It turned out that Lumiere’s store had such a wide selection because he had eleven brothers, all with different creature shrouds. Together, the scope of animals and monsters they could create was vast. The brothers simply rotated who was at the counter day on day, so Lumiere stuck his head through a door behind the counter and called two of his brothers to come out and make Lily’s pets. Their home was behind the shop.

So within the hour, Lily was looking at two newly created life forms specifically made for her. That thought was strange to Caeden on so many levels. Shrouded society was so fundamentally convenient for everyone that it boggled the mind. No wonder they found unshrouded and continentals, in general, to be uncivilized and backward. When you gathered enough shrouded with variable domains together, scarcity was no longer a concept they had to deal with.

“It’s a good decision, starting with infants.” The brother making Lily’s bear cub, Steve, spoke up, “They’re much easier to bond, and since these will be your first, starting with grown adults would have been difficult. Plus, they will grow as you grow, creating a much firmer bond. Don’t ever forget, they may be subject to your will because of your shroud, but these are still living creatures with their own mind and identity. They will always follow you, but how well they do is down to how you raise them. You are taking on a real responsibility here.”

The other brother, Otis, grunted in agreement. He hadn’t spoken a single word, but the other two brothers seemed to derive full sentences from his monosyllabic grunts and sighs. They were all very different people, neither of the other two were anywhere near as eccentrically dressed as Lumiere, but they were quirky in their own way. Steve hadn’t stopped his outpouring of advice from the second he heard what Lily wanted.

Once the bear and bird were created and ready to bond, all Lily had to do was touch her forehead to theirs and reach out with her shroud. Caeden had no idea what exactly was going on, as Steve had started whispering instructions to Lily in such a hushed tone that Caeden couldn’t hear what he was saying from only a few feet away. He figured this was a delicate process, so he didn’t dare use investigative sense to get a better perspective for fear that it caused something to go wrong. He would have felt horrible if he messed up something Lily was so obviously excited about.

Both bindings were done in under a minute, and now Lily had both a tiny chick and a baby bear cuddled in her arms. Considering how young they were, neither monster looked very fearsome. The Icecrag Bear cub was a big fluffy ball of white fur with a bright blue nose and black paw pads. His claws hadn’t grown in, and he had yet to even open his eyes.

The chick was energetic, hopping around on top of the sleepy bear cub in Lily’s arms, letting out tiny little chirps. Occasionally a puff of clouds the size of Caeden’s pinky would float out of its beak. The little thing had thick grey downy feathers and white legs. Her toes were in a hawk orientation, two forward and two back, with itty-bitty little claws on them.

Lily was completely lost, cooing random syllables over her new pets without acknowledging anyone else in the room. Caeden figured the only way to get through to her was through her pets, so he tried to engage her on that level.

“What are you going to name them?” Caeden asked, hoping to get a response.

Lily’s reaction was disproportionate. Her head whipped up, and she stared open-mouthed at Caeden, horrified. “Oh no! I never thought of any names! Oh, what am I going to do?” She looked genuinely upset at her lack of forethought.

“Relax, you didn’t even know what kind of monster you were going to get before you came here. Having names ready would have been weird. Just think about it for a bit. It’s not like you need to name them immediately.” Caeden soothed.

“That won’t do,” Lily shook her head, frowning in concentration, staring at the two, “Hmm… You’ll be Snowball.” She tapped the bear on the nose, getting an adorable sneeze, “...And you’ll be Sky.” She rubbed a finger along the Roc’s head, causing her chirping to kick into overdrive. She shook her whole body, causing all those grey downy feathers to poof out until Sky was now a little grey ball on top of Snowball’s bigger white ball.

“Ok, if that’s what you want,” Caeden shrugged. He was wondering how she would feel about those names when her pets were big enough to swallow her in one bite, but that wasn’t his problem. If she was happy when her little Snowball was a multi-ton behemoth, good for her. ”We should probably get going. We have to meet up with the others, unless Erik somehow manages to get both of them killed. What were they going to do anyway? He never told me.”

Lily shrugged, “I never asked. Honestly, since it was those two, I’m not sure I want to know the answer. They seem to have a negative impact on each other’s personalities.”

“Yeah,” Caeden rubbed his chin, “Maybe we shouldn’t let them wander around together.”

“If you want to try policing them, be my guest. Have fun banging your head into a wall.” Lily rolled her eyes.

