The banquet began later that evening.

Elves, Ludwig had learned, did not simply celebrate. They performed celebration like an art form, as if beauty itself would take offense if one cup was placed poorly or one note of music fell beneath perfection. The inner palace hosted within the World Tree transformed as the sun lowered beyond the endless canopy. Soft golden lights bloomed from hanging flowers. Pale stone floors, almost marble in their shine though grown seamlessly through the living wood, reflected the glow of lantern fruits suspended from curling branches. Curtains of translucent leaves swayed between high arches, each leaf catching light like thin green glass.

Many elves came.

Then the High Elves.

If ordinary elven grace was irritating, High Elven glamour bordered on offensive. They moved as if the world had been designed to carry them more gently than everyone else. Silver hair, green robes, gold-threaded garments, gemstone clasps, eyes like moonlit forests, and faces carved with the sort of beauty that made humans either poetic or resentful. Beauty and glamour were not luxuries to them. They were bread and wine.

Their music matched them.

Stringed instruments shaped from living wood sang beneath delicate fingers. Flutes answered from somewhere near the upper balconies. Soft drums pulsed like a second heartbeat under the floor. The melodies were light, intricate, and almost too clean for Ludwig’s taste, but he could not deny they were good. Elves danced beneath the branches in slow circles, steps flowing with the same ease as water over polished stone. Long sleeves trailed behind them. Hair ornaments chimed faintly. Even the laughter sounded arranged.

The food, however, was a tragedy.

Ludwig had seen more meat on a fasting monk’s plate.

There were fruits in impossible colors, roots shaped into delicate curls, soups made of herbs and flowers, pale breads with seeds, glazed mushrooms, and several dishes that looked like someone had asked a garden to politely surrender. It all smelled fresh. It was probably healthy. The elves seemed to enjoy it.

Ludwig had taken one look and decided wine was safer.

The wine, at least, was good.

He leaned against a pale marble pillar inside the World Tree’s inner palace, cup in hand, watching the elves dance to the music. The pillar behind him was cool against his shoulder, though faint warmth pulsed through it now and then from the living wood beneath the stone. He drank slowly, not because the wine was strong enough to do much, but because the taste was pleasant and holding a cup gave people a reason not to ask him to dance.

That was important.

He had survived many things, but elven formal dancing looked like the sort of battlefield where even his Living Vessel might betray him.

Not long after, Lorina approached.

She moved through the crowd with a quieter kind of elegance than the others. Less ornamental, more familiar. Her face carried some color now, more than when Ludwig had arrived. Miraless’s recovery had loosened something inside her. Not fully, because burdens built over years did not vanish in a single evening, but enough that her smile was easier when she reached him.

She held something carefully in both hands.

Ludwig looked at her palms over the rim of his cup. "What’s that?"

Lorina smiled. "Your friend."

She opened her hands.

A tiny figure lay curled in her palms, asleep and utterly unconcerned by the banquet around him.

Thomas.

Or what used to be Thomas.

He was small enough now that Lorina could hold him without effort. His body was shaped like a miniature version of himself, but made of faintly glowing ember-light, warm orange and red beneath a thin surface of spirit flesh. Wisps of flame drifted lazily from his hair and shoulders. Behind him were wings like those of a butterfly, translucent and veined with fire, folded over his back while he slept.

Ludwig blinked. "That doesn’t burn you?"

"Spirit fire is harmless to allies," Lorina said.

"That sounds like the sort of sentence people say before someone loses an eyebrow."

"He has been very careful."

Ludwig reached down and picked Thomas up by the scruff of his neck.

Thomas dangled between Ludwig’s fingers, wings drooping, still half-asleep. Ludwig lifted him right in front of his face.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then Thomas yawned.

He stretched both tiny arms, kicked once, and finally opened his eyes.

He saw Ludwig’s face looming in front of him.

Thomas yelped so hard a small burst of harmless flame popped from his wings.

"Looks like you’ve been really cozy here, huh," Ludwig said.

Thomas blinked several times, then squinted. "Ah. Ludwig. Sup, man?"

"Sup?" Ludwig repeated.

Thomas gave a tiny thumbs-up. "Sup."

Ludwig stared at him.

Then he looked around the banquet, at the beautiful elves, the music, the wine, the glowing flowers, the soft lights, the gentle atmosphere, and the fact that Thomas had apparently slept through most of it in Lorina’s palms like a spoiled household spirit.

"I’ve been fighting Sin after Sin," Ludwig said slowly, "and good old Thomas was asleep here, enjoying elf company, beautiful women, music, and naps. What a good day to be relaxed, isn’t it?"

Thomas lifted both hands defensively. "Ah, I mean, you gotta admit, turning into a spirit wasn’t easy, you know."

"Yeah," Ludwig said. "You probably had a harder time doing that than beating Envy, killing Pride, and making Sloth run away. Definitely."

