"Hello again." It was Niyaneh who greeted me this time, in the main hall of the ruin with an armful of freshly-rooted Rhodendron. I'd followed Luke in as he'd merrily sniffed the trail of dirt staining white stone, nose now smeared with mud. A moment of her soaking in my expression, and her own went solemn. "… Things didn't go well."

"No."

We walked through the ruin, among the other cultists as I told her about the entire sordid affair. My gaze and attention drifted – I couldn't help myself. Meek the rabbit-woman sniffed at my feet before scurrying off to her 'den.' Nura was playing with her dolls again, Blue was scrawling some calculations along the walls, a mess I could barely begin to wrap my mind around in its chaotic genius.

So mad and foolish and completely, utterly free.

"What will you do, now?"

I scoffed a laugh, kicking my foot along the ground. "What can I do but wait? I have no idea how to go to the Isles. I would now, if I could." Was I lying to myself? The idea of flight was so tempting, so terrifying. So…

So lonely.

These people had only each other. Was I really willing to cut every tie, spit in the face of the Family I'd been bound to? I was so angry, so lost.

"You need wisdom." A hint of slyness crept into her voice, eyes lidding. "That, I can help with." Our walk had taken us to her garden, her apiary. Immediately the bees flocked to her as I stepped back, flitting docile along her arms, crowning her head.

A tingle down my spine as I realized what she meant. "… The drugged honey?"

"It is a tool, Dust, as any other component of alchemy." Her voice was low and smooth, gently coaxing. "You have seen the suffering such substances can cause."

I thought of Aldos. Of all I'd been through because of greed and skooma.

"But they can also bring answers. They can open your mind, for a little while." Her chin inclined. "After all, it was with my honey you learned how to call the Madgod's eyes to you."

That was true. It had been terrifying – swimming, spiraling, cackling – but it had also taught me what to say, even if I hadn't realized it. Call the damn dog. I reached to scratch Luke behind the ears, pursing my lips. Would He have come if I'd never tasted the honey, never met the cultists?

"It's your decision, of course. But if you wish to try…"

Answers. I needed answers to be free and I needed, gods, I needed to be free. And I knew damn well that would mean taking risks. What was one more?

Especially if, for once, the risk was wholly mine. My choice, my consequences.

"… What do I have to lose?"

It seemed a smaller spoonful this time, tacky and painfully sweet against the backs of my teeth, coating my tongue. She led us to a quiet chamber, one of the dozens along either side of the ruin. Already, the lights above, glowing turquoise, seemed stretching and dappling along the edges.

"Wait here."

"For what?"

If she answered, I didn't hear her.

I didn't hear anything, at first. Nothing new, at least. The echoes and groans of the ancient stone, sighing at its age. Luke's snores as he dozed off beside me. The soft chatter and occasional laughs or screams from the cultists, free to be who they were. The lapping water of the pool, so crystal-clear.

Clean water. Hah. Water fell from me now, not pure but salt-tainted as I wiped at my cheeks. What a stupid idea it had been. Maybe Lucien was right. I was naive. How could I ever hope to do what hadn't been done for thousands of years by thousands of alchemists before me? I stood no chance. No wonder maman wanted so dearly to protect me, no wonder I was so trapped. I wasn't strong enough, smart enough, brave enough, good enough…

"That doesn't sound like my Gabby at all."

I jerked up, heart stopping mid-beat. My jaw fell, a tingle down my back crackling into – joy, grief, shock, rivulets of lightning tracing up and down leaving me breathless.

"…Papa?"

He smiled. My father, dead for nearly twenty years, he smiled and knelt before me just like when I was small. This close – I'd forgotten just how much I took from him, not just in spirit but in body. The same dimples, the same curly mop of hair, the same lidded blue eyes creasing as he shared the smile he'd given me.

"I'm here."

A beat. Two. Then, choking laughter. I wiped at my eyes again, shaking my head. "No, you're not. It's the honey. I just think you're here."

A soft sound, not quite a laugh. "Is there much difference?"

"I don't know whyyou're here, papa." I crossed my legs as he did the same, mirroring my actions with a tilt of his head. "You can't help me, not with this. You would hate this."

"I could never hate you, flower."

