“So, that’s your mother, huh?” Noah asked, walking up to Oliver’s comatose mother.

  Zach looked at him, his eyes darting from Noah to the closed door where Lucas was keeping guard in the hallway.

  “I know I don’t understand any of this,” he said slowly, removing his hands from his mother’s ears, “but you guys don’t seem normal. At all. I mean, I get the Creational Forces—barely—but there’s something off about you guys.”

  Standing on the other side of the bed, Noah looked at him. Dirty blond hair frizzily covering most of his forehead. Despite living in the Dreamhold, with no access to water, soap, and other bathing materials, he looked obsessively clean.

  Then again, he can Step to his brother’s place whenever he wants to.

  “We’re Mharban,” he finally said, looking back down at Eve Emery.

  “Mharban?” Zach asked.

  “Sorry, I forgot,” Noah said. “I guess Oliver’s memories really aren’t coming back all at once. Mharban is one of our religions. We’re part of...”

  “... the Rostellic religions,” Zach finished, as the memory kicked in. “You’re the smallest of the five in that branch.”

  Noah nodded.

  “Exactly. We had some spiritual practices—most religions did—and when the Creational Forces broke through during the last war, some of those practices grew more... concrete. It moved beyond symbolism and belief.”

  Zach couldn’t remember the other five or what their practices were, but he supposed when they were mentioned, the memories would come flooding in.

  “We don’t have time for that, though. I can give you a history lesson another time. That man who spoke with you on the podium—what happened?”

  Without any hesitation, Zach told him everything. The temple rising in the background, the weakness spreading through his body at the time, the feeling that the man was dragging something out of him, what Severity had said, and how the man had ended up being drained himself.

  Noah’s eyes widened at all of it, though there was something in particular he seemed to latch onto.

  “Severity spoke?” he asked. He sputtered, choking on his words. “... What do you mean, it spoke? The Forces can’t speak. I’ve never heard of that.”

  Zach had only known Noah for less than a week, but seeing him so flustered just seemed wrong. It was like seeing a bird swimming through water as though it were a fish. It just didn’t make sense.

  “It wasn’t the first time,” Zach said slowly, realizing that it was clearly important.

  “What?”

  “I also heard it after we did the ritual, when that man was about to kill me.”

  Noah stood still, his face straining to hold onto the last bit of his composure. “Man? What man? You never mentioned a man.”

  He took a deep, steadying breath and told him all about the man knowing he was a transmigrator and Severity’s reaction.

  By the end of it, Noah was sitting in the last chair in the room, his head in his hands. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “We were busy,” Zach lied.

  “The Forces aren’t supposed to talk,” Noah muttered to himself. The expression on his face matched the worried tone in his voice. “They aren’t supposed to talk. This changes everything. This throws everything we’ve already learned into question.”

  “Why?” Zach dared to ask.

  “As far as we’ve been able to understand it, the Forces are almost certainly a type of energy. A powerful energy, a lifeforce, that can grant abilities, but an energy nonetheless. I mean, the questions this raises… Is it the Creational Force itself that’s speaking? Is it someone of a higher String, someone who can bend that realm to their will?”

  He shook his head, letting out a small, shaky breath, as his eyes widened even further.

  “Oliver’s letters mentioned beings speaking to him in his dreams. The same beings every night. Could that be the voice you hear? Questions, questions, questions.”

  Zach frowned at all the mysteries. No matter how intriguing all these questions were, there was only one that he wanted answered. What did any of this have to do with him? More and more, this place seemed like a dream. But it was far too layered to be that.

  How the hell did I get here?

  “All I know is that that man was trying to take Severity for himself. I felt it. He even apologized for the fact that it might kill me. Is that possible?”

  “Did you get a good look at the key he was holding? Lucas mentioned he was holding one.”

  Zach thought back, hiding his annoyance. Noah was full of questions, and he didn’t doubt that he had answers as well, but none of that pertained to getting him home. Or even how he’d ended up here.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  A part of him whispered to be patient, that such answers would obviously take time to uncover. He told that idiotic part of him to shut up. He had every right to be impatient. The sensation of being in someone else’s body would do that to the best of people.

  “There was a small cross on the front, a line going straight down through the middle. That’s all I saw.” He answered as nicely and as calmly as he could.

  If Noah noticed his internal fight, he gave no sign.

  “Lucas said the words had Sanian roots, even though the man is from Ospelia.”

  “Mharban has Sanian roots,” Zach said, speaking from Oliver’s memories.

  “Yes,” Noah answered absently. “Small cross... Could it have been a grimoire?”

  Oliver’s instilled fear of that word made Zach wince at its mention.

  “We’ve really fallen that far that grimoires are being used openly now?” Noah asked, shaking his head.

  More of what Oliver knew about grimoires started coming to him then. Books of immense power. Books containing ancient remedies, prayers, and the first knowledge of the stars, moons, and oceans. Books containing...

  Zach paused, his whole body stiff as the memory settled upon his mind.

  Books containing correspondences, detailed descriptions of spells, magical artifacts, different symbols, and tips on how to read everyday signs, as well as instructions for rituals. Some of which involved summoning spirits from another world!

