Without even thinking about it, I conjured a plexus and floated the hazmat suit over to me. I hadn't enabled my wyrmsight at the moment, but I no longer needed to see plexuses to be able to do simple levitations with them. A combination of experience and wyrm memory filled the gaps, coupled with the sub-visual awareness I had of the things in my mind's eye.

The ease with which I did it drove home just how much my powers had evolved after eating my fill of Heggy's brother. I didn't know how to describe it other than to say that I'd been feeling my potential growing for the past half-hour or so. Even then, though, just like with my physical changes, I had the sense that my development was still unfinished. I definitely wanted to test what my abilities could now do, but I was worried that I'd break something in the process—or worse, trigger an alarm.

Willing the hazmat suit to spin, I reared a couple feet up off the ground, using the base of my tail to support myself. The muscles quivered, unused to being used. I carefully drew one of my claw-tips through the suit's neck and headpiece, slicing open the plastic, and then let the suit fall to the floor, keeping only my bow-tie afloat. I reached out to grab it, ready to slide it onto my neck, but then hesitated.

I was worried I'd slice it to ribbons with my claws. Yes, it was made from a durable and very stretchy polymer, but I didn't want to risk damaging it. It was too precious to me.

Dana had given it to me, after all.

Lowering my head, I stuck two of my fingers inside the neck loop and pushed them apart, ever-so-carefully stretching the elastic, and then slipped it over my head and let it snap in place around the collar of my coat.

The touch of my scales against the human skin on the sides of my neck made me shiver.

I figured that, with the bow-tie, I'd still be identifiable at a distance, even once I finished my transformation, Angel-willing. Andalon had told me that wyrms used their wyrmsong to communicate, but, knowing me, I'd probably find a way to screw that up, too, so I decided to use my bow-tie as back-up, just in case there were difficulties.

For what it was worth, this quickly proved to be quite the prescient decision; the next thing I knew, there was a knock at the door. I turned my head to look through the glass.

My heart and jaw dropped at the same time.

"Ani…" I muttered.

I brushed the hazmat suit aside with my tail and slithered up to the door.

Ani had pressed one of her hands up against the glass.

Gingerly, I pressed one of my hands on the other side of the glass, but to my dismay, Ani pulled away.

Andalon watched us with great interest.

"Ani, please…" I said.

But she didn't respond. She just stared at me, gazing out from her PPE as tears rolled down her cheeks, and it was only after what felt like an unbearable amount of time that she finally, finally dared to speak.

"Why didn't you tell us?" she asked. Her voice was soft and small.

"Because I was scared," I said, lowering my head in shame. I shook my head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lied." I raised my head and pressed my other hand onto the glass. "Ani," I said, "there's so much you need to know, I—"

"—No." She raised one of her hands. "Dr. Marteneiss told me already."

"Did she tell you about Kléothag?"

"That's… that's what you called the Hallowed Beast, right?" she asked.

Her curiosity made me perk up a little. "Yes! Yes!" I nodded. "That's right, and Mr. Himichi—"

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Gravely, Ani looked me in the eyes. "—And you said the Beast is dead." Her voice was on the verge of breaking. "Is it true?"

Fudge.

I averted her gaze. "Yes," I said, with a hard gulp. "Ani, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It—"

She started to cry. "—I don't know what to believe anymore, Genneth." She stared, lost and forlorn. "My faith… it's all I have left. My parents are gone. Jonan is sick. He's not doing well, Genneth. He… oh God…"

"Ani… why are you here?" I asked. "Did you just come here to make yourself more upset? Listen, I don't want you beating yourself up over things that are beyond your control. I've been doing that my whole life, and it's an awful habit to have, let me tell you."

"I'm here because I care about you, you dunderhead!" She shook her head and sniffled and coughed. "I get why you didn't tell the others, but… why not me? Did you not trust me? Even after all this time? Was I not good enough?"

I stared at her, aghast. "No," I shook my head with vehemence. "You're more than good enough, Ani. You're the best of us."

"How much does that mean, coming from a man-eater?" she said.

