The first pig experiment happened after lunch.

  All three of them in Jonas's laboratory. The pig in its pen. Watching them with deep suspicion and justified fear.

  Jake explained the process again. What he'd try. What could go wrong. Everything could go wrong.

  "I'm going to exit Jonas completely," Jake said. "But first I'll juice up the Life magic. Push as much energy into the body as I can. Keep the autonomic functions going. Heartbeat. Breathing. Basic cellular maintenance."

  "And if you don't put in enough?" Kandis asked.

  "Jonas's body dies while I'm in the pig. I lose my human host." Jake touched his chest. "I'm gambling I know how much is needed to keep it running while I'm gone."

  "And the pig?" Forge asked.

  "I'll try to extract abilities without full consumption. Olfactory processing. Problem-solving patterns. Memory structures." Jake looked at the pig. "Without becoming the pig. Without losing myself to its consciousness."

  "You've done this before?" Forge asked.

  "No." Jake's voice was strained. "Never exited a host and returned. Never extracted without consuming. Never left anything alive behind me. This is completely new. Pure theory."

  "So you have no idea if this will work," Kandis said flatly.

  "None. I know what I want to happen. I know what should be possible based on how my abilities work." Jake looked at them both. "But actually doing it? Keeping Jonas alive while I'm gone? Taking from the pig without losing myself? Coming back successfully?" He paused. "Complete guess."

  "And if it doesn't work?" Forge asked.

  "If I take too much from Jonas, his body dies. If I become the pig instead of staying myself..." Jake gestured at Jonas's body. "Then you'll know when I return. Jonas will start squealing. Rooting for food. Acting like a pig in a human body."

  "That's disturbing," Kandis said.

  "Yes. It is." Jake took a breath. "But I have to try. I need to master this before the representative comes. No other choice."They watched as Jake approached his own body.

  Sat down in the chair beside it.

  His expression went distant.

  Unfocused.

  Preparing.

  Then Jonas's body slumped.

  Forge moved forward instinctively, pressing thick fingers to the neck. "Still alive. Heartbeat steady. The Life magic is holding, for now."

  "How long?" Kandis asked, her voice thin.

  "I don't know. Minutes? An hour? He didn't say." Forge kept his hand there, feeling the slow, borrowed throb beneath the skin. "We just have to hope he knows what he's doing."

  A wet, scraping sound came from Jonas's ear. Barely audible at first, like a fingernail dragged across damp cartilage.

  Kandis's gaze snapped to it.

  Something was moving inside the canal. Pushing. Coaxing the flesh apart with patient, muscular insistence.

  "Is that..." she began, the words dying in her throat.

  Forge followed her stare. His face hardened, jaw tightening as recognition hit. Then revulsion, raw and immediate, twisted his mouth. "That's him. That's Jake's true form."

  The thing emerged slowly, deliberately, as if savoring the moment of revelation.

  Three centimeters long. No thicker than a child's finger bone.

  It glistened with a thick, clear mucus that caught the lamplight and threw it back in sickly rainbows. The mucus clung to it like a second skin, dripping in slow, viscous strands that stretched and snapped as the creature pulled free.

  Segmented like a worm carved by a mad god, each ring swollen and distinct, pulsing with its own inner rhythm. The forward segments were thick with muscle, rippling in waves that propelled it forward with predatory grace. The middle chambers throbbed visibly, a second heart beating just beneath the armored hide. The rear segments ended in tiny, puckered vents that wept more of that slick fluid, perhaps silk, perhaps venom, perhaps something that had no name in any human tongue.

  The head was a flat, triangular wedge, serpentine and wrong. A lipless slit of a mouth lined with dark, sensory pits that flexed open and closed like breathing gills, heat-seekers drinking in the warmth of their bodies. On either side, delicate, feathery protrusions quivered, tasting vibrations in the air. Ears on something that should never have needed to hear.

  Its skin was scaled in overlapping plates of obsidian black shot through with veins of emerald and amethyst. The scales shifted as it moved, catching light and fracturing it into an oil-slick iridescence that hurt to follow, purple bleeding into venomous green, then into a black so deep it seemed to drink the light entirely. Beautiful the way a fresh bruise is beautiful. The way spilled blood on snow is beautiful. A beauty that made Kandis's stomach lurch and her throat close.

