Noli is bouncing from foot to foot in excitement. Zyneth nervously fiddles with his sheath, watching me intently, and even Rezira seems curious. The predator doesn’t know what’s going on.

I, for one, am really uncertain about this.

“I’m really uncertain about this,” I say.

“But why?” Noli asks. “Isn’t this a step in the right direction?”

I hesitate. “I suppose. It just feels…” Honestly, I’m not even sure what I’m hesitating over. There’s only one way to figure out how I feel about all this, and that’s to do it.

“Are you ready?” Murrok asks.

“Alright. Just do it already.”

They bow their head, then place a hand on my shoulder. A crackle of magic crawls over my glass, and motes of light swirl around me. They settle only a moment later, and everyone’s expressions change.

[You have been subjected to an Illusion spell,] Echo says.

Murrok lets go of my shoulder and steps away.

“Oh, Kanin,” Noli signs. “You look like a human!”

“Still can’t believe you’re not a halfling,” Rezira says.

Zyneth is staring hard. “Is this what you looked like?”

I send a piece of glass to float over their heads, looking back at myself.

“Unlikely,” Murrok signs. “I created the illusion based on the descriptors he gave me. But there were not enough details to capture any precise likeness.”

They’re right. What I’m looking at is certainly a human. A male human, with dark hair, tan skin, and athletic build. But that’s about where the similarities stop. It’s not me. Not that I expected it to be.

I feel… relieved? I’m not sure why. At least it doesn’t feel like I’m faking my real body. I’m faking someone else’s body. Somehow, that helps.

“This is very odd,” I sign, my translator also voicing the thoughts aloud.

“Ah,” Zyneth says. Rezira snorts.

I frown. Or at least, I internally frown, because the illusion is making no expressions at all, nor is it opening its mouth when the translator speaks.

“That might be an issue,” I say. The ocean breeze appears to stir my hair, and when I turn my head to the left and right, the illusion follows. It moves with me, at least. But as Murrok supposed, there’s no face beneath the head for the illusion to copy, so it remains uncannily static.

“You’ll have to stick to signs,” Zyneth comments. “Speaking like that is… unnerving.”

“No kidding,” I remark. Without even a hint of change on the face, I look like an animated mannequin. Not going to lie: it’s very creepy.

Rezira shakes her head. “Even if he doesn’t speak aloud, anyone who spends more than a couple of seconds looking at his face would be able to tell something’s wrong.”

“It is slightly unsettling,” Noli hesitantly agrees. “Signs should be expressive! What your hands are saying and what your face is saying is at odds. But!” she adds. “I have an idea.”

I tilt my head. “To help make the face look real?”

“Not exactly. One moment!” Noli rushes below deck, way too excited for whatever she’s thought up. A minute later she returns with a small bundle of clothing.

“This first,” she suggests, holding out a red scarf.

“Like this?” I take it and wrap it around my head, but since I have no neck, the scarf clips through the illusion, like bad video game graphics. “Hm. Hold on.” I gather a dozen small pieces of glass inside the loop of cloth and push out, propping it up as if there is in fact a neck there.

“Yes!” Noli pinches the front of the scarf and pulls it up a bit, covering my mouth. “Now this.” She hands a black piece of cloth over next.

It’s a cowl, designed to cover my head with a hood and drape about my shoulders. I let Noli fix it on. By the end, you can barely see my face within the shadows.

“I guess that’s one way to handle it,” I remark. Most of the illusion is hidden now—save for my seemingly-human hands. I look rather suspicious. But at least I also look like a person, and it should hold up under more scrutiny with the disguise than without.

Murrok waves a hand, and the illusion dissolves. “Here.” They offer me a ring. “While you wear this, the illusion will be in effect. It contains maybe a dozen uses before it will need to be recharged.”

“Thank you,” I sign, accepting the ring. “This was a kind gift.”

They smile faintly. “It is nothing, for a friend of Noli’s.”

“Oh come on,” I sign. “You can’t mean that. She’s friends with everyone.”

Murrok grins.

“I guess that settles things then,” Zyneth says. I fold the cowl back and pull the scarf down, now that the illusion isn’t in effect. I’ll need to look for a replacement for both when I get to the city; versions that don’t clash with the color of my long coat. “You’ll be able to use that to get around cities without drawing too much attention.”

“It seems like.” And it doesn’t feel as uncomfortable as I feared. It’s just like another layer of clothes. The long coat hides the predator’s void, and this illusion hides my glass. “When will we make landfall?”

“An hour or so,” Rezira says, gesturing off toward land. “See that shimmer there close to the horizon? That’s the port.”

“Oh, I can’t wait,” Noli exclaims. “I’m rather growing tired of fish and stale bread. I’d love some grilled rabbit. Do you think they’ll have some in town? I can go hunting if not.”

Rezira smiles at her fondly. “I’m sure we’ll find something along those lines.”

