“You know what? No, I’m done. No more.” Jack spits the words in anger and frustration, then turns and boils his way up the stone steps toward Upper Bule.

Zeke starts to scamper along the steps to follow him, but stops. Hesitates. He looks back at Corva.

She stares up at the bottom of Jack’s feet as he leaves. “So you’re saying I have the day off?”

Jack stops mid-step. His fists clench until his knuckles are white. For a moment, they flush with color as he relaxes ever so much. It doesn’t last long, though. A moment later, they’re fully flexed, solid white, and shaking. He mumbles something that Corva can’t quite make out.

“What was that? You talking to yourself again?” She raises the pitch of her voice at the end of the question. He knows I’m just ribbing him, right?

“Do whatever you want. I don’t care.” The words are still delivered quietly, but with each word carrying the weight of a restrained scream.

Gobsmacked, Corva watches Jack run the rest of the way up the stairs. Hoping to read some hint or insight, she looks over to Zeke, who is still standing on the stairway’s boundary wall. Instead of answers, she’s given a blank gaze that reeks of disapproval.

“Don’t look at me like that. How was I supposed to know that was gonna set him off?” She plops down on the step and tries to digest what just happened. It started innocently enough—she’d caught Jack peeping on a whore. So I hit him with a friendly jab or two. Nothing too serious. After all, without bickering, we might not speak to each other at all. Besides, that hooker’s gotta have at least ten years on him.

“Screw him. Don’t need to waste energy on an infant who gets all bent from shape over some piranha. About time I moved on anyway. Pretty much got what I needed.”

Corva cuts an eye over to Zeke.

“I have to say, it’s nice to be able to sit this distance from you without passing out. I still have that shaky feeling—feels like my bones are humming under my skin—but I guess I’m getting used to it. Almost like I can maybe control it.”

She twists on her step to face Zeke more directly. “So, what do you think? Want to ditch this hole and come with me? You obviously don’t belong here any more than I do.”

Zeke blinks. His face shows a bit of surprise at the question. He looks up along the steps, but Jack is already well out of sight.

Corva continues, “Oh, we can bring Jack along, too. He’s upset, but you know how he is. He’ll get over it. The kid cooks a mean meal and knows the area around here pretty well. He’d be a good guia for us. Of course, asking is really only a formality. You and I both know I can take you both whenever I want. I would just prefer that you come along willingly.”

That gets Zeke’s attention. Corva smiles when he finally looks back at her. Though monkeys can’t exactly look skeptical, the folds of his brows give the closest reproduction of that expression.

“What? You know it’s true. After all, I—”

Corva doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence. Zeke springs from his spot on the stair into the air over Corva. He doesn’t stop until he connects with the sheer stone wall behind her. As each of his paws touches the smooth surface, his body compresses. For a fraction of a second, he looks a bit like a furry barnacle stuck to the rock wall.

In an instant, he uncoils and launches from the wall. He hits Corva’s back with a lot more force than she expects from something his size. She’s thrown off-balance and takes a step forward, bending at the waist.

Zeke uses her body’s momentum to swing around her shoulders. He looks her in the eye as he swings by her face. His lizard-like eyes pierce to her core. It feels like the moment lasts ten times longer than it really does, but she still doesn’t have any time to react.

Before she knows it, he’s grabbing her dreadlocks. The follow-through of his continued swing pulls her upright again. An instant later, she can feel the weight of his little body squatting on her head. He leans over so she can see his face again.

You assume too much, Corva.

“What the fuck?”

Corva lurches backward as if doing so would somehow put distance between her and the monkey sitting on her head. Zeke stays up there, like he’s been glued in place. Although upside down in front of her, he never breaks eye contact. She stumbles back on her heels and avoids falling by catching herself against the flat rock wall behind her.

