It took longer than Len had expected it to for a reaction to come. Sure, she hadn't had much reason to assume that she'd get someone to come for her the very next day, but three days in complete isolation were a bit more than she'd prepared for. Small unimpressive meals of bread and gruel were delivered at routine intervals, but other than that, she didn't get much by way of interaction with the guards. It was the sort of thing that could've led to someone less haunted by shadowy specters from beyond time and space to feel nervous, anxious, and more than a little bit alone. As it was, though…

  "So..." asked Cammie in her typically snide fashion. "How are we feeling about this plan of getting locked up and waiting for him to realize that he has no choice but to face you in armed combat."

  "I'll admit," said Len wearily (this was probably the fifth time they'd had this particular conversation), "not as great as I was feeling three days ago."

  "So, you want to try my plan yet?"

  "Your plan," Len pointed out irritably, "involves turning into a Hellbeast with nothing resembling conscious thought remaining, and tearing through all the guards between here and the Head, quite possibly dozens, maybe even a hundred of them, ripping off his skull, drinking from it, and proclaiming myself God-Emperor."

  "Yeah!"

  "I think it's a bit much, if I'm honest."

  "You're a spoilsport, Len."

  "Guilty as charged, Cammie," Len sighed, then slipped back into silence.

  It had been an interesting experience spending all this time locked up with the shade. Cammie had a lot more definable personality traits than Pitch. Pitch had always been a mercurial thing, sometimes mischievous, sometimes cruel, often perplexing, but never something that could be pegged down for long. As soon as she would think she had a handle on his personality, he'd shift into something completely different and leave her thrown for a loop again. Cammie, meanwhile, was just all kinds of extra. It wasn't that she didn't have her moments of randomness, but everything about her was more focused on an instinctive call to CAUSE chaos, rather than just be a representation of it.

  There were moments when Len found the shade downright entertaining, if a bit unsettling. Her choice in potential drinking goblets still struck Len as a tad unsanitary, but the overall attitude did somewhat feel like it was in the right place. Cammie, for all her foibles, was tied to Len now and had accepted that fate. For all that her suggestions were morbid, unhelpful, and often nightmarish, they clearly came from a desire to be helpful. It was almost, well... no, sweet wasn't the right word. Charming would have to do. It was almost charming the way she kept popping in with her ideas, then pouting slightly when Len rejected them. No matter how blunt Len chose to be with those rejections, the shade didn't seem to be offended. Instead, she would pout for a moment, then flit away to concoct some new and somehow more horrifying plot.

  It was the sort of thing that Len had to admit gave her some worry that she really WAS losing her mind. As a general rule in most of the fiction she'd read, the moment when you started acknowledging your personal demons and holding direct conversations with them tended to be the point where you lost yourself and went down the Dark Path™ that would either destroy you or cause a massive personal inconvenience. The thing was, she didn't feel like any of this was WRONG. Sure, she supposed that anyone losing their grip on sanity would have a similar reaction, but it was more than that. Ever since she'd done... whatever it was she'd done in that shadowverse, she'd felt more assured of her choices. Granted, that had involved her counterpart coming and saving her ass, but it was still a moment that had cemented things for her.

  She knew she wasn't insane because she'd seen that other her. The Lenore that was supposed to be here was living her life now and, according to her, living it well. It was a bit odd to hear about epic quest stuff happening on Earth where she'd never heard of magic outside of fiction and/or religion, but knowing that there really had been a purpose to whatever had happened to the two of them was strangely reassuring. It didn't do much to calm her slightly frayed nerves now, though. There was a better than average chance that this was going to last longer than she'd expected. Granted, she'd already seen what passes for a right to a "speedy trial" in other justice systems, but this was starting to feel like a long haul ordeal when she'd meant it to be a quick fix. That wasn't the most encouraging feeling.

  "I'm just saying, it wouldn't take THAT long to clean up the blood. And then you'd have a people who well and truly fear you as they should."

  "I'm not gonna become a God-Queen, Cammie. The logistics for that shit don't seem worth it, and I'd really rather just stick to the grunt position as long as possible."

  "Oh, sure, that's why you're actively working to become the leader of these people, for the smaller amount of responsibility."

  "It's a means to an end. We've been over this. If I don't do it, Claymar does, and I don't like anything that I've seen from him. Need I remind you that he tried to kill me a couple days ago."

  "Yeah, and then you let the killer he hired join up with you rather than cleaning up the mess. How's that working out for you?"

  "Hey, that part's working just fine, thank you very much. The fact that even in the middle of all that she was able to slip away is the sort of display of competency that I want to see in a future bodyguard."

  "Why bother with fleshy bodyguards when you've got me and, presumably, more shades that you'll enslave in the future."

