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“Hi, Lily! I’m Fross!”

The others introduced themselves with a little less enthusiasm, still bemused by the situation. Lily greeted everyone politely, but with a grin that Trissiny couldn’t help feeling was rather predatory.

“And this,” Tellwyrn said loudly, “is Heywood Paxton, Imperial Surveyor.” Paxton simply stared at the center of the table; her brows drew together. “Hey!”

He jumped, finally raising his eyes; they were notably bloodshot. “Oh! I’m sorry, drifted off… Ah, yes, hello, everyone. New faces, how good to…” Paxton trailed off, catching sight of Trissiny. His eyes widened, and to her surprise, he looked downright crestfallen. “Why, Ms. Avelea, we meet again. I dearly wish it was under better circumstances.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite know what the circumstances are,” she said carefully. Several things about this situation were giving her a very uneasy feeling.

The boy next to Tellwyrn had stood, and now bowed to them. “Joe Jenkins. Right pleased to make your acquaintance, all of you. And it is, of course, an honor to meet the great Professor Tellwyrn.”

“Oh, gods, don’t do that,” Ruda groaned. “Her head is swollen beyond capacity as it is; you’ll rupture her or something.”

“I assure you, Miss Punaji, my ego reached its maximum capacity long before your ancestors crawled out of the muck and hasn’t wavered since,” Tellwyrn said with one of her wolfish grins. “Now, we’ve some things to discuss; Mr. Paxton and…Lily…” She shot the woman a distinctly unfriendly look. “…have found themselves trapped by circumstance, but Joseph, here, is a longtime resident of the town, and has agreed to help fill you in on the situation. From there, we shall proceed to what I expect you to do.”

“Happy to oblige,” said Joe. He spoke with the drawling inflection common to prairie folk, but seemed both polite and articulate. There was a world-weary intelligence well beyond his years on his face.

“So,” Tellwyrn went on, “assuming our hosts don’t mind us rearranging a bit, everybody squeeze in. Pull over some chairs and let’s all have a sit down.”

“Hang on,” Gabriel said suddenly, staring at the boy. “Joe Jenkins? As in Joseph P. Jenkins?”

“The same,” he replied dryly. “I gather you’ve heard of me.”

“Holy shit,” Gabe breathed. “You’re the Sarasio Kid!”

“Let’s watch our language, shall we?” Joe said coolly. “There are ladies present.”

“Does he mean us?” Ruda stage-whispered to Trissiny. “Boy’s in for an epic letdown.”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Gabriel said distractedly. “I just… I mean, I’m a little taken aback. You’re, uh… I pictured… You’re so…”

“Fifteen,” said Joe, now smiling faintly. “As of last month. And now you know why the bards don’t sing the legend of That Guy from Sarasio.”

“Oh… I just figured they called you that because you were twelve when you wiped out Hoss Calhoun and his gang.”

“Eleven, actually, but that is essentially the case. It was a little over three years ago.”

“Da—ang,” Gabriel caught himself, barely. Joe smiled, his dark eyes glittering with amusement. Truly, he only looked youthful until one looked into those eyes. “Seems like it’d take longer than that for a legend to spread.”

“Once upon a time, yeah,” said Teal. “But now we’ve got scrolltowers, newspapers, mass-printed novels and comics… Truly, we live in an age of wonders.”

“All of which is very fascinating,” Tellwyrn said in a bored tone, “but I note that none of you are pulling over chairs and sitting down. If you really want to stand around uncomfortably, that’s your lookout, but I’m not best pleased at my instructions being ignored.”

“You have such a way with people, Arachne,” Lily murmured, smiling coquettishly. Tellwyrn just stared at her through narrowed eyes.

“So…you two know each other?” Toby asked, pulling over a chair.

“Oh, we go way back,” Lily purred. “In fact, Arachne had just sent me a little note a few weeks ago suggesting we ought to catch up! I’m afraid I just haven’t had the time to sit down and arrange something—busy busy, you know how it is. But, fortuitously, here we all are! Isn’t it funny how life works, sometimes?”

“Funny,” Tellwyrn said, deadpan. “Fortuitous. In any case, Lily, I am here with my students on a matter relevant to their education. I will have to object in the strongest possible terms if they are in any way interfered with.”

Tension gathered around the table; Tellwyrn stared at the woman in red with a cold intensity that spoke of deep hidden meanings. Lily, however, seemed completely unaffected, waving a hand airily.

“Oh, honestly, you silly goose, why would I meddle with your students? I’m not one to enjoy being cooped up, but this really is a lovely place; I’m not nearly that bored. Since none of us is going anywhere immediately, surely we can find a moment to ourselves to chat.”

“We aren’t going anywhere?” Juniper tilted her head quizzically. “Why not?”

“Hey there, neighbors,” said a new arrival before anybody could answer her. They twisted in their chairs to behold a young woman with short dark hair approaching, carrying a large tray weighted down with glasses and two carafes of water. “Welcome to the Shady Lady! Drinks are on the house—I’m afraid food is strictly rationed, so if you want to graze socially all we’ve got is water and a prodigious collection of booze.” She sidled in between Toby and Ruda, laying the tray down on the table. “Joe, I know you don’t drink. Any other takers…?”

“Take note of the new faces,” said Tellwyrn. “They are not to have alcohol while they’re here.”

“Duly noted. Heywood? Lily?”

“I’ll spare you having to ask again every time, dear,” Lily said cheerily, patting her belly. “None of the hard stuff for me. I’m expecting.”

“Oh, by all the gods in heaven,” Tellwyrn groaned, covering her eyes with a hand and causing one earpiece of her spectacles to come loose and stick out at a crazy angle.

“Congratulations, Lil!” the girl said brightly, beaming. “I’m sorry you got stuck in this hole of a town at a time like this.”

“Not at all, dear. Believe me, I’ve been in worse places.”

“I’ll have the usual, please, Jenny,” Paxton said wearily. She gave him a concerned look, which he seemed not to notice.

“You’re, uh, the waitress?” Gabriel said hesitantly. “Wow, not what I’d have expected for a place like this. You look more like an adventurer, to be honest.”

“Thanks!” Jenny said brightly, winking at him. In fact, she wore a leather jacket over a sturdy ensemble of shirt, trousers and boots, with a long scarf wound about her neck and a pair of goggles perched atop her head. “I am an adventurer, truth be told. But, well…here we all are. I hate just twiddling my thumbs; serving drinks is something to do. Makes people happy, y’know?”

“Heh. Happy,” Paxton muttered, staring at the tablecloth.

“Okay, that’s the second time in two minutes,” said Ruda, scowling. “Why the hell does everyone act like this place is some kind of prison?”

“I’ll…just go get Heywood’s drink,” Jenny said, edging away.

“If we’re all settled, then?” Tellwyrn readjusted her spectacles and looked around at them. “Good. Joseph, if you would be so kind?”

“Ma’am,” he said politely, nodding to her. “I assume, neighbors, that Robin brought in in through one of her careful routes, so I couldn’t say how much of the town you’ve seen. But even a casual look should be enough to tell you this place has gone right to the dogs.”

“Actually, she took us right through the main streets!” said Fross. “Some men tried to rob us or something and Trissiny broke a guy’s hand.”

“Robin,” Tellwyrn exclaimed, exasperated. “Seriously?!”

The other elf hadn’t joined them in sitting; she leaned her hip against a nearby table, watching the group with her arms folded. At being addressed she shrugged, looking as unperturbed as ever. “Talk is fine, but nothing beats a visual demonstration. If you’re going to drop eight kids in a place like this, they deserve to see what they’re getting into. Also, I figured it’d help matters here if it was quickly understood that the new arrivals are not to be trifled with. That succeeded a bit more than I expected, actually. This one’s got quite a flair for the dramatic,” she added, nodding at Trissiny.

“These men who accosted you,” Joe said, his eyes sharp. “How were they dressed?”

“Uh…not very noticeably?” Gabriel said hesitantly. “Shirts, pants… A little scruffy, but nothing that caught my attention.”

“Good,” said Joe, nodding. “There’d be trouble if you’d run into… Well. We’ll get to that in a moment. The reason the food is being parceled out and we’re all drinking water is this town does not have any kind of functioning economy at the moment. Goods and services are effectively shut down; money is so much dead weight. We’re at the point of nothing but food and a few bare essentials being worth our notice. The Shady Lady is… Well, not so much a prison as a fortress. One of very few decent places left in Sarasio, and the only one that could be called remotely safe.”

“The bordello is the last decent place?” said Ruda, raising her eyebrows. “Damn. This place must be pretty fucked up.”

A fleeting expression flickered across Joe’s face, as if he wanted to wince but wouldn’t be so rude. “That’s…a fair assessment. Let me start at the beginning, then.” As he spoke, he began deftly shuffling the deck of cards under his hand. “As little as a year ago, Sarasio was a prosperous town with an adventurer-based economy, much like most of the more significant frontier outposts. You know the type, I’m sure, being from Last Rock. There were shops and amenities catering to those launching expeditions into the Golden Sea, and those returning from it.”

Paxton stirred himself as Jenny returned, reaching up to take a glass of amber liquid from her without even looking. “It was quite the boom town, in fact,” he said, then tossed back the drink. Jenny stood behind him, grimacing with obvious concern, but he paid her no mind. “That’s why the Rail platform is so infernally far away. It was meant to give the town room to expand, and also grant a measure of access to the nearby elf grove that wouldn’t make the inhabitants come into town if they’d rather not.” He fell silent abruptly, staring down at the now-empty glass in his fingers.

“All that aside,” Joe went on slowly, “Sarasio’s always been a little…corrupt. More or less harmlessly so, for most of its history. The Sheriff, the mayor and most of the richer folk were good ol’ boys, looking out for each other. It was inconvenient, but I’m told not much worse than that for some years. At least, until Hoss Calhoun and his gang set up shop in the area.”

His eyes narrowed and he glared down at the cards, now flashing through his fingers at blinding speed. “I don’t rightly know what manner of hold Calhoun had on the Sheriff and the powers that be, but a blind eye was turned to his activities, even when they started…crossing lines. This wasn’t a matter of waived fines and selective enforcement of tax laws anymore; they were robbing and worse, all across the area, and Sheriff Yates wouldn’t touch ’em. Well… To cut a long story short, I put a stop to all that.”

“That actually sounds like a pretty damn good story,” Ruda said.

“It’s been written down enough times,” Joe said almost curtly. “What matters for our purposes is that the immediate problem of the Calhoun gang was solved, but there was still a town run by a cozy cadre of backroom dealers, and after a few months of borderline terror, everybody had a lot less of a sense of humor about it. Yates decided to let me be and I returned the favor, provided he didn’t go overboard.”

“Why?” asked Toby.

Joe finally stopped shuffling, and began rapidly laying down a game of solitaire. He kept his eyes on this as he spoke. “If you only know how that question has hovered over me. I could’ve probably warded off a lot of what’s happened to this town if I’d been a bit more proactive… But things were simple, for a while. Never seemed to me that doing favors for your friends and leaning a bit too hard on the taxpayers were the kinds of offenses that warranted getting’ shot dead in the street. Conversely, the Sheriff wasn’t eager to start trouble up with the kid he’d just seen take down nine grown men with wands.”

“You did fucking what?” Ruda exclaimed. “How is that mathematically possible?!”

“Have you seriously never heard of the Sarasio Kid?” Gabriel asked her.

“Arquin, I’m Punaji. We have different heroes. Have you ever heard of Anjal the Sea Devil?”

“…okay, point taken.”

“It was a comfortable little truce,” Joe went on, ignoring the byplay. “I could’ve blasted him and his whole social circle to Hell—pardon my language, ladies—but on the other hand, he could’ve called down Imperial help, bein’ that I was technically an outlaw by virtue of multiple manslaughter.”

“Sounds like that was pretty obviously self-defense,” Toby noted.

“Oh, sure, I probably would’ve won that in court,” Joe said with a shrug. “My policy on court, though, is not to go if you don’t absolutely need to. So things continued much as they were…which was the problem. Yates never did get it through his head that folk just didn’t have the same patience for his games as they had before. If he’d been smart, he’d’ve backed off a bit and reined in his cronies. He wasn’t smart. And that’s what brought us the White Riders.”

Mr. Paxton heaved a heavy sigh and raised his glass. “Jenny? Another, if you please?”

“Heywood, don’t you think you’ve had enough?” she replied, placing her hands on his shoulders from behind.

He grunted a bitter little stump of a laugh. “That and more, long since. I may’s well do my part to hold down the floorboards, my girl. Seems all I’m good for, after all.”

“That’s enough of that kind of talk,” she said firmly. “C’mon, it’s barely past breakfast. Let that settle for a while. Look, we’ve got help finally! Stay and maybe you can help Joe lay out the details.”

Paxton grunted again, staring morosely at the tablecloth. The students exchanged a round of glances.

“You’d know ’em if you’d seen ’em,” Joe continued. “They dress in white, as the name suggests. Robes and hoods—they look almost ecclesiastical. They started interfering anonymously with the folks running the town, and… Well, you don’t really care about the whole story nor need to know. End of the day, we had a corrupt office of law run by a man who refused to back down, and now a gang of vigilantes who also wouldn’t back down. It came to shootin’, inevitably. This place starting going downhill fast when the Sheriff was killed. The mayor went not long after, and then they started in on the landowners and cattle barons, everybody who’d wielded influence in Sarasio. Even patrolled the Rail platform to make sure none of ’em could get away and report what was happening here to the Empire.”

“And the scrolltower?” Trissiny asked.

Joe nodded. “Yup, that was their work too. Only took ’em a couple months to eliminate everybody who’d been involved in oppressing Sarasio. Amazingly enough,” he added bitterly, “things did not get better at that point.”

“It’s the story of most political revolutions everywhere,” said Tellwyrn. “A corrupt system is still a system. It knows how to run things. People who rise up and kill the rulers don’t necessarily know anything about ruling and frequently acquire a taste for blood in the process. All they know how to do is destroy those who oppose them…”

“Which,” Joe finished, nodding, “was what they continued to do. The results are as you see them now. Sarasio’s crawlin’ with vermin, and decent folk—such of them as are left—are afraid to step foot outside their own doors.”

“Wait a second,” said Toby, frowning thoughtfully. “If those men who confronted us weren’t these White Riders, who were they?”

“They may have been, for all I could tell you,” Joe admitted. “Those hoods aren’t just a fashion statement. But it’s not just the Riders anymore. The only law in Sarasio is the law of the wand, now. The Shady Lady is a safe haven because we’ve got armed men lookin’ after is, and because I live here. Everywhere else…it’s survival of the strongest, period.”

“How long can this possibly go on?” Trissiny demanded. “I mean, the Empire has to know what’s happening here! Don’t they care?”

“I may have failed to emphasize how quickly all this went down,” Joe replied. “The Empire heard rumors, all right, and sent an Imperial Surveyor to check out the situation and report back.” He nodded at Paxton, who heaved a deep sigh. “Well, obviously, the Riders caught wind of this. Luckily we were able to get Mr. Paxton in here with us, but he’s now pinned down. Comings and goings from the Lady are observed very carefully. They’ve taken out the scrolltower and they make sure nobody gets on the Rails.”

“That’s not security,” Gabriel said, scowling. “The Rail conductors passing by have to know something’s going on. And there are other ways in and out of the town—the whole place is surrounded by prairie. People can hike through the wilderness with the right know-how, they do it all the time. How can these Riders possibly think they can get away with this?”

“People are dumb,” said Tellwyrn.

“That,” Trissiny replied coldly, “is dismissive and reductive.”

“You’re correct,” the Professor replied, nodding. “It is both of those things and a gross oversimplification besides, and I’m encouraged to see that you realize it. If you’re ever to sort out the tangle of other people’s motivations, you have to consider their perspectives carefully and take into account all kinds of information that may not seem relevant from your own point of view. All sentient beings take action for what seems to them like good reason; most pointless conflicts stem from people dismissing one another’s reasons and going mindlessly on the offensive. That is the main thrust of what I teach in your history class, kids: understanding. Tease out the meanings and motives behind the actions of other people, and you will be in a position to change the situation according to your own aims.”

She leaned her elbows on the table, interlacing her fingers in front of her mouth and slowly sweeping her gaze across the group as she continued. “However, there is a time and a place. In the thick of a tense situation, it is sometimes—in fact, it is often simply not possible to consider all these things. In order to protect yourself and accomplish anything in the immediate term, you will often have to dispense with deeper understanding and act, as best you can. In such moments of crisis, there are generalities you can usually rely on, shorthands for understanding the behavior of people that will warn you what they are likely to do and help you see at a glance what you must do in response. One of these is that people are fucking dumb, and frequently, also assholes.”

“Oh, Arachne,” Lily sighed. “Ever the sourpuss.”

“I’m comfortable with the conclusion that a lot of people around here have been exceedingly dumb over a long stretch of time,” Joe said with a grimace, “myself not excluded. I couldn’t tell you what the Riders are thinking at this point. Given what they’ve been up to lately, I can’t find it in me to believe they’re still trying to act for the greater good. Still… Those men you saw, and others like ’em, they’re a mixed bag. A lot are former adventurers who found the lawlessness here to their liking. Some are just folk, citizens of Sarasio who came to the same conclusion. I’m of the view that most folks are basically decent, but anywhere you go there’s always a few who’re only held in check by the rule of law. Take that away, and you see their true faces.”

“The problem,” said Tellwyrn, “is the specific nature of Sarasio’s ailments. These men have raised an organized militia, overthrown a legitimate civil authority, destroyed and denied access to Imperial communications and travel networks, killed and attempted to kill Imperial representatives and set themselves up as a savage puppet principality. This goes beyond anarchy, and into the legal criteria for rebellion.”

“And when the R word gets tossed around,” Joe said grimly, “the Empire starts getting a whole lot less understanding in general. Might be they’d listen to our side of the story. Maybe not. If not… They might simply relocate everyone and abandon Sarasio. On the other hand, it ain’t inconceivable the Empire will decide to make an example out here. There’s not been an open rebellion on this continent in decades. The Imperials can’t have people gettin’ the idea they can get away with it.”

“The Tirasian Dynasty isn’t so ham-fisted, as a rule,” Tellwyrn pointed out. “Also, you have Mr. Paxton here to vouch for you.”

Paxton let out another little half-grunt, half-laugh that held more bitterness than humor, still gazing blearily into the table as though it promised a solution to the dilemma of Sarasio.

“I am somewhat less comforted by these facts than I might be,” Joe said carefully. “And a lot of folk agree with me. You’re not wrong in that the town ain’t exactly secure, Gabriel. People’ve been slipping away…well, not in droves, but in as steady a trickle as they can manage. The Riders discourage it in the most brutal way possible, but it happens. It’s only a matter of time, and not much of that, before the Empire comes down on us. Then, only the gods know where the chips will fall.”

“They’ll come,” Paxton mumbled. “I’m weeks late making my report. Someone’ll be sent to find out what happened to useless old Heywood Paxton sooner or later.”

“And so there you have it,” said Tellwyrn, spreading her hands wide. “The town divided against itself, subjected to a reign of vigilante terror, and under severe strain in its relationship with the nearby elves.”

“Wait, what? There’s more?” Gabriel groaned. “What’s going on with the elves?”

“Robin can explain that in detail,” said Tellwyrn. “For now, you understand the basics of the situation. You have been brought here to perform a field exercise which will determine the bulk of your final grade for this semester. Your task: save Sarasio.”

Joe’s eyebrows shot up. “We’re an academic exercise?”

“There are much worse things you could be,” Tellwryn told him, “and likely will be if something isn’t done quickly. There are two reasons I have chosen this task for you, students. In the first place, your previous expedition put you in a series of brute-force situations, which you severely overcomplicated and thus outsmarted yourselves. Be assured, we will be working on that before you leave my University, but I am interested in seeing how you handle a more cerebral problem. Given the makeup of this group, it might be more in line with your various talents. The situation here won’t yield to such straightforward measures; you are going to have to make a solid plan and execute it carefully.”

“The hell are you talking about?” Ruda demanded. “This could not be simpler. We round up these White Riders, end them, and boom. Everything goes back the way it was.”

“Except it won’t,” said Gabriel, frowning into the distance. “They already tried that, Joe and the Sheriff both. There’s been too much bad blood…too much blood spilled. Everybody here’s at each other’s throats, and that’s just the ones we know about. Gods only know how the elves fit into this.”

“Poorly,” Robin commented from the sidelines.

“Gabriel’s right,” said Toby. “There are a whole chain of breaches that need to be healed. Getting rid of the Riders will have to be part of the solution, but that won’t do it by itself. Saving the town will mean…” He trailed off, then shook his head. “I don’t even know.”

“Which brings me to point two,” said Tellwyrn. “Sarasio is in a death spiral. One way or another, whether the White Riders manage to depopulate the town before the Empire does, within another half a year there’ll be nothing here but the coyotes.”

“The Lady looks pretty,” agreed Joe, “but that’s because it’s full of refugees who have nothing better to do than look after the place. It helps keep us sane. Nobody here is doing any kind of business; we’re low on food and all but out of all other kinds of resources.”

“The point being,” Tellwyrn said with a faint smirk, “you cannot possibly make this situation any worse. Even if you manage to botch it as enthusiastically as you did your last field assignment, it’ll only mean granting this town a clean beheading rather than a lingering death by infection. The Empire won’t care about saving Sarasio; if it’s not done before they get here, it won’t be done. It’s up to you now, kids.”

There was silence around the table for a moment. Then Toby stood, pushing back his chair. “Well, then… I guess we’d better start making plans.”

 

Once in motion, the students lost no time heading off to a corner with Robin to get the rundown on the local elven population; it took Jenny only slightly more effort to coax Mr. Paxton up and off to his room for a nap.

Joe glanced back and forth between Tellwyrn and Lily, who were watching each other far too intently, the elf as if planning to invade a fortress, the woman in red with amused detachment. He cleared his throat softly.

“I believe I’ll stretch my legs a bit. No doubt you’ll want some privacy to catch up.”

“Thank you, Joseph,” said Tellwyrn without taking her eyes off Lily.

“Ladies,” he said courteously, bowing once before backing away and heading off.

The faintest tingle across the skin was the only sign of a silencing spell going off, a subtle effect that would likely have gone unnoticed by anyone not looking for it. Lily’s smile widened till she was nearly laughing outright; she stood, paced around the table and dropped herself into Joe’s seat, next to he other woman.

“Still paranoid, I see. You really needn’t bother with such touches, Arachne. I am never overheard when I don’t wish to be. By definition.”

“Mm.” Tellwyrn just stared at her.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. You wanted to talk, remember? You went to considerable trouble to send me that little message, you heartless ghoul, you. Don’t blame me for not being fool enough to approach you in your own nest. Anyhow, this is much more interesting! What an intriguing little town this is. Did you know the Shifter was here?”

“The Shifter’s always somewhere. You’d be a lot less impressed if you spent as much time on this plane as you claim to wish.”

Lily’s grin widened. “Well, we can’t all just do whatever we want, you know. On the other hand, look who I’m talking to.”

Tellwyrn looked at her in silence for a moment before answering. “I’ve been in communication with Quentin Vex. He doesn’t tell me much, but he did point me to the remaining possession sites. I know, now, Vadrieny was the only survivor.”

Lily’s smile vanished like a snuffed candle, replaced by an icy look of fury. “Straight to the point, is it? If you insist on sticking your nose into my business, Arachne, you should know better than to try to provoke me as your opening move. I have not come all this way to—”

Tellwyrn reached out and grasped Lily’s hand in one of her own, then simply held it, squeezing. Lily fell silent, looking down at their clasped hands in confusion, then up at the elf’s eyes.

Arachne simply held her in a white-knuckled grip, and said very softly, “I’ve seen four of my own buried.”

In the silence that followed, the rage melted from Lily’s face as though she simply didn’t have the strength to hold onto it. Her lips twitched, eyes squeezing shut; little slipped past her mastery of facial expression, only hints of the turmoil within. But she tightened her grip on Arachne’s fingers, squeezing till it hurt both of them. Neither let go.

It was long minutes before Tellwyrn spoke again. “I still need to know why. What possessed you to take such a risk?”

“It was perfect,” Lily whispered. “Flawless. It had been worked on for years, decades. Everything set up in advance, everything just so. Those girls were selected with the greatest possible care, each a perfect match. They’d have bonded fully, innocent mortal spirits with archdemons, and by the time the full plan had unfolded, the world would have changed its mind about me. The Church’s pillars knocked out from beneath it, the Pantheon’s lies held up to the light. And someone interfered.”

Her grip on Tellwyrn’s fingers tightened until their hands shook with the strain, but the elf didn’t so much as flinch. “Who?”

“Oh, who do you think?” she spat, finally releasing her. “I don’t know which of them did it, but I know it was more than one. To see through my fog of war, to alter those exquisitely designed spells so perfectly that neither my warlocks nor my demons, on either side of the dimensional barrier, saw anything… No one god could have done such a thing. If not the whole Pantheon in concert… Well. I will find out who it was. They will suffer unimaginably for this.”

“That kind of power and subtlety…” Tellwyrn shook her head. “An Elder could have done it unaided.”

Lily’s laugh dripped with scorn. “Oh, please. Scyllith is sealed away in her caverns, and if you’re going to try to pitch the idea that Naiya has decided to start taking an interest in divine politics now, after all this time…well, try harder.”

“I’m concerned by the lack of subtlety I see here,” Tellwyrn said. “You forget, I know your real face. It’s startling to see you wearing it openly. I’m playing a hunch, here, but would I be wrong in guessing that Sharidan would recognize that face, too? And then there’s your little trick outside my office. Writing messages on the wall really isn’t like you, Lil. You’re beginning to come unglued.”

“They killed. My. Children.” She didn’t raise her voice, but the lights in the room flickered, the temperature dropping a few degrees, and the entire building trembled faintly. The people around the room paused, looking up in alarm, the sounds of conversation and piano music faltering. Then Elilial’s aura reasserted itself and everyone present resumed not noticing that anything was or ever had been amiss. The goddess herself, however, met Tellwyrn’s eyes with a fierce glare. “All these years I’ve played the noble demon, never brought harm to their followers when I didn’t have to, never been more cruel in battle than I must. Even after everything they did to me. And now, they do this? No. I am done, Arachne. All these millennia I’ve wasted trying to win the point of principle when I should have just been destroying the bastards one by one. Well, lesson learned.”

“You know, one of the more reliable ways to outmaneuver someone smarter than yourself is to make them so angry they can’t think straight. I get excellent mileage out of that technique. Always have.” Tellwyrn’s eyes bored back into Lily’s, not giving an inch. “You are being played. What alarms me most is that you don’t even seem to see it. You’re better at this; this is your game, after all. You need to wake up before you’re goaded into making a mistake that will damn us all and the whole world with us, Lil.”

“Don’t talk to me about mistakes,” she snapped. “You really think I’m so dense I don’t see what’s happening here? I’m not about to go on a city-smashing rampage, that would be playing into the Pantheon’s hands. Those who think me less cunning because I’m angrier have made what will be their final and greatest mistake.”

“I’m not letting you wreck the world, Lil,” Tellwyrn said evenly. “I like the world. It’s where I keep most of my stuff.”

“You know very well I have no argument with you, Arachne, except when you stick yourself in where you don’t belong. Like this new idea you seem to have, that you’ve the right or the capacity to punish me for my transgressions.” A cold smile drifted across her face. “This is not a good idea, what with you having finally put down roots and all. Someone with as much to protect as you now have shouldn’t be shaking the coconut tree.”

