Reality Fracture | #183: Episode 4 – Oh, Sweetie

0:00Reality fracture. Episode 4. Oh, sweetie. Written by Alison Lurz. It takes many hours to calculate the dimensions of a plane. Tam sets up her tools on an escarpment overlooking the Starlit Moreland of Innistrad. When drinking thistles scratch at her ankles, and tall grasses hide all number of nightmares from view. As she writes down measurement after measurement, the wind breezes its chill over a vast and empty more. The only sign of life is the little white inn, an island in a sea of peat and heath. Tam's results are accurate. Her methodology sound. And she spends an entire evening standing on a slab of granite with her instruments pointed

1:02toward the horizon. She marks the dimensions, runs through quick math, scrolls them out on a piece of paper while a wolf howls somewhere over the horizon as the sun begins to set. A thought crosses Tam's mind as she reads her own tiny scroll. Her eyesight is better than a full human's. Can she petrify? Likely not, but worth experimentation. A glance around her tools, the stone underneath, the swish of grass and the breeze, reveals a rat nibbling on what was her lunch. Looking fizzles behind Tam's eyes, it prickles at the forefront of her mind. There is no squeak when it startles and stills. The rat does not move, but does not turn to stone. Guess not. She stares hard again, skin-tensing around her eyes.

2:05She can feel a muscle twinge on the side of her head. It squeaks when it's released. The rat joltes, flails, free of whatever held it and scurries back home perfectly alive without a speck of stone. Tam watches it scamper off and smiles. She imagines it bursting into its den, warning its rat wife of yet another monster on the heath and is amused at her own imagination. His rat wife will commend his bravery, kiss his little rat nose and squeak to him that she's so proud and that she loves him so much. He'll tell all his rat friends over their cups of brew how his fur stood on end as he stared down the gorgon and they'll all toast to his survival. Someday his litter of pinkies will ask him to tell the story one more time before bed and the brave rat will sigh and recite it as his little ones nuzzle asleep in their fluff

3:08while in a stride bleeds and howls and royals above. At least that's what Tam imagines. A new skill confirmed she nods in happy satisfaction. That was neat. She is fine never doing that again. Tam packs up her tools and heads for the white plaster in, the little white island that the base of her hill in the great green more, a small square with ancient timbers visible through its side. The architecture is charming, its biome and intriguing and its grimness. Her toes kick away ancient glacial till. Her fingers skim rough edged grasses. It's chilly here. She likes the swish of her cloak. Feels the risk in the air. Tam enters the end to a wave of warmth. Candle light wraps around her, carrying with it the sound of timbers creaking, the whisper

4:11of a broom on floorboards, the scent of yeast and barley. The innkeeper is behind the bar, uncasking a barrel and hoisting it into place. She is sturdy and stout, the muscles of her forearms peppered with scars. She nods a hello, her blonde waves rustling with the movement. So, a big easy it, she asks. The innkeeper greeted Tam like she was an old friend. She ported her bags upstairs and Tam was pleased when she packed her a lunch. She reminded Tam of someone, but she couldn't place who. Tam thought of boats and the wide sea, a quartermaster at the helm of her country end. A name tickles her memory, but she doesn't pull at the thread. The memory isn't hers. The plane is larger than anticipated, Tam says to the innkeeper. We stopped it from ending altogether in the travails, the innkeeper smiles.

5:15You off-weathers wouldn't have heard of it. There is a monster we trapped in the moon. It nearly ended this plane. Tam takes a seat at the bar. The innkeeper exhales with full cheeks and leans forward. Allot happened. It was night-madish. Tam hears her pull a stool close. Watches that she takes a seat directly across the bar-top. Thank-Avisin, so many survived. Thank-Avisin for watching over the rest. Did you lose anyone? The mask instantly realizing how rude her question is. The innkeeper doesn't seem to care. My uncle merged with his whole town. Merged? Oh yes. Two dozen of us cathars joined up to hunt down Hanweir, the town, and slay it. A paul Tam can't hide the look on her face.

