Jasper wakes up with his face buried so far into his pillow, he's surprised some of his freckles don't rub off onto the cotton once he finally detaches himself.

Lifting his head doesn't lead to any finer feelings; he's still uncomfortably groggy. He feels as if he's slept for half a day, but not in a way that leaves him well-rested. Too many hours have passed for that. Now, his lids try to give up and sink shut again. You're too far into the day, they seem to say. May as well give up on the rest of it and try again tomorrow.

The light coming through the window is a little too bright for that temptation to take full hold. It sears through his eyelids, leaving a lingering orange afterglow even when he tries to disappear back under the blankets.

Fine, let it be that way. Jasper can take a hint. He throws back the covers once and for all and watches the light stretch across the floorboards of his room as he tries to rearrange his presence of mind.

Wait, his room?

Yes, his room.

Apparently he's back in Cadeus Falls. When did that happen?

Jasper casts his memory back. There had been whatever ghastly mess that wicked faerie wedding was. Then there had been yellow bursts of lantern light, the cheerful chirp of flutes and strings, the twirling forms of brightly clad dancers.

He remembers laughing, too: at the more absurd dance moves, at something Lionel had said, at the recollection of 'seriously, what was going on at that wedding?'

And now he's here. He must have fallen asleep some time after the sun rose, and during that slumber, whatever manic string tugs him back and forth between worlds saw fit to return him to his own.

Jasper sighs. He really needs his bell back. He's sick to death of having no say over when he comes and goes from Beledon. It's disorienting without a warning to prelude it.

He also wishes he were less self-aware, so that he could be a little less conscious of how much he's currently in need of a bath. And a new set of clothes. And possibly burning his sheets after having slept on them while still fully dressed, boots included.

Jasper squints at the clock as he runs an unsteady hand through the limp brown mayhem of his hair. He needs to thank whatever element of good fortune suns over his life that today is a day when he isn't expected at the clerking office. He shudders to picture what the look on his overseer's face would be if he ever tried to show up at this time: closer to the end of the day than the start.

What excuse could he have even given, if that were the case for today?

"Sorry I'm late. I had to watch two creatures made of straw get hitched, then I spent the rest of the night in a pavilion of endless summer. Oh, and this all took place in another world, which I've been going to at least a few times a week ever since you first employed me. Speaking of which, when's payday again?"

That wouldn't work.

Still, there are a handful of daylight hours left. He has to go to the market, buy a new buckle to replace the frayed one on his work bag, and post a letter to his sister and her children. For some reason, his niece and nephew are convinced that if he doesn't send them a letter at least once a week, he's forgotten about them and needs to be reminded with a bundle of their scribbled notes and drawings, each more aggressively rendered than the last. There are times when he can actually see at what point their writing implements must have broken in their hands with the heedless force behind their grips.

But before any of that, a bath.

-

It might be February, but spring's kinder conditions are clearly on the way.

The sky has finally embraced blue over gray, remnants of morning frost are few and far between, and the temperature has at last made being outdoors for more than fifteen minutes bearable again.

Jasper steps here and there among the stalls in the town square, passing coins over for apples, bread, and wedges of cheese. He's reminded of the ever-filled pantry in the citadel, always bursting with fish, fruits, ceramic pots of honey, and glass bottles of milk. There had been so many tranquil hours spent by the pleasant warmth of that hearth, swiping samples of whatever it was that Skander, Celi, and Rian had been preparing that day. It'd also been the very place where Giada discovered the fireproof nature of her gift, and where they had cooked up a banquet for the Antamerian ambassador, and where Tai had probably made some sort of snide comment at some point.

There had been these scattered moments of notable importance alongside a hundred thousand little everyday occurrences, and Jasper misses them all.

"Still looking?"

His head snaps away from the clouds (literally, they are especially white and well-formed today. One of them even looks like a hand) and back to the speaker.

The wizened baker has glassy eyes and gnarled hands that one can hardly imagine having devised the soft breads and dainty pastries on display. He directs a pointed stare Jasper's way, ice-blue and impatient. It leaves him with a faint stab of guilt for dawdling.

"How about a few of those?" He gestures to the lemon biscuits gathered in tumbling piles on the stall shelf behind the baker.

While the man's back is turned to fulfill this request, Jasper examines an assortment of meat pies. The pastries' crust hangs on in delicate flakes of golden-brown. He takes a small step closer to better enjoy the aroma of rosemary and thyme and considers adding one to his purchase.

Unfortunately, that single step couldn't have taken him further from the objects of his attention. Instead, his native world melts away around him.

He is somewhere where the air is silver.

It is not the air itself that is silver, but the diamond-bright layer of snow that covers a forest of evergreen trees. The trunks are tall and thin, a sea of spindles half-covered in powdery white. Wherever the snow allows it, the bristling form of dark green needles poke through. The sky above only yields a pallid light, diminished as it is by the waning afternoon and the trees' obstruction.

