Alistair sat on the bed at the tavern, the feeling of utter disgust rolling down his shoulders. He felt like vomiting, like taking a bath, like crawling up into a ball after drinking himself into a stupor. Anything to cancel out the proceedings of the night, from the platform to the dinner party and Felix’s creepy appearance in his pink pajamas, the rich man’s thinly veiled threats, Senka watching on like a silent sentinel ready to strike.

All of it.

“Pack your things.”

“What?” he asked the assassin living in his head.

“I guess your things are already packed. Good. That makes it easy. Let’s go.”

“Why would we go now?”

“Because the longer we’re in Solaria, the easier it is for Felix to manipulate us. Aside from the Baronblades, and their trainees, he owns people all over the city. When we are here, we are being watched. Never forget that. And I don’t like being watched. Fuck Felix.”

“But it’s late.”

“But it’s late,” Ghost said, mocking Alistair. “Come here and sleep, then. I’ll handle everything.”

“I don’t just want to sleep. I want, I want—”

“Look, Alistair, I realize tonight was rough. Seeing someone have their head crushed is no way to start a meal with enemies. But we must move on. If you want to be back to the Academy by the time classes start, we need to go. So relax.”

“Relax.”

“Yes, lie down.”

“What about the cards?” Alistair asked, which was something that he had thought about on the way over to the tavern.

“If you’re referring to the ones that Senka took from Lysander, there’s nothing we can do now. Unless you want to buy them off the black market. Maybe we should try that. Lionel would come in handy.”

“Do you know where he would sell something like that?”

“I have an idea, and in a perfect world, we would simply break back into his mansion and steal them. But not with Senka there.”

“So she’s definitely staying at his home.”

“She doesn’t have a home here in Solaria, so yes. Lie down. We can figure out a way to get more illegal cards later.”

“I could start a rumor about him.”

“Not yet. Lie down or I will lie down for you.”

“You’re threatening to force me to sleep?”

“That’s one way to look at it. Another is that I’m trying to help you. Rest.”

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Alistair did as instructed. He got comfortable and closed his eyes.

Ghost: Try to sleep. It’s easier for me to do this if you are actively asleep.

“How am I supposed to sleep?”

Rather than answer him, Ghost forced Alistair up. He went to the door and headed downstairs, where they found the man that ran the tavern sweeping up. “I need a drink,” Ghost told the tavernkeep as he took a seat at the bar.

Alistair was about to protest, but decided against it. Maybe a drink would help.

The man peered at him, his beady dark eyes nearly covered by his eyebrows. “Aren’t you a little young, lad?”

“You don’t know the night I’ve had.”

It sounded strange coming from a teenager, yet in this simple phrase, Ghost was able to convince the tavernkeep to pour him up a glass of hard liquor known as a Cherry Apollos. “Just one, though,” the older man said.

Ghost tossed it back, thanked the man with a grunt, grabbed a few bread rolls, flicked a coin onto the bar, and headed back upstairs, where he got back on the bed. “Now, sleep.”

The alcohol helped.

Soon, Alistair was asleep, Ghost able to pull the young mage through to his own mind. He placed his body near the hovering pool, and was just about to step away when he stopped himself.

“Dammit.” Ghost shook his head.

He wasn’t able to create things as easily in Alistair’s mind as the boy could, but he was getting better at it.

Not quite proud of himself for being weak, Ghost sat next to Alistair, even though he was itching to get out of Solaria and began imagining what he needed. Soon, a threadbare blanket materialized in the air. He placed it on Alistair’s shoulders and left.

With a gasp, Ghost sat up in their room at the tavern, grabbed his bag, and headed downstairs, where he found the tavernkeep seated at a table, sleeping. He crept by the man and was soon in the streets of Solaria, the assassin feeling the alcohol from the Cherry Apollos.

He ignored a small part of him that wanted to go back to his home in Solaria. While Ghost wanted to see what had become of it after the fire, the one in which Stuart had officially died, he knew that nostalgia would get him nowhere. Besides, he had more money in Marrowstone, something he’d yet to fully explain to Alistair.

He had mentioned his other stash at one point to the boy, but that had been the extent of their conversation. Even so, he likely hadn’t heard him anyway. Alistair was easily distracted. Ghost couldn’t remember what it had been like to be a sixteen year old, but he knew he was radically different from Alistair, at least personality-wise.

Yet there was something that the two had in common, something Ghost respected.

Alistair had a natural willingness to fight back, and when pushed, he could think on his feet in ways that surprised even Ghost, like his statement about Chane Brashlung. The boy wasn’t stupid, and if they were forced to share a body forever, Ghost would certainly be able to mold him in the way that he wanted.

But that remained to be seen.

Ghost didn’t know if there was a card that would separate his soul from Alistair’s body, or perhaps a card that would entirely give his soul to a new body, erasing the previous personality. But if there was one, he’d try to find it.

Alistair deserved that much. After all this was done, it would be best for Ghost to move on.

This was why Alistair’s relationship with Zola was important. She would be the type that would be able to discover something like that. If not now, later on, once she had studied harder.

Ghost reached the Brenham District of western Solaria, where the carriage stands were located. It would be easy to take a carriage to Marrowstone, and he would be there by morning if he left now. But doing so would alert Felix, who might be able to put the pieces together and realize that Ghost had been reborn in Alistair’s body, especially with what would likely happen in Marrowstone once he reached Kang’s mother.

Rather than visit the carriage stand, Ghost took a wide berth around it. He would have to travel through the woods outside of Solaria, but he wasn’t too worried about this. Bandits mostly stuck to the roads, and dangerous yokai had been rooted out long ago.

For just a little fuel, Ghost ate one of the bread rolls he had picked up at the tavern.

He started running at a slow jog, careful of where he stepped. Just because a forest should have been cleared didn’t mean that the authorities had actually done their jobs. Ghost had already discovered this in the woods around the Lumina Battledeck Academy.

Strange things lurked in the night.