Andromeda and Eli sat in their room, Andromeda was sat at the table paging through the pages of her book while Eli sat on the bunk wiping down the sword he had bought in Betel Stretto before they left. While they waited, Andromeda suddenly nodded her head and turned the chair around to face Eli.

“Alright, he’s headed off to the other side of the ship. We should be safe.” Andromeda said.

“How do you know that?” Eli asked.

“It’s complicated, but trust me.” Andromeda said.

“We talked about this, I’m not going to blindly trust you anymore. You’re not a good judge of safety.” Eli said.

>It would be easier if you told him about me.<

“I literally cannot see a way that doesn’t end poorly for everyone involved.” Andromeda thought.

>Not having his trust going forward has more ways of ending badly for us personally if you don’t.<

She has a point, Andromeda.

“Fine.”

“Eli, I am going to tell you something you might not like. But I need you to not freak out.” Andromeda said.

“That does nothing to assure me, but I can try.” Eli said.

Andromeda mustered the strength she had to speak clearly. “The creature that attacked you in Salsi, and then attacked me at that cabin. It’s still here in my head, and it merged with my soul.” Andromeda said, then she let out a deep breath that sounded as though she had been holding her breath for several days.

“E-Excuse me?” Eli stuttered.

In Eli’s mind, he heard a disturbingly familiar voice.

>Hello…<

It was the same voice that whispered to him back then, but at the same time it sounded like Andromeda’s voice. It was so clearly her voice that if he hadn’t been looking at her when he heard it, he would have assumed she spoke out loud.

Eli’s brow furrowed, not in anger, but confusion and a small bit of hurt.

“Why?” He asked.

“Why what?” Andromeda asked.

“Why of all things did you decide to do… Whatever it was you said?” Eli asked. At this point, he wasn’t even really upset, just thoroughly confused about her actions.

“It wasn’t the perfect solution, I’ll admit. But I couldn’t see any way around it. If I left her in you, you would have been killed. If I left her alone inside me, then I would have been killed. If I somehow kicked her out into the world, then who knows how many people could have been hurt.”

“First, She? Second, you intentionally took in, what? A Demon?” Eli asked incredulously.

>I am NOT a demon.<

Eli felt the familiar but different voice ring in his head angrily, and that confused him even more.

“Alright, not a demon, but something that can SPEAK IN MY MIND.” Eli said, his voiced raised in a slowly building anger.

“Eli, I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be, but not only are we on a boat in the middle of the ocean, there is a potential threat to both of us on this same boat. You can do whatever you want once we leave. But we need to be careful now.” Andromeda said.

Her miraculous moment of not being suicidally insane broke Eli from his momentary fury. Though he was not done with this line of questioning, he admitted she was right. “Understand me, I am not upset. Upset would not begin to explain the sheer level of unbridled rage that I am currently experiencing. However, You unfortunately have a point. So I will give you one last chance. I WILL leave if you do something even half as brain-meltingly stupid as what you have already done. Is that clear?” Eli said.

“Yes… So, we need to talk about what we’re going to do.” Andromeda said. She felt like a child being chided for her bad behavior and there was nothing inside her that made her feel as though she didn’t deserve it.

“Obviously, but I’m not exactly sure what our options are. He knows you’re a mage, and he has the same name as the guy who invited you here, if I remember right. I couldn’t tell you if he was lying about being a mage himself. Unless you can figure it out, I don’t really have a way of working around that.” Eli said.

“Well, I might have a way.” Andromeda said.

“Oh?” Eli asked.

“The creature I told you about, we fused together at the soul. So we are connected. With her, I can reach into people’s mind and alter their thinking. If we’re careful enough, I might be able to probe his thoughts.” Andromeda said.

“Did you use that on me at all?” Eli asked. His voice cold.

“No, absolutely not, I swear on my life.” Andromeda said, then she felt an extremely painful pang in the back of her head.

Why would you say it like that?

Andromeda ignored the silent screaming in her mind as she waited for Eli’s response.

“Fine, I’ll believe you for now. I am already giving you a long rope for what you deserve. While we’re on the subject, is there anything else you might want to discuss?” Eli said mockingly.

“Nothing I can think of.” Andromeda said.

“I don’t believe that, but I don’t know enough to call you on it.” Eli said.

They worked together to form a plan. Eli, with whisper in tow, would find Aldir and make friends with him. He would operate under the technically correct idea of being her personal bodyguard, but not especially loyal if it weren’t for the money.

