Chapter Summaries

Sherlock Holmes investigated a drug smuggler’s death before the First Secret Regiment took over the case and summoned him to Victor von Doom. Victor ordered Diana List to help trace the contraband to the United States and arranged a quiet welcome for Holmes as he prepared to enter the magical world.

• The First Secret Regiment caught Sherlock Holmes examining a dead smuggler and told him it had taken over the drug case.
• Holmes identified signs of a dangerous drug and rapidly developing blisters, then offered to cooperate with the soldiers and suggested ways to conceal their cleanup.
• Victor von Doom told Diana List that the contraband came from the United States and ordered her to work with the First Secret Regiment to find its source.
• Victor asked Diana to arrange a low-key welcome ceremony for Sherlock Holmes before he entered the magical world.

Salomon spent the morning with Milia before turning to Latveria’s preparations for the Alien Fleet, as he sought to shape public and academic thinking about the coming war. The chapter ended with his contingency plans for victory or Earth’s defeat already in place.

• Salomon sang and danced with Milia, then refused her request for more ice cream because she had already reached her agreed daily portion.
• Salomon gave Milia orange jelly and persuaded her to play with remote-control cars while Hammurabi briefed him on Sherlock Holmes’s transfer to Latveria and the effort to conceal the Lust Cult from MI5.
• Salomon promised Dinah he would return by lunchtime and left to meet scholars and military representatives discussing the Alien Fleet and the approaching fall of Asgard.
• The attendees argued over whether humanity could defeat the Chitauri, while Salomon rejected both defeatism and unsupported confidence in victory.
• Salomon described contingency forces for internal corruption, guerrilla resistance if Earth fell, and the reunification of humanity after catastrophic defeat.

Sherlock Holmes was brought from London to Latveria and saw the transformed Royal City before meeting the Emperor, who revealed that Holmes was being considered for a role in a much larger world. The Sorcerer Supreme appeared and discussed whether to follow the original plan or take Holmes to headquarters for education.

• A First Secret Regiment aircraft brought Sherlock Holmes to Latveria, where the unfamiliar journey left him sick and unable to walk unaided.
• Sherlock Holmes was escorted through the rebuilt Royal City and was astonished by its advanced technology and rapid development.
• Hammurabi brought Sherlock Holmes to meet the Emperor of Latveria, who offered him food and tea and said his intelligence and sense of justice suited the position they had in mind.
• The Emperor turned to an apparently empty chair, and Sherlock Holmes discovered the Sorcerer Supreme sitting there.
• The Emperor asked the Sorcerer Supreme whether they should follow their original plan or take Sherlock Holmes to headquarters for education.

Sherlock Holmes agreed to study magic under the Sorcerer Supreme after the Emperor offered him the lead role in investigating Romania’s Sewer Children and other crimes. The Venerable One began his first lesson by sending him into the unknown world.

• The Emperor told Sherlock Holmes that magical training would require extensive study and that Mycroft had explained his absence to Watson and Mrs. Hudson.
• The Emperor described Romania’s Sewer Children and offered Sherlock the lead investigator position if he joined Kamar-Taj.
• Sherlock agreed to study and requested intelligence and authorization for on-site investigations.
• The Venerable One warned Sherlock about the effects of his first lesson and began a countdown as he lost control of his body.

The Emperor of Latveria oversaw Sherlock Holmes’s medical treatment after an episode and discussed the coming purge in Romania with the Sorcerer Supreme. The chapter ended with them considering Victor von Doom as a possible leader of Kamar-Taj.

• The Sorcerer Supreme stabilized Sherlock Holmes during a seizure, and Hammurabi’s medical team took him away for treatment.
• The Emperor reviewed a death list for the Sewer Children incident and explained the planned trials, executions, and punishments for at least twenty thousand offenders.
• The Emperor described military preparations to arrest those implicated in Romania and suppress resistance while avoiding harm to ordinary civilians.
• The Emperor stressed that the purge must restore security and give Romanians a future rather than become an excuse for persecution.
• The Sorcerer Supreme praised Victor von Doom and suggested adding him to the board, and the Emperor agreed that Victor might take charge of Kamar-Taj if Sherlock Holmes and Stephen Strange proved unsuitable.

The Emperor of Latveria sent Sherlock Holmes to Kamar-Taj for a harsh education while his forces purged Romania’s political system. Company Commander Aparajita managed the arrests and protests in Bucharest as the Regent’s government controlled the narrative and prepared further action against the protesters’ instigators.

