"Karli? Karli Dandleton?"

Hubert looked the young woman over. He sat in a front row pew in his small sanctuary, gazing into another room through the device in his hand. Moments earlier it had been a mirror, reflecting his own handsome visage and dimly-lit environs. Now it was a magical channel to another place. Caster's Master, standing in a small bathroom, looked a little dumb. Her haircut didn't work and she was pudgy in the wrong places. There was toothpaste on her lower lip.

"The hell?" Karli asked, dropping her toothbrush and frowning back. "Caster, do you see this?"

A man who looked like a brown Jesus stepped into view. Words and numbers floated above his head, likely invisible to Karli. This information confirmed for Hubert that this was Caster, with his Servant stats properly visible to the supervisor of the Grail War.

"Magecraft," said Caster simply. "I think this magus wants to talk to you."

Karli looked at Caster, then back at Hubert. She and her Servant crowded together at the bathroom sink. She tried waving awkwardly.

"My name is Hubert," Hubert said, in his friendliest voice. "I am with the Holy Church, sent to supervise this Grail War in which you find yourself. I am reaching out to all the Masters, to offer you shelter in my sanctuary as you need it and to answer any questions I am capable of answering."

Karli opened her mouth, but Caster was faster to speak.

"I have a question." He looked angry. "Why does this time have so many Christians who blatantly plug their ears, cover their eyes to the glory of God?"

Hubert blinked. This Caster was going to be trouble.

"I can answer your Master's questions about the war," he said, sidestepping.

"I'm also curious about Caster's question," said Karli, "and I don't think it's irrelevant to the topic of the war. If I'm fighting my friends in order to bring Caster's wish to the people of this world, I'd like to know what role you play. Holy Church? Did you engineer this nonsense?"

"My child." Hubert sighed. "I am a mere observer. The engineer, if you could say there even is one, would be the Holy Grail itself, with some assistance from your recently deceased professor."

Karli squinted at him, clearly skeptical. "Okay, I have some other questions that you'll hopefully be more willing to answer."

"Shoot."

"How do we stop the war?"

"The only resolution can be the victory of one Servant over all others."

Hubert wasn't sure if her expression was one of skepticism or failed comprehension. She pressed on.

"What are these red marks on my hand?"

She held the back of her right hand up to the mirror. Three large nails were painted in red, arranged as the sides of a triangle.

"Command Seals," said Hubert. "You can use them to power your Servant's attacks beyond their normal capacity, or to order him to do something he normally wouldn't be willing to do."

"How will I find and defeat the other Servants? What's stopping us from just all going our separate ways, and never completing the war?"

"I am actually curious about that myself," he said. "But I know that your friends and the other Servants wish to win the Grail, and they will seek each other—and you—out. You may also feel the proximity of other Masters in your Command Seals."

"These?"

Karli held up her hand again. She was definitely taking too long to connect his previous answer to his latest. Like professor, like student.

"Any other questions?"

"Is this really Jesus?" she asked, pointing her thumb at Caster.

Hubert burst out laughing, despite himself. Of course it wasn't Jesus. Not exactly. A mere manifestation of the Grail's mana, given abilities and a personality by borrowing the information of a hero's soul, Servants were like Nietzsche's words: metaphors of metaphors. Twice removed from whatever person or legend they performed. Karli looked worried by Hubert's laughter, but Caster seemed unperturbed. It could be so fun to say there was no connection, that this was an evil impostor, and turn Master against Servant. The outcome of the conflict didn't matter. That's why he could play the role of supervisor, watching these children test drive the Grail War with no real stakes. He could say whatever he wanted. He was the supervisor, but he was also the audience, and he had the cast's ear.

"Sorry, my child." Hubert sighed, buying himself time as he tried to decide which lie to tell. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, this is Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God, our Lord and Savior."

Karli wrinkled her nose, saying nothing. Then she looked at Caster. They didn't say anything to each other, but Hubert knew they didn't need to. Even if Karli Dandleton wasn't a magus, her rights as a Master in the Grail War allowed her to communicate telepathically with her Servant.

Without looking back at the mirror, Karli bent down and picked up a scale. It looked heavy in her hands, a giant brick made to sustain, and quantify, the weight of America's morally bankrupt.

Then Karli swung the scale at Hubert, shattering her mirror and severing the connection.

As his reflection faded back into view, Hubert sat back and placed the hand mirror on the seat next to him.