If Aldir was intent on trying to harm Andromeda, then having the opportunity to use her own bodyguard as a means of attacking her would be tantalizing. Whisper was along as a form of protection. She could protect against attempts to influence Eli’s mind, as well as return to Andromeda with information in time. If it came to light that he was a mage, then they would know instantly. However, if he wasn’t and this was all some grave misunderstanding, then they will have avoided upsetting a relative of their potential benefactor.

Eli didn’t remain idle for too long, and begrudgingly accepted the fact that Whisper was in his mind again, albeit peacefully this time. The unlikely pair took off out the door to the hall and searched Aldir out, leaving Andromeda alone with her thoughts, and White.

“Do you think it would be a bad idea to lay back down?” Andromeda thought.

When Whisper comes back, she’ll be here. So it should be fine.

Andromeda walked back to her bunk and wrapped herself with the thin blanket provided to her. One of the benefits of her situation with White and Whisper was that she could will herself asleep almost instantly.

She found herself sitting in a vaguely familiar looking home, specifically in a chair across from White, who herself was sitting on a couch.

“Quite the place?” Andromeda said passively.

“Hopefully, it was a bit of work getting the details just right.” White said. To hear her voice clearly was a strange feeling, Andromeda was used to the half-felt speech they usually used, so hearing it in person was out of place.

“Yeah…” Andromeda said. She leaned back in the chair and rubbed her temples.

“Something wrong?” White asked.

“I’m just… stressed. I forgot what it’s like to not be stressed. All these things happening, people working against me, partnerships I’m straining. Everything feels like it’s at a breaking point.” Andromeda said.

“I can understand that, but have you considered that you’re making it harder on yourself?” White said. Andromeda sat up and looked at her.

“What do you mean?” Andromeda asked.

“Ever since we’ve left Cylas, you’ve been acting rashly. You didn’t listen when I suggested we not attack Eli.” White started.

“I didn’t know who he was at first!” Andromeda said.

“Andromeda, I perfectly recorded his face from your memories, if you had given me a moment to look I could have told you.” White continued. “Beyond that, once we were in the forest, you played coy with our intentions from the beginning. That lead to us making bad decisions that got everyone hurt.”

“White, the entire situation has been a shitshow since we started. I couldn’t have told him about the reasons for our trip, and it’s not like he’d believe me if I told him what we are.” Andromeda excused.

“I’m not saying that we should have told the whole truth, but you gave him nothing and expected the world.” White said.

“What do you want me to say? It’s all my fault? I should have just opened up to a random guy I saw once months ago?” Andromeda said.

“I am not your enemy here, I am just asking you to think. You have all the time in the world if you need it. I just need you to think.” White said.

“Think about what?” Andromeda said.

“EVERYTHING!” White said, having finally lost her patience. The world around them shook and items fell from shelves around them. The artificial sky darkened and shaded the whole room in a dusk that made the shadows long and harsh.

“What-” Andromeda managed to eek out, then White stood suddenly and the coffee table between them disintegrated into nothing as she walked through it.

“You keep doing things and not thinking them through, you can’t lie to me, I LITERALLY share your same mind. We are CONNECTED! But you just keep doing the most self-destructive things possible. The ONE time someone called you out on it, you blacked out so hard that I had to take over AND I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WE COULD DO THAT!”

“But-”

“Then, once we get attacked by some kind of mind parasite thing, of ALL THINGS YOU COULD HAVE DONE, you decide to FUSE WITH IT? ARE YOU INSANE?”

“I-”

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT! All you do is act by yourself. You talk about how we’re a team but you ignore any suggestion I give you. Eli has BEGGED you to be upfront with him and you have routinely ignored that too! What if he RIGHTLY decides to take off because of you?”

Andromeda was stunned to silence. White stood mere inches from her face and stared daggers through her soul. The waves of emotion that she usually felt only in the back of her mind battering her like a wave now.

Underneath her, Andromeda felt the chair she was sitting in shift and looked down to see it had shifted into a two seat couch. White sat herself down beside Andromeda and leaned against her.

“Please… Just think… I tried so hard to learn how to think, I did all this… It was dangerous when I didn’t think, and that was in this world without consequences. You have so much to lose if you don’t think.” White said.

Andromeda stayed silent.

