"Wow," said Primrose, closing the heavy metal door behind her, "That drug really did a number on you, didn't it?"

  Senior Agent Primrose stood at one end of the small, dark holding cell. The exposed lightbulb hung from the ceiling, illuminating the woman's expression as one of pity and sorrow. Directly opposite to her, was a rough looking man - or at least, a rough looking humanoid.

  It was the very same individual Oz and Lupe had encountered, although his current state was neither what they had seen before nor after his transformation, but something in between. His body was no longer covered in the black feathers, but the skin had gone almost grey. Unlike the report, his face was purely one of a human, albeit a tired malnourished one.

  If it wasn't for the protruding black veins that littered his body like vines on an ancient temple, Primrose would of believed him to have been a regular delinquent.

  "I'm Senior Agent Primrose, but you can call me Mabel, OK?" asked the blonde woman, carefully, as if trying to coax a stray cat. "I'm going to ask you some questions now,"

  Primrose did not move closer.

  She let the silence sit, heavy and deliberate, until the man's breathing hitched and broke first.

  "I didn't mean to," he blurted out, words tumbling over each other. "I swear I didn't mean to. Please. I know what you people do. I know what the Court does to guys like me. I'm not like that, I'm not. I didn't want any of this."

  His hands shook from where they were bound to the wall by chains. And tears begun to well up in his eyes, Senior Agent Primrose did not realise just how far rumours of the Court had spread, she rubbed her head awkwardly before noticing the way his fingers were twisted at awkward angles.

  The research and development division had seemingly followed protocol and had a field agent conduct the interview, but in actuality they clearly hadn't been able to wait. It wasn't too surprising R&D was regarded as the craziest division within the organization.

  Primrose's expression softened further, if that was even possible.

  "That sounds frightening," she said gently. "But you're here now. No one is hurting you. I just want to understand what happened."

  Primrose stayed where she was, hands loosely clasped in front of her, posture open. She made no move toward the chains, no glance at the door, no signal to the cameras she knew were watching through the wall. She let him see, very clearly, that she was not afraid of him.

  "I believe you," she said. "People who mean harm do not usually sound like this."

  The man swallowed hard. His shoulders sagged a fraction, as if some internal brace had finally given way.

  "I just wanted money," he said hoarsely. "That's all. I wasn't trying to be special. I wasn't trying to be a monster."

  Primrose nodded once, slow and deliberate.

  "All right," she said. "Let's take this one step at a time."

  She lifted a small notepad, though she did not look down at it.

  "First question," she said. "Who gave you the drug?"

  The man's brow furrowed. He squeezed his eyes shut, searching his memory like it might physically hurt him.

  "I don't know his name," he said after a moment. "I swear I don't. He didn't tell me. He didn't talk much at all."

  Primrose waited.

  "He was… Asian, I think. Long hair. Black. Tied back." He opened his eyes again, frantic. "That's all I remember. He didn't look like a usual dealer. He was, well, he looked like a businessman... With, uh, a suit and briefcase."

  Primrose wrote a single line.

  "Did he pressure you?" she asked. "Threaten you?"

  The man shook his head quickly. "No. No, that's the thing. He didn't have to. He just… explained it. Said it'd make me stronger for a little while. Said people would stop pushing me around."

  A pause.

  "I didn't think he meant like that."

  Primrose's pen stopped moving.

  "Thank you," she said quietly. "That helps."

  She looked up again.

  "Second question," she continued. "Where did you meet him?"

  The man hesitated longer this time.

  "I didn't," he said. "Not at first. A friend did."

  Primrose's gaze sharpened, though her voice did not.

  "What friend?"

  "Lucas," he said. "We grew up together. Same block. Same everything." His mouth twisted. "He's always chasing something new. Shortcuts."

  Primrose nodded once more.

  "And Lucas introduced you?"

  "Yeah. Said the guy was legit. Said he'd already tried it himself." His voice dropped. "I should've known better. He's too much of a coward for that."

  "Do you know where this introduction happened?" Primrose asked.

  "A bar near the docks," he replied. "Not a nice one. I don't remember the name. Lucas did the talking. I just nodded."

  She wrote again, then closed the notepad gently.

