It takes many hours to calculate the dimensions of a plane. Tam sets up her tools on an escarpment overlooking the starlit moorlands of Innistrad. Moon-drinking thistles scratch at her ankles, and tall grasses hide all number of nightmares from view. As she writes down measurement after measurement, the wind breezes its chill over a vast and empty moor. The only sign of life is the little white inn, an island in a sea of peat and heath. Tam's results are accurate, her methodology sound, and she spends an entire evening standing on a slab of granite with her instruments pointed toward the horizon. She marks the dimensions, runs through quick math, scrawls them out on a piece of paper while a wolf howls somewhere over the horizon as the sun begins to set.

A thought crosses Tam's mind as she reads her own tiny scrawl. Her eyesight is better than a full human's. Can she petrify? Likely not, but worth experimentation.

A glance around her tools, the stone underneath, the swish of grass in the breeze, reveals a rat nibbling on what was her lunch.

Something fizzles behind Tam's eyes. It prickles at the forefront of her mind.

There is no squeak when it startles and stills. The rat does not move, but does not turn to stone.

Guess not.

She stares hard again, skin tensing around her eyes. She can feel a muscle twinge on the side of her head.

It squeaks when it's released.

The rat jolts, flails, free of whatever held it, and scurries back home, perfectly alive without a speck of stone.

Tam watches it scamper off and smiles. She imagines it bursting into its den, warning its rat-wife of yet another monster of the heath, and is amused at her own imagination. His rat-wife will commend his bravery, kiss his little rat nose, and squeak to him that she's so proud and that she loves him so much. He'll tell his rat-friends over their cups of brew how his fur stood on end as he stared down the gorgon, and they'll all toast to his survival. Someday, his litter of pinkies will ask him to tell the story one more time before bed, and the brave rat will sigh and recite it as his little ones nuzzle asleep in their fluff while Innistrad bleeds and howls and roils above. At least, that's what Tam imagines.

A new skill confirmed, she nods in happy satisfaction. That was neat. She is fine never doing that again.

Tam packs up her tools and heads for the white-plaster inn, the little white island at the base of her hill in the great green moor, a small square with ancient timbers visible through its sides. The architecture is charming, its biome intriguing in its grimness. Her toes kick away ancient glacial till; her fingers skim rough-edged grasses. It's chilly here. She likes the swish of her cloak. Feels the risk in the air.

Tam enters the inn to a wave of warmth. Candlelight wraps around her, carrying with it the sound of timbers creaking, the whisper of a broom on floorboards, the scent of yeast and barley. The innkeeper is behind the bar, uncasking a barrel and hoisting it into place. She is sturdy and stout, the muscles of her forearms peppered with scars. She nods a hello, her blond waves rustling with the movement. "So, how big is it?" she asks.

This innkeeper greeted Tam like she was an old friend. She portered her bags upstairs, and Tam was pleased when she packed her a lunch. She reminded Tam of someone, but she couldn't place whom. Tam thought of boats and the wide sea, a quartermaster at the helm of her country inn. A name tickles her memory, but she doesn't pull at the thread. The memory isn't hers.

"The plane is larger than anticipated," Tam says to the innkeeper.

"We stopped it from ending altogether, in the Travails." The innkeeper smiles. "You off-worlders wouldn't have heard about it. There's a monster we trapped in the moon. It nearly ended this plane."

Tam takes a seat at the bar. The innkeeper exhales with full cheeks and leans forward. "A lot happened. It was nightmarish." Tam hears her pull a stool close, watches as she takes a seat directly across the bar top. "Thank Avacyn so many survived. Thank Avacyn for watching over the rest."

"Did you lose anyone?" Tam asks, instantly realizing how rude her question is.

The innkeeper doesn't seem to care. "My uncle merged with his whole town."

"Merged?"

"Oh, yes. Two dozen of us cathars joined up to hunt down Hanweir—the Town—and slay it."

Appalled, Tam can't hide the look on her face. "You killed your own uncle?"

"My uncle died the day the town became the Town. Way I see it, my devoted brethren and I slayed the monster that took him."