6:18You killed your own uncle? My uncle died the day the town became the town. Way I see it, my devoted brethren and I slay the monster that took him. Tam looks at her hand and considers this. This woman underwent the pinnacle of suffering. Tremendous loss matched by equally culpable guilt. She's a murderer who didn't mention any attempt to rescue her uncle. The monster in the moon, a town merging with itself. This plane is more dangerous than it lets on. The theorist might be right. This place promises dead brothers, dead monsters, more torment. Is the rest of the multiverse like this? She only realizes what she's doing when the innkeeper pushes a stine against the back of her fingers.

7:19Dimples appear on either side of the innkeeper's lips, names Moirin on the house. I'm Tam, she says. How can you smile? Moirin shrugs, felt like smiling. Tam doesn't. She takes hold of the stine and tries a sip. That's her first beer. She knows nothing about alcohol, but can tell this is watery and weak. She loves it. Wow! Moirin says in response. Tam cannot say anything, as she is occupied. Another one coming up then. Moirin says with a lilt of amusement. Tam can see the bottom of the stine. Satisfied, she sets it down. She realizes she may need to slow down. Moirin snickers, but Tam isn't done processing it. Why not leave? An omen path could take you to a much safer plane.

8:23Moirin shrugs. It's my own. The moor is in my blood. The silver and the moon is the same silver I wear on a chain. Don't you have a home worth fighting for? No, Tam thinks. Not really. If you build your life around what's easy, you'll never learn how to grow. You'll never outrun pain, girl. Why not? It's the only constant. So we're doomed to suffer, then we die? And that's it? Moirin pulls a necklace from her bosom, a symbol that dangles from a long leather braid. The church teaches that death is the rest we are awarded in the end. Suffering in life is unavoidable, but we can break from its pull when we see its purpose. What is its purpose?

9:24Ask the person in progress. Moirin's smile is knowing and annoying. You'll figure it out. Tam is about to interrogate Moirin's pedagogy when something thwacks against the door. Both women freeze. Get down, Moirin commands. Tam does so without question. She opens her mind and quickly skims the area around the end. Three people, Tam whispers. Moirin pulls a long sword from under the counter of the bar, grabs a cloak with yellow lining from the same place, and swiftly clasps it in place. What sort of people? Moirin asks. Another loud noise bashing against the outside wall. Tam checks and recoils. I thought they were like a friend of mine, but these vampires aren't as friendly. The window is smashed in. Moirin sighs. Ratten vermin.

10:24One moment miss. Please stay inside. Tam watches as the innkeeper hoists her sword and lunges for the door. She yanks it open and leaps out, calling a prayer at the top of her lungs. May the heart of the living never grow cold. May the walls of our sanctums never grow thin. She hears metal clashing with metal, a violent scuffle. And that exact moment, Tam recognizes why she should not have slugged back the drink that seemed so prime for slugging. She feels swimmie and full of liquid, profoundly unhelpful. Tam crawls to the door and peeks outside. Moirin is fighting with full force, swinging her sword and readying a dagger at her side. The three monsters she fights look like people, or almost like people. Their eyes are black around the irises. They're clothing elaborate but roughened from travel, as if it has been sometimes since

11:27they left the ballroom they emerged from. Each shares the same jet black hair and pointed canines, vampires, but not like Kierel, not in the slightest. She watches in awe as Moirin rushes in without pause. She spins and thrusts, dipping low and slicing up. Some can tell her target is the neck, but each vampire moves with unnatural speed. Moirin can only barely keep up. So she helps. Hey, Tam yells, and all three vampires turn to look. Tam stares, and all three vampires freeze in place. Glory be, Moirin cheers as she takes off each of their heads, heavy, wet swipe by heavy, wet swipe. The vampires fall, heads tumbling as accessories to the side. Tam gasps, and for a moment she thinks of Kierel, but accepts that, perhaps, vampires aren't

12:31the same on every plane. Moirin kneels, whispers a prayer, and rises a moment later. I was a patech blade before I retired, she says, flicking blood from her sword, not all of us get to retire. How did you stop them? Calapathy, Tam says. Major bodily command, oculatrigger. Moirin flickers her hand in a gesture, Tam doesn't recognize. Her gifts come in many forms. She comes forward and pats Tam on the shoulder. You're worth saving, Miss Tam. Tam's heart catches in her throat. I am? I'll send you up with some water. Moirin says with an innkeeper's wink and a guiding hand, and the two women return inside. The iron locks bolt heavily behind them. Her room at the inn is modest, white walls and black timbers.

