Olexandrya yanks the white-haired boy out of the restraints.
Massive wings spread behind him, drooping pathetically. The feathers are layered with greens, blues, and reds. His legs are thin and wiry, ending in three talons each. His face and chest is bruised and coated with blood.
A demon.
Rakel and Pepper ride up on their horses, flanking Crusch and me.
“That boy is a demon!” The man in blue robes yells as he gets up. “This is what we—”
Olexandrya punches him again, knocking him back to the ground.
The man swears, clutching his face.
The crowd is silent.
“What is wrong with you people!” Olexandrya yells, hoisting the boy over her shoulder. “He’s just a kid!”
There's something satisfying about watching her like this. So much passion. Indifferent to the world's will. A part of me wonders if she'd act this way if it were me under a guillotine. Another part mocks the former. Of course, she would. Our lives are linked. If I died, she'd die as well.
“He's my son!” a man barks, emerging from the crowd. “He's brought this upon himself!”
Olexandrya glares at him.
“Farell?” she croaks what I presume is the man's name. “Then…” she pushes the boy’s white curls out of his face. “This is Lloyd?”
Pepper gasps, and I look over at her.
“Who's Lloyd?” I ask, getting tired of feeling out of the loop. Pepper either doesn't hear or ignores me.
“Yes! Look upon the form my son has taken. He is unrecognizable!”
“He turned into a demon!” The man in blue robes declares, rising off the ground.
“He tried to eat my soul!” A little boy yells.
“We have to kill him!”
“We're killing him because he's a demon!” A woman yells. “You cannot fault us for that! Look at him!”
“He wants our souls! We can't let him roam free!”
“Put him back!”
The crowd erupts into yelling. I can hardly understand most of it.
Olexandrya stares them down, refusing to yield the boy.
“They're very… passionate about this,” I mumble. It bothers me how familiar this feels.
Wasn't my home like this? Is that why my master killed them? To protect me from those people? Why would he hide those memories from me?
“Shut up!” Olexandrya yells. “It's Lloyd, look at him! He hasn't done anything wrong!”
“Unrecognizable,” I echo, my voice nearly lost in all the yelling. “What did he look like before?”
“Nothing like that,” Pepper says, deciding to speak to me now. “He had blonde hair like his father. And he certainly didn't have wings.”
“He's like you,” Rakel says, looking past me at Pepper. “He must've changed when he hit puberty.”
A normal human became a demon? How?
Wait. Rakel knows about Pepper being a demon? I thought that was a secret.
“What a mess,” the envoy appears from thin air on the other side of Rakel's horse.
“Wait,” I blurt, paying the envoy no mind. “What do you mean changed? Humans can't be demons, that doesn't make sense!”
I find all three of them staring at me. Pepper looks annoyed. Rakel looks concerned. The envoy looks a bit lost.
“I'll explain it to you later,” Rakel says. “First, let's help Drya.”
I watch as they dismount and rush through the crowd.
People are starting to grab at Olexandrya, and she's shoving at them.
“Let go of him!” She barks, kicking a woman away. Rakel joins her, grabbing a man and shoving him to the ground.
“Isn’t it cold?” The envoy asks, looking up at me. “It isn’t too late to take me up on my offer.”
I lean against the back of Crusch's neck and fix a sneer down at the man. I wonder where he keeps going. He doesn’t travel with us. He just appears whenever we stop. Does he have some way of tracking us? A spell that can instantly take him to wherever we are?
I thought I’d made my opinion of his offer clear. Clearly, I hadn’t.
“No,” I say. “You’re disgusting.”
He scowls and aims a hand at me. I recognize it as the same stance he’d taken before wiping out Aurold and the rest of those lizards.
I resist the instinct to flinch.
“Olexandrya would kill you if you hurt me,” I say quickly. “You know that.” A bit more defensive than I’d like to present. But I can’t suck the words back into my mouth.
The crowd rumbles.
“What sort of demon are you?” the envoy asks. “Are you so attached to Drya that you’d deny a poor man some entertainment?”
I stare at him. He’s really committed to this. Does he think he can wear me down by asking a hundred times? Is that why Olexandrya doesn’t want me speaking to him? Does she think he can wear me down?
What an annoying man.
“Go away,” I say. “I’d sooner die than touch you.”
“You worthless…” the envoy trails off when Olexandrya emerges from the crowd, the boy held between herself and Rakel. The boy’s wings drag like sheets on the ground behind them.
Pepper is a few steps behind, yelling over her shoulder.
People are shouting after them.
“Demon!”
“She's a demon lover!”
“Traitor!”
Olexandrya's eyes land on us and they widen. The envoy lowers his hand.
I meet Olexandrya’s eyes before looking back at him. But just like that, the envoy is gone.
“I expect an explanation,” I say as the boy is hoisted onto Rakel's horse.
“He's my friend,” Olexandrya says.
“She means about him being a demon,” Pepper says, mounting her own horse. “She doesn't know about transformations.”
Olexandrya turns, eyeing me.
