Chapter Summaries

Richard gave Catherine a handwritten copy of Professor McPhee’s Highland materials, then bought Iris Brand toffee and desserts for Isabella after learning it was her childhood favorite. At Isabella’s room, he found her and Clara helping Sophia pack for a journey, with documents and a map concerning the Western Front; Isabella accepted his gift and asked what help he needed.

• Catherine gave Richard her handwritten copy of Professor McPhee’s Ogham interpretations, spells, and Ritual procedures, and Richard accepted it after she explained she had copied the original herself.
• Richard and Catherine agreed that she would repay his favor with one big meal instead of treating him to meat pies one at a time.
• Richard called his mother Margaret, learned that Isabella loved Iris Brand toffee, and bought the last two boxes along with other desserts despite rising prices.
• Richard met Edith outside the dessert shop and heard that she was mailing a small box of sweets home to her younger siblings.
• Richard brought the desserts to Isabella’s room and found Isabella, Clara, and Sophia packing; he noticed a map and documents about the Western Front.
• Isabella accepted the toffee, gave Sophia provisions for the journey, and asked Richard what help he needed.

Richard asked Isabella to examine a cracked clay doll and a High Evil Being’s flag material, but she could only study the doll and advised him to take the flag material to Professor Mortimer. After Sophia left to investigate the Mons Angel incident, Richard received a letter from Mrs. Mary arranging his first Automatic Writing job.

• Richard showed Isabella a cracked clay doll, and she agreed to compare its South Sea sealing technique with the literature and dismantle it when she had time.
• Isabella could not dismantle the Flagbearer’s contaminated flag material and told Richard to seek Professor Mortimer’s help.
• Isabella and Clara arranged for Clara’s cousin to consider crafting the material after Professor Mortimer inspected and sorted it.
• Isabella told Richard that Sophia would investigate the Mons Angel incident with other graduate students, and Sophia departed for the Front Lines.
• Richard received a letter from Mrs. Mary scheduling his first Automatic Writing job for Friday at nine in the evening.

Richard performed Automatic Writing under Black Cat’s protection, gathering fragments from the Spirit Realm before a powerful mass of fearful thoughts produced a warning about archers. Afterward, Black Cat explained how to improve his Silencing Spellcraft, and Richard discovered the session had advanced several of his skills toward new awakenings.

• Black Cat guided Richard through the herbs and warned him to skim thoughts only from the edge of the Spirit Realm while she guarded the bridge.
• Richard’s Automatic Writing gathered fragments including a funeral ballad, an unpaid debt, an incomplete incantation, coordinates, and a children’s rhyme.
• Richard copied a knot of tens of thousands of pleas not to die, followed by the clear warning, “The archers are above you,” before Black Cat pulled him back.
• Black Cat identified the writing as Spirit Realm fragments and explained that Silencing Spellcraft required Richard to seal the edges of his Aether vacuum.
• Richard checked his panel and found that [Perception], [Reasoning], and [Scholarship] had all advanced, bringing his intellectual skills closer to lv.3.

Richard and Isabella investigated the bullet-deflecting phenomenon at Mons and traced its origin to a story by Arthur Meiqin, whose fictional Agincourt Archers had been made real through a hidden force. The chapter ended with them questioning what the person behind that force wanted, as Meiqin’s sudden fame began to grow.

• Richard read three conflicting reports of the Mons incident and learned that a team sent to repair old seals had investigated it only as a side task.
• Sophia sent Isabella and Richard Aether-stained shell casings, and Richard found that they held the desperate prayers of soldiers who feared dying.
• Richard connected those prayers to an automatic-writing page bearing the sentence, “The archers are above your heads,” and wondered what had first gathered the scattered thoughts.
• Scholars traced the phrase “Agincourt Archers” to Arthur Meiqin’s short story, and Isabella confirmed that he was an ordinary novelist with no Aether Circuit.
• Richard and Isabella concluded that someone had used Meiqin’s story as a seed and built a bridge on the other side of the Veil to turn the readers’ thoughts into a force that stopped bullets.
• Isabella revealed that Meiqin had rapidly gained attention from the Church, newspapers, and the military after publishing the story, while Richard asked what the hidden figure wanted.

Richard and Isabella learned that the Angel of Mons had protected soldiers while draining their vitality, but a passing Virtuoso took it away before Scholars could decide what to do. Sophia returned from the front after helping contain a dangerous force that traveled through electrical circuits, then reunited with her colleagues and shared stories of the war.