My shoulders hitched. "I think I hate me." Sick of my own fears, my guilt, my indecision. Sick of thinking instead of doing, but what could I possibly do?

"No. You're angry, frustrated with yourself. But you know what you need to be." He was a small man, slender like me, but his hands still swallowed mine. Darker, lined with age, wiry with hard work and powdery with dust. "If I'm a part of you, then you must love yourself, because I love you."

I blinked through my tears and snorted. "That is roundabout logic at best."

"Logic never was my strong suit." A crooked grin. Oh, his smile. Warm and dry and glowing ivory, healing spells and stained glass and candles. Images melded, swirled. "I learned from the chapel, flower, but you taught yourself. You musn't give up, even now."

"I don't want to give up." I pressed my lips tight, squeezing my hands into little fists in his own. "But I don't know where to go, what to do. I've made so many mistakes."

"We all make mistakes, Gabby. Some we can't even bring ourselves to regret, even if we feel remorse." More images – Falrung and papa cheering their mugs, arms slung around each other. Papa and maman, hard-faced, arguing in hushed hisses as Anya and I lay curled up in the hay bed. Papa hunched over a cauldron, the fatigue carved into his face.

"All we can do is push forward, try again. Alchemy is as much experimentation as it is progress. We told you to make yourself." His brow met mine, voice soft as petals, echoing from my dream. "It won't be easy. There will be mistakes, flower."

"Endure the pestle and fire," I echoed. Tears fell, my eyes drifting shut. Though I knew he was nothing but my imagination, the honey's spell, I felt the warmth of our breath mingling. I felt his hands rub mine. "He said I'll suffocate, papa. I'm trying to change things, but I feel like I'm running in circles."

"No one gets it right the first time." He raised his head again, every movement slow like the years since he'd died somehow weighed on him. "Or the second, or third. But you pick yourself up, clean up the broken glass, and try again." Even his voice seemed to echo, reaching across the time we'd lost. "I know you have that strength, my Gabriel."

"I don't use that name anymore, papa." I understood what he meant, now, about regret. I felt remorse, afraid the rejection would hurt him, but I couldn't bring myself to regret. I wouldn't change the name I'd taken so long ago. "I call myself Dust."

"Dust." His eyes crinkled, sparkling. "You've been making yourself for so long. You've always known who you are. You just need to learn to embrace it. To love yourself, as I do."

A sharp inhale, breathed out as a sigh. "I love you too, papa."

Was I strong enough? To be myself, love myself without fear, all alone?

I rose, without realizing I had. I walked without feeling my feet cross stone. Out of the chamber, down the flickering halls to the main room, past nebulous shapes and shadows that whispered and shifted like candle flames.

"Dust?"

It could have been anyone's voice. Niyaneh, Blue, Nura. My father, my mother, even an echo of my own. I heard it, but I didn't slow. I was following what felt right, coming to the edge of the water and gazing down into myself.

Shimmering, refracting, barely there. A sudden, jarring memory – another time I'd gazed into my reflection, so long ago as a girl. At the river's edge after my would-be engagement, my breath held, the ebony dagger against my locks.

Remembering too the lake, so still and black the night I said goodbye to maman. I slid off my shoes, stepping bare-foot onto the water's surface with the whisper of a spell, just like I had then.

Reflections – glassy surfaces, echoing warped and clear, lies and truth. Mirrors, refracted mirrors like crystals, so many surfaces and each showing a different glimmer of an image. We, all of us – that's what we are, isn't it? Not a single, clear image in a mirror, but a crystal. Like the soul gem I'd held, each angle different from the other. You cannot accept only shards of a person, any more than I could one face of a crystal, any more than I could deny who I was or where I came from.

There were others watching, I knew, but I couldn't bring myself to care. Not now. Not when I felt so close to an answer or at the very least to peace, the water cool under my feet, trickling away as I lifted them, my arms reaching out, fingers splayed.

I danced. I sang. I couldn't possibly mimic the movements I made, nor remember exactly the words that came to me. Maybe it was that place, so touched by those blessed by the Madgod, that drove me. Perhaps the honey brought something out in me, so bittersweet it burned. Others joined me, some laughing, clapping, others simply twirling or swimming or stamping their feet to their own rhythm, just as they had when I first realized what I needed to do.

