Chapter Summaries

Elliot controlled Eleanor as she prepared to report for work at the Night Watch Bureau, hoping to keep her from accessing its Difference Engine by having her ask for leave. Eleanor reached the branch office and spotted her team leader, Dalton, leaving Elliot poised to see whether his plan would work.

• Vanessa reassured Dorothea about the rumors surrounding the Canteen, then asked how the operation had gone.
• Elliot and Vanessa had Eleanor pretend to be drunk so they could search her dormitory room, where they found notes about her Night Watch Bureau duties.
• Elliot used Eleanor's notes and information from the Old Butler to plan her morning, then decided she should request a few days off rather than approach the Difference Engine.
• Elliot carefully controlled Eleanor's expressions and voice as she entered the Night Watch Bureau branch office and told the receptionist she felt unwell.
• The receptionist pointed out Eleanor's team leader, Dalton, and Eleanor prepared to ask him for leave.

Eleanor tried to secure time off while planning to free the real Eleanor, but she learned that the Night Watch Bureau's Difference Engine had detected unusual messages in the Hearthfire District. She persuaded Dalton to take her to process the messages, where he read a report that the district's canteen had exploded.

• Eleanor asked Dalton for leave, and he approved two days while telling her to request more if she was still ill.
• Eleanor overheard Dalton say the Difference Engine had detected an unusual rise in messages possibly linked to Evil Cult activity in the Hearthfire District.
• Fearing the machine had detected her replacement of the real Eleanor, Eleanor changed her mind and volunteered to work so she could intercept the messages.
• Dalton agreed to let Eleanor process messages but insisted on accompanying her to the Difference Engine room.
• Dalton brought Eleanor through security to the underground machine, then reacted with surprise to a report that the Canteen in the Hearthfire District had blown up.

Eleanor and Dalton investigated reports from [The Thinker], but Dalton dismissed the accurate revelations about the Esoteric Cult as mechanical errors and threw them away. Watching from the Third Prince's Palace, Elliot noticed a faint glow coming from the Difference Engine.

• Dalton read a report claiming the canteen had exploded, and Eleanor insisted it was wrong.
• Dalton found a report saying Eleanor Bennett had been murdered, then used a mirror to confirm Eleanor was human.
• Eleanor realized [The Thinker] might have detected the Esoteric Cult and worried that her earlier reports had concealed its true findings.
• Dalton dismissed the report about the unnamed Secret Society because its name was blank and its events seemed too insignificant to affect regional security.
• Dalton threw the reports away and left to request repairs, while Elliot considered whether Eleanor might join the cult.
• Elliot noticed a spot on the Difference Engine glowing faintly, like a special item seen through [Spirit Vision].

Elliot discovered that his Difference Engine marked the location of the Night Watch Bureau’s Difference Engine Core, but he decided not to take it because the machine was heavily guarded. Meanwhile, Feiniao revealed that Fog Whistle’s members had killed [It] and eaten [Its] corpse.

• Elliot realized Eleanor’s [Spirit Vision] could not detect the marked anomaly and found a hidden recess for a Difference Engine Core in the Night Watch Bureau’s machine.
• Elliot considered taking the core to upgrade his Difference Engine, but judged the security too risky and had Eleanor replace the cover before leaving with Dalton.
• Elliot switched to controlling another puppet without noticing that [The Enemy in the Dark]’s countdown had stopped.
• Feiniao told three associates that he had located Fog Whistle’s base at a Canteen on Linoleum Street and recognized Crow as a supernatural person.
• Feiniao revealed that Fog Whistle’s members had killed [It] and eaten [Its] corpse.

Feiniao’s group abandoned its sabotage mission after learning that the people in the Hearthfire District had killed someone from the Night Watch Bureau. Elliot then resumed his effort to resurrect Elsa and oversaw the Canteen’s first believer, Xiao, undergoing a supernatural ritual.

• Feiniao described the strange fighters he had seen, including Crow, and warned his group that the Wheelchair Gambling God V was among them.
• Feiniao recognized traces of the Night Watch Bureau on a slain enemy, so the group canceled its mission and fled with the [Holy Scripture] discarded.
• Elliot discovered that [The Enemy in the Dark] had ended because it had fled after hearing of his reputation.
• Elliot gathered supernatural materials to continue Elsa’s resurrection, which had been delayed by his shortages and other tasks.
• Xiao, a disabled worker whose wife had received help from the Canteen, signed a contract and entered Vanessa’s ritual to become a supernatural person.

