Setting aside the scalpel, Kano took a deep breath and inspected her work. The Kano lying on the operating table had an incision in her chest that was slowly healing, though Kano somehow knew the other her wouldn’t recover for a while. Other her? No, that was her. Whatever memory she was experiencing wasn’t hers; it must be Karen’s.

Kano watched through Karen’s eyes as the necromancer sat down beside Kano. Feeling a distant sense of melancholy, Kano/Karen spoke. “Sometimes I wonder why I even try. Nothing ever works out. I can’t even help myself.” Hands curling into fists, Karen took a few moments to recover her composure. “And I clearly can’t even make a decent copy of myself. Sorry about that, by the way. Your soul is going to degrade just like mine is. Hopefully you’ll be able to come up with a solution. Maybe you’ll even be in time to save me.”

She put her hand on Kano’s foot, staring into the natural’s empty eyes. “I really thought I could change the world, that I had that kind of potential. I mean, I know I do, but…” She sighed. “Maybe I’m just an idiot. Sorry, by the way, but you’ll probably inherit that from me. Hopefully you’ll be able to do better than I could.”

Bouncing her foot against the floor, Karen continued. “It’s funny, talking to you like this is surprisingly relaxing. Even though I’m effectively talking to myself, and you probably can’t hear me anyway.” Smiling, she shook her head. “I really am losing my mind. You know, despite how similar we are, I really can’t see you as an equal. You’re more like my child. Or as close as I’m ever going to get to having one.”

Karen looked up at the ceiling. “And what a ridiculous world I’ve brought you into. I hope you can forgive me, though if I know myself, you probably can’t.” Laughing to herself, Karen felt more lonely than amused. “I suggest you learn to use that resentment—it can be a powerful motivator. How far those emotions can take you is one of the lessons I’ve learned over and over again. Maybe if I’d spent less time relearning things, I could’ve done more.”

Reaching out for Kano’s hand, she clasped it tightly. “But that’s enough talk of the past. I look forward to meeting you when you finally wake up. I’ll tell you all about my work and what I think you should do. We’ll definitely argue about that one. And if I still have time, maybe we can go see my old home. I’m sure you’d like it there. Well, I guess it’s our old home now.”

Images of quaint little house on top of a small mountain filled Karen’s mind. She recalled looking out at the pristine lake nestled against the peak’s base, and how its alpine beauty had stilled her tumultuous heart. But most of all she missed the solitary freedom of living her life without having to worry about or interact with others. Her life was full of both these days. Brought back to reality by her sobering thoughts, her memories of the past faded away, and Kano’s dream ended with them.

She awoke reinvigorated, with Karen’s experience fresh in her mind, and for the first time Kano found herself regretting never having met her creator. Before, Karen had been a loathsome figure to her, the paragon of necromancers’ selfishness and the destruction they caused as a result. But now she felt bad for her, and for herself. Tragically, they’d never had that talk Karen had been looking forward to. Unless Kano just couldn’t remember it, which was sad in its own way.

But it was far from all bad. Kano felt new determination to make things better and do what she could for the people who were important to her, as well as the rest of the world. Hard as it was for her to imagine how she could make much of a difference where necromancers, people with far more resources at their disposal than her, had failed, she still felt the need to try. Even if her efforts didn’t pan out, she could only rely on herself. And now it was time to continue her work.

First things first, she went to check on An. The necromancer was still soundly sleeping where they’d left her. Apparently the confrontation with Werisah in this very room hadn’t made the slightest impression on her. Well, it was about time she got up. Kano shook the necromancer until her eyes opened.

“What is it?” she asked, sounding disorientated as she looked around.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“It’s time to get up. You’ve rested long enough. Now it’s time to fix the reactor.”

“Just a few more minutes,” An said, closing her eyes again.

If there had been nothing at stake, Kano may have found An’s behavior amusing, but as the entirety of Shorinstown, and quite possibly beyond, was at stake, she was quickly running out of patience. “There’s no time for that. You can rest when the reactor isn’t about to kill us all.”

