Recaps

Klein showed Ian Zerrell’s mutilated corpse, then discovered Ian had secretly returned to the sewers after they parted. At Glaint’s home, Audrey paid Xio and Fors for their work, and Xio found a hidden message in a borrowed book that named the Fool.

• Klein took Ian to Zerrell’s corpse in the sewers, where Ian confirmed the detective’s identity and Klein urged him to notify the police.
• Ian gave Klein the location of Kaspars Kanlinen at Bravehearts Bar as a source for guns and ammunition, then returned to the sewers after they separated.
• Audrey gave Xio and Fors eight hundred pounds for their work, and Xio said they had a possible lead on the Psychology Alchemists.
• Audrey subtly guided Xio and Fors toward books at Glaint’s home, and they borrowed books that matched their interests.
• Xio found a hidden sheet in her book bearing Roselle’s symbols and an Ancient Hermes passage naming the Fool above the gray fog.

Klein noticed an investment advertisement and later used Xio’s prayer to test whether he could pull someone above the gray fog. After Xio accidentally recited his honorific name, she dreamed of the mysterious space and woke fearing that a hidden existence had noticed her.

• Klein circled an advertisement for a new mode of transportation and received an unspoken prayer from a petite woman he recognized as one of Miss Justice’s companions.
• Xio realized she had silently recited an Ancient Hermes passage that might be a hidden existence’s honorific name, then panicked when she saw a stranger’s hair in the mirror and struck Fors as she came through the bathroom window.
• Xio told Fors about the paper hidden in a book, and they searched the other books before deciding to sleep and see whether anything happened.
• Klein pulled Xio above the gray fog, briefly showed her the mysterious space, then severed the connection and saw a new crimson star appear.
• Xio woke from a vivid dream of the gray fog and resolved to seek someone skilled in exorcism at the next Beyonder gathering.

Klein refused Meursault’s offer to find Ian, then visited Inventor Leppard and invested in his bicycle project. After returning home, Klein saw a pair of eyes in the bathroom mirror.

• Meursault offered Klein up to fifty pounds to locate Ian Wright, but Klein refused the commission.
• Klein traveled to Saki Street to inspect Leppard’s horse-free transport invention.
• Leppard showed Klein his large, human-powered carriage, and Klein suggested developing a simpler bicycle for everyday customers.
• Klein invested one hundred pounds in Leppard’s bicycle project for a thirty-five-percent share and agreed to draw up a contract.
• Back at home, Klein saw a pair of eyes reflected in the bathroom mirror.

Klein killed Meursault, a Beyonder and Zmanger Gang enforcer, then used Spirit Channeling to discover that an Intis ambassador had ordered him to find Ian Wright because Ian might be connected to an extremely important item. Klein recovered Meursault’s Beyonder Characteristic but was left to deal with the corpse and the destruction in his home.

• Meursault attacked Klein with overwhelming strength and speed, forcing Klein to dodge through his home until he grabbed a standard contract.
• Klein threw the contract into Meursault’s throat, killing him, then confirmed with Spirit Vision that no other enemies were nearby.
• Klein used Dream Divination on Meursault and saw a middle-aged man called Mr. Ambassador order Meursault to find Ian Wright alive if possible.
• Klein learned that the ambassador had given Meursault a potion and money to control the Zmanger Gang, and that Ian might be connected to an extremely important item.
• Klein collected the dark red Beyonder Characteristic that formed from Meursault’s corpse and wondered which Sequence it belonged to.

After killing Meursault, Klein weighed how to handle the corpse and used divination to choose reporting the death to the police. He implicated Meursault’s connection to an ambassador while hiding the supernatural evidence above the gray fog, and the sergeant prepared to report the politically sensitive case.

• Klein divined that reporting Meursault’s death to the police was safer than hiding the body or fleeing.
• Klein altered the scene to support his self-defense account, then moved Meursault’s Beyonder Characteristic and other evidence above the gray fog.
• After waiting for the right interval to pass, Klein left 15 Minsk Street and told two constables that an intruder had attacked him and died during the struggle.
• Klein told the arriving sergeant that the dead man was Meursault, an executioner for the Zmanger Gang, and described his meetings with an ambassador.
• Klein said he worshipped the God of Steam and Machinery, while the sergeant focused on reporting the case involving a foreign ambassador.

