Sitting before him were the last three members of staff, all of whom, for various reasons, had not been able to be investigated until now. The first was a young man, no older than twenty years, who served as the janitor of the facility and, until now, had been busy working on the lower levels of the facility.

The second was an older man, a member of the organizational staff, and also the one who coordinated the security details for high-ranking political entities. Considering that there were three Arch Mages and a High Magister present at the moment, it was no small task.

The last was a small, older woman who worked as part of the documentarian group, the ones who were in charge of organizing and documenting all activities, discoveries, and research activities. Unlike the other two, there was no particular reason for her delay in being investigated. The group as a whole was quite busy, but the others in her group had managed to find time.

The three of them were seated in a small auditorium, most often used for presentations to the general staff, but sometimes used to reenact state plays for the sake of documentation. Today, it was just Carrion, the three suspects, and a few magisters on standby for security. Every single person in the room knew that there was a traitor in their midst, so the tension was high.

"Welcome, I wish I could say I have gathered you here for more pleasant reasons, but that is not the case," Carrion said. "As you very well know, I have been conducting an audit of our personnel to discover the source of the information leak. Out of three hundred and twelve staffers, only you three have not been cleared. I should not have to say that with almost certain possibility, one of you has betrayed this facility, this region, and this country. It brings me no pleasure to levy these charges, but it is my responsibility to do so."

Carrion then raised his hand, and from it, a cloud of violet light erupted and spread throughout the room. It dissipated quickly thereafter, and Carrion continued.

"What I have done is performed a magical technique that prevents anyone from uttering a lie. The only exceptions to this are if answering the question at all would result in the death of the speaker," he said. Then, he called for two Magisters to follow him, and he approached the three suspects.

"I will ask only one question, and with that, two of you will walk away from this free. Is that understood?" Carrion asked. They all agreed, and he took a deep breath.

"Before you stands a Son of Karginath, a member of the beastmen race. My people invaded your country with no goal other than to occupy your lands and enslave your people. My own father was one such man and personally killed hundreds. By his own words, I can assure you that his dying breath was spent cursing your insolence and wishing he had killed more, only so that the wound he had left might have been deeper," Carrion said, letting the mood of the room settle into his words. "Considering this, what is your opinion of a member of such a race being not only your superior but the one who now holds the fate of your life in his hands?"

"Every single day I sit here and wonder what kind of hell I must have raised in a past life to deserve mopping the floors for a flea-bitten mutt who does nothing but wander around and do as he pleases. I'm stuck plunging toilets and washing floors, and you get to sit with kings and command armies of people. It makes me want to throw up," the janitor said. As the words fell from his lips, his face gradually changed from neutral to ghastly terror, as he was unable to stop the torrent of words from escaping him. Just as the last word came out, he fell ill and very nearly threw up. Carrion nodded wordlessly and moved on.

The next to speak was the organizational staffer, who was already terrified at the possibility of what he might say. But instead of any words, he spit in Carrion's face. It took a few moments before his mind caught up with what he had said, and he started trembling.

Carrion once again stepped away without a suggestion of feeling, only to stand in front of the old woman. She took a moment to clear her throat, then looked up at him with a kind look in her eye.

"I think it's wrong that we, as a people, judge you so harshly for the sins of your fathers. We have as much blood on our hands as any other, and it wouldn't be right to judge you for the same," she said quietly.

Carrion stepped away and thought for a moment. He called a few magisters to his side, and they spoke quietly for a moment. One walked away, and another nodded.

"Restrain her," Carrion commanded, his clawed finger pointing at the frail old woman. Her eyes turned bloodshot, and she began snarling like a wild beast. The two men sitting beside her hastily dove out of the way as magisters swiftly descended upon her. The room became filled with a cacophony of screams and magical light. The woman unleashed a barrage of profanities in multiple languages, requiring the strength of three grown men to subdue her completely. A moment later, Carrion gently touched her forehead, and she quickly fell unconscious.