• The Sorcerer Supreme transported Sherlock Holmes, still on a hospital bed, through a portal to snow-covered mountains for education at Kamar-Taj.
• Company Commander Aparajita entered the parliament building and reviewed the arrests, casualties, and evidence gathered against Romanian politicians accused of corruption and resistance.
• Aparajita’s forces helped government clerks seize and digitize the parliament’s records while the Regent justified revoking Romania’s autonomy as a purge of corruption.
• Aparajita spotted a protester carrying a Molotov cocktail and ordered his armored units to be ready, but First Secret Regiment soldiers drove the man away with civilian laser flashlights.
• Romanian news channels broadcast footage of unrest as the Regent promised public trials and decreed penalties for social-media rumors.
• Aparajita and his escort captain concluded that force alone would not settle the situation and expected to work with the Intelligence Department against instigators among the protesters.

Latverian forces intercepted a CIA team attempting to extract a former Hungarian nuclear official and captured two surviving operatives. Victoria Hand ordered a forged pickup signal and an intact forced landing of the American helicopter.

• The Sorcerer Supreme looted Salomon's office while the Emperor of Latveria returned to his work.
• Sergeant Griffin's squad cleared enemy strongpoints and used a spellcaster to turn the remaining CIA operatives against one another.
• Griffin's team killed nine SEAL Team soldiers, captured two, and began interrogating the wounded Corporal Finney.
• Victoria Hand ordered a forged message to summon the American helicopter and directed Constanta's air defenses to force it to land intact.

Victoria Hand’s secret “Raccoon Dog” operation advanced as the Emperor’s agents infiltrated CIA networks, while events elsewhere unfolded around Gungnir’s restoration, Sherlock Holmes’s guarded recovery, and Kamar-Taj’s reorganization. Stephen Strange, facing financial ruin and failed medical options, sought out Jonathan Pemberton after learning that spiritual healing had restored the former Kamar-Taj patient’s movement.

• Victoria Hand arranged a covert mission using Skrull-modified assassins to infiltrate CIA networks, with the operation secretly authorized by Regent Victor von Doom.
• Over the following month, Gungnir was restored in the City of Immortals while Odin and Frigga struggled to contain a failing seal around a dead planet.
• Kamar-Taj monitored Sherlock Holmes closely and began genetic testing, while the Sorcerer Supreme placed the school under Salomon’s standardized rules.
• The Sorcerer Supreme sent Mordo to recruit Stephen Strange, whose medical debts and failing career had left him desperate for treatment.
• Stephen Strange met Jonathan Pemberton and found that the former Kamar-Taj patient’s recovery from paralysis challenged his beliefs about medicine.

Stephen Strange wandered through Kathmandu searching for Kamar-Taj until a gang attacked him and a cloaked man rescued him. The stranger asked whether Strange was looking for Kamar-Taj.

• Stephen Strange struggled through Kathmandu while searching for Kamar-Taj and running low on money.
• Mordo waited for a new apprentice and sent Sherlock Holmes to watch the entrance while he went after him.
• Stephen Strange wandered into a poor residential district, where four punks cornered him and demanded his watch.
• Stephen Strange punched one of the punks, injured his hand, and was beaten while the gang stole his watch.
• A man in a black-and-green hooded cloak defeated the punks, helped Stephen Strange up, and asked if he was looking for Kamar-Taj.

Stephen Strange was brought to Kamar-Taj, where the Sorcerer Supreme revealed that Jonathan Pemberton’s recovery had come from guiding his mind, not from advanced medical treatment. The chapter left Strange skeptical and eager to learn how the method worked.

• Master Mordo rescued Stephen Strange from thugs and led him through Kathmandu to Kamar-Taj.
• Stephen Strange met the Sorcerer Supreme Ancient One and mistakenly addressed another man as her.
• Ancient One revealed that she knew about Strange’s seven surgeries and the eighth surgery that had been refused.
• Stephen Strange asked whether Ancient One had cured Jonathan Pemberton’s paralysis, and she said she had helped him believe he could walk.
• Strange speculated that Kamar-Taj used cutting-edge cell regeneration, but Ancient One said she guided the mind to heal the body.

Stephen Strange rejected the Sorcerer Supreme’s claims about sorcery until she forced him to experience his soul outside his body and showed him the vastness of existence. As Strange recovered, Mordo warned Sherlock Holmes about the dangers of the Outer Dimensions and admitted he did not know whether the Emperor of Latveria could win.

