Chapter 1

Yarn over. Push in. Yarn over. Pull out. Yarn over. Pull through. Repeat. Again. Chain up. Another row. Yarn over.

The wooden rod continued to slowly feed the fluffy white yarn through Kelso’s dexterous fingers while the hook wove the yarn into the last chain needed for the round. There was a click. The little jellyfish stitch marker swung. Kelso blinked. Three new stitches had come into being and the marker was already back in its place.

How many times now?

Too many? The billionth? Never ending?

It was strange to him. Despite eighteen years of dealing with these inconsistent although brief “blank outs”, as he had taken to calling them, a bit of anxiety still managed to worm its way into his chest. The constant dosing of lyligan pills from the skittish Prohylmancer who came to the tiny two-bedroom apartment every two weeks was supposedly helping but… well even if they were helping, the dreams he had…

He hated side effects.

Yarn over. Push in. Yarn over. Pull out. Yarn over. Pull through. Repeat. Again. Chain up. Another row. Yarn over.

It wasn’t a health risk at the very least not that there was anything he could do that was overly dangerous to his health minus the steeper ramps he used to get to and from classes. Even those didn’t pose too much of a threat to him unless he rammed into someone on the way down but on the off chance someone was behind him they usually had the wherewithal to catch the push handles.

They would look down and smile, maybe even crack a joke afterward, nothing too harsh or out of pocket but something they hoped would get a chuckle out of him. Then the offers would come. The looks. The forced promises of help in the future.

Yarn over. Push in. Yarn over. Pull out. Yarn over. Pull thro-

The yarn snapped.

Kelso’s hands shook. Blotches of red appeared in random spots on his hands which felt like they were furnaces being fed coal. The white yarn slipped out from around his fingers revealing the raw clumps of flesh that had suffered from the constant friction burn. He set the wooden handle of the 8mm hook on top of the blanket adorning his legs and inhaled a deep breath while slowly stretching out his stiff fingers.

He wrapped his hands around the cool metal underneath the armrests periodically relocating them when they began to overheat the metal. He could open the one window in his room but honestly, he didn’t have it in him to listen to the high-pitched hiss of residual elemental energy from the building’s heating unit.

Instead, Kelso simply gave himself a break and wiped his sweaty palms against the fluffy yarn of his lap blanket.

As much of a form of meditation as crocheting was to him it could still burn him out and that made mistakes more common. He slid the hook back into its slot within a leather case full of various other-sized hooks, zipped it shut, and shoved the case into the small bag he kept draped over the right push handle.

In his lap sat the unfinished form of his latest project, a moss-covered marble golem, its upper half a deep shade of emerald that caught Kelso’s eye the last time he had gone on a yarn run. The entire head had been created from that yarn with a few stragglers of white dotted along until the roles reversed for the body and the white yarn became the dominant color with small pockets of green.

Kelso sighed.

He had been so close to completing the little creature just a few more rounds for its leg and it would’ve been free to join the countless other little plushies that gathered dust in his room. Kelso set the creature down on the small table at the end of his bed next to where his crocheting set-up sat. The piece was beyond anything he could’ve scraped together with a rolling piece of wood for his working yarn, a small box for his stitch markers, and other hooks for the spools of yarn he most frequently used in projects.

He had gotten a decent deal on it from one of the Freefolk caravans back when they used to come into this part of town and not only had it proven its worth but it had also made back its cost within a couple months. A win-win in his eyes minus the burnt and chipped parts of course. A small ping echoed throughout the room drawing Kelso’s attention over to his knock-off DiviniCryst 4 as two more pings forced the device’s surface to blink on.

The boards below creaked. He forced the wheels forward towards his bed where his Divini lay nestled within the infuriating folds of his blankets. He could see the glowing surface of the device but even then it still took him several minutes of throwing the blankets this way and that before he finally found it.

Once Kelso finally had it in his hands he tapped the screen’s surface with his thumb. One of the notifications came straight from the school board containing the schedule for tomorrow’s S&G ceremony; another was an order confirmation notification from the DivSite he used to sell his crocheted work. There was a third notification from his friend Bukè but Kelso saw that it was just a link to some meme he had found on Bardapop.

