“This is the start of your great dominion then and the wandering horror?” Marissa asked excitedly.

“You know about that thing?” Ezekiel gave her a wry smile. “I wonder if it’s still around.”

The carriage rolled into Ezekiel’s fortress, night having long since set. “How can you not know?” Marissa asked as they dismounted.

“Do you really think we keep track of everything we’ve created?”

“No.” Marissa shook her head. “That would be ridiculous, you alone have created hundreds of thousands of different things. But I feel like that one would’ve been one you’d keep tabs on.”

“Nope,” Ezekiel laughed. “When the road was replaced, I kind of forgot to give it a new job. By the time I remembered, I couldn’t find it. Evidently it had developed the ability to fly, because that’s the only way I can explain how it disappeared.”

“You do realize that monster started showing up in other countries and patrolling roads there?” Marissa asked.

“I had heard something about that, but I was busy.” Ezekiel laughed. “Is it still out there doing that?”

“Every time they think it’s been destroyed, it shows up someplace. Always looks a little different though,” Marissa said.

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“Interesting… I wonder what is allowing that. Maybe there’s a core part of it that has somehow become separate and is rebuilding around it. Would be interesting to see.”

“What would be interesting?” Raven asked, coming through an archway into the courtyard where they were chatting.

Marissa explained.

“I wonder if somebody tried to destroy it and only managed to mostly destroy it,” Raven suggested. “Whatever survived would have become the core of the creature, and who knows what would’ve happened after that.”

“We should go find it,” Ezekiel said. “It’s always interesting to see how different magics have combined in ways that are unexpected.”

“I will put some feelers out to see if we can track it down,” Raven said.

“Marissa, we should continue tomorrow,” Ezekiel said. “You should spend some time meditating.”

Marissa expected that. It had been a long day in between the fair and the story up to this point, she had a lot to think about and process. The shift Ezekiel went through as he established his dominion and built an army seemed quick, but taking perspective, it really wasn’t.

A lot of things had been changing in the story. She understood why his perspective must’ve shifted back then. She wondered what that said about the process he had been going through.

***

“You want to know where my phylactery is?” Marissa asked the next day.

Ezekiel looked up from the book he was reading. “What makes you assume I don’t already know where it is?”

His response took Marissa by surprise. “Because it’s… hidden,” she said weakly.

“Sure it is,” Ezekiel agreed. “If you are confident in your hiding place, you should never tell anyone where it is, especially not right now.”

“But do you know where it is?” Marissa asked.

Ezekiel smiled. “Let’s continue the story.”