Chapter Summaries

Iver explained the Shadow Angel’s history to Arsene, then met Ares and the warriors of the Shadow Land after they arrived to investigate the battle. He offered the captured Shadow Hunter Beasts’ stolen shadows back and asked Ares to take him to the Shadow Angel.

• Iver told Arsene how the Shadow Angel had been expelled from Supreme Heaven and gained authority over betrayal and revenge in the Shadow Realm.
• Iver explained that the Shadow Angel guarded the Shadow Land and sometimes aided avengers, while its warriors escorted wandering souls to her castle.
• More than sixty male warriors arrived, and Iver recognized the living Lancelot among them.
• Ares introduced himself as the former Nation Destroyer and cautioned Iver about the Night Demon’s power.
• Iver offered the warriors a chance to recover their stolen shadows from the three Shadow Hunter Beasts.
• Iver asked Ares to take him to the Shadow Angel and offered the Shadow Hunter Beasts as a meeting gift.

Iver and Arsene traveled through Shadow Land with its cheerful warrior-prisoners and reached the Infinity Palace, where they met Shadow Angel, Scathach. Scathach welcomed them and ordered a banquet, while the warriors went to free their companions and prepare the feast.

• Iver and Arsene shared stories and Shadow Brew Wine with Shadow Land's warriors as they learned why the warriors were confined there.
• Lancelot explained that Shadow Angel's Infinity Palace descended into an abyss and that its upper floor was used for divinations and curses.
• Scathach emerged from the palace and greeted Iver and Arsene.
• Arsene knelt before Scathach, while the warriors greeted her affectionately and asked to celebrate their guests' arrival.
• Scathach ordered the warriors to release their sleeping companions, prepare the prey, and invite the fairies to a banquet.

The Shadow Angel welcomed Iver and his companions in Shadow Land, where she recognized Viennes as a former shadow demon named Bayard and gave Iver and Arsene pieces of her Shadow Cloak as greeting gifts. She invited them to dine and offered to have the Moon Deer carry them onward, leaving their choice to stay or depart undecided.

• The Shadow Angel lifted Iver into her arms and invited him to stay, but Viennes said they had important business and could not linger.
• The Shadow Angel recognized Viennes as Bayard, a shadow demon she had once helped, and learned that Viennes had become a night demon.
• The Shadow Angel gave Iver a piece of her Shadow Cloak and explained that it could be made into a powerful cloak of invisibility.
• The Shadow Angel kissed Arsene, then gave him an equal piece of her cloak and told him never to give it away or let anyone else use it.
• The Shadow Angel invited Iver, Viennes, and Arsene to share a meal and offered to have the Moon Deer carry them to their destination.

Iver, Arsene, and Viennes attended the Shadow Land feast, where the Shadow Angel explained the scarcity of food and Ares described the competitions held among the warriors. Ares began a brutal fight at the feast, leaving one warrior pinned to the wall by a severed arm.

• The Shadow Angel led Iver, Arsene, and Viennes into the Banquet Hall, where warriors feasted on meat and witches served them.
• Iver reflected on how the Shadow Domain’s darkness and lack of plant life made it difficult for mortals to survive.
• The Shadow Angel seated the group at the largest table with Ares, who explained that he had won the day’s competition by killing his opponents.
• Arsene questioned whether anyone could beat Ares, prompting Ares to invite him to drink and then accept a challenge to fight.
• Ares killed a giant warrior by impaling him and roasting him on a table’s iron rack, then tore off another warrior’s arm and hurled it into a third warrior, pinning him to the wall.

Iver attended Scathach’s banquet, where he learned that the Shadow Land’s powerful liquor could increase vitality and received Fergus’s secret blood tonic. Scathach asked Iver to protect her from the Ring Angel’s Ouroboros Ring Ritual, and Iver agreed to stop the ritual by pulling down the Blood Angel first.

• Ares fought a growing crowd of warriors until Luke beheaded him, after which the dead returned to life and the guests resumed their feast.
• Fergus greeted Iver, learned he was soon to marry, and secretly gave him a bottle of his special tonic made with Demon Dragon Blood and other ingredients.
• Iver and Arsene discovered that Fergus’s potent strawberry liquor increased their vitality, and Fergus explained why it could not easily be carried into the Material Realm.
• Scathach asked Iver to save her from the Ring Angel and offered to support his future ascent in return.
• Iver agreed and proposed pulling down the Blood Angel first to prevent another Angel of the Path of Love from being pulled down during the current cycle.

