Chapter Summaries

Richard and the Hunters defeated the Snake Mother, freed the trapped souls, and salvaged her remains before they could fade away. As they emerged from the cave, they found a Black Hound waiting at the entrance, silently watching Gerald and the others.

• Richard guided a dead boy out of the inverted city, and Corbin sent the souls home as The Veil folded back into place.
• The exhausted Hunters gathered the Snake Mother's spine, skulls, Aether Condensate, scales, and other Alchemy materials before her remains turned to gray matter.
• Hathaway collected the old stitching thread tangled with nun's hair to return it to the Church, while Corbin found Nails, rune stones, and iron fragments in the cave.
• Richard helped Gerald toward the exit, but Gerald put off their conversation until they were out of the cave.
• The Hunters found a motionless Black Hound at the entrance, and Phillips warned them not to move, look into its eyes, speak to it, or approach it.
• The Black Hound watched Gerald and the others as dawn brightened over the sea, while Richard wanted to pull his grandfather behind him.

After the Whitby exorcism, Richard watched Gerald’s health decline and overheard Gerald and the elder Phillips discuss a danger that seemed to have chosen their fates. Back in the Imperial Capital, Richard learned the remaining exorcisms had been rushed and began using his booklet to collect accounts of the Black Dog.

• The exorcism team divided the seized materials, and Richard chose a Condensate and half-set of runestones.
• Richard stayed beside Gerald at the coast guard station, then overheard Gerald and the elder Phillips discuss how neither could choose which of them would die.
• After the team returned to the Imperial Capital, Gerald shut himself away, and the Chief Inspector accelerated the five remaining exorcisms.
• Phillips told Richard that his father had been acting unusually kind, was rushing the exorcisms, and had visited the Silent Bell of Saint Michael.
• Richard read Gray’s letter about readers discussing his story and placed a notice in Strange Tales Collection asking readers to send him Black Dog accounts.

Richard studied his newly Named rune stones and investigated reports of black dogs, discovering links between the Wild Hunt, human harvests, and Name Substitution. He returned to Ashford Mansion to find a tooth-mark engraving on the gatepost that Gerald called an invitation.

• Richard Named six rune fragments, recorded their stronger effects and lower Aether costs, and saved his points toward advancing Breathing to level 5.
• Richard read dozens of reports about black dogs and night hunts, then used the reported death dates to identify a pattern linked to the Wild Hunt.
• Richard consulted Isabella, who sent him to Corbin for help understanding the folklore and rune origins.
• Corbin explained the Asgard Ride, compared hail to a destructive harvest, raised the possibility that humans were being kept as livestock, and described an old precedent for Name Substitution.
• Richard returned to Ashford Mansion and learned that a tooth-mark engraving had appeared on a gatepost; Gerald had called it an invitation.

Gerald told Richard how he had used the Rite of the Reverse Hunt to save his wife from the Black Hound, passing the resulting debt to their descendants, then prepared Richard to take responsibility for the Ashford family. That night, Richard dreamed of his young grandfather fighting an overwhelming darkness until it defeated him.

• Gerald showed Richard his charcoal portrait of his grandmother and explained that the Black Hound had entered her name into the Hunter's Ledger.
• Gerald revealed that he used the Rite of the Reverse Hunt and a Runic Blood Pact to save his wife temporarily, leaving the hunting debt to their descendants and giving the Ashford family sensitivity and resistance to The Veil.
• Gerald introduced Richard to his connections, arranged the family trusts and accounts, and wrote his will, including funds for Evelyn's future.
• Gerald taught Richard Hunter's sign language and explained that one gesture meant yielding the hunting grounds to someone else.
• Richard dreamed of his young grandfather repeatedly cutting through an immense darkness before it overwhelmed him and his knife fell to the ground.

Richard interpreted his dream of his grandfather joining the antlered procession as a warning and devised a plan to alter the Runes binding him. Clara’s report revealed that the Scapa Bay seal was being rewritten for summoning, and the final dive was scheduled for January 27.

