Blink and you miss it. Zyneth drops his hand, and like a magic trick everything around us has changed. The buildings are shorter, the stonework tan instead of red, even the direction and length of the shadows has changed.

And I didn’t catch any glimpse of Between. I guess that’s how it’s supposed to work, when no senile wizards are meddling with extra-dimensional magic.

Rezira lets out a breath as she steps off the platform. “There. See? It was fine.” I can’t tell if she’s talking to Noli or herself. “Hurry up now.” She waves for Attiru and Zyneth to follow. “Our home’s this way.”

“Would you prefer the shoulder?” Zyneth asks me as we strike out into the town. “I can keep carrying you this way as well, if you prefer.”

I hesitate. No one here would recognize me, since we left Tetara and Saru back in Harrowood. Although I can’t shake that last glimpse of Tetara from my mind. Was she looking at us because she saw me? Because she suspected something? Or did she just watch everyone who used the telepad?

Impossible for me to know now. But with every step we take away from the town’s center, they become less of a threat. Even if they did follow us through, they wouldn’t know which way we’d gone. More likely than not, I’m just being paranoid—though I think given everything I’ve gone through, it’s somewhat justified.

I gesture for Zyneth’s shoulder, and he obliges with his characteristic half smile. It feels somewhat less demeaning to ride on his shoulder like a glorified parrot rather than be carried around like a toy dog in a purse.

Somewhat.

This town is smaller than Harrowood, and it isn’t long until the buildings start to peter away. Unlike the walls surrounding Harrowood and Peakshadow, this city seems to gradually fade into the surrounding woods. Guess they don’t have to worry about undead wildlife here.

“I suppose I don’t need to go looking for a homunculi expert after all,” Attiru says. “Since it sounds like we’ll be able to manage all the spells ourselves.”

True, but we still haven’t communicated one crucial step of Noli’s resurrection. I flag down Noli to get her attention, but she still doesn’t speak up.

“If you need to get back to your own home, you’re more than welcome to,” Rezira says. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for us so far, but I’d understand if you have responsibilities to get back to.”

Attiru shakes their head. “My business is… on hold, at the moment.” An image of the destroyed Atlas Emporium flashes through my mind, guilt dripping through my soul. “Besides, I’ve come this far. I’d like to see things through to the end.”

This isn’t right. They don’t deserve to face the predator again, after everything I’ve already put them through.

“Noli,” I sign, snagging Rezira’s attention as well. “We need to warn about predator.”

Rezira narrows her eyes. “What? You need to warn us about what?”

“What are they saying?” Attiru asks, glancing back.

I’m worried about their reaction more than anyone else’s. Maybe they should leave. They’ve helped enough as it is. They should return home. Rest and heal up. Where it’s safe.

Noli wrings her limbs anxiously. What does she have to be worried about? Does she think they won’t help if they know about the predator? Well… Maybe that isn’t such a farfetched thought. I wouldn’t blame them.

“Noli,” I press. If she won’t say it, I’ll butcher my way through an explanation to Rezira, and hope she gets the gist.

“Okay,” Noli relents. “But you guys can’t blame Kanin, okay? You have to promise.”

Oh. Of course she’s not worried about herself; she’s worried about how they’ll treat me. Still trying to help, after everything. Despite the threat of everyone in this group turning against me, Noli’s words fill me with a touching warmth.

“What did he do?” Rezira’s voice is sharp.

“Nothing!” Noli signs. “Well, that’s not exactly true, but nothing intentional! Please, you have to promise first.”

Rezira squints at me, and I’m pretty sure I’ve made it onto her shit list no matter what Noli says next. “Fine. I won’t blame him.” Why do I hear an unspoken ‘But I won’t forgive him either’ in those words?

Noli turns to Attiru and Zyneth next.

“Of course,” Zyneth says. “Whatever the issue is, I’m sure any harm caused was not deliberate on Kanin’s part. Though, I do suspect I may already know what this is about.”

I inwardly grimace. He might be right that it wasn’t deliberate on my part, but it’s hard to separate that knowledge from the memories of wishing harm on others, of delighting in the violence. The fact that I can feel both at once is eating me up. Can we just rip this bandaid off already?

Attiru is the last to reply. They run a hand down their bandaged arm, looking at me, and I wonder if they also already know what’s coming. “Alright. Please enlighten us.”

And Noli tells them. Not just about the predator—who killed Trenevalt, who followed us to Peakshadow—but how it’s tied to me, how it was my actions that unknowingly summoned it, and that if I do these spells to get Noli back in her body, we would be summoning it again. Noli also tells them that it controlled me when it escaped in Peakshadow, but I don’t think she really understands the extent. She doesn’t know how we shared a consciousness. How, if we release it again, it might consume me, and I don’t know if there’s any guarantee I can escape its control a second time.