Tam looks at her hands and considers this. This woman underwent the pinnacle of suffering—tremendous loss matched by equally culpable guilt. She's a murderer who didn't mention any attempt to rescue her uncle. The monster in the moon, a town merging with itself … this plane is more dangerous than it lets on. The Theorist might be right. This place promises dead brothers, dead monsters, more torment … Is the rest of the Multiverse like this?

She only realizes what she's doing when the innkeeper pushes a stein against the back of her fingers. Dimples appear on either side of the innkeeper's lips. "Name's Moiren. On the house."

"I'm Tam," she says. "How can you smile?"

Moiren shrugs. "Felt like smiling."

Tam doesn't. She takes hold of the stein and tries a sip. It's her first beer. She knows nothing about alcohol but can tell this is watery and weak. She loves it.

"Wow," Moiren says in response.

Tam cannot say anything, as she is occupied.

"Another one coming up, then," Moiren says with a lilt of amusement. Tam can see the bottom of the stein.

Satisfied, she sets it down. She realizes she may need to slow down. Moiren snickers, but Tam isn't done processing yet.

"Why not leave? An Omenpath could take you to a much safer plane."

Moiren shrugs. "It's my home. The moor's in my blood. The silver in the moon is the same silver I wear on a chain. Don't you have a home worth fighting for?"

No, Tam thinks. Not really.

"If you build your life around what's easy, you'll never learn how to grow. You'll never outrun pain, girl."

"Why not?"

"It's the only constant."

"So, we're doomed to suffer, then we die? And that's it?"

Moiren pulls a necklace from her bosom, a symbol that dangles from a long leather braid. "The church teaches that death is the rest we are rewarded in the end. Suffering in life is unavoidable, but we can break from its pull when we see its purpose."

"What is its purpose?" asks the person-in-progress.

Moiren's smile is knowing and annoying. "You'll figure it out."

Tam is about to interrogate Moiren's pedagogy when something thwacks against the door. Both women freeze.

"Get down," Moiren commands. Tam does so without question. She opens her mind and quickly skims the area around the inn.

"Three people," Tam whispers.

Moiren pulls a longsword from under the counter of the bar, grabs a cloak with yellow lining from the same place, and swiftly clasps it in place.

"What sort of people?" Moiren asks, another loud noise bashing against the outside wall.

Tam checks and recoils. "I thought they were like a friend of mine, but these vampires aren't as friendly."

The window is smashed in. Moiren sighs. "Rotten vermin. One moment, miss. Please stay inside."

Tam watches as the innkeeper hoists her sword and lunges for the door. She yanks it open and leaps out, calling a prayer at the top of her lungs.

"May the hearth of the living never grow cold! May the walls of our sanctums never grow thin!"

She hears metal clashing with metal, a violent scuffle. In that exact moment, Tam recognizes why she should not have slugged back the drink that seemed so prime for slugging. She feels swimmy and full of liquid, profoundly unhelpful.

Tam crawls to the door and peeks outside. Moiren is fighting with full force, swinging her sword and readying a dagger at her side. The three monsters she fights look like people, or almost like people. Their eyes are black around the irises, their clothing elaborate but roughened from travel, as if it has been some time since they left the ballroom they emerged from. Each shares the same jet-black hair and pointed canines. Vampires, but not like Kirol, not in the slightest. She watches in awe as Moiren rushes in without pause. She spins and thrusts, dipping low and slicing up. Tam can tell her target is the neck, but each vampire moves with unnatural speed. Moiren can only barely keep up.

So, she helps.

"Hey!" Tam yells, and all three vampires turn to look.

Tam stares, and all three vampires freeze in place.

"Glory be!" Moiren cheers as she takes off each of their heads, heavy wet swipe by heavy wet swipe.

The vampires fall, heads tumbling as accessories to the side. Tam gasps, and for a moment, she thinks of Kirol, but accepts that, perhaps, vampires aren't the same on every plane.

Moiren kneels, whispers a prayer, and rises a moment later.

"I was a parish blade before I retired," she says, flicking blood from her sword. "Not all of us get to retire. How did you stop them?"

"Telepathy," Tam says. "Major bodily command, ocular trigger."

