Following Jumble out into the hallway proves that I misunderstood what the sounds were. The construct isn’t sheared in half–it’s ‘skin’ hovers around it like a peeled orange. I wince and look away at the sight of far too many organs and bones than I’m comfortable seeing, only to see Euro facing the corner with a book raised to their face. Honestly, I don’t blame them.

  “Found the peeler’s anomaly?” I half-ask, half state as Jumble walls up to the construct and drapes the fabric over its… skin-peel like a towel rack. “How’d that happen?”

  Jumble bats at the dangling fabric with one hand. “One side of this is silky smooth, and the other side is smoothie silk.”

  “...You’re messing with me.”

  “No, I’m not!” Jumble huffs. “Here, feel it for yourself.”

  She grabs my hand and forces the fabric between my fingers. I reluctantly rub it, fully expecting to feel no difference whatsoever, but… it’s… hrm. One half feels like silk, just like all the other fabric I felt. The other, though, it’s just… not the same. My fingers glide across it without any trouble, but it feels like they’re gliding along… backwards. Almost like the fabric is pulling me instead of me running my fingers along it.

  “They feel like opposites.” I murmur. “But they’re exactly the same fibers.”

  Jumble nods with a smug smile. “Silky smooth for the normal side, and smoothie silk for the other. Because it’s the words reversed.”

  Ah. That’s what she meant. I take my hand away and study the body a little closer, then pull out my Class Card to see what pun the quest came up with for this one.

  Key Information Found: Two-Way Fabric

  This information is quite ap-peel-ing

  Use it carefully.

  “That’s the worst one yet. By far.” I groan.

  “Mmhm. Almost makes me look forward to what the last one is going to be.” Jumble grins, then pats the construct’s peeled shoulder. “Our friend here is almost done suffering. Oh, and Euro is actually listening to us this time. So try not to get too visceral with your descriptions.”

  “Please and thank you.” Euro squeaks.

  Might be hard to stay pg-13 with an actual horror movie kill standing a few inches away. I shoot the construct a glace, shake my head, and look away to the best of my abilities. Which isn’t that great thanks to my awareness constantly projecting the image into my brain.

  “I’ll try. How much did you see of what I was testing out?”

  Jumble shrugs. “All the responses. How’d you get on the idea of a murderer anyway?”

  “The half-dead body I phased in under the bed.”

  “The… what?” Jumble asks in disbelief.

  It’s my turn to shrug. “I’ll show you when we’re done here. Time to compound the injuries?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, yeah.” Jumble looks down at her Class Card with a frown. “There’s a body in the bedroom? Why didn’t we see it?”

  “I moved a chest and stood there to phase it in. Unless you did exactly that, you wouldn’t have found it, so don’t beat yourself up about it.” I pat her shoulder reassuringly. “It was right above where the tank was, too, so we’ll have to check for something right under the one that was above us.”

  Jumble nods. “Okay. I’ll… get ready for that. Time to back up.”

  I take my hand away and step back until I’m almost completely in the hallway. Jumble taps her hand to each of the tanks, pulls them into her inventory, and joins me moments later. That same damn wriggling thought resurfaces again–something about the way she put those things into her inventory is just not sitting right with me. Is it because of how easy it is? Or… wait…

  The construct reacts as Jumble feeds it the anomalous messages, but I barely register the thing staggering away as the injuries pile up. Two realizations hit me at once; Jumble shouldn't have possession of the corpses. Which means she shouldn’t be able to put them in her inventory, yet she did right in front of me without a second thought. But the second realization is somehow… worse.

  Because my inventory is still greyed out.

  And Jumble didn’t know about subquests before this.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  I slowly turn to sneak a glance at her. She stares ahead at the construct, completely oblivious of my newfound suspicion. With a flick of her eyes she notices, smiles bashfully, and makes a show of looking away. There’s no damn maliciousness in there. Not like when she realized I was reading the book. But… why? Shouldn’t this be just as equal for suspicion… wait… no. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way.

  Jumble knew that me finding out about her and her party’s real identities would be a huge deal. What if she doesn’t think this is important at all? I have absolutely no goddamn idea how that could be, but… well… she isn’t even reacting. Do I have to ask her about this? Shit, if I want to be able to trust her, I do. She starts to walk over to a thoroughly battered construct, the notification of its suffering fresh in both of our Class Cards, but an insistent hand on her shoulder stops her.

  She raises an eyebrow and turns to face me. “Something up? Can I help?”

  …Damn it, why’d that have to be the first thing out of her mouth. I clear my throat, thoughts clicking together like gears in my head, but my mouth opens before I come up with something that has a good chance of stealthily smoothing this over.

