Chapter Summaries

Klein traced a new lead in Hynas Vincent’s death after learning that a man in his portrait had secretly met Vincent and asked about the Main Peak of Hornacis. Swain’s recollection connected the man to books Klein had borrowed and possibly to the transaction involving the Antigonus Notebook.

• Klein showed Angelica a portrait, and she recalled seeing the man speak quietly with Hynas Vincent about a month earlier.
• Klein reflected on his Seer rules and noticed that his Spirit Vision had improved, marking progress in digesting his potion.
• Klein brought the portrait to Dunn, who assigned Old Neil to make copies and arranged for the team and police to identify the man.
• Klein visited the Evil Dragon Bar to stock up on mysticism supplies and asked its owner, Swain, about the portrait.
• Swain recognized the man and recalled that he had asked about documents and items related to the Main Peak of Hornacis.
• Klein connected Swain’s account to the periodicals he had borrowed from the Deville Library and wondered whether the man had witnessed the transaction involving the Antigonus Notebook.

Klein investigated the man connected to Hynas Vincent, buying occult supplies before tracing his journal borrowing records to Sirius Arapis, a cloth merchant. Meanwhile, Audrey accepted Glaint’s invitation to a salon where she might meet a Beyonder.

• Klein questioned Swain about the man in the portrait and learned he had come to the Evil Dragon Bar with Hynas Vincent, but Swain did not know his name.
• Klein encountered Admisol in the underground market, then bought and organized several ritual ingredients and noticed the young woman browsing a book about witches.
• At the Crown Racetrack, Audrey pretended to be excited when Glaint said he had met a Beyonder, and he invited her to a salon at his home the next afternoon.
• Klein used his police identification to obtain Deville Library borrowing records for relevant journals and found one matching borrower: Sirius Arapis, a cloth merchant living at 19 Howes Street.

Klein traced the mysterious borrower to Howes Street and unexpectedly encountered him at Deville Library. After the man attacked him in a monstrous form, Klein killed him and began searching his clothes.

• Klein connected the borrower’s library records to Howes Street and reasoned that Hynas Vincent might have met him through Sirius Arapis.
• Klein decided to leave the investigation to his captain and teammates, but recognized Sirius as he entered Deville Library to return periodicals.
• A librarian recognized Sirius as a criminal and alerted Klein, prompting Sirius to flee through a bay window while Klein shot him with a silver Demon Hunting Bullet.
• Klein pursued the wounded Sirius, sensed danger as his blood turned black, and fired repeatedly when Sirius transformed and lunged at him.
• Klein struck Sirius with his cane until he collapsed, reloaded his revolver, and searched the corpse’s pockets.

Klein read Sirius Arapis's letter and learned that the Antigonus Family controlled part of the Seer Pathway and may have left a treasure in the ruins on Hornacis's main peak. After securing the scene of Sirius's death, Klein prepared to use Spirit Channeling to uncover the Clown potion formula from his spirit.

• Klein searched Sirius's belongings and found a letter addressed to Mr. Z explaining why Sirius and Hynas had sold the Antigonus Family Notebook.
• Klein learned from the letter that the Antigonus Family controlled the Seer Pathway and that Sirius believed its hidden treasure lay in the ruins on Hornacis's main peak.
• Klein connected the Antigonus Family, the Secret Order, and his own Seer potion to the whispers about Hornacis, while resolving not to pursue the dangerous treasure.
• Klein realized that the three potion formulas Sirius had learned from the notebook might include the Clown formula and considered searching Sirius's memories.
• Klein identified himself to the onlookers, ordered them to secure the scene, and prepared a Spirit Channeling ritual to question Sirius's spirit.

Klein learned the Clown potion formula by channeling Sirius’s spirit, but a blood-red flash from a pendant depicting the Hanged Giant shattered the vision and destroyed the remaining spirit. After reporting the incident to Dunn and the others, Klein returned home and prepared dinner for Melissa and Benson.

• Klein performed a spirit-channeling ritual around Sirius’s corpse and learned the Clown potion’s ingredients from Sirius’s writing.
• Sirius prayed with a pendant depicting a chained, upside-down giant, whose eye flashed red and violently disrupted Klein’s spirit channeling.
• Klein concluded Sirius was likely connected to the Aurora Order and reported the pendant and his investigation to Dunn, Leonard, and Kenley.
• Klein explained how Swain’s information led him to Deville Library, where the librarian’s call for police help had forced him to confront Sirius.
• Dunn praised Klein for thwarting a conspiracy against Tingen City and sent him home to rest.
• Klein fell asleep on the sofa, woke before Melissa and Benson returned, and began preparing dinner.