Moiren flickers her hand in a gesture Tam doesn't recognize. "Her gifts come in many forms." She comes forward and pats Tam on the shoulder. "You're worth saving, Miss Tam."

Tam's heart catches in her throat. I am?

"I'll send you up with some water," Moiren says with an innkeeper's wink and a guiding hand, and the two women return inside. The iron locks bolt heavily behind them.

Tam readies for bed. Her room at the inn is modest, white walls and black timbers, the kind of place ten thousand tired souls have passed through in safety. Nothing can harm her here.

She locks the door to her room and changes into her nightclothes. She rubs cream onto her cheeks and seed oil into her braids. All the while she thinks of the brutality of this place, and the gentleness that fights despite it. Moiren has no reason to smile. This inn has no reason to stay standing. And yet. And yet.

Tam walks to the window and sits in the chair by its sill. She trims her nails in the moonlight, catching the pieces in a cloth on her lap.

Why wouldn't Moiren tell me the purpose of suffering?

Tam thinks of earlier today—the innkeeper who was a warrior, smiling as she poured a second round for her guest to enjoy. The air smells of barley. The counter has someone's initials carved into it. The past doesn't exist. The future isn't here yet. This moment is a happy one.

She feels it, sees the memory as her own, but she can't quite grasp it. What does that good moment have to do with this plane's endless cruelty? What is the connection? She can feel the gap inside, the absence of the part of her that would understand.

She sighs, frustrated. It fogs up the glass in the window.

What if suffering is the point? What if that's what makes the rest at the end precious, important?

Tam sits with that. She knows pain, but so little compared to Moiren. What worth can she assign to the hurt that belongs to her? What did that loss make matter?

A heavy thought for a later time. Might as well finish her routine. Every night, Tam practices, and every night, she gets a little bit stronger. She scans the moor outside for someone, anyone. The Theorist had been impressed by her distance. Maybe she could go farther.

Tam closes her eyes and lets her mind reach out.

It passes by a fox outside, an enormous frog nestled deep in the muck and peat, a man on a horse at a lonely crossroads. But something above her shimmers, high, high in the sky above the blood-soaked soil.

There's something at the end of her reach.

To her telepathic senses, it feels like a circle—a long, thin line of connection looped in wait for someone to step inside. It feels like it's coming from the clouds.

Tam remembers Moiren's story—that a monster lies trapped in the moon—and she reaches out with unbridled curiosity. She wants to pursue the connection. She wants to talk to whoever is on the other end. A tin can connected by a line. Can you hear me?

Something hears her and yanks her up.

Tam's mind is tugged up toward the sky, up to the mind of whatever lies within the silver moon.

The journey is a blur of color, and it leads to a mind so different, so alien, she can't make sense of what she's feeling around her.

I'm too far away from my body.

But before Tam can try to escape the psychic hold, she reaches her destination.

It's a room. It's a prison. It's four white walls and a single window, much like hers. Indigo night and a silvery moon illuminate a young woman, infirm in the bed on the far side of the room. Even from here, Tam can see her cheeks are sunken, and her gray eyes stare back from hollow sockets. This woman is the monster in the moon?

Help, says the woman to the inside of Tam's head, and even her body back at the inn shivers.

Tam tentatively approaches the bed, realizing she's still in her pajamas. She steps on something hard and pointed, and when she lifts her foot, a chess piece—a white queen, she thinks—rolls underneath. Between her and the bed is a tossed-aside chessboard, its pieces littering the floor. Tam conjures courage and comes close to the woman while trying not to stare. A gentle light shines from above, bathing the woman in magentas and violets. Tam and the woman regard one another.

And the woman's left eye drifts, singularly, toward the floor.

Got you.

Tam is slammed with a vision of massive wings, of curling ribbons, of two arms wielding two swords, but as soon as the image appears, it vanishes, and a psychic snare catches Tam's mind.

Tam startles, yelps, stumbles away from the emaciated woman in the bed. She turns for the door, but there is no door. The line is invisible, tight. She is trapped in the room, and as she scrambles for an escape, the woman speaks.

Yearning. Self-imposed fast. I can help you, girl. We can help each other.

