"Well shit" Emily cursed under her breath setting her shoulders and preparing to fight, yet the man simply kept staring at her.

“I watched them stab you and leave you for dead. Your hair color’s different, but I would recognize Eva’s face anywhere.”

Emily's brows drew together. Whatever that energy had done to him had clearly changed something.

The guy looked stable, if he was possessed by some world-ending evil then she couldn’t tell outwardly.

But he wasn’t attacking, and she could work with that.

“Yes, I’m Eva and I came here to save you.”

His eyes glanced over at the undulating gown of blood.

“Bullshit, Eva was no blood mage, not to mention you’d at least need to be a blood marshal to do something like that..”

Emily’s brow twitched as she glanced at the gown, she was tempted to let it drop, it was using an astronomical amount of power, but she couldn’t risk it. Not when her instincts were telling her to be careful of this man.

“Mmm, fine I’m changed, but I’m still the Eva you knew, just different, not unlike yourself.”

The last part was a complete gamble, but the guy’s demeanor had done a one-eighty from a couple of hours ago, something had to be going on. One moment he was weeping in his cell, the next he was cutting through people without mercy.

“Oh really? Then tell me when’s my waking day, or if that's too hard for you, what about a family pet, you should know that.”

Emily maintained a blank face as they continued their stare-off.

The look in the guy's eyes almost seemed to challenge her, and as the silence continued, a light shifted behind them.

“... Then what about my name.”

Emily could see he was preparing to attack, she needed to give him something right now. So against her better judgment, she cast her mind back into the body's memories, even as it sent a spike of pain exploding behind her eyes.

All the information wanted to rush forward at once but she held it back as she searched for a surface detail. To lose control now would be to mix with a lifetime of memories, and it wasn’t hard to tell how easily that could mess one up. Finally, she found what she was looking for and hightailed it out of there.

Blinking rapidly Emily saw the shift in his stance, and just before he made his move she shouted and threw her hands up in a calming gesture.

“Alex! It's Alex… your name is Alex, did you think I’d forget?”

Alex paused and searched her face, he was not fooled, but a hint of something unknown remained. Relief?

“Alexander… That’s what you can call me. And if you are changed I expect Eva doesn’t work so well for you anymore. What can I call you?”

Emily was hesitant at how well he was taking this but she told him her name anyway.

“Hmm, alright Emily, how about this if you lower your weapon I’ll lower mine. Then perhaps we can go our separate ways peacefully,” he said.

Emily pressed her lips together. Well, she’d found who she was looking for, that was certain. The itch that had made its home on the back of her neck was a distant memory. However, this had just gotten far more complicated.

When she found who she was looking for, she’d hoped to just bring them with her until the timer ran out. Sadly that probably wouldn’t be so easy with this guy.

For now, though, she needed more information.

“Counter offer, we make a temporary alliance until we get somewhere safe. I’m assuming we still have ways to travel if we want to find the nearest settlement. It would be much better if we both had a set of eyes to watch our backs.”

Alexander searched Emily’s face for a while but then shook his head.

“Absolutely not, you may have her face and perhaps you won’t attack me, but I can’t trust you won’t betray me down the line. I have things to do and a very small timeline to do them in.”

Emily rolled her eyes, contrary to her confident demeanor, her next move felt wrong in all sorts of ways, but she had to show him she was not a threat. So she let the gown melt down her form and rolled to the floor congealing, leaving herself open to attack.

“All the more reason to bring me along, I want to get to safety just as much as you do. So I’m not going to shoot myself in the foot, and as a bonus, two people working together will be safer, perhaps even faster… Plus, you know what’s out there.”

Emily, in fact, did not know what was out there, but she was betting Alex did.

Alexander scrunched up his mouth in thought as he lowered his blade to his side. He seemed to be wrestling with a deep internal struggle, his gaze fixed on her face as if he were deciding the fate of which parent to save. His pained expression gradually softened.

“Fine,” he said finally. “You can come. But the moment we reach a safe zone, we’re done.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Emily smiled and made a mock salute, which only got a confused look from Alex. Emily wondered if they had salutes here. They probably did, but maybe they were different.

Alex moved away from him, crouched down near one of the people's bodies, and began rifling through their pockets.

Seeing this Emily followed suit heading over to the illusionist's body, kneeling next to it. The dead man was covered in blood from the ground but at this stage who wasn’t? Grabbing him by the edge of his cloak Emily pulled the corpse over onto its back, a wet squelching sound punctuating the motion.

Rummaging through the deceased’s pockets was nothing new, however, what she found, was. A small coin pouch with various shaped coins, along with what looked like a vial of clear liquid. The last item was probably the best find, it was only a small leather-bound notebook, but by the looks of things it was the illusionist's notes on blood magic.

When Emily pulled her prize from the man's robes, she noticed Alex staring at her, but the moment he saw her looking, he went back to work.

The tiny tome was thick and well read but Emily shrugged and pocketed it along with the rest of her ill-gotten gains. She had no idea how the money worked but she wasn’t going to ask Alex that.

When everything was tucked away, Emily began to rummage through the rest of the corpses to find a weapon. By the looks of things, all of them had needlessly fancy blades, probably a status symbol or something. However, outside of ritual sacrifice, it was not something one would want to carry on one's person. Suffice it to say, if someone in her world were walking down the street with one of these bad boys, they would have the police called on them in minutes flat.

