The small creature folded its arms like it had been waiting for applause.
Elias did not give it any. He was still standing in the pale room that was not a room, with his father's watch ticking somewhere inside his chest and Elara's voice faintly pulling at him from far away.
The creature's red shell gave off a low light. The black markings across its back made it look almost like an insect, except insects did not hover in impossible spaces and talk about survival like bad luck was a shared hobby.
"It took me a while to wake up properly," it said. "Keeping you alive drained most of what I had. That is why I did not talk until now."
Elias rubbed both hands over his face. "I need this to be a medication problem, because that would be easier to explain."
"You are not hallucinating from medicine, but you are unconscious in an alley, which probably does not help my credibility."
"Then send me back before Elara has to drag me through the service door."
The creature's antennae twitched. "I can try to send you back, but I pulled you in because I was excited to finally talk to someone who could hear me, and that was probably selfish."
"Probably is doing a lot of work there."
The pale room folded inward.
Elias came back to cold pavement, kitchen steam from the restaurant vent, and Elara holding him upright by the front of his coat. Her face was close enough for him to see the worry she was trying to turn into anger.
"You stopped answering me for several seconds," she said. "Do that again and I call medical command instead of asking politely."
"Please do not make my night more official than it already is."
She studied him for one more second. "Can you walk without falling over?"
"Badly, but with enough personality to distract people."
Elara helped him to his feet. The service door opened behind them, and his boss leaned out with a dish towel in one hand and fear in both eyes.
"Kael, should I call an ambulance or a priest?"
"Neither unless the priest handles worker's compensation."
Elara gave the boss one look, the kind that made civilians remember they had other rooms to be in. He withdrew without closing the door all the way.
The creature's voice chimed inside Elias's head.
"She is intense, and I understand why you trust her, but I still think telling her about me right now is a bad idea."
Elias went still.
Elara noticed. "What happened to you just now?"
"Pain spike through the healing ribs," he lied. "I need to get home before my side files a complaint."
She did not believe him. She let him keep the lie anyway.
"I have to return before my absence becomes a report," she said. "Call the private line if the watch changes again, and keep it off public channels."
"You keep saying that like public channels are where friendship goes to die."
"In my experience, public channels are where friendship dies."
She left through the front of the restaurant because people moved aside for her there. Elias waited until her car pulled away before he started toward his apartment.
The creature slipped out through his chest as a small red blur and hovered beside his shoulder. Nobody on the sidewalk reacted. A man walking a dog passed close enough that the dog looked straight through it and kept sniffing the curb.
"No one on the sidewalk can see you," Elias said under his breath.
"Not unless they can process soul energy."
"That is the kind of answer that makes me want fewer answers."
"Soul energy is what living things carry. Yours was leaking out after the knife and bullet wounds, so I used the shard bond to pull enough back in place for the doctors to finish the work."
Elias looked at it. "You are saying my soul had a plumbing problem."
"That is rude to both souls and plumbing, but close enough for now."
He should have called Elara. He knew that. He also knew the creature had saved his life, or at least knew enough about what happened to sound dangerous. Telling the military about it before he understood it felt like handing a kitchen knife to a customer and hoping they used it on bread.
They reached his building without more alarms. The lobby guard was asleep behind the desk, mouth open, one earbud hanging loose. The elevator smelled like cleaning spray and old rain.
The creature floated upside down while Elias unlocked his apartment door.
"You said Elara was your best friend," it said. "Why did that friendship change so much?"
Elias paused with the key in the lock.
"She passed every test they gave us. I failed enough of them that the academy stopped pretending I was improving. After that, she got armor and posters. I got a knife roll and a restaurant schedule."
"That does not sound like she stopped being your friend."
"No, it sounds like life got better at separating us than either of us got at fighting it."
He opened the door and stepped inside.
The apartment lights came on by themselves.
A man stood in the living room with a revolver aimed at Elias's head.
Elias knew him after one glance. The younger robber from Korrin's Pharmacy. His face was swollen near one eye, and a fresh bandage crossed his cheek. Panic had taken the place of whatever courage he had carried in the alley.
"Close the door slowly and keep your hands visible," the robber said. "Then put your hands where I can see them."
The creature vanished back through Elias's chest.
Elias kept one hand on the doorknob and lifted the other.
"You picked the worst possible apartment for a follow up visit."