Carrion thought about what was at stake. If that little old woman was any indication of what the island might devolve into, he wasn't sure if "bloodbath" would be enough of a word to cover it. As the dust settled and the few remaining magisters mended the damage left in their wake, the two men approached Carrion while he deliberated with another man.

"U-Uh… Sir?" the janitor asked. Carrion turned to see the most pain-filled and fearful face he had ever seen on a human—one filled with pure shame, terror, and grief.

"Yes?" Carrion said, his voice neutral.

"I-I didn't… I swear I didn't mean to…" he stuttered. Carrion put a hand on the man's shoulder and shook his head.

"No, I don't want you to dwell on it. Every word that you both said was the absolute truth. Through and through. I understand that my presence in these lands is an affront to the good faith of the world. By all rights, I should not stand before you," Carrion said.

"No, sir, it's still not right what I said," the other man said.

"My friend, believe me when I say this: I would genuinely have been more surprised to hear that you didn't feel that way. I am aware of what my people did to your family, and you have no reason to apologize," Carrion said.

"But… I've never told anyone that…" the man said.

"I am an Arch Mage. I knew before you applied here. Even if I didn't, I would have known the moment I saw you. Now please, you two get some rest. I have some business to attend to."

With Andromeda now capable of moving on her own, and with the levels of mana on a downswing, it was decided that now would be the best time to move Andromeda to a more stable environment. In the past few days, a special containment cell was put together at no small expense. This one is capable of handling mana levels equal to the maximum seen from Andromeda for several hours without risk. It also has the benefit of allowing those not experienced with magic, specifically the creation of mana voids, to be in the same room as her without hazard suits.

At the present moment, Carrion and Ferdinand are sitting down at a table a few feet from Andromeda. Sitting right beside her would still be a hazard in small doses, so this was decided as the best option. Notably absent is Alice, who mentioned that she wasn't feeling well after the excitement that led to Andromeda waking up. She was sent back to the on-site dorms to rest.

Through some coaxing and small experimentation, it was discovered that Andromeda herself is fully incapable of both sight and hearing. She can gather some knowledge of the outside world through the assistance of her two 'assistant' minds, White and Whisper, but any direct conversation is slow. It also seems that any mind-affecting magic is both ineffective and painful for Andromeda. This leaves only the slow form of conversation they have, which is better than nothing.

"Is it honestly that bad? I thought Ferdinand was being dramatic," Andromeda asks, her voice slightly distorted and slurred. As she cannot hear herself speak, she can't control her voice well.

"No, the situation is very grim. Currently, our estimates suggest that at least 45% of the island is under some kind of control. That includes a number of magisters and government officials," Carrion says.

"That seems… Drastic?" Andromeda said.

"I agree, and according to testimony from Albert Nedely, from a logistical point of view, it makes no sense as well," Carrion said.

"I've been thinking about this, sporadically I'll admit. They want to kill me, right? I get that in theory. But all this feels too costly," Andromeda said. This thought made Carrion and the others pause.

"What do you mean?" Ferdinand asked.

"I mean, think about it, dozens of people, hundreds of thousands of mind-altering things, and showing up here just to threaten you guys to hand me over? That wouldn't be easy, right? I can't say I'm an expert, but I don't think that's something you can do without some, I don't know, logistics?" Andromeda said.

"That is a good point. If it's true that Ander Plact is the man behind this, then this level of production is uncalled for. Though it's not as though that's strictly important at the moment," Ferdinand said.

"Yeah?" Andromeda said, seeming confused.

"Whatever the sinister reason for this convoluted process of shanghai-ing an entire island, it still ends with the intended result of killing you."

"That's… fair," Andromeda said.

"Hey, I've been thinking about this. Is there possibly some way of working around this?" White said.

"I don't know, maybe? I can ask," Andromeda thought.

