Effigy of Anarchy

It was not long before Chase was woken by a poke on the shoulder. Shaking her head once again, Cloudchaser stood up and let Silent guide her out of the room. While it had seemed an eternity when she was asleep, in reality only about five minutes had passed. It left a horrible groggy feeling in her stomach and a curious sensation overlaying the world in front of her eyes, like she could still very well be dreaming as she walked.

Silent led her by ground down the street. They were in the middle of downtown Canterlot now, and the streets had begun filling up with the ponies who rose with the sun. Many passersby gave them a polite nod or at least made eye contact as they made their way to a cafe located on the corner a mere block from Silent’s office.

It was at this point, despite her mental state, that Chase suddenly realized that she hadn’t been in a crowded place during the day with Silent. In Trottingham, they had always worked at night, for good reasons, and had been alone while trespassing. Even the train ride the night previous, Silent had hidden herself away in the caboose.

Was this, perhaps, deliberate? There was a crucial difference between antisocial behavior and whatever Silent’s condition was. Perhaps she didn’t care about anypony because she merely could not empathize with them?

Cloudchaser could barely contain her glow. There might well be a cure! All Silent needed was a friend, somepony who could fight through the layers of indifference and become close to her, and she’d realize that she wasn’t so empty on the inside!

“Hey,” Silent said, poking her.

“Huh?”

“They want to know what kind of coffee you want. Tell them.”

Cloudchaser had been so lost in her own world that she hadn’t realized they had already reached the coffee shop and stood in line for several minutes. She couldn’t even remember how far they had walked to get here.

“Triple Mocha Latte with a bit of cinnamon,” Chase answered.

“Make it two,” Silent said.

A warm feeling emerged in Chase’s stomach, and not just due to anticipation of actually having something within it. ‘Make it two’ was the kind of thing a friend would say! Perhaps it was working faster than expected!

“You’re going to need more caffeine,” Silent said.

“What?”

“I’ll pay for the second one if you can’t afford it. Drink them both.”

The warm feeling vanished in an instant.

The coffee shop had a small collection of outdoor tables on the street, complete with sitting pillows for thirsty guests. Silent had waited outside at one while Chase got the drinks and brought them out. Unsurprisingly, none of the other tables were occupied, but Silent seemed to ignore the cold and Chase had become used to it by now.

As she emerged, the sun stung her eyes and her only thoughts were of sleep. Four gulps into her latte, though, and that soon receded. A new energy surged through Cloudchaser, spurring her onwards to down the rest of the drink and start on the next one. Silent, as ever, was brooding, or thinking. Or planning.

“I can hardly even taste the cinnamon,” Chase said.

Silent muttered a response too low to hear.

“You think they maybe skimped on it? Like, didn’t put any in? Do you think they forgot?”

Silent seemed to look grumpier than usual all of the sudden.

“What?”

“Don’t look around. Keep your eyes on me or the drink, act natural. I think we’re being followed.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re being followed. That colt behind you and to the left - don’t look - was on the street when we went into my office, and followed us to the cafe.”

Cloudchaser consciously fought off the urge to look at the colt, instead keeping her eyes trained on her drink. The feelings of safety and surety dissolved, and were replaced by the cold winter air swirling around her.

“Here? How? You think he had somepony tail us?”

“Possible. He’s not from the Guard, or they’d have arranged a meeting through my usual contact.”

“Maybe Messerschmitt knows about your office, and had somepony watch it?”

“Also possible,” Silent muttered, albeit unhappily. “My information is unlisted, the only thing identifying the office is the name plate. It’s quite a bit of investigative work to find me.”

“Does that mean I should be scared?”

“Only if he brought backup. I have a plan. Follow my lead.”

Silent waited a few more moments as Chase suddenly realized she wasn’t going to get to enjoy the rest of her drink. In desperation, she gulped the rest of it down, giving a mild singe to her tongue as she did so.

Silent cast a look at her as she stood up, and began trotting at a brisk pace in no particular direction. Cloudchaser kept up, not fully aware of where Canterlot University was, nor what Silent’s plan could be. She was soon lost among the myriad shops and high rises of downtown Canterlot, following Silent down streets and through alleys, pushing their way past crowds of ponies.

In an opening on the street where the crowd thinned out, Silent motioned for Chase to slow down. As she did so, she swept her head to the side and let her peripheral vision scan just behind them.