“Fair point.”

Satisfied with her purchase, Lily paid Lumiere and thanked Steve and Otis profusely, which caused the both of them to look slightly embarrassed. Caeden was sure they weren’t used to praise for their work. They headed out, Lily practically skipping while still cuddling her pets.

It took them half an hour to reach their next destination, where they decided to wait outside for their friends. Caeden was feeling incredibly uncomfortable and antsy, but he had no idea what to do about it. He wanted to do this, but it was still nerve-wracking.

“So this is it? They just told you?” Lily asked, looking at him with sympathy.

“Yup.” Caeden nodded jerkily, “I’m as surprised as you are. Then again, nothing has changed for them. It's only different for us because we know.”

The building they were standing in front of was unadorned, ironically making it more visually distinct than the million garishly appointed buildings they had passed on their way through the city. The Central Authority owned it as a place to put people with long sustained injuries. Some shrouds or weapons with the right infusions could create injuries that were difficult to heal. It was also where they had put Caeden’s uncle.

On the off chance that they would know who to talk to, Caeden had asked one of the caretakers at the Core Seat. They had directed them to the head of personnel, a nice lady named Candice. She had Unc’s location on file, and gave that information to Caeden. It felt odd knowing that the government was deliberately holding his uncle’s health over his head because he represented a valuable military asset. Yet, they were perfectly ok with Caeden coming to visit the man in his free time. It just felt wrong.

Then Caeden felt like an idiot for questioning a positive, but he was so used to everything being screwed up with the CA that them doing something inherently kind felt suspicious. Ultimately, they had no reason to not let Caeden see his uncle. After all, Caeden, Erik, and Lily were the only people who knew that he possibly had a method to heal the man in his back pocket. Seeing him now was going to be a million times harder than before, knowing what he did now. Caeden wasn’t sure how he was going to look the man in the eye, knowing he could possibly heal him, and he was sitting on it.

After only ten minutes or so, Cat and Erik came wandering up. Erik was wearing school robes like Caeden, and Cat had on tight-fitting black jeans and a black t-shirt with a skull on the front. Erik also had streams of smoke drifting from his robes. Caeden sighed. He knew something would have happened; it was Erik, after all.

“Why are you on fire?” He asked tiredly.

“Hey! I’m not on fire anymore.” Erik protested.

“Some guy bumped him into a stall selling smoked squid sticks. It had an open charcoal fire.” Cat rolled her eyes.

“Yup, sounds about right.” Caeden nodded.

“That’s Erik.” Lily laughed, clutching Snowball.

“Oh, they’re so cute!” Erik cried out, rushing over to coo over the babies with Lily.

“She’s been like this the whole time, hasn’t she?” Cat asked, coming to stand by Caeden.

“Oh yeah, the whole time. I don’t think it’ll stop soon, so be ready for that.” Caeden warned. Cat would be taking the brunt of this new side of Lily, being her roommate.

“Ehh, I’m sure she’ll mellow out given a bit of time. It’s new to her now, but she’ll get used to them and act more normal.” Cat shrugged.

“Speaking from experience?”

“A bit. I had an actual cat when I was little.” Cat nodded.

“We should go inside!” Erik pulled away from the animal appreciation bubble that surrounded Lily. “You two have to meet Unc; he’s great!”

Over the three weeks on the War God, Erik had tagged along with Caeden to visit his uncle several times, and they had hit it off. Caeden had to admit that on some level, Erik was just as invested in healing Unc as he was. Erik’s drive to be a doctor didn’t come up very often, but he deeply cared about helping others, which extended to Caeden’s uncle.

Doing his best to mentally prepare himself, Caeden led the way into the building. The inside was just as unadorned as the outside, with a small reception area and a few doors leading deeper into the building. Everything was wood paneling over stone. It had a homey feel to it that Caeden liked.

A short man at the reception desk simply gave them directions to Unc’s room once Caeden told them who he was here to see. Then it was a quick walk through a couple of hallways of more wood paneling, and they were there. Caeden took a deep breath before knocking on the door. It was almost midday, so Caeden was pretty sure Unc would be awake.

“Yeah, come on in!” His bass voice called through the door. Caeden opened it. His uncle was reclining in a hospital bed much like the one he had occupied on the War God, wrapped up in blankets. His bandages were gone, revealing a mass of burned scar tissue on the left side of his face, his eye socket empty. His arms ended in masses of scar tissue that didn’t bear even a passing resemblance to hands, the distinct fingers either fused together or missing.