• Stephen Strange dismissed the Sorcerer Supreme’s teachings as pseudoscience and insisted that he only wanted his hands healed.
• When Stephen Strange attacked her, the Sorcerer Supreme separated his soul from his body and briefly sent him into the world of souls.
• The Sorcerer Supreme showed Stephen Strange the Earth from space, and his attempt to touch a Black-veined Golden-spotted Butterfly pulled him into a terrifying vision before he collapsed.
• Mordo explained to Sherlock Holmes that the vision involved the Outer Dimensions and warned that corrupted Arcanists would be killed to protect humanity.
• Sherlock Holmes asked whether the Emperor of Latveria could win, and Mordo said he did not know but believed a path to victory might exist.

Stephen Strange witnessed the supernatural multiverse, begged to be taught, and was cast out by Mordo on the Sorcerer Supreme’s orders. After Sherlock Holmes’s timer brought him back inside, Strange faced further trials and asked who Holmes was.

• The Sorcerer Supreme showed Stephen Strange realities beyond the material world, and Strange asked to learn magic.
• The Sorcerer Supreme refused, and Mordo dragged Strange outside and shut the door on him.
• The Sorcerer Supreme explained that Strange needed setbacks and assigned Sherlock Holmes to decide when to let him back in.
• Sherlock warned that leaving Strange outside could deepen his resentment, then set a timer as Mordo began tutoring him.
• When the timer ended, Mordo brought Strange back inside, and Strange asked who Sherlock Holmes was.

Stephen Strange encountered Kamar-Taj’s formidable fighters and met the Sorcerer Supreme, Hammurabi, and the Emperor of Latveria. When Stephen demanded that his hands be healed without studying magic, the Emperor insisted that healing required a price.

• Stephen Strange watched a powerful man defeat Kamar-Taj Arcanists, while Mordo told him that he needed to study the mind before training his body.
• Mordo brought Stephen to the Sorcerer Supreme, where he saw Hammurabi and a towering robot and recognized Hammurabi as the Emperor of Latveria’s Praetorian Guard.
• Stephen demanded that technology heal his hands, and the Sorcerer Supreme offered to let her disciple consider scientific treatment if Stephen refused magic lessons.
• The Emperor of Latveria threatened to erase Stephen’s memories and send him back to New York, prompting Stephen to say he was willing to learn.
• The Emperor lifted Stephen by the collar and told him that healing his hands required an equivalent price and that he needed to learn manners.

The Emperor of Latveria punished Stephen Strange for refusing to accept responsibility, then discussed plans with the Sorcerer Supreme to bring Earth's magical sects under Kamar-Taj's oversight. The Sorcerer Supreme approved his plan but asked him to spare the sects and give Strange time to change.

• The Emperor of Latveria condemned Stephen Strange's self-serving attitude and threw him to the ground after refusing to heal his hands.
• The Emperor of Latveria reviewed his application with the Sorcerer Supreme and proposed convening Earth's magical sects to impose rules and punishments.
• The Emperor of Latveria warned that sects that endangered humanity could lose their magic and have their legacies confiscated, with some members killed or imprisoned.
• The Emperor of Latveria proposed holding the conference at the Vatoum Temple before the Feathered Serpent God awakened, with his warriors and weapons ready in South America.
• The Sorcerer Supreme agreed to the plan but urged leniency toward the sects and asked that Stephen Strange remain at Kamar-Taj rather than be confined.

The Venerable One and Master Hamir discussed Salomon’s plan to establish a Latveria–Kamar-Taj department to regulate potential spellcasters and bring magical schools under its authority. The Venerable One ordered preparations at the Vatoum Temple and chose to make the truth about her decision disappear from history.

• The chapter described how uncontrolled potential spellcasters could endanger society and why Latveria and Kamar-Taj planned to gather and educate them through a joint department.
• Master Hamir questioned whether the King should carry out Salomon’s plan, but the Venerable One said she trusted Salomon and supported his approach.
• The Venerable One argued that magical schools would submit because of their weaknesses and said the predicted Great Flood would help convince their leaders.
• The Venerable One ordered Arcanists to prepare spellwork at the Vatoum Temple that would prevent teleportation spells.
• The Venerable One told Master Hamir to let the answer to the matter vanish from history, leaving only his own memories of the truth.

