Are you sure you want to do this? Shiloh asks. The cherub did not move the entire time I was down in the Veins, even though I paced long enough for him to stop me. I didn't want him to stop me. I was prepared to fight him if he attempted to. I just thought, given circumstances, that he might make the attempt.

I'm on the back porch of Ignatius's house, alone. The wood creaks under me, and the succulents watch from their pots. None of the local flora is happy to see me. Maybe plants can sense the aura of sinister intent around me, which is practically synonymous with the magical aura. As I fall from their gaze, approaching the front step, Shiloh catches me again, his sudden intrusion drawing my hand back. There are better ways to help your team out. That's all.

"If you don't want me to do this, make me not do it," I say. "I know that's what you're capable of." My hand moves back towards the doorknob. "Right?"

I don't know anything. My hand thuds against the door, and Ignatius opens it. He looks more disheveled than the last time we saw him, so maybe he doesn't know anything, either, and maybe that means we can work something out instead of going through a pre-prepared script. I have way less planned than I should have. We can draw even on this.

"I don't want to fight. I want to talk." I say. "Please... don't hurt me."

He looks to my shield, then back to me, with one eyebrow raised. "I'm not the one who's fully armed, but alright."

He invites me inside. His house is even more of a mess than the last time we saw it, primarily because he's got an easel up in the living room, and a bowl of ramen soup situated in a nice china bowl on a precarious looking table.

He sets the paint aside on the radiator, right below the windowsill where his succulents are. "Well, erm, make yourself at home, er..." he says, pausing. "I still don't have anything to call you. I get it. You can't give me your real name. Can you make something up? Because otherwise I'm going to call you 'Teenage Interloper' for the rest of our encounter, and no one wants that."

"Usagi," I say.

"Moon?" he says. "In Japanese. Did you pick that?"

I shake my head.

"Alright." I catch his hesitation. The kettle's whistling again. "I got twenty packets of chai the other day, and I intend to use them. Do you want tea?"

I nod.

"Try to be more careful with it, this time." He enters his kitchen, passing the scratched-up door beneath which lies everything, and I follow, this time taking as wide a berth as possible around the door. Dryly, he stares back at me. "Is there an issue?"

"It would be really easy for you to poison me right now," I say. I situate myself at the counter.

"Do you want to watch me open the box, the storebrought box, and dip it in the water which I will also drink from? Do you want me to sip from one of the cups at random without opening my eyes?"

"Yes," I say. "Why were you so insistent on giving us tea the first time?"

Ignatius's eyes wander up as he gets to work on preparing it, going through every step he specified. I feel a little stupid watching him, but I think we're both calmed down by the time he slides me the tea. Shiloh thinks it's safe. I think it's safe. "It's... I guess it does make me seem like some kind of cartoon villain. I suppose it was the only gesture I could think of, and now it's incredibly awkward having to back out of it."

My eyes widen. I know the feeling. I've had to brute force my way out of so many conversations with my dad and brother, just to avoid them mocking my interests. It's like running to the car during a rainstorm with nothing to protect you but your hands over your head. Anything else is too unwieldy, takes too long. Sometimes you suck it up. "Does that happen to adults, too?"

"I'm only eight years older than you. I know it seems like a lot, but Usagi, if that's what you'd prefer to be called... when you get there, you'll realize that it isn't and never was. Things never change as much as you think they're going to. Just enough to keep you interested."

I nod.

"So," I say. "What's it... like?"

He looks across the room behind us, which can be vaguely described as a studio adjacent to his kitchen. "It's challenging," he admits. "I work long days, alone, but I have the freedom to work from home, which I'm eternally grateful for. Keeps the creative buzz going. I go into the office for meetings, or to help with programming, but most of the time, it's just art."

"You do art?" I ask. I knew this. Why did I ask? He must think I'm an idiot. Is that going to impact negotiations?

"You can see that," he says, gesturing to the room behind us. Tea in hand, which I take a tentative sip of (it's wonderful, even if my mouth is burning), I stumble around the room, looking at beautifully rendered digital and traditional drawings of plants. Some are ordinary plants, but others are extravagant floral beasts or even plant-covered humanoids. I recognize the stamp in the corner from a video game I'd heard of, vaguely. He must be working for someone from home.

"I like your linework," I say. "Or, I guess, the lack of it? I mean, I only do lined work, but I know a lot of professional work opts for a painterly style, or, if these are game designs, you'll be working with polygons. I guess some games do have lined work, Okami-style but that's a little... stylized. It looks bad unless you put a lot of work into it. How do you do the lighting here? It looks like you're using a slightly different color for the different times of day, but they still look like they belong on that plant."

"Palettes?" Ignatius says, taken aback. "I mean, there are tutorials online, all over the place. I have to admit, I'm a little surprised that you know so much about this."

"A-A--" I cut myself off. Maybe Shiloh cuts me off. I can see his eyes behind my own, peering through me, his fur bristling with worry. "A friend of mine knows even more. I'm actually, out of my friends, at least, probably one of the worst artists I know."

"Don't worry," he says. "It's all about practice. You set aside the time, right? Do your research. It all falls into place eventually. I have the extra push from... well, you know. But that's just a push. I was doing fine before that happened, this is just making things..." He trails off again. His eyes fog over slightly, and he presses his glasses against his face. "It definitely helps me focus when I'm alone for such long periods of time. I suppose you have people around you to help with that, but people can be pretty unwieldy, can't they? Figure you've worked that out."

I think of my brother, or Karen, or the numerous other people in my life who want the best for me and still make my life difficult. "I... guess so?" I ask.

"Do you want to go into art?" he asks.

"I don't think it matters if I do or not," I explain. "I don't have the courage to go after it."