“Let's get to the house,” she says, scaling the horse and settling behind me. She reaches past me and takes the reins. I lean against her with a groan.
Pepper watches for a moment, a quizzical look on her face.
“Come on,” Olexandrya says, steering Crusch away from the crowd.
The yelling and the torchlight fade behind us.
I eye the unconscious boy in Rakel's arms. A human who became a demon. What could possibly be the logic behind that?
I cling to Olexandrya again as the cold falls in around us. Something moves in the dark, dancing in the air. White gathers on the ground.
‘The house’ is near the ocean. It takes at least an hour to get there. It sits at the bottom of a hill and the edge of the strip of sand.
The building is built of brick and wood. It stands three stories tall.
Nearby, wooden docks stretch into the dark waters. They wobble in the wind.
There's a fenced off area on the beach where the sand looks tilled. Why someone would till sand is beyond me.
I watch the dark of the ocean roll, a bit lost in the constant sound of the water.
“I'm surprised this place is still standing,” Pepper says as we round the building.
“Get Yule,” Rakel says, getting off the horse with the boy in tow. She takes the creaky steps of the house, the boy’s wings dragging behind her.
Pepper gets Yule’s reins and dismounts.
“Yule, Conis, return.” The two horses vanish, and Pepper catches both figurines.
Drya doesn't move.
I peel my attention away from the ocean.
Pepper knocks on the door.
“Sue!” she calls. “You here?”
I hug myself, shivering.
“You gonna get off?” I ask.
“Oh.” Olexandrya comes to life as if she'd been in a daze. She slips off of Crusch.
If I were a child, I would complain about the loss of her warmth. But I'm an adult, so I just glower in her direction.
Pepper knocks again, harder this time.
“Sue!”
I don't want to ask who Sue is. I'm sick of feeling stupid. But my curiosity makes me ask anyway.
“Who's Sue?” I ask, moving to dismount.
“My sister,” Olexandrya says.
I pause midway through dismounting.
Olexandrya and Sue. Clearly their parents had a bias. Or Sue was a nickname.
“Is she…” I consider my wording. “From the same world you are?”
“No. I was born in this world, too, you know? I died in my world and was reborn here.”
She says that as if it makes perfect sense.
I just nod, not curious enough to unpack that.
Pepper knocks again.
“Maybe she isn't here,” Rakel says, adjusting her grip on the boy.
I drop onto the fresh snow and shudder.
“Crusch, return.” Olexandrya holds out her hand and the horse vanishes. She fixes her gaze on the door. “She's there. She's just mad at me.”
“I'm not mad!” a muffled voice shrieks from behind the door. “I'm disappointed!”
“What's the difference?” Pepper barks.
“Don't bother,” Olexandrya says, climbing the front steps. “Sue. Lloyd is with us. They almost killed him.”
The door cracks open and a single red eye glows in the crack.
“Oh, no. Come in.”
The door opens wider, and a woman appears. She's wearing a patchwork dress and has thick blonde hair that settles on her shoulders. Her eyes are a deep red. They glow unnaturally. Her face is difficult to make out beyond that glow.
“Hey, Sue,” Pepper says.
Sue slips out.
“Come in,” she says again, stepping aside. As she does, she glares at Olexandrya.
Rakel and Pepper pay her glare no mind. They shuffle past her, disappearing into the dark house.
“Get him on the table,” Pepper says, her voice fading.
Olexandrya clears her throat.
Then, Sue's eyes land on me. I’m not sure what to do. So I go for the polite option.
“Hello,” I say without a thought. “I'm Olexandrya’s servant.”
Sue straightens.
“Why are you lying?”
“What?” I stare into those glowing eyes, suddenly uncertain. Then I feel foolish.
If anyone should be expected to understand Olexandrya, it would be a sibling. She likely knows that Olexandrya wouldn't keep a servant.
“I…” what's the right follow-up here? Double down? Apologize?
Olexandrya huffs and marches up the steps.
I linger, unsure if I'm to follow. Then, I follow anyway. The steps sink slightly beneath me.
“This is Aerida,” Olexandrya says as I reach her.
“Nice to meet you,” Sue says, offering a small smile. The light in her eyes fades, and I realize it isn’t her eyes. It’s a pair of small glass discs bound by a leather strap around her head. Each has a strange symbol carved into it.
“My name is Suella. I’m a witch.” Her mouth stretches into a toothy grin and she offers me a scarred hand.
“A witch?”
She nods.
Olexandrya walks past, heading inside while I awkwardly shake Stella's hand.
“I'm a demon,” I say.
“Are you?”
Her grip tightens on my hand.
“What?” I narrow my eyes. “Of course, I am.”
“I don't see anything abnormal about you,” Suella says. “Aside from… your rude disposition.”
“Horns,” Olexandrya says. “She's got horns. Now come inside, you two. We should get going.”
“Oh. You do have horns.” Suella grabs the leather strap and peels it off her face. Her eyes are narrow slits.
