Seeing his own body slumping over onto the stone floor like a puppet with cut strings joined the list of Riordan’s recent surreal experiences. Distantly, he could feel his cheek pressed against the cold, hard surface, even as his senses told him he was standing next to himself as well. Before that combination could become distressing to the point of overwhelming him, Frankie’s voice cut through his distraction and grounded him.

“Call your animal to you, as if you were partially shifting. Let it become your armor and sword in this place.”

Riordan’s honey badger responded to his call eagerly, unrestricted by the limiter. He realized that was because his animal was already inside his soul, an essential part of his true self. White streaked his hair, his eyes turned black and his teeth sharp. A sense of toughness wrapped him, distancing Riordan from the pressures of the spiritual state.

Frankie stepped out before him, black eyed and cloaked in feathers. Her tattoos glowed blue on her body and on the wings that sprouted from her back. Her clothing didn’t match what she currently wore. Instead, it looked like layered leather clothing covered in strange paintings and beadwork. A hood covered her head, leaving her face in shadow.

Glancing over his shoulder, Riordan could see Daniel staring straight at the pair of them, mouth gaping wide open. The ghost had been patiently absorbing Frankie’s lectures right alongside Riordan from his place outside the circle. Now he had something extra to see compared to a regular witness. It reassured him that he could be seen by Daniel in this state. Indeed, he wondered if other interaction became possible. He’d certainly wanted to both hug and smack his friend in their short time together already.

“So,” Riordan asked Daniel, spreading his arms out and doing a little spin. His voice sounded odd around his sharp teeth. “How do I look?”

“Badass,” Daniel replied immediately. “Like, I wouldn’t want to fight you anyway, but now you look… magical and fierce. You look like you are wearing modern tactical gear made out of leather and fur. It hides the weirdness on your chest. Well, aside from the glowing string sticking out, but that’s better than a random bunch of plants and a starry void.”

Riordan looked down and sure enough, his strange new clothes covered the patch on his soul. Interestingly, the rope that bound his left arm was still visible, wrapping up and over his sleeves. He assumed that was because the first effect was internal to his soul and the second external.

“Can he see you?” Frankie asked, curiosity showing through her professional demeanor.

“Yeah,” Riordan looked from Daniel to Frankie and back. “He can see and hear both of us.”

“Hmm, interesting,” the shaman muttered, rubbing her chin in thought. She pulled herself out of her ponders to point towards the gateway still open next to them, “Let’s test if you can use this.”

The gateway looked a bit different now. It was still a void spinning slowly in the air, its edges rough and shifting. However, he could now see glimpses of something inside it, more than just the guide cord from Frankie’s key. The traces floated and glowed sort of like stars and galaxies and nebulae, but they moved in and out of sight and they weren’t made up of stars. When he peered closely enough, he’d see glowing shapes at the heart of the odd lights, sort of like the tree of light form of the tree spirit. He wondered if he was seeing some of the manifestations or spirits near the location of the gate.

Riordan approached the gateway carefully. It felt like a subtle magical sinkhole. A construct like this usually took a ton of magic and glowed like a beacon, yet the gateway seemed to be dumping its magic use into the spirit realm, or perhaps drawing from there, given that the spirit realm was dense with magical energy. He wondered if the little holes in between the realms had something to do with the flow of magic in and out of the world. It was more than he felt like truly contemplating at the moment, even if he was trying to distract himself from the terror of stepping into that void.

The closer he came to it, the tighter his chest felt, anxiety building up and threatening to overwhelm him. Riordan knew he had trauma related to spirit magic, but this degree of anxiety was ridiculous. He could do this. He pushed past that tightness and tried to enter the gateway.

The starry void inside his chest spun outward and swallowed him like an octopus ambush.

Riordan appeared in the very familiar glade, standing in the center of his meditation circle there. He looked down at himself, seeing the last tendrils of shadow suck back under his clothes.

“What the fuck?” he muttered.

“Hell!” a louder voice next to him exclaimed and Riordan spun to stare at Frankie. The shaman was still in her bird-mantled form and she looked absolutely pissed as she turned to glare right at him.