13:35The kind of place ten thousand tired souls have passed through in safety. Nothing can harm her here. She locks the door to her room and changes into her night clothes. She rubs cream onto her cheeks and seed oil into her braids. All the while she thinks of the brutality of this place and the gentleness that fights despite it. Moirin has no reason to smile. This inn has no reason to stay standing, and yet, and yet. Some walks to the window and sits in the chair by its sill. She trims her nails in the moonlight, catching the pieces in a cloth on her lap. Why wouldn't Moirin tell me the purpose of suffering? Tam thinks of earlier today. The innkeeper who was a warrior, smiling as she poured a second round for her guests to enjoy. The air smells of barley.

14:35The counter has someone's initials carved into it. The past doesn't exist. The future isn't here yet. This moment is a happy one. She feels it. She sees the memory as her own, but she can't quite grasp it. What does that good moment have to do with this plain endless cruelty? What is the connection? She can feel the gap inside. The absence of the part of her that would understand. She sighs, frustrated. It fogs up the glass in the window. What if suffering is the point? What if that's what makes the rest at the end precious and important? Tam sits with that. She knows pain, but so little compared to Moirin. What worth can she assign to the hurt that belongs to her? What did that loss make matter? A heavy thought for a later time.

15:38Tam is well-finished her routine. Every night, Tam practices, and every night she gets a little bit stronger. She scans the Moir outside for someone, anyone. The theorist had been impressed by her distance. Maybe she could go farther. Tam closes her eyes and lets her mind reach out. The passes by a fox outside, an enormous frog nestled deep in the muck and peat, a man on a horse at a lonely crossroads, but something above her shimmers high, high in the sky above the blood-soaked soil. There's something at the end of her reach. To her telepathic senses, it feels like a circle, a long thin line of connection looped and weighed for someone to step inside.

16:39It feels like it's coming from the clouds. Tam remembers Moirin's story that a monster lies trapped in the moon, and she reaches out with unbridled curiosity. She wants to pursue the connection. She wants to talk to whoever is on the other end. A tin can connected by a line. Can you hear me? Something hears her and yanks her up. Tam's mind is tugged up toward the sky, up to the mind of whatever lies within the silver moon. The journey is a blur of color, and it leads to a mind so different, so alien. She can't make sense of what she's feeling around her. I'm too far away from my body. But before Tam can try to escape the psychic hold, she reaches her destination. It's a room. It's a prison. It's four white walls in a single window, much like hers.

17:44Indigo night and a silvery moon illuminate a young woman. Confirm in the bed on the far side of the room. Even from here, Tam can see her cheeks are sunken, and her gray eyes stare back from hollow sockets. This woman is the monster in the room. Help says the woman to the inside of Tam's mind, and even her body back at the end shivers. Tam tentatively approaches the bed, realizing she's still in her pajamas. She steps on something hard and pointed, and when she lifts her foot, a chest piece, a white queen she thinks, rolls underneath. Between her and the bed is a tossed aside chessboard, its pieces littering the floor. Tam conjures courage and comes close to the woman while trying not to stare.

18:47A gentle light shines from above, bathing the woman in magenta and violet. Tam and the woman regard one another, and the woman's left eye drifts singularly toward the floor. Got you. Tam is slammed with a vision of massive wings, of curling ribbons, of two arms wielding two swords, but as soon as the image appears, it vanishes, and a psychic snare catches Tam's mind. Tam's stardols, yelps, stumbles away from the emaciated woman in the bed. She turns for the door, but there is no door. The line is invisible, tight. She is trapped in the room, and as she scrambles for an exit, the woman speaks. Turning, self-imposed fast, I can help you girl.