• Richard dreamed that his grandfather joined an endless procession led by an antler-crowned figure, then confirmed his Sleep advancement and saw that the dream had been marked as true.
• Richard used Tarot cards to plan a route involving Hermes’s resonance, mastering Runes, and sending a named shadow as a messenger, then successfully combined the names Messenger and Ferryman.
• Clara sent Isabella a telegram reporting that new carvings at Scapa Bay were changing the seal’s grammar from sealing to summoning, and she enclosed a rubbing of an Antler Bridle Sigil.
• Isabella applied for a replacement Aether Capacitor after reading Clara’s letter, which mentioned a malfunction during the third dive without explaining how Clara had returned to the surface.
• The Academy rejected Isabella’s attempt to submit the Scapa Bay evidence for action, and Isabella noticed that Richard looked unwell but accepted his claim that he had slept poorly.

Loki led the team in defeating the Celtic gods and explained that their gathered power was meant to help a Virtuoso survive the Abyss and become a Magister. The chapter ended with a scarred, white-haired man appearing at the hall’s door, startling Loki.

• Loki invoked a Virtuoso’s Honor Name, strengthening the team before leading them into the Celtic gods’ stone circle.
• Loki’s team overwhelmed Dagda, Cú Chulainn, Lugh, Brigid, and Morrigan, and Loki absorbed their divine names into his cup.
• Loki explained that a Virtuoso seeking to become a Magister had to enter the Abyss, where most were dissolved, and use its possibilities to forge a new Crown.
• Lillian saw a thin thread of Aether connecting Loki to an unseen place and learned that the power bestowed on the team would eventually have to be repaid.
• A towering, scarred, white-haired man appeared at the hall’s door, and Loki asked how he had found them.

McPhee erased Loki and the other gods who had swallowed Celtic Divine Names, but spared Lillian after questioning her. Richard sought help replacing his grandfather’s name in the Wild Hunt booklet, and McPhee recognized his intent and called him lucky.

• McPhee read the gods’ true names and used Gaelic characters to strip away their borrowed Divine Names, killing Fenrir and scattering Tyr, Freyja, Hela, and Loki.
• McPhee asked Lillian whether she had chosen Skadi’s name herself and spared her, sending her back across The Veil.
• After waking, Lillian clutched her needle and considered seeking out Richard, but believed she could not turn back from her path.
• Richard asked Professor Mortimer whether Replacement could remove his grandfather’s name from the booklet, and Mortimer explained that a substitute had to bear equal weight and truly face the same fate.
• Mortimer brought Richard to McPhee, who examined the Wild Hunt clues and understood that Richard wanted to take his grandfather’s place.
• McPhee pushed Fenrir’s head toward Richard and told him he was lucky.

Richard learned that replacing his grandfather’s name in the Hunter’s Ledger required an offering valuable enough to interest the Hunt Lord, and Mortimer and McPhee agreed to help arrange the Ritual. The chapter ended with Richard hinting that he might obtain something coveted by a Virtuoso, leaving the professors to wait until the Ritual to see what he could offer.

• Mortimer explained that the Name Substitution Ritual required an offering placed at the boundary of The Shallows and the Deep Realm, and that the Hunt Lord would take it if it accepted the exchange.
• McPhee warned that Fenrir’s head alone would not outweigh Richard’s grandfather’s name, and Mortimer and McPhee agreed to help in return for future service and resources.
• McPhee gave Richard a blank promissory note requiring him to answer future calls to help with failing Highland seals, and Richard agreed to remember Catherine’s lack of family in the Imperial Capital.
• McPhee promised to secure a Virtuoso’s guarantee, while Mortimer offered ancient texts and McPhee offered a Moon-Full Stone to support the Ritual.
• When asked to contribute something of his own, Richard asked what would happen if he could offer something that interested the Hunt Lord in a Virtuoso who was stealing its hunting grounds.
• Mortimer and McPhee said that such an offering could make Richard the one helping them, then told him to bring it on the day of the Ritual.

