When it was time for what Corvayne assumed was couple's therapy, Mister I lead him to a room on the second floor of the community center. Rather then having the run down décor of the rest of the center, everything in the room was new. The walls were painted a warm brown and lined with natural wood book shelves, it smelled clean, and there was a nice trio of chairs and side tables on a thick carpet that didn't look worn down by years of feet.

Mister I was in one chair, sipping steaming teah, and he beamed and gestured for Corvayne to sit once he saw him. Corvayne put his spear in the corner behind him and sank into the chair. He frowned. Why did The Magus, a being that most likely cursed him, have to be the guy who had the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in? Well, this one was... maybe halfway there? Not too bad.

Wick came in, wearing her blue sky robe over a closed jacket. She plopped down, looking away from Corvayne. Corvayne felt his stomach twist. Why was she still mad? He was going to say something but he saw Mister I shake his head before he went back to sipping tea. Wick had fixated on the window, pointedly looking at the tree in the courtyard rather then at Corvayne or Mister I.

Mister I didn't speak, setting his cup down and focusing on a little digital clip board he was tapping very gently with his pen. It seemed like their silence was intentional, so Corvayne didn't break it. The little taps of both Mister I's pen and rain drops on the window

Corvayne waited, and every second he was more and more sure there was some sort of deliberate game of chicken here, and while he didn't want to turn the sandworm first, someone had to say something and he-

Wick sighed, and turned to Mister I. “I am PISSED at him.” She said, scratchy voice very intense. Mister I held his hand up, and Wick rolled her eyes and said it again, sounding more normal. “I'm mad at him.”

The monk too had played with his tone, scrubbed of his usual jovial energy. “Why are you mad at him?”

Wick sighed. “I told him something important and he laughed.”

“How did that feel?”

She avoided looking at Corvayne. “It felt shitty. I was really stressed. I expect him to take my problems seriously.”

Mister I nodded. “Is this something that I can ask Corvayne about?”

Wick finally looked at Corvayne, and nodded. Mister I turned in his chair a few inches to square with Corvayne. “Can you tell me what happened the other day? In your own words.”

Corvayne thought about it. “I went to her room because Argyle had said something about her and I wanted to know if it was true, and she got mad at me because she didn't think I took her seriously because the situation had me in an odd mood.”

“You DIDN'T take it seriously! You were grinning like an idiot!” Wick interrupted.

Mister I tapped his board, and there was a beep. “Wick, take 30 to breath. Corvayne, what do you think about Wick, in general?”

He heard Wick start to take a long breath in, and he sat straight up. “I love her and I want to protect her. She's the first person to be kind to me. She's Smart and beautiful. She's the standard I judge everyone else by.”

He looked over and saw Wick had buried her face in her hands. Mister I was biting his lip too. Did he say something wrong? The monk recovered his impassive expression.

“All right, so Corvayne, you respect Wick. And you learned something about her, something she was very scared to tell you, but you felt happy? Or were smiling?”

He nodded. “I was both laughing that... her secret was something I had dismissed as highly unlikely. Also I was... happy she trusted me. I had previously been, uh...” Corvayne suddenly felt embarassed at just telling them he was jealous of Nyx. Hadn't he told them each about it before?

Mister I held up a hand, then produced another plate and teacup from his table with the sort of effortless speed that Corvayne only matched when using a spear. The cup didn't even click as the monk placed it on the plate and poured very slowly. Corvayne could smell a hint of ginger as Mister I passed him the cup, and the sip he took helped unknot some of his stress the conversation brought on.

“Take a moment. Have some tea. Wick, what do you feel about Corvayne? In general.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I trust him. He's strong, and straightforward. I love him, but, he makes me feel guilty and anxious. I get frustrated that he doesn't see what he's worth, and I worry he'll... figure me out.”

