"What, like for realsies?" Shady asked. "Straight up kill me? Not even a hug?"

  "Yes," Sillicia said. "She was radiating this pretty clearly when she thought about you near me. Execution, then reincarnation, then psychic interrogation while you're still disoriented from the revival process. Death resets mental defenses, makes you vulnerable. Evelithria wants to know where you stowed the Citadel keys, Shady.”

  Shady's tail stopped swishing, ears drooping. “I didn’t stow any keys anywhere,” she let out.

  "She won’t believe you. The plan," Sillicia continued, "is to have you walk into what you think is a nice diplomatic meeting. Evelithria will be cordial, maybe ask some preliminary questions, then—" She made a quick slashing gesture across her throat. "Straight into the Incarnator for round two."

  "Just when I think that Frontenachii can’t get any worse, they manage to sink deeper," I said.

  "Just my family things," Shady lamented.

  "Frontenachii family dynamics are basically elaborate murder-trust exercises," Nexxali commented with a big feline yawn. “Sounds like you should tell her to fuck off and not show up.”

  "She'll take that as confirmation of guilt," Sillicia warned. “And take it out on the locals. Accelerate the server megastructure building plans, order warships and Corpse Seekers to wipe some cities off the map as punishment for your insubordination.”

  “Ughhh,” Shady lamented. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

  I frowned, mentally tabulating options.

  “Mrrrr. Meet her, but don't get within stabbing distance,” Nexxali threw in a second suggestion. “Wear extra barrier shields! Make plans for backstabbery n’ various treachery.”

  "I like where your head's at, Nexy," Shady said, "but Auntie Evely's probably already planned extra backstabbery. She's got, like, a PhD in backstabbery. Multiple PhDs. From Backstab University."

  "Is that an actual institution in Omnithornia?" I chortled.

  "No, but it should be," Shady mused. "They could have a mascot. The Betrayal Seagull."

  “Why a seagull?” I asked.

  “Have you seen those fuckers?” Shady asked. “They’re like the worst kind of Earth bird. I saw a video of one stealing a sandwich from a baby.”

  "Sandwich theft. That's your metric for treachery?" I stated.

  "The poor smol human was crying! The seagull didn't even eat the whole thing. Just took a bite and dropped it in the ocean. Such spite! That's Frontenachii energy right there."

  "Can we circle back to the part where your aunt is planning to murder you?" I suggested. "Preferably with actionable intelligence? Like… How does the incarnation process work?" I asked, realizing this was a critical gap in my understanding of Omnid resurrection technology. "Mechanically. What's the procedure?"

  Nexxali stretched, claws extending. "So first, a Seeker vaporizes the corpse. Complete molecular disintegration. Nothing left but ashes and the bracelet which is immune to fire."

  "Cheerful start," I muttered.

  "Then," she continued, "they take your Lazarus bracelet, which contains your soul's imprint. And chuck it into the Incarnation Well."

  "Chuck it? That's the technical term?"

  "The official term is 'ritual submersion,' but yeah, they basically throw it in," Nexxali confirmed. "The Well is filled with the Leviathan’s blood. Genuine shit, sourced from Wormwood Star impact sites in Omnithornia. Costs a fortune. Each Well is formed from Leviathan bone and requires about fifty gallons of the stuff. It degrades over time, so they have to refresh it fairly constantly. That’s the reason why it doesn't work that well on Prads. We’re more affected by the blood decay, magically less Syntropic than Omnids.”

  “So in Omnithornia…”

  “The wells are purer,” Nexxali nodded. “In Omnithornia the reincarnation has no bad side effects for prads, I hear. Anyways, the bracelet sinks into the blood, the blood activates it and the bracelet sorta 3D prints a new body from the soul template. Takes a few minutes for a full resurrection. Blood is spent to create a body. Then an Omnid in attendance or a trusted friend pulls you out. ‘Das about it.”

  "And the person being resurrected?" I asked. "What's that experience like?"

  Shady grimaced. “You see the Wheel of Death for what feels like an infinite time trying to pull your soul to Arx. I really wouldn’t recommend it for a human. It’s incredibly stressful stuff. Races… with low magical resistance can permanently snap mentally from it.”

  “Arx?”

  “It's like a huge-ass megastructure that sucks souls from across everywhere and… re-creates people inside it,” Shady said. “I've been there on a field trip a bunch of times as delver. Is an extra fucked place, full of dungeons, giant monsters and insane Emperors.”

  “I see. Like an … vacuum?” I guessed.

  “Yep,” Shady said. "Most of it is pure hell on earth as the reincarnated are pulled into slave labor and die by the uncountable trillions in each nation that summons them."

