Felix did not return to the barracks that night. I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep, waiting for the door to creak open. Around midnight I had enough and dressed myself. The walk into the city proper passed in a blur. How many times now had I tread this same path? Hundreds?

My feet carried me to Amelie in Yellow.

The doorwoman smiled. “Nice to see you again, Leones. Your friend’s in there.”

I thanked her and stepped inside. That strange sense of familiarity intensified as I ascended the staircase. All this time spent in Odena and what had I accomplished? Days spent studying and training, nights off drinking and gambling. My swordwork was going well and I was amassing a small fortune. Still, it felt as if I was treading water, exhausting myself to get nowhere.

Felix slouched at a table in the back, his only company an empty bottle of wine. He did not have the dreamer’s look that betrayed his opium habit, but his eyes were listless and unfocused. I sat beside him. The scraping of the chair legs caught his attention for a moment before he glanced away.

“Felix,” I said.

He ignored me.

“Felix,” I said, louder.

He tilted the wine bottle in front of him as if testing to make sure it was empty. “I’m not deaf.”

“You are drunk.”

He gestured with two fingers to summon a servant. “That I am.”

A woman in a fox mask hurried over. “Gentlemen.”

“Another of the Moravy,” said Felix.

Depending on how long he had lingered around the Amphitheater, Felix could not have been here for more than a couple hours.

“Far be it from me to dissuade a generous tipper," said Fox-Amelie, "but are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Did your parents think it was a good idea for their daughter to become a half-dressed den girl?”

Her smile was like a wolf baring its teeth. “Another bottle of the Moravy for the young sir.”

I sighed after she departed. “Do you feel like a big man now?”

He pointed the empty bottle at me. “Don't fuck with me, Leones.”

I slapped it aside. “I was there tonight. At the Amphitheater. What’s wrong? You can tell me.”

“Oh, are we best friends now?” said Felix. “I have shirts I’ve known longer than you. But what’s the point of keeping it a secret? Why not just shout it into the night? It’s not like it’s a bad thing. You want to know what the oracle told me? It said ‘you will never betray your brothers’ and it laughed.”

“And that made you down a bottle of cheap red?”

“There will be repercussions for what I did tonight,” he said. “If I ever leave the safe parts of the Civilized Lands they will hunt me down.”

“Then why did you go through with it?”

He held up his clenched fists. “I could never not do it. I might be an asshole but if you give me a challenge I’ll see it through. Do you have any idea how angry I am? How much I have to prove?”

“No.”

“No,” he said. “You don’t. Because you don’t know what it’s like to be fucking crazy.”

Unsure how to respond, I folded my hands on the table and stared at them. "The woman that Champion Jokul fought at the end. She was the one who killed Lyra."

A complex array of emotions shifted across his face, from anger to curiosity before settling on a sort of vindictive pleasure. "Good."

A woman came to our table with a fresh candle and an identical bottle to the first. She filled half of Felix’s glass with the red. After wafting its aroma he nodded his approval. The woman bowed and set the bottle down. It amused me in a theatrical way, this elaborate ritual over a wine they sold in the cheapest taverns anywhere.

The woman was older than the other Amelies by several decades. She wore a black dress and an assortment of thin golden jewelry that lent her a subdued but dignified appearance. A thick needle secured her dark hair into an austere bun. The lines of her face recalled a lifetime of laughter though her expression was anything but pleased.

Felix looked her up and down. “The lady of the house, is it?”

“I’m curious,” she said, “what makes you think you can insult one of my girls?”

“Bad night.”

“Are you a child with so little control over yourself that you lash out at others for your own shortcomings? Is this what my so-called fellow philosophers are teaching you boys?” The woman---Sensi---glanced at me. “And you. You think your friend’s behavior is acceptable?”

“His manners could certainly be improved,” I said.

Felix snorted. “I’ve been coming here for a while now. There are as many scumbags here as anywhere else. I’ve never seen you personally come out to chastise someone for being rude.”

“Granted,” she said, settling into a chair at an adjacent table, “I usually don’t hear such concerning rumors. Supposedly some demons were slaughtered in the Amphitheater tonight. Even worse, one of the executors is a young philosopher who has come to my establishment before the blood on his hands finished drying.”

“I’ll be leaving, then, if my presence is so upsetting.” Felix pushed himself to his feet.

“No one here is upset,” she said. “Well, one of my best girls is yelling about you in the back, but she has a temper worse than yours. I stopped by to offer you some advice.”