Mister I nodded. Wick was now looking at Corvayne. She sat up straighter. “Corvayne, I'm Ianasia Leona, a princess on the run, and people are going to keep coming after me. I... I want to change The Collective. As the 12th in line when I left, it might be an impossible goal.”

Corvayne nodded at this, and looked her in the eye. “I'm Corvayne, but it might not be my real name. I will protect you, and your secret, with my life.”

Wick smiled at him, then leaned forward. “Thank you, it means a lot to me. But... I have other problems. I don't always sleep and yes, my mood shifts sometimes too fast, and I can't trust people easily... and I can't trust myself. I have a problem where it's like there's someone else is in my head, trying to steer me. It's subtle, but it's there, and I worry it's trying to keep me with you, that when I'm with you and I'm happy and don't mind you touching me, that there's an person like an enemy or... or a thing riding in me that's tricking me into being okay, into being happy, because I'm not who I was, I totally changed at 15, I just woke up one day and I knew the day before I hadn't been worried about anything and then had thoughts that I couldn't trust anyone, and I suddenly didn't care about anything I had before and then I was terrified that someone had done something, and I kept doing things, like steal things, reading weird books, avoiding people, I had these compulsions, and I was really scared of the boy I thought I was going to marry, even though the last time I had seen him he had been a date and I remembered thinking I was in love.”

She stopped for a moment as her mouth got dry and she coughed, and Mister I handed her a cooled off cup of tea that she just downed before she kept going.

“So I was trapped in a palace and I felt weird, like I wasn't in the right body, It was horrible, I felt naked even with clothes on and part of me was looking at this boy who I'd known for four years and saw all the little things that gave away he was... he was lying about things... all these details that were there before that I didn't see before, it was as clear as day he didn't like me or hate me, just that he didn't care, that nobody around me cared about me, and it was horrible to be there, I didn't want to see it, but... that weird guide kept pointing it all out.”

Wick stopped a moment to blow her nose and wipe her eyes.

Corvayne nodded. “Is it like when you say Lady Blood Claw's name?”

Wick shook her head. “It's more subtle. But it makes me doubt... myself. Everything. If I didn't know it was... it was right about some things, I don't know who I am anymore. I think the meetings are me, because it doesn't care about them, there's nothing pushing me to do them, but Corvayne, it's pushing me at you, and I don't like it. Mister I's pills help a little. It shuts it down. But... when I'm on them it's like a fog. I can think and act but I'm under a blanket. When it's gone, I have memories. But it's not clear, they are not clear, like my last life was, I mean, the one we all experienced, and I get scared because I can't tell if they are nightmares or me.

Corvayne held his hand out, and Wick took it, then continued. “I talked around it, before, but I think, I think this isn't my first life, or second, and maybe not third. I get memories from the past, and they are fucking me up because I see things that don't make sense, or are wrong, and I see places I've never been, and I have dreams where I die, and there's places it wants me to go, and I'm scared of it. I just want to sleep, and wake up, and things to be normal, and I know that I can't do it, because there's something in me, and and it's like a warning, there's a threat and I keep seeing the sky falling apart and crying and it shows me worse things, and... I can't talk about it, I just don't know if it's real or not. I'm sorry, I'm sorry Corvayne I'm...”

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Wick was sobbing and babbling and Corvayne squeezed her hand. Mister I mumbled a short invocation to Lythandies, activating mend, and Wick sighed and slumped a little in her chair.

“Wick, Thank you for sharing that with us.” Mister I nodded.

Corvayne leaned in. “Wick. I'll say this. Whatever your feelings are, however we can figure out what's going on... I'll help you however I can. Okay?”

She looked up. “I can't promise I'll ever get over this. I've been trying for years.”

He met her eyes and nodded. “You told me what I was getting into, and I'm still saying yes.”

Wick closed her eyes a moment, and there was a pause with just Mister I gently shuffling papers beside him and pouring some tea. Wick stirred after a minute. “Can I see that Core thing, the one Argyle was after?”

