I gazed up at the giant abyssal servant, kneeling in front of me. I didn't waste any time getting to work. “Tell me, how can the curse on this pce be lifted?” I asked.

  “No external forces can cleanse the curse,” the Butcher King said. “And no mortal can make it budge. Only I, who ascended, can lift the curse.”

  I frowned. “Can you get rid of the curse right now in your current form?” I asked.

  The abyss remained silent. I frowned again and guessed that maybe he hadn't heard me right, just like Yazara. So I repeated my question. I still got no response. My frown deepened.

  Then I turned to Smokewell and asked, “Is it possible that the Butcher King made sure that not even his abyss can do anything about a curse?”

  The cat gave a thoughtful nod. “It's very possible. These sacrificial shrines mostly harbor such strong curses for a reason that is known only to the entities these shrines belong to. Just like the conditions they set for the rituals, the reason they leave behind curses are also arbitrary.”

  Just great. I turned to Josie. “Did the angels give you any more information about this shrine or these curses?” I asked. “Anything that might help us?”

  Josie scoffed. “If they could get rid of these curses themselves, they wouldn't have asked anyone else for help.”

  “It does make me wonder.” Lily squinted in thought. “Why did the angels think we would be the right people for the job? Was it really just because Miss Elsa is going to bring some mysterious change to the world? They could've asked any other witches from any of the covens.”

  “Isn't it obvious?” Josie said.

  We just looked at her, confused. She rolled her eyes before eborating. “Any coven that matters has already signed the Reguted Practices Agreement, which is another way of saying that they are all snitches for the government. Any coven that is worth anything and hasn't signed it is considered a national threat. Not to mention, they also mostly work alone and don't take jobs just from anyone. Not even the literal angels. That leaves us with you.” She moved her arms in a sweeping gesture towards me and my companions. “That cat over there has quite a reputation under her belt. And you've had an experience with heaven before. Not to mention, you operate independently of any coven or the government. That makes you the perfect candidate for the job.”

  Lily scratched her jaw. “I don't know if I should regret this or feel proud.”

  “Proud for sure.” Smokewell waved her paw. “As I said, we are the st real witches of Ravenwind.”

  “It doesn't matter.” I rolled my eyes and ordered the Butcher King to get in my bottle lined with azure varnish. He obediently agreed, which still managed to astound me how flexible these abysses were. I shoved the bottle now filled with the dark airy substance into my reticule and looked back at Josie. “The real question is, are you telling the truth that the only way out of this shrine is to lift the curse.”

  Josie shrugged. “I'm sure you met Jed and I'm sure he introduced you to his friends. All of them became wraiths like him because they tried running away after seeing him. Do you want to become just like them and be trapped here forever? Or do you want to make a real effort at getting out of here and also find the Radcliff guy in the process.”

  I suppressed a gre I was about to throw at the muscur woman. There was no fault in her reasoning. And no other way out of this shrine other than the one she suggested. A part of me was struggling hard to not regret helping Cynthia Radcliff. But it wasn't her fault either. She was just a woman on the verge of losing everything and the only family she had left. A part of me also saw my old self from my previous life in her.

  However, now as Elsa Grimly, I knew one thing–I wasn't going to stomp the people who were already beaten by fate and misery. My eyes moved to look at the girl who was rich until the morning before the world came crashing down on her head. She looked at me and her face creased with remorse. Her lips trembled as they started to form the words. “I-I'm sorry for dragging you all–”

  “Shut up,” I said. “I'm not accepting your apology for wanting to fix your life.” I turned to Josie with a look of determination. “Let me sign that contract. Once we return from heaven I'm going to make those angels pay.”

  Lily was about to sign the contract too when I stopped her. “No,” I whispered as I pulled her aside. “One of us getting dragged into this shit is bad enough on its own. I don't want the angels to have any kind of influence on you if something happens to me.”

  Lily looked at me with a worried frown. “But if anything happens to you, Miss Elsa, it would mean I will be left alone. Either trapped in heaven or in this shrine.”

  I shook my head. “You'll have madam with you. And you are strong. You'll survive.”

  She was about to argue further when I stopped her. “I'm your senior, Lily. Don't argue.”

  Lily's face hardened and I heard her knuckles cracking as she clenched her fists. For a second I was convinced she was about to punch me. But instead she said, “I'll just make sure nothing happens to you then.”

  I smiled. “That's the spirit.”

  Then I turned to Lenora and Cynthia. I told them to stay at the shrine. “You both will only slow us down as non-magic users. It's just a fact.”

  They gave a nod and wished us good luck. I asked Josie if she was instructed by the angels to follow us along into heaven.

  “Actually, I was told that I was to follow the instructions of anyone who signs the contract until the job is done,” she said.

  I raised an eyebrow and then I nodded. “Well in that case, you are going to stay here and watch over Lenora and Cynthia,” I said. “Their safety is your responsibility if anything happens.”

  Josie nodded in return. “Understood.”

  I turned to the path to heaven that the fairies were almost done painting. That's when a thought occurred to me and I looked at Josie. “Didn't you say that Rownd came here but he isn't here anymore?” I asked.

  “No he isn't.” Josie shrugged and pulled out another cigarette and lit it.

  “Don't tell me he went to that Dungeon pce?” Cynthia said, panic written all over her face.

  Josie took a puff and blew some smoke. “Where else would he be?”

  “But the path to heaven isn't even fully painted yet.” I pointed to the fairies who were still busy with their work.

  “Well, there's another way to end up in heaven,” Josie said.

  “The curse,” Smokewell suggested. “That must be it.”

