15 — ChangesI rushed through the halls of the museum, to the office area.

  Everything felt bigger.

  No, that wasn't right. I just felt smaller.

  It was a disconcerting sensation, and made no logical sense. He and I were the same height. I had always made sure of that. Why, then? I had inhabited this body — my body — mentally hundreds of times in this very space, this most familiar of spaces, but now it felt different.

  I decided that I didn't actually feel smaller. I felt the right size. Me sized. Before, in that other body, as him, I had always just felt too big. Too broad and top heavy. Too heavy in general. Hands too far from my eyes. I had never really noticed it, or could think clearly enough about it to form it into coherent thoughts, until the feeling was gone.

  Disconcerting, yes; and incredible. I feared I'd get used to it. I didn't want to.

  I had vanished into my own head again. I passed through my office and went into Daelus' office. I had come here to do something.

  His office? My office? He was gone. Both were now my office. Mine alone.

  I mimed pulling my thoughts out of my head and into the room, and focused.

  The desk. I had tidied it neatly before the night's misadventure, that was to say, my death. His death. This meant that the artifact we had been cleaning and the journal with all of those lovely secrets about it — worth killing for, it seemed — was in the top drawer.

  It was locked.

  The key was on me — on him — when he died, which meant that it was at the estate, probably still surrounded by the enemy entourage.

  I looked around and considered my options. As my eyes scanned about I couldn't help but notice how little of him there really was here. We had made a show of having different modes of working and different tastes in our surroundings, but it was now gringly obvious how everything that was meant to be him was a superficial trifle. A knick knack at the corner of the desk. His uncrossed sevens and zeds in the records keeping. The rest was all me. It had always been all me.

  I really didn't want to damage the desk. The artifact may have been worth enough to them to kill me over, but I liked that desk. I wasn't sure I could pick the lock without damaging it. I wasn't even sure I could pick the lock at all.

  I needed a pn. Jonathan undoubtedly knew someone who could open that lock delicately but inviting him here, inviting anyone here, would run the risk of drawing attention to the museum office. I knew the pce well enough to move through it blindfolded. No lights on, nobody home. The locksmith would need a mp and I didn't want to put Jonathan or anyone else in more danger.

  My home would easily take another few hours to ransack before they decided it wasn't there and—

  Shit. I had to get the artifact out of that desk. They had Daelus' remains which meant they had the desk key. I couldn't risk leaving here without it.

  I stared at the drawer and thought. What if.

  An idea hit me that sent shivers through me and raised goosebumps. Could I…

  As quickly as the thought came to me my mind raced and I had an answer.

  Another me was standing beside me. I looked—

  No, I had to focus. The point was, I could still do it. I had the ability to project an entourage. My mind spun with the implications but I didn't have time to lose myself into my own head — or hers. I had an idea.

  She vanished. I had seen other delegates — I guessed I was still one — use their ability to project hands into the world. I had never tried it myself, but also…

  I turned my gaze on the drawer. I could feel a hand — my hand — projected inside of it. It was cramped. The artifact and journal were both there. And the lock?

  I could feel my sense of my own body taking a backseat. I was the hand. I felt. I found the interior surfaces of the locking mechanism. I had never really paid too close attention to it but now I needed to understand how it worked by touch alone. I fiddled. I fumbled. I felt something I could move. Outside the drawer I grasped the handle and tugged.

  Nothing. I willed the hand smaller. Smaller. It fit into the mechanism entirely. Millimeters at a time I mapped out its surfaces by touch. I pushed. Something moved. It clicked. My body outside tugged.

  It opened.

  I was back inside my own head, eyes open. The artifact. The journal. My teeny tiny third hand.

  With a thought I returned it to a proper size. I lifted it gently by the fingers and kissed it, said “Thanks, babe,” with spontaneous mirth, and vanished it away.

  I felt that whatever I had just done was child's py compared to the shit I was used to doing on a daily basis.

  More importantly, the treasure was now secure. My next move would be to—

  Oh, right. I was dead. Daelus Thresh was dead, and Johnathan and I never had The Conversation.

  Johnathan either already knew of Daelus’s fate or would know before I could get to him. It was his business to know things quickly.

  He'd hold it together until he had time to grieve, but he was such an emotional creature, all bottled up. He still loved Daelus very much. I wasn’t sure he thought of this version of me as anything more than the help, if he thought of me at all. I was someone who made coffee and organized the building and got things opened on time. I was an assistant. I tidied.

  The sight of me not emotionally distraught in the slightest, in fact vibrating with excitement, trying to tell him something personal, would not go over well, but I wasn't in the mood for keeping this a secret from him any longer.

  I knew once he settled down it wouldn't take too much expining. He had done his own novel experimentations with his own entourage, after all. He’d say it wasn't supposed to be possible to do this with the entourage power. I’d say no one had ever thought to try it.

  He was the sort to dream up wild possibilities, so I believed he'd accept it once his head cleared.

  Shit.

  He was going to have a meltdown.

  He was going to faint.

  There was nothing to do but get that over with. After that, we’d get the artifact somewhere safe.

  Then we deal with the fact that someone, a delegate, decided Daelus Thresh needed to die.

  I'm sure thanking them would be very confusing.