Chapter Summaries

Elliot used the Blood Moon Dream Memory to let Maeve perform the ritual to summon the Worm, which began a long countdown after she was pulled from the Dream. He then noticed Vanessa’s Veil talent had triggered, suggesting someone had tried to detect her and been misled.

• Elliot used [Dream Memory · Blood Moon] to turn his Dream red and brought Maeve inside.
• Maeve transformed with [Crescent Moon Prayer] and drew the complex summoning ritual in the Dream.
• Maeve activated the ritual, was pulled out of the Dream, and Elliot saw the Worm’s countdown begin at 700.
• Elliot wondered whether the Worm was connected to Maeve’s Monster form and planned to have Vanessa investigate the Secret History with Victoria.
• Vanessa’s Card trembled, and Elliot found a [Veil triggered] log entry, indicating someone had probed her and been misled.

After an unknown entity probed Vanessa, Elliot realized Maeve might also be exposed and hurried to protect her. Meanwhile, [Path · Glimmer] began ascending, and a young man emerged from the ruins of the Cosmog Dynasty and began manipulating history.

• Elliot linked the probe targeting Vanessa to Maeve’s dream summoning of the Worm and feared Maeve had already been discovered.
• A new [Ascension] slot appeared, and [Path · Glimmer] entered it with a countdown of 999.
• Elliot sent Vanessa to seek Victoria’s advice, then ordered Conrad to prepare a horse so he could go to the Hearthfire District and protect Maeve.
• A young man emerged from the ruins of the Cosmog Dynasty and said history had changed too much, including events in the Dream World.
• The young man wound his pocket watch until its hands moved in different directions, then watched a moon relief in the ruins begin to change.

Vanessa visited Victoria’s library at three in the morning to seek information about a long-haired monster, but their conversation turned to the possibility of a Third Industrial Revolution and humanity’s stalled scientific progress. Victoria remained hopeful for a new age, while Vanessa left the conversation suspecting that something about the expected order of technological change was wrong.

• Vanessa arrived at Victoria’s library late at night and found her awake, then noticed she was reading Introduction to Steam Engineering.
• Victoria explained that she was studying steam engineering because the Third Industrial Revolution might be approaching, though she could not predict when it would begin.
• Victoria told Vanessa that technological development seemed to have reached its limits and said the coming age of science and rationality would let humanity build a new world.
• Vanessa considered the long stagnation of scientific progress and wondered whether history had lasted far longer than its public record suggested.
• Victoria invited Vanessa to browse the safe books and offered to answer questions about secrets because she knew every book in the Library.
• As she searched the shelves, Vanessa realized she expected scientific progress to drive an Industrial Revolution, not appear alongside it, and wondered why Victoria seemed so certain of the coming changes.

Victoria investigated Vanessa’s connection to Elliott and decided to let him visit, while Vanessa studied in Victoria’s library and asked about the Blood Moon. Victoria explained that no Blood Moon existed before the First Era and challenged Vanessa’s understanding of the moon’s phases, leaving her with a troubling question about how a Blood Moon could appear.

• Victoria learned that Vanessa worked in the Hearthfire District canteen and had met Elliott Sterling through Flora Belenga Lancaster, then ordered the maids to tell the Imperial Palace she would invest a knight as her personal guard.
• Victoria told her maids to let Elliot come to her residence, making sure he understood that it was permission rather than an invitation.
• Vanessa finished reading in the library, and Victoria offered to answer her questions except those about dangerous Secret Histories.
• Victoria warned Vanessa to avoid Fog Whistle’s forbidden [Holy Scripture] and said that records of the Blood Moon began only after the First Era.
• Victoria questioned Vanessa’s account of astronomy and pointed out that a Blood Moon appeared abruptly at the moon’s least complete phase, asking where it got the sunlight it reflected.

Vanessa questioned the blood moon’s origins, and Victoria revealed that it had only appeared after the First Era, warning that learning supernatural truths carried a price. Victoria explained ascension and the danger of Vanessa’s spirit vision, leaving Vanessa puzzled about how the starry sky and the Abode were connected.

• Vanessa noticed that the blood moon’s changing phases and scarlet light did not fit her understanding of astronomy, and Victoria suggested placing the sun at the center of the universe.
• Victoria told Vanessa that records of the blood moon from before the First Era did not exist because the blood moon only appeared afterward, causing Vanessa to bleed from her eyes, nose, and ears.
• Victoria explained that learning the truth could exact a supernatural price and answered Vanessa’s question about scientific progress by saying that the blood moon had not existed for earlier physicists to study.
• Victoria told Vanessa that ranks four through six were middle rank and required an ascension ritual, which made people stronger but distanced them from humanity.
• Victoria said Vanessa’s spirit vision likely required looking directly at the starry sky in a dream, and Vanessa wondered whether the real danger was seeing the Abode.

