"Andalon…?"

I looked around, but there was no response.

"Andalon!" I said again.

The wyrm tree Letty had become loomed over the wreckage of the matter printer facility, tall and imperious. Her branches' strange wood creaked softly, defiant even in the serenity that had been forced upon her. Noises stammered out from the copies of Letty's wyrm-head at the ends of her many branches like a gaggle of foghorns. The curtains of spores drifting down wept like a willow tree.

My short-lived ability to understand Letty's songs must have been Andalon's doing, because, now that she was gone, the noises were an enigma to me once more. I could broadly intuit what they meant, but the details were beyond me, at least for the time being. Still, the translation trouble didn't make Letty's emotions any less potent. The mere sound of them was enough to make my back spines shiver. I heard rage, frustration, and indignation, though it sounded like they were rapidly boiling over into a full-blown panic.

The spore curtains spilled harmlessly over Ani's barrier, and quickly flowed into the smoking pools across the factory floor.

I felt lightheaded. Was it just my nerves? Or was it something more?

More importantly: what the heck had happened? Andalon…

Why'd she disappear?

Had something gone wrong?

I lowered my arms and clenched my claws. "Fudge," I said. "Fudge fudge fudge!"

I was freakin' terrified! I'd barely managed to survive the first time that she'd disappeared, back when Ileene had beaten her half to death.

"No no no no no no no no…" I muttered.

I ran my claws through my hair, ignoring that they were far too large for that purpose.

I should have been exultant; I certainly wanted to be. I mean, not counting the fights I'd had in thoughts and dreams, I'd just eked out a victory in the biggest fight of my life, but how could I feel anything but frazzled and dread-struck when Andalon had gone up and disappeared on me, just like that? The shock and triumph collided head-first, and right now, the shock was winning!

Angel… what if the fungus had attacked her? What if it found a way to strike at her through me? Could it have been Lantor? Had something in the Incursion broken free? Or had I unwittingly brought something back with me from my haunting vision of that city at the edge of the sky.

Without a moment's hesitation, I dashed into my Main Menu and brought up Lantor's world-cube.

I double-checked it twice looking for even the slightest sign of something amiss.

I exhaled sharply. No, the Incursion was still contained. If anything, it seemed to have stabilized. Its spread had just… stopped.

Again, that should have been wonderful news, but it only dropped another brick of foreboding on my shoulders.

I reentered myself in my body.

"But what could it be," I said, "if it wasn't the Incursion?" I looked up at the ceiling through the Letty-tree's boughs.

"Please, &alon," I prayed, "show me a sign. Let me know you're okay!"

And then, I got my wish. For an instant, I was struck by a feeling of pressure, not just on my skin and scales, but one that pushed on my cells from every direction, maybe even on the air itself. The sensation came with a powerful emotion, one that seemed to say, "I'm here, I'm here", like a fist rapping at a door. There was a terrible sense of urgency to the pressure, as if an arm was trying to break through from somewhere on the other side of the air.

And I heard my clarinet. I heard my music—my Sonata—but… shattered, as if seen (well, heard) through a looking-glass.

She must have been using it to reach out to me. That meant Andalon was still out there, somewhere. Knowing that brought relief, but it was only a pittance. I just wish I knew more. Was she safe? Was she in danger?

But I couldn't tell.

It was frustrating, to say the least.

A moment later, the pressure receded, along with the sound. After a couple of seconds, it was like they'd never been there at all.

"Genneth…?" Ani said.

Suddenly, all of my worries about Andalon had teleported a million miles away.

Ani floating a couple inches off the ground, seated on the bottom of my invisible sphere-field, in the shadow of the Letty tree. The many eyes glared at her loathsomely.

I willed the sphere toward me, scattering smoke and spores. As I brought it to a stop right in front of me, Ani stood up and pressed her hand against its curve.

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"Genneth, Jonan… he…"

There were tears in her eyes.

I would have been crying, too, but it seemed like my eyes could no longer shed tears.

I wanted to reach out and hug her. I wanted to hold this dearest friend of mine in my arms and tell her that things were going to be okay, even if it would have been a lie.

"Ani… I'm so sorry. Angel…" My torso pressed against the forcefield's exterior. "I should have gotten here sooner. If I had, maybe…"

Coughing through the tears, Ani shook her head. "It wouldn't have made a difference," she said. Her lips broke into a crooked smile. "He was dying, Genneth. There's…" But she couldn't finish her sentence. Instead, she ran her hands through her hair and fell to her knees. "Angel's mercy, it hurts. It hurts so much. Jonan he's… he's…"

She sobbed hysterically. I couldn't bear to look, but the only thing more painful than Ani's suffering was the thought of turning away from her in her time of need, and for a reason as petty as my own comfort, no less.

Ani looked me in the eyes. "My father's spirit is in you," she said," struggling against her heartbreak. "Does that mean that Jonan's spirit is in…?" With dread, she turned toward Letty.

I shook my head. "I…" I shrugged. "Maybe? I… I don't know." I looked up at Letty's boughs. "This hasn't happened before. And Andalon has disappeared."