Tellwyrn’s hand slapped down on the table. “I will tell you this once, and once only,” she hissed. “You do not come at me through my students. I’ve told you before, Lil, I don’t have an argument with you on principle. I’ll do what I think is best, but I am not your enemy. You mess with my kids, and that changes. Then it will be you and me, until only one of us is left. That is an oath. I don’t honestly know which of us would come out on top, but I do know the survivor would be reduced to almost nothing. And that is what will happen if you bring those students into this confict.”

Lily simply stared at her for a long moment, allowing naked surprise to show on her features. “My, my. You’re actually that confident you’re a match for me?”

“I don’t commonly go for the throat, with gods,” Tellwyrn said flatly. “Only twice. I won both times.”

Lily grinned. “I remember. The first, with my help.”

“And I couldn’t have done that without you,” she acknowledged, “nor you without me. You’re good, but you’re no Scyllith. Besides, that was then; this is now. I finished off Sorash without anybody’s help. And as I was recently telling my kids…” She raised an eyebrow, the faintest hint of an icy smile crossing her features. “When a god dies, all that power has to go somewhere.”

Lily regarded her thoughtfully. “Very well. You have my oath: I mean your students no harm and will do them none.”

Tellwyrn nodded, relaxing subtly. “Good. Then—”

“I have to tell you, Arachne, I’m rather offended that you thought I’d do such a thing in the first place. I was referring to the fact that you can’t just swagger through the world, not caring what it thinks of you anymore. Your University is an institution. You get away with so much because people aren’t willing to challenge you; you take advantage of so many systems and structures you’ve never bothered to appreciate. I wouldn’t need to do anything as barbaric as threaten your kids to rip the whole thing from under your feet. So let’s not start this, hmm? Just mind your business, Arachne. Raise up the next generation of heroes and villains and whatnots. By the time I’m done with my business, there’ll be plenty of work for them all.”

Tellwyrn rubbed her forefinger and thumb together as though fondling a coin. “Not good enough,” she said after a pause. “I’m serious, Lil. You doing your thing, as per your particular idiom, that doesn’t bother me. Frankly the world needs more people—and more gods—acting with care and a sense of balance. But I know the pain you’re in, and I see the slaughter behind your eyes. This is what brought me into this in the first place. That business, those poor girls you immolated: that’s not like you. You are making a mistake. You need to stop. Step back, see what’s happening and try something else.” She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Something that doesn’t result in a great doom, preferably.”

Lily shook her head. “It’s just too late, Arachne. Time was close to up before they committed their final sin. It’s been all I can do to re-work my strategies without my girls to count on. I will not be stopped now.”

They stared at each other, the silence stretching out between them.

The goddess was the first to look away. “How is she?” she asked quietly.

Tellwyrn slowly eased back in her chair, suddenly weary. “As well as I can say, considering how rarely she comes out? Actually, quite well. Teal is a good influence on her, I think.”

Lily nodded. “Teal Falconer is only of the most exceptional people of this or any age. I’ll never be able to fully repay her.”

“No, you really won’t. But you can start by not dragging her into a war between you and the gods.”

“That hasn’t ever been an option,” Lily said with a sigh. “All seven of them? Maneuvering just right, that would have been a movement. More than cults: social change on a vast scale. But just one? She’d only be a target. She’s fierce and durable, but the gods and their Church would find a way to put her down. No… Just…” She swallowed. “Just…please look after my girl, Arachne. She’s all that’s left. Let her sit this out.”

“You are talking about two women in one body, one an idealist and the other a nearly literal fireball. They won’t be sitting anything out.” Tellwyrn shook her head, smiling ruefully. “If I do my job right, though, they’ll be ready for whatever comes by the time it does.”

“Do that, then.”

“Lil.”

The goddess met her eyes, and Arachne reached out to briefly squeeze her hand again. “When you have calmed enough to consider it, remember what I said. You haven’t seen everything going on here. You’re not the only player with a stake in this game; someone is pulling your strings. If you continue to let them, you won’t have a prayer of winning.”

“It’s been a very, very long time since I had a prayer,” she replied with a smile. “I tend to win anyway. And perhaps, Arachne, it’s not only I who don’t know as much as I think. Hm?”

She stood, raised one eyebrow sardonically, then turned and sashayed away without another word.

“Well, I know that,” Tellwyrn grumbled at the empty table. “Otherwise why would I bother?”

 

“The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.”

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Gabriel was first off the caravan. He stumbled to his hands and knees, gasping. Juniper practically threw herself out of the car to his side, looking distressed.

“I’m sorry! I don’t think I can do anything for… I mean, injuries, that’s another—”

“Excuse me,” Shaeine said politely, stepping around her to kneel at his other side.

Gabe lifted his head, eyes widening as a silver glow lit up around her. “Wait,” he said hoarsely.

She placed a hand on his shoulder, and like a ripple in a pond, silver washed across him. Gabriel blinked twice in surprise, then slowly straightened up. “Oh…wow,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Wow. That’s amazing. Is that what divine healing always feels like?”

“I’m afraid I have no basis for comparison,” Shaeine said, straightening. “Are you well?”

“Mostly just embarrassed,” he admitted, accepting a hand from Juniper to get to his feet.

“That dovetails nicely with a little history lesson,” Tellwyrn remarked, stepping down from her own car. The rest of the students had already assembled on the Rail platform and were clustered around Gabriel. “The divine energy we know was created by the Pantheon when they first organized. It is, basically, the collected corpses of the previous generation of gods.”

Ruda wrinkled her nose. “Fucking gross.”

“Yes, well, the good stuff in life usually is,” said the Professor with a grin. “Gods are beings of unfathomable power. When they die, that energy has to go somewhere. It was, in part, by killing off the Elder Gods that the future Pantheon rose to godhood. There was more to it, but I really couldn’t tell you what. Apotheosis is not well understood.”

“Sounds like they might not want anybody to know how,” Gabriel suggested, “if it’d mean someone doing to them what they did to the Elders.”

“You are flirting with blasphemy,” Trissiny warned.

“He’s not wrong, though,” Tellwyrn said. “In fairness it should be acknowledged that the Elder Gods were nightmarish things. They brutalized the mortal inhabitants of the world; the Pantheon’s rebellion didn’t just happen on a whim, and it wasn’t about seizing power. The gods acted to free their people. Anyhow, once all this was done, they gathered up as much of the remaining free energy of the slain Elders as they could and created the wellspring of divine light we know today, establishing certain rules in the process. One of those, of course, is that the light burns demons and their kindred. This was just after Elilial had been expelled to Hell, and they had every reason to expect she’d be out for vengeance.”

“And Themynra isn’t part of the Pantheon,” Toby said, nodding at Shaeine.

“Just so,” Tellwyrn replied. “She is, in fact, the goddess of judgment. When you call on power from the Pantheon gods, there’s something rather mechanistic about it; the light does what it does according to its established nature. Shaeine’s method is different. She is inviting her goddess’s attention and intervention, which means that rather than a simple exercise of energy, Themynra is passing judgment upon the situation.”

Gabriel blinked, then wrapped his arms around himself. “That’s… A little creepy.”

“Oh, relax,” Tellwyrn said wryly, “you just got a free healing, didn’t you? Honestly, Mr. Arquin, I can’t imagine Themynra is impressed with your judgment, but that evidently doesn’t mean she thinks you deserve to suffer. Anybody who believes you are in any way evil is suffering from a severe case of narrow-mindedness.”

Ruda and Juniper looked at Trissiny; the others very pointedly did not. Trissiny drew in a deep breath and let it out through her teeth, but said nothing.

“Anyway!” Tellwyrn said brightly. “Welcome to Sarasio, kids. Let’s unload our junk, we don’t want to keep the caravan waiting.”

They drifted toward the baggage car, belatedly studying their new surroundings. The first and most immediate thing the students noticed was that they were not in Sarasio. The Rail platform stood alone on the prairie, with subtly rolling land dotted with a patchier, more uneven sort of tallgrass than grew around Last Rock dusting the area. To the west, the ground smoothed out into the Golden Sea, and there were other interesting features in the near distance. A forest grew about a mile to the east, and the road north led to a huddle of buildings beneath a drifting cloud of firewood smoke, evidently Sarasio itself.

The platform itself was severely run down compared to its counterpart in Last Rock. There was no ticket office to be seen, just the flat stone platform and a small wooden frame over which a canvas awning had been stretched as meager protection from the elements. The wood had been painted at one point—blue, to judge by the flecks that still remained. The awning had holes and had fallen entirely on one end, waving dolorously in the faint breeze. Old cans, broken glass, scraps of wood and other miscellaneous trash littered the ground.

“Suddenly I’m glad we packed light,” said Gabriel. “Damn, never thought I’d find myself missing Rafe and his pants of holding.”

“I’ll be sure to mention to Professor Rafe how eager you are to get into his pants,” Ruda said cheerily.

Gabriel sighed. “You just had to, didn’t you?”

“I really, really did.”

Trissiny hefted her own knapsack, hoisting it over one shoulder so it left her hands free, keeping an eye on their surroundings. They weren’t alone. Sitting around a small, weak campfire were three men in denim and flannel, with scuffed boots and ten-gallon hats that had clearly seen better days. Though they were just sitting, their postured hunched and uninterested, two were clutching wands and the third had a staff in his hands, and all three were staring fixedly at the group on the platform, unease written plain on their faces.

“What’s their story, I wonder,?” Toby murmured, glancing at them.

“Oh, they’re probably just waiting there to rob anybody fool enough to ride the Rails to Sarasio,” Tellwyrn said brightly, loud enough to be plainly audible. “Of course, they probably weren’t expecting a paladin, a dryad and a drow. If they knew how dangerous the rest of you were, they’d already be running.”

Apparently the three men thought this was good advice; she hadn’t even finished speaking before they bolted to their feet and set off for the town at a run.

“Hey!” Trissiny shouted, grasping her sword and taking a step after them.

“Leave it, Avelea,” said Tellwyrn.

“They were actually going to—”

“Leave it. That is an order.”

“This is my—”

“Young lady, you are going to drop this and accompany the rest of us into town. You can do this under your own power, or be levitated and pushed ahead with a stick. Go for whatever you think best serves Avei’s dignity; I assure you, I have no preference.”

“Y’know, Professor, you could really stand to work on your social skills,” Gabriel commented.

“All my skills are at precisely the level I require, boy. Ah, here’s our escort, splendid.”

Another figure was rapidly approaching from the direction of the forest, this one mounted. She was, it quickly became clear, an elf astride a silver unicorn. She was dressed somewhat like Professor Tellwyrn, with a leather vest over a blousy-sleeved green shirt and trousers, but while Tellwyrn tended to wear simple pieces in fine fabrics, this elf was the opposite; her pants were coarse leather, but they and the vest were decorated with bright embroidery, and her blouse had been tie-died in shades of green and brown that would have made it effective forest camouflage. She had a short staff slung in a holster on her back, its end poking up over her blonde hair, which was tied back with a green bandana.

Drawing up adjacent to the platform, the elf hopped nimbly down from her mount before it had even stopped moving, landing lightly among them. This close, the small but beautifully engraved tomahawk hanging at her belt was visible.

“There you are,” Tellwyrn said in a satisfied tone. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten.”

“No need to be insulting, Arachne,” the elf replied. “I try not to loiter close to humans obviously bent on mischief. I was watching for you.”

“Students, I’ll let you all introduce yourselves as the opportunity arises, but this is Robin. She’ll be escorting you into town, and hopefully helping us deal with the local tribe.”

“Deal with them how?” Ruda demanded. “What are we doing here?”

“All in good time,” Tellwyrn said, smiling with a hint of smugness. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go arrange quarters for us. You catch up at your own pace.” She vaulted neatly from the platform onto the unicorn’s back; the animal pranced nervously at the unfamiliar rider, but plunged into motion at the merest squeeze of her knees. It bounded away in a series of fluid horizontal leaps, like a deer, with Tellwyrn balanced skillfully on its back.

“Huh,” said Gabe. “For some reason it seems odd that she knows how to ride.”

“She knows how to do a great many things,” Robin said dryly.

“Not how to plan ahead, apparently,” Ruda grunted. “Who packs nine people off to a town without arranging things ahead of time?”

“Many of Professor Tellwyrn’s actions seem calculated to force us to adapt and learn,” Shaeine noted. “Perhaps this is more of the same.”

“That may be part of it,” Robin said, nodding, “but in any case it would have been hard for even her to make arrangements anyway. Communications in and out of Sarasio are difficult at the moment. I suspect that’s why you’ve come.”

“What’s going on in Sarasio?” Trissiny asked with a frown. On her Rail trip to the University, the Imperial Surveyor she’d met had indicated the town was a trouble spot. But that had been months ago; surely he’d been on the way there to deal with it?

“It’s a long story, which you’ll be told in due time,” Robin replied, hopping lightly down from the platform. “Come along, now, no need to dawdle. Arachne will have plenty of time to make arrangements without us dragging our feet.”

They followed her, picking up baggage as they went. Per Tellwyrn’s instructions, they had packed lightly, everyone carrying no more than basic toiletries and a change of clothes. Evidently this wasn’t expected to be a long trip. Still, that was more than they’d been allowed to bring into the Golden Sea, the aim of that excursion having been outdoor survival as much as anything.

“So, you’re a friend of Professor Tellwyrn’s?” Toby asked their guide, walking with her in the head of the group.

Robin was silent for a few moments before answering not taking her eyes from the town ahead. “To the extent that she has friends, yes, I would like to think that I am. Arachne is, as you have doubtless discovered, a person who goes her own way.”

“This one’s got a knack for understatement,” Ruda snorted.

“It is not something very widely discussed among elves. The individual is respected, of course, but our tribes live in harmony with one another and the world as a way of life. Persons who run out into the world to do their own thing are seen as…disruptive. Tauhanwe are not widely welcomed among most tribes. My acquaintance with Arachne is, at best, tolerated.”

“Ansheh used that word, too,” Teal said, frowning. “Remember, Rafe’s friend from the Golden Sea? I thought I’d heard wrong, though… It translates as something like ‘person who stirs a pot.’”

“Tauhanwe translates more directly as ‘adventurer,’ Robin said, turning her head to smile at Teal. “But you have a solid grasp of the etymology. You studied elvish in school?”

Teal shook her head. “One of my parents’ best friends is an elf. He sorta helped raise me, actually; they work a lot.”

Robin nodded. “To be quite precise, the ‘pot’ referred to is what you would call a chamber pot.”

For a moment, there was only the sound of their footsteps.

“Hold on,” Gabriel said. “So basically Tellwyrn is known among elves as a shit-stirrer? That may be the single most appropriate thing I’ve ever heard.”

Trissiny did not join in on the round of laughter that followed, frowning into the distance ahead. By Robin’s description, Principia would be tauhanwe, too. What did that make her? If anything…

“So how do you know Tellwyrn?” Ruda asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time!”

“Ruda,” Trissiny said patiently, “when someone tells you ‘it’s a long story,’ that usually means they don’t want to get into it.”

“Yeah? And when someone keeps picking it it, that usually means they wanna hear it anyway.”

“No harm meant,” Gabriel assured their guide somewhat hastily, though Robin seemed totally unperturbed. “It’s just hard not to be curious. For being such a straight-shooting in-your-face person, Tellwyrn is damn hard to figure out.”

“Oh?”

“It’s tempting to conclude that she is simply mentally unbalanced or obstreperous,” Trissiny said. “But then out of nowhere she’ll do something…oddly kind. Or perceptive.”

“Wait, what?” Ruda said, frowning. “What’s she done that’s kind or perceptive?”

“You’ll know it if you see one,” Gabriel replied, “which is kinda the point. She’s so…cranky most of the time, it takes you by surprise.”

“Don’t judge Arachne too harshly,” Robin said, still watching the town. The monotonous nature of the prairie made perspective tricky and distance hard to judge; they hadn’t covered more than half the path. The Rail platform was a long way from the town…why? The elf went on before Trissiny could start considering it in any detail, however. “She has always been somewhat difficult, but she is generally reasonable. And she is devoted to her students, in her own way. Keep in mind that she is grieving; that will explain much of her behavior.”

“What?” Juniper looked shocked. “Grieving who? What happened?”

“I tell you this because knowing will help you understand her,” Robin said, “but I don’t advise raising the subject with her. Arachne lost her husband a little over a century ago.”

Gabriel let out an explosive sound of surprise that started as a laugh and finished as a gasp in reverse. “What, a century? I dunno how much that excuses. I mean, sure, it’s very sad, but that’s plenty of time to get over it.”

Robin glanced over at him. “You must be Gabriel.”

He turned to watch her warily, the levity fading from his face. “Yeeeaah. That’s me. For some reason, I suddenly feel offended and I’m not sure why.”

“That’s the little voice inside your head that tells you when you’re being a fucking dumbass,” Ruda informed him. “You might try listening to it before talking, just for a change of pace.”

“How would you like it, Gabriel,” Robin went on calmly, “if I pointed out in conversation that you are a snub-eared land ape with the lifespan of a prairie dog?”

Gabe actually stopped walking, staring at her in shock. “Excuse me?”

“No?” Robin glanced back at him, but did not slow her pace, forcing him to start moving again or be left behind. “Then let us not pick at one another’s racial traits. In a group such as this, I would expect you to have learned that lesson long since.”

“He ain’t the quickest learner,” Ruda said with a grin, thumping Gabe with her elbow.

“What the hell are you even talking about?” Gabriel demanded.

“Immortality is not without its drawbacks,” she explained. “Humans do not live shorter lives so much as faster lives. You mature faster, and you heal faster, both physically and emotionally. For an elf, a papercut is an inconvenience for several weeks or months. A broken bone means a year at least of inaction. Luckily we do not cut or break as easily as you. To an elf, however, a heartbreak dominates the mind for longer than the average human lives. I assure you, to an elf, the loss of a mate a century ago is a very raw wound indeed. So have a little patience with Arachne. She lives with a great deal of pain, and yet devotes her energies to educating people who will likely be dead before she herself is fully healed.”

Nobody found anything to say to that, and they walked on in silence for a while. At least until the edges of the town drew closer, and they came within viewing range of Sarasio’s scrolltower. It was harder to spot than most of its kind because this one was horizontal.

The metal framework of the tower itself was in pieces, bent and snapped in multiple places, forming a ragged line between the shattered crystal orb that now lay on the prairie and the burned out husk of the office that had been at its foot. Only the two largest pieces of the orb remained; they were probably the only two pieces too big to carry away. The larger of the two would have been difficult to fit into a wagon. Scrolltower crystal wasn’t high quality and would degrade quickly once separated into bits, but it was still laden with potent magic. There was value in such things.

“What the hell…” Gabriel whispered, frowning.

“Welcome to Sarasio,” Robin said dryly. “Keep your eyes open and your wits about you; this is not a friendly place.”

She wasn’t kidding.

The town wasn’t as badly repaired as the Rail platform had been; obviously people lived here and took at least some care of their environs. Next to Last Rock, however, it was a shambles. A number of windows were boarded up, and nearly every building had some small touch that was in need of repair—peeling paint, broken gutters, missing shingles. The streets were dirt, and in awful repair, marred by deep wheel ruts and potholes, with a liberal spattering of animal droppings, which added unpleasantly to the sharp smell of wood smoke hanging in the air.

Worst, though, were the people.

The only individuals out on the street were men. None were well-dressed, and all were armed. Most could have done with a bath and a shave. It wasn’t their general scruffiness that made the group draw closer together, though, but their behavior. At this time of day, townsfolk should be working, or possibly socializing, depending on their jobs, but the men of Sarasio—at least, those currently visible—seemed totally idle. They lounged against storefronts on the mouths of alleys, faces blank and eyes narrowed, staring—in many cases, glaring—at the new arrivals. Far too many hands crept toward holstered wands.

“Good gods,” Gabriel murmured. “Professor Tellwyrn just ran this gauntlet. I wonder if she killed anybody.”

“The body would still be here if so,” Robin said quietly. “These people are not quick to care for each other. But this is more hostility than they usually show, even accounting for my presence. I suspect she did something.”

“Your presence?” Shaeine asked softly. She had put her hood up as they approached the town, despite the early hour and her shaded glasses, and now kept her hands tucked into her sleeves. Without skin or hair showing, her race was hidden, which was doubtless to the good.

“Elves are not well thought of in Sarasio at the moment,” Robin replied dryly.

“Here we go,” Toby muttered as a cluster of four stepped out of an alley ahead of them, pacing to the center of the street. Two more men crossed from the other side to join them, placing themselves in a staggered formation to bar the whole road. One stepped forward, his thumbs tucked into the front of his belt.

“Morning, gentlemen,” Toby said more loudly as their group came to a stop. “Something we can help you with?”

The man in the lead eyed him up and down once, then twisted his mouth contemptuously and spat to the side before addressing Robin. “Get on outta here, elfie. Your kind ain’t wanted.”

“I have a simple errand to run,” Robin replied calmly. “I’ll be on my way then.”

“You’ll be on your way now,” he snapped, then grinned unpleasantly and took another step forward. “’less you wanna make yourself useful, first. Only one use I can see for an elf bitch that don’t involve stringin’ them ears on a necklace.” He dragged his eyes slowly down Robin’s figure, smirking, while his companions grinned and snickered.

“Boy, it’s like they want to get smote,” Gabriel muttered. Indeed, Trissiny dropped her pack in the street and stalked forward, pushing past Toby, and stepped right up into the man’s face until her nose was inches from his. She was very nearly his height. He reared back slightly in surprise, but didn’t give ground or move his feet.

“Move,” she said simply, her voice deadly quiet.

“Yeah?” he drawled. “Or what? This ain’t no place for a Legionnaire, girl. Or didn’t your mama ever teach you not to bring a sword to a wandfight?”

Another round of guffaws followed this, instantly cut off as light erupted from Trissiny. The man in the lead threw a hand up to shield his eyes, staggering back; with his other, he yanked his wand from its holster, but not before Trissiny slammed her shield into his chest.

Reeling, he nonetheless managed to bring the wand up and fired a lightning bolt directly at her torso at point blank range.

Sparks flew from the sphere of golden energy that had formed around her; those standing closest felt their hair rise from the static electricity.

“What the f—” He got no further as Trissiny stepped calmly forward, reversed her grip on her sword and slammed the pommel into his solar plexus. The man crumpled to the street with a wheeze, and she stomped hard on his wand hand. He emitted a strangled sound that didn’t quite manage to be a scream, the breath having been driven from him. It wasn’t loud enough to cover the crack of breaking fingers.

Trissiny pointed her sword at his head, the blade burning gold. From the nimbus of light around her, golden eagle wings coalesced, flaring open in a display of Avei’s attention.

“Never point your wand at a paladin, fool,” she said coldly, then lifted her gaze to the nearest of his allies. “Does anyone else want to try me?”

They broke and ran, vanishing back into the alleys. All up and down the street, figures shifted backward, sliding into doors and alleyways or just folding themselves into shadowed corners. Within a minute, they had the street to themselves.

“That was overly dramatic,” Robin said, her neutral tone giving no indication what she thought of it. “You very likely just bought yourself another visit from this poor fool’s friends, when they think they have the advantage.”

“What will be, will be,” Trissiny said, removing her boot from the fallen man’s hand. He gasped, cradling his crushed fingers against his chest and scuttling backward away from him.

“We could offer him a healing,” Shaeine said.

“We could,” Trissiny said coldly, “but we won’t. Right?” She gave Toby a sharp look. He returned her gaze, then looked back at the man who had now scrambled to his feet and was fleeing to the nearest alley, leaving his wand lying in the street. Toby’s mouth drew into a thin line, his eyebrows lowering, but he only shook his head and said nothing. Trissiny felt a sharp pang, but dismissed it. She had her duty. The light faded from around her.

“Well,” Robin said with a shrug, “on we go, then.”

They made no further conversation until they reached their goal. Down a couple of side streets, they came to a fairly large building in somewhat better repair than most of Sarasio seemed to be. The wooden sign above its doors proclaimed it to be the Shady Lady in a curly font. Two large men wearing grim expressions flanked the doors, ostentatiously carrying wands. Unlike most of the town’s inhabitants, though, they were clean-shaven and well-dressed in neat suits. They looked over the group but made no move to challenge their approach.

“What’s this?” Juniper asked curiously. “What makes you think Tellwyrn is here?”

“There are exactly two places in Sarasio where a party of this size can find room and board,” Robin said. “The other is neither clean nor safe. The Shady Lady is not my kind of place, but it is, in a sense, an island in a sea of squalor. In we go.”

So saying, she hopped lightly up the steps and pushed through the swinging doors. The two guards watched her enter, then returned their stares to the students, but held their peace. One by one, the nine of them stepped inside.

True to Robin’s word, the interior of the Shady Lady was a sharp contrast to the rest of Sarasio. The wide-open main room soared two stories tall and was well-lit and spotlessly clean. The furnishings and décor were of good quality and showed understated good taste, running toward highly polished wood and fabrics in dark jewel tones, with subtle brass accents. It had clearly all been decorated with an eye to theme; everything matched. A spiral staircase led to a second-floor balcony; a grand piano sat in one corner, being played right now—the music wasn’t audible from the street, suggesting a sound-dampening enchantment on the building—and a heavy wooden bar lined one side of the room, behind which were a huge assortment of gleaming bottles. Most of the floor area was taken up by round tables encircled by chairs.

More startling, though, were the people present. There were three more burly guards in suits, as well as a man with a handlebar mustache behind the bar, presently polishing a glass mug; he looked up at them and smiled. A lean young man was playing the piano, his attention fully focused on the keys. Several of the tables were occupied by customers. Most of those present, though, were young women, and most were in nothing more than lingerie. Perched on the bar—and on the piano—seated with customers and laughing flirtatiously, leaning over the balcony rail, they had scattered themselves around the area like merchandise on a showroom floor.

“Um,” Gabriel said hesitantly. “…never mind.”

“No, go on,” Ruda insisted, grinning from ear to ear. “What’s on your mind, Gabe?”

“I said never mind. I’m following our advice, Ruda. The little voice is telling me I’m about to say something dumb.”

“Is it telling you to ask if we’re in a brothel?” she asked, her grin stretching till it looked almost painful. “’Cos if so, your timing sucks, as usual. You picked the one moment when you’d have been right to start keeping your mouth shut. Because we are, in fact, in a brothel.”

“How?” Teal demanded, then lowered her voice. “I mean… I know brothels exist, but how could somebody run one this big, and this…fancy?”

“Supply and demand,” Toby murmured. “Can you really see someone setting up a temple of Izara in this town?”

“Okay, that’s a point.”

“What’s a brothel?” Juniper asked curiously. Shaeine leaned in close and stood on her tiptoes to whisper in her ear. The dryad’s eyes widened. “You can sell that?!”

A hush descended on the room, all eyes shifting to the party at the door. Then the pianist resumed his piece, and others gradually went back to what they’d been doing.

Juniper, meanwhile, shook her head slowly. “Man, humans are bonkers.”

“When you’re right, you’re right,” Trissiny agreed.

“Um. Well, yes. When I’m right, I by definition am right. I’m not sure why that needs to be said.”

“It’s one of those figures of speech,” Fross told her.

“Oh.”

“Yoo hoo!” Professor Tellwyrn sang. She was seated at a large round table across the room with several other people, and now waved enthusiastically at them. “Over here, kids! Chop chop!”

They dutifully trooped over to join her, Robin falling to the rear as they crossed the room and arranged themselves in the empty space near her table.

Tellwyrn, uncharacteristically, seemed to have made friends. A teenage boy in an extremely well-tailored suit sat next to her. He looked a few years younger than the University students, certainly not old enough to be hanging out in a place like this. A deck of cards sat under his gently drumming fingers on the table; the huge piece of tigerseye set in his bolo tie flashed distractingly. He nodded politely to them at their approach.

