Chapter 41: The Seat at the Table
The summoning resonance hit Sterling like a bell struck inside his skull.
He was walking home from the factory when he felt it—a pull at the edge of his spiritual perception, a frequency he had memorized during the test connection seven days ago. The Castle was calling. The meeting was beginning. And somewhere above the world, a seat was waiting.
Sterling ducked into an alley, found a shadow deep enough to hide his body, and activated the mimicry.
Green-gray fog surrounded him.
The transition was smoother this time—Sterling riding the summoning signal like a parasite on a nerve impulse, letting the Castle's own power carry him where he needed to go. The fake fog thinned as it approached the real fog, color shifting from green-gray to pure gray, texture becoming denser, more substantial.
And then he was there.
The bronze table stretched before him, impossibly long, impossibly present. Twenty-two chairs surrounded it, most empty, a few occupied by figures shrouded in the same gray mist that filled the infinite space above them. And at the head of the table, presiding with an authority that Sterling's meta-knowledge identified as pure performance, sat The Fool.
Klein Moretti.
A nervous transmigrator pretending to be an ancient god.
Sterling understood the feeling intimately.
He materialized in an unclaimed seat, his avatar wrapped in fog that was fractionally wrong—too green, too hungry, too alive. But the others were shrouded too, their features obscured by the Castle's protective mist, and Sterling's aberration was invisible among the general obscurity.
"A new member," someone said. A woman's voice, carrying the cultured tones of nobility. "How interesting."
Audrey Hall. Justice. The Spectator whose growing abilities represented Sterling's greatest threat in this room.
"Welcome to our gathering." The Fool's voice was deep, measured, carrying weight that Klein himself probably didn't feel. "You have found your way to the Tarot Club through means I need not examine. All who sit at this table serve the same purpose."
Sterling inclined his avatar's head in acknowledgment.
Choose a designation, the parasite reminded him. Something that fits.
Sterling considered the remaining Major Arcana. The cards that were unclaimed, the meanings that matched his nature, the irony that would sustain him through what was coming.
"I am The Tower," he said. "Destruction and revelation. The card of inevitable change."
A moment of silence.
Then The Fool nodded, and Sterling was in.
The meeting unfolded with the ritualized efficiency of established practice.
Sterling absorbed every detail with warehouse precision: the way members reported on their activities, the information they traded, the careful balance of power that kept the Club functioning. Alger Wilson—The Hanged Man—spoke of maritime concerns with the cynicism of a man who trusted no one. Fors Wall—The Magician—reported on her writing and investigations with the distracted air of a storyteller. Derrick Berg—The Sun—described the City of Silver's struggles with a sincerity that made Sterling's chest tighten.
And Audrey Hall listened to everyone with the attentive curiosity of a Spectator, filing away emotional data, building profiles, learning what people felt beneath what they said.
She scanned Sterling's avatar.
Her perception brushed against the fake fog, reading the emotions that filtered through: sincerity overlaid with caution, curiosity overlaid with wariness, the complex emotional signature of a new member who had secrets but meant no immediate harm.
Normal, for someone joining a clandestine organization.
Audrey's attention moved on.
Sterling suppressed his relief and offered his entrance gift.
"I bring a fragment of knowledge," he said. "A portion of the Prisoner pathway formula, Sequence 7. Incomplete, but potentially useful for those who study such things."
He released the information into the gray fog—knowledge the parasite had provided, genuine formula components that would establish Sterling as a valuable contributor. The offering hung in the air like visible proof of good faith.
Alger assessed with pragmatic interest. "Prisoner pathway. Useful for Church-aligned operations."
"Or for understanding their methods," Audrey added. "The Nighthawks use Prisoner pathway operatives extensively."
"A generous gift." The Fool acknowledged Sterling with measured authority, his performance flawless. "The Club welcomes your contribution."
Klein Moretti, pretending to be a god, accepting tribute from a monster pretending to be human.
The irony was almost too perfect.
Sterling's fake connection brushed against the real gray fog.
The contact was unavoidable—sitting at the bronze table meant existing within Sefirah Castle's presence, meant being touched by the fog that filled the infinite space. Sterling's green-gray imitation interacted with the pure gray original, the two substances mixing at the boundary of his avatar.
The parasite fed.
Sterling felt it happening—the thing inside him drawing power from the Castle's proximity, drinking in energies it had been denied for centuries. The sensation was subtle, almost pleasant, like warmth spreading through cold limbs.
But the feeding had consequences.
The fog around Sterling's seat became fractionally denser. Fractionally greener. A small change, invisible to casual observation, but a change nonetheless. Data accumulating. Evidence building. The Castle's passive detection systems noting that something was not quite right about the newest member.
No one noticed.
Not yet.
Derrick Berg described the City of Silver's latest crisis—a plague of something he called "night terrors," creatures that fed on fear and left their victims hollow.
"We've lost fourteen people this month," Derrick said. His voice was steady, but the emotion beneath it was raw. "The Chief says we must endure. But endurance has limits."
Sterling's genuine sympathy transmitted through the avatar as a flicker of warmth—a small, uncontrolled emotional response to suffering that was real and immediate and terrible.
Audrey's perception caught the warmth.
She filed it away: New member is compassionate. Responds genuinely to descriptions of suffering. Potentially useful ally for humanitarian concerns.
Sterling didn't know she had noticed.
He was too busy cataloguing the Club's dynamics, mapping relationships and tensions and opportunities. The Hanged Man's cynicism. The Magician's distraction. The Sun's sincerity. Justice's analytical warmth. And The Fool's careful authority, the performance of a transmigrator who understood exactly what Sterling understood.
They were all pretending.
Some were just better at it than others.
The meeting ended with the usual rituals.
Members reported their needs, offered their resources, conducted the small trades that kept the Club functioning. Sterling observed without participating—a new member establishing presence before seeking favors. When The Fool declared the gathering closed, the gray fog began to thicken around each seat, preparing to return members to their physical bodies.
Sterling felt the transition beginning.
But before the fog took him, he caught one last detail: Klein Moretti's avatar watching the newest member with an attention that was not quite casual.
The Fool was curious about The Tower.
And curiosity, in someone as capable as Klein, was dangerous.
Sterling returned to his body in the alley where he had hidden.
The cold hit him first—winter night air against skin that had been somewhere warm and impossible. Then the disorientation—the gap between infinite fog and cramped shadows, between bronze table and dirty cobblestones. Then the awareness that returned in stages, reconnecting Sterling to the physical world he had temporarily abandoned.
He sat in the dark and processed what had happened.
He had sat with people who could reshape continents.
He had traded information with legends.
He had felt Audrey Hall's Spectator abilities brush against his deception and pass without detecting it.
None of them had noticed the thing eating him.
The fog's taste lingered in Sterling's consciousness—cold, vast, watchful. The sensation should have faded with the connection, but it persisted, a residue that settled into the spaces between his thoughts.
Sterling couldn't tell if the watching was the Castle's or the parasite's.
He wasn't sure the distinction mattered anymore.
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