After prying Noah with questions for nearly an hour, Garina left with nothing but a promise to return in the coming days — and an order to ensure that there was some tea ready for her. It was a strangely unceremonious departure. One moment, she was there.

    The next, she was gone.

    They were alone in the scorched acres once more.

    Even still, it was several seconds before anyone spoke. They simply stood there and stared.

    Noah rubbed at his throbbing skull. The headache was far from the worst it had been. He’d been the one to kill himself so he hadn’t taken too much soul damage. It could be easily fixed in a day or two... but he couldn’t quite muster up any words for his stunned allies.

    Silvertide stared at him like he’d seen a ghost. The old man rubbed at his eyes and several times moved as if to speak, only to think better of it and close his mouth a moment later. His fingers drummed a soft beat against the shaft of his staff.

    “Well,” Moxie said finally, her words breaking the silence. “You’ve definitely got a problem.”

    “I do not,” Noah said.

    “No, I think you do,” Lee said. She edged a step closer to Noah’s headless corpse. “Do you mind?”

    “Feel free.”

    Lee started shoving the entire corpse down her gullet whilst Silvertide watched, eyes flat and glassy. A pang of sympathy rang through Noah. The old soldier had been far from up to date on any of their affairs. He’d probably had some suspicions that they weren’t as they seemed, but this was a step and a few beyond strange.

    “Thanks for the meal,” Lee said as she finished off the last of Noah’s body and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

    Noah ruffled her hair, taking care to avoid the horns that now jutted out of her forehead. Her transition to a full demon was going to take a bit to get used to — and he was going to have to figure out an approach to get her back into Arbitage. He doubted that people were going to be pleased with a demon hanging around them, free of Decras’ influence or not.

    “Silvertide?” Moxie asked with a concerned frown. “Are you okay?”

    “I believe I may be dead,” Silvertide said. “But I was hoping the afterlife would be considerably more enjoyable than this... or perhaps I have simply drank a bit too much tea. What did they put in those leaves?”

    “You’re not dead. Sorry to burst your bubble,” Noah said. “And as far as I’m aware, you aren’t drugged out either. Can’t verify that one, though.”

    And the afterlife is a lot worse than this. A whole lot worse.

    “Then... how? Rank 7s. You died, and yet you live. Moxie had a Master Rune... no, made a Master Rune? I do not understand what is happening. I have seen more impossible things in the span of minutes than most see in a lifetime.”

    “You’ll get used to it,” Lee said cheerfully. “That all happened.”

    “Maybe you should sit down,” Moxie said, putting a hand on the older mage’s shoulder. “There’s a lot to process. But I think it should go without saying that you have to keep everything you heard and saw today secret from anyone and everyone.”

    Silvertide let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, I am no fool. If even one of the things I just witnessed was real, acknowledgement of its existence could bring the entire empire down to the ground in war. What manner of Rune allows someone to die and return to life?”

    “One that’s best left un-thought about,” Noah suggested. He ran a hand through his hair and grimaced as a pang of pain drove through his skull. No matter how many times he got a soul damage headache, he never got used to it. He could push past them, but they were always infuriatingly agonizing. "For what it’s worth, I was planning on bringing you into the fold.”

    “The fold implies there was one secret,” Silvertide muttered. “This is more than a fold. It’s a hundred of them. Like a wrinkled asshole.”

    Noah nearly choked on his own saliva. He hadn’t expected that line from the prim and proper Silvertide — though he had seen the man steal tea leaves from a restaurant. Perhaps Silvertide wasn’t quite as proper as he liked others to believe. Ra?????oΒE?s?

    “I’d say you should get some rest, but we should find the others before they start panicking,” Moxie said. “We don’t want them getting too far thinking that Garina is hot on their heels.”

    Noah started to nod in agreement. Then he paused as a faint crack from behind him caught his attention. His eyes narrowed and he turned.

    “Seriously? Does not a single person listen to me?”

    Isabel stepped out from the forest, Todd and Alexandra in step with her. Yoru and Brayden flanked them. A ripple passed through the air beside the group. James and Emily emerged from within the protection of an invisibility spell.

