The Girl in the Suit of Armour hung suspended in the dark, curled into a ball. She hovered, not touching anything, but feeling everything. The churning of the mud beneath the Vexurian’s feet, the way it hobbled as it walked, wounded from the axe Mama had hit it with. She could even feel the subtle vibration of the creaking noises the Cuttings made as they shrieked their defiance outside.

  They were still being hunted. She didn’t know why. Had no information to rely on. She only had darkness, and an echo of a memory.

  She couldn’t expin it. When Otter and Mama had freed her from the Vexurian, her mind had been severed. Nothing of who she had once been had been spared. It’d been cut cleanly away. She could no more tell her old name from a stranger’s in a crowd, expin what home was like, what she had done as a child. Who her actual parents were.

  But somewhere in the dark, there was an impression. A footprint, left by something long gone. And seeing the Vexurian again had caused something to come flooding back.

  She couldn’t expin it. Couldn’t describe it. But she was afraid. She was in the dark, the one pce she feared most, and no one was coming to save her.

  She knew the minds of Mama and Otter. Had felt reassured by them. Even now, she could touch on the link they shared and knew they were okay. And their safety was enough to bring her joy.

  But she was under no illusion. Neither of them really cared for her. Otter was flighty and prone to taking a liking to shiny and new things. The Girl was a novelty to her, here for current amusement, but soon to be forgotten as the next shiny thing came along.

  And Mama? She didn’t even need to check the link to know the resentment and anger that Mama felt towards her and all Criobani. To Mama, the Girl in the Armor was just another reminder of her own trauma.

  The memories the Girl had that were Mama’s were fragmented, cking context. She remembered Leilynn, but couldn’t remember why Leilynn’s eyes would never meet hers. She remembered Kirhae and her casual cruelty, but couldn’t remember why she was the way she was. She knew Mama was important. Knew people paid respect to her and her family name. But also knew that many spat on the ground she had walked on. Remembered how their very smiles would be enough to trigger Mama’s Pact magic, blossoming into pinprick headaches.

  She knew Mama bmed her father for it, but most of all she bmed the Criobani, one and all.

  It didn’t matter if the Girl in the Armor was Criobani in name only, with no connection or memory of a nd that had apparently ensved her and turned her into a living weapon. She was a symbol. Something tangible for Mama to hate.

  She sniffled in the darkness, having long since been cried out. This was her home now. Maybe forever.

  The armor shifted and moved. She couldn’t see in the darkness, and dared not touch the metal, keeping to her balled up stance. She didn’t know if touching the Vexurian more than she had would make it swallow her, rob her of her identity once more. But there was no point in finding out. Every part of her whimpered at the idea.

  She had no fight in her. She shook and sobbed softly, knowing no one was coming to save her. At best, the armor would get worn down and taken by waves of Cuttings. And then, then she would be pulled from the casing and torn apart.

  She hoped for that. Anything but the idea of going to sleep again, going to sleep and waking up a new person, if ever at all.

  Something smmed against the side of the armor, and the whole thing rocked to the side. The Girl reacted. She braced herself, holding out her hands defensively as she was smmed into the armor’s interior. And as her palms touched the metal, everything lit up.

  Rune etchings all over the inside of the armour fred to life. The surface hummed, the metal vibrating with energy. And the Girl could feel the pull on her Will.

  There was a noise, something like a yawn, a sensation of something coming awake.

  “Dammit, 003, couldn’t let me sleep a little longer, could you?”

  The voice came from inside the armor. It was female, with a lilting accent, and sounded decidedly annoyed.

  The Girl whipped her head around. Though the suit was rge, rge enough for her to fit into the torso without touching anything or needing to put either her arms or legs in their respective areas, there wasn’t enough room for a second person. There was no one inside with her.

  “Who’s there?” the Girl asked.

  “The pilot,” came the Voice, as if she’d just been asked a particurly stupid question. “Who in the name of the bloody-handed Dreamer are you?”

  The Girl panicked. She didn’t know how to answer that. So, she said, “Sunny.”

  The name didn’t feel right. Had never felt right, from the moment Otter had given it to her. She’d agreed, in part because her mind was still a child’s, still unsure of who or what she was.

  “003, why is there a ‘Sunny’ inside the suit with… wait. Why can’t I see you?”

  “Why can’t I see you?” the Girl countered, turning her head every which way.

  “003, run diagnostic, punch it right into my info feed. I… Wait. I didn’t do that.”

  “Do what?” the Girl asked, turning her body about, still floating in air, and peering into a leg hole.

  “Bloody that. 003, I have no control over my movement, run diagnostic now.” There was a pause. “003? Oh, you sodding pile of dung, the least my jailer can do is respond to me.”

  Whatever response the Voice was expecting, the string of swear words that she began yelling indicated it either didn’t come, or wasn’t the one she was expecting. The curses were descriptive, vulgar, and very inventive.

