And lo, we reach the final stretch.

As I mentioned previously, I drafted out this story with 50 chapters in mind, and so I consider the Final Ten to be the endgame. I don't know if this kind of structure really works, but it's served me well enough in the building of this story.

Let's see what fate has in store, shall we?

.

"That man . . . that boy . . . is responsible for Noa's accident."

Isis shrugged. "It's difficult to answer that with certainty," she said, "but yes. He is one of Lord Dartz's chief lieutenants. He calls them Musketeers. What this means, fundamentally, is that he is one of his cult's foremost victims." Isis paused for a moment, then went on: "Weaponry, vehicles, equipment, all supposedly designed and financed by the Kaiba Corporation, made a warzone out of his home. He has been led to believe that your husband is responsible for his ill fortunes. The deaths of his fellows, his neighbors, his family."

"Led to believe," Amaya repeated, pointedly.

Isis shrugged again. "What cult leader is above misleading his followers?"

"You are telling me," Amaya said, "that my son . . . my eldest child . . . was nearly taken from this world for nothing? This boy was waylaid by a madman into targeting my child for blood we didn't even spill? Because he's fated to die?!"

"That is . . . precisely what I am telling you," Isis said. "Yes."

"How old is he now? He was hardly more than a boy even in the future you showed me."

"If he shares a birthday with other Aleister Dòmhnallachs that I have studied," Isis said, "then he will soon see his thirteenth birthday."

Amaya closed her eyes. Breathed deeply, several times. "I did not think it was possible for me to loathe this . . . Paradius . . . more than I already did. It seems they are full of surprises." A growl clawed its way out of her throat as her eyes gleamed like torches in the same dungeon she'd just witnessed. "Not only is he using children in his proxy war, but he has pressed us into doing the same. I will exact payment for that insult from Lord Dartz's intestines."

"You will ask your sons to fight Paradius?" Isis asked.

"I'm talking about you, dear," said Amaya.

Isis stared at Amaya Kaiba like she'd just said the sun was powered by batteries. The idea that she could be considered a child was well beyond her comprehension, and Amaya felt a piece of herself break. She reached out and put a hand on the girl's shoulder.

". . . I see," Isis said.

Amaya's expression softened. "The world is a harsh mentor," she murmured. "You haven't been a girl for a long time, have you?"

"I don't know if I ever was," Isis replied, flatly.

"Well." Amaya squeezed Isis's shoulder. "Know that we will only call on you to do what you must; no more. I think it's high time that Lord Dartz faced someone tall enough to look him in the eye." Her eyes turned flinty again. "I have met too many men like him. They pretend they are untouchable. They believe their power is too great to surmount. Do you know the one thing all men like that have in common?"

"What?"

"They have never met me."

.

"I don't want to do this. The very idea spikes my blood pressure. But I find myself at an impasse." Gozaburo Kaiba always faced difficult choices, the things he didn't want to bother with, by monologuing about them first. It was one of the few melodramatic things he allowed himself to do, but only in his home. Seto and Noa watched their father pace in front of his desk, waiting for him to explain what it was that he was avoiding.

When he didn't speak again for nearly a full minute, Noa dared to speak:

"Chichiue?"

Gozaburo sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and growled. "You are not trained. Your body has not healed enough, and you're too young for real conditioning. I had every intention of waiting until much later to do this. However, we have been pressed into . . . expediting certain measures, and so here we are."

He grabbed something—two somethings—from his desk, and he turned to face his two eldest boys.

Gozaburo held out combat knives, in leather sheathes, to them.

"As I have said previously, there is a threat to your safety. I have done less than I intended to remove that threat." It was as close to an admission of failure that Noa had ever heard his lord father make. "I cannot guarantee that you will not be placed in a position where you are called on to fight for your lives. These are your last resorts. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Chichiue," said Noa, taking the knife from his father's right hand.

Seto took the other, from his left hand, in silence.

"I am not giving you firearms," Gozaburo said, "because, while I don't think I would mind if your mother were the one to finally kill me, I'd prefer it didn't happen now." Noa smiled; Seto snickered. They understood. "Do not remove these from their sheathes until and unless you mean to kill with them. These are not toys, and they are not for show. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Chichiue," both boys said as one.

They didn't miss that, just because Gozaburo wasn't giving his sons guns, didn't mean he didn't have them. As the Kaiba patriarch sidestepped his desk, both brothers spied the revolver holstered to his side beneath his coat.

"Come along," Gozaburo said. "Eyes sharp, heads on swivels."

Isono and Fuguta fell into step behind Seto and Noa as they left Gozaburo's sanctum. They did not speak; they didn't need to. The mission was on, and they needed no clarification. Their only purpose was to protect their charges; whatever that meant, whatever that took.

They were ready.

Seto had the thought to ask whether Mokuba would be given a weapon, too. The idea itself felt so patently absurd that he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing; all the same, he found himself worried—irrationally, yes, but no less fervently—that not giving the youngest Kaiba something to protect himself would end up being a fatal mistake.

He was about to ask anyway, about to make a fool of himself, but he stopped.

