There was no way to reach a known region. The Dark City was teeming with beings of the Fallen rank—monsters too powerful to fight, too twisted to reason with. And the only place that could be called remotely safe? It demanded a toll.
Sunny didn't plan on paying taxes.
Running into Caster and his companion Effie hadn't exactly been part of his grand escape plan. The odds of bumping into the very same One Legacy he had once, somehow, befriended were infinitesimal. That he'd survived long enough in this cursed place to see anyone familiar was even more absurd. But for Caster of all people to be the one waiting for him at the shore?
That was clearly the work of [Fated].
Now they sat around the fireplace in Effie's camp, the warm flickering glow casting shadows and heat into his very bones. It was a small mercy. One he hadn't realized how desperately he needed until he felt the thaw reach his fingertips.
They hadn't really spoken since leaving the Statue. Each of them had retreated into their own brand of silence, heavy and thick like mist clinging to their shoulders.
Nephis, usually so alert, so precise, had gone inward. He didn't know what she was thinking—but it was there in her eyes, the way she stared past the fire. Her silence wasn't cold or dismissive. It was absorbing, total. Like she was carrying the weight of something no one else could see.
Alice's silence, on the other hand, was a blade turned inward. She hadn't stopped glaring at him since they got here, and it wasn't subtle. He understood why. Her hatred simmered behind her big, wet eyes, restrained only by the fact that if she voiced it—if she so much as screamed her rage aloud—she'd risk her place in their Cohort. And worse… she'd risk Puffy. Her silence wasn't passive; it was an act of violence. A declaration of fury held just beneath the surface, waiting to erupt.
He, too, had gone quiet—but his mind hadn't. Thoughts churned like a maelstrom. He was combing through every fact he knew, every move he could make. What to reveal. What to hold close. What bets to place in a game that didn't follow rules. Every possibility, every variable… all maddeningly incomplete.
And Cassie? Cassie was as fragile as she looked. Porcelain, trembling. She had barely said a word since they left, her hands folded in her lap like a doll left too long in the cold. She didn't speak, not because she had nothing to say, but because she was terrified that saying anything at all might shatter the delicate tension straining between them all.
So instead of talking to each other, they spoke to Caster and Effie. Their voices were careful at first, lighthearted almost. The crackling fire and smell of cooked meat lent the illusion of normalcy. For a moment, the rhythm of conversation and warmth of shared food brought comfort—not just sustenance, but something real. Something human.
Until the topic of a Gateway came up.
The only path back to the waking world—aside from being personally escorted by a Saint.
"What do you mean there is no Gateway!?"
Cassie's voice rang out, sharp and cracking like ice underfoot. Sunny blinked. It wasn't the strength of her voice that struck him—it was the desperation threaded through it, thin and trembling. There was no authority in it, only panic. Her sorrow, her terror, all bled through the words like a wound.
Effie's reply was soft. Too soft. Like a bandage over a knife wound.
"It's very simple, really. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but deep down inside you must have known already. Didn't you? The Forgotten Shore… it's not the kind of place humans are meant to survive. That's why you've never heard of it. Not in school, not in the Academy."
"No, no," Sunny said quickly, his voice tight, almost hoarse. "Do you mean there *isn't* a Gateway at all… or just that you haven't subjugated it yet?"
There had to be a Gateway. *Had to*. Every region had at least one. They might not have been able to defeat its Guardian, sure—but if there was even a sliver of a path, he could find a way. He always did. Even if it meant twisting Nightmare Creatures into pawns, even if it meant using the Soul-devouring tree to raise an army of his own.
"There is one, of course, my friend," Caster replied smoothly, his voice as noble and composed as ever. "But it's the Crimson Tower. The last attempt at subjugation ended with the fall of the Second Lord of the Bright Castle. That was twelve years ago. No one's tried since."
"Damnation!" Sunny hissed, running both hands through his hair in frustration. His heart pounded like a war drum. "Okay… okay, so who rules the place now?"
Effie shrugged, annoyingly casual. "A man named Gunlaug. The castle's his. If you want to live behind the walls, under the protection of his hunters, you pay tribute. One shard per week."
"His rules are primitive," Caster added. "But strictly enforced. Those who fail to pay are removed. His rule… is not unlike the gang lords of the Outskirts. Some you may be familiar with."
*Oh, I'm familiar alright,* Sunny thought bitterly. *But what kind of lord is he?*
Not all gang lords ruled the same. Some with iron fists. Some through fear. Some by offering hope—false or otherwise. Some were monsters. Others... necessary evils.
