144 - Looking Inward

“What do you mean by that?” Lexie asked Naem as he put his thinking face on. She knew what that face meant. It meant he was considering how much to tell her and what to hide. Possibly, this was also an Eldritch secret, or maybe it was too dangerous and telling her would go against his deal with Aiden.

“I’m not sure if you could honestly,” he finally said. “Dream magic isn’t as straightforward as some might think. I’ve only known a handful of humans who had that skill, and they’re all dead now.”

“Oh.” 

He nodded solemnly and added, “Probably no correlation.”

“Probably.”

“Anyway, establishing a connection to someone else's psyche requires a lot of training that I’m not sure we have time for, alongside everything we’re already doing. And it’s going to be even harder to erase memories that way. Does your father not have a friend who can erase memories more easily?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to tell Dad about it until I have to. He’s already stressed enough as is.” But given that she didn’t have many other options, she might have to go with Aiden anyway. She bit her lip as she worried about it for a few more seconds, then noted that Naem was staring at her. 

“What?” she asked. 

“I didn’t expect this from you,” he said.

“Expect what?”

“For you to ask me that question so directly. Are you not concerned about the ethical ramifications of violating someone’s mind in such a way?” He didn't say it in an accusatory way. Only curiosity hung in his voice, but Lexie’s face heated regardless.

“Of course I am,” she said defensively. “It’s just that…you know it’s really important that I keep my involvement with the Eldritch a secret. Right?” Even as she said the words, the shame only increased because, honestly, she truly hadn’t given much thought to ethical ramifications of violating Veronica's mind. All she’d wanted was for Veronica not to be hurt during the process, but if she'd had a way to erase her memory yesterday, Lexie would have done it instantly without considering that a moral violation.  

God, why had she never even considered that? Was it her Eldritch side growing? Was it affecting her morals, her empathy?

“It's so important yet you didn't tell your father about being discovered,” Naem said slowly, and it doubly struck Lexie that she’d immediately jumped to violating someone else’s mind without even asking her father for help first. And the truth about why she didn’t tell him wasn’t just because she didn’t want him to worry. It was also, at least partially, because she knew he would try to stop her, and she didn’t want that. 

I didn’t want to be stopped. 

“Oh my gosh.” She clapped her hand over her mouth and stared up at Naem in horror. He continued looking at her in that annoyingly steady way of his. “What’s happening to me?”

He eyed her silently, and she continued ranting, “You told me everything I’m learning will help me better control my Eldritch.’

“Yes. But to control the Eldritch, you must understand the Eldritch. And the more you understand us, the more you become like us.”

“So you’re saying eventually I’m gonna become a creature of the dark no matter what I do?”

“Not necessarily.” He paused, and Lexie could tell he was once more considering his words deeply. More secretive Eldritch knowledge. 

“If you hadn’t called me out just now," she told him, "I probably wouldn’t have even realized I was asking to do something seriously messed up.”

“That’s because you are incredibly driven by the results and in your zeal to get to your destination, you often forget the journey,” he said. “It’s not a bad thing. Many world rulers have those traits and champion those ideals.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to be one of them. I don’t want to be an end-justifies-the-means kind of girl. I know you can’t tell me all the Eldritch knowledge, but just tell me straight, how do I stop it from happening? How can I be sure that I control my own thoughts, and how do I keep Eldritch thoughts from engulging my human mind?"

He was silent, thinking. Then he admitted, “There is a way to separate your humanhood from your Eldritch hood.”

“What?”

“There are cults of people on Earth who are all fascinated by all things Eldritch. Some of them were the necromancers who were banished from District 8 during the war, and the rumor is that a few of them sought out ways to extend their life eternally by becoming partially Eldritch.”

“You can do that?”

“That was their theory. It never panned out because their methodology was way off, but some of their research yielded promising results. Enough for my brother Neqal to take an interest in them.”

“Neqal?”

“Yes. He reportedly feels like there might be a way to restructure Human DNA to have Eldritch traits, while still keeping its humanhood. He thinks this might be another way for the Eldritch to expand their influence. He rants about it sometimes at our Lordship meetings, but no one takes him seriously.”