  The Girl shrank in on herself again. Not out of any fear of the Voice, but more out of comfort. Whatever was happening with the Voice, it couldn’t do anything more to her than had already been done.

  The pilot barked more commands out, presumably at the Vexurian, and when those went unanswered, she went back to cursing. When something else hit the armour from outside, the cursing only grew in intensity.

  “You, Sunny! Weird voice! What in the name of the Dreamer’s sainted cock have you done to my Vexurian!”

  “I didn’t do anything. It kidnapped me and put me inside.”

  “That’s not possible, you bloody twit, it already has… oh sainted pins, you’re bloody me, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m Sunny,” the Girl said, smiling as impishly as she could.

  “Don’t be obtuse. Someone actually fecking did it, didn’t they? I need to see. Turn your head up and… oh feck, the control bands are all cut. Someone figured it out, but they buggered the job as much as they could without killing me, because my meat got pulled out but I’m still in this fecking thing.”

  This time the cursing degenerated into incomprehensible shrieking. The Vexurian shifted and turned, the arms raising upwards, and then came crashing down. The entire weight of the armour shifted as one leg kicked out, and something outside smashed in a deafening roar.

  She wasn’t finished. Both arms of the suit thrust forward, and the Voice made a groan of effort, and it felt like everything was suddenly under a great weight. The suit spun, sending the Girl’s stomach to clench uncomfortably. The suit staggered forward, and it was as if that great weight leapt from the suit, released outwards in a mighty throw. In the distance, something thudded, followed by the great cacophony of wood splintering and trees falling over.

  “This isn’t actually as cathartic as I’d hoped,” the Voice said.

  “What are you even hitting?”

  “Dunno. Something’s moving around out there. Don’t have access to the ocur systems… wait, there they are. Lemme see. Yeah. Fecking Mythwalkers. Oh right, we did get sent here to kill that biggun, before it all went to shite.”

  “What went to… shite?”

  “Oh, you know, orders from above, colrs got activated, I can barely remember beyond a big feckin’ tree and losing 087 and 103. Had to retreat, power down and wait for rescue, standard protocol. Would either die, or get pulled out. Us Vexurians are way too valuable to just leave lying on some isnd in the middle of nowhere.”

  “But you… we… were asleep. For ten years.”

  There was a pause. “Fecking fables, really?”

  “How’d we live that long? Ten years, asleep. Did the armor do that?”

  “Feck no. We’re a bloody Fleshcrafter is what we are.”

  “What?”

  “Our Pact, ss.” The Voice made an exasperated sound. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even figured out our Pact yet? Did I get all the brains on top of the mind, too?”

  “That’s not our Pact. I’m a Lifecrafter.”

  There was a long pause. The light inside the armor dimmed for a moment, as if considering. The Girl hoped that maybe the Voice would finally stop talking.

  Instead, the Voice spoke once more, “Say something again.”

  The Girl wasn’t sure if she should answer, but… she was lonely. And this might be the only person she’d ever get to speak to again. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, you little feck. Who pulled you out of the armor?”

  “Otter. She saved me. And Mama.”

  “Who the feck is ‘Mama’? My… our… mom’s dead, burned and sent to the sky years ago.”

  “Her name’s Rua, and… why am I even talking to you?”

  She couldn’t be that lonely. It didn’t matter what her mind said. She knew Otter and Mama would come. They had to. The Voice wasn’t something she could trust. If anything, whoever this woman she used to be was just as likely as responsible for her being in the armor as anyone else.

  “Because I’m charming. You sound young. Oh feck, don’t tell me I de-aged again. How young’d I get this time?”

  “I dunno. I was a little girl a few days ago. Now I think…” She looked down, pulling the colr of her smock forward. Yep. Those were definitely breasts. “Early teenager?”

  “Well, try to get all that annoying growing over and done with before I take the reins back.”

  The Girl went cold. “What do you mean, ‘take the reins back’?”

  There was a noise that sounded like a snort. Odd, considering the voice had no body, no nose, to make that sound with. “It’s my body. I’m the mind. You’re just, what? A week’s worth of memories? I mean, come now, ss. I’m you.”

  Could this woman even do it? Take the step to move from the armor back to her body?

  It didn’t matter. This was the Girl’s now. She wasn’t going to be repced, not by this rude woman who threw tantrums and smashed whatever was in her way, without even knowing what it was. What kind of terror would she be, out in the world, without the armor to restrain her?

  But how would she react if she learned that the Girl had no intention of surrendering her body back? Mama and Otter were still out there somewhere. They were alive, she knew, and still close. The Vexurian was an engine of destruction. It could do so much damage to anything it encountered…

  An idea came to the Girl.

  “Okay. I’ll let you come back to our body,” she said. “If you help me with something first.”

  “I’m listening.”