Xiao chose [Spirit Vision] and [Vitality] under the Contract, and [Vitality] restored his amputated leg. Elliot used the Supernatural materials gathered from Xiao to complete Elsa’s resurrection, but wondered whether she knew him as Elliott Sterling.

• Vanessa told Xiao he could choose [Spirit Vision] and receive extra food, so he chose it and gained [Vitality] and [Fatigue Resistance].
• Xiao’s lost leg regrew, and Vanessa reminded him that he still had duties under the Contract.
• Elliot saw Xiao’s Card and thirteen pieces of Supernatural material appear through [Dream Entry], then prepared to resurrect Elsa.
• Elliot entered the Dream World with Elsa’s corpse and nearly thirty pieces of Supernatural material, which Elsa absorbed until her Spirit Body became complete.
• Elsa opened her eyes, and Elliot wondered whether she recognized him as Elliott Sterling.

Elliot resurrected Elsa and disguised himself as a Great Being to send her Spirit Body back to reality, then discovered that Elsa's corpse and corpse Card still remained. Elsa awoke in the Mansion in the Hearthfire District and reunited with Dorothea, while Elliot began testing control of the corpse again.

• Elliot used [Mother of Concealment] to appear as a vast sun and convinced Elsa that a Great Being had resurrected her.
• Elliot shot Elsa's Spirit Body in the Dream World to return her to reality, but found Elsa's corpse still lying on the bed.
• Elliot realized the [Corpse of Believer Elsa Ramsey] Card remained after he sent Elsa's revived Spirit Body back, and he suspected he could still control the corpse.
• Elsa awoke in the Mansion in the Hearthfire District, and Dorothea sobbed as she embraced her.

Dorothea reunited with Elsa, only for a second Elsa to appear and leave everyone unsure how the resurrection had worked. After Clara affirmed that both counted as Elsa, the returned Elsa asked who the other one was.

• Dorothea sobbed in Elsa’s arms and thanked the Lord for bringing her back.
• A second, expressionless Elsa emerged from beneath the blanket, startling Dorothea and the others.
• Vanessa recognized the second Elsa’s controlled demeanor, while Elliot suspected the Supernatural Material had reconstructed a new body.
• Dorothea questioned whether either Elsa was the one she knew and wondered if Vanessa’s reliable personality had taken over Elsa’s body.
• Clara insisted that the Elsa before her was Elsa regardless of her body, and Dorothea apologized to her sister.
• Elsa composed herself and asked the second Elsa who she was.

Elsa learned that her former corpse had become a controllable body inhabited by Elliot, who could use his own abilities through it. After Elsa’s resurrection convinced three believers to join the Canteen, a remaining believer reported finding something called the [Holy Scripture].

• Elsa recognized the other Elsa as her corpse and learned that [Resurrection] had given her a new body.
• Elliot equipped [Believer Elsa Ramsey's Corpse] to the [Elliott Sterling] Card and discovered he could use his abilities through Elsa’s body.
• Elsa showed the core believers that her fatal wound had healed, and three of them signed Contracts to become supernatural people of the Canteen.
• After the believers left, one person told Elsa that she had found something calling itself the [Holy Scripture].

Vanessa and the Canteen received a suspected Fog Horn Fraternity Holy Scripture, which only Clara could see. Clara copied its warning that history was false and that someone had falsified the world.

• A girl brought Vanessa an old book and a crude snake pendant she had found in an abandoned Factory District hut.
• Flora examined the pendant, and Elsa promised the girl a reward, including extra food at mealtimes.
• Vanessa opened the Holy Scripture, but she and the other supernatural people could not see anything written in it.
• Clara revealed that she could see the text but could not read, so Vanessa asked her to copy the words by their shapes.
• Clara copied a warning that the truth could only be conveyed in writing and ended with the claim that someone had falsified the world.

Vanessa, Flora, and Dorothea worked out how the [Holy Scripture] used Clara’s drawings to transmit a message without triggering the supernatural rule that altered information when it was understood. They suspected another organization had distributed the scripture and were left confronting the possibility that the world’s history had been fabricated, before Elsa’s corpse, controlled by Elliot, took the drawing.

