Freetown sat ten miles from the Lafiya Estate and fifteen from the ever-shifting sands of the Lafiyan Desert—a melting pot of ambition wrapped in smoke, stone, and light. Its neutral governance and lax laws made it a haven for anyone with enough charm, strength, or madness to carve a name for themselves. Here, identity was currency, and dreams were gambled daily. The only non-negotiable rules were enforced by the Onye Nche: break the law, and your Fables would be torn from your Soulframe and sold at the auction board without mercy.

  Factions ruled the districts. Imps, Djinn, Seraphs, Shifters, and creatures too old to be named staked their claims. And once a year, during the Games, Freetown burns brightest—its streets alive with magic, commerce, and the politics of race and power.

  There is one question that everyone asks, but no one answers— What came first, the Lafiyas or the town? —A. Explorer.

  “Thrill Park’s wedged between the Red Light District and Imp-Hole,” Saon said as the carriage crossed the final arch of the bridge separating the Lafiya Estate from the world beyond.

  Kitai leaned against the carriage window, watching the estate shrink behind them. Five towers rose over the land like patient gods, their roofs dusted with starlight. Winged creatures glided between balconies, trailing motes of color. By the pond, unicorns grazed lazily, their reflections rippling across water that glowed faintly from beneath. Dryads lounged under trees, bark-flesh blending into roots, laughing with people whose Frames hummed in colors she couldn’t name.

  It looked like a painting from a book she’d never been allowed to open.

  Part of her wanted to press her palms to the glass and stay glued there, soaking in every detail. The rest of her wanted to laugh at herself. You’re acting like a tourist, she thought. This isn’t yours. You’ve been “heir” for what—twelve hours? Less?

  The word still felt fraudulent against her skin.

  Back in Florida, she’d been background noise. In the orphanage, she’d been a rumor with weird hair and a stranger’s name. In college she had been no one, just a fly on the wall. Now this world insisted she was important, that entire planes had rearranged themselves to wait for her.

  She couldn’t see it. She still felt like a girl who hid in libraries and walked around campus like a ghost with a backpack.

  Still… the sight of the estate did something to her. It poked at an old, buried ache: the curiosity that had always lived under her fear. The part of her that, no matter how often she was ignored, still wanted to know, to see, to understand.

  Maybe I don’t belong here, she thought, tracing the edge of the window, but I want to.

  The carriage rolled on. The bridge thinned into a road carved from smooth stone, its edges lined with lanterns that burned with soft blue flame even in daylight. Above them, translucent birds made of glass and glyph-light spiraled lazily, their wings chiming against the occasional floating wind chime.

  On the roof, Saon drifted along like a lazy scrap of sky. Inside, Gemini sat cross-legged, eyes closed, breathing slow. Their jade ring pulsed with veins of green-gold light, threads of energy weaving from it into their chest each time they inhaled.

  Kitai tried to mimic their posture. Straight spine, calm face, deep breaths. It felt like playing pretend with her own body.

  The voice inside her hummed quietly, like it was tuning itself to the rhythm of the carriage. Every time she thought, Who are you? it bristled and went quiet. Still, its presence leaned against her like a backrest she didn’t ask for but didn’t want to lose.

  Her Heir tattoo prickled intermittently, that cat-tongue scrape of sensation that made her constantly aware of the fact that she wasn’t just “Kitai” anymore. She was “Heir.” “Key.” “Wrong girl, wrong life,” her brain whispered. “Apparently not,” the universe insisted back.

  “We’re almost there,” Saon said as he phased through the carriage roof, dropping into the seat beside her. “The Onye Nche will ask for identification. Show them your ring and say nothing. Traveling between planes is forbidden, and you were born during a dimensional event everyone still gossips about. The ring hides your identity and exempts you from interrogation. Use it.”

  Kitai glanced down at the jade circlet on her finger. It caught the light and answered with a soft, warm pulse.

  Her curiosity stirred. How many lives, how many laws, had this one piece of carved stone bent?

  She rotated it once, just to feel it move, then nodded. “Got it,” she said quietly.

  Saon was not his usual breezy self. His fingers kept walking across his other rings, tapping each one like he was counting them. Thin spirals of sweat curled down his translucent neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.

