“Well…c-can you still help me?”

Vyr had been standing for the majority of my explanation, the both of us still hovering near the door. But as I came to the end of it, she lowered herself to the floor, her wings pressed up against the wall. Her tail had long since gone still and her right hand came up to cover her mouth as she stared at me, pupils gone wide.

“You are of another world. Truly?”

My insides clenched.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell the full truth at first. I…I didn’t want all of you to see me any differently. To think I’m some kind of…of alien.”

“But you are,” said Vyr, letting her hand fall to drape over her knee alongside the other. “You are, and you are not.”

I gnawed my pseudo-lip.

“This is…this is remarkable,” Vyr went on, gaining volume as she spoke. “What you—what she has done. Sad yes, but unprecedented. Incredible. The things we could learn from you! A whole other world’s worth of knowledge. Amazing.”

“Does that mean you will still be able to help? Or not?”

Vyr rose and pushed past me so swiftly it took me by surprise. In the next instant she was pacing the length of her chamber, worrying at her snout with one hand.

“I don’t know. It would require space-work, and I cannot—but perhaps…no. No, that wouldn’t work.”

She went on like that for minutes as I waited and watched in intermingled relief and fear. I don’t know how exactly I’d expected her to respond to my revelation. With repulsion, perhaps, or anger. But instead Vyr seemed invigorated, her tail lashing and wings flexing as she stalked back and forth across the room, talking more to herself than to me.

Finally she slowed, turned, and stalked her way back.

“This is not a problem I can solve on my own,” she said. “I will require the assistance of another Onyx, I think, one who works with space. And a Jade. And an Opal. Each of them 6Gem or higher, with the necessary abilities. For the Jade—Imbris will do. For the others…we would have to reach outside the coven. And everyone involved will have to know the truth about you. They can be sworn to keep your secret from other outsiders, of course.” The idea that we might not tell the rest of our coven-mates didn’t even seem to occur to her, and I didn’t suggest it. I didn’t want to have secrets from them, not anymore. It only made my life harder.

“That’s…” I shook my head, now cupping my own muzzle as I fretted over my thoughts. “That’s a lot of help. And they’re all going to want something in return for it, aren’t they? Except Imbris, maybe, I suppose. I already owe favor to Thors, and—”

Vyr’s eyes narrowed to slits. Her wings flared and folded back again. Her tail lashed once, and then stilled.

“You what? Why?”

I fought the urge to take a step back, singed by her sudden fury.

“I…he…I ran into him early on, after first coming into this body. I had no idea what was going on, where or even who I was. So one thing led to another, and, er…” I caught myself cowering and straightened. “I kinda accidentally made a deal with him to trade Favor for answers.”

The last part I said so fast that the words all slurred together. I wasn’t exactly proud of how I’d handled myself at the time.

Vyr’s lips curled back to bare her teeth, nostrils flaring as she turned, yanked the door open, and charged out into the main chamber. I scrambled after her, and we passed a bemused Imbris and Asho as they ate together in one of the scoops. Bursting out into the hall, she charged off.

“Wait!” I called. “Vyr, wait! Where are you going?“

But she’d already come to a stop outside a door that belonged to—

“Khural-An! Thors!”

With one fist she pounded at his door.

“Answer me! I know you eat in there alone!”

There was a faint scuffing sound from beyond the barrier, and the lingering traces of that familiar sun-warmed scent intensified. A second later, the latch clicked, the door pulled inward, and Thors appeared—blinking in confusion. His pupils narrowed at first as he focused in on Vyr, widening as they skirted sideways and down to peer past her at me. His tail twitched and then stilled.

“Yes, Trasseck-an? Zia? Is there some way I can help—”

“You call her by personal name alone, and yet you charge her Favor for mere answers? A deepborn who’d lost her wits? Who was completely confused and alone in this world?”

I glared at her.

“Actually it was my memories I lo—“

But Vyr ignored me and raged on, Thors standing wide-eyed but unflinching in the face of her tirade.

“Where is your honor, line of the sovereign? Skyborn of the Guard?”

“I…” Thors wings actually flared and his aroma deepened, taking on a sort of heat. For about half a second, I thought he would defy her. Assert dominance. But then, slowly—as if with difficulty—his wings folded and lowered. His ears turned back, almost flattening to his head as he inclined it.

“You are right, Trasseck-an. It was wrong of me. I’d thought her a liar, then—and so felt it justified. And I admit, with no coven with whom to exchange it, I take whatever chances of gaining Favor that I can.”

Vyr bristled, baring her teeth even as her jaws parted to speak. But Thors ploughed on.

“I will admit, too, that I held her to the debt mostly because I wanted reason to see her again. I wish to court her. To consort with her.” Thors’ gaze skirted away from Vyr’s to meet mine. My heart clenched.

Did…did he really just say that?

The Onyx stared, frozen in place. And then she laughed.

“Well that is unfortunate, Khural-an, I must say.”

Thors’ brows furrowed, flicking a sideways glance back to the other Skyborn before his eyes returned, questioningly, to me.

“Unfortunate? Why?”

I swallowed, suppressing more tears. I’d felt pathetic, lately, with how much I’d been crying. In my past life, I’d become numb. But lately my feelings had been flooding back to me, drowning me from the inside out.

“You should be the one to tell him, krada,” said Vyr, her attention now fixed on me too.

“I…I…” I shook my head, my tail slapping at the ground, a frantic rhythm that matched my heartbeat. “Jenner. He asked that I…that I not be alone with you. That I avoid being in vulnerable places and positions with you. For my s-safety and for the coven’s reputation.”

The hurt in Thors’ eyes hit me like a fist to the gut. His wings dropped lower still.