“What have I done to deserve such kindness?”

Her glare softened. “Why do you think kindness is something you have to earn?”

Felix opened his mouth, thought for a second, then closed it. She gestured for him to return to his seat and to my surprise he did.

“I shouldn’t have agreed to it,” he said. “I’m not that stupid. The clergy performed protective rites. Barrow personally came to me and assured me nothing would happen.”

Sensi smiled. “It is a difficult thing to control yourself. To acknowledge that you could do better, if only you were stronger, more in control. Sometimes you feel the weight of the whole universe crushing down on you, even though you know you really are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.”

“I know all of that,” he said.

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably, feeling much like an awkward intruder in this conversation. The moment seemed very intimate between the two of them. Her soft, rhythmic voice; his desperately unhappy eyes.

“It is even more difficult to do something about it," said Sensi, a wistful look on her face. “To cultivate yourself, to blossom, not in one glorious moment but in a succession of little triumphs. You are, after all, a man, not a noble ideal, mindless and uncompromising. You want that little surge when you roll a lucky pair. There’s the touch of a woman, the way they look in your eyes that isolates a big, dark eternity to just the two of you. Let the past be the past, you tell yourself. If mankind excels at one thing, it’s realizing its vices. Bury yourself. Hide under comfort like a child scared beneath its blanket.

"We can’t forget the past. The memories fade but there are always the scars. It’s like we start whole and wholesome and time chips away at us. You erode, you wither. It hollows you out. You must do what you can to build yourself up. Everything else will wear you down.”

Felix ran his fingers through his hair. “Where is that from?”

“Pardon?” said Sensi.

“You didn’t make it up off the top of your head.”

The woman stood and tucked the chair back under the table. “It’s from the letters of Van Rijn to his eldest son, Yuren. Yuren had forsaken all of his duties to pursue a life of drinking and gambling. The letter that is taken from was found on his body. He died on the streets from illness after his father disowned him. It’s a lesson on folly and, of course, the unique problems of being the procuress of a gambling den.”

Felix's expression grew even more annoyed by the end of her speech. I remembered what Lyra had said about him once, to never bring his father up around him. Sensi, mistress of Amelie in Yellow and master of the staccato, had chosen the wrong parable.

"Thank you for the lesson," he said, bowing his head mockingly over clasped hands---uncomfortably similar to how the oracles did.

"I have much to teach you," said Sensi. "Though I'm not sure how wise it would be to speak openly around others. Including---Leones, was it? Would you mind waiting down on the first floor while we have a conversation? I suspect you'll encounter a familiar face down there."

I had long obsessed over the guessing game and how to catch Sensi's attention. Now that she was in front of me, I was unsure how to catch her interest. All my planning and imagined conversations seemed rather silly now that the moment had come to fulfill them. In the end I simply nodded and took my leave.

Hands in my pockets, I strolled down the staircase to the first floor, where a solo fiddler played a solemn tune. The usual assortment of half-sedated addicts occupied the area. The Amelie with the dragon mask stalked through the crowd, stopping on occasion to check on someone's breathing or palpate a pulse. After encountering a particularly unresponsive man, she dug her knuckles into his sternum until he moaned and pushed feebly at her arm. Satisfied, she continued making her rounds.

I doubted she was the familiar face Sensi meant. I settled into a divan, one of the few people paying attention to the performer as he sawed away at his instrument, eyes closed, lost in his music. Dragon-Amelie set a snifter of brandy on the table in front of me. Excellent service as always, but in this instance I felt no desire to muddy my thoughts, so I left the drink untouched.

What could Sensi and Felix be talking about? Five minutes passed and I felt my eyelids beginning to droop. Given the company here no one would mind if I took a short nap. Before I settled into sleep's embrace the person I was waiting for made his entrance. A new emerald-green flower sprouted from behind his ear. The blade that ended Lyra's killer dangled at his side, a legendary weapon far beyond mortal craftsmen like Bakkel, now consecrated in a demon's blood.

Champion Jokul sauntered towards the staircase before noticing me. Between the distance and my sleep-blurred vision it was hard to tell, but it looked like his eyes narrowed and a frown pulled at the corner of his lips. He changed direction, coming to a stop in front of me. Uncomfortable with his looming, I gestured at the seat beside me.

"I'll stand," he said. "Acolyte Leones. Fortunate to meet you here."