The woman does not speak in words, but in the sensation of a migraine. The distress of a stomach parasite. Sensation slows and stretches with the woman's words-that-are-not-words, making Tam feel as though she has taken a step outside of time.

I have eaten time, says the woman, seemingly in response to Tam's thoughts, and Tam realizes there is no longer a window. The woman projects a sense memory, and Tam can taste it now. Time tastes sweet, vegetal, a dash of lime and juniper, then salty like tears and umami like an eye twitch. It makes Tam's head hurt, but it doesn't startle her the way the being's next words do. I taste the burden of knowledge you carry, girl. I hunger for it.

Tam digs her heel into the floorboard and tries to claw apart the psychic space. She holds her hands back to back and rips, putting her strength into trying to cleave this reality apart enough that she can slip back through to safety on the ground. But as she opens a sliver, just a hair, she makes the mistake of glancing at the emaciated woman who now sits up fully in bed.

Let us help one another, mouths the body, but the sound comes from the ceiling above.

Tam looks up and loses concentration. She gasps.

The ceiling is a gradient of cloudy black, and behind that black is an endless writhing of organs and tentacles and flesh-ribbons that undulate and tighten, prodding at the barrier that separates them, feeling for its edges. Tam can see nothing beyond the mass, but she hears the words coming from above and realizes that in this psychic space, she is an insect in a terrarium, an amoeba ensnared by something much larger than herself.

Amusing. Revisitation to a boundless lake, the monster says to itself. Appease me as friends do, the starving puppet mouths, and the ceiling booms in tandem. Help me, and I will help you.

Tam shivers. She does not want to be liked by this creature. But if she is, well … might as well be curious about it. She ignores the ceiling and assumes she's supposed to pay attention to the gaunt thing in the bed.

Appease her? Tam's mind leaps to the simplest demonstration she can think of.

She takes a step toward the bed, tentatively. The puppet remains still. Girding her courage, Tam sits and reaches out for the puppet's long, stringy black hair. Desperate to disarm the creature, deeply curious if connection is what it wants.

Tam begins to braid her hair, just like she was taught. The starving woman lets out a shuddering breath, and Tam realizes it's a laugh. The whole room shakes and shivers a husky exhaled breath. It trembles dust from the timbers, and the woman in the bed rolls her lolling eyes to watch the quick movement of Tam's fingers.

Creative … the monster says, enraptured.

"Why were you fasting?" Tam asks, with a voice as shaky as her braiding fingers.

I wanted to want.

She finishes one long braid and moves on to the next. "I want friends," Tam says. "Wanting is painful."

Wanting is necessary. Hunger makes for a feast.

I'm in danger, Tam knows. She finishes another braid and motions for the woman to turn her head.

"The meal is delicious because you were hungry before."

Precisely.

Huh. Her philosophy problem makes sense now.

A connoisseur. The horrible thing in the ceiling, the horrible thing in the bed, smiles. Curious about all of life's mysteries, of course you sought a lure.

"'Monster in the moon' sounded interesting. So … what do you eat?"

And Tam is shown what the monster likes to eat. From her place braiding on the bed, she is surrounded by so many awful sights: a plane ripped from space and time, dissolving into nothingness; a wide landscape of bismuth-like geometry and warped human settlements, all shivering into nonexistence; jaws that are not jaws consuming an entire plane, a world of screams suddenly silenced—

The visions end abruptly. Tam keeps braiding and swallows her own scream. She begins to pull the braids back, pinning them in place. "You eat planes."

There's no chance of Tam relaxing anymore.

I prune worlds. When one grows sick, threatens the wilderness of eternity, or fails to blossom fully, I aid the broader forest by felling a single tree. The monster's wide eyes connect with hers.

That booming voice from above drowns out whatever the puppet's voice actually sounds like. Tam realizes she needs to leave.

But I smell that you know not just of a sickly tree … but of an entire forest. I smell a Multiverse on you. A cluster of worlds on the verge of becoming. I sense that you are burdened by the knowledge of this world. Let us help one another. Show me where your Multiverse is, coveter of life, and I will rid you of it.

