And, just as night about the moon grows gray,

One sail leans westward to the fading rose.

-Battle Sleep, Edith Wharton, 1919.

When I returned to my senses - that's the fourth time this single night, Alden - the campfire and chattering growls weren't filling the air anymore. Sure, there were still some weak campfire crackles, but that's about that. Everything else was quiet, even the humans' cries. Then I sensed that there was a presence near me - very near me.

"He is awake," a voice whispers near my ear. Then the voice repeated in a louder shout. "He is awake!"

When my consciousness finally hit, I realized that it was the Ace of Hearts.

"Good," another voice, this one resembling a man, said from somewhere further ahead of me. "Bring him here."

"See you later, magus," Ace of Hearts whispered so softly to my ear only I could hear it. Then I could hear her footsteps leaving me.

There were growls replacing her footsteps, and my eyes finally worked. Two skinwalkers - the wolf kind - were coming my way, bearing their sharp teeth.

"That's unnecessary," I said weakly, but of course the skinwalkers wouldn't understand.

I could feel my body swinging a little, and then the only thing keeping me from the ground was the skinwalkers. They carried me over their shoulders and brought me -

Oh, wait.

That looked like a stage.

How did they make that?

The skinwalkers walked quickly across the sea of monsters, all looking or snarling at me as I passed by them. I tried my best to look around - Ace of Hearts was nowhere to be seen.

The skinwalkers who carried me growled shortly each time a monster came in their way. Eventually, we reached the stage.

They dropped me right in the middle.

The stage was wooden, kind of like the ones they used to hang people back in the day, just without the hanging frame. Reminds me of the stage they sometimes still use in the square when making an announcement.

There were steps and I could see from the shadows that the skinwalkers had left me alone on the stage. The campfire was almost directly in front of the stage, and I could feel the stinging heat on my skin.

It wasn't just a campfire. It was a bonfire.

I glanced around and saw no cages - even if they were still where they were, I couldn't see them because the monsters were blocking my view: even when I was standing, they looked pretty huge already. My being on the ground was not helping.

There were even monsters on the treetops. Most of them resembled giant insects and arachnids, while some of them resembled simians. Some looked like extremely athletic humanoids. Some others I couldn't draw any likeness to compare with anything I know of.

Then the monsters in front of the stage cleared. There were two monsters there - both of them Suits - and both were wearing pointed hats. One was a woman figure wearing a lot of jewelries, while the other was a man with a vicious-looking mace in either hand, both maces' grips carved into the shape of clover leaves.

Pointed headdress...like the Ace of Hearts.

Diamonds.

Maces - clubs.

The Ace of Diamonds and the Ace of Clubs.

Wow, the naming thing sure did come in handy.

"It is time," Ace of Diamonds said with a direct, leading tone that shushed all of the monsters at once. "To take his magic."

"The magic of he who brought us here," Ace of Clubs continued. He looked around to face everyone. "And will help us finish what he started."

There were some snarls and howls that sounded like cheers.

So they couldn't speak, but understood others' speech.

Or maybe they just felt like being vocal.

Who knew?

"He has been hung long enough," Ace of Diamonds carried on. "His magic should be weak. But we can never predict with the magi, can we? If allowed, I would have given him my Manna Halter; but it will stop his magic from flowing entirely and we will not be able to absorb him."

"So instead, to further weaken him from fighting back, we will resort to our old ways," Ace of Clubs said triumphantly. "Meet my Jack."

He showed his hand wide as he said that, and a brute stepped forth from among the crowds. It resembled the Jack of Spades much, except that it was pretty obvious that the creature had some sort of mental instability that showed wildly in its eyes.

Plus he had a club, like the Ace of Clubs. Only bigger.

And there definitely were more nails attached there.

"You can go beat him up," Ace of Clubs instructed to him, pointing at me, losing all the formalities he had maintained. Maybe Jack of Clubs was too dumb for elaborate orders or even any kind of speech more complicated than that order.

Maybe 'beat him up' is the only phrase that Jack of Clubs recognized aside from his name.

Maybe. But whatever it was, it didn't change what came next.

The Jack of Clubs stomped over to the stage menacingly, a stupid - but oddly terrifying - grin etched on his face.