  “You okay?” she asked. “You’ve been… off since we met your brother.”

  Saon’s eyes met hers. The koi swimming in his eye-ponds moved in their usual graceful loops, serene and unbothered. Everything else about him looked wired.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Just… haven’t been to town in a while. I don’t exactly have a reputation for diplomacy, and I may have made a few enemies last time I visited.”

  The forced humor in his voice made something in her chest tighten. She knew what it meant to pretend everything was fine because saying otherwise felt dangerous.

  She kept her gaze open. Not pressing. Just there.

  After a moment, he exhaled.

  “My brother and I… we were never close,” Saon began. “His mother’s an Imp. Mine’s a Water Nymph. Our father is Hermes. Yes, that Hermes. God of speed, travel, and getting bored and leaving.”

  Kitai huffed softly. “So, consistent in every plane,” she muttered.

  Saon’s lips quirked. “When he was around—which was rare—he made us compete. For everything. Fables, races, missions, affection. Puck got the cheers. I got… silence. The Imps worshipped him. The Nymphs pretended I barely existed. Then on my sixth birthday, my mom disappeared. I woke up in a Fable orphanage.”

  His gaze drifted past her, into some long corridor of memory.

  “That’s where I learned what my Frame could do. Where I realized I’d inherited all the inconvenient bits no one wanted to deal with. My brother shines in all the ways people understand. I shine in ways that annoys everyone.”

  He gave a small, humorless laugh.

  “We’re both cracked. Just… in different places. Fixing it feels exhausting. And since we’re functionally immortal, we keep telling ourselves there’s time. We’ll fix it later. Later never shows up.”

  Kitai folded her hands in her lap, thumb worrying along the seam of her cloak. She thought of all the “later” conversations that had evaporated in her own life. Later, the Deshawns would explain why they chose her. Later, someone would remember her birthday. Later, she’d ask about her mother.

  Then the basement, the letter, the Nyx-born.

  Later had teeth.

  “I won’t pry,” she said. “But I’ll say this. Cherish what you still have. Being alone is overrated.”

  The word came out too heavy. Or maybe just honest.

  He studied her for a heartbeat, then smiled—a real one this time, a little crooked. “You’re right,” he said. “Thanks… Kitai.”

  He slipped back out the window, his body shrinking to a streak of wind and light. “We’ve arrived. Game faces, everyone.”

  Game faces.

  She wondered if she even had one. She’d never needed a “face” before. Just a default “don’t notice me” setting.

  Her curiosity nudged her shoulder. Maybe, it suggested, you could try on a different one.

  She straightened. Adjusted her ring. The jade pulsed once, like a small nod.

  Across from her, Gemini’s eyes opened. Their features shifted subtly—cheekbones sharpening, jawline firming. Their Frame smoothed into something more traditionally masculine. Kitai watched, fascinated, as if she were witnessing someone scroll through character options on a game screen.

  If they can choose what they look like, she thought, maybe I can choose who I act like.

  Not someone else. Just… braver.

  Saon’s head punched back through the window. “And thanks again,” he added. “For listening.”

  “Anytime,” Kitai said, and meant it.

  Outside, the gate to Freetown rose ahead of them.

  The line leading into town coiled like a living thing.

  Carriages of every shape and origin waited in a staggered queue. Some were carved from bone. Others from living wood that trembled gently as if it were still deciding if this was a good idea. A few hovered off the ground, humming softly with blue glyphs etched along their sides.

  Beyond the carriages, crowds moved toward the archways. People. Creatures. Frames made flesh.

  Horned figures with drifting, smoky hair. Tall beings whose bodies were carved stone shot through with molten seams. Nomads with translucent skin and constellations glowing beneath. Humans. Not-humans. Elves. Imps. Things she had no names for yet.

  Kitai drank in every detail. The glint of teeth. The swish of cloaks. The way some walked like they owned the street, and others moved like they hoped the street wouldn’t notice them.

  They’re real, she thought. All the things Gbenga hinted at, all the myths he blurred, all the “stories” he said were half-truth. They’re alive and… here.

  “Are they all heading into town?” she asked, craning her neck for a better view.

