"In terms of things I got from the cards? I have my body, which is amorphous and strong - and I have my bodyguard, who is more effective than me at combat. Aside from that... Well, I have been busy during the last seven hundred years."

"I don't think I want to have a body like your body," she says. "What else do you have?"

"I have an armory of interesting weaponry. We can probably find something suitable. You said you knew parkour and were able to make yourself faster?"

"Yes. What interesting weaponry?"

"Various enchanted swords, guns, tomes, and so on. Undoubtably we'll be able to find something that suits you."

"What are all your new things from the cards? I'm trying to understand them, but the paintbrush one is so very odd it makes it harder to understand the rest."

"I have demonic blood: I'm a Lilim. I don't age, and have a ten thousand year lifespan. I also have high status in this world. Though I was originally an Umber demon, I sacrificed the innate power in my blood in exchange for the Tome of the Gate's capabilities. My other augments allow me to summon demonic defenses and see the futures, pasts, and auras of other people - though your aura is very difficult for me to perceive. It seems fragmented somehow."

"I chose the hidden aura," she says. "You're all over everywhere, like a paintbrush. Which thing is that? I don't want it, but it's interesting."

"That's most likely the Tome of the Gate. It lets me teleport to anywhere I've previously been in this city - and I've been to a very large number of places."

"I don't want to be a paintbrush person. But I want to get rid of all the shadows."

"I can definitely help you with that. Allies?"

She extends a hand to Riya.

"Okay," says Riya, nodding. She does not do anything in response to the hand.

A deck of cards falls into Ishmerai's outstretched hand.

"... With your permission, there's a reading I'd like to do for you."

"What reading?"

"The first reading I ever did for myself. To see your future. To see if you can ever return home."

"Oh." She considers this. "Why?"

"Because the cards have said that it is possible for me, and I suspect that they will tell you the same thing."

"Okay."

Ishmerai deals, laying the cards out onto the tabletop.

"Does a future exist where this Kukla girl will return home to her world?"

The deck produces three cards.

"Past. Present. Future."

She turns over the rightmost card, the one symbolic of what-will-be.

A bleached skull grins up at her. The thirteenth card: Death.

"Death, upright. The card of endings and transformations. There will be a major change. Another card..."