"So… White just brought something up. What are the chances we worm out of this somehow?" Andromeda asked.

"Elaborate," Ferdinand asked.

"Uhh, I hadn't given it that much thought," White said.

"If they just want Andromeda dead, does she need to stay dead?" Whisper suggested.

Please note that I corrected "mind-altering-ings" to "mind-altering things," added a comma after "hundreds of thousands," and adjusted the formatting of the dialogue with asterisks.

“For example, if they intend to kill me, does that mean I need to stay dead?” Andromeda asked.

“They are assassins, their job is to remove you from the equation completely, killing is just the most efficant way of doing that. If you didn’t stay dead then they would just do something else. That’s even ignoring the idea that we have no way of bringing you back from death. We aren’t Medea.” Ferdinand said.

"What about faking my death?" Andromeda said.

“Once again, if they’re going to to the extreme of mind controlling an entire island as a bargaining chip, they will likely confirm their kill.” Ferdinand said.

“Alright, then let’s think of a different way. You say people will attack each other if everything goes south. Is there a way to stop that?” Andromeda asked.

“I have considered this option, but its only theoretically possible. To do such a thing would require an amount of mana we can’t easily work with, or a truly astronomical number of experienced mages who know just what needs to be done.” Ferdinand said.

“That’s nothing to say about the political nightmare doing such a thing would be. Its one thing for a criminal to do so covertly, but for officials like ourselves to do that would make the aftermath a million times worse.” Carrion interjected.

“It would be bad enough that its worse than the alternative?” Andromeda asked, she personally didn’t feel as though their political identities weren’t important enough to justify shooting it down.

“I am being serious when I say that the hellfire that would rain down on us for such an act would far outweigh even the best advantage it might gain us. It’s not public knowledge that such a thing is even possible. If the people, and by extension, the wider world knew that we could control a population of millions at all… well, I don’t think I need to explain why that might make things worse.” Carrion said.

“That is a fair point… But it doesn’t make me feel better about it.” White said.

“What if we tried to, I don’t know, arrest them? Don’t you know where they are right now?” Andromeda asked.

"We have no clue as to how this mind-controlling is being accomplished, and we aren't even entirely sure it's magic. If we marched in with an army of magisters and arrested the whole lot, it could just as likely lead to riots." Carrion said.

Both Andromeda and Whisper, who was communicating all of this to her, were growing tired of how little progress they were making. "One moment," Andromeda said, then she laid her head down on the table and closed her eyes.

"Alright, rapid fire, what won't work?" Andromeda asked.

"Killing isn't an option, and running away won't work," White said.

"Do you think we could try an oath again?" Andromeda asked.

"That's what got us in this mess to begin with."

"Good point."

"Hey, Ferdinand's trying to talk to you," Whisper said.

"Tell him we're busy." Andromeda said.

"I- oh, right, I can do that. One sec." Whisper said, then both White and Andromeda felt the telltale feeling of Whisper leaving for a moment.

"Hold on, they're assassins. What if we pay them off?" Andromeda said.

"How would we even broach that conversation? It sounds like Ferdinand left their base in shambles when he left. They aren't going to want to parley after that," White said.

"Actually, yeah, even if they did, it might be absurdly expensive too. If the headmaster of a mage college was putting a hit on someone, it probably wouldn't be cheap."

"I'm back. Besides the panic of me suddenly talking in his head, Ferdinand got the message. He did say to hurry up, limited time and all that," Whisper said.

"Yeah, yeah, I figured. I just wanted to have a conversation that didn't end with a paragraph about why it didn't work," Andromeda said.

"So, what'd I miss?" Whisper asked.

"Bribing is out of the window. They're probably pissed and would ask for too much anyway," Andromeda said.

"Yeah, I agree on that. Wait… Hold on, I just had an idea," Whisper said.

"Go on?" White said.

"Alright, hear me out. Killing won't work, bribing won't work. We're trying all these direct methods, what if we try and be more covert about it?" Whisper suggested.