• Flora stopped Vanessa from reading the message aloud and explained that understanding information could cause it to be transmitted and altered.
• Flora and Vanessa realized that Clara’s inability to read let her copy the message as a picture without understanding it, allowing them to infer its meaning without directly recording it.
• Dorothea explained how the scripture’s three safeguards prevented readers, non-readers, and Supernatural people from exposing the message in different ways.
• Dorothea suspected that an organization behind the Fog Horn Fraternity had distributed the [Holy Scripture] to transmit the message, while the fraternity served as a cover.
• Vanessa and the others feared that a being capable of altering information had fabricated the world and its history.
• Flora reached for Clara’s drawing to destroy it, but Elsa’s corpse, controlled by Elliot, snatched it away.

Elliot concluded that the Rose Cross might be able to rewrite history and influence the Fog Horn Fraternity through the Holy Scripture. He decided to use Elsa Ramsey's corpse to approach the Rose Cross and investigate its connection to both groups.

• Elliot wondered whether his Difference Engine could resist a being that monitored and altered information, and considered what the Difference Engine Core might let it detect.
• Elliot recalled Lillian's offer to help control the Fog Horn Fraternity and suspected the Rose Cross knew about or influenced the Holy Scripture.
• Elliot reasoned that the Rose Cross had rewritten history so people believed it had never appeared during the Theater incident, while believers protected by the Difference Engine retained their true memories.
• Elliot concluded that the Rose Cross was a threat to his plans in the Hearthfire District and decided to investigate its control over the Fog Horn Fraternity.
• Elliot chose the dead Elsa Ramsey as a way to approach the Rose Cross and recalled that Lillian had said its base was in the sewers.

Elliot controlled Elsa's corpse, disguised as V, and traveled through the Imperial Capital's sewers to reach the Ratway, a neutral underground market. He asked for the Rose Cross, but the Ratway refused to share information about its backer and offered instead to pass along a message.

• The chapter described how the Imperial Capital's sewers had become a refuge for people driven from their homes by poverty and the new Poor Law.
• V crossed the dark sewers in a wheelchair, avoided a swarm of giant rats, and reached a hidden entrance guarded by armed men.
• V proved her identity by revealing her aged, fingerless hand, and the guards let her into the Ratway.
• Elliot's narration revealed that he controlled Elsa's corpse and had used [Mother of Concealment] to disguise her appearance as V.
• V asked the Ratway about the Rose Cross, and a representative said the organization funded them but that the Ratway was neutral and could not sell information about its backers.
• The representative offered to pass a message to the Rose Cross free of charge.

V visited the Ratway to buy information about the Fog Horn Fraternity and investigate the [Daydream] bookstore. She learned that her snake pendant bore the emblem of Ouroboros, a mercenary organization connected to the Ascension Society, just as the Rose Cross agreed to meet her.

• V explored the Ratway and learned that its members offered goods and information for sale.
• V paid forty-five pounds for the Fog Horn Fraternity's history and agreed to pay a twenty-pound advance for an investigation into the [Daydream] bookstore.
• V showed the Ratway man her snake pendant, and he identified it as Ouroboros's emblem.
• The man explained that Ouroboros worked for nobles and City Hall and was connected to the Ascension Society.
• The man told V that the Rose Cross had agreed to meet her and asked whether he should take her there.

Elliot discovered that the Ratway contained hidden passages seemingly designed for rats, while V learned that the rising tide had filled the Submerged District below. At the Rose Cross meeting room, V’s wheelchair passed through a threshold as the room and its walls vanished around her, then reappeared behind her.

• Elliot examined the Ratway through the Difference Engine and found countless narrow passages running through its walls, with rats moving through them.
• Elliot suspected the rats were connected to the Supernatural and that the Ratway might be a Secret Society with its own animal-controlling Path.
• V asked about the Submerged District and learned from her guide that the rising tide had filled it with seawater, though he did not know whether rats could breathe underwater.
• V arrived at a partitioned maintenance room where people from the Rose Cross were waiting, and her guide watched to see how she would cross the raised threshold.
• V’s wheelchair rolled through the threshold, causing the room and its walls to vanish before reappearing after she passed.

Elliot’s attempt to make V’s entrance more dramatic nearly caused the underground set to collapse, but he got her safely into a meeting with Lillian. V claimed to represent the Raven Parliament and secured the Rose Cross’s promise of free intelligence, while Lillian discovered the payment pouch was empty.

