Chapter Summaries

Roselle and Green faced an angry crowd of textile workers who had surrounded the workshop to destroy Roselle’s new machine. Charlotte arrived to help, but the workers broke through the doors before she could explain her plan.

• Roselle watched workers gather outside the workshop and worried that they would destroy the textile machine and harm its inventors.
• Green revealed that he had sought Charlotte’s help, and she had proposed using Sushit Weekly to bring workers and merchants together.
• Roselle suspected someone had deliberately incited the workers, while Charlotte suddenly entered the workshop by jumping from a neighboring roof.
• Charlotte said City Hall and the Church of the Artisan could not help in time and urged Roselle and Green to follow her instructions.
• The workers smashed through the workshop doors before Charlotte finished explaining her plan.

Charlotte used her authority and arguments to stop textile workers from destroying Roselle’s new machine, while the Churches of the Eternal Blazing Sun and the Artisan guaranteed oversight and access to the technology. After the demonstrators withdrew, Charlotte realized her Arbiter potion had been completely digested.

• Charlotte confronted the demonstrators in the workshop and argued that labor-saving machines could benefit workers rather than steal their livelihoods.
• Charlotte promised that the designer would donate the machine and its blueprints to the Church of the Artisan, but the workers questioned whether the promise would be kept.
• Joel arrived on behalf of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun to witness the promise, and Captain Dante accepted the technology for the Church of the Artisan.
• The textile workers abandoned their plan to smash the machine and left after Charlotte promised to prevent the worst from happening.
• Charlotte recognized that the experience had fully digested her Arbiter potion.

After Charlotte fully digested her Arbiter potion, she helped resolve the textile workers’ unrest and arranged for the Church of the Artisan to take Roselle’s loom. Charlotte and the Church representatives suspected someone had manipulated the demonstration, but they left the investigation to the official Beyonders; the chapter ended with Charlotte seeing a question appear in a pool of blood.

• Charlotte realized that fully digesting her potion had greatly strengthened her Arbiter abilities and developed principles for acting as an Arbiter.
• Roselle agreed to hand over his textile machine to the Church of the Artisan, and Charlotte, Joel, and Dante discussed how to move it.
• Charlotte, Roselle, Joel, and Dante concluded that someone had deliberately stirred up the workers’ anger, but Dante explained they could not use Arrodes to divine the culprit without sufficient clues.
• Roselle thanked Charlotte for protecting him, and Charlotte asked him to finish making bullets for her gun.
• Charlotte found herself in a dark ritual site beside a pool of blood, where silver-white words asked, “Do you know what crime you've committed?”

Charlotte encountered a mirror-like presence in a dream beneath the abandoned Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun and used its questions to learn who had orchestrated the Lower Korus District demonstration. The presence identified two Spectator Pathway Beyonders, then asked Charlotte to introduce it to a great existence if she used it again.

• Charlotte examined a question on the bloody water asking what crime she had committed and replied that she was guilty of none.
• The mirror-like presence let Charlotte ask who was behind the demonstration, then showed her a scene of a familiar braided woman speaking with an older man.
• Charlotte denied attending a gathering organized by a great existence above the Spirit World and suffered no apparent punishment.
• Charlotte demanded written details about the two people in the scene and learned that Melisande Moreau was a Sequence 6 Hypnotist who had left for Trier, while Gervais Lambert was a Sequence 7 Psychiatrist still operating in Suhit City.
• The presence asked Charlotte to introduce the humble and loyal Arrodes to the great existence if she had another opportunity to use it.

Charlotte finished questioning Arrodes in her dream and learned how to contact it again, while Pierce Dante was struck by the mirror after trying to ask who had caused the unrest. Charlotte then asked Viève to investigate a man she suspected of inciting the riot and said she had finished digesting the Arbiter Potion.

• Charlotte declined to promise Arrodes a meeting with the Fool, then used her final question to learn a rune for contacting it privately in Suhit City.
• Pierce Dante tried to ask Arrodes who had manipulated the unrest in the Lower Korus District, but the mirror gave no answer and struck him with lightning when he tried again.
• Charlotte showed Viève a drawing of a man she suspected of inciting the textile workers and asked for him to be investigated discreetly.
• Charlotte told Viève that she thought she had finished digesting the Arbiter Potion.

Charlotte confirmed that Viève knew the Acting Method and learned the Church might reimburse reasonable costs for potion ingredients. With the Church’s support secured, Charlotte set out at night to obtain a sheriff’s appointment document, heading toward a former sheriff’s home.

• Charlotte told Viève she had digested her Arbiter potion, and Viève confirmed she knew the Acting Method through her own experience and a Church oath.
• Viève explained that she had advanced from Sequence 9 to Sequence 8 after a year and a half, and Charlotte described how her recent arbitration had completed her potion’s digestion.
• Charlotte asked whether the Church would provide the ingredients for a Sheriff potion, and Viève said the Church had agreed in principle but had none in stock and would scrutinize her application closely.
• Charlotte reasoned that the Church might reimburse her if she found the ingredients herself, and Viève confirmed that such reimbursements had precedent.
• Charlotte decided against asking her father, Raoul Sauron, to obtain a sheriff’s appointment document and slipped out at night to visit a sheriff near the textile workshop.

