Zou Shi took the gem from Marie's fingers and, in the same motion, drew his card.
It emerged from his right hand the way cards do in a magic trick, except there was nothing theatrical about it. It simply appeared, sliding into existence between his fingers, edge by edge, as if it had always been there and had only just decided to show itself.
Killian watched from behind, and something stirred in the back of his mind.
*That looks familiar.*
He reached into his pocket without thinking and touched the edge of his own card. He did not pull it out. He just held it there, feeling the cool surface against his fingertips, watching.
Zou Shi pressed the yellow gem against the face of his card. The gem did not bounce off or fall. It simply sank in, absorbed, the way water disappears into dry ground. A brief pulse of light flared from the card and was gone.
And then they were faster.
Not noticeably so, not at first. But the trees began passing more quickly at the edges of Killian's vision, and his legs, which had already felt light since the spell, felt lighter still.
Ahead, through the tangled dark of the forest, something changed in the quality of the light. The shadows thinned. The fog still hung between the trees, but it was the pale, retreating kind now, not the thick smothering kind. And beyond it, shapes.
"We are on the right path," Yamada called back without turning. "Increase pace."
They did.
The trees broke.
What stood before them, emerging from the forest's edge as the last of the fog drew back, was not what any of them might have expected to find in the middle of a ruined city wrapped in supernatural fog. It was ancient. Deeply, unmistakably ancient, even though it had no business being here.
The structure was vast. Its walls were built from dark andesite blocks, grey-black stone worn smooth in places and rough in others, fitted together without mortar, each block locked against its neighbor through weight and precision alone. Thin threads of moss grew in the seams, tracing the joints like ink drawn by a patient hand. The walls were not bare. Every surface that could hold a carving held one: processions of figures, divine forms, celestial dancers caught mid-movement in bas-relief that rose and fell in the uneven light. The lines were intricate enough that you could spend hours on a single panel.
Killian slowed to a walk as they approached, his head tilting back to take it in.
"Isn't this a temple?" he said. "Southeast Asian. It looks like it's from Southeast Asia."
Zou Shi looked up at the carvings with his head tilted at an angle. "I thought it was Aztec."
"It is not Aztec," Yamada said, with the patience of someone who had long ago accepted that Zou Shi would say things like this. "It is Indonesian, as far as I can determine. Though how it ended up here is another matter entirely."
"I have about forty questions," Killian said.
"Good," Laufey said flatly. "Save them."
Marie had already turned back toward the trees. "We should keep moving. The camp is still ahead."
There was no argument. They filed back into the forest on the other side of the temple, where the canopy grew denser, blocking more of the pale sky above. The formation tightened automatically, each person closing the gap to the one ahead of them.
Killian fell into step just behind Yamada, his mind working.
"There are a lot of things I need to ask you," he said quietly to Yamada's back, "when we get there."
"Ask as many as you like," Yamada said without breaking stride. "And for what it is worth, Mr. Died-And-Came-Back, you are still very much on the planet Earth. Not the afterlife. Whatever you remember from before, you are alive now."
"That is somehow both reassuring and not at all reassuring," Killian said.
"How did you find me back there, anyway?" he continued. "Did you come through this forest?"
"We did, yes. We were tracking movement near the tower when we picked up your signal. Normally we would have taken the southern route, but the fog was heavier that way, so we cut through the" Yamada's sentence ended abruptly.
He stopped.
His arm shot out behind him, palm flat, a clear and immediate signal. Every person in the group stopped within half a step.
"What is it?" Killian said under his breath.
Yamada did not answer immediately. His eyes were fixed on the dark between the trees ahead. The forest had gone very quiet. The kind of quiet that has something to do with everything in it deciding, simultaneously, to hold still.
Then Killian saw them.
Black foxes. A large cluster of them, gathered in the shadows ahead, their shapes wrong in the specific way that monsters are wrong, too angular, too many limbs in places limbs should not be, their eyes reflecting light that wasn't quite there.
"Damn." Amura's voice was low and cold.
Yamada pulled back from the front and addressed the group in a quiet, firm voice. "Zou Shi. Marie. Stay with Killian. Keep him back and keep him clear." He looked at the other two. "Amura. Laufey. With me."
"Understood." Marie and Zou Shi moved without hesitation, positioning themselves on either side of Killian.
"Protect me?" Killian murmured, looking between them. "Is that really necessary? I'm not that"
Neither of them moved aside.
Yamada stepped forward, drew his card with his right hand, and held it between two fingers. Then he folded it once, and raised it above him.
The card shattered.
Not broke. Shattered, like glass struck from the inside, the pieces dissolving into light before they could fall, and from that light, a weapon settled over his hands. Gauntlets, black as forge-iron, with patterns running through them the color of dark red, jagged and overlapping like dragon scales pressed flat. The weight of them changed his posture in a subtle way, a slight forward lean, like something in him had been waiting to take that shape.
「Oh, Sovereign of the Pale Iron, I offer flesh to the abyss. Bestow upon me the edge of Spades.」
Killian stared. Then he looked at Zou Shi. "What is that?"
"Arcana Magic," Zou Shi said simply. "Each card has a form. That is his."
Killian reached into his pocket again and touched his own card. His fingers closed around it. "I have one of these."
"You do?" Zou Shi glanced at him sideways.
"I found it when I woke up. It was in my pocket."
"Show me later," Zou Shi said. "When we are somewhere that nothing is trying to eat us. For now, stay close."
Amura had gone still at Yamada's right side. His hands came together in front of him, the fingers interlocked, and he bowed his head over them with an expression of absolute concentration. When he spoke, the words were precise and without drama, each syllable placed carefully, like a blade being set against a stone.
「O' mother of the Crimson, I surrender my sanity to the cup. Let the pulse of Hearts dictate their doom.」
The shadows nearby moved. Not the natural movement of shadow responding to light, but something else, something intentional, something called. Three shapes assembled themselves from the dark beneath the trees and took the form of foxes, matching the black monsters ahead of them almost perfectly. Summoned shapes, solid enough to cast their own shadows, moving with the fluid and purposeful grace of things that had been told exactly what to do.
They advanced on Amura's command without a sound.
Killian watched them go, then turned to see what Laufey was doing.
She was doing nothing with her hands. She spoke no incantation. She simply reached to her hip, drew the katana from its sheath in one smooth motion, and held it at her side. A dark aura built around the blade, visible and slow-moving, like smoke from cold fire.
"She did not say anything," Killian said, genuinely puzzled. "No spell. No words. How does that work?"
"Her card is a Minor Arcana Wildcard," Marie said quietly, beside him. "The rules are different for that type."
Killian went still.
He reached into his pocket and pulled his card out slowly, turning it face-up in his palm. The golden edges. The illustration of the figure walking away from the village. The words printed beneath.
*The Cursed Villager.*
"Wait." He looked at Laufey's blade, then down at his card. "Minor Arcana Wildcard. That means she has the same type as me." A pause. "My card is called The Cursed Villager."
Zou Shi turned to look at it. His face went through several expressions very quickly, starting at neutral and arriving somewhere between amusement and pity.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Did you say The Cursed Villager?"
"Yes."
"That is the name of your card."
"It is."
Zou Shi pressed his lips together. "Brother, I say this with care." He patted Killian once on the shoulder. "You are not lucky, LOL!"
Killian looked down at the card. The figure on it walked its eternal road away from the village, unbothered, going nowhere in particular. He watched it for a moment.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I sort of got that impression."