“Chase, make it look like you’re guiding me. Point someplace to my right,” Silent said.

“Uh, sure,” Chase said as she pointed, “Is he still following us?”

Silent swung her head around to follow Chase’s direction. “Yes, he is.”

The two resumed trotting along, with a cold chill now climbing up Chase’s neck. She had had a chance to scan the crowd when they had stopped, but everypony seemed exactly as disinterested in them as every other. Who could it be? Did she need to be afraid of every living soul she met now?

“Silent?”

“What is it?” came a hurried reply. Silent began to increase her pace infinitesimally, exactly enough that her stride appeared unchanged to an observer, but she became that much harder to keep pace with.

“Do you have a lot of enemies?”

“Some.”

“How many is ‘some’?”

“Most of the ponies that don’t like me don’t have any idea who I am or how to find me. Focus on the task in front of us.”

“But - “

“Not the time!” Silent snapped.

Silent stopped dead and glared angrily at Chase, causing her to recoil suddenly. There was real anger writ on her face, a snarl that was all the more terrifying considering how different it was from the usual flat look.

“You’ve got us lost! I’m better off on my own!” Silent shouted, making a big display of her displeasure. Several of the ponies around them slowed and gave concerned looks. All at once, all the chatting on the street ceased and a clear circle formed around them in the crowd.

“W-What?”

“That’s it! I’m out of here!” Silent shouted.

Silent turned and ran down an alley behind her. Chase, awestruck, stood with her mouth open for several seconds until she put the pieces together. She shook her head in displeasure and swore under her breath.

“Hey! Wait!” she shouted, charging into the alley after Silent.

She ran down the alley, quickly finding the snow under her hooves increasing in depth as she did. The alley was less trodden and maintained than the street, and her pace quickly slowed. That didn’t matter, though, for as she passed a dumpster behind what looked like a Nipponese restaurant, she saw Silent crouched in anticipation just beyond.

“Keep going,” she whispered.

Chase made it look like she was deciding which way to go, just in case her pursuer had seen her stop. After a brief pause, she turned down another, smaller path that led to a barred door. Finding herself with no place to go, she stopped and turned to watch Silent’s trap be sprung.

She hadn’t even made it back to the corner before she heard the sounds of an extremely brief scuffle. A muffled yell was met with the dull thud of a body colliding with the brick wall opposite the dumpster. Cloudchaser turned the corner to see Silent gripping a black pony by the neck, pressing his face into the wall. Her eyes widened in alarm.

“Who are you? Who do you work for?” Silent demanded.

“Silent, wait!”

Chase burst forth and pulled her partner off the confused colt, who slumped to the ground. Silent relented only as Chase refused to stop pulling her hoof back, though it became clear to Cloudchaser that it was not without reluctance.

“Thunderlane! I’m so sorry, are you okay?” Cloudchaser asked the slumped over colt.

“Owww,” he muttered. As he stood, he was rubbing the back of his head, presumably where it had impacted the wall.

“You know this guy?” Silent asked.

“Yeah! He’s a friend of mine, from Ponyville. Oh my gosh Thunderlane, I am so sorry. Please don’t be mad!”

“Cripes Chase,” Thunderlane grumbled, “warn me next time you’re hanging out with a psycho.”

“She’s not - she was worried you were following us. I didn’t know it was you. What are you doing here?”

“I’m visiting my sister. I thought I saw you on the street and wanted to know what you were doing here.”

Thunderlane shot an angry look at Silent. “I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out, but maybe I’ll take a raincheck on that.”

“Why were you following us?” Silent asked pointedly.

“Well, I didn’t want to just shout at you in a crowd, in case it wasn’t Cloudchaser. That’d be super-awkward.”

“I’ll make it up to you sometime, I promise,” Chase pleaded.

“It’s okay, really,” Thunderland said, though he had not stopped rubbing his head. “It’s my bad, I shouldn’t have been all creepy-stalker on you. But, uh, what are you doing in Canterlot? If you were going, you could have let me know.”

“Well, I’m hanging out with my friend, Silent. Old pal, from high school.”

Silent stuck out her hoof, causing Thunderlane to recoil. “Charmed,” she said, with a stony expression.

“Funny running into you. Small world, and all that,” Thunderlane said, without taking his eyes off of Silent. She let her hoof drop a few moments later.