  “Yes,” Saon said, descending from the roof to hover beside her window. “The Games attract people from all planes. You’re going to see so many different races. It’s a shame you can’t hear their languages properly because of your insignia, but you’ll still get the accents.”

  He grinned and nudged a breeze against her forehead, herding her back inside like a particularly nosy bird.

  “That was uncalled for,” she muttered, settling onto the seat across from Gemini again.

  “No one can see you until you’ve claimed the hammer and strengthened your Frame,” he said. “So stay in the carriage until we’re through the gate. Trust me.”

  As they rolled forward, Kitai’s attention snagged on a repeating detail.

  Rings.

  Everyone had rings.

  Not just a few. Not just nobles.

  Hands flashed all around her through the window’s slit: thick fingers, slender ones, claws, bark-hands, spectral digits. And on them—rings. Dozens. Hundreds. Bands of red, blue, gold. Some black as void. Others translucent.

  But more than any other color, she kept seeing green.

  Green rings on guards, merchants, children chasing each other down the street. Green rings on Imps, on Nymphs, on strangers with no shared features except that gleam around their fingers. Some simple bands. Others inset with tiny glyphs. A few pulsed in slow, steady rhythms like hearts.

  She looked down at her own hand.

  Her jade ring glowed softly, veins of Lafiya green pulsing in time with her heartbeat. It had felt like an anomaly when she first received it. Now it was suddenly part of a much wider pattern she didn't understand.

  Everyone with a green ring was connected to her house. She didn’t just know that, she could feel their connection to her to her tattoo. To her Frame.

  Her brain reached for a graph, a whiteboard, something to chart it all. But the city outside didn’t pause long enough to be catalogued.

  “Name, house or race, and purpose. If you don’t have a Moniker, one will be assigned to you on entry. If you have an issue with your assigned Moniker, then earn one befitting of your Frame.”

  The voice from the gate thundered through the carriage walls. Each word made the boards vibrate.

  “Say nothing. Just show your ring,” Saon whispered.

  He slipped out through the small side window.

  “Saon! You cretin,” scolded a gentler voice with a crisp accent.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Hillman, still pining for Rose?” Saon asked, sounding almost relieved to be bickering with someone familiar.

  “She turned him down again!” another voice chimed in, rougher, amused.

  “She said maybe—” Hillman began.

  “Didn’t she say that last time?” Saon cut in.

  “And the time before that,” the gruff voice added.

  “No, this time she said death would be better than going out with me,” Hillman muttered.

  Saon laughed. “‘Maybe’ is a win in my book. Anyway, you know my House and Moniker. Here’s my ring, Opobo—don’t get your JaJa in a twist.”

  There was a pause, then the muffled sound of metal, glyphs responding, perhaps.

  “YOU ARE ALL GOOD. WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER TWO IN THE CARRIAGE?” Opobo boomed. His voice felt like a physical weight.

  “They’re Lafiya too,” Saon replied easily. “Guys, show him your rings.”

  Kitai’s pulse stuttered.

  Lafiya.

  The weight of that name grew bigger whenever it was muttered.

  She thrust her hand toward the window without lifting her head. The leather of the carriage brushed her wrist; then a large, calloused hand took her fingers, turning her palm so the green ring caught the light.

  Kitai had the sudden, absurd fear that he would see through it. That he’d say, “This ring belongs to someone who knows what they’re doing, not you.”

  Instead, his grip stayed gentle. Steady. Neutral.

  Beside her, Gemini extended their hand too, their green ring catching the same stray rays.

  “THEY ARE,” Opobo said after a pause. “DO THEY HAVE MONIKERS OR SHALL ONE BE ASSIGNED TO THEM?”

  “They do,” Saon said smoothly. “Hermit wants to reveal them at the Games. You know how he is.”

  Monikers. Public names. Performing identity for an audience. Kitai’s insides shrank. She couldn’t even keep people from mispronouncing her regular name.

  “…YOU MAY PASS. AS USUAL, ANY DAMAGE OR RULE BROKEN SHALL BE PAID BY YOU. IF WE CAN’T FIND YOU, WE GO TO YOUR EMPLOYER.”

  “That one’s stressed,” Saon said to the remaining guards.

