Ferdinand blinked and Rapture was gone, a bright flash of light erupted through the glass, shattering it and sending shrapnel flying. Ferdinand’s heart practically stopped, and he waited for the wave of deathly mana to come and take his life, nothing came. He and Carrion rose to their feet and walked to where they could see through the opening. Rapture was standing in the containment room, looking bewildered and more lost then he had ever seen from her before. When he looked closer his heart nearly gave out all together. Andromeda was sat up on the cot, rubbing her head with a broken necklace in her hand. Her hear, skin, and eyes back to normal. Not to mention that she wasn’t outputting a deathly amount of mana.

Ferdinand leaped over the broken window and ran to her, not sure if his eyes were deceiving him, or if this was a hallucination. “Andromeda?” He asked, unsure of what else he could say.

“What? Where am I?” She asked, then she rubbed her eyes and blearily looked up.

“Ferdinand? What happened?” She said.

“I should be asking you that, you laid down and started glowing.” He said.

“I don’t remember, I think I was… I don’t know.” She said, she kicked her legs out from the side of the cot and felt a sharp pain go up her spine. “I feel kind of tired, and weak.”

“I’m sure you would, you’ve been without food or sleep for days.” Ferdinand said, he helped Andromeda to her feat and she rubbed her head.

“My head feels like jelly, and why are the lights so bright in here?” She asked. Ferdinand snapped and the lights dimmed instantly.

“Any number of things could have happened, but it seems like you’re at least better then you were. Tell me, what’s the last thing you remember?” He asked.

Andromeda tried to focus and straighten out what had happened, and by the similarly confused waves of confusion she felt from Whisper and White, they were struggling too.

“We were talking about something, I don’t remember what though.” Whisper said.

“The last thing I have recorded is… I just wrote stop, over and over.” White said.

“The last thing I know for a fact is that we talked earlier, you told me about my soul.” Andromeda said. Carrion then came around the side of the room through the proper door with a Medean man and a stretcher.

“We need to review her health, something could still be amiss.’” He said. The Magisters and the Medea collected Andromeda before she could even begin to protest and she was wheeled out of the room.

The room was left empty besides Ferdinand, as well as Rapture, who in all the commotion had slid down the wall were the window was and sat. Ferdinand felt a painful feeling well up in his chest as he looked at her.

“Rapture?” He said.

“Huh?” She said, as if she only just noticed he was standing there.

“What did you do?” He asked. She didn’t answer, as the question seemed push her father into her thoughts. Ferdinand walked over and reached his hand out. “Sorie, you can trust me.” Rapture stared at him in mild shock for a moment, then took a shaky breath.

“I didn’t do anything.” She said.

“Well you must have done something, Andromeda is fine now, and there were the lights.” Ferdinand said. The way she looked at him when he said that, there wasn’t a sliver of dishonesty, no ulterior motive, nothing. Just the look of a scared young woman. He decided not to press further.

“Come on, we should go see how she is. I’m sure she’ll want to thank you, even if you say you didn’t do anything.” Ferdinand said. He offered his hand again, and this time she took it.

Carrion had spent many years working as an Arch Mage for this country, maybe long and difficult years filled with all manners of terrible and surprising events that would shake the foundations of a person’s psyche. However, over these last few days he had everything he every thought he knew and understood thrown on its head, and the report he held in his hand was up there with the most surprising.

“She has a clean bill of health, no physical abnormalities to speak of. As a matter of fact she is about as healthy as a baseline human can be besides her lack of a reflant, beyond that…” The Medea said, going through his notes, all written in the margins of his medical report as nothing seemed to line up otherwise. “First, my psionic magic associate has verified that there are indeed two other minds present in her body. Though we were assured they are benign and not a risk, nor new to her.”

“But what’s this? You handed me a blank page?” Carrion said, looking at the clipboard in front of him.

“Yes, it seems the vast majority of her fractured soul is now gone.”

“Gone?” he asked.

“That’s correct, aside from the three small shards we detected after some effort, we can’t seem to find any evidence that there is any mana in her body, let alone a soul.” The Medea asked.

“And… You’re sure she’s fine?” Carrion asked.

“As far as we can tell, there is nothing strictly wrong with her. Frankly sir, I can’t say for certain how or why, but it is the case.” The Medea said, then with a bow he walked away, leaving Carrion shaken. He looked around to make sure that no one was looking in his direction.