“I’m really, really sorry, Thunder. We gotta get going, but I owe you a hay-burger back home. Okay?” Chase asked.

“Sure, sure. You - you take it easy, Chase,” Thunderlane said.

As Silent and Cloudchaser turned to leave, making their way out of the alley, Cloudchaser cast a few looks over her shoulder. Thunderlane did not move until he was certain he was a safe distance away from Silent, and even then, only reluctantly.

The University of Canterlot stood apart from the great Palace of The Sun in the shadow of Mount Canterlot, on a rise that gave it prime position to oversee the city. The great spires still fell into shadow as the sun could not rise high enough during this time of year to overcome the heights adjacent to them, and the whole district of the city took the air of a curious twilight.

Silent and Chase had encountered no problems on their way here, now that the phantom threat had been dealt with. Though no danger had truly existed, the fright had been quite real for Cloudchaser. Not the fright of a dangerous situation, for she was now becoming accustomed to such things, but the fright of realizing that she was becoming more like Silent.

Not long ago, having that thought in her head had brought a sort of pride, albeit a misplaced one. It was a temporary thing. Once they had finished the case, she had reasoned, the influence would fade and become another story she would tell her friends and acquaintances. To bring it into her life was like a much more real version of a horror film - only scary so long as it was safe and temporary.

All attempts to discuss this with Silent fell on deaf ears, and each prompt was rebutted with a curt request to ‘Focus’.

Unlike the plain and very earthen appearances of Trottingham, Canterlot’s architects had decided their buildings needed spires and towers. There were three buildings in the center of the campus, arranged in a triangle, gleaming white from both snow and paint. Surrounding them were a dozen towers of various constructions, with no clear architectural similarity between them. A single long hallway bridged the three buildings and led towards the palace, and this was where Silent was now guiding Cloudchaser.

As they made to enter the long hallway, Chase found herself instinctively watching the students coming and going. Without even realizing it, she had cataloged which ones had noticed her and which had carried on their own blithe conversations. Normally, when she walked, she would daydream or perhaps talk to her companion. Perhaps it was the caffeine, or Silent’s characteristically untalkative nature, but since neither of those were possible she could not stop cataloging.

Fortunately, Silent’s guidance soon led her to a bland series of classrooms within one of the main buildings. During the night, such a place took on a sinister atmosphere. During the day, it was as a bleached one, sterile and devoid of distractions. It brought a grounding to Chase, reminding her of the waxed and barren world of the flight school she had once attended.

Silent finally stopped them in front of a door, open just a crack, in an otherwise nondescript hallway. As there were few students passing by and the assorted announcement boards were pasted with indecipherable academic nonsense, she guessed this was where the professors kept their offices.

“Let me do the talking,” Silent said. Without waiting for a reply, she knocked on the door.

A muffled reply came, prompting Silent to enter.

Behind an ancient desk sat an even more ancient pony, with grayed hair and the sagging nose that afflicted all elderly mares. Her unkempt mane was sagging in front of her eyes, and as she looked up she made no attempt to clear them. Chase could only catch a hint of a deep maroon pair of eyes beyond, though she seemed to have no problem identifying her guests.

“Silent Rivers! You’re much earlier than I expected,” the professor said, and no sooner had she than her eyes locked on Cloudchaser. “And you brought a guest, most unusual. Your name, young lady?”

As Chase prepared to speak, she found herself struck dumb. From the corner of her eye, she saw something which so shocked her sensibilities as to leave her unable to even process the possibility of it. Her mind reeled, the impossible became possible, and for a billionth of a second, she could have sworn she could see the mysteries of creation unravel before her as a scroll is unfurled.

Silent was smiling.

Not a small smile, but a wide one from ear to ear, warping in alien geometries that curled around and into themselves, occupying no volume and all volume simultaneously. The laws of nature had been repealed, and now there were no rules.

“This is Cloudchaser, an old friend of mine,” Silent said with an almost giddy tone.

“Cloudchaser, hmm? I must apologize for my generation, we never were that original with names.”

Silent laughed. Chase fought the unleashed evils that now sought to cause her brain to melt.

“I’m sorry professor,” Silent said, forcing herself to calm down, “but we’re on urgent business. I assume you received my letter?”

“Oh yes dear, I’m sorry. One moment.”

