Chapter Summaries

Frederick negotiated with Old Louis for marshland around Deer Port in exchange for building coastal defenses and roads, while deciding to sell his existing farms to fund the development. The chapter ended with a would-be seducer asking him to give her a farm, and Frederick rejecting her.

• Old Louis offered Frederick a fief around Deer Port and proposed annual assistance fees for the land.
• Frederick offered to surrender his existing farms in exchange for the two marshy plains south of Deer Port, but Old Louis declined the farms and granted him the new land instead.
• Old Louis hired Frederick to build coastal watchtowers, fortresses, garrisons, and roads, and the two agreed on a total grant of seven hundred square kilometers.
• Frederick realized reclaiming the new land would require startup capital and decided to sell his existing farms.
• A maid asked Frederick to give her one of the farms, and he rebuffed her for expecting something for nothing.

Eugene discussed Frederick’s sale of more than a hundred profitable farms in the Lowlands with young Gaulish nobles who lacked cash after losing money on tulips. He offered a payment plan using gold and appraised antiques, then explained how the farms would be selected and allocated.

• Eugene met old friends and other nobles outside the Gaulish army’s camp, where they asked about Frederick selling farms in the Lowlands.
• Eugene confirmed he had reserved a seaside farm and told the nobles that most farms would be sold at market price.
• After Theo suggested Eugene buy farms for them at a markup, the others reprimanded Theo and Eugene explained that Frederick needed cash to develop new territory.
• Eugene proposed that buyers pay at least thirty percent in gold and cover the rest with antiques appraised by the Covent Garden Auction House.
• Eugene said Louis would select farms first, after which the nobles would choose according to rank, and the group dispersed with the news.

Old Louis arranged gifts for the people who had helped him, while Ailude walked with Psyche and asked about the gods and her origins. After Psyche answered his questions, Ailude returned to his monks and told them they would leave in two days.

• Old Louis arranged gifts for Florence, Eugene, Tony, Frank, Weissen, and Master Psyche, while deciding Richard Nahl would receive nothing because he still owed him a whale.
• Ailude and Psyche walked beside a river, where Ailude recalled his failed political ambitions and asked whether Psyche had found what she was searching for.
• Ailude asked whether Psyche was a deity or descendant from the mythological era, and Psyche said she did not know.
• Psyche recounted the Church of Light's hidden origin story and explained that its first pontiff had traveled with a living person sealed away since the Twilight of the Gods.
• Psyche told Ailude that omnipotent gods might have existed before the Twilight of the Gods, while the god who saved souls lived in people's hearts; she compared religion to a life preserver that gave the drowning hope.
• After reflecting on Psyche's words, Ailude returned to his monks and told them to prepare to leave the day after tomorrow.

After Old Louis recovered, Frederick left the military camp and promoted Eugene to command a new infantry division destined for the Kingdom of Tarraco. Frederick then handled railway and trading-company business before arriving in Paris, where he got out of his carriage to face students blocking the road.

• After Frank confirmed that Old Louis had recovered from sepsis, Old Louis appointed Frederick Duke of Deerhaven and rewarded the others; Frederick left the camp with Eugene.
• Frederick told Eugene about a planned military delegation and appointed him commander of the third infantry division, which would lead the first campaign in the Kingdom of Tarraco.
• Frederick made a railway agreement with King Sforza in Bear City, then returned to Weissenburg City to handle official business and prepare for his northern trip.
• Frederick sent Schupaya to Paris to manage the Dawn Trading Company's properties and affairs, then arrived in Paris with Armand to greet him.
• When students blocked the road in Paris, Frederick got out of the carriage to look at them despite Armand's warning.

Frederick helped clear a traffic jam in Paris and learned that students were blocking the road to protest school officials who had skimmed their scholarships. He suggested they gather former students to meet the legal threshold for suing, and warned them against retaliating by harming the officials or their families.

• Frederick had Armand arrange one-way traffic through the alleys, then sat down with the students blocking the road.
• Guillaume explained that schools had skimmed students’ royal scholarships for decades and that judges were refusing to hear their cases.
• Frederick challenged the students to consider how their roadblock harmed innocent travelers and merchants.
• A student explained that suing powerful nobles required a petition signed by more than five hundred people, and Armand confirmed the law required it.
• Frederick suggested finding former students whose scholarships had also been skimmed and joining their claims to reach the required number.
• Frederick warned the students not to harass the officials they sought to sue, and Armand considered persuading his grandfather to visit Dwarf Island.

