Ince Zangwill

Biography

Life in Klein's Era

Ince begins as an archbishop of the Church of Evernight and a Sequence 5 Gatekeeper of the Death pathway. His attempt to advance fails, and the Church's response leaves him convinced that it discarded him rather than recognizing his worth. He betrays the Church, steals the Grade 0 Sealed Artifact Quill of Alzuhod, and turns Tingen into the stage for a second attempt at demigodhood. The Quill cannot simply place Saint Selena's ashes in his hands, so Ince constructs a plausible chain of people, desires, and accidents: the Antigonus notebook reaches Tingen, Lanevus's ritual makes Megose pregnant with the True Creator's spawn, and half of a Death descendant's characteristic keeps her viable until she can be directed into Blackthorn Security Company. The resulting battle forces Dunn Smith to use the saint's urn and absorb its power, after which Dunn and Klein are killed and the damaged ashes become available to Ince. He combines them with the remaining Death characteristic and advances across neighboring pathways to Sequence 4 Nightwatcher. (Chapters 20 and 210–213)

That advancement makes Ince a demigod, but it also turns the survivors into committed enemies. Leonard Mitchell learns from the delayed telegram that Ince and 0-08 were behind the disaster, while the resurrected Klein divines the same truth and understands that the deaths were components of an advancement ritual rather than incidental casualties. In Backlund, Ince works with a faction of the royal family and the Demoness Sect on the Great Smog conspiracy. When Klein's investigation and Azik Eggers's intervention disturb the planned development, Ince is forced into direct battle; 0-08 begins writing accidents against its own bearer, and an unknown spirit-world existence drags him away. Ince escapes by sacrificing the umbilical cord left from Megose's child, but the escape leaves him severely weakened and exposes his cooperation with the royal faction. (Chapters 464 and 473–480)

The danger becomes more intimate after 0-08 uses Ince's sleep to write unexplained actions into his life. He wakes with dirt beneath his nails, missing memories, and signs that another will has used his body; his retained spirit-channeling cannot recover the erased evidence. The cause is the composite Red Angel evil spirit, Medici, which possesses him because a Gatekeeper's body can accommodate spirits and provide access to the Underworld. Ince and Sauron Einhorn Medici eventually reach a limited truce. They use the Quill to stage alternating possession and resistance, deliberately purchase Warrior and Bard ingredients to disguise their Hunter purchases, and lure the Evernight Church into believing that Ince is seeking exorcism. Their real plan is to feed the evil spirit Hunter characteristics and then kill the high-ranking deacon Ilya so that Ince can prepare another advancement and prove that the Church was wrong to abandon him. (Chapters 604, 929–940, and 950)

The conspiracy fails because forces outside 0-08's effective perception prepare around it. Klein plans above the gray fog and acts in reality according to instructions already fixed; Evernight concealment protects the Church's response; and Adam, who wants the Quill for his own path, drains and confines its narrative power. Klein's Deity's Curse loads Ince with sustained misfortune, while Daly and Leonard help transfer the Red Angel evil spirit into Admiral Hell Ludwell and send it through the Door to the Underworld. Stripped first of Medici and then of a fully effective Quill, Ince creates mass sleep and dreams with his own Nightwatcher powers, assumes an incomplete white-feathered Mythical Creature form, and repeatedly tries to author an escape. Daly's contract with an unknown spirit-world creature and Reinette Tinekerr's blockade frustrate those exits, and Leonard uses Fate Siphon to make Ince suffer the fate of being struck by the lightning storm intended for Leonard. (Chapters 940–945)

Ince survives the storm through demigod vitality and still nearly kills Leonard, but he has lost most of his limbs, rationality, and mobility. Klein enters the square with Death Knell, uses Flaming Jumps and anti-demon rounds to keep outside Ince's dream and darkness effects, and dedicates successive shots to Daly, Leonard, Megose, the Keepers, Blackthorn Security Company, the Nighthawks, and himself. The final shot explodes Ince's head and is dedicated to Dunn; Klein explicitly denies him last words, and the corpse later examined by the Church is barely recognizable. Adam then takes 0-08, while the Red Angel evil spirit remains separate from Ince and eventually returns by its own route. Later references, spirit-channeling of Ince's remnant, and historical recollections do not revive him: his latest state remains dead. (Chapters 945–950, 960–964, and 1143)

Appearance and personality

Ince is a middle-aged man with short dark-blond hair, a tall nose, tightly pursed lips, and hard, wrinkleless features compared to a classical statue. One eye is dark blue, nearly black, while the other is visibly blind; after the unexplained nighttime possession, the damaged eye is described as filled with small blood vessels. He commonly wears a black clergyman's robe or a formal black two-button suit and bright leather boots. His incomplete Mythical Creature form is a grotesque fusion of his two pathways: four additional skinless arms turn his body into an eight-limbed creature covered in white feathers, with sharp teeth, blurred faces embedded in the flesh, and a cadaveric aura. (Chapters 210–212, 604, 938, and 943)

