Raya was dragging me everywhere in town, looking for a clothing store. She realized I had nothing on my feet and asked if that was always the case. I didn't even know it myself until she brought it up. The bottom of my pant legs were torn as well. I was trying to remember when my shoes would have fallen off just as Raya began to drag me through the city.

I tried to talk her out of trying to get me new shoes, but she was too excited to hear me. By the end, we didn't buy shoes, but I think Raya was more focused on doing as much as she could in this "free state" than trying to obtain anything physical. Of course, it wasn't a hollow jester. Whenever she found a shoe she liked, Raya wanted to convince me to buy it since she had no money to use in Sanctuary. I didn't see a point since they would likely get ripped again.

We continued to use the roofs when we wanted to avoid large crowds. At one point, Raya stopped when she saw a couple with their child. She descended to ground level to take a closer look. It was a female werewolf and a male vampire, each holding their daughter's hand. They would lift her in the air occasionally, and she would laugh innocently.

"Even two races cursed to fight each other can live peacefully here," Raya said.

"That seems to be the point of Sanctuary," chirped BD. "A place designed to self-prune evil and sin to create a pseudo paradise for those looking for it."

"What would happen if that girl wants to leave once she's old enough? She'd be facing a world that will want her dead."

I responded to Raya's question. "Assuming her parents taught her well and her drive for adventure is strong, it will be on her to weather what storms will come."

My words struck a chord deep in my heart, reminding me that Joe Backsburg was no longer the only voice in my head. My words were heavy with experience that I didn't earn, yet my choices based on the information I was given led me to this point.

One look at Raya told me she was thinking something similar. So far, Raya hasn't shown signs of being an awakened asendeit. That is to say, she didn't use an ability that didn't come from her curse. She chose to fight Gahara in the weakest form of humanity. She decided to be a sacrifice in an attempt to potentially rid the world of a threat, only to live a singular, straightforward life seemingly forever. Even living to fight monsters forever was her choice.

Yet, she was still pushing to live. Despite being offered a comfortable life while in a more carefree mindset, she still refused.

After an hour passed, we went back to the clinic to check on Nadra's progress.

We found her in the room with the beds, wrapping a bandage around Mindplay's injured arm. Mindplay was awake and sitting on the edge of the bed, looking more alive than when we left him. The other Raya was still unconscious on the bed with her black and white hair.

"No matter how uncomfortable they get, don't take the bandages off until they fall off themselves." Nadra talked to Mindplay just as she finished putting the special bandages on.

"Good thing I can use one arm for everything," Mindplay said with a laugh. Nadra didn't seem amused. He then turned and greeted us. "I was afraid I was going to be left behind."

"Thanks for healing fast, so I didn't have to," I responded. "Have you been caught up to speed? "

"As much as Nadra understood."

I then asked Nadra if Mindplay and Raya were good to move out.

"Mindplay is right as a stream," she explained. "This Raya is fine, too, but I can't seem to wake her up."

"Is that bad?" asked Raya.

"Not bad, but as I said before, this isn't something I'm used to seeing. Try leaving Sanctuary as you are and leave this version of you here. Return if you cannot leave the caves, and we will go from there."

"And if I can leave?"

"This Raya will disappear, and you will return to the version you came in as."

“The version…I came in as…”

Raya came into Sanctuary with three colors in her hair. Assuming I understood what she told me, that was her most volatile version. I wanted to tell her it would be ok, but like Nadra, I didn't know what would happen.

"Sanctuary is not going to let you leave with a bad deal," said BD confidently. "I can't speak for the shadow realm, but I hope my words are trustworthy enough to go on faith."

Faith. That was all we could rely on at this point.

After gathering what we had and selling our cold weather gear, Mindplay, redhead Raya, and I left Sanctuary from the same opening we came in through. Walking through the Cave of Exile, I instructed everyone to focus on getting to Skyland.