• Richard and Isabella used the Sacred Ibis Bronze Paperweight and Small Bronze Scales to determine that the Angel of Mons protected believers while hollowing them out, prompting Scholars to argue over whether it should be destroyed or controlled.
• A Virtuoso passed through Mons and took the Angel's echo beyond the Veil, after which the Ministry of Internal Affairs closed the case and suppressed the legend.
• Isabella, Clara, and Richard welcomed Sophia home after her telegram reported that the battlefront's electrical circuits had been restored; Sophia explained that a force had crawled through wires and onto people, and that she had helped restore a seal after the circuits were shut down.
• Sophia reunited with Isabella's students at a celebratory dinner, gave them gifts, and described helping wounded soldiers after a major battle in Southern Francia.
• Sophia told the group that the army had requisitioned hundreds of taxis to ferry reserves to the front, while the drivers kept their meters running; Clara insisted they deserved to be paid.

At dinner, Richard used his new level of Reasoning to explain that the angel at Mons would fade as it consumed the faith of those it saved. Isabella praised his argument and hinted that October’s Debate Week would be different because war was starting.

• Isabella recalled how worried she had been when Sophia stopped sending telegrams, then drunkenly threatened to dock her research stipend if Sophia did it again.
• The table debated whether the angel at Mons was a monster, a weapon, or a miracle, and Sophia said a rescued soldier had reported that archers aimed arrows at him.
• Richard advanced Reasoning to level 3 and concluded that the soldiers’ faith had created the angel, whose power drained that faith until it would destroy itself.
• Richard urged everyone not to give the angel a name or legend and to heal the soldiers it had saved, and Clara agreed with his conclusion.
• The students applauded Richard, and Isabella praised his debate before announcing that Debate Week in October would differ from previous years because war would change the topics.

After unlocking Spirit Projection, Richard discovered that he could give his shadow a strand of Spirit, allowing it to wear the Hermes Mask, breathe, and practice Spellcraft behind The Veil. He planted the Mysterium Embers Seed, which began a ten-day countdown, and turned his attention to October's Debate Week.

• On the carriage ride home, Sophia told Richard that Clara's craftsman uncle had his orders booked until next spring because alchemical craftsmen were being requisitioned for the front lines.
• Richard unlocked Spirit Projection after all seven attributes reached lv.3 and tested its weak strand on a Copper Disc, gaining remote senses without control over the object.
• Richard placed a strand of Spirit in his shadow, enabling it to wear the Hermes Mask and train with breathing techniques and Stone Armor, though he recognized that its destruction could now seriously harm him.
• Richard removed the Hermes Mask from the shadow because its power could draw in the dead and make The Veil more transparent.
• Richard planted the Mysterium Embers Seed, whose Name, Mirror, and Substitute traits had a ten-day germination countdown, and anticipated October's Debate Week.

Richard learned that preparatory students would compete in Debate Week, then arrived at Iliad Hall as the seven-day event opened. The opening address was about to begin, with Richard seated among the contestants and the rules established.

• Richard read the notice expanding Debate Week to include outstanding preparatory students, and Pendleton explained the competition and its role in Scholars’ declarations.
• Richard balanced his coursework and editorial assignments while the shadow practiced Spellcraft for him, and his aunt told him Clara was the only graduate student under her selected for Debate Week.
• Richard traveled to Iliad Hall, where he saw the debate platform’s Manifest Section and learned that Sir Muller would serve as chief judge.
• Richard sat beside Montague as the host announced the competition rules, including its age groups, debate format, and scoring by rhetoric and declaration.

Richard argued for the affirmative in a debate on whether people who profited from war were vermin or pillars of the nation, while Sinclair Bolton countered with the suffering his family had endured. The cross-examination left Richard defending the existing economic order, and the debate continued with both sides’ arguments still standing.

• Sir Muller urged the young contestants to speak for those killed at the front before the debate matches began.
• Richard drew the affirmative side of the motion on war profiteers and learned that Sinclair Bolton would argue against him.
• Richard argued that war profiteers included both exploitative speculators and industrialists whose production supported the army.
• Sinclair described his dead father, his mother’s sacrifices, and rising food prices, arguing that workers suffered from all war profiteers alike.
• Richard questioned Sinclair with statistics and the role of war bonds, but Sinclair countered that the wealthy could be taxed instead of being allowed to profit.
• Richard accepted that taxing the wealthy could be politically difficult and warned that they might move their assets, close factories, and disrupt military supplies.

Richard Williams defeated Sinclair Bolton in a debate over whether those who profited from war were parasites or pillars of the nation, though he felt no personal victory. He then watched Montague begin a debate on whether imprisoning enemy aliens was self-protection or injustice.

• Bolton challenged Richard’s arguments about statistics, Crassus, and Melos, arguing that wartime profiteers exploited families like his own.
• Richard argued that national law had to weigh many families’ circumstances and distinguish parasites from pillars by examining the numbers.
• The judges awarded Richard the preparatory division debate over Bolton by 1.4 points, and Bolton said he would not speak about handkerchiefs next time.
• Catherine gave Richard her notebook of competitors and their families’ positions in the wartime supply chain, which she had prepared to help guide her use of Nemesis’s power.
• Montague opened his debate against Rose by arguing that wartime law fell silent, and a Roman city wall appeared beyond the Veil as he spoke.
• After his narrow victory, Montague told Richard that everyone who could stand on the debate stage was the real deal.

