“Look at the wretched thing, so very much ‘live, kicking, and unable to stay dead.”

-Avery

Without a hint of guilt or warning Nil shoves Dimitri out into the open. Avery whispers cues into his ear so the young knight knows to put on the act of someone who has just returned to his hometown and knows nothing. Ebner is pleased to know that he’s acquainted with Savio because the artist is being stubborn and close-minded about a way to save the city. Perhaps a friendly acquaintance like Dimitri can change his mind. Ebner leads the way to a neighborhood of townhouses where he and Savio are the only ones alive.

The artist-slash-professor has been holed up in his makeshift atelier. Ebner argues about experiments that can help the remaining humans stand against demons, not knowing that Dimitri is aware he’s the one who made the monsters in the first place. After the man leaves in a huff Savio gravely confesses to having designed the Infernal Machine that Nil destroyed, that it was a mistake born of his desire to bring his son back from the dead. He will not create another Machine knowing what Ebner was really giving life to with the first. He won’t do anything that directly harms the soul, because breaking that taboo will cost him his own.