Back at Eris Morn's base camp, a number of tents had been set up. A particularly large one was a barracks, with rows of beds inside. However, when Silvan glanced inside, every bed was empty. Other Guardians were gathered into a command tent, where Ikora Rey was lecturing and pointing at various maps projected by her Ghost.

Eris Morn still stood off by herself, gazing at the Scarlet Keep, surrounded by floating red nightmares. But as Silvan approached, she realized there was one less than usual. Eris was fingering a long chain of hand-carved beads. She looked up with a rare smile as Silvan stopped beside her.

"A Guardian recovered these," Eris said, holding them out. "Sai Mota carved them for me. She even taught me to carve them, myself." She drew the necklace back before Silvan could touch them. "As I dwell on Sai's generosity, the nightmare has faded, that voice falling silent. I believe that she has forgiven me." She lifted her masked eyes to look at Earth, where the Traveler was barely visible behind the globe. "I believe the Light has forgiven me."

Silvan stood there awkwardly, unsure what to say. Instead, her Ghost materialized and flew forward, twirling his purple shell. "Excuse me Ms. Morn, but we found something. It might help."

Eris turned to look at the Ghost. Her lips tightened, as if holding back some emotion. "Yes?" she said, her voice very even.

Bramble projected the data he had stolen, with translations neatly arranged alongside each image. "The Hive have an instrument called the Lecturn of Enchantment. They use it to infuse their armor with an anti-pyramid aura. It's why there's no nightmares harassing the Hive, only us. If we could find the Lecturn-"

"We could make use of it," Eris said. "Yes. I could attempt to decipher its function." She reached out with two fingers, as if about to touch Bramble's shell, then withdrew and returned to fingering the beads. "I will give thought as to its location. I may be able to touch the minds of the high priestesses. Meanwhile, I suggest that you rest. I have been standing here for nineteen hours and you have been running for all of it."

"That long?" Silvan murmured, looking up at the Earth that neither rose nor set. The sun moved, but very slowly. The only way to tell that time was passing was because Earth's globe was entirely dark, with only a thin blue rim along one edge. As she gazed at it, she felt the weary ache in her bones, the heaviness in her eyelids. Sleep sounded so good right now.

"Is it all right to use the barracks?" Silvan asked.

Eris didn't look up. "They have been prepared for you. But you may find it … uncomfortable."

That was all Silvan wanted to know. She entered the tent, selected a bed at the far end, pulled off her helmet and boots, and lay down. She was asleep within minutes.

Madrid saw Silvan enter the tent. He turned to Jin. "Looks like time for a break. Have any rations?"

"I'll transmat some from my ship," the Titan replied. "You don't think those nightmares will gank us in our sleep?"

Madrid didn't look at the lurking Jayesh. He felt its presence all the time, like the constant irritation of a festering splinter. "They're here to demoralize us, not kill us. Not directly."

"That one crashed your ship."

"I crashed my ship," Madrid said heavily. "I allowed the nightmare to distract me."

Jin's Ghost transmatted in two ration packs and two vacuum-ready bottles of water. He and Madrid sat on a couple of rocks to eat.

As Madrid activated the heat pack in the MRE, his nightmare whispered, "You are a murderer and a betrayer of friends. You don't deserve this fireteam."

"Shut up," Madrid growled aloud. He pulled off his helmet, inhaled the Moon's thin, cold air, and started on the food. Nearby, Jin ate, too, while keeping an eye on him.

"Why don't you have nightmares?" Madrid asked him after a while. "Everybody else seems to have a couple."

"I honestly don't know," Jin said slowly. "I have monsters in my past, too. I guess … it might be because I've already made peace with it."

"Made peace how?" Madrid said, lifting his head to stare at the Exo. "Did you ever stab your friends in the back?"

Jin blinked at him, then dropped his gaze to his tray. "Yes," he said simply.

Madrid gestured at him. "Then why are you not haunted?"

"Well, first off, Exo," said Jin, tapping his green-painted head. "I resurrected with memories of my past life. Turns out I had memories stashed everywhere, data chips and stuff. Engraved a keyword on my arm, even." He pushed back a little of his undersuit to show the edge of the word Aestivalis on his wrist. "My poor Ghost got dragged into all kinds of nonsense. But she stuck with me, no matter how I tried to kill everyone around us. Other Guardians helped me out. In the end, I faced up to who I'd been and what I'd done. My Guardian name is Valis, and my old name was Jin. So I go by both. Jin Valis."

