I slip my tendrils inside of Squigs and Frigs, ready to instantly kill the two closest enemies to me if this becomes a fight. Two more tendrils prepare shards of my soul; anyone that attacks me is going to switch sides. The Animancy cat is likely already out of the bag, I will not hesitate to use it to save my life.

No order to kill comes, however. Sky just glowers furiously down at me, his words like acid.

“You’re saying I’m like a noble?” he hisses.

“You’re literally sitting on a throne,” I counter.

He blinks. I gesture once again to his ridiculously large, lopsided chair.

“I… it’s ironic,” he insists. “It’s not actually a throne. I’m being subversive.”

“Uh-huh. Anyway, you remind me of Penelope, yeah. Both of you frame trust as a… a transaction. Like ‘oh yeah, I know I was a huge asshole in the past, but it’s okay because I have stuff you want!’ It’s kinda weird.”

“What I have to offer you is a city without hunger,” Sky insists, quickly losing patience. “We will soon be strong enough that the nobles will be forced to listen to us. We will take their wealth and uplift our starving city into one that can actually prosper!”

I nod.

“I’d like that.”

“As would I!” Sky agrees, smiling. “So we agree, then?”

I sigh. I guess I can hardly judge him for not getting it. I barely get it, I’m certainly no expert on human emotion. I don’t understand why people do the things they do, why people think the way they think. So I’ll spell it out for him.

“No,” I say bluntly. “We don’t agree. Because I don’t care how appealing the things you say you stand for are. I still remember seeing my mom come home with more broken bones than teeth. I still remember the nights without food because your people demanded repayment. I still remember who runs the rings that Rowan apparently gambles at. I don’t care what you have to offer. Here’s my offer: leave me and my family alone, don’t give me any more reason to care about you, and I won’t start turning your men into corpses.”

I could sure use more of them anyway. The tension of the room draws thicker as the severity of my threat sets in, the seriousness on my face matching the conviction in my soul. Squigs and Frigs silently draw their weapons on either side of me, but I’m ready if they come. These bastards will not touch my family any longer. I’m going to make sure of it.

“Vita,” the man on the stupid throne intones, his calm voice not matching the look of fury on his face, “out of appreciation for our similar origins and how respectful you’ve been so far, I’m going to let that one threat slide.”

What? Had I been respectful? I thought I was being pretty purposefully obstinate. Regardless, the weapons get put away. I slide my tentacles back out of the bodies of those close to me.

“I think we can still be friends. I’m going to honor your request, and give you a week to see I’m a man of my word,” Sky intones with mock magnanimousness. “Think on what I’ve told you. We’ll talk then, to see if your stance on employment has changed.”

Why the fuck does he think my stance on employment would just randomly change? Has he not listened to a word I just said? It’s almost like…

I scowl, glancing over at Capita. Cognimancer. Holy shit. If she’s messed with Lyn or Rowan’s souls, I’m going to fucking shatter her. After I make her spend a few days as one of Penelope’s rats!

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty to talk about,” I lie. “Goodbye, Mister Sky.”

I don’t wait to be dismissed, turning and exiting the absurd throne room. A cognimancer. A cognimancer! Didn’t I just demonstrate I’m not going to be affected by that, though? Is the week all about giving Capita more time to prepare something for me? Is she going to go after the kids? My team? Shit, shit, shit! I need to figure something out.

I stalk angrily down the hallway, Squigs and Frigs effortlessly keeping up with me. I can just tell Penelope about it, warn her who to look out for. The rest of the team, not so much. Not unless I want to field questions like “how do you know?” and “why aren’t we calling the Templars?” Obviously, I can’t call in the Templars because they’ll wonder how I discovered an animancer, which—

“Hello!” a cheerful woman’s voice announces, startling me by slamming open a door nearby and walking out.

It’s Capita, because of course it is. How the fuck did she get ahead of me without me noticing? Was I just not paying attention?

“You leave the dragon’s lair, its owner pleased and infuriated in equal measure!” Capita trills, falling in step with me and dismissing Squigs and Frigs with a single motion. “Ah-ha! A work of art you are, beautiful and true!”

The two assassins depart without a word as I give a very confused glare in this strange-souled cognimancer’s direction. Sheesh, I didn’t think I ate that much of her soul.

“Uh, did I break you or something?” I ask.

Capita just laughs.

“Broken I am, but not from you! Come, come, oh work of art, she who sees further! I wish to speak with you!”

“I’m starting to see why your boss never had you say anything yourself.”

“Ah-ha! As quick of wit as you are of spirit, oh work of art!”

That was not a joke, but okay. I sigh, exiting the Draken’s home base and staring up at the dull, yellow sky. Capita continues to follow me, which is still annoying even though it’s exactly what I was hoping she would do.

“My name isn’t ‘work of art,’” I insist. “It’s Vita.”

“Yes, yes! Life you are, and a life you continue to be! With the tumor that holds me whole, I felt it when we touched! The grandest work of art, indeed!”

“I can’t tell if you’re insane or just being purposefully obtuse,” I grumble, cutting down an alley that will take us far from any prying eyes and ears.

Capita grins a disturbing show of teeth, just a single step from laughter.

“One does not preclude the other, oh work of art.”