  “Someone broke graves at the Forgotten Graveyard. Harvested Husks,” Hillman whispered. “We’re all on edge. Graverobbers are a bad sign before the Games.”

  “Well, see you at the pub or opening ceremony,” Saon called, then slipped back into the carriage as the wheels creaked forward.

  Kitai caught a last glimpse of the guards through the window: blue coats, gray pants, lanterns in their left hands. The lanterns weren’t decorative. They glowed with a soft, contained power, each halo edged with the faintest tint of red.

  “Lanterns? In the middle of the day?” she murmured.

  “In the Onye Nche’s job, it’s always night somewhere,” Saon said.

  Freetown didn’t open. It crashed into her.

  The moment they properly entered the streets, the city hit her senses from all sides.

  Smell first: spices she’d never encountered, sharp and citrusy, mixed with smoke, sweat, incense, and the savory punch of street food frying in oils that had seen too many dawns. Sweet notes of caramelized fruit, something like roasted corn, and bitter herbs that made her nose sting.

  Then sound: vendors calling out in half a dozen languages, words sliding over each other like overlapping radio stations. Her insignia quietly translated everything into sense, but she still heard the music of each tongue—the clicks, the rolled r’s, the consonants that hit like drumbeats. Children laughed. Someone cursed creatively. A trumpet wailed a jagged, joyful melody from a balcony.

  Magic laced through it all like an invisible beat. Glyphs flickered above shop doors and on hanging flags. Some hitchhiked on the air, glowing symbols riding the wind. She saw numbers hovering above people’s heads, shifting faintly as bets were placed, as Fables were traded.

  Her curiosity spun in circles trying to keep up. What does that glyph do? Why is that person’s number flickering? How does that bird-shaped sigil stay latched to that man’s shoulder while he walks?

  And everywhere, those green rings.

  Now that she knew to look, she couldn’t stop seeing them.

  On a woman selling fruits that dripped starlight instead of juice. On a kid kicking a ball made of condensed fog. On a guard leaning against a lamppost, his green band carved with a different insignia from hers. On a jugglers’ troupe, their rings flashing with each toss, glyphs occasionally sparking mid-air when bands got too close.

  Her own ring pulsed a faint answer each time another green band passed by, like it was part of some secret, ongoing conversation she wasn’t fluent in yet.

  “Are Lafiya rings common?” she wanted to ask. “Or is green something else here?”

  She held the question on her tongue. There would be time. Maybe.

  She pressed her forehead lightly against the glass, letting the rush of details wash over her. For the first time since she’d arrived, wonder briefly edged out fear.

  This is insane, she thought. And beautiful. And unfair. And I want to learn every single thing about it.

  Then she noticed the Imp.

  Short, sharp-featured, goatee, white tee, black shorts. He moved in the crowd like water through cracks, slipping around people without ever brushing them.

  “That’s an Imp from the JaJa Cartel,” Saon said, dropping back into the carriage to stare out beside her. “They’re always up to something.”

  Kitai watched as the Imp blinked out of existence and reappeared by a stall draped in a green and pink banner. His hand dipped into his pocket, sliding on a white ring.

  Her brain pinged. Another ring color. Another pattern.

  “That’s odd,” Saon said. “Gangs use red for physical boosts, blue for magic. White’s rare.”

  The Imp made a small hand motion, fingers curling almost in prayer. One of the Wind Nymphs in front of him—barely there, all shimmer and breeze—suddenly became more solid. The others stayed ghostlike.

  “Ah,” Saon murmured. “I get it.”

  Kitai’s chest tightened. She was still piecing together the rules. Everyone around her seemed born knowing them.

  The Imp reached out. His hand passed harmlessly through a nearly intangible Nymph, then closed around the pocket of the more solid one behind her. He plucked out a wallet, blinked, and reappeared where he’d started, expression bored.

  Then he dropped the wallet into an unsuspecting customer’s bag.

  “Uh—” Kitai started.

  He raised his hand and screamed, “Ole! Ole!”

  Thief.

  The crowd reacted like a single enraged creature. Hands grabbed the customer, dragging him down. People yelled accusations in languages Kitai didn’t understand but felt in tone. Faces contorted with righteous anger.