However, having lost her last pointy bit of metal, Emily was not in a position to be picky; she chose the least bedazzled one.

Fastening the sheath to herself she saw Alex had already picked the surrounding bodies clean and was moving towards the door, one more glance at the now empty room and Emliy hightailed it after him.

The preparations for the ritual had taken well over an hour, even though the head blood mage had tried to hurry them along, so by the time they got out of that hellish sweat lodge, the whole area was deserted.

Disturbed snow and emptied crates lay strewn about. The doors to the stables stood wide open, and Emily felt disappointed that she couldn't catch a glimpse of the wolf-horseys again.

Alex was crouched down looking at the tracks in the snow as though he understood them, Emily also noticed the guy had taken just about every dagger he could get his hands on. Strapping several to his waist, chest, and boots. When Emily came up behind him, he spoke without looking at her.

“Alright, split up and try and find food, if we’re going to make the trip to Tagrin’s keep we’ll need it.”

Emily nodded to herself.

“If it’s all the same to you let's stick together.”

Alex frowned but didn’t say anything further. He changed direction and headed for one of the nearby huts. When they got there the door to the room was barred, but Alex drew one of his daggers and slotted it in between the wooden slatts, and wiggled it a bit. The door creaked open to reveal a storeroom of sorts. Inside were more of the mage's supplies, dried herbs, different pieces of rock and ore, and vials with oils of varying scents and colors.

“Pack light, the trip is not that long but we’re so far off the main road that we’ll be running from just about everything out there. With the head mage dead, the wards around this place will be gone”

Alex moved over to one of the corners while Emily found a small barrel of what looked like opalescent powder. Next to it were sticks of chalk made from the stuff.

Rummaging around Emily found a bundle she could strap to her back. Grabbing a couple of blankets and what she thought was a full water skin, Emily moved all her trinkets into the bag. Making sure Alex wasn’t looking as she moved the warm broach from her boot to her cloak pocket.

Finally, wrapping a couple sticks of the chalk in cloth and shoving it on top, because why not?

Looking over she saw Alex had found a small bag of dried meat and hard bread. Wiping the sparkling chalk dust off her hands onto her outfit, Emily held out an open palm expectantly. Alex saw this and pressed his lips into a thin line, but poured half the rations into another sack and handed it over to her.

“What in the world are you going to do with source chalk? I said pack light.”

Emily made a wry face.

“It’s chalk, it’s not gonna break the bank, plus it kinda sparkles in the light… so it's mine now.”

Alex looked even more frustrated now, but he seemed to wash his hands of the idea and turned to leave. Fastening her bundle closed took Emily more time than she was willing to admit. So that by the time she got out of the storeroom Alex was nowhere to be seen.

Looking around Emily stepped out and cursed, looking down at the snow she tried to follow his footprints and managed to track him until she got to the front once more, where his prints just mixed in with the rest.

Several sets of tracks were leading off into the forest, his could be just about any of them. Emily let out a large plume of breath as her shoulders drooped, but then she felt a presence next to her.

It was Alex, casually strolling towards her with two white cloaks in his arms.

“Put this on, it won’t hide us, but it will help.”

Emily took them gratefully and grinned when she saw he had included a fresh set of traveling clothes.

Alex’s movements froze for a second, his gaze locked on her smile, as a thoughtful crease settled on his brow

Emily looked down at the red-stained dress and hummed to herself. She kind of liked its simple design, but practical clothes were a welcome sight. Especially if they were going to be traveling for a long time in the forest.

Unclapsing her cloak and letting ing fall into the snow, Emily began to change where she stood.

Alex was startled from his daze when he realized what she was doing and turned away, though there was no blush of a virgin creeping up his cheeks, as Emily had hopped.

She was more than used to changing on demand, one had to be when their whole outfit was made of reinforced spandex.

Being shy to change in front of others was something newbies got over pretty quickly.

In fact, multiple news outlets hadn’t coined the term ‘Super-Streekers’ for nothing.

If one was lucky they would be wearing their costume underneath their day-to-day clothes, but gosh, it was hard to get designers to put a flap in the thing for bathroom breaks. So some days, when laziness struck, one was forced to change in a supply closet while swarms of murder hornets were wreaking havoc on the entire bank vault

However, this did mean that Emily’s change time was lightning quick, and with the current temperatures, it needed to be.

By the time she was filling out her new clothes, and fastening the white cloak over herself, Emily felt much more comfortable.

Looking over she saw Alex had decided to follow suit and get changed out in the cold. He was facing away from her with his hand covering the back of his neck as he dressed.

Emily took a moment to have a peek at the man.

First off, Emily recognized that Alex and Eva were closer in age than she had first anticipated, as she would put both of them in their early twenties.

He was not out of shape by any means, but there was still the presence of baby fat he had yet to work off. His skin was fair and unblemished, overall he looked like a man who had lived a life of luxury. Which was in complete contrast to his eyes, because while a vibrant green, they held a jaded glint.

He was just wrapping the cloak around himself as he turned to see her eyeing his body.

“Find what you’re looking for? Because if you're done, we should get moving.”

Emily blinked sheepishly, unable to help the smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Yes, Alex. I think I did.”