“So this is it.” I lean against the banister next to Zyneth as Rezira and Noli drift away to become embroiled in a discussion about the regional variations of rabbit meat across Valenia. “We are finally about to resolve that tattoo of yours.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “Frankly I’m surprised she hasn’t already closed the job call to incur interest. Vardi must be rather desperate.”

“Vardi?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, crooking an eyebrow at me. “The debt owner. Remember?”

“No,” I say, confused. “You have not talked about them yet. I figured you would bring it up when you were ready.”

“What?” Zyneth frowns, turning to face me. “Kanin, we did talk about this. We spent a whole afternoon going over the plan.”

“What plan?” I straighten up, nerves buzzing through me. What does he mean? Zyneth wouldn’t lie about this. But we definitely never had a discussion about who owned his debt. I’ve been wondering when he’d bring it up the whole time we’ve been on this boat. His reaction is making me uneasy.

Zyneth’s expression is morphing from confusion to concern. “When we were on the Prismatic. You asked about the debt, and I told you about Vardi, and we discussed what we would do when we reached her. You were very insistent upon coming along. You said, and I quote, ‘I dragged you all the way to the bottom of the ocean and halfway through another dimension. If you think I won’t be helping you with this job, you’re dumber than I am.’”

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That does sound like something I would say. But I’m starting to feel alarmed now, too. “What? No. I do not remember this. I would not forget a whole conversation like that… would I?”

Zyneth gives my arm a reassuring squeeze—or maybe the gesture is more for his own reassurance. “You’ve been through a lot lately. Perhaps you just need a reminder?”

The predator can sense my alarm, and suspiciously surfaces in my subconscious, searching for the source of the feelings. I try to ignore it; I’ve got enough things to worry about.

“Yes,” I agree. “Maybe a refresher would help. Tell me.”

“Okay.” Zyneth looks at me as if there’s eyes to make contact with. It’s reassuring, but his worry is also plain. “Vardi is one of three individuals to whom I owe a debt. Well, two, now, with Gillow’s being settled. I incurred it three years ago, and have been chipping away at it since. In fact, I was in the middle of the most recent job I ran for her when I met you.” He pauses. “This doesn’t ring any bells?”

I shake my head. “This is the first time I am hearing any of this.”

Vardi. Vardi. The name doesn’t mean anything to me. Is he sure? I feel like I’m losing my mind.

The predator picks up on a few of my thoughts, and recognition crackles through it. It knows who Vardi is.

“What?” I exclaim aloud. “How do you know?”

“Kanin?” Zyneth prompts.

“It is the predator,” I say, irritated. “It thinks it knows who you’re talking about. But it cannot even understand language, so I do not know how it could—”

The predator offers to show me. It reaches for my mind, even as I instinctively flinch away. But when it makes contact, it’s like a puzzle piece snapping into place.

----------------------------------------

We’re in the Prismatic. Zyneth’s just run out of mana after helping me create more fulgurite, and I’m fiddling with a cluster of Chained glass. With little else to do, our conversation’s turned toward the inevitable: what to do when we reach land.

“She likes to make me fetch relics from Ruins,” Zyneth says. “I’m sure there are more qualified individuals to scour these sites, but I think she enjoys sending me on dangerous jobs just to see if I’m able to pull it off.”

“It sounds like she’s trying to get you killed,” I remark.

“Well, I did get caught stealing from her, so I’m sure she’d be happy with the outcome whether I return with a relic or die trying,” he says flatly.

“I’d like to hear that story.”

He chuckles. “It is pretty good actually. Save getting caught in the end. But that’s beside the point.”

I nod. “So you think she’s likely to send you on another relic hunt?”

“That would be in line with previous jobs,” he agrees.

“Any idea which one?”

He shakes his head. “I think planning for the job is a futile exercise: it could be anything. Rather, we should be planning what to do when we encounter her.”

“Like what?” I ask. “Is there any other option than you just accepting it?”

He shrugs with a grimace. “Possibly. Though it can’t hurt to be careful…”

----------------------------------------

The memory flashes through my mind, and I remember it all at once. It’s crystal clear. How could I have forgotten?

“What the Expletive.” I step back, scrunching my hand into my coat just above my core. “Why do you have that memory?”

“What’s going on?” Zyneth asks. “Do you remember?”

“No, but…” My soul churns with disquiet. The predator recedes, and I feel something vanish as it pulls away. There’s a hole there. Something I should remember. A piece of me, missing.

