It was an impressively outndish expnation, and delivered in Ana’s monotone, somehow more impactful, not less. The room stewed in silence for a few moments, digesting the cim.

  Liz tittered, high pitched and nervous. “And, like I said, it’s seriously bsphemous to present as if it’s real.”

  “I did no such thing.” Ana seemed fused by Liz’s rea. “Natalie asked, and I expihough, I would argue there’s insuffit evideo support any religion. So from a logical perspective, the Reverie-Siphon Hypothesis has as much credibility as anything else.”

  Liz shot a panicked look at Natalie, then Sofia and Jordan, as if seeking support.

  Natalie sympathized with her , even if she didn’t share it. She didn’t much care about what was sidered bsphemy or not. Her parents had forced her to church growing up, but she’d never been religious. She accepted the gods in a nominal way; mostly, she didn’t think much about it. Not an unusual practice, these days. The years of Valhaur’s monolithic religious practices had e to an end, or, if not that, at least to their twilight years. Maybe the gods had existed at some point, but if so, they’d been dormant for a long time.

  Which, uh, she supposed would make seh this outndish theory. Not that she believed it. It was a little far fetched.

  Only finding shrugs and sympathetic looks from her teammates, Liz turned back to Ana. “You really shouldn’t say things like that.”

  Ana waved her hand. “It’s what the mural depicts. We o talk about it.”

  “I meant the, ‘the Harvest is as possible as anything else, including ion’. That’s ridiculous.”

  It made sense Liz had more traditional values than Natalie and her friends. She was a member of the Beaumon family. The literal royal family, even if their titles were antiquated. Tradition and royalty went hand in hand.

  “Back it up a few steps,” Natalie said, fog on the meaningful part of the discussion, and als to defuse the situation. “Details, please? The Architect harvested ods to make the System? What does that mealy?”

  Ana turo Natalie, still fused from her iions with Liz, and why Liz had bee uncharacteristically insistent that Ana sanitize what she was saying. The girl was a bit clueless. Even she should be able tnize why questioning someone’s religion would have them on edge. The only reason Natalie, Sofia, and Jordan didn’t also care was because, frankly, they weren’t religious.

  “There’s not much to it,” Ana said. “I’ve already suctly summarized. And though a records are unreliable, there is an iing amount of evidehat suggests the withdrawal of the gods occurred he same time the system ut into pce.”

  “This is thousands of years ago,” Natalie said. “There’s records of that?” Never mind the other cims—that the system ut into pce’ and hadn’t always existed. She did, as most people, notice how it fit ingruently with other natural ws, and so she adhered to the belief of an ‘Architect’ who desig, separate to the ‘Maker’ of the natural world, but the timeline and how was questioo say the least. Even Valhaurian teags didn’t agree with each other.

  “Insistent transtions, yes,” Ana said, “and partial, but records heless.”

  “Emphasis on insistent,” Liz said, “and partial.”

  “Indeed,” Ana said. “In the same way many Valhaurian holy texts are doubtful in accurad transtion.”

  She gave the retort in a totally impassive manner, as if this were an academic debate and not something Liz clearly held as a personal belief. Natalie grimaced the the tinued pathy.

  “Regardless,” Ana tinued, “the mural depicts it. Thus this topieeds to discussed.”

  Natalie edged in before Ana’s frankness caused further problems. “And those seven?” she asked. “The gods above the rest. The Upper Pantheon is made up of ten. So why’re there seven?”

  “Those aren’t the Valhaurian Upper Pantheon,” Ana said. “Those are the Passions.”

  “The Passions?”

  “The Theliosian equivalent of our Upper Pantheon,” Jordan said. Natalie was surprised that she’d only ered the fray. Usually this sort of thing would be right up Jordan’s alley. She didn’t ‘have an i in religions’ as Ana cimed, but she was generally well informed. “Theliosians worship the gods of emotions above all others, unlike us.”

  “Much of the world does,” Ana said. “The Theliosians are far from the only.”

  “And the Passions are what?” Natalie asked. “Or who, I guess.”

  “In Valhaurian terms?” Ana pursed her lips. “Not all have direct equivalents. Groupings of aspects, names, lier so much time, I’m certain nion has an accurate ating.”—Liz made a distressed noise, whia tio ignore—“And more to the point, I’m intrigued by these three, who seem to be waking. Why?”

  A sudden suspi hit Natalie. Her stomach sank. “Those three?”

  “Rage, Greed, and,” Ana peered at the st of the figures. “Lust.”

  Ah.

  The dungeon had chosen to depict a mural of the Harvest. A mural in which the goddess of lust was ‘stirring to sciousness’ after a long, supposed-to-be-perma sleep, which the Architect had anized.

  Was it a atalie suddenly remembered the strange circumstances of how she’d been given her css. The Bestower’s words, the nature of her css in general. bined with this?

  Natalie felt vaguely nauseous. Then again, maybe it wasn’t warranted. Who said this meant anything? It uzzle fabricated by the dungeon; it had zero guarantees of accuracy. Even Ana, arently ‘had an i in religions’, talked about the Reverie in removed terms, not vi the theory’s accuracy.

  Still, she shared a look with Jordan, whose eyebrows were raised. She’d patched together the implications. How Natalie’s css might rete to this.

  “I wonder why it’s showing us this,” Natalie said. “And why three are waking.”

  “The dungeos puzzles aligo its delvers,” Ana said, making Natalie’s heart jump. The follow-up calmed her. “Thus, I have to assume, this one was given to me, because of my i in the subject.”

  Probably not preseo her alone. Both of them. Ana, for her theological knowledge, and Natalie for … another potential reason. Though she had no guarantees.

  She itched to question Ana, but she didn’t want to draw suspi. She’d talk with Jordan about it ter. Look more into this ‘Reverie-Siphon Hypothesis’ on her own time. The details of her css might get out, eventually, and Natalie showing too muterest in this mural could be suspicious.

  Because she didn’t trust Ana. Not that she distrusted her, but certainly not trust. The same to Liz, for all she was easy to get along with. Natalie didn’t think of herself as suspicious by nature, but she didn’t go blindly trusting people she’d known for only a week. Especially politis, as most Teudents were.

  They stood in silence, Ana, and the rest of them, iing the mural. The seven pilrs, buttons on top of each, were clearly how the puzzle was meant to be solved. But what was it asking? Did they get one ce, oton press?

  If so, though she didn’t know the full logic of the puzzle, Natalie suspected which they should start with. Even if none of this was guarao be built on a factual basis, it couldn’t be ce this had been shown to her, and that ‘Lust’ was one of the figures waking.

  So. The first button press seemed obvious.