Vincent almost burst out laughing. The Tarot Club's number one walking question mark — couldn't turn that curiosity off even for a second.
He thought it over. "Our relationship… I've known the 'Fool' for a long time, though He may not know me just yet. If nothing goes wrong, we should, at some point in the future, stand side by side as partners — working toward the same goal, living and dying together."
"!!!"
Audrey couldn't help but look up, mouth open, staring into the golden mist: A goal so grand it takes two gods working together, life and death at stake?
Were they planning to… challenge the seven Orthodox Gods and replace them?
Her chest immediately blazed with something between awe and excitement. Am I witnessing — even participating in — the birth of a legend?
"I understand. Thank you, great presence."
Vincent leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping to something casual. "Don't forget what you're supposed to be doing for me, little one."
"I haven't! I haven't!"
Audrey raised her hand at once. "Every ball, every salon — I've been finding ways to bring people together, facilitate deals and cooperation…" — and sometimes, she thought glumly, even playing matchmaker, nudging couples toward each other.
I'm not even of age yet and I'm doing this. It's a lot.
"Good."
Vincent gave a slight nod. "Try a little harder. I'll grant you a stronger ability."
She pumped her fist. "Thank you! I'll do my best!"
He cut the link to Audrey and stretched his arms overhead. "Alright — he finally took the initiative to reach out. Even if it went through Audrey first, it's still a step forward."
He slouched back against the chair, ready to return to reality — when the Scale began pouring golden mist again, and another prayer came through.
"Business is busy today."
Vincent was mildly surprised. He watched a strikingly beautiful woman take shape in the golden light, and tilted his head.
"Who's this?"
He was absolutely certain: among everyone he'd granted Broker Boons to for the sake of adding weight to the Scale, none of them matched this woman — and the others had all been contractually forbidden from sharing the Lord of Chaos's name with anyone else.
So why did this stranger know how to pray to him?
He looked more carefully, and something felt off about her. Her movements, already barely in motion, were visibly slowing — growing sluggish, stiff.
Her eyes were dimming.
Like a… marionette?
And then, before his eyes, her face began to crawl and shift — reshaping itself into a face he recognised, more or less: This kind of looks like Klein…?
Wait. Is this Klein?!
Has he advanced to Faceless already?!
Just as the thought formed, a young man's face appeared in the frame of vision the prayer had opened — and that face immediately began twisting and distorting, morphing into another one, a bearded man, who smiled with satisfaction and said:
"Given enough time, this is one of the hardest abilities below high-sequence to counter."
Oh.
It clicked instantly: a Marionettist.
And if this bearded man was famous for it — wasn't this the long-talked-about Master Rosago?
But wait — the Zmanger Party had already been crushed. Klein hadn't faked his death or played detective. Why would Rosago even have reason to target him — the investigation into the Intis ambassador wasn't something Klein had been involved with, as far as Vincent knew.
He clapped himself on the forehead. Right. The Beyonder Characteristic Convergence Law. This world doesn't play by the rules.
The question now is — how do I help?
Going back to reality and having Bernadette chase them down — by the time that happened, it'd probably be too late.
Right. When you're being controlled by Spirit Body Threads, the process can't be interrupted — but what if the reaction from receiving a Boon could break the control?
Vincent immediately slotted the Schemer Boon into one of its two remaining slots, aimed it at the woman who was almost certainly Klein, and fired — then, without waiting to see the result, stepped back into reality. "Bernadette — help!"
...
In Klein's field of vision, everything had begun fracturing into individual frames, each one dragging behind itself like smeared pixels. The mosaic was expanding, frame by frame, consuming more and more of what he could see. He suspected that once every last frame was filled, that would be the moment he was fully puppeted.
Despair and fear gnawed at Klein — but not because of what was coming. Because he hadn't managed to kill Ince Zangwill yet. Hadn't avenged Melissa and the Captain. And now, for some inexplicable reason, he was about to die at the hands of a complete stranger over an entirely unrelated matter.
Is this really… how it ends?
He had no answer for the hopelessness in his chest, and no strength left to resist the thickening mosaic that was drowning his sight.
Just as he was about to release it all and accept the inevitable — golden mist flooded his vision. A tall, mysterious silhouette sat at its depths, and a low, unhurried voice came through the void:
"Second time."
What?
Before Klein had a moment to process what had happened, a surge of powerful trembling crashed through his mind — and then he heard his own heartbeat, enormous and thunderous, as if every vein in his body had been set alight and brought to boil.
He felt it throughout: flesh, mind, soul, spirituality — all of it flooded at once by a massive force. That force tore through him with searing pain, ripping at his body, his spirit, his soul, his very spirituality.
Crack.
Under the assault of that overwhelming sensation, Klein's vision snapped back to perfect clarity in an instant. The sluggishness vanished. He looked at the smiling bearded man — and his heart hammered with a sudden, almost irrational conviction:
I could kill him.
The impulse surged into his head — and he immediately clamped it down: No. Still need to be careful.
He moved fast: one hand drew his gun, the other formed a finger-gun shape, and he fired Air Bullets at the man in rapid succession. Then he lunged forward, swiped a blade of paper across Detective Eisinger's arm.
Eisinger's body jerked. He shook off the stupor immediately, jammed a ring onto his finger, and flung it at the "driver" — a fire arrow screaming through the air — then slammed his palm hard against the carriage floor.
Bang.
The entire carriage lurched as though struck by a massive, invisible force, and was ripped apart.
Klein and Eisinger immediately seized the opening and threw themselves out of the enclosed space, putting distance between themselves and the Marionettist.
Rosago, for his part, took a moment to recover from his shock. He couldn't begin to understand why someone who had been moments from becoming his puppet had simply shaken free.
Facing the two of them coming at him hard, he snapped his fingers and — whoosh — dissolved into a burning paper figure that was consumed by the carriage's destruction. In the next instant a ball of flame burst to life behind them as he reappeared with a snap, and immediately moved to impose Spirit Body Thread control on them again.
"He's definitely on the Seer Pathway!"
He'd suspected it from the earlier wooden stupor, thinking of Sealed Artifact 2-049 — but it wasn't until he saw the man use the Magician's abilities that Klein was certain. Same Pathway, higher Sequence.
Can't win this one.
He made the call without hesitation. He was a Sequence 7 Magician — and even with the Faceless artifact and the Witch item in hand, even with the Schemer ability freshly granted by the Lord of Chaos, fighting a Sequence 5 from the same Pathway was impossible.
Because the Schemer's most powerful ability — Words of Order — was, in a certain sense, specifically countered by the Magician's Paper Substitutes.
Which meant there was only one option left.
Klein produced a charm — cold, slick, radiating a deep wrongness. It was something he'd purchased at a Beyonder gathering from the one called "Black Snake" — a talisman he'd made himself: the Language of Foulness.
To be continued…
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