Ani clasped her hands together and, bending over down over the floor, she started to pray. "Please, Andalon, Angel—anyone… if you can hear me, please… save Jonan. Don't let him be gone forever! I'll do anything! Anything! Please, just… don't let… oh God…" She croaked. "…don't let him be gone! Take me! Take me instead!"

I couldn't bear it any longer. I slithered out of the room, carrying the sphere, having shrunken it as small as I could to fit it into my arms without hurting Ani. Though it was still too large, with some psychokinetic assistance, I managed to hold it in one arm and then used my spare arm to rip open a pair of double doors and enter the hallway beyond. Once I'd pulled my tail through, I clumsily put the door back in place to stem the tide of smoke and spores that was spilling into the corridor's clean air. Then I set Ani's cocoon on the vinyl floor and leaned it against the wall.

Shaking out my hands, I passed them over my coat to sweep off any spores or smoke. Once that was done, I dispelled my forcefield, letting Ani stand on her own two feet once more, and then I spread my arms to embrace her, only to stop at the last second, my claws inches away from her sobbing chest.

Though she wasn't at death's door yet, Ani was still sufficiently infected that physical contact with her in any way risked initiating my body's absorption process. I unwittingly hyperphantasized my memories of Jonan and Geoffrey suffering through that kind of absorption and then recoiled in horror.

I couldn't do that to Ani. I couldn't inflict that kind of pain on her. She didn't deserve the pain she was already under; what kind of jerk would pile more on top of that?

Just when I thought I'd reached rock bottom, lightning struck, and I had an idea.

There was something that I could do.

Biting my lip, I carefully wove together a flimsy plexus. At first, my plan was to will it into the shape of a blanket, and then wrap it around Ani's upper body in a simulation of a hug, but I realized I could do a little better than that.

Instead of wrapping the plexus around her, I wrapped it around myself—around my upper body—giving it just enough force to exert both the pressure needed for her to feel its touch and to keep her from touching me; I guess you could call it psychokinetic PPE.

Once that was done, I wrapped my arms around Ani Lokanok and hugged her tightly. For a moment, she froze in shock, but then, trembling, she reached out and returned my embrace, my forcefield keeping her body a couple millimeters away from me the entire time.

And she sobbed and sobbed.

"Ani, I promise, I'll do whatever I can to find Jonan. If he's in Letty, I'll get him out. I'll rescue all the souls trapped in that witch. I swear, Ani. I swear."

I lifted my head and neck and looked away, checking to see if I'd exposed her to any of my spores.

But then, Speak of the Norm, I got hungry again. It hit me like a tightness in my chest. All my muscles went tense.

I smacked my lips together.

Fricassee me.

Beast and Queen, Andalon was gone and I was hungry again. The saliva was already pooling in my mouth, and Ani…

Fudge.

…well, let's just say she looked very… appetizing.

Without hesitation, I pulled away from her. I everted my plexus as I slithered back, wrapping it around Ani to cushion her as she dropped from my grip. I dismissed it once she was back on her feet.

"Genneth, what's wrong?"

I covered my mouth with the two non-thumb claws of my right hand. I didn't want Ani to see me salivating at her.

"That battle took a lot out of me," I said. "I'm hungry again, and, oh fudge, I…"

Ani bit her lip and shook her head. "It's alright. I understand." She nodded. "Trust me, I've worked with enough patients like you. I know what it's like—well, you know what I mean." Her eyes twinkled. "I don't want to hurt you, and you don't want to hurt me."

"But you're already hurt!" I said. "It's not fair!" Saliva dripped down my chin. I brought up a small pooper-scooper-shaped plexus to keep the stuff from getting on the floor. "I… I don't want to abandon you," I said.

"You're not abandoning me, Genneth. You're just taking a lunch break." She smiled at me so deeply, it hurt.

And then, Ani's PortaCon started buzzing like crazy from inside her PPE's stomach pouch. She pulled out the device and tapped it awake.

I could make out a cluster of recent text messages on the screen.

"Genneth, whatever you and Andalon did," she smirked, "it worked. Big time."

"R-Really?"

Ani nodded. "Heggy says the monsters are all… mush." She turned her console around to let me see.

The mere act of reading the words of Heggy's texts had me getting emotional. I'd gotten so unused to good news, when I finally heard some. It was like I'd become allergic to it.

I sniffled and cleared my throat, snorting out spores in little bursts.

"Ani…"

She looked at me with pity. Just from the look on her face, I knew she could tell just how uncomfortable I was. Typical.

Ani always put others before herself.

Angel, what a Light she was!

"The battle is over," she said, looking up from her PortaCon "Heggy and the others are nearby. We're going back topside." She looked up, and then swallowed hard. "I'll see you there, after you've… eaten."

"But what if I'm not human anymore?" I asked.

"Then I'll just look for the only wyrm brave enough, and kind enough to dare to wear a red and yellow spotted bowtie."

I would have blushed, if I still could.

Ani's whole body shuddered as she sighed. "Now… get going, you hear me? You need to be in ship shape if you're going to rescue Jonan."

Then, with great difficulty, she turned and walked away.

I tried to slither off, but I couldn't. I had to get one more word in.

"He might have rubbed me the wrong way at first, but… he was a good man, deep down."

She gave me one last twinkle-eyed glance.

"I know."

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