If eyes could smile, Thrae’s would be grinning madly. After all, her mouth is more preoccupied with expelling this creature. The centipede’s legs scuttle into my throat. It pulls on my tongue, pinching it with sharp mandibles till pink turns bloody crimson.

  And Thrae’s very touch freezes me.

  If she could do this the entire time, then she must really hate me.

  I should’ve known better. In here…

  I never stood a chance.

  The creature goes limp. I open my eyes, not even realizing I had shut them. The creature is half-formed now, its lower body cut clean through. Then, it’s quartered, for a slash of blue Aether energy whizzes past us.

  Thraevirula growls and looks down, but Hypna is upon her in an instant. This time, she soars high above us and smashes down with an Aether sword made for a giant to wield. The colossal blade moves with such dizzying speed that it looks like a ring of blue fire in motion, splitting the world in half.

  Thrae raises her blade to block. In the next moment, she’s gone. For the blue aether sword bears down upon her and sends her form catapulting far, far away.

  No time to celebrate for me though.

  Not while the head of the centipede pulls itself down my gullet and I plummet to the world below.

  My body spins. My stomach gags and I vomit some spittle up. It actually halts the centipede’s head for a moment.

  But then it helps it.

  For the creature uses the slimy saliva and putrid, gritty vomit to slither down down down.

  And I swallow.

  My vision blackens. Nausea takes the reins.

  Then, lightness. A gentle caress—a motherly touch. I open my eyes and find Hypna carrying me in her arms, flying me towards the clouds. She drops me gently onto one of the larger nimbuses and my lightning keeps me afloat. I pop another amulet and feel a rush of energy course through my veins, my body, my lungs. I can only hope that my newly replenished angel dust will internally disintegrate that centipede.

  “Are you alright?” Hypna asks.

  “No,” I scowl, before kicking myself up. Don’t think about it. Move forward. She’ll be back soon enough. “We need to leave. We can’t win this.”

  Hypna hesitates for a moment, looking below at the cottage. Then, she sighs and gives me a nod.

  “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  “Well… what are you waiting for? Transport us.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  She grabs my arm. Nothing happens. No blinking shift into a new memory.

  “Don’t tell me that she’s—”

  “She’s stopping instantaneous transport, yes. But we can do it the hard way.”

  I frown. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like this way.”

  “Remember how I entered your mind?”

  Shit. “You need to grab her, don’t you?”

  Her mouth makes a thin line. “Any form of contact, for at least five seconds will be enough.”

  “You’re asking for a lot.”

  “I know. But you won’t have to do it alone,” she says. Hypna closes her eyes and touches a hand to her chest. Light spreads and makes her body spectral. She floats around me and touches that same hand to my back.

  Then, she fuses with my spine.

  Pain is an… unworthy descriptor. Sorrow is too melodramatic. Suffering a bit closer, but not quite it.

  For there is pleasure in the process as well.

  The pleasure of wings. Of energy and power and frightening might flowing, coalescing, converging, like rivers of magicks forming into one grand pool.

  Hypna and I scream in unison. Our voices mix. Our minds intermingle.

  Our souls transcommunicate.

  My spine cracks as her spectral form binds and weaves itself to me, Aether lights springing from my back like surgical threads.

  And when it is done, I keel over on the gray cloud, and note with absolute wonder, how my veins glow with blue and red energy.

  “We might not be able to beat her like this, Raiten. But we can at least reach her.”

  Hypna’s form is misty at my back. A ghostly visage, a phantom. The top half of her body is a sentinel guardian angel—her wings into my shoulder-blades. The thorned crown of Aether sparkles with crimson brambles of lightning. And it spins over my head, rather than hers.

  “What did you do?” I ask, breathless.

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I will try to undo any of her dream-specific magicks. You will have to be relentless though. Don’t give her space to breathe. No matter what Raiten. Do you understand?”

  No. I don’t understand. I haven’t understood anything for a while now.

  But I don’t really care.

  Because laughter is all my mouth can reply with. The joyous, free laughter of someone who was born into power, someone born into nobility, without strife, without heartache, without loss or grief.

  I laugh like a primordial newly aware of its own immortality.

  I turn my hand over and wriggle my fingers. Blue and red. Azure and crimson. Night and scarlet.

  The dimensional element of Aether, the foundation of magicks and movement—the element of force, of exterior.

  The nonexistent element of lightning, the envy of the clans, my sole dominion.

  Combined, I have become greater.

  “What’s so funny?” the witch asks.

  Not my witch though.

  Rather, it is the one that stands against me, hovering above an adjacent cloud, rat wings chittering, red eyes peering into mine.

  “Nothing,” I respond. “I’ve just missed this feeling.”

  She tilts her head. “And what feeling is that?”

  “Fun.”