The order had been for one of his dragon keychains, specifically a cerulean blue dragonette with gold accents along its horns and sides. Placing the crystal on his lap Kelso spun around to face the repurposed scrollcases that made up the other half of his room. These he hadn’t paid for. It had just come with the apartment when they had first moved in; all they had done was set the two cases on their sides so Kelso could use the cubby holes for storage.

He kept all of the dragons on the bottom left side of the case far enough away from the Wyverns but still the closest to the window so they could have a view of the magenta sky outside. Kelso smiled to himself. He loved the stories Brennan came up with to help organize the different plushies the Divines above knew Kelso couldn’t do it by himself.

After a couple minutes of rooting around in the cubby hole, Kelso managed to find the little dragonette which he sat beside his Divini before spinning back around to face his bed. Rolling up parallel to the bed frame Kelso pulled the rolled-up TransMat out from beneath and set it atop his mattress. Pushing the blankets into the corner of his bed beside his pillow Kelso unfastened the buckle that kept the TransMat in a bundle and unfurled the coarse fabric.

The maroon runes woven in released a small zap once the enchanted tool lay flat forcing Kelso to add another mental note to the already overflowing list. Deciding to give the TransMat a couple seconds to warm up, Kelso checked the order confirmation notification again to get the specific location he needed to send the piece.

Another ping.

Bukè again. Kelso shook his head, took a screenshot of the address, and switched over to Bardapop to see what Bukè was sending him. The first one was just a video of some Pyromancer trying out a new fireworks spell for the upcoming MidSuns summer festival which included a depiction of Sol-Ӓtar the Sun Divine slinging solar flares. Kelso thought it was a pretty impressive design which got his mind focused on figuring out the necessary pattern needed to crochet the design.

He blinked and realized he had begun doom-scrolling again while he was working out the intricacies of the pattern. A little mental chastisement and a quick swipe later he was on to the second video which depicted an undead being forced into the Apocraphasam mines by holy casters. The undead was lugging a sack full of blank Elemiena crystals out of a seafoam-colored fog that hid one of the many entrances only to quickly dump the contents out and skitter back into the murky depths under the threat of exorcism.

Kelso felt that familiar sense of pity well up within him but after years of watching these kinds of videos an overriding sense of desensitization fell over him. What could he possibly do against the Stained Order?

Another ping.

“Any plans after the ceremony tomorrow?”

Lines of maroon magik script began to worm out of the TransMat floating out into the empty air surrounding Kelso’s head.

“Brennan managed to get the day off so we’re probably going to just stay in and celebrate. You?”

Kelso placed the dragonette within the center of the magik circle and traced his finger along the runes to enter the address he had screenshotted earlier and felt the magik from the worn-out Astral Elemiena pour into the device. There was another zap of magikal energy then the dragonette disappeared and two more pings erupted from the Divini.

Payment and confirmation of delivery.

Kelso tapped the little notification banner at the top right of the screen and almost dropped the Divini on his lap once he saw the full payment. He had always tried to be fair with his prices but after months of no sales, he had to lower them to the point where they really only covered the price of yarn and groceries. With the DivSite he used you could set up a tip option for anything that you might sell which he thought was a better option than the donation funnel that just fed back into the company rather than to any of the charities you chose to funnel into.

He had relied on this tip option for the majority of his income as a result so whenever he got a good tip he made sure to send a thank you message through the DivSite. But this?

What kind of thank you would be acceptable for 150,000 telluade!!

Another ping.

“Nothing too grand figured I’d pop by if that’s alright with ya?”

Kelso laid the Divini on his bed and put his shaking hands over his mouth in an attempt to keep the smile hidden from the universe in fear that it was just playing a cruel joke on him. The ginger peach fuzz that passed as his “facial hair” poked annoyingly into his hands but for the first time since puberty, he couldn’t care less!

Another ping.

“Kelso? Ya there fleshy?”

Another ping. Tip Confirmed.

Kelso laughed and pumped his fists in the air seven hells he would have shouted at the top of his lungs if not for the elderly neighbors they had on either side of them and their growing list of noise complaints against him and Brennan.

Dopamine shot through his body and gave him more energy than he really needed at nine o’clock. He snatched the Divini off his bed.

“Forget what I just said. Remember that metal venue you told me about last week?”

“What? Yea, I do I remember us not being able to afford a ticket so unless you’re willing to fork up the 40 telluade for both of us I don’t see how we’re gonna be able to go.”

“:)”

“No fucking way.”

