“The canister is filled to the brim with a hard candy made here in the city that greatly stimulates a practitioner’s Issi production for a short time, and is itself a spatial compartment that removes time’s influence on anything inside of it. Useful beyond initial observation, if I may say so myself.”

Hoalt opened the canister and pulled out a small square wrapped in wax paper, showing it to Elach before placing it back in. He then reached for the dagger, removing it from a black leather sheath with a filigree of gold stitching. It was bladed on one side, with the other having large serrations that almost looked like the teeth of a comb.

“This is an unfinished sword-breaker dagger, as of yet unnamed. If properly finished it will easily become a legendary weapon, and could even become a mythical weapon if cherished over the years. Honestly, though, I wouldn’t recommend taking this one for yourself. Weapons don’t seem to suit your fighting style, from what I can discern, but I couldn’t find any sort of gauntlets or armor that could be both an asset to you now and in the future.”

Elach frowned at the hidden meaning in Hoalt’s words. “But I could take it for someone else?”

“Why, thank you for offering. One of the dueling instructors on the eleventh floor has recently broken their dagger while defending the pillar, and this will make a fine replacement.”

Hoalt handed Elach the dagger which didn’t phase through his hand this time. “Walked right into that one, I guess.” Elach muttered. “Does this count towards my two?”

“No, of course not. You have the pick of the litter.”

Elach nodded as he looked over the table. The canister was tempting, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever really use it. And from the way Hoalt hovered over the other four bundles of items, Elach was pretty certain Hoalt had only put the canister up as a distraction. For what reason he couldn’t be sure, but it just felt useless compared to the other bundles. Or maybe Hoalt himself was the distraction, and Elach was supposed to take the canister and one of the bundles?

After a good minute of hemming and haw-ing, Elach decided there was no harm in asking for help. “What do you think would be the best for me? Because I really don’t have a clue.”

“Take the canister.” Hoalt replied immediately. “There are properties it contains I can’t tell you about, but will become obvious from just messing around with it. For the other four, there is no harm in taking any one of them. It depends on what kind of practitioner you want to be, and what you want your Issi to become.”

Elach nodded. Good thing he asked. “I’ll take the canister, then. Can I have half an hour to think about which bundle I want?”

“Be my guest.”

“I think better in my headspace, so I’m going there now.” Elach said. He wanted to get Flow’s opinion on the prizes, and he really needed to see what happened to Y’talla. He couldn’t feel either of them anymore for some reason. “Tap my shoulder when it’s been thirty minutes.”

“Of course. Would you like to sit down, or are you fine with standing?”

“I’ll stand.” Elach said as he closed his eyes and delved into his headspace. There was an uncharacteristic resistance as he pushed forward, feeling as if he was walking through thick spider webs that rattled like chains. All it took was an extra thought or two, but it was disconcerting enough that Elach made a note to further look into it.

The first blatantly obvious change were the chains holding together his headspace. Large swaths of nothing were filled with chains, like threads straining as raggedy fabric was pulled taut, and Elach noted that they were carved over and over with his claw-like symbol. But he could swear it looked a little different. He shook his head and walked towards the fountain, unchanged from before, and called out for Flow.

Nothing answered. Worry bubbled up in Elach’s gut as he leaned over the fountain, seeing his face reflected in the amber nectar, then turning to see the same reflection in the space-like nectar. All that was still there, so Flow couldn’t have disappeared unless he had the completely wrong idea about how a wisp’s container worked. Which was a distinct possibility.

Elach looked around for a moment, seeing all the doors in their same states as before, his eyes eventually settling on a pedestal that hadn’t been fully there last time he checked. Prisoner’s coin has fully manifested. He loomed over it with curiosity, raising an eyebrow as he realized he’d seen something like this before. Prisoner’s coin rested in an indent on the exact middle of a map which was three-quarters blank, and one-quarter filled with what Elach assumed was an overhead view of a primal spring. And in that overhead view, right where the primal spring sat, there was another indent. If Elach was remembering right, this was the same kind of pedestal and map he’d seen in the carriage that took him and Kayvee to Resthollow.

Removing the coin didn’t do anything. Elach rotated it between two fingers and confirmed that yes, it was the coin Prisoner had given him, and that it now felt saturated with his own Issi. Three of the gems had blinked out, now clear stones embedded into metal, but one had changed into a chunk of red-gold amber. Elach held the coin in his hand for a moment as he looked over at the door that had led him to Y’talla, then placed the coin in the indent of the primal spring.

