Chapter Summaries

Angel told Klein that they had come from Earth thousands of years in the past, and the two considered what the revelation meant for them and their plans. They left their reunion still facing George III’s conspiracy, while Angel received a letter from Wensa.

• Angel explained the evidence that their world was Earth, and Klein accepted that he and Angel had arrived in different eras of the same planet.
• Klein and Angel discussed Angel’s recovered memory of Adam and the Evernight Goddess, and Klein resolved to investigate why they had been watched when they awoke.
• Angel and Klein considered how to oppose George III, recruit allies, and advance their sequences, but they found no immediate solution to Angel’s acting problem.
• Angel proposed trading the No Darkness Cross to Mr. Sun for a more suitable Sealed Artifact for Klein, and he agreed.
• After Klein left, Angel reflected on his past identities and their shared arrival before Wensa appeared and dropped off a letter.

Angel read Trissy’s request for help contacting Mr. Door and discussed the approaching war with Klein and Audrey. She then met Dorian Gray Abraham, who said the Tamara Family wanted to meet her.

• Angel received Trissy’s letter asking for flesh, blood, or hair from an Abraham Family descendant to contact Mr. Door and learn about Blood Emperor Tudor’s ruins.
• Angel donated 5,000 pounds to the Loen Charity Student Aid Fund and met Audrey, who arrived on a bicycle, and Klein in his Dwayne Dantès guise.
• Klein warned Angel and Audrey that Loen might clash with Feysac by the beginning of the next year, while Audrey described the political forces pushing toward war.
• Angel visited Dorian Gray Abraham, who told her that several members of the Tamara Family wanted to meet her.

Angel learned that the Tamara Family wanted to meet her about a problem connected to Trier's Special Mirror World, then heard Dorian's request for help against Butis, a former Abraham associate who had become a demigod and slaughtered members of the family. She remained wary of the commission after learning Butis possessed a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact.

• Dorian told Angel that the Tamara Family's conservative branch in the Loen Kingdom wanted to meet the Golden Queen and would share information about Trier and the Mirror World if she cooperated.
• Angel questioned Dorian about the Tamaras' history in Fourth Epoch Trier and accepted their Spirit World messenger incantation so she could arrange a meeting.
• Angel asked about Dorian's other request, and he explained that seven Abrahams in Limon City had been killed by Butis, a former Traveler who had become a demigod and a believer of the True Creator.
• Dorian said Butis and Louis Wien had betrayed the Abrahams after seeking the family's Sealed Artifacts, and that Butis had obtained a prize equivalent to a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact.
• Dorian claimed Butis could not fully control the artifact and assured Angel she could defeat him, while Angel reconsidered whether to accept the commission.

Angel learned the Mystic Saint Butis’s abilities and the dangers of the Box of the Great Old Ones, then weighed Dorian’s offer to help kill him. Dorian agreed to serve as bait and gave Angel Abraham Family blood, which she needed for a separate ritual.

• Dorian explained that Butis could record other Saints’ abilities and wield the Grade 0 Box of the Great Old Ones, whose powers and drawbacks made him exceptionally difficult to defeat and kill.
• Angel asked why the artifact bore its name, and Dorian said Bethel Abraham had named it and forbidden anyone from investigating its unknown third level.
• Dorian offered Angel Butis’s Secrets Sorcerer characteristic, an alternative Mystical Item, and the Box if she recovered it, but Angel judged the deal risky and unbalanced.
• Dorian offered to act as bait because Butis relentlessly pursued Abraham Family members, and he said he trusted Angel because Fors trusted her.
• Angel requested blood or hair from an Abraham Family member for a ritual connected to Mr. Door, and Dorian cut his hand to provide blood.

Angel wrote to Dorian about hunting the Mystic Saint, considered how to digest her Unaging potion, and visited Backlund Technical University, where she saw Melissa and Lily. The chapter ended as a huge bomb plunged toward the crowded campus square.

• Angel went to Klein's home, found him away acting as a Trick Sorcerer, and wrote him a letter focused on Dorian's proposed hunt for the Mystic Saint.
• Angel planned to appear as Irene Watson before people who had known her, hoping to digest her Unaging potion through a perceived resurrection.
• Angel reviewed her investments, considered expanding the Black Bear Cannery, and worried that Xio might become involved in dangerous MI9 affairs.
• Angel visited Backlund Technical University and spotted Melissa and Lily walking together across campus.
• An enormous bomb dropped from the sky toward the students gathered around the retired locomotive in the square.

Feysac airships launched a surprise attack on Backlund, but Angel and the city’s defenders fought back. The Three Great Churches joined the battle as the war spread across the North Continent began with Backlund at its center.

