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‘Uh. Are you talking to it?’

Hector’s anger abated, and he might’ve blinked if he could feel his eyes. ‘Garovel! You’re here.’

‘I am. Though I have no idea what in the world is going on.’

‘Oh. Um. Well, this... Mini-Candle or whatever you wanna call it... uh, it’s alive, just like we thought. And it’s being an asshole, right now.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s got an attitude problem. It wants me to abandon Abbas and take its power for myself.’

‘Wow. Talk about ungrateful.’

‘Exactly!’

‘But, um. How are you able to communicate with it, precisely?’

Hmm. That was a good question. ‘I don’t know. I guess I’m just... reading its aura?’

‘Ah. So it’s a new, unprecedented thing you can do. Cool.’

‘Garovel...’

‘No, I’m happy for you. That’s super neat. I’m sure it’ll come in handy.’

‘The sarcasm in your voice is painful.’

‘Is it? Ah, my bad. I frequently find myself wanting to give you a hard time for no reason.’

‘Well, at least you’re acknowledging it.’

The Mini-Candle pulsed in his hand another time. It was protesting again, Hector realized. It wanted him to remove Garovel from this headspace and talk only to it.

‘What’s it saying?’ asked the reaper.

Rather than getting angry, however, Hector couldn’t help being amused. ‘It doesn’t like you, Garovel. It wants me to abandon you, too.’

‘Wait, what? The fuck did I do?’

‘Dunno. Hey, Mini-Candle, what’s your problem with Garovel?’

It pulsed again. Hector listened. For a while, actually. It just kept going on.

‘...Well?’ said Garovel.

‘Uh. Okay, first off: you’re a reaper. It doesn’t like reapers.’

‘Oh, so it’s racist, too. Excellent. Wait, how does it even know what reapers are? It was just born, wasn’t it?’

‘Beats me. Maybe it absorbed knowledge from the Candle.’

‘Okay, well, what else? I assume there was more.’

‘Er. To make a long story short... it said that it can sense your desire to conquer the world.’

‘What the hell?’

‘Well, Garovel? What do you have to say for yourself? Have you secretly wanted to conquer the world this whole time?’

‘N-no...’

‘Oh yeah? Why’d you stutter there?’

‘Agh, bec-because! It’s such an out-of-nowhere question! I was taken aback!’

‘Hmm...’

‘Hector, please. You’re killin’ me here.’

‘I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s told me that reapers are secretive and ambitious...’

‘Buddy. I don’t want to conquer the world.’ The reaper paused. ‘At least, not in the literal sense.’

The small orb pulsed yet again.

‘It wants to know what you mean by that,’ said Hector.