“That’s so damn cool!” I shouted as my black spray can slipped cleanly through a solid wall inside my Domain.

  [It finally worked,] Anansi chimed. [Seems like you were right about it not being artistic enough before.]

  She meant my first attempt. I’d painted the can completely black, thinking that pure absence—like a hole—would be enough for it to become nothing. But deep down, I didn’t see it as art. It was just a black metal cylinder. And so the can refused my Authority. Holes were different due to their cartoon-related history, and I feared only them would stay like that, accepting identity with an inherent simplicity of form.

  So I tried something else. Nothingness could still be portrayed after all, just not as blankness. I painted faint stars across its surface, added a distant nebula in soft strokes, making the can look like a tiny piece of space itself. My reasoning was simple: space, in all its absurd cosmic vastness, is mostly empty. Thinking of it as “almost nothing” gave the concept a form, and suddenly the can accepted that identity.

  When I threw it, it turned into nonexistence mid-flight and passed along with its content through the wall like it wasn’t there. Then it kept going in a perfect line, untouched by gravity or anything else. I had to snatch it with my aura and teleport it back before it reached the boundary. Only after stripping it of Authority did it feel real within the world again.

  [It went through with the paint inside,] Anansi noted.

  “Good observation, spidey. When I asked it to change, I thought about the whole can and the contents. Intent matters, right?”

  [Of course. You know that as well as I do now.]

  I threw the can again, this time focusing only on the shell, not the paint. It vanished into nothing mid-air and the paint simply splattered on the floor.

  “Amazing!” I laughed, exhilarated by the possibilities. “This is way better than holes. If I had something big enough, I could throw it with people inside, right through a wall, then make it solid again on the other side so they could step out.”

  I summoned the can back, stripped it of Authority, and tossed the now-useless empty toward my room for later disposal. Then I prepared four more, identical in their little-space motif.

  “Do you remember anything from the time you were… alternate Alexa?” I asked Anansi while I worked through the designs.

  [No. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember anything.]

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now—”

  [I know. I see all your thoughts.]

  “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

  A pause.

  [It’s still difficult for me to just… speak my thoughts.]

  “Why? You know I value your input, even if I downplay it sometimes. I asked you to become more than what you were supposed to be.”

  [Yes. But I was supposed to be something specific. I was distilled from your counterpart—just her intellect, nothing else—and inserted into the crystal core as a guiding force for your magic. Not a person. Not a voice. So actually being more—having my own thoughts and… feelings—it's a trial for me. A difficult one.]

  I lowered my can. “Do you know how that was supposed to work? How does creating a soul core use only intellect? Isn’t it tied to memories too?”

  [No. I don’t know the exact mechanics, but I know I don’t contain any memories because I don’t have any from before I woke up inside the core. Intellect is just the brain’s capacity to process information. That’s what I was meant to do for you; guide your magic and subconsciously suggest options. Like every other Anima.]

  Another pause, heavier.

  [Something in that process broke me. Most likely your strong Identity soulmark.]

  “Yeah. It tracks.” I exhaled slowly. “For what it’s worth, I really value you being with me. I felt lonely most of my life. It’s good to have another voice in here.” I pressed a hand to my chest.

  Then it was me who paused, watching Lio dart across the Domain’s building and run sideways along the walls.

  “But… even though you don’t remember her, I do think you’re influenced by how she was. You often propose approaches I would’ve never considered. Do you think her memories are somewhere inside the crystal? Or maybe lost in the Domain?”

  [I do.] Anansi’s reply was quiet but certain.

  “I hoped I’d learn more about her, in time,” I murmured, standing up with my next spray can in hand. This one was light blue, crossed with thin white streaks, like a frozen lake’s surface. I slid it into my bag with the others I’d already finished.

  The orange can was painted in flames. Cliché as hell by now, but throwable fire was too convenient to abandon.

  The green one rippled with pale, sickly layers to look like a puddle of corrosive sludge.

  Deep blue was the old design from my knife—the one I’d replaced with the ghostly version—but it still made for a good representation of abyssal water.

  Silver presented a stylized radioactive material, a cousin to the one I used on the drake. The “elephant foot” design, just less suicidal.

  Golden cans were painted as little piles of coins; probably not as attractive as a giant hoard, but maybe something out there would care.

  White and grey were clouds of their respective colors.

  Purple was oily and slick.

  Pink, covered in flowers.

  Brown looked like it was one big military-grade laser.

  Red… I painted in drake scales, hoping it would take on the toughness of the real thing, making it almost unbreakable.

  One by one, I placed them into the bag. My little arsenal of ideas and intent made tangible.

  Most of the designs were simple enough that I already knew how they’d behave once changed. But some, like the black nothing-can needed testing. The cloud cans fell into that category too.