“I’m so tired of this…” He said with a defeated whimper. At that moment, Argo, Catherine, and Milo literally burst through the office door of the medical wing.

“Where is she!” Argo bellowed, only to immediately lock eyes on Andromeda who was in the middle of getting a physical on the other side of the room.

He ran towards her with all the might of a charging bull and wrapped his arms around her. Catherine and Milo came quickly behind and did the same, the sudden commotion surprised, her, but Carrion saw her expression soften and she leaned into their embrace.

“Oh gods I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have ever let you go. I’m so sorry.” Argo said, barely holding back tears. Andromeda did her best to pat his back and he slowly started squeezing the life out of her.

“You didn’t do anything, I’m just happy you guys are all right.” She said, Catherine managed to pry Argo off of Andromeda and Milo ran up to fill the space.

“Nini! Eh- I mean-” Milo said, only for Catherine to casually bop him on the back of the head.

“Nini?” Andromeda asked.

“Oh don’t mind him. He was having trouble saying your name one day at home and Argo thought it would be cute to give you a nickname without permission.” Catherine explained. Argo looked away when Catherine turned her gaze toward him and Milo seemed embarrassed.

Andromeda rustled her hands through Milo’s hair, “If he want to call me Nini I don’t mind.” She said. Milo’s eyes lit up and he hugged her again.

Carrion walked up to the group with a stern look on his face. At least, that’s what Andromeda assumed, this was the first time she got a good look at the vulpine face of the man in front of her, though she recognized the voice as Arch Mage Carrion’s. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak with Andromeda for a minute.” Carrion said, Andromeda waved casually to The Landers and followed Carrion to the other side of the room.

“Sorry I had to pull you away from that, but I need to speak with you about some important things.” He said.

“No worries.” Andromeda said. “What’s up?”

“First, I wanted to speak a bit candidly for a moment. I’ve spent the better part of a weak investigating every scrap of information I could about you to solve this situation, so it feels a bit rude to not properly introduce myself. As I said, I’m Arch Mage Carrion of Skysea Adalay, but my real name is Agreie’ts Griret-zal. A Son of Karginath, or as you’re people call us, a beastman.“ Carrion said.

“Ah, right, its, uh good to meet you? I don’t know if I should be introducing myself too sorry.” Andromeda said, feeling a bit awkward after his bombastic title.

“I only wish to introduce myself, I don’t mean to imply you should do the same. But besides that, I do actually have some important business to talk about.” Carrion said.

“I’m all ears. Go ahead.” Andromeda said.

“First, as you already know you’re seemingly healthy. Ideally I’d like to spend the next few days running some tests to make sure you don’t suddenly turn inside out or whatever else might occur, but we are on a time crunch.” Carrion said. Andromeda then remembered the whole assassination thing and her blood ran cold.

“Oh, shit…” She said.

“My sentiments exactly, High Magister Ferdinand and Arch Mage Rapture are waiting for us in the meeting room, we should hurry.”

Andromeda arrived in a dull looking conference room. One of the downsides of this whole facility was that there were no windows anywhere, so every room looked vaguely the same, this one being no different.

Carrion and Andromeda sat down across from Ferdinand and Rapture, though rapture looked a little different. More timid and shy, rather then the dead expression she remembered back at Cylas. Ferdinand wasn’t much better, looking like his aged face had developed 10 more years worth of wrinkles.

“Right, normally this many Arch Mages being together at once would warrant some ceremony, but we’re on the clock.” Ferdinand said. “We have about 8 hours until we’re expected to deliver you to The Arbiter.”

“Yeah, I’m going to be totally honest, I’ve been a bit distracted, are there any updates on that?” Andromeda asked.

“No, there were reports of an attack on the jail that Argram was being held in, as well as mixed reports of some kind of runic pillar rising in the forests north in Sond’s Folly. But in both those cases we can’t be certain they’re relevant.”

“Wait, hold on, do you know if Gram’s okay?” Andromeda asked.

“We can’t be certain. All we do know is that he hasn’t been sighted anywhere where he might normally be.” Carrion said. Andromeda felt a pit in her stomach, she had warned him that getting involved would ruin his life, but she wanted so desperately to be wrong.

“There is another topic to discuss.” Ferdinand said, then he pulled out a small broken glass cup, the shards of itself sitting inside. “Andromeda, would you mind trying to mend this for me?”

