The Golden Ticket didn't just admit them; it dressed them.
As Kaelen and Valerius crossed the bridge to the Spire of Sighs—a jagged, lonely needle of rock jutting out of the Obolus estuary—the air shimmered with a heavy, illusory glamour.
The Spire was usually a fortress of grey stone and iron bars, a warehouse for the city's discarded minds. But tonight, under the influence of the Laughing God's twisted reality, the asylum had been skinned. The crumbling gargoyles were draped in bunting made of shadow and silk. The iron gates, usually rusted shut, stood open, flanked by two "doormen"—Sleeper agents wearing livery that looked suspiciously like it had been peeled off the previous guards.
"Put this on," Kae said, her voice devoid of inflection. She handed Valerius a strip of black cloth she had torn from her own coat. "A mask. The invitation implies a dress code."
Valerius took the cloth but didn't tie it. He was staring at her, his grey eyes searching for the girl who had cried over her mother's corpse less than an hour ago. He didn't find her. The Kaelen Vance standing on the windswept bridge was a statue carved from ice and trauma.
"Vance," Valerius said, his voice low. "We are walking into the heart of the madness. The Spire houses the criminally insane. If the Killer has unlocked the cells..."
"He didn't just unlock them," Kae interrupted, walking toward the gate. "He invited them."
Smile, darling, the Voice whispered in her ear. It sounded sophisticated now, like a chaotic aristocrat swirling brandy. Shoulders back. Chin up. You're the belle of the ball. You just ate the White Queen; try not to look like you have indigestion.
Kae stepped through the gates.
The transformation was instantaneous and nauseating.
One moment, she was wearing her mud-stained leather coat and combat boots. The next, the ambient magic of the "Masquerade" seized her. The illusion woven over the asylum didn't change her physical clothes, but it overlaid them with a sensory hallucination so strong it felt real.
She looked down. In the eyes of the guests, she was no longer a Mindsink in rags. She was wearing a gown of midnight-blue velvet that seemed to absorb the light. Her boots clicked like heels.
She looked at Valerius. The Inquisitor's battered leather coat now shimmered like a formal tailcoat. The strip of cloth in his hand had become a domino mask of silver filigree.
"Illusion magic," Valerius hissed, touching his face. "Mass psychosis projected over a localized area. He's turned the asylum into a ballroom."
"No," Kae said, watching the stream of "guests" entering the main doors. "He's turned the inmates into courtiers."
They entered the Grand Hall of the Spire.
It was a scene of grotesque beauty. The rotunda, usually a cold, echoing chamber for processing new patients, was bathed in the warm, golden glow of a thousand floating candles. A string quartet played in the corner—but upon closer inspection, the musicians were weeping as they played, their bows moving across the strings by an unseen force.
The music was the Laughing Note, slowed down to a waltz.
One-two-three. One-two-die.
The floor was packed. Hundreds of figures danced in concentric circles. Under the glamour, Kae knew these were the broken, the catatonic, and the violent inmates of the Spire. But the illusion painted them in silks, satins, and feathers. They spun with mechanical precision, their eyes wide and vacant behind jeweled masks.
"Don't touch them," Valerius warned, donning his mask. "If you break the contact, the illusion might fail. We need to find the Killer."
"He's at the top," Kae said, her gaze drifting upward to the spiraling staircase that wound around the central atrium. "The penthouse. The Director's Office."
He likes the high ground, the Voice agreed. Gods usually do.
They began to push through the crowd. It was like wading through molasses. The dancers didn't move out of the way; they flowed around them, their laughter bubbling up like carbonation in a shaken bottle.
Kae felt the hunger again. It wasn't the sharp, singing void of starvation. It was a dull, persistent ache. The memory of her mother's kitchen was a heavy stone in her stomach, but the ambient madness here—the sheer volume of fractured psyches—was making her mouth water.
"Careful," Valerius muttered, gripping her elbow. "Your eyes are glowing."
"It's the lighting," Kae lied.
A figure stepped in front of them, blocking their path.
It was a man wearing a mask that looked like a bird's beak—a plague doctor's visage, but encrusted with diamonds. He bowed low.
"Tickets, please," the bird-man chirped.
Kae reached into her pocket and produced the Golden Ticket.
The bird-man took it, sniffing the gold leaf. "Ah. The Black Queen. We've been expecting you. The Master is in the Observatory." He gestured to the stairs.
Then he looked at Valerius. "And the gentleman?"
"He's with me," Kae said.
"Does he have a ticket?"
"He has a shotgun," Valerius said, his hand drifting under the illusion of his tailcoat to the very real weapon beneath.
The bird-man tittered. "How gauche. No weapons on the dance floor, Inquisitor. Unless, of course, they are part of the costume."
He stepped aside. "Proceed. But be warned: The tempo is increasing."
