I tottered toward my room, managing to feel both wretched and satisfied at the same time. My younger self was a little asshole, but he was my kind of asshole, and he was starting to warm to me, at least insofar as such a little monster could. I had to show him how to be human, yes, but he was showing me how to be a demon, too. We were both of those things, after all. An extended brush with death was worth it to hear the stories he told of working with Mother in all her travels, of demons, Fae, and other things I'd never dreamed of. Most precious of all were the moments he spoke of during the time he'd lived with her here in Treledyne. Those were my memories, formed before she'd stolen my card and long since lost to me. They'd sneaked into the palace once and she'd let me take a shit on Hestorus's pillow without anyone knowing. I'd laughed hard enough to shed a card at that one.

Now I had to figure out how to keep myself awake until the day began. The lack of sleep dragged at me in my fragile state, leaving my bones cold and my eyes fuzzy, but sleeping might be the end of me, and I wasn't going to let myself die without getting my cards back. I stumped over to the small desk in my servant's quarters and withdrew the King's journal from where I'd hidden it. Maybe I could find something useful in it.

I'd done no more than open it when the door banged open. I clutched at my chest as I staggered to my feet. Pulling Source felt like forcing molten stone through my veins, but I did it anyway, fumbling for cards with my other hand.

Basil charged in, his sweat-matted blond hair free of that moronic helmet. "Hull, it's time to go."

"Go?" I repeated dully.

"I've killed Felstrife and the rest of the Undead will know it in minutes, if they don't already. We have to reach the necromancers now before they're ready for us."

An extra-real slip of a girl darted in after him, her curly hair fresh as if she'd just come from freshening for a party. "Hey, Esmi," I grunted, leaning on the desk. "Tell him to slow down for a second, will you?"

She gave me a rueful smile. "No chance of that. He's got the bit in his teeth, and given that collecting my body is next of the list of tasks, I'm not keen to slow him down."

I blinked at them, my brain finally catching up to what he'd said. "You killed Felstrife?" That's right; his Assassin told me they were fighting. Twins, how could I let that slip my mind? I'm worse off than I thought.

"Load up," Basil said peremptorily, gesturing to the hand of cards I now held. "We're going in fully summoned."

I swallowed hard. I'd told him I'd fight for him, and now it looked like he meant to take me up on the offer. "I'm not in great shape," I told them even as I kept pulling Source. I tucked the journal into my waistband to free up my hands and summoned my new, stronger Vampiric Blade. "Mother took my soul card – don't worry, I'll get it back – and I think even a light hit with an empty Mind Home would kill me."

"Then we'd best not let that happen," Basil said firmly, leading us out into the corridor. He turned to his Master Assassin, who was waiting in the hallway looking murderous. "Lead the way, will you? We need to go quickly."

The Soul didn't carry me this time, for which I was both grateful and regretful. I was left to scurry after Basil and his dead love, both of whom seemed to move at double speed. Within minutes we were surrounded by a crowd of other summons: Basil's flying knight girl, a bunch of Life beasts, and my own little troop of demons. I had to be careful not to put on my Iron Maiden Plate until I had my Ravening Hatchlings in hand and my Talisman of Spite 'round my neck. I couldn't afford any stray card losses if I hoped to be of any use in a fight. It felt like such a strange reversal: I was used to being the one spoiling for a fight with Basil hanging back, but this little lordling trotting ahead of me was a different kind of creature. He was ready to kill. He had killed, and a Mythic at that. I wanted to ask him about it, but I couldn't catch my breath.

The Assassin stopped. "We're close. Just down these stairs." We were in the lowest levels of the palace now. The air was cold and the elemental lights were few and far between. "They keep the bodies in a guarded room at the end of the hall. The necromancers have set up a bunch of Structures creating zombies and skeletons. The whole floor is littered with them. You'll have to deal with those."

"My Wildfires will do the trick," I said. "We keep our Souls back for a bjt and I'll clear the way."

"No, wait," Esmi said, frowning. "We run the risk of not catching the Structures themselves in the area of effect as we're running in, and if we want to get in and out quickly, you won't refresh fast enough to do the same thing as we exit. Zombies and skeletons are slow. We should run in and ignore them as we go. Then as we're leaving we clear the board."

"I don't like leaving enemies behind us," Basil said grimly.

"You've both already summoned a good portion of your Souls," she countered. "An Equality would be wasted."