It was easy to forget, but White wasn’t so old. She only experienced the world for weeks at most, and she had progressed this far. Andromeda looked throughout the room they sat in. The room was familiar in a way she couldn’t place, but it felt like home. There were shelves with books, knickknacks, and even pictures. On even closer inspection, she could make out the detail of planks behind the wallpaper, and the unique grains in each plank beyond that. On some of the shelves there was dust, and on others they were clean of dust. Not only that, but the shelves you would expect to be used more had less dust.

Compared to that, what had she done? She made a one-sided deal with a man who intended to kill her, then she nearly got herself and an innocent man killed, twice. In the middle of that, she risked both and White’s soul without her say.

It came down to dumb luck that nothing had ended poorly for them, and it was even greater fortune that her risk with Whisper didn’t ruin their shared life.

Andromeda looked down at her fingers, with White’s beside her on her lap. The mirrored fingertips remained the same. Even in this shared world, and even with the inclusion of the necklace, they reflected hers. She sighed, and felt a pain in her chest. Not from any magical pain or strange occurrence. She felt shame in her heart for how she acted.

“I know saying it isn’t good enough anymore, but I am sorry. I’ve put you and everyone else through too much, and for reasons I can’t even excuse. I won’t ask you to forgive me, but I will promise to be better.” Andromeda said.

White was quiet for a moment, then laughed quietly.

“I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.”

-----

Eli was sat in the mess hall of the ship.

Though the room was empty aside from himself, he knew that he wasn’t alone. The fog in his mind had returned with a name and he was supposed to work with it. He didn’t ask too many questions when Andromeda told him they could communicate with each other through this “other part” of her. He was still hung up on the fact that less than a week ago, this thing was trying to kill him.

Andromeda assured him that nothing would happen to him so long as this thing was in his head. He wasn’t much for trusting her word at this point, but she was clear on what abusing his trust meant at this point.

The reason he was sitting here instead of looking for Aldir was simple. Some bad weather had rolled in and the doors to the outside were locked down to prevent damage. That meant that until it passed, he was stuck here.

Against his better judgement, he spoke.

“Are you still in there?” He asked.

>Yes… Did you need something?<

It sounded just like Andromeda, eerily so. But that wasn’t what it was like back when it was inside him. Before it sounded familiar, but unfamiliar.

“No, I just needed to make sure you didn’t go off somewhere.” Eli said.

>I don’t plan to, unless I need to tell Andromeda something.<

“So, what? Are you her servant now?” Eli asked. It was a bit callus to ask it like that, but he was in a terrible mood considering the situation.

>No, I’m not. I could explain, but I get the impression you don’t want to hear it.<

“No, I don’t. Frankly, I'm considering leaving as soon as we make land. “ Eli said. Then he felt a strange feeling, a wave of… Sadness, for lack of a better term. He wasn’t feeling sad himself, it was more as though he could feel sadness projected into him.

>I’m sorry to hear that, but I don’t blame you. Considering what I’ve done, I wouldn’t have blamed you for leaving the moment we made it to Bettel Stretto.<

“If I had known what she did then, I would have.”

There was no response. Just silence.

He was upset at the situation, but he had questions he needed to ask. If for no other reason than to get them out.

“I have no reason to believe your word, but I need to ask a few things.”

>If I can answer, I’ll try.<

“Why were you trying to get me to walk? Where were you taking me?”

>Nowhere… The point was to run you to exhaustion.<

“I see, what would you have done once I exhausted?”

>I would have devoured your soul, it wouldn’t have killed you. But you would be a mindless husk. Once that was done, some other thing like me would have taken your body.<

Eli was surprised, no sugarcoating at all.

“You’re very forthcoming with that information.”

>Anything less than the truth might as well be a lie.<

He was expecting more excuses and half speak. Perhaps that was just his residual bias against Andromeda. But it was a refreshing change of pace.

“Why did you wait so long to attack, and why did you move to Andromeda?”

>I have thought about that, and I couldn’t tell you. I had attacked so many people over the years and never once did that resist as hard as you did. I don’t know what changed so suddenly, but I reached out to Andromeda the first chance I got.<

“You make it sound like you didn’t have a choice.”

>I didn’t, something kept me from leaving. But I don’t know what that was.<

“Could you leave now if you wanted?”

>I should be able to, my connection to Andromeda is stronger than mine to you.<

“Good, I don’t want this to last any longer than needs to.” Eli said.

Before Whisper could respond, he heard the bulkhead door open at the far side of the room. Of all people, the one man he was looking for walked in. But he wasn’t alone.