“Oh? She’s finally up? Come in, Zofia.” Lysska’s voice sliced through the quiet just as the two girls stepped through the doorway.

  And just like that, the puzzle pieces started snapping into pce. The very same girl I’d once hitched a ride in—steering her through those sewer tunnels to shake off those damned Elves—was standing right here. And Lysska? Looked like she was pying detective, sticking her snout into the mystery of the missing kids. My hunch that this girl had been among the abducted was sharpening by the second.

  Then there was the second Drakkari girl—taller, same eyes, simir horns. A sister, maybe? She didn’t seem to recognize me, but my former unwitting host? She kept sneaking gnces my way, frowning like she was trying to untangle a half-forgotten dream. Did she still feel something? Some ghost of a connection? Or was she just bristling at the odd one out in a room full of familiar faces?

  Either way, I kept my expression smooth as stone. No need to give away more than necessary.

  Apparently, she’d fainted after Lysska found her. How, where, and under what circumstances? That part was still a foggy mess. But knowing she was safe lifted a weight I hadn’t even realized was pressing on my chest. I’d have to pry that information out of Lysska ter—casually, of course. Just idle curiosity.

  “How’s the head, Brana?” Lysska asked.

  “S’not split open anymore, so… better’n a boot to the frickin’ teeth,” Brana muttered.

  “Brana.” Zofia didn’t even look at her, but the warning was baked in.

  “What? I didn’t say the real word!”

  I remembered Lotte mentioning that my thoughts had been a little… warped when I was inside this girl—twisted up in her way of thinking. Expins the, uh, colorful vocabury at the time.

  Not that it mattered now.

  “Report. Start from the faint.” Lysska leaned in slightly, gaze like a scalpel, carving straight to the point. I was curious too—did Brana remember me wearing her skin like a second coat?

  Brana’s spines fttened. “I wasn’t faintin’! I was… takin’ a tactical nap.”

  Zofia snorted. “Tactical. Right. You looked real strategic facedown in the gutter.”

  “Was your fault for draggin’ me to that moldy crypt!”

  “Enough.” Lysska’s voice never rose, but both sisters stiffened. “Brana. The incident.”

  Brana hesitated, shifting her weight. Whisper kept quiet, letting her find her words.

  And then, bit by bit, her bravado crumbled. She stared at her cws, voice shrinking. Finally, she spoke.

  “I… I was awake the whole time,” she admitted, barely above a whisper. “Watchin’. But my body—it wasn’t mine.”

  Lysska tilted her head. “Expin.”

  Brana swallowed. “I could see what was happening. Hear it, feel it… but I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. It was like—like bein’ a sock puppet, but the hand inside was all sparky and mean.” She flicked a gnce at me, quick as a dart. “And I wasn’t weak, either. I was strong. Too strong. And I did things. Things I shouldn’t have been able to do.”

  Zofia’s smirk withered. “What things?”

  Brana’s cws dug into her thighs, scales rippling storm-gray. “Stuff you’d piss yourself tryin’,” she spat, voice fraying at the edges. “Cracked an elf’s skull on a coffin ‘til his brains slopped out like rotten squash. Ripped another apart—pop—arm here, leg there—”

  Zofia lost all color, while Lysska’s expression turned contemptive.

  Well. That put a wrench in things. I’d assumed she was just… asleep while I was at the wheel. Oh, Thador, what if she could hear my thoughts too? I studied Brana—the tremor in her voice, the way her eyes flicked to the corners of the room. She knows. She must. But if she could sense me when I was inside her, she gave no sign. Small mercies.

  Lysska’s eyes narrowed at one particur word.

  “Magic?”

  A frantic, jerky nod. “Felt like worms in my veins. I don’t even have a core—but my body was casting. I—I could make people move. Control them like puppets. No chants, no gestures—just wanting. And then there were these… things. Shadowy things with too many limbs.” Her hands trembled now. “They crawled out of magic circles around me.”

  Silence stretched, thin as a bde.

  “There’s a rhythm to her fear,” Alice murmured, her voice a scalpel in my ear. “Adrenaline and… euphoria. She liked it.”