Even if I could communicate those thoughts, though, I’m not sure I want to put that all into words. In fact, it’s probably best if I don’t. It won’t change what needs to be done.

The group walks in silence for a few moments after Rezira finishes translating. She’s the first one to speak again. “So that hole torn through you.” She touches the patch on Noli’s side, then nods to Attiru. “Their arm. That all happened because he summoned this predator?”

“You promised not to blame him!” Noli frantically signs. “He didn’t know! Neither of us did.”

Rezira blows air out her nose in a sigh. “I know. You’re right. And I don’t blame him.” She looks at me again, and this time I’m shaken to find pity in her eyes. Pity? That doesn’t feel right. It’s my fault.

“Thank you for telling me.” Attiru is rubbing their injured arm again. “It’s best to understand what I’m getting myself into. I’m certainly not interested in encountering that creature again.” Of course they’re not, why would they? They should leave now, before I put them in danger again. “However,” they continue, “It seems to me it was defeated once before, so it can be defeated again.”

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

“Excellent point,” Zyneth agrees. “Though I did not witness this creature myself, I heard the stories in its aftermath. It sounded as though a few well-placed blows was enough to dissipate it, though I expect that’s not the full story. But if we enter this encounter fully prepared, I suspect we stand a good chance of besting it. Well, Kanin?” He gives me a sidelong look. “What all can you tell us?”

Baffled, I find everyone’s watching me. Not with hate or disgust or even fear, but with expectation. Just… curiosity. Even Attiru, still cradling their injured arm, and Noli, with her patched torso: They all just want to help.

I don’t understand. I’m the cause of their injuries. I deserve their scorn, not their forgiveness. How can they be so compassionate? How are they all just… so much better than me?

“Why help me?” I ask. “I hurt you.”

“It wasn’t you, Kanin,” Noli signs. “No matter what you’ve convinced yourself of. And of course we want to help. Because we’re in this together. Because we’re friends.”

Rezira snorts. “My reason isn’t nearly so altruistic. I just want to save my wife.”

“Noli’s actions saved my life,” Attiru adds. “So it seems fitting I should return the favor.”

Zyneth chuckles. “I’d like to say Kanin saved me as well, but the actual circumstances were rather reversed.”

Hah, fair enough.

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, as much as my position on his shoulder allows. “Though, the way you threw yourself in front of a nest of bonefangs in an attempt to protect me, a complete stranger, speaks well of your character. I returned after my mission because I promised I would, but also because you’ve piqued my interest. I find your circumstances fascinating, and I wish to see how it all plays out. If I can offer my assistance along the way, so much the better.” For some reason, I find his explanation the most comforting out of everyone’s. The most real.

“So get over yourself,” Rezira adds. “We aren’t all trying to help you out of the goodness of our hearts.” Noli starts to interject. “All of us except Noli. Now, are you going to tell us what you know about the predator or what?”

Rezira’s words dissipate the last of my surprise. I’ve been so focused on trying to do what I’d decided was best for Noli that I didn’t stop for a second to think about what everyone else wanted. It’s about time I changed that.

“The predator needs my magic,” I start to explain.

As best I can, I tell them about the void limit, and how it feeds off my mana and inventory use. How, when it had possessed me, it targeted souls as a kind of energy source—possibly as a means to stay in the real world and delay its inevitable rebound Between. As I stumble my way through the explanation, Noli often jumps in to supply me with words I don’t know. Haltingly, I even try to articulate the shared mind I’d experienced. How I felt and thought and desired what it did. And still, miraculously, no one’s gaze turns into a frown. No one looks at me with blame. Instead, I’m met only with looks of sympathy.

“So it seems the greatest weakness we can exploit is time,” Zyneth ventures once I’ve relayed everything I can think of. “If we stop it from taking any souls, it will eventually slip Between once more.”

He makes “Keep it from killing anyone” sound so easy.

“With the three of us, that shouldn’t be difficult,” Rezira says. She glances at Attiru. “Maybe two of us.”

“You’ll likely need my help,” they say. “Forgive me for assuming, but as a healer, you’re probably not as practiced in combat, right?”

Rezira puffs up defiantly—then deflates just as quickly. “Noli’s the weapons expert.”

I do a double take. Excuse me?

“Then it would be best for you to keep out of the predator’s range,” Zyneth says. “Although any backup you could provide to Attiru and I would be welcome.”

“No,” I interrupt. “Not both you.”

“What do you mean?” Zyneth asks.