Xio bought the Sheriff potion formula and hired a believer in the Sun to purify her and Fors. Meanwhile, Klein endured a Beyonder interrogation about the ambassador and Ian Wright, then learned Lawyer Jurgen was waiting to bail him out.

• Xio paid for the Sheriff formula and found that its rare main ingredients would be difficult to obtain.
• Xio asked for help with a suspected haunting, and a masked believer in the Sun performed a purification ritual for her and Fors.
• At the police station, Klein was taken to an interrogation room and identified the ambassador who had met Meursault.
• Klein truthfully told the interrogator when he last saw Ian Wright and where Detective Zerrell's body was hidden.
• The interrogator released Klein, and the sergeant took him to complete the paperwork for Lawyer Jurgen's bail.

After being bailed out, Klein assessed the costs of his fight with Meursault, spoke with his neighbors, and planned to acquire a gun and a Beyonder bodyguard. Elsewhere, Xio and Fors received a note inviting the Arbiter who bought the Sheriff formula to a meeting.

• Jurgen bailed Klein out for ten pounds and agreed to draft his investment contract for two pounds.
• Klein returned home, accepted an invitation from Luke and Starling Summer, and discussed his detective income and their finances.
• Klein planned to visit Ian’s bar to buy a gun and seek a powerful Beyonder bodyguard.
• A masked man purified Xio and Fors’s room and gave Xio the collected droplets to sprinkle around it.
• A waiter delivered Xio a note inviting the Arbiter who purchased the Sheriff formula to meet in the study.

Xio agreed to take voluntary commissions from a masked man who promised to sell her the ingredients for the Sheriff potion. Meanwhile, Klein bought a revolver and went to meet a potential bodyguard at the Bravehearts Bar, where he discovered a card room full of Living Corpses.

• Xio met the masked man, who admitted he had arranged the sale of the Sheriff formula and offered her paid tasks in exchange for the potion ingredients.
• Klein restored his belongings, then went to the Bravehearts Bar to buy a powerful revolver and fifty rounds from Kaspars Kanlinen.
• Klein asked Kaspars to find him a formidable bodyguard, and Kaspars arranged a meeting with a potential candidate.
• Kaspars led Klein into a card room where Klein used Spirit Vision and realized that everyone playing cards except the man who approached him was a Living Corpse.

Klein failed to hire Maric to protect him from the unnamed ambassador, then reasoned that Ian Wright’s whereabouts were central to the danger. After divining Ian’s location and discovering that purification had kept a channel open to Xio, Klein prepared to continue his investigation above the gray fog.

• Klein told Maric that an important person backed by a nation might be after him, and Maric refused the bodyguard job as too dangerous.
• Klein told Kaspars he would return the next night and ask him to seek other formidable contacts.
• Klein analyzed the ambassador’s motives, concluded Ian Wright’s whereabouts were the crux of the problem, and considered asking the Tarot Club for help dealing with the ambassador.
• Klein divined Ian’s whereabouts and saw him sleeping in a cramped room, then wrote a statement denying that he knew where Ian was.
• Klein entered the space above the gray fog, confirmed the divination’s negative result, and watched a prolonged scene of Xio and her companion receiving an exorcism from a follower of the Eternal Blazing Sun.
• Klein realized that the purification had sustained his connection to Xio and prepared to divine Ian’s whereabouts again.

Klein used dream divination to identify Meursault’s potion as a Hunter potion and deduced where Ian Wright had appeared, then left a note to attract the ambassador’s attention. On the full-moon night, Fors suffered worsening ravings, and Klein awoke to find his note turned around, though divination suggested no person had entered his room.

• Klein divined that Meursault had taken a Hunter potion and concluded that the ambassador was likely a senior diplomat from Intis.
• Klein deduced that Ian Wright had visited the telegraph office on White Rum Street, near East Borough and the Backlund Bridge Area, and left a note about Ian on his desk.
• Under the full moon, Fors endured agonizing ravings, lost handfuls of hair, and feared she might lose control the next time.
• Klein found that the note had turned around despite the closed window and suspected someone had entered his room unnoticed.
• Klein divined that no one had sneaked into his bedroom and considered that the result had been interfered with or that whatever moved the paper was not human.

Klein investigated the intruder who entered his bedroom, confirmed the Iron-black worm had been sent by Intis Ambassador Bakerland Jean Madan, and then attended the Tarot Club gathering. The gathering ended with Alger revealing the Secret Order’s ties to the Republic of Intis, giving Klein another lead as he prepared to deal with the ambassador.

