Page 109 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Painter blinked. Then waited for more. Then looked to Yumi, who shrugged.

“Storms,” Design said. “Yeah, this is like… Returned-level Investiture. No, more. Elantrian-level. The device isn’t built for that kind of reading—and you’re screwing with the system something crazy. It’s kind of fun. Oooh. I wonder if you’ll explode when you die.”

“What?” Yumi yelped.

“Highly unlikely,” Design said. “But possible!” She grinned. “This is awesome.”

“We haveno ideawhat you’re talking about,” Painter said.

“Investiture is what souls are made out of,” said Design. “Well, everything is Investiture—because matter, energy, and Investiture are the same. But souls, as you’d call them, are parts of our beings that are pure Investiture. Like…fire is energy. This table is matter. Souls? Investiture.”

“And Yumi’s spirits?”

“Likely Investiture too,” Design said. “I haven’t met them, so I can’t say. But the nightmares are. Pure Investiture. They’re probablyterrifiedof you, Yumi.”

“We’ve met several,” Yumi said. “And they were verynotafraid of me.”

“Well, they should have been,” Design said. “You could maybeconsume them, at least screw with them in all kinds of fun ways. Investiture—raw Investiture in particular—is kinda wahoopli.”

“…Wahoopli?” Painter said.

“Word I just made up,” Design said. “It means weird. Hoid says I should be more literary. He makes up words all the time. So I’m trying it out.”

(I donotmake up words. I have no idea where she was getting that part.)

“Anyway, raw Investiture,” Design said, “responds to thoughts. Emotions.Especiallythe thoughts and emotions of heavily Invested beings. Painter, when you paint nightmares, it’s yourthought—your perception of them—that causes them to transform. It’s not the actual painting. They can literally become anything, and because of that they have a weakness. Through concentration, you can force them to become what you envision.”

“Huh,” Painter said, shocked by how much sense that made to him. Considering how conversations with Design often went.

“Regardless, back to Yumi…” Design said, squinting—not because she needed to, but because she was picking up human mannerisms. (Which was, I can proudly say, part of the point of making her “human” in the first place.) “Yumi, have you experienced any memory loss lately?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Should I have?”

“It’s difficult to read your spiritweb,” Design said. “You glow like a bonfire, girl. Obscures a lot of things—but Idosee an excision here. Some of your memories have been bled away.”

Both of them again stared at her blankly.

“Everyone imprints memories in their Investiture,” Design said. “It’s why a Cognitive Shadow remembers everything the body did, if the bodydies? Storms, you people don’t knowanything. Look, in highly Invested individuals in particular, memories get spread through your whole soul, okay? And you’ve lost some. They were cut out. Not many. Maybe a day’s worth? Hard to see details, though the scar is right here.”

“I…got touched by that stable nightmare,” Yumi said. “It seemed to drain something from me. Maybe that was it?”

“That sounds reasonable,” Design said, then clapped once, loudly. “All right, done. No more data here. I could stare all day and get nowhere. Like trying to understand one of Hoid’s more obtuse jokes.”

(Completely uncalled-for.)

“You,” Design said, gesturing at Painter as she shoved Yumi’s hand off the machine. “Your turn.”

“Me?” Painter said, feeling threatened. “I’m not real! I mean, I don’t have a body.”

“This thing reads souls,” she said, pointing.

Reluctantly—but unwilling to appear cowardly in front of Yumi—he put his hand on the machine. He wasn’t sure if it was because he expected it or for some other reason, but he could touch the cool plate on the top of the device.

Design watched the vibrating lines on the side. “Ha!” she said, turning so he could see them better. “See?”

“I can’t read that, Design,” he said.

“You’ve got a normal soul’s worth of Investiture,” Design said. “Exactly the level we’d expect for this planet, which has no Shard in residence and where the people haven’t been specifically granted extra. Shroud and Splinters of Virtuosity notwithstanding.”

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