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Blake Thorburn is the main protagonist of Pact. Having grown tired of his family's infighting, he ran away as a teenager and spent three years estranged from them.

He returns only as his grandmother lies dying, and soon becomes embroiled in the secrets of the Thorburn family. Following the death of his cousin, Molly Walker, he appears to be the Thorburn heir. He has an obscure connection to Rose, a Vestige created by his grandmother.

Blake appears to have been killed at the end of the "Void" arc by the Abstract Demon, but instead fell through the cracks in the world and ended up in a part of Limbo. He is no longer a practitioner or human, but an Other, akin to aBogeyman and Wraith.

Later revelations show that both he and Rose are two halves of the same person who were carved apart by Barbatorem and the one who has the most presence becomes the real one and the other a Vestige.

Appearance[]

Blake has wavy dark blonde hair, and watercolor tattoos of birds sitting in branches on his arms.[1] It is mentioned that he has sustained some scars, but with the application of glamour ink has erased some of the most obvious ones.

The first time Blake was overusing his personal power/blood, his hair and skin would become paler, with the tattoos brighter.[2] Another occasion he expended a lot of power, he became paler but the tattoos weren't any more vivid.[3] When he drained himself almost completely, the birds in the tattoos first became pale,[4] then maimed and beheaded, with real feathers occasionally falling off them.[5] When he was affected by Pauz' "radiation", the birds became more feral and unkempt-looking.[6]

Once he fell into Limbo the wounds returned and his tattoos changed to great thorny branches, grown mature with no birds, but innumerable feathers, and one bird’s skull with a branch growing through the eyehole. He became blind in one eye and one of his hands is almost split into two.

After completing the trial of the past the branches spread further along his body, creaking as he moved, and the birds lost most of their colors and changed position, revealing that they were the spirits and ghosts that filled into the cracks made when he bled himself dry, giving him aspects of a Wraith. His scent reeks of rotted branches and birds, and the abyss according to a satyr.

Except for some markings around his blind eye where Ur had torn the eyelid, his face is pale, with a dark circle under one eye, and some branches and darkness around the blind one. Amid those branches, three birds are clustered together in the corner where the tear happened, beady black eyes standing out from his flesh in three dimensions – one bird in profile, the others looking out straight on. Three eyes visible in total, matching the general curvature of his eye socket.

He the places himself in a wooden body that matched his appearance but over the course of the story he gets further damaged, later adding wings and a replacement leg. Once he becomes rooted and damaged to far to leave Limbo, Rose carves out his heart, spirit-stuff, and allows him to possess her in order to escape, leaving him as a fragment of a spirit. By the end of the Judgement Arc, Blake gives up the remainder of his humanity to Rose and became a shape-shifting mass of wood that could act as wings or a gauntlet for her.

In the epilogue, Blake has turned into a sparrow that had feathers sticking up here and there, and it was a little dirtier. A small bit of branch was stuck in the plumage at his front, making him look like a sparrow that a cat had hacked up and left on the forest floor.

Personality[]

Blake seeks to leave the world a better place than he finds it, so he tends to take on responsibilities that aren't his own and at cost. He prefers to avoid conflict, but if pressed tends to lash out rather than remain passive.

While his time on the streets has encouraged a deep sense of empathy, Blake has also developed an aversion to being touched due to an incident. Although he notes that this gives him a keener set of instincts, he considers it a weakness of character. This is later revealed to have been a safe measure as, due to him actually being a vestige, every time he came into contact with something it damaged him.

He has a tendency to seek revenge on those he believes have slighted him, even when unnecessary. This may have caused premature escalation of the conflict between him and Laird, as well as leading up to the risk of being Forsworn after promising not to kill Laird if he could help it but doing so when he was forced to confront his own Ghosts. After Rose had taken his place he felt immense anger for her endangering his friends.

He is distant with all his family with the exception of Paige Thorburn and Molly Walker, who he had close ties with before running away. He and Rose have a strained relationship as, because he's fated to die and she would become the next heir, they instinctively distrust one another. Despite that, he does consider her a sister and friend worth risking his life over until later revelations reveal that they are destined to fight and only one can survive. While he tries to mitigate this, both are suspicious of each other.

He also has an interest in art stemming from his original, but while he had the desire, Rose got the talent, adding to the conflict between them.

As a result of becoming an Other he no longer feels fear in the same way and easily becomes angered, at some point acknowledging that he's afraid he may not be able to stop.

Chronology[]

Bonds[]

The story begins with Blake returning to the Hillglades House at the beckoning of Rose Thornburn's lawyers, after running away from home three years ago. There he reconnects with his cousins Paige and Molly Walker and learns of his little sister, Ivy Thorburn. Attempting to avoid the family drama, he nevertheless becomes hostile at his grandmother's deathbed. He then learns that the next to inherit the Hillglades House is Molly. When Molly asks everyone to leave, he wishes her well and returns to Toronto.

Four months later, however, Blake has a prophetic dream of the events in Jacob's Bell, culminating in the death of Molly. Waking to find that Rose has taken the place of his reflection, he flees for the Hillglades House for sanctuary at Rose's instruction. Borrowing his landlord's car, he drives towards the small town while questioning Rose; en route he is attacked by mask-wearing humanoid creatures that drive him off the road in an attempt to murder him. With the help of Rose and a hitch-hiker, he makes it to the Hillglades House. Once inside he and Rose discover a hidden room: the study of Rose Sr., containing all her esoteric knowledge.

The next morning, police officers Pat Macguin and Laird Behaim approach the house and question Blake about Molly's death; they reveal that she seems to have been mauled to death. Laird, who admits that he is a major practitioner in the town, then takes him out for coffee under an oath of protection, and demonstrates the use of Shamanism before leaving. However, Blake realizes that Laird's deceptive use of magic to alter time has caused the police officer's oath of protection to expire, and he is soon preyed upon by Padraic, Ev, and Keller. The intervention of Rose allows him to escape and they return to the house, where Laird reappears and says that he would prefer to keep things civil. Laird also advises Blake to carry out the awakening ritual as soon as possible.

The next day, Blake orders a pizza in an attempt to get food without leaving the house. Witnessing the death of the delivery man at the hands of predatory Others staking out the house, Blake reasons that only the house, and not the surrounding land, is safe. Later, both Blake and Rose perform the awakening ritual and become practitioners. Blake checks on Barbatorem, a dangerous demon that Rose Sr. had bound to the attic, before getting ready for a council meeting with local practitioners at Laird's suggestion.

Damages[]

Before the cease-fire that precedes and follows each council meeting, Blake leaves the house to gather supplies. He encounters trouble at a local store with his cousins (Molly's brothers) Christoff Walker and Callan Walker, who accuse him of being responsible for Molly's death. The minor altercation that follows had apparently been set up by someone manipulating the connections between Blake and the Walker brothers. Laird soon arrives to collect Blake for the meeting at an old church. Responding to the murder of Molly, Blake attempts to sow discord among the local practitioners by warning of the Thorburn family's ability to summon countermeasures (such as the use of Barbatorem). Laird, however, smoothly neutralises this threat by revealing that the Behaim family are adequately protected from such dangers, and suggests that any unprepared parties take Blake's offer of protection.

After the meeting, Blake and Rose are escorted part way to the house by Johannes Lillegard and Maggie Holt, who inform them that, without an opposing majority vote in Blake's favour, the powers in the council will attempt to execute the young Thorburn. Once alone with Blake, Rose reveals to him that she is a vestige running on a limited time-frame.

The next day he binds the ghost of June Burlison into a hatchet and summons the family lawyers: Mann, Levinn, and Lewis. The lawyers explain the scope of the Thorburn's karmic debt (nearly seven lifetime's worth). Ms. Lewis then assists him in binding the frost hatchet properly, and helps him in defeating a Faerie named Letiia, the familiar of Joanna Duchamp and her older sister Penelope Duchamp. Ms. Lewis volunteers more information about Johannes' demesne while warning Blake that he will not survive for long. Maggie later visits Blake, framing herself as a potential friend, but Laird soon arrives and reveals that Maggie murdered Molly under Laird's own orders, souring her attempts to ally with Blake.

Breach[]

Blake summons and binds Leonard Harlan into a bottle, and he and Rose discuss Laird's threats and Maggie's role in the death of their cousin. Blake expresses guilt over forgiving Molly's murder simply to gain an ally. The pair soon notice that Blake's tattoos are changing; Rose theorizes that his excessive use of magic is making him vulnerable to possession. At first, Blake fears that a demon is the culprit, but quickly comes to suspect that Rose is to blame. Noting that their grandmother wanted a female heir, Blake privately worries that Rose will be forced to attempt to usurp Blake's body. Nevertheless, he makes an Oath to help her escape the mirror world in exchange for her loyalty and help.

Blake then goes out to the backyard of the property and calls for the Briar Girl. A homunculus-bird comes out to answer the call and guides him to her in the marshlands, where he tries to bargain with her for support against the Duchamp Coven and the Behaim Circle. The Briar Girl explains she doesn't care for power, but she asserts that the Thorburn family history of diabolism is dangerous to the world and that she aims to possess the land of the Hillglades House herself. Blake points out, of the line of heirs, only he is likely to negotiate with her for the house, and if the family line should end then the land will default to the lawyers instead. Eventually they come to an agreement and the Briar Girl teaches Blake the basics of Shapeshifting through the use of Glamour, in exchange for a small piece of the land.