Corvayne pulled it out of storage. The dark green emerald in the center of the soft gold spines gleamed softly as he handed it off to her. Wick took it and rotated the device, some of her energy returning as she stared at it.

“I saw it before. When it glowed. It was... there was a Tower, I went into it when I was here, but it wasn't this time or the last.” Wick lifted her glasses and rubbed her face. “It's like, sometimes I think we've already had a conversation, and it feels like deja-vu, like I'm going in circles.”

Corvayne patted her knee and tried to project the most neutral . “If you can remember the place you went, I think we want to look at it. If you can't, it doesn't change that we like you. In the here and now.”

Wick smiled. “Thanks... but there's another thing. I'm pretty sure I met you before.”

Mister I stepped in. “Do you want to talk about what you think you remember?”

Wick shook her head. “I think we were older. It was a place like Cascadia, but a smaller town. Maybe one of the other cities on the planet, but they don't have lots of little islands like Cascadia does. I remember a resort on an circular island, I think it might have been what's called Crater island, but I remember taking a boat to a place... Nap Bay.”

Mister I helpfully handed Corvayne a roll-out computer, which he used to try searching the names she gave. The larger map of the Cascadia area followed a pretty similar pattern both north and south where a number of large barrier islands formed many layers of land and water. There was, as far as he could tell, no bodies of water named Nap Bay. Not every feature on Cascadia's surface was named, just places within two hundred miles or so of the big triangle of cities, and a few places out in the desert by mines.

“How big was the island?”

Wick was thinking. “I think it was something like, two miles across? It had a hill and a light house, but it was an old-time one, you know, brick and a tourist thing. I remember it because I hid up there, and you were talking to me while I sat on it, I think I was running from you, and you were like a guardian or watcher but it felt like you were... a warden.”

Corvayne stopped typing in Light houses. “A watcher, or capital W Watcher? And a warden?”

“I remember I was annoyed you were following me. You were worried I was going to jump, and I was considering doing it to make your life harder? I might be remembering it wrong, it's like an echo of something placed there, where you don't know if it's real or not.”

Corvayne nodded. “Well, in this life, I'd definitely jump with you and try to break your fall Wick.”

She blushed a little and Corvayne hooted and hollered on the inside while outwardly calmly continuing to look at the computer. “It seems like there's not a lot of brick lighthouses, and none of them are a part of any island resort. But... there's one on a circular island. Would you want to go look at it, or do you not want the memories?”

Wick stood up straight. “I both want to know and don't. It's like, what if I see something that changes what I think of you? If a different you hurt me, would I hate you? And it's the other way too. What if I do figure out what's driving me to be different? If it's something a different YOU did to me. Would that lessen me? Us?”

Mister I slurpped his tea loudly, and Corvayne and Wick both looked over to him. The monk set his cup down on a side table and smiled. “That you are worried, would you say it's because you value what you feel now, and wish it to be real?”

Wick nodded. “Yes. But there's the other problem too, that someday-”

Mister I held a hand up. “You worry about what you need to do for your empire, and how it might stop you from doing what you want to do for yourself.”

Wick leaned towards Mister I. “Yes! You understand?”

Mister I flashed a very faint smile. “I do. It seems like you need to be prepared. Corvayne, you have read stories with princesses before? You must understand that if Wick wishes to rule...”

Corvayne felt his heart drop. “In those stories, ruling means deals, and marriage is the best way to get someone at her side who gives her political power or immense wealth...”

Wick nodded. “There's a lot going on, but if I wanted to protect others from... what I know is going on... it's the other reason to keep my distance from you, Corvayne.”

“You don't think you can fix it without being the, Empress? CEO?”

“Empress, since it's the executive role for the entire Collective all the former holders preferred that term rather then the buisness side. My family directly owns all of Tripic aside from a few houses the nobles still own. The entire main fleet of warships is ours...”

Corvayne could guess where it was going. “And whatever supernatural secrets your family has.”

