The city was fully formed but Ratface hadn’t appeared in it this time. Instead, she was on the road just outside it.

It was still so clearly a city from here, the trees wrapped around the place in a cocoon. The wonders within hidden from view by the equally great living wall she was looking at. Even the gate people walked through was alive, opening and closing as people came into the city. If you were to lay siege, you wouldn’t only fight the people, but the city itself.

Ratface shivered. It may be her head but being put out here was a reminder, this memory belonged to the glamour.

The glamour herself sat on a rock before the gate. She wasn’t a little girl. This time she appeared before Ratface with an older form, the same age as Ratface herself. Her hair was longer, and she looked more tired, more real than the girl had. Ratface realised that this was the glamours actual form. The tiredness was interesting. To her knowledge a glamour couldn’t get tired, not physically anyway. This must all be mental then.

Ratface stepped closer and the gate shut. Not exactly a subtle comment.

“We can’t save Halmir as we are right now,” said Ratface.

The glamour rolled her eyes.

“A poor start to our negotiations. I don’t care about Halmir, remember?”

Ratface shook her head.

“This can’t be negotiations. We have to trust each other. I have to have a reason to trust you.”

“You trusting me is only half the equation.”

“You live in my head! You keep my memories from me, what trust do you even need from me?”

The sky darkened as the glamour stood up. The memory rumbled as her fury shook it apart.

“Do you think I want to be in here? Do you think I enjoy being stuck? I did as I was asked and what’s my reward huh? To be stuck in the head of someone who hates me.”

She lashed out and the memory behind them broke. It faded into nothing.

“I heard you with that druid. Trust my nature? How can you trust it when you don’t even know it.”

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The memory reformed around them. This time, everything was dark. Only a campfire in the middle, illuminating a sleeping Ratface and the glamour standing next to her.

“It’s not my place to ask,” said a voice Ratface recognised. Her own mothers. “You are not my glamour.”

“I don’t think my owner would refuse you,” said the glamour. Its voice was distorted, like even now it was tampering with the memory. It must be showing her something so close to what it needed to hide as to need to be hidden.

“Glamours shouldn’t have an owner,” her mother said. The glamour walked towards the shadows. Her mother was hidden from view even here, the other glamour worming its tendrils into it. It knelt to where her mother was.

“Ask.”

“Make her forget, keep it all away from her. I won’t take her to a city again.”

The glamour looked at Ratface’s sleeping form. She was much littler there.

“Okay,” the glamour said. It went to walk over to Ratface, but a green hand shot out of the darkness and caught it.

“You should know that if you do this, she will kill you one day.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“She would. She might not even realise she is, but she will.”

“So little faith in her,” said the glamour, “I’ll do it anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because you asked.” She leant over Ratface and stroked her head, parts of her already being absorbed by Ratface.

“Maybe you’ll be wrong, I’ll trust her to save me,” said the glamour. The memory faded as the glamour merged into Ratface. Only darkness was left in its wake.

“I was wrong of course. You will kill me, once you’ve gotten your use out of me.”

The glamour sat down in the middle of the darkness.

“For a while, I thought we could be friends. The training was making me stronger. We talked for once. Then I got to hear how you talked about me.”

“I didn’t know what you were hiding. Can you really blame me?”

“Yes.”

Ratface sat next to her. They’d touched on this conversation before. The glamour seemed so complex. Impossible to attack, and yet incredibly delicate.

Ratface hadn’t killed a person before. She’d been prepared to sure, but the sheer inevitability here made her feel sick. Yet not killing the glamour meant never seeing what was in there. Never really knowing everything about herself.

The memory seemed important; she didn’t know what it was, but it was like a puzzle she only needed the one piece to finish. All it would cost was the glamours life.

“I won’t kill you,” Ratface said eventually. The glamour snorted.

“You will,” it promised, “you’ll catch a thread and start pulling until I unravel. You won’t be able to help yourself.”

“I won’t. How could I after what I showed you? Why didn’t you show me this earlier?”

“It’s too close to what I’m hiding. You’ll work it out now. You may have already done so.” She laughed to herself, and the sound of a ticking clock rung in the darkness. “Only a matter of time.”

Ratface grabbed her hand, she looked at the glamour. Yes, a part of her hated her, but how could she look at someone filled with that level of fear and just ignore it.

“I will save you. Trust me. Trust me, like you trusted a younger me.”

The glamour looked down at her hand, then at her face. For a moment, it looked like she would be swayed. Then the light left, and she offered Ratface a brittle smile.

“I will trust in your nature.”

The dream faded and Ratface woke up with her hand holding onto nothing. She didn’t know what to do.

Still, they had a trust between them, a fragile one, built on despair. It’d have to be enough.