Tam knows she's talking about the Echoverse. The word friend feels as charged as static, like the pull of a magnet. Tam finishes the braid and steps up and away. There's a strange, skin-pulling smile on the woman's cadaverous face.

Show me.

The tentacles above writhe with impatience.

Show me!

Run! Tam can't help the scream she lets out, and from her place in the middle of the room, she bolts full speed at the wall where the window used to be.

Though the wall is plaster, it breaks like shattered glass, and she falls out the side through purple-tinged ribbons. She plummets through a sea of stars and psychic space.

Tam tumbles out of the vision and snaps off the connection.

Her mind flings back to the safety of the inn, away from the moon, behind the glass and behind the thin curtains and safe within herself once more.

Tam's eyes open wide.

She is sitting in the chair, clammy with sweat. She turns to the window and stares at the moon, too afraid to move.

The last portal was the outlier. It didn't look like the other Omenpaths. This one was cyan surrounded by a circle of iron. Vraska recognizes it instantly as a mage-ring.

The Multiverse she enters is a mirror facing the man she loves. Here in this strange central hub is the manifestation of him, a world whose only command is to build itself as a copy of the other, one without suffering. It is sensible and chaotic at once, a palace built on a foundation of rules while bending those it deems boring. It's him, gifts and faults. She sees him in every walkway, in every circle on the tower, in every breeze at her neck. Is this world one they could have built together? Perhaps, Vraska thinks, but no sooner does that thought cross her mind than she realizes the yellow in the tree leaves is the exact same shade as her eyes. Her heart collapses inward. Even though she backed out, even though he knew she thought him dead, he weaved her into his world. A part—and Vraska did not know how large—was made for her.

It's so much easier to look at the part of him that is good.

Vraska swallows her love and discomfort and heads to the meeting place. Chandra had scouted it back on Vryn, said it was hard to miss, a garden near the Omenpath. The scent of roses that meets her is alarmingly specific and tremendously embarrassing; it's her favorite perfume. Gods. Did he make that on purpose? She blushes brilliant green and sits with her arms crossed tight.

She drops her bag and takes a seat at the bench, completely unsure of when the Planeswalkers will arrive.

It takes two full hours.

By then, Vraska has finished her book and made a tiny pyramid of stones out of boredom.

From thin air, two humans and a leonin appear.

Art by: Darren Tan

"What took you so long?" Vraska groans. The other three slough off what looks like a thin layer of green slime.

"Ooze," is all that the druid in the back says, flicking jelly off the end of his axe. "I am Garruk."

"Vraska," she replies as an introduction, flinging a towel from her pack toward Chandra.

"Whoa," Chandra says, neck craning as she wipes off a chunk of slime. "Jace made all of this?"

"He built the Multiverse and established its rules," Vraska says. "Now it's creating itself based on the functions he wrote. This place is beyond the plans we made. I don't know what the oracle has to do with it."

"What about Liliana?" asks Ajani.

"Liliana?" Vraska and Garruk say in tandem.

"I thought we agreed to leave her to her fate," Garruk growls.

"Jace took her hostage," Ajani says. "It's our duty to rescue her if possible."

"Absolutely not," Vraska spits. "Why should we?"

"Stand aside and permit me my revenge," Garruk says with deadly calm. "The witch cursed me."

Chandra crosses her arms. "Fine! Neither of you have to deal with her," she says, uncharacteristically diplomatic. "Ajani and I will rescue her."

"We'll help," Vraska says, a sneer at her lips.

Chandra glances at Garruk, who refuses to meet her gaze. "Garruk." There's demand in her voice.

The druid grunts. "I will face her when she is free."

The tower surrounds them, above, below; it stretches in both directions at once. Their meeting place is safe from the creatures and people Vraska can make out far below, but the space within its walls still feels uneasy, anything but safe. From here they can see dots of cadets walking along the sides of its inner walls, a sphinx passing an errant window with icy ease, gravity a distant concept here in the world built by their friend. They start to walk, following the path that leads up the tower.

"This place seems miserable," Chandra says with a curled lip.

"It makes sense that a place without suffering would be insufferable," Ajani replies.