“It can wait a little longer.”

Not interested in arguing, Kano grabbed An’s legs and dragged her toward the door. Along the way, she apparently got the message that Kano wasn’t going to let her sleep, and got up. “Well, when you put it that way, I guess you’re right.” There wasn’t a shred of sincerity in her voice, but Kano didn’t care. So long as An helped out, it didn’t matter how she felt.

“Did you happen to come up with any ideas on how to shut the reactor down yet?”

“I have not, and at this point I’m more or less convinced that it’s impossible.”

“What? Then what’re we supposed to do?” If they couldn’t stop the reactor, then all that was left was to flee Shorinstown and hope for the best.

“I’m not entirely sure yet. Currently I’m thinking our best option is to drain or redirect as much energy away from the reactor as possible before we destroy it. There’ll likely still be some backlash, but if we’re able to remove enough of the energy, the damage should be minor. At least compared to the worst-case scenario.”

Was that really the best plan she could come up with? Kano could easily have thought of that. “How minor?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe some light damage to the reactor room. Maybe it’ll destroy the whole citadel.”

Kano grimaced. That was quite the wide margin of error. “And how confident are you that’s the most damage it could do?”

“Not even slightly.”

“Great.” If it had the potential to destroy the citadel or more, then it really wasn’t an option in Kano’s view. Ferrying the children out of the citadel again wasn’t something she had wanted to do in the first place, especially when they were already short on time. “You need to come up with a better idea than that.”

An shrugged. “It’s easy for you to say, but I can’t just conjure new ideas out of thin air. I need time to think. And rest.”

“Why don’t we go and take another look at the reactor, then? Maybe that will help you think.” It might also instill a little more urgency in her.

“Fine.” They were leaving the lab when An said, “Wait. Let me just go check on something before we leave.”

Kano followed her to ensure she wasn’t planning on slacking off as An walked over to where her flower had been and froze.

“What happened?” she asked coldly with her back to Kano.

“It was Werisah. Apparently he’s not too fond of flowers.”

“That bastard,” An spat, crouching down in front of her fallen flower and muttering to herself. “Get over here and help me scoop this up.”

“Can’t this wait?”

An regarded Kano with a blank, fixed look on her face as the necromancer’s eyes darkened to pools of black. Seeing the rage building within the normally placid necromancer, Kano realized she was mistaken. There was still time to recover An’s creation after all. She kneeled down to help, and between the two of them, they salvaged everything they could. The flower was flattened and torn, but it had largely retained its shape. If she saw a ghoul that was damaged so extensively, she’d assume they were beyond help. Maybe flowers were more resilient than that, despite appearing so flimsy.

An spent a few minutes carefully adjusting the specimen and applying a variety of substances to it before she allowed herself to stop even for a second.

“How is it?” Kano asked. It scarcely looked any better than it had before, certainly no more alive.

“It’s still in rough shape, but I think it’ll survive.”

“Really?” It seemed like blind optimism on An’s part.

“Only time will tell. I’ve done all I can to restore it. The rest is up to my little flower.”

Kano was relieved, partly because An’s work hadn’t been ruined but mostly because it sounded like An was ready to pay the reactor a visit. “So we can go?”

“I suppose.” An made it a few steps before stopping to look back at her flower, now within a much larger and more secure container.

“It’ll be fine,” Kano assured her, guiding her out by the shoulder.

“I hope so. I suppose we should get this out of the way already.”

“Good idea. There’s no point worrying about your flower if it ends up getting destroyed when the reactor kills us all.”

“You’re right, of course. It’s just a little hard to let go sometimes.”

Kano cleared her throat, unsure of what to say. What did people usually do in situations like this? “It’ll be fine.” Baseless reassurance was about all she could come up with, but it seemed to get An to walk a little faster, and she looked less dejected.

“What happened to Werisah, anyway?” An asked as they were nearing the reactor.

“I killed him.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I destroyed him down to the tiniest piece.” If he could come back from that, there was no way either of them could stop him. So either way, it wasn’t worth worrying about.

“Good.”