"You can't just ignore them forever."

  Ted's voice cut through my pacing like a blade through butter. Which was ironic, considering I was currently inside my soul having an argument with myself about problems that seemed far more complicated than just black and white.

  Just another day in the fucking magical Multiverse.

  Ever since that night in Sylvarus when I nearly became crispy-fried Ben, sleep had transformed into something else entirely. Instead of dreaming, I'd find myself here—conscious, alert, and dealing with the kind of problems that made student loans look like a minor inconvenience.

  I even woke up refreshed, like I'd gotten a full night's rest.

  The downside? It never actually felt like my mind slept. My brain kept running on Red Bull and anxiety, even when my body was supposed to be recharging.

  Terrible for my slowly deteriorating sanity.

  And I had three massive problems staring me in the face, each one more ridiculous than the last.

  In my left hand sat Winchester—the staff I'd found in a spirit realm when this whole mess started. Turned out to be something called a Vajra, some kind of ancient, supposedly indestructible weapon.

  The "supposedly" part was doing a lot of heavy lifting these days.

  A hairline crack now ran from one end of the weathered wood to the other, like a scar from whatever desperate move I'd pulled to "save the day." Diana's words, not mine. I was still calling it "that time I almost died horribly on a rooftop in the rain."

  But worse than the crack was the way Winchester felt now. Reluctant. Hesitant.

  I could sense it pulling back whenever I tried to summon it from my soul into the physical world, like it was afraid of me. Or maybe afraid for me.

  Either way, I was terrified to use it. And I had absolutely no clue whom to ask about repairs.

  What was I supposed to do, post on magical Craigslist? "Ancient mystical weapon repair, must have experience with possibly sentient artifacts, references required?"

  "It's not a thing," Ted said, reading my thoughts with his usual lack of permission.

  "Stay out of my head, Ted."

  "Your head, your soul-space, your rules," he shot back. "But you think loud as hell, kid."

  I considered reaching out to Arryava Pusa, the Sage who led the refugee Sentarians. The woman had already done so much—given me a house, the Emberseed necklace that kept me from collapsing when I burned through all my mana, and she was the reason I'd advanced to Seeker by binding my soul-seal.

  She'd also caught serious heat from the Sentarian Elders for sharing what they called forbidden knowledge about the Hollowflame attack on Sylvarus.

  Still, if anyone would know about fixing ancient magical weapons, it'd be her.

  And Kerrin had mentioned she'd enjoy those crab rolls...

  My second problem lay sprawled in the courtyard beyond—the serene, ancient, primordial avatar of Light. She spent her time staring up at an artificial sun that writhed with golden fractals like some cosmic screensaver.

  Every night I tried talking to her, trying to glean more about what had happened a month ago.

  Every night it went absolutely nowhere.

  It was like having a conversation with a toddler who kept resetting mid-sentence, picking up threads from weeks ago while completely ignoring whatever we'd been discussing. Each night, she seemed a little less there than before.

  A little more faded around the edges… and that scared the hell out of me.

  Finally, there was Valor itself.

  My soul-seal used to hover in the doorway between the courtyard and this space, acting like a portal. Now the doorway stood empty, and I could move between the two areas whenever I wanted.

  Though stepping through while awake would knock me unconscious instantly.

  I had discovered that the hard way. While on stairs.

  "Ha, yeah that was goddamn hilarious," Ted added with a grin.

  "I don't need commentary on my mistakes, Ted."

  "Slapstick is my specialty, kid. Gotta appreciate the classics."

  I sighed and stepped into the courtyard, turning back toward Ted. He preferred staying in the soul-space to "monitor things." Which I was pretty sure meant raiding my stored snacks while I wasn't looking.

  Bastard.

  The courtyard hung suspended in mid-air on the side of a mountain, my soul-space carved into the rock like some kind of mystical man-cave. And there, at the very peak, Valor waited.

  An impossibly complex fusion of three runes representing the magical concepts that had somehow become mine:

  Light

  Radiancemore that night in Sylvarus.

  Courage

  Compassion

  The three concepts had reluctantly worked together to form my soul-seal, making me at least twice as strong and fast as I'd been on Earth.

  But when I fed mana into Valor here in my soul-space—mana burning—those effects multiplied exponentially. Even more so now that it had moved to the mountaintop like some kind of mystical penthouse.

  "Doing the same thing over and over isn't working," I said. "You got any ideas, Ted?"

  He threw his hands up in exasperation. "Finally! Holy shit, kid. I'm still learnin' how fuckin' time works in here, but it's definitely been a lot. I feel like I should be offended you didn't ask sooner."

  "Wait." I stared at him. "You had ideas this whole time and didn't just tell me? What the hell, Ted?"