Along the way, Mindplay told us he explained everything involving Harqu to Nadra. In turn, I filled in the gaps of anything missing in Mindplay's story. Raya explained everything she and I saw while we waited for Mindplay to wake up.

"A lot more talkative, aren't we?" asks Mindplay, noting Raya's new demeanor.

Raya took a moment to reply, and it once again sunk in how different she was acting. "I apologize. Hopefully, I'll return to normal once we leave here."

"Hopefully?"

Raya then explained to Mindplay what she said to me regarding her split personalities and the danger of them occupying the same conscious space.

"The other Raya would have never said that," noted Mindplay.

"Did you already know about Raya's condition?" I asked.

"I knew she had more going on than just a long lifespan and superhuman strength. Remember, I'm more of an empath than a mind reader."

We continued down the path, with me explaining the plan: Talk to Claymore, get his update, and return to Earth.

We were finally at the exit. I could taste the dry sand in the air, and my bones vibrated with the magic unique to Skyland. Mindplay and I walked onto the sands, and for the first time, I realized just how barefoot I was. Specks of dust forced their way between my toes, and the heat they stored felt comfortable in the soul of my feet. BD transferred into a giant dragon but asked Raya if something was wrong.

Mindplay and I turned to Raya, who was still standing at the edge of the cave. I approached her and asked her what was wrong.

"I'm…scared," she replied sheepishly. "If I can't go through, I'm trapped here for God knows how long. If I can, I might pop out as a rampaging monster."

I reached out my hand past the edge of the cave. "You have to at least try," I said. "It's ok to have faith."

Raya stared into my eyes, and I tried to be as sincere as possible. This was her choice, but I knew she would make whatever choice with confidence. Nervously, Raya reached out her hand and, at the last moment, clutched mine with a clap. As soon as I felt her squeeze my hand, I pulled back and braced myself to either be stopped by the power of the cave or the weight of Raya's body falling on me. I began to fall back, but BD's tail kept me upright.

I looked down at Raya. Her face was buried in my chest, so I couldn't see her expression. Her hair changed from red to black and back to red, eventually settling on white. Raya didn't move for a while.

Eventually, Raya moved back away from me and raised her head. She was back to her stern demeanor with cat-like irises.

"Can you…let go of my hand." She said softly. What felt like minutes was only a few seconds in reality before I let go of her hand. Her voice wasn't as it was with her red hair, but it wasn't as rough as I once knew. Before I could respond, she coughed out whatever embarrassment she had and was speaking typically again. As if giving orders to soldiers, she continued. "Let's hurry up and head to the castle."

I admittedly was flustered. It didn't help that BD and Mindplay had irritatingly smug smiles. Since they both could read my emotions, they knew exactly what I felt, even if they didn't know exactly why.

We only talked again once we got to the castle.

BD landed on the mountain's indoor runway, which doubled as a stable for flying mounts. She was back on my shoulder when everyone was off her back.

The halls echoed with chatter. Everyone we passed was doing something, going somewhere, and passing information around. BD noted that while this was different, she needed to know more about the situation before she could deem things good or bad. We decided to go straight to Claymore, figuring he would know the most.

BD led us to Claymore's study room, the same place Claymore summoned me to. I didn't get a good look at it before since the teleportation disoriented me. It was a room with two floors; each wall was covered with bookshelves. Four desks were on the ground floor, and at least one more on the second floor. Each one had at least three open books. The ground floor was a mess with papers written in all kinds of dialects. On the walls and the bookshelves were runes carved into the stone. In the center was a floating, iridescent map of the Milky Way galaxy with twinkling stars and rotating.

Looking around the room, we found the only person inside was Isheram, cleaning the paper notes off the ground. He looked surprised to see me and my friends walk in.

"Silver. Your back," he exclaimed.

"It's good to see you, Isheram," I began, "but where's Claymore, and why are you picking up paper from the ground?"

"I always do this when Claymore is out and about, and the castle is fussy. He's on Earth waiting for you."

"On Earth? Did you guys figure out where Shadow Fang is?"

