Knowing Ais was playing him a little, Cormac Terrence said anyway:
"That's because you have the means to deal with them. For Extraordinaries who can't handle spiritual entities, and for ordinary people, it's still quite a dangerous spell."
Ais nodded as she used the Spirit Binding to absorb the residual spiritual energy near the body into the mirror. Then she asked as a follow-up:
"Sir — in principle, the residual spiritual energy of dead animals could also be cultivated into vengeful spirits. But why do all the dark magic texts refer to vengeful spirits in the context of human death?"
Terrence — quietly working out whether his own ability could substitute for this step — answered:
"Because the resentment and regret left behind by animals after death is weaker than a human's, which makes it less effective for dark magic purposes."
Experienced as he was, he didn't wait for Ais to continue. He gave a preemptive warning:
"Just to be clear — while what you'd cultivate this way doesn't violate ethics or law, we don't follow national law to the letter when it comes to our work."
Seeing her intention anticipated, Ais nodded rapidly. After casting the auxiliary spell for accelerating vengeful spirit formation, she spoke the Ancient Hermes word for "commune" aloud, then turned to Terrence:
"The first spell slows the dissipation of the spiritual energy. You can ask now, sir."
"Her hiding place and her associates."
Watching Ais with her hand covering the mirror surface, Terrence found himself slightly disappointed. He couldn't determine from observing this necromancy spell how it replaced the deity's role that a ritual necromancy would have — specifically the question of how it bridged communication between the caster and the residual spiritual energy. This meant that for a Witch, this wasn't a problem at all — and equally meant that Extraordinaries of other pathways couldn't learn this spell.
Even if an Beyonder was willing to share the spells the potion gave them with other pathways, the recipients might simply not be able to learn them — because some of those spells required the potion's transformative changes as a prerequisite, and without having consumed the same potion, those prerequisites simply weren't met.
The changes the Witch potion makes share some resemblance to the Necromancer potion — at least where necromancy is concerned. Given that both relate to disaster and death, some similarity seems natural… Terrence let the thought run inwardly.
The Necromancer pathway had a deep connection to death — which was why, without any spell or ritual, a Necromancer could directly communicate with the residual spiritual energy of the dead.
After committing to memory the image of the high official who had been involved with the Witch, Terrence unsurprisingly found that Edith had no other Witch cult associates in Moen. Otherwise he'd have had to question whether a colleague had been cutting corners in the crackdown.
"Her transactions with other supernatural organizations in the past three years."
Ais went through the same process again. The mirror showed an image — but since she had no knowledge of the organizations involved, all she could tell was that the person who had approached this Witch seemed obsessed with "truth." After relaying their exchange to Terrence, she gave him a quiet heads-up:
"Sir — the residual spiritual energy is nearly gone. Anything too complex probably won't come through."
The many sycophants this Witch had accumulated had meant many images for the "associates" question, and that had consumed a significant portion of the residual energy — not enough left for a full third question.
"That's sufficient."
Terrence, having committed every detail to memory, indicated he didn't need more. His own ritual necromancy wouldn't produce meaningfully different results anyway.
While he had the ability to direct spiritual entities, it was primarily natural spiritual entities — so he was no better than any other Beyonder at necromancy of the dead.
"Could I ask one question, sir?"
"What do you want to ask?"
Ais drew a breath and gave the answer she'd already decided on:
"I want to see what she looked like before she advanced to Witch."
Terrence didn't know what to make of that, and looked at this Witch who kept producing unexpected ideas, unable to find words — communicating his bewilderment with expression alone.
Ais didn't explain. She was mentally reciting: 'Pleasure' potion formula.
An unpleasant-sounding name, sure — but worst case, she just wouldn't clear the potion's influence.
The calculation was clear: even if tonight's events remained completely undiscovered, there was still a real chance the Witch cult would find her again. As a lone young woman with no close ties, keeping her identity as an Beyonder completely hidden would be difficult.
If a future Witch gave her no chance to go to the church and report them — she could either stay perpetually inside the cathedral, never leaving, or she could keep advancing. Continuing to advance was the better answer.
After seven repetitions, a page appeared in the mirror:
Sequence 6: Pleasure
Primary ingredients: A pair of eyes from a pleasure succubus; one silk gland from an adult widow spider.
Secondary ingredients: 100ml pure water; 5 drops of black datura juice; all remaining hair from a pleasure succubus; 10g of powdered Feynport fly; 5g of genuine mummy ash.
The image in the mirror lasted about a second before vanishing completely as the spiritual energy dispersed — the more detailed parts never appeared at all.
She'd anticipated this and had done nothing but scan rapidly. If she'd missed something, she'd use divination to help recall it. But if she hadn't seen it in the first place, divination couldn't save her.
Terrence turned his attention back to his teammates and began issuing instructions for what came next:
"Eleanor — necromancy's complete. Go check the Witch's hiding place for any valuable leads.
Gareth, Sutherland — handle the body, then link up with Eleanor."
After relaying the location to the three, Terrence turned and gestured for Ais to follow him in the direction the sword-bearing Red Glove had already taken.
"Sir — for someone in my situation, what does the church do going forward?"
Using her height to her advantage, Ais kept pace with Terrence easily as she asked. He was noticeably less guarded now than when escorting her back earlier — even with three teammates gone, he let her walk behind him without concern.
"That depends on whether what you told Alec proves to be accurate. If you genuinely haven't done anything wrong, then aside from accepting church oversight, as long as you behave yourself and stay out of trouble, your day-to-day life compared to before will be…"
Terrence considered, then finished: "Not dramatically different."
Drawn in by the first half, Ais asked with slight curiosity:
"Why verify it? Doesn't a Watcher's ability account for error?"
"In a world with supernatural power, nothing is impossible. Our ability is genuinely effective — but it's not without methods of circumvention."
What Terrence didn't tell Ais was that after the war, the church had made it a formal rule: Nighthawks were prohibited from over-relying on dream-examination as an ability, even when dealing with people who theoretically had no way to resist it.
What he also didn't say was that he suspected Ais's relative immunity to the Pleasure Witch's charm might itself be attributable to the influence of a high-Sequence Beyonder.
He'd already gotten a rough picture of Ais's background from Alec Howard — but he couldn't identify a reason why someone would do this. Yet now that the church was involved, investigation was necessary regardless. No one could guarantee that this seemingly unremarkable piece on the board was harmless — especially when a powerful Beyonder might be implicated.
"Sir — if an Beyonder like me sincerely believed in the Evernight Goddess , would ritual magic have any chance of receiving a response from the Goddess?" Ais asked out of nowhere.
Terrence — the last Red Glove now in sight ahead — narrowed his eyes at the question and answered without showing any reaction:
"As long as your conscience is clear, the Goddess won't turn you away. But unless you join the Nighthawks , the probability of the Goddess responding to a ritual is low — same as for any other ordinary believer."