Klein learned that the Nighthawks had recovered the Clown potion formula and hired a private detective to investigate a red chimney and a suspected Psychology Alchemist. Meanwhile, Audrey arrived at Viscount Glaint’s villa, where he told her that a Beyonder writer was there.

• At dinner, Klein told Benson and Melissa that he expected to earn extra pay as a part-time historical consultant and encouraged Benson to study.
• At the Nighthawks’ meeting, Kenley reported that Sirius Arapis belonged to the Aurora Order and that the team had recovered several potion formulas, including the Sequence 8 Clown formula.
• Dunn warned Klein to restrain himself and wait three years before pursuing the Clown potion, while Siga said Tris had likely fled Tingen.
• Klein continued his lessons and training, then hired Detective Henry to investigate houses with a red chimney and find a man who frequented the Evil Dragon Bar.
• At Viscount Glaint’s villa, Glaint welcomed Audrey and told her that a Beyonder writer had arrived.

Audrey met Fors Wall, a Beyonder and author, who asked Audrey and Glaint to help free her imprisoned companion in exchange for access to Beyonder knowledge and potion materials. Meanwhile, Klein took his turn guarding the Chanis Gate, where Dunn warned him never to open it in response to anything he heard.

• Audrey met Fors Wall at Glaint's salon and closely observed her behavior before they spoke privately.
• Fors demonstrated her ability to pass through a locked door, convincing Audrey that she was a Beyonder.
• Fors offered to introduce Audrey and Glaint to Beyonders and provide potion formulas and materials if they helped free her imprisoned companion.
• Fors said her companion faced a final trial after using excessive methods to persuade a scoundrel, and Audrey asked what charge led to her imprisonment.
• Klein began his Chanis Gate guard duty, and Dunn warned him never to open the Gate unless it opened from the inside.

On his first night guarding Chanis Gate, Klein witnessed the Misfortune Cloth Doll force the gate open, display a paper marked with secret symbols, and get dragged back inside. Alarmed by the contradiction with its official file, he summoned Leonard Mitchell and the other Nighthawks.

• Klein kept watch in the underground duty room, reading and drinking coffee while reflecting on his family and his life away from home.
• Klein heard violent pounding behind Chanis Gate and watched the gate open a crack.
• A cloth doll in a black court gown showed Klein a paper covered in secret symbols before something dragged it back behind the gate.
• Klein recalled the file on Sealed Artifact 3-0625, the Misfortune Cloth Doll, and questioned how it could move and what the symbols meant.
• Klein pulled the alarm cord, and Leonard Mitchell and the other Nighthawks hurried underground.

Klein and the Nighthawks investigated an unexplained disturbance at Chanis Gate and suspected the Antigonus Family Notebook had affected the Misfortune Cloth Doll. After the night watch ended, Klein realized he had forgotten to report the paper he saw in the doll’s hand and suspected something had influenced him to keep silent.

• Leonard, Kenley, and Loyao checked that Klein had not lost control after he reported that Chanis Gate had opened briefly and the Misfortune Cloth Doll had appeared.
• Leonard and Loyao reasoned that the Antigonus Family Notebook was the likely cause of the doll’s unusual behavior, while Leonard explained Chanis Gate’s nighttime protections.
• Klein finished his shift and reported the disturbance and the deduction to Captain Dunn, who said he would contact the Holy Cathedral.
• Klein remembered seeing a paper in the doll’s hand and realized a subtle force might have prevented him from telling the other Nighthawks.
• Klein wondered whether the notebook had caused the doll to reveal the paper specifically to him, and hesitated over whether to return and report it.

Klein used divination to confirm that the pattern shown by the Misfortune Cloth Doll was connected to the Antigonus Family’s treasure, then learned that the notebook had been reclassified as a Grade 1 Sealed Artifact. He left for the Divination Club while Melissa attended a household lecture with Selena and Elizabeth.

• Klein returned home and used the space above the gray fog to reproduce and divine the vertical-eye pattern shown by the doll.
• Klein confirmed that the pattern was the key to the Antigonus Family’s treasure and divined that the treasure was connected to the Hornacis Mountain Range and the ancient Nation of Evernight.
• Klein answered a prayer from a youth speaking Dragonese, who pleaded for someone to save his father and mother, but chose to wait until he understood more.
• Klein learned from Dunn Smith that the Holy Cathedral had classified the Antigonus Family Notebook as a Grade 1 Sealed Artifact and confirmed that only 3-0625 had shown abnormalities.
• Klein left for the Divination Club, while Melissa, Selena, and Elizabeth waited for a household lecture and discussed sneaking out to go shopping.