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  "Don't call it that."

  "What? Enslave? Would you prefer involuntarily incarcerate? Imprison for your own use and then exploit indefinitely?"

  "I'd prefer 'Bratty child that's ungrateful about the fact that instead of consigning her to oblivion in accordance with the wishes of the first shade I made a deal with shuts her mouth'."

  "Wow, touchy."

  "You've hopped in my head several times now, seen anything that might indicate why that kind of word wouldn't resonate well with me?"

  "Ah, you've got a point, I suppose. Don't get me wrong, I applaud that level of cruelty to one's fellows, but I suppose it really isn't in line with the kind of person you are. As you wish, Lenore, I will knock off the talk of enslavement. The initial point stands, though. You will have many of us, assuming you don't get yourself killed. You should get used to the idea of using us. If you don't, you're going to lose."

  "Look, I'm not even interested in winning whatever this game you're involved in is. The only reason I'm even playing is because you showed up in my path."

  "Complain all you want, you're not going to see the problem stopping any time soon. There will be more of us every day. There's always someone making a new friend with those unseemly forces from beyond. You're going to have to accept that you're in this now."

  "I get it. For the moment, though, would you mind butting out and leaving me to deal with the fact that I may have miscalculated on the willingness of this asshole to keep me locked up until people forget about me?"

  "Fine fine, but do you really think that's helping anything? You're just running from your problems instead of facing them head on."

  "I'm not running from anything, I'm just wallowing for a bit. Look, it was a solid plan, one I still stand by, but I'll admit that I'm starting to get a little nervous. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't push me on it right now, okay?"

  "As you wish," said Cammie, vanishing in a puff of smoke.

  Len breathed a sigh of relief. By and large, she was used to the creature. It was a bit of a disconnect dealing with the fact that she was the sort of creature that enjoyed taking on the body of a child but was most definitely NOT a little girl. Some of the things that would come out of her mouth were downright traumatizing at times and it never got easier to hear. At the same time, it was amusing to have her around and that was ignoring the fact that if she hadn't been around, Len probably wouldn't have been dealing with the current situation nearly as well. Sure, as far as cellmates went, a shadowy girl who told you to burn things wasn't ideal, but it was still better than just having silence. The fact that she had more than enough evidence to be sure that Cammie was really there didn't hurt matters. There'd been several times when she'd been tempted to question the reality around her, but Pitch was real. Kila had met him. Cammie was just as real, because if not for her, that fight with Taylor might have gone very differently. The fact of the matter was that she really had this psychotic little imp on her shoulder and it wasn't some hallucination. It probably wasn't ideal that she had to keep reminding herself of that fact but on the scale of things that she'd had to deal with lately, it wasn't all that unrealistic.

  One thing that she did wish was that she still had that parchment from Astrid. Granted, it wouldn't have been all that fun to explain to the Demon Lord that she'd ended up trapped in a prison in her recent attempt to conquer the humans, but it would be someone else to talk to. Though she wouldn't admit it to Cammie's face, the shade was getting to her a bit. Not in the sense that she was seriously considering acting on the murderous instincts that the girl seemed to relish so, just the idea that her plan wasn't going to work. It was easy to sit high and mighty on a throne of arrogance in the instant that one's taking drastic measures. It's a very different thing to be forced to stew and wait for the reaction you're so sure is coming. Days now with no word, no plan, no hope, and yet no one had tried to murder her in her sleep, either. She was quite certain that if such a thing had happened, Cammie would be smugly gloating about the poor assassin that she eviscerated then dragged into whatever shadow realm she occupied when she wasn't harassing Len. Failing that, if it turned out Len didn't understand the nature of their arrangement as well as she thought she did, such an assassin might have been able to succeed, in which case Len's thoughts on the matter would be rather moot.

  No, whatever the Head was trying to pull here, it wasn't her execution. That might very well be on the table eventually, but he couldn't get rid of her yet. Which probably meant he was up to something else. What that might be was a tough call, and she couldn't be certain she could prepare for it, but there had to be something more to things.

  As it happened, her answer would come the next day when a guard came to release her.

  "What's going on?" she asked blearily.

  "It's time for your challenge, elf," there was a contempt to the way he said it that made it feel like a slur, but she let it pass if this meant that she'd finally be dealing with the bastard.

  "Oh, the coward finally decided to face me?"

  "Pfft, you aren't worthy of his blade, elf. No, he has chosen a different foe to battle you."

  "And who might that be?"

  The guard said nothing in response, simply guiding her back to the pavilion. The center had been cleared, and the stands were full. Blades littered the arena and her challenger was already waiting for her. It was Balar.