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contrasting with her pale skin and wide, dark eyes.
    “I don’t know who I am today,” Wil said by way of greeting. She gestured him to sit.
    “Heroes never do.” Her alien accent was a soothing blend of Israel and Eastern Europe. “Identities are fraught. They blend together—the people we are, the roles we play, the men we wish to become. Who’s to say any of us know our true natures? But heroes confront their existential uncertainty, bringing their chosen identities into battle like talismans.”
    She’d settled into a comfortable rapport with Campbell and Jung these days, ever since her vocabulary had extended past flirtation and fainting fits. She’d get a real uniform soon if she could avoid any more plots about nudity at weddings.
    “I feel like things are always in flux,” Wil said. “My first kiss was with this girl, you know, just a normal teenager. Then she turns into a bear. A literal bear. ‘I’m a shape-shifter,’ she says. Where does that leave me? Where’s my sense of permanence?”
    The analyst shifted—position, not shape—and widened her limpid eyes. “Who do you want to be?”
    Wil shrugged. “More than some dumb kid.”
    “Do you think you’re a dumb kid?”
    “People say I am.”
    “And how does that make you feel?”
    Wil frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be able to read my emotions?”
    Sighing, the analyst shook her head. Black curls rippled. “People who know nothing about psychology think a therapist’s job is to intuit other people’s emotions. But the point of analysis isn’t to give people answers. It’s to help people find answers for themselves.”
    She leaned forward, light playing over her cleavage. Her heavily mascaraed lashes rasped as she blinked, a sound like window shutters. “Sometimes,” she confided, “I suspect no one put much thought into me at all.”
    •••
    There were things the Scalzi understood about how he’d come into existence, and things that remained, for the moment, unclear.
    First, there was the fact of his orc-hood. This seemed comprehensible. While vague memories insisted he hadn’t always been an orc, there was a certain orc-like quality to whatever it was he’d been before. Perhaps not single-minded murderous rampage, but stubborn debate team. Besides, it was beautifully ironic for a graduate of the Webb School to eschew eating peas with his knife in favor of ripping meat off the bone with his fangs.
    No, the Scalzi was more or less free of existential angst about his personal form. He was more concerned with the hows and whys of this Mordor-like landscape, which investigation had proved was not actually Mordor, due to its telltale lack of hobbits.
    Something was hunting him through the dark and ash. He heard flapping in the night, of wings that made him cringe and cower, wings belonging to some creature beyond the bounds of nature—neither dragon nor manticore, but some other foul beast, with breath like rotting meat and claws that resounded off the mountainsides like swords clanging on anvils. It was not the sort of feline he could tame with his usual methods of adhesive and pork products.
    He had an enemy, riding the aberrant beast. A fighter. A powerful one.
    While he skulked between the shadows that stretched between basalt monoliths, the Scalzi kept his gaze on the sky. Once, he looked up in time to see the sun silhouetting his airborne opponent. The man wore raiment in red and white, emblazoned with the symbol of a mocking face. He rode straight-backed, one fist wrapped around the golden chain of an amulet, the other around the haft of a spear. His mouth contorted into a furious roar—and though the sound was swallowed by the bubbling lava and the thunderous clap of the pegasus kitten’s wings—still, chills clutched at the Scalzi’s bowels.
    •••
    Heroes wear identities as talismans.
    Wil contemplated his analyst’s words as he and his mount circled the volcano.
    Identity warped and stretched and bent and