Melissa, Selena, and Elizabeth left a household-expense lecture after the speaker praised women’s submission to men. Meanwhile, Klein’s coin divination warned him away from the Divination Club, where Selena and Elizabeth later looked for a diviner and learned he was absent.

• Melissa, Selena, and Elizabeth listened to Saviah Heda’s lecture until she claimed women should accept their fathers’ and husbands’ words as religious faith, then they slipped out.
• Selena suggested visiting Harold Department Store, but Melissa decided to go home and study and remembered the errands she had to do while Klein worked.
• Klein divined that it was unsuitable to visit the Divination Club, so he took a carriage toward Daffodil Street instead.
• Selena confessed that she felt guilty about her teacher Hynas Vincent’s death and asked Elizabeth to accompany her to the Divination Club for a divination.
• Selena and Elizabeth found Klein Moretti’s name in the club directory, but Angelica told them he had not come that day.

Audrey considered how to help Xio Derecha while keeping her connection to Fors Wall concealed, then discovered that Susie could speak. Klein questioned Azik about his unusual insight into Klein’s fate, and Azik revealed his memory loss, contradictory dreams, and belief that Klein had gained extraordinary abilities.

• Audrey decided to ask Glaint to follow a barrister’s advice for Xio Derecha’s case, and wondered whether psychiatrists could lead her to the Psychology Alchemists.
• Audrey caught Susie secretly practicing speech, and Susie admitted that she did not know how to explain its ability to talk.
• Klein visited Azik at Hoy University and asked why he had called Klein’s fate incongruous.
• Azik said he had lost most of his memories before entering Backlund University and had since discovered strange abilities beyond common sense.
• Azik described contradictory dreams of different lives and suggested they might be fragments of his previous lives.
• Azik told Klein that he could see Klein was no longer ordinary and possessed extraordinary abilities like his own.

Klein promised Azik he would watch for clues to Azik’s past, then joined the Tarot Club, where Audrey asked about the uses of a Beyonder pet and presented another page of Roselle’s diary. The diary revealed Roselle’s alarm that the world had no petroleum.

• Azik asked Klein to remember any clues about his origins, and Klein agreed.
• Azik invited Klein to visit after the university term and described his plans to vacation in Winter County.
• Audrey asked the Tarot Club what a Beyonder pet could do, and Alger suggested that a Spectator pet could eavesdrop unnoticed.
• Audrey gave Mr. Fool another page of Roselle’s diary, and Klein read that Roselle was troubled by the absence of petroleum in the world.

Klein read Roselle's diary and learned that oil had not appeared in the world, then guided the Tarot Club members through questions and an exchange of information. He established rules for recruiting new members, requiring them to keep the gathering secret and forbidding outsiders from reciting his name without permission.

• Klein read Roselle's diary entries about the lack of oil, public sanitation plans, and a mysterious organization, then wondered what that organization was called.
• Audrey asked about the Arbitrator potion and Beyonders who could pass through wooden doors, while Alger requested that she investigate whether the king planned to attack the Feynapotter Empire.
• Alger identified the door-passing Beyonder as a Sequence 9 Apprentice and explained that Arbiter was the starting Sequence of the Augustus and Castiya families' pathway.
• Alger asked whether the True Creator's sanctuary was the Forsaken Land of the Gods, and Klein refused to answer, saying Alger should not know yet.
• Audrey asked whether she could join another organization or recommend new Tarot Club members, and Klein allowed outside memberships while requiring him to approve any recruits.
• Klein instructed Audrey and Alger not to hint at the Tarot Club's existence to outsiders and said no outsider could recite his name without permission.

Klein struggled to leave his rare day off behind and went to the Divination Club, where Glacis and Christina asked him about the swindler Lanarvus. After learning that Christina might have a connection to Lanarvus’s child, Klein was left wondering whether the child could help him divine the swindler’s whereabouts.

• Klein reluctantly decided to visit the Divination Club and continue digesting his Seer potion.
• Glacis and Christina told Klein that Lanarvus had vanished after swindling more than a hundred people with a fake iron mine.
• Klein advised Christina and Glacis to remain patient and restrained, but said he could not divine Lanarvus’s location without reliable information or an item he had kept close.
• Glacis told Klein that victims were offering ten pounds for verified clues and a hundred pounds for help catching Lanarvus.
• After serving two more clients, Klein encountered Christina again, and she asked whether Lanarvus’s child could count as a related item for divination.