“Oh, gods,” I say, feeling dizzy. I grip the rail. The predator doesn’t understand why I’m so upset. “The predator has it. It has that memory. I do not understand. How…”

But I do know. I think I’ve always known, even if I couldn’t tell what was happening. Every time I’ve had to rip myself away from the predator’s influence and felt that ethereal stinging pain in my mind, like it hadn’t been a clean cut, leaving behind an indistinct sense of wrongness…

“I—I have lost pieces of myself,” I tell Zyneth, horrified. “When the predator and I separated. Whenever I forced a separation, and it hurt—some of my memories tore away. I do not even know which ones.” And even now I can’t remember what the predator had shown me. I remember being surprised, I remember realizing it was something to do with the conversation Zyneth talked about, but…

I push into the predator’s mind, searching for whatever it had just shown me. The predator is irritated at the intrusion, but offers the memory again anyway. Again, I feel something fit back into place. And again, I remember.

“Expletive.” I try to hold onto the memory. Maybe I can reattach it somehow. Make it my own again. My head spins with panic as I desperately cling to this missing piece of myself. “When did this happen? How many times has this happened?”

“Gods’ grace, Kanin,” Zyneth says. “I’m not sure what to say. This is… I can’t imagine.”

What if it’s not just memories? What if I’m missing more fundamental parts of myself? Parts I’ll never even know are gone until I find them again. I reach deeper into the predator, frantically searching. For what, I’m not even sure. Something familiar, maybe.

The predator rebuffs me, annoyed, and the memory it had been sharing slips from me once more. No, I say. Please. Give it back!

The predator is equally confused and irritated by my nonsensical outburst. It has not taken anything. Things just get stuck to it. That is not its fault. But if we let our minds merge, then the edges should all line up. We would share all our memories between us. Is that what I want?

No. I shrink back. No, that’s not what I want.

Zyneth gently shakes my arm. “Kanin? You’re quiet. Talk to me.”

“I just. I do not know what to do.” I’m shaken to my core. What else have I forgotten? How can I even find out? I don’t know what I don’t know.

“We can work through it,” Zyneth gently suggests. “If you’re feeling up to it.”

He must think I’m about to have another panic attack. Maybe I am.

I try to get a grip, wishing I could take a breath or close my eyes. Instead, as Zyneth had once suggested to me before, I count back from ten.

I don’t know if it helps, but I feel a little less scattered. “Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

“Can you remember all the times you felt this… tear?” Zyneth suggests. “The number of times that separating from the predator has been painful?”

I try to think back. “The first time it took control,” I say, immediately. “In Peakshadow. I was fighting with everything I had. I felt some sense of… wrongness then, even though I did not know what it meant.”

“Okay, good,” Zyneth says. “I know asking you to think about these moments is difficult. But can you remember the next?”

I have to think harder about that. “Yedzaquib,” I finally say. “In their library, I freed more of the predator from my Inventory to catch you. After we escaped and were running through the city… That was the second time.”

Zyneth is frowning, but he nods encouragingly. He still hasn’t let go of my arm. I let his grip ground me.

“I am not sure about Emrox,” I admit. “I do not remember experiencing this pain then, but we were both disoriented after the blast. That might have been another time. And then most recently, on the pirate ship. After the predator tried to kill that nereid.”

“So, three times,” Zyneth says. “Possibly four. It hasn’t happened too frequently, which is a good thing.”

“Yes.” I don’t feel as confident as him, but he’s right at least that it’s only been a few times. If I lost one memory each time, then that’s at most four things I’ve forgotten.

I’m not sure that makes me feel much better.

“And you said the memories are still within the predator?” Zyneth prompts.

“Yes,” I say. “At least, this one is. There might be more, but I do not know how to find out.”

“Well, that’s something then,” he says. “They’re not completely gone. You can still access them. You still have them with you.”

“Maybe,” I agree. “But what about Emrox? Something happened to the predator there. A lot of it was separated from me, and did not come back.” That flutter of fear is returning again. “What if pieces of me vanished with it?”

Gently, he takes my hand that’s still scrunched protectively against my chest, and pulls it away. “I don’t think this line of thinking will help anything. It’s possible something like that happened. But it’s also possible it didn’t. You’re worrying over something that you have no control over and might not be. But look: Now you know. Now you have more control. You understand what that feeling means, so you can ensure it doesn’t happen again. It might not feel good, but this is a good thing for you to have learned. It gives you more autonomy over future choices.”

“I guess.” My soul still feels all knotted up, though. I let out a small laugh. “And you are right it does not feel very good.”

“But it doesn’t have to get worse,” he insists. “And who you are, right now, today, is just as much you as the first time I met you. Actually, I think this is a better you.”

“Now you are just trying to flatter,” I half-heartedly tease.

He smiles. “Perhaps.”

His gaze slowly shifts back out to sea, and I follow the look. The port is clearly visible, now. It won’t be long until we dock.

Zyneth leans back against the rail, silently watching the approaching city. He hasn’t let go of my hand yet. I don’t let go of his, either. I rest against the railing beside him, then slowly lean his way until our shoulders bump. The tension in my soul eases.

“Thanks,” I say.

His eyes crease with a smile.

We stay that way until the ship arrives.