Uh oh. That mace did not look good for my health.

Looking at his silhouette against the bonfire, I suddenly remembered something vaguely familiar...

Jack-o-Lanterns.

Just like that, a vision of Jack-o-Lanterns flying and hitting about monsters in their heads replayed over and over again in my head, all in rhyme with the Jack of Clubs' steps towards the stage.

How do you puppeteer?

Calm down, Chief Magus said. Grab the strings. Know which string leads to what. Then put on a show and...

"...try not to slip," I finished verbally, muttering to myself.

Calm down.

The fact that Jack of Clubs was approaching wasn't a good material to help me calm down, but if I was ever going to survive that exaggeratedly deadly mace, I needed to try this one. If my magic really was that strong, I should still have enough magic left in me to do some basic telekinesis, shouldn't I?

Calm down.

Inevitably, the last time I tried to calm down flashed in my head. I hit a skinwalker, or the skinwalker hit me. We turned around. It struck. I flew across the room and hit something hard.

I flew across the room...

Then, just like that, I remembered how I felt when I was flying that one time: I wasn't bound. I wasn't anticipating any crash like when the killer ghoul threw me away against Barney. I was free.

I was calm.

Wow. That's some really potent magic you have there, magus.

Thanks, Ace.

I took a deep breath. I was on the stage - if I was going to put on a show, I'd have to master myself first.

Calm down.

I took another deep breath, and out of nowhere, I could almost block out Jack of Clubs' stomping steps as he finally reached the ladder to go up the stage.

Calm down.

Okay.

Grab the strings.

I focused on my memory from the Witch House when the ghosts surrounded me. I focused on my memory when the killer ghoul was about to eat me alive.

I focused on the chills I got when Barney summoned Zombie Chicken. I summoned to the thrill that was present when Cora muttered something to her dagger.

A familiar tingle on my spine began to surface.

The same tingle that was there in the Witch House and in Disaster. The same tingle that would eventually spread to my fingertips and make my whole body shiver for no reason. The same tingle that would give me goosebumps and send me chills down my back.

Jack of Clubs stepped over to me. Compared to the distance between where he was in the crowds and the stage, the distance between the sides of the stage to me was only a fraction.

But somehow, I could manage to tell myself to not panic. And I didn't.

Why would I? I've grabbed the strings.

Know which string leads to what.

Jack of Clubs raised his mace to hit me. He didn't even wait until he reached me - as soon as I was within his club's hitting range, he would attack me.

The club was above his head. I could see the Jack's ugly mouth opening, and his grunt came out - at first soft, and eventually louder.

This would hurt.

The string to the mace...

I shut my eyes to brace for the impact, but then I sensed something I never did before.

I could feel everything as if my eyes were open. I couldn't feel the living beings, I couldn't feel the monsters, but I could definitely feel the stage under me and the woods cracking on the bonfire.

And I could feel the mace coming down to kill me.

Then put on a show and try not to slip.

Let's dance.

Feeling the mace above me, I imagined it as an element that a puppet was holding and attached it to an imaginary string from far above us. Then I pulled that string.

I could feel some wind gushing on my face from above me.

I waited for a second. Two seconds. Three.

Nothing happened.

I dared opening my eyes.

The mace was right there directly in front of my face.

My first reaction was pure shock. But then a slow sense of triumph began to creep over me.

The mace wasn't going any lower.

I imagined pulling the puppet string on the mace even higher, and I could see the effect it had on the mace - the mace flew upwards at once.

I mentally threw the mace away, and it physically did.

The Jack of Clubs was fazed. There was no better way to describe his face then after I magically threw his mace away - I could bet that it resembled my total-idiot look.

But no state of shock lasts that long, so I decided to act fast.

Before the monsters could come back to their senses, I tried to find the strings that were attached to the stage as quickly as possible.

Gotcha.

Like a puppeteer hurrying to pack his puppets, I grabbed all the strings at once and the stage shook violently from the sudden uncontrolled manipulation: it was acting like a puppet being thrown here and there. Jack of Clubs lost his balance.

Now.

I could see that Ace of Diamonds had come to her senses and was opening her mouth to give orders, so before she did, I mentally yanked the strings upwards.

