Corva grimaces and wipes a bit of blood from her nose. “I think Thegn’s caught on that I’m controlling the grunts he sees when he comes through.”

What gives you that impression? Zeke scans the horizon from a pipe sticking out from their rooftop, trying to track the movement of both Jack and Thegn through the spiritual plane.

“I don’t know. Kind of a gut feeling.” Corva pauses to think about it. “Like, early on, his focus was on efficiency. He’d show up, clear the space, and then slip away. Now? He’s still fast, but he’s hitting harder. Like he wants to hurt and kill.”

It’s possible that he’s just getting frustrated. In any case, don’t speculate too much on what’s going on in that man’s head. Just focus on expanding your reach. Zeke points in the direction of the stairway to Upper Bule. Over there!

“Thegn or Jack?” They’ve gotten themselves a pretty decent system. If it’s Jack, protect him and give him time to destroy the crow. If it’s Thegn, get in his way by fighting and slowing him down.

Thegn.

Of course, while the system is good, the follow-through isn’t always the best. Corva sees where he’s pointing and mentally reaches out to control whomever is over there. But the control she has is thin, wavering. She doesn’t even really have time to tell if they’re grunts or humans before Thegn cuts through them. “Nem fodendo!”

Zeke glances back at her. What?

Corva bends forward and places her hands on her knees, tired. Exhausted. She shakes her head. “Thegn isn’t the only one frustrated. It seems the farther I reach out, the less control I have. These ones—” She waves her arm around at the collection of grunts around the rooftop, each one raising an arm in a kind of wave as her hand points at them. The closest one, holding one of Thegn’s crows, gestures by lifting the bird in the air. “I can control them completely. The farther away they get, though, the more it’s like trying to push on a rope … a floppy rope.”

The monkey turns away and returns to his task of tracking the spiritual plane. It has nothing to do with distance. You’re micromanaging.

“How do you mean?”

Zeke lets out an audible sigh and turns to face Corva full-on. You’re shackled by the amount of control you think you need.

Corva tilts her head. “Zeke, that doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Think about your control like a glass of water. The more control you take, the more of that water you use. You’ve got full control over the grunts here, but there’s a limit to the number you can control that way.

“So, what? I take less control and I have greater numbers?”

In essence, yes.

“I can’t do that. They’d tear us apart.”

Zeke hops down from the pipe to Corva’s shoulder and then crawls along her lifted arm so he can perch there as if she’s a falconer and he’s a falcon. He looks deep in her eyes. You’re too focused on you. Focus on them.

Corva’s face wrinkles in protest, but Zeke continues before she gets to say anything. Durga—War—used to control hundreds of thousands of people. Not because her control was absolute, but because she understood people. Cared about them, even.

“Não fode. War? Compassionate?”

Zeke shrugs. If you understand people, you know what they want. If you know what they want, you can use that to control them with far less effort than you would otherwise need.

Suddenly, Zeke’s attention snaps to the grunt holding the crow. Incoming!

Corva spins to face the crow, ready. “Thegn or Jack?”

The question is answered for her as Jack appears in front of them. Unlike the flickering and blinking that happened when he left them, his arrival is more fluid, almost like he’s being poured out of the crow into their space on the rooftop.

Once fully materialized, Jack scans the area wildly, like a squirrel thrown into a crate. A beat-up squirrel with a long, bloody knife. It only takes him a moment to realize that he’s back with Corva and Zeke. His shoulders relax and he collapses to his knees, breathing heavily.

“Jack!” Corva lets Zeke jump from her arm as they both run over to him. She kneels as she reaches him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Jack lifts his face to meet hers. He’s not doing great. His eyes are sunken and dark, and he’s covered in cuts and blood. The side of his face is swollen in an unnatural mix of purple and red. His clothes are tattered, dirty rags.

And yet, he’s smiling. “Ol’ Wrinkles is pissed.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

With Corva’s help, Jack pulls himself back to his feet. He’s favoring his left side a bit, but he manages to stand all the same. He winces while looking at her. “You look like shit.”

Corva smiles back. “You’re not looking so great yourself, bar boy.”

“Yeah … Lyia’s gonna cuss me out for not practicin’ enough with self-healing.” He covers his ear as if suddenly hearing a loud noise. “Hi Lyia.”

Jack focuses back on Corva. “Everything go okay here? Seemed like you were doing alright slowing down the old dude.”

Corva trades a quick look with Zeke. “We managed. How’d your part go?”

Jack grabs at his side and limps around the rooftop, looking at all the grunts under Corva’s control. “Looks like you did better than manage. I got back here sooner than I wanted to—got no idea what’s waiting on the other side of any portal—but I think I maybe took out half of ’em. Got a lot of folks from town to bug out, too. The last few were already on the way, though. I don’t know if it’s from what I was doing or ’cause of Lyia and Slim, but word is spreadin’ pretty fast.”

He pauses, listening to a conversation that Corva can’t hear. He shakes his head. “No, you can’t do that. There’s no time. Look, I can do it myself.”

Jack places both hands on his rib cage on the side of his body that he’s been favoring. There’s no glow or anything, but Corva can tell he’s using soulmancy. Every Umbrati grunt under her control perks up, and even if they aren’t looking at Jack, their attention is absolutely in his direction.

But the sense she feels through them flutters and goes away almost as quickly as it appears.

Jack falters and his hand drops from his side. “Dammit, Lee, I’ve got this! Slim, you gotta stop—Fuck!”

Tell Jack it doesn’t matter. We have incoming.

Corva looks at Zeke. “Here?”

Jack notices Corva’s sudden change in demeanor. “What’s up?”

The answer comes in the form of a throaty cawing sound. All heads turn to face the crow being held by Corva’s grunt.

Death is coming.