My emotions snapped. "You think I'm okay with what happened?" I yelled. My voice broke in a polyphonic growl. "I'm not! I'm nowhere near okay with any this! But, darn it, I'm still trying my best!" I looked at Andalon. "We all are!"

"Ani… I wish things could go back to the way they were before… but they can't. We have to move forward." I looked up at the ceiling. "And right now, I have a message direct from the Hallowed Beast Himself. He told us to get the heck out of here, Ani. He told us to run."

"But run where, Genneth?"

"To the stars! To another world! I don't know." I glanced at Andalon. "Andalon tells me her greater self is going to arrive soon, and she'll take all of us into something she calls the Place that Moves."

"Do you really believe that?" Ani asked.

I nodded. "Yes, I do!"

"So, what, we just sit around and wait until then?" she asked.

"No, of course not! I doubt Kléothag would have gone to such lengths to get his message out if he didn't expect its recipients to be able to meaningfully act on it. The Godsdial in the Riscolts has to be part of Kléothag's corpse. Maybe there's something there we can use—a sliver of divine power!"

Honestly, I was just improvising. Being well-adjusted to my transformation didn't mean I was any less terrified about the situation we were all in.

"C'mon, please, let me out," I said. "Let all the wyrms out. With all that psychokinetic power, there has to be something we can do! But… they can't do it on their own. They don't know what I know. They need me! They need &alon!"

"So…" Ani grimaced, "you're just going to move past it all, as if it was nothing?"

Shaking my head, I banged my hand on the glass. Ani yelped as my claws broke through the window pane, but I managed to throw out a plexus that immobilized the fragments mid-air, keeping them from striking her. I pulled away from the door and floated the fragments in through the gap, before letting them tinkle onto the floor.

She looked at me like I was a monster, and that hurt.

"No, Ani, I don't intend to move past it. I'm going to spend my whole life trying to make amends. Look at me now: if I really wanted to, I could blast this door to smithereens and grab my freedom by the throat and no one but another wyrm would be able to stop me. But I'm not doing that, because you and the others would try to stop me, and that could lead to you getting hurt, and I don't want that. That's not 'moving on' from what happened, it's responding to it accordingly. Given the choice, I'd rather try to make something good come from what happened than let this all be for naught. This plague has closed too many doors already. We have to keep moving forward; we owe that to those who were lost. And don't you think that I won't be thinking about my actions every day for the rest of my life. If I'm going to feel bad no matter what I do—and, for the record, I absolutely will—I'd rather choose the road that has a chance of bringing others happiness. I know Heggy doesn't want to hear it, but Vernon will be here with me, every step of the way, looking on from the worlds inside me. Right now, he's not in a mood to talk to me, but, one day, he will be, and when that day comes, then I can start to earn his forgiveness, if he deigns to grant it. He'll be my judge. All of my spirits will." I took a breath, puffing out spores. "Even your father."

Ani stammered. "W-What?"

"Yes," I said, lowering my head, shamed again. "When I said one of my patients had gotten a hold of his soul… that was a lie." I looked up, meeting her eyes with mine. "He's with me, Ani."

Just the thought of Ani's father was enough to make Alon's spirit stir within me. For a moment, I closed my eyes, and when I next opened them, the man's spirit stood beside me, as if in the flesh. He wore a squeaky clean white buttoned-up shirt, with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark slacks. His face was a glare, encrusted with scorn, all of it directed at me.

I turned to him. "Alon, you wanted to talk to your daughter, right?" I gestured at the door. "Well, here she is. Tell me what you want to say, and I'll tell her."

"Genneth, Heggy thinks you've gone insane."

But Alon held his tongue.

"Alon, c'mon, I thought you wanted to talk to her!"

"Don't ask me to wipe the dogshit off your shoes," he said.

I turned to Ani. "He just told me, 'Don't ask me to wipe the, uh… dog poop off your shoes.'"

But then she turned away and left.

"Ani!" I pushed up against the door. "Ani!!"

My words carried spores through the hole in the glass.

Beside me, Andalon looked up at Alon. "This is bad, right?"

The Costranak man nodded. "You said it, little lady."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.