Ceyda was surprised she didn’t instantly break her back and die. She lay on the stone floor, waiting for death to take her, but instead she was just in pain. The chains around her hands, legs and neck were starting to crumble, but her mouth remained sewn shut.

She sat up, and took a deep breath. In hindsight, there was one crucial flaw in her plan--she had assumed once she got Doc that everything would be solved from there. And it hadn’t been. It was so obvious in hindsight--of course they had some way of cutting Doc off from her--did she think she would just be able to touch the book and all would be well?

Ceyda lightly ran her hands along her neck and face. The blood coated her like a dry crusty film. Not knowing what else to do, she picked at it, peeling it away, wincing as her dull nails occasionally scraped against the multiple wounds Fontaine had left on her.

“Dsknhh,” Ceyda muttered. A light sparked to life, and was then dissipated and absorbed into the metallic string that bound her mouth.

Well. Fuck.

She was going to die here. She was going to be left alone and starve forever.

Ceyda rubbed her face, trying to remember where she was. The adrenaline was getting to her. They had been in the mansion, and then led into some sort of garden, which was an isolated, walled off little place. If she somehow got out of this garden she’d have to deal with the rest of the grounds, which was walled off as well.

The drop was problematic as well. She was far below ground, and a fall like that should have killed her. She stared at the bottom of the empty and wet well, and started to feel for some loose rocks. There was no shortage of black, smooth pebbles.

Ceyda coiled her arm back, and tossed the pebble up. It made it a few feet up in the air, before vanishing completely. She looked around wildly for the rock, but couldn’t see it in the dark. And then it landed with a dull plunk onto the well.

She attempted the throw again, shoved her broken glasses up to her good eye, and this time she saw the faint shadowy pebble rise to above the well, and then fall back down, completely missing the entire middle part of the well.

That was… strange. But it meant she might be able to jump out--if she still had her spells.

It had worked--the light spell. It just fizzled out very fast. So she just needed to. Have lightning fast reflexes! That would be easy, right?

She should wait until the morning. It would allow her to rest and regain energy, and also it would be daylight so she could see. Thinking rashly had led her to this entire situation--she should try being patient.

But what if they planned to execute her? Could they do that? Surely someone wouldn’t allow that? Laws existed, but they were mostly for the working class.

But what if she escaped now and was immediately hunted down? Her legs hurt, she hadn’t eaten in hours, and she was slowly going blind in one eye due to the swelling, and had broken glasses dangling limply on her neck.

As she was trying to figure out the logistics of escaping, her fingers became covered in thin paper cuts, only to disappear moments later, like it always did. Ceyda sighed through her nose, and started to scratch at her sewn mouth

At some point she stopped scratching. She blinked hazily. It had gotten lighter. The sun was rising. She must have fallen asleep. Hadn’t even dreamed of Esterath.

She had to try escaping now, it was dawn.

Ceyda muttered Dorskina’s name, and tried to jump, but to no avail. She rose a foot more than she should, before losing all momentum, and falling, rolling her ankle as she did.

“Fuck!” Ceyda swore, her lips grating against the metal string.

From the well hole at top, a blurry, indistinguishable figure stared down at her.

“Fontaine--you never deactivated the well!”

“It was late!”

“Sacred skies, what if she had gotten out?”

“She didn’t, did she?”

Ceyda frowned. Deactivate the well? What did that mean?

“Well, it’s off now!”

Oh no.

Ceyda lightly tossed a pebble upwards. It did not teleport across the well.

She had lost it.

Her opponents had made a mistake and she had taken it for granted and now it was gone.

Not knowing what else to do, she started to cry. It was very hard to do with her mouth sewn shut, but it was the only thing she could think to do. What if she forced her jaw open too hard and the string tore through her lips? Could that be mended? Surely if her heart had been ripped out, someone could handle her lips being torn? But of course, it was far easier for someone to hurt her than to do it herself. Did she even have the pain tolerance for something like that?

The thin metal string tugged against her lips, contorting her mouth unnaturally.

Something was being lowered into the well. A wooden bucket. She stared at it in confusion, hot tears and snot dripping down her face, until it hit the bottom with a dull thunk.

Inside the bucket was a wooden bowl with a gray greasy oatmeal, and a metal straw.

She glared up at the silhouette at the top of the well.

“That’s for you. To eat.” The man was making hand gestures she couldn’t make out, but she assumed it was miming eating.

She wanted to tip it over and be insolent, but she was starving. She grabbed the bowl and the straw, and placed it next to her. The bucket was rolled up, and removed from the well.

The oatmeal was cold and had a nauseous stench to it. Ceyda didn’t even know how to find gaps in her sewn mouth to--

Thud.

A wooden cover was placed on the well, and Ceyda was left in the dark.

