“I’m pretty sure I’m on a time limit.” Elach said, rubbing at his wrists. He felt cold iron digging ever so slightly into them, connected to links of chains with ample slack. “So I can’t afford to go slow.”

“Can’t afford to go slow for what?” Rainshear asked, leaning on the table with one elbow. “You told us how you got here, but you never did say why you’re here.”

“Because I don’t know yet.” Elach sighed. “My patron told me that I should be here, and that there was something that would help me with my goals.”

“And those goals are…?” Rainshear trailed off, beckoning Elach to answer with a motion of her hand.

Elach’s words spilled free before he could even think. “I want to free everyone that’s stuck on the other side of the eternals’ divide. People like me, before I met Flow and Sentence, who don’t have a choice in what they do or the emotions to properly take in what happens around them.”

Rainshear nodded, her finger scratching something onto a napkin as she spoke. “A nice thought, but do you have any idea how you’re going to do that?” She asked. “Does this have something to do with what you told me yesterday?”

“You want to kill the eternals.” Metea/Irric whispered after looking around to make sure no one was listening. “Maybe you could get an army to kill one, but all of them?”

“Not all of them. One at a time, until there are none left.” Elach said, his resolve hardening as he spoke. “But I wouldn’t have to kill all of them to free the other half. Just the eternal who’s hoarding choice from them.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this here.” Rainshear said. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter, but this seems like a serious enough topic that it shouldn’t be discussed in a middling open air restaurant.”

“Your drinks and menus.” The server said, bumping Rainshear’s shoulder with their hip as they passed by. “I’ll be back in five minutes for your orders.”

“I think we should eat as fast as possible and get out of here.” Metea/Irric said worriedly.

Rainshear shot the server an intimidating look, and they shied away while scuttling back to the inside portion of the restaurant.

“Well, I have no idea what any of this is,” Elach said with a gesture at the menu, “So I’m open to suggestions.”

Rainshear paid as soon as the last plate, which happened to be Elach’s, was clear, and ushered the group away from the restaurant in a hurry. The food had been alright, but nothing special, a sentiment that Elach had voiced and received agreement from the others.

“That’s what you get when a place doesn’t have to rely on repeat customers.” Rainshear said with a grimace as she picked at some sauce stuck under her fingernails. “Mediocre food and staff that don’t care if you come back.”

“Yeah. There are so many better places to eat that aren’t around the trial grounds. We can go check one out later tonight, if you’d like?” Metea/Irric offered.

“Maybe after we’ve checked all of the prize hall.” Elach said, stepping over a loose glass brick in the walkway. “Honestly, though, I’m starting to think there aren’t any wisps in there. Which means that my patron sent me here for a different reason altogether.”

“Which means you have to stay longer, right?” Metea/Irric asked a little too enthusiastically.

Elach raised an eyebrow. “Probably. Maybe watching the trials will give me an idea.”

“Don’t count on it.” Rainshear said with a chuckle. “The trials are just a way for apprentices to show off their skills and patrons to show off their power and wealth. Unless you’re looking for another bond, the trials won’t do anything for you.”

“And speaking of bonds, how are you cultivating your Issi seed, Elach?” Rainshear said, changing the topic. “I’ve never met anyone with location Issi, so I have no clue how you’d cultivate that seed. It could prove to be valuable information.”

“My Issi absorption technique?” Elach asked. “I’m not sure what good that’d do you.”

“No, I mean how you actually grow the strength of your Issi.” Rainshear said. “Like tending to plant Issi, or fueling fire Issi.”

“Uh, you have to do that?” Elach said sheepishly. “I guess my patron didn’t get to that part of the explanation.”

“Is your patron powerful?” Rainshear asked, then shook her head. “What am I saying, of course he is. What I mean is has your patron ever been weak, or were they made powerful?”

“I think he was made powerful.” Elach said, thinking back to Sentence’s stories. “Does that matter?”

“Patrons who were born or made powerful don’t understand that they don’t just... give their apprentices the same power as they have.” Rainshear explained. “You get the same kind of Issi as they have, but at the absolute lowest rung on the power rankings. So your patron wouldn’t even know to tell you to cultivate your Issi seed; he probably never had to do it himself.”

“Great. Another thing I’m behind on.” Elach sighed.

“Don’t worry, Metea/Irric can help you with that. Since she’s part manifestation, instead of a full manifestation like me, she’ll have a better idea how to help.” Rainshear said.

“I can?” Metea/Irric asked, then realization lit up her face. “I mean, of course I can! You said your focus wasn’t fully formed either, right? I can help you with that too.”

“I’ll take you up on that.” Elach said, looking towards the entrance to the prize hall as they drew closer once more.

Rainshear looked over at Metea/Irric, plastering on a smile and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you walk with Elach for a little bit? I need to be alone with my thoughts, and your footsteps are distracting.”

“Okay.” Metea/Irric said instantly, jogging up to walk beside Elach.