However, that does little to settle her internal disorientation. In her gut, she knows that Zeke just spoke to her. However, his mouth hadn’t moved; he really didn’t even have a voice. In fact, focusing back on that moment, she hadn’t heard anything at all. It was more like the idea spontaneously materialized in her mind and its echoes generated the words. Stranger still, if she really thinks about it, she can only imagine hearing the sentence in her own voice, but not the way she’d say it. Befuddled, she hunts in Zeke’s slitted pupils for some semblance of an answer.

I never wanted to do this. I’ve stalled and put it off as much as I could. But seeing that you and Jack won’t let this go, now I see I should’ve done so much sooner.

“What—what are you talking about? Get off my head. Get out of my head!” Corva reaches up to pull Zeke off. However, before she can get to him, he speaks in her head again.

You assume your abilities are enhanced by my proximity. This is only half true. You caught me off guard that first time when you came into the bar, and again in the kiva a few hours ago. But I have a will of my own.

“Those fighting skills, that … that power. It’s you?” She speaks aloud, despite hearing his half of the conversation in her mind. Could he read her thoughts?

The skills are yours. Dormant, but yours. As for the power … the bar fight? The grunts during the raid? You only had strength to defeat them—to survive—by my consent. My control of the flow.

Still unsettled by how his thoughts instantly pop and echo in her mind with her own voice, Corva straightens her back and closes her eyes. He must be right about the closeness thing. He’s sitting directly on top of her head and there’s barely any of the hum in her bones that she normally feels this close.

A barrage of questions bubble up, like an air pocket opening in the watery depths of her mind. But there’s one thing he said—he thought—that sticks out.

“Dormant?”

All these years, I’ve managed to avoid all of you and each of your incarnations. And you. I’ve seen you fight. Same bloodlust as always. You haven’t changed. What makes you think I’d change for you over all the others?

He’s not answering any of her questions, only giving her more. Questions laced with a thin hope. Avó’s face appears in her mind. “Others? There are other survivors from Fareburne?”

From Fareburne? No. From everything I’ve heard, that annihilation was regretfully thorough and complete. You’re the first survivor I’ve ever heard of from that … event.

Zeke’s face stretches into a look of—well, it’s difficult for Corva to read. But it appears like his mind wandered off for a moment. The look dissolves as quickly as it came, replaced with a mask of renewed seriousness. No. Not Fareburne. I’m talking about where you really come from.

“I don’t get it. If you’re not talking about Fareburne, then what ‘others’? I’ve traveled a lot of places in the last ten years, but Fareburne is where I’m from.”

Amazing. You truly don’t even know who you are.

“Who the hell are you to tell me who I am?” Corva can feel her face warming. She’s upset. Indignant.

Maybe it’s for the best that you don’t know. Maybe that’s why you’ve managed to survive for so long.

Then it occurs to her. The reason she’s upset. She’s not bothered because he’s making assumptions about her. It’s because he does know something, and he’s not telling her.

“Fine. You’re so smart, why don’t you—”

She never gets a chance to finish her sentence. Still looking at Corva upside down, Zeke reaches out and places a finger at the center of her forehead. The moment the tip of his finger touches her skin, Corva’s head snaps back like she’s been shot. Zeke leaps clear to avoid being flung from her head. He lands at the ground near her feet as she crumples to her knees.

In those few seconds, she is overwhelmed with a surge of sensory memory. It blasts across her in fast-forward, nearly impossible for her to keep up. Her mind was a canal lock and Zeke just opened the gate holding back a tsunami. Lifetimes of images, sounds, smells, and feelings wash over her mind while her soul is tossed in the undertow.

How many lifetimes? Six? Seven? A dozen? Physically, she’s different in every one, but they all tell the same story. Fighting. Battles. Mayhem. And each ends the same, an apology and the violent edge of a scythe. The scythe. The blade of A Velha Barba, the Old Beard. Death.

Those aren’t dreams she’s been having.

She’s not Corva. Not really.

“Who—what are you?” The words dribble out with labored exhalations, barely coherent.

Zeke turns away from her and gazes out as midmorning sunlight prances over the rooftops of Lower Bule.

One thing at a time, child. Let this bit soak in first.