The aged pony rose and turned towards the window on the far side of the room. Along both walls sat bookcases loaded down with books of every color of the rainbow, their middles sagging from the weight. Thousands of pages of arcane mysteries, with a hundred small bookmarks sticking out of each of the books Chase could see, no doubt read a dozen times.

The pony was fumbling with something hidden behind the desk. Chase would have repositioned herself to better observe, but since the laws of gravity and electromagnetism had switched, moving was literally impossible. She could still see Silent’s face, though, and she suddenly felt cold on the inside.

“Here it is, the Intricate Render of Ardre. Unfortunately, it’s not really my field, but I’m pretty sure Professor Stone could help you further. He’s five doors down, on your left.”

Silent strode forward and accepted the piece of paper from the professor behind the desk, still cheery as a carnation as she did so.

“Thanks a million, Doric. I think this might be a big break in the case.”

“Oh, don’t mention it,” the professor said, returning Silent’s smile, “I’m just glad I can help. Wish I had the energy like you young’uns do.”

At this point, the two were still talking, but the speed of sound had become near-zero due to irreparable changes in conductivity between substances, and Cloudchaser could no longer hear what was being said. It didn’t matter, of course, because she was clearly hallucinating this whole encounter, and would probably wake up in a few hours with her head in a snowbank somewhere.

The door shut behind them and suddenly, the world came back into focus. Cloudchaser was once again standing in the bleached and bland hallways of the University of Canterlot, standing next to Silent, whose face was where emotion went to die.

“What just happened?” Chase chanced to ask, testing that the laws of physics had resumed their usual course.

“That was one of my contacts. I usually talk to her to get advice on forensics, since there’s two disciplines of it and the Royal Guard only practice one.”

“What?” Chase asked, “No no. I mean, what just happened? Why were you so - “

“Happy?”

“Yes!”

Silent frowned, then suddenly switched her expression to one of unbridled joy. As soon as it had come, she replaced it with a deep mourning, the sort of look a pony gets when their best friend dies. In the next instant, she was curious, then angry, then back to the glare of stone she normally wore.

Cloudchaser’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.

“I do whatever it takes to get what I want.”

Silent turned and proceeded down the hallway as a calm depression settled over Chase’s mind. For one brief shining moment, she had been transported to another world, and the brief taste left her yearning for more.

“Please hold the door,” came from a wizened only pony as Chase entered the office behind Silent. He held a withered cane as ancient as his face, running with wrinkles and cracks. Despite that, he smiled broadly at the two mares who had come to visit.

“We need some information,” Silent said.

“Yes yes, Doric already told me you’d be coming by. If you’ll excuse my pace, I’d like to show you something.”

Professor Stone was slow on the move, and the gradually increasing traffic of students weaved around them as they made their way towards the common area in the center of the building.

“So,” Cloudchaser said, to lift the pall that had settled over her, “What was that Render thing Doric mentioned?”

“It’s an artifact from the centuries just before The Fall,” Professor Stone said, grunting slightly with each move of his cane forward. “Seventh millenium, if you go by the old dating standards. No carbon on the blade, so we have to go by historical estimates.”

“It’s a knife?” Cloudchaser asked, though not quite sure what had triggered that assumption. She had remembered something about a knife fairly recently, but could not recall where she had seen it.

“Well, not much of one. It’s dull, and was probably forged dull based on the cooling techniques evident in the crystal structure. Then again, that’s the whole point of the legend surrounding it.”

Silent, who had until now been uninterested, now finally showed some sign of curiosity. “What legend?”

Professor Stone let out a chuckle. “Now, don’t go believing everything you hear. Not all legends are true. In fact, it’s my job to prove beyond doubt that none of them are.”

Presumably that was some archaeological joke, as Professor Stone let out a guffaw which slowed his pace even further. After a brief recovery period, he resumed his glacial speed.

“I’d still like to hear it,” Silent said.

“Yes, well, so would I. There’s a few versions, depending on where you’re from, but they all have a few common characteristics. Essentially, the story goes that there was a blacksmith named Ardre, or Argre if you take the old Trottingham version of the tale.”

“In all the versions, Ardre has a happy life with a satisfying job, but he’s got his eye on a mare who works as a glassblower down the road from him. Every time he works up the courage to talk to her, he scares himself for fear of rejection and returns back to his forge to work out his frustrations on another set of horseshoes. One day, he decides he’s had it, and makes a wild plea to the heavens to help him.”