  “Uh-huh. Aight. Can a vampire get reincarnated by the Incarnator well?” I asked.

  “What?” Everyone in the Corpse Seeker stared at me.

  "Why would you want to resurrect a vampire?" Sillicia wondered.

  "Academic curiosity," I said.

  “I think that we'll need Kawathra to answer a technical question of this level of absurdity,” Nexxali said, “because I've never considered reincarnating vamps. Their souls aren’t exactly whole, I think? More like a network of nodes.”

  Sillicia and Shady nodded.

  "Right then," Sillicia said, straightening up and adopting a more professional demeanor. "I should probably get back to Alpha before anyone notices I've been gone so long and starts asking questions.”

  She tapped her V-ring.

  A hologram flickered to life. A head appeared in the air, moth-like, featuring enormous fuzzy antennae, curly gray-white hair and gray compound eyes.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Commander Sillicia," the moth girl yawned. "How may this gate-keeper serve?"

  "Hey, Vixxy," Sillicia said. "I need a transit gate opened between Seeker 881-Alpha and..." She glanced at us questioningly.

  "881-Kappa," Nexxali supplied helpfully.

  "Seeker 881-Kappa," Sillicia finished.

  "M'kay… Opening gate now!" The moth said. "Anchoring dimensional coordinates… forming gateway links… and... there!"

  A bunch of runes ignited across the walls of the seeker, then a liquid crystal gate emerged from the floor and solidified. A vertical slash of pure darkness appeared inside the ring-gate, its edges crackling with purple lightning. It slowly filled the gate and then the black, wobbling curtain popped. Through it, I could see the red interior of another Corpse Seeker.

  "Gate stable! Duration approximately seven minutes before I'll need to recalibrate and add more power to it. Will that be sufficient, Commander?" The moth asked.

  "More than sufficient," Sillicia said. She tapped the ring, hanging up on the moth. "I guess this is where I commit full-on treason and hand over military assets to a runaway Princess."

  "Strategic reallocation!” Shady bobbed.

  "You're… such a cute dork, you know," Sillicia smiled slightly. "Princess Aquillianne, I hereby transfer forty-seven tons of processed crystalloid biomass to your custody. May it serve your dark purposes."

  "So formal!" Shady giggled, then suddenly grabbed Sillicia by the shoulders and pulled her into a kiss.

  It wasn't a brief peck. It was a full-on skull to skull, open mouth kiss that made Nexxali whistle appreciatively. Extra long tongues entwined.

  When they finally separated, Sillicia looked dazed, glowing, silver eyes slightly unfocused.

  "That's a down payment," Shady said, grinning wickedly. "On future Hearth Keeper benefits."

  "I... yes. Right. Ah. Cargo. Transferring cargo now." Sillicia practically stumbled toward the gate.

  She stepped through the dimensional portal, and moments later, we heard her barking orders on the other side. "Alpha, begin cargo transfer to Seeker Kappa of all crystalloid cubes!"

  Crystalline organic arms emerged from Alpha's walls, each lifting and moving compressed cubes of processed vampire remains.

  Cube after cube after cube rapidly went through the gate. We watched in silence as the cubes continued to pile up.

  Finally, the transfer completed. Sillicia looked at us through the shrinking gate, looking significantly more composed than six minutes ago.

  "There," she said. "All of them, as promised."

  "You're great at this whole treachery thing," Shady observed.

  "Years of practice lying to myself about fleet command being worth it," Sillicia replied dryly.

  "Thank you, Sil. For… trusting us." Shady smiled, definitely on a mission to shorten the Wendigo Commander's name as much as possible.

  "Thanks for giving me something to trust in," Sillicia replied. "Princess? Your meeting with the Admiral... please don't die. Or at least, don't die permanently... don't allow them to unmake you. I just found something worth betraying everything for. I'd rather not lose it."

  "I'll try my best not to permanently die," Shady promised. "No guarantees on temporarily dying though. Auntie's a real overachiever when it comes to murder."

  "Just... be careful." Sillicia nodded with a half-smile. "And if you need anything—backup, extraction, a convenient orbital strike—ping me."

  "Will do, Sil," Shady said softly.

  A moment later, the dimensional hole folded into itself with a sound like reality sighing in relief and the crystal gate melted back into the floor.

  "Mmmmrrr. That's a lot of yummy magical potential just sitting in our cargo bay." Nexxali eyed our vamp cube pile hungrily. “Are we printing a gun army to protect Shades or something?”

  “Or something,” I agreed.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Nexy jabbed me.