On Tellwyrn’s other side, Trissiny was surprised to note, sat Heywood Paxton, the Imperial agent she had met and blessed several months ago on his way to Sarasio. He didn’t even look up, now, staring morosely at the center of the table, his mind clearly elsewhere. He had lost weight, and to judge by the bags under his eyes, sleep.

The fourth person present was seated with her back to them, but on their arrival she turned in her chair, draping her arm across the back to eye them over. She was a slim woman with a bronze complexion, with a long, sharp face that was subtly lovely though disqualified for true beauty by a slightly beakish nose. She wore a close-fitting red dress that showed a daring amount of cleavage, and had her black hair pinned up in an elaborate bun bedecked with scarlet feathers and rubies.

“Well, hello,” she purred. “So you’re Arachne’s students? What an absolute pleasure. You can call me Lily.”

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4 – 1

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The crow ruffled its feathers and shook itself, emitting a muted croak, but did not stir from its perch in the rafters. Just outside the awning, rain pattered down upon the streets of Tiraas, as rain so often did. It was a cool day, cooler than it had been recently, but not quite cold yet; not quite so bad that the oven and open lamps in the little pastry stand didn’t keep its inside comfortable, despite the fact that the entire front was open to the elements.

“Nice bird,” remarked the boy, peering up at it while rolling a coin across the backs of his knuckles. “Where’d you get something like that?”

“It’s not mine,” said the woman behind the counter. Her face was neutral, her tone polite—too neutral, too polite. They were alone in the stand at present, the rain not being conducive to much foot traffic in the market street, and the tension between them was almost tangible, for all that it ran one way. The young man seemed perfectly at ease. “I give it scraps sometimes and so far it hasn’t tried to steal any. I think it’s somebody’s pet, though. Doesn’t act like a wild crow.”

“You ought to do something about that, then,” he said lazily, then flapped a hand at the bird. “Shoo! Go on, you’re unsanitary!”

The crow hopped to one side, not even bothering to take wing, and tilted its head, watching him. With a shrug, he turned back to survey the hot pastries on display under the glass counter.

“Ah, the hell with it. Do something about it though. I don’t want to see that bird here next time I visit.”

“Anything for a customer,” she replied, her voice weighted with sarcasm.

He smirked. “A bit of an attitude today, eh? Just for that, I believe I’ll have a cream puff along with the meat pie. A little dessert’s just the thing to work off the hurt your sharp tongue has done to my feelings.”

“You know,” she said stiffly, not reaching into the pastry case yet, “I do have to make a living.”

“So do we all, cupcake,” he said, grinning. “A pastry now and then won’t bankrupt you.”

“One of my most expensive pastries every day, on the other hand…”

“Well, that’s what you get for overcharging,” he said glibly. “Chop chop, now. Some of us have better things to do with our time than loiter around a till all day.”

The crow emitted a loud, hoarse squawk, flapping its wings once without lifting off its perch. He half-turned to glance up at it in irritation, then started violently, catching a glimpse of the front of the stall. Two figures now stood there, silent as moonlight.

“Omnu’s breath,” he breathed, placing a hand over his chest, then grinned weakly. “You startled me, ladies.”

“Did we,” said the one on the left. They were elves, dressed in simple blouses and trousers of modest quality, damp with rain. Both stared at him with an utter lack of expression. His grin faltered.

“I… Eh, well, no harm done. I’ll be out of your way in just a moment, as soon as this slowpoke here hands over my breakfast.”

“Will you,” said the other tonelessly. As one, they stepped forward, twice. In the small space this placed them all in very cramped proximity. Ordinarily he’d have felt quite differently about being packed in so close with a pair of pretty, exotic young women, but there was a subtle threat in their cold demeanor.

“I think you can wait,” said the first, then looked past him to the woman behind the counter. “The usual, please, Denise.”

“Keep the change,” added the other, tossing something. Denise caught it awkwardly, clearly not used to such maneuvers, and then boggled down at the well-stuffed coin purse in her hand, its strings neatly sliced. She wasn’t the only one.

“I—wh—hey!” the young man exclaimed, more shocked than angry. “That’s mine!”

“Is it?” said the first elf mildly. “It appears to be hers, now.”

“Now listen here,” he said, outrage welling up on his features. “You don’t know what you’re meddling in, girls. I’m a member of the Thieves’ Guild!”

At that, they both grinned. Broadly. He flinched.

“Are you,” said the second elf.

“Whose apprentice?” added the first.

“W-what makes you think I’m an apprentice?” he stammered, trying to draw himself upright. The crow emitted a coarse chuckling noise, and he ruined the effect he was going for by flinching again.

“First,” said the second elf, “a full member of the Guild would know better than to abuse our privileges in the city. Shopkeepers toss us freebies because we deter pickpockets and cutpurses; a tidbit here and there costs them a lot less than a city full of ne’er-do-wells would. The system is there to benefit everyone. It is not carte blanche for you to walk all over people and do whatever the hell you please.”

“Second,” said the other, “a full member of the Guild would know better than to announce his membership, in public, to strangers.”

“Third…” The second elf leaned in close to him, her grin broadening to proportions that resembled that of a wolf. “A full member of the Guild who behaved this way would be dragged into the basement of the Guild headquarters and have things broken. Fingers, definitely. Possibly knees. You, clearly, are just some dumb kid who doesn’t yet understand how things work. They’ll probably be more gentle with you. Maybe.”

“I—I—I—”

“Fourth,” added the first elf in an especially silky tone, “and not to blow our own horns or anything, any active Guild member in this city would recognize Sweet’s apprentices. I’m told we’re sort of…distinctive.”

He swallowed, loudly.

“What’s your name?”

“Who’s your trainer?”

“I—I…” He gulped again, finding a small measure of courage. “I don’t know you two. How do I know you are…who you say? I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“We don’t have to ask nicely,” the woman on the right said, her expression growing grim.

Denise cleared her throat. “Um, could you please ask nicely? I really, really don’t need any trouble in my stall, Flora.”

“Of course, my apologies.” Flora nodded to her, then returned her stare to the boy. “It needn’t come to any rough stuff, anyhow. We can simply follow him.”

“Ever been stalked by elves?” the other one said lazily. “You’ve probably read stories about dramatic bison hunts. Bows, staves, unicorn charges, all that. That’s plains elves, though. We’re from a forest tribe.”

“It’s called tela’theshwa,” said Flora. “Persistence predation, according to the scholars who felt the need to name it in Tanglish. No violence at all. We just follow our prey, at a walk, until it drops dead from exhaustion. He’s a robust specimen, Fauna, but I bet he gets tired before we do.”

“You have to go home sometime,” Fauna told him in a singsong tone, grinning. “Us? We can go for days.”

“Weeks,” Flora corrected smugly. “We’re well-fed and well-rested.”

“Randal Wilcox,” he bleated. “I’m apprenticed to Grip!”

In unison, their eyebrows rose.

“You work under Grip,” Fauna said slowly, “and you do something like this?”

Flora shook her head. “Boy, you are almost too dumb to be alive.”

“He’d have been eaten by a cougar in the old country.”

“A cougar? Please, this numbnut would’ve been eaten by opossums.”

“Tell you what, Randy,” Fauna said. “Mind if I call you Randy? Swell. We’re heading back to the Guild ourselves, but not in any great hurry. We just stopped by for a bit of breakfast on the way.”

“I’m sure you noticed this stall is in a really convenient spot,” Flora added. “Nice place to grab a bite you can enjoy on a leisurely stroll.”

“It’ll take us a while to get there, is what we’re saying. Half an hour, maybe?”

“Eh, twenty minutes.”

“Aw, I wanted to feed the ducks!”

“I do not want to feed the ducks. It’s raining. The ducks are under shelter, like all sensible beings.”

“Spoilsport,” Fauna pouted. “Twenty minutes, then. That’s how long you’ve got to either get your ass back there, explain your fuck-up and hope Grip is in a reasonable mood for once… Or get out of Tiraas.”

“It’ll look better coming from you,” Flora added. “If they have to hear about this from us? Well, then Grip will be embarrassed on top of pissed off. Makes her look bad in front of Sweet. Rumor has it she gets really crabby when somebody makes her look bad.”

“Of course, if you—” Fauna broke off, dodging nimbly as Randal shoved past her and took off at a sprint.

“Heh.” Flora leaned out from under the awning to watch him go. “Wait for it, wait for…aw, he didn’t fall. Guess he knows where the slippery patch is.”

“I keep telling you, just because humans can’t see in the dark doesn’t mean they’re blind. Anyhow!” Fauna smiled winsomely at Denise. “Sorry about all that. Some people, right? I don’t mean to rush you, or anything…”

“Oh! Sorry.” Belatedly, the shopkeeper began loading a couple of meat pies into folds of waxed paper for easy carrying. “Got distracted by all the…well. Um, stop me if it’s not my business, but…what’s gonna happen to him?”

“Not sure.”

“Not really interested.”

“Not our problem.”

“I can tell you this much,” Fauna added. “If you ever see him in here again, it’ll be so he can deliver an apology, and possibly some monetary remuneration.”

“I wouldn’t make a claim like that against the Thieves’ Guild,” Denise said carefully, keeping her eyes on her hands as she folded the pies up neatly.

“Please,” Flora said earnestly, “make claims like that. That kind of crap makes us all look bad. The Guild doesn’t stand for it; we don’t pick on honest tradespeople who are just getting by. It’s bad for everyone’s business and bad for our rep.”

“I understand if you’re not comfortable going to the casino to talk to somebody,” Fauna said. “The Church is available for that, though. You can leave a message for Bishop Darling at the Cathedral; anybody ever hassles you like this again, do so and he’ll take care of it.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a bother,” she demurred, sliding their wrapped pies across the glass counter. “Here you go, girls.”

Flora caught her hand, gently, and held it until Denise looked up to meet her eyes. She was smiling, an authentically warm expression totally unlike the one she’d given Randal. “You’re safe with Guild members,” she said softly. “The only reason a Guild thief would harm you is if you’d done something to royally deserve it.”

“And, no offense, I have a hard time picturing you being so adventurous,” Fauna added, grinning.

“You’re even safer than most,” Flora said with a wink. “Because now we have something to prove to you.”

Denise gently pulled her hand back, managing a weak grin and an awkward little laugh. “Aha…well… Like I said… Yeah, you’re right, I’m not the pushy kind. I wouldn’t want to be a bother. I’ll tell you what, though, your next visit’s on the house.”

The crow chuckled softly to itself and finally took wing, flapping out into the rain.

“Nineteen,” said Archpope Justinian, “in the last month. I never held out much hope that Asherad’s murder would be an anomalous event; far too much effort had to have gone into it. In the lull that followed, though…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

The four Bishops assembled for his little cabal sat around the conference table in the Archpope’s private study, wearing grim expressions, as the subject deserved.

“I’d say we’re in the opposite of a lull now,” Basra said once it was clear the pontiff had finished speaking. “Four weeks of this is having what I’m sure was the intended effect. It’s getting harder and harder to get any kind of cooperation from individual cults that they don’t absolutely have to offer. They can tell which way the wind’s blowing.”

“And which way is that?” Darling asked. “I mean, what do the victims have in common? Is there a theme here? My Guild hasn’t lost anybody, but we’ve all but stopped operations in the city in the last week. The Boss thinks it’s too risky for any kind of cultist to be operating until something’s done.”

“There’s a theme,” Basra said, glancing at the Archpope. “It’s…sensitive. I’m sure you wouldn’t want—”

“The murdered all have two things in common,” Justinian said gravely. “First, they were individuals of such character that if the world knew what I know, there might not be so much an outcry at their deaths.”

“How can there be that many people like that among the cults of the Pantheon?” Branwen whispered, horrified.

“That many would have to just about cover it,” Darling ruminated. “There are rotten people everywhere, Bran, and not all gods are as compassionate as Izara. But…you’re not wrong, it strains credulity that every cult is so corrupt you can just walk in and kill somebody who deserves it. Which raises a whole host of other disturbing questions…”

“Indeed,” said the Archpope, nodding. “Which reflects upon the second point they had in common: each of these individuals was involved in a corrupt or shady program run by the Universal Church itself.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Such as?” Andros finally said, staring as sharply at the Archpope as he could probably get away with.

“I’ll make full documentation available to each of you if you request it,” said Justinian, folding his hands on the table before him. “However, before we delve into such details, let me pose a question. This is in line with your inquiry, Antonio. How much longer can this go on? Someone is clearly making a considerable effort to clean house. How much more cleaning, in your estimation, is required?”

“Corruption is a hard thing to pin down across different religions,” Basra said after a pause. “Antonio’s people do things as a matter of doctrinal obligation that’d get anyone thrown out of my Sisterhood.”

“And vice versa,” Darling said wryly. “In fact, we could go clockwise around the table and talk about how everybody’s faith is a tangle of depravity from the perspective of somebody else’s, so let’s take it as given and…not. I think that’s dodging the issue, though. Or, your Holiness, are these people really being targeted over doctrinal issues?”

“I can unequivocally say that they are not,” Justinian said solemnly. “The four slain this week included a known pedophile, and two individuals involved in a Church-run operation which has been financing actual witch hunts along the frontier.”

“People still do that?” Branwen said, aghast.

“In that case,” Andros growled, “perhaps this killer is doing us a favor.”

“Oh, please,” said Basra dismissively. “Making the bad people go away is a child’s solution to improving the world. You can’t fix societal problems through assassination.”

“Besides,” Darling added, “it’s fairly obvious that the thrust of this is to create a stir, not just to get rid of the individuals who’ve been…gotten rid of. A wedge is being driven between the Church and its member cults. I can’t imagine that’s anything but intentional, if not the entire point.”

“And,” said Justinian, nodding, “it carries an additional message to us, who know the secrets of those being targeted. Our foe knows these secrets too, and has the power to penetrate our defenses.”

“The Wreath,” Branwen murmured.

“It almost has to be,” Basra agreed, “but…how? Why now?”

“Why now seems obvious enough,” said Darling. “We just escalated the conflict with them considerably. Specifically those of us sitting in this room.”

“Okay, fine, but that leaves the bigger question,” she said impatiently. “How? If the Wreath had the capacity to do things like this, they’d have been doing them. For a very long time. What’s changed?”

“We changed the rules of the engagement,” said Andros. “It would be poor strategy for them to accept battle on our terms. They are altering the conditions in turn, forcing us to act on theirs.”

“Again,” Basra exclaimed, “how? We can talk whys and wherefores until we’re all blue in the face, but the hard truth is that somebody is slipping through the sturdiest magical defenses in existence and slaughtering people who should be powerful enough to prevent this from happening to them. That should be our biggest concern!”

“The issue,” said Justinian firmly, drawing their attention back to him, “is that in previous times, our engagements with the Wreath have always been that: with the Wreath. They’ve employed outside agents throughout their history when it served their ends, usually as a method of preserving their anonymity, but the actual campaigns of the cult itself have been carried out by Elilinist warlocks. Those are methodologies with stark limitations, which are very familiar to us. What has changed is that they are sending someone else, now. Consider what a temple’s defenses are meant to ward off. Could any of your strongholds deter, say, an Imperial strike team, with professional fighters wielding multiple systems of magic?”

“Most of mine could,” Basra said with a hint of smugness, then added somewhat ungraciously, “probably several of Andros’s, too.”

“But most temples in general, no,” said Branwen. “That being the case…why are we certain that the Wreath is behind this at all?”

Justinian spread his hands in a shrug. “Who else?”

“This was all kicked off by Elilial opening a new project,” Darling said, frowning thoughtfully into the distance. “We may have accelerated her timetable somewhat, but we shouldn’t rule out that some or all of this was planned from the beginning.”

“Just so,” said the Archpope, “and it is for that reason that we are going to continue to let it happen, for now.”

“Excuse me?” Basra said shrilly.

“Andros has raised a couple of extremely pertinent points,” Justinian went on, his calm a stark contrast to her agitation. “Whatever the additional effects, our house is being cleaned, and I would be dissembling if I did not acknowledge some relief. I inherited a huge bureaucracy in this Church, my friends, and some of my predecessors were… Well. Suffice it to say that the Throne does not hold a monopoly on political ruthlessness. Our enemy is hurting us, yes, but they are also destroying dead weight and counterproductive elements, not to mention relieving us of a moral burden by excising corruption. There is an incidental benefit to us in this.”

“You can’t be suggesting we don’t do something to deal with this,” Darling protested, then added belatedly, “your Holiness.”

“Indeed I am not, which brings me to Andros’s other point. The rules have been changed on us. I intend to change them again. The Wreath is managing to strike at our strength without engaging us directly; we shall do likewise. To that end, my friends, the time has come for us to put an end to the Age of Adventures.”

There was silence in the room. The Bishops glanced around the table at each other, avoiding the Archpope’s eyes.

“What, nothing?” Justinian actually grinned. “Antonio? Basra? Someone give us the obligatory witticism.”

“That seems a little…belated, your Holiness,” Basra said carefully.

“Quite so.” The Archpope rested his hands flat on the table and leaned forward at them, his face now focused and stern again. “And that makes this project doubly important. Recently, Antonio, your cult was peripherally involved in an engagement with Arachne Tellwyrn which was disrupted by one Longshot McGraw, is that not so?”

“It is,” Darling said slowly.

“McGraw and his ilk, which includes Tellwyrn herself, are the last fading echoes of a long dead era,” Justinian went on. “Civilization as it stands now is not tolerant of people who choose ‘adventuring’ as a career. Those who do so successfully manage because of the degree of their skill. They are, simply put, so dangerous that it is not worthwhile trying to rein them in, so long as they do not cause problems on a massive scale.”

“If you hope to exterminate free spirits,” Andros rumbled, “you will be frustrated.”

“You are quite correct, my friend, we shall always have such characters with us. But there are more of them now in the world than the world needs, and this is the resource the Wreath has leveraged against us.”

“You think this is being done by adventurers?” Basra exclaimed.

“Those who are actually good at that sort of work don’t call themselves such,” Justinian replied. “But…yes. Powerful, dangerous people who make their way in life by wielding that power. The Age of Adventures is long over. We don’t need them in the world anymore. Now, it seems some have allowed themselves to be used against the Universal Church. We will deal with this, solve a societal problem, and deprive the Black Wreath of the resource it is using to terrorize us.”

“The Wreath is a difficult foe precisely because they’re hard to pin down,” Darling said, frowning. “But at least they’re an organization. Adventurers…even the really dangerous ones…are barely even a community. It’s not like we can just round them up.”

“I was hardly suggesting a pogrom, nor would I if such a thing were feasible. Which, as you have rightly pointed out, it is not. We must act carefully. I am not jumping to conclusions, here, my friends; it is based on solid information that I believe the Wreath is contracting exceptional professional individuals to attack our cults. We will do two things: in the broader and longer term, change the environment of the city such that any such people will work at our behest or not at all. And, more immediately, we will identify the perpetrators of these crimes specifically and deal with them.”

“Splendid,” Basra said, smiling. Andros nodded sharply in agreement.

“That’ll stop this from happening, all right,” Darling said. “Assuming was can pull it off. And what then?”

“Basra was correct in that eliminating problematic people is a partial solution at best. I think, perhaps, we can find a better use for our enemies than the Black Wreath can. It certainly will be safest, I believe, not to approach them…confrontationally.”

He met the Archpope’s eyes, nodding slowly in acquiescence, the thoughtful frown on his own face unfeigned. Justinian’s visage was calm, open; his eyes were unthreatening, but glittered with intelligence. They revealed no hint at how much he knew.

“Man…I do not wanna ride this thing,” Gabriel groaned.

“Ask me how much I care what you want,” Tellwyrn said breezily. She turned to stare at him, planting her hands on her hips, and grinned. “Go on, ask. It’ll be funny.”

“Is it absolutely necessary for you to be a jerk?”

“In the long run, Mr. Arquin, you’ll find that few things are truly necessary or in any way meaningful. In the shorter term, I find being a jerk is often an effective way of accomplishing my goals. Now hop to, time and the Imperial Rails wait for no one!”

So saying, she clambered into the lead car of the Rail caravan waiting for them on Last Rock’s platform. Gabriel grumbled under his breath, but went to help Toby and Ruda finish stowing their baggage in the cargo car at the rear.

Trissiny drew in a deep breath, looking with some trepidation at the assembled caravan. Her own journey along the Rails was a vivid and uncomfortable memory. They had three cars to themselves, which was a little bit excessive with only nine people (one of whom was a pixie), but condensing their party into two would have been cramped indeed—and a cramped party on the Rails was a bad idea.

“I can’t decide if this’ll be better or worse than our last excursion,” Teal murmured, standing just behind Trissiny with Shaeine. “I mean…we’re going someplace civilized instead of into the wilderness…”

“Yeah, I’m worried about that, too,” Juniper admitted, chewing her lower lip. “In the wilderness you know what to expect. There are rules. Civilized people might up and do anything at all. But hey, we won’t be alone! We’ve got a teacher with us.”

“That, I believe, is Teal’s other concern,” Shaeine said, glancing at Teal with a raised eyebrow. The bard grinned back at her.

“You know me so well.”

“Well, anything’s bound to be better than Rafe,” Trissiny said grimly. “And Tellwyrn…isn’t without redeeming qualities.”

“Aww,” came Professor Tellwyrn’s voice from the open hatch of the lead car. “Dear diary!”

Trissiny sighed, gritting her teeth.

“Welp, that’s about all the procrastination we can squeeze into this,” Gabriel said, dusting off his hands as he rejoined them. “Everything packed away and nothing left to stop us from hopping into this demented death machine on our way to Sarasio. Wherever the fuck that is.”

“It’s a frontier town,” said Teal, “not so much like Last Rock and more like the ones you read about in cowboy novels. Cattle raids, attacks by tribes of wild elves, wandfights in the streets. All that good stuff.”

Gabe snorted. “And she expects us to what? Burn it to the ground?”

“I suspect we will learn her intentions in due time,” Shaeine said evenly. “Considering how much of our final grades are resting on the outcome of this expedition, I do not imagine it will be anything so…simple.”

“Not that we’d burn down a town anyway,” Toby said firmly.

“Of course.”

“All right,” said Trissiny, “given the makeup of our group, I think we should split up healers. Juniper, Shaeine and Gabriel should ride together; their healing won’t hurt him if he gets hurt, and they can heal each other or themselves.”

“I won’t get hurt anyway,” Gabriel grumbled. “I’ll just get motion sickness so bad I wish I was dead.”

Trissiny glanced at him, then at Shaeine, then at Teal. “Teal, you should go with that group. You’re also pretty durable…”

“Pretty much indestructible, actually.”

“…but if the unforseeable should happen, you’ll still be with the healers who won’t hurt Vadrieny by using their magic.”

“Sounds good!” Teal said with a broad grin, edging closer to Shaeine. “Shall we then?”

“That was nicely handled,” Toby murmured to her as the four of them trooped into the middle car and began ducking inside, one at a time. Even lowering his voice he was well within Shaeine’s earshot; the significant look he gave her and Teal was the only hint to Trissiny of what he really meant. She met his smile with a wink.

“Strategic planning isn’t new to me.”

“Aw, you mean you didn’t set this up just for more quality time with me, roomie?” Ruda said, grinning. “I’m hurt. Really, I might cry.”

“Eh, that’s kind of reaching,” Trissiny said. “You’re not at your most cutting this early in the morning, are you?”

“Oh, you are asking for it, kid,” the pirate shot back, but she was still grinning. “Welp, we’re the last ones out. C’mon, Fross, let’s grab a seat.”

“I don’t really need a seat,” the pixie said, fluttering along obediently behind her. “I’ve never ridden in one of these before, though! I’m very curious!”

“Me either. I bet it’s gonna suck!”

Trissiny smiled at Toby. “Well, then. Onward to glory.”

He laughed, and her smile broadened. His laugh did that to her.

Alone in the lead car, Tellwyrn was smiling, too. Fortunately none of them could see it.

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3 – 7

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There were fourteen persons in the current sophomore class, and most days on which classes were held, the majority of them arrived early enough to have breakfast in the dining hall. So did the seniors, Toby and Gabriel and the three soldiers. The junior class rarely showed, nor did the girls of Clarke Tower. The freshman girls usually awoke to a fresh breakfast prepared by Janis. What arrangement the juniors had, Trissiny had never inquired; student housing on the campus was apparently somewhat idiosyncratic.

She replied to Toby’s welcoming smile with a nod, but didn’t pause as she passed his table, heading straight for the sophomores.

They were grouped around two tables, one circular and one rectangular, and her target sat at the latter. By happenstance or design the ten students seated there had arranged themselves with the girls on one side and boys on the other, and it was the girls who had a view of the door and the approaching paladin. Two of them, whom Trissiny didn’t know, watched her warily, but November gave her a brilliant smile, Hildred a cheerful wave, and Natchua narrowed her eyes.

Most of the boys she didn’t know either—Tanq apparently hadn’t come to breakfast this morning—but several turned to see who was approaching, including Chase and Jerome.

Chase, exhibiting a typical lack of self-awareness, grinned broadly at her. “Well! The prodigal paladin. I hope you enjoyed your little jaunt, kiddo. Tellwyrn’s gonna scrub out her sink with your scalp.”

Jerome was watching her with more appropriate wariness. Trissiny came to a stop by their table, pulled a libram from her largest belt pouch and carefully extracted the envelope that had been tucked into its cover for safekeeping. She held this out to Jerome.

“This is for you,” she said, “from your father.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. Across the table, Hildred covered her mouth with a hand, eyes wide; Natchua actually grinned faintly. “Why,” Jerome asked in a tightly controlled voice, “do you have a letter from my father?”

“I expect the contents will explain that,” she replied calmly, still holding it out. After staring at her for a long moment, he finally reached out and took it.

Not waiting to see any further reactions, Trissiny turned and left the dining hall.

 

“Hello, Trissiny.”

“Oh! Hi, Shaeine,” she replied, somewhat startled at being approached. She had been lost in her thoughts. It had been a mostly average morning with a few moments of tension, such as when Tellwyrn opened history class by giving her a blistering look. But no one had asked prying questions and even Tellwyrn hadn’t said anything further. Trissiny didn’t doubt for a moment that retribution for flouting the campus rules was coming; in fact, she was starting to wonder if stretching out the anticipation like this was part of the punishment. That would be exactly like Tellwyrn.

Now, in the lull between Intro to Magic and their lunch period, Shaeine had caught up with her on a winding path which Trissiny had selected specifically because it was a long route to nowhere and gave her time to think.

“Was your mission successful?” the drow inquired politely.

“Partially,” she said. “I had an unexpected interruption, and… I’m sort of stymied on half of what I set out to accomplish. But I did get some of it done.”

“I am glad to hear that much, at least.” Shaiene produced a small rectangular box from within the folds of her robe. “I have something for you.”

“For me?” Nonplussed, Trissiny accepted the box and lifted its lid. Nestled within was a folding knife. A remarkably thick one. “My goodness,” she said, carefully extracting it. “How many blades does this have?”

“Two, of different sizes. Most of those attachments are tools of various kinds. It has tweezers, bottle and can openers, scissors, a magnifying lens and several other items whose purpose I do not understand. Apparently these are manufactured in the dwarven kingdoms, and becoming quite popular among gnomish adventurers. You like useful things; I saw this in a shop in town and thought it would suit you well.”

“That’s…incredibly thoughtful,” Trissiny said, raising her eyes from the utility knife to Shaeine’s serene face. “You really shouldn’t have. How much do I owe you?”