Wick nodded. “All the wealth in the Collective is at the top. All the power? At the top. I think the Towers opening everywhere will wobble things, but unless they can provide all the trappings of a modern life, most people would rather be comfortable.”

Corvayne folded his arms. “It might just break, on it's own. I mean, it sounds like under the noble class, the ceiling for wealth is so high that there's a normal world of trade under it. Then you collapse the monopoly on magic power... I guess the nobles could commit some sort of high powered satellite strike on society where they buy everything up and hyper inflate, but yesterday I traded materials to a grocer for food. Now life will go on.”

Wick held up a hand. “Wait. You... grew up... how did you... you must know what a satellite strike is from reading a book, right?”

Corvayne shook his head. “We were expected to know how to use a lot of weapons. I only directed a kinetic payload once, but it's very effective. Burned out an entire next of crunchers in one shot.”

“You describe a lot of experiences that make me think that the clay town out in the desert isn't really where you were from.” Wick narrowed her eyes.

Corvayne held a hand up. “I don't know where The Watchers are, or where they are from. I was more focused on staying unobtrusive then asking a lot of questions. But it's beside the point: I'll continue to help you with your goal. Nyx had gently suggested, with an earlier talk, that at some point if you were important enough that you might marry someone else. For power reasons.”

Wick nodded. Corvayne nodded back. The political figures in stories sometimes had a sideways way of talking, and thinking about things. Carrot and stick, then the twist where they threw the framework out. It wasn't enough to just be quick and nimble with a spear. He needed to keep developing. For a moment, he felt like he had an ocean balancing on his head, and a warm trickle of something like ambition crept into him from the vast weight he felt.

He felt himself speak louder and clearer then before. “You have given me a new challenge. To overcome it, I simply have to be strong enough, politically, financially, and of course physically that I can crush every single one of your potential suitors, and enemies.”

Mister I spit his tea out.

Wick froze. “You... you realize that's something families have spent... hundreds of years trying to do? The Brines Brothers, the real ones who are not even 'real' nobles by Nyxion and Tripic standards, are old, and they are carrying on what their father started here in Cascadia over a hundred and fifty years ago. Goule is trying to do something like that, and he has killed and will have killed untold numbers of innocent people as collateral for the little moves he does to keep his position at father's ear.”

Hmm. Might have to beat up Wick's dad too. Poor guy. “Trying to do what they are doing through The Collective itself... seems pointless. Right?” He looked at Wick, who looked confused at him twisting the conversation again. Mister I had a raised eyebrow, but nodded. A spear is sharp. It has momentum. He had momentum.

Mister I leaned forward. “You are more right then you even know! There are a flock of problems with the Collective and navigating it's hundreds of groups, many made up of hundreds of mystics and nobles, is a thankless task to try to take any power. There are thousands of people who could buy a planet, and The Collective's laws and systems are weak to that money, and as an outsider with paltry connections you are the last person they'd want to share it with...”

Corvayne nodded. “So I go sideways, again. To marry Wick...”

Wick waved her hands. “Corvayne slow down, you have no idea if I-”

“A spear moves forward. I've learned a lot these few weeks. But... if I want to keep you safe AND make you happy... what I am won't be enough. For you to be happy, I need you to not be torn between what you need to do and what you want to do. I need an outside force, something that tips the balance.”

It was odd, he was totally calm but felt that rolling weight, pushing him forward now, like a mountain just a little behind him. Is this what Wick was talking about, when everything felt TOO right? Well, too bad, because Corvayne agreed with whoever was in charge. The spear lead him, and it knew the way. He had defended Wick, but he couldn't forever. He couldn't wait for the next Argyle, and the next one, and so on.

Mister I was beaming. Wick was just, staring at him. “What... Corvayne... what's with that look?”

He looked at her and smiled. “There's a route for me that no one else in The Collective has. I need to find and take over The Watchers.”