  “A grimoire,” Zach muttered to himself. “A grimoire can help me get home.”

  He looked up and found Noah looking at him warily. But he could take his wariness and shove it up somewhere nice and dark.

  “Grimoires detail summoning rituals,” he went on. “They also go into detail about pulling spirits here, locking them in place or in a vessel, even sending them back. A grimoire might be able to help me.”

  Noah tilted his head to the side, his eyes never leaving Zach’s face. He stared quietly, trying to read something there.

  “Well?” Zach pressed. “Am I wrong?”

  “How do you know about that?” Noah asked, his head still tilted to the right. “Is that your’s or Oliver’s? That knowledge, I mean.”

  “Oliver’s,” Zach answered. “When I think of grimoires in my world, I only get a deep feeling of suspicion. If they exist at all.”

  “The Emerys,” Noah said with a gleam in his eye, as if to say, of course.

  “Well?” Zach asked.

  “What you just said about grimoires isn’t known by everyone in this world. Knowledge about it was practically outlawed by every country before the collapse. And you spoke with nothing but confidence.”

  “So what? You’re saying Oliver’s family knew about grimoires? That’s probably what brought me here. He was messing around with grimoires, probably trying to get to the beings in his dreams, and summoned me here instead.”

  “No.”

  The finality in his voice annoyed Zach even more. “No?”

  “If a grimoire had been used in the last few months, I would’ve known. Lucas would’ve known. Especially one that was used for summoning. Everyone in Camp would’ve felt something that powerful.”

  “Not if he was skilled enough.” The certainty in Zach’s own voice surprised him, too. But it was true.

  Judging by the look in Noah’s eyes, Zach knew he was right. If someone were skilled enough, they could make use of a grimoire without anyone even knowing, curbing whatever side effects there might’ve been.

  “You have his memories,” Noah said, regaining some of his usual composure. “Do you remember using a grimoire?”

  He didn’t, and not for want of trying. It was just like before when he’d tried remembering writing the entries. Any memory that felt like it might’ve been from around the time of Zach entering his body, including the few weeks leading up to that, was dark.

  But the grimoire was the closest he’d gotten to finding some reason for his being here.

  Noah’s reaction to Oliver knowing of the grimoire worried him, though. What family had he come into? Some sort of cult? What if they engaged in blood sacrifices or other strange rituals?

  He shivered despite himself. It was a bone-chilling thought, being exposed to such things. Being forcefully dragged into such a mess. I swear, if Oliver were here, I’d teach him a thing or two about my rituals.

  There was an undercurrent of irony and derision riding that thought, both of it coming from beyond the wall blocking off his memories.

  Another thought suddenly occurred to him, one that in all honesty should’ve already come to him. What if Oliver were in his body, living his life back on the normal Earth, where Creational Forces were not a thing? Back where his biggest worry was... was... The headache came in place of the word.

  The wall was as strong as ever.

  He registered that he hadn’t yet responded to Noah’s question, though he seemed to already know the answer.

  “Look,” Noah began, his tone softer than before. “All grimoires are different. It’s true that all of them detail rituals and spells and all of that. But each grimoire was made with a specific purpose in mind. Meaning each of them has power, a very real and very terrible power—”

  Oliver’s mother groaned, as if she were waking up from a nap.

  “—You said he tried taking Severity from you, before it... spoke. That doesn’t sound like a summoning grimoire—I’ve never heard of a grimoire that could do that, but I know a summoning one can’t. Wait.”

  They both looked down at the same time and found Oliver’s mother glancing sleepily at the both of them. Her eyes had that red cast that came from exhaustion. When her eyes landed on Zach for the third time, she frowned slightly, turning her head to the side.

  “Oli?” Her voice was thick and scratchy. “I thought I was waking up.” The words came out in a mumble before she fell back into the deep breathing rhythm of sleep.

  Zach and Noah looked back at each other, Noah’s face going ashen. “A dream. She’ll think this is a dream.”

  He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anything.

  “She’s been in a coma for weeks,” Noah went on, walking away from the bed. “How damning convenient she’d wake up now. At this very moment.”

  Zach glanced back at his mother and found her sleeping, the softest of sounds escaping her lips. She was breathing differently now than she’d been while in the coma. Regardless of what she’d heard, there was no question that she was now out of the coma.

  He’s right. That is really convenient.

  The knock sounded at the door. Lucas’s signal. Someone was on their way to this room.

  “I’ve been cursed,” Noah swore. “There’s no other way to see it.”

  He glanced back at Zach and Mrs. Emery, clenching his jaw tightly. “This is Lucas’s fault. Calling me to an Emery room? What was he thinking?”

  He turned to the window Lucas had used and opened it again. With a glance over his shoulder, he said, “Oliver’s memories are important. You have to try and remember if he used a grimoire. And his journal, as well. That’s what you have to find out.”

  “Okay, but what about you?”

  “I have a lot of work to do. Questions that need answering. We’ll speak through Lucas.”

  The footsteps were just beyond the door now. Noah looked as though he wanted to say more, but he turned back to the window and Stepped out, the air in the room rushing to fill the spot he’d just vacated.

  The door opened, and John came walking in.