The machine burned faster. Daphne cut through Tara’s argument: the goddess who fought in the Wars has changed to the point of death. She fought Craftswomen, and now employs them. She ruled, and now she hides. Her body was remade. Her mortal worshippers are gone, or long since converted to other faiths. She was a ghost surviving in a few monsters’ dreams. The being who emerges, reborn, is not the lady who fell at the King in Red’s hands, her blood smoking on his claws.

Blades of Craft pierced beneath the skin of reality, speared Seril Herself, and pried apart the seconds and ages of Her life. All Daphne’s might, all the court’s power, wedged present Seril from Her past.

Tara slipped beneath those blades, blunted them and redirected. Seril has changed, as I have changed, as you have changed, bitwise, slantwise, like the philosopher’s ship. But Her faithful call Her by the same name, and so does Her lover, and so do Her children. And so, by rights, She is.

Tara’s web closed around the blades, and hardened.

But still the machine in Daphne fought.

Seril now is Seril who was before, but Seril who was before is not Seril who is now. Seril is Seril and is not Seril. Tara is Tara and is not Tara. Daphne is Daphne and is not Daphne.

Webs of Craft reflected themselves, distorted.

Tara saw the discontinuity too late.

Craftwork logic, spun against itself, made a hole in the wielder’s mind.

And a demon stepped through.

Reflections bubbled in Daphne’s eyes, and the eyes themselves faceted, serrated, grew polygonal and inflated round again. Daphne became a cutout superimposed on the world. Much of her skin was gone, or shredded, but the thaumaturgical implements inside her now frayed, or turned on invisible axes to become writhing glass, devouring their complexity as the world tore.

Daphne’s lips peeled back, and back, and back. The corners of her mouth split to show fangs. In those fangs Tara thought she saw Daphne’s face, or her own, or both their faces melded and forever screaming. A choir sang music no human throats could make.

Tara tried to catch the demon’s edges, see its bindings. There were none. Ill-defined it passed through the portal of Daphne’s broken logic—limitless and hungry.

Cat leapt for it, wings spread. The demon pierced her and she fell. Demonglass caught Tara, skinned the moonlight from her, grew inward. She blunted its assault, defining the claws by their pressure on her skin and so destroying them—but space twisted as the demon overflowed itself, reshaping Daphne’s body to fit its expanded being, so fast it made itself faster.

The gargoyles fought, and Justice. Unreal blades cut down.