“Hey, Unc. I brought some friends to meet you.” Caeden did his best to act normally, but seeing the injuries fully exposed was bringing on something close to a panic attack. Caeden felt his thoughts melting down into a pit of screaming and confusion. Self-accusations competed with his own mind pleading for him to just turn and evolve Erik’s shroud. He was right there. Unc could be healed before anyone could even think to stop them. It would be so easy. He could just…

“Ahh, kiddo, it's good to see you. I was wondering if school would give you time to come see me. I’m glad you made some more friends. Say, both of you are a pretty sort. Do either of you think you could do me a favor and hook up with this big lug? I know he’s a bit rough around the edges, but I promise he’s worth it. How about it?” A wide smile split Unc’s face as he started asking Caeden’s friends to date him.

Annoyance snapped Caeeden’s mind back into focus. “Oh my shroud, Unc. Seriously, please stop. Every girl that we meet is not going to date me.” This was a common thing from back in the day. When Caeden had been around thirteen or so, Unc had started trying to play matchmaker with all of his friend’s kids.

“Oh, come on, you don’t know until you try. You’re so shy; I have to step in.” Unc kept the shit-eating grin while everyone else suppressed their laughter.

“I’m not shy! Stop acting like I’m a recluse or something.” Caeden protested.

“Um,” Cat jumped in, “Sorry, but didn't you tell us you’d never been on a date and spent all your time working in a forge outside your village? Isn’t that a recluse?” Her smile was a complete match for Uncs.

“Not helping!” Caeden pointed an accusatory finger, “Don’t encourage him. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Cat just crossed her arms, not even attempting to look apologetic.

“She has a point,” Lily added, giggling even as she spoke, “You have been pretty much a recluse for your whole adult life. It’s a fair assessment.”

“Not you too!” Caeden protested. He hadn’t come here to get ganged up on, “He’s trying to get one of you two to date me anyway. Why are you taking his side?!”

“Hey, this has nothing to do with that.” Cat jumped in, “We were talking about you being a recluse who’s shy with women.”

“No, we were not,” Caeden stated flatly.

“Well, I don’t know what conversation you were listening to, Buuuut-” Erik started to join in on the ‘make fun of Caeden’ party when an ether light by his head suddenly burst, sending shards of crystal across the room.

Happy at Erik’s weird luck for once, Caeden took the opportunity to shift the conversation. He had things he needed to say. “Unc, I have something I need to tell you.”

Everyone turned to look at Caeden. His friends had varying levels of concern in their expressions, while his uncle just looked curious.

“What is it?” Unc prompted after Caeden didn’t speak for several seconds.

“I-We found out some things, and I might be able to, or we might be able to-” Caeden kept stumbling over himself, not even sure what he was going to say.

“Stop. I don’t want anything to do with it.” Unc cut through Caeden’s babbling. His smile had shifted to absolute seriousness.

“What?! But you haven’t even heard what I’m talking about!” He couldn’t understand why his uncle would immediately shut him down.

“I’m not an idiot, kid.” Unc shook his head. “If you’re bringing it up to me, I’m betting it's got to do with all this.” He waved around one of his arm stumps. “So I don’t want to know.”

“That’s insane!” Caeden shouted, getting genuinely angry, “We could-”

“SHUT UP!” Unc yelled back, his own voice drowning out Caeden’s. He let out a sigh. “Caeden, I’ve known you since you were a baby. If you had a way to fix me and haven’t already done it yet, you must have some compelling reasons not to. I believe in your judgment. You were a smart kid, and you’ve grown into a smart man. Honestly, I don’t want to know about it if it’s something you can’t do, and I certainly don’t want to know if it’s something you shouldn’t do. The only reason you’re bringing it up is because you feel guilty, right?”

Caeden reluctantly nodded.

“That’s what I thought. Same old Caeden.” Unc shook his head, chuckling softly. “You need to let it go. I’m fine. Figure out a better option, one we both could live with, and get back to me. Sound good?”

Caeden nodded again.

“Great! Now, I want to know more about all of you. Why don’t you all tell me about your school.” Unc smiled, looking genuinely content.

The guilt in Caeden’s heart lessened, just a little.