Cheshire gestures at the various statues surrounding the book pile. “The powers you chose will give us quite a bit of metaphysical grist to work with. We’ll start by extracting elements from those, then add a few elements from general observations about your behavior and drives.”

“And we’ll use those elements to make spells?” I ask.

“There will be a step between, but essentially yes.” Cheshire points to the scene of red string and bent supplicants. “First, let’s look at mind control. You said your desire for a corrupting ability was driven by a desire for attachments and a fear of abandonment, and that’s certainly accurate to a degree. You need other people, you want to be around other people, but you don’t trust other people, so you want to be able to control them. Your story, however, speaks to another truth: you think there is something glorious about uniting the many as one, and you think you deserve to be the one leading the chorus.” Cheshire pauses, ever-grinning, and finishes, “You think you’re better than everyone else, and you want them to finally acknowledge that fact.”

I tense up and clench my fists. “That’s not… I don’t think that way.”

“No?” Cheshire tilts her head curiously. “Then how do you think, Maven Alice?”

I hesitate. “I… I just want to cheat, okay? I want to be loved and adored and I’m not good enough to get that with my personality, because my personality is shit and I’m a garbage person. So I want to cheat.”

“Would you be satisfied if adoration came provisional with a position of weakness? If you were loved and cherished but beholden to someone else, made to belong to someone else?”

I bristle. “I’ll not be someone’s pet.”

“Of course not; you want to be in control. You want to rule. Am I wrong?”

I hiss, but I know she’s right. She’s eternally right, the cat-eared little shit, and she clearly won’t let me think otherwise for even a moment. “Whatever. Extract the elements and let’s move on.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” she says with a wink. A crown appears on the tea table, opulent and crimson and decorated with rubies carved into hearts and drops of blood.

Cheshire points to the exsanguination statue and says, “You are willing to sacrifice pieces of yourself to achieve greater gains. Risk and reward, sacrifice and growth, but controlled risk, controlled sacrifice. And of course, the obvious associations with vampirism and blood magic. You seek to glut upon prey, even at the cost of your very soul. Does that sound accurate?”

I nod. “Pretty much, yeah.” A chalice filled with blood appears on the table.

Cheshire points to the statue of the swarm and says, “We can draw more vampirism associations there, but we can also draw more associations of rulership. You want minions, Alice, and you want to use those minions to make people respect you, even fear you. The kind of corruption magic you want is a form of rule through love–twisted, hideous love–but an army of horrors, beasts dripping with night and death, suggests rule through fear.”

I don’t see much value in denying it at this point. “Yes, yes, fine. I accept your interpretation: I want to rule through fear and love.” I add, “Machiavelli did say that the ideal ruler employs both.”

A second crown pops into existence next to the first, black as night and made to resemble a curled centipede with a skull-patterned carapace.

Cheshire conjures a burning candle and says, “Pyromania is a fairly simple desire, but the other half of your fourth pick has some interesting notions to play with. Spells to run away, showing your fear of dying. Wielding the dark as a weapon, a primeval terror.” She adds a second vial of liquid darkness beside the first, this one with a skull-faced stopper.

I glance over the two vials, the candle, and the ashen urn. “I’m going to guess that rather than being redundant, having multiple connections to fire and shadow will actually be a good thing?”

“Correct! Being able to stack meaning will enhance the potential of the finished product. On that note, I have a few more elements to add to the pile.”

Cheshire cups her hands together and summons a dagger of blackest night, which she carefully lays next to the other objects. “You are a scion of the Throne of Shadow, and that means its elements are your elements: darkness, consumption, conflict, will, and want. You are heir to the legacy of the Abyss, to the hungering dark that would devour all worlds.”

I eye the dagger with curiosity. The hungering dark… I do like the sound of that.

“Next, I want to examine your original choice of name here in the Labyrinth.”

I wince. “Do we have to? I’ve already given up on it, I know I can’t keep it.”

Cheshire smirks. “It’s the motivation that I’m concerned with, not the results. You chose the name ‘Malice’ because you wanted a name that was intimidating. You wanted a name that was a threat demanding others respect you.” A piece of paper appears on the table with my now-discarded name written on it.

Cheshire continues, “Since arriving in the Labyrinth you have been fascinated by this world. You have asked questions, performed experiments, and acted to acquire as much data as possible. You are curious, and that curiosity is fundamental to your nature.” A little porcelain cat appears on the table.

“You know,” I quip, “they say that curiosity killed the cat.”