• Lily warned the students that Feysac airships were dropping bombs, then shielded Melissa beneath a tree.
• Angel stopped the first airship and sent its wreckage into the Mirror World, protecting the campus.
• Angel bound the other airships with invisible threads, but a War Bishop’s power linked them and repelled her attacks.
• Angel used Angelica's Edge to destroy one airship’s gondola and resolved to attack the linked airships one at a time.
• The Three Great Churches sent enormous blades of blue-black wind against the Feysac fleet.

Ilian Sauron witnessed a Feysac fleet racing toward Loen, while Feysac airships launched a surprise attack on Backlund. Angel fought to protect civilians and destroy the invaders, then confronted the War Bishop.

• Ilian Sauron spotted a large Feysac fleet sailing toward Loen's southeastern coast and suspected war was about to break out.
• Feysac airships arrived over Backlund and bombarded North Borough, targeting Technical University and nearby streets as the churches tried to stop them.
• Angel destroyed several airships and used her powers to divert bombs and shells, but civilians were killed and wounded across the city.
• Angel sent Tinplate Puppets to attack the airships, while her plague killed soldiers aboard some of them and the remaining forces split toward other boroughs.
• The War Bishop confronted Angel in the air, and she lunged at him with a flaming fist, setting off an explosion that engulfed nearby airships.

Angel fought the Feysac War Bishop Snarner Einhorn in the sky above Backlund while he commanded airships attacking the West Borough and East Borough. The two entered the Mirror World, and the battle severed Snarner’s command connection long enough for a destructive power to pass through it and destroy two-thirds of the attacking airships.

• Snarner Einhorn battled Angel while directing the airships to bomb Backlund’s West Borough and East Borough, and Angel used disease to bring down several of them.
• Snarner shattered the ice mirrors reflecting him, then opened a passage into the Mirror World and flooded its routes with flames to drive Angel out of hiding.
• Angel emerged beside Snarner and petrified him with her gaze, but he exploded free, transformed into steel, and kicked her away.
• Snarner opened another Mirror World passage with his earring and entered it with Angel, cutting off his connection to the airships.
• The airships briefly lost their commander’s connection before a vast destructive power passed through it, causing two-thirds of them to explode and crash.

Audrey helped staff escape an aerial assault on Backlund while Irene Watson destroyed most of the attacking airships. Angel pursued the wounded War Bishop Snarner, but found the Red Angel evil spirit, Sauron Einhorn Medici, waiting in his path.

• Audrey led the Student Aid Fund staff toward Saint Samuel Cathedral and used Psychological Suggestion to stop Benson Moretti from running toward the bombardment.
• Audrey saw Irene Watson destroy many of the airships, and Horamick Haydn recognized Irene as the Demoness who had died stopping the Great Smog.
• Horamick coordinated with Radar Valentine to protect the crowds and took responsibility for the remaining airships while Irene pursued the wounded War Bishop Snarner.
• A mysterious voice helped Snarner escape through a Mirror World window and subdued the Cursed Flame burning his wounds.
• Angel confronted the figure in the alley and recognized him as Sauron Einhorn Medici, the Red Angel evil spirit.

Angel confronted the Red Angel evil spirit in Backlund and learned that it sought a Conqueror Beyonder characteristic while war drew it into the city. After Angel returned wounded from the battlefield, Klein arrived at her home and found her exhausted as their household prepared to evacuate.

• Angel taunted the Red Angel evil spirit, recognized its trap in the Mirror World, and refused to pursue the fleeing War Bishop, Snarner.
• Angel questioned the spirit and learned it had come to Backlund because of war, while she deduced that it wanted a Conqueror Beyonder characteristic possibly held by the Einhorn Family.
• The Red Angel discussed George III's bid to become a Black Emperor and hinted that one of Loen's Three Great Churches might oppose him.
• After Angel left for the battlefield, the Red Angel agreed that it could not defeat her and resolved to take back the Beyonder characteristic and investigate the past.
• Klein returned to Backlund, arranged his residence, and found Angel wounded and exhausted while her household prepared to move to a suburban winery.

Angel and Klein reviewed the devastation of the Feysac raid and considered how the war might escalate into a conflict between gods. As they discussed ways to grow stronger and protect those close to them, Klein warned that Zarathus had likely arrived in Backlund.

