After what seemed like a week of endless rain, the sky decided to give us a break.

From a raging storm, striking the house with droplets the size of rocks, the Drowning Rains weakened into a mellow drizzle. They fell around us, and it was in the silence of the shower and the ringing in my ears that I realized just how loud the storms had been. Lightning had plagued us over the past week—a legion of white cracks in the clouds, as if the sky were on the verge of shattering, accompanied by booms that shook the cottage’s tiled roof.

The experience was a constant in the Drowning Season. And after days of interrupted sleep, jerking away from lightning, and shouting over the rain, the absence of the storm now felt strange to me.

I wondered if this was what it felt like to be cured of deafness.

Every tiny sound felt alien to me again, as if I were hearing them for the first time. The brush of skin against cloth, the soft plips of droplets against puddles of water—the storm’s roar had swallowed them whole before. And now, while the clouds waited for the sky to turn them fat with rain again, the little sounds thrived.

I’d forgotten how pleasant the tiny things could be.

Reluctantly, I reached for my instrument. My bansuri. I’d tried playing a song to the storm already, but it was too fierce. Too angry. The music I made couldn’t reconcile with the harsh, whip-crack sound of thunder and storm. But now, in the slow, blanket-mellow of the hurricane’s calm, perhaps the clouds would listen.

The first notes of a song began to emerge from the bansuri I held to my lips. Soft, thin notes. Low as mist and mellow as sunset.

The sound came out like a coaxing hand, urging the water to move.

I tried doing as Vivian did. She’d stopped the raindrops and shaped them into weapons—bullets of water, capable of tearing through steel. But I had no need for a spell that powerful.

No, I just wanted to practice.

It didn’t seem like I would get the chance to, however. Just as the song began to take control of the water, I heard the tak of a walking cane approach me from behind. I glanced back to see the old woman in question, watching me with her beady eyes. She frowned at my bansuri.

“That instrument looks older than I do, boy,” she said. “Do you not play anything else?”

I blinked. Shrugged, “Never had the chance to.”

“Then take the one I’m about to offer you. My house has a lute—use it. Practice. Even instruments deserve rest, and I’m tired of hearing the sound of that flute.”

“It’s a bansuri.”

“Bah.”

Scoffing, Vivian tapped the ground with her cane and walked forward, taking a seat on a nearby chair. I gave her a look.

“You play the lute?”

“Long ago, before my fingers turned too stiff to handle the chords.”

At her words, Vivian turned her eyes to the world outside. She seemed distracted. Reminiscing, perhaps? She did that often, old as she was. It made me wonder just what kind of life she lived; what weight of history she had over her shoulders.

I glanced curiously at the bunched-up wrinkles on her face.

Did she become an immortal late? Now that I thought about it, her age was strange for the nature of her existence. She’d told me herself over the past week, over our lessons—immortals like us, we were immune to time. We did not age. We did not hunger. Once man turned immortal, he would live forever.

So why did it seem like she could die at any moment?

Vivian seemed to notice my stare. She frowned at me, “Whatever you’re thinking, boy, perish it. That look makes me want to hit you.”

I sighed, “I’m just wondering why you’re so grumpy all the time.”

“I’m old. Being upset is what old people do.”

“Even immortals?”

“Why do you think most of us hate each other?”

Well, it was nice to know that my contemporaries were all grumpy old men and women. I sighed. If old age was going to go and make me a pain in the ass to deal with, then I was better off just spending it asleep. At least that time was nicer spent than randomly kidnapping birds and getting into arguments with other immortals.

I leaned against the windowsill, resting my chin against the back of my hand. I gave the Hag a questioning look.

“Have you done the experiments I left you?”

Vivian scoffed, “I wouldn’t be up here otherwise. Same with you—have you been practicing your glamour?”

“With poor results.”

“Hm. Results are results. Show me.”