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  "I told ya, I'm a Spirit Guide. Emphasis on the ." He jabbed a finger at me. "You're in charge here, kid, not me. You wanna fuck around and find out? I literally can’t stop ya. It's my job to help you find answers, not ask the goddamn questions—even when I really fuckin’ want to."

  That stopped me cold.

  I blinked, really looking at him for the first time in... well, however long a month was in soul-time.

  The change hit me like a slap in the face.

  When I'd first met Ted—back on day one of this whole Runebinding journey—he'd looked like a down-on-his-luck holiday elf living in a boxcar. Ratty hair, threadbare clothes, the works.

  Now he wore fancy blue robes with gold trim that looked actually . His hair was slicked back and styled, and honest-to-god jewelry glinted from his pointed ears. The transformation was so complete I wondered how the hell I'd missed it.

  Right. The whole "feeling like I'm dreaming" thing. Details seemed to slip by if I wasn't paying attention in here.

  "Oh. Oh! Shit, Ted, I'm so sorry." The guilt hit me like a freight train. "This entire month has felt like... I don't know, like I was sleepwalking through conversations with you. But look at you, holy hell. When did you become fancy?"

  He grinned, showing off teeth that were definitely cleaner than before. "You like it?" He flexed his arms with obvious pride until a bottle tumbled out of an inside pocket.

  He scrambled to catch it, popped the cork with practiced ease, took a long pull, then tucked it back into his robes like nothing had happened.

  "There he is," I said, laughing despite everything. "Okay, so how can I help her?"

  "She showed up to save your ass, but she's still part of your Seal." Ted's expression grew serious, the humor fading from his weathered features. "That part? I don't know much about. But she's in your soul, fighting just to exist."

  He paused, meeting my eyes directly.

  "Maybe try actually letting her?"

  "And how the hell do I do that?"

  Ted sighed as if I'd just asked him to explain quantum physics to a goldfish. "I don't even know why I bother tryin' to teach you shit." He took another pull from his bottle. "Give her a name, kid."

  I stared at him. "That's it? I give her a name?"

  "I've had goddamn ages to figure it out." His voice carried the brand of incredulity that came from watching someone miss the glaringly obvious. "You're in control in your soul, so that's the only thing that makes sense."

  I turned toward the courtyard, where the ancient woman lay on her back, staring up at the writhing golden sun with the same perplexed expression she'd worn for weeks.

  Her white and gold dress caught the fractal light, seeming to glow from within. Her hair matched the colors perfectly—not dyed, but like the concepts of white and gold had become hair just for her. Her ears were pointed, but horizontal in a way that suggested she was older than the very idea of elves.

  Older than the idea of anything.

  And I was supposed to name her?

  I'd seen mind-bending physics and impossible concepts of illumination when I'd grasped her hand in that moment of crisis. She wasn't just some powerful being—she was a Primordial. Something that made my Earth-based understanding of gods look like a children's picture book.

  She didn't represent Light.

  She Light.

  As though every photon in the universe was brought into existence by this woman’s will at the dawn of creation.

  How do you name something like that?

  "Linda?" I said out loud.

  The sound of Ted's palm connecting with his face echoed through the courtyard like a gunshot.

  "You're going with fuckin' Linda?" His voice climbed an octave. "There's no way the woman leading the damn PTA meeting created the concept of Light. You can’t be fuckin’ serious! Try again, dumbass."

  I grinned. Fair point.

  I looked at her again—really looked. The way the artificial sun's fractals seemed to respond to her presence, growing brighter when she shifted, dimming when she was still. The gold in her hair that wasn't quite gold, but something richer, deeper, like starlight.

  The sense that she carried the memory of the universe's first sunrise.

  "Dawn," I decided, the word feeling right as it left my mouth. "You're Dawn."

  The shift was immediate and electric.

  The air around Dawn suddenly stopped churning in a way I hadn't even noticed was happening. The artificial sun above pulsed once, sending waves of golden light cascading through the courtyard like ripples on a pond.

  She blinked.

  Sat up with fluid grace.

  And looked around the courtyard with new awareness, her eyes focusing for the first time in weeks.

  Then flopped back down onto the stone like she'd just solved an irritating puzzle.

  "Your soul... is confusing," she said, taking in a deep breath that seemed to draw light from the artificial sun above. The fractals responded, spiraling faster. "Dawn. A freely given name, with so much meaning woven through it."

  My eyebrows shot up.

  She'd never strung so many coherent words together before. Hell, she'd barely managed single syllables most nights.

  "Hmm." A smile ghosted across her lips, ancient and amused. "Linda would have been fun, too."

  "Dawn?" I asked, not sure what else to say.

  "Ben Crawford?" she replied without looking at me, still staring at the fractal sun writhing overhead like it held all the answers to questions I hadn't thought to ask.

