As we boarded the boat that was headed to Delitone, I was struck with how different it was, while also being similar. The one that had taken us to the Idyll-Flume was a pure passenger ship, with some standards for luxury. Less than a full, prince-of-the-ocean style cruiser, but it was still able to carry thousands of people in comfort.

This was about the same size, but while it had small cabins for people, it was also partly a trade ship. I could see boxes filled with, presumably, all sorts of all sorts of different things being loaded up onto the ship, but it was disappointingly samey-looking mass cargo containers, each with the same standardized spatial bending and weight altering enchantments to allow them to pack everything in.

The room we were given was small, barely containing enough room for a full sized cot, and was located not far from the whirring of the ward generators that acted to protect the ship from water creatures that got too curious.

“So, this is where we’ll be staying?” I said, glancing around. Dusk cawed like a raven, saying she’d be inside. This room was boring.

I nodded my agreement and opened the portal to her realm with a wave of my hand, then glanced at Kene.

“Care to join us?”

“Siobhan would probably enjoy a game of fetch,” Kene agreed, heading into Dusk’s space.

The two of us played with the enfield for a while, while Dusk zoomed about, doing her own things. There wasn’t meals provided with this journey, so Kene used a bit of solar magic to light up the stove in the kitchen, and we cooked some simple beans and salted pork. My time in the butchers in Puinen had given me a fair bit of preserved meat, and with the brownies help, we’d been able to pack it all away neatly, with some extra preservation spells, just in case.

Siobbhan ate some of the pork, a raw egg, and some mashed fruit, while Dusk joined us just for the company, and before long, we made our way to bed.

“Malachi,” someone said. I flipped around and blinked, then glanced around. It was still dark out, and my internal pocketwatch said it was three in the morning.

“Sleep,” I said, before I closed my eyes again.

“Malachi,” the voice said, a touch more insistent, and I realized that I was alone on the bed.

That was strange.

I opened my eyes and glanced around spotting Dusk curled up, asleep on the nightstand, an empty bed next to me, and…

Sitting in the chair on the far end of the room, near the wardrobe, was Kene.

But it wasn’t Kene.

Their tattoos were shining with a misty, dark gray light, their teeth were like iron, and their eyes were as dark and callous as the grave. There wasn’t a swaddling shell of spellcraft around them, the way there had been the last time the hag had taken control, but it was obvious.

My heart was pounding as I slowly sat up and focused on the hag, while at the same time, my mind began to run very quickly.

The hag had to want something. If she wanted to consume Kene, then she wouldn’t have woken me, and the binding structure of the tattoos would have

“Shhh,” the hag whispered, pressing a clawlike finger to Kene’s lips. “You wouldn’t want to wake Kene up.”

“What do you want?” I said, my voice pitched in the low tone that was not quite a whisper.

The hag wearing Kene’s skin smiled, teeth broadening.

“I want to live, Malachi Roth Baker. I want to live.”

I took a moment to study the hag silently for a moment.

“You’re a parasite who consumes the soul of a host, hollowing them out,” I finally said.

“I cannot help the circumstances of my birth, no more than you can,” the hag said. “I can only attempt to change them.”

“Why now?” I said. “I can understand saving Kene in the Idyll-Flume. You didn’t want to die any more than he did, but now.”

“Now you're going to kill me, no?” the hag said. “That’s why you venture to the sepulcher.”

“I’m not heading to the sepulcher yet,” I said. “As things are, I think I’d just die, if it’s anywhere near as deadly as I’ve heard.”

“Yes,” the hag agreed. “But you will.”

“We will,” I eventually agreed. “I can understand not wanting to die. But you’ve tried to devour Kene several times. Can you say you’re going to stop? Or is that in your nature?”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

A hint of bitterness touched my voice in the end, even though I tried to keep it out.

“I…” the hag said, then halted.

“You?” I pressed.

“I cannot stop,” she finally said. “But I have slowed.”

I gave her a suspicious side-eye. I could see well enough in the dark thanks to my spellcraft, and I was sure she could too.

“I am not lying,” she said. “I am here now only because of the bargain between my host and me.”

“If I recall correctly, that bargain was to allow you to see through their eyes,” I said. “Not speak or puppeteer their body.”

“Except to save us from death,” the hag corrected. “And you, Malachi Roth Baker, are going to kill me.”

A spark of fear touched me then, because this ran deeper than the hag was saying on the surface. I didn’t understand pact magic well, but I’d found plenty of loopholes in the use of truth potions before, and if this was similar…

The hag could fight for their life in the sepulcher, against Kene.

Already, I was beginning to grow uncomfortable with the idea of simply shattering her for fuel within the sepulcher. It had been one thing when she’d been a formless mass of power, rather than a person, but… this was uncomfortably close to murder for my tastes.

“I understand your threat,” I said, forcing the anger down. “But it still doesn’t seem like you’ve slowed yourself at all.”

“I am, as you so eloquently put it, a parasite. When I formed within this one’s soul, I was a barely-alive bundle of instincts, with just enough magic to crush them,” the hag said. “I lashed out, but I did not know. I did not understand. I was hungry, and there was a feast to be had.”