“Except you?”

“Yes, but I take everything seriously. Most rumors have a thread of truth to them. That’s what your father and I have been looking into. We’re trying to see if any of Neqal’s research concerning the Human-Eldritch separation theory has panned out. Reportedly, at least one specimen is still alive and thriving, and we’re trying to figure out how this happened without alerting Neqal to our investigation. We don’t want him to know what you are yet?”

“But doesn’t he already know? Considering we’re basically family?”

Naem snorted. “No. I’m still shielding you in the meantime.”

“Oh.” Lexie breathed, feeling like she was backing off the edge a bit. “Why didn’t Dad tell me any of this?”

“He didn’t want to give you false hope and didn’t want you to end up taking matters into your own hands.”

“Meaning what? He didn’t want me to try to contact your brother himself?” Lexie was careful not to say Neqal’s name, given Aiden had warned her that the Eldritch creature had a thing for names. “I wouldn’t have done that. I’m not stupid.”

“Desperation can make one go to stupid lengths,” he said. “In the meantime, he wanted me to teach you to better communicate with your Eldritch side and ‘control’ it, as best as you can. That’s what we’ve been doing.”

She sighed. It was nice to know that her father and Naem had some idea of how to help her, even though they weren’t sure how it would pan out yet. 

“Tell me about the research,” Lexie asked Naem, but he shook his head. “No. That’s completely forbidden for you to know. I’m already pushing the envelope by telling you this much.”

“Oh, come on. You can tell me more. I promise I won’t tell my dad.”

"It's not just your father you have to worry about."

"I won't tell your brother either."

He shook his head, and Lexie pouted, giving him her most pleading eyes. 

He shook his head again. 

She sighed. That might have worked on Aiden, but it seemed Naem, her second pseudo-parent, was stricter.

“Okay, but that still doesn’t solve my problem with the Eldritch thoughts leaking into my actual thoughts. How do I even distinguish them?"

“Ah, yes. Essentially, as per the research, there might be a way for you to ensure you’re thinking with your human brain rather than your Eldritch instinct. Even in times of trouble, this technique will ground you. I will warn you, though, that it is hard and time-consuming.”

“Yeah, I’ve gotten almost that exact speech from my father before he taught me pathway control.  It's okay, I’m good at difficult things. Just give it to me.”

Those would turn out to be famous last words. Because what Naem asked Lexie to do was a different type of difficulty than she was used to.

Not only did it involve meditation (subconscious meditation that she had to do pretty much all day, every day), but it also involved tracing soul patterns, collecting soul molecules, and receiving random bolts of fear and angry emotion whenever it was an Eldritch molecule.

The way Naem described it, this was kind of an amended training exercise for soul mages, but instead of being done on other people, she was doing it on herself. It was difficult to describe exactly what she was doing, but the closest comparison she could think of was building a sand castle. She had to scoop up a soul particle, feel it out, and put it in her bucket. Once the bucket was full, she would then dump it all out and pack it together into the best castle she could build. It wouldn't last, and eventually the soul particles would disperse into her being once more, but doing this repeatedly would start to give her an awareness of the shape, taste, feel, and make-up of her soul.

That explanation made the whole thing sound a little silly, but it was anything but.

Naem stressed that she was never to take it further than what he'd already taught her. The skill was dangerous at its advanced level because an advanced awareness of the soul gave someone the power to manipulate their soul, and that wasn’t always a good thing. That being said, Naem’s lesson wasn’t enough for that to be a significant concern. She was essentially a kid in a playground, still exploring shapes and colors, and she would need to be at least at the high school level to start altering her soul.

It took her more than a few tries to get the hang of it. Lexie struggled with thinking of her soul as particles, pieces of it floating about that she could pick and move. It was very strange also to form a link to something within you, but at least pathway training had given her that ability, though this felt very different from that.  