• Angel told Klein she regretted failing to protect more people during the air raid, and he comforted her as she mourned the North Borough’s dead.
• Angel and Klein used the newspapers and the Red Angel evil spirit’s answers to assess Feysac’s motives and the possibility that the God of Combat would clash with the Evernight Goddess over Death’s Uniqueness.
• They concluded that the war could spread across the world and involve the gods, leaving demigods like themselves able to protect only those nearby.
• Angel considered choosing the Life Staff from Mr. Sun’s offered items and looked for ways to digest her Unaging Demoness potion.
• Klein recalled Arrodes’s warning and said Zarathus, the Secret Order’s leader and an angel of the Seer pathway, had likely come to Backlund.

Angel and Klein weighed how to evade Zarathus, deciding Klein would hide while Angel remained in Backlund under the Goddess's protection. After preparing to shelter her household and seeking the Goddess's guidance, Angel learned that the Church’s recognition of her as a blessed had accelerated her potion digestion.

• Klein told Angel that Zarathus had likely arrived in Backlund and might discover that Dwayne Dantès was Gehrman Sparrow.
• Klein advised Angel to abandon her public identity, but she argued that remaining in Backlund as the Goddess's blessed would be safer and help their coming operations.
• Angel arranged for Ribak and the servants to take supplies and their families to the Iris Flower Winery, then traveled to Saint Samuel Cathedral.
• Angel prayed for permission to continue serving the Goddess under her identities as Irene Watson and Angel Granger, and Archbishop Anthony summoned her.
• Anthony affirmed Angel's deeds and asked whether she would continue serving as the Goddess's blessed, causing her potion to digest at an astonishing speed.

After the Evernight Goddess’s support made Angel a blessed of the Church, she agreed to remain in Backlund while Klein went into hiding. Angel later met Trissy in the East Borough and watched as she began a ritual to contact Mr. Door with Dorian Gray Abraham’s blood.

• Angel realized that the Evernight Goddess had aided her potion digestion and accepted Archbishop Anthony’s request to protect herself and the Goddess’s believers in Backlund.
• Angel encountered Klein at the cathedral, and he told her the Red Angel had intercepted him but had not revealed his identity or location to Zarathus.
• Angel and Klein agreed that he would go into hiding while she stayed in the open as the Goddess’s blessed and contacted him through special means.
• Angel met Trissy at her East Borough apartment and learned that Trissy had secretly stopped several bombs during the air raid.
• Trissy arranged gems into an altar, received Dorian Gray Abraham’s blood from Angel, and began chanting to contact Mr. Door.

Angel watched Trissy contact Mr. "Door," who revealed a way into the Tudor Mausoleum and a ritual to end the Abraham Family’s curse by freeing him from the storm. After Trissy collapsed, Angel reported the revelations to the Goddess, who erased the freeing ritual but left the mausoleum symbol intact, signaling support for Angel and Klein’s plan.

• Trissy summoned Mr. "Door," and Bethel Abraham gave her a symbol for bypassing the seal on Alista Tudor’s mausoleum.
• Mr. "Door" confirmed that Evernight and the Lord of Storms had exiled him and described a ritual involving three demigods that would end the Abraham Family’s curse once he escaped the storm.
• Trissy ended the ritual and collapsed into meditation, so Angel helped her recover and wrote down the mausoleum symbol and the ritual for freeing Mr. "Door."
• Angel reported her conversation with Bethel Abraham to the Goddess at Saint Samuel Cathedral.
• The Goddess erased the ritual for freeing Mr. "Door" but left the mausoleum symbol intact, and Angel praised her before leaving the cathedral.

Angel established a safe house near Saint Wind Cathedral after Backlund was attacked and prepared for the war between Loen and Feysac. She contacted her allies and, after Klein reported Queen Mystic Bernadette’s agreement to help stop George III’s advancement, gained confidence in their effort.

• Angel read the newspapers’ reports of George III’s declaration of war, martial law, and continued shelling at Pritz Harbor, and suspected the royal family had allowed the airship attack to justify war.
• Angel wrote to Klein about Trissy’s contact with Mr. “Door,” warning that he might be tempting people with a way to escape confinement, and asked Klein to gather blood from the 22 Pathways for the Tudor Mausoleum.
• Angel sent instructions and warnings to Shermane and Helene, then contacted Anne, Duchess Georgina Augustus, and the Tamara Family about the war and their plans.
• Angel asked Mr. Fool to arrange an exchange of the No Darkness Cross for the Life Staff and to deliver the resulting Sealed Artifact to the World for Klein to use.
• Klein’s reply arrived Sunday morning with learning materials and news that Queen Mystic Bernadette had agreed to help stop George III’s ritual to advance to Black Emperor.

Angel considered how to help Klein and Bernadette disrupt George III’s apotheosis ritual, then visited Audrey to arrange aid for the air raid’s victims and set out to surprise Isengard Stanton. The chapter ended with Angel, disguised as Irene Watson, arriving at Stanton’s home and asking to see him.