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"We did, and everyone is getting organized in case the worst is revealed. Elen Nizzola was sent to investigate, but if not for a person named Shade, it might have taken a week or so before we could get what we needed."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Mindplay.

"According to Elen, Shade was able to deduce what the research party wanted, went into the rainforest all by himself, and brought back a scroll with information about most of the contents in the pyramid."

"Did Elen mention how this Shade pulled off such a feat?" Asked Raya.

"She did not."

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"Not sure. Shade used Skyland's portals to go where Claymore eventually went, but I don't know why or if he's also after Shadow Fang. Speaking of, I need to explain everything we know about Shadow Fang's plan." Isheram then pulled out a stack of papers and read through them, flipping them over when needed.

"When you left for the Dwarven Mountains, interrogations on the tree nymph Jurya began. She revealed that the militia Shadow Fang is commanding did not form on his influence. The core of the militia was, and I quote, 'Red Dragon worshipers.' Shadow Fang somehow could contact and become the voice of the Red Dragon. Late on the evening of the same day as the interrogation, the research party returned with the Shade, as mentioned earlier, who left as soon as he arrived. Aside from what I just told you, the research group deduced that the scroll taken was a scroll of imprisonment. No records could confirm when the scroll was used last, so King Claymore consulted the Blue Dragon, who, after seeing the scroll, divulged it was used to seal his brother, the Red Dragon, in Stonehenge."

At Isheram's last words, the room grew still.

The first to break the silence was Mindplay. "This…Red Dragon. You're saying he can manifest his thoughts halfway across the world?"

"Apparently," replied Isheram as he put the papers down.

"And who is this Red Dragon?" Raya asked next.

"I'm not a historian, but what most people generally know is he was one of the three original dragons born on Earth."

"And your king went by himself?!" Raya was clearly frustrated.

"Do not underestimate my King," Isheram said calmly. "Claymore is a seventh son of the seventh son, born from a union of a spell caster from Earth and Skyland. There is not a human mage on Heaven and Earth that can match him."

"More than that," I interjected, "Claymore isn't going after Shadow Fang now. He's waiting for us."

Though Raya was still frustrated, she seemed to understand that Claymore wasn't just acting as a king.

As for me, I wanted to know more about Shade. I couldn't put a face to the name, but there was something significant about it that I couldn't put my finger on. What was frustrating was that this Shade could gather information, traverse a dangerously guarded biome, and retrieve a specific item in an unmarked landmark. This wasn't someone you just forget about.

Despite that, the mystery of Shade had to be given lower priority. Shadow Fang had a scroll of imprisonment that had a logical association with the Red Dragon. Although…

"Why would Shadow Fang want a scroll for imprisonment if he potentially wants to free the Red Dragon?" I asked Isheram.

"Spell recreation, or in this case, reverse creation. There are a few ways to cancel out a spell. You can either brute force it or create a counterspell."

"So it's like programming?" asked Mindplay with an enlightened grin.

Isheram, unfortunately, could only blink in response. "Sure. Anyway, creating the counter spell can be done by anyone with enough spell knowledge, but casting the counter spell will still require a lot of power. The issue is that the imprisoning spell was conducted by 12 master wizards, and unless Shadow Fang had some master wizards in his forces, releasing the Red Dragon would have been impossible."

"We didn't fight any wizards from Shadow Fang's side, did we?" I asked the group.

"I fought the one with Beth," explained Mindplay, "but I don't think a 'master wizard' should die to a few bullets." Though his statement could have been more correct, I understood his point. If a tree nymph was more challenging to fight than the wizard, the wizard wasn't strong enough to be a master.

"There are other magically enhanced creatures," Raya began, "and most of Shadow Fang's forces were monsters. Couldn't a monster be in charge of casting the counter spell?"

"It would still have to be a wizard," explained Isheram. "Wizards are unique since they are the ones who write down their spells and, by extension, are the only ones with the training to read and perform them. On top of that, Jurya said that most, if not all, of the Red Dragon worshipers are all from Earth, and spell casters from Earth tend to be weaker than those found in Shadow Realms like Skyland."

