“Your turn, tell me your boons,” Krahe prompted. “Just the effects, o list the names.”

  “Surely, you have more than one boon.”

  “Of course, but I suspect you have already figured them out. My other boons grant me a Kenoma Pocket, py havoc with appraisal magid facilitate my unique abilities pertaining to harnessing anathema and tolerating Isotope,” Krahe said, purposely leaving out most of the actual details and pletely leaving out obog’s Mystic Wisdom.

  A fused question came from Casus: “Isotope?”

  “Anathemic remnants. I found it easier to assign a one-word o it.”

  “Ah. That is a good name for it. I’ve always found it strahat it is so often simply called anathema or anathemic remnants. Even the specifiames it has are merely local sng. Bane Soot or just Soot is the most on one I’ve heard of.”

  “, your boons,” she reiterated, tinuing to read the Xaugeth Ecyclopedia. “I wager most of them are something to do with Mamon Couplers.”

  Casus nodded.

  “As the Foremaioned, I possess a Boon which forcibly raises my patibility with any Mamon Coupler. Anuarahe presence of an arm-mounted on, nearly always a long, slender bde, as you have seen. My Mamon Knight transformations are abnormally durable, sg with my Durability attribute, and I push them to perform well beyond their normal specifications for short periods of time. I derive minor bes from any Coupler I am wearing even if I am not transformed, and stly, I make use of Catalysts that would normally only be usable by a specific person, for any reason. However, there are… Side effects. Surely you noticed the ge to my personality when I dohe mantle of Silberblut - that is the side effect. The “true” user’s personality bleeds into mine.”

  “’t say I’m even a bit surprised about those. Well, I guess I’ll have to look into Eidolons before I make any use of them. Does the Church have exclusive tomes on these subjects, or should I just visit a library?”

  “I do not knoostles do gain access to some restricted ses of church libraries, however.”

  “Figured as much, I’ll look in the tral Temple first, then...”

  “You would want the Temple of Records, instead. It is not difficult to find, the building stands adjat to the tral Temple.”

  Despite saying as much, Krahe remained as she was, on the sofa, for the hour and a half, reading. Casus, true to his habits, also took to reading after ensuring his Mamon Couplers were all in a good dition and st them away elsewhere in the safehouse. Theually, she rose up, and looking out the window, stretched in pce, and Casus beheld the gruesome manner in which the Liminal Coil protruded out of her back, creating an uling shape even through her biosuit. Despite having seen many grafts, something about that particur sight made a shiver run down the banisher’s back. Right then, taking the remaining Css 1 suppressant pills with her, she was off.

  Krahe, first of all, bought a pair of tight leather pants and a button-up shirt, getting them adjusted on the spot to better fit her. She also bound her hair into a ponytail to disrupt ahat might be looking for her based on a description. Even small ges such as these could have a tremendous effect. Thereafter, she made her way to a pce where she could have breakfast and listen in on people’s m versations. She stantly kept a and moved in such a way as to make less of a target out of herself; this didn’t mean scurrying through side alleys alone, as she didn’t know the city well enough to make that the optimal strategy, but rather using crowds and open spaces to vanish in pin sight. Even if an assassio see her, most professionals would try to avoid colteral damage. She was fairly fident that if she kept a, she could dive or skim before an assassin’s shot could reach her, even if it was the same man as before. No attempt on her life was made, and nor did she feel any hostile i; all she felt were wandering eyes crawling upon her back, as her shirt was half-transparent, and her biosuit’s ade it shihrough all the more. She wagered, though, that it was more the gruesome shape of her spihan the biosuit. Eyes upon her left arm were, of course, a fone clusion. So long as she didn’t move it much it wasn’t too much of a stare-mag.

  The pce she ended up at was her seedy, nor squeaky . It py medium betweewo, with good food and drinks at a reasonable price, singled-off stalls, and staff that acted as invisible as the likes of Imraal. It was the sort of eatery she would have sidered a really great pce to eat and ask about local goings-on bae. In Audunpoint, it was one among many, easily found if one knew how to look.

  One of the first things she learned in the course of her iigation was that there was a standing order to all Hashem Family members to report her location and to kill her if the opportunity preseself, but to not actively go out of their way to e after her - specifically in that w. From what intel she mao gather, the higher-ups were effectively treating her as an enemy gang member, rather than a priority target.

  She erfectly tent to reciprocate this treatment until she determined why an attempt had been made on her life. It ossible, likely even, that a higher-up in the Hashem Family had hired the killer. They were the only ones who had a motive. Krahe had another coffee with her proper breakfast, finding this oo taste pletely different from what Casus brewed; it was silky and buttery, without an iota of sugar, pushing notes of caramel into her nostrils. Her breakfast, rather than anything salty or meaty, was a nougat-like dy with whole pistachios inside, apparently a timeless cssic eaten all throughout the Afshani Sultanate and beyond. She bahe cloying sweetness with a kind of baked biscuit made with ba that had the fat rendered out of it and was then ground up into the dough, with the rendered fat used as a leavener.

  Akaso