Ignatius looks up from his chai. His eyes are kinder than I remember, far kinder than the caged-animal fear when we saw him last. We engaged him too rashly. He's just a kind, pleasant... guy. Like Karen said to begin with. "Usagi?" He says it like it's my real name, but it isn't.

"Luna," I say. "Can you call me Luna?"

"Oh," he says. "Have I been using the correct--"

"Pronouns, yeah, I mean... don't make it awkward, please," I say. "It just feels better, and I didn't want to admit to anyone I liked the name."

"That's what I mean," he says. "You probably have the right instincts, the right drive, all of it. It's just that you're still listening to the voice in your head, which happens to be the echo of everything you hear out of everyone else's mouth."

"I could do better," I say. The scratching is picking up behind the door.

"They'll dilute you out," Ignatius is still looking up at his room. "Don't let them."

My heart begins to beat frantically again. I almost forgot who I was talking to. "I won't."

"Good, good." He seems genuinely happy when he smiles. No-- there's something at the edge. Shiloh notices it. I notice it. "It's been really nice having this conversation, but I do have deadlines to make--"

What's in his basement?

"What's in your basement?" I ask.

He's rigid like a tree. "Inspiration."

That's not all.

"If you're going to barge down there anyways," he continues, "I'll just explain. I have a live replica of what I'm working on. A way to make things easier. I'd say a wonderland, but I'd probably get the stink-eye, so let's just say that it's a stimulant for my creative development."

"Plants need sunlight, don't they?" I ask. "Do you just keep them down there?"

Ignatius pauses. "Occasionally I bring them up. They're fine."

We pause. The conversation stalls, and I sense Shiloh arch his back. Ignatius is eyeing the place where the majority of my Diosite lies.

"What do you use it for?" he asks.

We had our first English presentation two weeks ago and I stood up, gave the whole thing, and sat down. Ms. Adana seemed impressed by my drawings. I have to stand up in Art, too, and I can hear Shiloh, 'Keep calm'. Of course I can stay calm. I've walked towards death. That's how it works. You do your journey and you come back stronger. You stride back from the adventurer's life as an adventurer. I clutch the moonstone and I know there's nothing as terrible in here as out there. I clutch the moonstone and I know I can handle anyone and anything. I clutch the moonstone. I hold on.

"Just this."

"You could do so much more with it," Ignatius says. "Why do you need mine, anyways?"

"It's dangerous."

"For people who aren't teenagers?"

I don't have a response for that.

For people who aren't supervised.

"For people who aren't supervised," I say.

"Who supervises you?" Ignatius asks. The genuine curiosity curdles like old milk.

I raise my shield.

"I understand. You can't tell me that either, can you?"

I move backwards. He hasn't moved, but his shadow casts further across the room. The door whimpers behind me. I trip on my own feet, holding my shield up as a last line of defense, and close my eyes as tight as I can.

"Get out."

I spring to my feet before I even know what's happening. My resolve has abandoned me. Every muscle in my body begs me to get out of this house. "So you're letting me go."

"No, you'll be back, and when you are, I will crush you."

"We don't need to do this," I say, timidly.

"You don't pick your own name. You don't pick your own quest. I can't imagine you'll pick your own morals, either. If you want to stand with people whose motives you barely understand, doing dirty work for people who think they can take advantage of you, do that, Will. Just remember that you could have been more assertive if you'd wanted to." Ignatius leers behind his glasses. "Get out."

The porch air welcomes me back. I can see him from behind his door, his eyes never leaving mine, and I duck back out into the woods. I don't feel safe behind the trees, either, and I'm almost to the road before I stop running. A tree opens up behind me, blossoming with darkness, and I look around before I let myself take it, certain I've seen something move.

Of course I'm alone. There aren't even any animals out.

Shiloh's waiting in the Veins. He places himself around my legs, curling up there, and I wipe the burning tears from my cheeks. "You were right," I say. "I should have just listened to you."

"You didn't understand before," says Shiloh, his voice a reassuring purr. "Now you do. Even if it was a bad idea, you had good intentions, and it was brave of you to try to work it all out on your own. Openmindedness is a good quality in a leader."

Thank you, I want to say, but instead I just lean down and massage one of Shiloh's ears. "Is he going to hurt himself?"

"Not if you can get to him first." Shiloh's purple eyes stare unblinkingly up at me, like car highlights.

I stand back up and wipe the tears away. "Of course," I say. "Of course."

I'm really just thinking about the way the Diosite tugging at his soul. I'm thinking of walking through halls with my head held a little higher. I'm imagining me in his office dozens of years in the future, sitting in a house alone, isolating myself further and further into a corner of my own mind. I think of my brother abandons me. Shiloh reflects my face back at me in his massive eyes, and then, a second later, it's not my face at all. It's a stranger who has stopped crying.

When I stagger home as Will Rosenbloom, I move straight to the shower and douse myself in hot water. After I've finished, I look at myself in the fogged up mirror. I have to get Ignatius out of there as soon as possible. I have to get my team out of there as soon as possible. The moonstone is back on the lip of the sink, teetering between me and the bathroom floor. The white cut peers outwards, wanting something from me I don't know if I can give.

"You wouldn't hurt me," I say. "It's a tool. A shield. Something I use to defend others."

"Will, stop rambling to yourself in the shower. It's weird," Adam calls from our room.

"I'm not," I say. Please say he didn't hear that. If he heard that he'd be in on it and he'd know I can barely make my own decisions and I have to do this since there's no one else who can and I get everyone involved and they're my team, they're my people, I need them, and they need me, and Shiloh believes in me, and I can walk between classes now without shivering, can't I? This helps. Things are looking up. I'm braver than I think. More important than I know. I am.

The fogged-over cat's eye stares back at me. It promises nothing, but when the smoke begins to clear, I pick it back up.