Blake uses this knowledge to change his appearance, powered by a lock of hair that he had collected from the defeated Faerie Letitia. Able to leave the property safely under this disguise, he visits Maggie. Through interacting with one of her goblins, Dickswizzle, Blake learns that only Rose can command Others due to the tradition of Thorburn diabolists being women. Afterwards a pre-wedding meeting of the Duchamp and Behaim families under the glamour disguise. Blake nearly succumbs to the thrall of using glamour, but manages to hold out long enough to attempt to sabotage the Duchamp / Behaim attempt at slowing down time around his family property. He then sends Dickswizzle and Rose to cause collateral damage to some of Laird's sister's books and property.

After talking with Andy on his way back to the house, Blake feels the change around the boundary of the property and realizes that the  Duchamp / Behaim ritual was successful, cutting him off from his resources. With no safe residence in Jacob's Bell, he has Rose call the lawyers to get him safe passage back to Toronto.

Collateral[]

Blake arrives in Toronto and is warned of the local lord, Conquest. His driver, an employee of Mann, Levinn & Lewis, gives the price for the lawyer's favour in transporting him: he must read the diabolist text Black Lamb's Blood. Blake is also warned that the next time he makes such a deal, he'll need to assist the lawyers in an errand; this seems to be an attempt to set Blake up for future recruitment to the firm. Inside his apartment, Blake meets with his landlord, Joel, and thanks him for the loan of Joel's car. The pair are soon joined by all Blake's old friends and acquaintances: Alexis, Amanda, Goosh, Tyler, Nick, and Joseph, as well as a new friend of Alexis's, Tiffany. Blake reveals the danger of his circumstances without mentioning their supernatural origins. Later in the evening, Alexis suggests that she and Tiffany could help Blake to overcome his aversion to physical contact, but he refuses for the time being.

Rose then alerts him that a stranger, a servant of the Lord of Toronto, has infiltrated the gathering. The stranger, Fell, informs Blake of an appointment with Conquest. Blake buys a painting as a gift for the Lord before departing to the meeting. There, he is introduced to Conquest and some of the entity's subordinates: Isadora, Jeremy Meath, and Diana Thompson. The meeting is peaceful until Jeremy, at the behest of his ex-wife Sandra Duchamp, exposes Blake's family history of diabolism. Conquest immediately seizes upon this opportunity for power, demanding that Blake call down the demon Ornias so that Conquest can take control over it, and his fractured council becomes divided in their loyalties. Rose and Blake stall by requesting books from the house in Jacob's Bell, which is inaccessible due to the Duchamp / Behaim ritual. In the meantime, Conquest tasks Blake with binding and bringing three troublesome beings to him over the course of three days, while Rose, given physical form, is bound by Conquest as a hostage.

Fell arrives the next day at Blake's apartment to volunteer information about the three beings. While travelling to the neighborhood where the first being, an Imp named Pauz, is located, Blake discovers that he is under surveillance by local wildlife. He soon finds that Pauz's domain is infested with corrupted, feral animals, which attack him en masse. Blake makes a protective circle from the feces and innards of a dead rabbit, and Rose demands that Pauz appear to them. In the following negotiation, Pauz expresses a desire to be brought to Conquest as corrupting the entity would serve its goal of perverting the natural order.

Rose and Blake escape and make their way to a college in search of assistance from the sphinx Isadora. There they run into Tiffany, a student at the college, and some of Jeremy's followers. A conflict with the Jeremy's followers seems inevitable, but Rose breaks a few windows to alert Isadora, who scatters them. However, the sphinx refuses to help Blake, insisting that he still bears a corrupting presence ('radiation') from dealing with Pauz and will serve to disrupt the balance of the universe. Disheartened, Blake goes for coffee with Tiffany. After a brief conversation, a fight breaks out nearby, possibly due to Blake's irradiation.

Blake returns to his apartment without Rose, whose has been missing since breaking the windows, and prepares to bind Pauz. He travels to the Dowghty house that Pauz inhabits, where he discovers that Pauz had a hand in Rose's absence. Blake draws up a seven-page contract stipulating that Pauz will be bound only until a few minutes after Blake's deadline for bringing Conquest the third being. However, upon binding Pauz to the book Black Lamb's Blood, Blake realizes that the Imp can no longer protect him from its corrupted minions and the formerly possessed inhabitant of the house. With the Frost Hatchet he manages to fend off these attackers and even rescue Dowght, but sustains many wounds in the process and is forced to rudely summon Fell for transport. He then delivers Pauz to Conquest and finds that Rose is unconscious due to Pauz's efforts.

When Blake arrives home he tends to his injuries, using glamour ink to cover most of them, before contacting his cousin Paige, who Joel informs him visited when he was out. He admits to Paige that Molly's death was murder and that he is in danger, but urges her to stay away for her safety.

The next day, Fell drives Blake out to meet the Knights of the Basement, a small local group of practitioners who have information about the second and third beings. During the drive, the pair discuss the perils of knowledge of the supernatural and Fell's family servitude to Conquest. They also pass ghosts and spectres that have been maimed and enslaved by the Hyena, the second being. The Knights are friendly after brief initial distrust, and reveal that they are Dabblers with no powerful specialties who prefer to minimize contact with Others. Still, they inform Blake about their encounter with the Abstract Demon, the third being, who removed several of their number. They later stress that they are fearful of opposing Conquest directly, and discuss the Sisters of the Torch and other local powers. Nick gives the extent of his knowledge on the Hyena and loans Blake some chain and a few weapons; he also teaches the young diabolist runes for Wind and Silence.

Blake goes to confront the Hyena in the nearby forest, and encounters the ghost of a little boy in a red hood while running from the swathes of Others that were maimed by the Hyena. Blake discovers that the boy, Evan, had been hunted by the Hyena but had escaped its clutches for days before finally freezing to death in the forest. Co-operating with the young ghost, Blake uses branches of holly and Nick's chain to ensnare the Hyena and bind it in the form of a sword, which he brings to Conquest.

He then returns to the forest, now free of the Hyena's influence and spectres, and uses the Sight to find Evan's body, which he wishes to put to rest. Before he can do so, however, it is revealed that local police have been tailing him and he is arrested for Evan's murder.

Conviction[]

Blake is taken into custody and interrogated by police officer Duncan Behaim, who has engineered the arrest at his uncle Laird's request to prevent Blake from fulfilling his deadline for Conquest. Duncan says that he no personal issue with Blake but that it is to the advantage of his family and the world if he gets rid of a diabolist. He then manipulates his fellow interrogator into questioning Blake about matters of magic, such as whether Blake sees Goblins. Unable to lie for fear of being forsworn, Blake refuses to answer and is incriminated by the implications of such seeming insanity.

Evan's ghost is still present and attempts to help Blake, but the next morning the boy's body is deteriorating to the point that the ghost is becoming less and less anchored to the world. Blake manages to summon one of the Knights of the Basement for help and breaks Duncan's hold over the officers by casting aspersions on the Behaim's integrity in the case thrice over. However, Duncan uses chronomancy to rewind time to the morning again, and prevents Blake from summoning help again.

Blake bleeds himself to give power to Rose, having realized that Pauz had reversed their relationship such that Blake was leeching her limited power resources rather than the other way around. He then escapes his cell and breaks out of Duncan's Escher-like stairwell trap to find Evan's body. Knowing that Evan can no longer move on in peace, Blake instead performs the rite of the Familiar, making Evan his Familiar after the ghost willingly recites an Other's Oath. Duncan confronts the pair, explaining that Blake's extreme bloodletting has risked possession and worse by malicious Others. As the Behaim escorts him back to his cell, Blake frantically insists to the other officers that Duncan had illegally taken the Frost Hatchet from Blake's coat pocket.

Panicking, Duncan slows the movement of the other officers and attempts to shoot Blake. Evan makes the shots miss and reveals that he has retrieved both Blake's Locket and the Implement that Duncan needed to reset time. As a result Blake is allowed to walk free, determined to confront the Abstract Demon against the cautions of Fell and Rose. The battle is disastrous, and it is implied that several of Blake's allies are lost, erased from the timeline, with only the demon's claw to show for their effort.

Subordination[]

On their way back to Blake's apartment, Rose is abducted by Conquest. With little other choice, Blake admits the truth to his friends about his supernatural circumstances. Half of them - Alexis, Tiffany and Ty - agree to undergo the awakening ritual  to assist him directly, while the others remain in a supporting role.

At Conquest's tower he meets Isadora, The Shepard, Elder Sister, and Jeremy Meath who wish to prevent Conquest from gaining access to the final demon. Blake then goes to confront Conquest, finding both Laird and Duncan there, and challenges the Lord to a competition, where one must defeat the other through the use of their chosen champions. Blake chooses Rose, Fell, Pauz, Hyena, and Maggie Holt, while Conquest chooses the Shepard, Elder Sister, the Eye, Laird Behaim, and The Astrologer. Blake returns to a spirit world version of his apartment to plan out a course of action, narrowly escaping an attack by the Shepard and the Eye.