  A rainbow bell chimed overhead.

  Lanterns descended.

  Blue-coated guards with gold trim cut through the crowd like knives. Their lanterns flared, casting translucent chains that snapped around the Nymphs, the Imp, the customer. The green rings on their hands flashed red for a moment as the lantern light touched them.

  The lanterns hummed.

  Kitai watched in horrified fascination as something subtle yet terrible was drawn from the captives’ Frames. She couldn’t see it, but she felt it—a pull, a draining, a quiet violation.

  One by one, they were lifted off the ground and carried up, higher and higher, until they vanished into the glare.

  The crowd shuddered.

  Then everything moved on.

  “What the hell am I getting myself into?” Kitai whispered.

  “That poor Nymph,” Saon muttered, drifting back to hover in the carriage. “She was never the actual target.”

  “What just happened?” Kitai asked, still gripping the window. “That was… staged. Rigged. All of it.”

  “Planned,” Saon agreed. “The Guards hire Imps to seed ‘crimes’ like that. Plant evidence. Make a scene. Then they swoop in and siphon your Frame during interrogation. Memories, Fables, buried secrets. They get paid in information and fear.”

  “Why the Nymph?” Kitai asked, throat tightening. “She didn’t even look solid half the time.”

  “Because the customer was a Waning Husk,” Saon said. “Passing as a healthy Soulframe.”

  “A… Husk?” she echoed.

  “Someone who’s lost their ambition or their Fable,” Saon explained. “Bottom of the hierarchy. Some get twisted into Nyx-born. Others go work for whoever throws them a ring and a purpose. Guards. Cartels. Exalted. Take your pick.”

  The world outside moved. People laughed, bought food, shouted bets. A woman with two green rings argued with a man whose ring blazed red. No one seemed bothered by what had just happened. Or maybe they were too used to it to flinch.

  Imps, Husks, lantern-law. She thought of the Remembered Plane’s own staged stories. Different rules. Same power.

  “Imps and Husks working together,” Gemini said quietly. “What has become of this town?”

  “Ignore Gemini,” Saon said automatically. “They live in a bubble.”

  “And you,” Gemini shot back, “live in a very small world.”

  “Imp jokes. So original,” Saon muttered.

  Their bickering bounced around the carriage like familiar percussion. Kitai listened, a small warmth creeping in beneath the unease. This was how they held their fear at arm’s length. Noise, not silence.

  Outside, the streets shifted. Fairylane’s playful chaos narrowed into denser blocks, darker alleys, tighter crowds. The banners changed; the colors deepened. The air thickened with new scents—heady, cloying perfumes and incense that wrapped around the carriage like hands.

  The red-light district shimmered ahead.

  Even before she saw it, she felt it.

  A slow, humming pull slid under her skin. Her breath hitched. Thoughts she’d never say in daylight uncoiled like smoke—visions of her on a balcony, bare feet on warm stone, dancing without shame as a crowd howled her name. A body pressed against hers. Lips at her ear.

  Her insignia thrummed.

  The influence shattered. She sucked in a harsh breath.

  “You should probably close the window before the siren song drags you in,” Saon said, his Frame glowing faint pink. He didn’t look at her, which somehow made it easier.

  “That’s what that was?” Kitai asked, slamming the window shut.

  “Yep. A brew from Sirens, Lotus-Eaters, and bored alchemists,” Saon said. “Works on almost everyone. If you suddenly start reciting your darkest secrets, we’ll all pretend we didn’t hear.”

  “No need,” Kitai muttered. “My insignia nullified it.”

  “Nullifies most abnormal effects targeted at the Heir,” Gemini added. “Ocarinya used to drink poison recreationally just to prove a point.”

  “She sounds insane,” Kitai said, reflex faster than caution.

  Gemini’s form flickered—edges blurring, then sharpening again. Their eyes cooled.

  Kitai’s stomach dropped. “I didn’t mean— I just—”

  “She celebrated freedom in extreme ways,” Gemini said. “Not insane. Just unwilling to be caged again. There’s a difference.”

  Kitai’s words dried up. She’d spent years muttering “crazy” at anything that scared her because it was easier than admitting it might also be brave. She was going to have to unlearn that.