She should have escaped immediately. She should have just left the moment she heard Fontaine walking away. She should have just kept trying to jump or shooting magical beams or literally anything. She could have done something!

Ceyda had never really felt humiliated before. She was aware of this as an emotion. Her mother had it all the time, but it was never really in Ceyda’s emotional range. Things just happened.

Opal bullying her… that had been close, she supposed. But that was also excluding her. It hurt as ostracism, it wasn’t necessarily humiliating.

But this?

This was humiliating.

At least the fish hook had been entirely her own fault.

With trembling hands, Ceyda stuck the straw in the bowl, and brought it to her mouth, trying to find a gap to wriggle it in. She winced as the metal straw finally clinked against her molars, as the largest gap was against the very corner of her mouth.

Getting suction was hard, but with some desperate practice, the food trickled into her mouth.

She forced herself to swallow the contents, but after two mouthfuls, she couldn’t bare to eat an longer. Ceyda placed the bowl on one side of the well, and then dragged herself to the other side, so she didn’t accidentally kick it over.

There was nothing left for her to do, except claw at her mouth or sob herself to sleep.

Ceyda took a deep breath and shut her eyes. She had to try and enter Esterath’s domain again. Her tongue weighed heavy in her mouth. Not just heavy--it was burning. Her entire back throat was burning.

What if. What if. What if the food was poisoned.

Her throat was growing inflamed.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit.

Well. She was dying now. This was it. Goodbye everyone. Please don’t let the rats eat her body.

As her throat enclosed entirely, she blinked, and everything disappeared.

She was surrounded by complete darkness. Ah. This was the underworld. This was the afterlife. She was dead.

Was this being dead? Darkness forever? Wow this sucked. She should have worshipped an avatar harder or something. Or maybe not have had so many toxic ruminations.

Wait.

As she squinted, her eyes started to adjust to the darkness. It was an incredibly dark room. She was lying down on a bed. Was she experiencing some sort of vision, like when someone had killed Reiner?

She tried to move, but couldn’t. Maybe she was dead. The walls were white concrete. What if her body was chopped up into pieces and fed to the foxes. There was a table to her side, filled with turned over boxes. Maybe she should have just cut her thumb off and seen what Thelloya offered. It was strange how visible the room was becoming--perhaps the eyes she was using had normal vision.

It was actually pretty comfortable, just being in this room. She could breathe all right, nothing was in pain, and the bed was comfortable. Would be nice if she could move her arms or legs so she could get a sense of who she was and why, but this was fine.

Oh gods. What if she was being born as someone else. Or what if she had bodysnatched someone? What if she was stuck in this body for the rest of her life? Why were there weird tiny lightbulbs in the corner of the rooms glowing a faint red? Who did that? Was she in some kind of evil lair?

Oh no. That thief had killed Reiner. And now she was in Reiner’s dead body who was entombed in some strange evil prison.

Or maybe Reiner had been resurrected. That sounded like a thing that could have happened based on everything Doc explained about magic. And this was like some sort of messy, cluttered, evil red light bulb looking resurrection tomb.

Or--or. What if this was Doc’s body? What if she was inside the Grimoire, and was seeing what the inside of it looked like?

Or she was dead and was becoming the new book, and in a thousand years she’d have to do a choosening for someone else and teach them magic, only she’d know nothing about magic and it would suck!

Or maybe--

Ceyda blinked again, and she was back in the well, with her black eye and hurt ankle.

Well, that was anticlimactic and explained absolutely nothing.

Her arm hurt. Like, hurt more than it did last time.

Her fingers were bleeding, and the scratch marks against her still sealed mouth were hot on her skin. More than that--her arm was bleeding as well.

Ceyda held her hand out, and tried to slur out Dorskina’s name.

A light flickered, just for a moment. Her arm was covered in blood. And so were the walls.

Holy shit, all right. She rubbed at her arm, sickened at the idea of finding the wound. Narrow horizontal slices across her wrist. Well. That was disturbing.

She raised her hand out again, and concentrated very hard. A small flickering light came into existence again. This time it lasted long enough for her to see her surroundings, before it was absorbed into the metal.

There was a symbol drawn in blood on the ground. Ceyda couldn’t tell what it meant, but there was a limp and lifeless snake at the center.

And on the wall, in large Lystratan lettering--

Stop dying & Give me my body back, u fuk

Strange how this person could spell every word except “you” and “fuck”. Perhaps they were pressed for time.

It was also very aggressive. Which meant it was quite possibly Reiner, the most aggressive sounding person she approximately knew.

What had Reiner done to cure her of what she could only assume was poisoned food? Sacrifice a garden snake? How did that work? How had it not been absorbed by Fontaine’s gag?