Shaeine raised her eyebrows a fraction of an inch, then smiled faintly, permitting a touch of ruefulness into her expression. “Ah…forgive me, I failed to express myself clearly. That is a gift.”

“It is?” Trissiny’s response might have been less than polite, but she was startled. “Why? What’s the occasion?”

Shaeine glanced to the side for a moment as if marshaling her thoughts. “I must ask your pardon if I trespass upon a sensitive subject; I assure you it is inadvertent, if so. I know you have had a stressful time recently.”

“You…could say that.”

She nodded. “I have observed that Imperial customs favor feasting, gatherings of loved ones and gift-giving on celebratory occasions, and largely symbolic gestures and platitudes when someone has been hurt. Among my people, it is much the opposite. A friend’s most troubled moments are seen as the appropriate time to remind them that they are valued. And kind words do only so much.”

“I see,” she said slowly, feeling a smile stretch unbidden across her face. “Thank you.” Her voice was soft, but full of feeling.

Shaeine nodded at her, and for once that polite little smile of hers didn’t seem standoffish. “Perhaps it is a failure on my part to adapt to local customs, but I cannot help feeling that in this instance, the Narisian way is the wiser.”

“I’d never thought about it, but now that you bring it up I think you have a point.” Trissiny turned the knife over in her hand silently for a moment. “Is it… Are you badly stressed by how things are up here? You left the party so early, I was concerned.”

The drow tilted her head, considering, and began moving at a slow pace; Trissiny fell into step beside her. “I would not claim that my culture shock is worse than yours,” she said at last, “but the particular nature of it may impact me more directly. Among my people, reserve is cultivated from early childhood primarily as a measure of respect for others. We live in very close quarters, and it can be stressful indeed to cope with the feelings of everyone around you, constantly pressed in upon your awareness. In Tar’naris, emotional openness is practiced between family members and occasionally other intimates. Among friends, colleagues and particularly strangers, we seek not to impose the weight of our feelings on others.”

“I see,” she said. That actually explained quite a bit.

Shaeine nodded. “Everything is so much louder and more open here; even still, I find myself constantly startled by the frankness of those around me. Yet, there is much more space in which we can spread out, so the pressure is mitigated somewhat. That party, though… It was an enclosed space filled with loud talk, laughter and a general…letting go of inhibitions. The proximity to so much feeling began very quickly to be an almost tangible pressure to me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said automatically.

“Please do not be, you’ve done no wrong. Nor did anyone else there. I suppose I am rather a poor diplomat, to be coming to terms with this culture so slowly.”

“I wouldn’t dismiss yourself that easily,” Trissiny protested. “It’s only been a couple of months. You’re already the most even-natured and understanding person I know.”

“I appreciate that very much.”

“So…are you empathic, then? Is that typical for drow?”

“No more than the average person anywhere, I suspect,” she said with a smile. “Merely unaccustomed to certain kinds of emotional expression. And, more to the point, certain volumes thereof.”

Trissiny nodded slowly. “With everything I learn about Narisian culture, I feel like I understand you a little better and Natchua a little less.”

“I have had the converse experience. With exposure to Imperial life, I am constantly gaining insights into my own culture that reflect its imperfections. Yet, I feel I’m developing an understanding of my cousin that I initially lacked.”

“You made it sound as if all the fuss and prattle up here was almost painful for drow.”

“I would draw a distinction between Narisians and drow in general. The Scyllithene drow are far more aggressive than any human I have ever met. As for pain…” She tilted her head, mulling. “Perhaps…in the way that slipping into a very cold pool is uncomfortable at first. Very quickly, it becomes bracing. At home I would never dream of revealing every thought or feeling that passed across my mind; it would be the height of disrespect to those around me, making them deal with my emotions on top of their own. But here, where everyone does exactly that and is accustomed to coping with it, where I might relax myself with the assurance that it is harming no one to do so… Well, I have begun to understand why Natchua has so fervently embraced Imperial life.”

“Yet you don’t, and she does.”

“Because I am more than my own desires. I am a representative of Tar’naris and House Awarrion; my conduct reflects upon my mother, my people and my queen. I would not dream of disappointing them. Besides, even as I grow to recognize that my culture has its flaws, it remains mine, the way of life in which I am invested. I feel no desire to show a lack of respect for it.”

Trissiny nodded. “I’ve been feeling much the same, in some ways. Strangely liberated, yet…focused.”

“Oh?” Shaeine raised an eyebrow.

To her own surprise, Trissiny laughed softly. “I’m half elf. Who would have thought it?”

“I suspected; you have the aspect, and it has been my impression that a typical human even in excellent shape would balk and running down and up the mountain stairs in full armor every morning. I saw neither opportunity nor reason to broach the subject, though.”

“Yes, a lot of things are suddenly making sense to me in hindsight. And at first I was… Scared, and upset, because it felt like I no longer knew who I was. But… I’ve come to see that as a blessing.”

Shaeine was silent as they walked, her head slightly tilted toward Trissiny to show her attention. After a moment spent gathering her thoughts, the paladin continued.

“Ever since Avei called me, I’ve felt the weight of expectations. It was like I couldn’t afford to be flawed any more. Everything I did reflected upon her, and the thought of letting her down was just…unbearable.”

“I doubt Avei would call any mortal to her service if she expected flawlessness.”

“Which I can understand intellectually,” she said, nodding, “but feeling it was a different matter. It doesn’t even make sense, really. This revelation has no bearing at all on my calling, but it’s somehow freeing. I’m not that girl I thought I was. I’ve been so wrong about something so pivotal, it’s like I’ve rediscovered the prerogative to be wrong. And,” she added, wincing, “in hindsight I keep finding things I’ve been wrong about, that I wouldn’t back down from because to retreat, any retreat, felt like failing my goddess.”

“Perhaps you should not discount the chance that she has had a hand in events,” Shaeine suggested. “It may be that this is her way of opening your mind.”

“That has occurred to me. Of course, it’s not the kind of thing you can up and ask a deity. They don’t generally seem inclined to explain themselves.”

“I have noticed that,” Shaeine said dryly.

“Trissiny!”

Trissiny managed not to wince at being called. November Stark was approaching them rapidly, wearing a bright smile. “Hi, November. Have a good weekend?”

“Hail and well met, Hand of Avei!” To Trissiny’s horror, she stopped and dropped to one knee, bowing her head. “I pray your mission met with success!”

“Please don’t do that!” Trissiny said in alarm, resisting the urge to grab the girl and drag her upright. “We don’t kneel. A Sister would salute a superior officer, but even the High Commander doesn’t get more than that.”

“Oh…ah, of course.” November bounced back upright, raised a hand and then let it hang in midair as if uncertain what to do with it. “Um, how do… I mean, what’s the proper way…”

“You don’t,” Trissiny said firmly. “You’re not a Legionnaire or even in the Sisterhood. Lay Avenists don’t owe me anything but basic courtesy.”

“That can’t be!” November insisted, staring ardently at her. “You’re the Hand of Avei, the chosen representative of our goddess on this world. Surely some show of respect—”

“Courtesy,” she interrupted, “is plenty of respect. Avenists don’t grovel or subjugate themselves. Even the goddess doesn’t demand that. Really, November, you’re overthinking it. Just be yourself.”

“I can do that,” she said, nodding eagerly, and Trissiny held back a sigh.

The Sisters of Avei prized discipline, order and clear thinking above mysticism and blind faith. These were the priorities their goddess encouraged. As a result, the cult didn’t tend to attract fanatics, and Trissiny had rarely met any. Mother Narny had told her that such women nearly always came from a background of some kind of abuse and desperately needed something to believe in. As such, she remained as patient and positive as she could with November, no matter how uncomfortable the girl made her.

“November, have you met Shaeine?” she said, seizing upon a distraction. “Shaeine nur Ashaele d’zin Awarrion, this is November Stark.”

“Pleasure,” November said distractedly, barely glancing at the drow before returning her gaze to Trissiny. There was an almost worshipful light in her eyes that the paladin found unsettling.

“The honor is mine,” Shaeine replied politely, despite the fact the person to whom she was being introduced was no longer paying her any mind, then she, too, returned her attention to Trissiny. “I must say that surprised me. I do not recall introducing myself by Narisian honorifics on this campus.”

“I looked it up,” she explained a little self-consciously. “It’s seemed to me you don’t get as much respect around here as you deserve… And maybe I still feel a little guilty about almost drawing steel on you when we first met.”

“I see,” the drow said quietly, then gave Trissiny one of those rare smiles that had real feeling behind it. “That was extremely thoughtful. You even got it right. I have been incorrectly addressed by members of the Imperial diplomatic corps on multiple occasions.”

“Oh, good, I was worried about that. I did my best, but you guys have a lot of honorifics and I’m none too sure I understand the hierarchies they all apply to.”

“Trissiny’s very considerate,” November said somewhat loudly. She was looking at Shaeine now, and her expression held tension verging on hostility. “You should see her in our divinity class.”

Trissiny was trying to recall what she’d done in divinity class that was particularly considerate when she was addressed by someone else to whom she really did not want to talk.

“Hey, Trissiny!” Gabriel called, strolling over to them. “Hi, Shaeine. Ms. Stark, good to see you,” he added almost deferentially, actually bowing his head. Despite herself, Trissiny felt amusement bubbling up. He really didn’t want to provoke November, and she couldn’t say he was wrong in that. It raised the question of what he wanted to urgently that he was willing to risk it.

“Gabriel,” she said calmly in unison with Shaeine’s greeting. November just stared at him through narrowed eyes.

“Sorry to bother you, I won’t be long,” he said almost hurriedly, “but this is the first time I’ve caught you since Friday, and I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“Well, y’know that fighting practice you do with Teal and Ruda in the mornings?”

“Yes, I know it,” she said carefully. “How do you?”

“It’s…sort of interesting to the gossip mill around here,” he said with a wince. “I was just wondering, I mean… If it’s a girls only thing, that’s fine, I won’t bother you, I know how it is with Avenists sometimes. But if not, would you mind if I tagged along?”

“You?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Why?”

“Well, in case you haven’t noticed in class…and I’m pretty sure you have…I kind of suck at fighting,” he said, grinning ruefully. “And you’re the best one in the class. If you’re teaching people anyway… I mean, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d really like to benefit from your experience.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment, and he actually took a step back.

“Hey, if not, that’s fine, I don’t want to be a bother. It was just a—”

“You’re coaching other students in hand-to-hand combat?” November burst out, her eyes practically shining.

Trissiny pressed down a sudden urge to slug Gabriel on general principles.

“YOU!” Jerome roared, stalking toward her from the bend in the path up ahead. In his fist was clutched a crumpled sheet of paper.

“You are extremely popular of late,” Shaeine commented quietly.

“This one, at least, I was expecting,” Trissiny replied in the same soft tone. That was all she managed before Jerome stomped right up to her, brandishing the letter.

“You fucking bitch, you got me disinherited!”

“Uh…not your best approach, man,” Gabriel said carefully.

“I think you will find,” Trissiny replied calmly, “you got yourself disinherited. The matter is probably explained in some detail in that missive.”

“Because of you!” he snarled, wagging the crumpled letter in her face so rapidly she wouldn’t have had a chance of reading it, even had she been so inclined. “If you hadn’t stuck your fucking nose in—”

“How dare you!” November shot back, matching his tone for ferocity. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?!”

“November, I can handle this,” Trissiny said firmly, stepping to one side to place herself between the two sophomores.

“Oh, yeah, you just love handling things,” Jerome raged. “Are you fucking happy now? Does this make you feel powerful, you fucking cunt?”

Gabriel winced. “Oh, Jerry…no.”

“Your parents were absolutely crushed when I spoke to them,” Trissiny said, holding tightly to her calm. “Devastated to learn you had attempted to force yourself on a female classmate, and humiliated at having to hear about it from me.”

“You—”

“What they were not,” she went on loudly, “was surprised. They have a portrait of you in their formal parlor, Jerome. Hunting trophies displayed with your name on them. I could see touches of you all over the house; it wasn’t the home of heartless people who would cast aside their son at the first report of wrongdoing on his part. This has been building for some time, hasn’t it? I wonder what else you’ve done that has been a disappointment to your House?”

“How dare you—”

“You will note that you are, as of receipt of this letter, disinherited. Not disowned. It seems to me your family is leaving open the door for you to redeem yourself. There is no time like the present to start.”

He gaped at her, fishlike, opening and closing his mouth, before finding words. They came out in a strangled screech. “Do you have any idea who I am?!”

“You’re some guy,” Trissiny said evenly, “without the backing of a powerful House, who is getting aggressive with the Hand of Avei. Tell me, in what scenario does this end well for you?”

Jerome glared at her, quivering with impotent rage. Finally he stuffed the letter into his pocket and spat, “Whore,” before turning to stomp away.

“The boy just doesn’t learn,” Gabriel said wonderingly.

“Gabriel.” She turned to face him, and he actually shied back from her. “I’m sorry.”

Gabe blinked twice, then glance at Shaeine and November, as if for clarification, before returning his attention to Trissiny. “I, uh… You what, now?”

“For my role in our altercation,” she said. “I acted wrongly, and owe you an apology.”

“Oh. That.” He managed a weak grin, waving her off. “Well, I pretty much started the whole stupid thing, so…”

“Yes, you did,” she agreed, nodding, “but I escalated it to violence. That was both foolish and morally wrong. So, I am sorry. Especially for that, and also for being so stubborn. I should have apologized weeks ago.”

“Water under the bridge.” He seemed to have regained some of his equanimity. “I’ll forget about it if you will.”

“I’d like that.” She managed a smile.

“That’s so kind of you,” November whispered in something like awe.

Trissiny was spared having to reply to that by the arrival of Professor Tellwyrn out of thin air with a soft pop.

“Ah, there you are,” she said grimly. “My office, Trissiny.”

“Right,” she said resignedly. “Let me just—”

“I was informing you, not instructing you.” There came a second pop and she vanished, this time taking Trissiny with her.

 

She reappeared in the familiar office, off to one side of the room. Chase and Jerome were already present, the latter looking shocked as well as furious; they had evidently been collected as abruptly as Trissiny. Chase, as usual, seemed delightedly intrigued, as if everything going on had been arranged for his amusement.

Tellwyrn seated herself behind her desk, folded her hands on top of it, and glared at them over her spectacles.

“Well. What a busy weekend we’ve all had.”

“Best kind!” Chase said brightly.

“Shut up. I’ve held off dealing with this to find out what Miss Avelea was up to in Tiraas. Yes, Trissiny, I know where you were, and you’d better believe I could have retrieved you, had I been so inclined. I determined this was not necessary, and indeed things have played out in…a marginally satisfactory fashion. Jerome is already somewhat chastened, in a fashion I find rather satisfying. That was impressively quick research, by the way. How did you manage it in the course of one weekend?”

“The Nemitite clerics in Tiraas seemed quite eager to be of service. It appears there are Imperial records on everything. The bureaucracy is daunting, but professional guidance gets one through it quite quickly.”

“Then I’m sure you discovered that no one cares enough about the doings or fate of Chase Masterson to take an interest in the matter.” Across the room, Chase grinned brightly at them. “I wonder, how did your meeting with the Shaathist monastery in which he was raised go?”

“I didn’t bother,” Trissiny admitted. “Shaathists would be as likely to greet me with arrows as agree to a meeting, and anyway, the Huntsman who filed Chase’s final reports quite specifically indicated their order had no further interest in him.” She glanced coolly over at Chase, earning another grin in reply.

Tellwyrn shook her head. “In one respect, I find I’m rather proud of you. Rather than going for your sword, you found a pretty graceful way to dispense justice.”

“Thank you,” Trissiny said.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Tellwyrn said grimly. “You are still in trouble.”

“I assumed as much.”

“Good, then you’re doing better than these two.” The Professor shifted her stare to the boys. “As I see it, we have two big problems here: First and foremost, you don’t seem to grasp the seriousness of what you’ve done. As a disturbing bonus, you don’t understand the stupidity of it.”

“What we did?!” Jerome burst out. “We were just flirting with the dryad, there’s no need for—”

“I WILL INFORM YOU WHEN YOU MAY SPEAK.”

Tellwyrn’s voice filled the room so thoroughly the framed pictures on the walls rattled. She had to have been using magic. For a moment, she allowed silence to reign, then continued.

“To begin with, you will both research and present to me five-page annotated papers on the known habits of dryads. By the end of this, you will at the very least understand how close you came on Friday night to an exceedingly grisly fate. That leaves the first and greater of my concerns: your disdain for the severity of this offense. Boys… It’s not just Avenists who get excited when you press your attentions on a woman who has indicated she doesn’t want them. That doesn’t go over well anywhere. I want you to consider that there were over a dozen elves in that building, all of whom could hear very well what was happening on the balcony, and every one of them—yours truly included—decided to let you antagonize the dryad and get reduced to a pile of giblets.”

“Giblets?” Chase said in a fascinated tone. “Juniper? You’re joking.”

“I think you’ll find your assigned research very enlightening. Back to the point, I’m in the position of almost regretting the responsibility I have for your welfare. When I find men acting this way at large in the world, I generally just teleport their skeletons three feet to the left and have done with it. Here…it seems I’ll have to find a better way to deal with you. Something…educational.”

She opened a drawer in her desk, reached in and pulled out a handful of glass vials, each stoppered and containing a murky purple liquid. Tellwyrn tossed one of these to Chase; he caught it reflexively.

“What’s all this, then?”

“Impotence.”

Chase jerked his gaze up to hers from his perusal of the tiny vial. “Um. Pardon?”

“You heard me,” Tellwyrn said with a hint of grim amusement. “That is an alchemical treatment which will, for a time, deny you the use of the organ which you’ve been allowing to make some of your decisions recently. It’s my hope that a month or so spent like that will give some of the blood time to redirect itself to your brain. You will report to Professor Rafe every evening immediately following your last class for your treatment until I say otherwise. Both of you.” She tossed another to Jerome, whose face had lapsed into morose sullenness.

For just a moment, Chase stared at her with something very like rage, before marshaling his expression so completely it almost seemed as if it had never been anything but affably unconcerned. “I see. That’s actually kind of clever. And, just hypothetically, if we…decline to drink this vial of voodoo?”

“Then I’ll have to find a less sophisticated way of punishing you,” Tellwyrn said sweetly. “Making use of whatever resources are available. And oh, look! I have a Hand of Avei right here. You can deal with me, boys, or you can deal with her.”

Chase glanced quickly back and forth between them, then actually chuckled. “Well then! I find this a poetic and very appropriate resolution to this little misunderstanding, and look forward to being properly chastened. Bottoms up!” He plucked the cork from the vial and swiftly drank down its contents, then raised his eyes in surprise. “Mm…not bad. Blackberry!”

“It’s flavored?!” Tellwyrn burst out before catching herself, then removing her spectacles to pinch at the bridge of her nose. “…Admestus. All right, you too, Lord Conover.”

Jerome looked for a moment as if he might try an outright rebellion right there in the office, but then his shoulders slumped defeatedly. Without a word, he uncorked and drank his vial.

“And that just leaves you, Avelea. I trust you understand why you are facing disciplinary action?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Trissiny said crisply. “Leaving the vicinity of Last Rock without permission is prohibited. I apologize for disrespecting your rules, Professor. It was a matter of my calling.”

“Well, you’ve got half of it. The other, and perhaps greater issue, is that you usurped my authority. I make the rules on this campus, Trissiny, and I enforce them. I may, as in cases exactly like this one, sometimes ask your assistance in dealing with certain matters, but that is up to my discretion. You do not take it upon yourself to deal out punishments for infractions of my rules at my University.” Her green eyes bored into Trissiny’s, their expression relentless. “I don’t care what is at stake or whose Hand you are. On this campus, I am god.”

A crack of thunder struck so close that the whole room rattled; all three of those standing before the desk jumped violently in startlement, then gaped at the windows behind Tellwyrn, which had the curtains drawn back to show a stunning view of the cloudless blue sky over the Golden Sea.

Professor Tellwyrn’s left eye twitched slightly. She tore off her glasses and tossed them down on the desk so hard they bounced, then stood, turned, opened the window, leaned out so far that her whole upper body was suspended over the drop down the cliff, and roared at the empty sky.

“YOU HEARD ME!”

Thunder rumbled again, much more distantly.

Growling, Tellwyrn ducked back in and slammed the window shut hard enough to rattle the panes. “Nosy bastards. Gods are like police: never at hand when you need one and knee-deep in your business the rest of the time. Anyway, Trissiny, you will report to Stew every night for a week for your disciplinary action. He will direct you to dig a hole deep enough for you to stand in.”

Trissiny frowned. “And then?”

“And then, fill it in.”

“…I don’t understand.”

“I’m not an idiot, Trissiny. The purpose of your dish washing sessions with Mr. Arquin was to force you into his company in the hope that you would find an accommodation. It was a less cordial one than I was going for, but peaceable enough. It was not lost on Mrs. Oak or myself that you enjoyed the work. Hell, being raised as you were, I’m sure you get a lot of satisfaction from contributing to the upkeep of whatever place shelters you. So yes, I’m well aware that giving you the kind of busy work that would infuriate your roommate is the opposite of punishment. Thus, you will wear yourself out performing humiliating, counterproductive and generally useless tasks until I’m satisfied the memory will flash across your mind any time in the future that you feel an urge to stick your nose into my running of this University. Does that explain matters?”

“Perfectly,” Trissiny said rigidly.

“I’m so glad.” Tellwyrn gave them all an unpleasant smile. “Unless there are any questions…? No? Good. That being the case, everyone knows their assignments. Get lost, all of you.”

“Say, Professor,” Chase said with an ingratiating grin, “if it’s not too much trouble, how about sending us out the way we came in? I was right in the middle of—”

“OUT!”

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“This is long overdue,” Ruda said firmly. “We owe a debt, and circumstances being as they are, it’s one we may never be able to repay. At the very least, we can offer our respects, and I say there’s no better time. A libation for the dead!” She upended her bottle of ale, pouring a generous slosh onto the floorboards, then lifted it high. “And honor to a memory. TO HORSEBUTT!”

“To Horsebutt!” the rest of the freshman class chorused, raising their glasses. With one exception.

“To Heshenaad,” Gabriel said, wincing.

“Aw, look at the froshes belatedly celebrating their victory,” Chase crooned from around the card table on the other side of the room.

“Everybody’s celebrating,” Hildred said. “Don’t be an ass. You remember the aftermath of our first excursion into the Golden Sea? It’s worth savoring, let them have it.”

“Not as well as I remember the adventure itself!” he proclaimed, grinning. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” said Natchua. “My favorite part was when you tried to sell me to those witches.”

“Are you still on about that? They weren’t buying, and anyway, it was obviously a ruse on my part.”

“Did they really find the tomb of Heshenaad the Enemy?” Hildred asked, tilting her head to regard the freshman class, who were arranged on a couch and set of loveseats flanking a low table. “Damn, that’s not half bad. Makes Connor’s magic sword seem like chump change.”

“She’s right! We’ve been shown up!” Chase nodded seriously, shuffling the cards. “Looks like we better find ourselves a new round of heroics! Hm, but if it’s extracurricular we’ll have to fund it ourselves. Anybody know what the going rate for a surly drow is on the black market?”

“Boy, do you know how many ways I could hurt you?”

“Promises, promises!”

The music building formed a U-shaped open space on three sides of the main auditorium. Balconies ringed the upper floor, leaving most of the space open for two stories up, with a dangling chandelier of crystal beads occupying the large, formal foyer inside the front doors. There in the front it was all decorative statuary and small potted trees, the chandelier hanging directly from a domed skylight, though the same open chamber became more intimate, furnished with a scattering of chairs and sofas, in the two wings. It was large enough to host a gathering of this size, all one room yet affording a semblance of privacy to those who sought it, and the balconies above made an excellent perch from which one could keep watch on the area.

Professor Tellwyrn idly swirled her glass of punch in one hand, seemingly studying the chandelier with a vague smile, but listening to conversations from throughout the space. She had the central stretch of balcony to herself, for the moment. The acoustics of the building were carefully designed; even someone without the benefit of elven hearing might have been able to keep an ear on the whole place from this perch.

Professors Yornhaldt and Rafe approached, her, the latter swigging a clear liquid from an unmarked glass bottle. Surely not vodka; he knew better.

“Anything of interest?” Alaric asked in the basso rumble that was his version of a whisper.

“Plenty, but nothing I feel the need to intervene in. Two hearts being broken and a couple more due to fall before the night is out. Several ill-conceived pranks being planned, most of which I will allow to unfold, but I am not going to permit the girls of Isaac Gallery to summon an incubus. I know you can hear me, Cailwyn. Tell your roommates to put that book back and drop this foolishness before I have to make them. All and all, lads, it’s a nice little party. Not often we encourage the whole student body to assemble, and it’s always a pleasure when it doesn’t devolve into gladiatorial matches.”

“Or an orgy,” Yornhaldt said, grimacing.

“Oh, come on, that was one time.”

“And there was no end of fuss and complaints from the parents, as I recall.”

“As I recall, there was an end once I taught a couple of them the meaning of Suffering. Anyway, we’re not going to have a repeat of the incident with this group. This, as I say, is a much better party.”

“Bah!” said Rafe, grinning and gesticulating with his bottle. “A party has drinking, dancing and debauchery! This is, at best, a social.”

Tellwyrn glanced at the bottle, noting the way the liquid within flowed slowly, clearly thicker than alcohol. “Admestus, what are you drinking?”

“Corn syrup! We got the most marvelous fresh elven corn from the Sea, and I do hate to waste good reagents.”

Yornhaldt shook his head and sighed.

“What in the world is wrong with you?” Tellwyrn demanded.

“Corn syrup deficiency! Don’t worry, I’ve got it under control.”

“Right. You do that.” She stepped past him, heading for the stairs. “I’m going to go terrorize people.”

“Mind if I join you?” Hildred asked, strolling up to the freshman alcove.

“Hey, Hil,” said Gabe, waving at her. “Sure, pull up a…” He glanced around at the fully occupied couches. “Um. Lap?”

“Oh ho! Are you volunteering?” she grinned.

“No distractions,” Fross said severely. “You’re helping me draw, remember? I can’t exactly handle a pencil. I mean, I can, but that’s using a modified levitation spell and while I got course credit for designing it there’s a lot of really fine control involved and it tires me out. Also, this is your project too!”

“Easy, Fross, I’m not abandoning you,” Gabe said with a grin, tapping the diagram sketched on a sheaf of parchment on the low table. “These equations are a bit over my head, though. Just tell me what to write down when you figure it out.”

“I’m working on it!”

“What’re you two up to?” Hildred asked with interest, perching on the arm of the loveseat next to Gabe.

“Oh, Fross had an idea after we covered the Circle of Interaction in Yornhaldt’s class. We’re pretty much just goofing around, but as the only two arcane majors here, it seems like nobody else is interested enough to join in.”

“You’re studying the arcane, then?” she asked.

“Enchanting, is the plan. But it’ll be next year before they let me take courses in it. Lots of ground work to cover first, apparently. Fross is doing a more general course of study.”

“I’m a wizard!”

“And a damn good one!” he said, grinning.

“So I’ve gotta ask,” the dwarf said, placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning subtly against him. “Did you guys really find the tomb of Horsebutt the Enemy?”

“Rafe thinks it was,” Trissiny replied. She was standing at the other end of the long sofa, next to Toby, who was perched on the end seat. “It could have been, though without any actual writing it’s hard to say for sure.”

“I’m pretty certain,” Teal said from the loveseat opposite Gabe and Hildred. “It was definitely a Stalweiss warlord’s tomb, and come on, how many of those would be out in the Golden Sea? I took a good look at the tomb paintings, and they seemed to depict a lot of the same scenes as we know of from history. Of course, that stretch of history is murky, and when you’ve seen one Stalweiss battle painting, you’ve sort of seen them all.”

