Half of my throat is covered in ice and frost, it looks like you could break it apart. The other half is filled with blisters and red marks. You can see the holes where the girl's nails dug in, they remind me of Nine's arm. No blood, just open cuts that reaches deep into the skin. I touch them gently. I whimper when it sends out waves of pain.

I can't stop thinking about how close I was to dying – again. Can I even call it dying if I've already died once and don't have a body to return to? It makes me think of all the dangers there are that can make me fear death again. All these questions makes my head spin and I have no answers.

It's been over a day. Clover said he would contact me when Blomst had time, but I haven't heard from either of them. I've stayed at my room since then. I haven't been in the dining hall or seen if there was any other contract that I needed to take part in. I've gone out in the corridor, but I've never dared to take the last steps that leads me to the Eleven.

When I slept, I dreamt of her. The cold and scorching hands against my throat, the smell of death and the scream that shook my entire soul. The pain and the disgusting injury around my throat are constant reminders.

I remove my hands from my skin. It's impossible to hide, everyone will know that Clover's apprentice was stupid enough to try and handle a shattered soul on her second contract. It wasn't even my contract; it was Clover's job to deal with it and I stole it. Not because I wanted to, but because I believed that Clover wanted me to handle this monster. Instead, it was one of the Fractured that saved me. I had to accept help from some obnoxious, greedy creature that devours souls – and he called me a disappointment. If it hadn't been for this specific creature I wouldn't exist now, or I would have been such a shattered and distorted version of myself that Clover would have to reap my soul too, if it was even possible.

There was no point in hiding the wound. If I can't even take off my shoes, I doubt I can put on a scarf or some other article of clothing. It would disappear from my body within minutes.

I don't want to look at my reflection another second. I sit down in front of the pinboard and focuses on the photographs and the comments mom has written. Jonna. Emma. Mikael. Kristina. I repeat the names like always. I sit there for ten minutes, a while I wonder if I should grab a notebook and write down the names like Wolf had told me to do. But I decide to leave the room. I don't care about what others will say when they see this disgusting injury on my throat, I must get out of here.

When I step out of the building I look up at the black-pink glass sky. I think about how blue and endless the sky had felt in the forest, when I laid in the meadow and looked up at the crowns of the trees.

The creatures stare at me – or rather my throat. Let them stare, I think. What is the point in staying inside and hide? Gossip tends to go from mouth to mouth no matter what.

I study how the well reaches out through the glass globe, how the blue liquid floats like a waterfall on the sides of the tower. Clover had said that most didn't go there. Not that it was forbidden.

I push myself through the crowd. There are surprisingly many today, both creatures and soul wanderers. I go further than I ever gone, past the dining hall's building and up another hill that leads out of town. When I stand at the top I can see everything beyond the settlement. There are some buildings that looks like farmhouses, in the paddock stands a few animals that are gazing in the dark blue grass. They look like black cows with long, painted horns formed as spirals. The houses are made of the same white stone material as the other buildings I've seen here, but the roofs are made of straw. The black stone slabs lead down to the farm, but they are far apart and dark blue grass grows between them. Further away you can see woods of moon-trees, beyond that lies the well that looks even bigger from this angle.

I can see myself in the black stone slabs. My throat is looking worse every hour, like the blisters are about to spread down the shoulders. I shut out that thought, if it really had been that dangerous then Clover would have taken me directly to Blomst and not left me in my room for almost two days. At least I hope so, but after it starts to look worse rather than better, I start to doubt.

When I finally arrive at the moon-forest I listen to the tragic melody the bark is singing for me. I don't get relatively far before I hear voices. A man and a woman's, both sound human. I've heard the creatures speak before, it's always something different in them. Sometimes it sounds like there are multiple voices on top of each other, other times there's a darkness in them. Some of them reminds me of how it sounded like before Clover took me through the first gate, when our voices echoed throughout the entire world. When we went through something changed, it felt more human. Mine and Clover's voices were normal, but everything still felt wrong. Like my room, it looked exactly how it did when I was a child, like I had walked into a forgotten memory I'd put to the side. But it was wrong. It shouldn't have been so flawless, when I very well know that this is not my childhood's bedroom. It's just a copy – a flawless one, but a copy nonetheless.

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I focus on the voices again. The woman's voice is cold and the man's strange. It sounds like he's speaking against fabric or his hand, like his voice is muffled by something. The tone and feeling in his voice is clear. Angry and fast, it also hides a tiredness behind it. Not the same kind that you feel when you haven't slept in a while. This was a depleted, exhausted feeling of defeat.