“Uhh, sure?” Andromeda said, she casually waved her hand towards the glass, but instantly her expression dropped and her eyes went wide.

“What the hell?” She continued, closing her eyes and focusing with all her mind. A faint hint of blue light emanated from the tips of her fingers and then petered out into nothing.

Ferdinand shook his head.

“It’s as I feared, Andromeda, I don’t know how to say this gently, but it seems that whatever happened to bring you back to relative normality has caused your soul to be near completely destroyed.” Ferdinand said. Andromeda stared blankly for a few moments, then blinked several times.

“Pardon?” She said.

“As I said, you’re soul has been reduced from several million shards, to only three very small ones. Essentially, you have almost no mana in your body, and you’re ability to regenerate it is horrendously reduced.” Ferdinand said.

“What does that mean?” Andromeda asked.

“It means that you’re no longer capable of using magic.” Ferdinand said solemnly. Andromeda sat there, eyes still wide, and processing the information. She sat back in her chair roughly with a look of total devastation in her eyes.

“O-Oh… I see…” She said. Ferdinand put a hand on hers and gave a look pure sympathy.

“I understand that this is difficult news, and that you may want to take some time to grieve, but we must continue.” Andromeda nodded quietly and he went on.

“There might be some glimmer of hope in all this.” Ferdinand said. “While we investigated this situation, I came to realize that the oath we swore back in King’s Grove seems to have broken somehow. Releasing us from our word without consequences.”

“Hold on, how would that have happened. An oath can only be released in such a way if one or both parties died before execution of the terms.” Carrion said.

“I don’t know, and at this point I’m too tired to question it. This means that the same oath she swore to Ander Plact will likely be broken as well.” Ferdinand said.

“While that is an improvement, but it doesn’t much fix the adhoc hostage situation we have involved.” Carrion said.

“Actually, I had an idea about that. But I’m not so sure about it.” Andromeda suggested.

“By all means, its not as though we’re fully of ideas ourselves.” Carrion said.

“If I can get close enough to The Arbiter, I might be able to influence her mind with Whisper.” Andromeda said, Ferdinand felt a telltale feeling that something had just happened, then he heard a whisper in his ear. “Hello sir.” It was the voice as Andromeda’s but its cadence and tone sounded different. “If the person is distracted, Whisper can root herself into their mind and change things. Of course neither of us want to actually hurt people with this, its just a method.”

Then the feeling left Ferdinand, and he suddenly had a strong urge to eat a strawberry, and from the expecting look on Andromeda’s face he knew she was telling the truth.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you have non-magical tricks under your sleeve, but I am.” He said, but then his face grew serious. “You are never to perform such manipulation on me again, are we clear?” Andromeda nodded.

“One downside I can see from this is that at least in my case, I could tell something happened. If the Arbiter suspects her mind is being manipulated she might flip the kill switch.” Ferdinand said.

“Could we Isolate her somehow? What if we locked her in that containment room so she couldn’t do anything?” Andromeda suggested.

"Unfortunately, I think its actually the opposite, when we analzed the mole from the documentatrian group, we discovered traces of curse magic. It’s more likely then not that the connection being broken for more then a few moments would result in the island going into a rampage.“ Ferdinand said.

“A deadman’s switch…” Andromeda said, she felt a strange, empty feeling in her chest when she said that. She didn’t notice it, but Ferdinand saw Rapture’s gaze fall on her just as Andromeda touched her chest.

Rapture weakly cleared her throat and drew all their attentions. “I… Might be able to help.” She said. Ferdinand and Carrion were both shocked, for different reasons, and Andromeda seemed confused.

“How?” Andromeda said. She was on edge hearing Rapture suggest her help. All she remembered of her was that day at the college.

“I can…” Then she stopped short and looked at Ferdinand with a pained expression.

“You don’t need to force yourself if you don’t want.” Ferdinand said. Rapture shook her head and continued.

“I can… change things.” She said, then the walls of the room around them seemed to splinter off into nothing. All around them seemed to be a floating blizzard of particles of matter. “If you ask, I can… change… what you need. You only need to ask.”

The storm of matter around them returned to normal, and Andromeda once again felt a strange empty feeling in her chest.

“What exactly can you do? You can’t do anything right?” Andromeda asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Andromeda, you need to understand that she is being spectacularly cooperative right now. I don’t know if she could explain what she can do.” Ferdinand said.