I pull my hand free of hers and step past her.
Suella follows me inside, shutting the door.
I stare into the dark, waiting for my eyes to adjust.
Mana. It rushes like a river flowing past my feet.
Light blooms above. It’s cold and blue. A ball of twisting energy sitting against the ceiling.
The foyer bleeds into view around me. The walls are cracked stone, and the floor is rotten wood.
Pepper and Rakel are beyond an open door. The boy is splayed out on a thick dining table. Stairs lead past the room to an upstairs that the light doesn’t reach.
“Why did they hurt Lloyd?” Suella asks, following Olexandrya into the other room.
I linger where I am, again unsure.
“He’s gone through a transformation,” Pepper says. “Can’t you see? If we hadn’t shown up, he would’ve lost his head.” Her hands are blue blobs, spreading across the boy’s chest.
"I haven’t been out of the house much,” Suella says. “The last time I went into town, Newton bit me.”
“Maybe if you would turn him back into a human, he wouldn’t hate you,” Olexandrya snaps.
“I’ve tried.”
I press my back against the wall, letting their conversation fade from my focus.
My chest aches. I haven’t had a bath since all of this started. I miss my clothes.
I think of my frog book in Olexandrya’s pack.
I’ve known it from the beginning. But listening to them chatter just now really hammered it in. I’m not one of these people. Not really. I don’t know their stories. I hardly know their intentions. I can’t keep up with their social dynamics.
Maybe I belong in my pond.
I sink slowly, sitting against the wall. I’m not sure how much time has passed when Rakel joins me.
“I’m no help in there,” she says. “Drya and Sue are gonna strangle each other, and Pepper’s gonna be up all night trying to fix that boy up.”
I tilt my head at her.
“Demon,” I say. “How?”
She rests her head against the wall.
“Do you know what demons are?” She asks. “Properly?”
“A monster,” I say. “With a manifested soul.”
Rakel stares at me.
“Everything has a soul,” she says. “And what’s a monster?”
She’s trying to be coy.
“A beast.” I look ahead, annoyed with the dumb question. “A creature.”
“Humans are beasts,” Rakel says. “Humans are creatures.”
I raise a hand to my temple.
“What are you saying?” I demand. “That humans and demons are the same thing?”
“We don’t know,” Rakel admits. “Demons can consume souls. Humans can’t. But sometimes, as humans age, they change into ‘demons.' They usually change form. I’ve seen a girl become a spider; I’ve seen a boy grow a tail. There’s no logic to it. It happened to Pepper, you know? She’s a slime person.”
“I know. I thought it was a secret.”
“She told you that?” Rakel scoffs. “Pepper likes sowing nonsense. And her hair is purple,” she adds. “That’s another thing. Weird hair colors. Drya has white hair. A lot of people think she’s a demon because of that”
I flick one of my bangs out of my face.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I say, focusing on what’s important. “How can a human just become a demon?”
“Well.” Rakel points at the other room. “Like I said, we have no idea. We just know that it happens. And… when it does, they gain the ability to consume souls.”
I absorb that, staring at the floor. How old was I when he took me in? Ugh. I can’t remember.
“There’s a lot of research going on in the capitol,” Rakel goes on. “Some people have theories that there’s a way that humans could consume souls. But… you know.”
I don’t.
“So, some humans are born as demons?” I ask carefully. “But they only…” No. Why would someone be born looking human and then transform into a spider when they hit puberty?
“That or it’s all useless,” Rakel says.
I shake my head slightly.
“Maybe demons and humans aren’t different. Maybe it’s all humans.”
“Even the spiders?” I ask.
She shrugs.
“Maybe you have to broaden your definition of humanity.”
“All demons can’t have been humans,” I say. “There are entire villages of demons. Like those lizards.”
“That’s true. Some demons just—I don’t know, appear? Do you guys breed like humans?”
“Yes,” I say flatly. “Demons have sex.”
“Right.”
There’s a long quiet.
“I hate not knowing things,” I grumble. “It pisses me off.”
She laughs.
I think of my master. He never spoke about anything like this. Why? Does it not matter to his goals?
“Can I ask you something now?” Rakel asks.
I meet her eyes.
“That snake. You ate it, didn’t you? Soul and all?”
I can still taste the rot on my tongue.
“Yes.”
Her face darkens.
“What happens to a soul when a demon consumes it?”
“I don’t know,” I admit immediately.
“I told you at Wettes,” she says. “That when I struck the snake, I saw all of those faces. Could it be that the souls are still out there?”
“I suppose.”
“Then, maybe demons aren’t consuming souls per se. Maybe they’re just… taking them.”
“I don’t see how that’s any better.”
Olexandrya walks out of the other room, looking over at us.
“I guess you’re right,” Rakel mumbles.
“I’m going to bed,” Olexandrya says. “Sue’s putting tea on if either of you want any.”
“Sure.” Rakel gets up and heads into the room.
Olexandrya gives me a quick look before heading up the stairs.
Without a single thought, I get up and follow her.