"Huh." Madrid took a bite before answering. "Maybe that's my problem. I haven't made peace like I thought I did."

Jin gestured to the Jayesh-specter. "If he's still alive, why not talk to him?"

"I can't," said Madrid. "He doesn't need me around."

"He said that?"

"No."

Jin shrugged. "Facing the real guy has got to be better than hauling a nightmare around."

Madrid shrugged. He was not going to discuss this right now or any other time.

Silvan didn't come out of the tent, and Madrid began to look anxiously at the entrance. When he finished his meal, he went to the tent to find her. Silvan needed to eat. She'd used a lot of Light powers, and those tended to burn through a Guardian's energy.

Silvan was asleep on a bed at the far end when Madrid entered. The nightmare of Dredgen Yor floated above her, staring down into her face. Madrid remembered a superstition about cats stealing away a baby's breath. Who knew what a nightmare might steal. He strode down the row of beds.

Before he reached her, Silvan suddenly screamed and hurled herself off the bed, flailing her arms as if beating off an attacker. The nightmare floated above her with a wide grin, avoiding her blows.

Madrid caught Silvan as she nearly careened through the tent wall. "Hey, easy there. Wake up, Silvan."

"Madrid?" Silvan gasped, clinging to him. "I was having a horrible dream." She wheeled around and shook a fist at the floating specter. "It was you doing it! Get out of here and leave me alone!"

The nightmare drifted backward a few feet, but didn't disappear.

Silvan turned back to Madrid with a snort. Her red hair was tousled, and there were dark smudges under her eyes from exhaustion. "How long did I sleep?"

"About fifteen minutes," said Madrid, watching as the Jayesh nightmare oozed through the side of the tent. "I don't think we'll get much rest in here."

"I wondered why no Guardians were resting," Silvan muttered. "Think they'd leave us alone in orbit?"

Madrid shook his head.

"Right," Silvan said. "It followed you there. Blast it all." She furiously rubbed her eyes, then jammed her helmet back on.

"Come eat something," Madrid said. "Jin's got decent MREs."

"Chicken?" Silvan asked hopefully. "I don't like the pork ones."

"Yeah, he has chicken."

A few minutes later, Silvan was eating as fast as she could shovel food into her mouth. Madrid stood guard against the nightmares and tried to ignore the weariness growing on him. They needed to find the Lecturn of Enchantment, as well as build a weapon of Darkness, and figure out a way to defeat the Pyramid. It all seemed huge and impossible. Even with a meal inside him, he had trouble feeling hopeful. He gazed at the Scarlet Keep in the distance and hated the sight.

Jin walked over to Eris Morn and talked for a moment. He handed her an MRE, then hunted up a chair from one of the tents. Eris sat down and slowly opened the meal pack, as if she wasn't certain what food was.

Jin returned, his metal face flexed in a grin. "She's got a lock on the Lecturn thing. I told her I owed her an MRE and she cashed in right then."

"Where?" Madrid asked.

Jin summoned his Ghost, who projected a holographic map of the area. "Looks like we get to explore the Hellmouth, team. We have to find not just the Lecturn, but this thing called a Cryptoglyph. Hope the Hive store them together."

"The Hellmouth," Madrid said grimly, checking his scout rifle. "We would be headed down there."

Jayesh approached in his peripheral vision. Madrid ground his teeth. The Hellmouth was bad enough without stupid nightmares whispering to them. Maybe he could kill it if he struck hard enough. Bullets had bounced off, so he'd try blunt force trauma. He waited until the thing was a few feet away, then he spun and clubbed it with his rifle butt.

The rifle hit with a satisfying thud and knocked the nightmare flat in the dust. As Madrid stood there, waiting for it to float back up again, a Ghost appeared and hovered over the prone body.

"Thanks for that," said the Ghost sarcastically. "He already didn't want to come up here, and now he'll be angry, too."

"That was the real one?" Madrid exclaimed.

Behind him, Jin burst out laughing.

Silvan leaped to her feet. "That's the real Jayesh? And you killed him! Oh no, poor guy!" She dashed to the prone warlock and knelt beside him, extending a hand to the Ghost's Light field. "Phoenix, right? Here, have some extra."

