“Does it have to be a dungeon?” Rissa took another bite of her pie before she continued. “I don’t really want to take Jacob into a dungeon when he hasn’t even been through the Tutorial; I mean, he’s a middle school math teacher and-” Rissa looked down at her clean plate, before scraping up the few remaining crumbs with her fork. “And a really good cook, but that’s not the same as a delver. Can’t we show him magic some other way, some safer way?”

“Maybe,” Serenity admitted. He’d already finished his pie and was debating if a second piece would be too greedy. “But I also want to get him away from people. I’m keeping the shield up for now, but it only lasts so long. You probably can’t train him while I keep the shield up, but he won’t be able to concentrate with the background noise.”

“Do I get a say?” Jacob hadn’t commented on the entire situation since shortly after the curse was cracked; he’d simply stared at his phone, listened, and started cooking dinner.

Serenity looked over at Jacob; he seemed to be serious, which was a bit of a surprise. Why would he think he wouldn’t get a say? “Of course. It’s your life we’re talking about.”

Jacob nodded slowly. “I was starting to wonder, since you never asked. Then I think we should go into Austin.”

Denise made a face. “You know I hate the crowds.”

Jacob nodded. “I’m not a fan anymore either. It was great at twenty-two, it’s not nearly as nice at thirty-two. That’s not why we should go to Austin. The bats are missing.”

Bats?

Denise shrugged. “Sometimes they’re not very visible. The last time my family visited, I took them and we really couldn’t see anything. Or maybe they’ve just gone south for the winter?”

Jacob shook his head. “Not according to the news. It’s too early and it’s warm anyway; great viewing weather, apparently, and it’s been a week since they were seen. People aren’t hearing them under the bridge, either.”

“So you think the disappearance of a few bats is … what, due to magic?” Serenity looked from Jacob to Denise. He was missing something here.

“It’s not a few bats. There are over a million in the colony, I’m not sure how many. Or there were, at least. They won’t have just vanished; they’ve been there for fifty years.” Jacob seemed confident. “You wanted something weird or magical, there you are. Not that weird’s usually hard to find in Austin.”

Denise snickered. It had to be another in-joke. Well, at least Jacob had someone to share them with.

“It sounds like a place to start,” Serenity agreed.

Denise frowned. “Why can’t we just stay here and … well, you be you? That’s weird and impossible. Or maybe cast some magic?”

“I would if I could, but … I’m already me,” Serenity gestured at himself with a wing, “and I did magic earlier. It didn’t seem to affect Jacob. We need something more, now that the curse is cracked.”

“How do you know it’ll work, then?”

Serenity shook his head. “I don’t, but it worked before we cracked the curse. It’s the only thing we have to go on right now, so it’s worth a try.”

“That’s not the most reassuring thing I’ve ever been told.” Despite his words, Jacob smiled and looked unworried. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll try something else, right?”

Serenity smiled and nodded. He wasn’t sure what, but there would be something.

“If I’d known we were headed into Austin at this hour, I wouldn’t have cooked.” Jacob stared at the traffic in front of them. “Maybe we’d have been able to get in in time for the bat-watching then. Or even grab a bite to eat on the way.”

“We’ll be in time for the bats,” Serenity said. He was back in his more-or-less human shape, staring at his phone. “This says they start up to half an hour before sunset, and can take forty-five minutes or so to all come out. It’s still an hour before sunset. The problem is going to be finding a place to park and then a place to watch from. We’re late enough that we might not have a good view.”

“Do we need a good view?” Rissa kept her eyes on the road as her GPS told her which exit to take. “The bats are supposed to not be there. Shouldn’t we be looking at where they should be and seeing if there’s a dungeon? Or something else that’s moved in and displaced the bats?”

Rissa had a head on her shoulders. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around. Other than the fact that I love you, that is.” Serenity grinned as Rissa waved a hand in his general direction. “That’s a good point. Maybe we should park nearby and - can you walk across the bridge?”

“I think so. I’ve never tried.” Jacob looked over at Serenity. “You-”

Serenity turned towards Jacob when he stopped talking. Jacob didn’t move even as the SUV turned towards the parking lot. He was frozen, but once again, Serenity didn’t know why.

To Essence Sight, Jacob was once again wrapped up like a mummy. This time, Serenity could see a little more of the spell formation; it was not nearly as bright as it was the first time. “Strange.”

Had damaging it also made it lose some of its shine? Serenity supposed that probably didn’t matter; he needed to damage it more, and this was his chance. He’d try the same thing he’d tried first last time, since it wasn’t far enough away from Jacob’s body for Serenity to be comfortable acting as a knife.