Vraska feels uncomfortable. The part of her that still treasures this idea feels attacked. "Why?"

The leonin keeps his gaze forward. "Misery is how we make meaning."

They decide it's most prudent to make their way to the top of the tower.

"Ever since he messed with my head, I can sense him," Chandra says. "But he feels like he's not all here. That, or really small."

"A small Jace Beleren," Ajani muses. "Wouldn't that be something?"

There's a shallowness in every inch of this place. It's a castle built in a day, with suggestions of history absent of any true depth. Vraska can't help but linger on the dream she had the night before, holding tight to the ugly feeling she discovered at its center. There is still a part of her that wonders where all of this lived in his heart. What if the Jace she loved was only the part he dared to show?

Grand archways twist into impossible staircases, and only Chandra is brave enough to put a foot against the carpet running up the wall to test where gravity leads next. She ascends, arms out as if to catch her fall, and one by one the others follow. Even in the gravity, Vraska can still see all the protests and discord of his conscience. How the laws of physics violently shift, how an arch will be pulled to the side like elastic. He did not build this place easily; he fought himself along the way. Vraska takes some comfort in that.

Most worrying are the people they encounter. When a group of cadets in matching mint green and white wander past, the group glances at Garruk, whose flash of bared teeth betrays what the rest of his helmet hides. They flee, stray leaves fluttering to the ground behind them as they run.

"Real," he says, with an additional sniff, "but not whole. There is a hollowness in their hearts. Wrong."

Garruk holds his fist up, a clear command for stillness, silence. They halt on the flagstone. It echoes slightly down the hallway. There are windows here, and a milky half-light illuminates the stonework around them. It catches on statues of people Vraska doesn't recognize, illuminates their faces. This place is serene, save for the rapid clip of someone running toward them. Vraska tenses and charges to petrify.

A woman she only knows from visions rounds the corner. Her black hair shines in the light from the windows, her long white dress fluttering as she approaches. Her face is nothing but joy and relief.

Vraska, Ajani, and Garruk stay still while Chandra steps forward tentatively and embraces Liliana.

All Vraska can remember is what Jace accidentally showed her all those years ago—a manipulator, a narcissist, one half of a pair that only brought out the worst in each other.

Liliana hugs Chandra close and smiles. "Look who remembered to give a rip about me," she chides.

Chandra laughs and hugs her closer. "I missed you," she says earnestly. "I think you know everyone."

"I do," Liliana says sharply, a gallon of ill will crammed into two words. Garruk growls, low enough for Chandra to miss it, but Vraska feels it in her chest, sees it in Ajani's twitching ears.

"Why are you here?" Liliana asks.

Chandra scoffs. "To save you!"

The woman in white shakes her head. "I don't need to be saved. I came willingly." She gestures to the room behind her. "Come."

And so they do, transitioning from a stonework hallway to a wood-lined office framed by a massive bay-set window. The scent is cloying, a musky and potent vanilla that no amount of wood in the fireplace can override. Through lace-curtained windows, Vraska can see cadets outside. Surrounding the massive desk in the center are chairs none of them have any intention of sitting in.

Liliana sits on the corner of her meticulously organized desk. A pot of moondew rests nearby, a lone black fly buzzing about it.

Ajani steps forward. "You were taken hostage."

"As if anyone could kidnap me and remain in one piece." Liliana smiles.

The fire in the hearth crackles. The fly buzzes loud enough that Ajani flicks his ear. Something shifts in the air and unsettles Vraska even further.

Garruk steps forward, drawing his axe. The wooden handle scrapes across the carpet, and the leather of its binding creaks in his hand. It nearly takes up the height of the office.

"You are not the witch."

The moment turns electric. Chandra frowns.

Liliana, voluntary captive, raises her eyebrows. She stands, her hands politely crossed in front of her. "It's the dress, isn't it?"

"Benalian glass," Ajani says, ears flat against his head. He scents the air, and his fur stands on end. "Beeswax and medicinal plants. Incense."

"A healer," Garruk growls. "You are not her."

Vraska walks up close, allows herself permission to be as frightening as possible. She looms over the woman in white, sees a flash of fear in Liliana's violet eyes.