    They weren’t alone. Sticky and the other demons all emerged from the trees a moment later, awed expressions on their faces.

    It took Noah another hour to summarize the biggest secrets of his life. Noah didn’t go into detail on his dealings with Decras or Renewal, but he told his closest allies everything about his runes. About Sunder and about the afterlife — and about what had come after it. He told them of Vermil and of Father. Of how he’d met Lee and of everything that had happened leading up to the trip to the Damned Plains. He spoke of what had happened within the Damned Plains, of Sievan and Wizen.

    And then it was done.

    An hour almost felt like it was too short for the story, but he was glad it wasn’t longer. He’d been hoping that some of the reverence would evaporate when everyone learned he was just a teacher that had spent a very, very extended stay in hell.

    He couldn’t have been more wrong.

    By the time he was done, he could have sworn there was more respect in the slew of eyes staring up at him from the circle that they’d made while he spoke.

    There were several minutes of long silence as everyone processed Noah’s story.

    “You told me you killed Vermil,” Brayden said, finally breaking the silence. “That’s not true. You didn’t kill him. Azel did. Why did you act like it was your fault?”

    “My soul destroyed Vermil’s,” Noah said. “It wasn’t intentional, but—”

    “Then it doesn’t matter,” Brayden said firmly. “Vermil did it to himself. You were never trying to kill him. I’ve been blaming you for a death that wasn’t even your fault. Even if you hadn’t been there, Azel would have killed Vermil.”

    “Not to be harsh, but even if Noah had killed Vermil on purpose, he did the world a favor. That man was lost,” Moxie said.

    Brayden blew out a long sigh. “I know. Father ruined him before he had a chance to become anything better. I can’t help but mourn for what he could have been — but know that it isn’t your fault, Noah. You don’t have to take the blame for Vermil’s death, no matter how vile he was.”

    “I’m more concerned with the gods,” Silvertide said, running a hand through his hair and looking far older than his years. “You’ve stolen from the god that made demons?”

    “Forget stealing. I thought you were a god yourself,” Aylin breathed. “But a human found the issue with us? You did what Decras couldn’t. Doesn’t that mean—”

    “Careful,” Violet warned. “We don’t want to draw Decras’ ire. He may not appreciate what Noah did for us. It has to be embarrassing for a god to have his work corrected by a mortal.”

    “She’s right,” Noah said with a shake of his head. “And it wasn’t me that found it. It was Sticky. I just helped things along a bit.”

    The small demon reddened as everyone turned in her direction again. She scrunched down on herself. “I didn’t do anything. It was Spi— uh, Noah. And Wizen.”

    “I can’t believe you’re so good at killing yourself that you beat Wizen by convincing him to do it too,” Alexandra said in awe. “Moxie is right. You have a problem.”

    “I do not have a problem,” Noah snapped. “And we are not going to go around saying that was how I beat Wizen. We didn’t even fight!”

    The looks in everyone’s eyes told Noah that it was going to be rather difficult to stop that particular sentiment from taking hold.

    “Too late,” Lee said. “You can’t complain when we just all saw you kill yourself to prove a point a little while ago. That’s like me saying I don’t like eating.”

    Noah let out a heavy sigh.

    He could outmaneuver a Rank 7, but he lost a fight to an ill-founded rumor. He most certainly did not kill himself at every inconvenience. It was just that killing himself tended to solve a lot of his problems.

    “Is there anything else anyone wants to ask?” Noah asked. “Because we will not be speaking of most of this again. It’s too dangerous to discuss.”

    He could see dozens of questions in everyone’s eyes, but none of them asked anything. For that, he was thankful. The night had been long. Between Yoru nearly killing herself — which was definitely not influenced by his own habits in any way — and all the Rank 7 drama, he was exhausted.

    So, of course, it was at that moment that the air beside Noah crackled with purple energy.

    His ears popped.

    Jalen stepped out from a portal with his hands crossed behind his back and a wide grin on his lips.

    “I have returned!” Jalen proclaimed. Then he paused and glanced around at everyone, taking in their expressions. His smile fell away and his brow furrowed in confusion. “Is something going on? What did I miss?”