Catherine defeated Henry in a debate by challenging his account of collective guilt and exposing his family's profits from Leuven's destruction, though her attack drew the judges' disapproval and risked her exclusion from academic circles. Richard later mastered Tide-Shift Breathing at level 4, improving his healing and Aether recovery, and looked forward to the next tier's ability to heal others.

• Henry argued that a nation could be collectively guilty, citing the atrocities in Leuven and comparing them to Troy.
• Catherine countered with Father Pierre Dubois's actions and argued that guilt belonged to specific individuals, not entire groups.
• Catherine confronted Henry over his family's profits from increased coal production after the destruction of Leuven's mine, then accused him of disguising profiteering as concern for the dead.
• Catherine won the debate by 2.5 points, but the judges lowered her declaration score, and Richard recognized that her attack had made her enemies.
• Richard completed his daily Tide-Shift Breathing practice and advanced Breathing to level 4, improving healing, Aether retention, and Spirit Capacity recovery.
• Richard read the Fountain preview, which promised faster self-healing and the ability to heal others, and hoped to use it to give his mother an Aether massage.

Richard and Isabella visited Professor Mortimer, who cleared the dangerous lingering thoughts from the Flagbearer’s fabric and explained its properties. Mortimer also revealed that someone had rigged Richard’s debate topic, but promised to protect him if he continued writing; Isabella later tried Phillips’s honey pomelo tea and quietly poured herself another cup.

• Isabella took Richard to Professor Mortimer’s office, where they found Phillips making tea for the professor.
• Mortimer unraveled the lingering thoughts on the Flagbearer’s fabric, identified its gathering and backflow properties, and explained how they could be used to attract evil beings and collect their contamination.
• Mortimer told Richard that someone had rigged his debate topic to discredit him, but that he had altered it to make it a fair academic question.
• Mortimer praised Richard’s writing and promised to support him if he continued publishing articles.
• Phillips gave Richard two jars of honey pomelo tea for Isabella, who later tasted it and poured herself another cup.

Richard defeated Roland Ashby in the final group-stage match by arguing that wartime lies postpone and deepen grief, while Catherine Blackwood withdrew from the competition. As Debate Week finals began, Richard watched contender Silas Penrose demonstrate his formidable skill, then met Phillips and Constance Blackben, who pointed out that a girl had come to see him.

• Richard opposed Roland Ashby's argument that wartime lies could offer mercy and won their debate by showing how lies consumed the people who believed them.
• Richard found Catherine Blackwood listed as withdrawn and learned that she had not been attending classes.
• Richard entered the finals, where he watched Silas Penrose establish a debate form that was firmly anchored in The Veil.
• Richard spoke with Phillips and Phillips's fiancée, Constance Blackben, after the first day of finals.
• Phillips noticed a girl waiting to see Richard.

Richard spent an evening with Gray, sharing dinner and a walk before she left for home. At the debate finals, Catherine returned unable to speak, and Richard decided against using Hermes's Mask because it could draw the dead to him and unleash a catastrophe.

• Richard and Gray walked through Imperial University, talked about their studies, and shared dinner at the Old Oak.
• Gray thanked Richard for their evening, said she would keep attending his debates, and left in her carriage.
• Catherine returned to Iliad Hall wearing a face mask and told Fisher in writing that her voice was hoarse and she was fine.
• Richard used Spirit Sight and realized Catherine had sealed her Mask's power because she no longer wanted to speak.
• Richard considered using Hermes's Mask during the debate but feared its power would draw restless dead and its cost would make him deceive others.

Richard lost his debate against Reginald Thorpe when his weaker aether could not overcome Thorpe’s imposing argument, then returned to his dorm as his second seed germinated. He entered the seed’s trial and found himself in the body of a likely Mummy aboard a ship.

• Reginald Thorpe argued that forced conscription protected the collective, while Richard countered that only voluntary self-sacrifice could truly serve the city-state.
• Thorpe’s powerful city-wall construct overwhelmed Richard’s figures, and the judges awarded the match to the proposition.
• Phillips challenged Thorpe over his family’s shipping profits, then encouraged Richard after the two left the hall with Montague; Clara also briefly approached them.
• Richard declined Phillips’s invitation and returned to his dorm to wait for the seed’s countdown to reach zero.
• Richard entered the new seed and awoke on a ship’s deck in a thin, sun-darkened body wrapped in linen bearing faded Priest Inscriptions.

Richard found himself inside a Mummy shell of the Black Soil River Virtuoso and discovered it could command shadows, read people, and replace their bodies. To evade two defending Virtuosos, he sent shadows into three neutral merchant ships; by dawn, the Greek ship had entered the harbor with Richard disguised among its crew.