Still, Lexie kept up with it every waking moment. Sometimes she scooped up more pieces than other times, and sometimes she didn’t scoop at all, just maintained a link to her soul bucket, and she made sure she was sensing at least something. It was hard to do it and pay attention to the outside world. It distracted her from conversations, which was a significant problem the following day because Lexie had a busy day. 

She had two classes that day and another gym class where her team won despite Lexie's distraction, and managed to save the mannequins mostly due to Astrid’s strategic thinking. It was pure luck that they were on the same team again because just about no one else was.

When the class was over, Astrid came and slung her arm over Lexie’s shoulder, saying, “You know Lexie? We make a good team.”

“We do.” It was all she could manage as she scooped, scooped, scooped.

“Wanna practice together sometimes? One-on-one? That way, if you ever wanna be my sidekick one day, we already have team chemistry.”

Lexie paused, scooping for a second, and shot her a surprised look. Astrid doubled back, blinking. 

“Oh, sorry, was I not supposed to say that? I mean, I assumed you couldn’t be Xena’s sidekick because she’s working off planet permanently and Dewie…well…” She ended that with a shrug. 

“No, it’s not that,” Lexie said. “It’s just that I don't think I’ll be in the field much. I’m here to do research and stuff.”

“Yeah, but didn’t you hear Melisandre? Pretty much everyone has to go into the field at one point or another, even first years, and I want my first time to be with you.” 

“Oh. Thanks, I’m flattered." Lexie couldn’t really turn her down after that, so she simply went along with it as Astrid kept talking. 

“It’s already started, you know,” she said. “A couple of days ago, Brian got called in to help with a zoo robbery. Because he can talk to animals, you know? Also, about half the second-year class already went on their first dungeon delve. Isn't that crazy? Who knows when they’ll call us?”

“Yeah,” Lexie was very much not looking forward to that.

Once they were out of the class, she quickly gave an excuse and escaped Astrid’s company so she could continue her scooping exercises. She worked on it while she went to lunch too, and learned that it made it easier to match the scooping to her breathing, so it would become more natural to her, one scoop with every breath.

The second time she had to put her scooping on pause was during the meeting with Stein. 

It didn’t happen like she expected. When the event blinked on her notification screen, she was getting ready to go to his office when she got a knock on her lab door. When she went over to open it, he was standing right there.

“Professor Stein.”

He walked in, glancing around. “My office is currently being deodorized and smells like skunk piss.” At Lexie’s look, he said, “Don’t ask. It was an experiment gone wrong. Anyway, I figured we could have our meeting here and I could take the chance to check out the lab and make sure everything is in working order.”

“It is,” Lexie said. Luckily, nothing illegal was lying around. All of that was on her inventory list on her very illegal Undernet phone. 

He walked around silently, staring as though waiting for something to jump out at him. Then he took a seat, sliding it forward to look at her. 

“So,” he said. “I believe that at this point, you know what you did wrong.”

Lexie nodded. She’d already heard it from Lionel. “I shouldn’t have tried to make a card to deal with a problem that was beyond my capabilities. I’m sorry.”

“I’m more interested in why you did it.”

“Because I wanted to help a friend.”

“Really?" He raised an eyebrow. "Or did you simply like the challenge it presented and thought you could do something that dozens of healers, a necromancer, and even the headmaster couldn't?”

Lexie remained silent. She couldn’t lie that some of it had been arrogance or ego. But she also had genuinely wanted to help Jett.

Stein’s gaze was exacting a judgment upon her. “If this happens again, I will confiscate your deck and your cardmaking tools for at least a week. You will be forced to sit in reformatory classes with Love, where you will learn only about being a hero and nothing else. Understand?”

Lexie nodded, and she guessed she looked cowed enough because he eased up a little, leaning back against the seat. 

“Now, as for Madswick, he insists on a personal apology from you. I don’t know what his game is, but he seems really interested in you for whatever reason. And I don’t like that one bit.” He sighed. “I was forced to agree to five minutes of your time. He likely won't try anything, but he might ask you weird questions about your soul, and he'll be very insistent on you answering. Don't. I will be outside the door for the visit, in case you want to get away, alright?”