Thomas’s sleepy expression sharpened.

His small wings fluttered once, then again.

"Damn, man," he said. "What happened to you? You’re kinda scaring me."

Ludwig sighed.

He loosened his grip and let Thomas go.

Thomas floated upward, wings beating a few times before he simply stopped flapping and remained suspended in the air as if the concept of falling no longer applied to him. He adjusted his tiny ember-like clothes, cleared his throat, and tried to regain dignity.

It did not entirely work.

"A lot of nasty shit happened," Ludwig said.

He drank more wine, then looked into the cup with disappointment.

"You got nothing that can actually get me drunk?" he asked Lorina.

Lorina tilted her head. "I would have to ask Mother."

"Please do. This is good, but it’s basically flavored honesty."

Thomas drifted closer, staring at Ludwig. "You look different."

"Yeah," Ludwig said. "Like I said. A lot of things happened."

"Care to share?" Thomas asked. "I’ve been cooped up in a cocoon for almost a year."

Ludwig looked at him.

Then at Lorina.

Then at the dancing elves.

He should have said no. He had enough to think about. The Black Dragon’s Curse. Karnak. Celest. The Greedful Death clue. Sloth somewhere in the north, waiting or sleeping or simply existing like a promise that the world had more nightmares stored away.

Instead, Ludwig smiled faintly.

"Fine," he said. "But I’m skipping the boring parts."

Thomas folded his tiny arms. "Since when do your boring parts not include death?"

"Exactly why I’m skipping them."

Lorina stood beside him as he began speaking, and at first, it was only for Thomas.

He told him of the Yellow River. Of the battle against Envy and the suffocating absurdity of fighting something that stole perfection as easily as breathing. He spoke of the eyes, the reflections, the way Envy twisted everything into comparison and theft. He did not linger on every death or every wound, but enough slipped through that Thomas’s expression changed, the little spirit slowly losing his joking posture.

Then Ludwig spoke of the Emperor.

The first audience. The political theater of nobles and crowns and men trying to measure things that could not be measured without going mad. He spoke of the Tower Masters, of Van Dijk’s impossible patience, of the Empire’s habit of wrapping stupidity in law until it looked almost respectable.

He spoke of the Tower.

Not everything.

Never everything.

But he spoke of the ascent, the old powers, the weight of Usurpers, the pieces of Sin he had taken into himself and survived only because the alternative was less convenient.

Thomas listened.

Lorina listened too.

Then the elves around them began listening.

It happened slowly. A nearby High Elf paused near a table, pretending to choose fruit while clearly following the story. A dancer missed half a step when Ludwig mentioned the black skies. A musician softened the tune without meaning to when he spoke of Pride. Conversations thinned at the edges. Chairs turned by subtle degrees. Elves who had been laughing moments ago now stood with cups untouched, eyes fixed on the human who leaned against a pillar and told calamities like a man reporting bad weather.

Ludwig told them of Pride.

The domain. The declaration. The impossible arrogance of a being that denied growth, change, and learning. He spoke lightly at first, then less so. The air in the banquet hall shifted when he mentioned how Denouncement made existence itself feel negotiable. How survival had not come from being stronger in the usual way, but from refusing the rules Pride imposed.

Thomas had gone still by then.

His tiny fire dimmed slightly, not weakening, but focusing.

Then came the black skies.

The Demon King’s descent.

The sense that something vast had leaned toward the world and the world had almost lacked the right to object. Ludwig described the battle without indulging too much in horror, but that almost made it worse. The elves had long memories. They understood what it meant when old evils moved.

He skipped a great deal.

He still managed to tell a good story.

When he reached Solania, more of the banquet had quietly arranged itself around him. The music had not stopped, but it had become softer, like accompaniment rather than entertainment. Even Miraless, seated farther away among honored guests, had turned her attention toward him. Kaiser was nowhere visible yet, which either meant he was behaving or stealing something quietly. Both were equally unlikely.

Ludwig told Thomas about Sloth.

About the army.

About the way the living began to fail under the weight of futility. About Titania’s light dying near Sloth’s body. About the Tower Masters being reduced to delaying tactics. About Mot standing at the edge of a power that could have broken more than the enemy. About the Necropolitis rising to defend Solania and the undead doing what the living could not.

By the time Ludwig stopped, his cup was empty.

No one spoke immediately.

Thomas hovered in front of him, wings still. His usual grin had collapsed into something much smaller.

"And you got tortured for helping them?" Thomas asked.

"Briefly."

"Three days is not briefly, brother."

"Compared to eternity, it’s very brief."

Thomas gave him a look.

Ludwig shrugged.

Thomas sighed, rubbing his little face with both hands. "Brother... you’re doing too much."

Ludwig looked down at the empty cup.

