The instant I hear her name, my entire being rejects everything around it. The center of my awareness surges backward into my own body like a retreating wave. The last thing I see on that side of existence is my mother—golden eyes wide and grinning with excitement as she rushes towards me, strange lights dancing around her.

Branches of Umbral energy are already crackling across my skin by the time my consciousness settles fully back on my own side of the veil. The other students already seem to be evacuating, Beatrice trailing behind them as she throws worried glances back to me. The crystals in my vicinity are beginning to glow.

No thoughts but darkness. No feelings but calm.

E.J. kneels at my side, supporting the upper half of my body—the collar clasped around her neck once more.

"Go on," I say, sitting up. "Get out of here ahead of me before that thing breaks. I'll be alright. I've got Boon."

"I'm fine. The collar, too," she says, helping me to my feet. "Just focus on clearing your mind. When we get back, you can tell me what happened."

And I do. She takes me straight up to her place, and after dropping myself onto her couch I recount it all. Her muscles grow tense as I relay the experience, jaw set into a rigid line by the time I've finished. Rain batters the window while the canopy beyond churns in the growing wind.

"That's exactly what he said?" She asks me for the second time once I'm done. "The Dragon-Stag has chosen?"

I nod. She exhales through her nose, standing to pace around in the open area at the other side of the room—hand running through her hair again and again until it looks as though she just rolled out of bed after a few days of wild sex.

"Ashwyn, your next class starts in five minutes," chirps Boon.

E.J. looks back up to me, hand coming down from her hair at last. "Go. I'll figure this out. We'll figure it out. But for now, just try to focus on class."

I sigh, dragging a hand down my face as I shake my head. "I feel like it just never stops."

She hugs me before I leave and kisses the top of my head—sparking a feeling of warmth to contrast the sense of dread left behind from my experience in the cave. Immediately before the door shuts between us, I catch sight of her pulling the collar off with a sigh of relief.

All the way down to my next class, I repeat the mantra to myself and practice my breathing exercises...sorely tempted to go straight down to my room and toss myself face-down in bed. But if I did that every time something insane happened to me, I'd be spending most of my life like that. Besides, I genuinely don't want to miss the first of any of my classes.

The Umbran Physiology and Dynamics classroom is one floor below my last one and also facing the ocean. Dressed in an array of shimmery, patched-together earth tones, the professor awaits with their back facing us, hands clasped as they gaze out the rain-tracked window. Their hair—long and brown with a greenish cast to it—falls carelessly down their back. Occasionally, they throw a smile and a nod over their shoulder as a new cluster of students enters.

Beatrice, showing up a little later than most, rushes over to sit next to me with relief in her eyes. Lore trails immediately behind her, and I suck in one last breath of untainted air before she can get too close.

"Oh, Ash! Are you alright? What was that back there? What happened with the—"

"Good day, my dear students," Says the professor in a surprisingly gravelly voice, turning to face us as the last seat is filled. Beatrice and I both snap to attention." For those who don't know me already, my name is Toad. Yes, Toad. Not 'Professor Toad,' not 'Mx. Toad'. Just Toad." They stand with their hands clasped behind their back as their leaf-green gaze lands on each of us in turn.

"As those of you who read the course description will know, we'll be focusing on the complex inter-Umbran dynamics that uphold our society-within-a-society, as well as delving into the physiology of the different types. All with a focus on each one's effect on the other. To start off with, I'd like you to divide into groups of close to four as you can manage, with each member a different type—excluding all the Viridians." They wave a hand dismissively towards the far end of the room. "They can all go over there and just...sit."

I repress a groan as confused chatter breaks out. A group project from the get-go? Not a good sign. And I can't even take the easy route by latching onto Beatrice.

Pulling a face, I just sort of wait around awkwardly for whatever group has the least amount of people and no Reaper. But of course, that method backfires when I end up in the same group as Lore. I try not to sigh too deeply. Once the class has reorganized itself into clusters, the professor brings their hands together in a soft clap. "Very good. Now. Sit tight and wait for me to come to you."

"Er," I look around at the others in my group except for Lore, most of whom are shifting uncomfortably and pulling out their companions. I sit back, craning my neck to watch as Toad approaches the first group, prompting the students to form a circle with them and join hands. They all shut their eyes, and then they just sort of stand like that for a few minutes.

