After I'd done my best to resolve the crisis in the cabin, Vuliel had gone off to a corner to get used to his new, double-souled state. I didn't blame him—the solution I'd slapped together was haphazard at best, and it couldn't have been comfortable for either of them.

But I had helped. The constant grind of grabbing new attunements whenever I could, even if it meant making my friends angry or sad or regretful, had paid off. I was one step further away from the cowering, helpless witch of self-hatred that had hidden helplessly while different shades of grey tried to kill each other before my eyes.

Lucet had excused herself from the cabin after watching me desperately battle to hold Mertri's dying soul together, and I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what she was doing. But the rest of the refugee soldiers in the cabin immediately burst out into a clamor of overlapping voices, asking who we were, how we'd found them, whether we knew how to get out of the storm. Our answers ranged from deflections (a traveling oracle and his children) to truths (what part of 'oracle' did you not understand) to cautious bargaining (why don't we all get settled first), but it seemed like we weren't going to get rushed by a bunch of desperate Peaks soldiers, so I let Sansen handle most of the negotiation and nudged Meloai.

"I'm going outside," I whispered, as Sansen asked if the soldiers knew about a witch of lust in the army. From the sounds of it, he wasn't getting very far. "Let me know if... I dunno, the Peaks folks get all snippy about me using regret or something."

"Will do. Hopefully none of them get mad at me for being a mimic," Meloai whispered back.

One of the sharper-eared soldiers whipped his head our way. "You're a what?" he asked.

I sighed. Sansen didn't seem too agitated, so I was sure Meloai would be fine. That was their battle to face.

I had my own.

###

Lucet was casting frost spells when I exited the cabin. Not many, and not much—none of us really understood the amplification of frost magic that raged beneath the rift, but Lucet seemed to be getting the hang of it nonetheless.

"Are you going to say I'm reckless for using my magic right now?" Lucet asked. There wasn't even any acrimony in her voice—just resignation.

I shook my head, stepping up next to her. "No. No, I was stupid when I told you to stay away from frost magic. You're smart and capable, and a much better witch of sorrow than I am."

Even as I watched, Lucet delicately cleaved a wafer-thin sheet of sorrow from her soul, flicking it out like a throwing card. It scythed through the air, a trail of frost hissing with amplified magic. It was a respectable frostbolt, one that I certainly couldn't replicate.

"Twelve attunements," she finally said.

Neither of us had to ask what she was talking about.

"I know," I whispered.

She didn't say anything more, just slicing off another chip of sorrow from her soul, practicing the frostbolt until her hands frosted over and her sorrow ran numb.

###

Eventually, Sansen came out to tell us that we'd reached an agreement with the soldiers. By the frustration in his face, I could tell he hadn't found any news on Jiaola's whereabouts, other than confirmation that at one point, he'd been here in the army.

"They apparently got lost in the conflict, so we gave them directions out of the storm," Sansen said. "And we're getting use of the cabin, since... well, they're not using it anymore. Everybody wins."

"Odin would be jealous," I said. Sansen just shook his head and turned to leave. I hesitated, turning to see if Lucet would stay outside, but she squeezed my hand reassuringly and followed Sansen into the cabin.

It didn't take long to get settled in. The soldiers had, with military efficiency, already set up a space for us to sleep. All we had to do was use it.

But I'd barely hit the mattress when something struck my soul, jolting me awake.

And suddenly, I wasn't Cienne, weighed down with worries about Lucet and Jiaola.

I was Sansen, and I had just jolted awake in tears, fragments of memory spinning off from my soul.

###

My husband was—is—the strongest witch I know. He wasn't strong in the sense of fireballs or artillery strikes, but he cared, fiercely and truly, about the people he loved. About his family. And it said something about him that the two were one and the same. Even when the odds stacked against him seemed insurmountable, even when he'd been beaten down over and over again by a mocking world that hated and feared him, he still found a way, time and time again, to protect those he cared for. And that was his strength, one deeper and truer than any spell could ever be.

Is, I reminded myself. That is his strength. He's still alive, somewhere out there, in the storm.