"Maggie" arrives from Jacob's Bell, and assists Rose in summoning a brutish Other, Midge, to give Rose agency and firepower. Midge is soon used to attack a group of Terracotta Soldiers but she becomes uncontrollable due to a loophole exploit in her contract with Rose and attacks Blake's party. They manage to suppress Midge with some effort but Tiffany opts to remain at a safer location out of fear.

When they return to the normal world they see the result of their battles, which are having an adverse effect on the city and its populace. Back at the apartment they discuss their situation. Fell admits that he would consider killing Blake to prevent the diabolist's soul from being taken by Conquest, since this would allow Fell to walk free. Later that night, Blake has a nightmare where he is assaulted by all of the Others he's dealt with and Rose had taken his place. He fears it is an omen of conflict between himself and Rose. He also begins to suspect Maggie of disloyalty, discussing with Rose the change in the young girl's disposition.

Isadora then arrives to warn Blake that she plans on attacking him the next day, and that Rose will subsequently take his place as the next Thorburn heir. He then goes to the police station to retrieve June, where he comes under assault by four young members of the Behaim Circle, who have been angered by the earlier property damage caused to their home by Dickswizzle. Rose and Blake initially manage to push them back with Bloody Mary, another of Rose's summonings, but quickly find themselves disorrientated in the Spirit World version of the police station with an hour of time missing from their minds. Maggie's intervention using Gremlins prevents the pair from being bound by the Behaims, and when Laird appears to reinforce his family Evan allows the Hyena to be released and Laird is captured.

Void[]

Blake and his allies trap their captive Laird inside a circle with Pauz as a guard, aiming to keep him from intervening further in the contest against Conquest. Attempting again to return to the police station to retrieve Blake's Frost Hatchet, the party encounters members of the Sisters of the Torch who are working with the Astrologer in order to find him; Blake subdues them using the previously bound ghost of Leonard Harlan. The situation quickly turns sour, as the Shepherd arrives and empowers Wraiths to herd Blake and his allies outside a grocery store. A creation of the Astrologer then appears and seriously wounds both Alexis and Fell with a large bow and arrows.

Isadora then comes to fulfill her promise to attack Blake, and maims his chest with her claws. Rose convinces her to call Conquest and a severely wounded Blake negotiates a break from the match for three days, by pointing to the weakness that Conquest would show by allowing a subordinate such as Isadora to kill his opponent.

Asleep while recovering from his wounds, Ms. Lewis appears to Blake and urges him to stop holding back and call the firm if he needs it - if he does not do so, she threatens to hasten his death so that Rose will take his place, as the Sphinx predicted. When he wakes he finds that his friends had nearly bled themselves out to wake him up and plugged his wounds with Tallowman's wax. Rose greets him alongside a dangerous Other, the recently summoned John Pica, and explains that their situation has been worsening. Fell was killed by the Astrologer's creation and, Rose explains, she has refused negotiations to retrieve his soul, on strategic grounds.

Blake suspects that Rose knows her position as heir should he die, but wants to believe she and (similarly suspicious) Maggie are his allies. Returning to his apartment, Blake finds that Laird has broken free and escaped, costing them their final victory. However, Blake asserts that he has realizd the basis of the Behaim's power and is now equipped to combat them.

To this end, after dealing with a group of Ghouls he, Maggie, Rose, and Evan end up being invited into Duncan Behaim's apartment by his fiance and take him hostage for the sake of getting Laird. The plan backfires as Laird arrives with Conquest, members of his family, and several Terracotta Soldiers. In the end he was forced to use the rest of June's power, destroying her, only to end up being confronted by two of his own ghosts and then taking the large splinter he was given to track the Abstract Demon and shoving it into Laird's throat.

Escaping outside and into the snow, Blake then works with Rose to convince Conquest that unless he can make her submit he can't win the contest. Conquest, unable to fight his nature, does so while Pauz threatens Blake, only to be deterred as it was now freed and did not wish to be bound again. Blake uses the pages of Black Lamb's Blood, Laird's blood, and Rose's hair, to trap Conquest in a mirror inside of a triple-layer circle.

Evan and Blake have a talk about their partnership when the rest of the Behaims return to find Laird dead, and he argues in his defense that he tried not to kill him but Laird had pressed him too far, thus earning the ire of Craig Behaim personally rather than because of his family name. Once they leave, he and Maggie finish binding Conquest and then return to his home to await the rest of the Champions for Conquest, when Isadora arrives first alongside Paige Thorburn.

It is revealed that Isadora has decided to take Paige, who was digging into the events of what was happening with Blake, under her responsibility to prevent her from being lost should something happen, which also has the benefit of making one less 'splash in the pond' if Blake dies. Blake deduces that Rose Thorburn Senior put her at the very end of the list because she was sexually attracted to girls and wouldn't have an interest in having a child to have a new heir. When the rest of the others show up, the Astrologer apologizes for attacking him claiming she was under duress and both the Grandmother and niece of Fell arrive, to whom he apologizes for not being able to save.

With Conquest bound he wants to call a truce and asks if any of them wants the position of replacing him as the Lord as all he wants to do it be left alone before he goes back to the factory and deal with the Abstract Demon. While the only ones open to taking the position were Elder Sister and possibly Jeremy Meath, Isadora (possibly) and Shepard would continue to act against Blake. Later on he scouts out the factory with the demon in it from the outside and muses that someone has bound it inside of the building so it couldn't escape, but the demon's radiation was still escaping, and shares his belief that Maggie is possessed without her present.

He then visits the Astrologer, Elder Sister, and Shepard in order to have them give his consent so that he can use magic outside the constraints of the contest to deal with the demon. All three agree and later discuss whether or not Blake should get his Implement afterwards by using the Goblin Sword. They decide against it and then head to the factory.

At the factory he, with assistance from a ghost loaned by the Shepard and Terracotta Soldiers start a fire in an attempt to deal with the Abstract Demon, but it hides in the smoke. Blake has Evan flee but, before he can get away, the demon eats his connections with his friends and the outside world. The last thing he mentions was that he tried to get away and didn't make it before he apparently died.

Null[]

Blake is revealed to have survived the encounter due to reality no longer supporting him now that his connections had been severed. He fell through the cracks into Limbo, The Drains to be more precise, one of his eyes ruined and unable to see properly. His Sight was disabled, all the wounds he patched with glamour reappeared as it only held sway in the real world, and he felt numb. Making his way through a tunnel he came across an Other who reappeared and vanished until he came to a point where he could go no further and decided to confront it, gesturing to come to him.

The Other proved to be non-hostile, apparently having been a human who fell through the cracks like he had. She informs him of the nature of the place, how it breaks you down, and of how she came to be what she was. He named her Green Eyes and, with her help he reached the next tunnel. He then offered her whatever it was in his power to give her, which was a kiss on his cheek.

He then stumbles into the next area that acts as a central hub and hears the voices of Alexis, Tyler, Tiffany, and Rose, only to learn that Rose had sabotaged her own awakening ritual. He stews over, but realizes that Limbo itself was showing him this image so it could break him and he continued on, passing a few other people who had given up parts of themselves to survive, although not to the same level of Green Eyes, and one of them informs him more on Limbo's nature and the fact that a Witch lived there who could possibly help him.

He then falls asleep and dreams of himself in a state as a bird-like Other, waking to realize Limbo was tempting him with a vision of a future if he sought it. When that failed he hastened his search, coming across a creature that potential tried to eat him but was disabused of the notion with the plank he carried. It was then, as he was making his way back towards the witch, he ran afoul Limbo's version of Carl, a man who had wronged him in the past.

Blake fled from him, only to nearly end up falling off a bridge. Tired, he called to the Lawyers and offered to join them if they let him help his friends and left Limbo, but he was rejected by Ms. Lewis, who tells him he has no power anymore and is no longer a practitioner and only Mags and she hold a connection to him.

She allows him to piece together that he was meant to die so that Rose could take his place and advises him to simply accept his circumstances as it is a quieter end rather than thrash around and make things more unpleasant for him, but he refuses to lay down and accept it as it isn't in his nature. Regardless she warns him not to follow her out or she would make him regret it and he's left with no choice otherwise.

He then gets another vision of the present in Jacob's Bell and the council meeting where they are agreeing to the terms of the contest for becoming the Lord of Jacob's Bell.

In attendance Sandra Duchamp, Duncan Behaim, Johannes, and Rose vie for the position of Lord, Ev, Keller, Crone Mara, and Briar Girl remain out of it or hope to gain while not taking a side, and Mags, Andy, and Eva, remained neutral. Rose, during this time, refuses to take any of the conditions which is inviting immediate retaliation and putting the others with her as easy targets, but she acknowledges that and does so anyway, leaving.

Blake sees this and is angry because he's powerless to do anything while Rose is using his friends as pawns as well. He makes his way to The Witch who he offered her shirt in exchange for sitting down and talking. She gives him more information on Limbo and the nature of the visions, stating that they represent things in his past, present, and future weighing him down and he needed to either get rid of them or give into them to free him into leaving an available exit. Coming to this realization he offers her collateral and she states if he escapes to go visit her grave and leave a flower.