I glower at her, continuing to move further away from witnesses. Her soul might be bigger than mine, but if she was supposed to kill me she would have done it in the room with everyone else. If she’s supposed to cognimancy me… well, she already tried.

“What do you want?” I ask plainly.

“What does anyone want with a work of art?” she giggles. “To admire!”

“Have you messed with my family’s souls, cognimancer?” I growl.

She tilts her head, staring with a confusion which I can’t tell is real or fake.

“Of course I have, oh work of art. Such is my duty.”

I whirl on her immediately. I’m already right up in her face so I draw my knife, tentacle-assisted limbs moving the blade to her neck in an instant. She stiffens, her muscles tensing… but she doesn’t move away, her smile firmly in place.

“Can you not fix them yourself?” she taunts. “Alas, a work of art yet unfinished. You have need of a palette, then, even one so smeared as myself.”

“Maybe,” I hiss, pressing the knife further. “But I don’t need you alive for it.”

“Ah,” she murmurs, pulling ever so slightly back. “Then you do not need me dead, either. I will undo what I have done. It is not much, this one is no artist.”

“You think I’m letting you near them again off a leash?” I snap.

She somehow grins even wider, and I have only the barest instant to recognize the feeling of a talent activating in one of the halves of her soul. I’m too slow, and suddenly she’s gone, appearing behind me before I know what’s happening. There was no movement, no interposing time. She’s not just fast like Remus or Lyn. She was simply in one place, and then another.

I whip tentacles her way but only have slight purchase on her soul, and in the time it takes me to turn around her palm is out and her other half is charging its own talent at my face. What the fuck is this bullshit? Is she tri-talented?

“Oh, how beautiful!” she coos. “I see you when we touch, oh work of art! Eye of sapphire and arms of steel!”

“Shut up,” I hiss, pulling and squeezing at her being. “What are you?”

“Let go,” she requests softly. “Breaking you is not a crime I would relish.”

Her hand is still poised to do… whatever her third talent is supposed to do, but she hasn’t truly activated it, just readied it. It’s clearly a peace offering, either because it’s a bluff and her talent isn’t even offensive, or because she genuinely has no desire to use it on me. Other than anger and paranoia— which to be fair, I have plenty to spare for this lady— I don’t actually have much reason to risk going for the throat. I pull my knife and tentacles back, though I keep both ready.

“What are you?” I ask again.

“Guess,” she taunts jovially, stepping back and twirling in a circle.

Hmm. I do have a guess. While I have little to go off of, the clues fit. She’s got animancy abilities, she looks like two souls got smashed and stitched together, and of course she seems nuttier than a bag of almonds.

“Are you a splice?” I ask.

“A splice!” she giggles, nodding happily. “‘Tis what the zealots call me, though it is a cruel name for sketches such as I. To speak so little of why we suffer, to not intimate the purpose for we discarded failures. Cruel, a cruel name it is! Yet I forgive you, oh work of art! I always shall!”

She pats me happily on the head, though I slap her arm away immediately.

“...You fucked with my family’s souls,” I accuse.

“Indeed!” she agrees. “But for you, oh work of art, I shall happily unfuck!”

She leans in close to my ear, putting a hand to her mouth and stage-whispering at a normal volume.

“It will be our little secret,” she whispers. “The clouds need not tell the Sky! But this is all I will deny him for you. The work of art should join him, yes!”

“Join him, or join you?” I grunt. “Is he not just your puppet? Someone to draw attention away from the real leader?”

For the first time, Capita’s grin drops. She looks directly at me, her face dead serious.

“No,” she answers, firmly and clearly. “Never. Sky is… he is…”

She waves her arms around vaguely, the moment of lucidity ending as soon as it arrived. A smile plasters itself back on her face in an instant.

“...Join,” she insists, a sing-song cadence returning to her tone. “The rot of the city will be cut out, for life to grow in its place. There will be a place for life and art, and a lively work of art you are. But first! I scratched your favorite toys, so I must fix them!”

“My family aren’t toys,” I growl.

“Ah!” she exclaims, grinning brightly. “Family! Yes! That’s the word I was forgetting before. How easily so many things fall through the crack, yes?”

She pats her belly over where her soul rests, the purple, animancy-talented goop in the middle oozing out the broken bits like pus.

“Toy or not, though, I gave them a scratch. Just a scratch! I am incapable of much else. Just a papercut of the soul. Yet how paper hurts! A fearsome weapon, employed properly! Come, come! I will show you, you will see!”

She starts wandering off in a different direction, all but skipping as she does. I scowl, following from behind. I almost fucked up here, didn’t I? I crushed this girl’s attempts at cognimancy and forgot to worry if she had other tricks up her sleeve.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“The casino, of course!” Capita crows. “The great and terrible devourer of wealth! You wish to see your kynamancer, and he is there!”

I scowl.

“Really? At the casino right now? How convenient. So you’re going to get rid of his gambling addiction, then?”

Capita raises an eyebrow at me.

“Did you not wish him un-fucked?”

“I… yes?”

She shakes her head.

“The swirling rainbow did not receive his love of numbers and odds from I, nor did I place in him a burning need to recover what he rightfully lost. No. I have only given him what I give all who cross the Sky.”

“And what would that be?” I ask.

She grins.

“Terror,” the cognimancer answers, “of the inevitable fall.”