Tosuli hadn’t been sure what to make of Inquisitor Artur initially but he had pulled through and delivered his quarry within a few hours of being summoned by Ascendant Itisa— so the theorician was impressed and grateful in equal measures. She’d had no idea what they would have done if the man hadn’t caught up to the rogue doll in time, but she was quite sure any inconvenience the Ascendant experienced would have been amplified tenfold when her wrath inevitably spilled over into Tosuli’s day-to-day.

While she admired the Ascendant and had learned a great deal from her, there was no denying how miserable life could be when Itisa was faced with failure— especially the failure of her subordinates.

By Asarahil’s own grace misfortune had missed them today and Tosuli sent up a silent prayer of gratitude as she laid her mistress’ tools on a small rolling table in anticipation of the upcoming procedure.

The Inquisitor had apologized when he brought the unmoving doll back to the laboratory shortly after dawn and explained what had transpired. Tosuli had been worried until Itisa had waved off both of their concerns, un-bothered by the doll’s inactive state so long as he wasn’t damaged in any other way.

Still, Tosuli had been taken aback when, after being dismissed by the Ascendant, Artur had hesitated a moment then turned to her and said, “It said it was going to die. Do…” his question petered off but the theorician could guess what he’d been about to ask.

“Die? Of course not, Inquisitor. This doll may look and act more alive than most, but it’s still only a facsimile.”

“Then why run away?”

Tosuli smiled at him, tone placating. “It happens sometimes, especially in particularly old dolls. Old commandments become scrambled and the construct becomes confused— it acts irrationally to our eyes but it makes sense if you’re able to decipher the fragments when you assess the status of its core.”

The theorician couldn’t decipher the expression that flitted briefly across Artur’s face well enough to tell if he believed her explanation, or even understood it, but after a moment he simply shrugged his wings and left.

Their guest gone, Tosuli got to work stripping down the recalcitrant doll with Zero-one’s help while Ascendant Itisa observed. As always, the theorician admired the construct’s external cermet casing and the near seamless way the panels fit together while she carefully removed the panels from its abdomen. An incredibly durable alloy of ceramic and metals she and her peers had yet to completely duplicate, the panels were thin and light-weight, shining bright white under the light despite their advanced age.

While it had been long before she was born, the doll had apparently been discovered buried in the earth amongst some ancient wreckage thought to date back to the golden age before the Great Schism. Tosuli had never been told who discovered this relic of a near mythical era and though her near boundless curiosity longed to know more, she knew better than to ask too many questions of her Ascendant mistress. Achieving her position as Itisa’s personal laboratory assistant was Tosuli’s crowning achievement— one too easily lost should she tread carelessly.

To someone as long lived as an Ascendant, a simple asaric like Tosuli was easily replaced— brightest construct theorician of her generation or not. What was a few decades without an assistant when you measured your life in eons? That was barely even a vacation.

“It’s ready, Ascendant,” Tosuli declared when she set aside the final panel. The inner workings of the construct were breathtakingly intricate even to her expert eye, but it was the large gemstone at its heart that really drew the eye.

Every doll had a core on which its base commandments were imprinted through carefully interwoven thaumaturgical inscriptions that, while not physical, were held in the memory of the crystal from which the core was crafted. One could use any number of different gemstones to make basic dolls with only limited capabilities, but advanced ones like this ancient specimen could only operate with a core cut from pure divinite.

About the size of a child’s fist, the clear gemstone of the doll’s glittering core shone with an opalescent light that was hard to tear your eyes away from. It flickered like a flame that cast no heat, its bewitching light all the more dazzling as its refraction was compounded by the visible flaws that cut through the heart of the gem. Despite its impressive size the rough cut piece of divinite would have been declared an unacceptably low quality for any doll produced there in the lab. Both of Itisa’s personal attendant dolls harbored divinite cores of similar size but incomparable in the perfection of their clarity and cut.

Unlike those dolls, however, this one would operate with no other stone at its heart— as if it had been made for it, and not the other way around.

Itisa stepped forward and reached her hand inside of the doll’s chest cavity and plucked out a small, cracked ruby from a ring of them arrayed around the much larger piece of divinite with her long, carefully painted nails. The Ascendant held the offending stone under a magnifying glass and clicked her tongue irritably then cast the gem aside on a tray.