“Ah, but they also say that satisfaction brought it back,” Cheshire replies with a wink. “Speaking of satisfaction, I’d like to highlight the pleasure you took in mutilating your first foe, back in the halls of the abandoned school. You also stabbed that doll completely unprompted, and have generally defaulted to violence whenever it suited you. I think we can make a convincing element out of that willingness to do violence.” She gestures at the table and a bloody knife appears next to the shadow-knife.

“It’s not that I’m a violent person,” I insist, “I just think violence is a useful tool.” Cheshire just raises an eyebrow at me. “Okay, maybe I’m a little violent.”

“Regardless, the final element I’ll posit is the one that drove you to become a demon: fear of death. I think we can skip the explanation on this one.” A skull manifests in the center of the table.

I look over the various objects: an urn, a candle, two vials of liquid shadow, a red crown, a black crown, a bloody dagger, a shadowed dagger, a chalice of blood, a written name, a porcelain cat, and a skull. “Alright, what next? You said there’s a step between gathering these together and making spells out of them.”

Cheshire conjures a sword again, but this time has it stab itself into the table and stay there. “To be a scion,” she begins, “is to be a sword carving your Truths into the world. For others those Truths are derived externally, but for a demon they come from within, and they are made with purpose. To perform any sorcery, you must first have the weight of a Truth behind each spell.”

I raise an eyebrow. “And I’m assuming these are ‘Truths’ in some metaphysically significant sense?”

Cheshire laughs lightly. “Of course. That’s what it’s all about.” Cheshire sweeps her hand in gesture at the assortment of objects and says, “Elements are, by their nature, descriptive. The elemental sword contains all the meanings that you would associate with a sword. Truths, on the other hand, are prescriptive. The Truth of Swords contains only those meanings which matter to you; you might make the connection between a cutting sword and the suit of swords in tarot, but if you don’t really care about tarot and its meanings then those meanings won’t be included in your Truth of Swords. When you define a Truth, you are declaring to the universe which meanings matter to you. This focus allows Truths to be of greater complexity; as an element contains oneiros, a Truth contains elements.”

It clicks for me. “All the elements we extracted, I have to turn those into Truths. Configure them, like atoms making up a sword.” It’s like the affinities from our dream: Reska mentioned Blood having all sorts of positive connotations, but her affinity only contained the negative. But why’s the name different?

Cheshire nods. “Precisely. To take the stage as a true, proper demon, you must first construct the three Truths of Maven Alice.”

“Why three?” I ask. Reska had three affinities in the dream, and that has certain implications.

“A single Truth is fragile, too easily broken. A pair is too polarized, and Pandaemonium will inevitably seek to pit them against each other. More than three weakens them all, stretching your magic too thin and shallow. And three is a symbolically important number, so it’ll have more weight.”

Yeah, okay, that makes sense enough for this setting. “So what are the rules? Can I just mix-and-match whatever I like and call it a Truth?”

Cheshire waves her hand in a so-so gesture. “There are rules, but they’re more intuitive than rigidly-defined. Fundamentally these are your Truths, so what matters most is that they make sense to you. That means there should be some relation between the elements you use to make up each Truth, that it should feel intuitively correct that these denotations and connotations are being categorized this way, and that whatever you decide on is meaningful to you. It might make sense for your Truth of Swords to contain elements like ‘continuous cutting motion’ and ‘philosopher king,’ but it probably doesn’t make sense to contain an element like ‘loving comfort’ unless you have a really aberrant relationship to the concept of swords.”

“Got it.” I push out of my pillow-and-stuffie throne and start pacing around the table to think. Cheshire takes her stool and steps away to give me space.

I brush all the objects to one side of the table, then pick up the two crowns and place them next to each other on the other side. “Rule; through fear and through love.” There’s the easy one out of the way. What about the rest?

I move the vials of shadow next to the shadowed dagger, but I’m not sure if that’s enough for a Truth; can I have a Truth of Shadow if I’m already part of the Throne of Shadow? It doesn’t seem solid, but I leave them together for now.

If these are meant to be our Truths, they have to be meaningful to us. As much as I fought her on it, Cheshire is right that I want to Rule others. What are my other core drives? I want to live forever, so maybe some concept like Life or Vitality? I chew on my lip and examine the remaining objects. Actually, that could work.

I grab the chalice of blood–vampirism and sacrifice–and set it with the skull and skull-faced vial–fear of death. “Vitality; consuming life, spending life, and fearing death.”