She nodded, and he got up and was about to leave. His parting words were, “It’s good that you want to help people. But don’t overextend yourself and never ever think that you’re bigger than the program. Understood?”

She nodded again.

After he left, she breathed a sigh of relief. That whole meeting left her with a bad taste in her mouth, but she had to admit that he was valid for some of it. And probably it came from a good place. 

She returned to scooping till it was time for her meeting with the headmaster. He had a different set of concerns than Stein, and after her apology, he asked her plain and simply, “Did you talk to Albion?”

“What?”

“Albion. The creature is too greedy and clever not to attempt to talk to you. Did you entertain the conversation?”

“Um, no.” She tried not to give away how spooked she was by the question. Why would he ask her that? “He spoke, but I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying.” 

“Really?” He seemed almost amused. “Albion speaks human language as well. Fluently, I might add. I've had a conversation with him, too, when the moon transited gemini."

Lexie didn't know what that meant. She swallowed and sat there.

"It’s okay," Journeyman said gently. "What did he say?"

She figured he'd given her an easy out for her lie, so she admitted, "Nothing important. He just tried to steal stuff around the room and told me they were his.”

“I see,” The headmaster said, and that was it. 

The meeting with Madswick got delayed, and Lexie was thankful for that, so she could keep scooping. Yet, the problem with Veronica lingered

in the back of her mind. She knew there was ultimately no way for her to stop Veronica from tattling without altering her mind, because no amount of bribery would work, and Lexie didn't have anything Veronica even wanted.  

She expected to hear that Veronica told a teacher about Lexie using demon tongue. Any moment now, she would be called back to Stein and Journeyman to defend herself.

Lexie simply had to come up with an air-tight excuse for it. She found a spell online that sounded Eldritch if you said it with a particular accent and figured she would use that as an excuse. And if they ask her where she found the spell, she would simply say that a friend from Old Moulding gave it to her. She, of course, wouldn't implicate anyone, but they may probably understand that perhaps she'd simply gotten it from an unreliable source.

She hoped that would be enough to throw them off her scent.

***

Lexie knew instantly when something was wrong. She wasn't sure what clued her in. Along with six other students, she was on the trolley heading back to the mainland Capital City, where a bus would pick them up and take them to the crime museum for an excursion.

They were going to a museum for their Hero-Helper class, and they would need to work in groups of two to figure out a bunch of crimes that took law enforcement ages to figure out, and a few cold cases that no one ever solved in the end.

Lexie was excited. She loved solving mysteries, and though she didn't necessarily want to do field work, she didn't mind the crime-solving part. She could even make cards that would help. Lexie should have been thinking about what card she would use once she got there, but it was impossible to ignore the feeling of weirdness she was inundated with.

Something was wrong with her body. It was subtle, but she knew that she'd been doing soul scooping exercises for most of the day, and suddenly her soul didn't feel like hers anymore. It felt...well, she wasn't sure exactly how she felt, but it felt different and strange. There was no link. She didn't know why.

It was probably nothing important, she thought. But then again, it probably was. Why did her soul feel different? Had something happened?

"Oh my God." Someone in her trolley said. "What is that?"

Lexie turned to stare out the window, and she spotted two dots in the sky. But the more she stared, the more she understood that they weren't dots. They were incoming projectiles.

Fear instantly pumped through Lexie, forcing her to her feet along with the mumbling kids, practically pressing their noses against the glass. She'd been hit by a projectile before, and it hurt. She didn't want to do it again. But it seemed to be following them, moving as the trolley, albeit faster.

What to do?

Someone screamed, and the fear spiked even more, but it felt...strange. Unnatural. Lexie realized that it was coming from this fake soul of hers and from outside it.

Something was going on.

I'm not real. Something whispered in her mind. This isn't real.

It hit her instantly. She gained an awareness she probably shouldn't have, unlocked into a secret knowledge that came from somewhere outside this world she'd created.

She was in a simulation.