  Brana swallowed. “They were going to sacrifice the boy. Their leader had the knife raised, and I—I made him drop it. Made him stop. Made him let go.” Her eyes flicked to Lysska’s, wide and searching.

  “Then, the boy took his chance and stabbed him. That’s when I felt it. When he ran. A hum. Something strange. A tentacle shot out from the statue and—” She swallowed again. “It ran him through. The leader. And then… he exploded.”

  Lysska’s expression flickered—just barely. “And after that?”

  A shuddering breath. “I grabbed the boy and ran. Tore apart any elf in my way. I—" She hesitated, reaching for the right words. "I should’ve been afraid.”

  Lysska’s gaze softened, just a fraction. “Were you?”

  Brana didn’t answer right away. Slowly, she reached into her clothes, pulling free a pendant—the same one. A hiltless sword encircled by twisting waves.

  “I was praying,” she murmured. “Praying to the Mother Ancestor. And she answered.” Her grip tightened around the pendant. “It was her power that took over me.”

  “Reverence. Fear. Awe.” Alice’s whisper curled through my mind.

  A rare silence from Lysska. Even Zofia looked mildly horrified by her sister’s admission. And yet, her hand never left Brana’s shoulder.

  It was a strange thing, watching them. Like staring through a cracked mirror. I’d once been in this position—helpless, stolen away—but I’d had power. Protection. What if I hadn’t? How much terror had this girl endured?

  And yet, her face held firm. Brave. And her sister, despite the shock, kept enough presence of mind to pat her, slow and steady, as Brana leaned in.

  Lysska exhaled. “Have you told anyone else?”

  “No one!” Brana jutted her chin, defiant. “Zof said py dumb, so I gagged myself real nice for the enforcers. Even faked amnesia!” A brittle grin. “Acted so sweet, they bought me honeycakes.”

  Zofia’s ugh was hollow. “You hate honey.”

  “S’why I chucked ‘em at a stray dog. Little shit deserved a stomachache.”

  Lysska just tapped her quill against the parchment, nodding.

  “And the boy?”

  Brana fidgeted. “Still snoozin’ like a drunk gnome. Five enforcers ‘round him, shiny as new knives.” She sniffed, feigning indifference. “Bet he’ll sing like a canary ‘bout my heroics once he wakes.”

  “Complicates things,” Zofia muttered, though her hand settled on Brana’s shoulder, thumb brushing the junction where scale met skin. A sister’s Morse code: I’m here.

  “Deny everything,” Lysska instructed. “Even if they detain you, comply. They’ll test you for anomalies, but if they don’t find anything, they’ll let you be.”

  “But w-what if they catch her lying?” Zofia asked, worry sharpening her voice.

  “Their tests will be cursory… unless they suspect deeper rot.” Lysska’s fingers tapped a rhythm on the table. “Truth serums are illegal on civilians for cases like this, but considering how deep this runs? I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  Her gaze drifted to me.

  Well. I shrugged. If she didn’t ask, I might’ve offered it myself. I didn’t quite get why Lysska wanted the Iron Pact to stay in the dark about the girl’s possession—awake the whole time, feeling what slithered through her veins. But then again, it was her. Did she fear their doggedness? Maybe she just didn’t want those enforcers digging too deep.

  And, well. I wanted the same. It was me who possessed her, after all. My secrets slithered darker.

  I reached into my cloak. I always carried extra. My cloak’s enchantment kept the gss vials safe—further reinforced by a silencing charm so no one heard them click against each other. Most were utility elixirs. A few? Deadly. One in particur would go airborne the moment it made contact with lightning, turning lungs to slurry within a ten-meter radius. Oh, how I’d ached to aerosolize those elf bastards mid-possession. Reduce their sanctimonious spines to organ salsa.

  But Brana hadn’t been equipped for such artistry.

  “Truth serums have such… vulgar aftertastes.” My cloak whispered as I withdrew a vial—azure liquid swirling with starfire specks. “A counteragent. One drop muddies the mind’s waters. Seven?” I tilted it, watching the light fracture through the gss. “Well. Let’s avoid seven.”

  Lysska cimed the vial with a diplomat’s grace. “My new alchemist apprentice,” she said smoothly.