  I’m supposed to be heir to that woman, she thought, heart pounding. I don’t feel like her heir. I don’t feel like anyone’s anything.

  She looked at her hands. Pale knuckles. Green ring. Faint tremor. She neither looked nor felt like the kind of person this plane kept insisting she was.

  “We’re here,” Saon announced.

  The carriage slowed. The side dissolved away into shimmering ether, leaving a clean, doorless opening where wood had been.

  Beyond it, Thrill Park sprawled across the horizon.

  Lights crawled up the sides of towering structures—roller coasters stitched from bones and metal, ferris wheels with caged cars that glowed from within, towers that fired streaks of light into the sky and caught them again on the way down. Screams rose and fell in the distance—not all of them playful. Glyphs looped in elaborate designs above the park entrance, warning and inviting in equal measure.

  Kitai’s curiosity surged.

  How do those rides stay up? What happens if you fall? What kind of Fables are trapped in those lights? Who decided this is where we hid a hammer that could reshape planes?

  Her fear answered just as loudly.

  You can’t even handle a group presentation without shaking. And now you’re supposed to infiltrate… that?

  Saon floated out first, grin sharpening. “Time to rob a Library,” he said, gesturing dramatically toward the park.

  Kitai tightened her grip on her bag. Her ring thrummed. The voice in her Frame leaned forward, interested.

  You’re terrified, she thought.

  Good. She stepped out anyway.

  Onye Nche are protectors, not saviors. They protect the laws, not the peace; everything is fair as long as the laws are abided by. If the laws are broken, their lantern shall be the judge and jury. Beware the third flash, because by then, a husk you shall be. – A. Explorer.

  Interlude: The Duo

  Conduit and Malkala watched as the carriage wound its way through the lantern-lit town. The townsfolk had begun to retreat indoors, streetlamps flickering against a sky soaked in indigo.

  Malkala’s talent for changing shape made trailing the carriage effortless. Tonight, he’d chosen the body of a teenage girl with obsidian hair and serpentine features: slit pupils, scaled skin that caught the moonlight in faint glimmers, and a forked tongue that flickered with every idle breath.

  Something about the look made Conduit’s mind itch, like a splinter buried too deep to reach.

  That form feels… familiar, he thought, eyes slipping between Malkala’s borrowed face and the carriage ahead. He tried to focus on the street, on their task, on anything else, but his thoughts kept circling back to the nagging recognition.

  “What?” Malkala asked casually, not breaking stride.

  Conduit blinked. “Nothing,” he lied, tucking deeper into the shadows of the narrow street.

  As shop lights dimmed and taverns emptied their last patrons into the night, the town shed its daytime noise. A quieter, rawer version emerged. Malkala whistled a low, haunting tune that threaded through the alleyways, his split tongue giving each note a subtle hiss. In the chorus of closing doors, murmured farewells, and the clink of stacked mugs, the sound somehow belonged.

  They walked in silence after that. Conduit kept stealing glances at Malkala, discomfort flickering behind his eyes, but said nothing until the carriage finally slowed to a stop.

  With a ripple, Malkala let go of the girl’s form and bled into a different shape, keeping the serpentine essence but rearranging it into a middle-aged man: shaggy black hair, skin weathered like old parchment, and coal-dark eyes that missed nothing.

  “Are you going to ssstare every time I transssform?” Malkala hissed with a grin as he crouched behind a closed fruit stall, folding himself into the gloom.

  Caught again, Conduit was grateful for the darkness; it hid the heat climbing his face.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, crouching beside him. Their shoulders brushed. “Your snake features just feel… familiar. Like I’ve seen them before.”

  The carriage gave off a soft, vibrating hum. A pulse of green slid through its frame, and with a shimmer, two arched openings yawned into existence on either side.

  The first occupant stepped out: a boy, no older than ten, small wings sprouting from his heels and a single horn jutting from a nest of shaggy hair. Something in him hooked into Conduit’s mind. Recognition scraped at the walls of his memory.

  He tried to push through the fog—

  It pushed back.

  Pain knifed through his skull. His vision blurred. His stomach heaved—and what came out wasn’t bile.