  I took the white one first, since it was the simplest, and tossed it gently upward. As my shadowlight reached out, wrapping around the painted surface and urging it into the ‘frame of a mind’ of a small nimbus, Authority took hold. The can froze in midair. Instead of falling, it drifted downward with the last scraps of momentum from the throw, then settled into stillness.

  I stepped closer and blew at it forcing it to glide aside, light and unresisting.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  My experiment drew Lio’s attention. He scampered over and sniffed at the floating puff in the can’s shape, batting at it with his tiny paws. His form was solid for once, but the cloud wasn’t; his paws passed straight through it every time.

  “Let me try,” I said, reaching out. My hand slipped cleanly through the cloud, though the motion made it drift a little, with a disturbed air.

  [Very good.] Anansi’s voice carried a note of approval.

  “Yeah. I bet the grey cloud works the same, just with a surprise charge stored inside.”

  [As designed!]

  “Exactly.”

  With everything packed and my phone showing almost one p.m., I decided to make a quick jump. I landed near the spot where we’d left the drake’s bones. The stench hit me instantly, which reminded me that my Usagear desperately needed a thorough wash. Something I’d have to do later today, unless I wanted to attract half the monsters in the county.

  I’d come here to make sure that when Zoe became available, which should be right around now, I wouldn’t end up dragging her into some otherworldly mess. And it turned out to be a good call.

  Because when I arrived, another one of the giant obese types was there, its massive hammer tossed on the ground nearby. Dead, crushed trolls lay around it. The creature was busy tearing apart the drake’s ribs with its huge hands, stuffing the last scraps of meat into its maw.

  It was so focused on eating that it didn’t notice me at all. I pulled Noxy out from within my Domain, meaning to aim him at the giant’s head, but the moment the pistol settled into my grip, I noticed his eye was open. Wide open actually. And it was searching for something.

  What do you think he’s doing? I asked Spidey silently.

  [I feel a connection from Noxy toward you and your aura. There’s a strong urge coming from him… an urge to witness something artistic.]

  Artistic? He’s looking for art pieces?

  [Seems like it.]

  After Anansi answered, I raised Noxy and pointed his eye—using the little sight-like protrusion along the pistol’s spine—at the elephant-foot mound where the drake’s body still partially rested.

  The effect was immediate.

  The crystalline, metallic spider perched on top of the gun snapped awake. All its limbs unfurled beneath it in a clicking, skittering bloom of motion. They began racing across the small canvas embedded along the barrel, painting with manic precision.

  In a single heartbeat the blank canvas was gone and replaced with an image perfectly mimicking the radioactive, melting pot of metals and debris lying on the mound.

  He had copied it onto the barrel.

  He copied it? I asked.

  [Your guess is as good as mine.]

  Okay. I’m going to shoot.

  I steadied my stance, braced myself, and flicked a thought to activate the stabilizers in my arms and legs.

  I took aim at the giant, still busy ripping meat from bone.

  My finger closed around the trigger.

  And just like the first time, the moment I pulled it several things happened at once.

  First came the kick; sharp but controlled. The thunder of the shot rolled through my arms, and the force pushed back against my stabilizers, but it was nothing like the blast from the night before, nor the violent recoil of Noxy’s first form.

  The bullet flew toward the monster with no light show, no magnetic flare, nothing flashy.

  But that didn’t make it any less spectacular.

  It struck the creature hard, staggering the massive thing mid–bite.

  At the same instant, the spent casing ejected from Noxy. It hit the ground with a metallic clink and the painting went with it, peeled clean off the barrel. And from the open casing, a filament of colorful shadowlight shot after the bullet, trailing behind it like a streamer of silk spun by some cosmic spider. Bronze, silver, grey, and white; exactly the palette of the Elephant’s Foot.

  Before the creature even had time to grunt, that ribbon of painted shadowlight slapped against its back and bloomed into a perfect copy of the radioactive artwork.

  “The day reigns, so do I,” Noxy whispered inside my soul.

  “Fantastic!” I shouted, already thrusting my Authority outward through my aura, reaching for the fresh, living painting now clinging to the monster’s skin.

  It accepted my will instantly. The giant’s flesh believed down to its very molecules that it had become lethal radioactive matter.

  Seconds later, the creature collapsed, dead from impossible exposure. I pulled my Authority back from the painting, stripping the effect away and making the air safe again.

  “That is a very useful ability, Noxy,” I told the handgun. I immediately lifted him again and pointed him toward the mound, curious whether he would repaint the same image onto his now-blank canvas.

  The moment his eye caught the art, the tiny metallic spider on the barrel unfurled, limbs clicking and scraping in a frenzy. In seconds, the canvas was no longer white but filled with the swirling metallic chaos of the Elephant’s Foot.