  “I have a vague plan,” I said. “I need to know more before I make it happen.”

  I tapped my V-ring. "Kawathra, you can come out now."

  "Yay!" Her voice crackled through the ring.

  Moments later, a crystalline wall parted and the magpie Datamancer appeared. Her eyes widened comically at the small mountain of crystalloid cubes filling the cargo bay.

  "Sweet Slayer's left testicle," she breathed. "Is that... is that forty-seven tons of processed crystalloids from Seeker Alpha?"

  "Yep," I confirmed. "Courtesy of Commander Sillicia's extra-generous... strategic resource reallocation."

  Kawathra's pupils contracted, her analytical mind running a thousand probability matrices, charts rapidly blooming around her. "This is... this is enough raw material to fabricate approximately—"

  "Contemplate the potential later," I interrupted. "Let's head home. It’s getting late."

  "Of course!" She scurried toward the pilot's position. "Ohhh, we're going to do such wonderful things with this! I'm already calculating optimal fabrication schedules and—"

  "Kawathra."

  "Yes?"

  "Drive first. Scheme later."

  "Right! Yes! Driving!"

  As we sped back home, I hugged Shady and Nexy and talked with Kawathra about the function of the Incarnator, receiving many curious answers. The bird confirmed that it was indeed theoretically possible to reincarnate vampires, or anything really, using the Incarnator. That even the Omnids in the Lazarus temple had no idea how the bracelet and the blood worked. That the Incarnator Temple Arch-Keeper had an artifact that printed more Incarnator bracelets.

  We stopped behind the mansion sometime around 1 AM. The house was dark except for a few lights left on in the living room. Kawathra created a stairway and door and all of us went into the starry night.

  "You know what to do, yes?" I turned to her.

  "Yes, my liege," she bowed. "My body will rest but thirty of my mind splits will work on 'the project'. Tomorrow everything will be ready."

  The rest of the house was quiet as we entered. Someone, probably Galateya, made sure that the living room and kitchen were spotless. A note on the kitchen counter in neat handwriting read: "Did much reno. Water heater is now fully operational. Went to bed. Please don't blow anything up. ~Galya"

  "Awww. So responsible," Nexxali observed sarcastically. "It's annoying."

  "A goodly Hearth Keeper," Shady chortled. "Even if she is a shifty dragon."

  “Are we allowed to get two Hearth Keepers?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Shady shrugged.

  “Soooo then…” I began. "Are we betraying Sillicia or something?"

  “‘Dis my planet now, I make the rules,” Shady intoned. "No betrayal. She's a good addition to the circle."

  “Aight,” I shrugged.

  We made our way upstairs, footsteps muffled by the old carpet runner.

  Our bedroom, our bedroom, yes I had to get used to that, was at the end of the hall. Shady opened the door, and we filed inside.

  The room felt more lived-in now. My old guitar, which now assuredly belonged to Nexxali, leaned against one wall. The bed was a nest of random pillows and blankets harvested from across the house and put together by Shady. My laptop sat on the desk.

  Shady flopped onto the bed with a grunt, making the headboard and gothic roof creak. Nexxali climbed up more gracefully, curling into a ball at the foot of the bed like an oversized housecat.

  I sat on the edge, feeling the weight of the day.

  "So," I said, looking at Shady. "Your aunt wants to kill you tomorrow to interrogate you about some magic keys."

  "Yep," Shady confirmed. “Presumably... the master control keys to my family's fortress.”

  “Are they... physical keys?”

  “Yep. Physical artifact keys that control access to different dimensional bubbles. Armory. Treasuries. Prison levels. The deep archives. Fleet construction. The Incarnation chambers. Whoever has them can open gates directly into the Citadel's core systems, bypassing all security. It's basically the admin password to the entire infrastructure."

  "Soooo... You stole the keys to your family's entire fortress?"

  "I dunno. Maybe? I mean, I had access to some of them as a Princess."

  "Where are the keys now?" Nexxali asked.

  "That's the problem," Shady said. "I don't freaking remember."

  "You don't remember where you put possibly the most important artifacts in Frontenachii possession," I stated.

  "Yep!"

  "Shady."

  "I know! I know it's bad! But I literally can't remember! It's just... blank. Like someone took an eraser to that specific part of my memory."

  “Do you remember eating the brain spiders at all?" I asked.

  Shady's face scrunched up in concentration. "No. Everything between me killing my aunt and staring at her hoard and then waking up in this bed with you a few days later… It's like trying to remember an old dream. Nothing concrete."

  "You ate brain spiders?" Nexxali sat up abruptly. "Why the fuck would you eat brain spiders?!"