Richard prepared to use Automatic Writing and a sealed mirror to sever his connection to his True Name for his grandfather, while the Bastion disaster and the Empire’s National Day of Mourning drove him to publish safety rules for Mourning Night guests. Professor Mortimer defended the special issue as folklore research when Kasalis questioned Richard about spreading panic.

• Richard discovered the panel’s extraction conditions and planned to have his shadow write the mirrored afterimage of his True Name onto the Black Copper Mirror, sealed with lead, coarse salt, and a bone needle.
• Clara’s diving accumulator failed, but her cousin’s stone lung sac let her witness the Bastion’s wreckage and more than eight hundred sailors enter a crack in the seabed before she escaped to the Ring of Brodgar.
• The Empire declared February 15 a National Day of Mourning, and Richard rushed out a special issue with Mr. Dawn’s donated paper and Charlotte’s revisions.
• Richard printed a page of rules for dealing with guests who might arrive on Mourning Night, and the Gray Family’s truck helped distribute the issue around the city.
• Kasalis questioned Richard about spreading panic, but Professor Mortimer called the booklet an appendix to folklore research and took responsibility for it.

Richard and the professors prepared a True Name fragment for the Wild Hunt and planned to help Mrs. Mary on Mourning Day, when the nation’s rituals might summon the Occult Side. Meanwhile, Gerald sharpened his knife and brooded over his family’s absence as he faced his final days.

• Kasalis accepted Mortimer’s endorsement of the pamphlet, while Edith, Fisher, and Montague helped spread its rules to people at risk on Mourning Day.
• Richard told Mortimer and McPhee that he had captured three syllables of a Virtuoso’s True Name, and McPhee confirmed the fragment was genuine.
• The professors explained that the Hunt Lord would have to compensate Richard for the valuable name and protect him as its sacrificer, while they concealed his connection to it.
• Mortimer and McPhee said the Academy could not stop Mourning Day’s national rituals, but Imperial University would activate its campus sealing array to suppress the Occult Side.
• Mortimer sent Richard to Number Seventeen Flower Moon Street to assist Mrs. Mary, and Richard left with the sealed lead box.
• Gerald prepared his field equipment and sharpened his hunting knife, resenting that Richard and his children rarely returned to keep him company.

Gerald remembered his life with Rosemary and mourned how her face had faded from his memory. Richard brought him photographs of Gerald’s old portrait of Rosemary, giving the old man a way to preserve it for the family.

• Gerald recalled meeting Rosemary, marrying her, and the life they shared before she died.
• Alone with Rosemary’s sewing box, Gerald tried to smile at his reflection and realized he could no longer clearly remember her face.
• Richard arrived and mistook Gerald’s polished knife and prepared hunting gear for signs that he was putting his affairs in order.
• Richard showed Gerald photographs he had made of Gerald’s charcoal portrait of Rosemary, explaining that he had refused to let the photographer alter her nose.
• Gerald recognized the portrait as the one Rosemary had once criticized and smiled as he spoke about her.

Richard visited the injured Clara, received the little flag she had used during the Scapa Bay disaster, and learned that the Admiralty had buried her evidence and stalled compensation. At an early gathering, Hecate warned that Mourning Day would bring danger and that a powerful Scholar had crushed the Norse Mythology table; Richard hinted that the Scholar was connected to Nemesis.

• Richard visited Clara at the sanatorium, where she gave him a small flag she had used to gather sailors during a dive at Scapa Bay.
• Isabella explained that the Admiralty and other authorities had passed Clara’s pension and compensation application between them, while her evidence remained sealed away.
• Richard learned that Clara’s injuries would take years to recover from and could leave lasting damage, and he planned to help her once he unlocked [Fountain].
• Hecate summoned the Round Table early and warned that Mourning Day’s mass observances could invite danger, advising everyone to avoid crowded places.
• Hecate revealed that an Adeptus Major Scholar had defeated the Norse Mythology table after it threatened their table, killing one member and seriously injuring the others.
• Richard told the gathering that the Scholar specialized in Gaelic script and had defeated the Norse table by reading from a single book.

