Hallucinating. Valens must be hallucinating. After many years of nasty encounters with clivia, the vicious bestias' poison rarely affected him this strongly anymore. Still, he must be having wild fever dreams. Or something. Why else was he facing the impossible not just once but four times over?

He and his alumnas were somehow inside the Restoration Tower.

One of the identical twins peered at him from above a violet laurel.

The strangest eidolon he'd ever seen, a shimmering woman of gold and magenta, lurked far too close to his alumnas for comfort.

And weirdest of all, his rebellious younger alumna stood beaming at him.

The boy's smile faded as Valens stared for a second too long. But it was the kid's twin who rose gracefully to his feet--another impossibility--and extended a hand.

Valens stared stupidly. Where were the burns? The splint?

"Please sit down," Daedalus said. "You are ill and wounded."

"And you're not?" Valens asked, scrutinizing the kid. Where had his sling gone? The bruises littering his face? Valens's eyes widened. His crystal?

"The daemon healed me," Daedalus said, calming his worry before it had a chance to do more than spark. The boy crossed to him and took his arm to gently guide him toward the bench in the white nook.

Yes, this had to be a hallucination brought on by poisoned fever. Eyes devour, Valens hated clivia.

Out loud he only said, "Daemon?" Perhaps if he kept his tone casual, this would all go away soon. Or at least begin to make sense.

He let Daedalus lower him onto the bench, grimacing as the cuts across his back pulled and every battered muscle screamed. Wasn't pain supposed to fade during dreams? Eternal Radiance, he hurt. The lacerations throbbed from shoulder to hip with a familiar stabbing fire, courtesy of the crystalline structures emerging from the wounds.

The Eyes seemed to be leaving him alone this time, at least. That was nice. The Tower must block them somehow.

"Yeah," Domi said in answer to Valens's earlier question about the daemon. "Their name is Logos."

Valens just nodded like this all made sense. "Alright." He cleared his throat and brushed fever sweat from his eyes, then did his best to fix the twins with a stern look. His gaze shifted from Domi to Daedalus, settling at last on the older, more well-behaved twin. "Tell me what I missed."

An hour later, he rolled his freshly-healed shoulders experimentally as he nodded. "So let me see if I have this straight," he said, eying the creepy childlike daemon who had wandered--gnawing a ball of wavering promenia like an apple--into the nook while Daedalus spoke. "You two--" He frowned at the eidolon woman. "--decided to ditch your allies to instead babysit my alumnas and tell them bedtime stories." He pointed at the twins, ignoring Domi's scowl. "Meanwhile, your father and an entire work camp of Lightholders and Pullati are now some kind of clivia-hybrids who want to destroy the world." His gaze landed on Daedalus, who looked ill at his words. "And you scared the Blended and clivias off by threatening to incinerate the whole region after rekindling as a forgeholder."

"Not as a forgeholder, precisely," the boy said, lip tucked between his teeth. "I am still impure."

Domi eyed his twin's laurel speculatively. "Why hasn't the resonance gone away? And why's he got way more forgeholder prometus than me?"

The daemon studied the older twin as well. "He has the same amount as you. However, his prometarium was severely damaged somehow." They nodded at the boy. "You aren't producing much worldholder prometus yet, but I believe you will later."

"But we still resonate," Domi said with a frown.

"Not quite as strongly as before, Alumna," Valens said, trying to hide a smirk as the younger twin, in unconscious imitation of his brother, caught his lip. "Or you would have been in far worse condition when Daedalus collapsed."

"You both do, however, continue to share a large volume of both kinds of prometus," Kaitlyn said. "Unless you each deactivate one set, your resonance will continue."

For a shocked moment, everyone stared at the eidolon, who stared back, brow arching.

"What?" she finally asked.

"There's a way to deactivate prometus?" Daedalus gasped.