19:48We can help each other. The woman does not speak in words, but in the sensation of a migraine, the distress of a stomach parasite. Sensation slows and stretches with the woman's words that are not words, making Tam feel as though she has taken a step outside of time. I have eaten time, says the woman, seemingly in response to Tam's thoughts, and Tam realizes there is no longer a window. The woman projects a sense memory, and Tam can taste it now. Tam tastes sweet, vegetable, a dash of lime and juniper, then salty like tears and umami like an eye twitch. It makes Tam's head hurt, but it doesn't startle her the way the beings next words do.

20:48I taste the burden of knowledge you carry, girl. I hunger for it. Tam digs her heel into the floorboard, and tries to claw apart the psychic space. She holds her hands back to back and rips, putting her strength into trying to cleave this reality apart enough that she can slip back through to safety on the ground. But as she opens a sliver, just a hair, she makes the mistake of glancing at the emaciated woman who now sits up fully in bed. Let us help with another mouth's the body, but the sound comes from the ceiling above. Tam looks up and loses concentration. She gasps. The ceiling is a gradient of cloudy black, and behind that black is an endless writhing of organs and tentacles and flesh ribbons that undulate and tighten, prodding at the barrier

21:53that separates them, feeling for its edges. Tam can see nothing beyond the mass, but she hears the words coming from above and realizes that in this psychic space she is an insect in a terrarium, and amoeba ensnared by something much larger than herself. Amusing Revisitation to a boundless lake, the monster says to itself, appeases me as friends do the starving puppet mouths and the ceiling booms in tandem. Help me, and I will help you! Tam shivers. She does not want to be liked by this creature, but if she is, well, might as well be curious about it. She ignores the ceiling and assumes she is supposed to pay attention to the God thing in the bed. Appease her? Tam's mind leaps to the simplest demonstration she can think of.

22:56She takes a step toward the bed tentatively. The puppet remains still. Girding her courage, Tam sits and reaches out for the puppet's long, stringy black hair. Desperate to disarm the creature, deeply curious if connection is what it wants. Tam begins to braid her hair, just like she was taught. The starving woman lets out a shuddering breath, and Tam realizes it's a laugh. The whole room shakes and shivers a husky, exhaled breath. It trembles dust from the timbers, and the woman in the bed rolls her lolling eyes to watch the quick movements of Tam's fingers. "'Creative,' the monster says, enraptured. "'Why are you fasting?' Tam asks, with a voice as shaky as her braiding fingers.

23:57"'I wanted to want!' She finishes one long braid and moves on to the next. "'I want friends,' Tam says. "'Wanting is painful. Wanting is necessary. Hunger makes for a feast. I'm in danger,' Tam knows. She finishes another braid and motions for the woman to turn her head. The meal is delicious because you were hungry before. Precisely. Huh. Her philosophy problem makes sense now. A connoisseur. The horrible thing in the ceiling. The horrible thing in the bed smiles. Curious about all of life's mysteries. Of course you sought a lure. Monster in the moon sounded interesting. So what do you eat?

25:01And Tam is shown what the monster likes to eat. From her place braiding on the bed, she is surrounded by so many awful sight. A plane ripped from space and time, dissolving into nothingness. A wide landscape of bismuth-like geometry and warped human settlements. All shivering into non-existence. Because that are not jaws, consuming an entire plane. A world of screams suddenly silenced. The visions end abruptly. Tam keeps braiding and swallows her own scream. She begins to pull the braid back, pinning them in place. You eat planes. There's no chance of Tam relaxing anymore. I prune worlds. When one grows sick, threatens the wilderness of eternity, or fails to blossom fully, I

26:07aid the broader forest by felling a single tree. The monster's wide eyes connect with hers. That booming voice from above drowns out whatever the puppet's voice actually sounds like. When one realizes she needs to leave. But I smell that you know not just of a sickly tree, but of an entire forest. I smell a multiverse on you, a cluster of worlds on the verge of becoming. I sense that you are burdened by the knowledge of this world. Let us help one another. Show me where your multiverse is, cover her of life, and I will rid you of it. Tam knows she's talking about the echoverse.

