“Welcome all passengers of the Excala Expressway service. We expect to be crossing the border momentarily. Do expect heavy rain as the train crosses the international Aether boundary. This rain is expected to continue for the coming days in varying intensity. Thank you once again for your continued patronage.”

Iris peered out the window but failed to match reality with the conductor’s notice. The skies, as far as she could tell, were completely blue.

“I think I only have one umbrella,” Elliot sighed. “I think it’ll be big enough for all of us.”

Evalyn groaned a routine annoyance. “Your majesty, we revere you, but please, at least tell us you’re going to make one side sunny when the other is raining.”

As if on cue, a torrent of rain cascaded around the train carriage, startling all three. Iris looked out the window once more and found the sky’s blue hue had degraded into blotches of grey, and the rain had stolen her visibility. The plains, what once seemed vast and endless now only extended a few tens of metres. Many commuters began complaining while the prepared few readied their umbrellas for battle.

By in large, post-war Sidosian immigration offices were heavily regulated. Many conservative officers were either shifted to other positions or removed entirely and replaced with progressive-thinking ones of similar competence. Records of who was denied and allowed entry were heavily monitored, and any cases of refusal were scrutinised for any semblance of anti-spirit biases.

By in large, this change played a significant role in easing restrictions and encouraging Beaks to explore new avenues of work. However, the absurd amount of extra diplomacy and room for error when denying entrants meant that many officers were unwilling to deny all but the most suspicious immigrants, let alone Beaks.

Outside of regular commuters such as Evalyn, identity checks were never exactly speedy, often taking the better part of half an hour. Despite this, Iris’s hastily assembled paper bundle of a passport lacking a completed date of birth saw her through in less than five minutes.

This, by in large, was worrying.

The three exited the station, Elliot and Evalyn holding a suitcase each. They found themselves amid a wet struggle to make their way through temporary pathways. Aluminium safety barriers funnelled an overwhelming number of commuters down narrow lanes circling a central construction site. A town square was halfway through construction, and Evalyn observed the freeze frame of reality as she passed the dormant project. Far from the city’s only renovation, and she guessed that every single one had fallen silent amidst the wet chaos.

The centre already sported the beginnings of a fountain, and green space had been reserved for trees. Part of the original, pre-planned makeup of the city was an intentional lack of public gathering spaces only allowing people to go to their work and then go home. Public protests and threats to authority had no significant place to demonstrate or operate until now.

Democracy returned to the street just as the rain flooded them. De facto military rule was well and truly over.

Beyond the tallest, innermost district came a minor business district of smaller-scale offices. Minor companies and family-owned practices laid their claim to small portions of valuable real estate amongst one of Sidos’s busiest areas. It was here that Evalyn’s planned lodging for the night was. A larger family-owned inn with recently refurbished interiors and Evalyn had grown fond of the look.

They arrived well past sundown, and Iris had once again suffered through a lesson on the usage of cutlery. Their room once they got to it was small yet serviceable. Two beds a metre apart, and a sizeable window that looked out on the grey wall of the neighbouring building. Iris found that if she dangled herself from it, she could almost see the street.

It was in this small room, with their stomachs satisfied, that Evalyn sat Iris down on the bed opposite and attempted some controlled practice. Evalyn had explained her inability to replicate water, a sandy substance being the closest she could get. She had taken further interest in Iris’s ability, and pondered if solids and liquids were as far as Iris could go.

The kettle across the room began to boil as Elliot tended to it.

“Iris? Do you see the steam rising from the water?” Evalyn asked, receiving a nod in return. “If you close your eyes, can you imagine it?”

Iris did so. She pictured the water first; that much she could muster already. It sloshed in relatively predictable patterns, but the gas that arose from it was anything but. When asked to imagine fumes rising, it was easy enough. However, to picture every swirl, every waft of gentle air, and every unpredictable particle was beyond the capabilities of her mind’s eye.

“Can you do it, Iris?” Evalyn asked, receiving a meeker nod this time. She knew that to be successful, she had to surrender, let her power take over and guide the process. Reluctantly she did so, easing herself as her hair slowly dissipated, and the fumes became clearer and more precise.

Stolen novel; please report.

“It’s working, Iris.”

She opened her eyes to a waft of purple gas rising behind her and plumbing around her face. Beyond the veil sat Evalyn, same as before.

But Iris could not find Evalyn’s face. It wasn’t like last time. Vertigo wasn’t taking her over. Her body itself felt unaffected.

Evalyn’s face, a white cloth had been sewn over it. The twine tugged at her flesh, drawing fresh crimson blood. It dripped through the sullied white fabric as it rose and fell with every breath she took. Every laboured, shaking breath.

Iris’s tunnel vision subsided involuntarily as she clawed at her neck. The gas was out of her control. She couldn’t control its movements. It invaded her mouth, travelled up her nostrils and stung her eyes. Purple began to fill her vision as her feet desperately pounded the ground.

She began to withdraw, refusing to continue any longer, but too much control had been given up. She was no longer the master, and her body was against her. She could only helplessly watch as Evalyn reared her ugly, faceless head towards her.

