It took some insisting and poking of ribs, but he got them up and out. They filed out in a sorry, sluggish line, moving out of eyeshot from the clearing Pigeon was in.

Out of earshot, too. For most. But not Will. So when he heard a voice at the edge of his hearing, he trained all his dwindled faculties on making out what it said.

He didn’t get much. Something something ‘bad idea’. Something something ‘stupid’. Something something ‘owe me’.

From what he could make out, it was clear that Pigeon was having a conversation with someone. If there was a reply, he could not make it out.

Is she really trying to make conversation with that thing?

Maybe just working off steam, like everyone else. In the end, Will decided to drop it. Didn’t want to think anymore.

A bright pulse went through the forest, swords of light cutting overhead. For a single moment, a second sun shone somewhere out of sight. Brilliant. Blinding. Then it vanished as though it had never existed.

Will blinked at the smears left in his vision.

There was no more light, and Pigeon had stopped talking. Will took that as his cue to return, and took the others with him.

The Jeweler waited for them to return, hands on hips. The abomination staggered to its feet, supporting itself against the bole of a tree. Its leg had been fully restored, and the bad joining of bear and troll flesh had been mended so that it wasn’t angry red or leaking pus. Even with his head half in the land of dreams already, it did not escape Will that one of its AP crystals had lit up.

Pigeon had restored its access to the Concord.

Which meant it couldn’t be dead anymore. She had somehow returned an undead being to life.

There was a Resurrection skill, but he had never heard of it accomplishing a miracle of this scale. As far as he knew, it only worked on the recently dead. It didn’t make much sense that Pigeon would have access to it in the first place. Had she invested extra points on both that and Lay on Hands? Or was she carrying around enchantments with those skills in her Inventory, gleaned from somebody else?

He imagined it would have to be someone with a legendary advancement in Resurrection. Lady Winter, maybe?

Oh, it hurts to think. I shouldn’t do so much of it.

Bee approached the creature that had once been Gug. There was no reticence or confusion in her. She did not know enough about the Concord to question his return.

“Hey there, big guy,” she said, extending a hand towards him. “Did she make you all better?”

The Gug-bear—terminology gleaned from Bee’s stream of consciousness—stared at her blankly for several long moments. Then: “Geeeniusss…” He expelled the word with great difficulty, coming out as barely more than a long, wet gurgle from the back of his ursine throat.

Then he turned on his heel and tromped off into the woods. He didn’t look back. Bee had clearly expected something else. Axe hanging limp in one hand, she scratched at her scarred face with the other.

“He will never be able to cohabitate with humans after what the wretcher did to him,” Pigeon said. There was a surprising earnestness to the gentle tone of her voice. “But this way, he might be able to have some kind of a life.”

No one else knew what to say. It was too weird, and they were too tired. Pigeon finished her circle over the next few minutes, and they all stepped into it.

“Circle of Teleportation,” Pigeon murmured.

And Will felt as though a giant hand grabbed hold of him and flung him across space and time. Into a void of equal parts infinite blackness and overwhelming rainbow colors. However that worked.

When he came tumbling out the other side, rolling through dirt and leaves, he immediately scrambled onto all fours and threw up. His head spun, and his stomach was in revolt.

Pigeon sat in an easy crouch in front of him, elbows propped up on her legs. “Teleportation can be a little rough the first few times. Maybe I should have told you about that.”

Yeah, maybe you should have.

Will seethed. His body tensed up as another wave of vomit rose up his gorge. He got some on his hands.

Once he had regained his faculties and wiped his hands on a clump of moss, a quick glance around confirmed that they were back in the spot outside Talltop. The longfather trees were visible in the distance over the heads of their lesser cousins.

No one felt like trekking all the way into town. It was probably only a ten minute walk, but right then that felt like a vast expanse. Through some silent agreement, they each found their own spot on the ground, not even bothering to dig out their bedrolls, and settled in to sleep.

Bee curled up next to Will and threw one meaty arm over his chest. At this point, her crushing strength had become soothing to him, like a weighted blanket.

Will lay on his back. He stared up into the swaying tree crowns. Even though he wanted nothing more than to sleep, something kept him awake.

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

A large crow stared back at him from atop a branch, turning its head this way and that to regard him.

A crow.

Bee, he prodded through his mind, affecting calm. That bird. You see it?

She was already half asleep, blinked blearily at him, then the trees. <>

Crow.

Will went cold, then hot. A whole spectrum of emotions went through him. A heap of puzzle pieces he hadn’t even realized he’d been picking up all suddenly fit together. And he didn’t like the picture they made. Not even a little, except for the morbidly curious part of him that refused to leave anything alone, had to know the truth behind every mystery.

He kept his emotions within himself, bundled up his thoughts so they wouldn’t reach Bee. She didn’t need to know right now. It was only liable to make her do something stupid.

Nothing, Will returned after what was probably too long of a pause. Just wondering, that’s all.

He needn’t have worried. She was already out like a log. Moments later, she started snoring.

Now that Will actually wanted to stay awake, he found it impossible to hang on. He gripped at the edges of his consciousness, tried to keep it together, but his eyelids rolled shut, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Will fell asleep with a belly full of cold dread.

*****

…And awoke with a knife at his throat. Blinking, he found Pigeon looking down on him, the crow perched on her shoulder.

It was evening. Getting darker. They had slept all day. Will had recovered a good chunk of his AP. So had she.

