Waking up from this reality to remember the one that had been before wasn’t pleasant for any of them, but for Harrow, perhaps, it was different. Jude watched the screens flicker on his phone, watched them shift and change, with a faint air of puzzlement behind his expression, struggling to get his little phone to respond, putting those tech support skills to work –

his expression shifted, slowly, to something puzzled and confused and a little uncomfortable, to something young and uncertain. He hadn’t been the most confident person as a Hunter. He’d been happy to relegate himself to be someone’s assistant, to stand aside and let others take credit for his work, to mull over paperwork and generally blend into the background, keeping to himself. But as a student, as the heir to his father’s sword, as the equivalent of a teenager in a world full of fantastic magic that didn’t quite seem to apply to him, he was nothing.

He could still taste the way a twenty-five-year-old Jude Harrow had been able to relax in his body, how he’d raised his weapon to fire at his enemies, how he’d stood for something and been confident he was on the right track. Perhaps that track had been the wrong side of the war, and perhaps his motives had been unfamiliar, human and strange, but the conviction had been strong. It had meant something. He had been somebody.

Now Harrow sat, still wearing Jude’s older body like a suit, but with his heart hammering in his chest. He remembered being, more or less, friendless. Being too shy to approach strangers. His father’s disapproval and his peer’s eye rolls or humor over his attempts to put himself out there. Of course Jude’s young adult experiences had been similar, but he’d had time to grow past them.

He’d made friends. He’d gone on dates. He’d even, once, managed to break someone’s heart.

It was ******** up, maybe, but Harrow yearned to be that man again. This was a dream he could fully immerse himself in, even it meant going against the people he’d grown up again. It was a dream easier to swallow than his reality, which meant days of work and struggle, stuck at a school where he wasn’t cool enough for the cliques and the teams. It meant loneliness, and giving up the one very good friend Jude had in this world, one Harrow could have lost himself in as well.

“Xiang, are you real?” It was a low whisper, to himself. And maybe, for Jude, Xiang would have answered. But here and now, there was only quiet. That was answer enough, really; Xiang simply a figment of his imagination, something he craved after and could never have. Had he been real, maybe Harrow could accepted this dream, worked his way through in the hope that if nothing else the pair of them could meet in person, someday. On an even playing field. Two creatures of Halloween.

Instead, he looked out bleakly over the island and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now.