“What, he just shouts at the sky?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Well, you’ve got to remember, these stories tend to get embellished, since they usually aren’t written down until decades after the original events, if there even were any. There’s quite a few stories of heroes and villains simply cursing at the gods or the elements or what-have-you.”

“Ah, I see,” Chase muttered.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. He makes the plea, and then something answers. The northern dialects say he gets the answer immediately, but the western recordings say he gets the answer in the form of a cloud of steam rising inexplicably off his forge. In fact, if I recall correctly, one of our graduate students last year wrote her thesis on the possible connection between Ardre’s tale and that of another one from the Ellenian tribes because they all used steam coming off a forge for divine communication. Hard to prove, of course.”

“Professor…” Silent said.

“Oh yes, excuse me,” Stone said, giving a slight cough. “Ardre gets his reply, and the gods have told him to forge a blade using a special technique that they explain to him using a series of cryptic hints. Ardre makes the knife but finds that it’s been cast dull, even though the cast he used was for a sharp edge. The gods tell him to use the knife anyway, except he’s to use it on himself.”

“As opposed to?” Chase asked.

“Not sure, the translation doesn’t really imply what he was intending to do with it. Regardless, he does what the gods say, and the knife is too dull to leave any impact on him, not even capable of cutting the hair on his head.”

“Thinking that the gods have just played with him, he goes to the girl he had longed after to comfort himself. Suddenly, he finds himself at ease with her, and finally asks her to join his house.”

“Huh?” Chase asked.

“It’s the equivalent of a date, missy,” Stone said with a chuckle.

“I figured.”

“So things are good now and Ardre is happy, but then he finds himself acting more and more recklessly as time goes on. He gets into a fight with an ogre - or a hydra, or an ettin - and vanquishes it, but he’s alarmed by the sudden changes. When he asks a mystic if he has a disease, the mystic tells him that he’s become completely bereft of fear, as though it had been magically cut from his soul.”

Silent and Chase shared a look with one another, but neither said anything.

“So what happens then?” Chase asked.

“He’s married the girl by now, who is named Netta, by the way, and she finds out about this as well. She tries to counsel him, but he has no idea how he can undo what he’s done. After some hemming and hawing, Netta tells him to surrender his judgement to her. She tells him she’ll be his guide, and that she’ll fear for the both of them, and then they live happily ever after.”

Chase tried to cast another look at Silent, but found her unwilling to meet her gaze this time. Her stare was distant, deep in thought.

“So, that’s it? What’s the moral of the story?” Chase asked.

“No moral, those old stories are just stories. Some ponies would make their whole careers out of reciting them as entertainment.”

“I see.”

“Professor,” Silent asked, “What became of the knife?”

“See for yourself,” Stone replied.

As they had walked, they had entered the main artery of the building, transporting students from one end to the other. All along the sides of this wider hallway were exhibits behind small glass displays. The one they had stopped in front of, unknown to Silent and Cloudchaser, was labelled “Ardre’s Intricate Knife”.

It was little more than a slab of metal, with neither side anything even approaching an edge, sitting on a red pillow behind a display case. It had clearly been well-preserved, but was nothing like intimidating.

“Well then, so we’ve come to the end of the story,” Stone said. “Did you have any other questions for me? This has taken longer than I had expected, I have a class to teach in a few minutes.”

Both Silent and Chase stared hard at the metal sitting on the other side of the glass case. For some reason, Chase thought it looked awfully familiar, but couldn’t quite place where she had seen it before.

Of course, Silent wouldn’t be marveling at the blade. Her brain was probably working overtime trying to figure out what this meant in connection to the case, so Chase tried to redirect her tired mind to focus.

Obviously the knife was still here. There was a thin coating of dust on the case, and the seals around the base where it met the stone podium it rested on had been set for some time. If the knife had ever been removed, it hadn’t been recently.

“Uh, I have a question,” Chase said. Silent paid her no mind, her eyes remained locked on the dull knife.

“Yes?”

“When was this thing discovered?”

Stone held a hoof to his chin for a few moments before answering, “Right around the time this university was founded, so about nine centuries ago.”

That took the wind out of Cloudchaser faster than a kick to the chest. If the knife had been a recent recovery, that would be significant. Being that it had been found for so long, it begged the question why nopony had tried anything with it before.

