“Are you seriously trying to make us think that Flow, the bird currently gorging themselves on Rainshear’s cooking, is the wisp you bonded with to get your container?” Metea/Irric laughed and leaned back in her chair. “Actually, that makes a lot more sense than anything else I could come up with.”

“Because it’s the truth. I’m pretty sure I can’t tell a lie right now, anyways. Right Rainshear?” Elach asked, and Rainshear shrugged.

“You could, but I would know right away. Unless you’re some kind of sociopath that has perfect control of their emotions.” Rainshear said.

“Which I’m not.” Elach quickly added.

“Alright, then I have a follow up question.” Metea/Irric said. “If Flow is your wisp, then how do you have a container? Don’t wisps… become them or something?”

“I… don’t really know.” Elach said. “My mentor said it had something to do with not asking for anything when I bonded with them, but other than that I have no clue.”

Metea/Irric shot a questioning look at Rainshear, who returned a look that was almost the same. “How old is Flow?” Rainshear asked. “And I mean after they manifested. How long they were a wisp before doesn’t matter.”

“Three months, I think?” Elach guessed, looking at Flow for confirmation. They shook their head and chirped once, followed by a short tweet. “One and a half months.”

“So Flow was a replacement wisp for whatever happened to your original one.” Rainshear said, puzzling through a story she’d crafted in her own mind. “What happened to your old one that made you bond with Flow?”

“I never had an old wisp.” Elach said. “I bonded with Flow after they died about four months ago, and a month and a half ago the wisp I bonded with hatched into Flow.”

“That isn’t possible.” Metea/Irric said. “You had to have had a wisp before Flow. Otherwise you’d be like the rest of the people out there.”

“And I was, for twenty two years.” Elach said with a chained shrug. “Flow started to pierce the divide the eternals made, and bonding with my mentor put me on this side instead of the other.”

“You’re far too powerful for someone who just started their journey a few months ago. Your body’s Issi saturation alone is leagues above almost anyone your age, and from what I can feel of your container you’ve completed at least the first expansion and compression.” Rainshear said. “That’s something I would expect my apprentices to take four years to complete.”

“And I just did it yesterday. Or last night, I guess.” Elach said.

“So you weren’t masking your Issi yesterday?” Rainshear asked. “You actually managed to grow far more powerful literally overnight?”

“No, I traveled to my mentor’s headspace and he slowed down time by a lot so he could train me.” Elach said, smiling at the surprised expression that now seemed to be permanently etched onto Metea/Irric’s face. “I went from barely starting to a full container expansion to compressing all of my Issi at once to compressing my container in about two and three quarter days. Or six-ish hours of sleeping, if you prefer real-time.”

“Your patron, er, mentor must be absurdly powerful if they could help you do that.” Rainshear said. “I’ve heard stories of Glasrime doing that to their apprentices, but it hasn’t happened for as long as I’ve been here. And you said he pulled you into his headspace somehow? I wasn’t aware that was even possible.”

“Well, it is.” Elach said.

“What’s your mentor’s name?” Metea/Irric asked. She looked at Elach in a different light, like they were hoping for a specific answer from him.

“Sentence.” Elach said.

He wasn’t expecting much of a reaction, but he certainly wasn’t expecting the reaction-less silence he did get.

“Never heard of him.” Rainshear said. “What kind of manifestation did you say he was?”

“A weapon.” Elach said. “He called himself a memento.”

“A memento.” Rainshear said, crossing her arms and furrowing her eyebrows. “I’ve never heard of that. And I’m a manifestation of a weapon.”

“He did say they were rare.” Elach said. “A manifestation of a weapon that wasn’t necessarily powerful, but it was significant.”

“Like a living city but for a weapon.” Rainshear said with a nod. “If sacred grounds are like mythic weapons, then it makes sense that there would be a higher level for us weapons as well as the place-based manifestations.”

“And that pretty much sums up the busiest months of my life.” Elach sighed. “I think I already told you I’d served as a chaperone for people on the other side of the eternals’ divide for six years, but if I didn’t before I did now.”

“Chaperone? Do you mean a springtender?” Rainshear asked.

“Chaperone, gardener, springtender.” Elach said with a shrug. “Whatever you call people on the outside who protect people when they go to bond with their wisps.”

“Six… six years?” Metea/Irric asked, seemingly taken aback by Elach’s statement. “Most people barely last their assigned one outing. How did you manage…”

“A lot of apathy and a dash of not knowing.” Elach muttered. “Wait, you have the same thing here? I thought you bonded with wisps when you were born?”

“Those? Those little flakes of Issi don’t deserve to be called wisps. They’re placeholders until practitioners can get to a primal spring and claim a real wisp for their own.” Metea/Irric said. “They don’t even have enough Issi to make feral wisps scatter like a real practitioner would when they go into the primal spring.”

“Well, that’s all the secrets I have.” Elach said. “So do I pass, or are you going to kill me?”

“We never… no, that’s not true.” Rainshear said. “I would have killed you if you posed a threat to me.”

“Oh, wonderful.” Elach said sarcastically. “That does wonders for my trust in you.”

“We didn’t want to, it’s just that… I’m not exactly safe here.” Metea/Irric said as if she were admitting a dangerous secret. “If people found out what I am, they would try to harvest me for my wisp. Just like they want to do with Revel.”

“So what, you’re half wisp?” Elach asked, and Metea/Irric blanched. “Damn, was I right?”

