Lee is troublesome, but he is not that imaginative. Maniputing the duke's pain perception would certainly be in his ballpark, but fundamentally changing his anatomy and composition would not.

  "Who else?"

  I catch a glimpse of what might have been surprise on the duke's face.

  "No one."

  I cannot keep the grin from slipping unto my face. As my grip on reality becomes tenuous, I use the remaining time to take stock.

  The duke will live.

  The girl? Better if she doesn't.

  Jumpy? Do I still need him? Maybe, but he is too slow.

  I make a decision and turn to Shadow.

  "Grab him and wait for me outside," I say tilting my head at Jumpy.

  He doesn't need to be told twice. He flings the sobbing Jumpy over his shoulder and sprints out of the room. When the door closes behind him, I release my pent-up breath and let go as I turn back to the duke.

  As I turn, my vision flickers, images of multiple others and the is overpping.

  Grotesque red, white, and bck flowers cover the walls as the ground is covered by a luminous green slime. I feel one of my arms changing and scream as I force the vision back.

  For a moment, my arm flickers between a slimy state and a solid state. The feeling is unique enough to bring me to my knees.

  I focus on keeping my vision of myself steady and solid. It's like throwing yourself at a broken dam to stop a flood: painful and not tenable.

  My other option is temporarily crossing, but considering my state that would be a bad idea. So, I do what I can and hold on.

  Finally, the gap closes and the flood subsides. My head hurts and that's a good thing.

  I blink. The room is a mess and so am I. My clothes are gone again. Instead, I am covered in a variety of colored slimes. Peachy.

  The blue stuff covering my arms smells pleasantly fruity, so I give it a lick. Indeed, it's peach fvored and sweet.

  While I absentmindedly lick my left arm, I use my right to pick the dead flowers out of my hair. How do I know they are dead? For one, they are now all bck and brittle, crumbling in my hands. That aside, they are not moving.

  Neither are the flowers covering the walls. As I watch, the st few burn as the green, luminous slime climbs further up and touches them. Are the slime and the flowers natural enemies?

  On one hand, I feel heartbroken for the flowers. On the other hand, this blue stuff is so tasty, that I am starting to genuinely appreciate the slimes. What's the saying? The way to a man's heart is through his stomach?

  The blue stuff somehow manages to taste more like real peaches than any peaches I have ever eaten. Of course, what is real? For all I know, peaches are the result of a collision between my is and whatever other these slimes are from. Although, considering the biology of tastes, probably not.

  As my gaze passes a heap bck and white slimey stuff in alternating yers, I remember.

  Fortunately, there's still another human soul left in this room. Since I focused my mind on the vision of my own body, not much was left for the duke, and you can tell. His head is alright, and his torso looks fine enough, but his arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and, you get it, have been repced with slimey appendages. The man is croaking, did he lose his voice?

  Fortunately, since my head is feeling heavy again, that is something I can change. I step over to examine him. Indeed, his internals got messed up, too. As various parts of him, including his vocal cords turned to slime, he won't live long.

  I sigh. After all the trouble I went through to pick this great location, I won't be able to go through with my initial vision. It's a bit boring, but, oh well, executing my pn now would be very difficult. After all, the girl is gone.

  Instead, I go with pain. Lee and whoever else was involved might have made perceiving more than a minimum amount of pain difficult for this fellow, but it's nothing I cannot undo. While I heal his vocal cords, I start examining his brain with faint electric pulses.

  Indeed, this probably was Lee, I recognize his uninspired way of doing it. He does things the same way every time. Hence, all it takes is rewiring a few synapses for the duke to start screaming. Yes, the feeling the slimey limbs give off is unique.

  Since he has been deprived of true pain for so long, he might be unaccustomed, so I cut it off again. Wouldn't want him to go insane yet.

  He stops screaming almost immediately. The look on his face is curious.

  "I will answer your questions."

  Why couldn't he have done so earlier? I suppose it was worth it. Discovering new food is always a joy.

  "Who else?"

  "A girl. She was not introduced, but Lee called her Kim."

  "How old?"

  "I do not know. She looked no older than fourteen, fifteen maybe, but her eyes..."

  "What about them?"

  "They looked old."

  The eyes are a window to the soul, but my trust in this man's soul-sensing abilities is limited.

  "What did they want in return?"

  "They did it as payment to my king. I was not privy to the details of their dealings."

  "Weren't you his right hand man?"

  I raise an eyebrow at him.

  "King Luis never trusted me."

  "Is that why you gave him your daughter?"

  "I did not."

  I am a bit curious about that interesting piece of family drama, but time's limited.

  "What else do you know about Lee, Kim, and Hypnos?"

  "I only learned about Hypnos here."

  I frown.

  "Please believe me."

  I won't, but I will let him talk for now.

  "Go on."

  "Lee is a very angry man. He even hit King Luis once for being noisy. But the girl apologized for his behavior, so my king let it go.

  "Whatever deal they made, it involved more people than us. We were assigned the north-eastern suburbs. King Luis said this would be a great opportunity to have our organization acknowledged by the powers that be."

  "What about the girl, Kim?"

  If she is who I think, then I will need to prepare.

  "She was a curious one. I said she apologized, didn't I? She did not do so through words."

  He pauses for effect and only continues when I wave my hand in annoyance.

  "She wrote a letter! A letter! My king liked it, too."

  "Did she always write letters or did she ever speak up?"

  "No, never. Aside from the letter, she did not communicate with us in any way."

  "What did she do then?"

  "She observed."

  I ask a few more questions, but nothing much comes off it. So, I decide to revisit an earlier question.

  "What do you know about Hypnos?"

  The duke reddens.

  "Nothing you do not. You heard everything I heard!"

  "Your king never mentioned Hypnos?"

  "No, never!"

  "And Erebos?"

  "No!"

  "Do you know any Greek?"

  "I don't!"

  How uncultured.

  "I don't believe you."

  Since his screams are loud and no gag is to be found in this slime filled room, I removed his vocal cords again. Still, despite the pain I am causing him the duke continues to deny any knowledge of Hypnos.

  My mobile turned to slime, hence, I can only estimate, but it takes a good while, about an hour, for the duke to convince me.

  After that, I feed the gasping duke some of the green, luminous slime. He throws up, but nothing else happens. Interesting.

  I choose to be thorough and compress what is left into a cube before crushing it and leaving the room.