“I think I can get Brennan to come as well.”

“Did you forfeit your ration stamps for the next two months?! Sweet Myria’s spear how’re you able to afford all three of us?”

“Send me the line-up for the venue. I'll ask Brennan when he gets home from work.”

“So you’re just not gonna tell me alright fleshy I’ll remember that.”

The Divini blinked off and the battery charge indicator popped onto the screen cutting their conversation short and forcing Kelso to quickly plug it into the spare divination Elemiena beneath his bed. Spinning around he pushed movement into the wheels and made his way out into the pitch-black hallway stopping only for a second to properly orient himself. Thanks to their darksight ability undead rarely needed light sources, unfortunately, that meant Brennan never bothered to think about them when looking for apartments.

To rectify this Brennan, after sacrificing a majority of a paycheck, bought Kelso a pair of used darksight glasses that gave him the same ability which consequently saved them a ton on their electricity bill. The narrow hallway opened up into a small kitchenette containing a medium-sized fridge to his immediate right, an oven beside it with only two stove tops, a sink, and two or three cupboards above.

The other half of the room was essentially their entryway with a boot rack for all 3 pairs of shoes the two of them owned and a row of mounted coat hooks that had come with the place. Kelso pushed aside a bottle of necrotized Slateburden Ale and grabbed what remained of the “good” red wine Brennan had bought for Kelso’s 18th nameday. After placing the bottle and a semi-clean glass on the small dining table Kelso got the leftover portions of chicken, celery, carrots, onions, and a few of other seasonings.

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The sound of the oven’s pyro Elemiena shuddering to life filled the small space as he cranked the ignition knob on and rested a hand over the stovetop to ensure it hadn’t broken like last time. Next, he lifted a pot from the cleaning mat beside the sink and filled it with water before setting it atop the stovetop. He chose to cut up the ingredients at the dining table while he waited.

 Kelso was able to make just about any meal he pleased thanks to Brennan’s lack of taste buds but he knew Brennan enjoyed a hearty chicken soup after a long day especially when working with active Blightchem. Kelso understood why Brennan had to work at the military chem factory on account of the undead being the only ones able to safely work in the vicinity of the malicious gas but he wished any of the other fifty jobs Brennan had applied for had responded sooner.

Kelso blinked.

The onion had been completely diced and the carrots were already cut into all too perfect bits for the soup. He had just been cutting the celery. Kelso set the knife down on the wooden cutting board and spun around to check on the water which fortunately hadn’t reached its boiling point. He released a relieved sigh. The length of the blank outs were almost as inconsistent as when they came to him which made it all the more jarring.

He resumed his preparations by gathering some bay leaves, dried thyme, and dried rosemary which he proceeded to crush. The longest time he remembered blanking out was a full four and half hours when he and Brennan had gone out for the yearly visit to the Necromancer who had resurrected Bren so the mage could give a sort of magikal tune-up. Only Brennan and the Necromancer knew what actually transpired during their little meetings leaving Kelso to guess and draw conclusions.

He had been waiting patiently outside of the Necromancer’s sanitarium which had the added obstacle of being raised off the ground making stairs and thus the use of legs mandatory to get in. It started as it always does. With a blink.

Suddenly Kelso had found himself deep within the endless silver corridor-like walls that defined the monolithic Candon Towers to which the High Elves called home. A young High Elf had been leaning down in front of him, now that he thought back on it she might have been a few centuries older than him, checking to make sure he was alright. He appreciated that of course and thanked her profusely but was left dumbfounded at how he had even gotten in.

It wasn’t as if the Candon Towers were cut off from the rest of Derwulan but the general rabble of the city tended to avoid the northern area as a whole. 

Kelso had found out why that day.

He had always prided himself on his own hygiene routine considering it was one of the first things he had fought against Brennan to control and do for himself when he was a kid. He kept his ginger-blonde hair in a medium faded mullet for the most part and did his best to clean up his patchy beard line whenever it started to creep further up onto his cheek. For the most, part his clothes were pretty neutral colors, a plain t-shirt that matched whatever color of blanket he had on his lap that day and a pair of shorts or jeans depending on the turning of the seasons. So maybe a few holes had popped up here and there over the years they were all hidden from sight… most of them were.