"Why would that be a problem?"

"Not a problem; rather, it narrows down the options. Unfortunately, our records don't have anything noted about a powerful mage that lives on Earth and would be willing to help Shadow Fang, much less the Red Dragon."

"Have you asked Jurya?" I inquired.

"Elen is currently interrogating the tree nymph."

I looked around the group and agreed to talk to Jurya and meet with Claymore.

"How long do we have before Shadow Fang can cast the counter spell?" I asked.

"For something so powerful and complex, I would say months. Don't let that relax you. We still don't know who is in Shadow Fang's corner, so the timetable could be shorter." We took that as the signal to leave, but before we passed the door, Isheram stopped me. "Before you go, Silver, Claymore asked me to give you something."

Hidden between paper stakes, the gargoyle pulled out the same golden sword that was hanging in my room. As Isheram gently held it across the table, it shined with a new polish.

"You may need it," he said solemnly.

Eversharp seemed to hum at a frequency only BD, and I could hear. I rejected it the first time because having it didn't feel right. Now, I was afraid that the sword would pull me deeper into the person of Silver. That said, I quickly dashed my fear and grabbed the sword. I motioned to sheath the sword, and where a scabbard would have been, the sword disappeared little by little as if it were being stored in a unique pocket dimension. I couldn't afford to turn down help anymore.

I thanked Isheram and left with Mindplay and Raya to help with the interrogation, using the Cleaners to guide us. The walk to the interrogation room wasn't quiet.

"It was one thing to find out Shadow Fang had an organization working for him," said Raya, "But to have a dragon even older than the Quetzalcoatl is more than I could have imagined."

"I was wondering what that was in Shadow Fang's head," Mindplay said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"To be clear, I still don't know what I experienced, but it was powerful and scary enough to make me react by turning off my mind-reading powers."

I didn't have much experience with mind reading as an ascendeit ability, so I didn't know how much in awe was appropriate for what Mindplay said. What could be agreed on between us was that we couldn't let Shadow Fang free this dragon.

What do you know about the Red Dragon?

The same as everyone else, I'm afraid.

We finally got to the interrogation room, and I stopped when I smelled the Rainforest mixed with sap. It was Jurya's scent. Soon to follow was the smell of blood and smoke. With the threat of the Red Dragon being sealed, the name Jurya didn't really register in my head. With her smell, though, I was reminded of my hate towards her. The memory of feeling betrayed came to me like a strong wind. I-

"Silver?" I returned to reality for a moment to see Mindplay with a concerned look. "You don't have to come with us to see her."

"No!" I snapped. My mind returned to the burning forest and the dead body of a tree nymph. Gabori's body. "She won't get away from me again. And this time-"

I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. I whipped around to see it was Raya. With a stern expression, she spoke. "We are not avengers."

My rage washed away.

The way she said it was more commanding than when she said it in Sanctuary, but it was no less impactful. I took a deep breath. Maybe my rage was justified, but we were not here for vengeance. Peace as we knew it was at stake, and I couldn't let personal grudges get in the way. I looked at Mindplay and Raya with a smile and scratched BD's head to calm me down.

With another deep breath, I said, "Thank you. Let's get to work."

As Jurya did her best to answer the siren's questions about the "secret power full spellcaster" under Shadow Fang's employ, she couldn't help but be preoccupied with her own questions. What will happen to me? Does the Great Quetzalcoatl really not care about her? She remembered Claymore back when Silver first met the young mage, but she didn't get to know him well. She knew less about him as a king. Was he strict? Has he gone mad over the years?

Her fate was so ambiguous that she would instead be told here and now that she would be flung into Tarturous rather than spend another second alone with her thoughts.

Two snaps rang, bringing Jurya's attention back to Elen.

"Focus up, dryad," Elen said demeaningly. "Don't force me to enchant you."

