The quiet walk of another pair of footsteps awoke Cter from her slumped-back lean against the wall behind the hard bed she had feverishly slept on. The footsteps walked softer than the ones that had come before, but were still unmistakably human.

She looked to the flickering of the soft shadows on the adjacent stone wall again, but it didn't give her any clue that time either. She steeled herself. With her knowledge that Idyll was alive it gave her enough clarity to finally begin thinking about her situation and what had led her there. She didn't remember getting there, but among that gaseous fog in her head there were drops that reflected thoughts she had. Just the thoughts though, with none of the context behind, or in front, of them.

Cter had questions.

So she spoke them to the sharpening shadow of her third visitor.

"When can I see Idyll?"

She made sure her voice was louder than the footsteps, mostly for her own sake. First of all Cter had to convince herself that she was being serious with her question, and that wouldn't happen if she couldn't hear her voice be steady. To her relief it was as sturdy as the walls it bounced off, and she inhaled carefully to prepare to repeat it again should it be needed. These Monster Mages wanted something from her, and she had to put her foot down to demand that something be given back to her as well.

It had to be Kurant coming to visit her. Sund and Kry had already seen her, and with Cter not recognizing the footsteps it had to be her walking to visit.

Calling it a visit made Cter more at ease with her situation. A friendly visit would've been to much though. Nothing friendly about not releasing a fellow human from her prison the first thing they did. A mildew-dripping, hard-bed-furnished, too-softly-to-see-properly-lit prison cell that Cter's been cold and shivering in for hours on end!

If Kurant refused to answer Cter then she'd–

"You're free to see your monster friend whenever you please, starting now."

…

Cter angled her perplexed head over to the Monster Mage taking the same chair Kry did and seating herself close to the iron bars with a disarming smile to her fair and gentle face. It morphed into a thoughtful furrow as she rolled back her purple robe's arm to feel at the temperature around her. Seeing her hair stand on edge, she summons a ball of fire with her other hand and hovered it between the iron bars over to Cter. It stopped just above her shoulder where it warmed pleasantly. There was no crackling to it. "Let me know if it's too close or if you want it moved to your other side, human."

"S-Sure."

Kurant summoned another fire which she placed next to her left knee. There was something underneath her robe, Cter noticed. Something mechanical of sorts. A brace? Maybe. The Monster Mage took notice of Cter's curiosity which was very obvious in the direct light of the fire. "Have you heard of Bonny Sallus?" the mage asked while leaning her farmer-girl frame down to roll up her robe to show. On her left knee, and moving up and down her leg with fastenings at her upper thigh and around her foot like an extra sock, were strips of tensed leather held in place by metallic gears and stops.

"No, I–" Cter's head jerked to the side as a flash of memories surged through her mind. She uttered a pained groan and pushed her palm against her forehead. No, she hadn't heard of Bonny Sallus before.

However, Idyll had.

And that Cter remembered. It had slowly come back to her, but not smoothly and frictionless.

"He's a...doctor?" she said as she let the memory posses her tongue like she had tried, but failed, that ghost clerk's memories to do. It had her lower jaw jut out and her upper one try to follow so that she could express the sorrow the way Idyll would with her elongated mouth. "A doctor," Cter repeated with her voice lowered to try and match her friends. "A monster doctor."

As the memory faded away Cter awaited the feeling to persist inside her soul, but it didn't. Another sorrow washed over her just as strongly, but with her jaw clenched together as a human. It was her own sorrow mourning the quiet inside of her soul. The inner warmth that had become colder than the cell she was in.

Kurant's light flustered sympathetically across Cter's face, almost as if stroking it. It burned inside the tear that ran down her cheek.

"Was that your friend speaking, human?" inquired Kurant with care.

Cter nodded.

"So you have your friend's memories inside of you?" Kurant continued while leaning forward to be at eye level with the forlorn human. "How close were you?"

That Cter had already answered. "I told Kry and Sund." Kurant was bound to know.

"Yes," said Kurant while nodding in a slow rhythm, "they told me you two were very close friends, but not in love. That is what has us three confused though." Her tone was that of admission of guilt, almost. It was building up to it, and it had Cter's breathing quieting down to be inaudible to be aware fully of it. She couldn't feel the aura the Monster Mage was undoubtedly surrounding her with, so listening closely and observing was the best course of action she could take. "That you can recall your friend's memories too in regards to your answer to Kry and Sund furthers this confusion, I'm afraid to say." Kurant breathed out and looked deep into Cter's eyes, while also letting the young human do the same to hers. "What happened between you two?"

Cter didn't see any animosity inside those orange-brown-tinted eyes, but it also occurred to her that it had been a long while since she had relied on physical cues rather than magical to asses someone's intent. That suspicion gnawed at her. She had to make it go away before she could give in to her need to speak about what happened. It had to be fair to her before she'd feel at peace with it. "If I tell you, will I get to see Idyll?" she put forth as her demand. It was a respectful one though. One she could see that Kurant felt was respectful too.

