Logan and Ahri stood among stars.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
This was Bard, the Wandering Caretaker.
Golden, vast, and silent.
His body seemed close enough to touch and far enough to belong to another law of existence. Cloth and starlight hung from him in layers that did not move like normal matter. Meeps drifted around him in a loose halo, their small bodies glowing softly against the darkness.
Bard looked at Logan and Ahri.
The meeps looked at them too.
One by one, slowly, the little creatures turned until every glowing face was fixed on them.
Logan's mouth felt dry.
Ahri stood beside him, holding his hand with both of hers.
Bard's attention was simply too large. Like being noticed by a star deciding to wait for your answer.
Logan tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Aatrox's voice came from the sword across his back.
"I have a bad feeling about this."
That snapped something loose in Logan's head.
He blinked and looked down.
Only then did he realize he was standing on something.
A moon, maybe. A small one. The ground beneath his bare feet was pale gray, smooth in places and cracked in others, with faint blue dust caught in the lines. Ahri's hair drifted slightly around her shoulders as if underwater.
Logan swallowed.
"Right," he muttered. "Cosmic nonsense. Still breathing. Don't think too hard."
Logan tried to order his thoughts.
Bard was probably going to be as hard to understand as Spirit Blossom Bard. Maybe harder. This one might communicate through orbit patterns, stellar collapse, or the moral weight of a comet.
Then Bard moved.
The huge golden face lowered toward them.
Bard raised one hand.
A soft golden light emerged from his palm, forming shapes like musical notes. They floated outward, circling Logan and Ahri in a slow spiral. The notes did not make sound at first. They only moved, turning around them like small living things.
Then Logan heard something.
A deep tone.
Bard's tone.
Low, strange, layered, more feeling than voice.
Then another sound appeared behind it.
Tiny.
High.
Sharp.
Aatrox went very still on Logan's back.
"Oh, no," he said.
The smaller voice became clearer.
It was bright, fast, and so cheerful it felt like a knife made of sugar.
"Zoelle is super happy with me! Like, extremely happy. Like, don't-even-think-about-taking-her-back happy. She absolutely does not want to go back to… Space Beard. Bard? Beard? Bard-Beard? Whatever, same thing."
Logan stared at the circling notes.
Aatrox spoke in a low, dangerous voice. "We should leave."
The tiny voice continued.
"And no, I am not giving Zoelle back. She likes sparkles. She likes games. She likes floating around my head while I do important cosmic things. Very official things. You wouldn't understand. Because you're all… bwoooom and chime-chime and mysterious staring."
Logan slowly turned his eyes toward Aatrox.
The Darkin sounded strained now. "Immediately. We should go immediately. Anywhere else. The Void. A volcano. The inside of of that god's lantern. I am open to options."
The voice giggled.
Logan knew that giggle.
Childlike chaos. Cosmic power. No fear of boundaries. No respect for order. A living headache with a star attached to her.
"Zoe," Logan said.
The notes spun faster.
Ahri tilted her head.
Logan looked up at Bard. "Zoe took someone named Zoelle?"
Bard nodded once.
The meeps around him chimed unhappily.
Logan frowned. "Who is Zoelle?"
Bard pointed to the meeps.
Logan looked at the small creatures. Several of them had gathered close together now, their lights dimmer than before.
"So Zoe took one of your meeps," Logan said, "and she doesn't want to give her back."
Bard nodded again.
Logan looked at the enormous celestial being.
"And you want me to get her back?"
Another nod.
Aatrox made a sound that was almost a snarl. "Do not even consider it."
Logan did not answer him yet. He was still watching Bard.
"Why me?"
Bard lifted one finger.
Golden light drew itself in the space between them.
A simple shape formed.
A mouth.
Logan stared at it.
For one absurd moment, his mind refused to accept that as the answer.
"Is the reason seriously that I have a mouth?"
The mouth made of light floated there, silent and insulting in its simplicity.
Logan closed his eyes.
Of course.
Of course that was it.
He had spent the last day trying to understand meeps and failing. He had tried to understand Spirit Blossom Bard and mostly failed. Bard himself, as impossibly powerful as he was, probably had the same problem in reverse. He could move across realms, open paths between stars, carry cosmic weight, repair strange imbalances.