Releasing a breath, I nodded. My head still hurt from the practicing, but I was never one to complain about a little discomfort. Not when it meant improvement. Mother had beaten that childishness out of me long ago, and father had tempered it with discipline in the forge. I raised my hand, splaying my fingers out into the air, before curling them violently—clawing, raking at the invisible fabric of reality. I whispered with the sound of a thousand voices under my breath.

,̶̻͐̈'̴̟̰͋̑.̵̯͓̀.̴̩̓̆͝,̶̥̭͇̽̄̈́;̵̯̂̒̃.̵͚̞̾͊;̶̡̙̓̔͝ͅ'̷̹̂,̷̜͒;̵̨͛'̸̡̩̰͛̈͝.̵̩̅̄̆;̵̣͑̂'̶̧́̀ͅ.̶͙̳̙̋,̷̜͒;̵̨͛'̸̡̩̰͛̈͝.̷͙̈̃̆,̵͓̀̑;̷͕̭̤̈́̂̅'̶̹̩̆̀̅.̵͉̝̮̒͋͋.̶͉̫̊̃͌ͅ,̸͓͆̾̆,̶̹̲̓.̸̛̝͔͉͐̐,̸̥͙̕;̶͓͎̒̄̈́'̵̹͉̑͜;̷̧̗̫̉̈.̷̠͕̃͆̒,̶̗̗͛͜'̵̱̄̑̑'̷̪̊̾;̶̭̼͛̇͠.̷̰̥̱̽̀̒'̸͈͘,̷̱̈́̅'̸̝̫̈́͋.̷̢̍

Reality rippled. I grasped at the stray threads and pulled on frayed ends. I focused my mind on the in-between, bending the seen with the unseen, tracing the lines to cross the seams. I turned it into a mask, a visage, a weave. A piece of reality to alter what the world perceived.

I pulled the hood of my cloak over my head, and the shadows around my face darkened. They turned thick, like tar, masking my face from those near and far. Inside the blackness of my hood, the glow of two, silver eyes was all that remained. I felt the voice in my throat shift—sinking into murkiness. My voice became static; heard to those that listened to me speak, but forgotten by those who left my presence.

With it, I was no longer Rowan Kindlebright, who was invisible to the world. I was a stranger with a presence, but without a face—Nameless but not unseen.

A glamour.

Underneath the murk, I struggled to maintain the illusion. It was like bundling magnets into a ball. Pieces stuck where they weren’t supposed to stick, and all the ones that mattered threatened to push away, repelled by incompatible polarities. Repelling and attracting, ever-shifting, impossible to hold into a single whole.

My glamours only lasted for three minutes—that was the longest I could hold them for. And glamouring was only the first part. The easy part.

Because what came next was Naming. Creating an identity and binding it to a Rule.

And I did not have a Rule. My mind refused to accept one.

There was nothing the felt true to me, no absolute act that I could weave this entire glamour around. I had to ask myself the question: who was this stranger supposed to be? What was his Name? His purpose? His reason to be? Whoever this identity I wove around myself was, he didn’t want to just travel. He didn’t want to just be seen by mortals, but more. Something else.

But what?

I grit my teeth. A new Name was a separate identity—a set of desires, a second personality. An echo of myself that the world could acknowledge. And to do that, he needed a purpose. Something simple. Something profound. Something worthwhile. All the while, it had to be something that he agreed with.

I had no idea what purpose could possibly be all three.

The three minutes passed.

The weave unraveled. The shadows lightened. My hood fell away. The glow of my eyes dimmed. And I was no longer the unnamed stranger, but Rowan Kindlebright once more. A headache like a thousand little needles stabbed into my brain. I winced, taking a step back and propping myself up against the windowsill.

“As I said,” I muttered, groaning. “Poor results.”

Vivian shook her head, “To know your weave, you must know yourself. You are young, and children learn much about the world, but very little about themselves. That identity is a part of you—you just have to figure out which.”

I nodded, and the tiny movement sent spikes of ache ripping through my head. Suddenly nauseous, I brought my hand to my mouth and forced the vomit back down my throat. Bitter. Coarse.

Absolutely terrible.

I took another moment to collect myself.