Friedrich found a poison vial hidden inside a vase at his new Paris residence and learned it might have worsened Françoise’s lung disease. With several possible conspirators and no proof, he left the investigation to Armand’s family and decided to sell weapons to Penelope.

• Friedrich sent the vase that had once held Elizabeth Potatoes to Antonia’s neighbor at number 49 and gave Armand the animals from the stables.
• The butler found a red-capped vial inside the vase, and Armand warned that it might contain poison.
• Baroness Mathilde identified a toxin from a giant jellyfish that aggravated existing illnesses and said fire-type magical beast blood could help Françoise recover.
• Armand connected the toxin to Françoise’s lung disease and left to report the discovery and arrange treatment in Weissenburg City.
• Friedrich considered Antonia, Old Louis, and others as possible culprits but found no evidence, so he left the investigation to Armand’s family.
• Friedrich decided to sell a batch of weapons from the sample stockpile to Penelope.

Frederick attracted intense attention in Paris, but he invited the disgraced Sordia to meet him instead of pursuing the city’s social scene. After enduring an hour of official rhetoric for a group of courtesans posing as reporters, Frederick asked Sordia to demonstrate a machine he had invented.

• Paris’s nobles, courtesans, gamblers, and racehorse owners prepared for Frederick’s arrival, while Eugene’s mother sent him an offer to use her family’s theater box.
• Armand visited Frederick for breakfast and explained that his family had decided to seek a way to cure Françoise outside the legal system.
• Frederick said he had already sent an invitation but refused to tell Armand whom he had invited, then arranged to receive the reporters waiting outside.
• Frederick’s supposed reporters turned out to be courtesans, and he spoke to them in bureaucratic language for an hour before his guest arrived.
• Armand recognized Sordia, who explained that he had worked on a ranch in the Kingdom of Angland, invented a machine, and come to Paris to try his luck.
• Frederick asked Sordia to demonstrate the machine and had a cow brought over.

Frederick demonstrated Sordia’s milking machine and arranged support for him to commercialize the invention in Weissenburg City. He then set out with Armand to visit his pen pal Nikolai, only to learn that Nikolai had died the previous year.

• Sordia demonstrated his vacuum-powered milking machine to Frederick, who saw how it could ease the farmers’ work.
• Frederick promised Sordia an introduction and 4,000 florins to help him develop and sell the machine in Weissenburg City.
• Frederick explained the invention’s potential to Armand and the courtesans, hoping word would spread that inventions could make money in the Duchy of Weissen.
• Frederick asked Armand to guide him to visit his old pen pal, Nikolai, and decided to surprise him.
• Armand recognized the address and told Frederick that Nikolai had died the previous year from Projectile Diarrhea.

Frederick visited Hippolyte Carnot to learn about Nikolai’s research, which had been lost when his cabin was burned to contain an epidemic. The visit ended with Jules revealing that Old Jacques had secretly buried two boxes in the garden for one of Nikolai’s out-of-town friends.

• Hippolyte prepared to host Frederick and showed him Nikolai’s steam engine and the site of his burned cabin.
• Hippolyte told Frederick that Nikolai and the people caring for him had died after contracting Projectile Diarrhea, and that the cabin and its contents had been burned to stop the epidemic.
• Frederick learned that Nikolai had left no known research behind and explained that his work could have guided the design of steam engines.
• Jules arrived and told Hippolyte and Frederick that Old Jacques had buried two boxes in the garden for a friend of Nikolai’s from out of town.

Ippolit recovered Nikolai’s hidden manuscripts, and Frederick began organizing them for publication. While discussing her plans to learn to drive a tractor, Joanna told Frederick about abuses in Hanma City, prompting him to consider confronting the people responsible; the chapter ended with another visitor demanding to see him.

• Ippolit’s workers dug beneath the violets and found Nikolai’s oilpaper-wrapped chests, which Frederick opened and promised to organize for publication.
• Frederick spent two days sorting Nikolai’s papers and planned to send them to the Weissen Scientific Society for Psyche to oversee.
• Joanna told Frederick she wanted to learn to drive a tractor and described how a clothing-shop owner lured young women into rich men’s homes, where one girl was raped and later died by suicide.
• Frederick, troubled by the lack of justice in Hanma City, decided he could only confront the powerful people directly.
• Frederick offered Joanna a possible job at his new farm near Lugang, then told the butler to let in a baron’s daughter if she came into the bath.