The stage and I shot right up to the sky as the Jack of Clubs tumbled over and fell off the stage.

The bird's-eye view of Disaster was apparently beautiful, especially over the night sky like this. There weren't so many cars here, so there were rare instances when you could actually see the starry night sky above you. This night wasn't one of those nights, but nothing was standing in the moon's way from shining down on us. The moonlight reflected on the tips of each and every leaf of every tree in Disaster, making it look like the trees were shining instead of casting shadows.

Wow.

Then I realized something.

The stage was falling.

I was falling.

And down there was -

We're still directly above the monsters.

"No, no, no -" I couldn't afford to lose like this - not after I've given them a show of how much magic I could actually have at what should've been my weakest. What makes a hungry man hungrier than giving him a short taste of how tasty some food is?

Calm down.

Keeping yourself calm when falling to the ground was apparently harder than keeping yourself calm as a monster with a gigantic mace intent on killing you was approaching.

But I had to - calm down.

Come on, Alden.

I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the whooshing winds on my face.

Grab the strings.

I searched again mentally for the strings that led to the stage and held it at place with every ounce of strength I could muster. The stage abruptly stopped falling, and I fell flat on top of it.

At least we're still far aboveground.

I used whatever moment of control I had from this sudden surge of focus to untie myself. Huh, that wasn't as hard as I thought. The rope was tight and sturdy, but some magical tug here and there could apparently do the trick.

However, as I enjoyed my finally free limbs, I suddenly realized that I forgot something fatal: some monsters could fly.

I first realized that mistake when a loud shriek - a familiar one - echoed through Disaster. Then I saw a familiar shadow turning a one-eighty in the air.

The killer ghoul.

Both anger and fear swelled up in me, but I decided that it wasn't the time to lose control of the stage. So I held on tight to the stage and yanked the strings to another direction forward.

The stage responded.

I suddenly felt great respect for Aladdin if he really did control a flying carpet. A carpet may be lighter, but it wasn't sturdy and controlling all the strings to keep its shape must've been terribly difficult. The stage was sturdy, so it had only a few strings, but aside from the fact that it was heavy and I was on top of it, it was already extremely difficult for me to control.

I still couldn't manage to gather enough focus to try and manipulate the strings one-by-one - which probably would allow me to control the wooden stage plank-by-plank - but I could manage to gather enough calmness to yank all the strings together towards a direction.

Maintaining this movement and holding on for dear life atop the stage - two things that just don't mix well.

However, the shriek was growing louder and louder - the ghoul was gaining in.

Come on, Alden, come on -

Another shriek came from down below. Oh, for crying out loud.

But there was something strange about the shriek from down there - it sounded more like high-pitched growls. I managed a peek.

There were zombies. A lot of zombies. I saw dead people swaying around in their lines, looking up at me and the killer ghoul, growling at us.

But there was something else, too: magic circles.

Each zombie was surrounded by a small magic circle, shining almost as brightly as the moon.

Necromancy.

Aside from the small victory of finally being able to use a magic term in the right place and even deducing what magic was in use, I lowered my hold on the stage and I flew closer to the ground and the swarm of zombies. Just a yard behind the undead army, I could see a line of people wearing necklaces made of bones.

The Necromancers.

A scream that I would never forget tore through the air behind me, and I could see that the killer ghoul had kicked his speed up a notch. His wings were folded, his mouth wide open showing his full two lines of bad teeth, and he was coming at me like a rocket.

I opened my mouth to scream.

The scream never came.

One of the zombies suddenly jumped and grabbed the ghoul by his sides, tackling his perfect dive to me. As they both fell, the other zombies around him suddenly raced to where he fell and began scrambling above him. The ghoul's shriek emerged again, but it was soon cut abruptly with a painful crunch that echoed in the woods.

Zombies swarming and preying on a prey. Just like in zombie movies. Maybe they did get some things right every once in a while.

I landed my stage safely in front of the Necromancers. I noticed that one of them was Mr. Green, the janitor at my school. Then my classmate Nathan and his older sister Natalie. Then some other faces I was familiar with.

I wasn't sure whether to thank them for saving me first or to berate them for keeping this a secret from me for eighteen years. But then a familiar face came out of the crowds - a guy who had shed all his mummy costume but still hadn't lost those darned headphones around his neck.

