The one thing that stayed the same in Wraithwood was my friend circle—with some additions.

  Every other night, Felio, one of Felio’s guards, Kai, Jaylin, Tyler, Railain, and Aiden would come to my house for dinner. I enjoyed cooking and laughing. They enjoyed eating and playing cards. And strangely enough, there was no conflict between Aiden and Kai.

  As mentioned, the secret ingredient was Railian Vestra.

  “If you have a two, I’ll take it,” Aiden said, raising his eyebrows at me from behind his cards.

  “Do you really think she’d help you win?” Railain asked.

  “I don’t. It’s more like a trust test. I do it every once and a while to see how much Mira trusts me.”

  “Which is zero,” I said, grabbing the discard pile up to a seven. Then, I put down a set and a three of a kind. We were playing Rummy with classic Bicycle playing cards that Aiden had introduced to The Nest—the Claustra night club. They were the same, hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades, but the Claustra used different birds for face cards. They were a hit there, and now, we had a taste of home.

  “Ouch,” he said, grinning.

  “Do you ever stop being a clown?” Railain asked.

  “Nope.” He lifted a glass of water in a rocks glass, rolled the ice, and drank.

  Kai laughed. “I swear, you’re doing this to drive her crazy.”

  “It’s the Claustra way,” Aiden said. “We’re not satisfied until we can charm people. And the number one rule of charming people is to never be boring or rude. I mean, you can attract the right people by being all gruff and stoic…” He raised his shoulders and rocked them with a burly voice. “But you’ll never charm them.”

  “So you’re trying to charm her?” Felio asked with a giggle.

  “Ab~so~lutely,” Aiden said.

  Railain’s shell cracked for a second, and she blushed. People noticed, and she snapped. “This is harassment!”

  “This is harassment?” Aiden cried playfully. “You just called me a clown!”

  She grumbled and turned toward the table. “Just play your hand, clown.”

  “It’s not his turn,” Tyler said, drawing a card. He looked at the card and thought about it twice before wincing. He turned to Cassain discerningly, as if to determine what cards Cassain held, but that was impossible. Cassain was a statue.

  And good at cards.

  Tyler put down an ace, and Cassain picked it up, throwing down three aces and discarding, ending the game. Everyone groaned but Railain, who stood up and said. “Count your blessings.” She tried to leave, but I raised a bag of third evolution jerky.

  “Am I your pet?” she asked dryly.

  “We never get hungry until you’re leaving,” I said.

  Railain wanted to say something, but she sat down. Legacies never turned down power. Ever.

  “Why do you want me here anyway?” she asked.

  “‘Cause you’re so… charming,” Aiden said with a slight smile.

  She snatched the jerky out of my hand and sat down, and we hurrayed, throwing up her hands. She hated it. But I didn’t actually think so, either. It was clear that she never had “friends,” and so maybe she was just expressing her emotions.

  Or maybe not.

  I’m not sure, but she kept showing up anyway.

  This was just a normal night in my home, where soul meat and company were plentiful.

  Jaylin rarely talked during the nights, but talked often in the “greenhouse” that Felio and I had made. It ascended multiple flights on a corkscrew staircase, and was heated and lit with special UV stones that served as grow lights. There were temperature regulation controls on each floor, and it was filled with the neatest plants Felio and I found on our daily springtime hikes the year prior.

  “What’s this?” Jaylin would ask.

  “It’s alca berry,” I’d say. “It’s normal food, but it has benign hallucinogenic effects. It’s kind of like… alcohol. Or more like marijuana, but with milder effects.”

  “Have you tried it?” she’d ask. And I’d laugh and say: “I try every plant in Wraithwood—including the poisonous ones.”

  Jaylin loved that greenhouse, and we put her in charge of it while Felio ran the alchemy lab. The weeks passed by quickly in that fashion, and soon, it was winter again, and it was time for me to leave. I was going to tell everyone, but Felio told Jaylin that she needed to show her something in her room, Tyler was having dinner with a beautiful MIT student named Sarah from our world, and Aiden was tuning the lurvine with Railain.

  So, I was alone with everyone but one.

  “Guess it’s just us tonight,” Kai said.

  I smiled faintly. “Yeah. Felio likes Jaylin more than she likes me.”

  “Nah…” he said. “I think Jaylin’s the little sister she never had, so she’s spoiling her. You’re far more low maintenance—and people cherish that.”