With a stifled sigh, Rainshear dug her fingernails into her palm. Her chains dispersed their stored Issi directly into her, giving her the boost she’d need to keep Elach calm and talking for the rest of the day. She’d almost had a heart attack when she felt him battering back at her technique, and had pushed a little too much Issi into it. And it still almost hadn’t been enough.

She needed to get him back to the cafe as soon as she could. The calming waters had soaked into Metea/Irric, and now she took almost no Issi to keep the technique up. If Rainshear could do the same for Elach, she’d have a contingency plan for what was coming. And until she heard back from the others, she’d keep building it up.

“You will be mine.” Rainshear muttered, looking back in the direction of the hotel Sechen and Revelation were attacked in. “As soon as we find you.”

“Aaand that’s everything.” Elach sighed as he leaned against the railing, Flow touching down on the scaffolding next to him. “Can you go check on the others? See if they need any help searching their parts?”

Flow chirped twice and took off, shooting down between the catwalks to the other two-thirds of the prize hall. The afternoon had proved somehow less fruitful than the morning, with more accostments as the prizes shown off had started to be offered by more and more patrons. It seemed the ground floor was reserved, or bought out, by the most powerful patrons, and the higher and further in Elach went the more desperate the representatives got.

He’d been offered things far beyond what they were displaying. From an entire villa somewhere in the mountains off of Pyreheld to a harem of women- or men- that would tend to his every whim so long as he bonded with their patron.

And, for some reason, Elach hadn’t felt tempted. At all. He felt like he should have been, but the idea of a harem disgusted him on a primal level and the solitude a faraway villa came with left him with a sense of loneliness and dread he just couldn’t get over. It wasn’t as if he was going to accept these invitations if he had been interested in the prizes they were pushing, but he got the feeling that there was a darker part of this side of the divide he had yet to see. Or, thinking back to Arvay and Hugil’s dealings with Brynn, maybe there were multiple darker sides.

Elach pushed off the railing and stood tall for a moment, stretching his back before he fell back to his ever-so slightly slouched posture and meandered down the catwalk one last time. He might as well actually read some of the descriptions as he waited for Flow.

Skimming over the majority of the cases, Elach’s eyes settled on a case that stood out from all the others. Not because it held something so majestic he couldn’t tear his gaze away, but because it was empty. And next to that empty case, there was an empty chair. As if someone had reserved a spot, but ducked out at the last second. He knelt down in front of the case to read the description, and his blood ran cold.

“A wisp manifestation clad in shimmering gold ribbons and unfathomable messages, yet to be caught but delivered to the victor of the trials if they choose to join us.” He read, his hand trembling on the cool glass. “Guaranteed and supplied by Promised Tomorrows.”

Promised Tomorrows. Elach had obviously never heard of them, but he flashed back to the figures in black that had attacked his town’s primal spring. They’d seen Hollow and Gilt, but they couldn’t be here. They were on the other side of the divide. It had to be someone else. It couldn’t be them.

“Don’t freak out just yet.” Elach muttered to himself. “Rainshear and Metea/Irric have to know something about this.”

“So, you’re interested in the cult’s offerings?”

Sechen approached from the other side of the catwalk, looming over Elach in an unspoken threat.

“Not in the way you’d think.” Elach said, moving to stand.

Sechen put a hand on his back. “If you move, you’re dead.”

“Yeah, no.” Elach said as he pulled himself away from Sechen, his anchor rattling as he appeared a good thirty feet away from Sechen. “Are you cracked in the head? I’m the one that called the doctors on your dying ass!”

“They attacked us right after you slinked away!” Sechen yelled back, running at Elach without any Issi enhancing her beyond what was keeping her gaunt frame upright. “And that’s the cover, isn’t it? You came in after they took Revel and sent in the doctors, but you were with them all along!”

Sechen’s punch came with a bright flash of light. He grunted at the sudden blindness but pressed forward, moving his shoulder into the path of Sechen’s fist. Her brittle bones crushed against his shoulder with an audible crunch, Sechen yelping in pain and backing away at the same time.

Elach tried to blink the spots out of his eyes as he charged, tackling a very surprised Sechen to the ground and holding her arm in place to keep her from struggling. Her arm. Singular.

“What in the hells happened to your… oh, right.” Elach laughed, looking down the catwalk at Sechen’s disembodied arm that was thrashing about uselessly. “I forgot about your manifestation.”

“Get… off… me!” Sechen grunted, kicking her legs up against Elach’s side uselessly. He wasn’t stupid enough to give her knees access to his crotch, even if he wasn’t anywhere near an experienced fighter. “I swear to the eternals, I’m going to slit your throat as soon as you let me go.”

“You know that gives me very little reason to even consider letting you go, right?” Elach pointed out, turning his head as he saw another flash of light building behind Sechen’s eyes. “Not falling for that again, sorry. So spill whatever shitty story you’ve made up, and I’ll tell you exactly how it’s impossible I did whatever you think I did.”