Denise was already gone by the time they arrived at Jacob’s apartment. It was a school day, after all; Jacob had called in sick but Denise didn’t feel right missing the day.

Before Serenity started, Jacob offered coffee. Serenity accepted gratefully; the coffee he’d picked up at the hotel was already gone. It wasn’t as effective for him as it had been for Thomas; Serenity knew that was to be expected, unfortunately.

Serenity had Jacob sit on the couch while Serenity shifted to his chimera form then sat on the floor. The chairs were not made for someone with wings.

As Serenity was about to begin, Rissa leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Don’t be afraid to strike hard. The core of the curse is set by another and does not belong to Jacob. The more you leave behind, the more effect the other will have on my brother. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad.”

“You looked ahead in time?” As far as Serenity knew, Rissa hadn’t done that since she nearly died in the Tutorial, even for something as small to her as trading stocks.

Rissa nodded happily. “You can change what I see if it’s bad, so it’s safe to look. It’s different now. I can’t tell your future well, since it depends on your choices, but I was able to tell Jacob’s. I was able to see more than one future for him. Maybe because which one it is depends on your choices?”

Rissa’s smile was warm and joyous. “Maybe it’s just because you’re here. Whatever the reason is, the future isn’t fixed anymore. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted it to be. A tool instead of a shackle.” She leaned over and hugged Serenity. “So I looked at what was in front of me, and that’s what I found. It’s power, but it’s not Jacob’s power, and leaving it in him makes him open to whoever set the curse. I couldn’t see whoever it is, but it’s obvious they’re still around.”

Serenity patted her arm as he nodded. “Thanks. That’s what I needed to know.” Destroy the spell’s core if possible, but at least remove it from Jacob.

In fact, that seemed like the place to start, if he could. Destroying it in place might leave fragments behind.

Serenity looked up at Jacob, who was still drinking his coffee, made just the way Rissa liked it. “You ready?”

“Hah. As ready as I’m going to be. Just get started, I don’t need to be any more nervous. You know this is completely upending my worldview, don’t you?” Jacob was obviously covering his nervousness with bravado, but he wasn’t wrong.

“Yeah. Just think about what the past few weeks have done to mine. Not long ago, I was human.” Serenity winked. Maybe that would make Jacob feel better.

It was all he wanted to take the time for.

Serenity swapped to Essence Sight and took in the curse on Jacob. As it had the night before, it coated Jacob’s body in a cracked-looking layer of shining glass. Serenity needed to get past that somehow to get at the core. It seemed like a large advantage to an Essence-based spell; since they radiated from a central point, they’d be harder to dispel than a standard mana-based spell.

Serenity was certain there were disadvantages to go with the advantages. He didn’t know what they were yet, but there were always downsides.

This would require sneaking to get in without alerting the spell. Serenity had never been very good at sneaking in the physical world, but this wasn’t physical sneaking, it was magical sneaking and he had eventually learned to be very good at that.

All too good, once, but he didn’t need to think about that last tremendous spell-ritual. It had never happened, and he’d never do that again.

The curse was still damaged. That ought to make it easier, so he concentrated on the damaged parts.

It was quickly clear that the spell was sensitive where it’d been hurt. He could almost see it pulsing there as it tried to repair the damage. Getting too close to the damaged sections would probably have him found out faster than simply punching through an unhurt spot. Still, there was that large area where the spell had broken the first time he and Rissa attacked it.

Serenity pushed in there with a tendril of his own Essence and found that there was no resistance at all. It was positively simple. That was something he’d only found before in people who had an essence network, which Jacob shouldn’t have, but when Serenity looked around he could see one.

It glowed softly, unlike any of the networks Serenity had seen - certainly unlike his own or the ones he’d established in others. Those were simply crystalline threads that could carry essence, while this seemed to be some sort of attuned essence. The threads didn’t lead to Jacob’s head the way Rissa’s network did or to Jacob’s heart the way Russ’s did. Instead, it led to a brightly-glowing tangled ball of threads that seemed to cover his testicles.

The story was that it followed the family line. Serenity supposed that it was literally true, given what he was seeing. It definitely wasn’t the same as any of the cores he’d seen; those were all consolidated into something solid, even his own core which was far larger than this one. This was clearly woven together and had a structure.

Was that what made it a spell instead of a monster core? Or was it simply less consolidated?

Serenity shook himself. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting it out of Jacob, preferably without hurting him.

Serenity found that as he pushed his essence down the network, the lines he moved along dimmed. It was using up small amounts of his essence as he moved, but it seemed like he was converting the connections to being something comfortable for himself instead of for the invading curse. That was probably a good thing, he hoped. At least he wasn’t going to try to take over Jacob!