27:11The word friend feels as charged as static, like the pull of a magnet. When she finishes the braid and steps up and away, there's a strange skin pulling smile on the woman's cadaverous face. Show me the tentacles above, writhe with impatience. Show me! Run. Tam can't help the screen she lets out, and from her place in the middle of the room, she bolts full speed at the wall where the window used to be. So the wall is plastered, it breaks like shattered glass, and she falls out the side through purple-tinged ribbons. She plummets through a sea of stars and psychic space. Tam tumbles out of the vision and snaps off the connection. Her mind flings back to the safety of the end, away from the moon, behind the glass, and behind the thin curtains, and safe within herself once more.

28:12Her eyes open wide. She is sitting in the chair, clammy with sweat. She turns to the window, and stares at the moon. Too afraid to move. The last portal was the outlier. It didn't look like the other omen paths. This one was cyan, surrounded by a circle of iron. Tam recognizes it instantly as a mage ring. The multiverse she enters is a mirror facing the man she loves. Here in this strange central hub is the manifestation of him, a world whose only command is to build itself as a copy of the other, one without suffering. It is sensible and chaotic at once. A palace built on a foundation of rules while bending those it deems boring. It's him, gifts and faults.

29:13She sees him in every walkway, in every circle on the tower, in every breeze at her neck. Is this world one they could have built together? Perhaps, Raska thinks. But no sooner does that thought cross her mind than she realizes the yellow and the tree leaves is the exact same shade as her eyes. Her heart collapses inward. Even though she backed out, even though he knew she thought him dead, he weaved her into this world. A part, and Raska did not know how large, was made for her. It's so much easier to look at the part of him that is good. Raska swallows her love and discomfort and heads to the meeting place. Shandra had scouted it back on Vrin, said it was hard to miss, a garden near the Omen Path. The scent of roses that meets her is alarmingly specific and tremendously embarrassing.

30:16It's her favorite perfume. God's, did he make that on purpose? She blushes, brilliant green, and sits with her arms crossed tight. She drops her bag and takes a seat at the bench, completely unsure of when the planes walkers will arrive. It takes two full hours. By then, Raska has finished her book and made a tiny pyramid of stones out of boredom. From thin air, two humans, and a lian, and up here. What took you so long, Raska groans? The other three slough off what looks like a thin layer of green slime. Ooz is all that the druid in the back says, flicking jelly off the end of his axe. I am garrick. Raska, she replies as an introduction, flinging a towel from her pack towards Shandra. Whoa, Shandra says, netcraining as she wipes off a chunk of slime.

31:20Jace made all of this? He built the multiverse and established it to rules. Raska says. Now it's creating itself based on the functions he wrote. This place is beyond the plans we made. I don't know what the Oracle has to do with it. What about Lilliana? Ask Sajani. Lilliana? Frasca and Garrick say in tandem. I thought we agreed to leave her to her fate, Garrett Grouse. Jace took her hostage. Ajani says, it's our duty to rescue her if possible. Absolutely not, Raska spit. Why should we stand aside and permit me in my revenge? Garrick says with deadly calm. The witch cursed me. Shandra crosses her arms. Fine. Neither of you have the deal with her. She says, uncharacteristically diplomatic.

32:20Ajani and I will rescue her. We'll help. Raska says. A sneer at her lips. Shandra glances at Garrick who refuses to meet her gaze. Garrick? There's demand in her voice. The druid grunts. I will face her when she is free. The tower surrounds them, above, below. It stretches in both directions at once. Their meeting place is safe from the creatures and people Raska can make out far below, but the space within its walls still feels uneasy. Anything but safe. From here they can see dots of cadets walking along the sides of its inner walls, asphinks passing an errant window with icy ease. Gravity, a distant concept here in the world built by their friend. We start to walk, following the path that leads up the tower. This place seems miserable. Shandra says with the curl-drip.

