Not quite one thing. Not quite the other.

Nicole shoved her empty cup into the same dustbin John chucked his tea one in. Him in passing, not even looking, her almost feeding her arm into the damned thing. But hey. This was great. She was finally rid of the thing and she'd only been carrying it around for forever, unable to muster the courage and ask Where do I put that?

One obstacle down though. Nice. Cue little party trumpet.

Now all she had to do was follow. Which was fine. She could do that. One step at a time and all that. John wasn't even trying to talk to her and so she kept doggedly to herself while the City unfurled around her.

Sightseeing. Wasn't that what he'd said? She could do that. Sightsee. Eyes up then (or at least somewhat level) and look. Nicole swallowed and ducked her chin into her scarf. The City — the Last City — remained odd to look at. Halfway familiar. Halfway not. Decidedly… undecided. Alien and yet not. Old. But not really. There were the beautiful mosaics. The pretty white arches with vines clinging to them. Walls with giant banners on like they were in an old castle. And wind chimes made of polished and tarnished metals alike. Some big. Some small. There were even paper lanterns — and all of that old cozies up to concrete and pipes and flashing neon signs right out of a cyberpunk movie (or maybe just Time Square).

The trappings of a world she did not understand.

A busy world. Morning rush sort of busy. Especially along the alley where she'd gotten last evening's ramen, which was stuffed so full of people and not people Nicole wouldn't have ever made it through. Not without John, anyway, who carved a path through the press of colourful bodies while she stayed a step behind. Kind of like riding the wake of a boat, really.

Another obstacle conquered.

Except then the boat stopped. Abruptly. Naturally, Nicole walked right into him.

Nose first. Just straight on squished it flat under a shoulder blade or something. The "Sorry!" she blurted was halfway muffled by his shirt and halfway choked by her heart trying to make it up her throat at the same time.

She stumbled a step back, mortified. Her fingers pumped uselessly. Her neck was a hot mess — and John wasn't bothered a bit. Whyever would he? He threw her a look, quirked a brow at her, and then turned the smile that'd popped onto his lips over to the man he'd stopped for.

They went on to chat, though Nicole was too busy sorting the stupid scarf to really pay attention. Why'd she bought that thing again? Why'd she decided to wear it? And had he just called her a Kinderguardian again?

Still awkwardly tugging on her scarf, Nicole shifted on her feet and slid behind John, putting him between her and whoever he was wagging his chin at. Best stay out of sight. Out of mind.

But, honestly. What sort of name was that anyway? Kinderguardian. Who'd come up with that? And why.

"It's not meant as an insult," Ghost suddenly whispered rightbyherleftear. Nicole's nerves pulled taut. So did her scarf. Because she'd yanked on it.

"What?" Wow, that'd come out a wheeze. Brilliant.

"Kinderguardian. It's supposed to be endearing. I— I think it's kind of German? Or at least has German origins."

She side-eyed him. One of his fins hung on a little wrong. Like it couldn't align right any more. Her fingers itched to reach up and fix it.

"Kindergarten," he continued. "That's a place where you send little kids. So, by that logic, you're a Kinderguardian. See it?" He rolled for about a quarter of a rotation. "Because you're new to this? And young. Very young. I mean, theoretically."

. . .

"I see," she said, not really seeing at all and with her voice a little drier than she'd intended. "So I'm not a chocolate egg. I'm just a toddler. Got it."

Ghost froze. His eye blinked on and off. "A chocolate egg?"

"Nevermind," she mumbled — and then everything she'd tried so hard to keep together fell apart.

All it took were a few words.

"—see you in the Crucible this week," the stranger John was talking to said." Until then, stay safe, Young Wolf."

Young Wolf.

John's shoulders jumped up in a shrug — and behind him, Nicole's chest filled to the brim with a heavy weight ballooning outwards. It stuck her to the spot and left her no room to breathe.

She'd heard wrong.

Must have. Or misunderstood. That was probably it. No way the man had referred to John there. He'd probably been talking about a literal young canine. Large paws. Satellite dish ears. Those sorts of things. Not him.

With her heart now properly relocated to her throat, Nicole tried to figure out breathing. Was hard, that. But she managed. Barely. Enough not to have fainted by the time John turned around to look at her.

And look. And look. And look, his way-too-green eyes shadowed by a furrowed brow. Right up until he leaned closer to snap his fingers together in front of her nose.

"I'd ask if you'd seen a ghost, but—" His eyes flicked to her literal Ghost. "—that expression hasn't aged well, has it?"

