In the darkness of the grey sea, it was only me.
No sky.
No wind.
No pain.
Just endless grey water stretching in every direction beneath a black, empty horizon.
For a second, I looked around in confusion.
Then understanding settled in.
"I must've passed out from the fall…"
My voice sounded small.
Too small.
The grey sea did not answer.
I looked around, searching for the silver light. The crack. The way back.
"I have to wake up before something happens."
Then I looked down.
Beneath the surface of the grey sea, something opened.
A mouth.
Not human.
Not beast.
Just a gaping wound of unfathomable darkness lined with teeth too long, too many, and too sharp to belong to anything alive.
It was deep as the ocean.
Wide as the sky.
And it led downward into the kind of darkness all living things spent their entire lives pretending they were not walking toward.
Then the mouth smiled.
"Gah!"
I shot up.
"Ahh!"
Pain immediately punished me for existing.
The first thing that caught my attention was my right shoulder.
It ached with a deep, ugly pain that made my vision flash white.
I clutched it with a grimace and sucked in a sharp breath.
Probably dislocated from the fall.
Or maybe from getting dragged through the air at rapid speeds by a tier-three griffin.
Honestly, there were several strong candidates.
The next thing that hit me was the roaring of the ghosts.
"Young man! Are you alright?"
"Seer, you have to move. This is a griffin nest!"
"Move, you bloody maggot!"
Knight was in front of me, his expression filled with panic.
Sleazy stood a few steps away, looking around the nest with tense eyes and a smile that was doing a terrible job of pretending everything was fine.
Bloody was snarling like he personally wanted to fight the situation.
The only one not in extreme distress was Lazy.
He floated above the nest, upright and alert, his tired eyes calmly scanning the surroundings.
Then he raised one hand.
"Calm down."
Everyone looked at him.
"The griffins seem to be… gone."
"You're right…"
My voice came out rough.
I swallowed and forced myself to look around.
Then I remembered where I was.
A nest.
Massive.
That was the first word my half-rattled brain could manage.
The nest was woven between several enormous branches, suspended high above the lower layers of the Western Branch. Pale strips of bark, golden vines, feathers, and bones had been twisted together into a bowl large enough to fit a small house.
Several bones were larger than me.
That was comforting.
Very comforting.
At the center of the bone-littered nest rested the egg.
It was taller than me.
White-gold.
And faintly… warm-looking.
There was no movement.
Not even a crack.
It only sat there, soft lines of light running beneath the shell.
Somehow, that made it worse.
I sat there staring at it.
Then the egg stared back.
Emotionally, not literally.
Probably.
"Okay," I whispered. "Good news. The egg is not hatching."
Bloody scoffed.
"That is your good news?"
I gave him two thumbs up.
Or tried to.
"It is the best news I have right now."
I winced.
"Ow."
Knight's expression tightened.
"Young man, your shoulder."
"Yeah, I know."
"Your arm is hanging wrong."
"I know."
"That is extremely concerning."
"I know."
"Then why are you arguing?"
"Because if I focus on my shoulder, I will scream, and I am trying to remain mysterious and composed."
Sleazy looked me over.
"You are covered in bark dust, blood, sweat, and fear."
"Mysterious and composed."
"You also screamed when you woke up."
"Mysteriously."
Lazy floated lower and pointed behind me.
"Carlos."
My stomach dropped.
I turned.
Carlos Strega lay a few feet away, half-buried in feathers and strips of bark.
His academy coat was ripped along one sleeve, exposing his forearm, and his dark hair was tangled with broken branches and leaves. His breathing was shallow but steady.
Alive.
Good or bad, I didn't care.
I was just glad all of this had not been for nothing.
I pushed myself up with my left arm, my right hanging uselessly at my side.
"Gah—!"
Then my foot slipped on the feathers beneath me.
I landed back onto the nest.
On my arm.
Pain exploded through my shoulder.
For a few seconds, I forgot language.
Knight moved on instinct and tried to catch me.
His hands passed straight through me instead.
We both paused.
"E-emotionally supportive, right?" I muttered.
Knight looked pained.
"I apologize."
I grimaced.
"Don't. It's the thought that counts."
"Stand slowly," Lazy said. "Your right shoulder is dislocated. You likely have several bruised ribs as well."
I stared at him.
"How can you tell?"
"You are complaining too much to be dying."
"...That's accurate."
Bloody leaned close to my shoulder, his exposed heart beating with interest.
"Just use Bloodrend."
"No."
"It would heal the damage, maggot."
"No, it would maybe heal half a cut, and then I would pass out from blood loss because my body currently has the durability of wet parchment."
Bloody clicked his tongue.
"Pathetic."
"Yes, yes, that has been established. Now…"
With a groan, I forced myself to stand using my left arm for support.
Eventually, I managed to get upright and shuffle my way toward Carlos.
Each movement hurt.
A lot.
This was probably the worst pain I had felt since coming to the past.
Even Bloodrend only required a cut to get the full effects.
This was different.
This was my whole body filing a formal complaint.
But the nest was too exposed, the griffins were missing, and the egg was sitting there like a very large divine problem.
The most dangerous part, though, was that I was not supposed to be here.