Metea/Irric said nothing for a few long seconds, so Rainshear butted in. “If she doesn’t want to say anything, she doesn’t…”

“No, I think we can trust him.” Metea/Irric said quietly. “I think he’d be equally screwed if someone found out about him and Flow as I would be if they found out about me.” She took in a long breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them, all doubt was gone and the embers of old anger burned cold behind them. “Ten years ago someone tried to kill me for my wisp. It was right after I’d bonded with them, and the moment I got back from the primal spring someone attacked me. They took my wisp and left me for dead, since I’d go back behind the veil soon enough.”

“And that is where I came in.” Metea/Irric said in the exact same voice. “I was attacked by someone we eventually found out was from the same organization, and I was pretty much dead. I found Metea in the middle of an alley and forced a bond on them, but because we were both pretty much dead it didn’t work like I expected.”

Elach opened his mouth, but shut it before he said anything. He looked deep into Metea/Irric’s eyes, and couldn’t find a single shred of deception in them. Why was she trusting him with this? She wasn’t the one in chains.

“Wait a second. Does that mean that Metea is the person, and Irric is the wisp?” Elach asked. “Why would that make it so I hear both of your names at once? And why couldn’t other people hear both? And why are you telling me this?”

“Because only someone who either has an extremely deep bond with their wisp, like you, or who devoured their wisp and everything they were, could hear the remains of my separation in my voice. And who could see through the wardstones somehow.” Metea/Irric said. “And I never expected to find someone as close to their wisp as I am. Y’know, since I’m actually a wisp and a person at the same time.”

“And she’s far too trusting.” Rainshear chimed in. “To her own detriment, mostly.”

“So you’re both sharing your body?” Elach guessed. “Is that why you have so many manifestations?”

“No to your first question, and yes to the second. I’m not sharing this body with anyone, the person Metea and the wisp Irric merged together completely and utterly and I’m the result.” Metea/Irric said, gesturing at themselves. “The manifestations are because I’m also technically bonded with myself and made my own container, so I gained all of Irric’s Issi seeds the second we merged. I’m a little more powerful than my peers, but the manifestations are because I have two different Issi types instead of the one pretty much everyone else has at this point.”

“And before you ask, Irric was a fulminous wisp, so my two types are wind,” Metea/Irric tapped on her horns and under her eyes, “and water.” Metea/Irric said, gesturing at the lines Elach knew ran down her spine, interrupting Elach’s question with a preemptive answer. “They combined into cloud Issi the moment I got them, and when I’m strong enough to unbind my third Issi seed I’ll add polarity to the mix.”

“Alright. So you aren’t Metea and Irric sharing a body, you’re the unique person slash wisp manifestation that formed when two dying minds merged together over a bond.” Elach said, and Metea/Irric nodded. “Do you know what parts of you are Metea and what are Irric? Do you ever have arguments with yourself because Metea disagrees with what Irric wants to do?”

“Like I said, it was a complete merge.” Metea/Irric said. “There is nothing left that is specifically one of the old people I used to be. I am me. I have some memories of the two people I used to be, but trying to remember them is like watching someone else’s memories that just happen to be in first person.”

Elach grimached and leaned back in his chair. “I know how that feels.” He said, remembering all the horrible things that he saw while chaperoning kids to get their wisps.

“From when you came over to our side?” Rainshear asked.

“Yup.” Elach said. “Twenty two years, and it all feels like a bad memory.”

Rainshear nodded and turned to Metea/Irric. “I know you’re going to trust him, since that’s who you are, but I’m still in favor of giving him some Gilded Night coins and sending him on his way.”

Metea/Irric locked their cloudy eyes on Elach, and he felt the weight of her potential judgment settle on him. It wasn’t heavy in the slightest.

“Do you know why it’s dangerous here for wisps, Elach?” Metea/Irric asked, then chuckled. “No, of course you don’t. And I don’t mean that as an insult; you’re new to all of this, so there’s no way you’d know.”

“It’s because wisps are seen as bonding fuel, right? Only good for bonding with practitioners and nothing else?” Elach said.

“That’s part of it, but that’s just some assholes’ prejudices. The real reason it’s dangerous here is the people under Glasrime’s protection.” Metea/Irric snarled. “Some of them are leaders of their own cults or sects, and they’d do anything to get their hands on a wisp they think is powerful enough to give their chosen ones.”

“...That includes Flow, doesn’t it.” Elach realized. “And Revel. And you. Damn, why are you still here if everyone wants you dead?”

“Because I’m not the only person that would be targeted by Glasrime’s inner circle.” Metea/Irric said. “Rainshear and a few others have been protecting people like you, me, and Revel for years now. And it always gets worse in the weeks leading up to and after an equinox or solstice.”

“You’re protecting them?” Elach asked in disbelief. “How could you fight someone Glasrime recognizes as powerful?”

“We don’t fight them. Not usually, at least.” Rainshear interjected. “We make sure the wisp manifestations keep to the right parts of the glacier, that they’re always introduced to people that won’t leave them alone at any time, and the few times we do have to fight we make it as loud as possible so that we draw the attention of anyone in a few blocks. It’s illegal to kidnap or force anyone into a bond they don’t want, and obviously killing is a no-go, but that won’t stop people who think they’re doing what they do for the greater good. Or monstrously selfish sociopathic narcissistic assholes.”

A horrible thought wormed its way into the back of Elach’s mind. If wisps were a sort of illegal currency around here, then it would make sense to offer them as prizes for the best performers at the trials. Could that be what Sentence had sent him here for? To free trapped wisps and get another bond?

“Has a wisp ever been offered as a prize or incentive for the trials?” Elach asked, trying not to devolve into a panic.