Ghost, in turn, wheeled in front of her to come up right under her chin. For once, Nicole didn't mind. Not with how he puffed himself up, the gesture convincing John to take a step back.

To give her space. Space in a world that didn't have any for her and she really, really, really, wanted to turn on her heels and head back to her flat. Slam the door. Lock it. And never be seen again. But here she was instead. Hiding behind a whirring, clicking, contraption that fit an attitude way too large for its shell. Hiding from god knew what. A man trying to help who she mistook for the wolf showing up in her feverish nightmares?

"I'm fine," she lied.

John's brow remained furrowed. "Sure you are."

The way his throat bobbed indicated he might have had more to say, but Ghost cut him off before he could get started.

"Where is Darrow anyway?"

John's eyes narrowed at him. Not in an unkind Why are you interrupting me? sort of way, no. If anything, he seemed bemused.

"He's waiting with the Speaker. I thought Nicole might appreciate not having to listen to you two argue. Which, ah, we should probably go." He rubbed his hands together. "You know, before the Speaker loses his patience with him and throws him into the sun?"

"That'd be tragic." Ghost gave a quick roll. A sarcastic roll.

John huffed out a chuckle and jutted his chin the way they'd been headed before he'd been waylaid. Or maybe he was the type that liked talking to everyone. Ew.

Though he didn't march off. Rather, he fixed his eyes on something over her head. Nicole, keenly aware of the world as if it was filled to the brink with fat balloons all waiting to pop, immediately shuffled on her feet to look.

There, right above a round sign with a white chicken painted on it, floated two Ghosts. They ducked behind it when she turned around. Tried to hide. But the sign was too small for the both of them, leaving the tips of their fins to poke out awkwardly.

She stared at them. Well, in reality she stared at the sign. Was that chicken wearing a hat? A baseball cap? Who put baseball caps on chickens and—

John took ahold of her elbow.

Gently, really. Light as a feather's touch. But POP went a theoretical balloon anyway and left her nerves jittery and on fire. She went rigid on the spot. The scarf she wore? Suddenly felt like it pulled close and choked her.

John hummed up a curious "Hmm." A very weighty hmmm, like he'd just had an incredibly important thought.

"So, Nicole, I have a question," he started and got her walking. "Do you know what a Speaker is?"

She pulled her elbow back and shook her head.

"He good as runs the City," Ghost said. He'd glued himself to her left shoulder, keeping pace. Keeping close. "Or, rather, he heads the Consensus. That's like a council, made up of the City's largest factions. The Vanguard. New Monarchy. Dead Orbit," he went, each item on the list coming with a slight lean left or right. "The Future War Cult…"

"The what?" Nicole's brow bunched up.

"I… ah…" Ghost glanced at her. Then at John. John, who showed patience with him that Nicole couldn't think to even dream of. Not like she wanted to dream. At all. Ever again.

"Sorry." His shell wiggled a tad. Barely enough to be worth the mention — like the small and quiet smile John carried. "I interrupted you. That's rude. I'm rude."

"You're excitable. But, yeah. Politics, there's that. Not what I was going for though. What I meant was: What makes the Speaker a Speaker."

She shrugged. "He speaks for the City council thing? The Consensus?"

"Nope. He speaks for the Traveler."

"The big ball speaks?"

John inhaled slowly, then gave a curt, non-committal shrug. "Not through conventional conversation, no. Far as I know, they are dreams, mostly. Waking dreams. Visions. Mirages. Thoughts. Ideas. They've come to Speakers ever since the Traveler arrived. Or so the stories go, anyway. The Speaker you're going to talk to today just so happens to be the only one we have right now. Far as we're aware, anyway."

He paused just long enough to lift his arm around her and press his hand against her shoulder. The touch felt like the sun took a bite out of her shoulder and served to direct her in front of him. Right in time, too. She'd almost walked into a woman decked out in bulky armour dyed in orange and blue. A Guardian, she figured. And one so tall, Nicole felt sorry for how much that'd had to hurt when she'd sprouted as a teen.

Except she'd not remember.

The thought locked up her brain. None of these Guardians remembered being children, did they? No memories of growing up. No growing pains, no lessons about not breaking your bones, no crying over nothing. Wasn't all that and more how you learned to be people?

To be you?

She was so fixed on that train of thought, her legs couldn't decide if they ought to go left or right to sort herself in next to John again, ending in an awkward shuffle either-or-way. And a few mortifying collisions when he tried to navigate around her.

Nicole tugged her scarf up to her chin and fervently hoped the heat rushing up her neck didn't hit her cheeks.

