“...what?”

  Agnes’ eyes opened wide as she stared through me. Marie stood in silence with her. For a moment nobody spoke a word, letting the phrase ring in my mind as a bell tolling at noon.

  I’m subject seventeen.

  The room seemed to shrink around me. The lantern hanging above us dimmed, pulling the shadows closer. My vision was locked onto the pages, trying desperately to pry away. My heartbeat sounded in my ears.

  Covering my eyes wouldn’t work.

  Looking away wouldn’t work.

  Agnes took a staggered, hesitant step toward me, her voice continuing to drown against the bell.

  “Thats... that’s not possible, is —”

  I snapped, face contorting into a disgusting wall of hatred.

  “I wish it wasn’t!”

  Marie flinched. Hard.

  She bent down, picking up the papers and hiding them from my vision.

  Agnes leaned in, scanning the words they had to offer.

  My jaw tightened, trembling with the weight of it. I moved my legs close, readying myself to stand.

  Marie knelt beside me, placing her hand heavy on my shoulder and stopping me.

  “Stay there” she murmured, barely above a whisper.

  It wasn’t an order — she was trying to bring me back, before I drifted too far to return.

  I sat up straight, forcing my breath steady.

  “I don’t remember any of this. This place, these experiments...”

  Agnes was still reading the pages, face pale at what she was discovering.

  It couldn’t really be that bad, could it?

  “Maybe its insignificant... I mean — I only got as far as my name, so...”

  Agnes stood there, still buried in paper. Marie looked at me, her head ajar.

  She clasped her hands around mine, quelling the shaking without a word. Warmth pulsed off the skin of her palms.

  Agnes whispered, now reading aloud. Voice slowly building up, gaining both heft and velocity as the end of one word crashed into the beginning of another.

  “Agnes. Shut up.” Marie demanded.

  As much as she seemed like she wanted to stop, the ink had drawn her curious mind into the paper.

  “...elemental infusion performed, subject wildly unstable. Expected cognitive collapse within the hour.”

  Agnes spoke like a ship adrift on the water, no sailor to draw the sails, no captain to steer.

  “Emergent consciousness? Inconsistent with prior record?”

  Marie glared at her with a look I couldn’t read.

  I don’t need anyone to tell me what that means. I’m not Leonn Vuudweyen.

  He’s dead.

  Instinctively my hand jerked back, and away from Marie. So desperate to deny the truth, so desperate for it not to be the truth.

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  Her hands once again reclaimed mine, tighter this time as her breath caught. The world slowed to a halt as my eyes met hers.

  Emerald, gleaming, realizing slower than I did what that meant.

  “I wasn’t just exiled because of some magic. I’m... the husk of a son he lost so many years ago.”

  My voice shattered entirely, but refused to stop speaking, “I’m not...”

  Cerulean veins stretched across my skin, twisting violently between patterns.

  First they emerged jagged, then smoothed into flowing lines.

  It twisted into chaotic spirals and formed orderly, closed shapes.

  Scrawl acting of its own accord. Or rather... autonomous agents fighting for drawing space.

  The air around us seemed noticeably warmer. Damp, as if it had just rained. A draft of wind manifested from nowhere, blowing records and papers all over the workshop. The earth trembled below me, lightly but low — as if to speak out.

  Marie’s lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. The words bounced off the walls, echoing throughout the room in an incomprehensible mass of meaning. Her hands moved to my shoulders now, gently shaking me.

  “Ley!”

  I snapped back to reality, gasping as if I’d forgotten to breathe. Marie’s hood-obscured face turned beet-red.

  She abruptly turned to look at Agnes, who had her eyebrows raised. She pulled at her cloak, refusing to look anywhere but the floor.

  “Lets go back to the inn. We shouldn’t stay here.” Marie finally suggested.

  This place should’ve stayed buried. The shapes and patterns twisting across my arms paused in place, finally receding.

  Agnes quickly gathered the most important pieces of her puzzle as we stepped out into the afternoon light. I knew I was breathing, but it didn’t feel like the air was reaching my lungs. Agnes then closed the truth behind us, but It was hard for any of us to step away from the building.

  Marie hadn’t left my side for a moment. Her hand clasped mine again, whispering “let’s go.”

  I didn’t want to pull away. Without them I’d probably unravel.

  In the distance, a crowd gathered around vendor stalls. The once-bright stripes of red had dulled into a muted maroon above the merchant’s head. Marie pulled me forward, my steps following on instinct only.

  If Leonn is dead... then who am I now? What am I?

  My intuition tells me that I’m not human, screams it in fact.

  Is that why I was treated like that, back in the manor?

  Father knew.

  Frey managed to treat me with so much kindness only because she couldn’t have known what I was.

  The way father and brother treated me wasn’t a mistake, and it bled through to the entirety of the dining table. Nobody spoke to me then, what was the point?

  I felt Marie’s hand tighten around mine. She pulled me around a still hand-cart, and I narrowly reacted in time to avoid it. The front of my boots were slightly scuffed — I must have been dragging my feet. How could I not? My entire childhood was a lie, and I’d had no way of knowing.

  The sound of hammers clashing on wood drew me back into my mind.

  I remember the days I used to train with the sword. Wooden facsimiles clacking together as my instructor reluctantly taught me form.

  Hours upon hours of anticipate, parry, riposte. Dragging my tired body over to a filled washbasin, and dunking my entire face into it used to feel the best. Now I know why, the spirit of water repairing my body from the harsh beating.

  It wasn’t just training. They were everywhere in my memories. They lived in the spilled wine at the table. They lived in each morning I trained in Fuulen. In every blow I took, they lashed back, either shoring up my strength or breaking someone else’s.

  Papers rattled behind me as Agnes sorted through her bag. She once again unfolded the map we made together, and behind it sat someone thoroughly dissatisfied with what she'd discovered. We met eyes for a second, before she hid again.

  Was she scared of me? Did she regret not stopping herself?

  These things are my fault, because I yet live.

  Marie slowed us down, partway because I was stumbling, and also due to the growing evening foot-traffic. I turned my head to look at her. Eyes forward, emotions turned to stone. She was taking charge where I couldn’t. She met my gaze for a moment as her hand tightened further.

  Thanks to them, to all of them, at least I get to know the truth.

  The street we were walking down only seemed vaguely familiar, like a dream I couldn't claim to remember. We turned to an open door, travelling through. The interior was loud, warm from the roaring hearth. Warmer than I felt.

  I sat down on my bed, thoroughly different than what I had been this morning.

  “Hey, Kaleh. I need you to go talk to Agnes.” Marie ordered.

  “You... very well then.”

  He shuffled out of the room, knocking on the adjacent door as Marie shut ours behind him.

  Marie rushed over, her arms closing around me like a beartrap. My eyes grew damp, and my lungs started to catch on every breath.

  I copied the movement, bunching the simple cloth in my hand.

  Could I really claim to be Leonn?. Could I believe the answer I'd give myself?

  To her, I was Ley. Maybe that's all I need.