Victoria offered to make Vanessa her knight and keep her in the Library forever, but Vanessa challenged Victoria’s belief that the world could not be saved. Victoria withdrew into the Library, while Vanessa left with the Golden-Haired Dog, and Elliot began considering Victoria’s claim that the Second Era had repeatedly been destroyed.

• Victoria told Vanessa to learn court etiquette because she planned to invest her as a knight and take her to meet His Majesty.
• Victoria bound Vanessa with Golden Threads and insisted that Vanessa would remain in the Library as her knight forever.
• Vanessa said she cared about the people outside and challenged Victoria’s plan to build an Abode instead of trying to save them.
• Victoria argued that the world was beyond saving and named Elliot, Sidney, Thorne, and Michel as mistaken before retreating into the Library.
• Vanessa left the Library, and the Golden-Haired Dog followed her outside.
• At the Sterling Family’s mansion, Elliot reflected on Victoria’s offer to Vanessa and grew serious over her claim that the Second Era had been destroyed repeatedly.

Elliot questioned why Victoria had compared him to powerful historical figures and began to suspect that the Frostmoon Uprising and the repeated destruction of the Second Era hid deeper truths. He also learned that Maeve needed an Ascension Ritual to reach Middle Rank, but feared her Path might require her to devour another Believer.

• Elliot noticed the Difference Engine's log said Lillian Rose was destroying the Second Era, though the era continued despite her repeated efforts.
• Elliot wondered whether the Frostmoon Uprising had been significant enough to place him alongside Sidney, Michel, and Thorne, and questioned why the Old Duke and Victoria doubted the supernatural route.
• Elliot reflected on the strange rules governing history, Sacrifice, and access to supernatural power, then forced himself to stop speculating.
• Elliot realized Maeve had reached the barrier to Middle Rank and needed an Ascension Ritual.
• Elliot connected Maeve's flesh-devouring healing to the [Restoration] Path and suspected she might need to eat another Believer on that Path to ascend.

Elliot considered whether supernatural power itself caused distortion and decided to investigate the Ascension Society as a possible source of flesh Maeve could consume to ascend. Vanessa visited Dorothea to discuss Maeve’s need, but Dorothea rejected the Ascension Society as a target and suggested the Genesis School instead.

• Elliot wondered whether the original Elliot had refused sacrifice because power distorted those who gained it, then considered finding supernatural people from Maeve’s [Restoration] branch.
• Elliot recalled the Ascension Society’s path, [Flesh Ascension], and decided to ask Dorothea about it.
• Vanessa walked through Saint Clair to the Hearthfire District, removed Victoria’s coat of arms, and asked the Factory Guard members to take her to Dorothea.
• Dorothea explained that she and Sia alternated work using different bodies in the present world and in dreams.
• Vanessa told Dorothea that Maeve could ascend by consuming supernatural people, and Dorothea said the Ascension Society was not an acceptable target and proposed the Genesis School.

Vanessa learned how the Ascension School and Genesis School followed different forms of the same Path, then heard that the Genesis School had returned to the Imperial Capital. Dorothea and Elliot questioned whether sacrifices that required eating people would eventually make them no different from the Genesis School.

• Dorothea explained that the Ascension School advanced by sacrificing and devouring its own regenerating flesh, while the Genesis School created Flesh Men and Bone Men to cheat the sacrifices.
• Dorothea told Vanessa that the Genesis School could not use Formless Arts or enter dreams because the Great Being rejected its distorted creations.
• Dorothea warned Vanessa that the Genesis School had begun operating again in the Imperial Capital, with traces found in the Canal District sewers, and Vanessa agreed to alert Eleanor.
• Dorothea wondered whether she and Maeve might someday eat people for power and become indistinguishable from the Genesis School.
• Elliot read Dorothea's question through the Brass Dial and reflected that sacrifices could lead him down the same path as the original owner of his body.

Elliot struggled to decide whether the Difference Engine’s purposes justified sacrifice, then resumed his work while managing his new duties as an heir. Victoria invited him to the Library to knight Vanessa, and Elliot planned a formal visit to learn more about the Sacred Blood Nobles.

• Elliot could not decide whether to accept sacrifices and stopped working on the Difference Engine for the night.
• Conrad told Elliot that Victoria had invited him to the Library to knight Vanessa, and Elliot agreed to visit Victoria that evening with a formal gift related to books.
• Conrad mentioned an invitation to a Helms Family banquet and asked whether Elliot should return an item, prompting Elliot to wonder about the family and the item.
• Elliot returned to the Difference Engine and decided to check on the Night Watch Bureau because Vanessa and the others could not manage everything alone.