"Anyway," John said with a wobbly, sheepish grin. "Not only does the Traveler send the Speakers dreams, but its Ghosts? They adore them. A lot. Like, flocking to them kind of adoring."

"Oh. I see," she mumbled into the scarf while trying to keep John in her field of vision. That maybe she ought to be looking where she was walking only occurred to her once. Briefly.

His brow went up. "You do, huh?"

Nicole blinked lamely. She was missing something, wasn't she?

Ghost swung in front of them. "What? No," he blurted. His eye fixed on John. "No way. I'd know."

"Hey, I'm just saying," John said with a shrug, his palms bared in a placating gesture.

Know what?

Her head spun.

Ghost's shell gave a red-tipped ruffle. He harrumphed. And Nicole? Nicole remained utterly confused.

A constant that stuck around until they reached the Tower. Not like she'd have noticed if Ghost hadn't told her as much. And gosh was it busy, though John didn't stop where all the noise was but took them to a corner filled to the brim with an odd hush. There were stairs to her right. A ring of them. Leading up. John ignored them. He stuck to the walkway following at the edge of the shelf (that was what she'd call all those godforsaken buildings hanging off the wall from now on), with a railing stuck along the curved edge. Halfway to the other side stood a bridge.

A bit like the one from last night. Except much shorter and connecting to a structure that rose like a pillar-ringed island from the depths — rather than an impossibly tall skyscraper.

But a bridge was a bridge was a bridge, and Nicole's feet stopped walking. John kept going. For a bit, anyway.

He stopped a few steps in and threw her a look — right as his Ghost swung around him, his round shell puffed out.

"Finally," Darrow said, perfectly exasperated. "What took you so long?"

"Aw. Missed me?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I was getting bored, that's all." Concluding his circling of John, Darrow stopped and looked at her. "Is she coming or what?"

Nicole, her mouth dry, couldn't quite get the words out, but it turned out she didn't have to.

"She's not okay with heights," Ghost said for her and shimmied on ahead of her.

"Oh, if you weren't so dense you knew just how far from okay she is. Generally. On a molecular leve—"

"Darrow."

Darrow went quiet and John folded his arms. Didn't come back to fetch her. Just stood there. Watching.

Her Ghost gave his shell a spin. "You've got this, Guardian. Remember the bridge last night?" He sounded almost cheerful when he said that. In a careful sort of way. "That was a lot longer. This one's just a few steps."

"Right." She managed a step.

"Right," he echoed.

And, somehow, she caught up with John, who flashed her an encouraging smile before leading her into a wide-open hall that missed an entire wall at the back, granting her a perfect view of the Traveler perched above the City.

Vertigo nibbled on her heart.

Dominating the centre of the hall was a massive contraption built around what looked like a round, pale blue hologram of… something. Everything was off. For the first time since she'd left the hangar full of what looked like spaceships, Nicole felt surrounded by Tomorrow. Large capital T. Nothing in here was familiar. It was all sci-fi and moving parts — with a shine and charm to it that came with gold trimmings and a red carpet of all things. The carpet swung around the entire place. On it stood consoles that all held more of those round holograms.

The carpet did well at muffling her's and John's footsteps.

"Those are scans of the solar system," Ghost whispered when they passed the leftmost hologram one. Nicole accepted that and tried not to think too much about it.

And then they went up. Of course they did. Why not? Sighing, she followed John up a wide staircase tucked into a corner, which swung up in a generous arch and led to a platform looking out over the hall with all its contraptions.

Up there stood two people; a man and a woman locked in a conversation she couldn't quite make out.

"That's the Speaker," Ghost whispered by her ear and nodded his entire body into the direction of the man.

From the angular fit of his chest piece and the wide robes around his legs, the Speaker if the scenery almost perfectly. He was clad mostly in white, safe for wide, grey shoulder pads that fanned out like stumpy, clipped wings, and a black hood coming together under his chin in a v-shaped scarf. And he wore a mask. A white mask with slits in them that made Nicole wonder how on Earth he could comfortably see out of it. Then again maybe he didn't. Maybe you didn't need eyes any more in the future.

"And that's Ikora Rey," Ghost added after a moment, his voice pitching with enough excitement to give her second-hand shakes. "She's the Warlock Vanguard."

Ikora (odd name) stood a breath taller than the Speaker. Straight-backed and slender, she had rich, dark brown skin, and hair cropped short enough it might as well have been shaved.

She wore long robes in shades of purple, reinforced with leather that cupped her shoulders and flared out around her neck to form a wide, stiff collar. A tall, red sash hugged her waist, kept in place by leather belts — but what drew Nicole's eye was a pale, purple something wrapped around the woman's left upper arm. It looked like a butterfly with slim, rectangular wings. Except it was made of light. Another hologram, probably.