He is proud, patient, vindictive, and capable of sustaining a conspiracy through many apparent failures. Tingen shows his willingness to manipulate whole communities and sacrifice colleagues for advancement, while his later plan to murder Ilya is motivated as much by resentment of the Church as by the desired characteristic. Yet his control is never absolute. He fears what 0-08 writes while he sleeps, repeatedly checks his body on waking, and bargains with the evil spirit inside him because neither party can safely dominate the other. In crisis he prioritizes escape, but once cornered he turns that fear into furious violence and blames the survivors he failed to kill. (Chapters 210, 473–480, 604, 940, and 942–945)

Ince is also technically sophisticated. He knows neighboring-pathway advancement, spirit-channeling, sealing, and the limits of his artifact well enough to build plans that appear self-propelled. His central mistake is treating people as replaceable narrative pieces. Klein, Leonard, and Daly Simone preserve the memories and loyalties that Ince discounts, while Adam treats Ince himself as a disposable character in a larger story. The author of Tingen consequently dies in a performance whose ending he can no longer write. (Chapters 210–213, 930–945, and 961–962)

Pathways and abilities

Ince's personal progression is Death pathway Sequence 5 Gatekeeper, followed by a successful cross-pathway advancement to Darkness pathway Sequence 4 Nightwatcher using Saint Selena's ashes. He retains his earlier Death abilities after switching. Three other sources must be kept separate from that personal kit: the Quill's autonomous narrative manipulation, Sauron Einhorn Medici's borrowed Hunter and spirit-traversal power, and temporary mystical materials such as Megose's umbilical cord. His strongest apparent feats often combine two or more of these sources. (Chapters 210–213, 476, 604, 918, and 940–943)

Gatekeeper and retained Death powers

As a former Gatekeeper, Ince remains a high-level Spirit Guide. He can communicate with natural and dead spirits, order or control spirit entities, resist attempts to extract his own Spirit Body, and use the conceptual gate between life, death, and the Underworld. His Gatekeeper body is unusually suitable for containing an evil spirit, which is why the Red Angel composite can inhabit him without immediately destroying the host. When Ludwell tries to pull out his Spirit Body, the illusory bronze gate in Ince's eyes draws it back; Daly must add a Door to the Underworld and Klein must use Fate Siphon before Medici can be separated instead. Spirit-channeling depends on surviving traces and available spirits, so 0-08's erasure of evidence and Reinette's removal of nearby spirit-world creatures can deny Ince useful targets. (Chapters 604, 918, and 938–943)

The combined nature of Gatekeeper and possession grants Spirit World Traversal over long distances, but the text attributes the unusually high-level version to the conjunction of Ince, the Red Angel's undying nature, and the Gatekeeper's special qualities. It is therefore not a free Nightwatcher teleport. Internal disagreement can make Medici refuse the power; a sealed space can block the spirit world; and clearing spirit-world creatures from the vicinity removes possible escape routes. Ince also carries forward the Death pathway's cadaveric aura and authority over dead spirits into his Mythical Creature form, but the resulting mixed state is incomplete and difficult to control. (Chapters 940–944)

Nightwatcher darkness, dreams, and misfortune

As a Sequence 4 Nightwatcher, Ince can spread supernatural night, grant bad luck, produce large-scale slumber, and pull targets into layered dreams. He silently gives Klein misfortune during the Backlund confrontation, although the gray fog interferes and prevents the expected fatal accident. At Revival Square, Ince makes Leonard experience an attempted Lightning Storm as a dream before awakening him into a second battlefield state, then uses darkness and invisible hair-like bindings to suppress movement and resistance. Lightning, divine misfortune, strong fate manipulation, and repeated awakening shocks can penetrate or disrupt these effects; targets also remain dangerous if an external controller acts beyond the dream's reach. (Chapters 473 and 942–945)

Ince can partially release a Mythical Creature form that merges Darkness and Death. Night descends, minute living things die or enter eternal sleep, white feathers and extra arms manifest, and his speed, durability, and aura rise to a demigod level. The transformation carries severe mental risk. He needs the Quill to assert that he is in optimal condition, loses rationality as the artifact darkens, and becomes increasingly monstrous under sustained lightning and misfortune. Even after the form is physically ruined, godhood gives him exceptional vitality, but it does not make him immune to repeated anti-demon bullets or a point-blank head shot from Death Knell. (Chapters 943–945)