Maybe it had been her arm? Blood letting. That would probably be Haidolah, right? It sounded like a Haidolah thing (and perhaps Fontaine was also a Haidolan? Bloody chains? Maybe that’s why it worked? That didn’t make much sense but she couldn’t think of any other reason). The issue with that theory was that Reiner had been very against Haidolah’s instinct magic in the past. Reiner had called them the Avatar of Oppression and Slavery.

Thelloya maybe? Reiner had brought it up to the thief before. Mentioned “tatting up”. Was this tatting up? Was this what tatting up looked like, and Doc was wrong, there was no need to cut a finger off any more?

Or there was just, entirely separately, some freaky blood ritual magic that could cure her of poison, but could not, for some reason, remove the stitching on her mouth!

She ran her tongue against her teeth, and gagged at the taste. Her throat felt raw too. She summoned another light and saw that, sunken into the crevices of the stones, was vomit.

Well, that put some of the puzzle together. How did someone in her body induce vomiting, without removing the stitching? That must have been disgusting and exhausting. Ceyda was glad she wasn’t around to experience it.

Exposed skin on her leg itched. Ceyda blindly went to scratch it, only to find something alive and scaly coiling around her leg.

“Fuck!” Ceyda screamed, forcefully swiping whatever was on her leg off of it. She took the rest of the dress material she had and covered as much of her body as possible, and sent out another light.

The garden snake in the center of the ritual was not dead at all.

It was slowly curling in on itself, as opposed to being completely elongated when Ceyda first saw it.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly.

She started to say “I’ll stay on my side if you stay on your side” to the snake, until she remembered her lips were still stitched together.

The top to the well was removed. Light poured in for three seconds, and Ceyda flinched. An unfamiliar voice cursed, put the top back on, and started walking away.

“She’s still alive! You incompetent dumbasses!”

Ceyda couldn’t help but silently chuckle, albeit solely out of anxiety. They had tried to kill her, and no doubt would do it again, and the only thing keeping her safe was this strange body swapping spell that she had no idea how it happened or why.

“Well that makes no fucking sense, did she not eat the food?”

“Her mouth is still stitched up!”

“Well I’m not unstitching it up if that’s what you’re asking for. Besides, I gave her a straw!”

“Her parents are coming any minute now, we can’t just hand her over!”

Oh. Oh boy. This was getting intense. But this was a good thing! She just had to survive the day! Her parents were annoyed with her often, yes, but they wouldn’t stand for her being dropped in a well with her mouth sewn up, even if she had tried to rob the Blanches.

The conversation died down as the mages walked further away.

Survive. She could do that. Besides, she had something on her side. The inexplicable ability to heal and switch bodies with Reiner.

She didn’t know the limits to such things, but it had gotten her this far!

The noises of the mages were getting louder.

Gabriel Blanche’s voice rung out.

“I have to do everything myself I swear!” he hissed, as the top to the well was removed yet again.

He pointed a small metal rod at Ceyda. Was it a wand? She knew some mages used wands, but Gabriel wasn’t a mage! Was he a mage? Could anyone use wands? She should have stolen wands!

“For the Blanche name and the Crown!” Gabriel invoked.

A long, thin, frozen icicle exploded out of the wand, and shot straight through Ceyda’s neck and spine. It was so fast, Ceyda didn’t have time to react, and didn’t have time to comprehend why she was still alive, pinned to the stone well.

She shut her eyes. In her own mind, she could see a brilliantly white room. In there, she was lying down, with bright blue liquid going through her--Reiner’s?-- body through tubes, much like the one in the Blanche basement.

With shaking hands, she gripped the icicle, and as it started to melt, she broke it, and collapsed to the ground.

Blood gushed out of her neck for mere seconds.

“...what in the ever loving fuck,” Gabriel muttered. He stared at Ceyda. Ceyda stared back.

She grinned at him, giving the most insulting, smug look she could, whilst being unable to speak.

“For the Blanche name and the King! For the Blanche name and the King! Fortheblanchenameandtheking!”

Ice javelins exploded out of the wand, piercing Ceyda through her skull, her chest, her stomach, and her shoulders.

Before she could react in pain, she was in the brilliant white room, and was screaming and flailing against her own will.

A woman in a pure white veil was pressing her down, barking orders. Individuals clad in white were scrambling, filling up bags with more bright blue liquid, being injected directly into her veins.

Ceyda blinked again, and she was back in the well, the icicles shattered, and her body whole.

“Shoot her again, aim for the eyes!” A mage suggested.

“I’m out of charges,” Gabriel muttered, dropping the wand unceremoniously to the ground. He squinted at Ceyda. “What sort of freakish pact have you made, chatelaine?”

Ceyda blinked a few times, and pointed to her mouth with her middle finger.

Gabriel took a deep breath, and turned to the mages. “I believe we have something we need to discuss”

The well was closed again.

Ceyda took a deep breath. Holy crap she had almost died! Holy crap she hadn’t! This was the worst most horrifying most adrenaline inducing thing she’d ever done and she didn’t even know how it was happening!