In the hand attached to that arm, the woman held a Ghost.

Or what was left of one, anyway.

"This isn't about whether or not it will alarm people," she told the Speaker, holding the Ghost up in front of him. "By all means, it should alarm them. We need for our Guardians to be mindful. To know this — whatever this is — is in here. Killing them."

The Ghost's shell might have been green once. Now it was mostly blackened. As if it'd turned to ash and frozen like that.

"In here. Not out there," she continued. "Not in battle. But within the walls, where they should be safe." She put the Ghost down gently, setting it onto an already cluttered table. There were papers. Books. Actual books. Leather bound ones. And pens and tools and all sorts of things. "This is the sixth one dead, so tell me how many more you need before you think it warrants alarming them? Eight? Ten?"

Her tone was steady. Maybe a little too steady, with a taut line drawn through it that weighed it all down with a distinct gravity. Nicole felt the whole thing in her bones and would have liked to turn around. Even Ghost slowed. He'd inched close enough to almost touch her ear, his shell uncharacteristically stiff.

But John's arm got in the way, landing her in the crook of his elbow before she could stop. When she looked, she just about caught the tail end of a grim frown before he dispelled it with a small smile.

"Don't worry. She doesn't bite," he whispered.

Trapping her tongue between her teeth, Nicole marched on. His arm fell away.

When they'd almost made it to the top, Ikora's up to this point very straight and tall shoulders sagged a little. She let out a long breath as if to collect herself, and then drew her shoulders back up.

Then she turned to look at them. At John and Darrow and Ghost and her. They both did, though the Speaker remained perfectly quiet.

Nicole thought that should have been the other way around. Because Speakers ought to speak and whatnot, but he really wasn't doing any of that. Just stood there with his bizarre mask on, which probably should have frightened her more than it did. But it didn't. She was too busy feeling insignificant in front of a woman she'd never met before and knew nothing about.

God, she was a mess.

"John," the Ikora said. Her voice had lost most of that weight. Had fallen to something warm. A soft smile pulled at her lips. Enough of one to make Nicole's chest stop trying to strangle her. Which she'd not even noticed it'd been having a go at.

John, in turn, inclined his head and returned the smile with something a lot more toothy. "Ikora."

Her eyes flicked over to Nicole. "And who is this colourful Guardian?"

Whoops. There came the heat again, rushing up to her neck at the drop of a thought. Because suddenly Nicole remembered what a disaster her wardrobe was.

John gave her a sideways glance. "This is Nicole. She's a bit shy."

Not helping.

Nicole's cheeks practically caught fire.

"Come on. Say hi."

"Hi…"

I hate my life.

"Aaaand I think she's one of yours," he added after she'd embarrassed herself for the umpteenth time.

At that, Ikora's slender brows ticked up a notch. She also glanced her up and down, like she was sizing her up. Not as much judging as sating a curiosity. "A warlock, hm?"

"Something like it," the Speaker said, his voice surprisingly soft and not at all as tinny as she had expected. What with the mask and all. He was also clearly staring at her, which got her neck itching something fierce.

Nicole tried not to let it show. She shoved her hands into her pockets.

"She is the Guardian I told you about earlier, the one John found yesterday," the Speaker said.

"Hey," Ghost complained under a breath he didn't have.

"Darrow, if you please." He gestured to Darrow, who zipped through the air in a blur of purple before projecting a sheet of busy light in front of him. Wibbly-wobbly lines moved across it, sometimes flashing red or green, and neither them nor the numbers running by made any sense to her at all. Ikora seemed interested though. Good for her?

There was pointing. There were words. Big ones. Though Nicole mostly tuned out, at least until the shoe dropped. Which it always did, didn't it.

"I'm inclined to think this Ghost managed to raise a Speaker," the, ah, Speaker concluded.

Nicole, for one, didn't know what to do with being told that. She stood there dumbly as before and shifted on her feet. Hearing that didn't make her feel any better. Or any worse.

It just rung awfully hollow to her. An empty promise ultimately unfulfilled.

But it clearly meant something. Not to her, no. But to everyone else, because she was the only one untouched by those words.

Ikora managed to stand even straighter, somehow, and folded her arms with a sudden, quiet, "Hm."

And Ghost? He jerked away with a wild whirr of his shell, his voice-box popping out a stutter of "I— I— I— I— did what?"

"A Speaker, buddy," John echoed, a cheerfully coy look on his face. "Told ya."