33:22It makes sense that a place without suffering would be insufferable. Ajani replies. Raska feels uncomfortable. The part of her that still treasures this idea feels attacked. Why? The Leon and keeps his gaze forward. Misery is how we make meaning. They decide it's most prudent to make their way to the top of the tower. They decide it's most prudent to make their way to the top of the tower. Ever since he messed with my head, I can sense him, Shandra says. But he feels like he's not here at all. That or really small. A small, jace-balarin, ajani muses. Wouldn't that be something? There's a shallowness in every inch of this place. It's a castle built in a day with suggestions of history, absent any true depth.

34:24Raska can't help but linger on the dream she had the night before. Holding tight to the ugly feeling she discovered at its center. There is still a part of her that wonders where all of this lived in his heart. What if the jace she loved was only the part he dared to show? Grand archways twist into impossible staircases, and only Shandra is brave enough to put a foot against the carpet running up the wall to test where gravity leads next. She ascends, arms out as if to catch her fall, and one by one the others follow. Even in the gravity, Raska can still see all the protests and discord of his conscience, how the laws of physics violently shift, how an arch will be pulled to the side like elastic. He did not build this place easily. He fought himself along the way. Raska takes some comfort in that. Most worrying are the people they encounter.

35:26When a group of cadets and matching mint green and white wander past, the group glances at Garrick, whose flash of bare teeth betrays with the rest of his helmet hide. They flee, stray leaves fluttering to the ground behind them as they run. «Real» he says, with an additional sniff. «But not whole. There is a hollowness in their hearts. Wrong» Garrick holds his fist up, a clear command for stillness. Silence. They halt on the flagstone. It echoes slightly down the hallway. There are windows here, and a milky half-light illuminates the stonework around them. It catches on statues of people Raska doesn't recognize, illuminates their faces. This place is serene, save for the rapid clip of someone running toward them. Raska pretends and charges to petrify.

36:28A woman she only knows from visions round the corner. Her black hair shines in the light from the windows. Her long white dress fluttering as she approaches. Her face is nothing but joy and relief. Raska, a Johnny, and Garrick stay still, while Shandra steps forward tentatively and embraces Liliana. All Raska can remember is what Jace accidentally showed her all those years ago. A manipulator, a narcissist, one half of a pair that only brought out the worst in each other. Liliana hugs Shandra close and smiles. «Look who remembered to give a rip about me» she chide. «Shandra laughs and hugs her closer. I missed you», she says earnestly. «I think you know everyone. I do», Liliana says sharply. A gallon of ill will crammed into two words. Garrick grows low enough for Shandra to miss it.

37:28But Raska feels it in her chest, sees it in a Johnny's twitching ears. «Why are you here», Liliana asks. Shandra scoffs. «To save you» the woman in white shakes her head. «I don't need to be saved. I came willingly». She gestures to the room behind her. «Come» and so they do. Transitioning from a stonework hallway to a woodlined office framed by a massive bay set window. The scent is glowing, a musky and potent vanilla that no amount of wood in the fireplace can override. Through lace curtained windows, Raska can seek debts outside. Having the massive desk in the center are chairs none of them have any intention of sitting in. Liliana sits on the corner of her meticulously organized desk. A pot of moon do rests nearby, a lone black fly buzzing about it.

38:29A Johnny steps forward. «You are taken hostage. As if anyone could kidnap me and remain in one piece», Liliana smiles. The fire in the hearth crackles. The fly buzzes loud enough that a Johnny flicks his ear. Something shifts in the air and unsettles Raska even further. Garek steps forward, drawing his axe. The wooden handle scrapes across the carpet and the leather of its binding creaks in his hand. It nearly takes up the height of the office. «You are not the witch». The moment turns electric. Shandra frowns. Liliana, voluntary captive, raises her eyebrows. She stands. Her hands politely crossed in front of her. «It's the dress, isn't it? Benallion laughs», a Johnny says, ears flat against his head. He sends the air and his fur stands on end.