But he could not make Zoe give back a meep because Zoe needed someone who could talk in words, get interrupted in words, argue in words.
A powerful cosmic being trapped by a communication problem.
Logan almost laughed.
It came out as a tired breath.
Aatrox said, "Logan."
There was warning in his voice.
Logan smiled faintly. "Are you scared of a little girl?"
The silence that followed was immediate.
Then Aatrox spoke with the calm fury of someone who had been personally wronged by the universe. "If I hear that voice again, I will return to being the creature that wants to destroy all existence."
Logan blinked.
"That bad?"
"Worse."
The circling notes replayed a fragment of Zoe's voice, just a tiny giggle.
Aatrox hissed.
Ahri looked between Logan and the sword, confused but alert.
Logan rubbed his face with one hand. He had come here to ask Bard for help. Somehow, before making the request, he had already been handed a quest by a cosmic being who could move between realms but could not negotiate with a child goddess.
Typical.
He looked up at Bard. "I'll try."
The meeps brightened at once.
Several chimed so loudly that the air around Logan vibrated. One did a tiny loop. Another bounced against Bard's shoulder. Bard's gaze remained calm, but something in his presence shifted, not joy exactly, but approval in a scale too large to fit normal emotion.
Aatrox erupted.
"You arrogant, brain-damaged fool."
"Good to hear you're back to normal."
"You wanted to ask the celestial for aid, not perform errands for him."
Logan reached over his shoulder and drew Aatrox partway free, enough to hold the sword in front of him. "If I want to ask him for a favor, doing one for him first seems like a good start."
"This is Zoe."
"Yes, you've made your feelings clear."
"You have no idea what that creature is."
"I have some idea."
Aatrox's voice lowered. "Do not mistake whimsy for innocence. The Aspect of Twilight is not harmless because she sounds like a child."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Logan held the sword's gaze, or at least the closest thing to it. "Maybe she can help you."
Aatrox went silent.
Logan continued, "If anyone in the Celestial Realm knows something to help you become what you were before, or at least something closer to it, it's her."
Aatrox did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Ahri pinched Logan's side.
Hard.
Logan flinched and turned. "Ow. What was, "
Bard's huge hand closed around them.
Logan's sentence died.
Ahri made a startled sound and grabbed him with both arms. Aatrox cursed with enough venom to poison a star.
Then Bard moved.
The moon vanished beneath them.
Or maybe they left it.
Logan could not tell.
The universe stretched.
Stars became lines. Planets blurred into bands of color. The black between them folded and unfolded. Bard carried them in one hand like they were nothing, moving through space at a speed that made all ordinary travel seem like crawling.
Logan screamed.
Ahri screamed too.
Aatrox did not scream.
He shouted threats.
Several of them were anatomically impossible.
Logan did not know how long it lasted. Time stopped being something he could measure. There was motion, light, pressure, the terrifying sense that if Bard opened his hand for even a second, they would become a smear across a galaxy.
Then it ended.
Bard stopped.
Just like that.
No slowing. No warning. No mercy.
Logan and Ahri were still in his palm, both crouched low, gripping each other. Logan's hair was a mess. Ahri's tails had puffed out behind her like six frightened clouds. Aatrox had gone silent, which somehow made Logan worry more.
Logan did not move.
Neither did Ahri.
For a few seconds, they simply breathed.
Then Logan slowly looked up.
Bard raised his other hand and pointed.
At first, Logan saw only light.
A distant place shone ahead of them, suspended beyond a field of stars. It was not a planet in the normal sense, or maybe it was too magnificent to let his mind reduce it to that. Towers of silver and gold rose out of luminous mist. Vast bridges arched between floating structures. Light poured from every edge, not harsh, but overwhelming. Shapes moved within it, immense and graceful.
The place felt ordered.
Ancient.
Untouchable.
A pressure rolled from it even across the distance, like law. Like judgment. A realm that had been watching mortal history from above.
Logan stared.
Something in him recognized the idea before he could confirm the place.
The home of Aspects.
The seat beyond Mount Targon.
A name came to his mouth.
"Targon Prime?"