Ran had mentioned the 'cook' in passing, but I hadn't processed the implications fully until I actually went for dinner. But there she was, standing in plain sight when I eventually stumbled into the dining hall after Seth and Ptolema had shown up to tell me it was ready and, knowing them less well, I'd felt too awkward to tell them I didn't have an appetite.

I only saw her as she was serving the food, but there was no mistaking it. Balthazar had spoken the truth: It was the woman I'd known as 'Anna' for the latter half of the weekend-that-hadn't-happened. She was dressed completely differently - in the same grey uniform that Sacnicte and Yantho wore - and had shorter, straighter hair that tightly framed her face down to her chin, but there was absolutely no mistaking it.

And yes, the real Anna was there, too, seated at her same spot at the rear of the table. She even had her hood down to eat.

It was baffling. Well, I guess not unto itself - having someone step into what seemed like an isolated space and someone else coming out was easy to explain with just a hidden door, especially since the Order had kept everyone except Fang from even getting close. But the implications were baffling, because it meant that not only the entire inner circle, but Yantho and Sacnicte too, had to have known and kept it secret. And on top of that, Vijana, someone who was ostensibly just a chef, had possessed detailed knowledge about the Order and the sanctuary itself, and had been skilled enough at runescripting to rewrite half the stuff in the security center.

...actually, wait. Maybe it wasn't baffling after all?

I mean, we'd learned that the entire Order had been lying to us for the whole weekend. We'd learned that the device Fang had delivered at Neferuaten's behest hadn't even been used, and the entire series of events we'd experienced had essentially been following their script, albeit with tweaks as the situation developed. So the runes probably hadn't needed to be rewired at all. As for the information she had, well-- They could have just briefed her on a few things they thought might come up. It wasn't like my grandfather and the nature of the sanctuary hadn't been hot topics even prior to our conversation. And since she'd been facing away from me that whole time, it wouldn't even have been difficult to lie.

Hell, maybe she hadn't been briefed. Maybe she just pulled it all out of her ass on the spot. It's not like I'd be able to tell with all the other confusing garbage that had happened.

The only real points of confusion were oriented around Yantho, and when exactly this plan had been hatched in the first place. When you considered the fact that she was seemingly performing her role normally in this world, it gave the impression that it had been some sort of slapdash choice made out of circumstance. She obviously was an actual cook (I even went into the kitchen to see her physically cooking things, and she either knew what she was doing or was about the luckiest improviser in the planes) and wasn't purely someone they'd brought into the sanctuary under that pretense to play the role of 'Anna' for them. And then you had events that didn't seem to benefit the Order in any capacity. Again, why had Yantho been unconscious in that room? Who was the corpse we'd discovered?

But then, when considering what Theodoros had confessed, maybe that made sense too, even if not in the specifics. He said that Yantho had killed 'Vijana' (who he might have thought really was her) in an attempt to get the Order to abort their plan before it started, and then had Theodoros clean up the body later. Maybe the woman he'd killed had been the original imposter to-be.

It felt like a bit of a stretch, but you could sort of hypothesize an order of events.

) On the first day, Yantho lures out Woman X to the security center/underground passageway, then kills her in one of the complicated ways Kamrusepa described to use the bioenclosure transition zone to obfuscate her death. However, he was injured or exhausted in the struggle, and ends up going back up to the kitchen - probably through the wine cellar - and collapsing, failing to properly clean up the scene.

) On the next day, he has Theodoros go and fix it in the morning, not wanting to risk returning to the scene himself. Then he finds some way to innocuously alert the Order, who pull Vijana away before any people not involved in the conspiracy see her face. Either the Order plants the note like Linos claimed, or he was lying and Theo does it. The latter would explain why the initials would be wrong, since he didn't know her and could have just made a mistake.

) Finally, when we all visit the security center on the nights the murders have begun, Yantho insists on being the one to examine the body to feign compliance with their plot to Linos. Or... Something?

No, wait. I'm missing something. Why would it matter whether or not Kam or I went down and looked instead? It wasn't like we knew either of their faces, so it'd be all the same. Why had he insisted?