• Klein met Jurgen for breakfast, reviewed the contract, and paid Leppard the first installment of 50 pounds.
• Klein searched the Tussock Times and identified Intis’s ambassador as Bakerland Jean Madan.
• Klein used divination to learn that an iron-black worm had entered his bedroom and moved the paper about Ian Wright, and confirmed that the ambassador had dispatched its controller.
• Klein summoned Audrey, Alger, and Derrick to the Tarot Club, where Audrey celebrated her advancement to Sequence 8 and Alger submitted six pages of Roselle’s Diary.
• Alger told the gathering that the Secret Order had ties to the Republic of Intis, which Klein connected to his impending dealings with the ambassador.

At the Tarot Gathering, Klein issued a mission to assassinate Intis ambassador Bakerland Jean Madan, presenting it as a task for one of his adherents. Justice and The Hanged Man agreed to pursue it, while Audrey planned to gather information and hire someone to carry out the killing.

• Klein explained that he had shaped his image as a powerful but restricted figure and announced a mission for his newly arrived adherent in Backlund.
• Klein named the target as Intis ambassador Bakerland Jean Madan, prompting Audrey to worry that his assassination could lead to war.
• Alger described Bakerland as an intelligence chief who supported unrest and likely had Beyonder allies, and Audrey concluded the killing could be blamed on Feynapotter.
• Audrey accepted the mission conditionally and requested the Psychiatrist formula and ingredients as payment, while admitting she still owed Klein's adherent a bounty.
• Alger also accepted the mission, saying that being away from Backlund did not prevent him from assassinating Bakerland.

Klein read Roselle’s diary entries about the Seer and Monster pathways, Beyonder inheritance, and Nast Solomon, then opened the gathering for trades. Audrey asked Derrick for information about Dragons, while Derrick requested the Sequence 8 Bard potion formula.

• Klein read Roselle’s account of Zaratul identifying himself as a Sequence 2 Miracle Invoker and explaining that the Monster pathway, rather than the Seer pathway, represented fate.
• Klein considered how the diary changed his understanding of the Seer pathway and read Roselle’s notes on Beyonder Characteristics being passed to children.
• Klein learned that Roselle had secretly promised the pirate Savigny Solomon help advancing to a High Sequence and had predicted that Savigny’s child Nast would rule the Five Seas.
• Klein ended the diary reading and invited Justice and the others to trade information.
• Audrey asked Derrick for information about Dragons, and Derrick asked her for the Sequence 8 Bard potion formula.

At the Tarot Club, Derrick explained the history and powers of the dragons, giving Audrey a clearer idea of the Spectator pathway while raising questions for Klein about Sealed Artifact 008 and the Second Epoch. After the gathering, Audrey received a telegram from Alfred saying he had found two Rainbow Salamanders, though she no longer needed them.

• Audrey agreed to find The Sun the Bard potion formula, and Klein offered to provide the Light Suppliant formula in exchange for future help from her followers.
• Klein gave Derrick the Light Suppliant formula, and Derrick began a private exchange with Audrey about dragons.
• Derrick described the Dragon of Imagination, Ankewelt, and the Dragon of Nightmare, Alzuhod, whose abilities reminded Klein of Sealed Artifact 008.
• Derrick recounted how the dragons fell after the Creator awakened, leaving Audrey and Klein uncertain about how their histories differed from the accounts they knew.
• After the Tarot Club ended, Audrey received a telegram from Alfred saying he had found two Rainbow Salamanders, and she realized she no longer needed them.

Audrey planned to gather information about Ambassador Bakerland before commissioning his assassination, while Klein reasoned about the Secret Order’s connection to the intruder who had spied on him and sought contacts and a bodyguard among Backlund’s Beyonders. The chapter left Klein attending a masked gathering, where a member requested help dealing with beasts in the sewers.

• Audrey decided to attend Countess Grelint’s ball to observe Ambassador Bakerland before meeting Xio and Fors about the assassination commission.
• Alger changed into Intis clothing, put on a mask, and entered a concealed house in Bayam.
• Klein suspected the iron-black-worm intruder was a high-Sequence Seer connected to the Secret Order and planned to seek a bodyguard and sell Meursault’s Beyonder characteristic.
• Klein paid Kaspars two pounds to bring him to a secret gathering of masked Beyonders.
• A masked attendee asked the gathering for help clearing clever beasts from the sewers that had eaten his medicinal herbs.

