Grub had passed out before they reached the cell.
The pain and the blood loss had taken what little consciousness he had left and snuffed it out like a candle pinched between two fingers. He didn't remember being carried inside or the door closing. He didn't remember anything between the streets and waking up on a hard stone bed with his face pressed against a cold wall.
When his eyes finally opened, everything hurt.
His head pounded and his shoulder throbbed with a deep, nauseating ache that radiated down his arm and up his neck. His ribs felt cracked or at least badly bruised while his jaw was swollen and his lip had been split open again.
He groaned and rolled onto his side and immediately regretted it. A sharp stab shot through his shoulder and forced a hiss from between his teeth.
"Ugh…prison again?"
This was becoming a bad habit.
Slowly he pushed himself upright. Bandages covered his shoulder, neck, and various other injuries. They weren't particularly good bandages either. Whoever had wrapped them had clearly been more interested in keeping him alive than comfortable. The shoulder wound was especially sloppy.
At least they stopped the bleeding.
Grub looked around.
The cell was familiar, stone walls, iron bars and a small basin in the corner that passed for a sink. It was nearly identical to the one he had been locked in when Luthiel first brought him to the village. The only difference was the chains. There were none. His wrists were free, his ankles unbound.
They didn't see him as a threat. He sat there for a moment before giving a humorless chuckle.
"Yeah... fair enough."
Grub couldn't even argue with that. Without Death, without a weapon, without the notebook, he wasn't strong enough to fight any of them. He had beaten Pazuzu because of that book, and they had taken it from him. All he had left was a torn-up black shirt, his pants, and the Mgbaaka Maara sitting on his wrist like a promise waiting to be kept.
His white coat was probably still sitting back at the inn. Assuming somebody hadn't stolen it.
Grub dragged himself to the basin and splashed cold water on his face. He grumbled as the water stung every cut and scrap as he stared at his reflection in the shallow pool.
This was now the third time he had been in prison. He was really getting tired of it.
He looked down at his wrist. The bracelet sat there, obsidian and silent, its runes dim beneath the camouflage. Had he been unconscious for hours? Half a day? A full day? How much time was left? Three days? Less?
The uncertainty gnawed at him.
If he was stuck in here too long and missed the next meeting with the Lacerts, they would press the button without hesitation. And if Anwansi decided to execute him before that, then it wouldn't even matter.
Damn it. If everything had just gone to plan, I could've been training with Morrigan right now. Maybe I would've actually learned how to use this Anima stuff.
But nothing had gone to plan. Not a single thing. Instead he was sitting in a cell waiting to find out whether he was going to die. Again. Somehow that seemed to be a recurring theme in his life.
Grub spent the next few hours alone. He slept when his body demanded it and thought when it didn't. The thinking wasn't productive though. Every plan he tried to form collapsed under its own weight before it reached a second step. He was trapped, wounded, weaponless, and out of options.
Eventually, footsteps echoed down the corridor.
A guard appeared at the bars. Some creature Grub didn't recognize, it was squat, scaled, wearing a dull expression that suggested this was the most boring shift of their career. They looked at Grub and sighed, then banged on the cell bars with their knuckle.
Grub gave no response. He kept his eyes on the ceiling. The guard sighed again.
"Come with me. The chief herself will be questioning you."
Grub turned his eyes slowly and sat up. A Guardian stepped into view behind the guard, holding a pair of heavy iron cuffs. Grub didn't struggle as the Guardian entered the cell, locked the cuffs around his wrists, and shoved him out the door.
Everything felt familiar. The walk through dim corridors. The heavy footsteps behind him. The weight of metal on his wrists. He had done this before.
When they finally stopped, they stood before an empty room. A table sat in the center with three chairs arranged around it. Two of the chairs were already occupied.
In one sat Luthiel, with Lu's golden eyes and braided blonde hair. In the other sat Morrigan, her staff leaned against the table.
Morrigan looked at him and spoke calmly.
"Sit down."
Grub walked over and sat in the remaining chair. The chair creaked beneath him. He gave a glance at Luthiel. Her golden eyes were shiny and wet. She looked like she had been on the edge of tears for hours and was holding them back through sheer willpower.
Morrigan followed his gaze. Then she looked toward the guards.
"Hey."
The two guards straightened.
"You fuckers can uncuff him."
The guards exchanged a glance.
"Even if he tries something, I'm here," Morrigan continued, taking a drink. "That's enough assurance."
The guards hesitated, but the Guardian walked over and removed the cuffs from Grub's wrists. He didn't resist, he didn't even rub his wrists afterward. He just sat there.
Morrigan groaned. "You fuckers can leave too, ya know? I don't need bodyguards."
Morrigan's eyes narrowed, as the room suddenly felt colder. The guards immediately bowed.
"Yes, Chief."
The door closed behind them and the room went quiet.
Morrigan waited a moment. Then she kicked her feet up on the table, leaned back in her chair, and pulled out a fresh jug from somewhere beneath her robe.
She popped the top, took a long drink, then pointed the bottle at him.
"Alright, fucker. What happened?"
Grub didn't answer right away. Instead, he sat still, his battered hands resting on the table, his eyes fixed on the wood grain. Then he spoke simply.
"I got found out."
Morrigan smirked and took a drink. "So you ain't denying anything Pazuzu is saying?"
"No. I'm not." He looked up at her.