"We'll find him," a quiet, young, high-pitched voice said from my side, interrupting the thakka-thakka-thakka of hail on the cabin roof. My nephew Cienne wasn't related to me by blood, but that wasn't what family meant to us anyway. "Jiaola's a fighter. He'd want his husband to keep his head up."

I snorted. "My head's up, kid. More than you. I'm, what, a hand taller than you? A hand and a half?"

Cienne stuck his tongue out at me, unamused. I guess he never did like it when I poked fun at his height; I made a mental note to stop. "I can tell you're running low on hope."

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Ugh. This was the danger of living with witches: everyone cared so much about your emotions. It was endearing when it came from my husband, but I was the one who was supposed to be taking care of my nephew, not the other way around. "C'mon, kid," I said instead. "It's late. Head off to bed. We've got a long day tomorrow, and you need your sleep."

Cienne grumbled. "I'm supposed to be in the Academy right now. I'm practically built to pull all-nighters. You need your sleep, Sansen. Now git, before I cast a sleep spell on you."

I raised an eyebrow. "Do you actually know how to do that?"

"Sure do. A good thwack on the head should do it. Maybe I'll knock some sense into you while I'm at it." Cienne turned around, a ball of blazing witchlight in one hand, then paused. "Take care, Sansen. We'll find your husband eventually."

I closed my eyes. "Yeah. I know."

When I opened my eyes again, Cienne was gone. He'd left the light behind.

I sighed and trudged over to the repurposed dining hall that we were using as a communal bedroom. The kids were already sleeping—having the luxury of actual beds after so many weeks on the road was a potent sedative. I glanced towards my bed.

The shadows beneath it seemed to stretch and writhe.

There was a reason why I'd been getting less sleep, as of late.

But Cienne was right. Restless, nightmare-plagued sleep was still better than no sleep.

I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes, and some part of me fancied that the shadows swallowed me whole.

###

The nightmare wasn't, and then it always had been. One moment, I was dissolving into the oblivion of sleep; the next, I was standing in a crashing hailstorm, watching my husband struggle to stay alive.

"Damn you," I whispered. I tried to pinch myself awake, tried to snap out of the dream, but my body wouldn't move, my eyes wouldn't close. All I could do was curse myself and watch.

Watch as Jiaola fought for his life.

"Stay close to me!" Even in the chaos of the storm, Jiaola always did find a way to protect those around him. A squadron of soldiers in the uniform of the Silent Peaks clustered around him for shelter as the old witch held up a hand, hail smashing on a barrier maintained by nothing but Jiaola's soul. "Can any thermal-capable witches provide us with warmth?"

"It's no use!" The soldier next to him—a young woman I didn't recognize—cursed as her magic fizzled out. "The ambient frost magic—it must be interfering. We're going to freeze to death out here!"

"No. No, I refuse. We need shelter. A way to keep body heat in. Make a snow cave. I'll keep the wind out for now." Jiaola held out both hands, as if supporting some great weight, and in a massive bubble around him, the air stilled. Snow froze in air that was suddenly as solid as steel, creating a dome of shelter in the supernatural storm—

And then a comet of ice, larger than a person, rained from the sky and blasted a hole through Jiaola's sanctuary. I tried to look away by reflex. I knew what happened next. I'd lived through this fucking nightmare every day for the past four weeks.

The world went blurry and white with the impact.

When the snow settled, Jiaola was nowhere to be seen.

"I can take you to him," a voice said from behind me.

And now came the hardest part of the nightmares. I glared, my body frozen in place, as the demon stepped into view.

They were tall, masculine, barrel-chested, even human-looking. But my husband was a witch, and I was no fool. I knew the Dealmaker well, and I knew that they were a demon. One who offered things otherwise unattainable.

But the Dealmaker's offers always came with a cost, even if it was hidden at first. And my husband had personal experience with the Dealmaker's temptations. It was a terrible idea to even so much as consider taking their hand.

And yet.

And yet it had been months since I'd seen Jiaola's face. Months since I'd held his hand, since I'd last run one thumb over the wedding ring the two of us had fought so hard to be able to wear, months since I'd known he was sent off to war and lost in a blizzard and just maybe gone forever.