Compared to denizens of the Candon Towers though he was just a pile of human trash on the side of the walkway and they didn’t try to hide that fact either. Races of all kinds roamed about the exposed walkways connecting the Candon Towers and not one of them came out in anything less than a five-piece suit or the most elegant of silken robes.

Cloudwalkers were what Brennan would call them during the wee hours of the morning when they sat by the open kitchenette window passing a loaded pipe of Shifterweed back and forth. Bren would ramble on about the control they had over the weather and could make it as warm or cold as they needed or wanted making the purpose of one’s attire utterly dependent on social class.

There Kelso sat in the middle of one such walkway wearing nothing more than a day-old t-shirt that may have had a cranberry juice stain just below his chin and a pair of ripped jeans gawking at the elegant form of the elf. In her periwinkle robe with its meticulously hemmed peach-colored accents, she beckoned over a pair of golden gilded automatons that served as the Candon Towers’s personal militia.

The elf left Kelso with a business smile and in the care of the mechanical guards whose monotonous voices ordered him over to one of the many TeleCircles that made travel throughout Derwulan seamless and efficient. Kelso doubted if anyone in the Candon Towers had ever been born with any kind of disability due to the lack of handicap infrastructure and the repeated robotic order for him to move along faster.

After a short conversation with the TeleCircle operator, a check of the time on his Divini, and an input of his apartment address later he managed to find his way back into their stuffy little home in time for a painfully long lecture. He found out another vital piece of information that day.

The Undead could still have panic attacks.

Bukè just laughed what remained of his ass off when he heard about Kelso’s escapade until Bren backed up his story after which a flood of questions came tumbling out. A gurgling sound began to slowly build up behind him to which he quickly turned the knob down to a lower heat and began adding the prepared ingredients. The actual meal wouldn’t be ready for another couple of hours plus Kelso couldn’t even reach the poison Bren needed to enjoy regular meals so he would just have to wait until Bren got home.

Not wanting to leave the stove top unsupervised Kelso brought his crocheting equipment and Divini charger out on his lap. He decided against finishing the golem for now and instead set about starting on a little Fungal friend that had recently blown up in popularity in his shop. He always loved using the maroon yarn for the cap seven hells it paired with pretty much anything.

There was a click at the doorway about twenty minutes past twelve meaning Bren had stopped off at a mini-mart before coming home. The creaking of the door broke the methodic tunes of the bubbling broth and the inconsistent pings of Kelso’s Divini when Bukè sent him something. The shedding of boots and protective layers followed shortly after the familiar lock of the door.

It was easy to know where Bren was in the apartment thanks to the neverending clacking sound the bony feet made when they fell upon the creaky wooden boards that served as their flooring. If Kelso could have snuck out during his early teen years it would have been easier than the rigged Kariku racing event the school held for the students at the end of every year.

Bren came up to Kelso’s side and peered over the lip of the pot to examine the contents that lay within. Undead facial features didn’t make a lot of their emotions easily identifiable, at least not the faces that had lost all of their previous flesh since resurrection. Kelso however thanks to his constant exposure to Brennan was able to somewhat anticipate those thoughts through Bren’s mannerisms such as the slight shiver of the spinal cord when Bren spotted something that evokes happiness.

Bren’s hands exploded into movement becoming little more than white blurs in front of Kelso.

“Whoa ho ho we’re making soup, are we? Did those bureaucratic hardasses finally fork over my life insurance policy?”

Kelso chuckled while Bren opened one of the overhead cupboards and retrieved a vial of greenish-black liquid that swirled around in itself like liquid glitter. Bren spun around behind Kelso with the grace and familiarity of a dancer going through their daily routine before grabbing two bowls from the clean mat beside the sink where Kelso had gotten the pot. After placing the two bowls on the dining table, Bren's graceful fingers pulled two spoons out from the utensil drawer, laid them beside the bowls, and spun Kelso over to the set table.

Kelso patiently waited while Bren poured the soup into the bowls by laying a heavy white cloth over his lap blanket. Too many blankouts during dinner had sent his blankets off to the wash making him feel naked while they got cleaned. Bren retrieved the Slateburden Ale from the fridge, plopped it down beside the bowl and sat down. Only after Bren had emptied the necrotizing solution into the bowl of soup and had a chance to slurp the broth down did Kelso respond with his own flurry of hand gestures.

“So remember how I said I didn’t want to do anything grand after the ceremony tomorrow?”