"Can’t help it," he said. "It’s my deal with Necros."

That quieted Thomas more than the rest.

Lorina’s expression softened, but she did not interrupt.

The music slowly resumed its fuller shape around them, as if the hall needed permission to breathe again. A few elves returned to conversation, though many still watched Ludwig with new unease. Stories of heroes and knights were one thing. Hearing a man casually explain that he had faced three Sins, interrupted a Demon King, and irritated Sloth into retreating was something else entirely.

Thomas drifted closer. "So what now?"

Ludwig set the empty cup aside. "Well, I got a clue on how to help Celest. After that..." He paused, then looked toward the open arches where the night forest shimmered beyond the World Tree. "I might have to take a trip to the north."

Thomas’s wings flared.

"Are you serious?"

"Usually not, but about this, yes."

"You’re hunting down Sloth?" Thomas’s voice rose despite his size. "In its territory? With so many of its allies around it?"

Ludwig did not answer immediately.

He could not say Thomas was wrong. The north was not a dungeon corridor. It was not a city battlefield. It was the direction Sloth had withdrawn to, the domain of creatures that had forced Solania to the edge of annihilation. Sloth had come too hastily, by his own words, and still nearly ended everything. What would happen if Ludwig went after him where he was prepared?

The thought was unpleasant.

Unfortunately, waiting felt worse.

"What do you expect him to do then?"

Kaiser’s voice arrived before he did.

The former Lich King approached with a wine mug in hand, looking too pleased with himself and not at all like someone who had recently saved an Elven Queen. Somehow, someone had allowed him access to a drinking cup. Or he had taken one. Most likely the second. His noble childlike face wore its usual sharp amusement, and the red finger of Ashkar rested casually around the mug like an ugly truth no amount of elven glamour could soften.

Several elves nearby stiffened when they saw him.

Kaiser ignored all of them.

"He can’t sit and wait for Sloth to come back," Kaiser said. "It might take a year. It might take ten thousand. Eventually, you will have to face them."

Thomas turned toward him. "And charging into their territory is your solution?"

"No," Kaiser said. "My solution would be far more elegant and likely involve murder, ancient relics, and three sacrificial kingdoms. Sadly, Ludwig keeps complaining when I suggest efficient things."

"Because your efficient things are too violent and... by imperial law, criminal," Ludwig said.

"Only if witnessed."

Lorina sighed. "Kaiser."

"What? I helped your mother. I am allowed at least one morally questionable sentence per hour."

"You exceeded that before dinner."

"Then I am consistent."

Thomas looked between them. "This is the guy who fixed the Queen?"

"Yes," Ludwig said.

Thomas squinted at Kaiser. "You look too smug to be a healer."

"I am not a healer. I removed a mistake and let the tree do the sentimental part."

"See?" Ludwig said. "Too smug."

Kaiser drank from his mug, made a face, then looked at Ludwig. "Weak wine."

"I asked for stronger."

"Elves are cowards in matters of alcohol."

An elderly High Elf nearby stiffened as if personally stabbed.

Miraless’s voice floated from across the hall. "Careful, little lich. We do have stronger wine. We simply do not serve it to guests we wish to remain polite."

Kaiser turned toward her. "Then by all means, serve me the rude wine."

Ludwig pointed at him. "And me."

Lorina looked betrayed. "Both of you?"

Thomas raised a tiny hand. "Can spirits get drunk?"

"No," Lorina said.

"Coward answer."

Ludwig looked at Thomas. "You’ve been awake for five minutes and already learned from the worst person here."

Kaiser smiled. "Talent recognizes talent."

For a brief moment, the tension loosened.

The elves returned more fully to their music. The hall breathed again. Wine was poured. Food continued to be ignored by Ludwig with great discipline. Thomas fluttered around his shoulder, still asking smaller questions between bouts of disbelief. Lorina remained nearby, her gaze often drifting to her mother, as if confirming Miraless was still there, still whole, still seated among her people rather than bound beneath roots.

But beneath the warmth, Ludwig’s thoughts remained north.

Sloth.

Karnak.

The Greedful Death clue.

Celest asleep in a palace bed.

The Shrike escaping.

Pope Clementine vanishing.

Every completed problem had split open three more.

Kaiser stepped beside him and leaned against the same pillar, mug in hand. "You are thinking too hard."

"Rare event. Let me enjoy it."

"You cannot solve all of them tonight."

"I know."

"Then drink."

"I tried. It’s weak."

Kaiser lifted his mug. "To weak wine, weak kingdoms, and strong enemies."

Thomas hovered near them. "That toast sucks."

"It is accurate."

Ludwig looked at the cup Lorina had refilled for him.

He raised it anyway.

"To being busy," he said.

Kaiser snorted. "Awful."

Thomas smiled faintly. "Yeah. That sounds more like you."

Ludwig drank.