Torio’s body slumped over mine. It was very much a murder-suicide.
It was then I realized I was floating. But I wasn’t in a body. I didn’t even really have eyes. It was difficult to comprehend. I appeared to be a shapeless cloud the color of fire, like a fist-sized ember. I looked like the auras of the spirits I’d once seen in Shiol. I felt hollow, weightless. I drifted listlessly, wondering how I hadn’t realized Torio was a Gurnot. It seemed obvious now. Then some part of me, like a third, invisible arm, reached into Torio’s fading brain to find the truth.
I didn’t know how I did it, but I did. I had accessed a library of Torio’s memories, and they were cascading in front of me: him as a child playing in the river, him as a teenager sulking through the halls of his high school, him in a vast complex I had never seen, surrounded by men I didn’t know—Gurnots, perhaps—and his most recent memory, my own face seen through his eyes, ugly and frightened as he choked me.
“Bleak,” I said, and rid myself of the images. I didn’t want to watch my own death through the eyes of my murderer.
I figured memory snatching was my special gift. Roki had told me that every Min received one. I’d just seen Torio at different stages of his life too—his image, perceived character, height, and shape. That meant I might be able to witness some past events related to the memories I’d be viewing. Pretty cool, I thought. It’ll help me find the KS3 cure even faster.
And that was when the urge shocked me. I felt an inexplicable desire to slip into a human shell. It was like an extreme thirst. I wanted to wriggle into my headless body, even into Torio’s warm corpse, slither into it like it was a sleeping bag. I seriously considered it.
“It’s dead,” came a voice from behind me.
I whirled my fiery spirit cloud around and saw a thin woman standing, translucent, on the kitchen floor. She, too, had a small red cloud, only hers lived inside her chest. “What?” I asked her.
“I see you eyeing that dead body,” she said. “Trust me, it’s not nearly as fulfilling as a live human. Obviously, you’re new. It’s nice to see a baby Min!”
Oh no! It was my murderer! It was the Min sent to kill me. Yet … she didn’t strike me as evil. She seemed more aloof than anything. I asked her, “Why did you have to kill Torio too? He was innocent … kind of.”
“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t. I had already detached myself from him. The poor Gurnot shot himself out of guilt. I guess he didn’t hate you as much as he thought.”
“You could have stopped him!”
She laughed. “Silly baby Min. I don’t have time for that. Don’t worry, you’ll shed your human feelings with time. Give it a few hundred years.”
If I’d had eyes, I would have glowered at the wicked Min. She came across as mindless, like a dopey spirit floating casually through existence. It wasn’t at all how Roki was, even though Roki was five hundred years old. I poked around in her memories, curious how long she had been alive. I found a barrage of images dating way back, machines and cities I didn’t even recognize.
“Hey,” she said, “I can feel you poking around in there.” Then she laughed. “What a cool talent.”
“Sorry.” I was embarrassed. I hadn’t thought she’d feel it.
“No worries,” she said. “You were just testing your new power. It was like a tickle in my brain. I didn’t even realize at first. But it’s cool. Actually, I’m kind of jealous.”
“Why? What’s your power?”
She shrugged. “It’s kind of lame. Basically, I can turn into a cat whenever I want. Sometimes I become a cat, and I just lounge around in the sun for weeks. I’ve become … very catlike.”
“Ah,” I said. It explained her weird attitude. “Why can’t I read your mind?” I asked. “I thought Min can read minds.”
“Only the minds of humans,” she told me. “Min are sheltered from being read by other Min. We can think all the naughty thoughts we want.”
I willed my cloud into the shape of a thumbs-up and said, “Good to know.” It meant Roki couldn’t read my thoughts anymore.
And that was when it hit me for the first time. Roki and I were both Min. He was already five hundred years old, which meant we could theoretically be together for … another five hundred years! That would be one heck of a relationship.
“Anyway,” the Min said, “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait!” I floated my burning cloud closer to her. “One more question. What am I? What is this cloud I am in?”
She giggled. “It’s your Valer. Only Min have a Valer. It’s how you’ll be able to tell the difference between Min and humans.”
“Wow,” I said. “Thanks. That’s incredible.”
She waved and floated out of the room, and I called after her, “Thank you for killing me.”
I slipped through an open window and took to the skies. I moved faster than the fastest rocket known to man. Yet I couldn’t concentrate. I had to stop in the middle of some fluffy white clouds and think about where I should go.
Emell’s house felt like the safest bet. It was still the middle of the night, which was convenient, because I hoped to float over her body and suck out her memories while she slept, though I didn’t understand how anyone could sleep while they deliberately killed thousands of people. I thought back to Lordin’s funeral, remembering the exact location of the place. Then I was zipping across the bruised sky at lightning speed. I arrived at Emell’s estate in less than a minute.
But now what? Could I float through the ceiling? Could I move through walls? I tried but it didn’t work. I had
