Hermes, still working the room, saw Sunny arrive at the corner out of the corner of his eye.
He felt his stomach tighten.
Cassie.
He had been aware of her since they entered the hall. She was sitting quietly on the bench with the particular stillness of someone who had no need to perform for a room, pale blond hair, big blue eyes that saw nothing but everything somehow, an exquisite face that belonged on a porcelain doll. Delicate. Demure. Subtly breathtaking in the way that crept up on you before you'd decided to be affected.
And completely, utterly blind.
Her flaw. He knew that from the novel. She had entered her nightmare with sight and come out without it and the exchange she had made in between was the most terrifying thing about her, not the blindness itself but what she had traded it for.
Hermes had read far enough to know that Cassie was the most dangerous mind in Shadow Slave. Not the strongest. Not the most powerful. The most dangerous. The planner. The one who moved pieces on a board nobody else could see clearly enough to play on. The Adam, the Aizen, of Shadow Slave in everything but name.
He had decided to avoid her like the plague.
Sunny is sitting with her now, he noted. Good. That's how it's supposed to go. I just need to stay out of that particular orbit.
The last thing he needed was to become a piece in whatever grand design she was already quietly assembling behind those sightless eyes. He wanted no part of it.
Though if I were a pawn of Master Jet I wouldn't mind at all, he thought, and then immediately felt better about his situation. She could do whatever she wanted to me. Hehe.
He already had a loose understanding with Sunny, fellow outskirts rat, fellow pervert, the closest thing to a known quantity he had in this room. If he spawned on the Forgotten Shore at least there was someone there who knew his face. Probably. Hopefully.
But the cohort didn't start together. He knew that. He could spawn anywhere and so could everyone else. He hadn't been glazing people for nothing, he had even talked to the Legacy kids, carefully and with appropriate humility, steering clear only of Caster himself. Nephis was suspicious of Caster and he had no intention of getting on her bad side before he'd even spoken to her.
Speaking of which.
He spotted her across the hall, standing alone and apart from everyone, leaning against a wall with her eyes closed and her headphones on, seemingly indifferent to the tension and noise that permeated the room around her. Silver-white hair. Tracksuit. The particular stillness of someone who had made their interior world sufficient.
Ah.
She really is just like me.
The college party flashed through his mind again, standing in the corner, back against the wall, one leg propped up behind him, phone out, pretending to be nonchalant while everyone else circulated around him like pedestrians skirting a puddle.
It's okay, Nephis, he thought, with genuine solidarity. I understand you.
He started making his way toward her.
She noticed him approaching before he was halfway there. He wasn't sure how, her eyes were still closed, the headphones still on, but something in her posture shifted with the subtle attentiveness of someone who had recalibrated.
She was also, he noted as he got closer, very tall. He barely reached her shoulder.
How tall am I exactly? He made a mental note to find a measuring tape at some point.
"Hello there," he offered.
She opened her eyes. Looked at him. Something in her expression suggested she was trying to locate the appropriate social response and was taking an extra half second to find it.
"Hello," she said, with a bright smile that arrived slightly after the word.
"Ahem." He considered the most efficient approach and landed, as he usually did, on honesty. "So, I'm trying to build good relations with people before we enter the Dream Realm. Just in case I end up spawning near someone. Well in this instance, near you. I should mention upfront that my Aspect is utility based rather than combat focused, so the arrangement would be somewhat weighted in my favour. At least initially."
She blinked.
"I see," she said. A beat. "That's a smart move." The surprise in her voice was genuine, which he chose to take as a compliment.
"So, if I do end up near you, can I count on some help? I'll do my best to be useful in return. That I can promise." He meant it. She was one of the future Supremes. Investing in that relationship now was not altruism, it was long term planning, but the two were not mutually exclusive. He would genuinely help her. He would also genuinely benefit from doing so.
Whether any of it mattered depended entirely on where the Dream Realm decided to drop him, and that was not something he had any control over. He could plan all he wanted. The Spell would put him wherever it wanted and he would deal with it from there.
Still. It didn't hurt to make a good impression.
"Of course," she said, with another bright smile.
He noticed it was practiced. He said nothing about it. She was trying her best and that was enough.
He exhaled internally.
"Thanks." He let a beat pass. "Has anyone ever told you that you're very easy to talk to?"
She paused.
"…No," she said, and from her tone it was clear she had received this as a sincere observation.
Oh.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
She genuinely thinks I meant that, he realised. Why do my jokes never land as jokes? Is it the face? It must be the face.
It was a mystery he suspected he would never fully solve.
Movement in his peripheral vision saved him from having to follow up. A tall man in a dark blue uniform had appeared on the stage at the far end of the hall.