Sunny knew the game. He'd been trained by it. Az had been groomed by the fastest-growing crime family in Europe, and that didn't happen without understanding how to twist people and territory into assets.
"If that's the case, he'd offer alternatives," Sunny muttered. "Most Sleepers can't pay. So what? He makes use of them, but how ? Gives them work?"
"More or less," Effie said. "If you've got a decent Utility Ability, you can become a craftsman. An artifex. They're rare and valued. If not…" she paused, grimacing. "There are other options. Boys can join his soldiers. Girls… can enter his harem. Pretty ones like you lot especially. No one's going to *force* you, of course."
Nephis scowled. Sparks of white shimmered in her eyes.
"So you can either become his soldier, his servant, his plaything—or die. But that's… your choice. No one is forcing anyone. Of course."
Effie grinned wide. "Smart girl. You get it."
Nephis looked down, her expression turning hard, her posture frozen. Her fists clenched so tightly they turned ghostly white.
"Then why hasn't anyone killed him?"
Effie let out a short, sharp laugh.
"Kill Gunlaug? Plenty have tried. You can still see their skulls nailed above the gate. Great people, terrible ones. Everyone in between."
She shook her head, exhaling.
"I like where your head's at, princess. But you should forget it. He's practically immortal. Believe me—no Sleeper can take Gunlaug down. Not ever."
She paused, her voice dipping into something quieter.
"Besides… much as I hate the bastard, he's the only reason this place isn't a complete slaughterhouse. Without him, we'd all be dead by now."
"Before you start plotting murder, Nephy,"Sunny said, his voice low and sharp as glass. "how about I figure out what we're actually dealing with first, yeah? Then you can decide if you want to storm the castle gates."
The use of her nickname was deliberate—mocking, dismissive, the way you'd talk to someone who still didn't know how the world worked. Someone who needed to be told to sit down and wait their turn.
And of course, Alice lost it.
"Who made *you* the boss!?" Alice screamed. Her voice was shrill, trembling with fury. "She can do whatever she wants, you asshole!"
They both knew Nephis had nothing to do with her rage. It was him she hated.
Sunny didn't even look at her. He just exhaled, slow and deliberate, like he'd been waiting for that question since the moment they escaped the Statue.
"I became the damn boss," he said, tone tight with something just under the surface, "when you all turned into fiends over a piece of fruit."
His words cut like a whip, and the silence that followed was instant. Even the fire seemed to flinch.
That shut her up.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The fire cracked. The night stretched its silence long around his words.
"I'm the boss," he continued, slower now, with a bitter calmness that chilled more than rage ever could, "because I actually understand how people work."
He looked at Nephis—not insultingly, but not gently either. Just long enough to say what didn't need to be said: You don't.
"I know what pushes them. What breaks them. What they need to hear."
He let the silence fill again before going on, more quietly now, almost like he was reminding himself.
"At least I can get things done without needing someone to hold my hand."
The next glance—to Cassie—was brief, fleeting, and cruel in its quiet honesty.
She, mercifully, couldn't see it. But Sunny could feel the weight of it in his chest the second it passed.
"And I know how to blend in," he added, his voice turning like a blade in Alice's direction. He didn't say her name. He didn't need to.
So calm. So matter-of-fact.
It landed. He saw it in the way Alice flinched, the hurt blooming across her face like a bruise.
"Let me do what I do best," he said finally, stepping back into the shadow he always kept around himself. "Then I'll tell you if we kill the bastard trying to play Godfather… or if it's easier to make him think he's already won."
He regretted it the moment the words left his mouth.
The soft tremble in Cassie's body. Effie leaning forward, ready to intervene. Nephis gripping Alice, holding her back from clawing his face off.
Even Puffy, who normally passiv, was agitated.
Caster just watched, silent and cold.
Sunny felt it. Not just guilt, but the awful certainty that this was only the beginning. The first crack in what was already a fragile team.
But he had a goal. Two, actually.
He needed to keep them safe.
And he needed to take control of the Bridge Castle.
Both goals were easier to achieve if they were away from him… and from [Fated].
He wasn't stupid. The things they'd faced—monsters of legend, horrors that shouldn't exist—those weren't coincidences. Not over the course of a week.
No. That was [Fated].
It had promised that unlikely things would happen.
And now, in order to protect them, he would have to become the villain.
Even if it meant breaking their hearts to do it.