Finally, Damien gave Henry a single nod.

“I want to know, Henry,” Damien said. “I’m fed up with being in the dark. I’ve been feeling like my life is being taken away from me, and I’m going to take it back. If you really want us to become strong, you’re going to need to treat me like a partner instead of a tool.”

Henry’s shadowy form flickered.

“How do you know I won’t lie again?”

“That very question is exactly how I know,” Damien replied.

They watched eachother silently. Then, almost reluctantly, Henry gave the boy a single nod.

“Very well. If you are absolutely certain, then I will speak,” Henry said. He held up a hand. “But, not everything. There are two rules. First, I may omit anything I believe too dangerous to speak. I will not budge on this.”

“So long as that isn’t everything, fine,” Damien said. “What’s number two?”

“I will not tell you anything you do not ask. If you have not considered it, it will not bother you. The less you know, the safer you are. Furthermore, I may choose to limit certain questions to nightly meetings like what we are doing now.”

Damien’s eyes narrowed. However, Henry’s plain words showed that the creature was actually considering his requests.

“Fine,” Damien said. “I think that’s about as fair as I can get. But what’s the point of only speaking about some things at night? Are we somehow hidden?”

“In a way,” Henry said. “We are completely isolated from the rest of the world when we speak like this. It ensures our conversations will not be overheard.”

“Can’t someone read my mind later?”

“Unlikely. Mind reading is incredibly difficult, even among my kind. The only reason I can read your mind so easily is that I am inside it.”

“But they could overhear us speaking?” Damien asked, frowning. “How?”

“You are not as discrete as you think,” Henry said, chuckling. “And, if someone was to attempt to read your mind, it would be easier to overhear a conversation currently happening rather than a memory.”

“Fair enough,” Damien said.

“So, what do you want to know?” Henry asked, several of his eyes blinking.

“A lot. First, are there really other void creatures on the Mortal Plane?”

“Yes,” Henry said. “Five.”

“Are they going to try to kill me?”

“Some of them would. Others might not. Our purposes are different,” Henry said. “Either way, it would be very, very bad to meet them unprepared.”

“And how close is the nearest one?”

“Still a few hundred miles, last I checked.”

“Okay,” Damien said, ignoring the cold sweat forming on his back. He’d suspected that Henry had told the truth, but a small part of him had clung onto the hope the companion was lying. “How and when did they get here?”

“I don’t know when they got here,” Henry said. “As for how – we were told that our time was coming. Several of us were summoned by other humans, while others were able to find other pathways to the Mortal Plane that had previously been closed.”

“Told? By whom?”

“Next question,” Henry said without a moment of delay.

“Right,” Damien said, disappointed. “Did you somehow interfere with the summoning?”

“No. We were as surprised as you when humans started to reach into the void. It had never happened before.”

“I see,” Damien said. “So you have no knowledge of what changed my rune circle before I summoned you?”

Henry shook his head. “None whatsoever. What happened?”

“When I got some of my memories back, I saw tendrils of dark energy wipe away several lines on my rune circle. They’re what directed the magic to the void,” Damien said. “That means someone, maybe whoever spoke to you, was finding ways to get you on the Mortal Plane.”

“That is… disturbing,” Henry said. “We had no knowledge of this, and there is not much that happens on the Mortal Plane that I did not witness before my four thousand year journey.”

“Is it possible whoever spoke to you was the one that messed up my runes?” Damien asked.

“No. They are still within the Void,” Henry said firmly.

“So there’s someone else that had an interest in getting you on the Mortal Plane,” Damien said, pursing his lips. “Wonderful.”

Henry’s many mouths frowned as well. After a few moments, Damien shrugged.

“We’ll have to figure it out eventually, but I don’t think we’ve got anything to work with other than they used some form of magic with dark tendrils,” he said.

“Indeed. Anything else, then?”

Damien scratched his head. He’d had dozens of questions he wanted to ask Henry, but now that he actually had the opportunity to do so, he’d forgotten most of them. “Are you really getting changed by the part of my soul in you?”

“Yes,” Henry said. “I am.”

“Thank you for being honest,” Damien said. “I’ve got more, but my mind seems to have gone blank. I can’t think of anything else at the moment.”

“Good,” Henry replied. “I wanted to wait until you were done before I mentioned this. Your friend doesn’t have a companion.”

“What?”

“She’s got no companion. Not a living one, at least,” Henry said, sounding interested. “She’s using a manmade construct, but it doesn’t seem to be whole. It’s broken.”

“Manmade?” Damien asked, squinting at Henry. “How is that possible? You can’t use magic without a companion, and there’s no way to summon something that isn’t alive.”

“I don’t believe she used a summoning circle,” Henry said with a small shrug. “She’s got a magical item replacing her companion, and she’s using it to channel magic. With her limited magical energy, it’s possible she had no choice. Her call might have been too weak to even reach the Plane of Stars. Either way, I suspect she’ll be telling us tomorrow. She had no companion to recognize me, so I’m unsure of how much she’s going to remember or understand.”

“I guess we’ll see,” Damien agreed. Some of his questions had been answered, but a whole new fleet of them had risen up. “Until tomorrow.”

“Until tomorrow,” Henry agreed. He waved his hand and the darkness surrounding them crashed forth, enveloping them sending Damien back into a deep, dreamless sleep.