"Hold on, how do you mean? We already know that tricking them won't work. Or at least if it did, it might end badly," White said.

"No, I mean… Listen, I can manipulate people's minds. Remember?" Whisper said.

"Oh god, you don't mean that you want to try and invade this Arbiter person's mind, right?" Andromeda asked.

"Exactly, all it would take is distracting them long enough for me to worm in there and make them back down," Whisper said.

"That sounds stupidly dangerous, and we talked about this. Manipulating people's minds like that is no better than just killing them," Andromeda said.

"Hold on, I don't know if I agree with that. I don't think she means to literally rewrite their personality. But something more like 'Hey, it would be nice if you didn't kill me, or at the very least not threaten a bunch of people to make that happen,'" White said.

"Yeah, trust me, I know how much is too much and plan on staying a hundred miles away from it with this. Would it really be that bad of an idea?" Whisper asked.

"I mean, no, not strictly speaking. But a couple things, you basically have two options, right? Either we get in close and let you hop over, or we figure out this kaleidoscope thing we're doing right now and put you in control and do it that way. Either way requires us fixing the problem at hand,"

"I guess…" White said.

"Anyway, on that point, what the hell is up with that?" Andromeda asked.

"No idea, but I'm willing to bet it's something to do with us having that mental breakdown with my memories. Which, and I think this doesn't need to be stated, isn't happening right now. Which is a concern," Whisper said.

"Should we go back to the conversation? We've been away for a minute," Andromeda said.

"Yeah, go with that," White said.

Andromeda lifted her head, which, if anything, was more of a symbolic gesture as she still couldn't see or hear.

"So?" Ferdinand said.

"Alright, here is the idea. If we can get me close to The Arbiter and distract her, Whisper can mess with her mind and hopefully make this go away. We either do that by fixing the skin and hair thing or getting me close to her as I am now. Both tall orders," Andromeda said.

"You do realize that you're emitting enough mana into the air to kill a person, right?" Carrion said.

"Yeah, I do. You've told me a few times now. That's why the smartest play is to figure out what's wrong with me and fix it. I have some ideas, but nothing concrete," Andromeda said.

"About that, we've run some tests, and among other things, there are some concerning findings in your medical checkup," Carrion said.

"I wouldn't be surprised. I've had a rough few weeks," Andromeda said.

"No, it's more than just wear and tear. Are you aware that you don't have a reflant?" Carrion asked.

"A what?" Andromeda asked.

"They don't seem happy about hearing that," White said, with Whisper agreeing with the assessment from sound alone.

"You're a mage. I've seen you use magic before. You shouldn't even be alive, let alone using magic without a Reflant," Ferdinand said.

"Even ignoring that, you're… I don't know how to explain this simply. Your entire body is wrong," Carrion said.

"You guys are scaring me. What's wrong with me?" Andromeda asked.

"Alright, let me put it like this. There are basic things that we expect to see in baseline humanity. Among those are a reflant and arcanoplasts in your cells. We aren't seeing either of those in you. Despite that, your body seems to be producing an amount of mana, both internally and externally, that should have killed you a thousand times over. It's a wonder that every cell of your body hasn't exploded like a bomb," Carrion said.

"Oh great, you somehow made literally all of this worse," Andromeda retorted.

"I don't mean to make the burden you're dealing with worse, but your existence seems to be impossible. If we hadn't verified that you were human, I'd swear you were something else entirely."

The room was quiet, then suddenly, Andromeda asked a question.

"Am I?" she asked.

The question hung in the air for a moment, only to draw a confused noise from Ferdinand.

"What?" he said.