And wasn't the idea of the body going undiscovered for almost an entire day a little too convenient? In fact, that now that I thought about it, Yantho had established the fact that Vijana was missing back when we'd found him unconscious, and the Order had seemingly gone along with it. In this conception of events, that made no sense. Because she wouldn't have disappeared. The Order had no reason to hide her from us until they learned Woman X was dead and retooled their plan. And Yantho suggesting she had was just inscrutable.

My chronology had to be wrong. The Order had to already know Woman X was dead.

But then Yantho asking Theodoros to clean up the body made no sense.

There was something I didn't understand. A false assumption, something I didn't know beyond any doubt, clouding my evaluation of the situation. Was it to do with Yantho? I'd considered briefly, based on how he'd died, that maybe he was another puppet-person like Zeno and Linos. That could be another explanation for why we'd found him like that in the kitchen. A puppet with its strings cut...

But that raised so many questions, I didn't even know where to start.

And again, did it even matter now? With everything else?

I just didn't know.

Dinner, which was once again being held in the much larger and more gothic dining hall with the fireplace, proceeded smoothly. Kam had been the most vocal (big surprise) about what Vijana should prepare, so we'd ended up with a mostly vegetarian assortment of food to choose from. She liked Saoic and Lluateci cuisine, so there was a lot of noodles, peppers, limes, and tofu, all marinated in strong sauces. There was even a bit of the colored rice Ran had been talking about at the start of the weekend.

I ignored everything healthy and ate some cheese-and-nut-stuffed bell peppers instead. They were delicious. I also got slightly drunk on the Order's wine, which was pretty good.

Now that everything was over, the mood was a lot more relaxed than the previous two nights. Everyone was chatting more casually, even the inner circle members, though Durvasa hadn't bothered to show up this time and Anna left almost right away. Bardiya had ended up in another argument, this time with Zeno, but the tone was different insofar as the latter seemed to have provoked it on purpose having heard what happened the other night. She (once again, they were inhabiting their female body) seemed to be fixated on annoying him, but Bardiya had only grown increasingly stoic. This had resulted in more of a wrestling match sort of atmosphere as everyone - excepting Ophelia and Mehit, who seemed sort of perturbed - watched with amusement or egged them on, with things escalating as people drank more and more wine.

"If you want to see what real failure in government looks like," Zeno declared, "you need only look at the originator of Paritism itself. Despite being the most populated single nation in the Mimikos, Mekhi is 7th in gross domestic product. 39th in per-capita. Behind Turaggoth. Behind half the Rhunbardic Exarchates. It barely beats the Settler's Coast, and half the people there have their brains damaged from the Alliance ripping out their Wyrms after the Great Interplanar War." She snorted. "That's what you want for every country in the world? A broken system? A failed experiment?"

"I hope you'll pardon me being a bit of boorish nationalist, Zeno," Neferuaten cut in, smiling to herself as she wound noodles around her chopsticks, "but it's perhaps a little loaded to refer to something that's been going for - let's see - coming-up-on 800 years an 'experiment', don't you think?"

"Oh, don't get pedantic at me, you hag," she said, poking the air with her fork. "It is absolutely an experiment, at least on a relative timescale. Mankind has been a mercantile species since the damn great flood. You don't breed that out of the collective consciousness with a dozen centuries of distributing property through lottery while pretending it's not making everyone with sense fucking depressed."

"I will happily assent that the Mekhian system is not without its own problems," Bardiya said calmly, as he placed a pepper in his mouth. "For whatever its virtues, it is ultimately still a top-down system that stifles dissent through the use of state violence, and often embraces reactionary social sentiment under the pretense of stability. Yet to frame a system which characterizes itself through prioritizing egalitarianism and quality of life over economic productivity as a failed because it is insufficiently economically productive feels akin to condemning a heifer on the basis that it cannot match the speed of a horse."

"Is that right?" Zeno intoned musically, the delivery more condescension than words. "So you're saying it just, what-- It's just a meaningless technicality that they don't produce shit of value? That the country sits in the corner of the world stage jacking itself off without even being able to afford lube?"