The Quill of Alzuhod

The Quill of Alzuhod, designated 0-08, is the source of Ince's authored coincidences, not an innate Nightwatcher ability. Written events push people and circumstances toward a plausible story without making them consciously aware of the influence. Its range is roughly that of a large city, and it can work even on powerful or corrupted targets, but developments must adhere to logic: Ince cannot write an urn sprouting wings and flying into his hands, and direct combat remains a weakness. Tingen therefore requires a long causal structure using existing motives, contamination, rituals, and institutional responses. (Chapters 20, 210–213, 480, and 940–941)

Knowledge creates reciprocal exposure: the more accurately someone knows and thinks about 0-08, the more readily it knows them. Indirect communication, concealment, preparations made above the gray fog, and action performed without fresh deliberation reduce that opening. The Quill can also expend itself forcing unlikely developments; Adam's intervention leaves it darkened and weak, while Klein's imposed misfortune makes its rescue attempts repeatedly choose hostile or useless outcomes. Its writing has a geographic and plausibility limit, can be interrupted by stronger Spectator authority, and does not override sealed access to the spirit or astral worlds. (Chapters 464, 480, 930–944, and 962–964)

Most importantly, 0-08 is alive enough to oppose its bearer. When not actively constrained, it writes accidents intended to humiliate, injure, or kill Ince, including the snapping of his belt during battle and dangerous actions undertaken while he sleeps. A sealed metal box offers incomplete containment, and using the Quill means continually monitoring both the story and the writer's own safety. It can write upon Ince's clothing and body when paper is unavailable, but its autonomy means possession never becomes simple ownership. At the final battle it abandons Ince's interests as its strength ebbs, and after Ince dies Adam picks it up without resistance. (Chapters 473–480, 604, and 938–945)

Borrowed and consumable powers

Sauron Einhorn Medici supplies Hunter-pathway knowledge, flame transformation, conspiracy, and the enhanced Spirit World Traversal used in the Southern Continent. Ince can benefit only while the evil spirit cooperates; three hostile remnant wills inhabit it, and misfortune provokes an argument that cuts him off from escape at the decisive moment. The Fate Siphon transfer into Ludwell proves that this power source is detachable from Ince rather than part of his own characteristic. Once separated, Ince fights solely as a mixed Death/Darkness demigod with the weakened Quill. (Chapters 934–943)

The umbilical cord of Megose's child is likewise a consumed escape resource, not a repeatable technique. It lets Ince break an unknown creature's restraint and return from the spirit world, but is lost in the process and leaves him at roughly half strength while drawing the evil spawn's ire. His ritual use of Saint Selena's ashes and the Death descendant's characteristic produces a permanent advancement, by contrast, because those materials are consumed into his Nightwatcher potion and godhood. (Chapters 210, 476, and 480)

Relationships

• Klein Moretti: The survivor Ince believes he killed in Tingen. Klein spends years preparing around 0-08's perception, strips away Ince's external advantages, and personally fires the final shot.
• Leonard Mitchell: A surviving Tingen Nighthawk whom Ince regrets leaving alive. Leonard's investigation exposes the possession, and his Fate Siphon turns a suicidal Lightning Storm into the blow that cripples Ince.
• Dunn Smith: The captain whom Ince contaminates and maneuvers into absorbing Saint Selena's ashes. Dunn's death enables Ince's advancement and becomes the central debt marked by Klein's last bullet.
• Daly Simone: Dunn's avenger and a fellow Gatekeeper. She helps extract Medici, redirects the spirit-world creature summoned by 0-08, and dies from the corruption incurred while preventing Ince's escape.
• Medici: The composite Red Angel evil spirit that possesses Ince. Their apparent struggle becomes a limited conspiracy, but the arrangement remains conditional and ends when fate manipulation transfers Medici to another host.
• Adam: The higher Spectator who turns Ince's final operation into a staged acquisition of 0-08. Adam exhausts the Quill, confines the battlefield, watches the revenge, and claims the artifact from Ince's corpse.
• Azik Eggers: A Death-pathway enemy whose son's skull Ince took and whose intervention exposes the Backlund conspiracy. Azik severely injures him, but 0-08 and allied demigods prevent a decisive kill.

Items

• Quill of Alzuhod: Ince's stolen Grade 0 Sealed Artifact and the engine of his long-form coincidences. It requires plausible causality, operates within a limited area, knows those who know it, and autonomously attempts to harm its bearer. Adam takes it after Ince's death. (Chapters 20, 210–213, 473–480, 604, and 938–945)
• Saint Selena's ashes: The Church's holy remains and the core characteristic Ince steals through the Tingen disaster. He consumes them with Death-pathway ritual material to become a Nightwatcher, so they do not remain a usable item afterward. (Chapters 210–213)
• Megose's child's umbilical cord: A one-use remnant from the failed descent of the True Creator's spawn. It releases Ince from an unknown spirit-world creature at the cost of being consumed, weakening him and attracting the spawn's hostility. (Chapter 476)