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I knew the spirit bluebird wanted me to follow it, but first I needed to make up an excuse so that I’d be able to get away from the others for a few minutes.

Thinking quickly, I grinded my cheeks with the lower part of my palms and made a humming sound as if I was in some deep transient state.

“Ooo!” I sounded. “The saints are communicating with me! They’re saying I must go outside, alone, and converse with them!”

Was anyone buying this?

Uncle didn’t look convinced at all. Yamin and Marek looked confused. Indena was trying not to laugh, and all the clergymen were watching me in awe.

The only ones who needed to be fully convinced were the clergymen, so it appeared that it was working. Or, maybe they realized our gooses were cooked and they were shocked I was our last hope.

Whatever the reason, I went back outside the church by myself and started looking for the spirit bluebird.

“Bluebi!” I called out. “Where are you?”

Samael started slithering around my hair. His little head slid into my vision as he pointed it to my left.

I turned and saw he was pointing at the spirit bird, who at that moment leapt off a tree branch and flew into an alleyway.

Following the little translucent guide, I entered the alleyway. Deep in, Melpomene was sitting next to a pile of garbage in the snow.

“Isn’t it amazing the things humans throw away?” She held up a paper bag, then showed me half a sandwich and an apple was inside. “Nature gives them such wonderful gifts, but most of it ends up like this. Such wasteful creatures.”

That wasn’t all she showed me. There was a trash bin full of half eaten meat and vegetables that looked like it was just tossed out.

“Uh…” I’m all for being environmentally conscious, but that wasn’t the problem we needed to deal with right now. “Melpomene, why did you bring me here?”

“You seek transportation, do you not?” she said. “I may be willing to provide you with some, as well as protection.”

Why did she want to help me? She tried to kill us before! This might have been a ploy to get her hands around Yamin’s neck.

“No. You’re just trying to get Yamin,” I accused.

“Rest assured, that is not why I wish to help you,” she responded. “The Reaper, as you call him, is no friend of mine. He indiscriminately steals the spirits of all living things, and his hunger knows no end.” She stood up, picking up her broom stick along with her. “The spirits command that he be destroyed.”

I guess since she’s a mana witch, she would be pretty against something that steals mana, especially from nature.

“You did help us fight it before.” I remember her spirit birds were there, holding off the locusts for us. “So, does this mean you won’t go after Yamin?”

“Not until this order of business is dealt with.”

I was leaning toward trusting her, but she was still a witch. Who knows what schemes she may try to pull when our backs were turned.

“I don’t know…” I said, looking at her uneasily.

“If you wish to test me, then allow me to provide you with proof…”

She lifted up her hand, which began glowing a translucent blue. It phased through her chest and pulled out…her heart?

It was glowing purple and see through. Whenever it beat it sent out a pulse of mana into the air.

“Wh…what is that?” I asked.

Her other hand tapped a finger against my crystal heart.

“This is my core. The part of me that is my spirit.” She handed it over to me. It hovered above my hands. While I had it, the whole thing changed into the form of a symbolic looking heart. “I will allow you to carry this until we are finished.”

So this is what a human's spirit looked like. Or at least, a witch’s spirit. As creepy as it was, it felt so delicate and precious.

“But, if you don’t have this, won’t you die?”

She shook her head.

“The only consequences I shall receive will come from the spirits, who will sustain me until you return that.”

“What’s stopping you from just giving me this and doing whatever you want then?”

“Little One of Hyam…” she smirked, “do you not realize how precious a spirit is? It is perhaps the only thing in this world you can truly own all to yourself.”

I think I understood that. If my heart came out for any reason, I’d die instantly. It powers my whole body and makes me who I am. I might have backups on me, but the main one was so important, and I wasn’t even sure if those extras could actually replace it.

With this, I was sure Melpomene wasn’t lying anymore. She really was going to help us stop the Reaper.

*Ring Ring!* A notification sound went off in my head.

-(1) New Message received!-

Uncle sent a message to me through a chat log. I opened it up. His message icon was a fedora hat. Mine was a unicorn.

U -“Status report.”-

Y -“So, remember how I told you about that witch in the forest that tried to kill Yamin? Now she wants to help”-

U -“I’m not very sure that’s a good idea. What is her plan?”-

I probably could have guessed it was related to her spirit animals, since they seemed to be able to interact with the physical world.

“Melpomene, how do you plan on helping us get there?” I asked.

She shook her broom a little. “I’ll fly us there.”

On that flimsy looking broom? It looked like it was about to snap on its own, let alone if we sat on it.

“Why not use those spirit animals?” I asked.

