I did what I had to to save all of them.”

  “You really are a Clawthorne,” Evelyn huffed, as Flapjack fluttered to his witch.

  “I’m okay Flap,” she pet his crest, taking care around his scar. “We have an agreement, I’ll tell you later, when I’ve had a chance to breathe.”

  Camila pulled Luz into a hug. “Oh, mi bebé, I’m so glad you’re okay. When he pulled you under, I feared…”

  “I’m okay Mamà,” Luz assured.

  “Did you find what we were looking for?” Eda asked.

  Luz looked to the floor, slowly raising her head. Her eyes were burning stars of determination, and her grin was shark-like.

  “I know exactly where Belos is hiding.”

  
  

    
      
        
        
          Next Chapter: The Penumbral DawnAlso, this fic now has a book club server on Discord!https://discord.gg/R2DETBPBua'
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