They ascended the stairs. The higher they climbed, the thinner the air became, and the louder the music grew. The waltz was speeding up. Below them, the dancers spun faster, the silk of their illusionary gowns blurring into a whirlpool of color.
"He's winding them up," Kae realized, looking over the railing. "Valerius, look at the floor."
Valerius looked down. From this height, the pattern of the dancers wasn't random. They were moving in a spiral. A perfect, tightening coil.
"It's a centrifuge," Valerius said, his face paling. "He's not just making them dance. He's churning them. He's mixing their psychoses to create a collective consciousness."
"A hive mind," Kae whispered. "He's building an antenna."
To broadcast what? The Voice wondered. Or perhaps... to call something down?
They reached the top landing. A set of double doors, padded with velvet and studded with brass nails, stood before them.
Kae didn't hesitate. She pushed the doors open.
The Observatory was silent. The roar of the party below was cut off instantly.
The room was vast, dominated by a massive telescope pointed at the night sky through a glass dome. But the glass wasn't clear. It was stained black.
Standing at the telescope was the Killer.
He had changed his costume again. The white suit was gone. He now wore a long, flowing robe of starry midnight blue, matching the illusionary gown Kae was wearing. He wore the mirror mask, but the glass was no longer cracked. It was liquid, swirling like quicksilver.
"You're late," the Killer said, not turning around. "The Eclipse is starting."
"There is no eclipse tonight," Valerius said, aiming his shotgun at the Killer's back. "The moon is gibbous."
The Killer turned. The liquid mirror of his mask reflected Valerius and Kae, but distorted—elongated and twisted.
"Not in the sky, Inquisitor," the Killer said softly. "In the mind."
He gestured to the telescope. "Come. Look. See what is approaching."
"Don't look," Valerius commanded.
But Kae was already moving. The compulsion was strong—the same pull she had felt with the Black Queen piece. She walked to the telescope.
Don't do it, little thief, the Voice warned, sounding genuinely nervous. Curiosity killed the cat, but the void eats the soul.
Kae ignored him. She put her eye to the lens.
She expected to see the moon. Or the city.
Instead, she saw a door.
It was a massive, ancient door floating in the darkness of space, or perhaps in the darkness of the Void itself. It was made of bone and shadow, and it was slightly ajar.
And from the crack in the door, something was looking back.
A giant, unblinking eye. An eye that laughed.
Kae gasped, pulling back. Her mind reeled. The sheer scale of what she had seen threatened to crack her sanity like an eggshell.
"What is that?" she whispered.
"The Laughing God," the Killer said reverently. "He has been waiting outside the door for a thousand years. The Architects of Obolus built this city to keep that door shut. They built the filters. The laws. The Inquisition."
He walked toward Kae, ignoring Valerius's gun.
"But a door is meant to be opened, Kaelen. And the key isn't a spell. It isn't a ritual."
He reached out and touched Kae's forehead. His glove was cold.
"The key is a mind capable of holding the paradox. A mind that can consume the lock."
Kae realized with a jolt of terror what the "Middlegame" was.
He wasn't trying to destroy the city. He was trying to feed it to her.
"You want me to eat the seal," Kae realized. "The psychic barrier that protects Obolus. You want me to sink it."
"I want you to become the Door," the Killer corrected.
"Step away from her!" Valerius fired.
The shotgun blast roared in the enclosed space. The pellets hit the Killer in the chest—and passed straight through him.
The robe rippled like smoke. The Killer dissolved into a swarm of black moths that scattered into the air, reforming on the other side of the room.
"Physical violence," the Killer sighed, brushing a moth from his shoulder. "So boring. Let's make this interesting, shall we?"
He raised his hand.
Below them, the music stopped.
A scream rose from the ballroom. It wasn't a scream of fear. It was a scream of transformation.
The floor of the Observatory began to crack.
"The guests are coming up," the Killer smiled. "And they are very hungry."
He looked at Kae.
"Eat or be eaten, Black Queen. The dance continues."
The double doors behind them burst open.
The "courtiers" poured in. But the illusion was failing. The silk gowns were rotting away to reveal asylum rags. The jeweled masks were melting into flesh.
They weren't dancing anymore. They were swarming.
"Valerius, the window!" Kae shouted.
"We're a hundred feet up!"
"Better than being eaten!"
Kae grabbed Valerius and ran for the black glass of the dome. She didn't have a plan. She didn't have a spell.
She just had the memory of the Silencer she had blasted off the roof. Gravity magic. She had eaten a trace of it.
Use it! the Voice screamed.
Kae slammed her shoulder into the glass. It shattered.
They fell into the night air, plummeting toward the dark water of the estuary below. As the wind roared in her ears, Kae looked back up at the Spire.
The Killer stood at the broken window, watching them fall.
He waved.
And then, Kaelen Vance turned her focus to the water rushing up to meet them, and prayed that the gravity in her blood was enough to stop them from shattering on impact.