Noah barely even realized he’d been pulled back to Arbitage until he felt metal thump against his back. He groaned and slid out of the turret, staggering to his feet. Tim sent him a worried glance.

“You good there?”

“Been better. Got bonked pretty good. I’ll live.”

“If you’re sure.” Tim gave Noah a concerned frown.

Noah stumbled onto the lift and gave Tim a curt nod before it rattled away, lowering him to the ground. He didn’t remember much of his walk back home, but somehow, he made it. After several failed tries to shove an uncooperative key into its keyhole, Noah finally got his door open and lurched inside.

He locked the door behind him and flopped face first onto his bed, letting a pained groan into his pillow.

Seconds ticked by, agonizingly slow. At some point, they stretched into minutes and the minutes to hours. Noah kept his head in the darkness of his pillow, waiting the pain out. It finally started to lessen deep into the night, only completely fading away a while after that. Noah wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been. His sense for time was already bad, and it was worse when he couldn’t even think.

Noah shifted and wiped his eyes with a grimace. He blinked carefully, making sure the headache had actually completely vanished before he dared to swing his legs over the edge of the bed and sit upright.

I could have sworn that headache was worse than the other ones. What was that all about?

Noah plunged into his mindspace, and darkness swallowed his room. Runes flickered to life around him, and the Sunder rune rumbled above his head. Noah ignored it and cast his gaze out to the edges of his vision.

A large chunk of white burned in the darkness, far larger than any of the other soul wounds he’d taken. Noah’s eyes widened and he approached it warily. Much of the soul damage he’d taken previously had healed over, though he still had damage from the deaths to the Hellreaver – but this was new. It wasn’t as bad as it had been when he’d started seeing hallucinations of the normal monkeys everywhere, but it was far from great.

Why did I take so much damage? What happened differently? I don’t get it.

Noah ran through the fight in his mind, trying to see if something out of place had happened that set it apart from the first time he’d fought the Hellreaver. The only thing that came to mind was that, the first time, his body had been burnt to cinders and there was nothing left, while the second the Hellreaver had eaten him.

Even as the words mentally rose to his head, Noah cursed. “That bastard stole energy from my soul by eating me, didn’t it? If monsters get energy from kills too, it wouldn’t make sense for them not to get energy from me when I died. I’ve never lost any progress in my Runes, which means it’s got to come from my soul.”

That’s… an uncomfortable realization, actually. Does that mean I’m basically stealing monster’s souls to get stronger?

Eh. I’m over it. Shouldn’t have tried to kill me. Still, I want my damn soul back, Hellreaver. And I also need to make sure you don’t get any more snacks the next time we fight.

Noah let himself slip back into the real world. To his room, where Lee was sitting in his chair, rocked back on two of its legs and balanced precariously. She raised a hand.

“Hullo.”

Noah blinked. He rubbed his eyes, then bolted to his feet when Lee was still there. “What? How did you get in here?”

“Through the door. Under it, more accurately.”

Noah looked at the door. It was still locked, and the key was in his pocket. The gap at the bottom of the door couldn’t been more than half an inch tall.

“You fit through that?”

Lee held a hand up. Her fingers flattened and extended, turning paper thin and flopping around. She raised an eyebrow and her hand returned to normal. Noah’s eyes narrowed.

“Can all Skinwalkers do that?”

Lee shrugged. “No clue. I can, though. Does it matter?”

“Yes,” Noah replied testily. “It does. And I don’t believe you. You knew other things about Skinwalkers in general. You know, I didn’t really think about it much, but if Skinwalkers could just shift their forms into anything they wanted, there’s really no need to mimic people’s bodies. They wouldn’t even be called Skinwalkers, they’d be shapeshifters. Skinwalker implies you need the body, even if you have to consume it to replicate it.”

And, now that I can think a little more properly, how did you avoid getting tested by anyone checking for Skinwalkers on the way into the city?

Lee’s expression flattened. “My Shift Runes are all Greater quality. It’s very uncommon for Skinwalkers to have multiple Greater runes. Having six of them lets me essentially hold any shape I want to for an indefinite period of time. Eating the body helps me learn every single part of it perfectly, but it isn’t strictly needed with the strength of my runes. Most Skinwalkers would lose control of their bodies within a few minutes if they tried to do this.”

“Why didn’t you just say that?”

“Because you aren’t the only one with secrets to keep. I don’t know if Shift Runes are something humans can use, but do you realize what would happen to me if anyone found out I had them? I’d be hunted until I was dead. More Greater Runes means more chances to steal it from me when I die.”

Noah grimaced. Getting hunted down by a bunch of bloodthirsty animals was something he could relate to far more than he wanted. “That’s understandable. We’ve got our secrets. As long as you avoid killing anyone, then I don’t care.”

I’m still not convinced you’re even giving me half the story, but as long as you follow your word, I don’t care for the time being. I need allies, and it’s not like I’m being particularly upfront with my own secrets either.

“That was the deal, wasn’t it? No humans.”

“Or anything noticeable,” Noah said, looking down the bridge of his nose at Lee. She scoffed and nodded.

“I’m not an amateur.”

“Did you ever leave the Scorched Acres?”

“Well, no.”

“Then yes, you are an amateur.”