"You didn't come for me?"

He ignored the question. "I suspect your friend told you the news, assuming you didn't already see for yourself. I found the killer and put an end to it for all to see. Miss Incada is avenged. May her soul find peace."

"Did you discover anything?" I said. "Why the demon killed her? What it's doing here?"

"Such information is far too sensitive for me to reveal. Rest assured that the matter has been taken care of. Odena is safe, in no small part due to your intervention. This city owes you its thanks."

Telling me would be a sufficient reward, I thought to myself. The more I discovered, the more questions I had. Loathe as I was to antagonize the Champion, doing so might be my best option. With my magic I could interrogate the Champion with no consequences.

"My friend was slaughtered," I said. "Demons are roaming through the city, killing citizens under the direct protection of the Archon. I'm supposed to take your word for it that we're safe? I haven't told anyone besides Felix about what I saw. Now I'm starting to wonder if I should reveal everything to the public."

Face blank, the Champion brushed the cushion next to me off before taking a seat. He clasped his hands on his laps, eyes focused on the violinist. This close, his presence felt overwhelming. "I am not the type of person you threaten."

"Why," I said, "did Barrow lie and say the demons came from the Frontier? Maybe the oracles were, but that woman was already in the city. How did you find her?"

"I am not the type of person you ask silly questions, either."

I reversed time just enough to restart the interrogation. This time I led with the question about Barrow lying, only to meet the same response. I tried a few different tactics, from pleading to arrogance, and none of them had any impact on the iron wall that was the Champion. Frustrated, I blurted out one final accusation, just to see how he would respond.

"Why are you working with demons?"

The Champion froze. His head swiveled my way, green eyes burning. Something in his expression made me reach for my power again. Just in time. One hand slipped over my mouth while the other darted to his side. Time slowed to a crawl as I realized his intent.

I threw myself away from him, just enough that the knife missed my heart. The blade grinded against my ribcage, a white-hot lance of pain. The Champion twisted the blade. All the scrapes and bruises I had experienced were nothing compared to that invasive wrongness in my chest.

My power thrust me back in time as far as I could go. I fell to my knees, hand pressed against my frantically beating heart. Though my wounds had been erased from existence, I could still feel the phantom presence of that blade twisting inside of me. A distant part of me noted that I was near the exit of the Garden, surrounded by the plots of medicinal herbs turned barren from the long winter.

How foolish I was. I had never expected that Champion Jokul would attempt to kill me in public. Even a respected authority like him could not expect to walk away from a teenager's corpse. I would have gone unnoticed for a while, another unconscious body in the crowd, but Dragon-Amelie would have noticed me within a few minutes. Not to mention Sensi's confirmed presence. They would know. Would she really tolerate Jokul murdering an acolyte not a hundred paces away from her?

I had to go back and warn Felix. Something was absolutely wrong with this city. For a moment I entertained the thought of going to Barrow. Bad idea. If the Champion actually was working with the demons, chances were the North Wind was involved as well. I survived Jokul's attack but I had no intention of testing my luck a second time. Likewise, approaching Sensi carried the same risks.

The Bakkel at my side felt like a toy. Useless. I needed to get to my safe house and leave the city with Felix as soon as possible. How could I expect----

I shook my head. What was I doing, kneeling on the path like this? It was late, near midnight. Had I been sleepwalking, disturbed by the events from the Amphitheater earlier? After watching the Odenan warriors execute the oracles and Jokul's breathtaking fight against Lyra's killer I had been exhausted, falling asleep the moment I laid down on my cot. Likely the rush of energy from sweetbark concoction Caedius bought me had worn off around the same time---the comedown from those sort of elixirs are always nasty.

I had never sleepwalked before. Disturbing.

I attempted to use my power to save myself a bit of time walking back to the barracks. My magic failed, only bringing me back a few seconds to when I was kneeling on the ground.

Also disturbing, but my power over time had some interesting limitations. My experiments had shown that if I tried to reverse time immediately after waking up I would only return to the point where I became conscious. Presumably my body reverted back to its prior sleeping state, making such an effort useless. Sleepwalking must have been the same. Predictably, that experiment always caused the same amount of fatigue as reverting time an hour back while conscious. Now I could have sworn that I felt that exhaustion before using my power, not after. And why was my heart pounding in my chest?

It was a nice night, just cold enough to be refreshing. Lost in thought, I retraced my path back to the barracks.