The Monster Mage nodded like a bow of her head. "I'm glad that you're allowing me to ask before I have to make good on my promise to let you see your friend. Once you have explained, would you allow me a minute or two to think about what you're about to say before we go see her, please?"

"Why?" Cter reacted immediately. Not as a bite against the Monster Mage, but as a plea to help understand more. Why would the Monster Mage need to think about it? Was it the reason why Kry was so accusative to begin with? Then why not Kurant as well? "Why didn't Kry ask me about it earlier?"

Cter watched as the pride made Kurant's throat expand as the Monster Mage swallowed it with a long inhale through her nose. "Idyll hasn't woken up, Cter."

She…

Idyll!

Before the rush of anxiety and dread could shoot out of Cter's feet and throw her up on her them Kurant raised a careful palm to calm her down. "And it is because we do not understand what happened. What you and Idyll have done is something that indicates another step for human souls acclimating to monster magic. What we have managed to figure out is that the monster soul you used in your sleeve for your magic is existing in tandem with Idyll's soul."

The chains holding up the hard bed Cter was sat on creaked at their wall-mounts as it sank in for her. "So it worked..." she whispered slowly. "She is alive."

"Why would she have been dead otherwise?" pried Kurant after jumping closer with her chair. Cter lifted her head up again to catch the brown braid slide off Kurant's lifting-and-sinking shoulder like a snake monster having picked a bad spot to sleep on. The color to Kurant's hair had less of a luster to it. More mushroom-like compared to Cter's. Her fire seemed to creep closer over Cter's shoulder, and it made the heat uncomfortable. "Sorry," Kurant apologized while taking the opportunity to move it to Cter's other side. It made her back-lit towards the Monster Mage.

"She gave her life to me," Cter began while averting here eyes away from the Monster Mage. "She was the one that gave it to me, I promise. She wanted me to have it. I'd never take it away from her." Her clenched hands opened up slowly as the dried blood and dust peeled off as if cold tar. "Even though it is what happened..."

Out of the corner of her watering eye Cter saw Kurant lean forwards even more, her braid swaying and hitting the horizontal sections of the iron bars. "What did happen, Cter?" The question's weight had the Monster Mage's head lean down on her clasped knuckles. Cter looked down on the left knee to see if Kurant leaned on the mechanical brace or her knee.

The weight was on the brace.

"We made a promise when we first met outside the castle that we'd go back to it and find work, together."

Cter so vividly remembered the hope that radiated off Idyll's face when she proposed the idea for the two of them. How her yellowed teeth melded together with the sunset shining onto her determined grin. So vividly in fact, Cter remembered it from Idyll's view as well. The fear, both crawling on her scales and swallowed with haste before walking up and greeting that human mage that just so happened to have been rejected from the castle as well. Cter remembered how her own face was so puffed after having cried so much.

It was most likely the same face Kurant was talking to too.

How many years had it been between their visits to the castle? The first one they meant to on their separate occasion, and the second one they didn't mean to together? It was more than one, that Cter could say. Her mind remembered more than one winter and more than one spring, but if that was Idyll's memories or her own she couldn't tell.

"That promise I had forgotten during the time I've been here in Jarasevo. The night after I heard one of my customers call me the monster mage for the common monster I was reminded that I hadn't given it a single thought for such a long time." Cter looked down the drab stone hall towards where the Monster Mages had entered from. "Idyll, however, had not forgotten. I never got the opportunity to tell her that I was content with being the monster mage for Jarasevo which I had worked up to, and not..."

She glanced up towards the proper Monster Mage leaning forward with her chin resting comfortably. The third one she had met in the span of just an hour or so when the majority of monsters never get to see them once in their lives. All of them she had met, in fact. All three. Kry, Sund, and then Kurant. Appointed by the Monster Royals and trained by the Royal Councilors to become one of them as well. In a way Cter compared herself to them as an equal of sorts by accepting that she had built enough of her magic and exposure to be called a monster mage, even if it wasn't proper. As she sat hunkered and cold, even with the graciously provided magical fire from a Monster Mage, she began to wonder.

Would she had done what she did if she hadn't been called a monster mage? Even it was a subconscious reason that she took so much she did from Idyll, her feeling that she'd climbed higher than she ever thought she could was also subconscious.