He could reach Jacob, so he could go ahead and try before they were stopped. Serenity coated his hand with Essence, twisted to face his future brother-in-law, and reached out to grab some of the glowing strands. This time, his hand closed around them easily and they came loose from the rest of the spell structure without much effort, though Serenity could see that a few were still connected.

[Curse Resistance increased]

Joy.

It had to be a pretty strong curse to increase his resistance that quickly. At least it hadn’t spread to him, though it was probably trying.

Serenity could feel the shield he’d put up around Jacob warning him that it felt the curse. It hadn’t triggered when the curse froze Jacob; that must have been too close to Jacob’s skin. Instead, it’d gone off when he pulled some of it a bit farther away. It wasn’t useful information at the moment, but at least it meant he’d gotten the detection part working correctly. It might well be useful in the future.

Serenity tugged on the curse. More bits and pieces unspooled from around Jacob, but it refused to break. He didn’t want more of it right now, not with it trying to attack him; he wanted to cut it apart into itty bitty pieces that couldn’t do anything.

Serenity regretted that he couldn’t call his soulblade without turning into it; it would have been perfect for this situation. They’d already shown that it could cut Essence. Unfortunately, even if he had someone hold him, he couldn’t hold the Essence in place while he was being a sword.

There should be a way to handle that, but Serenity was going to have to think on it and plan it out. He’d never made a mana-based spell to channel and control another’s spell to destroy it; he wasn’t a spellbreaker, and anyway, most mana-based spells would discharge once they were damaged.

That was the point of his ax, after all. It was far easier to just break the spell by force than unravel it, and he’d never had to save the person inside the spell before. Well, that wasn’t entirely true - but when he had needed to, he’d simply hired a specialist.

There was no specialist who could do this that he could reach.

For a moment, Serenity thought about taking Jacob to the Tutorial, but he dismissed that idea quickly. It might anger the Voice, even if his stunt with Jeremiah hadn’t. He still wasn’t certain if it had or not, but it was a risk he’d only take if he had to. Worse than that, though, was the thought that going to the Tutorial might be actively detrimental to Jacob. He wasn’t certain Blaze could remove curses, and if he couldn’t, Jacob might be frozen through the whole Tutorial - which would likely get him killed.

No, the better solution would be to use his ax to cut the Essence while he held it with his other hand. The only problem with that was that his ax was on his Quick Belt.

Which was around his waist, but in chimera form instead of human.

He hadn’t even thought about how he was going to share equipment, but he needed to either figure out how to partially shift equipment over or he was going to have to start finding equipment for any form he spent much time in; it didn’t seem likely that he’d need to equip his Void Sovereign shape and his hatchling dragon shape wasn’t exactly built for combat, but getting gear to use while human seemed wise.

Neither option was great, but they were both better than having to start any unexpected combat vulnerable and shapeshift.

Taking off his gear before shifting so that he could wear it in his current form was possible but … really, he wanted his best gear on when he was in chimera form. That was simply a better shape to fight in. It was stronger and more protected.

He’d have to add “practice shapeshifting” to the to-do list.

He was putting off doing what he needed to do. Was it a bad habit to do that when it was always for less than a minute?

Probably not as long as it was never an important minute. Which meant he needed to get over it if he could.

Serenity needed his ax; there was no way around it. They’d parked, but Denise and Rissa were watching him instead of getting out of the SUV. Good enough.

Serenity shifted. As he slid through his Void Sovereign shape, he lost hold of the strands of the curse. In his Void Sovereign form, the curse was blindingly obvious; it shouted at him that it was there. A thread of the curse stabbed towards him, but didn’t connect; Serenity felt himself shrink away from its blazing light.

The light was actively uncomfortable. He pushed towards it and felt it shrink away, but the closer he got, the more it felt like pain instead of discomfort. There was something about that curse that did not agree with him at all.

He didn’t have that problem in his human form, so he tried to shift to his chimera form. Unfortunately, there was still a strand of the curse where his chest would be, and he found that couldn’t shift out of his Void Sovereign shape while it was blocking the way.

He didn’t want to get any closer to it than he had to. It might not be able to curse him, but it had tried, and he didn’t like it. Not that he ever liked curses.

Serenity grumbled to himself and slipped over the back of his seat. Once he was no longer blocked by the curse, shifting was easy again.

Serenity was glad there was room behind the seats for luggage; he was even happier that they’d removed the luggage at the hotel room. He wasn’t happy about the amount of space even without luggage in the way.

Serenity looked at Jacob with Essence Sight. Was the curse still extended, trying to attack him?

No. It once again fit over Jacob like a layer of cracked-but-shiny glass, and Jacob was looking at him with wide eyes.

“What was that? That was amazing. You were … stars…”