I'm just waiting for the day that Beryl joins the Beryl Trevanei Fan Club...

There was a loud crashing noise from down the hall.

Thoughtfully, Jinsen paused with his tea cup halfway to his lips. The sound had been preceded by a shout, and the shuffling of feet on the ground. Then, a splintering noise, followed by the muffled thump and the crashing noise itself. If Jinsen had to guess, their guest had upset Kimberley.

Again.

He sighed, placing his cup on the low table he was kneeling at.

He stood in a single motion, brushing the palm of his hand against the hilt of his blade as he secured it to his waist. Then, he strode from his room sliding the door open as he did so, and closed the distance to the source of the commotion in a few easy strides. Since he had stood, there had been a quick exchange of low, angry voices. As he opened the door, he stilled his face into a mild mask and surveyed the, admittedly ridiculous, scene in front of him.

Kimberley was, of course, on her feet. Her 'opponent' would not be able to stand against her even if he was healthy. On the floor, upside down, atop what had been a well polished nightstand, lay Denner Fabellian.

Denner was staring up at him, bewildered. Kimberley set her jaw in a mulish scowl.

Denner had been the source of one disturbance after another, ever since Kimberley had been swayed by his painful plight and vowed to save him from the poison that was slowly killing him. Finding the various ingredients, convincing the experts to help, and consulting ancient scrolls for guidance - as well as all the other obstacles along the way - had proven to be simple. Very... active.

Jinsen would rather fight thirty ancient, animated stone guardians than have to deal with a healthy Denner Fabellian.

And it was not that Denner was an unpleasant man. Jinsen's dealings with him in the past had mostly been mild, and polite. He had a tendency to... talk. But so did Kimberley. They had faced the Dual-Walkers together, and though they had escaped, and Denner had been crippled, they had parted on amicable terms. In all honesty, Jinsen had hardly spared the delver another thought. He had... other matters, on his mind.

He had been gallant, however. To save them all from the poison like that. When they had stumbled upon him, miserable and in agony... Jinsen was glad Kimberley had jumped to his aid, because he had been frozen by guilt.

It was that same piteous guilt that soothed his fraying nerves now.

"Lord Eijo just had that nightstand made." Jinsen pointed out evenly, as Denner righted himself and Kimberley folded her arms. Kimberley had lost her temper with Denner many times over the past few days, but this was the first time she had broken something. "Kimberley, this is not what I had in mind when I tasked you with learning temperance."

"It's-" Kimberley began, but as Jinsen stared at her mildly, she bit her tongue, and swallowed. Good. "I know. You're right. I'll speak with Lord Eijo about the nightstand."

"Thank you Kimberley, I'm sure he will appreciate an explanation." He stepped to one side, a silent dismissal, and Kimberley hurried out of the room with her head bowed. Jinsen closed the door behind her as Denner stood back up shakily.

"She's very... spirited?" Denner managed, uncertainty in his voice. Uncertainty in his eyes. For someone who remembered everything that he had ever seen, he was certainly... uncertain. Jinsen nodded in agreement, and helped the delver back into his head. "It was ah... quite the overhand throw. You've been teaching her well."

"I'm afraid I don't teach Kimberley to throw things." Jinsen told Denner, with a small shrug. "She must have learned that herself." Jinsen was reminded poignantly of Axos' words regarding his student, and sighed. "You should not provoke her."

"I didn't think I was!" Denner insisted, oblivious to the same, mild stare that had gotten Kimberley to rethink her choice of words. Jinsen's gaze flattened as Denner continued to talk. "One moment, she was bringing me some water, and the next, I'm across the room!"

"I'm not interested in hearing about what happened, Denner Fabellian." Jinsen said tiredly. "I thought tending for you would be an adequate test of her patience. Perhaps I misjudged."

Denner frowned at that comment. Jinsen heard Denner's feet rustle against the sheets.

"Oh, because it's such a burden to be around me." Denner grumbled, looking away from Jinsen. "Gods forbid I want some water! Gods forbid I need a little help- After what I did for all of you, after all I've been through!" Denner's knuckle bones creaked as he bunched the sheets in his fists angrily. "I remember every second of that agony Lotus. I'll remember it forever."

Jinsen blinked once, slowly, as Denner stared at the opposite while, breathing angrily.

"Your ordeal has embittered you." Jinsen observed sadly.

"Well, it wasn't a pleasant experience!" Denner growled venomously. "And apparently it's too much to hope for a young woman to return a little affection."

Jinsen frowned.