Pigeon held the knife in a loose, almost carefree grip, letting the cold edge rest softly on his skin. “Let’s take a little walk, you and me,” she said in a low, dangerous voice.

Right then, Will saw no reason to refuse, and one long, pointy, and very compelling reason to comply. He raised his hands in an impotent sign of submission, slowly worked his way up until he was standing. Pigeon came out of her low crouch and motioned with her knife deeper into the forest, away from Talltop.

Will started walking. Pigeon came behind. She stowed away the knife in her belt. She knew she didn’t need a weapon to scare the piss out of him.

“What’s this about?” Will asked. “I thought we were on the same side.”

“Let’s skip you playing stupid to the part where we can have an actual conversation. I know you know. You think too much, anyone ever tell you that?”

“It has been mentioned once or twice.”

“It’s not good for your health.”

“I’m noticing that.”

“I want you to say it. Tell me what you figured out.”

Will had no idea how she knew, but there was no point keeping up the stupid act. “Your name isn’t Pigeon,” he said.

“And?”

“It’s Crow.”

“Aaand?”

Will stumbled over a root in the growing darkness, and Pigeon yanked him upright.

“You used Ideal Self to change your appearance, even your gender,” he continued once he found his feet again. “And… you didn’t kill the goddess. You trapped her in that ‘lucky amulet’ of yours. Using Compress, presumably. Don’t ask me how—I’d imagine it only works on non-living matter—but that’s what you did. It’s how you’re able to do all that healing, and why you don’t want us to see you do it.”

“Very good, Deathbed,” Pigeon—Crow—said with a chuckle. She put heavy emphasis on his name, as though to say ‘that’s where you’re headed next, buddy’. “You get full marks for that. Clever little cookie, aren’t you?”

“I try,” Will muttered.

Pigeon had them sit next to a small creek, him on a rotted log and her perched on a rock. She looked rather like a bird of prey when she was crouched like that, regarding him through the stillness. Her and her familiar were two of a kind, four eyes boring into him.

The bird squawked, and the shrill sound echoed through the woods, giving him gooseflesh. Was that to be his death toll?

He didn’t consider sending for Bee. That would only get her killed, too.

Then there was only silence. They sat there for a long time, doing nothing much. Will pursed his lips, waited for her to say something. Anything.

“Am I the first person who figured it out?” he asked, mostly to fill the dead air, once he couldn’t take it anymore.

Pigeon snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Am I the only one still breathing?”

She just smiled at that. He wished he hadn’t asked.

Now that he was asking, the questions started multiplying in his head. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why kill Era? Or trap her, or whatever it is you did?”

The Jeweler shrugged. “To see if I could.” Her tone was dull, like they were talking about the price of butter.

“Can I see her?”

A shake of her head. “The goddess is a little shy, I’m afraid.”

Will licked his lips, reluctant to ask the big one. “Are you… going to kill me?”

Crow laughed. The bird cawed. “What gave you that idea? I said I wanted to talk, didn’t I?”

“At knifepoint. Then you led me off into the woods, alone. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that means.”

Crow giggled. “I couldn’t resist being a little bit cruel with you. It’s funny, seeing you squirm. Era doesn’t like it, though. She's soft on you. I probably won’t hear the end of it.” As though in reply, the amulet buzzed beneath her vest. Crow frowned down at herself. “Whatever. I’m not talking to you.”

Will cleared his throat. “Then… you’re not going to kill me?”

“As long as you make the right noises at me.”

“What might those be?”

“I think you know.” She regarded him darkly, fixing the battered hat atop her head.

Will swallowed. “I won’t tell anyone about you.”

She nodded. “Good boy.”

“I won’t be able to keep it from Bee. She’s in my head.”

“Obviously.”

“But I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Not even your other friends?”

“Not even them.”

Pigeon rocked back to her feet and clapped her hands together, the movement sending the crow flapping into the air. “Ding ding ding! You win the grand prize, young man. Which, of course, is to keep that pretty head of yours on that pretty neck of yours. Not bad, eh?”

“Overjoyed,” Will muttered.

“Let’s head back to the others, shall we?”

Will decided to push his luck. “Mind if I ask some more questions? I already know about you, so there shouldn’t be any harm in it, right?”

Pigeon wagged a finger in front of his face, a fist on her hip. “You’ve used yours up, I’m afraid. You can stew in your ignorance as punishment for being so damn nosy. There's some kind of poetic irony in that.”

They walked back to where the others were camped out. Will laid down, but there was no way he’d be able to go back to sleep after all that.

Pigeon evidently had no such trouble, propped up against a tree trunk with her hat over her eyes. Her snores soon joined the chorus of the others.

Will kept thinking about the fact that the goddess of Nifala was just a few meters away from him. If he ahold of that amulet, the fate of a whole world would rest in the palm of his hand, quite literally.

A part of him toyed with the idea of going over there and slitting Pigeon’s throat while she slept. He thought better of it almost instantly. It would be suicidally stupid, not to mention the obvious moral implications. And even if he somehow managed it, it would only saddle him with a responsibility he didn’t actually want, if he was being honest with himself.

It was impossible not to think about, though.

Damn, I wish I could have had a chat with the goddess.

But it seemed he would make it out with his life, and that was lucky enough. Better than he could have expected. .Grand prize, indeed.

He rubbed at his neck and sighed. The crow that glared balefully down at him from a nearby tree.

“Can’t sleep either, huh?” Will asked.

The crow did not deign to reply.