"You've been asking the same question for almost an hour," complained Jurya. Her voice made it sound like she was groveling. "Shadow Fang didn't talk to me about his end goal, much less about any secrets."

"But he would have to tell you more than the standard soldier. You were his only access into the Amazon Rainforest, which means you were obliged to know as much as possible."

"I genuinely don't know." It wasn't a lie. If Jurya was hooked up to one of those lie detectors she heard about in passing from Shadow Fang's cultist, she would quickly pass.

However, something felt off. Shadow Fang thugs had been operating in the Rainforest for months, both in and out of the city. She made it a habit to eavesdrop on every interesting conversation she could get away with. No matter how tight-lipped Shadow Fang was keeping everyone, a "secret spellcaster" would have made the rounds as a rumor, at the very least.

And yet, nothing came to mind. At first, Jurya concluded that there was no secret spellcaster and went on to think the siren was trying to push a crazy idea to get more information out of her. But like termites eating the bark of a tree, Jurya felt bothered by something she couldn't grasp.

Before Elen could ask another question, the door to the room opened with a click, and Jurya's heart dropped. Silver walked into the room with three of the four other people he was with back at the Rainforest.

Elen quickly stood up and greeted Silver with a handshake. "Honorable Silver. If you don't already know me, my name is Elen Nizzola, a siren of siren descent. I have everything under control, but if my pace is inadequate-"

Silver interrupted her as the white-haired girl closed the door. "At ease. We just wanted to hear Jurya's confession personally."

Silver's voice was calmer than Jurya was expecting. It didn't make her less scared, though. If he wanted to rip her to shreds, there would be no one who could or would stop him. Some more words were exchanged between everyone, but Jurya was so scared that all the sounds became muffled. It was when Silver spoke to her directly that she was able to hear properly again.

Not knowing what was said, she manically proclaimed, "I'm sorry!" ugly tears drowned her cheeks, and her mouth almost became too sticky to speak correctly. "You were right. I shouldn't have sided with the pharaoh. I was stupid and dumb, and I know I don't deserve forgiveness. But please, if I could appeal to any kindness you have left-"

"Jurya!" Jurya snapped her mouth shut. Silver had called her name three times before she heard him. "I'm not here for vengeance."

Jurya sniffled. "You're not?"

"Elen said you didn't know anything about the spellcasters amongst Shadow Fang's forces? Is that true?"

Jurya did her best to clean her face before speaking again. "That's not what I meant. I-I kept an account of every member who was in the Rainforest. If Shadow Fang did have a secret wizard with him, I don't know about it."

The human with the blonde hair tilted his head more and more as Jurya spoke. For a moment, she thought she had broken him when she was trying to put him to sleep.

"That's…not true," He said carefully, almost as if he meant the statement as a question.

Elen and Jurya were shocked, while Silver and the white-haired girl looked confused but in a way that indicated they were expecting him to speak. While Elen had her own thoughts on the matter, Jurya's mind was racing.

Not true. Was this a trick to get her to confess to something she didn't have the answers to? But she did have the answers.

Where did that come from? Jurya thought. She genuinely believed that something was off with her, but something was compelling her--no--helping her to think. Then she remembered the blonde-haired boy. He was the only one who could resist her sleep spell. He must have powers over the mind and somehow got into hers. Usually, she would try to reject the intrusion, but he wasn't being malicious. Something was missing from her memories, and she didn't have the power to remember.

Jurya's subconscious leads the boy through everything related to Shadow Fang and his group. Like an expert gardener, the boy quickly pointed out sections that didn't make sense: missing phrases, blurred faces, and missing events of Jurya's day. With the problem diagnosed, the boy began to weed out the parts that didn't make sense and restructure the memories.

Then, Jurya's blood went cold. Bony fingers touched the side of Jurya's mouth one by one, and similarly, a bony hand covered her mouth. In reality, there was nothing on Jurya, and yet her screams were muffled. Tears once again streamed down the dryad's face.

The world went black.