“Sure, how could I forget that time you blatantly and painfully shot down all of my wonderfully fantastic ideas?”

Kelso’s eyes narrowed at Bren while he blew the steam away from his own spoon but Bren’s ivory face remained as impassive as ever.

“Well I was thinking…”

“Never a good sign.”

Kelso blew a huff out of his nose and catapulted a soggy length of celery at one of Bren’s vacant eye sockets only for Bren to swerve out of the way. A counter fling with a piece of carrot planted itself smack dab in the middle of Kelso’s forehead sending Bren’s spine into a buzzing storm. Bren struck a long decaying finger out towards the orange horn.

“Transmuters be damned, I made the first Unicuman!!”

“HUMACORN YOU MAGGOT INFESTED MORON!”

“I’LL NAME MY CREATION WHATEVER I DAMN WELL WANT!”

Their hands threw insults back and forth like a game of firebolt catch until they both chuckled and returned to their respective bowls of soup.

“What were ya saying before your miraculous transformation?”

“Well… Bukè found a heavy metal venue scheduled a couple hours after the ceremony and they got Deckard’s Thorns, Necrophrose, and Tusker’s sy- .”

Bren set the spoon down beside the bowl and held up a bony hand to stop Kelso before pointing to Kelso’s bowl and waiting for him to eat more before continuing the conversation.

“You want to go to a concert? Sorry kiddo but even if I wanted to go we just don’t have the telluades to spare.”

Kelso set his Divini on the table, allowed a broad smile to finally crawl across his face, and slid the device over to Bren; its pale screen light gave Bren’s skull a haunting edge.

“I don’t thi-”

Bren’s spoon clattered into the half-empty bowl of soup making Kelso’s hands stutter to a stop. Undead facial features didn’t make a lot of their emotions easily identifiable so it’s easy for people to misunderstand Undead intentions; it was just another unfortunate side effect of undeath.

Fear however. Is easily identifiable within anything living or dead.

Bren’s usual jolly aura soured almost instantaneously every single visible piece of bone sent vivid vibrations through the table and caused Kelso’s body to shiver as if their bodies were having some kind of unknowing conversation. Bren’s skull slowly turned back to Kelso. Only now fiery emerald orbs floated in the usually empty sockets and within Kelso could see the languished depths of the undead’s eternally cursed soul peering back. 

“Who sent you this?! Do you know them?! Did they message you?!”

Bren would’ve continued to fire off questions until Sol-Ӓtar pulled the two suns past their threshold if it wasn’t for the constant trembling which eventually prevented the decomposed digits from forming coherent sentences. Kelso was slow to respond not out of fear for this rarely-seen side of Bren but because he wanted the orbs of magikal energy to blink out first.

Just like anyone else the Undead could lose control of their emotions unlike everyone else though the Undead fell victim to the Hunger. Be it magic, items, people, or even loved ones there would be no stopping them once they began to Devour. Kelso had seen it happen all too often on the news and the grief wasn’t the only thing that followed afterwards. They remembered.

It had been Bren’s biggest shame since Kelso had been a child. None of the undead could neither control nor foretell the sudden onset of madness and on more than one occasion Bren had been forced to lock Kelso in his room after coming home from the Blightchem plant. After the third time it happened Bren broke down on the floor with a random bottle of liquor and told him about the family from before and how they had been there to witness the resurrection; how they hadn’t known about the buffer time Bren’s consciousness needed to connect with the soul.

Undead can’t cry, they just aren’t able to.

Kelso held no fear in his heart though. How could he? This was his friend. His biggest supporter. His parent. Kelso refused to fear someone who loved him.

Laying a hand upon Brennan’s own he held the Undead’s hellish gaze until the orbs started diminishing and released a sigh of relief once they had blinked out of existence altogether. Bren’s fingers were slow to move again but once they began they fell together in graceful dance once more.

“Thank you.”

Kelso nodded once. The chances of a Devour event happening had been quelled but the preparation for such an event was as taxing on the undead as the aftermath of a dopamine dump was for humanoids. Kelso collected the bowls onto his lap leaving Bren at the table while he went up the small ramp that put him at a comfortable height to do the dishes.