Seeing her reminded Riordan to check his own form. His merge with his badger had wavered but not broken completely, leaving him dressed in a leather tunic and pants over his regular clothing. He called on his badger, letting that toughness and determination fill him. His manifestation returned to the warrior version and Riordan straightened, feeling more confident even if he was still confused.

Frankie poked a hand at his chest, though she held off on actually touching him. “That is a gateway. You have a gateway to this place embedded in your soul.”

Riordan winced. “I take it that’s not good?”

Flapping her wings, Frankie turned away from him to survey the glade instead. “It’s stupid rare, but not unheard of. It also means that we better make damn sure that the death mage doesn’t get her hands on you.”

A thrill of fear ran through Riordan. What new bullshit had he triggered now? “Why?” he asked.

The shaman gestured around them. “Side effects or not, you shielded this place well. I’d say that the only way in and out of here currently is through you. Especially with this.” Frankie stomped her foot on one of the colored stones that made the meditation labyrinth to indicate what she was talking about. “This looks pretty, but it also serves as a real maze, capable of trapping uninvited souls.”

She spun back towards Riordan and shook her finger at him. “You must learn to open the gateway from this side.”

Riordan threw his own hands in the air at the request. “How?! I have no fucking clue what I’m doing!”

Motion drew their attention to the hedges surrounding the space. Duane stepped out of the hidden pathway, taking in Riordan and Frankie with a deepening frown. His voice rumbled dangerously as he spoke, “Riordan? Everything okay here?”

With a sigh, Riordan ran a hand over his face and let his tension drain. He also dialed back his badger manifestation, feeling both relatively safe and sympathetic towards Duane’s overtaxed ability to accept new magic shit. “Yeah, Duane. Sorry for this.” Riordan waved a hand at Frankie. “This is Frankie, the shaman for the Sleeping Bear Pack. She’s been kindly showing me a few tricks to help with magic in this place. Frankie, this is Duane, pack leader of, I guess, the Killing Tree Pack.”

Duane was clearly startled to be introduced in such a manner. Frankie meanwhile gave the ghost a small respectful nod and formally stated, “I apologize for the intrusion, Pack Leader Duane. We won’t bother you long. I am instructing Shaman Riordan on how to enter and exit the spirit realm on purpose.”

That made Duane laugh, his tension ratcheting down though he had never fully relaxed in the time Riordan had known him and still didn't now. “I guess that explains the yelling. Riordan has a way of accomplishing things in the messiest manner possible.”

“But I do accomplish them,” Riordan countered.

“Yeah, you do.”

Riordan hadn’t expected Duane to back him as easily as that. He blinked at the big bear of a man who just shrugged in return. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far without your help, Riordan,” Duane stated, “I’d still be back in that goop, getting bound tighter and tighter whenever my focus slipped. Yeah, magic makes me uncomfortable. I was always taught that magic was either not real or the work of the devil. Clearly it’s not that simple, but I don’t think I’ll ever like it. Still, I might not get what you do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it.”

Duane said all of that like it was just facts, but Riordan felt shaken again. This is what he’d wanted from a pack, to be useful and appreciated, and he hadn’t even noticed that he had it. This pack was highly unconventional, but Riordan couldn’t deny it was real. He hated the idea of acting as a shaman. That acceptance made it all worth it.

“Thanks,” Riordan got out, voice thick. He cleared his throat and turned back to Frankie, trying to get his stupid unstable emotions back under control. “We should continue our lesson.”

“Alright, alright,” Duane waved that off, not looking fooled in the least. He turned and headed back the way he’d come from, saying, “I’ll leave you to it. Yell if you need anything and please don’t set the forest on fire or something.”

They waited a minute after he departed before Frankie turned back to Riordan, a satisfied look on her face. “That’s a proper pack leader. I didn’t expect it, but I’m glad for you.”

Not sure what to say to that, Riordan shrugged. “We got lucky. I pulled him in early because he looked kind and stubborn and it turns out that was what we needed.”

Frankie burst out laughing, hands on her hips. “Gods, yes. Those are the best traits for a pack leader. You might not think the best of Vera right now, but she would strip the shirt from her back and bully her pack into wearing it if they looked cold.”

