Staring at the face of Grace Kanis across from him, James Anthem thinks it’s funny how things end up. Weeks ago, he would have enjoyed seeing the woman burned at the stake. Now, he understands her intimately, closer than any family bond or social construction. Their link is both biological and cellular, two hosts to the same parasite. Anthem wonders how much of himself is left.

“You will do fine,” says Grace, or what she had been. Half her long brown hair has fallen out, and her freckles are gone. Her eyes, which were once placid and uncaring, now blaze a dull orange. Anthem starts to see that her whole appearance has something to do with her kneeling above the form of Fleet Admiral Delah Stalt.

The woman lies still on the ground a few meters away from the hole that opens the innards of Jubilee. Grace runs bony fingers along Delah’s scalp, and from those appendages sprout feelers that resemble coral reefs. They dig into the woman’s cheeks, neck, stomach, arms, and just about every inch of the woman. Anthem observes Kanis’s physiognomy morphing in real time to match the sleeping body.

“Are you sure that will work?” Anthem asks.

Kanis ignores the question while Delah Stalt undergoes a separate transformation. Anthem’s unsure if it’s his medical zoology knowledge identifying this process or this new being inside him, but the signs are unmistakable. Delah’s body begins to wither, fat evaporating, bones flattening, and her hairline receding to eventually give way to the thin eels that will replace them. She’s lost a few pounds in minutes, as if the fat has just evaporated.

Through it all, Anthem senses Grace’s impatience—or could it be the organism they host, this new strand Anthem tried to neutralize but couldn’t? The transformation will take too long, and neither she nor Anthem have time to wait.

“She has a high tolerance,” Anthem tells her. “Recent inhibitors. Strong ones, naval caliber. If you want, I-”

“She has the Myco strand,” Kanis interjects, still holding her maligned hands to the woman’s face. “She did it to herself and someone else.” Kanis closes her eyes as if listening.

“Just sever it,” though Anthem’s unsure if he’s talking to Grace Kanis now or the new being living inside them. Are his thoughts even his own?

The once-Thurmgeist shakes her head. “I can join the link as a third mycorrhizal node and make it seem she’s still here to whoever that other person is.” Grace removes her hand and caresses Delah Stalt’s cheek with it. “She is a woman of great power and influence. If Kaskit still believes she is alive and, worse, a threat, they will pursue her, and it will all be at a time we choose.”

We. The collective, the royal, the ‘we’ consisting of Grace, every marine who rescued them, and himself. They all follow that overarching presence beyond, and soon, the rest of the world will know of it, regard it with fear, or concede to its spread.

Anthem can feel, however, that, like all new things, it is vulnerable, ignorant, and unaware of the workings of Salvarin and the other continents. It does not know the Written laws that bind this place, but it will learn them. It will learn many things, but it must recruit hosts, allies, and devotees in that time. Grace’s plans of subterfuge start to make more sense, for it’s safer to remain in the shadows for now.

“You will do fine,” Grace murmurs. “You will do fine. You will do fine…”

Those utterances become parting words sinking deeper into Anthem than any anchor. He would have done fine without this strand’s help, and with that realization comes a pang of sadness pinching him almost to tears. Still, even that diminishes, maybe not of his own accord, and perhaps he will never cry again, for he senses an encouragement not to weep for change because progress is flourishing and beautiful. He should welcome change with open arms from now on.

Such a simple creature he was before, full of primitive motivations, nothing but an empty vessel devoid of purpose. Now, his direction shines before him, clear as all the celestial bodies, guided by an overwhelming presence.

Aboard the docked gondola named the Glownabar, Anthem sits in front of the same mycorrhizal that belonged to Lieutenant Colonel Tatlock. This new strand decides to speak to Anthem, not through words but through pulses of understanding. It educates him about the inflection points and the many vertices along the mycorrhizal web that the Corps officers used on Jubilee. All of them are unmanned now and lost, save for this one, and it is from this remaining link the Emergence Corps will expect updates on the state of the situation at the Hyrnlak Archipelago: march movements, outcomes of battles, casualty reports, plans, actions acknowledged, orders carried out. Results.

Grace Kanis is doing her part, and James Anthem must do his.

“I’ve thought about it,” says Grace. “These remaining men will make an adequate terminal staff at the blockade here. We will drain the Corps of the supplies they send until they deem it not worth the effort.”

Given their state and the overarching presence presiding over them, how can Grace pick out her own thoughts in that sea of perceptions?

“And how long do you think that will take?” Anthem isn’t sure if he’s speaking to Grace or the strand.

“Years, maybe, but it will give me time to grow. And you as well.” She smirks. “Look at us, two puppeteers.”

She has it all wrong. She, Anthem, and everyone else are the puppets on this stage, and this new strand is orchestrating the performance. “As long as it takes,” he says, knowing he will not be alone in the tale’s creation.

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“Tatlock?” says the spotted mycorrhizal a time later. Anthem recognizes the speaker’s voice from previous correspondences. The laugh that comes next is ill-placed in the strict air.

Here it goes. Anthem clears his throat and puts on his best impression of Tatlock with no help from the Inciter strand. “Jubilee was a failure, Gauss, but not a dismal one. We sustained heavy casualties and retreated to RLZ 1 at Lomlen. We will gather our forces there until we can strike again.” He goes on, explaining the specifics that he gathers not from his knowledge but the strand’s, running off a script that lives in his mind and will never leave. His impersonation seems sufficient, and he wonders how long he can keep it up.

