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that soared above him but a simple, off-white ceiling. There was a rotating fan attached to it, with a dangling cord. Renat only knew what a rotating fan was because some of the souls he had tormented over the years had hung themselves with those cords. He put the flats of his hands down on the soft, springy surface he lay upon and pushed himself upright. Doing so made his head spin, and he cupped his forehead in his palm and squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. The slight pain and feeling of dizziness receded, and finally he opened his eyes and looked around.
    Renat was sitting on a large bed in a simple, elegantly furnished room. Light filtered in through a tall picture window, and the air was cool. As soon as he recognized it his skin prickled with goosebumps, prompting a shiver, but Renat ignored the minor discomfort in favor of standing slowly to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, and had to extend his arms to keep his balance. Once he had it he wandered through the door into a hallway.
    The floor was polished hardwood, smooth beneath his feet. Renat trailed one hand along the wall as he walked, noting every slight curve and bump his fingertips encountered. Thoughts were pounding in his head, a million anxious things that cried out for consideration, but he couldn't focus on them yet; something was pulling him forward.
    Renat kept going until he reached a wall of glass. Outside there was mist and the slick shine of water on wood, and an instant later Renat knew he had to be out there in it. He tried to simply step through the wall, something that should have been easy for him, but it was unyielding against the smooth skin of his palms. He closed his eyes and summoned his power, but there was…not nothing , exactly. Not necessarily a void, but an absence inside of him. Instead of the pain of a gaping hole, however, Renat felt as though something else had been put into the space where first his grace, then his hellfire had lived. Whatever it was, it had none of the quick and ready power that came before, but there was something so deeply profound about it that Renat shied away from looking too close.
    What he did manage to gather was that he wouldn't be walking through walls any longer. Renat examined the glass surface, running his fingers down the sides until they caught on a small indentation. A latch, perhaps. Like nothing he had ever seen himself, but some of the damned had, and he had been inside their minds. He clumsily inserted his fingers into the groove and pulled. The glass wall slid smoothly aside, and the wet, moist air touched Renat's bare skin like a caress. He stepped out onto the deck and heard the quiet susurration of water lapping against the wood that he stood upon, and felt the mist blanket him.
    The wood was rougher out here, and a little harsh on his feet. Renat walked as though he were in a trance, right to the edge of the deck on which he stood. He knelt there and stared over the edge into the water below. A face stared back at him. It was his face, it must have been, but it looked unlike anything he had ever seen before. His eyes were brown, with a thin ring of green around the pupil. His hair was still long and black, but the razor's edge that had defined every strand had vanished, leaving it a somewhat disheveled whole. His face was pale, thin, not ethereally beautiful. He looked…human. He looked like a human.
    Tiny ripples spread out from where the salty drops fell, distorting his reflection. After a moment Renat realized they were coming from his eyes. Tears. He was crying water, making something simple and pure, and it didn't hurt, it didn't burn. It was a strange sort of beautiful, the ability to do something so elemental. He stared at himself and wept in the chill, rain-touched air. His body, so foreign and frail now, started to tremble from the cold, and a moment later he felt something soft drape over his shoulders, followed by a pair of warm arms holding him tight. Renat turned