Charlotte stole a sheriff’s appointment document while investigating corruption in Sushit, but Tres Tamara confronted her in the study and revealed that the cultists’ offering had succeeded. The chapter left Charlotte stunned by the revelation that all eight intended sacrifices had died.

• Charlotte broke into a Lower Korus District sheriff’s home and stole his appointment document from the study.
• Tres Tamara entered the study, recognized why Charlotte had come, and said authority came from recognized order rather than an appointment.
• Charlotte told Tres she worked with the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun and the Purification-ers after surviving the Bridge of Light and Darkness cultists.
• Tres said the cultists had grown more active in Sushit and that their Supervisor connected believers across Intis and might have gained strength from a recent offering.
• Charlotte insisted the offering had failed because officials had interrupted the ritual and one sacrifice had escaped, but Tres said all eight people brought to the scene had died.

Charlotte learned that Tres believed all eight sacrifices had died and explained the distinction between demigods, saints, and angels before leaving to pursue the Supervisor. Meanwhile, Klein quit his clock shop job and saw Theodore being taken away in a black carriage, leaving him uncertain about what had happened.

• Charlotte questioned Tres about the report that all eight sacrifices had died, and he said the Supervisor might have benefited from the ritual but was unlikely to have become a demigod.
• Tres explained that Sequence 4 and 3 Beyonders were saints and Sequence 2 Beyonders were angels, then said he would summon his family's saints if the Supervisor truly became a demigod.
• Tres gave Charlotte the incantation to summon his messenger and left the mansion; Charlotte escaped, and servants soon cried that the Sheriff had been killed.
• Klein resigned from Mrs. Harrington's clock shop and planned to seek work at a circus and obtain a false identity.
• Klein saw Theodore and Helena leave their home with two formally dressed men and watched Theodore climb into a black carriage that drove away.

After seeing Theodore and Helena taken away, Klein followed them to a building he suspected served as a cover for the Church of the Evernight Goddess’s Nighthawks. He chose to enter and investigate, leaving the chapter as someone inside invited him in.

• Klein saw Theodore and Helena being taken away and suspected official Beyonders were watching for other Abraham Family members.
• Klein weighed fleeing Constant City against helping Theodore, then decided to find where he had been taken.
• Klein used his abilities to cross the city and reached Saint Samuel Cathedral, where he spotted the carriage carrying Theodore and Helena.
• Klein recognized the building where they were taken as the headquarters of the Black Rose Financial Security Office and suspected it concealed a Nighthawk team.
• Klein entered the building and knocked on the office doors, and a woman told him to come in.

Klein tried to reach Theodore at the Black Rose Financial Security Office, but after the Nighthawks’ captain confronted him, he escaped through the café below and fled toward the docks to leave Conston. In Sushit, Charlotte read the Weekly’s new business reporting and then found a sensational article about a murdered sheriff.

• Klein posed as a client while questioning the black-haired receptionist about the office and its captain.
• The black-haired girl returned with the brown-haired captain and Theodore Abraham, who recognized Klein.
• Klein threw his food parcel, used Flash and Blackout Curtain, and tried to escape through the floor, but the captain pulled him into a dream.
• Klein woke after falling into the café, passed through the neighboring building, and headed for the docks to catch a ship to Backlund.
• Charlotte read the Weekly’s report on Conston’s coal and steel industry and considered building a news network.
• Charlotte saw a sensational report about a sheriff murdered at home and lost her goodwill toward the newspaper.

Charlotte tested Roselle’s new revolver, reflected on the city’s changing law enforcement and revelations about the Fourth Epoch, then attended the delayed gathering above the gray fog. Mr. Fool ended the chapter by offering a commission to find members of the Abraham family.

• Charlotte fired Roselle’s revolver at a tree and found that its bullets were powerful and accurate.
• Lila warned Charlotte that her father might worry about her association with Roselle, and Charlotte insisted they were ordinary friends.
• Charlotte considered how the Sushit Weekly had pressured officials to improve public security and reviewed newly translated information about the Fourth Epoch empires and noble families.
• Charlotte waited anxiously when the gathering above the gray fog did not begin on time, then was transported there with Temperance, Tower, Magician, and Hermit.
• Mr. Fool announced a commission with a reward for finding members of the Abraham family.

The Fool commissioned the gathering members to find Abraham family descendants without harming them, and explained how to report useful clues. After Tower revealed that the Silver-White Battle Bear and Fear Worm had already been used as potion ingredients, the Fool explained the indestructibility of Beyonder characteristics, leading Charlotte and Tower to recognize that a dead Beyonder’s remains could serve as potion ingredients.

• The Fool asked the members to find Abraham family descendants, promising rewards for useful clues and warning them not to harm or disturb the family.
• Charlotte explained the Abrahams’ Apprentice pathway abilities, and the Magician said the family had declined and rarely had mid-sequence Beyonders.
• The Fool told the members to send clues through prayer and said his Blessed would handle what followed.
• Charlotte asked Tower about the Silver-White Battle Bear and Fear Worm, and Tower said both had been used to brew a potion, leaving only supplementary ingredients.
• The Fool explained that Beyonder characteristics could not be destroyed and that characteristics released by dead Beyonders could serve as potion main ingredients.
• Charlotte and Tower realized that the dead Sheriff’s Beyonder characteristic could be used to brew a potion.