Arsene learned the truth about the Angels and helped Iver narrow down where Sherlock was being held in the Dream Realm. Their search was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the Lord of Scales and Feathers.

• Arsene learned that the Ring Angel had orchestrated the Fallen Angel’s descent and that Iver could choose which Angel would descend next.
• Iver reassured Arsene, then explained that he had come to the Dream Realm to retrieve their kidnapped friend Sherlock.
• Arsene described Sherlock’s surroundings from a mirror conversation, including a quiet study with a packed bookshelf and black-and-white candles.
• Iver used the description to rule out several paths as possible locations, and an unfamiliar stranger confirmed that five paths could be eliminated.
• Nation Destroyer Ares greeted the stranger as the Lord of Scales and Feathers.

Iver met Lord of Scales and Feathers in the Dream Realm and learned more about its dangers and the fate of souls there. After sharing a meal that granted experience, Iver and Arsene prepared to travel to the Path of Beauty to search for Sherlock and pursue Iver’s other goals.

• Lord of Scales and Feathers erased the warriors’ memories of seeing him and explained how bodiless souls were vulnerable to subconscious manipulation.
• Iver ruled out the Path of Love and Path of Transcendence as places where Sherlock might be, and decided to visit the Paths of Beauty and Wisdom.
• Iver explained that Hypatia had asked him to rescue her daughter’s soul, which she had preserved in an ancient Doll after retrieving it from the Source River.
• The Shadow Angel offered to send Iver and Arsene to Twin Mirrors in the Path of Beauty, then persuaded them to stay and eat Shadow Hunter Beast.
• Iver discovered that eating the beast’s remains granted experience from soul fragments, and the Shadow Angel explained that survival of the fittest governed the Dream Realm.
• The Shadow Angel lent Iver Moon Deer and warned him about traveling through dangerous borders between Angels’ domains; Iver trusted his Sin Beast form to protect him.

Iver explained the Moon Deer’s connection to moonlight, madness, and the Path of Love before summoning one to carry him and Arsene through the Dream Realm. The Moon Deer demanded a secret as its fare, leaving Arsene to decide what shameful truth to reveal.

• After the Shadow Angel chose the night’s lucky warriors, she sent Iver and Arsene outside to wait for the Moon Deer.
• Arsene asked what a Moon Deer was, and Iver explained its ties to the moon, the Beast, silver, and the Path of Love.
• A huge, silver-antlered Moon Deer descended in brilliant moonlight and asked the Children of Candle Holder where they wished to go.
• Iver told the Moon Deer to take them to the Mirror Hall, where the Twin Mirrors, the Jester Angel, and the Song Angel lived.
• When the Moon Deer refused to move, Iver explained that Arsene had to pay the fare by revealing a detailed, shameful secret.

Arsene recounted stealing and selling smuggled Elf Dew when he was a young sailor, revealing that his theft ruined most of the valuable cargo and may have led to the second mate’s death. Moon Deer savored Arsene’s regret, then carried the group to their destination.

• Arsene told Iver and Moon Deer how he stole Elf Dew from four barrels aboard a ship and secretly carried it away.
• Arsene explained that he diluted the remaining Elf Dew with contaminated water to hide the theft and sold his share for four hundred Iris Gold Coins.
• Iver calculated that Arsene had destroyed thousands of coins’ worth of Elf Dew, and Arsene realized the theft might have caused more deaths.
• Moon Deer laughed at Arsene’s regret, transformed into moonlight, and took the group to their destination.

Iver and Arsene arrived at Mirror Hall after riding with Moon Deer, the Dream Realm embodiment of rumors and gossip. As they discussed the secrets Moon Deer carried, Arsene began to understand how confessing his past had eased his guilt, and they approached the palace to rescue Sherlock.

• Moon Deer brought Iver and Arsene to Mirror Hall, then gave Iver its long true name and vanished after offering to return when summoned.
• Iver explained that Moon Deer embodied rumors and gossip and spread information farther when it was entertaining and emotionally charged.
• Iver and Arsene joked that Sherlock should pay for their return journey by telling Moon Deer an unspeakable past of his own.
• Arsene reflected on the harm caused by his past thefts and how revealing the truth to Iver had brought him relief.
• Arsene asked whether embellished or partly false stories could satisfy Moon Deer, and Iver said they could but would limit its travel distance as they neared Mirror Hall.