"We were aware of your progress, Cter," said Kurant, repeating what Kry had said before, but a bit-more friendlier. "Perhaps we'd even consider calling you up to the castle after another year or so." With a slight shake of her head she too glanced over to the far end of the stone hallway. "I know Sund found some enjoyment in listening to some of the monsters tell of your business while he was tending the trees down in Time's Square." The shake was broken by a slight chuckle. "Pretty sure he once brought up some sausages from that Spider Butcher and had Kry taste them to then afterwards reveal that they'd been chilled and preserved by your magic. Something Sund found quite humorous, but not Kry." The chuckle was erased by Kurant rubbing the heavy bags underneath her eyes, tinting them a similar shade of purple to that of her robe from the red flush on her fair skin mixing with the blue of the shadows underneath her tired eyes. "Forgive my reminiscing. We're all exhausted from trying to understand."

Cter on the other hand was awake enough to be able to take the hint Kurant was so bluntly putting forward. She continued as best as she could. "She gave me her soul."

The sound of Kurant's eyes opening with a wet explosion from her rubbing her tired bags made Cter queasy. "She did what?" coughed the Monster Mage as she threw her head up, blinking harshly. "Her soul?"

Cter nodded, shamefully.

"Singe my soul..." Kurant fell back into her chair's backrest, almost tilting it over. As if suddenly caught by a fever she put her hand on her reddened forehead. "And you weren't in love?" The disbelief was enough to risk snuffing out the two magical fires she had conjured, and they twisted and shifted colors as her eyes darted back and forth as thoughts rushed through her mind. Cter sat with her hands clasped on her lap and her head bowed to wait for whatever Kurant was planning to do. It was so much more than Kry had managed to get out of her, but what Cter said even the most calm of mages would be shocked more than they could ever believe.

For what wasn't a more Cooperative Connection than a monster giving its entire life to a human mage to use? The culmination of the deathly foundation that lay under the carpet as its darkest shadow.

A monster's soul was the brightest light a human mage could ever see.

And the darkest shadow they could ever cast.

"She wanted her magic to change," continued Cter after half a minute of silence. "A promise she had made to her human brother. Their parents died from a terrible sickness in a small village in Xoff." She knew that Kurant knew. "You escorted him to Bonny Sallus to be schooled as a doctor."

Cter didn't have to look to know that Kurant spun around in her chair towards the prison exit. The whip of her cloak and the wave of dark it washed over the prison cell during her quick turn was enough for Cter to understand. "Fech? Sarbor Fech's sister? Is that who she is? Idyll Fech?" Cter nodded as she felt the piercing gaze from Kurant stab at her cheeks to prod for an answer. "Ebott's shadow..."

It had been a while since Cter saw such a vacant expression like the one Kurant held. Even longer seeing one from a human face. The hollow eyes, the concave cheeks, the ashen skin making it look like the Monster Mage had aged ten years or more in an instant. It was impolite of Cter to stare so intensely, but she couldn't help it. The sympathy for a fellow human gripped her like a long-forgotten pair of hands that held her head steady and straight to look.

It was all so much bigger than just Idyll and Cter…

"I'm sorry," she said into her palms covering her face. It was so weak that there was no chance that Kurant actually heard it, but it was all Cter could give. She still was so confused about how it. So many thoughts and worries inside her head fighting for dominance despite the reassurance that Idyll was indeed alive. "I only wanted to help my friend." It was true! It was all Cter wanted to do!

The subdued color emitted from Kurant's magic had some of its luster return as the Monster Mage straightened up in her chair. Her face was still sunken from the lingering dread that had struck her, but it didn't look like she had aged. "What happened after Idyll Fech gave you her...soul?" The pause was brief, but enough to convey the chill that ran through Kurant despite her fiery magic surrounding her.

Cter knew that feeling all too well.

"Idyll...died," said Cter with a shaky exhale between her words. "I woke up with her memories inside my head and her magic coursing through my soul. I don't know exactly how, but my soul had siphoned hers in some way. My body, mind, and soul were disconnected between each other. Each step I took I felt it seconds afterwards. I forgot I was a human." She lifted up her hand caked in dried blood. Her wound had sealed back up again, but only barely. "And had to make sure my body was actually mine."

"I can heal that," remarked Kurant with her sleeved hand lifted to offer. Cter hesitated for a moment. The wound was a reminder to her what she had done, but perhaps if she felt magic again on her she could do something about that gaping void inside her soul. She nodded without much conviction and walked on unstable legs over to Kurant. With each difficult step Cter looked to Kurant's knee brace, feeling shame.

The healing didn't do much besides heal. Cter met Kurant's smile though, and felt just a little better inside.

Inside...

So perhaps it did do a bit more than just the warm, breezy feeling around her wrist that it did.

"When I finally managed to reach Idyll I saw her body begin to dust," continued Cter while caressing her wrist. The small specks still remaining on her hand glittered in the fiery light. Cter hoped Kurant couldn't sense it, but with her being a Monster Mage and all… "What I did was invasive, but I managed to loan her the magic my soul had siphoned from hers."