39:32Bees wax and medicinal plants. Incents. A healer. Garek grills. You are not her. Raska walks up close. Allows herself permission to be as frightening as possible. She looms over the woman in white. Sees a flash of fear in Liliana's violet eyes. «How dare you accuse your ally», Liliana hisses. «Don't prove it. Tell us about our other allies», Shandra says. She steps up beside Vaska. «Do you think about him? Kids? Liliana scoffs. Kirion? He is the distant past», Shandra's hair ignites. «Wire! Vaska doesn't hesitate. She swings her legs over the desk and socks Liliana at the angle of her jaw. The woman hits the corner of her desk with a sickening crunch, crumbling to the floor and a pile of white, now red, satin, a knockout.

40:35Raska flicks the blood from her knuckles. I have wanted to do that for years. Shandra snuffs her flames. Lilies nice, you know. No she is not. Vaska and Garek say as one. The heap of fabric on the ground shifts. The false Liliana hoists herself up. She places her manicured right hand on her clearly broken jaw. With a gentle white glow, it snaps back into place. How are you, Vaska sputters? The false Liliana rises. You can hit as hard as you like, but I'll still get back up. Now if you excuse me, the theorist needs to know you're here and uncooperative. She sets up the grin. Bye! Professor Opal turns on her heel and raises out of the office. The four allies collect themselves and give chase. But true Liliana is a necromancer.

41:35It makes sense that an ability so closely related is what this world manifested for her. Still, Vaska wonders, why healing? Why is that the gift she wields because she lacked suffering? The hallway turns into a hallway, turns into a hallway, turns into a hallway. Vaska climbs up and up and up a spiral staircase. Those repeat and repeat and repeat. They turn right and turn right and turn right. And the four allies burst into Professor Opal's office, moonlight streaming through the window. Moonlight? Liliana is seated at her desk. Her dress a perfect white. Her hair unfusts and chin unpunished. She closes a book she's reading and sets down the smoking pipe in her hand. She sighs, again? It's no longer sunny outside. The sun has been down for hours.

42:37Vaska feels insane. What do you mean again? She snaps and winces as part of her rib slides deeper into the surrounding muscle. She hunches over in pain, suddenly aware of the bruises on her sides, the cut lip, the damaged tendril coiling and uncoiling in reflex. Vaska blinks. What just happened? She sits down in one of the two soft chairs as Liliana diligently walks over and quickly heals her rib. Vaska sputters, too shocked to speak. When did I get in a fight? What do I do, Shandra groans? Vaska can see long slices up and down her arms. What do I do? Vaska's head swims. Her perception feels strange. She blinks, realizing that she knows things she can't remember or learning. Professor Opal rises, a vision of calm, and moves on to a jockey, yowling in pain as he

43:45clutches what looks like a severe burn on his cheek. Vaska watches Shandra's face as she notices the injury, how the pyromansors face blanches with horror. Pion vrykameh says Ajani. Vaska, Shandra, and Garrick all whip their heads to stare. Ajani blinks, confused, as if he doesn't know what language his tongue betrayed. Garrick tries to move toward him, but his throwing arm hangs limp at his side. He falls to his knees beside Vaska, his biceps twitching and dancing under his skin, a chaotic and subtle ripple, and he fancically checks the markings on his flesh with horror curling in her gut. Vaska realizes what has just happened. Shandra crosses, takes Ajani's hand. As Professor Opal heals his burns cheek, she breathes heavily, a panic taking over. Ajani, I don't know how to…

44:45He screws up her eyes and visible distress. I know we need to do something, but I don't know what it is. Her panic takes over, and her breath scrolls shallow and strenuous. Tell me what to do. Prepina vrumetonges. Aftos su toekane. Mutoekane aftos. Garrick roars and confused agony as his muscles betray him in that endless quiet dance. Vaska can feel how wide her eyes are, how her terrified heart hammers against her chest. We already fought, Jace. She concludes with certainty. The Leana smiles in condescension. She shakes her head gently. Oh, sweetie, you fought, Jace, three times.