The change happened so quickly Elach didn’t have a chance to process it. One moment he was standing on nothing above an endless void, and the next he was standing a few feet above the foggy waters of a primal spring. It would have been impossible not to recognize the place; he’d just spent over a month fixing it. Well, most of it. The sky was still shattered above him, leaking colours like a box of paints that he’d accidentally dropped in the sink.

Off in the horizon, Elach noticed that there was a horizon to be off in. Last he’d been here, which was only a few hours ago, everything had abruptly ended in what felt like a perfect circle a few miles out from the primal spring. Now it looked like it continued on forever. Except for the chains in the sky, out way further than before, holding together what Elach imagined was the invisible dome that set the limits of his headspace.

“Elach! You came back!” Y’talla called happily, and Elach looked down to see her waving with both hands through the invisible floor. “Flow came to visit me a few hours ago, but I thought you forgot about us!”

Flow tittered happily in agreement, dancing around on Y’talla’s head like she was the world’s smallest stage.

“I could never forget you two.” Elach said truthfully. “Let me find the edge of this thing and I’ll.. WHOAH!”

Elach’s foot found empty air not five steps from the fountain, crashing down into the thin waters of the primal spring. They barely came up to his waist when he got to his feet, sputtering and laughing at his own clumsiness. Flow smacked into Elach a moment later, talons latching onto his shoulder as they pressed their head into the side of Elach’s face while coo-ing affectionately.

A giddy smile crept across Elach’s lips as he pulled Flow into a hug. If their bones had been anything like a regular bird’s, they would have been crushed and crippled. But Flow was made of stronger stuff. “Missed you too buddy. Love and missed you.”

“Make room for me!” Y’talla said as she butted into the hug, Flow squawking in surprise as they were suddenly crushed between two people. “So were you alive, Elach? Or is this what the hells look like?”

“I’m very much alive. But I’ve got to go do something right away, because apparently I have friends and they struck a deal with Hoalt. And not that the Hoalt we knew, Flow, another Hoalt.” Elach chuckled at Flow’s confused notes. “I’m not really sure either, buddy. But it’ll probably help us get stronger, so why not give it a try?”

“You’re leaving again? So soon?” Y’talla asked, her eyes filled with sadness.

Elach ran a hand through her hair and gave what he hoped was a convincing smile. “We’re leaving. All of us. But first, I need both of your opinions on something. Where other people can’t overhear us.”

“Ooh, something important? It’s gotta be, right Flow?” Y’talla said excitedly. “We were stuck here, so we didn’t hear anything that happened to you out there. Are you fighting someone?”

Flow and Y’talla looked expectantly at Elach, who felt like he was a cake being drooled over in a store window. “We aren’t fighting anyone yet. Probably really soon, but before that, I’m getting paid in advance. And I have to choose between four different sets of payment.”

Elach explained what Hoalt had told him, which wasn’t a whole lot, and let the promise of progress hang in the air for Flow and Y’talla to form their own opinions. He really didn’t care which one he took, since he didn’t have a concrete plan for his own future anyway. This might help lay the foundation, but he wanted it to be a group effort.

Flow let out a short series of chirps and tweets that ended in one long caw that sounded like it had a question mark at the end of it. Elach and Y’talla nodded at the same time.

“Yeah, the intake seems sort of pointless if I’ve got you and Y’talla around. We strike that one out?” Elach asked.

“I agree with Flow.” Y’talla replied. “And I think capacity wouldn’t do you any good. If you can survive what you did to your container to kill that flock of scrap raptors, you definitely don’t need help in making your container bigger.”

Flow held out a wing and cawed agreement.

“That leaves control and quality. Thoughts?”

“I vote for quality. While we were together I watched you get better at dealing with your Issi, and if you got that good in just a few months, you don’t need help with control.”

Flow tilted their head to the side and let out a questioning song.

“You’ll just have to believe me.” Y’talla laughed. Flow nodded and turned to Elach, then pointed a wing at Y’talla. “Flow agrees with me, and those are our opinions. What do you want to do, Elach?”

Elach started to agree with Flow and Y’talla, but quickly shut his mouth. He really didn’t have an opinion on this? The gift-payment that might alter the path his Issi took for the rest of his life? He looked back and found he’d never really had a strong opinion on… well, almost anything. He tried to remember the feeling back in Sentence’s cabin when he learned about the eternals, that raw emotion that drove his actions. He needed that. And he also needed to think this through properly.

“I’m not so sure.” Elach said slowly, rubbing his forehead with his hand. “Let’s go over this a little bit more so I can be a little more confident in myself.”