Frederick hired Professor Habi to plan the reclamation of a swamp near Deer Harbor, including dikes, raised village platforms, and concrete coastal defenses. Habi arrived to meet the construction crew and discovered they were powerful mages led by Count Tot, who was also overseeing the North Sea defense project.

• Frederick met Professor Habi and outlined a plan to reclaim the smaller swamp plain south of Deer Harbor using floodwaters to deposit silt.
• Habi proposed building raised platforms for villages, and Frederick approved the plan with reinforced foundations and slopes.
• Frederick designed staggered concrete pillars to protect the sea-facing dikes and discussed waterways, gates, and pumping stations with Habi.
• Frederick left Paris secretly while the hot-air airship departed without him aboard.
• Habi arrived at Deer Harbor and trembled when he met the mage construction crew led by Count Tot.

Frederick traveled from Paris to Le Havre and booked passage to Amstel City, where he planned to continue toward the Sami Alliance and Nideros. As his ship departed, he saw Philip send his spendthrift younger brother to the Duchy of Weissen to work aboard the ship and receive a bank draft upon arrival.

• Frederick shared a cargo-ship ride with Guillaume, gave him a revolver and a check, and learned that Sordia had squandered the money Frederick gave him.
• Frederick reached Le Havre and booked a cabin aboard the Jersey Island Oyster, bound for Amstel City.
• At the Dawn Trading Company, Frederick overheard Philip arranging to send his younger brother to the Duchy of Weissen without fare money, making him work aboard the ship.
• Philip gave his younger brother a bank draft to be delivered in the Duchy of Weissen, and the young man was put to work as the Jersey Island Oyster departed.

Frederick and Captain Tom faced an approaching fleet after pirates—or pursuers from Tarraco—chased their wheat ship. Tom revealed that a nobleman's daughter was hiding aboard and asked Frederick to take her to safety.

• Tom told Frederick about his life at sea and served him fresh oysters aboard the Jersey Island Oyster.
• Frederick asked whether oysters could be kept alive during transport to Weissenburg City.
• A lookout spotted four ships pursuing them, and Tom ordered the crew to prepare the ship and send a distress call.
• Frederick armed himself while Tom explained that the pursuers might want to seize the ship, whose cargo was wheat.
• Tom revealed that a Tarraco nobleman's daughter was hiding aboard and asked Frederick to escort her to Weissenburg City or Vienna.

Frederick uncovered a mutiny aboard the Jersey Island Oyster and rescued a hostage using his extraordinary toughness and Soul Impact. After the traitors were killed, the pursuing ships surrounded them, and Frederick recognized the people aboard one of them.

• Frederick noticed the lookout signaling in an unfamiliar way, and Tom shot him as a suspected spy.
• A sailor sabotaged the sails, and the first mate took a young woman hostage while another sailor held Frederick at knifepoint.
• Frederick warned Tom about an attacker, then proved the daggers could not pierce his neck and frightened the sailors into thinking he was a demon.
• Frederick stunned the first mate with Soul Impact and rescued the young woman, while Tom and his men shot the traitors.
• Three pursuing ships blocked the Jersey Island Oyster as a fourth drew alongside, and Frederick recognized the people aboard.

Frederick learned that Baron Adiken had been manipulated into pursuing the ship carrying Cecilia, a loyal servant fleeing Duke Aransati. Cecilia delivered a hidden royal edict asking Grand Duke Suarez to aid the King and Empress Anna and Grand Duke Wessen to see justice done, leaving Frederick uncertain whether the document was genuine.

• Baron Adiken explained that a knight had misled him about the ship, while its first mate and lookout had fed both sides false information and nearly provoked a deadly confrontation.
• Tom told Frederick that he had hidden Cecilia aboard the ship on behalf of the Dawn Trading Company.
• Cecilia said she had fled Magritte City after the head maid entrusted her with a message for Frederick or Empress Anna.
• Cecilia removed a silk message concealed in her corset, which accused Duke Aransati of poisoning the King and called on Grand Duke Suarez to help him.
• Frederick examined the blood-sealed edict but could not determine whether it was genuine or what effect it would have on the struggle for the throne.