This was not what Manus Fati had intended.
Their plan had been crafted around Carlos.
Not me.
Now I had inserted myself into it like a very stupid variable.
Who knew what would happen if I stayed here for too long?
When I reached Carlos, I pressed two fingers lightly against the side of his neck.
Pulse.
Steady.
I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.
"He's alive."
Knight's expression softened with relief.
Then Bloody ruined it.
"Good. You can still kill him."
I slowly turned my head.
"Read the room."
"What? That is why we are here."
"I said read the room, not summarize the mission. Idiot."
Bloody's eyes narrowed.
"Who are you calling an idiot, maggot?"
Carlos stirred.
Everyone went still.
His fingers twitched.
Then his eyes opened.
For a moment, he stared upward at the enormous leaves shifting above us.
Then his gaze moved.
To me.
To the nest.
To the egg.
Then back to me.
Very slowly, he said, "You."
I gave him a weak smile.
"Good morning. Have a great nap?"
He blinked once.
"We… we were kidnapped by griffins."
"Yes."
"And dropped into a nest?"
"Also yes."
His eyes shifted toward the egg.
"Is that a griffin egg?"
"Almost certainly."
Carlos stared at it.
Then back at me.
"Why are you acting like this is normal?"
"I have had a very strange week."
He pushed himself up with a grimace.
He seemed bruised, scratched, and shaken, but not seriously injured.
Unfair.
I got the dislocated shoulder.
He got dramatic hair and mild trauma.
Some people were favored by fate in very irritating ways.
Carlos looked at my arm.
"Your shoulder is dislocated."
"Thanks. I just noticed too."
"You need to set it."
"Really? I had no idea."
He narrowed his eyes, then looked around the nest again.
"We need to leave."
For once, we agreed on something.
"Yes."
His sharp gaze moved over the branches, the bones, the feathers, and the empty sky above us.
"The griffins could return at any moment. We need to move." He turned back to me. "Come here."
I narrowed my eyes.
"What?"
"I can set your shoulder."
"...You know how to do something like that?"
"My family insisted on basic emergency training."
"Of course they did."
He stepped closer.
Then the warning rang through my head.
Do not touch him.
I still did not know how literal that warning was supposed to be, so I instinctively moved a step back.
Carlos raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You moved like I slapped you."
"I am a little nervous because you are about to relocate my bones."
"That is not what setting a shoulder means."
"It feels implied."
His expression was calm again, but not detached this time.
Focused.
"Hold your breath when I tell you."
"I hate this plan."
"It is not a plan. It is treatment."
"I hate medical treatment."
"Hold your breath."
"Wait, I'm not emotionally ready."
"Now."
Carlos pulled.
Pain exploded white.
For half a second, I saw the grey sea again.
Then my shoulder snapped back into place.
I made a sound that was not a scream.
It was worse than a scream.
It was a wounded, betrayed noise that left my body without permission.
Carlos released me.
"There."
I hunched forward, breathing hard.
"I hate you."
"You are welcome."
"I said I hate you."
"I heard you."
The ghosts stared.
Knight looked relieved.
Lazy looked thoughtful.
Bloody looked disappointed that no one had lost a limb.
Sleazy, however, was smiling.
Not his usual fake smile.
A smaller one.
Sharper.
"Well, Seer," he said softly. "That was almost touching."
I glared at him.
"Don't."
Carlos looked around.
"Who are you talking to?"
My soul left my body.
The ghosts froze.
I turned back to Carlos very slowly.
"What?"
Carlos narrowed his eyes.
"You keep looking at empty space."
"No, I don't."
"You just did."
"I was checking the atmosphere."
"The atmosphere."
"Yes."
Carlos stared.
I stared back.
A long silence passed.
Then the egg made a faint settling sound behind him.
Both of us turned toward it.
The shell did not crack.
It did not move again.
But the message was clear.
We were stuck in a griffin nest miles above the ground.
Beside one of their offspring.
No professors.
No guards.
And worst of all?
No easy way back home.
Carlos's face grew grim.
"We need to climb down."
I looked over the edge of the nest.
Far below, branches layered over one another like roads made for giants. Golden leaves shifted in the wind. Somewhere distant, a beast cried out.
I swallowed.
"Down is definitely a strong word."
Carlos stepped beside me and looked over.
His expression tightened.
Then an expression I did not want to see appeared on his face.
For the first time across all the lives I had seen, Carlos looked genuinely afraid.
Normal.
Human.
I hated that.
Because the more human he looked, the harder this would become.
And this was only the start.
Carlos looked at me.
"Can you move?"
I flexed my fingers.
Pain still pulsed through my shoulder, but it was bearable now. The ringing in my skull was fading too, which I decided to take as a good sign because the alternative was deeply inconvenient.
I nodded.
"I can walk."
Carlos nodded back.
"Then we move before those griffins return."
I took one more look at the ominous egg.
White-gold.
Silent.
Waiting.
Then I looked toward the maze of branches beyond the nest.
Somewhere deeper inside this place was the thing meant for Carlos.
The beginning of the end of the world.
And the only reason I was alive was to stop Carlos from reaching it first.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's move."