Master Hamir led Kamar-Taj arcanists to the Vatoum Temple while Supiluliumas and Camila helped Latveria consolidate control over local guerrillas. Constantine ordered Supiluliumas to keep everyone but the arcanists away from the temple as the Sovereign’s South American visit approached.

• Master Hamir thanked a local man for warning the elderly visitors about the fighting, then stayed in the city because he knew Salomon had funded the campaign against the Cartel Group.
• Supiluliumas monitored and trained guerrilla forces while Camila helped reorganize them and protect Laura Croft during her archaeological work.
• Master Hamir led the Mystic Family representatives into the rainforest, where they sealed off the area around the Vatoum Temple with a combined spell.
• Constantine reviewed Supiluliumas’s intelligence on recent visitors to the temple and ordered him to keep everyone except Kamar-Taj arcanists away.
• Supiluliumas asked Constantine to send shaving supplies and joked about his growing beard before the Sovereign’s upcoming visit to South America.

Constantine handled the Sovereign’s administrative duties while the Sovereign and Regent were away, discovering that civil service overwhelmed him and resisting Stephanie Malik’s extreme efficiency proposals. The Sovereign returned just as Constantine admitted how badly the work was going.

• Constantine ended his call with Supiluliumas and reviewed official instructions and reports from the Sovereign’s office.
• Constantine coordinated with Stephanie Malik as departments organized the Regent’s lecturer system and free adult night schools across Latveria.
• Stephanie Malik urged Constantine to approve measures to suppress civil servants’ personal desires and make their chairs less comfortable, but he refused.
• Constantine struggled through an overwhelming schedule of reports, meetings, and administrative problems while awaiting the Sovereign’s return.
• The Sovereign returned and asked Constantine how his civil servant career was going, and Constantine confessed that he found the work terrible.

Shuri and Nakia discussed T'Challa's handling of the War Dogs as the Wakandan delegation traveled to Latveria to negotiate an agreement. The delegation received a grand welcome, and Wakanda prepared to publicly announce a partnership intended to advance its economic and political goals.

• Shuri reassured Nakia aboard the train, but Nakia criticized T'Challa for retaining and promoting War Dogs who had supported Erik Killmonger.
• Shuri explained that T'Challa had to keep his word and maintain unity among Wakanda's nobles, then urged Nakia to keep the War Dogs under control.
• Diana List welcomed the Wakandan delegation at the maglev platform with a ceremonial salute from Latverian troops and Hellfire Knights.
• The delegation traveled through Latveria's royal city in a grand convoy as news channels showcased Wakanda's advanced technology.
• Shuri's delegation brought samples of industrial production lines to negotiate cooperation, while the Latverian Emperor insisted the agreement be announced publicly.

The Emperor welcomed Princess Shuri and the Wakandan delegation to Latveria, where they negotiated industrial and agricultural agreements. In private, he urged Shuri to loosen the Wakandan monarchy’s control over food production, leaving her to consider his warning about the power of the country’s aristocratic interests.

• The Emperor and the Praetorian Guard welcomed Shuri and the Wakandan delegation with a ceremonial display of Hellfire Knights and War Engines.
• The Emperor and Stephanie Malik discussed agreements with the delegation, including rebuilding Wakanda’s high-speed civilian network and expanding industrial cooperation.
• Wakanda agreed to trade industrial production lines for Romanian grain, while its agricultural aristocrats gained access to Latverian bio-farm technology.
• The Emperor privately told Shuri that independent agricultural production could give Wakanda a more stable foundation for rule than religious legitimacy.
• Shuri accused the Emperor of sowing discord, but he argued that his words would make her question the power of Wakanda’s industrial, commercial, and agricultural interests.

T'Challa told the Emperor of Latveria that he planned to end hunger across Africa by breaking corporate control of the food supply and expanding Wakandan rule, and the Emperor warned him that this would require war and stronger central authority. T'Challa accepted the price, while the mystery of Erik Killmonger's missing body remained unresolved.

• T'Challa arrived in Latveria and discussed the press conference speech with the Emperor.
• T'Challa explained that his surveys had shown him the famine and suffering in villages around Wakanda, strengthening his resolve to establish an African Order Alliance.
• T'Challa asked Latveria for help securing food and breaking the monopoly of major corporations.
• The Emperor warned T'Challa that his plans would mean war, deaths, and reforms that concentrated power in Wakanda.
• T'Challa asked whether the Emperor knew why Erik Killmonger's body had disappeared, and the Emperor denied knowing.
• T'Challa picked up the revised speech and declared that he would pay the price required.