Charlotte learned that Beyonder characteristics could serve as potion ingredients and agreed to buy Sheriff ingredients from Tower. A discussion of Backlund’s deadly plague revealed the existence of the Demoness pathway and its secret cult, leaving Charlotte wondering whether Henriette had once been a man like her.

• Temperance and Hermit discussed how widely the law of Beyonder characteristic conservation was known in their circles, and Charlotte thanked Mr. Fool for the information.
• Charlotte agreed to buy Tower’s Beyonder characteristic and supplementary ingredients for 1,000 gold riso, payable in gold louis through Mr. Fool’s help.
• Charlotte told Temperance she had finished translating the Fourth Epoch history but was still gathering accurate information about Trier.
• Tower raised the Backlund plague, and Hermit said the Churches of Storms and Evernight would be occupied while the Church of the Artisan could offer little help.
• Temperance said Beyonders of the Assassin pathway became female beyond a certain Sequence and revealed that the Demoness Sect had existed since the Fourth Epoch.
• Back in her bedroom, Charlotte wondered whether Henriette had originally been a man and whether the dead Henry Martin might somehow be nearby.

Charlotte secretly prepared and successfully drank the Sheriff potion, gaining jurisdiction-based abilities and improved combat skills. Her first attempt to test them was interrupted when Morvan Durand recognized her and asked whether she had advanced to Sequence 8.

• Charlotte offered five hundred gold coins to the Fool and received a Sheriff Beyonder characteristic and its supplementary ingredients.
• Charlotte brewed and drank the Sheriff potion, enduring intense pain before sensing an area around her with newfound clarity.
• Charlotte discovered that her jurisdiction could cover the Lower Korus and Bols Districts, and explored her new abilities and weapon skills.
• Charlotte left her rented residence for Saint-Roc District, noticing that her sense of people watching her had improved.
• Morvan Durand stopped Charlotte outside his Workroom, invited her inside, and asked if she had advanced to Sequence 8.

After Charlotte advanced to Sequence 8, Morvan explained how he recognized her new status and revealed the grief behind his warnings about curses and fate. He agreed to help her investigate Fourth Epoch Trier and offered to teach her about messengers, leaving Charlotte surprised that she could have one of her own.

• Morvan noticed Charlotte's leaked spirituality and changed eyes, identified her pathway as Justiciar, and explained why it faced fewer restrictions in Intis.
• Morvan told Charlotte about his wife Lisa and daughter, who both died, and said their deaths had once left him unable to work until he turned to history.
• Morvan explained that The Curse-Stricken Prince blended his experiences with those of a Balam Empire descendant, and said he warned Charlotte because she was also affected by curses and fate.
• Morvan said Charlotte reminded him of his daughter but accepted that their personalities differed, then asked what she wanted from him.
• Charlotte asked Morvan to help research Fourth Epoch Trier and how to summon a messenger, and he offered to help with both.
• Morvan asked whether Charlotte wanted a messenger of her own, and she realized she could have one.

Charlotte learned how to summon a Spirit World messenger from Morvan and, after rejecting an enormous spirit and a reluctant elf, contracted a golden dog named Borus. The Underworld witnessed their contract, leaving Charlotte with her own messenger.

• Morvan explained the requirements for contracting a messenger and guided Charlotte through a summoning ritual in his Workroom.
• Charlotte summoned an enormous friendly face but rejected it because it was too conspicuous to serve as a messenger.
• Charlotte summoned a pointed-eared spirit, which reluctantly agreed after noticing Morvan, but she ended the summoning because they seemed unsuited to each other.
• Following Morvan's revised incantation, Charlotte summoned a golden dog that answered in her voice and agreed to become her messenger.
• Charlotte wrote a messenger contract, which the Underworld witnessed, and the dog signed it with the name Borus.

Charlotte learned the limits of her new messenger contract and considered how her Sheriff jurisdiction could strengthen her abilities before returning home and finding Raoul waiting for her. Days later, Roselle visited with Benjamin Mori, the Sushit Weekly contributor whose article had stirred controversy, and introduced him to Charlotte.

• Charlotte reflected that Borus would deliver letters under their contract but was not her servant, and that accurate delivery to new recipients required them to summon him first.
• Charlotte decided to focus her future jurisdiction on the city’s central and populous districts rather than the Saint-Roc District, and wondered whether Morvan was a powerful demigod.
• Charlotte climbed into her courtyard and found Raoul sitting beneath her bedroom balcony, then stayed home and attended etiquette lessons for several days.
• Roselle visited the Sauron residence to discuss the municipal officials’ plan to commission a larger version of Raoul’s Clock Tower painting.
• Roselle introduced Benjamin Mori, the Sushit Weekly contributor whose report about a deceased sheriff’s wealth had caused a citywide sensation, to Charlotte.