  “Low maintenance, huh?” I motioned to the table and he sat down, admiring the table that Kira etched designs into every so often for practice.

  “Yeah, low maintenance. Tyler? Jaylin? They’re high maintenance. You need to give them the attention they crave, or they feel neglected or think that they’ve done something wrong.”

  “And you don’t think I feel that way?” I asked as I poured hot water over tea leaves.

  “No… Over the last few months, I’ve noticed that you never worry about people doing enough for you—but you’re always worried you’re not doing enough for them.”

  I lifted his cup from the counter, then held it there, suspended for a moment, before turning and bringing it to him.

  “Sounds about right.” I handed him the cup. “So? What should I do about it?”

  He shrugged. “What you’re doing? Just because you feel that way doesn’t mean anyone else does.”

  “Oh…” I smiled and sat down. “It’s funny. Everyone else treats me like a war general, but you treat me like a… I don’t know. A woman you met at a bar?”

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  “Well, not exactly,” he said. “But pull out some liquor, and I will hit on you.”

  I laughed and covered my mouth with my wrist. “See? This. You make me feel… normal.”

  “You’re not?” he mused.

  “I’m not…” My eyes drifted off. “Tomorrow I’m going to the magical place on the other side of that teleportation circle up north. You know what I’m going to do there?”

  He lifted his cup and blew on the steaming surface. “What?”

  “I’m going to learn how to animate the souls of dead beasts and use them to kill things.”

  “That’s hot.” He took a sip.

  “I’m serious.”

  He choked and coughed as he put down his cup. “Wait. You’re actually being serious?”

  “Yeah. I’m being serious. It’s a bit more involved than that. If the cultists learn I’m practicing soulmancy, they’ll send extermination squads. But I got this magic called Dreamscape that brings illusions to life with mana. If I can combine Dreamscape with my beast army, I could literally raise beasts from the dead—fur, color, personality and all.”

  He stared at me with both eyebrows raised.

  “See? “ I said. “I’m a freak. I’m—”

  “Woah, hold up,” Kai said, snapping from his daze. “If you call yourself a freak, that means that I’m into freaky stuff. I’d rather not go down with you on this.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re sounding like Aiden.”

  “No, Aiden sounds like me. Because while he’s playing back some Claustra charm, I’m being dead serious.”

  “How is this serious? You’re not even the slightest bit bothered that I can raise things from the dead? You’re not bothered by…”

  Kira separated from my body like a ghost, wearing her wings and broken chains, and blindfold. Then, a vibrant splash of color washed up her body, exposing a white and red Roman-style toga and dirty blond hair. Her lips became pink and supple. Then, she lifted her blindfold and looked at Kai with striking blue eyes, and he blushed.

  He watched with parted lips as she picked up the deck of cards, shuffled them, and bridged, dealing five to each of them.

  Then, she sat and watched Kai coquettishly. I didn’t like the way he looked at her back, so I snapped my fingers and ended that dance.

  Kira sucked back into my chest and I said, “See? Freak. But unlike Kira, who’s an extension of my personality, I’ll be able… in theory… to bring back beasts… personality, free will, and all… well. Tied to me anyway. If you think that makes me a freak, I don’t know what will.”

  “Freak?” Kai said. “I think that makes you amazing.”

  “Killing things and bringing them back to life as soul-tied slaves? You don’t think that’s… at least a little fucked up?”

  Kai looked around. “No.”

  That annoyed me beyond expression, and I snapped. “What do you mean that doesn’t bother you?”

  Kai got flustered, too. “What do you want me to say? It does? Mira—even if I found that power evil it wouldn’t even reach the top ten. Sure, I’ll admit—if the Vestra family had it, I’d probably think it was pretty fucked up. The holder makes all the difference, but… I’m being dead serious. It’s not that bad.”

  “Not that bad…” I lifted my cup and put it down. “Compared to what?”

  “Compared to what?” Kai laughed, almost snorting. “Injecting torture chambers directly into a person’s mind so no one finds a wound on the victim? That’s what Brexton does. Killing eighty of your siblings to become a scion? That’s what Hadrian did. Hell, Railain’s family controls soul meat production. Do you know why?”

  Kai leaned in, and for the first time, his lax attitude turned to scorching hatred. And he was actually asking me. He was demanding to know if I knew who I had welcomed into my home.

