Hermes opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling and took a slow breath.
He tried to move. He couldn't. Something held him down at the wrists and chest with the firm impersonal pressure of medical restraints.
"Welcome back to the real world, kid." The voice was warm and unhurried. "That was quick — I was expecting to wait a few more days. Seems to be my lucky day."
Hermes turned his head toward the voice.
Master Jet.
She was exactly as Sunny had described. Possibly more so. No wonder he'd considered being her slave.
"Ahem." He cleared his throat. "I should let you know that I actually charge a special rate for bondage — it's not included in my standard plan. Two hundred and fifty dolla — credits for the first hour, one fifty for every hour after that." He paused, affecting consideration. "Though I'll give you a discount. I've never had a client quite as beautiful as you, so let's say two hundred for the first hour and one hundred after. Final offer."
Master Jet stared at him.
For a moment her expression was entirely unreadable.
Then something shifted in it — not amusement, exactly, but the particular look of someone who had just understood something they wished they hadn't.
Oh no, Hermes thought. She didn't get the joke. She thinks I actually—
"It's alright, kid," she said, with the careful gentleness of someone navigating a situation they hadn't been trained for. "You're a Sleeper now. You'll never have to sell your body to make a living again." She straightened. "I'm Ascended Jet. You can call me Master Jet. I've been on watch duty for the past three days while you and the other one were in your Nightmare trials."
Hermes processed this.
Other one.
"There's someone else?" he asked. "Someone who was having their trial at the same time?"
"He woke up before you. Went to take a shower." She looked at him with the frank assessment of someone accustomed to delivering unwelcome information. "You're next. You stink."
Ouch.
"Understood," he said. "Could you remove the restraints? If we're not doing the bondage play I'd rather not spend my first minutes of awakening tied to a bed."
She stood and began unfastening them without comment.
Hermes sat up slowly, rolling his wrists, taking stock of his body. Stronger than before. Lighter. The awakening had done its work thoroughly.
Though I do wish the bondage play had been on the menu, he thought, with the philosophical resignation of a man who had tried.
The silence that followed was not comfortable.
Hermes was acutely aware that he had no idea what to do with it. He had managed three days of social navigation in a medieval castle through careful observation and strategic positioning and apparently none of that had translated into knowing how to sit in a room with a beautiful woman without making everything worse. He stared at the middle distance and attempted to look like someone who was fine.
He was not fine.
Master Jet, evidently well versed in the art of rescuing terrible silences, tried first.
"Do you not have any questions for me?"
"I don't know what to ask," he said honestly.
"I see." She let the silence sit for exactly one beat. "Well, I'll explain everything properly once both of you have eaten. You must be hungry."
"Yes," he said.
The silence returned.
AAAAAAAH, he thought. What is wrong with me.
Fortunately, footsteps saved him.
They both looked toward the sound. Sunny appeared in the doorway wearing the iconic tracksuit, damp-haired and unhurried, with the particular expression of someone who had recently survived something terrible and was still processing the paperwork.
Should I say something?
Why is talking to people so hard?
Forget it. Later. When I have courage.
Hermes stood, intending to take his turn in the shower with whatever dignity he had remaining, and then stopped.
Wait.
He turned back to Master Jet.
"Actually — I do have a question." He paused, calculating the best angle of approach for what he was about to say.
"Would you happen to have any spare memories you don't use?"
Master Jet's expression shifted to something considerably more suspicious. "Why do you ask?"
"My trial was somewhat unique," Hermes said carefully. "It didn't award me any memories."
"What?" Sunny's voice came from the doorway. "How is that possible? Did you not kill anything?"
The accusation in it was unmistakable.
Hermes sighed.
"In my trial I had to attend a school for three days. On the third day the school was going to be destroyed by thirty three monsters. You know the hint the Nightmare Spell shows us before the trial? I used it — I told the headmaster I was a seer and described what I'd seen as a vision. He believed me and made preparations. When the attack came on the third night we evacuated the castle and the trial ended." He paused. "I didn't fight anything."
The silence that followed had a very different quality from the previous one.
Sunny's expression cycled through several stages of feeling in quick succession, arriving finally at something that could only be described as profound personal offence. He had fought a Tyrant to the edge of death. He had bled on a sacrificial altar. He had survived things that should have killed him several times over.
And this person had attended school for three days and gone home.
Damnation, Sunny thought.
Serves him right that he got no memories, Sunny thought.
It is only fair, Sunny thought, with the conviction of someone who needed very badly for something to be fair right now.
"I see," Master Jet said, after a moment. Her tone was careful in the way that suggested she was filing this information away in a category she hadn't needed before. "I've never heard of anyone clearing their trial quite like that." A pause. "I'll see what I can do."
Hermes allowed himself one small internal jump of joy.
"Thank you, Master Jet," he said, and went to take his shower.