Richard and Nemesis attended an Occult Side gathering where they exchanged deciphered texts, appraisals, and ominous reports about supernatural threats gathering before Mourning Day. The next day, Richard joined Professors McPhee and Mortimer beneath Imperial University to prepare for a descent beyond The Veil, where they planned to confront the Hunt Lord and enforce the Substitute Name Law.

• Richard revealed that Nemesis had been taught by an Adeptus Major Scholar, and Dionysus gave him two bottles of wine for her professor.
• Nemesis returned the deciphered texts and accepted payment, while Richard returned appraised items to Hercules and Demeter and received Aether Condensate.
• Dionysus, Prometheus, Nemesis, Demeter, and Hercules shared reports about people’s names being recited or stolen, the Wild Hunt moving south, revived sacrificial customs, and a speaking Evil Being.
• The gathering ended with the members planning to avoid Imperial Capital on Mourning Day, while Richard and Catherine remained in the city.
• At Imperial University, Mortimer explained the sealed passage beneath the Petrie Building and said Richard would need to descend beyond The Veil to handle the matter.
• McPhee and Mortimer agreed to guard Richard during the encounter with the Hunt Lord, but Mortimer said they needed two more Virtuosos to help.

Richard and the two professors conducted a ritual to bargain with the Hunt Lord for Gerald Ashford’s release from the Hunter’s Ledger. The Hunt Lord accepted a fragment of an ancient Virtuoso’s True Name as payment, erased Gerald’s name, and gave Richard a token to join the Wild Hunt procession.

• McPhee and Professor Mortimer summoned two ancient Virtuosos to witness Richard’s bargain.
• Richard used the Silent One, Rune Stones, and Fenrir’s head to prepare an offering for the Hunt Lord.
• Richard offered the Black Copper Mirror containing a fragment of a True Name in exchange for Gerald Ashford’s name being removed from the Hunter’s Ledger.
• The Hunt Lord erased Gerald’s name but required an additional payment to balance the account.
• The Hunt Lord gave Richard an antler token that let him join the Wild Hunt procession on certain nights, and declared the account settled.
• The Hunt Lord departed with the procession, and Richard’s shadow retrieved the antler, Rune Stone fragments, and his great-grandfather’s remains.

Richard and the professors traded a Virtuoso’s True Name to the Wild Hunt Lord to erase his grandfather’s name from the Hunter’s Ledger, though the Hunt Lord took the name and gave only an antler as a ticket to join the Hunt. After the professors warned Richard not to go himself, he began considering sending his shadow instead, but Mortimer reminded him that a greater disaster awaited on Mourning Day.

• The Black Soil River Virtuoso attacked the Wild Hunt Lord to reclaim his True Name, but the Hunt Lord defeated him and carried the name away.
• Richard emerged from behind The Veil with an antler tip, and Mortimer and McPhee judged the trade a poor deal despite Richard’s goal of erasing his grandfather’s name being achieved.
• McPhee and Mortimer removed traces linking Richard to the True Name and warned him that joining the Wild Hunt would be too dangerous for someone who followed Mirror and Record.
• Richard considered sending his shadow into the Wild Hunt to train as a Hunter and consume excess Aether Condensate, rather than risking his own life.
• Mortimer told Richard to rest and warned him that a greater disaster awaited on the night of Mourning Day.

Richard tested the deer-horn token and discovered it could turn his Moon Nail into a corrosive spell and suppress weaker beings with the Hunt Lord’s presence. He then warned Gray to leave the Imperial Capital before Mourning Day, and she said her family had received warnings too.

• Richard used Still Water to examine the deer horn’s layers and saw traces of hundreds of yearly harvests.
• Richard tested the horn as a casting medium, found that it created a lingering corrosive spell called Gnaw, and confirmed that its presence could intimidate weaker beings.
• Richard concluded that giving the Hunt Lord only one section of the Black Soil River Virtuoso’s True Name had kept the two powerful beings occupied against each other.
• Gray called Richard on Valentine’s Day and told him she had made heart-shaped pastries she hoped to give him in person.
• Richard urged Gray to take her family out of the Imperial Capital until Mourning Day was over, and Gray revealed that her family had received warnings.