Iver guided Arsene through Mirror Hall, where paintings and other works of art formed a connected network of living worlds. After explaining how the domain worked, Iver used Arsene’s description of Sherlock’s surroundings to plan their search.

• Iver led Arsene into Adolf von Menzel’s painting Steel Rolling Plant, where they walked through a lifelike factory before taking a staircase out of it.
• Iver brought Arsene to a painting of the Great Chapel of the Holy Candle and explained its history and the banned prophecy-inspired artwork depicting its destruction.
• Arsene realized that paintings, mirrors, windows, and staircases could connect different spaces in Mirror Hall, while doors could not.
• Iver explained that the domain contained all forms of man-made beauty and that powerful beings and their apostles might be hidden within its spaces.
• Iver decided to search for spaces resembling the brownish, brightly lit building where Sherlock was waiting, using Arsene’s description to guide them.

Iver, Arsene, and Viennes crossed the Mirror Hall, where artworks became dangerous as their interpretations and observers’ wishes reshaped them. As they pushed deeper, the phantasmal demons grew stronger and stranger, with more creatures joining their pursuit.

• Iver and Arsene entered an unfamiliar room after following clues about connections between paintings, and Iver struggled to interpret its artwork.
• Iver explained that the Mirror Hall distorted artworks when outsiders stayed too long, turning the spaces themselves into Art Spirits.
• At a court funeral, the Iris nobles began slaughtering one another, but Arsene defeated the first phantasmal demons.
• Playing-card soldiers pursued the group in a fairy-tale court, and Iver had to fight when Arsene’s strength proved insufficient.
• At a manor banquet, Viennes’s expectations caused the guests to transform into powerful Children of the Moon and attack.
• As the group fled through later rooms, bizarre phantasmal demons—including a man-eating gingerbread house and a headless conductor—joined them.

Iver and Arsene reached the world where Sherlock was supposed to be, but discovered that the Sherlock they met was the Jester Angel in disguise. The Jester Angel revealed that Sherlock was on his territory and offered to take them to him.

• Iver and Arsene entered the Library World where they expected to find Sherlock, and Sherlock appeared to recognize Arsene.
• Iver noticed that their phantasmal followers had vanished and realized that the supposed Sherlock's manner toward him was suspicious.
• Arsene opened the drawer Sherlock pointed out, triggering an explosion that revealed the disguised figure as the Jester Angel.
• Iver identified the Jester Angel and explained that he knew the flaws of the Puppet Mask Technique through Isabel.
• The Jester Angel said Sherlock was on his territory and offered to take Iver and Arsene to him.

Iver and Arsene found Sherlock in the Mirror Hall and learned that he had been kept working in a dream without contact with the outside world. Sherlock inferred that Iver knew about his Vendome origins and, reassured by Iver’s restraint, teased Arsene about his unusual silence.

• Jester Angel led Iver and Arsene through the Mirror Hall to Sherlock.
• Sherlock greeted Iver and Arsene and explained that his employer had kept him working and unable to contact anyone, though he had otherwise been comfortable.
• Iver joked that Sherlock’s situation resembled workplace confinement and offered to vouch for him when he took leave.
• Sherlock deduced that Arsene had told Iver about his mother’s surname and concluded that the Duke of Vendome could not know Sherlock had written for help.
• Sherlock noted that Iver seemed less eager to kill than before, then asked Arsene whether Iver’s presence was causing him a stress reaction.

Iver, Sherlock, and Arsene uncovered Jester Angel’s trick of synchronously impersonating both sides of their encounter. Jester Angel congratulated them for solving his game and vanished, leaving behind a Puppet Mask Grimoire as their reward.

• Arsene and Iver told Sherlock about the Jester Angel who had impersonated him, then noticed that the Jester Angel beside them had disappeared.
• Iver and Sherlock compared what they had heard and realized that Jester Angel was simultaneously impersonating Sherlock in both groups.
• Jester Angel revealed himself and merged the two dream worlds, bringing the real Sherlock, Iver, and Arsene together.
• Iver explained that Sherlock’s failure to react to the first mention of Jester Angel exposed the deception, while Sherlock described the clues in Arsene’s behavior and the scene.
• Iver connected the trick to Isabel’s description of the Puppet Mask Grimoire, and Arsene realized Jester Angel had been following them since they met Shadow Angel.
• Jester Angel awarded them full marks, vanished in laughter, and left a crimson Puppet Mask Grimoire behind.