  And yet she could not look away.

  The creature's very presence seemed to warp perception. When she stared directly at it, the edges blurred and slipped, as if her eyes refused to hold its shape. It flickered at the center of her vision like a heat mirage, refusing to resolve. Only in the corners of her eyes did it sharpen, monstrously clear, hideously real. Direct gaze made it ghost-like, evasive, as though it existed half a step outside the world.

  "What... is he?" Kandis whispered, her voice cracking.

  "A parasite," Forge answered, low and flat. "Hope's vengeance given form. Flesh twisted into something that was never meant to live."

  The thing paused on Jonas's shoulder, mucus trailing in silvery threads from the ear. Those sensory pits swiveled toward Kandis. Dilated. Tasted the heat radiating from her skin, the frantic drum of her pulse.

  She felt it.

  Felt weighed. Measured. Catalogued as meat.

  Then it moved. Not scurrying. Not slithering.

  From the rear segments, a sudden pulse, those puckered vents flaring open with a soft, wet hiss. A thread of silk shot out, thinner than spider silk yet stronger, glistening with the same viscous mucus. It struck the top edge of the wooden crate holding the pig pen with unerring precision, anchoring instantly in a tiny, adhesive bloom.

  Then the creature released its grip on Jonas’s shoulder.

  The silk contracted.

  In a blink, faster than thought, faster than the eye could truly follow, the three-centimeter horror whipped through the air in a tight, perfect arc. A faint whistle of displaced air, a flash of iridescent black-green-purple, and it was simply there, perched motionless on the crate’s upper rim as though it had always been.

  Almost teleportation.

  The silk thread snapped free behind it with a sound like a breaking hair, dissolving into a faint, steaming mist that carried that same acrid reek, old blood and subterranean rot, across the room.

  Kandis’s heart slammed once, hard, against her ribs. She hadn’t even seen the motion, only the absence and then the presence.

  The pig had felt it, though. Its berserk panic redoubled. Hooves hammered the boards in a frantic tattoo. High-pitched screams tore from its throat as it flung its bulk against the bars, froth whipping from its snout in white ropes. The wood groaned and splintered under the assault; the animal knew, with the pure instinct of prey, that death in miniature had just arrived above it.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Jake crouched on the crate’s edge, segments flexing slowly, savoring. Those sensory pits swept the pen below, drinking in the pig’s radiating heat and terror.

  Then he dropped.

  No leap. No glide. Simply released his hold and fell the short distance, landing on the pig’s trembling foreleg with the softest rasp of scales on hair.

  The pig bucked wildly, twisting its head, shrieking, but the creature was already moving, muscles rippling in relentless waves as it climbed the heaving flank with impossible tenacity.

  It reached the head.

  The pig froze mid-thrash.

  Every muscle locked in rigid paralysis. Eyes bulging white. A single, strangled squeal cut off as if a hand had clamped its throat.

  Jake vanished into the ear with a final, wet pop.

  Kandis's lungs burned. She realized she'd stopped breathing entirely.

  The pig stood statue-still, only its chest heaving in shallow, panicked breaths.

  "That's what we're trusting," she said at last, the words tasting like ash.

  "Yes," Forge replied, voice hollow.

  They watched the pig. Waited for the invisible war raging inside its skull, the parasite threading through brain and nerve, drinking memories, wearing the body like a suit.

  Jonas's borrowed form remained slumped in the chair. Chest rising and falling. Alive.

  For now.

  The minutes stretched, thick with the lingering scent of mucus and terror.

  Forge and Kandis watched. Silent. There was nothing they could do. Just wait. Hope Jake maintained control. Hope he extracted what he needed without losing himself.

  Ten minutes became fifteen, then twenty, and then the numbers stopped mattering. The pig’s panic bled out of it in slow stages, like heat leaving a dying fire. The hooves quit hammering. The screams thinned to wet breaths, then to nothing at all. It stood there a long time, trembling less with each minute, until the tremor turned into a shiver, and the shiver turned into stillness. Calm settled over it, wrong in its gentleness. Docile. Almost relieved. At last it lowered itself without a fight, folded its legs under its bulk, and laid its head down as if it had always belonged to the quiet. Its eyes went soft. Its breathing evened. It went to sleep.