“Hold on, didn’t you say you don’t know how her abilities work?” Andromeda said, a searing glare digging into Ferdinand.

“I don’t, know one does. I’m not even sure-” Ferdinand started, only to be interrupted by Rapture.

“No! I… I can…” Rapture said with with a tone not unlike a child. Only to then noticed all eyes were on her, and then she clammed up.

“If you can, then tell me, please.” Andromeda asked. Hearing those words seemed to set something alight in Rapture.

“I’m… I’m an Arch Mage, we all do something d-different. I can do- can make anything I want happen. But I need to really want it.” She said.

“Anything?” Andromeda said. Rapture nodded.

Andromeda thought about it for a second, it’s not that she really disbelieved Rapture. But she wanted to test it, then her gaze fell back on the broken glass in front of her.

“Fix that glass, and fill it with water.” Andromeda said, pointing toward the glass. Reality rippled for a moment, then in the blink of an eye the glass was in perfect condition and filled with water.

“Holy-” Andromeda said under her breath.

“Good job.” Ferdinand said with a fatherly tone. Hearing that made Rapture smile.

“Alright, question, if you can do “anything”, why can’t you just blink The Arbiter out of existence and keep everyone on the island from hurting each other?” Andromeda asked.

“I can’t- go very far…” Rapture said.

“Like a range limit?” Andromeda asked. She nodded.

“About how far can you go?” Carrion asked, suddenly speaking up after having listed for a few minutes. Rapture didn’t respond immediately, first looking to Ferdinand who gently gestured at Carrion.

“About as far as this room is big.” She said sheepishly. The room was about 10 feet wide and long, and a little shorter then in height, so her range was very short.

“What about the teleporting?” Andromeda asked.

“I change where I am…” She said, which was likely the limit of what she could explain as she seemed to become more uncomfortable as time went on. Before she fell of the edge of whatever was making her receptive, Andromeda asked one more question.

“if I ask you to do something, and only when I ask, can I trust you’ll do it?” She asked. Whisper nodded vigerously. “Alright, then we we leave tomorrow. I’m going to say something, and I’ll need you to do one very specific thing. Is that understood?”

Several minutes later, they each went their separate ways. Carrion and Ferdinand were suddenly drawn away to something important near the holding cell this facility had, while Rapture seemed to just fade out of existence the moment everyone took their eyes off her.

Considering the fact that she had been stuck in an observation cell for a week blind or unconscious, Andromeda didn’t know her way around the facility. She was also told that her true identity was to remain a secret to all those that didn’t already know. Because of this, she technically had free reign to go where ever she wanted and even command anyone she saw to do anything she desired. She didn’t plan on doing that, but it was an option for her.

Lacking much better to do with her time, she found some kind of cafeteria looking area and sat down. Within moments there was a girl, a little younger then herself, in front of her with a notepad. Andromeda hadn’t even seen where she came from, and now she was staring intently.

“Can I… help you?” Andromeda asked.

“Forgive my interruption Lady White, I came because you I thought you were here to order some food.” The young woman said. Andromeda was suddenly reminded of being back at the college where all the staff were treating her like royalty.

“I don’t have any money on me, I don’t think I could-” She started, only for the young woman to throw her hands up in surprise.

“Oh no Lady White, I wouldn’t dream of charging you for our food. I’m just happy you’d consider eating it.” The young woman said.

“Oh god, is this what it feels like in person? I remember watching the memory before and that was bad enough.” White said in her mind.

“If that’s fine, I guess, uhh, can I just start with some water while I think. I don’t know if you guys have a menu or any-” Andromeda once again started to say, only for the young woman to mysteriously produce a glass of ice water from nowhere as well as a menu in her other hand. How the young woman managed to put away the notepad without her noticing was beyond her.

“Here you go, let me know when you’re ready and I’ll be right with you.” The young woman said with a smile. Andromeda took the glass and menu and within moments the girl was back behind the counter of the cafeteria helping someone else.

“Lady White, eh?” White said, a feeling of annoyance rolling through Andromeda’s mind.

“It’s not my fault, that’s just what people know me as.” Andromeda said, using the name like that didn’t sit well with her either, but unless she wanted to break the literally one rule she was given, she had to deal with it. While she thought this, Andromeda felt her mind fade somewhat. Not as though she was losing consciousness, but just moving to the background.