"That's not what I'm saying," Bardiya responded flatly.

"Oh no, I'm sure they'd agree with you!" Zeno ranted, faux-laughing mockingly as she spoke. "I'm sure all the Mekhian children who are still playing games from a century ago on their shitty, state-issued logic bridges would agree with you. I'm sure the Mekhian engineering guilds- oh, I'm sorry, 'state cooperatives' - who can't get any research and development done because they're constantly bleeding arcanists to countries that will actually reward their presence would agree with you. I'm sure mothers who have to tell their children, 'oh, I'm so sorry we have to live in this shitty hovel, dear, but you know, it's all so worth it if you think about it, because Amet the world famous physicist down the street, who actually made something of his miserable little life, has to live in a shitty little hovel too! And you know, one day - when you're all grown up and living as an unmotivated layabout after realizing going to university would be pointless - the kindly hand of the government will reach down and gift you a shitty little hovel all of your own--"

"Y'know, the Mekhian average house size is actually one of the biggest in the Mimikos," Seth said. "Only Irencan ones are bigger, and that's 'cause they're psychos who build cities like they're designing a giant office complex."

"Hey!" Ptolema objected, frowning. "Minos is a beautiful city!"

"They did rather name it after the labyrinth for a reason, Ptolema," Kam pointed out, giggling as she sipped from her wine.

"There's gardens everywhere, and it's so convenient!" Ptolema continued, ignoring the interjection. "You're never more than five minutes from a grocer or a tram stop!" She huffed indignantly. "If you wanna talk about cities designed by psychos, you should be talkin' about Old Yru. It's like being in a forest made out of bronze and grey rocks, and I'm always scared I'm gonna fall off something."

"I think I'm falling off something with this conversation," Linos muttered jovially. "Sacnicte, could you pour me another shot?"

"It doesn't matter if the houses are big," Zeno continued dismissively. "It's about what they contain. And what they contain is a bunch of old garbage from the 13th century because everyone is broke."

"Poverty is a relative concept, but survival is not," Bardiya spoke, his tone patient but grave. "It is true that we in the Mnemonic nations have created the conditions for a thriving luxury economy. But that increasingly comes at the expense of necessities for many. Housing. Food. Gas. And community welfare. The frailty of the supply chains concerning those resources, despite replication arcana conferring theoretical abundance, was arguably the greatest cause for the revolution." He sipped from his water. "But to meet you on your terms, governments will obviously design metrics that favor them - that frame other societies as playing the same 'game', so to speak - but if we're comparing them, I would note Mekhi is ranked at 5th in terms of declared happiness. I would argue that is significantly more important than economic productivity."

"Well it's not," Zeno countered. "Fuck me-- Even if you accept such an ambiguous data-point, do you seriously think it matters, on the big picture level, if the average plebeian is happy?"

Bardiya glanced up from his food, seeming a little thrown off by Zeno's extreme bluntness. "...I would say it's somewhat reductive to dismiss it, professor," he stated, raising an eyebrow.

"You're so naive it's painful," Zeno chided him, with an irritated shake of the head. "If everyone had your attitude, humanity would have gone extinct in the collapse. We'd probably have never figured out the steam engine. Your ideology is nothing but bleeding-heart short-termism, pretending the universe isn't competitive by nature so you can focus on coddling people, willfully ignorant of how it will come back to bite you. But do you know how homo sapiens beat out the neanderthals? They were more productive. How the Hellenes and Phoenicians crushed the tribes of Western Europe? They were more productive. How the Assyrians and Seresians colonized outer Asia and Makaria? Because they were more productive."

"I believe that was in fact smallpox," Hamilcar commented neutrally in his mechanical voice.

Zeno scowled as several people laughed. "Will you people stop fucking harrying me?"

I didn't really contribute to the conversation other than occasionally laughing and nodding a little. It still felt wrong, deep in my bones, to see them all like this. Every time I looked at them, I saw their decomposing corpses in my mind's eye. Bardiya's every word reminded me of his shattered face.