Klein learned that Megose was pregnant with Lanarvus’s child, then memorized the swindler’s wanted description and continued his investigation into a man who had bought Spectator potion ingredients. The chapter ended with Detective Henry identifying that man as Duster Guderian, a doctor at Greenhill Asylum.

• Christina asked Klein for help finding Lanarvus and explained that her niece Megose was pregnant with his child; Megose refused to consider ending the pregnancy and left, believing Lanarvus might return for their baby.
• Klein learned that Lanarvus was wanted for swindling more than ten thousand pounds and memorized his appearance from the newspaper notice.
• Dunn told Klein that Siga Tron and Frye were investigating a suspected haunting in the West Borough, while Klein remained restricted to mysticism lessons and combat training.
• Klein visited Detective Henry and paid the second installment for information about the man who frequented the Evil Dragon Bar.
• Detective Henry told Klein that the man was Duster Guderian, a doctor at Greenhill Asylum.

Klein contacted Duster Guderian, identified him as a member of the Psychology Alchemists, and persuaded him to cooperate with the Nighthawks as an informant. Dunn approved Klein’s handling of the situation and assigned him responsibility for maintaining contact with Duster.

• Klein planned how to approach Duster while keeping his identity and intentions concealed.
• Klein visited Duster at Greenhill Asylum, revealed that he was a Nighthawk, and used Duster’s reaction to confirm he was a Spectator.
• Klein proposed limited cooperation, and Duster agreed to share information that could help prevent harm without betraying his organization’s secrets.
• Duster told Klein that he had joined the Psychology Alchemists through a patient named Hood Eugen, and they arranged a covert way to communicate.
• Klein reported the meeting to Dunn, who approved his actions, asked for a written account, and made Klein responsible for contacting Duster.

Klein’s training and quiet routine continued as he prepared to finish digesting the Seer potion and considered how to obtain the Clown formula ingredients. Leonard then recruited him for a Nighthawk investigation into a fivefold increase in deaths across Tingen, leaving Klein on his way to join his first group mission.

• Klein reflected on his progress, the Tarot Club, and possible ways to find the red-chimney house connected to his unresolved investigation.
• Leonard met Klein outside Gawain’s house and said the captain had assigned him to work with Leonard and Frye.
• Klein read reports of recent deaths and learned that Tingen’s death toll over the past two weeks was five times normal.
• Leonard explained that the Nighthawks, Mandated Punishers, and Machinery Hivemind were investigating the deaths, with Klein, Leonard, and Frye assigned to Lower Street, Iron Cross Street.
• Klein agreed to leave a note at home before joining the investigation and wondered whether this would be his first group mission as a Nighthawk.

Klein, Leonard, and Frye investigated the death of Mrs. Louwise in the Lower Street of Iron Cross Street, where poverty and overcrowding shaped the lives of its residents. Although Frye identified heart disease as the cause, Klein’s coin divination indicated that Beyonder factors had influenced her death.

• Klein and Leonard discussed the lack of patterns in recent deaths, and Leonard explained that Nighthawks could consult records of past Beyonder cases.
• Leonard, Klein, and Frye entered the Lower Street and went to Number 134 to examine Mrs. Louwise’s body.
• Louwise told the investigators that his wife had complained of chest tightness and had died after resting, while he described the family’s poverty and their crowded room.
• Frye examined Mrs. Louwise and concluded that she had died of heart disease.
• Klein divined that Beyonder factors had influenced Mrs. Louwise’s death.

Klein, Leonard, and Frye investigated Mrs. Louwise's death and Sols's attempted arson at the West Borough workhouse, finding no direct supernatural evidence. Frye suggested Sols might have been incited by a Beyonder, leading Klein to suspect Tris, though that theory did not explain Mrs. Louwise's death.

• Klein used Spirit Channeling and Dream Divination to review Mrs. Louwise's final moments and saw a fair, slender hand tap her from behind.
• Frye confirmed that Mrs. Louwise had died of natural heart disease, and he left Louwise money for her burial.
• The three Nighthawks went to the West Borough workhouse to investigate Sols's arson and learned about his despair and resentment before the fire.
• Klein and Leonard found no supernatural influence in Sols's case and initially set it aside.
• Frye proposed that a Beyonder might have incited Sols without using supernatural powers, and Klein suggested the Instigator, Tris.