There was no way Paradius would target Mokuba.

Was there?

No.

.

"Um . . . Chichiue."

Noa had to work himself up into a proper state to say this, and he still felt like a fool. Nonetheless, by the time he managed to invoke his father, and Gozaburo turned to look at him, he knew it was too late. There was nothing for it; he had to ask.

"What is it, Noa?"

"Um . . . Miss Isis talks about the timeline, and magic, and visions. All that stuff. And you don't seem surprised by any of it. I suppose I just wondered . . . have you seen any of that happen before? When you were a mercenary, maybe?"

Gozaburo frowned; it was a thunderous expression, the sort of thing you saw in myths about angry and capricious gods. "Why do you ask?"

Noa tugged at his sleeve. "I think . . . I had a vision. I was visited by someone."

Something lit in the Kaiba patriarch's eyes. "Someone," he repeated. "What did this someone say to you? Describe them." He stopped, closed his eyes. Took a breath. "No, no. Forget all that. Start from the beginning, son. What happened?"

"Somebody from Paradius followed us at school, Seto and me," Noa said. "Mister Tsukuda caught him and brought him here, to Hahaue. She was . . . asking him questions." He didn't say that his mother interrogated the man, but they both knew; Gozaburo gestured for Noa to continue. "Things . . . slowed down. Words, people, things. All of it. It was just . . . slow."

"Like walking through a painting," Gozaburo murmured, unthinking.

"Yes!" Noa hopped excitedly on the balls of his feet. "Yes, exactly! And, and, and . . . I was walking in the second-floor hallway, but it was . . . it was too long."

"So many doors," Gozaburo said, "like a labyrinth hidden just beneath the surface of reality."

Noa was nodding emphatically. "Yes!"

"You saw him," Gozaburo said, "didn't you, Noa?"

"Shadi," Noa said.

Gozaburo clenched his hands into fists, forced them back open. "What did he say to you? Do you remember his words?"

"He said . . . the Leviathan's slumber is light, and the Unworthy King would wake it soon because of what he's doing. He said that I would see beasts, and creatures, and that I would instinctively think they were enemies. He said I should seek out allies among them, if I want to win."

Gozaburo's brow furrowed. "He said this to you? You alone?"

Noa nodded. "He said something about the gods choosing their champions, and how they aren't frivolous. I guess this," here he tapped the floor with his cane, "isn't disqualifying to them."

Gozaburo rubbed his chin. "I know little about Shadi's motivations. All I know is this: if not for his intervention, I would have died as a young man. A trap laid for my company would have claimed my life, except he offered me a warning. I don't know what he wants. I don't know what he sees in us. But, so far as I can tell, he isn't a liar."

.

Noa sat in the front parlor, waiting for his parents to explain to them all what was going to happen next. He looked around at his brothers, then at Isis, who was sipping at a mug of tea. He said: "When Hahaue was talking to that one Paradius guy, I . . . had a visitation."

Isis was watching Noa intently now.

Seto frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Somebody . . . found me." Noa shrugged and gestured randomly. "I don't know. What I do know is: he gave me something. I didn't know what to do with them, but . . . maybe I do now." He reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out three Magic & Wizards cards.

He laid them out on the table in front of them:

The Eye of Timaeus. The Fang of Critias. The Claw of Hermos.

"Plato?" Seto murmured thoughtfully.

Noa shrugged. "I'm not sure what these have to do with anything, but . . . if a magical specter is going to give them to me, then I think they're probably important." He looked up at Seto, then at Isis. "I think maybe there's one for each of us."

"Not me," said Isis, holding up a hand, "but I do know who needs to carry these."

"You do?" Noa looked surprised. "You've seen it? In the future?"

Isis nodded. "I have." She hummed. "When you were given these cards, which did you touch first?"

Noa studied the cards for a time, carefully, then tapped one. "This one," he said. "The Eye of Timaeus."

Isis nodded. "That one," she said, "is yours. You have taken up the place of a major piece on this gameboard, by virtue of being caught directly in Paradius's line of fire." She frowned. "The king he wants is not here, so a prince must be good enough."

Noa looked up. "Huh?"

"Never mind." Isis pointed to the Fang of Critias, then to Seto. "Critias is yours."

Seto took up the card and looked at it. He smiled. "He looks familiar."

Isis nodded. "Hermos . . . belongs to a boy you have met, a boy whose fate has become intertwined with yours. I know that your parents are loathe to involve more children than already have been entangled in this . . . trouble. But I have a feeling, if you've been given these, that he will be necessary."

"Joey," Seto and Noa said at the same time.

Isis nodded. "Yes," she said. "Tell me, has he fought with you?"

"Yes," Seto said. "He stood with us against some assholes from our school."

Isis nodded again. "This is new . . . highly unusual . . . but it still flows smoothly. Yes. I think things are still unfolding as they ought, even though everything has gone so far off the rails. There is enough that falls into place that I can still guide you."

"What changed, do you think?" Seto wondered. "Why is this . . . timeline so different?"

"The best I can say is this," Isis said. "Never doubt the sheer chaotic potential of a Kaiba."