It was twenty-four hours later, and I hadn't made my way back to Desdemona's hideout.

I hadn't even made it more than a city block. Amal gave pursuit, and the wound she'd inflicted gave her an easy means of tracking me as I fled. I should've died.

I didn't. Some fraction of me needed to survive.

There was nothing clever about the way I ran. It was as if any higher brain functions I might've possessed left me, and all that remained was the base instinct to flee.

I hurtled myself from rooftop to rooftop, rolling and dodging as Amal's onslaught continued.

It was pointless. She would win.

Perhaps it was that thought, the only one that broke through the primal need for flight from a conflict lost, that saved me. I don't know.

All I knew was that my hands began to weave shapes I'd only ever seen once, minutes ago. Right before Magisorcerer Tiana blinked away from me.

It was the only time I'd successfully cast any spell. Still is. How or why is a mystery to me.

I just knew that one moment I was mortally wounded, seeing the edges of my vision begin to gray out. The next, I found myself at the feet of Draxus of Kjel'Doran.

My best, oldest friend.

My enemy.

I staggered forward, and muttered something.

Then the darkness took me. I thought for a long while I was dead. When I finally came to, I was lying on what appeared to be a discarded, soiled mattress. Around me was a web of improvised lighting, including a big, round paper ball with a bulb inside.

Everything — the walls, the floor, the ceiling — was gray concrete, and smelt faintly of seawater.

"You are awake," came a voice I'd longed to hear ever since I'd arrived on this world. I startled to my feet all the same. Rax stood mere feet away from me.

I'd wanted to see him for so long.

Much as my heart flooded with love at seeing him alive and well, I knew that bestial anger was sure to follow. Desdemona had instilled it in me, drip by toxic drip as she spoke of how wrong it was for Draxus of Kjel'Doran to "betray" her.

Except the rage didn't come.

Confusion, then relief, did.

And then, finally, came tears. I gripped him tight, and wept into his arms. I hadn't seen him in years, not since I'd shortly after I'd been summoned.

When Desdemona realized we knew each other, she kept us apart. I only heard he'd broken free when it'd been mentioned offhandedly by Desdemona.

At first, she'd suggested it like it was her choice. That she'd gotten sick of him and cut him loose to fend for himself, idly wondering if he'd already gone out and gotten himself banished.

Then, as the months wore on, she got angrier. She harped more and more on how foolish he was to leave.

Eventually, she interrogated me. Asked me any and every question she could about what he was like growing up. Did he ever say anything to me that might have explained why he thought leaving was an okay thing to do to her?

What gave him the right to choose that? Why was she not enough?

In the moment, I agreed. Desdemona's claws were so deep into me that I couldn't do anything except agree.

"How?" It was the only question I thought to ask when I got myself under control enough.

"I do not know," Rax said. "One day, I was free. I could think again, Kamilliajora. I could feel."

"But... that's wrong," I said, my voice still shaky. I pulled back and furrowed my brow before I tapped a finger to his forehead. "I'd never seen you think a single thought before Desdemona got her hands on you."

He narrowed his eyes, and brought me in for another deep hug. I wept and laughed anew.

The next few days continued in a strange blur of rest and recuperation. Rax had taken to hiding out in an abandoned aqueduct intake. It offered little that one could call creature comforts, and was far out of the way, so when I seemed to have just appeared he was more than a little stunned.

"At first I thought you were here on..." he drew in a deep breath, "her orders." Rax grimaced when he said 'her'. I couldn't blame him. He'd liked boys the same way I'd like girls growing up.

I gritted my teeth. It brought a fierce, rageful urgency to my need of seeing Desdemona dead or dying.

"But then you said, 'help.' Just that one word, and I knew," Rax continued. He hadn't been looking at me. He was faraway, recalling it as his eyes welled with unshed tears. Now, though, he turned to me.

"Promise me we are going to fight her?"

I took his hand in mine. "I promise you."

**

"Thank you, Miss Harris, for that," the board member says, and I realize I've not been paying attention to anything that's been going on. I glance over to Rax, but he's faraway again.

I rest a hand on his knee, gently, and he stirs.

"Sorry," he mouths.

I shake my head. No apologies needed.

"I see that we've got those in attendance who'd like to speak regarding the release of the defendant," the same board member continues.

He looks at the piece of paper, and a confused look passes over his face. He clears his throat. "Miss, um... Miss Kamilliajora Neff?"

I glance to Rax, then stand.

"There seems to be an issue with our paperwork," the board member — Douglas MacGrady, from the placard I now see in front of him — says.

My heart sinks. They're not going to allow me to speak, are they?

"It says you're here to speak against Miss Harris' release, but..." Doug doesn't say the rest.

I grit my teeth. "No, your paperwork got that right," I say. "I'm here to ask the state not to release Desdemona."

Every member of the board seems confused, passing looks to each other as though they'd just seen that Jesmond Christ guy they're always talking about.

Like I'm some miracle.

I don't wait for them to stop. I walk towards a microphone, and I start speaking before I even know what I'm gonna say. "I have been a monster since the moment Desdemona Lane Harris ripped me away from my home on another world, and brought me here. To everyone in this room, I'm not worth anything.

To be here today, I had to go through screenings that treated me as a violent, destructive, unfeeling creature. I wonder if the Magisorcerer in this room had to deal with that same burden. I doubt it.

Because, to you, she's a person. And so is Desdemona. She's human, and I'm not. Monster, and not.

I am seen as a thing that you cannot even fathom would have issue with the horrible, dehumanizing, disgusting ways in which I — and every person that Desdemona summoned — was treated.

I'm asking you to see this. To see me. To hear when I say that Desdemona should not be free.

Thank you."

Doug and the rest of the members of the parole board stare at me. I glance at Rax, and then I bolt for the exit. I can't be in this room anymore. Everything is too much.

I need to go.

I hear footsteps behind me.

Rax.

I've just blown it all. Again.

Fuck.

She's gonna get out.

It's my fault.

I don't wait for Rax. I'm out of there before he can catch up to me, and I catch a bus before he can get in it. I want to be alone. I need to be alone. He doesn't stop by, but he sends me a text before I turn off my phone and curl up in bed: 

Rax: Are you okay 

I reply. 

K: Yeah 
Rax: Okay <3

When I wake up next, it's dark out. I sigh and stretch and head toward my fridge. There's a few pieces of cold pizza left. I spear it with my tail tip, taking bites as I clean up the kitchen.

When I'm done, I turn on my phone. Rax doesn't deserve me being snitty, and I need to know when to wak—

Ding.

What?

Ding.

The...?

Ding.

Fuc—

Di—Ding. Dingdingding. Di-DingDi-DingDing. Din—DingDingDingDingDingDingDingDing. Di-Di-Di-Di-Di-Di-Di-Di-Di-Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Dingdingdingdingdingdingdingding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

An avalanche of notifications greets me. Friend requests and follows and emails to an address that I only ever use for bills and more friend requests and text messages from numbers I don't know and...

And a Signal message.

From Tiana.

My fingers shake as I open the app.

T: You've gone viral.