  The side of Josie's lips turned upwards in a crooked smile and she nodded. She made her way to the burial vault in front of the statue of the Butcher King and pointed at marks of attempted forceful prying on the lid. “He tried to steal whatever treasure was buried inside. That activated the curse and it transported him there.” She then pointed at the gloomy ndscape the fairies were almost done painting on the wall.

  A foreboding silence descended over the room. Now it was obvious why Josie said the job that Malcolms were offering coincided with us trying to find Rownd Radcliff.

  After the fairies delivered the st brush stroke to the painting, the ground began to rumble. Dust rained down on our heads and shoulders. It took a few minutes for the upheaval to stop.

  I patted the dirt off my dress and ran my fingers through my hair. That's when I realized something. “Wait a minute, did opening a path to heaven just cause an earthquake above ground?” I asked Josie.

  “Yep.” The woman nodded.

  Lily gasped. “Wait, so all those earthquakes–”

  “Yep–they were all just us connecting the shrines to heaven.” Josie nodded again.

  “And in all of these shrines, you were waiting for us to make an offer like this?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “Yep,” she said.

  And the reason for that was because they knew I was going to change stuff in Ravenwind. I remembered the reason why Hopper (or Eidolon) had approached me to help him rescue Hammer. He had talked of something simir because a voice from beyond the veil had told him about it.

  I didn't like how these two unreted incidents were starting to form connections with each other. Whoever was beyond the veil had really set their sights on me. And I was feeling more and more apprehensive about understanding more about the obsidian key, let alone using it. But that was a worry for another time.

  Then I turned to Josie and asked her a few more questions. And then we moved up to the path the fairies had painted on the wall.

  “Just walk right in and you'll be on the other side,” Josie said. “The rest is simir to what happened the st time you went out there.”

  “How did they even make this path?” I asked as I gazed upon the gloomy world on the other side.

  Josie smirked. “It involves a blend of colors that only fairies know how to mix. But one ingredient I know that makes this feat possible are the ashes from the Eyes of Cornelius that you guys fetched for the angels.”

  ****

  And it was just like she had said, we were on the other side. My stomach was still churning from the st revetion she made to us. Lily dusted her skirt a bit and said, “Honestly, it makes sense now why the angels wanted the Eyes. And not mention that the original Cornelius was preserving his testicles because they could literally open a path to heaven.” She snickered.

  “Okay, stop.” I huffed. “It's not funny.”

  “I've never heard of such magic before,” Smokewell said curiously.

  “I'm pretty sure that Cornelius could turn each of his body parts into something weird and it became unstable for his soul to handle such magic so he had to disconnect his testicles for the time being,” Lily said.

  “That's enough!” I groaned. “I don't want to hear the word ‘testicles’ anymore. Or the fact that we walked through the door that was painted with them.”

  “The Eyes are actually the ash of Cornelius’ testicles. Not actually his testicles, Miss Elsa,” Lily said.

  “Stop it!” I grit my teeth. “Now you are just repeating that word to annoy me.”

  Lily snickered again but dropped the specution on Cornelius’ family jewels. I was grateful.

  I sighed in relief and looked around. The sky was a metallic grey patched with a gauze of bluish clouds. We were standing in a desert of ash with nothing but bald, drying trees breaking our view of the horizon. The sound of whistling wind mingled with the wretched cries of crows gliding in the sky.

  Everything about this pce made the hair on the back of my neck stand and my stomach churn for some reason. Josie had said that different parts of heaven had their own ruler entities (like the Butcher King in this case) who were gods above the gods. Which meant that they were capable of maniputing forces of nature here according to their will. What I felt was probably because of whatever changes the Butcher King had made in these nds.

  So I just ignored all feelings of unease and opened my hexonomicon. Just like st time, the st page had the quest details printed on it.

  Dungeon: Hell surrounding heaven

  Objective: Lift the curse in the Butcher King's shrine.

  Time before Dungeon Entrapment: 48 hours 58 minutes 44 seconds

  I checked the time on Rownd's wrist watch. It was half past two o'clock. Then I mentally commanded the Butcher King’s abyss to tell me where he went after ascending from our world.

  “Heaven,” he said. “Heaven in the heart of this hell is where I went…that's all I remember.”

  While I was frowning in thought Lily had summoned Pearl again and asked the direwolf to use phantom scent. Then Lily turned to us and said, “She can smell Rownd up in the east.”

  I mentally asked the Butcher King's abyss what y in the east. “The Neverdawn forest,” he said.

  Then I asked him which way the ‘heaven in the heart of hell’ y. He said, “North West.”

  “Seems like we'll just have to split up, like st time,” Smokewell said. “Lily can go look for Rownd while we handle this Butcher King.”

  I gawked at the cat. “It's a literal god we are talking about here. You imagine, he is gonna be quite…well, hard to handle…”

  “Then you better find an efficient way to deal with him.” Smokewell shrugged. “Same goes for Lily. Use what I've taught you until now.”

  “Alright!” Lily snapped a salute and pulled out her box of potions from her satchel. She handed me a bottle of colorless liquid. “Just open this when you'll be in trouble. It will create a bright red smoke once the liquid comes in contact with the air. I'll come running to help you out.”

  I nodded and put the bottle into my reticule. Then I looked at her and said, “If you find yourself in trouble you do the same too.”

  Lily nodded with a smile. “Once I find Rownd, I'll find you guys. Pearl's phantom scent already remembers your smell so it won't be a problem.”

  As decided earlier, Smokewell came with me while Lily mounted Pearl and headed east. I summoned the Butcher King’s abyss and said, “Carry us to this Heaven in the heart of hell.”