"Kimberley owes you nothing, Denner." Jinsen said.

"Doesn't she?" The delver muttered.

Jinsen's blade was at Denner's throat before the cold pit of anger had settled in Jinsen's stomach.

"Watch your words and thoughts, Denner Fabellian." The Eightfold Lotus warned, voice low, calm, and deadly. "For if they become actions, I will act."

Denner swallowed against the edge of the blade.

"You never would have drawn your blade against an unarmed man, before." Denner pointed out with exaggerated slowness.

There was a short, tense silence.

The Eightfold Lotus sheathed his blade.

"Time has changed us both, Denner Fabellian." Jinsen murmured. "I hope you make a full recovery."

Denner turned away from Jinsen, sullen. Jinsen left the room, feeling the anger uncoil in his gut and become introspection. He had much to think about - but first, he should check with Kimberley. She would not appreciate being jailed again, though he doubted Lord Eijo would do more than laugh.

Kimberley couldn't find it in herself to hope. She hadn't been the same since the disappearance of the Eightfold Lotus: there was a sick, empty feeling in her heart, like it hadn't healed since the last time it was broken. But she knew she had to carry on, to accept that she might never meet her master again. She knew it was what he would have wanted. But then the coded message came, and with it a terrifying glimmer of hope - one that pierced right to her heart and opened up the wounds all over again.

She would find him. She knew she had to.

The dead man's whispers had led her to a plane called Solphos, a world of gleaming progress and finely machined precision. A world where artifice and wizardry were one and the same. She had followed the trail of breadcrumbs behind the plane's gleaming exterior and into its forbidding heart, an underworld of occult alchemy and unseen clockwork; Jinsen's discipline had gotten her that far. But here, in the forbidden library of the West Wing, in the Furopolis Institute, all the threads converged upon a single dead end.

Jinsen's lifeless body lay before Kimberley on a grave of burned books and spilled reagents, impaled on his own katana.

She fell to her knees.

"Friend of yours?" said a voice from behind her.

Kimberley breathed sharply. She kicked to her feet, trying to turn, but landed hard on her elbows. Before her was a young woman in black research robes, who pushed up her protective goggles and watched her with probing golden eyes. As Kimberley struggled to make sense of her situation, a tiny glass thopter winked into vision and alighted on the strange woman's shoulder, shimmering with colors - and just like that, Kimberley realized just who she'd been discovered by.

"Cracking that invisibility spell was no mean feat," said Lumina. "I take it you're no native of Solphos. Nor was the man you were paying your respects to, judging by the cut of his garb."

"Philosopher Lumina?" Kimberley's mind whirled with the ramifications of what she'd just heard.

"The very same." Lumina inclined her head. "And yes, I walk the planes as you do. Don't worry - I have no intention of harming you. Not if I understand the truth I've been seeking."

Kimberley narrowed her eyes. An arcane shimmer passed over her, and she vanished only to reappear standing between Lumina and her mentor's body. "What are you here for? What's your game?"

Lumina's eyes flashed, and she gave Kimberley a long, serious look. "I didn't kill him, if that's what you're asking." She turned her gaze to the wreckage all around her. "I'm investigating a mystery - a mystery in a sprawling web of mysteries. That man was one of them. He was here, on my Solphos, looking for something."

Kimberley's breath caught in her throat. "He never told me," she said softly.

"Nor could he," said Lumina. "There are eyes and ears everywhere. Someone else is watching and listening, someone whose web has even more reach than the Philosophers' Cabal, and it terrifies me." Lumina exhaled as her eyes passed over Jinsen's body. "It seems he found the spider."

Kimberley's hands balled into fists.

"Tell me who killed him," she said.

Lumina looked at the once-timid planeswalker. A shadow seemed to flicker over her golden eyes - a shadow of hardship, of loss, of hope, and of betrayal.

"Are you sure you want this?" she asked.

Kimberley nodded soundlessly.

Lumina turned away. She raised her hand, and supernatural silence engulfed the room.

"I hunt the impersonator of someone I once loved." Lumina's voice echoed in the soundproof barrier; she paced around Kimberley as she spoke. "They call her the Lunar Trismegistus, but it is a lie and a false name. One of many masks she uses to sway the gullible and undermine worlds from within. It cost me dearly to learn her true name, but I did it for Solphos. For every plane threatened by her influence."

Lumina stopped before Jinsen's body.

"She is the Duchess. And I will bring her to justice."

In a smooth motion, she drew the sword from his corpse and turned to Kimberley with burning intensity.

"Are you with me?"