I'd told papa I was going in circles – after all, wasn't I here again, dancing among madfolk, tasting this freedom and wishing I could hold onto it? But maybe this was exactly what I needed, to strengthen my resolve. A reminder. My confidence had been shaken. I'd been almost ready to give up, give in…

But not now. Not in remembering the why of it all.

Something tickled my fingers, a persistent itch at the tips and through my arms, down my spine, through my head to my lips. Something alive and swelling in time with the stamping of feet and clapping of hands. I didn't realize I was casting it again until my hands came aglow before me, pulsing with that light I'd known since I was a child, like I had that first wonderful day I found my answers here. I laughed aloud, flashes like little, exploding stars streaking at the edges of my vision.

A rasp behind me, another surge of magicka. The water bobbed and fell under my feet as even Blue joined the dance, yellow eyes narrowed in concentration as the pool followed his hands, his will.

What had he asked me? Why do you complicate it? It was complicated, there was no escaping that. There was no easy answer. But I could feel something, damn it all, I could, something inside me so close to what I needed to grasp, some answer.

The water lifted in spheres, exploded, soaking everyone as they shrieked and danced and sang out-of-tune. Pellets hit me, leaving me breathless and content and licking my lips as the orbs shimmered with my lights, as though from some inner light.

You must be your own light in the dark.

What if… My thoughts came lazily, pleased and dreamlike. What if it could all come from inside?

So close. Not the answer I needed, the wisdom I'd come for, but I clung to it anyway, knowing how close it was. Images, difficult to put to words just yet, flashed before my eyes. Of course, water contained within itself the ability to transform. The heat set it in motion, yes, but it was the water itself that transformed into steam, condensed back pure. Solid, liquid, vapour, one of the marvels of nature in its mutability. What if it could be coaxed to change, just as it changed now to allow me to walk on its surface?

Less alchemy, more alteration, but some step in the right direction and something more, if only I could understand it…

Not yet. There had been mistakes and there would be more...

But damn it all, they would be mine, and that made it all worthwhile.

I threw myself into my work, over the next few weeks. Not just my studies of water, remembering with a pang papa's hallucinatory encouragement, but my studies of the planes. I fled to the ruin as a haven time and time again, both to debate with Blue about how to get to the Madhouse and simply to escape the feeling of always being watched. I spent my days at shop with a book behind the counter, my nights working away, stealing time at the ruin or at the guild whenever I could.

Anywhere but the Sanctuary. If I was to cut those ties, I didn't want to make it any harder than it already would be. Besides, I had a sanctuary of my own, now. A safe place, a secret place…

But not quite as secret as I had thought.

"Dust?"

The guild head interrupted my studies with a little cough before speaking, brow arched as I snapped my book shut, blinking back into reality. Visions of planar connections, riddles of the realms vanished before my eyes. A little sigh escaped her, my High Elf colleague neutral at her side.

"I have another expedition for you and Astarill. Would you be free, tomorrow?"

"Y-yes, of course." I stood, managing a smile – first for Deetsan, then another for Astarill. I hadn't forgotten the joy of working on that ghoul heart. "Please, fill me in."

"Very well." Her claws intertwined. "There is a ruin of some interest Southeast of here. It's been buried for some decades by flooding, but it may not be as inaccessible as we once thought. A passing hunter noticed one of the doors, partially open at the surface."

I only half-listened, mind still on my studies. Jacinth and rising sun – amber, but what else would…?

"Interestingly, it seems the local bees have largely migrated to it." A twitch of a smirk at the absurdity of her statement. "The apiary has tasked us with clearing out whatever they may be attracted to in there. We can't have Cheydinhal's sweetrolls going without glaze, can we?" Deetsan gave a small, lopsided smirk, chuckling to herself. Astarill seemed to be barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

And as it all caught up with me – a ruin Southeast, an uncovered door, honey – well, I could do nothing but hide my panic.

No, no, no, no, no!