That leaves the urn and the candle, the first vial and the shadowed dagger, the bloody dagger, my discarded name, and a porcelain cat. Flame, shadow, violence, intimidation, and curiosity. I feel like fire and shadow should go together, just on principle. They’re both pretty vicious things. Combine them with violence, get something like, say, Ruin?

I move the urn, candle, vial, and both daggers into a pile. “Ruin; through flame, shadow, and violence.” It doesn’t really feel convincing, though; it sounds fun, sure, to throw fireballs and cause destruction, but is that meaningful?

Cheshire is silent as she watches me, keen eyes tracing my every move, not allowing any hint of what she’s thinking to reach her face.

I focus my attention on the last two items. The name–intimidation–can go with Rule, but what about curiosity? That’s absolutely something important to me, but where does it fit? A curious ruler, the philosopher king? The risks of curiosity, a flimsy justification for Vitality or Ruin?

I’m missing something, I know I am. I’m simplifying too much, I think. I pick up the two crowns again and think about what they really represent: rule through love and rule through fear, yes, but that’s not all of it. The black crown is fear wielded as a weapon, fear of death and the dark. The red crown is my fear of abandonment, but also my desire for intimacy, attachments, bonds. Those concepts–those elements–are substantively distinct.

I narrow my eyes. “The way you made the objects, it’s a trap; there’s another layer to this puzzle.”

Cheshire grins from her perch on the stool. “I knew you’d figure it out.”

I glare at the catgirl, but I’m actually kind of enjoying the puzzle so it’s a half-hearted glare. I set the crowns back on the table. “Split the red crown; I have a new idea.”

Cheshire snaps her fingers and the red crown becomes two red crowns, one with heart imagery and the other with broken heart imagery. I take the broken-hearted crown and place it with the skull, the skull-faced vial, the black crown, and the written name. “Fear; of abandonment, of death, of the dark. And rule through fear. Fear rules me, so it’s only fitting that I make it serve me as a demon.”

Now, that won’t be the only one that’s in too few pieces. I consider the chalice of blood next: sacrifice, vampirism… is vampirism too broad? If we break that apart, we get notions like consuming life, feeding, blood–

Blood.

Blood can be kinship, it can be life and death, it can be sacrifice and bonds. Blood is vampirism, it is violence, it is love. That’s the connection. That’s what ties it all together.

I set the chalice of blood with the full-hearted crown and the bloody dagger. “Blood. Blood can be offered in sacrifice, or taken from another and consumed. Blood is bonds, and love, and rule through love, and it is also violence and rule through violence.”

That leaves the remnant of Ruin to deconstruct and the cat to incorporate. Fire, shadow, and curiosity. Fire, burning bright, dancing across wood and flesh alike, consuming it.

Consuming. Consuming flame, eating up fuel, ever-hungry. The Abyss, all-consuming, an endless pit of hunger and want. Curiosity, hunger for knowledge. All of them wanting more, hungering, glutting.

“Take a bit of blood from the chalice,” I instruct Cheshire. She conjures a new vial and fills it, then stoppers it. I take the vial of blood and place it with the urn, the candle, the vial of shadow, the shadowed dagger, and the porcelain cat. “Gluttony. Hunger for life, hunger for power, hunger for knowledge. The hungering flames, consuming all they can until they starve from lack of fuel or air. The hungering dark, the soul-eating Abyss.”

“Are those the three you want?” asks Cheshire.

I look to the catgirl, nervous, but she’s not revealing anything in her expression or her posture. I feel like a student handing in their homework to be graded by the professor, except that I was almost never nervous to hand in my work because I was great at school.

Maybe it would be more accurate to compare my nervousness to first date jitters; with how much we’ve talked about philosophy this is definitely a date, and probably the best first date I’ve ever had. And… I want to impress her. I want Cheshire to think that I’m intelligent, that I’m interesting, that I can keep up. And a part of me is afraid, is always afraid, that those things aren’t true.

Still, this feels right. This has to be right. I swallow my hesitation and force confidence into my voice. “These are the Truths of Maven Alice: Blood, Gluttony, and Fear.”

Cheshire examines the objects upon the table, peers at each of them closely, and then turns to me and grins. “Perfect.”

I let out a sigh of relief. I would hate to embarrass myself in front of the inhuman monster claiming to be in love with me.

In one swift motion Cheshire grabs the tablecloth and yanks it aside. The tablecloth flutters away in an unfelt breeze and is caught by the raging storm, but it leaves behind not a scattering of objects but three glowing symbols engraved in the wooden table beneath: a crimson drop of blood, a fire-orange toothy maw, and a violet skull missing its jaw.