Elliot used Vanessa’s disguise as Eleanor to visit the Night Watch Bureau, where he learned that the Helms Family planned a Blood Feast and examined the repaired message room. He left Elsa’s flesh by the Difference Engine Core, hoping to equip it at night and bring it into a dream.

• Elliot sent Vanessa, disguised as Eleanor, to the Night Watch Bureau to contact Dalton and investigate the Bureau after the festival.
• Dalton dismissed reports of the Genesis School and told Vanessa to focus on the Helms Family’s upcoming Blood Feast in the Embassy District.
• Vanessa asked Dalton what a Blood Feast was, and he described it as a blasphemous banquet that even other nobles despised.
• Elliot inspected the rebuilt message room and suspected that the Bureau could not truly repair or modify [The Thinker].
• Vanessa performed a ritual with Elliot’s help, and he used [Bestowal] to place Elsa’s flesh beside the Difference Engine Core.
• Elliot planned to leave Elsa’s flesh on the Core, equip it at night, and enter the dream.

Elliot discovered that Elsa's corpse could not enter a dream, and Vanessa found that touching [The Thinker] prevented her from dreaming, suggesting the machine was anchored in the present world. Elliot then visited the Library to meet Victoria and found an unidentified figure waiting in an armchair.

• Elliot tried to send Elsa's corpse, first with and then without the Difference Engine Core, into a dream, but both attempts failed.
• Vanessa tested entering dreams at the Night Watch Bureau and discovered she could not do so while touching [The Thinker].
• Vanessa concluded that [The Thinker] could not compute dreams or altered history because it was anchored in the present world.
• Elliot committed the machine's limitations to memory and left to visit Victoria.
• Elliot arrived at the Library and saw a figure reclining with their back to him in an armchair.

Elliot visited Victoria in the Grand Library and gave her Secret Histories recorded by the Sterling Family. Their discussion of the Frostmoon Uprising revealed that they were speaking in a place outside the Present World, leaving Elliot to suspect that true history could not be recorded or altered from within it.

• Elliot entered the Library and teased the still-angry Victoria by inspecting the furnishings before giving her a wrapped gift.
• Victoria eagerly accepted the Secret Histories Elliot had brought, then asked whether he was still unwilling to perform a Sacrifice.
• Elliot said he believed Sacrifice was the wrong path, and Victoria admitted it might indeed be wrong.
• Elliot asked Victoria about the Frostmoon Uprising, and she pointed out that he had once called it the Great Revolution.
• Elliot corrected himself by saying there had been no revolution in history, only the Frostmoon Uprising, and Victoria said history had already been altered and the revolution had failed again.
• Elliot realized the Library had become the Void, then reasoned that some histories could only be shared outside the Present World and wondered whether beings in the Dream World were changing history.

Elliot learned more about Victoria’s role in the Frostmoon Uprising and her plan to build an eternal Abode, while she asked him to support her and appoint Vanessa as her Knight. Victoria then presented Michel’s invitation for Elliot to join an expedition, leaving him questioning her account of the political balance between the Old and New Nobility.

• Elliot wondered whether Victoria had participated in the Frostmoon Uprising and whether repeated failures were connected to the destruction of the Second Era.
• Victoria said she had chosen to build an eternal Abode to shelter Elliot, Vanessa, and the others from the succession of eras and from life and death.
• Victoria asked Elliot to let Vanessa become her Knight and to support the Abode, saying she feared she would not finish it in time as the world’s deviation worsened.
• Victoria gave Elliot Michel’s invitation to join an expedition, promising that Michel would arrange a Sacrifice so Elliot could reach a high rank.
• Victoria said Elliot was worth winning over because he had rejected degeneracy, but Elliot questioned her claims that the Sacred Blood Nobles had declined and Parliament’s New Nobility were weak.

Elliot questioned Victoria about the Blood Feast, Abodes, and Lillian, then learned that history could be rewritten as a rare phenomenon rather than by an organization’s power. Victoria suggested that the Rose Cross might be able to observe true history and exploit the phenomenon, leaving Elliot with a new possibility about the secret society.

• Elliot realized Victoria had already committed him to attending the Blood Feast, which he suspected involved nobles sacrificing commoners.
• Victoria explained that collecting [Secret Histories] could help her Grand Library ascend into an Abode, and described how an Abode could restrict and threaten its guests.
• Elliot asked whether an [Immortal] could destroy the Second Era, but Victoria said even Great Beings might not be able to do so.
• Elliot asked Victoria about Lillian and the Rose Cross; she recognized Lillian as a dancer but had never heard of the organization.
• Elliot told Victoria he suspected the Rose Cross could rewrite history, and she explained that history could be changed only through immense power and cost, as a phenomenon that could be observed and exploited.

