Page 48 of Any More Questions for the Corpse?

Mal didn’t remember seeing Yu leave, but they had been threatening to run off since the start. Mal imagined Yu in some library, nose tucked into a book, sitting peacefully away from any zombies. Clearly everyone else was thinking the same thing as the mood dipped even lower.

“What are you weirdos doing?” Yu said, coming down the stairs from the flat.

“We’d thought you left,” Des said.

“I just went to the loo while you guys finished up. I didn’t want to interrupt their conversation, it sounded serious.”

“So you’re coming?” Mal said.

“Of course,” Yu said. “Where else would I be?”

20Costume Change

Why am I doing this? Yu thought, as they stood in the dank, cold dark, wearing clothes far too big for them.

“Have I told you that I hate this plan?” Yu said, glaring at the others, who were moving things in and out of the trunk of the car.

“I think you’ve mentioned it,” Mal said, smiling through the dark as rain rolled down his face.

“Then why are we doing it?” Yu flailed their arms in annoyance and sent two oversized sleeves in different directions.

“Because no one could think of a better idea …” Des said.

“And I still have to be bait?” Yu said, pleadingly.

“Well, no one else can pretend to be Walters …” Hala said, in a tone that tried to be encouraging.

“Walters could be Walters …” Yu said.

“No he can’t,” Des said, “and you know why.”

“Well, tell me again so I feel better about it.”

“Because,” Des said, “Walters can’t exactly show up and say ‘Hi, I survived your murder plot’ when the other guy can tell he’s already dead.”

“You don’t bring a dead guy to a necromancer fight,” Walters said. “First thing the Order teaches you.”

“Okay …” Yu said. “But I still don’t like it.”

“Do you wanna test out the look?” Mal said, gesturing to Walters.

“Give me a sec …” Yu looked to Walters and began sizing him up.

Transformations for Yu were always more about necessity than want. To get into the moth library Yu had to look like an old woman—specifically, the old woman whose ID they’d stolen. When Yu wanted to travel abroad, they would “borrow” the face of some poor tourist who just happened to lose their passport as they got to the baggage check-in. But once they were safe, and in private, Yu would revert back to the form that felt most comfortable to them. Having spent their youth “training” to be anyone, being themselves was something that Yu held most dear.

This was made only slighter harder by their constant brain swapping. Their knack for remembering everything wasn’t an innate gift of genius, as Yu would have others believe, but a talent more akin to being the master of a library of brains. One part of their brain was them, their wants and their memories; this part Yu had learned the hard way not to mess with. The other parts, however, just held facts, and they could be swapped or wiped and rewritten. So as long as you knew where all your brains where, you could hold more facts than any one brain could manage. You just had to keep track of them all. Yu had lost track of how many brains they’d lost track of. Which is why another part of their brain that never changed was their filing system. Their transformation catalogue. They’d gotten so good at brain swapping that half the time Yu didn’t even realize they were doing it. Only when trying to remember very specific things, like the migratory patterns of blue whales, or why mathematical derivatives were useful, would Yu need a few minutes to rustle around in their mental Dewey decimal system.

This transformation required only a surface-level change and some adjustments in height and girth. Yu often lamented the first law of thermodynamics—that of the conservation of energy in closed systems—as it made being taller and wider much more faff than it needed to be. Being long and gangly was awkward enough, but add to that lower density bones and minimal body fat, and tall people felt like walking on anemic stilts all day. It was not a pleasant experience or, as it happens, a very relatable one, so Yu rarely whinged about it.

Yu searched their body, extending their thoughts from the tip of their toes to the top of their head. Once they’d encompassed their whole, Yu felt another presence, the presence of something that did not belong to them. They focused on the shape of Walters and on their own body, and felt the strange shift as their skin melded and moved. Their bones lengthened and Yu felt the almost toppling shift that came with being at a slightly different height.

Yu remembered how terrifying this all once felt, and how quickly it had begun to feel normal. Training day in and day out with others just like them. Thankfully, that was far behind them and wasn’t coming back anytime soon, as long as they kept their head down. This wasn’t exactly keeping their head down, but Yu had to admit doing something other than hiding was a nice change of pace, even—

“How does it feel? Yu? You in there?”

“What?”

“You okay?” Mal said, waving his hand in front of Yu’s face—well, Walters’s face.