  "All right," she said. "Last question."

  The man looked at her, eyes wide and glassy.

  "When you hurt Agent Shadoll," Primrose said carefully, "were you aware of what you were doing?"

  The question landed heavier than the others. He inhaled sharply, then let the breath leave him in a shudder.

  "No," he whispered. "No, I wasn't there. I remember taking the drug. I remember it burning. I remember screaming."

  His voice cracked.

  "And then nothing. It felt like I was underwater."

  The man lifted his head slowly, eyes red and shining. For the first time since Primrose had entered, there was something like hope there, she almost pitied him.

  "So," he said, voice trembling but eager, "that means… I helped, right? I told you everything I know. That has to count for something."

  Primrose did not answer at once.

  She studied him, not with sympathy now, but with a careful, almost academic stillness. As if she were committing his features to memory.

  "I did what you asked," he pressed, chains rattling softly as he shifted. "I cooperated. So when do I get released?"

  Primrose exhaled.

  "You will be leaving today," she said gently. "Now, even."

  Relief flooded his face so fast it was painful to watch.

  "Thank you," he breathed. "Thank you, I swear I'll disappear. You'll never hear from me again. I'll leave the city, the country, whatever you-"

  His body flinched in response to a sudden impact. The man looked down to see a pool of black, inky liquid.

  'Blood' He realised. 'My blood.'

  In the reflection off the pool was his portrait, with the new addition of an arrow made up of shining light embedded between his eyes.

  The man in the lab coat burst through the door a heartbeat later, skidding slightly on the concrete as his eyes locked onto the slumped figure in the chains.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Oh no, no no no-" he gasped, dropping to his knees beside the body. His gloved hands moved on instinct, fingers pressing at the man's neck, then fumbling for a pulse that was already gone. "Get a stretcher. Now. And prep a trauma kit, I need-"

  He froze.

  The arrow of light was still there, perfectly intact, humming faintly as it dissolved into particles that evaporated before touching the floor. The man's pupils were blown wide. His chest was still.

  Dead.

  The lab-coated man sagged back on his heels, breath coming fast. Slowly, he turned his head toward Primrose.

  She had not moved.

  She stood exactly where she had been throughout the interview, hands clasped loosely in front of her, posture straight, expression calm. Actually, that wasn't quite right, her smile had curled upwards into one of satisfaction.

  "What did you do?" he demanded, scrambling to his feet. His voice shook with a mixture of fury and disbelief. "What the hell did you do?"

  Primrose met his gaze without blinking. She didn't respond.

  The man dragged a hand down his face, pacing once, twice, then wheeling back toward her. "I requested you because you're stable," he snapped. "You. Specifically. Out of every field agent in this damned building, I asked for Mabel Primrose because she's the only sane one, Mable Primrose doesn't make impulsive decisions!"

  She tilted her head slightly, listening too the man rant, but her relaxed eyes revealed slight boredom.

  "This was a controlled subject," he went on, gesturing wildly at the corpse. "A cooperating witness. We could have learned more. We were days away from isolating the compound. And you just-" His voice cracked. "You just executed him."

  Primrose waited until he ran out of breath.

  "I am stable," she said calmly.

  The man scoffed. "Then explain this."

  "This wasn't impulsive," Primrose continued, her tone even, almost gentle. "It wasn't anger. It wasn't fear. And it certainly wasn't a spur-of-the-moment lapse."

  She stepped closer now, those golden eyes of her looking more predatory too the doctor than they had when he picked her file. In fact, compared too the dead hybrid at their feet, she looked much more like a Jinn.

  "The millisecond I read that report, the part where he sliced my cute junior's leg into two, I decided to kill him... As a professional courtesy."

  "You knew he wasn't in control," the man said quietly. "You knew he was manipulated."

  "Yes," Primrose agreed. "It was obvious to me that he was just a pawn for the real distributor,"

  "You knew he was scared, that he was just trying to survive."

  Primrose's smile softened, just a little more.

  "And Lupe Shadoll was almost crippled," she said. "She is young. She is capable. And she is very bad at taking care of herself."

  Her eyes hardened, just a fraction.

