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“Then bring her here,”Ingram whined, releasing his skull so he could hold his hands out beseechingly.

“He cannot do that,” Lindiwe stated. “When he takes a soul from there, it is at random.”

“Why?”

“Can you reach into your own stomach and know for certain what you have taken?” Weldir asked. “Would you know what corner of your stomach you have placed something? Once a soul is eaten, it is lost to the thousands of others that have been placed there.”

“Tenebris is huge, Ingram. It is vast,” explained the Witch Owl.

“Then why eat her at all?”Ingram asked.“Why did you not bring her to me when she... died?”

“When my magic on Earth shrouds a soul, it cleanses and brings it here. I have no idea whom they belonged to while I eat them, and I have eaten many others in the time since then. She was lost amongst them.”

“Then how did you know that her soul survived at all to be eaten?”

“Because I was there,” Lindiwe said, her ghostly features crinkling. “When Emerie shattered the sun stone, I was close enough to watch Jabez’s castle crumble around itself, and her soul floated through it, unharmed. However, the force had pushed me so far back that by the time I was about to collect it so I could keep it safe, Weldir’s shroud took it. It is unconscious and indiscriminate.”

“And it touches this entire world, not just the lands you roam. Emerie’s soul was not the only one that was taken at that time, so I cannot even track which soul was hers or where I placed her in Tenebris once I consumed her.”

“Entire world? But I have been to every edge and your magic is only present in the Veil.”

Weldir’s entire face disappeared as he chuckled, instead coalescing to his chest to show it twitching.

“There are many lands on Earth across the oceans, and many forests where I dwell.”

Ingram was surprised to learn Earth was bigger than what he could touch or see.

“I am just thankful her soul survived the impact. The sun stone affected Phantoms, but after watching what happened, we believe the reason for that is because we are completely attached to our physical selves through our anchors. The sound it produced touched everything, and it passed through the bonds we share as a vibration that wanted to destroy everything it travelled across. Emerie, on the other hand, had been so close to the centre point that either the initial blast moved through her so suddenly her soul didn’t have time to crumble, or, once her physical self was destroyed, her essence was spared of any damage. If we take your soul from you, you will die. If a Phantom’s soul is taken from their anchor, we fear it will tear both of them apart.”

All Ingram cared about from this knowledge was that Emerie had survived. The rest was irrelevant to him.

And he was growing impatient to have her within his grasp again.

He also didn’t want to hear about her end. He didn’t want to know if she had been alone, frightened, or in pain. He just wanted to think that she’d blinked out of existence, and that he must go save her.

Her soul was his to revive, and he would make sure nothing happened to it, or her, ever again.

“That’s why it had to be her, or rather, a human,” Lindiwe continued. “I would have done it if it weren’t for your young siblings.”

“No, you would not have,”Weldir unnervingly snarled, just as the bottom half of his face formed, and snapped shark-like, razor fangs in her direction.

The sound that the spirit of the void produced was so utterly inhuman that it wasn’t even bestial or animalistic. It rumbled like thunder underneath water, as though it hadn’t come from something living but from existence itself.

Even though Ingram stood upon nothingness, the world around him shook like an earthquake had trembled.

Lindiwe’s back stiffened, and she averted her gaze to the side.

A touchy subject had been brought up between the two, and it left tension radiating within the darkness. It was almost like Weldir’s irritation was tangible enough to change the air here and charge it with lightning; perhaps all of his emotions were.

They were in his consciousness, after all.

He handed the two younglings to Lindiwe. She tucked them back underneath her cloak to hide them with her gaze still averted.

Then he grew his form until he had taken on the size of a giant, with Ingram being no bigger than one of his chalky fingers. The air became stuffy with the annoyed menace that rolled off him now that he was bigger.

Ingram’s head tilted upwards to his towering form, since he and Lindiwe were floating near the centre of his sternum. He didn’t back away, even when his massive hand crept towards him.

“Let us go find your human,”Weldir said.