“That’s pretty amazing,” Hildred said, squeezing his shoulder. “You’ll have to tell me all about it sometime.”

“Well, history isn’t really my thing,” he said, glancing up at her with a grin. “Teal can tell you a lot more than I can. Or Rafe, and we all know how he loves to hear himself talk.”

“Right. Yeah, maybe I’ll look into that,” she said disinterestedly, turning her gaze to the diagram over which Fross was hovering, chiming quietly to herself. Across the way, Teal exchanged a look with Shaeine, who was sitting beside her, and rolled her eyes, repressing a grin.

“I know going into the Golden Sea looking for specific things is pretty much a waste of time,” Ruda said, “but I’d still like to visit again. It doesn’t feel right, the way we left it. You shouldn’t disturb a warrior’s final rest.”

“You are really fixated on that,” Trissiny noted.

“It’s called respect, blondie. Look into it.”

“If only you showed the same regard for the floors in here,” Hildred said, grinning. “I just about slipped in your patch of rum.”

“That’s ale. Come on, what kind of dwarf are you?”

“The kind who doesn’t drink off the floor, you hooligan,” she replied, matching Ruda’s easy smile. “I feel sorry for Stew, having to clean up after all this.”

“I don’t. He enjoys a challenge, he told me himself. Also, whether he does or not, I don’t much care. The guy made me mulch flower beds.”

“Oh? What’d you do to deserve that?”

“She attacked Trissiny with a sword!” Fross said helpfully. Hildred raised an eyebrow, looking over at the paladin.

“Really? I don’t recall you looking any the worse for wear.”

“Imagine that,” Trissiny said dryly.

Ruda scowled. “All that’s beside the point. I’m a pirate, dammit! If I’m mulching anything that doesn’t involve the body of an enemy, a great travesty has occurred.”

“So!” Hildred turned her attention back to Gabriel, leaning more heavily on him to peer at Fross’s diagram. “What’s all this then? How’s it work?”

“It won’t work.”

In unison, they started and swiveled their head to look at Professor Tellwyrn, who had ambled up and was peering down at the parchment, idly swirling a glass of punch.

“You’re trying to design an amulet to cycle powers around the Circle of Interaction, right? Transmute one into the next around the ring so you can turn an enemy’s spell against him in the form of whatever he’s weakest against?”

“That’s the general idea,” Fross said, sounding a little put out. “Why won’t it work?”

“In the first place, that kind of power transmutation has to be done mentally, not with an artifact or static system. They’ve made amazing strides in enchantment in my lifetime; someday we may well be able to transmute forms of energy with static enchantments, but nobody is anywhere near that point now.”

“Oh,” said the pixie, crestfallen. “Well… We’ve still got the basic equations sketched out, maybe if we formulate it into a ritual circle…”

“In the second place,” Tellwyrn went on lightly, “you’ve misunderstood the method of converting power. You’re not actually changing one kind of energy into another; you’re draining energy out of a spell and using that raw, unformed energy to power one of a different school. They don’t alter around the circle, it’s more that they prey on each other.”

“…oh.”

“And if you somehow got past those two fundamental reasons why this won’t work, there are practical considerations, too. The power loss is fairly significant in most cases, and it grows exponentially if you try to cycle energy between spell networks. If you hypothetically made this work, by the time you got three points around the circle your power would be down to effectively nothing. Plus, there’s still the fact that you’d need to personally be able to use all those schools of magic to do it, and battlemages of any type don’t try that as it precludes carrying magical objects or prepared spells; shifting schools messes those up something awful. That, and re-working a spell takes time. It’s rarely done in combat, and then only if you have a way to keep your enemy from reacting during a long casting.”

“Aw.” Fross drifted slowly down like a falling leaf, coming to rest atop her diagram. Gabe sighed and set the pencil down alongside her.

“Well, that’s that, then. Sorry, Fross. It sounded like a good idea to me.”

“No, no, this is good work,” Tellwyrn said, with an easygoing smile that was so unlike her usual predatory grin it was downright disturbing. “You’re thinking ahead of what you’ve been told, applying things in unconventional ways, doing your own research and working outside of class. This is perfect, kids; this is what makes for good students, not to mention good mages. Just have a sense of proportion, hey? What you were trying to design would have revolutionized the practice of magic. Generally speaking, if you were the kind of savants who could come up with something like that in their first weeks of formal schooling, you’d have seen signs of it before now.”

“Wait a sec,” said Gabriel, frowning up at her. “Hold that thought, I have an important question. Where’d you get fizzy punch?”

Tellwyrn chuckled and flicked a finger in his direction. The red liquid in his glass began to bubble cheerfully.

“Oh.” He blinked down at it. “Uh, thanks.”

“Keep it up, kids,” she said cheerfully, strolling off. “Enjoy the party.”

Hildred and the freshmen watched her go in momentary silence.

“Okay, that was weird,” Ruda said finally. “She was acting like a… Like a person. Think somebody murdered Tellwyrn and is walking around wearing her skin?”

“Um, that’s not as easy to do as it sounds,” Juniper said. “Believe me, we’d notice.”

A second silence descended, everyone turning to look at her.

“What?” she said, then her eyes widened. “Oh! No, I didn’t… I’ve never done that. Good grief, no, what a mess.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Ruda said as some of the tension went out of the group.

“One of my sisters tried it like four times, though. Every time woodcutters came too close to our grove. I mean, get a hint, right? I’m pretty sure she was just being ghoulish by the third time. She can’t have been that dumb.”

“Anyway,” Gabriel said loudly, “Tellwyrn has her good points. Nobody’s all asshole, all the time.”

“She has at least some capacity for kindness,” Trissiny agreed. “More than you might think.”

“Also, she can still hear us,” Toby noted. “Those ears aren’t for decoration.”

“I’m a little surprise to hear that from you, Shiny Boots,” Ruda said, grinning at Trissiny. “Gabe, not so much, especially when he watches her butt all the way out—”

“What?” Gabriel exclaimed, almost choking on the last of his newly fizzy punch. “I wasn’t! I wouldn’t! I don’t… Damn it, I go for curvy girls! Um,” he added weakly, glancing quickly around the group. Ruda’s grin took on fiendish proportions as he tried to extricate himself. “Not that, I mean… You’re all very pretty. All due respect. Um.”

“I don’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved,” Trissiny said, arching an eyebrow.

“I appreciate your respect, Gabriel,” Shaeine said in such a tone of overwrought solemnity that Teal burst out laughing.

“Welp, that’s it for me tonight,” he said resignedly. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’ll just go die in a hole now.”

“Wait, what?” Fross buzzed about in alarm. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting just at little?!”

“Hyperbole, Fross. Remember? We talked about this.”

“Oh. Right. Yes.”

“Look on the bright side,” Hildred said cheerfully, “at least November wasn’t in earshot of that one!” Gabriel groaned, covering his face with a hand.

Teal frowned. “Who?”

“She’s in my divinity class,” Trissiny said, then frowned down at empty space next to the table. “An Avenist. Very…devout.”

“That’s one word for it,” Hildred said merrily. “Makes our paladin here look like a tavern wench.”

“I’m not sure I appreciate the comparison.”

“Oh, lighten up for once in your life, it’s a fucking party,” Ruda said. “I haven’t met this November, either. You already got on her bad side, Gabe?”

“I’m not on any of her sides,” he said firmly. “I stay away from her. Gods in kilts, Ruda, I’m not dense enough to mess around with an oversensitive Avenist. I manage to piss Trissiny off just by being in the room.”

“The fact that you think it’s that arbitrary is possibly why it keeps happening,” Trissiny noted.

“Come on, now, it’s a little arbitrary,” said Ruda. “Yeah, Gabe likes to stick his foot in his mouth, but sometimes I think you get even madder at him when he’s trying to be nice.”

“Maybe he should stop trying, then.”

“I believe they’ve forgotten I’m here,” Gabriel said to Hildred. “Think I could sneak away?”

“I’d offer to smuggle you out under my skirt, but I don’t come much higher than your chest standing up.”

“Well, it was worth a thought.”

“Might be worth a second thought, eh?” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “What with you liking curvy girls and all.”

“Yup. It’s official, I am never gonna live that down.”

“Aw, there are worse things,” she replied, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m not holding anything against you. Unless you ask me to, of course.”

“You’re a pal, Hil,” he said, then bent to pick up his empty glass from the table and stood, gently disentangling himself from her. “I’m gonna go grab some more punch. Anybody else want any?” A round of negatives answered this. “Cheers, then,” he said, ambling off.

Hildred stared after him, then turned to the others, wide-eyed. “He…that… I just got turned down, right? The boy can’t possibly be that thick.”

“You underestimate Gabriel,” Trissiny said dryly.

“Oh, he’ll realize what just happened sometime tomorrow,” Toby said, grinning. “Then he’ll come groveling. You can probably get major concessions out of it if you’re still interested.”

Shaeine stood smoothly. “If you will all pardon me, I believe I will return to the tower.”

“Not havin’ fun?” Ruda asked.

“On the contrary, I have enjoyed the conversation,” the drow replied with one of her polite little smiles. “However, I am accustomed to a much more…low-key form of socialization. Entertaining as this event is, it is somewhat emotionally taxing. I mean no offense.”

“None is taken, Shaeine,” Trissiny said with a smile. “We’re always glad to hang out with you, but please don’t feel obligated if you’re tired.”

“Thank you,” Shaeine replied, bowing slightly in her direction.

Teal cleared her throat, getting to her feet. “I’m a little worn out, too. If you’re not, uh, too overtaxed, would you mind some company walking back?”

“Not at all, that would be most agreeable,” the drow said politely. “Secure as the campus reputedly is, I always feel safer in company.”

“Great! After you, then, m’lady.”

“Good evening, all,” Shaeine said to the others, receiving a wave of farewells in reply.

Ruda managed to wait until they were fully out of the building before commenting. “Man, those two need to hurry the hell up. The suspense is drivin’ me nuts.”

“Wait, what?” Trissiny frowned at her.

Ruda gave her an incredulous look, which slowly blossomed into a sly grin. “…nevermind, Trissiny. I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Having slipped away during the conversation, Juniper loitered on one of the small balconies off the side wing. She had shut the glass door behind her, muting the sounds of the party in progress, and was enjoying the relative quiet. Climbing roses covered the side of the building, where subtle trellises had been laid against the stone to give the support, and the dryad leaned herself against one of these, savoring the smell of the flowers and leaves, the subtle prickle of thorns against her skin, the communion with the earth provided by the plants. They hadn’t a very interesting story to tell; they were young, and domesticated. But all life was beautiful.

It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy her new life at the University, but it didn’t afford her as many opportunities to enjoy the quiet and just…commune.

The balcony door swung open and Chase popped through, grinning. “Hey there! I thought I saw you head out here. Cuddling with the flowers?”

“Hi, Chase,” she said cheerfully, then added to the two boys who followed him onto the balcony. “Hi, guys! You got tired of the noise, too?”

“Eh, noise, crowds, you know, it’s all very oppressive,” said Jerome, a junior, dragging his gaze slowly up and down her and lingering on her chest. Juniper smiled in response, enjoying the attention.

“Evenin’, Juno,” said Tanq, nodding politely and leaning against the door after pulling it shut. She noted that he had loosened the interior curtains first, hiding them from the view of those inside. “This a bad time?”

“Nonsense, there are no bad times!” Chase proclaimed, sidling up to Juniper and wrapping his arms around her, nuzzling at her hair. “It’s just not our kind of party, is all. You know me, I prefer to be knee-deep in trouble.”

“I know you,” she said dryly, snaking an arm around to pat him on the back, “and you’re more interested in being penis-deep in me.”

“Alas, my clever ruse is uncovered!” he said, pecking her lightly on the lips. “Well, it was a thin one, anyway. At least now we can get down to the fun part.”

“You know how we treasure every moment of your company,” Jerome added smoothly, easing up to her other side while Tanq approached from the front. “It’s not just that so few women anywhere have a shred of your beauty.”

“Aw, thanks!”

“It’s also that even fewer women enjoy a good three-on-one like you,” Chase murmured, ducking his head to lick the side of her neck.

“You guys are really sweet,” she said, gently pushing him away. “I had a lot of fun the last time. I’m just not in the mood right now, sorry. Another time?”

“Aw,” Tanq made a try of pouting at her, his grin spoiling it. “Well, no worries, June. You enjoy the flowers.” He stepped back, reaching for the door handle.

“Now, don’t be silly, my little blossom,” Chase said reprovingly, pulling her close again while Jerome wrapped arms around her from the other side. “Mood is a fickle thing, no? I bet we can improve yours pretty quickly.”

Both boys bent their heads to nuzzle at her neck from both sides, hands stroking her waist, but she frowned. “Um…no thanks, I’m pretty much in charge of my own moods.”

“Be fair,” Jerome wheedled, nipping at her ear. “Give us a bit to work.”

“Um, could you not?” she said, beginning to be annoyed. “Personal space, please.”

“Guys.” Tanq was frowning heavily now, his expression as much disbelieving as disapproving. “She doesn’t want to. That’s it, end of. It’s not a discussion.”

“Oh, she doesn’t know what she wants,” Chase said dismissively, slipping a hand between Juniper’s legs and trying to tug her thighs apart. “She’ll change her tune soon enough.”

“Excuse me?” she said incredulously. “That’s enough. Please let go of me.”

“She’s a dryad,” Jerome said, grinning over his shoulder at Tanq. “They don’t get to say no.”

“Something tells me that’s the least of the things you don’t know about dryads,” Juniper said.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Tanq stepped forward, glaring. “You two need to start thinking with your heads. She asked you to leave her alone.”

“It’s true, I read it in a book once,” said Chase, sliding around Juniper and trying to lift her up off the bannister. He might as well have tried to uproot a tree with his bare hands. “They’re always willing, it’s in their blood. She just needs a little reminder, don’t you, baby?” He squeezed her breast, none too gently. Jerome began tugging down her sundress in the back.

Juniper looked at one of them, then the other. Her previously cheerful expression had fully vanished.

“Juno,” Tanq said frantically, “easy. Jerome’s a noble, there’ll be hell to pay if he turns up dead. Goddammit, you two, get off her! You have no idea what you’re screwing around with!”

“Tanq, what are you going on about?” Jerome said irritably, glancing up at him. “If you’re not gonna join in, go away.”

Juniper took in a deep breath, raised her head and shouted at the top of her lungs.

“TRISSINY!”

“Oh, shit,” Chase hissed, instantly letting go of her and tossing himself backward off the balcony. It was only a very short drop into the bushes; Jerome landed right beside him and they made a terrific crashing and crunching as they struggled loose, then bolted off around the side of the building.

“Gods, Juno, are you okay?” Tanq asked, looking rattled. “I’m sorry, I should’ve just punched the morons instead of talking at them… You all right? I didn’t seriously think they’d… I’m so sorry.”

“Tanq, I’m fine,” she said, tilting her head in puzzlement. “What are you sorry about? You were perfectly nice.”

“I’m just… Those two assholes, I’m gonna bend them in half.”

The balcony door burst open and Trissiny stepped through, peering about with her hand on her sword. “What is it? Juniper, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” the dryad said cheerily. “I’m sorry to take you away from the party! It was a false alarm, I guess.”

“Are you sure?” Trissiny squinted suspiciously at Tanq.

“No,” he said grimly. “There was a problem. It’s gone now. Thanks for coming, Triss.”

“Of course,” she said slowly. “Does anyone feel like telling me exactly what the issue was?”

“I hate to cause any more trouble,” Juniper said earnestly. “I’m already interrupting your evening. Really, I just wanted to enjoy the flowers for a bit, but it seems like something’s always happening around here, doesn’t it? Anyhow, thanks again for being so quick, Triss. I don’t care what anybody says, you’re a good friend.”

“Well…thank you,” Trissiny said, slowly easing up out of a ready stance and taking her hand away from her sword. “And you’re welcome. And… Wait, what?”

“Well, that was a wash,” Jerome said irritably, coming to a stop and brushing leaves off his suit. “Ugh, look at my jacket. This is the last time I follow you on one of your escapades.”

“Oh, you say that every time,” Chase said dismissively, flopping down on one of the benches. They had come to a stop in the little cul-de-sac outside Ronald Hall. It was well lit by the floating fairy lamps, but quiet and deserted at this hour. “And you’re being melodramatic every time. You know we end up having a blast more often than not.”

“Or getting blasted!”

“Don’t disallow for the possibility of some overlap there!”

“You’re such an idiot,” Jerome said, but couldn’t repress a grin. “Damn it, now I’m horny, too.”

“Why, Jerry!” Chase widened his eyes, affecting a shocked expression. “I had no idea! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!”

“Shut the fuck up, you asshole.” Jerome aimed a halfhearted, easily-dodged punch at him. “And this little fleabait town doesn’t even have whores. Three years I’ve been here and I still can’t believe that. Feh, after getting an armful of dryad there’s no way I’m ending this night without getting laid. Think I’ll go try my luck with Amelie.”

“Ooh, now there’s an idea! Maybe we can talk her into a little menage!”

“First of all,” Jerome said severely, “Amelie is a nice girl who is not into any kind of outlandish modern kinkiness. More’s the pity. Second, I thought we agreed that dryads are a special case. Under any normal conditions, I don’t want to be in proximity to your naked junk. Or any man’s.”

“Spoilsport,” Chase pouted, slumping down on the bench and pouting. “What am I supposed to do, then? There’s a sad shortage of amenable womanflesh on this campus since last year’s seniors graduated. Bunch of terrible prudes, our generation.”

“Why don’t you go try your luck with Natchua?” Jerome replied, grinning.

“Hey, don’t joke, I’m working on that. It’s a process. It’ll take time. Ideally, I’ll be in and out of her bed without incurring some kind of vendetta, but if she’s still being obstreperous by the time we’re set to graduate, I’ll take my chances. When else am I going to have a chance to bed a drow?”

“Don’t make me laugh, you’d never wrestle her into submission. That girl can kick your ass without trying.”

“What the hell are you babbling about? I don’t wrestle women into submission, you brute. Honestly, the way you combine poetry with barbarism boggles the mind.”

“Then just what were we doing back there?”

“It’s like you said, dryads are a special case. Look, don’t worry about Juniper, she’ll have forgotten all about it by tomorrow. She’s not that bright. Come on, when has she ever said ‘no’ before?”

“You fucking idiots!” Tanq thundered, stomping up to them.

“Oh, look who decided to rejoin the party,” Chase said airily. “Tanq, my man, please tell me your chivalrous knight routine worked. If none of us managed to nail that dryad I’ll have to write this night off as a loss, and I’m just not ready to do that.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Tanq exclaimed, glaring. “What the hell is wrong with you two?! She told us no. That should have been the end of it. You do not push yourself on a woman who doesn’t want you!”

“That wasn’t a woman, you twit,” Jerome said, scowling right back at him. “She’s some kind of fairy plant spirit. Have you ever cracked a book in your life? Dryads are always either screwing people or killing them. And Juniper’s pretty obviously housebroken; Tellwyrn won’t have her killing people here. So what does that leave?”

“You can’t possibly be this stupid,” Tanq said incredulously. “This is a university. You got in. How are you hearing yourself say these things and not dying from embarrassment?”

“Now, let’s be honest with ourselves,” said Chase, grinning nastily. “Are you upset because we’re stupid, or upset because hanging out with us reflects on you morally? Come on, Tanq, unbend a little. We weren’t hurting anybody; it was a bit of harmless fun. She would have had fun too if she’d let us; she always does.”

“I see.”

Chase and Jerome bolted upright off the bench at the new voice, took one look at Trissiny, who had arrived just behind Tanq, then turned and fled in panic for the second time that night.

She turned her gaze on Tanq, who met it warily. “And you were going to what? Reason with them?”

“I think,” he said slowly, “I was going to just hit them, but when I got here… Damn it.” He looked away, folding his arms across his chest. “They’re my friends, have been even since I started at this school. We have fun, but we’ve never hurt anybody. But they were actually going to… I don’t want to believe it.”

“You’re a good man, Tanq,” she said quietly. “I think you should reconsider whether you want to associate with people who’ll try to make you forget that.”

He heaved a deep sigh. “Maybe. Yeah, probably. No, not probably, I know you’re right. Just having trouble with… Well, none of this is about me, anyhow. Is Juniper okay?”

“She says you asked her that several times,” Trissiny said, quirking an eyebrow. “It confused her. Yes, she appears to be fine. While I’m not about to justify anything those two were doing, they weren’t completely wrong about dryads. Juniper just doesn’t react to these things the way a human woman would.”

“She’s still a person,” he said, shaking his head. “It still matters what she thinks, especially about what’s being done to her. How can they look at her and not see a person?”

Now it was Trissiny’s turn to sigh. “The truth is, Tanq, there are some men who won’t be convinced that any woman is truly a person. Otherwise, there would be little need for people like me.” She turned to stare down the darkened path in the direction the two boys had fled, her expression cold. “I wonder if you’d do me a favor?”

“Probably,” he said warily. “What do you need?”

“Please give my apologies to Professor Tellwyrn, and tell her I’m leaving campus. I’ll try to be back before classes Monday morning, but we’ll have to see how things work out.”

“All right,” he said slowly. “I can do that. I…assume you’ll want me to wait till you’re well and truly away before carrying the message? Being that leaving the town is very much not allowed and all.”

“Exactly.” She turned her head; following her gaze, he jumped back and muffled a curse. An absolutely enormous white horse decked with silver armor was standing there. How the hell could anything that huge have arrived so silently? Where had it come from?

Trissiny vanished around the side of the giant animal, then reappeared atop it, springing lightly into the saddle. How she moved so nimbly wearing armor, even light armor, was uncanny.

“Are you going to kill those two?” Tanq asked warily.

“No.” Trissiny shook her head. “That might have been my first response, but…no. That would not be justice. Thanks for your help, Tanq. And for supporting Juniper.”

“I didn’t do much,” he protested.

“You didn’t need to. If she had been an ordinary woman, what would you have done?”

“Thrown the fuckers off the balcony myself,” he answered immediately.

Trissiny grinned down at him. “Good. I’ll see you in a few days.” She clicked her tongue and the horse took off, trotting toward the University’s gates. Tanq stood alone in the night, watching her go.

It was funny… More than a few people had complained in his hearing about Trissiny being judgmental. From what he’d seen, she mostly appeared awkward and uncomfortable, though his perceptions might have been colored by his first sight of her arriving at the campus, as lost and alone as they all were on their first day. But as he watched her slim form atop the massive draft horse vanishing into the night, he had the sudden thought that there went a woman he could have followed into Hell itself.

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Professor Yornhaldt was usually precisely punctual, but on Monday the students arrived in his classroom to find him already present, carefully drawing a diagram on the blackboard. He greeted them distractedly, not looking up from his task, and they let him be.

The eight freshmen were an undersized class for the lecture halls they occupied, and had tended to spread out to fill the space, but since their excursion into the Golden Sea, by unspoken consensus they had begun sitting together in a tighter group. Everyone had shared trauma; several had had cause to worry that they’d not see some of the others again. There had been no awkward or intimate conversations, at least not that Trissiny had been party to, but they were more comfortable together.

Which was nice, except that everyone was being awfully solicitous toward her since the incident on Saturday morning. It was starting to grate on her nerves.

Yornhaldt’s punctuality remained downright uncanny. At precisely the class’s starting time, he finished his drawing, stepped back from the board, and tapped it once with a thick forefinger. The chalk lines began to glow gently, standing out against the dark background, and he turned with a smile.

“Good morning, class,” he repeated with more enthusiasm. “Today’s lesson marks a new phase in our exploration of the subject of magic. Thus far, we have dealt with the broadest generalities, the universal facts common to magic itself, and thus all branches thereof. Now, we shall begin to narrow our focus into an exploration of the individual forms magic can take. Who among you recognizes this diagram?”

Circle of Interaction

“Ooh!” Fross shot straight upward in eagerness. “That’s the Circle of Interaction!”

“Just so!” Yornhaldt said, beaming. “As I expected from our resident arcane arts major.”

“I thought it was called the Circles of Interaction,” Gabriel said.

“The terms are interchangeable,” replied the Professor. “In practical terms, it makes little difference, though among theorists there is some quibbling over whether the interactions of the four branches of magic form one circle or multiple intersecting ones. In the end, there is nothing to it but semantics. For our purposes, you may call it what you will.”

He stepped to one side to give them a clear view of the diagram and held out one hand; a long, slim stick of polished wood appeared silently in his grip. With this, he began tapping parts of the image in turn as he explained them. “You will note, first of all, the four small circles at the upper, lower, left and right positions on the perimeter. Each of these represents one of the four classifications of magical energy. Clockwise from the top: the divine, the fae, the infernal and the arcane. I apologize for my artistic skills; the illustrations are really the least important part of the diagram. What matters is their position.”

Each of the four small circles had an image drawn within. The ankh symbol of the Universal Church occupied the uppermost position, signifying divine energy.

“Is that a tree or a leaf on the fae one?” asked Gabriel.

“It works either way,” Teal said, grinning. “What I want to know is why arcane magic is symbolized by an eye?”

“An old tradition,” Yornhaldt rumbled. “And, as I say, not really the point…”

“What’s that thing on the bottom?” Gabriel asked. “The twisty, spiky circle deal?”

“A wreath,” Trissiny said quietly, and a momentary hush fell.

Professor Yornhaldt quickly took advantage of it to bring the discussion back on track. “Again, what is important is the position of each of these with relationship to one another. The Circle of Interaction is just that: it describes the way magical powers interact when exposed to each other. This diagram connects each to each of the others by one line, and it is the position of those lines which delineate the nature of their interactions. There are three kinds: first, the opposite actions.”

He traced the horizontal and vertical lines quadrisecting the circle with his pointer. “It is widely known that the divine and the infernal are in direct opposition. Less commonly understood in the modern age is that a similar relationship exists between arcane and fae energies; this is why, in our new era of increasingly widespread enchantment, fairies of all kinds are becoming a rarer sight within Imperial territory. The more arcane magic becomes commonplace in our society, the more hazards abound for them.”

Yornhaldt turned from the diagram to face them directly, idly tapping his pointer against his broad palm. “Opposing magical interactions tend to be…violent. These are two sets of forces which attempt, by their very nature, to snuff each other out in the most brutal fashion possible. The visible effects are often flashy, and potentially dangerous in some cases. It is also important to note that the contest—and make no mistake, it is very much a contest—always comes down to a quantity of raw energy. In most cases, the skill and intelligence with which you wield magic counts for far more than your mana pool, but when you are flinging spells of a certain kind against spells of the opposite kind, the spell with more oomph behind it will triumph. If it is a close difference, it may be an empty sort of triumph, leaving the ‘victorious’ spell ragged, unstable and useless. It is for this reason that the clashes between diabolists and clerics have always tended to be particularly brutal. Victory in that kind of contest means bludgeoning your opponent down with as much overkill as you can muster.”

He lifted his eyebrows, pausing for a moment to glance across their group as if waiting for questions or comments. When none were forthcoming, he turned again to the diagram and traced his pointer around it.