That had gone okay, he decided. The kids these days didn't seem to dig him—Onson Sweemey hadn't spoken a word since Assassin had left, choosing instead to sulk in a corner of the sanctuary—but that was fine. He didn't dig them either. They all thought they were so special. Jerry's little chosen ones, drunk off the mana of the orchids, living it up in the ivory tower, bathing in cultural Marxist Kool-Aid. Yeah, he saw the way they looked at him.

With another sigh, he gathered his thoughts, straightened his collar, and picked up his mirror. It glowed in his hand, and another scene created itself in its lens. Hubert cleared his throat.

"Anatoli Dustice?"

# # #

Nothing they said made sense. Anatoli was talking about incurring divine wrath, about needing to bring things back to normal. Jass pled passionately about loss of life, about saving friendship. None of it seemed worthwhile to Raul. They were out of their minds, he thought. Concerned purely with what's normal, with society, they had abandoned the obvious. They weren't interested in the Grail, they insisted. They were wrong. Any human would want the Grail. Their care was pretense. As much was obvious in their Servants who, despite being dematerialized at the moment, still exuded a powerful sense of impatience for their arguments. Raul could feel it; couldn't they? Lancer and Saber weren't interested in their Masters' appeals to what's normal for 21st century college students. They wanted the Grail, and they knew their Masters did too. We all wanted the Grail. We said it was for Jerry but didn't we all want it? No one would turn their nose up at a miracle. And Jass, crying about Bobsom like that. They were always fighting. It was subtle. It was small. They always patched it up, for appearances. They knew that Jerry would be sad if they hurt his experiment. So they were happy. They were happy for Jerry, not for each other, themselves. Well Jerry was gone. He had opened a Pandora's Box, in a sense. The evil was the Servants, the hope left behind the Grail. Raul had messed up. He'd been captured. But his Berserker had retreated, and these idiots who cared about friends before miracles weren't going to hurt him. Soon Berserker would return and free him. Jass and Anatoli would see what their morals and qualms were good for when their Servants—and they, as well, if necessary, why not—were rotting outside the city gates, their names scratched into shards of pottery.

"Anatoli Dustice?"

One of the chips of Raul's old standing mirror gleamed. Anatoli reached for it, picking it up carefully. Pieces of broken furniture littered the dorm room where Berserker and Saber had tussled. Raul saw the tiny man waving at him in the mirror shard, and had a visceral reaction to the image despite himself. He didn't understand why. He wasn't of himself or of his own anymore, so why should the thumb-sized Nazi bug him? Soon he would be scavenging for food in the ruins of a hypocritical world. His beliefs were temporary. All ideology was. What curtain could contain the truth of the world forever? The sycophants of morality would fight tooth and nail for their hegemony, but it would crumble even as they clawed for it. There was no avoiding it. The impermanence and hubris of society were too enormous to bear. The masses would come to their senses eventually. Even if Jass and Anatoli didn't make it.

"Who are you?" Jass asked, addressing the mirror.

"The mascot," spat Raul.

Anatoli looked over at him, worry clear on his over-involved face.

"Three Masters together, I see."

"You know about the Grail War?" asked Anatoli.

They prattled on for what seemed like an eternity. Raul sat back against the wall and rested without falling asleep, not caring to hear about the concerns of his old friends nor the opinions of this "priest" Hubert. He was just explaining how the Grail War worked, all obvious if you took a moment to consider it. The problem with people like Anatoli and Jass was that they were too smart. They had truly learned the ways of society, the common knowledge. They were so smart that they had sought to understand it and, in so doing, become slaves to it. Reality escaped them and they relied on the explanations of miniature Nazis in order to adapt their paradigms to new information. And that was fine, in a way. Raul didn't hate them for their intelligence. He didn't mind, even if he judged. It was their prerogative and he wouldn't get in their way. Reality, though? Reality would get in their way. They would have to come to terms with the fact that they wanted to win. They would have to come to terms with the methods of winning. Jass would have to do to Anatoli what someone had already done to Bobsom. Her Saber, the shepherd king with the boyish face and giant's sword, would doubtless obey. He wanted the Grail. He wanted the Grail more than anything.

That's why they're here, you sophomores, he almost shouted. We didn't force them into bondage with our summons. We offered to help them attain the Grail. But it would be too sweet to let his genius peers figure it out for themselves. Smiling at the thought, Raul allowed himself to nod off.

# # #

With Raul finally asleep, Jass put a hand on Anatoli's shoulder. He was, as ever, soft to the touch. He had thick black hair, thicker eyebrows, a full beard. His outfit—double fleece over flannel-lined jeans—completed his teddy bear quality. Beneath the cuddly exterior lay well-grounded wit. She gazed at Raul's sleeping form as she transferred some of her weight to Anatoli.