Blake then goes back to the poles where he met Ms. Lewis and waits for the twisted reflection of his past, in the form of Carl, to come back and confronted it. The memories of the past unfolded and revealed that he had been a part of a cult until he left, but the pieces line up and he realizes that all this time he had never been real, but a Vestige, while Rose was the true heir.

As the vision finished he felt a weight lifting off his shoulders as the branches and birds that once made up his tattoos spread across his body, all of the being the things that possessed him when he cracked himself open. He then ventures back to the The Witch to explain what happened and ask what step to take next, during which they review possibly meanings of the Tarot Card Reading done by Sandra Duchamp that foretold trouble to him, and she suggests he takes the path he took to get there to complete the trial of the present  and to embrace the good that comes from being a Other, but not reject his humanity, before bidding him farewell.

Blake traced his path back to where he met Green Eyes and received visions of the world being worse off than when he left it instead of better. Following a path set before him into the darkness, he came across a forgotten god of light that was holding at bay the Abstract Demon, which was trying to eat away at even The Drains. Realizing that was his path back home, he jumped and grabbed hold, offering a brief worship to the forgotten god and empowering it enough to drive the demon back into the factory where he followed and the two began to face one another a third time.

During the encounter he uses the Hyena to reflect light and then draw a diagram of his life story, performing creation in contrast to it's habit of devouring, before escaping with the knowledge he can defeat it eventually. He the goes to his apartment to see that his appearance wouldn't pass as human in public any more and most of the things, including his bike, were gone and he could only go forwards.

He then makes it back to the Hillglades Home, revealing that he had taken Rose's place in the mirror world.

Mala Fide[]

He tells Rose of his identity and the others that were gathered, however most of them didn't trust him as they were at a time of war and because he came from the Drains he was essentially a Bogeyman. He realizes that it won't change for the time being so he instead explains that he's fragile as he is and the emotional damage he was taking from their conversation was killing him, as well as how to defeat the Abstract Demon, and to warn her not to gamble with his friends' lives, before she expels him from the house.

Unable to get back, he searches for Maggie Holt only to run into Ev and Keller and bluffed himself out of a conflict, knowing he had enraged them. He moves towards the school to find her, but finds that it is too well protected by the Duchamp Coven and Behaim Circle for any Others to enter. When one of these Others, a faceless-woman tries to attack another over her territory being taken, a male rushes in and drags her away to warn her against it as it would start a conflict and they just needed to be paitent. It's the Blake realized he was talking about him as well.

The Other recognizes him from the Hillglades House and Blake recognizes them as the pair who tried to trick him into coming out during the pizza fiasco. Pizza Man is a Revenant and the Faceless Woman is a Bogeyman, who explain that they being so new are not bound by the Seal of Solomon, how Blake can gain power through fear, and the current state of Jacob's Bell is that Sandra wants to preserve tradition, Johannes wants a new world, where Others exist in ghettos, eating phantom sustenance, and the Behaims seem to think that they can make everything better if they’re in charge. He then calls Mags for Blake and departs.

While Mags diverts the majority of the information about her role in Toronto, she explains to Blake that the others knew this was coming, a challenge for Lordship, and that she tried to down play her role as a wildcard because it would upset the balance and make things worse. Since then she's acted on her duties as Ambassador and is waiting until everything is over before she tries to reclaim everything she lost and get revenge on Padraic.

While she can't act or issue deals with the others, she also sees Rose as an even bigger threat because the hair she used in binding Conquest is acting as the source of taint seeping into her continuously. She does state she's happy to have him back as a friend, even though she wasn't sure that she could honor his request to see if she could summon Green Eyes and takes him to where the ghost of Molly Walker is.

Blake realizes she'd felt guilty all this time and, when Blake greets the ghost, it responds back to their surprise.

Mags takes Blake away from her because it was supposed to be what amounted to a grave visit and giving him some sort of advantage would go against her title of Ambassador, which is needed since Padraic stole her name and, if it gets taken away from her from being challenged, she could fall into Limbo. Molly's ghost, however, follows them away from her grave and Mags leaves Blake and her goblins under his command long enough to get salt so she could bind the ghost. During this time he sees Irene and Callan walking towards the Hillglades House and Molly follows, so he and Mags go to try and stop her.

Along the way he is attacked by a trio of Laiah and loses himself in the battle against one until Mags snaps him out of it. Recognizing them as possibly guests of Johannes, she calls in a representative before it escalated into war and Faysal Anwar appeared. Faysal offered, in exchange for his allegiance, either a pathway that would allow him to travel freely between Limbo and reality or that he could free him from the mirror and nurture his Self to make him whole. Blake was tempted, but he refused and instead exchanged that he would drop his grudge against them and release the one held hostage in exchange for a passage into Johannes domain without trouble for the next day and a discussion, as well as nourishing him so he leaves happier and healthier than before.

He arrives to see Irene and Rose arguing over them challenging her for custodianship for the home and keeps Molly company until her family leaves. He then tells Rose he'd see about the legal trouble, to which she tells him if he fails she will have exhausted her limited patience with him, before he and Mags discuss their plans. After binding Molly's ghost to prevent any trouble, he planned to visit Johannes for that favor and then see what he could do about the legal trouble.

Things go awry as Molly snaps after Blake mentioned that she was the first heir, which she then revealed that she wasn't and she hated her grandmother and everyone had an agenda. She then flickered out and returned to her haunt. They arrive to see Irene and Callan there, both of whom question her aggressively until they leave. Blake suspects that the prophecy that Mags is attached to is trying to influence things, only for Molly to come and confront Mags about her death. It is then Blake realizes that Molly has become a Wraith and tries to reason with her, but Molly states it's between her and Mags and picks up a branch to draw a rune that allowed her to conjure wind that reached him in the mirror world and nearly banished him.

Blake, unable to help as he was, left Maggie to visit Faysal, who provided him with an image of his Self taken from Johannes, revealing that the memories weren't destroyed but only lost. For his first favor, Blake asks that he hinders the wraith of Molly Walker to prevent complications from arising, which he can do by opening paths to dead ends, while the second was that he sees about freeing Green Eyes from "The Drains". Faysal agreed to do so in exchange for Blake going against Abstract Demon, compensating for what he lost in fighting demons. He then opens a path to where Molly was, in a restaurant with a large number of the Thorburn Family not including Irene, Callan, and Paige Thorburn.

Mags is there and plans to go in, asking whose the biggest troublemaker so that she has a story. He then remembers his promise to Rose and asks if there is a way to disturb what they are doing, to which she says naturally. She then goes in and picks a fight with Ellie Thorburn and ends up getting them put out while banishing Molly.

They find her where Blake first bound June Burlison, in the back of the house where the hill met the glades, and Mags offers to take Molly as a familiar. Blake leaves at this point because he could only make things worse due to Molly feeding off his negativity to a extent, leaving for a mostly frozen-surface lake. Faysal meets him here and the two discuss the circumstances between Humans and Others, namely that humanity is winning and forcing others into the fringes and something would happen.

The conversation reveals that Blake has a hard time of believing that humanity is winning and uses himself as a reference due to how it seemed that entropy comes out ahead and uses himself as a reference of how he has changed because of it. He doesn't see a force of creation doing the same as "The Drains" did.

Faysal has two hypothetical answers to this: The first is that the force of creation doesn't take in anything, only spits it out and thus remains unnoticed. The second is that places and manifestations like "The Drains" do not take anything, but merely change them into something else, which isn't intrinsically bad even if unpleasant.

The source of the problem is that Blake is questioning how humanity can be winning if the forces of annihilation and Wrong are supposed to prevail over creation and Right. He was wondering if that meant that humanity may be Wrong. Faysal told him that humankind aren't innately Good, but they aren't Wrong either, and he has taken more strides towards good than most people despite being one or two steps removed from them, to the extent he may as well be one.

Faysal leaves behind a set of rusty pipes in the shape of a rather unwieldy hoop. When Blake set it down on the water it melted enough ice that the water turned into a pathway to where Green Eyes was. Through it she was allowed into the real world and out of "The Drains", now free of it for the time being.

He couldn't hear her from his side of the mirror, but she could hear him. She promised him not to attack anyone or draw attention to herself that would get her sent back and to call for him if she needed him. After blowing him a kiss, he parted from her to go do something else productive to helping his friends.

At Laird's home he finds a pair of Behaims older than Laird leaving and hopped in the car from the mirror, listening to their conversation about how Duncan Behaim was calling in everyone who was capable, including children old enough to be awakened. When the older man, Ben Behaim noticed Blake he alerted his wife, Gloria Behaim and wanted to know why he was in the car and threatened to banish him.

Blake pointed out that he knew that they couldn't properly deal with him unless they knew what he was. He then informed them that Laird had been reckless and Duncan even more so and to avoid putting too much stock into what they say or do, which Ben agrees with and quickly figures out that Blake was responsible for killing Laird, to which he admitted was out of desperation. Blake tells them that he only wants to save his friends and would prefer that the grandchildren remain uninvolved and that he wants things to change for the better.

