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‘Oh, right,’ said Garovel. ‘The Candle went completely out of control, and there were branches everywhere. Hector had to cut a path to you. He set the tree on fire, actually.’

“What?!”

“Agh, you didn’t have to tell--”

‘Eh, it’s fine. Don’t worry. Raheem put it out. That’s just how worried Hector was about you. Almost accidentally destroyed one of the most valuable objects on the planet. What a great friend he is, right?’

“Garovel, please stop...”

‘Interesting,’ said Worwal. ‘But I doubt a bit of fire would have destroyed the Candle.’

‘You’re probably right,’ said Garovel. ‘Would’ve been funny, though. In a tragic sort of way.’

‘I think you and I may have very different senses of humor.’

‘Maybe. But anyway, to finish answering your question, you were probably out for a few hours, at least. Raheem could give you a better estimate, I suspect.’

Abbas’ eyes returned to the Living Core in Hector’s hand. The metal band was already wrapped around the boy’s wrist, Abbas noticed. “You said... you used the Core to retrieve Worwal and I?”

‘That’s right,’ said Garovel. ‘And apparently, it wasn’t too keen on cooperating, either. Hector practically had to force it.’

Hector asked the next question. “Did you give it such a bad personality on purpose? That had to have been an accident, right?”

Well, now they were coming up on a portion of the conversation that he didn’t necessarily wish to discuss. Out of embarrassment, primarily. But he supposed there wasn’t much point in trying to save face now, especially when keeping information from these two could just end up causing more problems later.

“...Truthfully,” said Abbas slowly, “the development of the Core required me to tread into... unfamiliar territory. Do you know what a pseudo-consciousness is?”

‘Is it what it sounds like?’ said Garovel. ‘A fake personality?’

“Somewhat,” said Abbas. “More specifically, the term pseudo-consciousness refers to an advanced technique in integration. It is what you might call a ‘soul construct.’ That is, a pocket of soul power that is able to react to some form of stimuli. Typically, that stimulus is a person pressing their own soul power into the associated object. That is the most primitive form of pseudo-consciousness, though it is still quite advanced by conventional integration standards.”

“Hmm,” hummed Hector. “This thing seems way more advanced than just that. It can react to a lot more than just my soul power. I mean, I can talk to it.”

“Y-yes...” Abbas rubbed his chin as his eyes slowly widened. “I must admit, that is... unexpected.”