"Of course, you'll mainly be looking for anything of academic value. Artifacts, tomes, remnants of the Ayleid civilization…– "

"I-I can do it!" My voice came out a squeak. At raised eyebrows all around I swallowed hard, trying to flatten my tone. "I mean – if the ruin has been flooded for so long, I doubt there's anything dangerous. I can go alone." Sheogorath's tits, did I forget to cover the door? Was this my fault? I couldn't let him in, I couldn't let him know I was – "Happy to save him the trouble."

Deetsan's expression settled, though Astarill's remained skeptical at best. "Very thoughtful of you, Journeyman, but whatever critters might have come to call the ruin home isn't my main concern. Ayleid ruins are particularly infamous for their traps, which Astarill is quite skilled at avoiding. And you, of course, will be on hand to see what is attracting the insects, whether it is some new flora of interest."

"Yes, but – "

"Tomorrow morning, then." She brokered no further argument, giving a little wave of her hand and walking away as I stared after her. Inevitably my gaze drifted to my once-again partner, and I felt myself shrink under the inquisitive look he gave.

"Everything alright?" So airily, he spoke. So very contrasting to the sheer intensity of his eyes, his voice cool while my face flared hot.

"Yes – yes, of course. I'm sorry – it's nothing personal, of course, I just, I assume you're busy with more important things, and – "

"I'll see you at dawn at the gates." And now he, too, abandoned me to my worries. I bit my lip, glancing around the empty library before, at last, letting out a quiet string of curses.

I knew how guild assignments worked, of course. While I hadn't gone on expeditions during my time at the Arcane University, I heard stories from more stalwart scholars often. And often, the ruins were inhabited.

Often, they were empty by the time they had finished.

My cultists, as I'd come to think of them – they hadn't exactly welcomed me when I'd wandered in. They feared and hated intruders, those who might endanger their safety, their little world. And if he came in with me, saw me with them, he'd know

He'd know I'm... I blinked at the realization.

I'm a cultist.

It was all I could do not to laugh in despair, gathering up my books, hurrying outside. What could I do? I'd – yes, I'd run for the ruin and warn them tonight, that's what I'd do. They could hide, or collapse the entrance somehow and dig it out later. It would give Niyaneh time to hide her apiary as best she could, but how to explain why the bees has migrated there…

I was so lost in thought making my way to the gate it was only the hand on my arm that stopped me. I startled out of my reverie, blinking at the familiar face, cool and unamused.

"And just where do you think you're going?"

Telaendril. A flush of heat crept over me as I stiffened, edging out of her grasp. "… I was going for a walk, in fact."

"As I recall, you're not to leave the city unless on guild business."

"It is guild business – "

"And you're leaving it this late?" A thin brow arched. I rankled, gritting my jaw, unwilling to forget or forgive that night. By now my bruises has healed, but the images – Magub doubling over in agony, the scorched remains of his face – those still woke me up sobbing. "Surely, it can wait until morning."

"And what if I said it couldn't?"

A thin, mirthless smile. "I would tell you it will simply have to. I'll walk you back to your little shop. That, or you can come along with me and visit the rest of the Family."

You condescending, heartless bitch. I levelled the best glare I could. Fine – fine! I'd duck out in the morning, early as I could. Even she had to sleep sometime. I matched her tone with a cool, noble cadence of my own. "Home will be fine, thank you."

"Oh, you're very welcome."

What had my mother seen in this woman? I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from speaking my thoughts aloud but she seemed to hear them anyway, turning me back from the gates through the streets. "This is for your own good. Some part of you must recognize that, even stubborn as you are."

"Even if I know it's meant to be, I don't have to like it," I snapped back, turning away to avoid having to meet her gaze.

"Of course not. No one can force you to." She stopped outside my door as I fumbled for my keys, voice level and thin as a sheet of ice. "But you harm only yourself, and those you care for – " A sickly swell of guilt and rage at that, a jab at what I'd told Ocheeva about them all. "By doing so."

I clenched the door handle so hard it hurt, silent and quaking in anger, both at the unfairness and truth behind her words. At last she left, leaving me inside with Luke watching me as I fell back against the closed door.

It would be easier, so much easier for everyone if I just gave in. If I gave up trying to shape myself, and let those around me mold me instead.

…Like hell.

Desperate to hide my identity, equally desperate to cling to it, I tossed and turned in burning sheets until sleep found me at last.