"Am I human? Seriously. I can heal people, including myself. I have voices in my head that are, at the very least, not a part of my mental illness. My skin is doing some kind of demented imitation of a barber pole. I learn magic really quickly and don't ever seem to run out of mana. And on top of it all, I'm not even from this world. I just woke up one day on some doctor's table after some random person found me collapsed on the floor of a king's house. So tell me, do I sound human?" Andromeda said. Carrion stared blankly upon hearing the word "heal," only to have Ferdinand put his hand on Carrion's shoulder and shake his head.

"Uhh, well, there's a lot to unpack from that, but honestly? No. I can't say in all my years I have ever heard of something as strange as you," Carrion said.

"A rude way to put that, but I agree. I can't honestly be human anymore. I'm some strange mix of human, xixial, and whatever White is. All wrapped up in a body that, apparently, shouldn't even function," Andromeda said, then she rubbed her temples for a moment. "Considering that, what might be wrong here?"

They thought about it, and when put in this way, it only confused them more.

"So, off the top of my head, I remember you saying that you 'binded' your soul to Whisper, and that changed her. Well, until now, I didn't think much about it, but what exactly does that mean?" Ferdinand asked.

"What does it mean? I- Uhh…" Andromeda said, then her mind went blank. White and Whisper both paused as well, equally confused.

"Wait, hold on, what does that mean?" White asked.

"I don't know. When she asked me to do it, I just… I don't know, it just happened. Same with you, White," Whisper said.

"O-Okay, wait, souls. Those are something like pockets of mana, right? We hold them in us? I read that in a book a while ago," Andromeda said.

"More or less, that is correct. There is a bit of complexity to how they work specifically, but that's a fair summary," Ferdinand said.

"Are there any tests you can do about that? With me?" Andromeda asked.

"There is no point. If there were any irregularities with your soul, you would most likely be dead or in nerve-shattering pain," Carrion said.

"Nothing about this situation is normal. Can you humor me, at least?"

Carrion looked at Ferdinand, and all he could do was shrug. "Go ahead."

They stood and left. A few minutes later, Carrion came back and waved something that White claimed looked like a glass tuning fork at her, only to leave without saying much else.

It had been a few hours since then. There wasn't a clock in the room, but as Andromeda had recently learned due to the mind wall breakdown situation, White kept perfect time. At the moment, it had been a little under three hours, and Andromeda was getting impatient. It wasn't so bad with White and Whisper there to keep her company, but when they shared a unified set of memories and a lot of stress, there wasn't much to talk about.

However, amidst the incredible boredom she was experiencing, Andromeda kept sensing something. Though "sensing" was not the right word, at the edges of her mind, she could perceive something. Very weak, very faint, but something.

"Hey, are you feeling that too?" Andromeda asked. There was a pause, then a wave of confusion.

"Feel what?" White said.

"Yeah, I don't feel anything either," Whisper agreed.

"Huh, maybe I'm imagining it?" Andromeda said, only to get a disapproving feeling.

"No, don't just assume it's nothing. That's how we miss important events. What are you feeling?" White asked.

"I don't know. You know how it feels to look out at something really far away in the dark? How you can just barely tell something is there, but nothing else?" Andromeda said.

"That's what it's like?" White said.

"Yeah, weird thing too, it feels like it's moving." Andromeda said.

"Oh, you know, not ominous at all," White said.

Lacking literally anything better to do with her time, Andromeda focused on this strange feeling with all her will. With more time, she learned that there were three points moving at the far distance. Not only that, but each one felt just a little bit different.

Without words better to describe them, she thought of them as colors. One was harsh and rigid, this one felt red. Another felt felt warm and bright, the word she used for it was orange. On the other side of things, there was another that was faint and soft. Despite that, there was a sharpness to it that made the other two feel smooth in comparison. That one felt yellow. The words didn’t quite match the feeling she felt, but lacking any other sense to think of it in, this is where her mind went. Red, Orange, and Yellow.

As she felt in vein for a feeling that almost wasn’t there, she found something else. As confusing as it might sound, this one felt like an absence of color. How Andromeda was feeling something that literally didn’t seem to be there was unclear to her, all she knew is that it was there.