  "Thank you," I said, the words feeling inadequate for what she'd done. "For... whatever it was you did to save my life."

  She waved her hand dismissively through the air, the gesture carrying an odd weight, like she was brushing away mountains.

  "I didn't," she said simply. "Your Eidolon—" She gestured toward me with one pale finger. "—it has power now to exist. Now it is you in place of self."

  "My what?"

  I turned toward the doorway where Ted stood frozen, his face carrying the expression of someone who'd just watched their dog get hit by a truck.

  A very specific, terrible truck.

  He stepped across the threshold, but something was wrong. The movement looked forced, like he was pushing through invisible molasses, his fancy robes rippling against some kind of resistance. When he finally settled beside me, his breathing was labored.

  "Yeah, I figured it was somethin' like that," he said, glaring at Dawn with an expression I'd never seen before. "How ya doin', Dawn? I'm Ted."

  "Ted'rynias Sa'Velinthar Mor'Dain," Dawn said, sitting up to meet his eyes directly.

  The name rolled off her tongue like music, each syllable carrying the weight of mountains and the memory of stars. It sounded ancient beyond measure, like it had been carved into the first stone before language existed.

  "Not my fuckin' name, Dawn." Ted's voice went flat, dangerous. "You turned Ben into an Eidolon. I'm not fuckin' happy about it."

  He was talking to her like that. To Dawn. The Primordial concept of Light itself.

  And somehow, that scared me more than anything else that had happened.

  "What the hell is going on, Ted?" I asked, an icy knot forming in my stomach.

  "Thank you for fuckin' asking." He jabbed a finger toward Dawn, his usual humor completely gone. "She just made you all-or-nothing. Your soul is you now. You've been on autopilot for a month trying to remember how to be you, because you've never actually had to do it before."

  His voice dropped to something almost scared.

  "Your body and your soul? Same goddamn thing now."

  The knot in my stomach evolved into a block of ice.

  "And let me tell you, kid—that's real fuckin' terrifying for those of us who live here."

  "I feel like I need more information to be suitably outraged, Ted."

  He blinked at me, then grinned—but it wasn't his usual shit-eating smile. This one had sharp edges and tasted like broken glass.

  "Yeah, sorry about that. We haven't really started on the whole 'spiritual dynamics' shit yet." He took another pull from his bottle. "You ever hear of reincarnation? 'Course you have. Actually happens—a lot. Souls get recycled, pop up in new bodies, whole nine yards."

  His expression darkened like storm clouds gathering.

  "Not sayin' that's you, 'cause it ain't."

  A pause that stretched like a held breath.

  "But if an Eidolon kicks it?" He gestured around the courtyard. "That's not an option. You, me, Dawn, and this whole place? Goes bye-bye. Voided out. Like we never existed."

  Oh.

  The knowledge hit me like ice water flooding my chest. Something deep inside my soul—or, I guess, me—felt an overwhelming sense of vulnerability, like standing naked on a cliff edge while hurricanes gathered on the horizon.

  I needed to get stronger.

  A lot stronger if I was going to survive in this Multiverse, no matter where I ended up.

  Or...

  "Okay," I said, the words coming out smaller than I'd intended. "I go back to making food. I bake with Katie. I hide from all of this."

  Ted's laugh was bitter. "Kid, you fuckin' used your soul's understanding of a Paladin to bind Valor to it. You really think you're gonna just walk away? Did ya forget about the Tournament?"

  His eyes narrowed as if he could see straight through me.

  "Your first goddamn thought was that you needed to get stronger to survive. We just covered that I can hear your loud-ass thoughts."

  This was a side of Ted I'd never seen before. The aloof, perpetually annoyed spirit guide was gone, replaced by something rawer, more desperate. Like he'd finally dropped whatever act he'd been putting on for my benefit.

  "Get stronger," Dawn said, her voice carrying an odd certainty that made the air itself seem to listen. "You were worth saving. Uphold the Oath."

  The Oath.

  I turned, following her gaze to Valor perched on the mountaintop like a crown of impossible light. Even from here, I could feel the weight of it pressing against my consciousness, three concepts that had somehow become my foundation, my identity, my purpose through the oath:

  Help Light. Help Life. Conflict.

  That was Valor. That was the Oath I had sworn to Dawn in a moment of desperate heroism.

  The words whispered through my mind like a mantra I'd never learned but somehow knew by heart, carved into whatever I'd become with letters written in star fire.

  And with them came the crushing realization of what my life had become, what choices had been stripped away the moment I'd bound that seal to my soul, what I had become in that moment of desperate salvation.

  The weight of it settled on my shoulders like a mountain.

  I was unfathomably fucked.

  But for the first time since waking up in this magical nightmare, I understood just how deep the rabbit hole went.

  And why I had to bring light to whatever was at the bottom.