"Fair enough," he responded, the ghost of a smile on his lips as he looked at her. I hadn't seen him do that in a while. "We need to go now before news of Felstrife reaches them."

I nodded and braced myself on the handrail leading down the stairs. "Let's do this, then."

I felt Basil's hand on my shoulder. "I'll keep an eye on you."

Normally that would have deserved a sharp response, but all I could do was nod. Truth was that I needed him to keep an eye on me. I really wasn't up to this. Too damn bad. The Twins don't wait for you to be in top shape before throwing you into the shit. One foot in front of the other.

When we reached the foot of the stairs, I could see what the Assassin had been talking about. Placed at regular intervals along the hallway were Graveyards with large clusters of Undead milling around them.

There must have been other generators down some of the intersecting hallways, because there weren't just Zombies in front of us.

"Let's go!" Basil barked, taking me under one arm. I felt someone else grab my other arm – it was Esmi – and they frog-marched me down the hall at a near run. I'd have yelled at them for it, but it was the only thing that made sense. We needed to go fast and get past all these lurchers, and I'd only slow us down and get us bogged into a fight we didn't want. I stepped quick and took as much of my own weight as I could as we ducked and weaved through the slow-responding crowd of moaning, lurching corpses. Everything smelled like… well, like a graveyard. Dirt, decay, and death. I grunted out an order for my demons to follow and not attack.

A few of the Undead took slow swipes at us as we ran, but Basil's Bodyguard danced about intercepting the damage to both Basil and Esmi, dealing its own in return. I saw one of my Bog Imps go down and the Spell Drinker took a hit, but we went fast enough that mostly we just left the intruders shambling in our wake. "Hope this doesn't bite us on the ass on the way out," I said weakly.

"Me too," Basil said. "But if it does, we'll deal with it."

We burst through the doors, Esmi and Basil letting me go at the same time to be freer to fight. I stumbled and went down to one knee with a grunt, but with the help of my Vampiric Blade I managed to haul myself back upright without embarrassing myself by pitching over onto my face.

"Come to bargain, I see," said the necromancer lord we'd bullied earlier in the evening. He looked considerably less scared sitting on his throne on the far side of the room with a squad of hefty guards blocking the way and a squad of robed necromancers at his side..

"I'll give you the same deal I gave the lich," Basil said, rummaging in his pockets.

"Felstrife doesn't bargain with her captives," the necromancer scoffed.

"No, she doesn't," Basil said, throwing a handful of small somethings onto the floor between the opposing groups of Souls. I squinted to see what he'd thrown and saw the necromancers all do the same.

They were finger bones. Old, withered, taloned. They were Felstrife's fingers.

I heard one of the necromancer acolytes utter a fervent curse, and the coward on his throne blanched. "Impossible," he cried. "You expect me to believe that a lich of eight hundred years could fall to a boy of your age? A Rare?"

"I'm an Epic," Basil shot back. "And all I expect is your death."

I shot a surprised glance at my friend at his words. He hadn't said anything about that! I supposed we'd been otherwise occupied, and it had been too dark in the corridors to see his eyes well… but if he said it, I believed it. Hot damn, maybe this will work.

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"By the way," Basil continued casually. "I figured out the secret to lichdom. And I will never, ever tell you what it is."

Basil's Souls charged, and I sent mine into the fray as well. The winged knight shot across the space to attack the necromancer lord directly, and he flicked a finger, directing his Souls. An Undead I'd never seen before reared up higher than I'd thought possible as if its back was made of putty. It roared, swinging a bone club. The knight swung her sword with a shockingly loud cry, and the Undead Soul shattered into a profusion of light motes. I blinked. I had a decent innate sense now for how much damage a Soul should be able to take just by eyeballing it, and that Undead looked like a tough one, with five or six health at least. I knew Basil's card; she shouldn't do that much damage.

"Did you elevate your knight somehow?" I asked him.

"Just for the moment," he said with a grim smile. "New ability. I'll show you later."

Then a beam of darkness flew from the necromancer lord's hand and struck the winged knight, and she disappeared into shadow and vanished. Basil hissed, clutching at his head. "Damn," he grunted. "I'd hoped they had to attack him directly before he could do that."

"What did he do?" I asked, baffled. I was pointing out targets to my demons as we spoke, and they were scattering to attack and defend.

"He has an ability that can steal a card out of your Mind Home if he does damage to it," he said. "Be careful."