“As you can see on the exterior of the main circle, there are arrowed lines indicating movement in a clockwise direction. This is the Circle of Interference… Which is sometimes known as the Circle of Annihilation, but as that term is both needlessly melodramatic and less than accurate, we won’t be using it in this class. I mention it only so you will know what is being referenced if you encounter the term in your reading. Ahem… The directional markings indicate which power interferes with which. For example, the divine is disruptive to the fae; fae magic disrupts infernal, and so on and so forth, around the circle. These interactions are much gentler in nature. Rather than being an outright contest of power, the interfering form of energy simply causes the interfered to fizzle, to sputter out into nothingness. Quantities of energy are a factor, but a much less significant one. Very minor diabolic spells, for instance, can still disrupt arcane magic of significant strength, which is a major reason—aside from the obvious, that is—why diabolism is in disfavor in the modern world. Warlocks can do incalculable damage to a modern enchantment production line simply by being there. Spells of roughly equal strength cast into opposition will usually cause the complete negation of the spell from the school of magic positioned clockwise on the circle.”

“What about when the interfering form of magic is much stronger than the interfered?”

“Then, Ms. Avelea, a great deal of energy is wasted. There is no reason to dump a bathtub full of water on a campfire when a bucket will suffice.”

“And that’s why Juniper is impervious to warlock spells!” Fross said brightly.

“Indeed,” Yornhaldt said, his eyes crinkling in amusement. “I’ve heard some details of your adventure in the Golden Sea. Yes, despite her lack of offensive spells, our Ms. Juniper is a magical powerhouse, as it were. There are few fairies more well-stocked with energy than dryads. Casting infernal magic at a dryad is very much like pelting the ocean with fireballs.”

He traced the pointer around the inner edge of the circle in the opposite direction. “Moving counter-clockwise, we have the Circle of Augmentation. Whereas the previous two forms of magical interaction are naturally occurring—if you bring such and such powers into contact, what follows will be a simple matter of natural law—this describes a type of interaction which requires a certain amount of expertise to put into effect. It has, in fact, been a point of debate among the wizarding community for many a year whether it even deserved to be recognized in the Circle, but the form of this diagram as you see it now has been in use for more than two centuries. The expertise needed to use the Circle of Augmentation is really quite minimal in all cases, but its forms are different, depending on which school of magic one is using.

“What this means is that, if one knows how, one can absorb magic of a given school, redirecting it and using it to power spells of the school counter-clockwise on the Circle.”

Again, he gave them a moment to consider. This time there were frowns and murmurs as the class digested the implications of this.

“Wait,” Gabriel said. “That means… Hell, every school of magic is a complete trump card to the one before. Is that right? It seems…weird. Like, there should be more, I dunno, balance.” He shifted in his seat. “And yes, we can now have the obligatory comments about how an eighteen-year-old ignoramus doesn’t need to be criticizing the laws of magic.”

“Well, Mr. Arquin,” Yornhaldt said with a smile, “for a teenage ignoramus, you strike very close to the heart of the greatest debate in magical theory. The fact is, we don’t know why the interactions are what they are, and it puzzles and infuriates many of the wizards who study magic. Very many, including those who have made the study of magic their life’s work, keep coming back to the same point you articulated: it seems wrong. In nearly all other aspects, nature appears to seek a balance between opposing forces. When it comes to magical forces, however, there is an overall balance of a sort, but it is that of dogs chasing each others’ tails. Whatever the reason, you are quite correct: if you are any kind of spellcaster, you absolutely do not want to be in an altercation with anything that stands counter-clockwise from you on the Circle of Interaction.”

He half-turned so he was staring at the glowing chalk diagram. “This fact has done much to form the nature of magical society as it stands today. Fairykind have always avoided temples and other holy places. Many a powerful wizard has been brought low by a fairly inexperienced warlock. The very same Black Wreath cultists who aggressively seek out and attack clerics will flee in a panic from a village witch or wandering satyr. The long-standing cultural tension between the Church and the wizarding community has little to do with any hostility on the part of wizards, but rather with the vulnerability of the Church’s agents. No one who considers themselves a representative of the gods’ will enjoys being at a painful disadvantage.”

Yornhaldt shook his head as if to clear it, then traced his pointer across the diagonal lines intersecting the Circle. “There is a final point of these interactions which we must cover, and that is the imbalance in the Circles of Augmentation and Interference. You will note these straight lines, moving from the upper right to the opposite side. These indicate the fairly balanced nature of these interactions. However, see how the lines crossing in the other direction are considerably wider at one point and narrower at the other? That is because this,” he tapped the arc between fae and infernal magic with the pointer, and then the one opposite, between the arcane and divine, “is considerably stronger than this. Fairy magic is an absolute menace to diabolic magic of any kind, to an extent which goes well beyond any other interaction on this circle. Very few fae have anything to fear from the infernal; in fact, some species of fairies which are not noted otherwise to be predatory make a habit of hunting demons and draining them of energy. Conversely, the interfering effect of the arcane against the divine is substantially muted, compared to the other interactions between magics. Wizard spells do disrupt deific workings…somewhat. They are not nearly so effective at it as any other school is at disrupting its clockwise counterpart.”

“Why?” asked Toby.

The Professor shrugged exaggeratedly. “That, Mr. Caine, is something a great many people would give a great deal to know. It is what it is. The Circle simply is not fair; it is not necessarily reasonable. It was just not designed to be.”

“Who says it has to be designed at all?” Ruda asked. “Sometimes, things are just what they are.”

“The gods had their say in every aspect of the world’s creation,” Trissiny said.

“Oh, will you stow that already,” Ruda groaned, rolling her eyes. “The modern gods are like eight thousand years old; they didn’t make the world.”

“If I were a god, though,” Teal said, “I’d definitely set things up so my followers’ natural enemies were at an unfair disadvantage. Which seems to be pretty much what happened.”

“I fear I must step on Professor Tellwyrn’s toes somewhat,” Yornhaldt rumbled, “as it is simply not possible to cover the origins of magic without delving into history. You are correct; the gods have had their say. Magic, as we have discussed previously, is simply a means of classifying certain kinds of interactions of matter and energy. It has assuredly always existed, in some form or another, because it is a fundamental part of existence. The schools of magic as we know them, however, are the direct work of gods. They stem, specifically, from the events of the Elder War in which the modern Pantheon arose.” Again, he tapped relevant points on the Circle of Interaction as he spoke. “The divine as we know it was the gift of the new gods to the people of the world; using the energies of the slain Elder Gods, they created a field of energy by which they were bound to the world and the mortal races, which we mortals can access and use with their blessing. The fae and infernal schools, however, each owe their existence to one of the only two surviving Elder Gods, the two who remained neutral in the war and thus did not fall afoul of the rising Pantheon. Fairy magic is, of course, the gift of Naiya. The infernal was the…ahem, gift…of Scyllith, the original goddess of evil and queen of demons.”

“Wait, what?” Gabriel straightened up, frowning. “I thought Elilial was the queen of demons.”

“She certainly is now,” Yornhaldt said, nodding. “But before the Elder War, Elilial was an ally of the gods who would go on to form the Pantheon. Her betrayal came after the war’s resolution, at which point she was cast into Hell by her former compatriots. There, she overthrew Scyllith, whom she expelled to the lowest points of the Underworld. Today, Elilial rules Hell and Scyllith rules the majority of the drow, save those nearest the surface who follow Themynra.”

“Huh,” Gabriel mused, frowning into the distance.

“All of which, I fear, is getting us somewhat off track. Elder Gods are…a thing unto themselves. Pound for pound, they are substantially more powerful than the younger generation of deities, but they are more diffuse, more rooted in the nature of the world and less able to act independently. Thus, these two dispersed their own natures across creation, giving us these forms of magic.”

“What of the arcane?” Shaeine asked. “I am not aware of any deity having had a hand in its creation.”

Again, Yornhaldt spread his hands. “That, Ms. Awarrion, is another mystery. Given the provenance of the other schools of magic, it does certainly seem that the arcane ought to have been created by some deity or other. But of this, we know nothing. No god has claimed credit; none seem interested in discussing the matter, though that may or may not be significant as gods do not tend to dwell on any subject not of immediate interest to their designs.”

He sighed heavily. “And with that, we must depart the realm of pure theory and come to more…practical matters.”

“Ooh, I love practical matters,” Ruda said, grinning. “This is where we learn how to kick different kinds of magical ass, right?”

“As a rule,” Professor Yornhaldt said, looking almost pained, “I don’t encourage my pupils to think in combative terms. It distracts from the academic nature of these pursuits and, sometimes, tends to exacerbate preexisting tendencies which… Well, your class is relatively close-knit, so perhaps that will not be such an issue as in other years. Suffice it to say, while we are discussing unfortunately…visceral…aspects of magical interactions, keep in mind that I am not suggesting you go out and do something.”

“Psst.” Ruda leaned over to nudge Trissiny with an elbow. “That means no stabbing anybody.”

She gave the pirate a sidelong look. “No promises.”

Ruda barked a laugh; Yornhaldt cleared his throat loudly.

“To proceed,” he said firmly, “we will now discuss the use of multiple forms of magic by individuals, with a specific eye toward taking advantage of magical interactions, and compensating for the weaknesses imposed by them.”

“Can you do that?” Gabriel asked, perking up. “Use more than one kind, I mean?”

“Uh, hello?” said Fross. “Fairy arcanist here. It’s a thing.”

“It is, indeed, a thing,” Yornhaldt said with a smile, “but your question is valid. The answer is…it depends. There are some paths of magical practice which preclude…multitasking, so to speak. Some followers of certain gods become so saturated with holy energies that they cannot sustain any other form of magic. Some demonologists become so hopelessly corrupted with infernal magic that they cannot use other forms, but rather aggressively hunt arcane power sources to feed their addiction. Certain kinds of fairies cannot use other forms of magic—”

“Can dryads?” Gabriel asked.

“Nope!” Juniper said brightly.

“…and, though it is by far more rare, there are wizards who become so immersed in the arcane that they are unable to make use of other schools. For the most part, however, and for most people, magic is a thing they do, or that they have, not a thing that they are. There is nothing stopping the majority of practitioners from branching out… Except the almost comically mundane barrier of time.”

“Time?” Toby frowned.

“There are only so many hours in a day,” Yornhaldt explained, grinning, “and so many days in a lifetime. Mastery of a school of magic is like any other craft: it demands a great investment of time and effort. Most multi-practitioners are specialized in a certain school of magic, with enough of a minor focus in a second one to offset their liabilities. Some do attempt to study three or even four schools, but there are inherent barriers that have little to do with the magic itself. Working magic is tiring, stressful; working multiple kinds imposes different kinds of stress, and combining too many leads to simple exhaustion. Also, everyone has to learn from someone—this is not the sort of thing you can pick up from a book—and few teachers are interested in spending their own valuable time and effort on a distracted pupil with scattered focus. Then, too, every hour spent studying an extra form of magic is one not spent studying a different one, and those hours add up quickly when they prevent one from delving deeply into the essence of a given school.”

Again, he raised his pointer to indicate the diagram. “The majority of secondary specializations fall into two categories: A practitioner will either study and pick up a few spells in the school against which their primary magic is strongest—that clockwise on the Circle from them—or, less commonly, they will learn some of the opposite school. There are usually cultural reasons why the second option is not done, though it does come with the significant benefit of having spells which are strong against the school which is strongest against their primary school. By the way, the cyclical nature of this discussion makes for tangled syntax,” he added ruefully. “Please don’t hesitate to stop and ask for clarification if I trip you up.”

Nobody took him up on it, but Shaeine did speak. “And, it seems, the benefit of the first and most common option is to have access to spells which diametrically oppose those which are most dangerous to the practitioner.”

“Precisely,” Yornhaldt said, nodding approvingly. “With the additional benefit that if a practitioner chooses this arrangement, he or she has access to a form of power which can be used to feed his or her primary spell arsenal. This arrangement, class, is downright commonplace. Many clerics know a little witchcraft; many witches practice a little diabolism, and it is unfortunately common for warlocks to know some arcane magic. The exception, again, falls at the point where the Circle of Interaction is weakest.” He tapped the upper left quadrant with his pointer. “It is considerably less common for wizards to know or use divine magic.”

“Is that an…inherent problem?” Toby asked. “Or more cultural?”

“To the extent that the culture is inherent to the magic, both. It is not uncommon for dwarves to be born with the ability to channel divine magic directly, without forming a pact with a deity, but this appears to be a peculiarity of my race. For most, the divine is accessible only by making a commitment to a god or goddess. Who, in turn, tend not to encourage their followers to practice the form of magic which is most disruptive to their workings.”

“What about picking up spells in the type of magic against which you’re weakest?” Trissiny asked.

“That,” said Yornhaldt, “is very occasionally done…but not easily. Using those spells can be highly disruptive to any workings one has in one’s primary focus. Possibly to one’s very self, depending on the circumstances. For example, Ms. Avelea, you could safely study and use some basic arcane enchantment, but you would need to be careful, or you’d run the risk of eroding the divine blessings on your weapons.”

He paused to grimace faintly. “Since we have broached the subject of combative interactions, it is worth noting that one of the major contributors to the Tiraan Empire’s military success is its practice of asymmetrical warfare. All units of the Imperial Army have attached casters—of all four varieties. In addition, the Empire fields squads made entirely of spellcasters, again, with a balance of the four schools represented. Thus, no matter what magical threat they come up against, they have on hand the means to counter it most effectively, and they are well-trained in identifying the nature of a foe and bringing up the relevant spellcaster without needing to stop and strategize.”

Professor Yornhaldt paused, staring abstractly into the distance. Oddly, he seemed to be wrestling with reluctance to continue, to judge by his expression. The students exchanged a round of uncertain glances.

“There is, of course, another means of wielding the power of multiple magics,” he said finally. When he returned his gaze to the class, it was serious, even grim. “How much have you heard about elven headhunters?”

For a moment, they were silent, several frowning at him.

“Headhunters are…um.” Gabriel’s tone was scornful, but he caught himself mid-sentence, apparently reconsidering whether the Professor would raise an obviously specious topic. “I thought they were a myth.”

“They’re real,” Trissiny said quietly, and grimly. “Rare, but real.”

“They are, officially, considered a nonexistent legend,” Professor Yornhaldt said. “This, class, is politics and nothing more. The nature of headhunters is such that they are an unmatched threat; when one trespasses into Imperial territory, it is dealt with swiftly and decisively by the Empire…to the extent that this is possible. Bringing down a headhunter usually results in a loss of personnel, but the Empire’s priority is always to keep the matter quiet. If it became known what they are, and that one is on the loose… ‘Panic’ would hardly begin to describe it.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Gabriel said, looking angry. “Where do they get off hiding the truth from the public?”

“That, Mr. Arquin, is one of the most common uses of governmental power anywhere. Allowing panic to spread is a quick way to make a disastrous situation even worse. It would be one thing if informing the public would help alleviate the problem, as with most natural disasters. However, mobilizing against a headhunter is simply not an option. Conventional troops are useless against them; the public would be little but a parade of victims. Worse, the specific nature of the creatures is such that large groups of people attempting to flee them tend to invite them to attack.”

“Wow,” said Fross. “Are they really that dangerous? And, y’know, mean?”

“I assure you, they are.”

“Okay… Second question.” She bobbed in the air. “What’s a headhunter?”

Professor Yornhaldt sighed heavily, clutching his pointer with both hands so hard it seemed about to break and staring at the ground. Finally, he looked up at them. “Once again, I must trespass on Professor Tellwyrn’s territory. The story of headhunters is the story of the orcs of Athan’Khar and their demise, the story of the Enchanter Wars. Not only is it outside the realm of this class, but Professor Tellwyrn was actually present and heavily involved with those events; it would be presumptuous in the extreme for me to try to relate them when they are due to be covered in her class. However, there are a few basics that you must understand to know how these things came to be.

“The term ‘headhunter’ actually refers to the archetypal orcish warrior, as they existed before the Enchanter Wars about one hundred years ago. The war was named after the weapons used to ignite it. The original mass-produced energy weapons, class, were not wands and staves, nor even their larger cousins in magical artillery. They were considerably…grander…in scope. What, exactly, they were and how they worked is no longer known, and you may be grateful for that. For purposes of this discussion, you need only know that the Tiraan Empire created and stockpiled certain armaments which were intended to shock all enemies into subjugation through pure fear, weapons whose destructive power was truly unthinkable. And, for political reasons I won’t go into, they were all deployed simultaneously against the orcs of Athan’Khar.”

He stared silently at the ground for a moment before continuing. “That is why there are no orcs on this continent, why Athan’Khar is uninhabitable to this day, why the Tiraan Empire is declared permanently anathema to the orcish people and why every surviving tribe throughout the world exists in a state of declared war against Tiraas, until the Empire is destroyed or the last drop of orcish blood has fallen. What was done to that land obliterated every sentient being in it, including the very god they worshiped. It twisted and distorted the land itself until it was more magically unstable than the Golden Sea or the Deep Wild, turned every surviving thing there, animal and plant alike, into a warped abomination. The very insects and flowers in Athan’Khar are venomous, viciously aggressive and capable of casting offensive magic. Time itself is disrupted in the region, rippling like an unmade bed, with its most damaged point being the Well of Entropy, a place where one year passes inside for every minute in the outside world. It is the most haunted place in existence; so badly was reality itself broken that every soul that died, mortal, fey and even demonic, was denied any normal afterlife, condemned to prowl the land. That is what the first energy weapons wrought. That is what broke the Tiraan Empire.”

There was dead silence in the classroom. They all stared at him, none willing to speak.

“Athan’Khar,” Yornhaldt continued finally, “is a place of pure horror, now, a place where reality is unrecognizably twisted, where the dead hunger for revenge and every living thing seeks only to spread destruction. Any humans who trespass there are immediately destroyed, for those spirits know very well what race brought that down upon them. Some adventurers go there from the dwarven and gnomish peoples, even a few lizardfolk, as some of the weapons that destroyed the land and people did so without destroying all their wealth. But what we are concerned with are the Eldei Alai’shi. The elves who journey to Athan’Khar. Those who become headhunters.”

He sighed heavily. “It is not a thing done lightly. It results in immediate expulsion from one’s tribe; to make the journey to the dark land is to become a thing too dangerous to associate with. But when an elf has a need to become a living weapon, a foe who cannot be defeated through any ordinary means… Some make the journey. Most of those who try are simply destroyed by the insane inhabitants of Athan’Khar. But some few do manage to take those spirits into themselves and emerge as headhunters.

“They have no conscious control of the magic; all of that belongs to the spirits within them. Those spirits are of everything that died in that land, twisted and mixed together, and between them they command magics of every possible kind. To face a headhunter is to face a thing which may spin out spells of any sort, automatically in response to the needs of the moment. In terms of raw firepower, they are not usually a match for a well-trained wizard or cleric, but this is a case in which raw firepower is meaningless. No matter what you throw at a headhunter, they have the perfect counter for it. And that counter is cast by the spirits within, not by the headhunter himself. Be assured that those spirits think and react much faster than anyone mortal can.” He stared hard at them, as if trying to pound the importance of his words into their minds through the sheer weight of his gaze. “And those spirits are completely insane, consumed by thoughtless rage, and have all the instincts of predators.”

“Can… Can’t the Empire fight them?” Teal asked somewhat hoarsely. “I mean, you were talking about asymmetrical warfare. It sounds like the same thing.”

“Indeed it is, Miss Falconer, and it usually comes down to that. Not only because the Empire is the only organization with the capability, but also because once a headhunter has done whatever they made the pact to do, the spirits usually drive them to attack Imperial interests. But the Empire’s asymmetrical tactics involve the use of multiple people. Well-trained and well-equipped people to be sure, but people who simply cannot react or adapt as fast as the headhunter can. In the end, the Empire’s might and resources have always prevailed… But in every headhunter attack of which I’m aware, the cost was steep. None of the first wave of Imperial agents sent to counter them survive.”

“What would you recommend,” Trissiny asked quietly, “a person do if they faced a headhunter in combat?”

Yornhaldt closed his eyes for a moment before answering. “I will repeat my earlier warning, Ms. Avelea; we are speaking of theories, and nothing we have discussed is meant to be taken as a call to action. But…to answer your question…” He looked directly at her, his expression solemn. “Whatever paladin, dryad, archdemon or whatever else you are, if you face an Eldei Alai’shi, you run. Pray that they aren’t interested in you, and flee. Let the Empire and the gods deal with it, because I promise you, no one else can.”

In the thick silence which followed, he sighed again, then turned and tapped the drawing of the Circle of Interaction with a finger. Immediately, its glow winked out, leaving it an ordinary design of chalk on the blackboard.

“No homework today. I suspect you all have plenty to think about, for now. Class dismissed.”

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Trissiny returned from her morning run looking forward to a shower. Much as she’d found the thing ostentatious on her first arrival at the University, she’d come to enjoy the experience. It was certainly a more efficient way of getting clean than soaking in a tub of water. Upon opening the door to Clarke Tower and stepping inside, however, she had to stop, taking in the scene.

At first glance, everyone appeared to be having breakfast. Pancakes, in fact; there was a large, steaming platter of them set in the center of the coffee table, along with dishes of butter and syrup, and those present were holding laden plates and forks. Shaeine and Teal sat side by side on the sofa, Ruda and Janis in two of the chairs.

Something about the situation made the fine hairs on the back of Trissiny’s neck stand up, however, and she knew very well to respect her intuition about danger. Indeed, on a second look, only Ruda appeared to be enjoying the meal. Teal and Shaeine were glassy-eyed and chewing slowly as if bespelled or drugged. Janis was holding a plate but not eating; her body language was tense, and upon Trissiny’s entry she looked up at her, an incoherent plea in her eyes.

Reflexively, Trissiny reached for her sword.

“What’s going on?” she asked tersely.

“Breakfast,” said Shaeine with a broad smile so totally unlike her normally reserved demeanor that it sent chills down Trissiny’s spine. “Have I mentioned how much I love Imperial food? Sugar on everything.” She swirled a forkful of pancake in syrup and stuck it in her mouth, Teal giggling beside her.

“I’m pretty sure they’re okay,” said Ruda, grabbing Trissiny’s attention. “I’m keeping an eye on this and Janis hasn’t eaten the food.”

“You’re eating the food!”

“Yeah, have you noticed I drink a barrel’s worth of liquor a day and never so much as slur my speech? Mind-altering shit doesn’t work on me.” She glanced at the hallway door. “Like I said, I’m keeping an eye on this; didn’t wanna start up a scrap when we’ve got two incapacitated crewmates, that’s asking for somebody to get hurt. ‘Sides, help’s on the way. Glad you’re here, though, it seems to be you she’s after.”

“What’s… Who did—”

She broke off as Principia Locke bustled into the room from the direction of the kitchen, carrying another platter of pancakes. She looked eerily domestic, wearing a frilled apron and oven mitts. Her whole face lit up when she saw who was present.

“Trissiny! How wonderful, everyone’s finally here. I’m so glad, dear; I’ve been waiting a long time to—”

“What have you done to my friends?” Trissiny demanded.

Prin clucked her tongue, coming forward to set down the pancakes on the coffee table. “I made them breakfast. Honestly, everyone’s so suspicious when I do a nice turn, you’d think…” She trailed off at the rasp of Trissiny’s sword coming out of its sheath.

“I am not going to indulge you in banter,” the paladin said icily. “Something is clearly, badly amiss with them. You will explain this, or you’re going head-first out the nearest window.”

The elf stared at her in silence for a moment, her expression neutral, then sighed softly. “They’re fine. It’s just a little charm to encourage peace and happiness; people pay good money to have it done to them. Wears off in an hour. Honestly, Trissiny, all I wanted was a chance to talk with you, but you’re always surrounded by…” Her eyes cut back and forth around the room, and a scowl fell over her features. “All right, what happened to the dryad?”

“Went to get Tellwyrn,” Ruda said cheerfully. “C’mon, you didn’t expect using a fairy charm on a dryad would do anything but cheese her off? Be glad she didn’t decide to deal with you herself; Juniper’s tastes in breakfast doesn’t run toward pancakes. These are really good, by the way.”

Prin narrowed her eyes. “You are annoyingly lucid for someone who’s supposed to be charmed.”

“Yup. Let’s see, you’re clearly using witchcraft, so it runs on sympathy and symbolism… Something that clouds minds, but it’d almost have to be divine in origin to avoid tripping Triss and Shaeine’s alarms… Ah!” She grinned broadly. “Sacramental wine in the pancake batter, right? I’m right, aren’t I? Yeah, read about the Punaji Curse sometime, see if you can guess where you fucked up.”

The door to the tower flew open. A shrill whine just at the edge of human hearing sounded for a moment, and then with a sharp pop and a flash of light, something burst from above the doorframe and shot across the room, landing smoldering in Prin’s new dish of pancakes. It was a silver horseshoe, slightly charred. Immediately, Shaeine and Teal straightened up, blinking, and the goofy smiles faded from their faces.

Professor Tellwyrn stepped inside, Juniper hovering behind her. Her expression promised murder.

“Well, aside from the obvious,” Ruda added.

“Arachne,” Janis said in obvious relief. “I could have fought her, but the girls…”

“You acted correctly, Janis,” the Professor said, her eyes on Prin. “Kindly make sure they’re suffering no lingering effects.”

Principia stared at Tellwyrn for half a second, then turned back to the paladin. “Trissiny, just—”

“No,” Tellwyrn snarled. She stepped to one side, herding Juniper along with her, then pointed at Principia and gestured at the open door. With a yelp, Prin was yanked forward and hurled bodily outside.

Tellwyrn followed, Trissiny right on her heels, Juniper and Ruda bringing up the rear while Janis attended to a confused Shaeine and Teal. Principia landed on her feet on the bridge, skidding briefly but managing not to lose her balance, thanks to elven agility.

“This is too far,” Tellwyrn said icily. “You were warned about this, Principia. By me, and by the Sisters of Avei. The fact that you chose to challenge me instead of them just goes to prove you’ve not developed any wisdom in the last twenty years.”

“The Sisters didn’t send her into the Golden Sea to face off against a centaur horde,” Prin shot back, glaring. “They aren’t trying to get her killed!”

“They will, though,” Tellwyrn said grimly. “No Hand of Avei has ever died in bed. Well, except Taslin of Madouris; somebody got her with some kind of flesh-dissolving poison. Nasty business. Which doesn’t change the fact that none of this is any of your concern.”

“What is going on?” Trissiny demanded.

“This will always be my concern, Arachne!”

“You gave up the right long ago,” Tellwyrn said inexorably. “Deliberately. Now I have to decide what to do with—”

“She’s still my daughter!” Principia shrieked, then fell silent, fists clenched at her sides.

The only sound was the constant wind that sighed over the bridge.

And then Trissiny laughed. “Oh, come on,” she scoffed, “that’s not even believable. I’m not an elf!”

No one answered her. Principia was staring at her with something like hunger, and Tellwyrn… The Professor’s face was carefully blank, not the expression of someone who’d just heard an easily debunked falsehood. Trissiny felt her smile drain away.

Prin opened her mouth, then glanced warily at Tellwyrn.

“Well, you’ve gone to all this trouble,” Tellwyrn said, folding her arms. “Go on, say your piece. See if she thanks you.”

“The ears are a recessive trait.” Prin began with a careful eye on the Professor, but turned her gaze to Trissiny as she spoke. “Your friend Rafe is the exception, not the rule. Most half-elves are basically just tall, lanky humans with incredible stamina and really good eyesight. Usually blonde. Sound like anyone you know?”

She paused, as if for a response. Trissiny stared blankly at her, unsure whether she was experiencing a total lack of thoughts or simply too many at once for her to pick one out.

“You’ve probably already felt the effects, training with the Sisters,” Principia went on, her tone gentle. “You have ten times the stamina of a pure human and don’t need as much food, but you’ll have had to work thrice as hard as any of the other girls to put on muscle.”

“I…” Trissiny looked desperately at Tellwyrn, who was still watching Principia.