When Anthem finishes, he sneaks out of the dark mycorrhizal chamber, not to be hidden from his enemies but to remain alone and bask in the silence and the isolation he may never feel again. He takes a moment on the gondola’s prowl, feeling pressing eyes on him even though he is alone. He wishes they would stay away, just enough for him to see humanity’s light before it snuffs.

In the Glownabar’s bottom hold, Anthem finds Grace standing over the sleeping form of June-Leckie. There was no struggle as Anthem had anticipated, and he sees now the wound on her calf where the maligned had wounded her. It was always going to be easy.

Grace kneels and places her hands on June’s feet, and as Anthem steps closer, he takes in the process. June’s body on the bed is slightly raised by a thick layer of maligned flesh in the shape of a pod, the same as the one they found Hess in, as well as the other women still at the bottom of Jubilee.

“Surrogate, then,” Anthem mutters. “A surrogate pod.” His desire to invent and to further knowledge may be one of the last remaining slivers of his humanity. He had been so close.

As Grace clutches June’s ankles tight, the Thurmgeist doesn’t move, can’t move, for the pod’s feelers have already planted themselves into her brain and have shut down her flight response, dulled her fear and pain receptors, cranked her metabolism down to near-zero and are now placing her in comatose, a sort of hibernation. She looks as peaceful as a child in the arms of an all-knowing, faithful mother.

“I’ll find a place for June,” Anthem tells Grace, “but I prefer to turn her.”

“No,” says Grace. “She may be a Mind like me one day. Maybe this strand doesn’t just turn women but prefers them as hosts. Even if not, she is still a woman who can reach places a man cannot.” She looks upon Anthem with those blazing orange eyes, and he deems this an order he cannot supersede.

They are both still learning of their new presence and will continue to learn, just as it does about them.

She may become our downfall one day,” he warns, another sliver of his once-self pushing through. “Just one loose end could ruin this.”

Grace Kanis doesn’t listen, and Anthem finds himself hoping it’s her past sentimentality leading her to spare her friend, for it would mean a shred of humanity is left in Grace. If such a thing is possible in her, the same can be true for him. Maybe those pieces will remain.

Grace Kanis’s voice is the tone of dried dirt now. “Not if you keep her subdued long enough.” Those blazing eyes study the human part of Anthem, the ever-fleeting fragment. “Do you think you can do that?”

What choice does he have? “I’ll get people to watch over her. People she trusted.” That is one resource he thinks will never dwindle for him, for as long as no neutralizer exists for this strand, it will spread unhindered. There will be millions of willing hosts and warm bodies to hide inside.

Grace nods. “As for me,” she says, “expect me inland. Eventually.”

“And after that?”

The thing that was once a woman shrugs. “Who knows?”

Anthem doesn’t bother asking more, for he will surely hear of Grace Kanis again. The strand has made quite a compelling choice in the Thurmgeist as a host. Not just any host either, but it seems its focus—its champion. She will undoubtedly expand far with its assistance and drive. On the other hand, Anthem will be content just being home, whatever state he is in.

You made it out, he assures himself, and it becomes the mantra of his days and of his nights.

Knowledge pulses inside Anthem at that moment; the inventor’s instinct that he isn’t sure belongs to him anymore. It carries on it two words, and he cannot help but blurt them out. “Monad Ortet.” He speaks it as if commanded from a past deeply buried, only to resurface now at the precise moment of something else’s planning. They are botanical terms, ones he’s only heard in passing, as textbook footnotes. Perhaps there is meaning, but he doesn’t feel compelled to discover it anymore. Oh, no.

“What’s with the name?” asks Grace.

Anthem explains to her that he doesn’t know, that the strand knows but won’t tell him or even pulse a suggestion of the etymology. This strand can keep its secrets, too. So many secrets still out there. Will he ever get a chance to discover any more?

He bids adieu to Grace Kanis and sets off on the Glownabar, leaving this Monad Ortet and her marines behind. They do not wave at each other or say a word; the only thoughts shared are those of plans, promises, and commitments to the strand residing inside them.

Anthem dangles to the city in careful silence, rising from sleepless nights to sustain June-Leckie’s pod. He takes food scraps from a box of rations placed close by, pulls the pod’s thin veil aside, and sets the morsels in the thick interior lining. The protective prison this new strand has constructed absorbs the food’s nutrients and infuses them into the woman’s body, Anthem observing all the while as if studying the workings of his brain. Still, some part of his curious mind exists, and he grasps it with all the consciousness he can will.

He leaves her, falling back to that strange point between waking and wandering that he’s come to call his new rhythm he may never shake. His thoughts start to lose independence as they surrender to the more influential force inside him.

When the Glownabar pulls into Kaskit’s bullwheel terminal, Anthem feels the press of something in his pocket that Grace had forgotten about, and maybe the strand, too, or had left in Anthem’s possession intentionally. There must be a reason why a man like him would hold a fire seed.

The strand spreads to the first men that climb aboard when Anthem offers them the fresh vesicles. From there, it jumps where it wants to, where it needs to, where it can, and into the minds of those in charge, the worthiest puppets. The earliest of those turned by the strand help Anthem secure a place in the city for June. Convincing the keepers to hold her is not difficult.

Before long, Anthem is heralded as the only surviving member of the Flung’s expedition to the Hyrnlak Archipelago, and it is not hard to keep up the lie to support the tale that the strand weaves and forces him to maintain. When he approaches the alcazar, Anthem—now the nameless man returned from the Emergence Corps—presents the Second Signature the fire seed and his terms for keeping it.

Thankfully, she doesn’t recognize him.