"Thanks," said the Ghost. He pulsed light into his Guardian, who sat up, one hand pressed to a dent in his helmet.

"What the hell was that?" Jayesh exclaimed. "Madrid, you still have a score to settle with me? We can have it out, right now." He scrambled to his feet and drew Sturm and Drang, hand cannon and sidearm, and held them at the ready.

"No, wait, I'm sorry," Madrid said. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and held up both empty hands. "I thought you were a nightmare. See it, over there? It's taken your form."

Jayesh gazed at the hovering nightmare for a long moment. Slowly the tension seemed to leave him. His arms lowered to his sides. Then he holstered his weapons, pulled off his helmet, and rubbed a fading bruise on his head. He had brown skin and wavy black hair. As he turned to Madrid, that familiar glint of blue Light sparkled in his eyes. His robes were good tough plasteel weave in the Ego Talon style, the Warlock eagle logo stitched across the left side of the chest.

"I heard it was bad up here, but not like this," he said. "Nightmares, now. No hard feelings. Just … try not to kill me again." He held out a hand, and Madrid shook it.

Now that the real Jayesh stood there, Madrid realized that his voice sounded different from the nightmare's. His voice was slightly deeper, with the faint musical lilt that Sunsingers developed over time. Madrid could barely look him in the face. He was responsible for the majority of pain and suffering in this man's life, and he'd just murdered him on accident. And he'd never wanted to see him again.

"Oh, Jayesh Khatri, I'm so glad you're here!" Silvan squealed. When Jayesh offered her a hand, she threw her arms around him instead. "The nightmares have been awful. But you don't have any, right?"

Jayesh extricated himself from her grasp, staggering in the low gravity. "Uh, I don't know yet. I'd better have a word with Eris."

"No need," said Jin, stepping forward. "Hey there, I'm Jin Valis. We just got a mission from Eris, so let me fill you in."

Jayesh studied the Exo. "Aren't you from that Aestivalis project?"

"You've heard of me?" Jin said, purple eyes brightening.

"I saw the mission report from Mars," Jayesh said. "Glad you're here. What's the mission?"

Madrid and Silvan watched Jin fill in the warlock.

"If Jin mentions the Traveler thing, I'm going to blow his head off," Silvan muttered.

"Since when did Jayesh start taking charge?" Madrid replied. "Did you see that? How easily he won everybody's good will?"

"He always does that," Silvan murmured. "He's the nicest guy in the Vanguard."

"Nice like a weapon," Madrid said. "Watch him, Silvan. See how he does it. He's gotten even better at it since I saw him last."

Silvan gave him a confused look. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Madrid smiled with half his face. "You don't know him very well."

Silvan gave him an offended look, but said nothing else. They listened as Jin repeated the details of the mission to the Hellmouth.

"Right," Jayesh said, nodding with his helmet under his arm. "Glad I came, because you'll need a healer." He had his Ghost store away Sturm, and brought out a gorgeous hand cannon worked in spiral strips of metal like flower petals. "This is Lumina," he said, tilting it back and forth to show off the metalwork. "It draws on my Light to fire projectiles that heal my team. Works even better on the fly than a healing rift."

Silvan gestured at Jayesh. "See?" she squealed to Madrid. "He made a healing gun. He's amazing!"

Madrid stepped up to Jayesh and took the gun. Under cover of examining it, he said in an undertone, "She has a thing for you."

"I know," Jayesh moaned softly. "Keep her away from me."

Louder, Madrid said, "Nice craftsmanship. Yours?"

"Kari's," Jayesh replied. He met Madrid's gaze for a second, then looked away. "We worked together to salvage this gun from a … a relic. She redid the outside. I charged it with Light."

Madrid wanted to ask how Kari was. But Jayesh's refusal to meet his eyes told him everything. Kari had not forgiven Madrid. Her anger would intensify if she knew that Madrid had killed him again, even by accident. And Madrid had wronged Jayesh again. Blast, he could never get this right.

Madrid returned Lumina. "No point in trying to rest when there's nightmares around. Let's hit the Hellmouth, team. Jin, you take point. Silvan, you're with me. Jayesh, rearguard."

"Aw," Silvan said with a laugh. She turned away to reload her auto rifle.

Jayesh mouthed thank you behind her back. Madrid acknowledged with a wink.