Richard and Mrs. Mary witnessed the Mourning Day ritual draw power from the Imperial Capital’s grief, while an air raid and the Wild Hunt intensified the night’s supernatural danger. As the guests began knocking at doors, Richard watched one grieving mother let a visitor in as her returned son, and Mrs. Mary marked the house to prevent it from taking anyone away.

• Richard spoke with Gray, who said the Frost Bean seed he had given her felt less icy and might eventually sprout.
• Richard joined Mrs. Mary and her Seekers in the Mirror House, where they watched the city observe three minutes of silence and learned that the eight o’clock bells would release its grief.
• Mrs. Mary showed Richard how bells, mourning keepsakes, and the song “Tipperary” formed a citywide net that drew fire through the Spirit Realm Corridor.
• An air raid struck the docks as the Wild Hunt crossed the city, and Mrs. Mary learned that a crossed telephone line was asking people for addresses.
• Guests knocked at doors throughout the city, and Richard saw a mother admit a dripping visitor as her son; Mrs. Mary marked the doorway and laid salt to keep the guest from taking anyone away.

Gerald fought the plague beings at Bone Hill Gardens and prepared to die when the Horn arrived, but the Horn passed without opening a Rift. At Saint Michael Old Tower, Old Phillips rang a death knell with his own name, driving the dead visitors from the city’s doorways as he announced his own death.

• Gerald entered Bone Hill Gardens and destroyed the corpse bearers and grasping arms without spending his remaining strength.
• Gerald defeated Pesta by breaking her broom, then waited for the Horn to take him.
• The Horn reached the garden wall, paused, and retreated without creating a Rift, leaving Gerald alive amid the wreckage.
• Old Phillips climbed Saint Michael Old Tower and breathed his name into its clapperless bell.
• Old Phillips rang the bell nine times, causing the dead visitors at doorways and in parlors to disappear as he announced his own death.

Old Phillips completed his final inspection and walked into the fog with the Black Hound, while Richard and the Seekers guided the dead across the boundary through the night. Richard’s Curio evolved at dawn, and Gerald was left behind by the Wild Hunt, stranded in daylight with no place in its roster.

• Old Phillips recorded the ninth bell strike as a routine inspection, signed his documents, and walked into the fog beside the Black Hound.
• Mrs. Mary, Richard, Mrs. McNeil, and the other Seekers protected Flower Moon Street as Richard registered and guided the souls toward the sacred fire.
• The leading Black Hound inspected Richard’s boundary and the pillar fire, then led its pack away, allowing the remaining souls to be registered.
• At dawn, Richard’s Mask-Shadow Radiance completed and formed Hermes’s Twin Serpent Staff, though its Soul Ferry core ability remained locked.
• Gerald waited through the night at Bone Hill Gardens, but the Wild Hunt never returned and a black hound failed to recognize him.
• A young constable found Gerald alone in the ruined garden and asked whether he needed help.

Gerald’s farewell letters led Isabella and Richard to fear he had died, but they found him safe at a patrol station after the Horn appeared and vanished. Back at Number Thirteen Chelsea Road, Gerald reunited with his family, though he warned that he might still face death another time.

• The butler delivered Gerald’s letter to Isabella and sent letters to others, prompting Isabella and Richard to rush to Number Thirteen Chelsea Road.
• The butler said Gerald had gone toward Bone Hill Gardens, so Isabella and Richard searched the area and asked the eastern district patrol station for help.
• A patrol officer told them Gerald was in the back room, where they found him drinking tea; Gerald explained that what he expected to happen had not happened.
• Gerald returned home and told the butler to retrieve the now-void letters, then reassured Margaret by telephone that he was fine.
• Gerald opened a chest of mourning brooches from Whitby and told Isabella to keep one, saying he might need them another time.
• Isabella read Gerald’s farewell letter aloud, but tore it up after Richard read embarrassing childhood memories from it.