Elliot learned from Victoria that only those who had undergone Ascension could access Secret History and the true depths of the dream world. He left the Grand Library considering how to Ascend, while Vanessa opened a Communion meeting in the palace dream and introduced Eleanor as a source of important information.

• Victoria told Elliot that middle-rank supernatural people could access Secret History and dive into the Deep Zone, though returning with power was difficult and dangerous.
• Victoria warned that the greatest danger to the world came from behind the Veil and invited Elliot to return to the Grand Library after making his decision.
• Elliot left the Library with a headache and considered seeking Ascension or the ritual Conrad had mentioned so he could read Secret History.
• Vanessa began a Communion meeting in the palace dream, which remained safe amid disturbances that had made individual dreams inaccessible.
• Vanessa announced that Eleanor would join the meeting because she had important information, and the members turned their attention to her.

Eleanor told the Communion that the Night Watch Bureau had detected Phoenix Everhart near the Hearthfire District and considered him extremely dangerous, but had little information about him. Dorothea connected the name Everhart to a defaced photograph found at No. 37 Pine Resin Alley, leaving the Communion without a clear lead as the threat drew closer.

• Eleanor explained that the Circle of Vitas would assist the Night Watch Bureau at the Blood Feast, scheduled for the following night in the Embassy District.
• Eleanor revealed that The Thinker had warned that Phoenix Everhart had reappeared, prompting her reassignment from the Blood Feast to an emergency response.
• Dorothea recalled a photograph from No. 37 Pine Resin Alley that showed a figure burned out of the image and bore the inscription “My love-Sophia Everhart.”
• Vanessa said the Golden Tax Court had confiscated the house, so the photograph and its contents were lost.
• Eleanor explained that Phoenix Everhart had been detected near the Hearthfire District and was described as a young man with an aged, listless bearing whose detailed features could not be remembered.

Eleanor warned the group about Phoenix, whose appearance could not be retained in memory, and Vanessa ordered them to report him and discuss him only in Dream. Elsa then questioned Dorothea for using Communion resources to investigate their missing father, but the confrontation shifted when Sia and Eleanor revealed that Dorothea suspected his disappearance was connected to the Genesis School.

• Eleanor explained that Phoenix could not be remembered and told everyone to report him to the Night Watch Bureau if they saw him.
• Vanessa told the group to share the warning only with Supernatural people and discuss it only in Dream.
• Elsa initiated an interpellation and accused Dorothea of mobilizing believers and Supernatural people to investigate their father.
• Dorothea accepted punishment, while Elsa said Dorothea had betrayed their trust by misusing Communion resources.
• Sia explained that Dorothea had acted after suspecting their father's disappearance was connected to the Genesis School, and Eleanor confirmed the Night Watch Bureau had refused to investigate it.
• Vanessa struggled to comfort the sisters and began telling them about her own argument with Victoria and her theft of Victoria's dog.

During a Communion meeting in the Dream World, the members discovered that Vanessa’s Golden-Haired Dog was strangely elusive and seemed immune to supernatural abilities. Vanessa also revealed that she had fallen out with Victoria and could no longer visit the Grand Library, before Maeve announced that she had summoned a Worm.

• Maeve distracted herself by petting the Golden-Haired Dog until Vanessa pointed her out, prompting Maeve to mistakenly think she was being singled out for punishment.
• Allen and the others tried and failed to catch the dog, while it let Vanessa and Maeve pet it but avoided Flora.
• Dorothea noted that the dog was in the Dream World, and Vanessa found that [Hypnosis] could not target it.
• Vanessa told the Communion that she had argued with Victoria and would no longer be able to visit the Grand Library for information or help.
• Maeve raised her hand and announced that she had summoned a Worm.

The Communion discussed reports from across the Hearthfire District while Elliot reviewed its operations and prepared to attend the Blood Feast. On the way to the banquet, he learned that Evan, an adopted orphan, had risen to high rank through the Church, prompting Elliot to wonder about the connection between noble bloodlines and supernatural advancement.

• Vanessa said the Worm had already been summoned but would not arrive for some time, then the Communion discussed local investigations, missing believers, and other reports.
• Elliot reviewed the believers’ work on the Difference Engine and approved their plan to contact the Circle of Vitas to learn about the Blood Feast.
• Elliot planned to attend the Blood Feast, and Conrad advised him to take Evan and avoid provoking the nobles.
• The following evening, Elliot asked Evan about his rank and learned that the Church had trained him and granted him the Sterling surname for his exceptional talent.
• Elliot connected Evan’s advancement to the Sacred Blood Nobles and the Blood Feast, then asked Evan how an adopted orphan had reached high rank.