“And you…you agreed to this?”

I grimaced, caught the flesh at the corner of my mouth in my teeth…as if a physical pain to echo the one in my heart would somehow nullify them both.

“I felt like I had to.”

It was a lame excuse. But it was true.

“I am so sorry, Thors. I didn’t know what to do, how much I even could do now that I’m in a coven, how much choice I really even had—”

“Very well.”

“Wh—what?”

Reaching to one side, he flipped open one of the leather pouches affixed to his belt. Reaching in, he withdrew and held his hand out to me as something in his palm caught the light. Brilliant and blue.

The mating shells I’d given him by accident.

He’d actually kept them.

Without really thinking, I opened my hand to him—and he dumped them into my padded palm. I closed trembling fingers around the shells, fumbling at my belt pouch to slip them inside. Vyr watched incredulously, scaly brows climbing ever upward.

“Forgive me,” he said, not quite meeting my eyes. “I should have given them back when I first understood your mistake.”

“While we’re settling matters,” said Vyr, catching the door’s edge as Thors reached for the handle. “I will pay her debt. How much was it?”

“No,” said Thors. “It was wrong of me to incur it in the first place, and I release it. Now I must go.”

Inclining his head briefly, he turned from us both again and closed the door promptly between us—Vyr letting go only just in time to avoid getting her fingers smashed. The sound of it wasn’t loud, but it seemed to reverberate through my bones. The next thing I knew, she was halfway back to our suite, and I was still just standing there. Forcing my legs to move, I stumbled after her. Imbris and Asho looked up with interest as we stepped back into the suite. I pulled the door closed a little too hard behind me.

“Why’d you have to be so rude to him?” I demanded, taking even myself by surprise as I caught at Vyr’s hand to stop her. She snatched it away, whirling on me.

“You heard. It was shameful, what he did.”

My hackles raised.

“But still, why did—”

Vyr’s yellow eyes narrowed to slits. I stopped short. Took a deep breath.

I still need her help.

“You know what, it doesn’t matter. I still have questions about the…the procedure, and you probably have to go soon.”

She snorted.

“I must begin student services, in which I see to the health of my classmates. And you have the assignment of planning your recovery, yes?”

I nodded.

“So, you will spend it in part with me. I will be serving a student, and you, carrying out your practical application. In fact,” she added, “we must go now, else I’ll be marked as late. Go and get that journal with the sigil in it. The one that did this. Quickly.”

I did as I was told, hurrying out once more after that with Vyr, this time to the sounds of Imbris and Asho’s disappointment and Pancake trotting and snuffling along behind us.

Back in the now-familiar confines of the shelf-lined, foxfire-lit chamber in which we’d first met, the skyborn stretched her wings.

“I must admit I was somewhat…overcome earlier, on learning of the debt. I…” she sucked a long breath through her nose. “I apologize for losing my composure. You had asked me, before that, if those who helped us would want anything in return. They will. But we as a coven shall pay the price, and not just you alone. That’s how it works. You may as well sit.”

She gestured absently toward the pouf near the hearth even as Pancake cantered over to heave himself into it. But already she’d turned her attention to a shelf packed with books. Squinting, she raised a claw, running its back lightly along their spines until she came to the one she was looking for and pulled it free.

“Vyr,” I began as she flipped the book open and rifled through the pages. “What…how is this going to work, exactly? And what’s it going to be like when it does? Other Zia didn’t want to be here anymore. She didn’t want to remember. Is it going to be like she’s back again, but merged with me? You know I don’t want her to replace me, right? I don’t want to lose my memories of my old life and have them completely overwritten with hers. And I don’t want her to hate me if we’re stuck in the same head together, either.”

It was hard to sort out my thoughts, especially as they were haunted by that look of hurt on Thors’ face. All I really wanted to do, just then, was come up with a way to fix things for us.

Priorities, Zia.

I would find a way. I would give Thors and I a path forward…somehow. But that would have to be a problem for another day. Another problem for another day. I sighed.

“Mm,” said Vyr, squinting at one page in particular before skimming past the next few. “Her aim was to free both herself and you of her memories. There are a number of methods by which she could have accomplished that, and whichever she used in doing so will determine the method of retrieval. And only once I know what that will be may I guess at the side effects. Now,” she turned around to face me, snapping her own book shut even as she pointed with it to the one in my hands.

“That sigil is the key. Once we find the right Opal to assist us, they can break down its visual language to determine the exact mechanics by which its goals were accomplished. And that’ll be your task.”

My eyes—which had been drifting from Vyr’s face to the little pig-thing whose seat I coveted—snapped back to her.

“You are an Opal. You will be responsible for finding another of your kind, 6Gem or higher and trustworthy, to assist us. Imbris will take no convincing, and I, of course, already have another Onyx in mind.”

Immediately, I thought of Shen.

Nope. Absolutely no way I’m resorting to him. That kobold had “untrustworthy” written all over him.

“I don’t really know any of the other Opals yet, though,” I said. “I don’t even know where to begin. You’ve been here for a few years, you must have some idea—”

She shook her head.

“You’ve got to take some part in your own recovery, krada. I am your coven-mate, not your servant. Besides, I truly don’t know any Opals all that well, myself. Generally, I avoid them.”

I huffed. She had a point.

“Shouldn’t I just…ask one of the teachers? Or the Foremost?”

“They are guides. They are not here to solve our problems for us or, aside from the Truthseers, to over-involve themselves in our personal matters once we are grouped. We students are meant to aide and support one another. They step in only in matters of life and death.”

Damnit. So much for that thought.

There was no shortcut for this, no easy way out.

I was going to have to actually get to know even more new people.

Fuck.