Tenthé, Isabell, and Bear were sitting at a table outside a small café near the temple district. It was famous for its exotic teas, and each of them had a cup steaming in front of them. Of course, Isabell had paid, while Tenthé contributed by casting a weak spell over the trio to deflect attention.

Bear, his entire face brown from being dipped into his cup, complained, “Honking Hells! I can’t taste anything! I can smell and feel, but would it be too much to let me taste?” He then shifted to a falsetto, or at least, more of one.

“No Percy! Taste without a tongue is too hard. You’ll be fine. It’s not like you had any real taste anyway, hee-hee-hee,” then back to his normal voice. “Freaking Magisters.”

He then plunged his face into the cup once again.

Tenthé and Isabell found no reason to stop ignoring him. Now that they knew a lot more about how he came into being, it had opened the floodgates. Bear felt it was his duty to fill them in on every sordid second of his life, in great detail, largely portraying himself as a lovable rogue.

What they understood may not have been exactly what Bear intended, since what he said was partially true: he had definitely been a rogue. But it was also obvious that his judges had not misunderstood him. In fact, they seemed to have known what he was, very well indeed.

Unfortunately, having an unsympathetic audience did not deter Bear from the need to share. And share and share.

While Bear was literally trying to drown his sorrows in his tea, Isabell and Tenthé watched the people pass by. The size of the crowd was normal for this time of the day, except for the Turtle’s priests running back and forth, searching for something.

As they sat, Tenthé shared his latest experiences with Isabell. He had expected that she would know everything that had gone on during his talk with Turtle, but they had both been surprised to find that some of it had been hidden from her. This led them to discuss the differences in what he was able to do versus what she could.

It was quite interesting. They each could accomplish similar things, but in completely different ways. Which exposed a fundamental issue: how much Isabell had changed.

“After I woke, it took a long time for me to realize something was different,” Isabell was saying. “I simply did what I felt was right and only afterward, when I had a moment to go over everything, was I able to figure out my abilities were anything but normal. Of course, this was when I was being hauled around by the big Guardian. You said it’s called the Guard? Supposed to be some super magic thing? Yeah?

“Well, I found I could leak parts out of its hand and eventually, all of me was free.”

At this point, Bear broke in, “So what’s it like to be those cubes? Does it hurt, or anything?”

“Nah, nothing like that, at all. My consciousness is spread out. I can see everywhere and if I find something interesting, then the cubes multiply as more of my attention shifts to that place. As weird as it seems, I have no problem looking at many places at once. I don’t flip through them, I see all of them at the same time. Don’t ask me how, it’s like smelling food and watching someone cook. You don’t sense each thing separately, they’re both there together.”

Tenthé looked at her and asked, “So what decides when you have a body and when you look like cubes?”

Isabell looked perplexed. “I don’t really know. It’s even weirder than that, because when I changed, the thing didn’t realize my armor was separate, so it got mixed into what I’ve become.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

To show what she meant, her hand formed a gauntlet over it, and when she gripped, a blade of dark light formed. Isabell saw his interest and slowly brought the weapon down. A sliver of the table fell off, leaving a shiny flat surface behind that smoked slightly.

“Oh! I like that,” he exclaimed.

“I do too. It cuts everything. Even some spells, but it isn’t good for blocking. If you try to stop a sword, the two pieces will still hit you.”

“Yeah, I know all about that,” Tenthé said. “In the Pools I learned other ways to do the same thing.”

“Don’t talk about the Pools,” Bear injected. “They were pretty rough. We’re having too good a time to dredge all that up.”

He then re-immersed his face in the cup.

Isabell looked at Tenthé. Although he was hiding it, she could see that he had some bad memories. Tenthé jerked back as she reached over and took his hand.

He didn’t try to escape. Many people might think her some kind of monster, but although he was pretty ordinary, some of the versions of him locked in the back of his mind were monsters too. It had been a while since someone really understood. He was pretty sure he was holding Isabell’s hand as much as she was holding his.

They sat like that for a few moments.

Bear pulled his face out of the tea and took in the tableau.

“Hey, hey, hey, what have we here? You guys going to start kissing?” he made smacking noises. “Kissy, kissy, kissy, and…” At that point, Tenthé assisted Bear’s head in slamming itself into his tea.

There was a faint smile on Isabell’s face. “He doesn’t get it, does he? Before, things were simple. I knew who I was, where I fit in, and what life was going to be like. Now? Everything’s in flux. I don’t know anything!”

That feeling was something Tenthé had known more than once. He looked at her.

“Just take things as they come,” he said. “No matter what happens, I’ll do the best I can to be there for you. You got my back, I’ve got yours.”

It was probably the best answer, since Isabell kept hold of his hand, albeit gripping hard enough to crush rocks.

Bear sat up, tea dripping from his muzzle.

“Ah, sorry,” the toy said. “Don’t get too worked up about it. For what it’s worth, I’m here too. Maybe not my first choice, but that’s the way it is.”

Both of them waited for some snarky comment, but, for once, Bear didn’t have anything more to say. Maybe he did understand, at least, as best someone stuck as a toy could.

Tenthé decided to change the subject. “So,” he prompted. “Will you stay at the College? Or at home? I’m not sure that the Magisters can deal with the new you. They don’t really know what to make of me, and I’m not that different.”

“Don’t get me started! My mom is completely nuts! All she does is try to suck me into her schemes. She can’t see how obvious they all are and won’t quit! I have no intention of returning home! Ever!

“For the moment I’ll stay at the College. At least the wards keep her agents out of my business. Although, people from the other families are always pestering me too. I envy you your forgetting. I wish I had something like that.”

Tenthé didn’t know what to say. So instead, he brought up an idea he was working on. His experience was that doing something was better than sitting around and hoping things would go back to how they used to be.

“If you’re okay with it, let’s go see Tomas. If we can get him to agree, there might be a way to get away from all this, and maybe find out what’s really going on.”

Isabell suddenly sat up, as if she’d had a revelation.

“Wait! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you! You’re worried that there are things going on we don’t know about? Well, you ought to be!”

She went on to relate her experience with the meeting in the middle of space. Tenthé sat quietly after she was done. He glanced at Bear, who had been paying attention, even as he was trying to wring the tea out of his face.

“Yeah, that’s kind of what we figured,” the toy muttered. “Although we didn’t know about the Guard and Magister Grenville. Can you show us more detail… like a moving picture?”

“I thought of that, but it was a magical place that might not be exactly real, so there aren’t any pictures. Just what I remember. I guess I could try to make something from the memories.”

At that moment, the crowd noises from the street grew in volume. A group of priests were gathering near the café.

Isabell observed, “Hmm, it looks like they are zeroing in. We should probably leave before they find us. Here, grab my hand,” she said to Bear.

“No, way! Who knows where it’s been and… urk!”

She snatched him up, then everyone turned into cubes and disappeared.