He leaves once Ben says he'll go and tell the others, telling him that Sandra will be more difficult to convince. Blake finds her talking to Jeremy Meath about assaulting the Hillglades House and learning that she knew that "of" him even if they didn't know what he was from Faysal. This meant he had to choose between protecting Molly and Mags or helping Rose to save his friends.

He set out to the Hillglades House first to try and warn them, but no one was where he could reach. Next he visited Mags and warned her they were coming after Molly and her if she completed the ritual when they felt a wave of power wash over the house and he went there to stop Jeremy.  He distracted them first by breaking glass when one of the  Maenads, Kakia, picked up their scent before reaching out and slashing with the Hyena.

He gutted the snake she carried rather than her wrist and thus earned her ire, having the Maenad chase him around with the intent to kill him. He tried to lure her into attacking Jeremy, only for it to narrow fail because her loyalty was greater than her anger. Jeremy then took over, telling Blake that because of his favor by Dionysus, Rose would be in a state similar to being drunk once she woke up, which was a risk none of them could take given if she said one wrong word then she could call down a demon.

Blake distracted them and tried to get to the room, finding the bookcase ajar, only for something to break his mirror and shunt him away. It left him unable to do anything as Jeremy and the Others with him found the rest of his friends unconscious and helpless.

He called to Evan and helped him escape to the first floor, where the two of them fended off a satyr and maenad that came for them until they tried to return up the stairs, where he was shunted into the large mirror in the library and sealed by Jeremy. Rose had awakened and revealed she had set a dead-man's switch that would release Barbatorem should she die, so Jeremy was forced to deal and Rose accepted the rules for the Lordship contest that she rejected prior and information on sealing Blake in exchange for him leaving the property, which diffused the first attack.

Once Blake was caught in the mirror in the study, she tells him that while she does believe him now that she's done her research and can't let him go for reasons unspoken. She also reveals she knows she's been tainted by Conquest and is using him as a power source, so he doesn't get a hold on her as long as she expending the power. Blake makes a final plea to Alexis and Evan to free him, but Alexis refused while Evan was unable to as the rest left to deal with Molly, as their attempts with Mags interrupted the familiar contract dealing and left her unbound and a potential hazard they couldn't afford.

Malfeasance[]

Still trapped in the mirror, eight hours pass and Blake is left with no one to talk to except for the spirits that lurk inside him (he names the one that's responsive Lefty) before Ty and Evan come in to play poker with him because they felt guilty about his imprisonment. During this time Blake asks that Evan at least take an escort to see Green Eyes and tell her he's fine when he gets a chance. Rose shows up later, and they leave with her not willing to free him until at least after the contest is over and she leaves a bogeyman to watch him. Once she's gone Blake starts experimenting with the mirror world and realizing the control he has over it, confident he would find a way out.

He manages to look over the books in the reflections and becomes more informed about bogeymen from the catalog book when Tiffany arrives to speak with Blake. When he tries to get her to turn on Rose by citing it was her fault they were in their current mess, she tells him to stop it because she's loyal to her since she helped his other friends after he was gone and there was nothing she could do. Blake apologized and settled down, not less angry but out of shame.

The conversation the drifted to Tiffany's upbringing, where she reveals she made a lot of mistakes because she was free-falling before Alexis found her and that her greatest fear is that she'd end up being backed into a corner and falling again. Once she leaves he begins experimenting with the spirits inside of him, physically pulling them out in the shape of birds, until he had Lefty leave the mirror and shift it. The spirit, however, shifted it incorrectly and thus alerted the Bogeyman guarding him, who called for Rose.

Rose tells him he has no idea what's going on and to just sit still and then she'd come back for him with a mirror. While waiting he browsed through another book that was in his view on sympathetic magic and used two other spirit-birds to power the playing cards he had. With them he moved the cards to cut the circle just as the bogeyman broke the mirror and stepped into the living room where the others were. Evan then explains they're under attack by the Behaim Circle and the two leave to deal with it.

Evan and Blake go out and see Changelings walking the street before deciding to go towards the nearest house of the Behaims, belonging to the elders of the council and Ben Behaim. Evan gets the window open and Blake listens into their conversation, when they get caught by two familiars in the form of cats, Cranaus and Hylas, who inform them of the fact that the elders are trying to decide between giving a weapon to attack their enemies to either Timothy or Alister Behaim, leaning towards Alister, who is planning on attacking the Hillglades House, with their reasoning being that if they succeed and stop him their actions will earn them power by influencing events, and if they fail then they have indirectly disposed of spies.

Blake and Evan go to the school where Mags is with the junior council after writing a message to Rose, where Alister has been expecting him to challenge him with a formal declaration of war to stop him from attacking the Hillglades House, having already foreseen this using Tarot Cards and accepts the challenge. He chooses a challenge because the cards show him that while Blake has killed before he would prefer it done peacefully an address Evan and Blake as a pair.

The two agree to the terms and Alister predicts based on the cards that Rose would send backup and even if he won things wouldn't work out as he hoped. Evan and Blake challenge him on his predictions, with Evan striking him once to challenge him on his statement about watching out for his eyes, but Alister reverses the damage by manipulating time and then summons Tick to hold off Evan. Blake jumps through the mirrors and cuts down Tick, before using the Hyena as the means to challenge his words about the challenge leaving no permenant damage and scaring him. This empowers Blake by his nature and he sends Evan off to try and stall Rose's reinforcements while he explains that while Alister was born with the right talent and into the right family, he was a Behaim and Blake had already beaten Laird and Duncan using the Rule of Three, meaning if he did the same by drawing his cards that let him forsee the future and the warning that came with the blade a third time he would lose.

Blake uses sympathetic magic to manipulate the Hyena after tossing it through the mirror to attack him, intent on causing a minor wound that, if he couldn't heal, would render his statement false and offend the spirits for lying or force him to use his implement and foresee the same card as before to result in the same. But the challenge eventually comes to a draw due to the intervention of Sandra Duchamp and Eblis, a guest of Johannes, due to her sensing the bogeymen that Rose sensed moving before night fell.

Alister goes off to class while Blake and Evan depart back to the Hillglades House. There Rose states while she didn't appreciate him stalling her minions, they are on better terms than before and she won't try to seal him again unless he provokes her. Inside Rose provokes him by trying to order him around in an attempt to see where he stands because from her memories that she managed to piece together he was created to fight her enemies and continue to do so until he burned out, but that backfired when he fell into "The Drains" because the shift wasn't as clean as it should have been and he's still looking for a fight.

Tiffany quells the pair before anymore hostilities could be resumed and Evan returned to tell them that the Thorburn Family was coming. They send Rose off to go take a shower and get cleaned up while Alexis finally talks to Blake about how conflicting everything is, seeing her work turning him into something less than human, but he was grateful for her since he didn't have the ability to create while his friends did and she made him feel alive. Alexis has to go out for a smoke afterwards and Evan returns to talk with him about how they need a theme song and they need to focus on surviving, although the two of them needed to work on that given one was a ghost and the other was sent into limbo.

The family arrived in order to present the information they plan on exposing to the lawyers if they get involved, but Blake realizes it's too simple and conjures the reflection of the paperwork and learns that they plan on getting her sent to a mental asylum with Duncan and Sandra's help long enough to get her out of the way while they take care of her allies. Rose tells him she'll let them take her and then let them deal with the consequences.

Blake states that Laird knew how to counter demons and they had someone who could read the future, so it was a gamble, but Rose states she has little choice and to be patient before he makes a mistake. She then goes back and calls her family out on trying to send her to a mental hospital, stating a member of the family informed her to spread distrust, before warning them that the house had been attacked before and if they left it empty then it was likely that the people who want her gone would burn it down and the property would likely go to the Lawyers.

Blake takes it as a cue to break glass in order to strengthen himself, scaring Ivy and James, both of whom could see him despite being normal. He accidentally hurts James the second time before using sympathy magic to hide the contract. When Rose leaves out, after warning them not to try and force her friends out, Blake them loiters around and talks to Alexis before Peter tries to confront her on the symbols on the floor. He tries to help out during the conversation and advise Alexis, but eventually she leaves to get away from Peter and he instead spies on the family as Peter lays out a plan with Ellie and Roxanne, intending to use whatever occurs at night to destabilize Rose's position for their own benefit.

Blake then goes to look over the contract, noticing that the work put into it was extensive and that his family only came together to screw over someone else, before he spies Ellie heading upstairs. When she started stealing his friends belongings he scared her from the mirrors and used his magic to take the bag of belongings and hide it. When Ellie went back downstairs he found they were under attack and couldn't do anything to stop it as they came prepared for him, only able to alert his friends as Eva and Andy subdued the rest of the Thorburn Family.

The others start thinking of countermeasures, including sending out the bogeymen and goblins they have at the ready and summoning a wind elemental, Sylph Elatus, and a minor incarnation of Choleric, but the witch hunters bounce Diary Girl back and she begins to attack them instead. Blake tries to reason with her, but she was too far gone and his friends began to tell him their goodbyes and to support Rose and take care of Evan. Blake leapt out of the mirror and used the Hyena to subdue Diary Girl, but the process shunted him out of the house.

Because of all the emotional damage more and more of his human appearance was lost and he called for Evan. The two then ventured to see if they could stop the attack by going after the council, but with no luck they decided to head towards the school and then asked Briar Girl to assemble the junior council. Only five arrived besides Mags: Penelope and Lola Duchamp, as well as Gavin, Ainsley, and Craig Behaim.