  Zofia’s nostrils fred—scenting lies. Scenting me.

  Brana lunged for the potion, eager as a spark in the gloom. “Gimme! I’ll guzzle the goshdarn thing—”

  “No guzzling, firebug.” Zofia snagged her wrist.

  “Give her one of your anti-divination charms too, Mistress,” Alice chimed in.

  Oh, right. Some diviners could sift truth from lies with a gnce—like that Vorak guy from earlier.

  I reached into my cloak, but Lysska was already sliding a tarnished amulet across the desk. “Wear this before questioning.”

  Alice sniffed. “Inferior craftsmanship. Yours would singe her aura less.”

  Well, of course mine were better. Lotte herself had taught me. I tossed my own charm onto the pile—a silver thread braided with obsidian shards.

  Lysska arched a brow. I shrugged. “Two veils cut deeper than one.”

  Brana snatched both, clutching them like festival sweets.

  “The pendant,” Lysska said abruptly, finger outstretched. “Let me see it.”

  I was curious about that thing too—Zofia had a simir one. Was it an artifact?

  Would make sense. After all, I had connected with my doppelg?nger using one.

  Lysska’s amber eyes kindled, pupils narrowing to molten slits as she channeled. The air thickened, static prickling my skin.

  “She’s probing its spirituality, Mistress,” Alice murmured. “A rookie’s gambit.”

  Then Lysska recoiled. The pendant cttered against the desk. “Fascinating.”

  Zofia stiffened. “I-Is something wrong?”

  “Yours,” Lysska demanded, snapping her fingers at Zofia’s neckce. A quick inspection, a dismissive grunt. “Dormant. But this—” she lifted Brana’s pendant like a dead rat by the tail, “—is active. An artefact.”

  Silence gripped the room. Even Quickpaw’s ears swiveled forward, her boredom dissolving.

  Zofia’s ears twitched. “D-dangerous?”

  “Extremely.” Lysska turned the relic, its edges chewing the light. “The Iron Pact entombed these for a reason. You’re lucky it didn’t hollow your sister like a gourd.”

  Brana protested. “But it helped! Made the elf-goons go spt!”

  “Nothing from the astral pne helps.” Lysska’s voice could’ve chiseled marble. “It transacts. You just haven’t paid the toll yet.” She exhaled sharply. “Every artifact went dormant decades ago—officially. But rumors suggest anomalies. Some might be waking up.” Her fingers tightened. “I don’t know its purpose. And I can’t test it safely. These things are dangerous.”

  “What do we do?” Zofia asked, stepping closer.

  “Leave it. Feign amnesia. If it proves benign…” Lysska pocketed the pendant, cutting off Brana’s whimper. “...you’ll get it back.”

  “B-But—” Brana protested.

  “Almost all artifacts connect to the astral pne. I don’t know how you activated this one—you don’t even have spirituality—but listen closely.” Lysska’s voice sharpened. “The spirits in that pce always demand a price.

  “If you hear anything—voices, temptations, whispers in the dark—if shadows shift wrong or animals act strangely, report to me immediately. You shriek if a street cat so much as sneezes odd. Understood?”

  Her grip on the pendant tightened.

  “I’m keeping it for your own safety. If it’s harmless, you’ll get it back. But until then? Do not take any risks.”

  Brana looked like she wanted to argue—her fingers twitching toward the pendant—but Zofia shot her a gre, and she fell silent.

  Meanwhile, my suspicions solidified. Artifacts were the key.

  There were twelve sections in that water tunnel. Did that mean twelve artifacts tied to me?

  And if these artifacts connected to the astral pne, like Lysska said… then that strange water tunnel—that gssy ke with shadows lurking beneath—was that part of the astral pne too?

  It made sense. But I couldn’t be certain.

  Every answer unraveled four new questions.

  If only Lotte would open her damn mouth.

  As the sisters left—Brana muttering about “butt-faced pendent thieves”, Zofia steering her by the scruff—I turned to Lysska. Quickpaw’s purr echoed behind me.

  Lotte’s silence wouldn’t stop me from chasing the truth.

  And, thank Thador, I happened to have the best information broker in the city sitting right in front of me.