"I assume you already know that what he said isn't a total lie. After all, you did tell him about the Mgbaaka Maara, didn't you?"
Morrigan's smirk dropped. Her beak twisted into a scowl.
"Yeah. I did." She took an aggressive swig. "Though I didn't mean to. God, I hate that fucker's ability. I oughta punish him for using that on me." She wiped her beak. "Made me feel so damn comfortable I was running my mouth like a drunk at a festival. Which I kinda was, but that ain't the point."
Grub shrugged and said nothing. He was waiting. Waiting for the sentence, to hear that his worst fears were about to come true. That he would die here, in this village, without ever learning who he was.
But Morrigan didn't say anything else. She just kept drinking as the silence stretched.
Then Luthiel spoke.
"A-are you okay, Mister Grub?"
Her voice was small and her golden eyes looked at him worriedly, moving across his bandaged shoulder, his bruised face, the dried blood caked along his neck.
"I'm sorry I'm not El right now, so I can't heal you." She fidgeted with her mitten-like hands in her lap. "But I hope it doesn't hurt too much."
Grub eyed her with a confused look. He had expected anger or accusation. Not concern.
"I'm fine," he said.
Morrigan looked at Luthiel for a moment, then asked casually, "You told him about yourselves? The three of you?"
Luthiel shrugged slightly. "He asked."
Morrigan chuckled and took another sip. Then her expression shifted. She stared at Luthiel with a sharper gaze.
"Did you tell him everything?"
Luthiel's eyes widened. She shook her head rapidly.
"No! No, Master, I didn't tell him the part you said I couldn't. I would never disobey you, Master."
Morrigan sighed. "How many times do I gotta tell you?" She pointed at herself. "Just call me Morrigan."
She paused before adding, "or Mom."
Luthiel looked horrified.
"I could never."
"Why not?"
"I don't deserve to."
Morrigan frowned. A deep, tired frown that suggested this was a conversation they had been having for years and it always ended the same way.
"Always the same damn answer."
She set the jug down and turned to Grub. Her eyes locked onto his and didn't waver.
"Okay, hottie."
Grub immediately regretted looking at her.
"I need a full explanation. From the top." She leaned forward. "And please. Don't lie. Trust me when I say that will only hurt you."
Luthiel nodded in agreement, her golden eyes fixed on him.
Grub sat in silence for a long moment and stared at the table. He examined his hands, looking at the Mgbaaka Maara on his wrist, sitting there in plain sight now, no point in hiding it anymore.
Then he decided.
He had already resolved not to betray this village. He knew these people were not his enemies. And Morrigan had been protecting him since the day he arrived — cheating to keep him alive, by hiding the bracelet from the Guardians, giving him chance after chance to come clean on his own terms.
He owed her the truth. Most of it, at least.
Grub cleared his throat.
"I fell from the sky into this world. I don't have any memories of my old one. Or rather, I don't have any memories of being in my old one. Of being myself." He paused. "I know things. Facts and skills. How to speak, how to build, how to write, in my language. But I don't remember learning any of it. I don't remember my name, my home, or anyone I knew before the fall."
He continued.
"When I landed, I nearly died. There was a creature in the water — me and the other Sky-Fallen called it the Leviathan."
Morrigan looked confused. Luthiel leaned toward her and whispered quietly.
"It's Jormungandr."
Morrigan nearly choked on her beer.
"What?"
Morrigan's eyes widened. She looked back at Grub with a new kind of interest. He continued.
"After that, some things happened. I stayed with a group of other survivors for a while. Then I left to search for answers on my own. I traveled through the wilderness for weeks before I stumbled onto the Lacert settlement."
He spoke evenly, laying out the events with the same clinical precision he put into his notebook.
"I hid nearby and studied them. I learned their language by watching and listening. And honestly, I know yours too. I don't even have the translation pin anymore — it was on my coat back at the inn. Learning the Lacert language made picking up yours a lot easier."
Morrigan raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Luthiel's mouth fell open slightly.
"Eventually, the Lacerts found me. They captured me, put this bracelet on my wrist, and told me to infiltrate your village and spy on you. Information on your military and the location of a weapon they were interested in. That was the deal. Do it, and they'd let me go."
He looked down at the Mgbaaka Maara.
"It's also a kill switch. If I disobey or if they decide I'm useless, they press a button and it kills me. That's what the experiment with the Jangushut was about. I was trying to jam the signal. Delay it long enough that if they tried to kill me, I'd have a few seconds to fight back."
He leaned back in his chair.
"That's pretty much the summed-up version of my story so far."
The room was quiet. Morrigan scratched her chin slowly, the water in her basin rippling with the movement.
"There are multiple Sky-Fallen in this world?"
Grub nodded. "I can't tell you too much about them. It might put them at risk. But I saw thousands falling when I first arrived." He paused. "A lot of them are dead by now, I'd bet."
Morrigan nodded slowly. She took another drink, slower this time, deep in thought.
Luthiel stared at Grub with wide golden eyes. Everything he had just said was settling over her like a heavy blanket. The fact that he had been carrying all of this alone since the day she knocked him out in the forest.
Morrigan set her jug down on the table with a thud.
"Interesting," she said.
She stared at Grub for a long moment. Then a crooked grin crossed her beaked face.
"Well, I think I've got some ideas on what we should do with you."