Serenity watched the curse’s network from his small patch for a while. It looked like there were certain lines the curse used a lot, so he’d need to avoid those if he wanted to not be detected. Without those lines, though, there were a number of secondary threads the curse didn’t seem to use much. They were smaller, but Serenity thought they’d make a good way to infiltrate the network. If he did it well enough, he might even be able to surround the spellcore before it realized anything was wrong.

Serenity spread as much of his own essence around the network as he could, taking the best routes he could find to surround the core, then capturing anything that wouldn’t lead to his discovery. A little experimentation showed that he could even direct the curse’s signals to take the “main” paths and as long as he didn’t actually interfere with them, the curse didn’t notice.

Serenity didn’t dare try anything more overt while he was still sneaking in, but while the curse might be learning from the attacks on it, it really wasn’t very smart.

It took time to be careful, but Serenity had the time.

As he explored, Serenity passed by the spot near Jacob’s heart where Russ had his core. Something felt odd, so he took the time to check into it without releasing his hold on the rest of the network.

There were tiny slivers of essence that didn’t glow lying next to a minor branch that ran directly to Jacob’s heart. When Serenity touched them, they didn’t feel like him or like the curse. Were they the remnants of the core Jacob might have had if he hadn’t been cursed?

Every network he’d seen had a core. Even the ones he’d created ended up with a tiny inactive central point. It was probably better to try to heal this one than let it create a new one.

Serenity took the time to fill them with carefully-filtered essence, then let them fuse together. Once they did, they moved a little, settling into place. Serenity watched, but other than pushing out some tiny network strands, nothing happened. Serenity allowed the miniature core to connect to the part of the network he controlled before going back to attempting to deal with the curse.

It still hadn’t noticed he was here. That helped.

He came as close to it as he could from behind, then pushed a strand of his own Essence into it, trying to grab some of the outer threads. The first thing he wanted to try was to pull it out of Jacob; if he managed that, he could work on the spellcore with far less danger.

As his thread of Essence tightened around the spellcore, it seemed to clench down on him. Good enough; if it wanted to hold on, he’d take advantage of it.

Serenity pulled as hard as he could with his Essence. It didn’t move and the thread he’d slipped into the spellcore started turning a bright golden color where it met the spellcore.

The next step was to snap all of the bits of network that went into the core other than the one he wanted to pull it along. Serenity accepted the gradual corruption of the thread he was anchoring the core with while he did that. It didn’t take long, but he hadn’t dared to set the spell off early; he was lucky it hadn’t thrown him out already.

With the lines holding the core in place broken, he pulled again. This time, not only did the core move, it positively rocketed along the path Serenity had left open.

Directly along the path out of Jacob’s body and into Serenity’s. The line led into his chest; he felt it tear its way in. It wasn't as bad as some injuries he'd taken, but he was definitely grateful for his Pain Resistance at that moment.

Well, that figured.

[Curse Resistance increased]

[Mind Resistance increased]

Joy.

It stung as it dug into him. He could feel his body healing the damage it did as it tried to dig deeper; he wasn’t able to stop it until it ran into the crystal seed in his abdomen. It tried to dig into the seed, but it’d slowed enough that he was able to corral it and close in around the top of it, where it had escaped his original net.

[You have been given the Gift of Frozen Fate]

No, no he hadn’t. It wasn’t a gift. It was a curse.

[The Gift of Frozen Fate is incompatible with the Unbound Child of Time Path. A deity’s blessing will allow you to change your Path. Please select a new Path]

No. There was no way he was doing that.

It was too bad he couldn’t check on Jacob, but Rissa would have to handle it; he couldn’t ignore the curse for that long.

Serenity marshaled his own Essence, pulling it slowly out of Jacob’s body and his own reservoir, and used it to surround the shining ball of twine. As it closed around the twine, he noticed there was a line running back to Jacob; it was the line he’d pulled it along, but it seemed to have stretched. Serenity hacked at the line with an Essence-coated hand; it was sturdier than the others, but it eventually gave.

Serenity returned to his encapsulation of the curse; it’d tried to escape while he was fighting with its lifeline, but it hadn’t made it far enough. Once it was surrounded, he hardened the outer shell, making it clear and easy to tell what the curse was doing. All he had to do was cleanse it as fast as it attacked him; it would eventually run out of power. It had to.

[Stealing a god’s blessing has been Noticed]

Because of course it would be.

Why had that notice appeared now?

Not important.