  It was language.

  “Saon, son of Hermes the Exalted,” he whispered through clenched teeth, sweat beading at his brow. The words didn’t feel learned; they felt extracted.

  He stumbled back, rattled. Malkala raised an eyebrow.

  “How do I know that?” Conduit whispered, more to himself than anyone else.

  The second figure exited the carriage—a being that shimmered between genders, their face an ever-shifting puzzle, their robes trailing thin threads of scented air. Their presence was unnervingly composed, like a statue animated by a patient storm.

  Another itch of recognition clawed up Conduit’s throat.

  “Gemini,” he muttered. “Child of Pavana and Vata. Loved by the wind. Not to be trusted.”

  His legs gave out. He collapsed back against a crate as if the words had hollowed him out from the inside. Malkala turned toward him, expression sharpening—not with concern for Conduit, but for the implication.

  “Isss my appearance bothering you ssso much?” he asked lightly. “Afraid of sssnakesss?”

  Conduit shook his head, wiping sweat from his face. “No. It’s not you. It’s like…” He searched for the right phrasing. “Like my mind is trying to crawl out of my Frame.”

  Malkala’s eyes narrowed. “You are a Freshly Forgotten. You ssshouldn’t have access to memories from the Remembered Plane.”

  Conduit met his gaze. “Maybe I’m not.”

  He tried to sound confident; the tremor in his voice ruined it.

  Malkala didn’t blink. His gaze honed, knife-sharp.

  Conduit tried to cut the tension. “That form you used earlier. What race was it?”

  “Nagasss,” Malkala said, head tilting at an unnatural angle. “Ssserpentine bipeds from the Remembered Plane. Hunted to extinction by the Homo Sssapiens.”

  “Nagas… extant snake-bipeds… hunted until the last by Homo sapiens…”

  The definition spilled out of Conduit’s mouth unbidden, too precise, too formal. A recitation he didn’t remember learning.

  Malkala stared, jaw tightening as his outline began to fray, his edges dissolving into a slow ooze of black. In an instant, he seized Conduit by the front of his cloak and slammed him against the stall wall.

  Conduit’s Frame rattled hard. Stars burst behind his eyes.

  “How do you know that?” Malkala growled, shedding his borrowed body entirely. His true Nyx-born form rippled like oil under moonlight, limbs and lines half-formed and shifting.

  “I don’t!” Conduit gasped. “Once I know the name, the rest just… downloads. Like reading an index that was always there. That’s how I knew Saon. Gemini. The moment I saw them, it all rushed in.”

  Malkala stared at him for a long, quiet beat. Then he let go. Conduit slid down the wall and landed in the dirt with a soft thud.

  Malkala re-knit himself into the Naga shape, scales glinting faintly. “Hmm.”

  Conduit stayed where he was this time, crouched and cautious.

  Then the final passenger stepped out.

  She had curly crimson hair high over her shoulders, tied in a bun. A cloak draped elegantly around her, embroidered with runes that pulsed with a deep, verdant glow.

  Conduit didn’t need memory for this one.

  His ring vibrated against his skin, flaring green.

  “Kitai,” he breathed. “Heir to the Library… and to the Lafiya Estate.”

  “And our target,” Malkala added, eyes narrowing.

  They waited until the trio entered the Library. Then Malkala rose, stretching like a cat, and slipped after them. Conduit followed at a careful distance.

  As they walked, Malkala spoke without looking back.

  “They were the onesss who worshipped me. Without their belief, I would not exissst.”

  Conduit’s footsteps faltered.

  “Their destruction left a void in every god they ever touched,” Malkala continued. “Some became husksss. Others… became what you call Nyx-born.”

  Conduit stared at him, stunned. “I’m… sorry.”

  Malkala turned. Black ooze seeped from the corners of his eyes and mouth like slow, deliberate tears.

  “Don’t be,” he said with a thin, cruel smile. “What’s done is done.”

  He tapped his own green ring.

  “Now, we avenge them.”

  “How?” Conduit asked, voice barely a whisper.

  “By annihilating the Houssse that gave them the toolsss to do it.”

  He turned his gaze back toward the Library. His form blurred, then slid out of sight, vanishing into the dark.