If the bastard could pick off cards that weren't even attacking him, I wasn't sure how I could be careful about it, exactly. Other than to just kill the son of a bitch quick. That sounded ideal. I had just the thing.

I sent the zap from my Talisman arcing after the initial damage of the Spell itself, and both hammered home onto the necromancer lord on his throne.

He screamed in rage and tossed four cards out of hand to block it. I'd hoped to strip him of some cards from his Mind Home, but emptying his hand was good enough for the moment.

Looking around, I saw Esmi about to square off with a Wight that had slipped through our lines. Shit. As fierce a duelist as Esmi had been, she was kind of useless for a battle like this. I didn't want to find out how Basil might respond if he saw her destroyed. He was tougher now than he'd been; perhaps it would drive him to greater resolve. On the other hand, it might reduce him to a sobbing sack of flesh. Now was no time to discover which would happen. Flexing myself internally, I willed myself between her and her attacker using my soul ability.

Nothing happened.

You moron, your mother has your soul card. You don't have Intervene anymore. The thought came and went in a flash as Esmi waited for the blow to land. But my card's not dead yet. It's still connected to me somehow. I wasn't sure if that mattered as much as a mouse's turd, but I needed to use my ability. I had to. It almost felt as if I should still be able to feel the ability within myself. Once again, feeling hopeless, I stretched within myself, flexing my torn soul until the wound within me throbbed and lights danced before my eyes.

Some invisible barrier gave way, and with a flash, I found myself face-to-face with the Wight, who somehow managed to look dumbfounded despite having no face. I laughed, giddy. I had no idea how or why that had worked, but it did! "Back off," I told the wight.

That wasn't how Fated damage worked, of course. The Undead's swing never reached me; my Vampiric Blade separated its head from its shoulders. I felt a minor jolt as a two destroyed cards returned to my Mind Home from the Blade's Lifesap.

"Thanks," Esmi said, sounding shaken. "I'm not used to being a stone on the board instead of the one playing."

I wanted to say something reassuring, but just then I saw an Aberrant Creation bearing down on Basil's badly wounded Master Shieldbearer. The Undead were focusing on Basil; letting the Soul die now would leave my friend exposed to more attackers. Willing myself into the path of the monster's heavy blow, I used my Intervene yet again. It was easy this time. It was disorienting to get jerked from one spot to another so quickly, and my head spun as the blow hammered home.

If I'd known I was going to Intervene again, I wouldn't have used my Blade to kill the Wight and saved it for this much tougher enemy. Dammit. I'm not thinking clearly enough to be in a fight like this. I did 1 damage all on my own due to my soul card – now that I'd pushed through whatever that resistance was I figured I likely had access to that too. At the last moment I focused my remaining Nether into the return blow. The 2 damage I dealt wasn't nearly enough to kill it, but it did knock a fairly disgusting hole in its distended belly. My Plate absorbed most of the damage the thing dealt, and I tossed a Ravening Hatchling out of hand to absorb the last of the incoming hurt.

A moment later the end-of-turn damage from my surviving Marauder and my Plate surged out of my Talisman, and that was enough to kill the damned thing. I swayed on my feet, sending a silent prayer to the Twins that I hadn't fainted in the middle of it all. I couldn't believe what I'd just done. In the back of my mind I thought I could feel my Uncommon soul card calling to me from somewhere in the palace above and to the left of me.

"Twelve take me," Basil panted as he ordered his Souls about. "You might not be at the top of your game, my friend, but you still pack a mean punch. Many thanks."

I was about to send a Marauder after the necromancer bastard so we could knock him down and be done, but suddenly Esmi was at my side. "Wait," she said, peering at my hand. "Use your other Unstable Rift on him and then attack with several of your biggest Souls at once. If you send them in one at a time he'll just pick them off. Don't bother attacking the summons; I think he has a soul ability that is keeping them alive somehow. Some kind of buff."

I grunted in agreement. A distant part of me wondered if I should be angry at her for essentially playing my hand for me, but the closer part – the part that knew how close to death I was – was grateful for the help. I was bound to start misplaying if left to my own devices. Esmi had always been the best duelist amongst us anyhow.

I sent my surviving Marauder, the upgraded Root Imp, and my Night Terror streaming toward the head necromancer even as I shot off my other Unstable Rift.