“These three Truths are now inscribed upon your soul,” Cheshire intones. “Gluttony will be the strongest, at least at first. It has been fed by outside sources and all of your behavior since entering the Labyrinth matches with Gluttony’s ideals. Fear will be the weakest, owing to your utter fearlessness in the face of many dangers.”

“That’s bullshit,” I hiss. “That lack of fear was forced on me, and you know the fear is what drove me for all the years before I came here.”

“I do,” Cheshire says, “but Pandaemonium does not, or not so strongly. In the eyes of the Dreaming Sea–which has only witnessed your actions since arriving here, and nothing before–your fear comes off as more of an informed attribute than an essential character quality. There is dissonance between identity and action that must be resolved through demonstration. Pandaemonium must see you afraid before your fears will have true power.”

I glower. Literally the worst cheat ability, ever, of all time.

“Now that we have your Truths and elements settled–though I assure you these can grow and develop as your demonhood grows and develops–we can actually make your first spells.”

“Finally,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “Look, I love philosophical introspection as much as the next gal but give me magic now.”

Cheshire laughs. “Okay, okay. Magic for the hungry girl. I’ve assembled a few options for you to choose from, but we only have the power to create three of them right now.”

I narrow my eyes at the catgirl suspiciously. “How long have you had those prepared?”

Cheshire smiles at me innocently. “Since before we started arguing about nihilism.”

Motherfucker. Also: “How does this interact with the invocation rules? Aren’t I down a slot thanks to my knife trick?”

Cheshire waggles a hand in a so-so gesture. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. These are stored in your soul core, not the pleroma, but the pleroma is an important factor in creating spells. If you hadn’t sacrificed the dagger and the invocation, we would be limited to two spells right now.”

Interesting. Is being stored in the pleroma a necessary limitation of invocations or a forced limitation? “Noted. You may proceed.”

The geist taps the symbol for Blood and says, “Your first option is a spell I’m calling [Exsanguinate]. Put simply, it rips the blood from someone’s veins, provided they’re already bleeding.”

Want. Definitely want.

Cheshire taps the symbol for Fear and says, “The second option is [Cry of Terror], which will unleash a scream that instills panic in all who hear it. It won’t have an equal effect on everyone, of course, but it might buy you a crucial few moments.”

Useful, but not particularly exciting. Fear is supposed to be my weakest Truth, right? I guess using Fear spells is a decent way to change that, but still.

Cheshire taps Gluttony next. “If you want some raw firepower, [Soulfire] will let you do exactly what the name implies. Abyssal flames will burn your enemy’s very soul.”

“Does it have the same drawback as [Abyssal Armament] did?”

Cheshire shakes her head. “[Soulfire] is a bit more indiscriminate in what it consumes, so it’ll always find something to sate its hunger: souls, flesh, air, even metal. Of course, it’ll be most effective at burning souls, so keep that in mind.”

“Best on souls, will eat anything. Gotcha.”

Cheshire taps the symbol for Fear again. “[Carrion Swarm] is your first summoner option. Eventually you should be able to conjure some real monsters, but for now we’re limited to small animals like rats, crows, and centipedes. This one’s the most versatile of the selection, since you can use it for non-combat purposes, but it should still be fairly vicious in a fight.”

This one probably makes the list too. It’s fun to play with skittering horrors.

Cheshire taps Gluttony. “I saved the best for last, of course: [Prey Upon]. This spell has the strictest prerequisite for use, as you can only cast it on the dying, but the effect is worth it: you get to eat part of someone’s soul. Frequent use of this spell will be the quickest way to get powerful enough to add more spells to your library.”

“That one,” I immediately declare. “Taking that one, I want it, gimme.”

Cheshire laughs. “And for the other two?”

“[Exsanguinate] and [Carrion Swarm]. The others are interesting but I want those spells.”

“Then they’re yours, my love.” Each of the symbols glows brighter, and a smaller copy of each symbol carves into the center of the table. “Welcome to having spells. Welcome to being a demon.”

I am salivating. It’s magic, it’s my magic, and it’s everything I ever could have wanted. It’s perfect. It’s just so fucking perfect.

Cheshire winks at me. “So? What do you think?”

I run over to Cheshire and scoop her up in a hug. I close my eyes and just squeeze tight, feeling her warmth. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

She hugs me back.