Blake greets the ones he's met, although they don't remember him, and doesn't deny responsiblity for killing Laird, maiming Duncan, and trying to unseat Alister. When asked by Lola what place he's standing in all of this, he states he's not explicitly in Rose's camp as he doesn't agree with her decisions, and that he didn't want to be a part of their world but was dragged into it. He also tells Craig he didn't want to kill Laird, but its mere words since he can still lie, which is why Lola and Gavin proposition he binds himself to the Seal of Solomon, though he doesn't want to, which he explains after Mags arrives and notes the other adult members of the council knows he's there but won't interfere as they know he's looking for them.

Blake explains that he wants the to try and reason with them because they aren't as tightly bound by history as their seniors are and that the system itself is corrupt. When asked what makes them think he can be convinced, he points out that while Laird used the power he had been given responsibly and Duncan the same, although less, Alister would squander all the power he had gained and how he spied on their family meeting while they were in school. He points out they're like cows being milked for power but only the chosen ones get to use it, and while he's not trying to be their friends he does want them to come to the agreement that the status quo sucks and do something to change it.

Lola counters this by stating if they just play along this time then for this generation things will get better, but Blake counters by saying why would they stop when its working if it means they'll get more power and asks them to fight it, but it falls on deaf because all of them were either on the cusps of adulthood or had a voice so they were too deeply indoctrinated.

When Briar Girl asks what she would gain, he points out that when the Thorburn fall then the marshes will be drained and the Others in it would be gone and she's similar to him in that she's simply being swept up in it. When she calls him on this because of the fact that a demon will be let loose due to Rose's actions, he states that if things keep going the way they are everyone loses.

Afterwards they try to get him bound by the seal or call the discussion to a close, but he asks Penelope what's her stake in it and why Lola was willing to tolerate a marriage she hates to help them but she doesn't try to save her from the marriage. She doesn't want to weaken her family because she cares about them and while she's not always stating their parents are right, they do care and he's just a stranger with words.

He then tells them that he'd given them proof that he's willing to act rather than with just words and, when it comes up, to remember that he would have given up everything to go back to normalcy. He then leaves with Evan to go back to his home and help his family, against every instinct he had.

Blake instructs them as Evan unlocks them from the handcuffs, with Callan being unconscious while the others are awake and aware. He's basically gives them a small introduction and warning before Eva comes back down and Ellie baits her into kicking her before telling them to behave and they'll probably never see them again. Once she leaves Blake explains they can't run since the witch hunters see them as their mission and will come after them and warns against trying.

He then explains he knows them fairly well and that he won't try to appeal to their sense of goodness, but rather if the others win then they can't sell the house. Peter makes references to fairy tales, leading to others thinking he's suffering from mild hypothermia from his fever, but Blake can tell he put the pieces together from the diagrams and had an idea. He then tells them that Evan will guide them to a cellar to hide in, but the witch hunters would likely find them. Peter wants to repurpose a bomb, but stops when he sees the rig and realizes it would go off while tampered with and Ellie, Kathryn, and Callan, settle for hiding with Peter, Christoff, and Roxanne deciding to help him by making traps around the house.

Peter then questions him on the circumstances and Blake tells him he can explain later when Eva finds out they've escaped and sees Evan, realizing Blake is there. Andy tells her to simply let them hide so they can keep the plan simple, but she intends to use tear gas on them instead. Blake and Peter run interference as he notices Peter had begun flooding the house from the second floor, making more surfaces for him to travel through.

Eva tries to scare him with the threat of telling him how they dispose of Others, namely sealing them up and burying them out in the permafrost where no one will find them, but he figures she's making sure he stays there where she can keep him in check as she cuts off the lights to deny him reflections, eventually reaching her brother where he stresses that they keep it simple and they only needed to stay put for thirty-minutes when the sun goes down. Blake has the other family members in the basement cut the power before Andy could and held him down long enough for Peter to come out and hit him with a toilet lid, knocking him out.

Eva sees her brother injured and threatens to kill them all with an incendiary grenade before charging Peter, breaking Blake's arm in the process. She managed to mount and knock Peter around until Blake grabs her and then she threatened to let the grenade fall with the pin out. Blake grabs it and she slips from his grasp and breaks the surface of the water, leaving him with the grenade in the mirror world. He tosses it into the darkness and the goes back to find Eva holding her brother, willing to negotiate for getting him to a hospital.

Blake tells her she's staying put so they can try to survive the night with the others, intent on using her since he knows she won't go anywhere without Andy as long as he can reach them. He then has them prepare by summoning Midge, James, and Green Eyes.

Duress[]

Blake gets the other members of his family to scatter about and tell them yell if anything comes for them when the Others start coming in, with Pizza Man and the Faceless Woman being the first of the group, as well as an Zeitgeist Bogeyman who started chasing after Peter. He kills the bogeyman while Eva fights the revenant until Alexis is unable to move due to bleeding too much of herself and Blake gives her a spirit bird to help her, taking his own strength away in the process. After that they retreated to the second floor.

Blake uses the reflections to brutally slaughter the Homonculi, blood scattering across the floor and walls to give him more room to work with as he drew power from their fear until a larger Other, who he calls a mountain-man, brutally beats him and takes the Hyena blade in the aftermath, forcing him to use more power to regenerate and nearly returning to Limbo. Returning he sees that there are a pair of twins of some kind and an automation and he tries to take the mountain man and enlists Green Eyes to help while he deals with the twins. He manages to get them to kill themselves, but he sustains more damage and loses more power as Green Eyes, Ty, Alexis, and Eva manage to take out the mountain-man.

He then has the family and other defenders retreat into the library, where Eva returns to her brother's side costing him the only leverage he had to keep her in check as the automation stopped them from shutting the door. A Bane comes in and, after Callan dies, he finds the book on it and tells them its weakness before comforting Christoff once it's done. He then suggests that they set a section of the house on fire to put pressure on those others and people watching, and since they can't fight or hide for long, but it leads to an argument so he tells everyone to take turns by seniority.

He starts explaining who he is and what's going on, before stopping Alexis from saying whatever she was going to since the spirit-bird he gave her acts as a connection and he could pick up something she didn't want him to by accident. It cost him a fair bit of trust with her regardless by admitting it. Tiffany, explains that she's worried that the part of him that came from The Drains is urging him towards thinking about using fire because it wants him to break down things like it does, and Tyler states while they are worried about him he's more concerned with a strategy.

Evan suggests using the rooftops, but Blake thinks against it, Green Eyes will do whatever she can as long as he promises to bring her back if she gets killed, and Peter wants to know about Demons. Blake explains that in December they would have resembled one another and the demon that nearly got him left him in this state. Kathryn wants more clarification, Ellie thinks the situation is fucked up, Roxanne only wants to know if they really can't lie (which is worrying in its own way), and Christoff wants to know if he could bring back his brother if he became a practitioner.

A hole is poked into the libray then and he realizes they're out of time, but looking at Green Eyes he gets the idea for all of them to get into The Drains as a means of escape. They eventually open a gate to Limbo, but land in a different manifestation of it known as The Tentement, where he has to keep them moving as Roxanne comes under assault by bugs eating into her skin and Kathryn being attacked by evil clowns. On his way out Limbo shows him a vision of the past where Rose explains to his friends that he and she were both halves of the same person made from Barbatorem and are destined to kill one or the other. He could gain his life back by weakening Rose or killing her, and she intended to get rid of him, and his friends promised of their own free will. Hearing this the number of spirit-birds inside of him multiplied from the feeling of betrayal.

While struggling to keep his anger in check he saves Christoff from falling to his death and then has Green Eyes and Tyler go get sticks and bones to build a body for him to go back into the physical world since the mirror broke, before brokering a deal with the other Bogeyman that nearly came after Roxanne. Once the body is built he tears out branches, spirits, and his own heart with Evan and Green Eyes helping him before they leave the humans behind to deal with the monsters.

He makes his way up the slope where he runs across three Japanese Others that tell him late-comers aren't wanted as they are still trying to kill Midge and divide her into shares of meat. Blake tells them he just wants to start a fire as a means of expression and they aren't strong enough to actually stop him. When they relent he goes and gathers materials for the fire until Midge recognized him and leads to him being outed, he flees into the trees in order to start the fire with Green Eyes and then slays two Others that pursue him before telling the Japanese one from before to inform Johannes the fire is to lure the others out. He then goes over the fence and sees other practitioners watching the fire, seeing them as monsters to be killed.

Blake sneaks around to find Joyce Anne Duchamp, Lola's mother, and makes her take an oath not to interfere for the night and he lets her leave with someone named Gail. Blake, Green Eyes, and Evan then confront a necromancer and ogre shaman and another woman, who they dispatch with Blake leaving the necromancer to bleed out from a slashed throat in a ring of blood with the other corpses, before heading after the Behaims. He slashes the throat of the one commanding the clockwork men only for time to reset and Alister reveals he has the weapon and Rose is by his side with an engagement ring.