That same black beam of nothingness came from the bastard's hand, consuming the Marauder before he arrived. I felt a vicious yank in my Mind Home and knew he was gone. Son of a bitch! Of course he'd targeted the strongest one. This guy might be a snivelling pile of shit, but he wasn't stupid. I felt a grim satisfaction as he got hammered by the one-two punch of the Unstable Rift and my Talisman's aftershock. The Root Imp got blocked by his last Aberrant Creation, but the Night Terror raked him from top to bottom. In a handful of heartbeats the man shed a boatload of card confetti. He had to be nearly empty. As if he'd heard my thought, he stumbled up from his throne, a look of hatred on his face.

"Come, my children!" he shrieked. "Leave them to their poor rewards. We die when we choose, not when the meatsacks say so."

The acolytes had been moving among the fallen Undead that were actual creatures, not summons, and as one they fell back.

"You're not leaving!" Basil shouted, rage painting his face. "Give me that card back!"

"Perhaps I'll break her just for fun," the necromancer sneered as they all retreated for the door at the rear of the room. "I'll send you the shards one by one."

Basil started after him, but Esmi laid a hand on his arm. "My love, is there not a more important task?"

His eyes softened as he looked to her. "Yes. Yes, of course. Forgive me; I have been so terribly angry of late."

Her face tightened for just a moment. "I know exactly what you mean," she whispered.

He swept her into an brief, tight embrace. "How selfish I am. Come, let's get your body." He turned to the Master Assassin, who I'd seen dart in occasionally during the fight but had remained unscathed. "Where are the bodies?"

"Through there," the soul said in his gravelly voice. He pointed to a door half-hidden behind the empty throne. "Center shelf at the bottom, so long as they haven't moved her."

Basil and Esmi rushed in and I followed as best I could. By the time I got there, the Master Assassin was shouldering Esmi's body up from a stone slab set into the wall. Her Soul looked on, wringing her hands and looking vaguely ill. The body was remarkably well-preserved. If not for the total pallor of the face, I'd have thought she was merely sleeping… until the Assassin shifted his grip and I saw the cleaned, bloodless tear in her chest that must have killed her. "Twins," I whispered. The reality of her death suddenly hit home for me in a way it hadn't before. She was dead, and Basil was going to try to bring her back to life.

"Let's go," Basil said resolutely, holding tight to soul-Esmi's hand. "We need to get someplace safe."

"Down to the sewers and out of the palace," Esmi suggested.

"Won't work," I panted. "Talked to Mother. Sewers full of demon patrols. Too many attacks from Basil's dad's troops."

We'd worked our way back into the lair where we'd fought the necromancer, but at that moment the doors we'd originally come through banged open, revealing a huge crowd of zombies and skeletons.

"Blast. I forgot about those," Esmi said tightly.

I sighed. "I've got this," I said. Pulling on my Nether, I summoned a Spell.

Hefting my Vampiric Blade, I cut through the front ranks of the enemy, pushing forward with all my flagging strength. Strangely, I felt much better encased in my starlight skin than before. My body still knew something was wrong with me, but the wrongness felt more distant. Less urgent.

"Hull, you'll get yourself surrounded!" Basil called.

"That's the idea," I shouted back. I rammed myself into the crowd of Undead, cutting the ones down who got in my way bot otherwise simply getting as far into the hallway as I could. "You and Esmi keep back! I know what I'm doing."

I had to time it just right. Too soon and I'd miss too many of the summons and the Structures that was generating them; too late and my Sucking Void would expire and I'd die like a dog.

I waited until the last second, positioning myself right at the junction of the hallway where I could see all the Graveyards at once. Now.

It was an absolute blizzard of light shards. I couldn't see anything for several seconds. When I finally did, I heaved a sigh of relief. The hall was empty. Damn good thing; my Sucking Void guttered out right at that moment, and my Mind Home was scoured clean. My knees gave way and I fell to the floor, my Plate clanging on the stones.

Basil and Esmi hurried up several seconds later. They'd stayed clear of the blast. "That was incredible, Hull! Well done!" Basil almost sounded like his old self.

"Now what?" Esmi said.

"Afi can get us out," I said, "but she won't check on me until midnight. We're going to find the dustiest storeroom in the lowest level of the cellars and hide like a bunch of scared little bitches until she comes to get us. If Basil can do his thing with the resurrection staff before then, great. But either way, as soon as Afi shows up, we're getting the hell out of here."

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