...in total darkness. With nothing where his dresser should be. And no pillow under his head. And on a bed that felt much harder than when he’d fallen asleep. With no light coming out from under the door. And indeed, no door. Or window.
Okay, he thought. This is fine. I’ll just wish for some light. He reached for the stone.
Which also wasn’t there.
He was just wondering what else wasn’t there when a door that wasn’t his door and certainly wasn’t where his door should be and appeared to be much larger and thicker and braced with heavier metal slammed open with a much louder bang than his door could, allowing in more light than his hallway had, and admitting a middle-aged woman who was not part of the human inventory in his house. “Rouse, sluggards!” she bellowed, which was impressive for a woman with such a pretty voice and was also noteworthy for using a word that was not used in his house, except in some of Zoe’s dumber books.
Nevertheless, Jon sat bolt upright, bringing with him breasts and dark waves of hair he had not gone to sleep with, and the realization that other things were missing and not made up for by the dozen or so girls roughly his age on cots around him, who were also not there when he went to sleep.
Jon took stock of the fact that quite literally nothing made sense at this point and quite rationally elected to pass out from shock.
He was therefore quite put out when he found himself sitting up again, complete with those new inventory items and short his original set, choking, coughing, and sputtering as his upper respiratory tract was suddenly introduced to a bucket of brackish, cold water that was also not something that had been there when he went to sleep.
The slap across his face was also new.
“I don’t know if you’re weak or lazy, Kamiéra,” the surprisingly present middle-aged woman growled at him. “But I mean to hammer it out of you by the time you’re done here. I’ve never failed to make a Witchspear from someone with your level of talent and I don’t mean you to be the first.”
Having exhausted his ability to simply pass out in response to new absurdities, Jon simply nodded and ignored the way long hair felt as he did so.