"How dare you accuse your ally," Liliana hisses.

"Then prove it. Tell us about our other allies," Chandra says as she steps up beside Vraska. "Do you think about him? Gids?"

Liliana scoffs. "Gideon? He is the distant past—"

Chandra's hair ignites. "Liar!"

Vraska doesn't hesitate. She swings her legs over the desk and socks Liliana at the angle of her jaw. The woman hits the corner of her desk with a sickening crunch, crumpling to the floor in a pile of white, now red, satin. A knockout. Vraska flicks the blood from her knuckles. "I've wanted to do that for years."

Chandra snuffs her flames. "Lili's nice, you know."

"No, she is not," Vraska and Garruk say as one.

The heap of fabric on the ground shifts. The false Liliana hoists herself up. She places her manicured right hand on her clearly broken jaw. With a gentle white glow, it snaps back into place.

Generous Revival | Art by: Alessandra Pisano
0008_MTGFRA_MainUP: Generous Revival

"How are you—" Vraska sputters.

The false Liliana rises. "You can hit as hard as you like, but I'll still get back up. Now, if you'll excuse me, the Theorist needs to know you're here, and uncooperative," she says with a grin. "Bye."

Professor Opal turns on her heel and races out of the office.

The four allies collect themselves and give chase.

The true Liliana is a necromancer. It makes sense that an ability so closely related is what this world manifested for her. Still, Vraska wonders, Why healing? Why is that the gift she wields because she lacked suffering?

The hallway turns into a hallway turns into a hallway turns into a hallway—

Vraska climbs up and up and up a spiral staircase—

Windows repeat and repeat and repeat—

They turn right and turn right and turn right—

And the four allies burst into Professor Opal's office, moonlight streaming through the window.

Moonlight?

Liliana is seated at her desk, her dress a perfect white, her hair unfussed and chin unpunched. She closes a book she's reading and sets down the smoking pipe in her hand.

She sighs. "Again?"

It's no longer sunny outside. The sun has been down for hours. Vraska feels insane. "What do you mean again?" she snaps … and winces as part of her rib slides deeper into the surrounding muscle.

She hunches over in pain, suddenly aware of the bruises on her sides, the cut lip, the damaged tendril coiling and uncoiling in reflex. Vraska blinks. What just happened? She sits down in one of the (too-soft) chairs as Liliana diligently walks over and quickly heals her rib. Vraska sputters, too shocked to speak.

When did I get in a fight?

"What do I do?" Chandra groans, Vraska can see long slices up and down her arms. "What … What do I do?"

Vraska's head swims. Her perception feels strange. She blinks, realizing that she knows things she can't remember learning.

Professor Opal rises, a vision of calm, and moves on to Ajani yowling in pain as he clutches what looks like a severe burn on his cheek. Vraska watches Chandra's face as she notices the injury, how the pyromancer's face blanches with horror.

"Ποιον βρήκαμε?" says Ajani.

Vraska, Chandra, and Garruk all whip their heads to stare. Ajani blinks, confused, as if he doesn't know what language his tongue betrayed. Garruk tries to move toward him, but his throwing arm hangs limp at his side. He falls to his knees beside Vraska, his biceps twitching and dancing under his skin, a chaotic and subtle ripple, and he frantically checks the markings on his flesh. With horror curling in her gut, Vraska realizes what has just happened.

Chandra crosses, takes Ajani's hand, as Professor Opal heals his burned cheek. She breathes heavily, a panic taking over. "Ajani, I don't know how to—" She screws up her eyes in visible distress. "I know we need to do something, but I don't know what it is!" Her panic takes over and her breaths grow shallow and strenuous. "Tell me what to do!"

"Πρέπει να βρούμε τον Τζέις. Αυτό σου το έκανε. Μου το έκανε αυτό—"

Garruk roars in confused agony as his muscles betray him in that endless, quiet dance.

Vraska can feel how wide her eyes are, how her terrified heart hammers against her chest. "We already fought Jace," she concludes with certainty.

Liliana smiles in condescension. She shakes her head gently.

"Oh, sweetie. You fought Jace three times."