The Adventure Society campus became a continual series of memorial services. There were so many dead that group memorials were being held one after another. First came the largest groups, made up of the least influential adventurers who had passed. The memorials took place on the north shore, where they could be easily overseen from the high terraces of the cloud palace. Gary and Rufus, as expedition members themselves, made their way out of the cloud palace to attend each and every one. Jason, Emir and the adventurers among Emir’s staff could all be found on the terraces at various times, looking on at the sombre proceedings.

After the larger group memorials came the smaller ones, each of the most prominent families having a service for the people they lost. Jason and Emir attended the service for the Geller family and Jason for the Mercers. He stood close by Cassandra, who held his hand tightly. Thadwick didn’t give Jason so much as a glance.

Rufus and Gary chose not to have Farrah memorialised until they took her home. Her casket was stowed away somewhere deep in the cloud palace. Rufus had notified her parents over water link, looking twice his age after. Neither Gary nor Rufus went back to the lodgings they had shared with Farrah. Jason went to settle accounts with Madam Landry and collect their things.

Before he took Sophie to perform her essence rituals, Jason took her and Belinda up to the terraces to see one of the memorials.

“Becoming an adventurer is an opportunity,” he told them, “but it’s also a danger.”

“You think we don’t know danger?” Sophie asked.

“Of course you do,” Jason said. “You know the worst kind; the malevolence you can only find in people. Monsters are different. They don’t hate you. They just want to kill you. An intelligent enemy can obsess over you. Pursue you relentlessly. But you can manipulate a malevolent enemy. You can reason with them, play on their fears and desires. That doesn’t work on a monster. One of you is better at killing than the other and that is the only question between you. No hesitation, no doubt. It’s a simpler danger than an avaricious crime lord but one that can’t be talked down or negotiated with. A monster’s only objective is to kill you.”

The two women looked at Jason. He was leaning on the railing as he looked at the memorial below without really seeing it. He continued to talk, gaze still caught in the distance.

“This life can kill you without giving any recourse,” he said. “It can and does take even the best of us. Being an adventurer can give you everything you ever wanted. Wealth, respect, power. For some, that’s all there is. They take it all without paying the price, but they aren’t really adventurers.”

He tapped an arm on the terrace railing.

“You’ll see amazing things, like a palace made of clouds. On almost any given day, there’s no better life than being  an adventurer. But there are some days, if you’re a real adventurer, where you earn all the others. You make the hard choices and put everything on the line. You walk through the fire so no one else has to.”

He finally turned to face the two women.

“Rufus gave me this speech the night before I completed my essence set, and now I’ve given it to you. You’ll have to choose for yourselves what kind of adventurers to be.”

“You don’t make being what you call a real adventurer sound very appealing,” Belinda said.

He gave them an odd smile, weary and a little sad, but with an underlying satisfaction.

“I wake up every morning, proud of who I am,” he told them. “I go out into the world, never regretting that I didn’t at least try and be the person I want to be. I face dangers and make mistakes. Sometimes I get beat, and sometimes I win. I stand up for what I believe in, whatever it costs me. When you give everything you have to be who you want to be, that’s freedom, whatever your circumstances.”

He turned his head to look down at the memorial currently happening below.

“If wealth and power are all you want,” he said, “then you can have them. Make all the safe choices and reap the rewards. Many adventurers do just that and, objectively, it’s the smart choice. But if you want to see who you really are, what you're really capable of, you have to push yourself to the limit. There's no better job for that than being an adventurer.”

Turned from the railing, looking at them straight on.

“You get the essences either way,” he said. “You have six months to decide what comes after. For now, Clive should have the room ready.”

On the way to one of Emir’s ritual rooms, they passed through one of the walkways connecting two wings of the palace. It was high up on the towers, spanning over the sea below. It was broad, with open-air sides and doubled as a garden. Flowering vines grew directly out of the cloud-stuff, lush green leaves and bright blossoms lining the sides of the walkway. Jason laughed as they walk through it.

“I don’t think I’ve gone a day in this palace without a pleasant surprise,” he said.

“Good,” Belinda said. “It’s not just us, then.”

“How do you find your way around?” Sophie asked. “We’ve gotten lost more than once.”

“One of my abilities maps all the places I go,” Jason said absently as he stepped to smell the flowers. “Can you smell that? This is amazing.”

“You think flowers are amazing?” Sophie asked.

“He stores this entire palace in a bottle not much bigger than your head and still successfully cultivates flowers. Where’s your sense of wonder?”

“Speaking of scents,” Belinda said, “what’s the perfume you’re wearing?”

“I’m not wearing one,” Jason said.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed,” Belinda said. “Lots of men wear scents.”

“I’m not worried about being embarrassed,” Jason said. “I’m really not wearing a scent.”

“Humans don't smell like that,” Belinda said. “Just a little bit of sweat and they smell like leather left in a damp cupboard. You smell more like an elf or a celestine, but even more so. Fresh, like, um…”

“Springtime,” Sophie said as Belinda searched for the right word.

“Yeah,” Belinda said, looking at Sophie with surprise. “That’s exactly it.”

“I’m not human,” Jason said. “This is just how I smell.”