The faucet sputtered for a second but after a soft love tap from Kelso, the typical murky stream of water began to pour out and after throwing on some poison-resistant gloves got to work on the dishes. Kelso hummed a melody to himself while he worked one he had heard a while back when his senior World History class had taken a week-long trip to the Baraura Outlands. The class was supposed to be learning about the oral history of the Guulk-Ogtir an amphibious relative of the High Elves.

Before the first night even came to a close one of the teachers ended up drunk with the chieftain which led to some… well it was best not to imagine it. The rest of the trip was filled with drunken revelry, great feasts, and most importantly singing. Their ethereal marsh village had not a spot devoid of a trained voice. Songs of despair and love melded into one another as easily as butter melted under the intense heat of a Volcanum’s touch.

 On the plus side, the teacher went on to become royalty and gave up the Scholars Path to see his royal role out to the end. He still stopped by when he found the time and as an added bonus the chieftain would come with from time to time bringing exotic gifts for the class. Kelso had almost reached the end of the melody his teacher had sung during his drunken courting when suddenly he felt the pointy grip of Bren’s hand on his shoulder.

Kelso peeled the wet gloves off, backed off the ramp with Brennan’s help, and spun to face Brennan who was pulling a chair over. Brennan began slowly.

“I’m sorry for losing my cool so suddenly I want you to know it was not caused by you or anything you have done. My fear is not an excuse for an outburst like that and I am thankful for your calm response during that episode. Thank you.”

Kelso smiled. Brennan always looked him straight in the eyes.

“Don’t think you ever have to apologize, Bren. Why were you afraid though? It’s not fake, the payment was authentic and my website has implemented securities to prevent return fraud from happening.”

“I was pulled out of work today to meet these two weird masked types, no idea who they were but they had that arrogant Cloudwalker feel to ‘em. They were asking about ya asking a bunch of personal questions..”

He stared at Brennan dumbfounded. The undead would start a sequence of hand gestures but then pause and attempt another, obviously unsure how to continue the conversation. It didn’t matter. Kelso was still processing what Bren had started with. Kelso held up his hand stopping Bren.

“What kind of personal questions?”

Brennan’s entire body seemed to lock up. Hesitancy tore away at the typical fluidity of his movements.

“They wanted to know if you ever thought about meeting your parents.”

The silence within the room suddenly became louder than any Dwarven Metal disctatia they owned.

“My parents? What does that mean?  Who were these people?! What do they know about my parents?!”

Every breath felt choked out of his rapidly constricting chest. Parents, what about his parents? He didn’t even know they were still alive. How would he know? Why would he even think about them?

Kelso blinked.

Brennan had disappeared. He was back in his room sitting right in front of the window staring at the layers of graffiti on the leftover brick walls of some long-forgotten factory. There was a ping. A flash of light cut through the nocturnal weight.

“Glad we were able to talk through what happened. If you want to go to that venue instead of chillin’ at home I’m down to party but I gotta take care of some business while ur at school. Don’t worry won’t be missin’ ur graduation. Get some rest! big day tomorrow!! Goodnight Kiddo!!💤”

“Brennan!!”

Nothing.

“Bre-”

A thumping came from above. Another sound complaint. Fair enough.

Kelso went over to his bed and after slipping out of his black tank top he climbed into bed and pulled the blankets tight over his body. He stared up at the cracked plaster that made up his ceiling. Dissociative Amnesia was every healer's best guess at what happened to Kelso during these blank outs. Its roots stemmed from his abandonment as a child, they said. Take these pills they’ll help, they always help, they said. Tears began to well up in the corners of his eyes.

All he wanted was to hear Brennan’s voice. To have his parent comfort him like he had seen so many other parents do. He would never be able to though. The Undead could only speak and hear others through a special version of the telepathy spell. Magik. A commodity in the world. It was the backbone of every great civilization upon Nûne from the freefolk traveling the wild Feterlands to the separate islands of magikal industry dotted across Quadír and their corporate monarchies.

It was as common as a Felyria’s love for finer wine. There wasn’t a living thing that couldn’t feel the unruly fluctuations of magikal energy coursing through their body…

Kelso spent the rest of the night as he did most other nights imagining what Brennan’s real voice might sound like. Was it scratchy and quick to deliver words? Or maybe deep and personal like the earth elementals who acted as security guards for the school? Was it soft and measured as if it was designed to ease the anxiety surrounding their life?

Could it be all of them? Or was it simply none of them? What did it matter? Kelso would never find out. He had no magik.