  Kandis and Forge never moved. They did not trade places. They did not look away. Forge kept his hand at Jonas’s throat, feeling the borrowed life thud on, steady and thin, while the room filled with that stretched-out kind of waiting that makes every sound too loud and every heartbeat too slow.

  Then the pig jerked once, small and sharp, as if something inside it had made a decision. A wet scrape at the ear. A glint of black sheen. Jake slid free and paused on the pig’s shoulder for a single heartbeat, sensory pits flaring like a taste.

  He moved.

  A soft hiss. A silken thread snapped out and struck Jonas’s collar with needle precision. The line tightened. The parasite did not travel so much as arrive, a flash of iridescence and then it was on Jonas’s neck, clinging to skin and pulse with murderous accuracy.

  Forge recoiled. One step, involuntary. Hand lifting away as if the touch had burned him. Surprise first, then fear, bare and honest, because he had been watching the whole time and still hadn’t truly seen it move.

  Jake vanished into Jonas with a final, wet pop.

  Jonas’s body gasped. Forge was there anyway, catching himself, steadying it out of instinct even as his stomach turned. Jake’s eyes opened. His own eyes. His own consciousness.

  As if this were just another average day, Kandis asked, "Well?"

  Jake was breathing hard. Shaking. "Got something. Recent memories. Deeper than I generally get, but it took time. I learned how the pig navigates terrain and Forge, did you try to kill this pig?"

  Forge rolled his eyes, "No, but it doesn’t surprise me that it thinks I did. You didn't eat it’s brain?"

  "No. But gods, I wanted to." Jake's voice was rough. "Its mind was right there. Available. Easy. The hunger was overwhelming. Everything screaming to just take it all. Feast. Consume completely."

  "But you stopped," Forge said.

  "Barely. By the thinnest margin." Jake looked at them both. "This is going to take more practice. A lot more. And I'm not sure six weeks is enough."

  "It has to be," Kandis said.

  "That's not how this works."

  "Make it work." Her voice was firm. "Because we don't have alternatives. We don't have backup plans. We have you. Learning this. Succeeding. That's everything."

  Jake nodded. Exhausted but accepting.

  The pig was in its corner. Traumatized but alive. Watching them with new fear. Deeper fear.

  "Tomorrow," Kandis said. "You try again. And the next day. And every day until you master this or the representative arrives."

  "Those are the options," Jake agreed weakly.

  They left him to rest. Returned to the study. The Pantathian map still there. The impossible choices still laid out in foreign script.

  "He's making progress," Forge said quietly.

  "Not enough. Not yet."

  "But progress."

  "Yes." Kandis sat at the desk. Looked at the map again. Like it might show different options if she stared long enough. "We're trusting everything to a creature that might run. That might fail. That might lose itself trying."

  "Yes."

  "That's insane."

  "Yes." Forge sat across from her. "But it's what we have. So we work with it. Make it better. Give ourselves every advantage."

  They sat in silence. Planning. Preparing. Refusing to acknowledge how hopeless this was.

  - - -

  Evening came. Dinner was made and eaten. Jake looked better. The food and rest helping. His recovery rate was still unsettling. Still too fast. Still evidence of the innate troll regeneration working inside Jonas's body.

  They gathered in the study again. The Pantathian map. Books. Notes. Everything they knew about Pantathian society from Jonas's journal. Everything they'd need to know to fool a representative.

  "The representative will expect reports," Kandis said. "Population numbers. Resource assessments. Updates on Hawth's status."

  "Which we can fake," Forge said. "Give them what they expect to hear."

  "But they'll also test Jonas," Jake said. "Test his knowledge. His magic. Make sure he's still loyal."

  "Can you fake that?" Forge asked.

  "Maybe. If I learn enough from the gut-brain fragments without consuming them. If I can access Jonas's expertise without becoming Jonas." Jake's voice was uncertain. "It's possible. Just very, very risky."

  They discussed contingencies. Backup plans. What to do if Jake was discovered. If the representative saw through the deception. If everything went wrong.

  The answers were all the same. Run. Hide. Hope. Die fighting.

  Not great options.

  Hours passed. The candles burned low. Everyone was exhausted but pushing through.