“It’s a tree,” Prin said, barely above a whisper. Trissiny looked back at her and she swallowed painfully before going on, still as softly. “The trissiny. It’s… I don’t know the Tanglish word, they aren’t common on this continent. It literally means ‘silk tree.’ There was one in the grove where I grew up; I used to climb it as a child. It’s one of the very few happy memories I have of home. Slim branches, leaves like fern fronds and little pink puffball flowers in the spring—”

“A mimosa?” Trissiny burst out, horrified. There had been a mimosa tree on the grounds of the Abbey at Viridill. A delicate, decorative thing that with absolutely zero practical use, it was a standing affront to Avenist sensibilities. It had been a gift from some Izarite temple, Mother Narny had said. The cults of Avei and Izara had deep doctrinal conflicts, and the Izarites were forever trying to mend the divide with such ill-considered presents.

Principia jerked back from her as if struck; her expression fell, and Trissiny realized she had let revulsion stand out plainly on her own features. If any of this were true… The fact that she might have been named after that stupid tree was the last straw.

Professor Tellwyrn heaved a sigh. “Well, there you go. Look how happy everyone is. Janis?”

“The girls are fine,” the house mother reported from the doorway behind them. Her eyes were on Trissiny. Everyone’s eyes were on her; she couldn’t make herself meet anyone’s gaze. “It’s a harmless enough spell, but Shaeine is furious.”

“You came onto my campus,” Tellwyrn said grimly, turning back to Principia, “broke into a residential building and laid a hostile enchantment on my students. I have killed people in extravagant ways for considerably less, and none of them had been warned to stay off my property beforehand. All things considered, though, I think it’s more poetic to leave you to stew in the consequences of your selfishness, Prin. The Sisters of Avei will know you flouted their command before the day is out, and you’ll find them a more reasonable enemy than I, but also far more persistent. Enjoy. But you’re done in Last Rock. I want you out of this town within the hour, and if I ever see you on my campus again, I will personally send you to Hell.”

“Yes, yes,” Principia sneered, “the great Professor Tellwyrn hands out death like candy at a parade. We know.”

“I’m not talking about killing you,” Tellwyrn said with a cold smile. “Not directly. On the Acarnian subcontinent there is a hellgate which, though easily accessible from this side, opens thirty feet in the air above a phosphorous swamp on the infernal plane. The nearest exit point back to this dimension is more than fifty miles distant, in the hands of a major demon settlement on the Hellish side and blocked by an Avenist temple on the other. Cross me again and I will take you there, toss you through, and see if you can weasel your way out of that. In four years she’ll be out from under my protection and you can decide whether your selfishness is worth further antagonizing the Sisterhood. Meanwhile, get out of my town.”

“I’m already packed,” Principia said grimly, looking at Trissiny again. The sadness in her eyes made Trissiny furious, for some reason. “I just wanted her to know.”

“Yeah, good job. Everybody’s just so very happy. Feh.” With a wave of Tellwyrn’s hand and a quiet pop of air, the dark-haired elf vanished.

The silence that followed was painfully awkward.

“She…was lying, right?” Trissiny had to pause to swallow the lump in her throat. She could hear a note of pleading in her voice and hated herself for it, but couldn’t hold it back. “Right?”

Tellwyrn sighed heavily, taking off her glasses to rub at her eyes with a thumb and forefinger. Every moment she didn’t casually brush off Principia’s claims was another damning affirmation of them. “I suppose we should talk, Trissiny. Let’s go to my office.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you are not dragging her across the goddamn campus at a time like this,” Ruda exclaimed. “I’ll help Janis clean up and you can have the room. How many thousands of years does it take you to grow some fucking sensitivity, woman?”

“Thanks, Ruda,” Trissiny said, touched in spite of herself. Ruda grunted and waved her off, turning to head back inside.

“Hey, guys!” Fross zipped over to them from the gate to the main campus, coming to a stop in the middle of the bridge. “Wow, everybody’s up early! You know this is Saturday, right?”

Ruda had been progressively decorating the whole time they’d lived there, and her side of the room was now draped in rugs and heavily embroidered throw pillows, the walls swathed with silken hangings and tapestries. At the foot of her bed were an old-fashioned treasure chest that looked like it belonged in an illustration in a penny dreadful, as well as a modern enchanted cold box in which she kept pints of frozen custard. A white bearskin rug, complete with mounted head and claws, was draped haphazardly over her bed. Trissiny’s side of the room was as stark and spartan as ever.

Tellwyrn stopped in the middle; she didn’t seem to be terribly interested in either side, but frowned at the sharp line of demarcation between them.

Trissiny shut the door behind her, a touch more firmly than was necessary. “It’s…true, then? That woman is my mother?”

The Professor turned to face her, a distasteful grimace twisting her lips. “Trissiny, any imbecile can get knocked up, carry a child to term and squeeze it out. Profound as the experience may seem when you’re going through it, the fact that so many imbeciles do so is the only thing that explains the state of the world. Motherhood is another matter entirely.”

“You’re avoiding the question,” Trissiny accused.

Tellwyrn shook her head. “I am clarifying the question, because you asked the wrong one. Now you listen to me: Abbess Narnasia Darnassy is your mother. She gave years of her life to loving you every minute, taught you everything you know about the world, formed you into a young woman capable of living on your own and then let go to let you do it. That is what a mother is, and you have a damn fine one.”

Trissiny nodded; the lump in her throat was too painful to speak around, but there was something sweet in it as well. Mother Narny had been responsible for all the girls at the Abbey, trainees of every age from all backgrounds, as well as the seven other orphans who’d been raised alongside her, but Trissiny had never once felt that she lacked for care or attention. It was a timely and welcome reminder—and surprising, coming from Tellwyrn—and she resolved on the spot to let the Abbess know how much she was appreciated the next time she had the chance to go home.

“With that said,” Tellwyrn went on, suddenly sounding weary, “the answer to what you meant to ask is yes. You do owe half your blood to Principia Locke. Best have a seat, Trissiny,” she added, suiting the suggestion by stepping over to sit down on Ruda’s bed.

Trissiny pulled out her desk chair and seated herself, keeping silent for the moment as she still didn’t trust her voice not to waver, and also wasn’t sure which of the questions roaring in her head to grasp at first.

“Principia,” Tellwyrn began, “is selfish, clever, unburdened by moral scruples and rather predictable despite her twisty way of thinking. I make a point to keep several such people in my address book; they’re very useful to know. So it was that I happened to be acquainted with her about twenty years ago when she was pulling something particularly crafty with a rural noble House—which I won’t bother to name, as it’s not really material to the subject.

“She’d managed to initiate a fling with the eldest son of the family. I don’t know how and it doesn’t particularly matter. As you probably know, and should if you don’t, such things are taken very seriously by the nobility; the two things they love most are their comforts and their bloodlines, and there is thus always some contention when an aristocrat’s prerogative to screw around with lowborn women creates the risk of producing bastard potential heirs. Matters are more serious still when non-humans are involved; the rich do love exotic playthings, but a half-human member of the family is seen as a disgrace most Houses would go well out of their way to cover up. Of course, all of this happens regularly, everywhere, but it’s still something shameful. The wealthy and powerful, Trissiny, are weird.

“Alchemical contraceptives weren’t common back then, but you can bet that the aristocracy had access to them, and even the most dissolute noble wastrels were heartily encouraged to make use of them. Principia’s paramour most definitely did; he didn’t lack for intelligence or ambition. That ended up being immaterial, however. Prin arranged things so that her status as the young noble’s mistress was well-known throughout the province, behaved herself with uncharacteristic good taste and charity and actually managed to be somewhat well-thought-of. And then she got herself pregnant.”

“You mean… I’m an aristocrat?” Trissiny said numbly.

Tellwyrn grimaced. “You wouldn’t be even if the poor boy had been your father—House Whatever would go to great lengths to hush you up in that case. Anyhow, he wasn’t; he was more careful than that. Prin went and found herself some other human in another district to take care of that little detail. It was a rather inspired little con, which was why I loitered in the area to watch how it played out. She couldn’t prove anything and didn’t need to; it was all about perception and insinuation, about the court of public opinion, not courts of law. She couldn’t have won a paternity suit, but with some skillful manipulation of rumor, she placed the House in the position of having to be nice to her or risk a greater scandal than she’d already created. If their scion’s pregnant mistress were made to up and disappear, there would’ve been an outcry. She effectively forced them to pay her off, make a show of how generous and understanding they were. And then, of course, she wisely removed herself from the region before the fickle public forgot the whole story and the much more vindictive nobility she had effectively blackmailed decided to correct her manners.”

“That is despicable,” Trissiny breathed.

“Yes,” Tellwyrn said, grinning faintly. “but it was quite clever, and it worked. That, I assure you, was all that mattered to Principia. After that, she was only left with the inconvenience of actually being pregnant, and too far along to extinguish it gently. So…when you came along, she was very relieved when I offered to find you a home.”

“You offered?” Trissiny said shrilly. “You?”

“That’s a little more shock than I think the story warrants,” Tellwyrn said wryly. “Yes, me. I didn’t happen to have any reliable friends who’d have wanted a child at the time, and state-run orphanages have a tendency to be unspeakable hellholes. Of the cults who take in orphans… Well, it was just lucky you turned out to be a girl. The Sisters of Avei indoctrinate their youth just like anyone—obviously, I mean look at you—but they generally don’t screw kids up too badly. And Narnasia had just taken over as Abbess at the time; I knew she’d do very well by a foundling. It was part of why she was given the job.”

“But you hate the Sisters!”

The Professor rolled her eyes. “Other way round, Trissiny. I’ve never had an argument with the Sisters; it’s they who hate me. I doubt they even remember why anymore, but Avei chose to take something I did a few centuries back more personally than it was meant, and let me tell you, nobody holds a grudge like an immortal.”

“And of course, you’re famous for rescuing orphaned babies from a life of drudgery,” Trissiny said bitterly.

Tellwyrn gazed at her in silence for a long moment before replying. “I’ve had five children, Trissiny. All by human fathers.  Four errors in judgment and one extremely extenuating circumstance.  Not a bad record for a three-thousand-year career.”

Trissiny blinked in startlement. “I… You… Really? Somehow…I can’t see you raising a child.”

“Omnu’s breath, girl, I didn’t raise them. Can you imagine how messed up someone would be with me as their primary moral example?”

“That’s a great thing to hear from an educator.”

“You kids are at least nominally adults. You are intellectually and morally formed; I’m simply teaching you how to think effectively. Creating a fully functioning person from whole cloth, as it were, is an entirely different matter. Trust me, I know my limitations.” She sighed softly and glanced to the side. “So no, Trissiny, I don’t make it a habit of gallivanting around the world rescuing orphans… But I happened to be there, and I have a soft spot for the half-elven offspring of horribly unfit mothers. Prin didn’t want you, and I found it wasn’t in me to just leave you there. So…here we are.” She shrugged, smiling ironically. “If I hadn’t intervened, you’d have been brought up as a small-time grifter. In the best-case scenario. In the other… I would like to think even Principia wouldn’t have abandoned an inconvenient baby in a haystack somewhere, but if you asked me to look you in the eyes and swear to it, I’d have to balk.”

“Here we are,” Trissiny repeated in a whisper, staring at the floor. Slowly, she lifted her eyes. “She…Principia… She’s a bad person, isn’t she?”

“In all my years, after all the things I’ve done, for all that I’ve kept myself at the forefront of world events about half the time, I’ve met maybe a dozen bad people. Trissiny, most evil in the world is due to stupidity, ignorance and laziness. Some is the work of the mentally ill; much results from the accidents of birth and culture that train people to see the world in irrational ways. Actually evil people, individuals who understand right and wrong and deliberately choose wrong, are vanishingly rare. For the most part, people do what seems best to them, and their moral failings are the extension of intellectual failings.

“Principia Locke is selfish, lazy, deceitful, irreverent and gratuitously obstreperous, but there are much, much worse things a person can be. I can’t tell you she’s a good person to know, but she is not the sort of person you as a paladin are likely to be called on to chase down and bring to justice.”

Trissiny nodded, lowering her eyes again. “I don’t even know what to think about all this. What… What do you think I should do?”

“I think I’m the wrong person to ask,” Tellwyrn said, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. “I’m here to help however I can, but in this case, you have better sources of support. I suggest talking to Avei, and to Narnasia when circumstances permit. I’ll tell you this much: redemption is a real thing and the desire for it is downright commonplace. People do change, and the love for a child is a powerful motivator. You should know, however, that Principia brought you into the world as a prop for a con she was running, and after handing you off to me, the first time she evinced the slightest interest in your existence was when you were chosen by Avei to be her paladin. A week after the announcement, she turned up on the steps of the Abbey, and Narnasia threw her bodily down the stairs.”

“Mother Narny did that?” Trissiny said, shocked. The Abbess had been a Silver Legionnaire in her youth, but now suffered arthritis and walked with a cane.

“She was quite irate, I understand. She also swallowed her pride enough to keep me informed, which was lucky, as the next thing Prin did was move into Last Rock. Avei determined you were to attend school here when you were old enough almost as soon as she called you, though how Prin found out about that I’ve no idea. You may choose to forgive her or not, maybe even to let her be part of your life, but don’t do so blindly: remember her interest in you began when you became a person who’d be useful to know. If she is genuinely repentant, I strongly advise you to make her prove it before you come to any decisions.”

Trissiny nodded slowly. “…I’m a half-elf, then. I think I’m having the most trouble with that.”

“If you’ve gone eighteen years without knowing that, it’s not likely to break your stride now. You’re lucky in that you can pass; most humans and an unfortunate lot of elves tend to shun half-bloods. You’re also the Hand of Avei, so nobody with a lick of sense is going to give you a hard time. Talk with Admestus if you have questions. I can explain the basics, but it’d all be very technical; he’s actually lived them.”

“Ugh.” Trissiny made a face, and Tellwyrn laughed.

“Yes, I know. Remember what I said about people doing what makes sense to them? Rather than turning up your nose at his eccentricities, it would behoove you to wonder what motivates him to act that way.”

“I’m…altogether surprised at how you’re acting,” Trissiny admitted, forcing herself to meet Tellwyrn’s gaze.

“Why, because big bad Tellwyrn has a kind streak?” The elf shook her head. “If I had to guess at Avei’s motivations in sending you here, I’d say she meant you to soften the black-and-white view of the world that growing up in what amounts to a convent has left you with. Nobody’s all one or the other, Trissiny. Honestly, I’m probably the most straightforward person you will ever meet. If I confuse you, you are dramatically oversimplifying the world.”

“Do you know who my father is?”

“No idea,” Tellwyrn admitted. “Some human. He was a bit part in Principia’s game; probably got the night of his life out of the blue and never had an inkling it resulted in consequences for anyone else. They never do. Let me ask a question: what kinds of interactions have you had with Prin since you got to town?”

Trissiny shook her head slowly. “Not much… She tried to give me a necklace once, but Sheriff Sanders chased her off. Well, actually gave it to me, I suppose.”

“What?” Tellwyrn straightened up. “You have something she gave you?”

“She didn’t give it directly to me,” Trissiny explained. “She found Teal and Shaeine in town one night and gave it to them to pass along. I, uh… I was going to have someone look it over for enchantments, but…it slipped my mind.”

“Slipped your mind. Well, now we know how she’s been following your movements, at least. I was all set up to go hunting down whoever blabbed about centaurs.” She rubbed her forehead. “Damn it, Trissiny, I can accept your priggishness as a result of upbringing, but you of all people should know to be more careful than this.”

“You’re right,” Trissiny said, flushing. She opened her belt pouch and rummaged inside for the necklace; it took some doing, as the thing had slid under her first aid kit. “I’ve been kind of overwhelmed by this place, but that’s a poor excuse. Here it is.”

“And you’ve even been carrying it—” Tellwyrn broke off abruptly, staring at the necklace dangling from Trissiny’s fingers. “That’s a golden eagle.”

“Uh…yes. I guess she thought it’s the only kind of ornamentation I might want. Which is true; I didn’t even want this, but the sigil…”

“The sigil!” She snatched the necklace out of Trissiny’s hand, staring at it. “Yes, there’s a tracking charm… Oh, hell, Principia, what have you done?”

“What?” Trissiny stared at her, nonplussed. “I’m confused, what does that—”

“No time!” Tellwyrn said curtly, and then the room vanished.

Trissiny had never teleported before; the lack of sensation was disorienting. It seemed it should feel like something, but her room simply disappeared and the sheriff’s office in Last Rock replaced it. She also materialized in a seated position and staggered to one knee, only her years of physical training warding off an embarrassing tumble to the floor. Tellwyrn, she noted with annoyance, had re-sorted herself in transit so that she appeared upright.

“Damn it!” Sheriff Sanders shouted, jerking backward from his desk so abruptly he caused a minor avalanche of papers. “Don’t do that!”

“Where is Principia Locke?” Tellwyrn demanded. “Have you seen her today?”

“A few minutes ago,” he grunted, re-settling himself in his chair. “She popped out of midair and landed right there in the street. I kinda figured it was your doing.”

“Which way did she go?”

“Hell if I know,” he said. “I ain’t her keeper, unless I can manage to actually catch her committing a crime for once. Home, I reckon.”

Tellwyrn hissed a curse, and the world vanished again.

“Son of a bitch!” Sanders barked when they materialized; this time he was dumped to the floor, suddenly without the chair under him. He winced, looking up at Trissiny. “Ah… My apologies, ma’am.”

Trissiny nodded abstractly to him, looking around. They were in a bare attic space containing nothing but a bed with an uncovered mattress and battered old table and chair. “Where are we?”

“Prin’s place,” Sanders grunted, climbing to his feet. “Though it looks like she’s skipped town. Well, for all that I couldn’t help liking her a little, I’ve gotta say this’ll make my job a mite easier.”

“Trissiny,” Tellwyrn said sharply, “do you sense anything? Anything demonic or otherwise evil?”

Trissiny frowned, panning her gaze around the bare little room. “Nothing like that. Why? Are you expecting demons?”

“I would take it as a great kindness if someone would explain to me what’s going on,” Sanders said with visibly strained patience.

Tellwyrn held up the necklace, regarding it grimly. “This piece of jewelry has a tracking charm on it. She’s been using it to keep tabs on Trissiny’s movements.”

“Well, that’s a misdemeanor, if Ms. Avelea didn’t consent to the surveillance,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure I understand the urgency of all this, though.”

“Sam, this is the sacred symbol of Avei! The gods aren’t always paying attention to us—okay, hell, they aren’t often paying attention. But to lay a charm on a holy sigil intended to surreptitiously track her Hand? Avei would damn well notice that.”

“What are you saying?” Trissiny demanded.

“There are ways of hiding such things from the gods,” Tellwyrn said grimly. “They’re commonly used on idols, to prevent the deities in question from realizing that those worshiping them are…less than sincere. This is Black Wreath spellwork.”

Silence held for a moment.

“Aw, Prin,” Sanders groaned, dragging a hand over his face.

“It’s probably not what you’re thinking,” Tellwyrn said. “Principia wouldn’t join the Wreath.”

“This looks pretty damning!” Trissiny retorted. A hollow sensation was opening up inside her; this was just too many revelations for this early in the morning.

“Pun not intended?” Tellwyrn actually smiled a little when Trissiny glared at her. “Two kinds of people join the Black Wreath: true believing fanatics eager to pull down the gods, and everyone else, most of whom just like feeling subversive and get squeamish when they realize what they’ve gotten into—if they ever do. Principia is too self-centered and too cynical to be in either group. However, I can well imagine her being brazen enough to con the Wreath out of some spellwork. Which leaves the very significant question of what she offered them in return and whether she came through on her end of the deal. I can see that going either way.”

“That’s assuming she’s not actually a Wreath cultist,” Trissiny added grimly. “A personality profile isn’t evidence, Professor.”

“Yes…in any case, she’s certainly intelligent enough to foresee how this would play out when she broke into Clarke Tower,” Tellwyrn said, beginning to pace. “Packed up and ready…an escape prepared. We won’t catch her.”

“She broke into…” Sanders trailed off, shaking his head. “What do you mean, we won’t catch her? Are you Arachne Tellwyrn or not?”

“Legendary power does not connote omnipotence or infallibility,” Tellwyrn said, still frowning into the distance. “Last person I met who thought it did was a god. I will forever cherish the look on his face when I killed him.”

Trissiny and Sanders exchanged a wary look.

“City girl or not, she’s still an elf. All she has to do is get lost in the tallgrass and that is pretty much that. With even the basic enchantments she can use, she can deflect a tracking hound.” She shook her head, coming to a stop and staring out the room’s one window. “This goes way beyond Principia. Damn it… We need to find her. We aren’t going to be the only ones trying, and depending on who gets there first, she may be silenced before anybody can get answers.”

“By ‘silenced,’” Trissiny said slowly, “you mean…”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

She realized she was gripping the hilt of her sword. Whether for comfort or in anticipation of trouble, Trissiny couldn’t have said, and it bothered her that she could make so little sense of her own thoughts. Whatever else was going on, they needed—she needed to find Principia Locke. They needed answers.

So did she.

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Tazlith’s group exchanged a round of glances, Shook began creeping back to place them between himself and Tellwyrn, the three soldiers grinned in unison, McGraw very casually lowered his staff to point in the Professor’s general direction, and Principia said something in elvish that was, even to those who didn’t understand the language, unmistakeably a curse.

“I know what several of you are thinking,” Tellwyrn said, “and the answer is ‘no.’ This nonsense is at an end.”

Marks raised one of his wands. “I think we can take—”

She gestured in his direction and he vanished with an audible snap of arcane energy. In his place a small terrier reappeared at about chest height, yelping when it fell to the ground.

“What the hell?” Tazlith exclaimed. “What did you do?”

“It’s called a baleful polymorph,” Tellwyrn said serenely. “I do not like repeating myself.”

“You can’t just cast a baleful polymorph!” said Lorrie the warlock, her attempts at sententious diction gone in panic. “It takes a ritual circle, multiple spell foci, a huge power source…”

Ox cleared his throat. “That’s Professor Tellwyrn.”

“Oh,” the warlock squeaked, and fell silent, edging behind Tazlith.

“There will be no more acts of violence or general disruptive behavior,” Tellwyrn continued. “Those of you who are under arrest will go quietly with the Sheriff; the rest of you get lost back to your own business.”

“You wretched witch!” Miz Cratchley screeched, brandishing her still-smoking staff at Tellwyrn. “This is all your fault, all of it. This was a good, quiet town before you came along!”

“Except for Mabel, for whom we make allowances,” Tellwyrn said, waving a hand. With a soft pop, Miz Cratchley disappeared.

Sanders cleared his throat. “Ah, if you don’t mind my asking…”

“She’s safely at her home,” Tellwyrn said, “and that staff of hers is in your office. Not sure why I bother,” she added, giving him an exasperated look, “since I know you’re just going to give it back to her again.”

“That staff is an heirloom,” Sanders replied in the weary tone of a man who has had this conversation once too often. “Her husband carried it in the Emperor’s service. It’s also a valuable antique. She’d need to actually hurt someone with it before I can confiscate it.”

“At least have the enchantment stripped off. She’s gonna blow herself up one of these days, and then how will you feel?”

“The vintage enchantment is the better part of what makes it valuable. Damn it, Professor, some of us have to follow the laws!”

“Seems you two could use a mite of privacy,” McGraw said solicitously. “Shall we come back and finish this later?”

“Do you think you’re funny, McGraw?” Tellwyrn asked, turning to face him. She extended an arm and pointed at Rook. “The boy in the scruffy uniform there, he’s funny. You are a pain in the ass.”

“Well, to be fair,” said Rook cheerfully, “I’m also a pain in the ass.”

“With regard to our understanding, ma’am,” McGraw said politely, “I didn’t start this, and I did my very best to prevent it getting out of hand. As I’m sure you are more than aware, reasoning with high-strung youths just ain’t always feasible.”

“Do you know what Zero Twenty means, McGraw?” Tellwyrn asked mildly.

He subtly tightened his grip on his staff. “I’m afraid I do, ma’am.”

“If I may?” the mage with Tazlith said politely. He bowed when Tellwyrn turned to stare at him. “Mr. McGraw speaks truthfully. He made every effort to talk this down before someone intervened, apparently forcing one of Marks’s wands to discharge. It is, by the way, quite an honor to meet you, Professor.”

“Did they, now,” Tellwyrn said quietly. “That’s very interesting.” She shifted her eyes to look straight at Shook.

She wasn’t the only one.

“Anybody who wants to make an accusation had best have more than hearsay backing them up,” Shook said, glaring.

“Oh really? Should I?” Tellwyrn grinned savagely. “And why is that, precisely?”

“If you don’t mind, Professor,” Sanders interjected, “I would prefer to handle this. After all, a fine, upstanding member of the Thieves’ Guild like Mr. Shook here knows better than to resist arrest when he’s fairly caught. Ain’t that right, Jeremiah?”

Shook gave the Sheriff a share of his furious stare, which appeared not to faze him in the slightest.

“It’s true?” Tazlith whispered. She glanced down at Shook’s hands; he tucked them back into his sleeves, but not fast enough. “You stole her rings, too? You said we were protecting her.”

“Oh, shut up, you dimwitted sow,” he snarled. “She’d be dead twice over by now if not for me.”

“Everything was going fine until you blundered into town, dumbshit!” Principia snapped. “Now look. Good fucking job, Enforcer.”

“Yup,” Sanders said. “Looks like everybody’s coming down to the office. Boys, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate your help a while longer.”

“You kidding?” Rook replied, still wearing a grin. “This is fantastic! Most excitement we had at our last post was when they sent us a shipment of bad beans and Moriarty had the runs for a week. Well, until that thing we can’t talk about.” He staggered, having been elbowed hard from both sides by Finchley and Moriarty.

“Shook’s getting charged,” Sanders went on grimly, then pointed at Tazlith. “Also you, missy, since I know for a fact you’re the organizer of this motley troupe. Whatever your intentions, you need to learn a thing or two about law and order, and why you don’t take them into your own little hands.” Tazlith looked absolutely stricken by the unfairness of it all; mouth hanging open, she couldn’t even formulate a response. The Sheriff continued, moving his pointing finger around at those assembled. “The rest of you… I’ll wait till I’ve heard the whole story from all participants before I decide if it’s worth charging anybody with anything. Um…and that fellow who’s now a dog…” He glanced helplessly at Tellwyrn.

“He’s fine,” she said dismissively. “He’ll revert in about an hour, none the worse for wear. You might give him some water, though. This climate is rough if you’re wearing a fur coat.”

Marks yapped furiously at her.

“And her?” Tazlith demanded shrilly, pointing at Principia. McGraw wasn’t visibly aiming a weapon at her, but the elf still held herself as still and small as possible. “Apparently she’s a thief, too!”

Sanders heaved a sigh. “Being a thief is a crime. Being a member of the Thieves’ Guild is not.”

“What?”

“The Guild is the organized cult of Eserion,” Tellwyrn explained, smiling faintly. “You can’t just outlaw the cult of a god of the Pantheon.”

“And as usual,” Sanders said in annoyance, “Prin is sitting pretty in the gray area between what I’m pretty sure she’s done and what I can prove she did. Apparently all she’s guilty of is getting threatened, stolen from, and kidnapped.”

“I would just like to say,” Principia remarked, “fuck you all. Every last one of you in particular. I’m certain you each knows exactly why.”

“Which just leaves the man of the hour, here.” Sanders turned to face McGraw directly. “Kidnapping. Threats of murder. That’s more’n a slap on the wrist.”