“They are made of mana. Obviously they’ll attract the Reaper’s attention.”

“Oooh…yeah…good point.”

I returned to the chat log.

Y -“She wants to fly me and Indena to the pylon on her broomstick”

U -“Do you trust her?”-

Y -“I don’t think she wants to kill me or Indena, so kinda”-

U -“...”

U -“Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.”-

Y -“Don’t tell anyone at the church she’s here, btw! They don’t like her”-

U -“Copy that. I’ll be sure to keep Yamin away from her too. Please compile a comprehensive report on everything about this witch and send it to me on the double.”-

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Y -“Okay Uncle”-

-CHAT LOG ENDED-

Looks like he’s giving me the okay to do this. I added her heart to my virtual inventory to keep it safe. Now I just needed to let Indena know about all this. I had a feeling she wouldn’t want to go with her, but I wouldn’t give her much of a choice.

I went back into the church, letting Uncle and everyone know I’d procured a ride to the pylon. Uncle quickly agreed, trying to make sure nobody would have time to ask any questions.

“Are you going to be safe?” Yamin looked at me with worried eyes.

“Yeah. This is what I was made for.” I smiled, bringing down my fist in a prideful way. “I know I can do it!”

Yamin still didn’t look too sure of my words, but it didn’t seem like she was willing to stop me.

“If I hadn’t seen you do some incredible things, I probably would have thought you were just any other kid. But I guess you really are special.”

Thinking about it, I didn’t exactly feel very special. By a human’s standards, maybe I seemed that way. But on my own, this was just who I was. I’m sure any of the other exceed that came before me would have done exactly the same thing.

“Marek, we’ll need to get you somewhere you can be seen by the public,” Uncle said.

“City hall should do it. It’s not far from here, but it would be out of the way.”

The castle we wanted to take the people to was to the left, whereas the city hall was to the right.

“Um…” Yamin nervously rubbed her hands between her legs. “Why don’t we just use Yalda’s hacking ability to get on every TV in the city?”

“That’s very illegal,” Marek commented, “but I’ll deal with the legality of things later.”

“In other words,” Indena spoke up, “the ends justify the means.”

If that’s what we had to do, that’s what we had to do. There wasn’t any way around it.

Lucky for them, the televisions in this city were easy to get under my control. We just needed a camera, which the church was willing to provide.

“Alright, we all know our jobs…” Uncle announced. “Let's get to work!”

~☆☆☆~

Indena and I raced back outside. She was blasting away the snow with her fire while I looked around for our witch of the hour. I wasn’t sure if Melpomene wanted us to reconvene in the alleyway, but I went there anyway.

I shined my stardust spear into the darkness like it was a spotlight, but she wasn’t there.

“All I see is a bunch of snow and trash,” Indena commented. “Also, that spear is sick as hell.”

“It’s really cool.” I nodded. “But our ride should be around here…”

She kept asking what we were going to be taking to get there, but I was very reluctant to tell her.

Finally I spotted Bluebi. We followed him all the way down the street.

“Eh, isn’t that one of Bitch’s spirit animals?”

“Witch, first off all, potty mouth…” will she ever stop swearing? “And this one isn’t going to attack us.”

“Don’t tell me we're going to be riding one of those things,” Indena commented. “I know we want to attract the Reaper, but that’ll put him right on us before we get there.”

She figured that out quickly, but that wasn’t the plan.

I heard the sounds of snow crunching behind us. Melpomene was there, bundled up in a poncho like blanket to keep warm.

She threw her broom down and it hovered back up above the snow covered ground.

“Oh hell no!” Indena clenched her fists and started on fire. “Ain’t no way she’s helping us.”

“Foolish mage!” Melpomene shouted. “Retire your anger against me so we can save these people.”

This wasn’t the time for a grudge to get in the way. If Melpomene was our ally for the moment. We had to work with her as best we could.

“You’ve gotta’ be kidding me…” She snarled and clenched her face up like crumpled paper. “This was your idea of a ride?”

“Can you think of anything better?”

“I’d rather walk.” She folded her arms.

“Walk? Through all this snow? You’ll have a panic attack,” I argued.

She knew this was our only chance, but I didn’t blame her for being skeptical.

“How do we know we can trust her even?”

“Don’t trust her, trust me. I’m the one who’s putting faith in her. If you don’t like that, It’ll just be her and me and we’ll leave you behind.”

If there were any other way, I would have tried it. But we didn’t have a choice.

Indena reluctantly agreed, but made sure to give Melpomene plenty of nasty looks before doing so.