I knew these people could be driven to slaughter one another. That many of them could be keeping awful secrets even now... Or maybe not.

I wished I could just forget. If only I'd taken Samium's book in this reality, maybe it would be good for at least that much.

When dinner was over, everyone fanned out into the rest of the floor for some final more informal conversations with the council members. I saw Kam corner Zeno with her most mechanically deferential smile as Ezekiel was in the process of sucking up to him, while Hamilcar spoke with Ran and Ptolema. Linos was comforting a visibly uneasy Ophelia. Bardiya seemed content to relax and talk with Yantho by the logic bridge in the main hall. Only Seth and Theo seemed to have excused themselves.

I just sat around on one of the sofas, feeling too awkward to go to bed yet. Eventually, Neferuaten approached me again, having a look on her face like I was a wet cat she felt a compulsion to take care of. She sat next to me, a glass of some hard liquor in her hand.

"Been quite a weekend, hm?"

"Yeah," I said, looking down at my clasped hands. "I guess."

"I know I said you shouldn't feel obligated, but as your former teacher, I do feel I should recommend you network with Hamilcar just a little before the night's over," she told me. "I know he comes across as a little intimidating - with the, well, giant mechanical legs and all - but he's a surprisingly helpful person to know when it comes to getting academic introductions. I owe my position in the House of Resurrection to him, among other things." She chuckled to herself. "He's a much gentler more soft-hearted type than you'd expect, too. He always sends me birthday gifts and cards at the holidays. It's almost a little ridiculous."

"...sorry," I said, in a small voice. "I have some, uh, stuff on my mind. I'm not sure I could really hold a conversation right now."

She raised her brow slightly, then smiled softly. "...I see." She sipped from her glass. "Well, that's fine. The utility of these events are overblown anyway. I can always introduce you another time."

"Mm, I appreciate it," I mumbled.

She nodded contentedly, then cast her eyes around the room, eventually looking to regard Ran. "Your friend has been at it more than I expected today, even if she's obviously pushing herself a little. I'd got the sense that she was rather unhappy to be here at first, so I'm glad she's at least getting something out of it."

I gave a stiff smile, still looking at the ground. "Ran's always been good at pushing herself, I guess... And making the best of things."

"Her presentation yesterday was extremely good," Neferuaten went on. "Perhaps the highlight of the entire affair. She's got a promising career in medical scholarship ahead of her."

My expression stiffened further. "...I don't even know if she really wants one," I said, very quietly. "She only really became a healer in the first place for my sake."

Neferuaten raised an eyebrow. "How do you mean?"

I exhaled, closing my eyes. "Never mind. I don't-- I don't really want to get into it."

She nodded sympathetically, "Well, for whatever it's worth, I did sense some genuine passion in her yesterday. Sometimes the paths by which we come to our callings aren't always what we expect. I never particularly wanted to be a healer until circumstance compelled it, but..." She chuckled again, putting a hand to her chest and adopting a tone of faux-pride. "Well, I think I'm rather good at it, if I do say so myself."

I laughed slightly. "I suppose so..."

Neferuaten looked at me fondly in silence for a moment, then turned back towards the wider room. "I'm not certain I'd be able to this late into the weekend, but would you like me to try and arrange for you to speak to Samium again?" She set her glass down, placing her hands on her lap. "I know you don't want to talk about it, and I won't pry. But it's hard not to conclude that something happened."

I made a sullen expression. "No, it's fine. Don't worry about it."

"If you're certain," she said, with an accepting nod.

A few moments passed. The shadow of one of the planar objects from the orrery passed over us.

"Grandmaster," I asked, "what... Made you like me? Back at the university?"

She scoffed. "That's a little bit of an awkward question to ask, Utsushikome. It's hard to really self-evaluate when it comes to violating one's own professional morals."

I didn't say anything, just looking up at her. I'm not sure what exactly was going through my mind.

Her eyes looked like they glazed over for a few moments, and she turned towards the tall ceiling of the hall. She wrinkled her lip.

"It's a little dire," she eventually said. "But I suppose you reminded me of myself, when I was young."