No. Damn it. I can’t smoke pot. I’m not going to go back to any of that shit. I know myself too well. I struggle against the grate, struggle to extend control through the connecting strand. It’s still my body! Surely I can stop me, her, us from doing this. But it’s like steering a car with my pinky while tied in the backseat.

She lifted the joint and took a long pull, then sighed out the smoke with a relaxed smile.

That’s what I needed. Her thought rolls over me. Damn it! I witness the Pretender abuse my body. I want to smack her.

She jerked in surprise as Mzatal reached and plucked the joint from her fingers.

“You have dishonored my hospitality, taken that which is not yours, and do not have the control to use such without succumbing to it.” He glowered down at Us as he incinerated the joint with a flick of his fingers.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She scowled up at the lord. “It was my damn weed in the first place. I was merely recovering my own property that you ‘confiscated’.” She made obnoxious quote marks with Our fingers.

Holy shit. I know this Pretender. I had that attitude when I was about nineteen or so. I was off the drugs by then, but She is the Me of then, still on drugs. I can’t live like this! I reach through the strand and it’s like fighting through a vat of tar, sticky, searing heat against the ice of my Self. Agonizing. Exhausting.

“And what the hell does it matter anyway if I smoke a joint?” she continued, rolling Our eyes. “This summoning shit is a pain in the ass and the pot chills me out.”

“I do not jest,” he replied in a hard voice. “For some it would not matter. For you it does. You lose yourself.”

He’s so right. Why won’t she listen? No, this isn’t me. This…this is a very small part of who I might have been. This isn’t me! I can’t do this.

“I don’t lose myself,” she said with a snort. “Oh my god, it’s just pot. And what the fuck do you care? You wanted a summoner. Well, here I am.” She gave a showy curtsey.

“Smoking breaks your agreement with me. This is of much relevance.” Mzatal looked to Gestamar. “Destroy the remainder of the herb.”

She gave a snotty laugh. “Oh no, I did something against the magic contract. Does that mean I get a spanking?”

You stupid little bitch, stop talking before you get into real trouble! I continue to struggle to reach through the strand.

Mzatal’s eyes were hard upon Us. “Gestamar, Kara will be leaving us. Tell Idris to prepare a diagram. We will proceed within the hour.”

Yeah. Trouble like that.

I press against the barrier. I can’t relax, can’t rest. All I can do is gasp in what existence I can through the seal. I can’t take much more of this.

She stared in shock. “You’re going to send me back for one fucking joint? You f-fu—”

I slam on the brakes! I force myself through the strand and manage to make her stop before she can call him a fucking asshole. The thought is there, the words formed, ready to spill. Stop it. I want to weep, but she has my body. Exhausted. This tiny influence exhausts me. I can’t do this. Please, you have to stop this. Mzatal, please! I’m trying not to panic, but there’s so little room. Please. Please.

Mzatal moved to me and took my head in his hands, unsealed the barrier. I sagged and clutched at him as he released it, eyes wide as the goo slowly retreated. He pulled me to him, kept one arm wrapped around me and the other cradling my head to his chest. I could feel him continuing to dismantle the suppression. With every heartbeat it loosened more, until finally it was completely gone. I was me again. Fully me.

But shudders spasmed through me, and I had to clamp down hard on the urge to cry. “That was me.” I whispered.

He continued to hold me close, even though the cruel submersion was over and dismantled. “Was,” he replied. “It was an aspect of you. You would not be who you are today without that aspect. It is a gift.”

A shiver raced through me. “You know all about that time in my life.”

“Yes,” he replied quietly.

Of course he did, I realized. He probably knew me better than I knew myself. He’d gone trouncing through my memories and life when he was deciding whether or not to snap my neck.

“Fuck,” I breathed. Shame coiled through me, but I pushed it down. I wasn’t that person anymore. And I could be damn glad that I didn’t have to live my existence watching me be that person, be something I despised. “This submersion,” I said, then paused, considering my words. He couldn’t answer a direct question, but he could, perhaps comment. “I don’t know how anyone could bear it for more than a few minutes, much less many years.”

Mzatal went very still. “I do not know how it could be endured for so long.”

Again, I chose my words carefully. “I wonder if anyone else could be as…reviled and shamed by the actions of their outer personality as I was.” Did Szerain detest how Ryan conducted himself?

“Yes,” he said, exhaling. “Perhaps not as instantaneously, since your overlay was drawn from a painful era of your past. But without the control, without the influence, any actions could emerge. Surely you have watched another and judged their actions. It is similar with a foreign overlay.”

I struggled to process it all. Now I knew—or at least had a taste of—what Szerain endured. But Szerain had been submerged under the overlay of someone else’s life. It was bad enough under a shadow of myself. What would it be like to have the superficial memories of Jane Doe overlaid and my features shaped into hers? And Szerain chose this. Surely, he didn’t know how bad it would be. Turek’s words came back to me. He despised being submerged. He will not willingly submit to it again.

“There were a couple of minutes there where I thought you’d really done it. I thought you’d really submerged me.” I looked up at him. “I’m sorry I doubted.”

He met my eyes steadily. “You wanted to know what it was like. That aspect was crucial to your understanding. I reinforced it with specific intention.” He shook his head. “There is no need for apology.”

Reinforced with specific intention. The words he spoke when he submerged me. They’d made little sense at the time, and now I thought maybe I knew why. Were those Rhyzkahl’s words when he submerged Szerain? Was this the only way Mzatal could tell me?

I tensed as the grove flared. “Someone’s coming.” I paused, feeling the resonance. “It’s Lord Vahl. Were you expecting him?”

“No,” he said through clenched teeth. I winced in sympathy. Mzatal was having a Bad Day. I knew those far too well.

“Do you need me to leave?”

“Only if you choose to do so,” he replied. “Otherwise, I would have you abide.” Left unspoken was the implication that, while he wanted me with him, he would not mandate it.

“I’ll stay then,” I said, pleased and oddly flattered. I gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m kind of a nosy bitch.”

A smile ghosted across his face. He leaned down and kissed my forehead, then released my hand. “I need a moment to prepare.”

“Of course,” I said. He’d want to be in top form to face another one of the lords with their perpetual head games and intrigue. “Would you like me to get wine?”

“Wine would be excellent.” He faced the balcony railing and closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

I headed inside to the demon realm version of a wet bar and grabbed wine and three glasses. I also wolfed down a couple of pieces of cheese and a slice of fruit since I was starving. Clutching the glasses and wine carefully, I returned to the balcony and set them out quietly so as not to disturb him.

A moment later he opened his eyes and regarded me. “Fog yourself, Kara.”

“Huh?”

“When you hold grove power it is far more difficult to read you,” he said.

I blinked. “Oh, right.” Rhyzkahl had said something about my being fogged right before the big bad ritual. Reaching for the grove, I pulled a trickle of power, then looked to Mzatal.