Iver and Sherlock investigated Jester Angel’s Crimson Puppet Mask and discovered that it let Jester Angel possess whoever wore it. Jester Angel explained that the mask could summon him repeatedly, leaving Iver and the others with a way to bring the Angel into the Material Realm.

• Iver picked up the Crimson Puppet Mask and wondered about Jester Angel’s motives and its connection to Path Power.
• Sherlock used his newly learned Appraisal Technique to examine the mask, then told Arsene to put it on.
• The mask fixed itself to Arsene’s face, and Jester Angel took control of his body and greeted Iver and Sherlock.
• Jester Angel explained that the mask could be used about once every two days and that he could remain in control until he grew bored or the Nuo Shaman refused him.
• Jester Angel asked to be taken out for a stroll, then left Arsene’s body when Arsene removed the mask.

Iver, Sherlock, and Arsene discussed the Jester Angel’s one-way-control mask, which Arsene accepted and named the Riddle Mask. Sherlock then revealed that the Jester Angel had guided the Third Rebellion in Iris, and he and Iver suspected the affair’s original plan had gone awry because of Iver’s grandfather.

• Sherlock and Iver judged the Jester Angel’s mask too dangerous for Isabel or a ruler because it could take control of its wearer without giving them the power to take over.
• Arsene accepted the mask, agreeing to wear it as the Phantom Thief and entertain the Jester Angel, while Iver reminded him that it could also save his life.
• Arsene named the mask the Riddle Mask, and Sherlock connected the Jester Angel’s apparent absence in the past to the possibility that it had already been moving through the Material Realm using vessels.
• Sherlock said the Jester Angel had guided the Third Rebellion, in which Iris’s final king was beheaded, and suspected the Duke of Vendome had cooperated with it.
• Sherlock explained that the Jester Angel’s original script had gone out of control and suspected the incident was related to Iver’s grandfather; Iver agreed that the connection seemed likely.

Iver and his companions traveled from the Mirror Hall to Serpent Vortex, the paradoxical domain of Geometric Angel. There, Euler recognized Iver and agreed to lead them to Hypatia’s workshop after reporting to his teachers.

• After leaving the Mirror Hall, Iver summoned Moon Deer Arnold, who arrived as himself rather than as Jester Angel.
• Arsene paid for the group’s journey to Serpent Vortex by retelling a story he had already told Jester Angel.
• Iver and his companions arrived at Serpent Vortex and found its impossible, looping staircases and busy scholar inhabitants.
• Euler emerged from the folded space, recognized Iver as the Child of Candle Holder, and asked why they had come.
• Iver said Hypatia had sent him to retrieve something, and Euler offered to guide them to her workshop after reporting to his teachers.

Iver and his companions met the mathematician Zhu Shijie, who guided them through the shifting staircase of the Serpent Vortex to Hypatia’s workshop. They arrived at the dusty blue house, though it appeared to be empty.

• Zhu Shijie greeted Iver with reverence, and Iver told him that his descendant Zhu Tang had become Grand Minister overseeing imperial rites.
• Zhu Shijie warned the group not to stray from the staircase, where each step led through real or false space according to mathematical answers.
• Sherlock said he could see and solve the staircase’s formulas, while Arsene nearly wandered into false space before Sherlock caught him.
• Zhu Shijie led the group through the sequence of steps that opened the route to Hypatia’s workshop.
• Iver and his companions reached Hypatia’s dusty blue, triangular workshop, which appeared empty.

Iver and his companions set out to retrieve Hypatia’s daughter from the Dream Realm, but they found Hypatia’s workshop door sealed by a mathematical puzzle. With no time to wait for Sherlock to solve it, Iver had Arsene use the Blade of Separation of All Things to smash the door, leaving the way into the workshop open.

• Iver sent Zhu Shijie and Euler away, assuring them that he and his companions could return without their help.
• Iver explained that they had to hurry because phantasms or visiting apostles could put Hypatia’s daughter in danger.
• Sherlock examined the workshop door’s mathematical puzzle and estimated that solving it would take at least thirty minutes.
• Iver told Arsene to summon his silver Blade of Separation of All Things and use it as a key to break the door.
• Arsene pressed the blade against the door, shattering it into fragments.