“Need more magic after first spell,” I sign. There are three spells I’ll need to activate in rapid succession to transfer Noli’s soul back to her body, and the first spell will cause the Void stat to hit 100%. So I’ll need Zyneth on standby to give me enough mana for the last two spells ASAP so I can get them off before the predator fully emerges.

Hopefully.

Zyneth nods as I explain all this. “That will make things trickier.” And with him acting as support, it means we’ll have lost our best fighter. Not to mention, it’ll place him smack in the middle of the danger zone. We agreed the best way to defeat the predator is to make sure it won’t have any access to more souls, but with me needing Noli and Zyneth in close proximity, we’re already giving it an opportunity to take precisely what it wants.

A faint smile pulls at Zyneth’s lips. “I suppose we’ll just have to act quickly.”

I’ve never seen someone so eager to jump, unarmed, into a potentially fatal scenario before. This man’s got a death wish or something.

The group continues to discuss strategies and placements as we wind our way through the forested road, walking quickly, yet talking as casually as if they were going over plans for an upcoming dinner rather than a perilous battle with a shadow monster. But it kind of helps. Maybe Noli’s optimism is rubbing off, but everyone talking about everything so confidently makes victory sound a little more real, the threat of confronting the predator again just a little less dreadful. With everyone here to help, maybe I really can do this.

The afternoon is growing long as Rezira finally leads us off the main road and onto a faint, winding path. The trail takes us by several fields of unidentifiable crops—some unidentifiable due to their glowing lights or wiggling forms, others due simply to my lack of agricultural knowledge—and the occasional house or cabin. Every once in a while, we pass by someone out working in the fields; their presence makes me nervous, but I’m also reassured by how remote we now are. If the predator does escape our grasp, I don’t think it’ll be close enough to hurt anyone else out here before it loses its hold on reality.

I mentally snort at that. If we lose, it’ll only kill everyone I know on this planet. Hooray.

Rezira grunts as we pass by another cabin, a couple of wrinkled and graying dwarves sitting out on their front porch watching us as we pass.

“Look at that,” one of the dwarves grumbles loudly. She strokes her beard. “More riffraff moving in.”

“That damn urban expansion,” the other one agrees, equally loud. “I told you we shouldn’t have settled this close to Bluevine. Attracts all the wrong sorts.”

“There goes the neighborhood,” the woman says.

Rezira mutters something about nosey neighbors. “Hey, Elder Brookbanks!” she adds, much louder. “It’s just us, the Nettlebanes. We’ve lived here for five years now.”

The woman dwarf twists a finger in her ear. “It’s that orc again. The ugly one. I don’t see her nice wife.”

“If she’s been replaced with that sorry lot, I’m moving out,” her husband says.

I can practically see the steam rising off of Rezira. She opens her mouth to say something else, then snaps it shut again. She plasters a terrifying fake smile on and waves again as the dwarf couple and their house falls behind us.

“Well they seem charming,” Zyneth says.

Rezira grinds her teeth. “Fucking Brookbanks.”

After another fifteen minutes of walking, we come upon a smaller path that branches off the main road, marked by a signpost that’s been hand-painted with intricate, loopy letters. It reads Rezira the Healer, the i dotted with a tiny red heart, and is accompanied by a large arrow made out of flowers and vines which points down the path.

“What a delightful sign,” Zyneth says, laughter in his voice.

Attiru also raises an amused eyebrow as Rezira clears her throat, shoulders hunched with embarrassment. “It’s for the townsfolk,” she says as she hurries past.

It doesn’t take a world-class detective to figure out which of the couple painted it.

The path leads us to a small clearing, inside which is a single homey cottage. A picketed-off square of dirt marks the beginnings of a vegetable garden, and wildflowers are scattered like embers about the house. Blue light glows from the windows, spilling out into the surrounding forest.

Rezira stops at the front door, casting a glance back at the rest of us. For a brief moment, I almost think I can make out nervousness flickering over her face. “Well, here we are. Home sweet home.” Inserting a key into the lock, she pulls the door open, and more of the light pours out across the front steps. Rezira heads in first, followed by Attiru. Zyneth and I are last.

It might have been a nice home at one point; there’s a stove and simple kitchen, a bed and bookshelf, and spears and bows mounted decoratively to the walls. But everything has been shoved haphazardly to the side, a jar of beans spilled across the floor, plates fallen and left forgotten. An enormous spell circle has been drawn across the wooden floor, almost as big as the cottage itself, which is the source of the blue light I’d seen shining through the windows. Carefully positioned in the middle of that circle is a table, piled with a nest of blankets and linens. And on that table, for the first time, I am greeted with a strange, yet familiar, form.

Noli.