“Why?” Is all I can ask. After all, this witch just fought and tried to kill me. Why then, would she help me defeat her daughter?

  Hypna doesn’t answer at first. She stands, brushes the dust from her legs, and draws a long breath. When she passes her hand over her body, the torn cloth reknits into dark purple robes banded with gold-striped hems. A black witch’s hat forms above her hair, the cone sloping lazily to the left.

  “Because I can do this now.”

  “Uh…huh? That doesn’t answer my question—”

  “Your real question is why would I, the mother of your enemy, help you? Isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  She extends a hand. “Because right now, your goal is to invade my daughter’s mind and find out why she is the way she is. And you think Saegor is behind it. To that end, I can help you delve deeper—I want to know what made Tia turn into… what she is now.”

  I stare at the hand. “A monster, you mean.”

  I don’t mean to hurt the woman. I just want to see how she reacts when I say that. Rather than anger or protectiveness, Hypna merely grimaces.

  “Yes,” she acknowledges, her voice breaking slightly. “A monster.”

  The reaction seems genuine enough. And even though I shouldn’t trust this woman for any sane reason… I want to. And I have no idea why.

  So, I take her hand.

  And when I do, the scene around us changes. No longer do we stand in a crater—rather, red poppies kiss our ankles. Yellow fog snuggles against our legs from some of the flowers higher up on the hill, where the cottage now brims with a gathering: a trail of people, packmules, and whole caravans.

  The sun beams down from above.

  “What did you just do?” I ask.

  “Now that I know I’m in my daughter's mind, I can move us forward in her dreams. And change our appearance, our form, our being,” she says casually. By way of demonstration, she touches my chest once more. A circle of blue light extends from the black of my uniform and encovers my whole body, turning solid into phantom. I am a spectral once more—raising my hand allows me to peer through its transparency. The fog passes through me.

  I shake my head. “Alright. If this is a different memory, won’t your other self be here? A new memory version of you, I mean.”

  She hums thoughtfully. “Good thinking. Luckily for us though, she doesn’t realize what I know now: and thus, I can hide us from her.”

  So every time we jump into a new memory, we meet a new version of Hypna? My mind goes through the options.

  “What if we started recruiting the other versions of you in Thrae’s memories? Would that—”

  “Lets try not to do that,” she says, her face wincing at the thought. “My mere existence in this form is… strange enough to say the least. I don’t want to know what happens when other me’s awaken. Besides, we don’t want to cause a stir, nor waste too much time.”

  She looks off to the sky at that moment, eyes searching.

  My heartbeat quickens. “Why?”

  “Because ever since you entered Thraevirula’s mind, she has been searching for you in each and every memory. And if she finds you—if she finds us, then she has the advantage.”

  I scoff. “You’re the Witch of Dreams.”

  “And she would’ve inherited that name had she not… well, you know. Even though her dream magicks are not as developed as mine, we are in her own mindscape. Plus there’s the fact that I’m a mere remnant of my real self and—well, let’s just say that if she catches us, she’ll destroy us.”

  Shit. “But she’s never done that before—”

  “There’s a big difference: before she was trying to seduce you. Now, she just wants to murder you,” Hypna says, shaking her head. “When I went through your mind, I wasn’t even trying to hurt you. Imagine what it will be like when she does it now.”

  With that, before I can ask anything else, Hypna transforms into her spectral form and begins trudging uphill.

  I follow, watching the sky now with a keen, slightly fearful eye.

  …

  We pass through the cottage walls and find the memory version of Hypna standing by the window and sorting through a variety of potions. She finds one conical vial with a green liquid bubbling inside. Then, with a smile, the witch hands it to her customer through the window.

  “Thank ya Hypna,” the man says. “When I ran out of ya previous one, I started pissing again in bed.”

  “It's no trouble Beard, just come to me before it runs out next time. I always have those batches.”

  The man tosses her a silver coin and whistles off, making way for the customer.

  “You sold piss potions?” I whisper to Hypna.

  “I sold dream potions,” she says at a completely normal volume. I guess whatever my Hypna did allows for us to converse freely in front of this memory version of Hypna.

  I frown for a moment. “Do you remember any of this?”

  “Obviously not. My memories only go up to the part where you met me.”

  “Wait, so why can’t you just… I don’t know, delve into Thrae—sorry, Tia’s mind?”

  “Which one do you mean? My daughter or the witch who's actively searching for us?”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I turn to her. “They’re the same.”

  “No. They aren’t. My daughter is a young girl who likes catching bugs and feeding them to our frogs. If I tried going to her room right now and delving into her mind, there would be nothing there. She’s not a conceptual-remnant-thing, like me. She’s just a memory.”

  “And Thraevirula?”

  Her mouth tightens and she hesitates. “If we tried waiting for that monster to find us, she’d destroy us.”

  “But we’re already in her mindscape. Can’t you just do what you did to me earlier?”

  “If I tried doing anything on that scale, she’d find us immediately. I have to take it slow. Keep us discrete.” She turns to me and places a hand on my shoulder.

  “What?”

  “Try not to think about it too much. Trust me, the best thing we can do now is continue down this course: finding out what happened to her will help both of us. Understand?”

  Slowly, reluctantly, I nod. A plethora of other questions still itch at my throat, but I silence them and just bear witness to the memory.