For some reason, beyond her reasoning, she focused much harder on this absence. With a force in her mind that made little sense to her, she pushed on this void.

A flash of light and sound entered her mind, followed by a piercing pain in her head that broke her concentration. Her eyes burned with a faint image and her ears rung like a gun fired next to her ear. There were waves of distress and concern radiating from Whisper and White just after this, followed by Whisper saying something about alarms.

“Again?” Carrion said, being handed another set of readout sheets that all said the same thing.

At Andromeda’s suggestion, they were performing some very experimental tests for the integrity of her soul. Actually capturing a snapshot of it wasn’t terribly hard, but the current trouble they were dealing with was that it seemed to not be working correctly.

“Recalibrate and run it again, full grain this time. I want to see particle counts.“ He said to a nearby technician. The difficulty was that no matter what they did, the results kept coming back wrong.

Simply put, the measurements work similar to a heart beat monitor, but in reverse. A flat line is good, and anything else is bad. Andromeda’s was not just not flat, it was spiking wildly in both directions. This is what lead Carrion and everyone else to keep trying to calibrate the system and try to reduce interference. But no matter what they did, it seemed to be a bad take every time.

On a nearby table, Carrion heard the sound of something vibrating. A reflex glass, two alerts. First, the ambient mana in Andromeda’s room dropped rapidly, then rose back to nominal levels, and the other report was about a scream coming from Albert Nedely’s room. As much as he wanted to go and see what was wrong, he didn’t have time to waste while this wasn’t working.

“Someone go check on Nedely, make sure he’s alive, and someone get High Magister Ferdinand to the new Observation room.” Carrion commanded.

He looked at the scan again, trying to puzzle out what might be the probably cause for the interference. His mind drifted for a moment back to what they were saying before.

Can you humor me?

So he thought about it. Taken at face value, readings like this suggest one thing. The soul is shattered, and with readings this dramatic, its fractured so heavily that it barely even resembles a soul. Rather more like a billion tiny souls all in the rough shape of a larger one.

It couldn’t be, not in the way he was thinking…

“Hold on.” Carrion said, everyone in the room turned to him. He walked to a console and put his hand on one its operators. “I need you to try something, turn the sensitivity to as low as possible, and put no upper limit on the sensing targets.”

“Sir? Are you sure?” One man asked.

“If it breaks, I’ll pay for it, and all of you get a week off, paid.” He said, and just like that everyone jumped into action. Cutting off the results of the current test and throwing in the new settings with speed that would make you think they were slacking off before.

“How will we print this?” Another man asked, problem being that if they were going to check for multiple souls at once, then they wouldn’t just print all of them off individually.

“Overlay all results on one page, one pass per result.” He said. A few minutes later, the mechanism they used for printing results whirred to life. one pass, then another, then ten, a hundred, a thousand, several thousand. After a while the machine started making concerning noises as it continued to print over and over on a single page, so fast that the needle used to inlay the ink was smoking.

After only a few minutes, the machine burst into a cloud of smoke and fire. The Magisters nearby quickly put the fire out, but not before Carrion fished the remains of the results page out of the wreckage. On the page, though smudged a bit from thousands of results being printed in seconds, he could see that there were no less than 3,892,777 results before the machine broke down. With a margin of error of five percent, they were all flat.

He was silent for a long time, he heard people speaking to him, but it felt distant. His mind raced to make sense of what he was seeing. It could have been an edge case, or he was misunderstanding something about the nature of souls, both were possible, but…

Nothing about this situation is normal.

It was in this moment that he realized what she said, even if it wasn’t what she meant. She wasn’t part human, part xixial, or anything in between. Whether by miracle, or engineering, or even just plain dumb luck, she was some form of life altogether unknown. Unique.

A living paradox, made of flesh, and mind, and soul, all occupying one space.

Behind Carrion, his reflex glass vibrated again.