Klein attended a Beyonder gathering, sold a Hunter pathway Beyonder Characteristic to Mr. Eye of Wisdom, and sought protection from a powerful enemy. When no one would take the bodyguard commission, he agreed to buy Black Snake’s dangerous mystical item, hoping to use it safely above the gray fog.

• A suspected Apothecary hired someone to clear beasts from the Backlund Bridge Area sewers, offering medicine and thirty pounds.
• A hooded woman offered a runic steel sword and a transforming meat saw; the sword went to a gloomy man, and Mr. Eye of Wisdom bought the saw.
• Klein showed the gathering a dark red Beyonder Characteristic and accepted Mr. Eye of Wisdom’s offer of four hundred pounds for it.
• Klein asked for a bodyguard against a Sequence 6 or Sequence 5 enemy, but no one accepted the dangerous commission.
• Black Snake offered Klein a mystical item that could reveal a great existence’s voice but might harm or kill its user, and Klein agreed to buy it for four hundred pounds.

Klein obtained a black ear at the gathering and tested it above the gray fog, where its connection to the True Creator nearly overwhelmed him. He turned the released madness into an iron-black charm called Words of Filth.

• Klein traded the Hunter Beyonder Characteristic to Black Snake for a black ear and left the gathering with the item.
• Klein returned to Minsk Street and summoned himself and the black ear above the gray fog.
• Klein used divination to investigate the ear’s origin, triggering a voice of evil and filth that caused his body to mutate.
• Klein endured the attack, then scattered the ear’s Beyonder characteristic over the detached tentacles of madness.
• Klein created an iron-black charm that infected its target with madness and named it Words of Filth.

Klein accepted Mary Gale’s commission to investigate whether her husband had a mistress, while Audrey learned that Intis’s ambassador Bakerland was an intelligence chief and a Sequence 6 Conspirer. The chapter ended with Audrey seeking Glaint’s help to contact Xio and Fors.

• Klein read that a gunfight had broken out on Red Brick Lane and wondered whether the military and Intis agents had found Ian Wright.
• Mary Gale hired Klein to follow her husband, offering ten pounds for concrete evidence of an affair and lending him a portable camera.
• Audrey spoke with Ambassador Bakerland at a ball, then left after Cons Lielsen warned her that Bakerland was an old lecher.
• Cons told Audrey that Bakerland was Intis’s intelligence chief, a Sequence 6 Conspirer with a potentially Sequence 5 assistant, and said Bakerland would soon be replaced.
• Audrey gathered more information and asked Glaint to help her contact Xio and Fors.

Klein confirmed that Doragu Gale was having an affair and learned through divination that a Seer-pathway Beyonder controlled the threadworm that had entered his room. Audrey asked Xio and Fors to assassinate the Intis ambassador, Bakerland Jean Madan.

• Klein followed Doragu from the Coim Company to the exclusive Cragg Club and used dream divination to see him with a young blonde woman.
• Klein decided to identify the woman and gather concrete evidence of the affair by following her later.
• Above the gray fog, Klein divined that a Seer-pathway Beyonder had controlled the iron-black threadworm that infiltrated his room, though he could not identify the controller.
• Klein suspected the mysterious space above the gray fog might contain something related to the Seer pathway and recognized the ambassador's attendant as a possible source of potion formulas.
• Audrey asked Xio and Fors to assassinate Intis ambassador Bakerland Jean Madan.

Audrey commissioned Mr. A to assassinate Intis's ambassador, Bakerland Jean Madan, and accepted his demand for 10,000 pounds. Meanwhile, Klein gathered evidence for Mary and considered hiring Maric’s friend to protect him as he prepared to face the ambassador’s Beyonder.

• Audrey asked Fors and Xio to find a capable assassin for Bakerland Jean Madan, offering 4,000 pounds and fees for their help.
• Mr. A demanded either a high-sequence potion formula or 10,000 pounds, and Audrey chose the cash payment with 2,000 pounds upfront.
• Klein told Mary that her husband had visited the Cragg Club and identified Erica Taylor; Mary arranged to get him into the club so he could gather proof of an affair.
• Klein visited Bravehearts Bar to mislead the ambassador’s allies and found Maric, who offered his stronger friend’s protection for 1,000 pounds over three days.
• Klein asked for time to raise the money and said he would choose the protection dates within the next two weeks.