As soon as she realized what happened, she found her eyes and head moving without her willing, and when she saw her own hands. She saw the stark white skin with normal fingertips of White. “What?” Andromeda said, hearing her voice seem to echo against nothing and everything. Whisper as well seemed to radiate waves of confusion to match.

White on the other hand now suddenly found herself viewing the world with incredibly clarity. “What happened?” White said, hearing her voice clearly and without the normal dull sense that came form being in Andromeda mind. In her surprise, she dropped the glass of water she was holding. It crashed to the ground, and within moments the young woman from before was in front of her again. However she was mystified by the sudden change in appearance she witnessed.

“Lady White? What happened, are you… alright?” She said.

“Play it cool, Play it cool!” Andromeda said in the back of White’s mind.

“Uhh, yeah, I was just being clumsy.” White said, her tone was notably different that Andromeda’s and this didn’t pass the young woman’s attention.

“Are you sure? You sound a bit different, and look a bit different too.” She asked. White, Whisper, and Andromeda all went into panic mode for a split second before Whisper had a brilliant idea.

“You’re all white, she calls you Lady White, lean into it!” Whisper said, and White quickly cleared her throat and clarifed.

“Well, My name is Arch Mage White, did you really think I’d look any different? This is my… casual appearance.” She said, pulling the words from her ass in a unprecedented display of charisma she normally lacked. It did wonders for her story as well, as the young woman glowed at the statement.

“Oh I’m so glad you’re willing to relax in our presence Milady, I’m sorry to bother you over this. I’ll just-” The young woman started to say, but when she looked down the glass that White had dropped was restored fully. It was sat up on the ground surrounded by a puddle of water.

“I could swear I heard the glass break… Strange, anyway, I’ll clean this up and be right back for your order.” The young woman said.

Panic gripped all three of their hearts as she walked away.

“What the hell!” Andromeda said. White just babbled in equal shock and surprise. Whisper acted as at least somewhat of a calming force by trying to calm ease them down.

“Guys, guys, calm down. This happened before, right? Just calm down, think it through.” She said. White took a deep breath and Andromeda did the same in spirit, a moment later Andromeda felt herself rise back to the top and White down below. The young woman came back with her notepad and noticed the change again. Once again confused, but not asking, Andromeda offered an excuse.

“Sorry, I had to focus for a moment.” She said. “I’ll just have some buttered bread if that’s alright?” With a nod the young woman left her sight and they returned to the topic at hand.

“It wasn’t always that easy, right?” Whisper asked.

“Hell no, it used to take me actually focusing to make it happen.” Andromeda said, the young woman came back with her bread and Andromeda started stress eating.

“Let me try it.” Whisper said, and just like that Andromeda felt her mind slip back and watched as version darkened and blurred. Her skin turned grey as it did before with Whisper, as did her hair. What was different from White’s perspective was that there seemed to be a flood of sounds and noises in her mind.

“Is this what its like for you all the time?” Andromeda asked.

“What? Wait, are you hearing all of that too?” Whisper asked.

“Yep.” Andromeda and White said on chorus.

Whisper listened to the sounds of the minds of all those around her. There was something that caught her eye however, somewhere past several walls seemed to be a mind that was louder than all the rest. One that was moving quickly from room to room. She couldn’t tell what the person was thinking because of the distance and things between them, but it felt desperate.

“Should we be doing something about that?” Whisper asked.

“What would we even do?” White asked.

“You have a point.” Whisper said. Having idly finished the bread Andromeda started, the seemingly omniscient young woman who collected her plate and was already leaving before Whisper could get a word in. But as she walked away Whisper could hear her thoughts.

Don’t ask don’t ask don’t ask you’re not important enough to ask don’t ask don’t-

That repeated until she turned a corner around the counter, were her mind became too hard to follow. It was mixed with feelings of surprise, faint fear, incredible elation at having served an Arch Mage. This was followed by some more personal thoughts that Whisper didn’t feel comfortable continuing to listen in on.

“I’m gonna suggest we work this out later, let me up.” Andromeda said, having her mind rise back to the surface and regain control. She stood up and left the cafeteria, not wanting to get too lost because she waiting for Ferdinand and Carrion to finish whatever it was they were doing before they got ready to go.

Then someone came running up behind her. “Lady White!” they yelled. Andromeda didn’t recognize her, but she was a mousy looking girl with glasses.

“Yes?” Andromeda said, wondering who this was.

“The High Magister is calling for you. If you would come with me please.”