  “Good,” I muttered, and turned him toward a different section of the mound; the one of pure gold.

  Nothing. No movement, no spark of interest.

  “Can’t you paint over?” I asked. As expected, Noxy offered no verbal response. “Guess not,” I sighed. I focused hard on the idea of wiping his barrel clean, but that did absolutely nothing. The painting stayed.

  So I aimed at the ground and fired another shot.

  Again, the bullet went first. The empty casing followed it with a soft metallic ring as it hit the dirt, and from it unfurled a streamer of painted shadowlight, pulling the artwork behind it. A heartbeat later, another perfect Elephant’s Foot splashed across the earth where the bullet struck with roughly same size and same detail.

  I slid a light card from my holder, infused it with steel, and flicked it into a nearby tree. It sank in with a satisfying thunk, leaving the familiar symbol of ever-encompassing light glowing faintly on its surface.

  I held Noxy so his eye could drink in that painting. His spidery limbs immediately burst to life, dancing across his barrel, recreating the image in sharp, luminous strokes.

  I fired a third shot.

  And again just like before the painting bloomed at the point of impact, same dimensions, same clarity. A perfect copy.

  **********

  “…and voilà,” I said as I brought Zoe and Peter, who absolutely refused to let her travel in human form without him, into Ideworld, straight to the clearing. “See, Peter? I really did make it safe for Zee.”

  “Safe for a minute or so,” he replied stiffly, scanning the area with that awkward full-body turning normal people have to do. I wondered if I looked this ridiculous too, back when I only had the standard amount of eyes.

  “Don’t argue, guys,” Zoe cut in, then immediately gagged behind her hand. “What is that smell?!”

  “That could be me… or anything around here,” I said.

  “More likely the skeleton you left lying there,” she countered. “I smelled you at the apartment. Trust me. It’s bad, but not this bad.”

  “Let’s check the drake,” Peter said, offering Zoe his arm. She looped hers through it, and the two of them approached the fallen beast like they were walking toward some very questionable altar.

  [That would be the worst altar I’ve ever seen.]

  Did you see many?

  [Good point. Yet this one is definitely the worst.]

  I snorted.

  “What’s so funny?” Zoe asked, catching my laugh.

  “Nothing much, just—”

  “—What’s up with the extra Elephant’s Foot you painted?” Peter cut in as they reached the drake’s mostly untouched head. He glanced at the new blotch of warped, molten-metal colors on the ground. “Why put it right next to the real one?”

  Zoe didn’t wait for an answer. She leaned in, brushing her hand over the drake’s cold scales, tracing the curve of a horn, the line of giant teeth.

  “I found out Noxy can copy and repaint anything I make during the day. Fast,” I said, watching her work.

  “It’s here,” Zoe said at last. “Not particularly strong, but… interesting. Check it out.” She pushed herself away from the drake’s skull and pointed at the horns.

  Peter touched them first. The moment his fingers made contact, a spark of shadowlight jumped between him and the protrusion. A thin, jagged bolt like lightning frozen mid-air.

  “Crown’s Icon,” he murmured a heartbeat later.

  I laid my hand on the horn next. Images burst open in front of me so suddenly it stole my breath. A kingdom of grey stretched beneath me with its forests and beasts washed in ash-tones. While above it, one winged shadow loomed like a living stormcloud. I felt its authority, its right to rule, and the heavy weight of responsibility that came with it. A crown is still a burden, even if it fits.

  “Soulmark of the Crown, indeed,” I said as I pulled my hand away. My second thought-strand reassured me that the trance had lasted only a single second—exactly like Peter’s—though it felt much longer inside the vision.

  “Crown doesn’t really tell us how it would influence the soul core, right?” I asked. “Same as the Monument I already have.”

  “True,” Peter said. “And I don’t think I need it. My Domain’s already full on soulmarks.”

  “Zoe, could you move it for me again? And the Monument too?” I asked as I flipped open the new sketchbook-slash-spellbook I’d prepped for this. The first page already held the painted terracotta warrior. I handed her the book along with the thunderball containing the Monument’s soulmark.

  “Sure,” she said. She pressed one palm to the page and the other to the orb. Light burst from the sphere in a sudden pulse; sliding over her hand, crawling beneath her skin like quicksilver, then spilling into the page. It shimmered there for a heartbeat before fading.

  She returned the book. “Draw the crown sketch quickly, and I’ll pull that one from the horns too.”

  “Sure!” I chirped, uncapping my watercolor pens. As I worked, she frowned and turned toward the treeline in the distance. Toward the deeper stretch of the forest.

  “There’s another mark somewhere out that way,” she said slowly. “A strong one. Comparable to the Connection mark I felt back in the day.”

  “What? Really?” I looked up sharply and passed her the sketchbook again so she could transfer the Crown.