• Richard inspected the Mummy shell and learned it held the Virtuoso’s power but lacked human feelings and bodily sensations.
• Richard discovered that the shell’s shadows obeyed him and that his gaze revealed the sailors’ memories and secrets.
• Richard judged that he could not confront the two Virtuosos directly, so he planned to enter the harbor by replacing crew members on neutral ships.
• Richard sent three shadow strands to replace sailors on a Levantine ship, a Greek merchant ship, and an Albion armed merchant ship.
• At dawn, Richard controlled the Greek sailor’s body and helped the ship dock at a small pier in the inner harbor.

Richard’s shadow disguises were exposed, and the Solaris and Furnace Fire Virtuosos trapped his vessel and confronted the Black Soil River Virtuoso beyond the harbor. The Black Soil River Virtuoso sealed the battlefield between mirrored skies and began an attempt to exchange places with the Solar Virtuoso, threatening to replace the sun above the Imperial Capital with shadow.

• The Solaris Tradition’s golden light exposed all three Replacement Bodies and burned away the shadows clinging to them, sending painful feedback to Richard.
• The golden light and Furnace Fire traced the severed shadow threads to Richard’s Mummy Vessel, revealed his form, and locked down its position in the outer sea, causing his trial mission to fail.
• The Black Soil River Virtuoso emerged as a colossal shadow figure, while the Solaris and Furnace Fire Virtuosos attacked it and shielded the harbor district from the battle.
• Hidden operatives across the harbor district chanted incantations that strengthened the Black Soil River Virtuoso, which opened its pages of names and summoned the dead into the Material World.
• The Solaris and Furnace Fire Virtuosos burned away names from the Black Soil River Virtuoso, but it mirrored the sea and sky to imprison the battlefield.
• The Black Soil River Virtuoso began using Replacement to pull the Solar Virtuoso into the sea’s reflection and rise into the heavens, aiming to replace the Imperial Capital’s sun with shadow.

After his first attempt failed, Richard learned from Thoth how to draw the defending Virtuosos’ attention while infiltrating the port with a shadow. He reset the trial and began the plan, ending as the awakened mummy formally challenged Helio Montague and Christine Niefel.

• Richard met Thoth in a sealed stone room and received a papyrus explaining the port’s defenses, the Virtuosos’ names, and how to awaken the mummy’s power.
• Richard deciphered that a shadow could enter the port underwater while the mummy distracted the defenders, and learned to strengthen the mummy by chanting its inscriptions and honor name.
• Richard returned to the ship and sent a shadow doppelganger underwater toward the port, using the papyrus’s deployment map to avoid detection.
• Richard chanted the mummy’s inscriptions seven times, drawing the attention of the golden light and furnace fire as its power rose.
• Richard spoke the Black Soil River Virtuoso’s honor name, causing the sea to become a dark mirror that reflected the port and weakened the defending Virtuosos.
• Richard shouted the names Helio Montague and Christine Niefel through the awakened mummy, formally challenging them.

Richard used the Mummy to keep two Virtuosos occupied at the harbor while sleeper agents helped him reach the museum. He entered the museum grounds by replacing George, a porter, but still needed to get farther inside.

• Richard held off the Solaris and Ignis Virtuosos as the Mummy reflected golden light and knotted the path of Furnace Fire.
• Richard replaced Yasin, a Levantine sailor, and used sleeper agents Muhammad and Said to reach the museum’s service passage and learn its routes and security measures.
• The Mummy escaped the Virtuosos by diving underwater, then repeatedly surfaced to threaten merchant ships and lure them away from the city.
• Richard used the Mummy’s repeated feints to keep the Virtuosos occupied while harbor chaos distracted the museum guards.
• Richard replaced George, a porter who could enter the museum’s first floor and outer underground corridor, while Yasin remained behind near the loading entrance.

Richard used a chain of identities to infiltrate the museum warehouse and reach its guarded storage area. After discovering linked tomb-robbing curses and a trap set by the defending Virtuosos, he triggered a curse while probing the innermost relics.

• Richard replaced Yasin, George Randolph, Harold, and Simon to gain successive levels of access to the museum warehouse.
• Richard used Abdul Hamid’s mark and a shockwave from the port to interfere with Donald’s circuit, then took control of the guard and opened the iron door.
• Richard scanned the stored relics and recognized ancient tomb-robbing curses on several artifacts, including a Canopic Jar and a Sacred Ibis Scepter.
• Richard detected a newer trap bearing the Solaris Tradition and Ignis Tradition imprints, then found silver threads that turned the warehouse’s Veil pocket space into a narrowing urn.
• Richard tested the tenth relic with Mirror, triggering a linked curse that warned, “He who takes this object shall perish by the river!”