She refocused her attention on Riordan, eyes glowing under her hood as she studied him. “As for the gateway, you are acting as a key for it. As such, you could use raw intention to open it, but don’t do that. Try the hand motions I showed you first.”

“Can you walk me through it again?” Riordan asked, trying to get his mind and body ready to try this. He was honestly scared of the idea of opening a void from inside him to swallow them both. It was horror story shit on the surface, no matter how useful.

Fortunately, Frankie was patient. She walked Riordan through the hand motions a few times without trying to put intention behind it and then had him try for real. On his second try, he felt the tendrils unfurling from inside his chest with each motion and lost his focus. The gate withdrew. Riordan took a few deep breaths and tried again, more prepared for the sensation this time.

The shadow tendrils reached out from him in the impression of a badger, or maybe bear, covered in trees. He was glad he’d seen Frankie’s key look like a bird already or he would have lost another attempt. As it was, opening the gate drew from his well and Riordan knew he only had a few more tries before he would have no choice but to rest.

With the last hand motion, the badger sprang into rapid motion, whipping around and encircling both Riordan and Frankie. Shadows swallowed them, squeezing Riordan like he was being sucked through a straw. Then the sensation passed and he was back in Frankie’s work room with the shaman at his side. Frankie’s gate still stood open nearby.

“Well,” Riordan said firmly. “That was terrible. Let’s not do that again.”

From outside the circle, Daniel peered at them, curious and nervous. “Is everything okay?”

This time, Frankie reacted to his voice, spinning to stare at Daniel. The ghost jumped back, startled to suddenly have her attention. Her tattoos glowed brighter and her wings spread menacingly. Daniel held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and shot a desperate glance at Riordan for help.

“Don’t threaten my pack mate,” Riordan growled, feeling particularly protective of his ghost pack at that moment.

“I can’t see ghosts,” Frankie complained, still staring straight at Daniel. “Seeing ghosts requires death magic or the assistance of a spirit.”

“You saw Duane just fine in the glade,” Riordan countered. He didn’t feel comfortable with this, standing there dressed like some sort of spirit warrior with his body awkwardly laying on the ground next to him. “It’s probably just a side effect of going there.”

The look Frankie turned on him would have melted a lesser man out of existence. Riordan just couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. Weirdness wasn’t a good excuse for her to be rude to his friend. He glared right back at her, feeling his badger come closer to the surface as he bared his sharp teeth at her and snarled.

That was enough to bring Frankie out of her state and back to her normal grumpy self. She pointed firmly at where Riordan lay unconscious on the ground. “Get back in your body. Try not to cause more side effects. Side effects in spirit magic are something to be avoided. Get that through your thick skull.”

Okay, so she wasn’t entirely over it, but Riordan would take it. He waited for her to back down and head back to her own body, which he noted had remained comfortably seated instead of falling, before he contemplated how he would manage the re-entry himself. Exiting had been a matter of stepping forward and out. Therefore, he just needed to step back in. If anything, that motion was easier since it was so similar to the magical action required for shifting.

Riordan sank into his body, letting sensation return slowly. His badger separated from his human half, moving to curl up in the back of his soul, a constant source of comfort and strength. The arm he’d been laying on was all pins and needles from the awkward position. He sat up with a groan, stretching and shaking out his numb hand, and noticed both Frankie and Daniel watching him.

“What?” he asked.

“Is that ghost still there?” Frankie asked thinly in return. It appeared he’d overtaxed her patience.

Riordan glanced at Daniel and nodded. The shaman hummed thoughtfully, sweeping her gaze around the room but not appearing to see Daniel now. Frankie began packing up her supplies into the satchel as she gave him some final instructions. “When you next sleep, try exiting the spirit realm. See if it fails, wakes you, or lets you get real sleep.”

Riordan could hear the dismissal in her tone and rose with a nod. “I’ll do that. Thank you, Frankie.”

He exited the circle, gathering both his shoes and Daniel at the edge of the stone flooring, and made a retreat that hopefully didn’t look too rushed. Riordan felt Frankie’s gaze on him all the way out the door.