Klein confirmed that Mr. A was likely to carry out the assassination of Ambassador Bakerland and told Audrey her decision to hire him was sound, while warning her not to appear in person. After arranging a payment and checking the reliability of Maric’s friend as a potential bodyguard, Klein met Mary Gale, Allen Kreis, and Talym Dumont at the Cragg Club.

• Klein listened to Audrey’s report that Mr. A had agreed to assassinate Ambassador Bakerland for ten thousand pounds or potion formulas, and he decided not to provide Aurora Order members with the Unshadowed formula.
• Klein divined that hiring Maric’s friend as his bodyguard carried little risk and that Bakerland would face a deadly threat from Mr. A.
• Klein told Audrey that her decision was correct, warned her not to appear in person, and requested one thousand pounds for his adorer’s operating expenses in place of the Light Suppliant formula.
• Audrey arranged the one-thousand-pound payment, and Klein confirmed that it had reached the anonymous account by Thursday.
• Klein met Mary Gale at the Cragg Club, where he greeted surgeon Allen Kreis and riding instructor Talym Dumont.

After joining the Cragg Club, Klein received a premonition of great danger and hired Maric’s unseen associate to protect him. He returned home and glimpsed the pale woman guarding him in his mirror.

• Klein paid the Cragg Club’s fees, received his membership badge, and toured the club before settling into a lounge.
• Klein sensed an omen, divined that great danger awaited him in the next few days, and dreamed of Ian beneath a red moon.
• Klein withdrew a hundred pounds from the Bank of Backlund and agreed to pay Maric a hundred pounds upfront and three hundred pounds per day for protection.
• Maric told Klein that his associate had begun protecting him covertly, though Klein could not detect her during the ride home.
• Klein saw his reflection change into a pale woman in a black court dress, who curtsied before vanishing from the mirror.

Klein learned from Ian Wright how the espionage case over the Hermosuin Manuscript unfolded and realized his own unmasked identity had left him trapped in danger. After Ian departed, Klein resolved that killing the Intis ambassador was his best chance to remove the threat.

• Ian Wright visited Klein to apologize and explained that Detective Zerrell had been a Feynapotter spy who trained homeless children to gather intelligence.
• Ian recounted how Zerrell found a clue to Turan von Hermosuin’s manuscript, was killed, and left an emergency contact method in a false tooth that Ian used to reach his superior.
• Ian said Intis agents ambushed him, while Military Intelligence Section 9 rescued him and learned the manuscript’s location.
• Klein deduced that a traitor near Zerrell’s superior had exposed the spy network and caused Zerrell’s death and Ian’s ambushes.
• Klein reviewed his own mistakes and concluded that failing to disguise himself made fleeing dangerous, so he planned to assassinate the ambassador to eliminate the risk.
• Ian left to hide from the authorities, and Klein watched him disappear into the moonlight as the mysterious woman vanished from the bay window.

Klein waited at home for a possible attack while the Intis ambassador Bakerland attended a ball and arranged to seize the Hermosuin Manuscript. The chapter ended with Bakerland exposing Irene as an attacker and demanding to know who had sent her.

• Klein decided to stay home and rely on his preparations rather than seek shelter, and he convinced his hidden bodyguard that he was a Beyonder.
• Sergeant Faxin rang Klein’s doorbell, leaving Klein to wonder why the police officer had come.
• Bakerland attended a ball at the Intis embassy while his operatives pursued Ian Wright and the manuscript, hoping Rosago would secure it and escape Military Intelligence Section 9.
• Bakerland met Irene at the ball and took her to his room, where spider-like legs emerged from her hands as she attacked him.
• Bakerland struck Irene, subdued her, and demanded to know who had sent her.

Bakerland was assassinated by a Shepherd of the Aurora Order, who escaped after overcoming the ambassador’s defenses. At 15 Minsk Street, Klein received a warning from Sergeant Faxin to stay safe and beware of strangers.

• Bakerland tortured Irene for information, but a Rose Bishop emerged from her body and killed her.
• The Shepherd trapped Bakerland in an isolated space by distorting the ambassador’s own rules, then revealed his identities and abilities.
• Bakerland used a puppet to immobilize the Shepherd, but a cough caused by disease broke his control.
• The Shepherd used a recorded ability to become a dark knight and cut Bakerland in two.
• The Shepherd escaped through the embassy walls before the military attachés arrived.
• Klein cautiously opened his door after a coin toss, and Sergeant Faxin warned him to stay safe and beware of strangers.