A Skin-snatcher? Law, as if the situation wasn’t complicated enough. The labyrinth was a cesspool of fētis. It reeked of—

  “Malokith.”

  The word was a dagger through her tongue, leaving a trail of blood down her throat. Just speaking its existence was enough to bring about pain to the average person. For Morrigan Queen, however, the name was a call to action. Her mind flooded with memories: comrades dying at her feet, their voices crying out in agony for her, a creature escaping retribution—her blood boiled as the memories washed over her. She saw the way people stared: she was no different than the Skin-snatcher in their eyes. Why should she risk her life for them? Besides, the Malokith was out there, its schemes but footprints in the sand of the offscape—nothing was of greater importance than sending that foul thing back to oblivion. But there was no way of knowing where the creature was, how long its plot had been in motion, or how exactly to prevent it. Yet even still, voices she couldn’t quite place and faces she couldn’t quite recall urged her onward—she couldn’t let them down again.

  She stomped her heel, sending her calcaneus bone into the ground beneath to map out more of the path ahead. The vi heeded her call, creating pops of sound beneath the ground, and the vibrations whispered the way to her. This labyrinth was child’s play to one as skilled as Morrigan Queen.

  So why did she stay?

  Why had she stayed so long?

  Nothing was keeping her here—she could have snapped the collar off her neck at any time. The thugs and dastard of a trader could hardly contain her any more than the beast of endless arms could swallow her whole, so why? Mada: enough introspection. The mind is a dense forest with which one could easily get lost, and Morrigan had no time for detours. She likely wouldn’t have even noticed she was already taking one if it weren’t for the screams getting louder.

  The Skin-snatcher was so small in the distance, peeling away at the populace like a child would a perimberry: carelessly indelicate. Some of them appeared to even still be alive. Tsk. Morrigan hated sloppy work. She didn’t see the slaver’s pet or most of the prisoners anywhere, just a foolish boy trying to stand up against something he didn’t understand. He wasted time applying a blinding effect to try and disorient the creature; the Skin-snatcher didn’t even have eyes. Of course he’d fail and learn a valuable lesson in his last moments.

  That’s the thing about lessons, Red: they’re only worthwhile if you live long enough to apply them.

  A voice kissed her heart, warm and loving, like a guide. She was already running before she knew it, catching the whip-like arm before it could pin the boy down for its next meal.

  “Ridinr?,” Morrigan huffed.

  The boy’s unnecessary last stand in the face of certain death or her own needless intervention: which was more foolish?

  “Morrigan,” she could hear the elation in his tone. Why was he so happy to see her? He wasn’t afraid, angry, or even nervous. He was relieved? N?n. He was just a fool, but a fool with a lesson in need of application. “You came—”

  “This is but a quicker route to egress.”

  She wasn’t sure which one of them was meant to buy into the lie, but she told it just the same. Still, there was a bigger problem at hand: the Skin-snatcher was tangible, yes, but it lacked a secular link for her to sever. The fētis would have made short work of the boy, but it lacked the power to harm or pierce Morrigan's flesh. In short, this was a rambertaks’ catch—an impasse. Barely sentient though it was, even the Skin-snatcher knew there was nothing to be gained in tangling with whatever Morrigan was. It recoiled, attempting to unravel its arm free of Morrigan.

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  “N?n, fētis. I will hold you here.” Morrigan grit her teeth, holding the appendage wrapped around her arm with her free hand. “Boy,” Morrigan called out, unable to look back at him: the fētis required her complete attention.

  “Yes?”

  “Time: we have none. Surely,”—the Skin-snatcher whipped forward, aiming to nip Morrigan’s neck, to which she narrowly side-stepped—“you have a plan?”

  “A plan?” He sounded pensive.

  Surely the blinding attack from earlier wasn’t the extent of his tactics? Surely he wasn’t that useless?

  “Either we die or it does.” The Skin-snatcher grew erratic, whipping at Morrigan recklessly. The creature was but a newborn, too simple to know the answer, but she didn’t want to give it time to find its way into an orifice. “Choose.” Her voice boomed over the wordless gurgles of the shadow.

  “I-I have an answer…maybe.” His words lacked courage. Why? It didn’t matter. Whether it was a physical or nebulous limitation, she’d make up the difference.

  “Do it.”

  “It’s a formula, but I don’t recall for what. It might not even be applicable to—”

  “Do it.”

  The boy bolted toward one of the stalls, exactly what he was grabbing, she couldn’t say. The Skin-snatcher wrapped its second arm around her free one, the two now intertwined by their forearms. It was looking for a way past her skin: this was getting dangerous and withdrawal was no longer a feasible option. She gripped at its appendages, ripping them from her arms, but it just wrapped back around. It wasn’t remotely as strong as Morrigan, but it was like wrestling with oil—the more she struggled, the more it spread around her. Everything was going dark; where was all the vi? Vi flocked to her like leaves on the wind, so where was it? And the boy, where was he? Had she been abandoned?

  “D-don’t…” Morrigan growled, gritting her teeth as she leaned her head back as far as she could. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if this thing would harm her even if it did invade her body, but such a violation wouldn’t be tested if she could help it.

  A high-pitched whistle caught Morrigan’s attention as she struggled; instinctively, she turned in the direction of the sound to assess its origin just in time to witness the boy’s plan.

  A brilliantly dark shade of purple shot out toward her and the Skin-snatcher. It was as if the beam was both projecting light and swallowing any light around it at the same time. Whatever the livēsēns was, its power was absolute and it left nothing in its wake. The air grew thin as if it too was being swallowed up, the surrounding vi wasn’t burnt out and left drained like it would for a typical livēda—no, the vi was simply gone altogether. This ray of the void would surely spell disaster if it touched even her. But the aim of the boy was unsteady and unsure; not only was Morrigan not in danger, it barely nicked the Skin-snatcher. But the beam did make contact just the same. Whatever passed for a head of the humanoid shadow caught the beam and fizzled away like raindrops in the sun. The fētis squealed in pain, released Morrigan, and rapidly slithered between the cracks of the crumbly rock face of a nearby cave wall. Morrigan scoffed, brushing any residue of fētis off her personage.

  She turned her attention back to the boy. He was on his knees, panting and gripping a stick with two hands. Perhaps it wasn’t a stick at first—it could have been a staff or a club—but the spectacular attack not only shot forward when he fired it: the splintered end of what remained of the stick proved it could barely contain the imprint of livēsēns he had placed upon it. He’d need a more reliable conduit for something like that in the future, he’d need to work on his aim as well, and surely he could do more than sputter off a ray for a second or so. The boy was weak-willed, whiny, anxious, and had a face begging for a strike. But that wave of erasure—it had potential. The boy was not much, but neither is a blank slate until someone draws upon it. Mayhap that someone would be Morrigan Queen. She smirked as he walked over to her.

  “Is everything okay? Are you okay?” Rowan said, checking Morrigan for injuries.

  “Boy,” Morrigan said as she gripped his chin to force eye-contact, “that was wonderful.”

  His face lit up with recognition and admiration. Simple.