“Well,” she sneered, “apparently they haven’t read this moldy old thing as deeply as I. For you see, you sad scrawny child, I have discovered a loophole. Discovered it, of course, with assistance from my lovely put-upon Vivek.” She glanced past me to where Vik stood, still drone-like with the other cultists. A slinky smirk sashayed across her face. “Such an obedient pupil. Of course, unless you’re even more brainless than I thought, you must have figured out by now that it was Vivek who unlocked the key to my avengement. You see, after you so callously stomped upon his tender spicy heart, he found comfort in me. Such comfort. And oh, my dear, he’s told me everything. It’s thanks to him that I’ve now unmasked the deeply disappointing secret identity of the Priest All-High. You would not believe my shock, my appall, to deduce from errant flecks of pillow talk, that Dead Cthulhu was once a student on my own class roster!” Yet another of her repugnant conspiratorial winks. “Loose lips, string-bean.”

Stupid, stupid girl! I screamed inside. Of course, so much now made sense. I’d told Vik about New York and the cultists, about Neil’s shop, about hiding the Eldritch Grimoire. The precious secrets had poured from my mouth like water from a tap. I’d acted as a spy against myself, and against Riley. I was so stupid! It was no wonder one such as Riley would maroon the likes of me on the island of my empty life, never to gently rock in his boat again. I truly deserved whatever bodily torture awaited me.

“Thanks to you, you twit of a slip of a girl, I now know that I don’t need Dead Cthulhu at all. And I need not wait for the hour of Alignment! I have discovered that Dead Cthulhu is not the true conduit to Azathoth. Dead Cthulhu is merely the vessel. Dead Cthulhu’s heart, roughly speaking—you must understand that biology becomes complicated when discussing beings who straddle multiple dimensions—his heart is the conduit.”

She placed the book back on the podium, and stroked my hair again, making my scalp crawl. “And you, my silly little lovesick simpleton… You possess the heart of Dead Cthulhu.”

I understood so little of what she was saying, I had been so far out of my depth for so many days now. But that last thing made so much sense that I was afraid I’d misheard. Did she mean that I possessed the heart of the thing that was also Riley sometimes? Did that mean I possessed Riley’s heart? Did…

Did Riley somehow love me, after all?

With an almost physical jolt, a spark of hope returned to me. As it radiated from my reborn heart to the rest of my body, I worked to contain it before it could reach my face and tip my hand to Epistola.