• Angel read Klein’s letter and judged that attacking George III’s mausoleums during his ritual offered a better chance of stopping him than assassination.
• Angel studied Roselle’s diary in Chinese and recognized clues about Mr. Door and the acting method.
• Angel visited the Student Aid Fund, where Audrey told her that a mysterious “Clown Angel” had miraculously healed severely injured patients.
• Angel entrusted Klein’s manor to Audrey, authorized her to use supplies from the winery, and donated money for more food and medical aid.
• Angel saw Shermane’s Black Bear Cola promotion and then disguised herself as Irene Watson before arriving at Isengard Stanton’s home.

Angel visited Isengard Stanton, revealed that she had returned from the dead, discussed the looming war, and donated her unpaid reward to charity. At the Tarot Club, Cattleya offered Mr. Fool an entire volume of Roselle’s diary, prompting Angel to wonder how he could understand the lost language in it.

• Angel visited Isengard Stanton, confirmed that she was Irene Watson, and claimed the Goddess had brought her back to life after the Great Smog.
• Angel asked Isengard about the war, and he discussed the possibility that Feynapotter would join Feysac against Loen and its neighbors.
• Angel gave up the fourteen hundred pounds Isengard owed her and asked him to donate it to the Loen Charity Student Aid Fund.
• Audrey reflected on the air raid’s victims and decided to use her Dreamwalker abilities to comfort them in their dreams.
• Cattleya presented Mr. Fool with an entire volume of Roselle’s diary, and Angel wondered how he could understand the lost language it contained.

At the Tarot Club meeting, Angel reconsidered Klein’s connection to Mr. Fool before Mr. Fool warned the members that Adam was directing events toward a world war. The meeting ended with Fors asking The World to take her traveling, while Audrey began to suspect that The World was the mysterious Clown Angel.

• Angel rejected the idea that Klein was Mr. Fool and concluded that Mr. Fool had learned to read Chinese from Roselle’s diary or by another means.
• Mr. Fool told Cattleya that she had accumulated ten questions, then suggested Emperor Roselle’s hidden mausoleum might be in the Abyss or on a primitive island in the Fog Sea.
• Mr. Fool explained that the members should beware of Spectators, especially Adam, who was steering the era toward a world war as part of his apotheosis ritual.
• Klein reflected on how little he could do to stop the war or George III’s plans, then began the free discussion.
• Fors asked The World to take her traveling so she could record the customs and cultures of different places, and Klein agreed in exchange for her help publishing his stories.
• Audrey suspected that The World was the Clown Angel rumored to be appearing in hospitals, while Angel wondered why Audrey had begun grinning.

At the Tarot Club, the members discussed Feysac’s attack on Backlund and learned how the relationships between neighboring Beyonder pathways shaped the war and their own circumstances. After returning to the Loen Charity Student Aid Fund, Audrey arranged to use an anonymous 1,500-pound donation to buy medicine and food for those in need.

• Audrey told the Tarot Club that Angel had intercepted most of Feysac’s airships over North Borough, limiting the casualties, though a War Bishop escaped with help from a Weather Warlock.
• Klein explained that neighboring pathways often became enemies, prompting the members to discuss the pathway groupings and the gods’ competing interests in the war.
• Klein revealed that Zaratul, a Sequence 1 angel of the Seer pathway, had recently arrived in Backlund, alarming Leonard, who suspected the Goddess knew about the Marauder angel inside him.
• Cattleya explained that Apothecary was adjacent to Planter, and Emlyn asked Leonard how officials would treat an ordinary clergyman from an enemy faction during wartime.
• Audrey returned to the Fund and learned that food prices were rising and an unidentified man had left 1,500 pounds in cash for war relief.
• Audrey told Benson Moretti to record the donation and use it to purchase more medicine and food.

Angel arrived in Constant to escort the Red Gloves retrieving Sealed Artifacts and meet the Tamara Family’s envoy, while Xio helped MI9 arrest suspected spies in Backlund. Angel met Yalixiya Tamara, and Xio learned that Feysac might soon attack Constant by sea.

• Angel followed the Red Gloves into Constant’s Church of Night, then explored the industrial city while considering its vulnerability to a Feysac attack.
• Angel visited the arranged meeting place and met Yalixiya Tamara, who identified her as the Golden Queen, Angelica Zaki.
• Xio waited outside a sewer while MI9 interrogated a suspected Feysac spy who had spent five years undercover at the retired officers’ registry.
• An MI9 officer told Xio that the spy suspected the Feysac navy would soon attack Midseashire to capture Constant’s port.