  “Can I… take a look at your map?” I ask awkwardly. If she says no, or refuses to hand over her Class Card, or gets defensive… then I have my proof.

  Jumble tilts her head to the side. She swipes on her Class Card, turns it around, and hands it to me. I blink in surprise, her eyes so absolutely absent of any kind of worry or deceit that it’s… unsettling. She must’ve found some way to replicate the quest greying things out. There’s no other way she’d just hand me her… Class… Card.

  An un-greyed map stares up at me. It’s unbelievably detailed, with a bunch of paindne letters and symbols decorating it like an amusement park’s map. Not like mine, which barely has colours for our towers’ area of effect. There’s an arrow pointing off in the distance, too, in the direction of our tower. Wonder how long that’s been there.

  “Finding what you were looking for?” She asks innocently, as if she didn’t just hand me the most confusing piece of evidence I’ve ever seen. “Tell me when you’re done so we can get back to the important stuff. U-unless what you’re doing is really important, I mean, in which case… um… sorry?”

  I slowly blink and swipe through Jumble’s Class Card. Inventory. Map. Stats. Skills. Spells. Everything’s right there. The only things I can’t find are the exact numbers for her stats, Worth, and clearance. Because they’re all showing as five, which is definitely flat-out wrong. Jumble stares right into my eyes, absolutely oblivious to the confusion her one little gesture just stabbed into my heart.

  “Um… Shelby… are you okay? You’re looking pretty pale.” Jumble leans in, her eyes full of worry. “Is it something on my map? Can I explain anything for you?”

  “...Yeah, you can.” I say slowly and hand her back the card. Pearl’s completely stunned into silence, her mouth hanging agape at whatever she saw. “Jumble… are you working with the quest?”

  Jumble’s expression twists into pure, unfettered disgust. “What? No! I’d never work with the system or anything it made!”

  That’s the answer I was hoping for, delivered exactly like I was hoping for. So why don’t I feel relieved? I swallow hard and glance over at Euro who turned to watch our little discussion at some point.

  “I’m not sure you want Euro to hear what I’m about to ask.” I say slowly.

  Jumble frowns. “Why not? You already know what bothers them, so just avoid saying those specific things. Unless… oh. Did I do something suspicious again?”

  I nod slowly.

  “Dang it, I thought I was doing well.” She sighs, then turns to Euro with a smile. “We’re going to talk about stuff you don’t want to hear. Do you want the…?”

  Euro nods vigorously. “Yes, please.”

  Jumble walks over to them, places her hands on Euro’s ears, then walks back over to me as Euro buries their nose in the book again. The vibe doesn’t change at all, and Jumble just looks more… uncomfortable than revealed. Whatever’s happening here is so goddamn confusing. If she’d just tell me the truth, then… shit. As long as I’m not telling her about Pearl, I have no right to press her about anything.

  Am I this willing to be a hypocrite? Especially in the face of someone that seems to genuinely want to be my friend? In front of someone with a Worth Class, who Noland would insist we recruit the moment I get back in contact with them? It’s… a massive risk I’m taking. Even after everything she’s told me, there’s still a chance she’s working with the horizonguard.

  …Would I be this cautious if Jumble was a human?

  I shake my head and put that unhelpful thought out of my mind. Jumble’s getting squirmier and less comfortable by the second, and we still have a quest to finish. Unless I can confirm what the hell she actually is, I’ll never be comfortable enough to show her my back again. So… here goes nothing, I guess. Time to rip off the bandage.

  Really hope I don’t end up having to kill her.

  “Jumble… your Class Card should be greyed out.”

  She freezes. Panic and realization reach her eyes for a split second, but with a steadying breath, it all leaves her. Her arms fall limply to her sides and she looks down, no longer willing to meet my gaze.

  “I knew something was wrong.” She whispers. “You acted like I was missing something, but I wasn’t clever enough to figure out what it was. And now I’ve completely shattered your trust–I can see it in your eyes.”

  I gently reach down and grab Jumble’s hands. She flinches, expecting me to hurt her, then slowly looks up in confusion when I don’t even squeeze hard enough to cause discomfort.

  “Shelby?”

  “Yeah?”

  Jumble swallows hard. “Do you… promise that you won’t freak out at what I’m about to tell you?”

  “Unless it’s world-shattering, I’ll do my best.” I assure her with a small smile. “I want to trust you, Jumble. One Worth Class to another. In fact, I’ve got something I want to tell you, too. The shell–”

  “I’m the author!” Jumble blurts out.

  I frown. “Author? What are you–”

  …Oh. The book. The one that kicked all of this off. Surely she can’t mean… no. That’d make her… no.

  “Just of that one book, right? Not the…”

  Jumble nods solemnly, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. “I wrote every single one of them. Since the series started a few years after my uplifting.”