Alluvion

[Patricus I]

He accepted the rock, comparing it briefly with its twin. She referred to herself as a separate identity again. Philip mulled over the abstract concept. It was the girl that her soul occupied while awake that endured enough trauma to brand her dream-self with permanent scars. He looked at her hand, wondering why she didn’t smooth away the skin as she had the water from her clothes. He was on the verge of dropping the subject completely until epiphany dropped her to the ground. At first he thought she was fainting and he made to catch her. Instead, as she sat, he slowly kneeled alongside, brow furrowed deep with concern.

“You are in danger,” he concluded. An angry husband or boyfriend, perhaps? The word, thief, soured his tongue, and he tilted his chin high. Her Other was nestled in Moscow, a place not out of reach of the church. If he desired, he could go himself, much to the likely amusement of Ascendancy Brandon after all these years rebuffing the Custody’s outreach.

“I’ll warn her,” he said, but he had to know whom to find. “Whom do I warn, Nimeda? Moscow is a vast place, sheltering many thousands of souls.” When next he returned the stone back to her keeping, there was a new shape blazed into its surface.