Execution[]

With the Timeless Armor behind his back Blake is unable to retreat as Alister and Rose decide what to do with them. After Blake reveals that he knows their origins and points out that not only that their progenitor was possibly male but he inherited everything else she lost, leaving him with the most experience, he offers the familiar rite as a means of reconnecting but she passes on it because it would only allow the abyss to flow into her or make it easier for him to get to her. He then offers to be bound by Alexis but as he and Alister prepare to shake hands he gets possessed by Molly and stabs him in the hand, causing Alister to have to retaliate to maintain his image.

Blake is punctured by the lance of the Timeless Armor but manages to get away as Molly stirs up the Others to attack everyone and then laments that everything is falling into patterns and wonders if he should help the Behaims who were under attack and thinks he needs to read Roselyn's diary for a clue to his origins. As he encounters an Other gathering people and beings to throw into the Limbo and sees a Duchamp woman being dragged along he wondered what he was doing since he promised to stop the monsters but he wasn't sure who qualified and if he could trust his instincts.

Evan tries to guide him but ultimately they need the voice of someone who isn't going to kill them and Green Eyes points out that Molly could hear him so he calls her down. He points out to her that once their usefulness is at an end the practitioners will get rid of both of them and to make a change it needs to be a precision effort. They decide to go after Sandra and, after getting a fresh bone to fill in some damage, Blake decides to attack at a different angle while Molly has them distracted.

He has Evan scout out any locations where the Junior Council would meet while he and Green Eyes continued to move and discuss their past and he admits, after hearing the underlying implication in Green Eyes words, he's not good with women because Carl tried to use it to manipulate him. Green Eyes tells him that whatever he decides is fine as long as he didn't lie to her or tell her he never wanted to see her again.

They then get into a fight with four Goblins, two of whom willing submitted and sealed themselves like the Hyena did, before they caught up with Evan and investigate a barrier that only Blake could pass. This was because the oath that he had the Duchamp woman he spared swear prevented her interference and he goes in and asks to use their laptop to contact his family, subtly making it clear that if they had any husbands that they were unhappy with he could kill them as a favor.

Online he chats with the members of the council with Mags playing arbitrator and makes his offer before letting his cousins online in order to humanize them and then revealing he got seven names before signing off. He reviews their capabilities with Joyce and Lola before leaving out to go deal with them alongside Evan and Green Eyes. When he finds them one of the enchanters try to instigate a fight between him and an Other, but he leads the Other towards the Duchamps and breaks off to deal with Crooked Hat, who is killed when Evan frees the Other he had bound and it kills him.

He then rushes Gudbrand, using an opening created by Green Eyes to stab him in a fatal spot and let him drop. He then tells the remaining Duchamps he has no quarrel with them since he's only killing the ones he was asked to by members of their family. Molly briefly appears and feels angry with him because he told Evan to save the Duchamps, but he explains he's chipping away by taking out the husbands. Molly warns him that even though he does that they still have other means of fighting and is fairly mad.

He then targets the pyromancer, Carter Duchamp, when Sandra sends out her familiar, Hildr, to get rid of him. With Evan's help he avoided the Troll long enough to pack ice and snow into a trash bucket and then throw it off the top of a building, leading to it killing the pyromancer. They then continue to follow the group until they find a trap set with an Other inside meant to attack them when Blake changes the wording of the deal to set it against the Duchamps, before Maenads attack him. While Blake kills one, Jeremy and his group surround him and they discuss matters before he calls upon his god to smite him when Green Eyes emerges and threats to bite off his groin. Blake tells her to leave him be as Jeremy turns to his wife, telling her that he's turning on her for some reason.

Jeremy enters into an alliance with Blake on the condition that no permanent harm comes to any members of the family and he, Green Eyes, Evan, travel towards them with the aid of two Satyrs. However, his sneak attack upon Mason Hall-McCullough and the Ritchie Brothers was ruined by the Satyrs letting loose battle cries since they were fond of Sandra and he ended up being confronted by the familiar of the Goblin King, Hal Spikedick. Blake utilized the familiar's weapons and strength to kill the brothers before stabbing Mason, but Evan takes a brutal hit in the process and is placed in his chest as he leaves.

He and the others, after a romantic moment between him and Green Eyes, then try to follow Sandra to Spellbinder, the last target, but it turns into an ambush with Maggie there who seems to have regained her name from Padraic and then betray Sandra for Blake, until Blake holds the Hyena to her throat, revealing he knew it was actually Padraic under glamour because of his reaction to Green Eyes. He demands that he returns Mags name, but the fae claims it wouldn't go back to her and then agrees to leave until all of this is over so Blake released him.

Sandra reveals she sent Spellbinder out of the city so he wouldn't get his seventh kill for the list, but Blake offers to surrender or even support her in the contest for the lordship as long as she makes a promise not to wed any more members of the family to men like those he killed, as long as change occurred. She can't make the promise, meaning that while he hadn't gotten his seventh kill he had gotten his seventh win and he walks off with his group.

Sine Dine[]

Blake and Green Eyes manage to find a corpse and salvage bones from it before running into a number of Others, including the Faceless Woman and the Pizza Man who accompanies her at the behest of Alister Behaim as a distraction. They decide to team up and Blake plans to go after the Behaim's source of power like he did the husbands only to arrive and see his friends and family with the Behaims. Alister gives the key to his family power to Blake stating that a tragedy would occur in 40 seconds. When the seconds passed the Hillglades House began sinking down with Alister explaining that the entire town is sinking into the Abyss and the only way to stop it was to let him use the power, preventing Blake from getting rid of the ring so that they could work together to stop it and stop Johannes.

Blake and Rose divide into groups, with him getting Tiffany, Peter Thorburn, Roxanne Thorburn, Faceless Woman, Green Eyes and Evan Matthieu. They run into Jeremy Meath again, who loans him a maenad and satyr to assist him, but warns not to get them killed. The group the encounters a Giant and Dragon, which sets him and Green Eyes aflame. Both are seriously damaged as a result, but Blake manages to get to a store and begins repairing himself. He tries to create wings, but the Abyss taunts him with them being broken unless he's willing to sacrifice his face.

Blake convinces it to give him the wings and in exchange he'll send something bigger to it and his sweatshirt tears to become the pinions of the bat-like wings. He uses them, along with Evan, to wound the Giant and Dragon, and then retreat off to the witch's hut. In the air above the forest they were set up by a horde of turkey vultures and crows, forcing them to land. Inside of it Blake unraveled a trap before being attacked by an Astral being until John Pica arrived to kill it. He doesn't trust Pica because of a vision he witnessed of him smiling at Crone Mara, who they encounter as a thirteen year old girl.

He talks to distract her, but once that fails he tries to attack Pica, who he knows is working for her with absolute certainty after she protects him. Pica swaps the Hyena, giving it to Mara, for one of her dolls. Before she could use it Rose appeared with the Knights of the Basement to confront them both when Pica pulls out the mirror holding Conquest. Rose stops the mirror from breaking and bind Pica in place, but Mara flees after giving one of the Knights of the Basement a heart attack and then Blake chases her to find Pica dead. Mara appears afterwards in a circle of blood and feathers, holding Alexis hostage, and wants him to kill himself. When he turns around to pick up the Hyena blade she kills Alexis and he attack in rage to no avail.

While angry he takes a moment, at Evan's question about retrieving Pica's body like he'd asked, to realize the trap and stabbed where he was. When the crow spirit died, turning to feathers, he found the strands of Letita's hair he used, figuring it was a glamour, and takes Mara with the others, fearing that the next time an ally in disguise appeared to almost fool him it would be the third time.

While the others arrange for the circle to be made to hold her, he and Rose discuss matters and he formally surrenders, stating he has no intention of going after her for the fractured remains of their progenitor's life. If he does try and win they should assume he's gone too far and put him down, but all he asks is that they leave a flower on the grave of Zoey Artana if he's unable to. The interrogation with Mara reveals that Johannes is responsible and he's going to the Hillglades House. There he finds the others and listens to Johannes bargain, reviewing how Mara stated that the deal would make everyone unhappy in the end, and states that Faysal, who acts as the one that can provide the most boons, wasn't working against Barbatorem in this approach.

After Blake reveals that because the Hillglades House is connected to the Thorburn name and with their collective consent they would all fall with it if they went through with the deal, Johannes reveals it was never his intention to do so, but Faysal did. Before Johannes can stop his familiar, they are dragged into the Abyss and Barbatorem is set loose.

Possession[]

Blake and the others try to flee from Barbatorem as the abyss changes around them and eventually has to confront it to buy other time. In the first encounter he loses a hand against it as well as the goblin in a chain, but manages to leave it behind long enough to get to the others. It is then he sees that Kathryn had been changed by the abyss into the beginning stages of a bogeyman. Unable to do anything for her, he asks her to flee before the demon catches up.

Diary Girl reappears to try and take revenge for before, only for him to hold her book at hostage and make her swear to never harm someone else again before leaving out with the others. When they near the top, Barbatorem has beaten them to the top and he and the others try to maneuver it into a trap, only for it to get out of it. They only manage to defeat it after Johannes allows it to reflect in his eyes and Blake cuts them with the Hyena, before throwing his body over the edge and allowing the abyss to claim it. However, the battle cost Alister an arm and the ring holding his family power, several of the other Behaims, one of the Knights of the Basement, and possibly Alexis, who had gone missing.