Intuiting her mistress’ needs, Tosuli was already waiting at her elbow with a velvet lined tray holding a selection of similar, undamaged gems. She watched as Itisa regarded them with a pale, critical eye, then finally chose one and carefully slotted it into place.

“What could have caused the ruby to crack?” Tosuli asked while the Ascendant made further adjustments to the core’s housing. When she had first seen the array of seven secondary control stones around the relic’s core the theorician had thought it was overkill, but her mistress had declared otherwise and only today did Tosuli understand why. Normally such gems were used to augment cores with additional commandments but these… these were a shackle, Tosuli now realized.

“The flawed nature of this particular divinite core means it requires additional grounding so it remains stable,” Itisa explained. “The safeguards can become corrupted and eventually break over the course of a long exposure to its chaotic nature. I did, however, expect them to last longer than this…”

The last was murmured under her breath, so Tosuli did not ask more, though she did make a note of it for her own edification.

“Still, it won’t trouble us much longer,” the Ascendant added when she finished a moment later with a sense of self-satisfaction.

The theorician blinked, surprised by the statement. “It won’t?”

“No. I have learned all I can from this relic of the past— it will be retired and we will pursue our own paths forward in our work.”

“Are you—” Tosuli caught herself before the question could fully escape her and immediately covered with, “I see. I look forward to working at your side as you light our way, Ascendant.” The theorician glanced nervously at her mistress sidelong, but was relieved that the much taller woman seemed too distracted by her examination of the relic to note her subordinate’s near slip.

Just because I haven’t learned everything there was to know about the relic, doesn’t mean the Ascendant hasn’t, Tosuli sternly reminded herself and moved to put the doll’s chest plates back into place at Itisa’s prompting. She will guide my learning— there’s no need to cling to the shattered remains of dead ages.

Staring down into the still, handsome features of the doll’s carefully crafted face, however, it was hard not to feel a little regret. Every piece of its cermet casing joined perfectly with the next and the miracle material that almost perfectly replicated living skin that covered its head down to its collar bones had only recently been duplicated by modern construct theoricians. It was a masterwork that perfectly married art and thaumaturgical science with an elegant efficiency that had made her heart pound the first time she’d laid eyes on it.

Excited to see the doll active for the first, and last time, Tosuli clicked the last piece back into place then pressed the switch hidden in the soft spot under its jaw. The button served no purpose while the doll was already active, but was key to resetting it after having been deactivated.

When nothing happened right away, Tosuli frowned and asked, “How long does it normally— ” she didn’t get to finish her question, however, as the doll sat bolt upright in a blur of movement. Tosuli would have screamed but couldn’t as the doll caught her by the throat with one of its hard, delicately jointed hands, and squeezed until only a soft wheeze escaped her lips.

Shock turned into terror when the doll lifted her off the ground while it remained seated on the table, arm fully outstretched with no sign of strain.

It’s going to kill me, Tosuli thought, panicked in spite of lifelong knowledge that no dolls were built with the ability to harm the living. It was hard to think otherwise with her vision going dark from lack of air.

“Talithan, put her down immediately,” Ascendant Itisa commanded, voice clear and ringing through the laboratory.

For the first time, the doll blinked its green eyes and obeyed. It placed Tosuli carefully back on her feet, joints of its long fingers clicking quietly when they released her neck, but the theorician’s knees gave out and she immediately collapsed to the floor.

Gasping and wheezing for breath, Tosuli looked back at the doll and its apparent master as they stared one another down, her own eyes watering from her ordeal.

Talithan— is that its designation? The theorician wondered, surprised. She hadn’t been aware it had a name, let alone one it actually answered to.

Itisa turned and glanced her way then and Talithan did the same, making Tosuli flinch reflexively. It would be awhile, she realized, before she’d be able to meet the gaze of anyone with green eyes without wincing.

“You may leave, Tosuli. Rest and be prepared to leave for the Centennial Exchange— you will accompany me as my aid.”

“Yes, of course, Ascendant. I— I thank you for the honor,” the theorician rasped and bowed her head before forcing herself to her feet with no help from either her mistress or the doll still seated on the table— too shaken by what had happened to feel excited about the opportunity that had landed in her lap.