I'm not the only one watching them. The chatter amongst the others continues in the form of whispers as the group finally opens its eyes and, smiling almost mischievously, Toad moves on to the next one. The students from the first group glance around among themselves awkwardly before decisively averting their eyes from one another. All save two of them, that is. The Petran and Viridian keep casting furtive glances at one another, and I can smell the scents of attraction on them.

The pattern repeats itself, leaving groups of disgruntled and generally speechless students in its wake until finally the strange Viridian professor comes to us. When our circle forms, I find myself grasping hands with a stereotypically burly Petran to one side and a tall, lanky Shifter to the other.

Heartbeats after our circle closes, an odd tingling sensation sets in at the palms of my hands.

"Now," says Toad. "This may be unsettling, but just know that everything is fine and under control. Nothing will hurt you. Now, if you please, close your eyes."

Immediately after I do, the tingling sensation spreads into my head, and for a moment a sense of upheaval similar to that which I'd just experienced with the statue sets in. But then it clears, and I'm standing in a vague place of darkly colorful mists that flow and coil around the four other figures present.

I recognize Lore first, knowing instinctively that the shifting red cloud of bat-like creatures and rose petals is her. Drawn in by unthinking curiosity, I drift closer only to propel backwards a heartbeat later as I get a closer look at the bat things and their terrifying, lamprey-like mouths. And though her smell here is largely the same as in our ordinary realm, there's an edge of something acidic and coppery to it. Almost like how blood used to smell to me, before I became a Reaper.

She's simultaneously entrancing and repellant.

The Petran is a blue-gray, gargoyle like creature—adorned in places by clusters of tiny flower buds carved from pinkish crystal. The Shifter is something like a hyena one moment, and some bird-of-prey the next. Always changing, always warping. Toad is an amorphous entity of moss and fungus with a strong, rot-like scent and mushrooms that sprout and fall away and sprout again as I watch.

"Welcome to the Liminal," says Toad, voice emanating from their floating form with no other particular source. "A place between this world and what lays beyond. Here, we may almost glimpse one another's true selves—our spirits—but because we are between realms, what you see is still filtered through the lens of your own perception. Each of us sees something different when we look at one another, though none of us can see ourselves. Unless I'm mistaken? Can any of you see yourselves?"

No one corrects them. They go on.

"Do any of you know how we're doing this?" They pause again, but our silence continues. "It's the single highest-level skill a Viridian can hope to obtain, and it can only be accomplished via contact with a Crimson. The Mycelial Bond. What you're experiencing now is a temporary version of it. One which will only last as long as our physical hands are clasped.

However, when a group of Umbrans has been around for a very long time and trusts each other very much—they'll sometimes choose to make a permanent Circle through the bond. They don't stay in this state all the time of, course—but they remain connected through the Liminal, and can join each other here and communicate through this space at any time.

What we're experiencing at this moment is only a meager sampling of what the permanent bond entails. Much of this class will be concerned with the advantages and disadvantages of Circling, as well as other skills besides the bond which require the cooperation of different Umbran types."

"Right then," they say after giving us a few more moments to take everything in. "let's hop on out now. Not good to stay Circled too long unless it's the real deal."

Distantly, I feel the tingling subside. In the next instant I snap back to myself, blinking as I reorient myself in my own reality for the second time today. This time, though, it's a little more like coming out of a dream in the morning. Much less jarring. I feel Lore's eyes on me, but I don't look back at her. The Viridians watch from across the room with a mixture of boredom and frustration, a few scrolling on their companions until Toad is done with the rest of us and goes back to addressing the whole class.

"Sorry, saplings," they say, smiling regretfully at the Viridians as they wipe their hands off on their tunic. "Circles won't work with more than one of any type, so you'll only be able to experience it when you gain the ability yourself. But now that the rest of your classmates have experienced it, they can fill you in on what it's like later."

At their bemused stares, Toad goes on to catch them up on the parts of the lesson they've missed.

When I leave class, it's with Beatrice at my side and Lore at her other one, trying to block out the image of bloody, lamprey-faced bats burned across the backdrop of my awareness.

Breaking away from them the first chance I get, I take the stairs down to the student's residential levels. Slowing, I step into the common area already able to smell and sense my fellow Reaper well before I turn down the corridor leading to my room.

Adjusting their spectacles, LoVor straightens up from their leaning position near my door—meeting my eyes with an uneasy expression contorting their soft-featured face.

"Oh, um, hello." I quirk my head, smelling what seems like a mixture of anxiety and excitement churning in their blood. "Is everything alright?"

"Well, no, actually," they say, voice shaking slightly. "Could we talk somewhere more private, maybe?"