After recovering in Hanma City, Cecilia had to decide where to go next while Frederick and Anna considered how to use the royal decree. Cecilia chose to spend time fishing with Frederick before they parted, with him sailing north and her traveling south toward Weissenburg City.

• The Jersey Island Oyster arrived in Amstel City with the bodies of two murdered passengers, and Baron Adiken later arranged for them to be buried.
• Cecilia fell ill after reaching Frederick's residence in Hanma City, and a doctor treated her fever, flea bites, and gastroenteritis.
• Frederick received Anna's plan to spread rumors about Cecilia and the royal decree, route her toward the Inner Sea, and use the political fallout to their advantage.
• After Cecilia recovered, Frederick asked where she wanted to go, and she admitted she did not know before he suggested traveling to Weissenburg City and Constantinople to seek work.
• Cecilia asked Frederick to go fishing with her, and they spent time together on an offshore island before he sailed north and she headed south toward Weissenburg City.

Frederick sailed aboard the Dried Seal toward Nideros and earned the Sami sailors’ admiration by defeating their strongest warriors and calculating the ship’s position. The ship diverted to Peterson’s home, where Frederick arrived at a narrow fjord enclosed by towering cliffs.

• Frederick beat a young sailor and then Nielsen and Jensen in arm-wrestling contests, earning their respect.
• Frederick and Peterson tested their strength with magic, and Frederick eventually forced Peterson’s bear paw down.
• The sailors praised Frederick after he calculated the ship’s position when they struggled to use the wireless positioning system.
• Peterson told Frederick that the ship would stop at his home to unload goods and rest before sailing to Nideros.
• The Dried Seal entered a narrow fjord, and Frederick saw cliffs rising hundreds of meters above the water.

Frederick arrived at Bear Claw Tribe, met its elders and priest Larsen, and learned that the tribe’s soccer match against Ox Head Tribe would decide who received two Church places. Larsen arranged a practice match so Frederick could assess the team and offer advice.

• Jensen welcomed Frederick to the harbor and asked whether his second child could study medicine in Frederick’s homeland; Frederick agreed to raise the possibility with the Church.
• Frederick disembarked and met Peterson and the other elders, who explained the council’s roles and authority.
• Larsen greeted Frederick and escorted him uphill to Bear Claw Tribe, describing the settlement and its soccer traditions.
• Larsen explained that Bear Claw Tribe’s match against Ox Head Tribe would determine which team won two remaining Church places.
• Larsen asked Frederick for coaching advice, and Frederick agreed to watch a practice match the next morning.

Frederick toured the Bear Claw Tribe with Larsen, learning about its defenses, livelihood, and farming practices. After suggesting a way to sell Asen’s feather pictures, Frederick examined an old hen and began forming an idea.

• Larsen showed Frederick the guest quarters and toured the Bear Claw Tribe with him.
• Frederick sampled the sour berries and saw how the tribe prepared food and firewood for winter.
• Larsen explained how disasters and migration had caused nearby tribes to merge, and Frederick suggested selling Asen’s feather paintings in the south.
• Larsen settled a dispute between a farmer and a shepherd boy, then asked Frederick for advice about planting Elizabeth Potato.
• Larsen obtained an old hen for dinner, and Frederick examined it closely as an idea came to him.

Frederick shared chicken soup with Larsen and learned about the tribe’s customs, including the Aurora Warriors’ tradition of having children with exceptional men. Larsen warned that women might visit Frederick that night, and Frederick returned to find several girls waiting outside his quarters.

• Larsen served Frederick chicken soup and explained how the church preserved its cooking traditions.
• Frederick decided to import the tribe’s fat-bodied chickens for crossbreeding and asked Larsen about hunting dogs and Three-Headed Hounds.
• Larsen said church records traced Three-Headed Hounds and other unusual creatures to animals brought from another world by ancient gods.
• Larsen explained that Aurora Warriors sought exceptional men to father children, and Frederick realized this tradition explained Walküre’s interest in him.
• Larsen warned Frederick not to lock his door because women might come to have children with him, so Frederick planned to block his doors and windows with Tall-nuts.
• Frederick returned to his quarters and found several broad-shouldered girls waiting for him, then shouted for them to stay back.