On the way out, they run to a barrier holding them in place where he can hear Green Eyes reminding him of the ways to escape, one of which being they needed to defeat the gatekeeper. Venturing through the woodlands the abyss spawns for him, he reclaims his glamour locket and the broken bits of the Hyena Blade. At the end there is a throne for him, meaning that the abyss wants him to take the role of a gatekeeper in exchange for releasing the others.

The discussion comes up, with Evan, Green Eyes, and Rose arguing against it, while the Jeremy, Alister, Tyler, Tiffany, are for it. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that a price would have to be paid for condemning him to his own personal hell. The Abyss shows him Alexis' death and revival as either a bogeyman or wraith, before rooting him into place, where he would be forced to be eternally restless and angry unless he was defending the gate. Rose then offers herself in service as a Scourge for the Abyss, in exchange for letting them and Blake go, with her reciting a ritual to allow him to possess her as she takes his heart.

Inside of Rose, he is barely a fragment of a spirit now, and hears Conquest. As he learns to navigate the terrain, Conquest appears and though Blake has more power and presence inside of Rose, due to Conquest being a trickle, the incarnation gains more ground every time she draws on it and has a better understanding, allowing her (Conquest takes the form of Roselyn) to attack Blake while Ms. Lewis confronts the group over the house being taken. He later sacrifices memories of his friends to push back Conquest and make Rose more cooperative, and then his instincts so that she can bind a demon to prevent it from continuing to harm their group.

Judgement[]

At this point the story's perspective shift to a 3rd person view as Blake no longer has a voice to speak with, with it only being mentioned when he is stirred by something or offers Rose a memory or input. He also takes the attack from the demon from the Choir of Madness in order to allow her to act. He later gains control with Rose surrendering her foothold and regains the Hyena sword as they begin their assault on Johannes' Tower. There he tried to discredit Barbatorem, who was acting as Johannes, but the demon proved savvy enough to talk and counter-argue until the fight begins and Blake manages to slightly wound him and the weakened half of the dragon he had under his command.

The fighting continues until he's damaged enough that he retreats into Rose's consciousness and gives up his humanity to repair her body, shifting into his final form and acting as living wings and armor for Rose until Ms. Lewis binds him. Once he is freed, he slows her down long enough for the others to stop her from retreating. After that he's rendered immobile and only able to watch events as they unfold, eventually having the majority of what was left of him consumed by Rose so she could heal.

Epilogue[]

In the epilogue, Blake has been turned into a sparrow and presumably a year or two has passed with him remaining close to Evan and Green Eyes. He traveled with Dominic to visit Wisconsin to lay a flower on Zoey's grave as promised and saved Dominic's life while riding by slamming into car so it straightened up and didn't hit him. He and Evan join Dominic on another ride as the story ends.

Art[]

Blake was a practitioner who has inherited a large amount of diabolic knowledge from him grandmother and as such is considered a Diabolist. As he preferred not to resort to said arts and the fact that his alternate-self, Rose, carries the clout of their family, he utilized aspects of Shamanism and Glamour alongside other arts that put him closer to the classification of a Dabbler.

As of the "Null" arc he is no longer a practitioner so spirits will not listen to him as they did before, however he has retained his knowledge and his new form allows him the use of the spirits that make up his new form at a greater cost. By the end of the story, he has lost all abilities to practice.

Basics[]

Tools[]

Magic[]

  • Diabolism: Because of Blake's grandmother leaving her heir with a wealth of knowledge in the form of tomes, he has access to the diabolic arts. However because he refuses to utilize it his only noteworthy accomplishments are binding Pauz and knowing Ornias' name to summon it.
  • Shamanism: Blake has learned some aspects of Shamanism throughout his tenure as a practitioner including the use of Runes.
  • Ghosts: Blake has used ghosts to power his Frost Hatchet as well as attack his enemies.
  • Glamour: Blake has a very-strong affinity towards using Glamour to disguise himself and connections by making it into an ink. However, the affinity is strong enough that he can become drawn into it with ease should he not be careful. This is later revealed to be due to his nature as a vestige.
  • Sympathetic Magic: Blake utilized sympathetic magic at it's basics to affect the real world from the mirror one using the reflections. However, the real world items have more weight and if someone moves them then the same will be done to the reflections, turning his own ability against him.

As a Bogeyman[]

After coming to terms with his identity as an Other, Blake has gained the following abilities and weaknesses. As of the "Possession" arc he has lost nearly all of his abilities barring shapeshifting.

Mirror Form[]

  • Spirit Regeneration: As an Vestige any damage he takes can be filled by random spirits that grow over the wounded parts. However, this makes him more like a wraith in the process.
    • Spirit Constructs: The new spirits take the form of birds that nest within him and are capable of being drawn upon to move things around in the physical world or use magic.
  • Reflection Traveling: Having taken Rose's place in the mirror world, Blake can now only traverse mirrors and reflections where Rose had been. Travel is nearly instantaneous, but if a mirror breaks he is shunted to another reflective surface against his will.
  • Domain Control: Blake has control over the mirrors and reflective surfaces he inhabits. Because his presence is so great other reflections don't show unless he wills them to, with which he can manipulate as he sees fit. He can also traverse metal, oil, ice, and water reflections.
  • Physical Manifestation: With enough power he can emerge from the mirror realm into a solid form for a limited amount of time. If there is a solid surface (i.e. Glass) he will break it to do so, but liquids are easier to push past. He cannot bring anything that he hasn't claimed into the mirror from the real world for long.

Effigy Body[]

  • Superhuman Strength: He possess a degree of strength above normal.
  • Superhuman Durability: Blake can withstand a number of punishing and otherwise normally lethal damage.
  • Fear Detection and Empowerment: As a Bogeyman, Blake can sense the fear he induces in others and receive a burst of energy and clarity from it. It sustains him and keeps him grounded firmer in the world, lessening the chances of going back to "The Drains," but also carries the risk of him losing his humanity.
  • Enhanced Stamina: Blake does not get tired as a human would.
  • Body Repair: Any contact with bone and dead wood can be used to replace damaged parts.
  • Flight (Gliding): Using his Body Repair he created wings that were similar to bats, enabling short flight as long as there was hot air or Evan to give him lift since he can't generate it on his own.

Final Form[]

  • Shapeshifting: After giving up the remainder of his humanity, he becomes a shapeshifting mass of wood that can form into an arm, wings, or various other forms.

Weaknesses[]

  • Fragility: As a vestige every bit of damage he takes wears him away, whether physical or emotional. While Spirit Regeneration can compensate for the losses, it takes more and more of him away in the process.
  • Loss of Humanity: An eternal risk. If the Other-side of him overpowers his human-side he'll basically become a monster. As of the Possession arc, this has come to pass.
  • Fire: As he's made of mostly wood, fire is a bane and could incinerate him. He wasn't directly hit by Dragon's fire and it nearly killed him.
  • Platinum: He can be bound by a platinum circle due to his loss of humanity.

References[]

  1. Small birds perched on tree branches, in pale grays, whites and yellows, against a backdrop of reds, in watercolor hues.  - Bonds 1.4
  2. It took me a second to realize what she was talking about.  I was so used to them, my attention didn’t tend to linger on them.  The tattoos. The birds and the background colors were more vivid and distinct than they’d been the day they’d been finished.  Which was worse?  Rose being right when she had said I was fading in color, with the tattoos being that much more colorful by contrast?  Or the tattoos being infused with color by some outside means? - excerpt from Breach 3.1
  3. I’d tended to my wounds, and I’d seen the tattoos.  I’d given a lot of blood, and I’d suffered for it.  I was paler.  but the tattoos weren’t more vivid. - excerpt from Collateral 4.12
  4. I pushed up my sleeves and looked at my tattoos, instead. Still pale, with a vivid background.  No sign of anything suspicious affecting me or the tattoos. - excerpt from Conviction 5.2
  5. Feathers rose into the air, touched with blood. I looked down for the source of the feathers, and I saw my tattoos.  Three of the birds were beheaded or partially beheaded, the cuts intersecting their faces and necks, the other parts of their bodies already gone.  The blood that still bled out from the wound was thicker around the stumps, and the matted blood where I’d pressed my arms against the mattress to staunch the flow was caked around their bodies more than anywhere else. - excerpt from Conviction 5.3
  6. The birds that were perched on the branches on my forearm were… a little worse for wear.  Feathers sticking up, dirtier, the glint in their eyes was glintier.  The background had more red to it than it should have. [...] I was getting more of a sense of what was going on with my tattoos, though.  They were a barometer of sorts, a kind of representation of what was affecting me on a mystical level. I wasn’t sure if that went anywhere, if they could keep going down that road, or if there was more to it, but there was no way that the tattoos and Pauz’s effect weren’t related on some level. Rose had told me that I was pale, before, that I’d been diminished, when my personal power was drained, my defenses low, at the same time my tattoos were brighter and more intense.  My defenses hadn’t yet recovered, so Pauz had been able to affect me all the more.  Had I changed here as well?  How would I change, under a demon’s influence? - excerpt from Collateral 4.6

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