“And now you’re all charitable and philanthropic?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“I am what I am,” she said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“The riddle speak works for Kene’s grandmother, less for you.”

“I would not call myself charitable,” the hag said. “But as I have said many times now, I do not wish to die.”

“And you’ve danced around how you’ve slowed down,” I said. “I don’t trust you.”

“I have slowed,” the hag insisted. “My magic grows, because I have nothing to do but magic. If I do not do magic, I descend into madness. But I have tried to slow the pace of my advancement. Kene is already mostly caught up to me. I have to take bites of their soul, or I cannot sustain myself. I am, well, I would call it something like formless.”

“Formless?”

“I inherit much of the structure of my spirit from the host I consume. But I have not consumed the host, and as such, I struggle to fully be. So to stop myself from dying, I feed when I must, battling the tattoos to take just a sip, just a nibble. It sustains me, but it doesn’t help anyone.”

Despite not trusting her, it seemed like there was real fear in those words. The hag didn’t want to die, and had done what it could to stop itself from being crushed.

And I wasn’t sure I could be content sentencing her to die.

“Now what?” I asked. “From what it sounds like, this is a bit more complex than just trying to find someone who’s body remains after their soul passed on and shoving you in it. You need a soul to consume.”

“I do,” the hag agreed. “At least enough of one to allow me to finish forming.”

“What about an animal?” I suggested. “Or a mindless elemental?”

“Is the beastmage unaware of how the beast soul works?” the hag said waspishly. “Is the one bound to a spirit unaware of the differences between a spirit and human soul? I am closest to a human, I cannot take a different soul so easily.”

I remembered Azalea mentioning something about that, how hags and vampires used composite mana types, but were more similar to humans than to a beast. I’d check with Meadow, because if I could unload the hag into an animal, I’d be happy to, but she made an uncomfortable amount of sense.

“That’s a problem.”

The hag looked at me as if I’d just said something incredibly stupid, which in fairness, I kind of had.

“Dusk was born of nothing,” I said, “Is there a way to create a… blank soul? Something for you to consume?”

“I have no more knowledge of magic than you do,” the hag said, finally sounding somewhat irritable. “I have been stuck in the dark for years now, starving, alone, with the only magic I could grow an understanding of being my own. But she is a spirit, no? Spirit souls manifest, formed from magic. I am not.”

That was fair. Unfortunate, but fair.

“Then what do you want from me?” I asked.

“Look for a solution,” the hag said.

“Kene and I can talk about it and loo–”

“No,” the hag hissed. “You mustn't tell them. If you do, then functions within the seal will activate, and they will hurt us both.”

The hag’s mouth split into a feral grin, and I could see the sharp, gnashing teeth within.

“You do not like this answer.”

“You’re asking me to lie to Kene,” I said. “No. I don’t like it. I’m going to ask the witch who designed the seal if that’s true.”

“You should not,” the hag warned, pressing her claws together. “She will tell you that what I said is true, yes, but she will worsen the problem. The magic cast from her has hurt me many times. Contained me in a space too small to fit.”

“I don’t want to force any pain on you,” I said. “I can acknowledge that your circumstances are unusual. Most hags don’t develop to the extent that you do. But you’re still asking me to lie to Kene and keep them on the dark about you on nothing but your word, when this is something that they should know.”

The hag’s smile seemed to stretch even wider, looking out of place on Kene’s face.

“Then let me give you a new reason, Malachi Roth Baker. If you force that pain upon me, I will not be so cooperative next time. Nor will I have any incentive to keep my hunger contained…”

I stared at the hag hard, and she met my gaze with flinty determination, her smile manic.

“Get back in the dark,” I said, and my voice was as cold as ice.

The hag let out a laugh, and rose, then climbed into bed with me again. A moment later, her presence seemed to fade from Kene, and their tattoos returned to normal.

I tucked Kene in and rose, stepping out of the house and into the crisp night air. I took a breath to steady myself.

Kene and the witch needed to know this, but at the same time, if the hag was willing to make good on her threats, it might put us on a ticking clock.

I was going to speak to Meadow no matter what. I’d talked to Ed about getting her to visit us in Dragontooth, and she was probably the most knowledgeable person I could easily ask.

But there was one other person who I could attempt to contact, someone who might be even more knowledgeable than Meadow.

I stepped out of Dusk’s realm and into the room. If Kene woke up, Dusk should be able to tell them where I was.

I slipped through the halls and to the stairs, then out onto the deck of the ship. I wasn’t sure this was needed, but it couldn’t hurt, and this late at night it offered me some privacy, since only the sailors were moving about, and even then, infrequently.

I took a moment to breathe in the salty air and steeled myself, then called out to empty air.

“Orykson, I figure there’s a good chance you and Aerde are spying on me in some capacity. Please… Come talk to me. That’s all I’m asking.”

I closed my eyes as I felt tears sting them.

“Please, Orykson.”