Jasper's basket of market purchases hangs half-forgotten in his hold. He cranes his head back to try distinguishing the tops of the trees from where they puncture the clouds. They really are enormously tall.

A stray snowflake waltzes downward on a meandering path, finally resting on Jasper's still-upturned face. The tiny burst of cold coaxes a laugh out of him. This world is a wonderful place is the thought that comes to life just then, instinctively heartfelt.

Then he hears it: half a whistle, half a sigh.

Jasper's stomach drops to the forest floor and tries frantically to bury itself under the thin layer of snow.

He has heard that sound before.

Panicked pools of hazel dart all throughout the forest as Jasper's eyes desperately seek out the specter. His grip on the basket's handle has unintentionally tightened with the magnitude of his fear.

He remembers having had a more flippant view of the specters not so long ago. He'd been secure in the knowledge that he could easily ring himself out of their reach with the bell's help, but he doesn't have that assurance now.

The snowy landscape works in the specter's favor— lending its drained color a backdrop to blend into— but Jasper does spot it eventually. It watches him silently from the shadows of a nearby tree, each tooth in its open mouth as needle-like as the overhanging leaves that shelter it. Patches of pale sunlight and shadows take turns casting the snowy ground into shades of muted yellow and cool gray. The sight could almost be called ethereal, if there wasn't the minor inconvenience of a monster wrecking the view.

The last time Jasper had seen a specter, he'd had a long knife in his hand and much more combat-experienced friends at his side.

Now, he's alone with a basket.

The monstrous amalgamation of clawing hands, piercing eyes, and lengthy white limbs makes little dents in the snow as it moves across the space between them. It makes that sinister sound once more: a wheezing, whistling sigh. It's enough to shake Jasper back into action and remind him that he really should be doing something about this situation other than standing around, gaping.

Well, no knife on hand. Nothing to be done about that.

But he isn't empty-handed.

As the basket makes a slow arc through the crisp forest air, Jasper sighs internally at all the money he'd spent on that food now going to waste. Clerking pays decently, but he usually tries to be a little more frugal than this.

The basket hits the specter square in the face, spilling out apples, bread, and cheese in little spots of color against the otherwise-dignified landscape.

Jasper doesn't wait around the see the creature's reaction. Praying that the distraction is enough to give him a decent head start, he turns tail and begins sprinting through the winter woods. As his breaths come fast in vaporous exhales, his face flushes with the exertion, and his shoes send little cracks through the snow and ice, Jasper finds himself retracting all his previous charitable statements about this world: Never mind, I hate it here.

He can hear the specter in pursuit, long limbs sending faint crunches of sound that reach Jasper's ears and spur him on faster. He doesn't turn back to gauge the distance between them, afraid that in doing so he'll end up running into one of the many thin trunks that make up this thicket.

The specter makes its trademark call again, and Jasper debates the futility of telling it to just shut up already. He gets it: he's going to die. That thing is grotesque and wants to kill him. The message has been received; he doesn't need a constant reminder.

His vision obscures until the world becomes nothing but the narrow shapes of trees all blurring together as he races past them. Is it just him, or are the sounds of the specter coming closer? He doesn't know anymore, this is fast as he can go, and—

Whatever invisible line Jasper crosses that whisks him back to Cadeus Falls, he blesses it when he stumbles from the forest into his room. He doubles over to catch his breath, getting himself accustomed to the warmer clime of his own bedroom in his own world, where there are no monstrous beings hiding in the pearly whiteness of a silent forest.

So, the specters are back.

It's been months without them, ever since Jasper was yanked back into Cadeus Falls and the bell lost its power.

He continues to pant for air, piecing it all together. If the specters disappeared alongside his gift, then does his gift work again?

His mood swivels from glum to optimistic. If his bell is back to normal, he can once again visit his friends whenever he pleases. (And make hasty retreats when necessary.)

With that thought in mind, Jasper straightens up and reaches toward his wardrobe, yanking open the lower drawer he's kept the bell in. He's refused to ever let it stray far in the offhand chance it might work again.

Surprised, he finds himself staring at an empty pocket of space. He distinctly remembers placing it in this drawer. Jasper starts rifling through the folded clothes, feeling around for the hard metal of his gift's form.

It isn't there.

This realization comes hand-in-hand with another one: he isn't alone. He has the sensation of a strange presence looming behind him, gleefully watchful. Jasper's mind races as he tries to put it all together.

If the specters are back, his bell must be working again, and if his bell is working again, then that means that the one who gifted it to him, the chimera, is—

"Finally, am I right?"

A wiser man than Jasper would probably have run out screaming right then, but Jasper, shockingly, is not the wisest of men.

In his defense, though, he does have a good dose of courage, so he turns around to face whatever speaks to him. He shakes a little as he does it, but he turns all the same.

A sense of weightlessness crawls into his head, snakes through every part of him until all his limbs feel untethered.

"What the hell," is all he can say.

The chimera is sitting on his bed.