  "I do not tolerate people who harm my colleagues. Accident or not."

  The man opened his mouth, then closed it again. Whatever argument he had been preparing seemed to wilt under the weight of her certainty.

  "This will come back on you," he said finally. "There will be questions."

  "I know," Primrose said. "I'll answer them. Now if you excuse me, I need to go stop by the hospital."

  She turned toward the door, pausing only once.

  "Oh," she added, glancing over her shoulder. "But before you call head office, make sure you dispose of the body, it's rather obvious that you and your friends had shot him up with all sorts of things that you shouldn't."

  Her gaze lingered, thoughtful.

  "...I always feel awkward when you white coats try and take the high road, especially considering how often you're nabbing test subjects from the Maw."

  Then she left the cell, her footsteps unhurried, leaving behind a dead man, a furious scientist, and a problem the Court would be arguing about for years to come.

  With as much focus as he could muster, Lortum gritted his teeth and willed these two dimensional arrows to swirl around the pen before him. And then with enough effort for his body to tremble under the strain, he commanded the arrows to change direction and lift the pen up into the air. It hovered before him, for just a moment, before he could no longer handle the pain and let it fall.

  Senior Agent Oz had been a natural genius. He awakened his innate key alone without any outside assistance, and even more amazingly, he had been lucky enough to belong with the cast of Dominion... By all means, Lortum should be capable of controlling this pen with the grace of a swan and the elegance of a ballerina, but the dissonance between his soul and Oz's body had left him struggling.

  Goetry, the practice of manipulating grudge and the art of opening doors to Limbo. Goetia, the system or theory behind it, First practiced by proto-sorcerers who studied the Jinn rather than feared them like the masses. It was these two pillars, practical and theoretical, that had allowed the weak humans to earn their title as "The false sons".

  Divided into disciplines or Keys, reflecting different ways grudge can be used or shaped, Goetry came in many forms. The "cast" of a key refers to how the key affects the world around it. The "Catalyst" of a key refers to the actual concept that is drawn from the world of grudge, Limbo.

  A Dominion cast shaped obedience and control; a Form cast shaped matter and geometry; a Voice cast imposed upon emotions, memories and thoughts. The catalyst, however, dictated what kind of obedience, matter, or command emerged. Tenebrism granted shape to your own shadow, Tachyon meant you could blast arrows at velocities faster than light. Two practitioners might wield the same cast and yet produce wildly incompatible results if their catalysts diverged.

  Anyone could learn a key if given enough time, but the process of engraving a catalyst as complicated as Lupe's tenebrism onto his own soul could take decades too centuries. Which is why most Goetist's used their innate key, the one developed at birth, and the most basic of catalysts that can be learnt. Lortum hoped to skip this process by stealing Lupe's body, which had already become attuned to it's key, just as he had with Oz.

  But there seemed to be less and less hope for this ideal, because despite his soul recovering, Lortum couldn't muster up the strength to even suspend a fountain pen in the air. In Oz's hands it had been effortless, instinctual, as natural as flexing a finger. In Lortum's possession it was an ill-fitting instrument, resonant in the wrong places, grinding against the shape of his own grudge rather than amplifying it. The problem was not power. It was harmony.

  Lortum stopped rubbing his head at the sound of the door opening behind him. This was the senior office, where there was a total of 5 desks- One for each of the four senior agents, and an extra for Lupe who was temporarily working under Oz's supervision. So despite not looking, Lortum could tell from the weak, almost non-existent grudge energy behind him that this was someone who shouldn't be here.

  "Sir?" Called a young voice, Mr Verdandi?"

  Lortum spun around on his chair to face the new arrival. The subject has tousled, medium-length orange hair that catches warm light, with loose strands framing the face. Their eyes are a vivid, saturated blue, like the sky. The facial expression is calm and faintly smiling, more reflective than overtly cheerful, suggesting ease or quiet confidence rather than excitement.

  "Can I help you?" Responded the Jinn, piloting Oz's body. "I do believe that this is the senior's floor."

  The young man in front of him blinked. Before scratching the back of his head, "Ah right, there's no way you'd remember me."