• Elliot accidentally pulled out the underground room’s scenery while trying to remove its threshold, then braced the collapsing set and restored it after V entered.
• Elliot recognized the masked Rose Cross member as Lillian and wondered why she had come in person.
• V told Lillian she wanted information about the Fog Horn Fraternity and paid her a pouch of money.
• Lillian offered the Rose Cross’s intelligence for free if V revealed her identity, and V said she came from the Raven Parliament.
• V left after Lillian said she would be unavailable that evening, and Lillian discovered the money pouch was empty.

Elliot sent Lillian's doll into the Difference Engine's Dream Entry and learned that the Third Prince planned to meet with her, prompting him to warn Sidney that she was dangerous. Sidney also told Elliot that four of the Seven Holy Bloodlines were preparing to target him at the Festival Commemorating Theresia, and the chapter ended with the Difference Engine inserting Eleanor Bennett's corpse into Dream Entry on its own.

• Elliot sent Lillian's doll into Dream Entry, then left the Palace after watching Evan remove the Difference Engine Core.
• The Third Prince invited Elliot to meet Lillian, but Elliot warned Sidney that she was dangerous and should not be trusted.
• Sidney told Elliot that four of the Seven Holy Bloodlines planned to target him during the upcoming Festival Commemorating Theresia.
• Elliot returned to the Sterling Family's Mansion and inserted Elsa Ramsey's corpse into Lillian's Dream Entry slot before leaving to ask Old Butler Conrad about the festival.
• After Elliot left, the Difference Engine's push rod rose and inserted Eleanor Bennett's corpse into Dream Entry.

Lillian searched the Palace for a Node of History and used a Difference Engine to witness its past, where she encountered a Great Being whose gaze threatened to erase her. The Difference Engines halted the catastrophe, and Lillian and Elliot returned to their ordinary surroundings with no memory of what had happened.

• Lillian secretly explored the Palace and found the Stage-Play Difference Engine, which she believed was a Node of History.
• Lillian touched the machine and watched its past converge on the figure of Elliot, then met the gaze of a Great Being that appeared as a Sun in a void.
• The Thinker overloaded beneath the Night Watch Bureau and printed a message that Lillian Rose had been erased from history and the Second Era was ending.
• Elliot's Difference Engine pulled the Lillian Rose Card from its Dream Entry slot, burned it to ash, then printed and reinserted it.
• The Thinker stopped and its paper tape turned blank, while Lillian found herself back outside an ordinary Difference Engine room and Elliot slept on.

Lillian lost control of her spirituality and shattered her mother's crystal bracelet, then realized she must not sleep. Elliot entered Lillian's dream and found her terrified enough to mistake him for a Great Being, leaving him wondering whether to play along.

• Lillian failed to retrace her memories or use her spirituality, and her crystal bracelet fell and shattered when she tried to divine her dream.
• Lillian vowed not to sleep while the Difference Engine forced Elliot into her Dream World.
• Elliot searched the forest dream and followed a white thread to a cabin, where he found Lillian in bed.
• Lillian awoke in the dream, recognized Elliot, and tried to shoot herself to escape.
• Elliot prepared to restrain Lillian, but she trembled, dropped her pistol, and knelt while praising him as a Great Being.
• Elliot wondered why Lillian was so convinced and considered pretending to be a Great Being.

Elliot questioned Lillian about the Fog Horn Fraternity and learned that its importance came from the conscious [Holy Scripture], which preserved [Secret History]. He realized Lillian had offered to help him because she wanted to contact the [Holy Scripture], and suspected it was the true power behind the Fog Whistle.

• Elliot abandoned his plan to use Lillian and told her he was a member of the Raven Parliament, but Lillian continued to treat him with reverence.
• Elliot asked Lillian what she knew about the Fog Horn Fraternity, and she explained that the [Holy Scripture] had chosen the otherwise unimportant mortal organization.
• Lillian said the [Holy Scripture] passed down [Secret History], which people forgot over time and could not freely describe because of an unknown force's influence.
• Lillian identified herself as an Immortal who remembered true history but could not defy the rules, and said the [Holy Scripture] had its own consciousness and uncertain origins.
• Lillian offered to help Elliot take control of the Fog Horn Fraternity by forging the [Holy Scripture], revealing that she wanted to make contact with it.
• Elliot concluded that the [Holy Scripture], rather than the Fog Whistle, was the true power behind events.