"I'm worried about him."

"No shit. It's like he's a different person. Hell, he might be."

"He does seem to be affected by some kind of magecraft," said Saber, materializing next to Raul, one delicate hand resting lightly on the unconscious student's brow. To Jass, he added, speaking directly into her mind, without my Magic Resistance skill, I think I would be too. Berserker was emitting a faint Bounded Field. The words, issued telepathically, did not make much sense to Jass, but she understood that her Servant had an ability he did not want to announce to Anatoli or Lancer.

Can you remove it with your lyre? she thought back.

Probably. Would rather do it later.

We'll see, thought Jass.

Saber dematerialized, leaving the three students alone in Anatoli's dorm room. It was a mess. Raul's bed and desk lay in pieces on the floor, mattress torn open and wood splintered everywhere. Berserker's entrance and the initial clash with Saber had leveled half the room and set Jass's heart beating faster than she could recall it ever beating. She counted herself lucky to have been seated next to Anatoli on his bed when the fight started. She sat there still, watching Raul. He was seated in the wreckage of his desk, back against the wall. They'd asked if he wouldn't be more comfortable in a chair, or on Anatoli's bed even, and he had laughed at them.

"So what do we do?" asked Anatoli.

The supervisor Hubert had confirmed Jerry's death and countless details as to how the Grail War was supposed to work. His explanations had raised some new questions and concerns, but they had clarified a lot. Most crucially, he had confirmed Saber's claim that for the Grail to grant a wish, the war would need to reach a resolution, with only one remaining Servant. This crystallized for Jass that beyond getting her friends on board with her plan to resist the war, she needed to get their Servants to approve her plan. So far, she had Anatoli and his Lancer, the red-haired pirate lady. Anatoli was more than friend; he was a comrade, and she trusted him implicitly. He assured her that Lancer's wish was compatible with their plan. Saber was not so trusting, but he agreed to the uneasy alliance.

And uneasy it was. Hubert's comments had done nothing to diminish Jass's fear that Saber might take fate into his own hands at any point if he deemed her methods insufficient for acquiring the Grail. She understood now that Servants needed mana to manifest and fight, and that, not being a magus herself, she wouldn't be able to sustain him for long. If she waited indefinitely for her friends to come to her, to consider her plan and join her, she could lose Saber. And before that, he could sense his imminent dissolution and turn on her.

The only fool-proof safeguard against this seemed to be to use all three of her Command Seals to permanently dismiss Saber, and that wasn't a tactic she felt safe discussing with her friends. Even suggesting it might provoke his ire, or Lancer's. No, Jass's best bet was to act quickly, decisively, to solidify an alliance around her wish and then win.

She rested her forehead on the side of Anatoli's head, head aching from the strain of contemplating possible scenarios. How long was too long to wait for her friends to join her? Rey, Karli, and Onson hadn't even replied to her text. Raul had shown up, but he had shown up swinging. She'd had Anatoli reach into his pocket and check his cell phone, curious if Raul had even seen her message. It had been powered off, out of battery.

"Think anyone else is coming?"

"It's been an hour, Jass. I'm worried our Servants might be right about this one. Most people in this position would just want to win." Anatoli put a hand on the back of her head, holding her to him. His hand was warm, relaxing.

"If they're right, why are we both here?"

"Guilt," Anatoli suggested simply.

"Guilt?"

"If I'd held the line in Jerry's office, none of this would have happened. As for you, you can't accept that it could have been you killing Bobsom."

Anatoli had a blunt streak. It served him well in political debates, but it sure wasn't his most comforting feature. Comfort wasn't the point, though: even as his words stung, Jass knew there was truth to them, and the warmth of his understanding helped immensely. For a moment she could have sworn there was something orchid...ic? orchidinal? about him. He resembled the plants they tended daily for the past months: an endless reservoir. Was this what Jerry called mana? Was his pool big? She felt like she could take a dip in it.

"I'm glad you're here," she said smallly.

"Me too," he said, offering with gestures to make her an instant cocoa using his electric kettle.

She nodded, lifted herself off of him so that he could stand.

"It would be great if our plan works out," she said, trying for the positives.

"Seems possible," said Anatoli. "I don't want to be too optimistic. I expect there will be more surprises, especially from our new British friend." Jass nodded. Maybe they would talk about her new concerns. She waited for Anatoli to say more, and waited, and was almost certain he wouldn't pursue the line further when the kettle went off and he finally said, "I wonder if Jerry knew he was being 'supervised.'"

"Yes!" cried Jass. "Thank you!"