"Loan like you did with your customer?" asked Kurant to clarify. There was genuine curiosity behind the question, as well as empathy and forgiveness. "Forgive me if that's too direct a question, but it's the only context I have with your magic, Cter."

Cter understood that, but it still felt wrong equating what she did with her business. She didn't feel animosity towards Kurant though, only towards herself. "Yes."

"Thank you."

The humans nodded in respectful unison.

"Idyll was...upset. She was angry at me for keeping her in that state of undeath that I did. I think...I think it was some of my own anger that followed with her magic inside."

Kurant eyes narrowed against that statement. "You don't sound convinced of that," she commented like Cter had gotten a question wrong even though both of them knew that she should've gotten it right. "Please, I urge you to only state what you are sure of, Cter. That's the only way we can be of any help to save your friend."

"I don't want it to be true!" cried Cter while throwing her arms around her in a weak attempt to hold her scream inside her. "She had every reason to be angry at me! It had to be her own emotions! It had to! I want her back! Only her! Not me inside her soul too! Only her!"

The Monster Mage could do naught but watch as Cter gnashed her teeth so viciously that they were on the brink of breaking into pieces from the force. Even if Kurant could've reached inside the cell through the iron bars she wouldn't have reached.

Cter's dry sobs didn't as much echo down the hall as they did stumble weakly against the hard walls. Her coughs as well smeared without conviction against the gray confinements. "I..." Painfully, she swallowed, with the pain reverberating throughout her bones. "I then asked her to summon her magic on my sleeve. To do an Action-Reaction instead of a Reaction-Action." Each word Cter said scraped against her dry throat tasting of blood, tearing wounds as they clung not to be spoken. Her voice was hoarse, and it frightened her hearing it. It was close to being that of a monster's. "Monster magic needs a connection to be active and not just linger though."

"The other aura," dropped from Kurant's tongue as it clicked together for her. "From your sleeve. That's the connection." Her arms folded together while she mumbled to herself. "Reaction-Action with the two auras then? Reverse three times over? Cut it off at the second reversal?"

Cter was happy that the Monster Mage understood. Then they could fix Cter's mistake. Idyll would come back to life and Cter could apologize. She'd have to travel back to her village to ask Romrom for another sleeve. Over a month of silence inside a carriage sounded inviting compared to the horrible hours that had just passed for Cter. She'd have to travel back to Jarasevo and Idyll afterwards by doing odd jobs on the way.

Assuming Idyll would even come to forgive Cter, that is. The human didn't even know if the change of magic worked, or even if she even tried to do it. The Monster Mages would have to do it. Maybe it would be enough for Idyll to finally get a position at the castle? Then she could finally begin putting her parents behind her. Help her brother.

"I'm sorry, Idyll."

A loud, metallic clonk startled Cter. The shadows of the iron bars moving quickly horizontally scared her. She turned around, feeling faint, and flinched as she saw that her jail door had been opened and Kurant was stepping inside. "It's better if you tell Idyll that in person, human."

The complete lack of any and all animosity, anger, or other ill intent from Kurant frightened Cter even more. She curled up as if it would make her disappear. "No."

"You have to, Cter."

"No!"

"We can't."

"You're the Monster Mages!"

"And this is not something that has ever happened before."

"I'll just kill her again!"

"You won't."

"I will!"

"You're the only one that can right this wrong, Cter. The auras turn calm when your name is mentioned. With you there they might calm down enough for us to be able to do something. We can't do it without you there though."

Cter watched through swelling tears at Kurant motioning widely with her arm towards the opened door. The purple of her robe shimmered in the abstract light from her two magical flames. Her length, just a bit taller than Cter, wasn't intimidating though. There was an aura of security around her. Not a magical one, but a physical one.

Perhaps…

"You'll have to eat, drink, and have a bath and change of clothes before we go meet her, Cter. We don't want to frighten the auras. If you approach Idyll looking unhealthy it'll cause more turmoil."

Cter nodded as she stood up.

"We're not asking you to lie to your friend, but please keep what has happened during today quiet. Again, it's for her."

Another nod.

"We expect your full cooperation on this, Cter."

Weaker nod.

"If we ask you."

Weaker.

"You'll have to do magic."

Weakest.

"Now please, follow me."

The sound of footsteps so close to Cter was strange to her ears. The echo wasn't the same as it was in her prison cell. The soft light wasn't soft anymore. The walls weren't the same. The smell of mildew, the cold in her throat.

The void inside her had shifted as well. Something minuscule deep inside her that began collecting itself.

Waiting. Biding for the right moment to flare up.

Kurant rested her hand on the large, circular handle on the prison door leading out into the castle. "It'll be bright for a moment," she warned without turning around. Despite that she could still feel Cter's nod.

It made her pause.

It wasn't weak.

It was strong.

It was determined.