Evalyn inhaled the gas deeply, wheezing and coughing until her lungs burst. Crimson blood poured from her chest as the gas inside it solidified and punctured it. The blood seeped through her clothes and pattered on Iris’s thighs as she tried to desperately back away, but her body wouldn’t let her. Her eyes started to roll into the back of her head.

“Iris! Iris!”

The voice penetrated the gas, shattering its grip on Iris and forcing a retreated. She was shaken violently back and forth by a set of calloused hands. Elliot’s sharp eyes had widened with shock, his breathing fast. His eyes traced her like they always did, this time to confirm she was okay.

He sighed and let go, sitting beside her and letting her body fall onto his. She looked across at Evalyn, paralysed with shock. Her eyes were glassy.

“I’m sorry.” She cautiously hobbled across the metre gap, taking Iris’s hand and caressing her cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m-”

Evalyn’s vulnerability had reached a peak, and it confused Iris further.

“…It’s okay-” was all she could muster. Her voice croaked and crackled off before she could finish, but she felt that she had to say something. She liked how she was being held but felt guilty for enjoying it. The woman she had feared only a day ago was softly babbling. Iris had no clue anymore. Who was Evalyn Hardridge?

Elliot wrapped his hand around Iris, letting her sink into his flank. “Are you okay?” he asked. She nodded, struggling to speak again, refusing to take her eyes off Evalyn. “Can you breathe?” he whispered. She confirmed again that her nostrils were clear, and her mouth harboured no obstruction. The steady rising and falling of her chest roused Evalyn from her meltdown, and she pulled herself together. She shuffled backwards and sat on her knees before Iris, her nose a soft shade of red.

“What did you see?” Elliot asked. His words were handpicked, and tone cautiously gentle. However, answering coherently was still too much for Iris.

“E-Eva…Eval-”

“What about her?”

“Her…face was gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“This, uhm…,” she tried to say, grasping at the bedsheets.

“Fabric?”

“Yes…Stuck to her face. With string.”

The two adults looked at each other, a muted horror seeping into their expressions. Iris was all but certain her visions were nothing but abstract horrors, but their reactions seemed to all but confirm it.

Elliot’s attention seemed to turn from Iris to Evalyn, then back to Iris. He smiled, shaking Iris’s shoulder.

“Evalyn’s embarrassing, isn’t she? She’s always looking cool when she’s working, but she’s just a big baby.” He began to grin, and it infected Evalyn. Iris kept watching inquisitively. “Do you know where she got it from? The scary part?” Elliot asked.

Iris shook her head and Elliot smirked wider. He pointed at himself. “I used to be way scarier, and people wouldn’t talk to me because I always looked like I had just killed someone.”

“And you only got softer being with me, huh?” Evalyn said.

“I only made sure to adopt the good habits,” he teased. She smiled and weakly punched his knee.

“I guess not being a smart-ass wasn’t a good habit?”

“Old habits die hard.”

They both smirked at one another, and Iris felt as if she was caught between them. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, but a small part of her wanted to join in, despite her lack of means to do so.

“Do you ever think Evalyn is scary?”

Iris was caught off guard. During the brief period she had known Evalyn, she had seen so many different sides all at once that they all seemed to balance each other out. She was neither scary nor childish, collected nor sporadic. She was all of them, just as Elliot was, if only on different occasions and at different times. She shook her head, and it earned her a smile from the guilt-ridden woman across from her.

“Evalyn, you see, she was born here in this city. She lived her life in a big castle with high walls and pretty dresses. I was born in a small house surrounded by trees as far as my eyes could see. Do you remember anything like that, Iris? Do you remember where you were born?”

Do you remember being born?

Iris racked her memory. She scoured the recesses of her mind, trying to single out any significant moment amongst the blur that was her life as a member of the homeless. Something different from the cookie-cutter streets and days of pillaging.

She remembered the cold. It was cold, and it was hard to breathe. Perhaps they were simply sensations she remembered, but it nonetheless felt inexplicably linked. Memories she wasn’t sure were of her own making but felt distinctly engrained.

A door opened for her in that long hallway that permeated her mind. A single doorway of many that begged to be opened by her tiny hands. It was the final one in the sequence, but also the first. Destruction and creation were all the same to that door. That is where she had been born or perhaps where she had died.

“Mountains,” she uttered. “I came from mountains.”

“Those mountains? The ones you can see in the distance?” Evalyn asked.

“I’m…don’t know…”

It wasn’t much to go off. Iris vaguely understood that the mountains she could see in the distance weren’t the only ones in the world, although where that information had come from she could not be sure. Yet, they were the closest and therefore most likely.

“Once we’re done here, I’ll look into it, okay?” Evalyn said.

But Iris worried more about the fear of what she may find. She was teetering on a tightrope between her delusions and reality; one meaningful discovery could cause her to lose balance entirely.

Iris did not want to open the doors in that hallway, let alone have Evalyn open them for her.