“Professor,” Silent said, “Do you know of anypony who has done any recent work on this knife or the legend surrounding it?”

“Oh yes, that one’s obvious,” Stone replied, not needing to pause for thought. “Roger Martinside’s been churning out papers on this thing at a steady clip for years now. Frankly I just skip them, I don’t know how that idiot gets published.”

Professor Stone frowned. “Obviously, you shouldn’t tell him I said that, or anypony. Professional courtesy.”

“Yeah, sure,” Chase said, “Roger Martinside?”

“Used to be associate dean down at UofH until he quit about a year back. I’ve heard him speak at conferences, but I don’t know him personally. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d hate to be late to teach a bunch of freshponies. It gives them the wrong idea, you know.”

Without waiting, Stone turned and began hobbling off towards one of the rooms along the sides of the hallway. Chase started to follow, but Silent blocked her off.

“Leave him, we’ve gotten what we need.”

“I don’t see how,” Chase muttered, “It’s a nice story and a nice piece of metal, but it’s sitting in that display case and has been for some time. Look, can’t you see the dust on it?”

Silent nodded.

“So, what, you think maybe it’s a fake?” Chase asked.

“No.”

“So what? Did we just waste half a day?”

“No. I think I have a method, and maybe a motive, now all I need is to figure out where Martinside is and we can put a stop to this,” Silent said.

Chase shook her head. “That’s what we’ve been trying to do this whole time! How has this changed anything?”

“We can nail him for falsifying government records.”

Cloudchaser had to shake her head again a few more times to clear out the cobwebs.

“What?”

“If we can get a photo of Martinside and compare it to Messerschmitt, we can get the Royal Guard to put out a warrant for his arrest, because he didn’t legally get his name changed. That’d be enough to put him behind bars, since felony fraud doesn’t allow bail in Canterlot district.”

Chase sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“That’s how real cases work. I’d still like to get my hooves on him first, because I have a few questions of my own,” Silent said, and for once, she let a hint of anger escape from her face as she said it.

Seeing that awoke a new fear in Chase’s heart. She’d never actually seen Silent truly angry, not even when arguing or fighting. Not for a moment had Silent ever seemed to be unrestrained, and that one split second had shown Chase something she wasn’t meant to see.

“Is something wrong?” Silent asked.

“No, nothing,” Chase lied, “But, uh, why haven’t you just grabbed him yet? I mean, we know where he lives. Couldn’t we just ambush him when he’s there?”

While Cloudchaser was only slightly surprised to find herself directly advocating breaking and entering coupled with assault, it was the fact that she had had the thoughts at all that alarmed her. Before all this, reporting Messerschmitt to the Royal Guard would have been the end of it.

“He doesn’t sleep in his home, and he’s surrounded by bodyguards when he’s in public. You know this.”

“Well, then, we just follow him around until he lets his guard down! It can’t be that hard!”

“I’ve tried it,” Silent said, “It’s not possible. Even bribing service ponies to tail him has failed. He’s a ghost. The only way I know where he’s going to be is when he announces it ahead of time.”

“Pah,” Chase spat, “No way. He can’t just vanish like he wasn’t even there.”

As soon as Chase had said the words, her eyes widened as she realized the full depth of what she had implied. Silent gave a disappointed look.

“You came to a conclusion,” Silent accused, “What was it?”

“He wasn’t really there, he was here,” Chase muttered.

Silent pressed herself closer to Chase, almost in a threatening pose. She gritted her teeth and spoke in a low tone. “Explain yourself, stop wasting time.”

“Uh, well, see… I saw an article this morning, but I didn’t think it was important.”

Silent glared.

“Well,” Chase said somewhat sheepishly, “It said that a guy from Trottingham was visiting the Princess last night, but it couldn’t be related because…”

“Quite a thing, to be in two places at once,” Silent muttered, suddenly withdrawing and staring into the distance.

“And I was figuring, what with all we’ve seen so far, that maybe…” Chase said, trailing off.

“He, or at least part of him, might still be there,” Silent said.

“Yeah, that.”

Chase felt stupid for even suggesting it, but this sort of thing was well beyond her range of understanding, and evidently Silent’s too. She had been alternating between distant and intense, something that Chase hadn’t witnessed yet. Perhaps this was the closest thing to frustration she was going to be privy to.