“Are you even good at flying a broom?” she questioned.

“I’ve been flying this since I was a little girl. We’ll be fine.”

“Screw you, witch…” Indena climbed aboard the broomstick. “Yuck. Don’t get all romantic cause’ we're riding tandem.”

“If you keep talking, I’ll consider crashing on purpose,” Melpomene glared.

“End yourself, witch.”

I also climbed aboard too. It was surprisingly stable for such a thin broom, like I was just sitting on a balance beam.

Once I was on, I grabbed on tightly to Indena just to be safe, then the broom began rising up into the air, way above all the buildings. The demon fog seemed to be heading up along with us.

“Little One, let that spear light the way.”

“Oh, uh…” I poked it forward, like we were jousting on a horse.

As I did, the light from my spear shined through the demon fog, giving us a clear view. At least, as clear a view we could get in a mild blizzard.

“Oooh! It’s like headlights!” I commented.

“Yeah, one bulb burned out because insurance wouldn’t cover it,” Indena grumbled, pessimistic as usual.

It wouldn’t be the first time we had to deal with a car without insurance…wait, this isn't a car...now I’m off track!

Mella twirled her finger around in the air, summoning a big spirit bird. Something like a oversized eagle.

“Go and distract the rogue agent of Cassanna. If you need any allies, the spirits shall provide for you.”

With a nod, the spirit eagle turned around and flew off in the direction the Reaper was. After that, we started flying forward toward the pylons.

“Rogue agent of Cassanna?” Indena questioned. “The heck does that mean?”

“Cassanna is the god of life and death.” Mella said as she summoned an ethereal barrier in front of us to shield from the wind and snow. “One of the most revered deities of the Quasashin religion.”

Oh! I remember the hobgoblins were asking for him to give them life energy. Although, they called him Xanna.

“Mella, does he go by Xanna too?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s Mella now?” Indena commented.

Mella nodded at my question, ignoring Indena.

“That’s his proper name, yes. But few use it.” She turned back to me, a smirk on her face. “I’m impressed you knew that, Little One.”

I had the hobgoblins to thank for that. I also learned about Saharu, but he was the god of magic or something. Not very relevant to this right now, I guess.

“So, what’s this god of life and death got to do with the Reaper?” Indena asked.

“Long ago, the Reaper was once a being of balance, acting on the orders of Cassanna. He would bring life as much as he would take it. But he became disconnected with his lording divine, turning into the spirit stealing wraith you see now.”

That didn’t quite explain why he suddenly became a powerful demon.

“Why doesn’t he give life anymore?” I asked.

“Cassanna was his only supply of life energy. When the two separated, all of that ran dry.”

Mana is life energy. If he wasn’t getting anymore, I think I can understand why he’d suddenly become the way he is. These skeleton humans weren’t just inflicted with a curse, the Reaper was stealing their spirits away through it. And if they became skeletons, I’m sure that’s what happened to him too.

“Is that why that bag o’ bones is stealing all that mana?” Indena asked.

“Yes. His hunger for mana knows no end, now that he is corrupted by darkness.”

“So, if he ran out of life energy, why is he so full of darkness?” I asked.

“Darkness, or death, is what happens in the absence of light, or life. He was balanced once before, but no longer.”

It reminds me of the universe a bit. Without the stars, the whole thing would just be a pitch black void.

I never would have imagined the Reaper was some sort of yin and yang sort of deal in the past though. That shines a little light on things, no pun intended.

“So because darkness corrupted him completely,” Indena began, “stardust is the only thing that can kill him.”

“Exactly.” Mella nodded.

Thankfully I was pretty fueled up on stardust. However, the nova would use my hidden reserves that were stored away in my body, so I had less to worry about there.

What did worry me was the people that were turned into skeletons. If the Reaper’s curse was stealing their spirits, I wondered if we could help them.

“Is it possible to reintroduce life energy to the people though?” I asked.

“No. The darkness that shells their souls would prevent it. You would have to remove that darkness before attempting to reintroduce mana.”

Indena poked me.

“Didn’t you save Marek with that remove curse spell?” she asked. “You think that would work on the people?”

Even if it did, I didn’t have nearly enough stardust or incantation points to cover a whole city's worth of people.

Mella had something to add to that too. “It likely worked because he was merely in the early stages of the curse. These people are far too gone to be affected by a simple curse removal spell.”

Drat. We’d have to think up another way to save them then.

Speaking of those skeletons, we were approaching the pylon, and boy were there a lot of them around it. It was like a horde, ready to swarm inside once they got the chance. I think we were going to have to fight our way through to get inside.