Lee rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Whatever. Not all of us get to get themselves killed over and over without any recourse. So, when do I get my new clothes?”

“Do you see how the sun isn’t out yet? Nobody is awake yet. The stores are closed.”

“Seriously?” Lee picked at her baggy shirt in distaste. “It’s perfectly good out. Nice and dark. Not too hot. Why would anyone choose to want to be outside in the hot sunlight voluntarily?”

“Because things like you are roaming around at night.”

Lee snickered. “Good answer. What do we do, then? I’m already bored. There wasn’t anything interesting in your room.”

“How long have you been in here? Were you watching me sleep?” Noah asked.

“No. I was watching you roll around with your head in a pillow. I don’t think you were doing much sleeping.”

Noah nearly laughed, but he stopped himself. The one thing he didn’t need to do was encourage Lee to be even more sarcastic.

“How old are you, Lee? You seem like a teenager.”

“I’ve been living in the Scorced Acres for about sixteen years, and it took me about four years to properly form a body. So… twenty, I guess.”

“Just a little older than Todd and Isabel, huh? Interesting. Good timing. Maybe you should be a student rather than a teacher.”

“As if you could teach me anything about Runes. I don’t use them like humans do, remember? I’ll have a lot more fun beating you up.”

Noah grunted. His sleep was well and ruined, so he rose from his bed and grabbed a jacket, slinging it over his shoulders and adjusting the nametag above his breast so that it was squared. He headed over to his bathroom and Lee followed behind him.

“Do you know anything about Master Runes?” Noah asked as he stood in front of the mirror, trying to untangle his long hair. Lee peered curiously over his shoulder. She grabbed the top of her head and stretched it out until it was twice as long, then stuck her tongue out.

Noah shuddered, and Lee let her head snap back to its normal shape. “This is the best thing in your room. It’s like a perfectly still lake. I love it.”

“It’s a mirror,” Noah said wearily. “Master Runes?”

“Right. You mean the Hellreaver’s?” Lee’s eyes rotated around in her head and she lengthened her legs until she was taller than Noah. “You look short from up here.”

“No, you’re just tall. Are you sure you’re twenty?”

Lee shrank back down and faked a yawn. “I don’t know much about the Hellreaver. Anything with a brain stays away from it. It’s always got that ring of fire following it around, though I’ve seen it disappear before.”

“The monkey?”

“No. The ring.”

Noah rubbed his chin. “It takes the ring of fire down? Why? I noticed it left gaps in the fire big enough to jump through, but I didn’t think it was intentional.”

Lee shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe as an invitation for things stupid enough to try to fight it, so you can deliver it a piping hot meal in its bed? I’ve seen it happen pretty often, though. Always from a safe distance, mind you. I don’t have a death wish.”

…that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, isn’t it? Is the Hellreaver literally using this link to my soul to do the equivalent of place a delivery order on a take out meal?

“And other monsters stay away from it as well? Was it mages, then?”

Lee shrugged once more. “Maybe? I don’t think so, though. Never saw anyone near it when the fire went down. Then again, I’m not sticking around it all the time. It’s not a very comfortable area.”

Noah finished messing with his hair and stepped back with a small frown. “The stupid thing is almost always sleeping from what I’ve seen. If it’s not fighting, why is it taking down the ring? Maybe because it ran out of energy in the rune? But if it’s got the ring running while it’s asleep, that doesn’t seem right.”

“Probably its passive effect. That would let it happen when it’s not paying attention.”

Noah paused. “Passive?”

Yeah. One of the main differences between normal Lesser and Greater Runes and Master Runes,” Lee corrected. “At least, kind of. Everyone wants one for themselves at some point, and they’re one of the few Runes that work on literally everything. Kill a monster with a Master Rune, now it’s yours. That’s how it works. It’s a much easier dream than getting a bunch of really powerful normally combined Runes, since there are a lot of Master runes sitting around that are more weird than powerful, while getting strong combined runes is almost impossible for the average person. They’re also completely unique, though they range in power a lot. Unique doesn’t always mean strong. Some Master Runes are borderline worthless, while others are obscenely strong.”

“And?” Noah gestured for Lee to continue.

“Well, Master Runes aren’t just fancy runes. That’s why they’ve got Master in the name. They’re the pinnacle of whatever concept they are, but they’re so powerful that things usually wrap back around and they get an inverse effect. When I asked my donators, they said that the inverse effect was called a passive.”

Noah drummed his fingers on the sink. The back of his neck prickled as one more piece slipped into the ever growing puzzle. “That’s it!”

Lee flinched at the sudden sound. Noah spun toward her, his eyes lighting up. She took a step back.

“What?”

“That’s what I was missing. The Hellreaver’s Master Rune is something to do with fire. Fire going out seems like a logical passive.”

“That’s… what I just said,” Lee said slowly. “You repeated what I said, but more excited.”

Yes, because you solved the biggest question I’ve had since arriving on this world. Sunder means to split apart. The opposite of Sunder is to bind. That’s why I keep coming back to life. I’m bound to the gourd that killed Vermil.

Noah couldn’t resist the urge to laugh. He doubled over, his body heaving as he laughed even harder, all while Lee watched him with an increasingly concerned expression.