The voices lead me deeper into the woods, away from the road to the well. Stone slabs – grey, not black – takes me forward. Someone has tied golden strings in the moon-trees' branches like a fence that shuts out the rest of the forest.

A small meadow lies in front of me. The place is surrounded by the golden strings, and at the edge, near one of the trees, are two white occupied chairs and a table. I've seen the woman in the dining hall, she looks a few years younger than me. The blonde hair hangs down her back with a small braid braided from both sides of her head. She's dressed in a blue, medieval dress.

The other chair is occupied by something that almost makes me laugh. I even recognize it, it's from a children's tv-show that I and Emma used to watch when we were kids. The fur is light brown and there aren't any thumbs on the big paws. Its eyes are small and black, and the mouth is connected with the big black nose. On the table there is a wooden bowl filled with a thick, brown stew. I can feel the negative energy that he is releasing, it even makes me feel drained. Not in the same way Blomst's negativity had come out of her, it had been stronger and much more tangible. This was a man drained of all energy because he'd been stuck in a bear suit since he died. He must have realized early that he couldn't get out of it and that it would come back on if he tried.

I swallow my laughter; it doesn't feel as funny and ridiculous anymore.

"How do you expect me to eat this?" the man in the bear suit says and I can pretty much hear him growl out of annoyance.

"How you eat it is not my problem. You asked me to get you something from the dining hall and I did," says the woman.

"You could have chosen something that's easier to eat than a fucking stew."

"Oh, is that so? Next time you can get your own dinner."

I take a step closer when they haven't noticed me yet, not that I know why I'm here. The best would be if I let them be.

The bear turns his large head and stares at me, the mouth in an eternal smile. I feel the irritation and the tiredness behind the costume, and I can see the hands move inside of the large paws, too big to grab something without difficulties.

"What the hell?" he mutters.

I don't have to see his real eyes to know that he is staring at my disgusting throat.

"Shattered soul," the woman mumbles, "and against an apprentice it seems."

She smiles. It doesn't reach the cold eyes, but the corners of her mouth are curled upwards while she wipes away dirt from the beautiful dress. Even though she's a few years younger than me her dark blue eyes look ancient.

"Yes, apparently I didn't get the memo that it was a really bad idea to deal with them," I joke, it sounds more serious than I'd planned.

"Downright awful, actually. I've heard," the woman says.

There's an uncomfortable feeling that lays upon me, one that makes my body tense up.

"What the hell is a shattered soul?" the bear asks impatiently.

"A soul whose soul is shattered, Rampion," she says and for a moment it looks like one of her eyebrows are slightly raised.

"Don't you think I got that from the name?"

There's something familiar in the way he speaks – an accent I've heard when we spent the summers in a cabin in Värmland. The one we used to rent a few weeks every year when me and Emma were little.

The woman sighs. "When a soul shatters it creates a wailing wraith that destroys everything it touches. Howling, horrendous entities that are created through a violent and sudden death. Is that enough or should I continue?" The last words are filled with annoyance.

The bear – or Rampion as the woman called him – waves with his large paw as an answer.

"You should put something on that, or it will continue to grow," she says and hits two fingers lightly against her throat.

"It grows?" I ask and gently put my hands against the blisters that cover half of my throat, I grimace out of pain. "Of course it does."

"Your guardian should have what's needed. What's your name?" she asks and takes a step forward.

"Orchid."

"Orchids... beautiful flowers," she says and smiles the empty smile. "Guardian Blomst, then."

She looks at the bear, he has his large paws outstretched over the table and between them sits the medieval stew.

"Like you, Rampion."

He ignores her and she walks forward to me, she's half a head shorter.

"Sun is my name," she says and offers her hand, "named by guardian Saturn."

Yet another name on the seven guardians. It makes me wonder how they all look like, if they look human like Blomst or if they look more like the creatures in the Eleven.

I shake her hand. I can feel that I'm holding something, but not the feeling of someone else's skin, or my own for that matter. She let go of my hand and it looks like she's about to say something, but before she's able to a black gate folds itself out behind me, with the same orange glow as those that Clover created in the living world.

Sun takes a step back when Clover walks out of the black gate. He looks at my throat, thereafter the man in the bear costume. A grimace of dislike fills his face and Rampion answers with a loud and annoyed groan.

Clover takes a steady grip around my wrist. "We need to speak with Blomst right away."