He resumed his way along the cloudy garden path and Belinda shared a look with Sophie.

“He smells like springtime,” Belinda said.

“So what?” Sophie asked and followed after Jason.

The ritual room had the usual walls and ceiling made of cloud, but the floor was a single slab of black stone, cut perfectly level and smooth. Given that the room was around half the size of a basketball court, Jason was impressed. Clive was waiting for them, with a magic diagram drawn on the floor with lines of golden light.

“Clive is going to be doing the rituals,” Jason said. “We’d be here all day if it were me and he’s the expert, in any case.”

Clive's essence ability, Enact Ritual, made drawing-out and performing rituals much more convenient. Jason looked over the diagram, which had two magical circles partly overlapping as its core. Jason's knowledge of ritual magic included several essence rituals, but this was more complicated than anything he knew.

“I thought essence rituals were meant to be the simplest ones,” Jason said.

“This is a double-essence ritual circle,” Clive explained. “The idea is that absorbing more essences at once promotes inter-essence synergy. It’s yet to be proven effective due to our limited understanding of how abilities are selected, but it doesn’t hurt to try.”

“Two at once?” Sophie asked warily. “Will there be any side-effects?”

“None at all,” Clive said. “In fact, while studies have never been able to prove an increase in synergy, they have discovered that simultaneous absorption alleviates the purging effect compared to sequential absorption.”

“When you hit iron rank, your body will be improved through magic,” Jason said. “Part of that improvement is dumping out all the bits it doesn't like in the form of gunk.”

“Gunk?” Sophie asked.

“Lots of gunk,” Clive confirmed and pointed over at the side of the room where there was a small door. “As soon as you've absorbed your essences, go straight through there before it hits you. Belinda, you should join her as she may pass out. There is a shower in there for once she's done, and Jason kindly provided some of his crystal wash supply that I also left in there. There is also an extensive closet, from which Mr Bahadir said you may take anything you like to keep.”

“You might not even need the crystal wash,” Jason said as Sophie and Belinda wandered over to take a look into the next room. There was a shower large enough to lay down in, plus benches and cabinets.

“The shower will probably be enough,” Jason continued.

“That is a lie,” Clive said. “You will absolutely need the crystal wash. Won’t she, Jason?”

“Yes,” Jason sullenly conceded.

“If you knew Jason,” Clive said, “you would realise that he would rather part with those essences than his crystal wash. Speaking of which, do you have them?”

Jason took out the two essences had procured, along with five awakening stones, laying them all out on a bench sitting against the wall. The essences were cubes, shining with colour. The wind essence was a roiling mass of white mixed with streaks of pale grey and blue. The balance essence had its colours divided in a dead-straight line in the middle The colours of each side constantly shifted in contrast to the other: Red and blue, black and white, green and purple. Most of the awakening stones were a plain peach colour by comparison, while the last looked like an oversized glass eye.

“That one’s kind of creepy,” Belinda said, looking at the eyeball one.

“How do we even know those are what they say they are?” Sophie asked.

“Really?” Belinda asked, turning on her. “Are trying to get them to change their minds?”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Jason said. “Clive takes his experiment subjects from villages in the delta where people will just assume a monster got them.”

“What?” Clive asked.

“We still don’t know why Asano is doing any of this,” Sophie said. “If he’s in this to help us, then why give me essences when throwing us through a portal would get us away from everything?”

“Sophie!” Belinda scolded.

“No,” Jason said, his voice suddenly hard and cold, arresting everyone’s attention. The signature amused insouciance fell from his expression, his relaxed posture becoming firm. He locked his eyes with Sophie across the chamber.

“It’s hard for you to trust,” he told her.

“So?” she said, glaring back.

“The real answer is half-measures. I agreed to help you. Sending you away to live the same lives again just leads you to the same end. If I’m going to save you, then you’re going to stay saved, which means that when I’m done with you, you need the means to protect yourselves.”

He arrived in front of the bench with the essences, placing a hand on each.

“In this world, that means essences,” he said, picking them up.

“They are the line between acting and being acted upon,” he continued as he walked back toward Sophie. “They are the difference between dominion and obedience. Justice and iniquity. Controlling your destiny and being a pawn of fate.”

He held the essences out in front of her.

“Why doesn’t matter,” he said. “All that matters is the choice you make, right now. Sometimes the moments that define our lives go unnoticed until later. This is not one of those. I am offering you the chance to literally grasp your destiny. Take it or walk away, knowing that this is the moment in which everything that comes after is decided.”

He stood there, still holding out the essences.

Sophie looked at the essences in his hands, then up at his face. He gave her a goofy grin.

“What are you?” she asked him. “A fool? A madman? A liar playing games only he can see?”

“Yes,” he told her, eyes sparkling. “I once met a woman who thought that essences shape who you are but she was wrong. Essences are power, and power doesn’t change you. It reveals you. Give someone the power to be who they always wanted and you will see who they always wanted to be. This is who I am, good and bad. This is your chance to be who you want to be, not who you have to be to survive.”

Her response came in a soft voice; the first time Jason has seen her vulnerable.

“I don’t know who I am without that.”

“Do you want to find out?” he asked gently.

She nodded, placing her hands on the essences he was still holding out for her.