She sighed. "Your kind has forgotten so much. Twin Princeps Worldholders were engineered to--"

"Twin?" Domi and Daedalus blurted in unison.

Now the promenia woman's brow furrowed in confusion. Her expressions became more and more humanlike each minute. "Of course. All children of your royal bloodline are born twins. You were designed to share the Trellis."

"I'm sorry," Valens said slowly. "Maybe I'm still addled--"

"You're not," Logos said.

"--but I'm going to need you to explain."

She looked from one twin to the other. "My people designed your royal bloodline to control the Trellis. Every infant born of the Princeps Worldholder line is a twin possessing partial dominance. Unlike in most other unborn babes, your royal diopetes never destroys the second one you inherit. This allows you to take turns holding the Trellis by each deactivating a different side of your heritage. In your case, one would spend time as a forgeholder while the other ruled as Princeps Worldholder. When you grow weary, you can switch."

"Why would anyone design us that way?" Daedalus asked. "The resonance--"

"There wouldn't be any resonance if you each had a different active diopetes. Your body would only produce prometus of that lineage."

"Are you saying we are supposed to be twins?" Domi asked, brown eyes wide.

"Of course. The burden of the Trellis is too great for anyone to bear alone. You were always meant to share the burden." She shook her head sadly. "It is a miracle that after so many generations of killing secondborn twins, it took this long to suffer a Trellis collapse."

"But the Calamity of the Twins..." Daedalus stuttered. "They almost destroyed the world."

"A petty fight almost destroyed the world." She sighed. "The twins bickered over some ridiculous dispute, fought over who would hold the Trellis, and lost control. And it was not their first time. The public took sides with each new dispute, each new incident. Even in the Caeles, we debated. Many people began to claim the older twin was wiser and more skilled. More deserving of ruling. They wanted her to be the sole Princeps. And when, in the middle of an argument, the two collapsed a massive strip of the Trellis and created the Blightlands, the public finally decided never again to allow twins to share the role. The rest, as you know, is history. Your family has been quietly killing twins for centuries, believing it is resonance that caused the Calamity."

"Can we end our resonance now?" Daedalus asked. He turned to Domi, brown eyes brighter than Valens had ever seen. "I shall be the forgeholder first, for I lack much worldholder prometus yet."

The eidolon hesitated, a strange, calculating light in her gaze as she watched the twins.

Daedalus fixed her with a stern look. "You said you are here to advise us and that you once valued our self-determination. If you have information to share that will help us to make a wise decision, we need you to share it now."

She studied him for a moment and then drew a deep breath and nodded. "Logos can deactivate your diopetes now. However, if you wish to use the Tower to restore the Trellis, you must be resonating at the time you do. The artifact only recognizes a resonating pair of your bloodline."

A scuffle in the nook's doorway drew every eye. Aix yawned, rubbing his eyes. "I just enjoyed the best sleep I've had in years, but I don't recall how we arrived here." He lowered his hands. And gaped.

The twins exchanged glances. "Now," Domi said after a moment. "I want to do it now."

Aix cleared his throat, shaking his head in astonishment. "I see I slept through a great deal," the old man said. "What is going on, young people?"

The twins looked at each other, and after a moment of studying the determined gleam in Domi's eyes, Daedalus nodded. "We are going to restore the Trellis." He turned to Kaitlyn. "Show us how."

"No," the eidolon said, her tone apologetic but firm.

"Your father also said something about needing to be a forgeholder," Valens reminded the boys, heart aching at the disappointment in the young faces. "The part of the Tower we need is damaged." He swallowed. "And it is made of promenia crystal." The Rex had sent them on an impossible mission.

"I don't know how to make forgeholder crystal," Daedalus sighed. "I was never taught my secondary lineage."

Aix cleared his throat. "I am not a forgeholder myself," the old man said, "but I train all lineages. I will show you how to make the crystals."

Domi was quiet for a long time. But when the kid looked up, his eyes were bright. "I think I know a better way."