She had some time, she supposed. Before they decided a more effective way to kill her. She would have to think of a plan.

Some sort of plan.

But for now, she needed to talk to Reiner. One way or another.

She shut her eyes, and forcefully willed Esterath’s domain onto her.

After three more attempts, she landed in the clouds. The problem was that she was still surrounded by the well. Like Esterath had just plonked the well down onto her dream world.

In the dream world, however, she had perfect vision. And she could see the assortment of strange glowing symbols on the well. In the dream world they were practically blinding.

“I’m looking for Reiner,” Ceyda muttered. She could talk in the dream world, that was very nice. She felt her mouth and the strings stitched into her were still present. Huh. Weird. They could stretch and pull more, but they were there nonetheless.

She felt the well and her body for anything else strange, and then noticed, invisibly, a string tied around her neck. She tugged on it experimentally, and saw that it led out of the well, through the cracks.

She touched the crack, and found she could crawl through it with ease.

And on the other side, was the hollow frame of Reiner’s door. Damn.

She touched the frame. It was oddly warm, and rubbery, not wooden like she expected. Her heart yearned to step through it.

So she did, and found herself in the blinding white room.

The woman barking orders from before, clad in white, was there, talking to a shorter person dressed in all black, save for a gray bird shaped mask. Strange words she couldn’t understand. A different language.

The woman paused, mid sentence, and stared at Ceyda. Or Ceyda in Reiner’s body.

“Ceyda Lucrece of Bricketfriar, I assume?” she said. The words at first meant nothing to her, and suddenly, became clear Lystratan.

She removed her veil, revealing a wizened face, gray hair, and piercing yellow eyes.

Ceyda stared at her.

“Don’t be afraid. We’ve massaged the dreamscape gateways. You should have limited control over Reiner’s facilities,” she said.

Ceyda tried to talk, but found her mouth much too heavy, and her tongue much too large. Her vision was strange too--the depth was wonky, in a way she couldn't’ fully articulate. It had been like that before, but now she was the one controlling Reiner’s eyes, it was more obvious.

“Blink if you can understand me,” the woman said.

She blinked.

The woman smiled. “Wonderful. We don’t have much time. Are you being tortured? Blink once for yes, blink twice for something else.”

Blink.

She scratched her chin. “Are they trying to kill you?”

Blink.

“But they cannot. And so long as we keep Reiner on a bloom drip, well--you will be stuck dying until we run out of bloom, and I warn you, we will run out,” she continued. “You do not have enough time, it is vitally important that you get to the Kesterline wall.”

Kesterline wall? Ceyda didn’t know of any walls, other than the ones used to block in houses. Currently not a Kesterline wall.

The woman referenced a piece of paper briefly, and muttered to the masked man. “If you--if you are to be taken away from your town, you must speak the following words--tell them you know about the key to the demesne of all. You cannot let them take you to Nevan, or anywhere else, do you understand me?”

Blink.

Ceyda didn’t know what the key to the demesne of all was, but it certainly sounded like some sort of magical secret.

“Convince them to execute you by drowning. Or escape on a boat. Swim away if you have to. But get to the ocean, as far away from the coast as you can. Do not let them take you further inland,” she continued. “Do you understand?”

Blink.

Holy shit. Was there something beyond the ocean? Something living in the poisonous wastes?

“Good luck, young one,” the woman said.

The masked individual flipped up his mask, revealing a near decrepit man with bloodied eyes and a nose broken at least six times. “Try not to die, or you’ll be killing for two.”

Ceyda blinked, and she was back in the dream world.

She blinked again, and she was back in the well.

Get as close to the border as possible, huh?

How was she supposed to do that?

Ceyda gulped. She didn’t know if she could trust the strangers with Reiner. She didn’t even know if she could trust Reiner. So the question was--did she want to put her faith in strangers, who she knew nothing about, or rely solely on her own skills and her own wits?

If they took her to Nevan, that would be where Doc was going. Could she steal the grimoire back?

Neither the old woman or the old man had even mentioned Doc, or any sort of magical book. Did they know? Were they a rebel group or something else?

Ceyda clutched her head. That trip to Esterath’s domain had fully exhausted her, and the metal string in her mouth was glowing hot as it absorbed what energy she had. Her stomach wrenched, and she doubled over, puking through the open crevices of her mouth. It was mostly stomach acid, and the disgusting taste led to her gagging and retching until it all slowly dripped out of her sewn mouth.

She stared at the top of the dark well, not wanting to move for fear of feeling her short, vomit and mud drenched hair move against her face. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

All she had to do was get to the ocean, whilst trapped underground in a well with no exits save for the top.

Which meant either escaping, or convincing them to drown her whilst her mouth was gagged.

She would find a way--she had to. Or she would die, cold, alone, and forgotten.