Barney.

"Dude..." I began, but he held up a hand.

"This, Alden," he said, tilting his head to the Necromancers behind him, "is why you need to socialize."

I couldn't help myself a sheepish grin, but that line reminded me of someone else. I could feel my heart skipping a beat as I remembered, "What happened to the other midnight shifters?"

"They're okay," Mr. Green spoke up. "That wimp Mark might need extra work, though. But they'll all be fine. Shaken, but fine."

"And..." I turned to Barney. "Cora?"

"With the Covens," he said. "They're going to cast some protection spells around Calamity to stop the mist from going anywhere. We're just on our way to the Shamans to ask them to cast the more personalized protection for the people in town, especially the nonmagi, but, well..." Barney lowered his tone. "I've told the leader about you. And it just so happens that as soon as he prioritized saving you, you came out flying on the night sky with that...what is that, stage?"

"Makeshift," I said. "Or probably stolen. No idea."

"By?"

"The monsters."

Barney knitted his eyebrows. "What for?"

"Draining my magic for their nefarious ends," I said. I was attempting to mimic a more villainous tone, but since I noticed that no one here was in the mood for games, I dropped the pretense. Barney turned to the Necromancers. His expression was both shocked and depressingly grim.

"Stick with him," a Necromancer said from the crowds. I just noticed that he was wearing three more bone necklaces compared to the others, and there was something regal and commanding about his presence. He must be the leader.

Barney nodded. "Done. Now let's go to the Shamans."

"Wait," I said. "There are others there. They're caged and the cage was equipped with some anti-magic amulet, so they can't escape. Not with magic."

"And you know this how?" the leader asked.

"I was held there," I glared at him. "I saw them trying to cast spells. Nothing worked."

I was about to tell them about the Ace of Hearts telling me things, but I refrained. Something told me that it's not the time. Yet. They were, at the moment, looking at the monsters as enemies. When they realized that an enemy had the intelligence to talk and tell me things, they would suspect him - or her in this case - to be lying to me. And I knew better than that. And since I couldn't risk everyone else in the cage not getting a quick rescue, I shouldn't feed the Necromancers with 'lies'.

"But who gave the cage the amulet?" Barney asked. "A rogue magus?"

"No. Some of the monsters carry jewelries with them. Apparently some of the jewelries were magic."

"Why would monsters carry jewelries?"

"Actually," the leader said. "That can be traced back to the antiquity. The easiest example would be Fafnir the Greedy Dragon from Old Norse mythology - but now isn't the time. Jacob, cast some recon into Disaster. Take a team if necessary. Nat and Nathan, I expect you two to gather some crews from among the Covens and Shamans for a raid. If the monsters do keep magi in there, they won't be left unguarded." He turned to look at me. "They've tried to drain this...this kid's magic. There's no guarantee they won't try it on everyone else."

For a moment, he almost said something other than 'kid' to refer to me. There was some murky darkness in his eyes when he almost slipped. However, it was gone the next second.

Mr. Green - his first name was Jacob - nodded and stepped out of the crowds. Several Necromancers followed suit behind him, and together, they casted several magic circles on the ground. There was a small circle that I thought was for the candles, but even without candles, that spot lit and went out just like that.

I was either too tired to be surprised or was actually getting used to this. Still, though, there was that uncomfortable chill down my back.

From the magic circles, small birds appeared - hummingbirds, jays, mockingbirds - and they were all silent.

"Go," Mr. Green said shortly. His hummingbird nodded shortly before flying into the air, into Disaster, and out of sight. The other birds followed behind it.

As soon as the birds were out of sight, the Leader moved on and everyone followed - except for Nat and Nathan, who'd gone their own way to assemble their rescue team. I decided to tag along with the Necromancers.

"So where are we going, again?" I asked Barney.

"The Shamans," he said. "Let's hope they're in the mood for helping right now."

"Why, they don't usually help?"

"Hmm, it's not like that," he said. He thought for a while. "It's more like...they're pretty unpredictable. Maybe it's their magic. There's no telling."

"Why would their magic make them...unpredictable?"

Barney thought for a while before knitting his eyebrows even deeper together. "You'll see."