"No," I whispered, and it took all the strength I had left in my soul to refuse.

The demon tilted their head. "As you wish."

And the dream reset to the beginning. Jiaola stood defiant against the storm, providing shelter for the innocent, as he always did.

And the storm snuffed him out like a candle.

Like it always did.

"I can take you to him," the demon murmured once more.

I wished my body would move, so that I could close my eyes and plug my ears and not have to see my husband vanish over and over and over again. "...No..." I managed, and it was weak and feeble and still.

"As you wish."

And the dream reset again.

And again.

And again.

And each time, I felt my will erode. Each time, I felt myself slipping closer to taking the Dealmaker's hand.

On the eighth time this night, the nine hundred and sixtieth time in total, I saw my husband fall one last time.

"I can take you to him," the Dealmaker said.

My mouth never dried, my throat never roughened, but I was still so, so tired of speaking even those two tiny letters.

I opened my lips. Closed them again. Tasted the shape of my words.

"Mayb—" I began, and something in my soul burned.

i was thrown back, shocked, as the false landscape around me unravelled. The demon jolted to life, stepping back, as something shadowy and clawed and protective stirred from within my soul.

"Wh—what are—" I began to say.

"DEALMAKER," the larger demon rumbled, and its sinuous form curled around mine, glaring down at the cautious Dealmaker. "THIS ONE'S SOUL IS NOT YOURS TO SET FOOT IN. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT."

The Dealmaker gathered themself, crouching into a low combat stance. "I have no right? Who gave you entry into this man's soul?"

The serpent of shadow and flame lowered itself to the Dealmaker's eye level.

"HIS HUSBAND."

Then it surged forwards, striking the Dealmaker in a single, decisive blow that cracked my soul with the sheer force of it, and the illusion the Dealmaker had summoned was blown apart like icicles in a blizzard.

Leaving me alone with the serpent.

I told my beating heart to calm down as the serpent turned towards me. "MORTAL. I APOLOGIZE FOR MY... SUDDEN APPEARANCE."

"No. No, don't apologize for protecting me." Weakly, I laughed. "He... he always did that. Does that."

"YES. I AM A FRAGMENT OF YOUR HUSBAND'S ESSENCE. I HAVE INHERITED MANY OF HIS TRAITS." The serpent hesitated, then continued. "INCLUDING, AS IT SEEMS, HIS PENCHANT FOR SELF-DESTRUCTION."

"What?" I blurted out.

"MY POWER IS... LIMITED. ONCE I HAVE IGNITED MY SOUL FRAGMENT, I CANNOT EXTINGUISH IT. THE MEMORY THAT FUELS MY EXISTENCE WILL BE UNMADE IN ITS ENTIRETY SOON, AND I WILL FADE. I... APOLOGIZE, FOR MY INSUFFICIENCY."

"No." Rifts, it was absurd to be comforting a snake-monster larger than a house, but I tried my best anyway. "No, you did amazingly. You did... you did what he would have done. I... just wish that it wouldn't mean I was alone, after this."

"YOU ARE NOT ALONE," the serpent said, coiling around me. Somehow, it felt like an embrace. "YOU HAVE YOUR NEPHEW. YOUR FAMILY. AND ONE DAY, YOU WILL SEE YOUR HUSBAND AGAIN."

I smiled. "Yeah. He's... he's the strongest witch I know. We'll meet again."

"SOME SUNNY DAY," the creature agreed.

And then it was gone, one moment a serpent, the next a mere shadow, fading as day broke.

My eyes jolted open, tears running down my cheeks, as the monster under my bed faded away, as did the demon it died protecting me from.

###

I blinked out of the memory, gasping, and turned to my left. It was a profoundly disconcerting experience to see Sansen from a different perspective immediately after absorbing the memory that'd been blasted off his soul in the battle—and from Sansen's pained expression as he clutched his head, it wasn't much better from his end.

But despite the disorientation and pain, I laughed.

Because I'd the memory Odin had taunted Sansen with of the place where Jiaola had fell, and I recognized the part of the Redlands where it was set.

"Hey, Sansen," I said, sitting up. "I've got good news, and I've got bad news."