  What else is there to do? Worrying endlessly won’t help.

  One foot in front of the other. Keep moving forward.

  So, we watch. We watch as the day folds away to night once more, as the procession of villagers and traders winds down till the last man.

  A hooded figure steps up to the window. “How much for a spare room?”

  The memory of Hypna sniffs. “This isn’t a tavern. I don’t offer rooms to anyone.”

  The man underneath flips the hood over and smiles at her. “What about for an old friend?”

  “Saegor! The Disciples didn’t tell me you were coming,” she notes. His smile dips. Hers does as well. “Did something happen?”

  “Yes. But we can talk about that in a bit—I apologize, but it's been a long journey.”

  “Of course. Come in.”

  …

  “Well, this memory looks pretty useless,” I comment. It's just the familiar scene of Hypna eating dinner with Saegor and Tia. Young Tia is practicing some of her magicks this time, summoning ladybugs to her fingertips. They cover her nails like polish and she shows them off to Saegor, demanding him to complement them. He obliges in a very over-the-top fashion.

  “No, this one is important,” Hypna says next to me. Her spectral form observes the memory with a calculating stare—as if anticipating a certain moment.

  “What do you know that I don’t?”

  “Nothing yet. But I’m able to parse out which memories are important when we jump around her mindscape—so this one stood out. Just keep watching.”

  This time, Hypna serves a coffee cake for dessert. The sweet aroma of it makes my stomach churn—I miss Alya’s cooking at the farm.

  That thought surprises me, given the fact that for ten years, I lived off of soot tea, berries, nuts, and monster meats.

  But I guess if you have something nice, even for a little bit, you tend to yearn for it.

  “Alright Tia,” memory Hypna says after they eat. “I think it's time for—”

  “Can Saegor put me to sleep?” Tia asks.

  Hypna looks surprised at first but then her expression melts into one of joyous heartache.

  I stiffen. That reminds me too much of my own mother—whenever I did anything to make her proud, like bargaining for extra flour from our scummy merchants, her eyes would light up and her face would hold a subtle sadness—a mixture of pride and fear that her son was growing up so quickly.

  “Of course,” Hypna says, breaking my trance. She nudges her head at Saegor and the young mancer scoops Tia up. We follow the two of them to Tia’s old bedroom; it is a cozy place with flowers on the windowsills and various spellbooks splayed across three wood-carved desks. Two yellow-patterned frogs hop on her lime green blankets.

  “Orthus! Morfus! Get off the bed!” she yells.

  They ribbit in protest.

  Saegor sets her down and snaps his fingers. A gust of wind springs the frogs off the bed and lobs them onto the windowsill.

  Tia beams at the mancer. “You have to teach me that one day.”

  “Focus on your other lessons first little witch.”

  “I can do all the stuff you told me already.”

  “Ohoho, alrighty then. Show me.”

  Tia closes her eyes and starts humming to herself. She rocks up and down on her feet, her red hair spilling over her drab brown clothes like wildfire skirting across mud.

  A small, black bug buzzes to her fingertips. Then, it flies to Saegor, its red, net-like eyes set on the mancer’s ear.

  It bites on the earlobe.

  Saegor snatches the thing between two of his fingers. He holds it up to the lamplight and observes it.

  “The flu?”

  “That was the best I could imbue the bug with—”

  “No, no little witch, you did very, very good.” He smiles at her before popping the bug in his mouth. She makes a disgusted reaction as he smiles. He laughs and picks her up, setting her in bed.

  “Yes I believe you are right. Maybe you have graduated from the basics. But remember, this is our little secret, alright? After all, we want to surprise your mother with your genius.”

  “He…” Hypna’s spectral form reaches out next to me. The shadows in the room seem to lengthen.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “He—I—I TRUSTED HIM!” she yells. The scene pauses. The lamplight dims. The whole cottage begins to quake.

  She turns to me, the purple in her eyes now glowing like wrathful stars.

  “I trusted him.”

  I gulp down my fear before pressing a hand to her shoulder. “Calm down. You said it yourself: we have to be discrete. Remember?”

  She glares at my hand, and for a moment, I fear she might cut it off. I believe she could with ease.

  But I hold strong.

  The room ceases its shaking. Her breathing slows. Her eyes dim.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “Better?”

  “No,” she says. Yet she pries my hand off gently and clasps it with her own for a moment. “But thank you.”

  “Before you… uh, restart the scene I guess, what exactly is he teaching her?” I ask, even though I can already piece together the answer.

  “Transduction magicks. Or, more simply, plague magicks.”

  Saegor Saegor Saegor. You lying bastard. You put her on this path in the first place. “Did you know he could do this?”

  “No.”

  My mind works quickly. Different pieces still need explaining though.

  “Then how would he have learned this? Or, as a matter of fact, why were you so close to Saegor? Who were the Disciples? The Entity? The enemies you were sent to kill?”

  She opens her mouth to answer. Pauses.

  Then, she looks to the ceiling.

  “We’re out of time. We need to move. To another memory. Now.”

  “What—” There comes a boom from the sky and the cottage begins to shake once more, the books falling over, the flower pots smashing, the frogs flopping to the ground.

  Hypna goes to the window and grips the sill tightly. The wood cracks.

  “She’s here, Raiten. Thraevirula has come to kill us.”