  Taking a step forward, the youth introduced himself. "I'm Junior Agent Sawyer, but most people just call me Alex or Xander, I wanted to formally introduce myself to you."

  Lortum paused. Every six months, all Junior Agents are promoted to field agents regardless of results, and a new batch of Junior agents are received from the various academy's. In other words, this guy would be Lupe's peer and equal, despite him being a lot weaker than her.

  "Well... you seem to know already, but I'm Senior Agent Verdandi." Said Lortum, "It's good too meet you Xander. And if we're ever together off-duty, you can call me Oz."

  Alexander hesitated, as if weighing whether this was appropriate, then reached into the inside pocket of his red jacket.

  "I actually came to say thank you," he said. "About two months ago. My first field mission."

  Lortum felt it immediately. A faint tug in Oz's body, his brain remembering, even though the soul couldn't begin to fathom what this boy was talking about.

  "There was a Jinn," Alexander continued. "Rank three, I think. I froze. Completely. If you hadn't intervened…" He let the sentence trail off, then shook his head once, as if dismissing the image. "They told me later you handled it in under ten seconds. I don't remember most of it. Just… waking up alive."

  Lortum said nothing. Silently seething about the loss in power for both him and Oz. Alexander took the silence as permission to continue.

  "So. I know this is a bit strange, but-" He withdrew two slim paper slips and held them out, careful, . "I came across these. In the Southern Quadrant- Some kind of performance, rich people love theatre, I guess. I can't go, and it'd have been wasted on me anyway."

  He offered a small, sheepish smile. "I thought maybe you'd appreciate something… not work."

  "That's considerate of you," Lortum said after a moment. His voice came out measured, warm enough to pass. "You didn't need to do this."

  Alexander shrugged. "Maybe not. But I wanted to."

  A pause settled between them. Lortum wasn't sure if it was an awkward one or not.

  "Well," Lortum added, folding the tickets carefully and placing them on the desk beside the pen that still lay where it had fallen, "thank you, Junior Agent Sawyer. I'll make sure they're put to use."

  "I'm glad," he said. Then, after a brief hesitation, "I won't take up any more of your time, sir. See you around."

  He turned and headed for the door.

  Lortum was silent for a moment, contemplative. He didn't really know much about theatre, and hadn't ever really appreciated the arts. So this was probably just as wasted on him as it was wasted on the Xander boy. Besides, Lortum didn't really know if Oz had any friends or family, so finding someone to take would be difficult.

  Shaking his head, the ancient Jinn returned to lifting the pen. He may not have the magnitude required to fling around cars and uproot trees, but with enough grace, he could very possibly fling an arrow into a foes eye or something of the like.

  "Key of Dominion: Houdini," He announced to himself.

  The arrows representing his invisible telekinesis flickered back into sight.

  The arrows did not fight him this time.

  They slid into place around the pen with a muted, almost deferential precision, as if correcting their own posture. When Lortum willed them to rise, there was no tremor in Oz's hands, no grinding resistance along the channels of grudge. The pen lifted cleanly from the desk and remained suspended, perfectly still, its shadow pinned to the wood beneath it.

  Lortum frowned.

  He rotated the arrows experimentally. The pen followed, rolling end over end with a smoothness that bordered on elegant. There was pain... But it was distant, tolerable, no longer the overwhelming feedback that had wracked him minutes earlier. The difference was unmistakable.

  He leaned back in the chair, Oz's chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, and allowed himself a moment of stillness.

  So this was the nature of the dissonance.

  The conclusion followed naturally, unpleasant but unavoidable.

  If he wished to use Oz's key effectively, he could not overwrite the man who had shaped it. He would have to study him. His habits, his values, his preferences. The quickest way to get around dissonance was to understand Oz's nature. The more the Jinn could say about the Agent, the better he could use his body... And his power.

  Lortum's gaze drifted to the folded theatre tickets resting beside the pen.

  A trivial gesture. Probably more to do with sucking up to a boss than genuine gratitude. Yet it had resulted in this.

  Understanding Oz's nature, then, would not be achieved through records alone. It would require context. Interaction. Participation in the small, seemingly irrelevant choices that shaped the man's soul and nature.

  "Very well," he said to the empty office. "Let's see who you were."