Book One – Chapter 6

The more he grew, the more his body and voice and words started to contradict each other. While his body would tell her “I am exhausted and afraid,” and his voice would say “I am angry,” his words would say “I am fine.”

In some regard, Midnight understood the purpose of this. When she faced an overpowering enemy and felt many things at once, she selected to show pride and fearlessness and the conviction to fight with all she had, even if she, within herself, recognised the other fighter‘s superiority. It was a decision borne from will and necessity.

But Midnight often felt that Yves did not consciously decide “I want to be fine because I need to,” but that his words did not notice or understand or trust his body and his voice. It was a disturbing realisation, because it felt like he was not one wizard, but three parts. He was the body, the voice and the words, but as soon as these split, her wizard that was the whole broke. It agitated Midnight. When he was split, the three parts did not correlate, but contradicted each other. A decision was made when one part took over. But with Yves, there were moments when none of the three parts decided. There was something else that directed, the something that Midnight dreaded so much.

Midnight had first encountered the something after they crossed the Sastomian Swamplands. Yves had isolated himself in their tower quarters for over six months. His body had said “I’° .a‘.m,s`ick‘´°.;:fro,m°,.;´wa.,sti`°ng-a,way`|in‘:,the-,.DARK,._and´°f,rom~`‘NO,T,-._movi,ng‘,^°;.and-,.from‘\,.:eatin´g´´|>too,.mUCH/´ever’.y°;..day,” and his voice had said “I am sad and ashamed and I do not want this,” and his words had said “We WILL go soon” for months. That was when the something had first emerged and acted, but not upon the body or the voice or the words that were the different parts of Yves, but upon itself, which was not Yves, which had never before been Yves. The something had immobilised him. It had acted against the body and the voice and the words. It had made him weak and fat and sick.