Raul grumbled and stirred, but remained asleep. Jass made a note to lower her voice.

"We were both thinking it, right?" Anatoli handed her the cup. "This guy didn't come out of nowhere. He knew we were going to do that ritual. For all we know, he could have killed Jerry himself. He has an… unsavory air."

"Yes. For all we know, he was manipulating Jerry in the first place. Maybe it was never Jerry's intention to make us fight."

"Possible." Anatoli grimaced. "Look, I don't know how best to put this but I don't want to spend too much time considering Jerry's innocence in all this, painful though it is to say. He was really fantastic, but a lot of evidence points toward him being some kind of evil genius magic scientist who was just conducting fucked up research on us."

Jass lowered her face over her drink, let the steam bathe her features.

"You're right, Anatoli," she said quietly, "you were always right."

"I wasn't right when I let Onson talk me into summoning Lancer," he reminded her. "And in retrospect, I may have also been wrong when I joined Jerry's Intro to Historical Fiction."

"Don't say that." Jass took Anatoli's hand and clutched it against the side of her cup, warming it next to her lips. "I would be so lost without you right now."

We can use this, Saber communicated to her. Your grief, and your potential as a romantic partner to this stoic young man, are potent tools in cementing the alliance you seek.

Jass released Anatoli's hand and frowned into her drink. She didn't want to use Anatoli. She wanted to work with him. And she certainly didn't want to lead him on. She loved him, of course—they all loved each other, and that was part of what was so weird with Raul tonight—but Bobsom had taken the majority of her present romantic capacity with him to the grave. Her soul was still raw where he had been torn from her just hours earlier. The anime posters above Anatoli's bed did not soothe her.

"To be clear," she began, but then she didn't know how to finish.

"Jass, I think we should assume no one else is coming. It's getting late, and we're all tired." Anatoli looked out the dorm room window into the Manhattan evening. "We should stick together, so that we can have each other's backs, rotate a watch with our Servants, neither of us gets ambushed. Tomorrow we can bring our plan to the branch."

"Okay," said Jass. "Sleepover!" Her joke enthusiasm belied an actual enthusiasm. Even if Raul was unconscious, and a temporary, magically-addled lunatic while conscious, this was still three of them together. All alive. She worried for Rey, for Karli, even for that asshole Onson, all out there somewhere. Maybe fighting each other this very moment. But she couldn't do anything for them from where she was. She had tried, and she would keep trying, to get them on her page. She would text again before sleeping, informing them of her alliance with Anatoli. More invitations, more appeals to friendship. They hadn't worked on Raul, but he was under some kind of weird enchantment. The others might yet come around.

"You can have the bed, I'll take the floor."

"I don't mind sharing," said Jass.

Anatoli smiled at her sadly. "I thrash around a lot in my sleep. Don't worry about it."

Jass shrugged and finished her cocoa. Anatoli stood, recovered the blanket from the splinters of Raul's bed, and laid it out in the middle of the room. Before lying down, he walked over to the closet and produced a roll of duct tape.

"What's that for?"

He jerked a thumb at Raul. "Never too safe."

Jass agreed, and the two set to binding their friend. Halfway through the process, they looked at each other, made eye contact, and chuckled, realizing simultaneously that what could have been a quick restraining job had turned into a ritual of care. As with all the things they had done together in Jerry's office, here they paid attention to every movement, to the folds of Raul's clothes and to the air in his chest, to the flow of kindness through themselves and the tape into Raul's body. In this act they were securing their friend, and the world was richer for it.

Finally Anatoli dimmed the lights and they both lay down. A few minutes passed.

"Jass?" he asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"What's up?"

"This was all you," he said, tone veering toward mumbling, a sure sign that he was sleepy. "Banding together… united around a wish for a better world. I didn't think of it. Before you got here, I was paranoid." He yawned, rolled over. "Could only think of danger, fear. Fuck it, though, you're right. With a miracle in our hands, why avoid utopianism?"

"You're sweet," Jass said.

"No, you're sweet," Anatoli said, grumpily. "We have…"

He trailed off. Jass reached over the edge of the bed to where he lay on the floor and poked him in the arm.

"…Nothing." After another magnificent yawn, Anatoli finished. "To lose but our chains."

Jass smiled. They would turn the world upside down with their wish. Improve life for billions. There were no shortcuts to or in revolutions, she'd learned. But now they had a chance at a miracle.

"Night Anatoli."

She drifted off uneasily, fantasizing about an alternate reality in which she, Anatoli, and Raul were having this sleepover under happier circumstances. Hot cocoa, discussions in the dark about society, politics, life, and love...