  I shook my head. “I don’t. I just thought they were beast tamers.”

  “Oh, they’re beast tamers. As long as you think shattering a beast’s mind with Nearan tuning and making them slaves is ‘taming.’” He leaned back. “Compared to that, cleansing soul meat’s a breeze.”

  I took a sharp, broken breath. “Wait… that’s legal? How’s that not considered soulmancy?”

  “‘Cause it’s popular,” Kai said, laughing bitterly. “Glaves and grieves can run their petty crusades, but if you mess with the bottom line… mess with family resources… it’s war.” He ran both sets of fingers through his hair, leaning his elbows on the table for support.

  For the first time, I could see it—Kai’s true self. I could tell that behind his relaxed demeanor, he was boiling inside. He hated the families. He hated them to the marrow of his bones.

  “Sorry,” Kai said. “It’s just… Compared to them, you could puppet corpses on literal strings, and you wouldn’t gain an audience. And beyond that…” He looked me in the eyes. “Even if your magic was as bad—or worse… it wouldn’t matter. Magic is like fire—it’ll keep you warm, It’ll cook you food—and it’ll burn your enemies alive. That’s just how it is. Fire’s not bad. It’s the person who wields it. And… look. If necromancy will make this place a reality?” He motioned around the room to encompass Wraithwood. “Tell me the time, and I’ll kill the beasts for your army. ‘Cause Mira… what you’re doing… who you are? I’ll die for both of them.”

  I think that broke me.

  For years, I had lived with this… burden about how soulless or evil I was becoming. I had taken lives and felt very little for them. Now, I was taking souls, and that didn’t bother me, either. It was as though killing diluted killing, as if one kill was murder, but twenty, thirty—fifty—made it a respectable lifestyle.

  There was no question about whether what I was doing was right.

  Maybe it wasn’t moral, but it was logical—or at least there was a good argument for it. I wasn’t just killing people to kill them, and I always negotiated with anyone willing to negotiate.

  Still.

  I used to be a botanist. I… grew plants. And then somewhere along the way, I had hopscotched through a forest and landed two feet onto a pile of corpses. Then, I started sucking out souls, harmonizing things, and injecting them into plants. I had become, in a way, Mother Nature and the Grim Reaper, and I didn’t feel like either of those roles was in the least bit wrong.

  Now I had friends and family—but I felt guilty. Isolated. Freakish. Destined to be a war general that would never be approached by anyone who wasn’t family, coworkers, or war buddies.

  I had become a person who was only approachable by a classification of individuals: queens, generals—gods.

  I cherished Felio and my friends because they were my only friends, and I was afraid that if I lost them, I’d never get people to treat me normally again.

  But this.

  Kai…

  He treated me normal and he went out and said, You’re evil? This is evil? Then goddamn. Someone should’ve said something. I would’ve been evil a long time ago!

  To Kai, someone who had been born and bred and burnt in the flames of the Neophyte system, I wasn’t a freak—I was just a normal person with awesome power.

  I cannot express how much that meant to me. It wasn’t just a validation for what I was doing. It wasn’t just a justification. It was appreciation. Perhaps all I needed to find was someone who was just as furious with the world as I was.

  Because that’s what I was—furious.

  That was the reason I started swearing so much, and handling things with severe impatience was because I was genuinely angry. Sure, I didn’t hate my life, but the Oracle thrust me into this forest and made me fight to survive, all so I could test the strength of Yakana’s soul. Gods played games with me. Guardians distrusted me. Everyone tried to kill me. And while I had come to accept these things, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t pissed off about them.

  I was fury.

  My lungs were filled with smoke.

  I wanted to clasp hands with Kai and destroy everything with him—and he picked that up.

  Kai laughed. “You’re angry, too, huh?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “About what?”

  I looked around me. Then, I create an illusionary montage of almost getting eaten, being chased through the forest with soul sucking mosquitos, and wading through swarms of shalks and rushing from giants and tree werewolves. I didn’t give descriptions, but I showed the Fourth Ring Guardian down river in its colossus form, and the fourth ring I poisoned and killed. Trap plants, Gluttony’s Guillotine, archway trap plants. Watching my itchy leg web with veins.

  It all came so fast and vibrantly, and when I stopped, I looked into his amazed eyes and said, as dryly as possible: “I asked to be a botanist.”

  Kai laughed and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Why are you pissed off?”