  Finally, Forge leaned back in his chair. Stretched. "I should head back to Hawth soon. Need to update the Conclave. Make sure preparations are continuing."

  "When?" Kandis asked.

  "Tomorrow, probably. Or the day after." Forge paused. Looking at her. "Want to make sure things are stable here first."

  "We're as stable as we're going to be," Kandis said.

  "That's not very stable."

  "No. It's not."

  Forge was quiet for a moment. Then words came out. Unplanned. Unfiltered.

  "I really can't believe she'd tell me she was going to have sex with me and then not even make an attempt. Like, am I supposed to just pretend that didn't happen?"

  Silence.

  Absolute. Total. Silence.

  Then Jake started laughing. Genuine amusement. The sound breaking the tension like glass.

  Kandis felt her face burning. Horror and embarrassment warring inside her.

  Forge's expression went through several stages. Confusion. Realization. Pure mortification.

  "That was..." he started.

  "The inner monologue problem," Jake finished, still laughing. "Where privacy goes to die. I’m almost getting used to it. It’s kind of freeing in a way."

  "I didn't mean..." Forge tried again.

  "But you were thinking it," Kandis said. Her voice surprisingly steady despite the burning face. "So at least now I know."

  "Yes. I was. Am. Thinking about it." Forge had apparently given up on pretending. "Because you said it. Put it out there. And then nothing. No follow-up. No acknowledgment. Just acting like it never happened."

  "Because it was an accident!"

  "Doesn't make it less true."

  They stared at each other. Jake watching between them like this was the most entertaining thing he'd seen in weeks.

  "This is not the time," Kandis said finally.

  "I know."

  "We're trying to save everyone."

  "I know."

  "After the representative. After we know if this works. Then we deal with personal things."

  Forge's voice was gentle. "I'm holding you to it. I'm not demanding anything. Just acknowledging that yes, I was thinking about it. Am thinking about it. Will probably keep thinking about it until we actually talk."

  "Fair enough." Kandis took a breath. "After the representative. We talk. For real. About what we both want. What's possible. What isn't."

  "After the representative," Forge agreed.

  The moment stretched. Something passing between them. Acknowledgment. Promise. Possibility.

  Jake was still grinning. "So that happened."

  "Shut up," Kandis said.

  "He makes a good point though. You did kind of leave him hanging."

  "It was an accident!"

  "Doesn't mean you didn't mean it." Jake's grin widened. "The inner monologue problem doesn't create thoughts. Just reveals them. So somewhere in your brain, you actually were planning it. Your conscious mind just wasn't ready to admit it yet."

  Kandis wanted to argue. Couldn't. Because he was right.

  "I hate this," she muttered.

  "The enforced honesty? Yeah, it's terrible. But also kind of liberating." Jake stood, stretching. "No more pretending. No more careful word choices. Just raw truth bleeding out whether you want it to or not."

  "It's invasive."

  "It is. But it's also fair. Everyone suffers equally. No one gets to hide." Jake headed toward the door. "And honestly? I think it's helping. You two dancing around each other would have been exhausting. Now it's out there. Deal with it or don't. But at least everyone knows where they stand."

  He left. Going to sleep or practice or whatever parasites did at night.

  Leaving Kandis and Forge alone.

  They looked at each other. The awkwardness thick but not unbearable.

  "So," Forge said.

  "So," Kandis replied.

  "After the representative."

  "After the representative."

  "I can wait."

  "Good." Kandis stood. "Because we have more important things to focus on right now."

  "I know."

  But the way he looked at her said he was thinking about it anyway. Would keep thinking about it. Despite everything else. Despite the impossibility. Despite the approaching deadline.

  And Kandis realized she was thinking about it too.

  About after. About possibilities. About what might happen if they actually survived this.

  If there was an after.

  That was the real question.

  "Good night," Forge said.

  "Good night," Kandis replied.

  He left. Heading to his room. Leaving her alone with the maps and the plans and the impossible choices.

  Kandis looked at the Pantacoast spread before her. Five Island Kingdoms under the Empire of Serpent Lords. Nowhere to go. Everything depending on a parasite learning to control himself.

  The odds were terrible.

  But they were better than nothing.

  - - -

  End of Chapter 43