At the very least, I didn’t puke myself like the first time. Little victories.

“It’s like having a second mind inside of my head,” I said, pale. I looked at my reflection on the window and glared, “But this second brain doesn’t like anything I suggest. He doesn’t want to find my parents, he doesn’t want to let people hear his songs, and he doesn’t want to travel the world. He doesn’t even want to get my Name back!”

The pain was one thing, but the frustration was worse. If this identity was a part of me, then why in the Ancestor’s shadow was I such a pain in the ass to deal with?

Vivian tapped her cane against the floor again. Tak, tak. Patient, but firm. “Then that’s three more desires you have that’s been crossed out. Think on it more. Suggest more. Practice, communicate, and create a Weave that you can agree with.”

I sighed. Controlling the wind with music was one thing, but sorcery truly was a rabbit hole of strangeness. Ancestors, I didn’t even know that it existed until I was turned into an immortal. Back there, there was only artificing and learned magic—sciences that took years of study to understand.

And yet, learning those two disciplines still seemed more achievable than this.

“I’ll try again in a couple minutes,” I said, shaking my head. My brain was throbbing. “My head might explode if I keep doing this without any breaks.”

“Hm. So be it. There’s no pressure when you have an entire eternity to figure it out, no?”

“It would be nicer to learn it before you take me home, though. I don’t want to check on father as some ghost.”

Waving her hand to the side, Vivian turned. She made for the stairs, down into her still-ruined workshop, and stopped only to glance at me, “In that case, pray you and your Weave can come to terms on a Rule. It’s still your own fault for being so disagreeable, hm?”

Ancestors, I hated it when people were right. I called out after Vivian.

“Vivian! Where did you say you kept that lute!?”

“Upstairs! And don’t shout in my house, boy! If you need something, you come and ask! Your lack of manners is why your Weave is so difficult to understand!”

How rude.

I stepped away from the seat and walked up the stairs. While the cottage itself was small, the rooms were definitely bigger than they looked. Another one of the Hag’s magics, I was sure. I wasn’t quite confident in estimating how much she was capable of, now. Once a person was immortal, their potential effectively became infinite, right? If so, how far had some people reached? How powerful?

It made me shudder to think of what the others out there were capable of. They were running the marathon at a sprint, while I was just the toddler hobbling out from the starting line.

If the Fae was any indication of what immortals were like in general, then I had a long way to run before I could stand beside them.

Still, I wouldn’t let that stop me from looking at the bright side of things.

Right now, my immunity to aging just meant that I could hone my skills for as long as I wanted. I could sing, I could play, I could travel—all of it. I could see the world and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to believe that I could do it in peace. And now, striding up the stairs, I was taking that first step.

I entered Vivian’s room.

It was a small space. A comfy bed was sidled up against the wall, and a set of vine flowers grew beside it, sprouting up from trellises beside the window. And there, at the foot of the bed, was a case made of dark leather, redwood, and silver clasps. On the places where the wood was maintained with varnish, I saw elaborate carvings of flowers and vines, filled in with gold paint. I grabbed it, blinking at the sight of the box.

Expensive, was my first impression. But above all that, it was a beautiful thing. And it was cared for. I could see it in the polish of the wood and the crispness of the leather. It was in the cleaned clasps and the slight signs of wear underneath them, suggesting the years of constant use that the case had seen.

I swallowed. Was it really okay for me to use this? It seemed like a treasured possession, more than anything else.

“Do you think she’ll kill me if I accidentally snap a string on the lute, Aami?” I asked, expecting the shoggoth to crawl out from the pocket where it usually slept, but no answer came. I blinked and checked inside my cloak. No Aami. And as I raised an eyebrow at it—I realized.

I hadn’t seen Venti either.

Not since morning. I frowned and stood, stepping out of the window to look outside. The house was stopped right now. Resting its legs by perching atop one of the taller, unsunk trees. My eyes scanned the forest for signs of them, but I saw only leaves and branches and rain outside.

Just what were those two doing right now?