“With the greatest possible respect, Sheriff, you are something of a redundancy here,” McGraw said politely, then tipped his hat in Tellwyrn’s direction. “Professor, I’d take it as a kindness if you could suss out just where we stand. Makes quite the difference with regard to what I do next.”

She shrugged. “If you didn’t cause the trouble, you didn’t cause the trouble. You start messing with the Sheriff and matters will be different, but if all the harm you’ve done is to Principia… Well, I did specifically exempt that from any promises of retribution, didn’t I?”

“Wait,” Prin said, stiffening. “You fucking what?”

“I told him I didn’t care what he did to you,” Tellwyrn replied, grinning nastily. “Are you surprised? Offended? Do you think that’s in any way unfair? Grow up already, Prin.”

“Oh, you absolute unutterable bitch!”

“My, my, gendered insults between women. And in public, no less! What would Trissiny think, I wonder?”

Principia fell silent, but her face went scarlet with rage.

“On the subject of gray areas,” Sanders said, “out here on the frontier I sometimes have to make a decision between observing the letter of the law and keeping the general peace. If the good Professor doesn’t care to step in, and considering I don’t fancy havin’ a shoot-out with you in particular… And since I’m also not excessively perturbed by crimes committed exclusively against Miss Locke, here, I might be amenable to lettin’ all this go.”

“You fucking WHAT?” Principia screamed.

“I always appreciate reasonable exceptions to silly laws,” McGraw said mildly, stepping around from behind the apoplectic elf. He held his arms wide, grinning disarmingly. “Course, I’m honor-bound to point out that if you did choose to make an issue of this, and I did defend myself, well… I’m pretty sure that’d cross the line drawn by the esteemed Professor, here. Might be small consolation for having half of Last Rock leveled, but you could go down in history as the man who helped bring down Longshot McGraw.”

Sanders strode forward, straight at him. McGraw didn’t back down by so much as an step, and the Sheriff didn’t pause until his nose was a bare inch from the other man’s. He kept his voice low, but in the sudden stillness, the mild wind of the prairie wasn’t enough to prevent his words from being clearly heard by everyone present.

“Get the hell out of my town, McGraw.”

They locked gazes for a long moment, utterly still. Then Longshot McGraw very deliberately stepped backward, nodding politely.

“Fair enough, Sheriff. D’you mind awfully if I loiter on the platform, there, till the next caravan arrives? It’s a long stretch of nothin’ between here and…well, anything at all. You get to be my age, and the thought of hiking through the prairie for weeks just ain’t as exciting as it once was.”

Sanders held his gaze for another long moment, then turned away. “Ox, me an’ the boys’ll take this lot down to the jail. Kindly stay here and make sure Mr. McGraw gets safely on the Rails. He so much as sneezes, blast him.”

“Sheriff,” Ox said, nodding grimly.

“Feh,” Tellwyrn said, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Half the morning, wasted. If I have to come deal with this again, everybody dies.” She vanished with a quiet pop of air rushing in to fill the space she had occupied.

“Least one good turn came outta this,” Sanders remarked loudly to Finchley as he and the soldiers began herding Shook and the adventurers down the street at wand point. “Membership in the Thieves’ Guild isn’t a crime, but it does constitute probable cause. So much as a butter knife goes missing in this town from here on an’ I get to search Prin’s rooms as a matter of course. Should make several things easier.”

“Well,” McGraw said ruefully, “this’ll be a blot on the record, I suppose. Guess I’ll have to go give back some money, soon as I get to Tiraas.” Turning to Principia, he tipped his hat politely. “Ma’am.”

She watched him stroll over to the Rail platform and lounge against one of the pillars holding up the awning there, taking out a cigarillo and lighting it with his staff.

For a heartbeat, all was quiet.

Then Principia Locke threw back her head and let out a long, wordless scream.

 

Admestus Rafe swam slowly up through the most delicious dreams. As reality began to coalesce around him, he found it just as agreeable, full of splendid warmth and softness. He opened his eyes, finally, just as gentle lips were withdrawn from his own. For a second, all he was conscious of were the big brown eyes inches from his, and the warm, curvy weight resting across his body.

“Hey, it worked!” Juniper said cheerfully.

“Waugh!” Suddenly lucid, Rafe scrambled backward in panic, throwing her off. “No! Bad! Student! Arachne will eat my liver!”

“Mornin’, sunshine!” Ruda said cheerfully from just above him.

He paused to take stock. They were in a covered wagon, trundling along; to judge by the light filtering through the openings, it was early afternoon. Fross flittered around the interior, Ruda sat on the driver’s seat just behind his head, Juniper was…well, right there. Toby and Shaeine were still laid out, unconscious.

“I wasn’t absolutely sure I could do it,” Juniper said, then yawned hugely. “I mean, basic healing, yeah, but drugs are so much more…complicated. But apparently I can sorta…take it on myself? Sort of. Not, like, the drug, but some of the…badness of it?”

“You can suck drugs out of people?” Fross chimed. “Neat!”

Ruda cackled. “Word around campus is she can suck the enchantment off a battlestaff.”

Juniper yawned again. “It’s not easy, though. Been a rough day… I’m gonna…” She listed over onto one side and curled up, asleep before she finished her sentence. For the first time Rafe realized there was a large hole in the side of her dress, its edges burned black, and the flesh underneath it appeared to be covered in some kind of bark.

“What happened to her?” he asked.

“She got shot,” said Ruda.

Rafe bit back a curse. “Oh…hell. Who’s dead?”

“Just the fuckers that did it. All’s well that ends well an’ all that shit.”

“Whew… I guess Naiya was in an uncharacteristically reasonable mood. Last time I heard about somebody shooting a dryad, it was killer bees and wasps from one horizon to the other.”

“Let me get you caught up,” the pirate went on, still in that cheery tone. “The nice people who gave us dinner drugged us with magic cornbread. It was damn good cornbread, almost worth the drugs. Beans baked right in and a cinnamon glaze, I gotta remember that… Anyway, they were gonna steal our shit, dose us with memory-altering magic and leave us somewhere. Except Fross, who was being made into a lamp.”

“Excuse me, I’m an arcane sciences major! That bottle was only warded against fae magic. I would’ve gotten out eventually.”

“Yeah, but not before the rest of us were goners. I still saved all our asses.”

“That’s right, you did!” She buzzed down to hover in front of Rafe’s face. “She did! Ruda’s very smart.”

“Also good-looking and a goddamn terror in a fight,” Ruda said merrily. “So yeah, yadda yadda, yadda, they knocked us out, I’m awesome, and now here we are and I get to make fun of you, Professor Big Heap Alchemist, for getting drugged by cornbread.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly, “but I’m a genius, not a deity. Do you know how many tasteless, odorless and basically undetectable compounds can be cooked into food to knock people out? No, you don’t, and neither do I, because that’s just about the simplest thing there is to do.”

“Oh, please,” she said, grinning over her shoulder at him. “’Bella, get the special cornbread.’ They might as well have been twirling their fucking mustaches. Honestly, how the hell any of you so much as buy breakfast without getting swindled outta your goddamn pants is beyond me.”

“You ate it too,” he said irritably, getting up. It wasn’t easy with the lurching progress of the wagon, but he needed to check on Toby and Shaeine.

“I was hungry, and I don’t get drugged. Just one of the many benefits of being Punaji. It’s pretty much all benefits, for the record.”

“And how did you know they weren’t going to just feed us poison, if you’re so smart?”

“It’s called tactics, chucklenuts. Trissiny might be the military expert, but when it comes to knocking people down an’ taking their shit, we’re in my territory. They had staves, see? Practically pointed at us. If I’d made a stink about the cornbread, they’d’ve just shot us. Contrariwise, the fact they didn’t indicated they didn’t want us dead. So I played along until an opportunity came up to turn the tables. Which, inevitably, it did, and here we are. You’re fucking welcome, by the way.”

“What, you want a medal? I’ll see to it Tellwyrn passes you for the exercise, anyway.”

“Eh, that’ll do for a start,” she said airily. “I expect everyone to go on at length about the glory that is me, by the way.”

“You savor that, kiddo,” he said, grinning. “Now you have a taste of what it’s like to be Professor Rafe every day!”

Ruda’s smile faded; she glanced back again. Rafe was bent over Toby, holding a small vial under his nose.

“Ooh, is that smelling salts?” Fross asked, fluttering close. “Will that wake him up?”

“No, no, I don’t want to just pump drugs into them without knowing what we’re dealing with. I’m just working out what they got dosed with. Then I can apply the right counter-agent without risking a bad interaction. Actually, could you fly a little closer? I need to watch how this changes color and you’re the only light in here.”

“So,” said Ruda, turning back to face forward again. “What’s with you, anyway?”

“Me?” Fross asked.

“No, him.”

“Nothing’s with me,” Rafe replied, showing signs of his old bluster returning. “Merely the extravagant and vigorous splendor that is my stock in trade!”

“Cut the bullshit. You spent most of last night practically silent. Well, talking about like a normal person does, which for you is practically silent. Then you got your ass drugged, and you can make excuses all you want but we both know that’s a sign you fucked up. I bet you’d have seen the trap coming if you’d been paying attention. So, spill.”

They were quiet for a minute while he fiddled with his reagents. Fross buzzed around as if uncertain where she wanted to hover. Ruda didn’t prompt him again, and had just about decided he wasn’t going to answer when he finally did.

“We’ve lost students before, of course. C’mon, the kind of people Arachne recruits? You little bastards are one of the better-behaved years I’ve seen in a while. You just don’t throw the Empire’s most powerful weirdos onto a campus together and then send them out against real-world threats three times a semester without having fatalities. But… I’ve never lost someone before. Having a student I alone was personally responsible for get…” He broke off, stuffed a vial back into his belt pouch and took out another one, not looking at her or Fross. “It’s…something to deal with.”

Ruda nodded slowly. “I think I get you. Man… I didn’t even like her. But she was part of my crew, and…now we don’t even know if she’s gone or not. I’m still wondering if there’s even anything I need to deal with, never mind how the fuck I’m actually going to deal.”

“Yeah.”

“So, get the fuck over it.”

He twisted around to scowl at her. “Excuse me? Real sensitive, Punaji.”

Ruda kept her face forward toward the horizon, but spoke loudly enough to be clearly heard. “That’s what leadership means: everything is your fucking fault, and you don’t get to whine about it. You just keep at it and do the job. Instead, you got into your little funk and walked all our asses right into a trap.”

“If you’ll recall,” he said pointedly, “Professor Tellwyrn reminded everyone that I’m along on this little shindig in an observational capacity. I’m not the one giving orders.”

“Bullshit. That went over the side when you shouted Trissiny down for doing her fucking job and giving us advice on dealing with the centaurs. Which, by the fucking way, was good fucking advice and we probably wouldn’t be in all this shit if we’d just followed it. You took the job, so do the job.”

He scowled and turned back toward Toby, gently lifting the boy’s head and tipping a vial of thick fluid into his mouth. Seconds later, Toby coughed weakly, his eyelids beginning to flutter.

“Well, too late now,” Ruda said lightly. “No sign of the mountain yet, but the kidnapping assholes thought they were gonna get to the edge of the Sea by the end of today. Fuck if I know, I’m just figuring they understood how this place works.”

Rafe had no answer for her. He simply occupied himself tending to the others.

 

The mountain at Last Rock cast a long shadow. Unlike its sudden vanishing when they had first headed out into the Golden Sea, it appeared in a geographically normal fashion upon their return, giving the students hours to prepare themselves for their homecoming. It was hours spent mostly in conversation; even after everyone had been fully brought up to date on events, they found comfort—even Shaeine—in just talking.

Consequently, it was a tired and quiet group who drew their captured wagon to a stop at the foot of the mountain.

Professor Tellwyrn stood alone, waiting for them.

Toby had been handling the oxen; Ruda didn’t actually know anything about steering them, and had simply been sitting up front for the view, Juniper having given the beasts their instructions. He took time to stop and pat both animals as the others filed down from the wagon, Juniper still yawning and rubbing her eyes.

“Well?” Tellwyrn said simply when they had finally assembled in front of her.

“Teal,” Shaeine said, “and Gabriel?”

“Are fine. In their respective rooms, as far as I know, worrying about you lot.”

“We scored us a free wagon, and a small fortune in gemstones,” Ruda said.

“Actually, not such a small fortune,” Shaeine corrected.

“Whatever. It’s our plunder, won fair and square. The two demony types get a cut, too. Everybody, otherwise I wouldn’t feel right takin’ my share. And nobody who has any sense better come between a pirate and her booty.” She glared over at the others.

“Miss Punaji,” Tellwyrn said wearily, “three of your classmates—including you—are heirs to massive fortunes and don’t need gems. Two are paladins who have no attachment to worldly wealth, and two are fae who don’t even participate in the economy.”

“Everybody gets a share,” Ruda repeated stubbornly. “Sell ’em, donate ’em, chuck ’em down a well, fuck if I care.”

“Right. Anything else you’d like to report?”

“Professor,” Toby said quietly. “We…lost Trissiny.”

“Really,” she said dryly. “Have you checked your pockets?”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Ruda responded. “Is that a fucking joke to you?!”

“Pretty much,” Tellwyrn replied glibly. “I assure you, Trissiny’s fine and will be along presently.”

“How can you possibly know that?” Toby demanded.

“I keep forgetting you kids grew up in an era without paladins. Have you heard about the Stand at Stavulheim?”

“One Imperial legion held the city gates, alone, against an army of orcs for three days,” Shaeine replied. “Though the relevance of it to this situation escapes me.”

“The relevance is that that is the sanitized, politicized version taught by Imperial historians. I was around then, and I can hardly blame them for changing it up, as the truth is a lot less believable. It was two Hands of Avei who did that. Two. Against two thousand. And you think Trissiny was felled by a handful of centaurs? Please.

“Quite apart from that,” she went on, raising her voice over the comments that arose, “I am far from Avei’s favorite person; I assure you, if her brand new Hand had just gotten killed on one of my training exercises, we would be hearing about it. Also, she’s right behind you.”

They spun, Toby so quickly he nearly overbalanced, to look back at the Sea. Nobody was there.

“Are you just fucking with us now?” Ruda snarled, whirling back to glare at her, one hand falling to the hilt of her sword.

“A little,” Tellwyrn said with a smile. “’Right’ behind you may have been overstating it, but yes, she’s on her way, and making much better time than you did. Should be here in minutes. Trust me, you don’t argue with elven eyes.”

“You wear glasses!” Ruda shouted.

“Meanwhile,” Tellwyrn went on in a more grim tone, “we can discuss your performance, or lamentable lack thereof. To review: Upon being accosted by centaurs, your first move was to send your two most durable combatants away, hopelessly splitting your group and depriving the rest of their best defenders.”

“The centaurs’ war drums—”

“Miss Awarrion, do not interrupt me when I am chastising you. Then, you set out on a long, exhausting fighting retreat, with the inevitable result that your next most durable member—and also your best remaining counter to your opponents’ infernal magic—collapsed from fatigue. Honestly, how could you possibly have thought a tree nymph would fare well on a cross-country run? And finally, you apparently sacrificed your last magically-endowed fighter to the horde while the rest of you went blundering away to…” She trailed off, running her eyes over the wagon and oxen. “…all right, I have to admit I’m baffled how you got to a wagon full of plunder from fleeing for your lives from centaurs. It promises to be a good story, though. Probably not enough to redeem your grade for the exercise, but something.”

“Then how,” Shaeine asked quietly, “did you know we lost Trissiny to the centaurs?”

Tellwyrn tilted her head forward to stare them down over the rims of her spectacles. “Because, despite the fact that I specifically told you to follow Trissiny’s advice on combat matters, I know she didn’t tell you to enact this utterly hambrained plot. Which means you weren’t listening to her. You know what a paladin does when the idiot civilians she’s trying to protect refuse to see reason? She puts herself between them and whatever is out to get them. Ergo, here you are, sans paladin, and plus plunder. I doubt she’d have let you loot the corpses of whoever else you killed, either. Hello, Trissiny.”

They whirled around again; this time, Toby did overbalance, landing on his rump in the grass and staring up at the spectacle approaching them.

It was as if they’d appeared out of a fold in the ground—which was probably close to the literal truth, the Golden Sea being what it was. The horse was absolutely massive, an enormous, barrel-chested draft horse with a thick arched neck, blunt nose and feathered hooves the size of dinner plates. He wore silver armor over his neck, face and rump, and the golden eagle sigil of Avei was worked into his breast collar. Sitting in the saddle, dwarfed by the huge horse despite her height, was Trissiny. She was covered in grime and dried blood, but appeared as alert and unharmed as when they’d last seen her.

“Professor,” she said, nodding as she guided the steed to a halt next to them. For all his size, his hoofsteps were eerily quiet. “Is everyone all right? I passed these travelers’ other wagon a while back, and their bodies. It looked like they were eaten by wild animals.”

“No, that was me,” Juniper said brightly. “Hi, Triss! I’m glad you’re okay!”

“Hi,” the paladin said slowly. “…and you did that because…?”

“Oh, they drugged everybody and captured Fross and were going to rob and abandon us. And then they shot me.”

“Ah.” Trissiny nodded. “Very well, then. I’m just glad you all made it.”

“We made it?” Ruda said, gaping at her. “You’re glad we made it?! We—you were—we left you… How did… WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE A HORSE?”

“Paladins get mounts,” Tellwryn said serenely. “Avei usually doesn’t bequeath one until the Hand in question has proven herself in actual combat. I guess the centaurs were an adequate test.”

“Less trouble than I expected, honestly,” Trissiny said. “Once I killed their leader, the rest scattered.”

“Yes, for all their size and ferocity, they really aren’t militarily impressive. Which makes it all the sadder that you lot got yourselves routed by them. Honestly, if anybody important had been along to see that, it would go down in the annals of tactical incompetence. I can’t believe you let them do this,” she added directly to Trissiny.

The paladin raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so they have to listen to me, now? Splendid. I want everyone assembled on the main lawn at six AM for drill.”

“You joke,” Tellwyrn said grimly, “but after this debacle I’m half-tempted to authorize that.”

“You got,” Ruda said slowly, as though trying to convince herself of it, “a fucking horse.”

“His name’s Arjen,” Tellwyrn said helpfully.

“How do you know that?” Trissiny demanded.

“There’s a limited number of celestial steeds in Avei’s stable,” the Professor said cheerfully. “These creatures are truly immortal, not merely ageless like elves. If killed on this plane, they just return to their divine point of origin, ready to be summoned again. This fellow has served the Hands of Avei for millennia. We’ve met before,” she added, raising a hand as if to pat Arjen’s nose. He snorted disdainfully and twisted his head away. “See?” she said wryly.

“Arjen, is it,” Trissiny murmured, leaning forward to pat his neck. He whickered softly.

“You know what?” Ruda said flatly. “I fucking hate you.”

Trissiny sat bolt upright in her saddle, gaping at her in shock. “What?”

“Can you just for once not try to fucking show me up?” She clawed a bottle out of her coat and took a long swig. “But,” she added, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, “I’m really glad you’re not dead.”

Trissiny stared at her, open-mouthed, unable to formulate a reply.

“All right, it’s been great adventuring with you lot, but I’ve had enough,” said the pirate. “Tellwyrn can tell us all how much we suck another time, I’m done with this horseshit. Anybody needs me, too fucking bad. I’m gonna be in town, and I will not be back till I’ve drunk my weight in the dilute pisswater that passes for beer around here and screwed at least three local boys. Concurrently if I can find enough of these hicks without too many goddamn hangups. Have a good fucking night, all.”

Still drinking from her bottle, she stomped off in the direction of Last Rock.

“Don’t get pregnant!” Tellwyrn called after her.

“Fuck you!”

“So!” Rafe said brightly. “How’ve things been back here?”

“Eh.” Tellwyrn waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing ever happens in this town.”

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2 – 20

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“Oh, what the hell is this now,” Lance muttered. Ahead, Jim was already bringing the lead wagon to a stop. Between the gentle downward slope of the Sea and the height of the tallgrass, they hadn’t seen what was coming up until they were right on top of it. Or for that matter, maybe it hadn’t been there before.

He hopped down from the wagon seat before it had even fully stopped moving. “Stay put,” he said curtly to Bella when she began to rise, too. “And keep your eyes on those kids, I don’t want any surprises at this point.” Not pausing to see her reaction, he strode forward, around the other wagon, and approached Jim, who was standing on the ground as well.

“What do you think?” asked the half-elf as he approached. Lance panned his gaze around at the expanse of flat, rocky ground that had opened up before them. It looked like granite—uneven, marred by cracks, pits and protrusions. “This’ll play hell with the wagons. Won’t be great for the oxen, either.”

Lance cursed under his breath. “Can you see how far it extends?”

“Nope.” Jim shook his head. “Not in front or to the sides. Of course, how big it objectively is has little to do with how long we’ll be in it if we try to cross.”

He glanced back at his own wagon, in which they had laid out the kids from Last Rock. “Bella reckons we can maybe keep ’em asleep a bit longer with her hoodoo, if it comes to that. The last thing we need is for our passengers to start waking up… That’ll play bigger hell than anything this does to the wagons.”

“Unless we throw a wheel, or lame an ox,” said Jim, “in which case it’ll all go to shit anyway.”

Lance glared at the plain of stone, thinking. They were between the proverbial rock and an annoyingly literal hard place. “Risk damaging the wagons in the badlands, or risk getting lost as fuck and adding days to our trip if we try to go around. Both mean we have some angry and very dangerous people to deal with… Looks about the same level of risk to me either way, with more or less the same consequence. Unless you disagree.”

Jim shook his head. “Sounds about right to me.”

Lance heaved a sigh. “Then I say we go for the risk that gets us out of here quicker. Make sure everything’s lashed down tight and let’s move on. You best stay in front, I want your eyes findin’ us the safest route.”

The other man nodded mutely and climbed back up onto his wagon seat while Lance turned and walked back to Bella.

“I heard,” she said. “Everything’s secure back here, and it doesn’t matter too much if the passengers get jostled a bit. The wagons were in good shape when we set out and Elroy’s been looking ’em over at every stop. We should be fine.”

“Any chance of the bumpy ride waking our sleeping beauties?”

She grinned. “Not till dusk at the earliest, and even then they’ll be too groggy to be useful for hours. Best we get a move on.”

Jim’s wagon was already moving, and Lance prompted the oxen to follow suit.

“Try not to distract me,” Bella said, closing her eyes. “I’m gonna keep my attention on a little charm work, to help the wagons bear up under the abuse.” Already she had to raise her voice to be heard under the aggressive rattle of wheels over uneven stone. Lance gave her a sidelong look, holding onto his seat.

“Shouldn’t you have got out and laid that on the wheels before we started moving?”

“I don’t actually know a spell that’d do that, though you can bet I’m gonna look one up after this. I’m just using general buffing magic. Strength, endurance, good fortune, all that. Remember what I said about distracting me?”

He grunted irritably, but fell silent. It wasn’t worth arguing, especially when they had to almost shout to be heard, not to mention devoting serious effort to holding on. The noise really was incredible; it seemed the entire wagon shuddered with each little jostle, and not all of the jostles were little. Jim set them on a weaving course that sought to avoid the worst of it, but there was simply no good ground. The stone itself made the wheels grate ominously as they passed over its flatter stretches, and seemed to delight in tossing little cracks and rocks under them.

In the shady back of the covered wagon, Ruda cracked an eye, surreptitiously studying their captors even as she and the others were jostled roughly against each other. Neither were looking back at them, and the noise and shaking made the best cover she’d found thus far for any action. This was clearly the time.

It wasn’t that simple, though. She could probably take out Lance and Bella, having the element of surprise as she did. The others would be another matter, though; they had staves. Ruda could grab one of those in this wagon, of course, but the best case scenario was still a firefight, which would put her sleeping companions at serious risk even if the enemy didn’t deliberately target them.

Careful not to move too much—no telling when one of the bastards would glance back to check on them—she swept an eye around the interior of the wagon. She’d become quite familiar with the layout during the long morning. Two wooden chests were set against the right side of the wagon bed, with herself and her fellow captives laid out like logs filling the rest of the space. They were cargo; the rest of the adventurers’ belongings, including nearly all their supplies, had been moved to the lead wagon and piled in to make room. Ruda was pressed between the chests and Toby; blessedly, nobody had been laid on top of her, though Juniper’s legs half covered her own. The front end of the wagon held sealed barrels, lashed in place, and ahead of that was just the driver’s seat. Her sword was tucked carefully between two barrels, its pommel barely visible; Bella kept the bottle containing Fross with her.

She lifted her eyes at a sharp rattle from above her head. The rear gate of the wagon was held in place by a long, thin iron bar which fit into metal fixtures attached to either wall of the bed. It was all one piece, meaning it could be conveniently rotated to open both sides of the latch and lower the gate with a single motion. As she watched, the wagon went over a bump and the latch nearest her jumped again, nearly coming loose.

Ruda glance at the chests, back at the latch, then forward at the drivers. A plan fell into place. Well, the rough outlines of one, but she hadn’t the luxury of time to dither and refine.

She lifted one hand and wrenched the latch open, then swiftly lowered her arm and shut her eyes. By the time the unfastened gate banged open, she gave no sign of ever having been awake.

“The hell was that?” Lance shouted. Bella said something in reply, her voice muffled beyond audibility. “Oh, fuck, the gate’s popped open. Signal Jim to stop, I gotta grab that before something falls out.”

He kept up a chorus of grunts and curses as he picked his way back across the bed, his efforts becoming easier when the wagon eased to a stop. Ruda barely managed not to make a sound when he overbalanced and stepped right on her stomach; it helped that it drove the breath right out of her. Growling, he clambered over her, finally, leaning over the end of the bed to grab the fallen gate, pull it back up, and re-set the latch.

Ruda concentrated on her breathing, keeping it as deep and even as she could. That footprint was going to become a respectable bruise. It occupied plenty of her attention while orders were shouted and the wagons pulled forward again.

She had long since learned the value of patience. Ruda waited until she judged they’d been moving again for a good quarter of an hour, and then opened the gate again.

“Goddamn it!” Lance shouted from up ahead.

“Just leave it,” Bella replied, raising her own voice to be heard over the racket. “The kids aren’t gonna slide out and the trunks are too heavy.”

“Those trunks are our haul, dammit! If one falls—”

“Too heavy,” she repeated firmly. “If the latch has popped twice it’ll just do it again. Unless you plan to balance back there and hold the damn thing shut, leave it.”

“I can lash it shut!”

“With what, your belt? Elroy’s got the rope up there with all the rest of the supplies. We’ll deal with it when we stop next, let’s not waste any more time with this.”

He replied, but it was muted enough that Ruda couldn’t make out his words, and anyway it didn’t result in the wagons stopping again, or him climbing back into the bed. Good, that was the easy part dealt with.

The trunk wasn’t large, thank Naphthene, otherwise she’d never have managed, as it was full of rocks. Jewels, anyway. The bigger one, behind, held uncut stones salvaged from some kind of old mining operation the adventurers had found; the one closer to the back of the wagon contained their much smaller haul of cut and polished gems. Ruda wasn’t clear on what exactly they’d found and didn’t particularly care. All that mattered right now was that the trunk weighed far too damn much, and she couldn’t risk getting herself into a proper position to shift it. She managed to hook her right hand around its end and pulled.

For the most part, it was reluctant to budge. It wasn’t beyond her strength, but she was in a bad position and it was an uphill battle. The roughness of the ride actually helped; some of the worst bumps were bad enough to lift the trunk momentarily off the wagon bed, and in each of those little gaps she managed to tug it a few more inches.

Ruda kept one eye open and constantly on the seat up front, now. The two sitting there appeared to be having an argument, which was lucky. If not for their distraction, they would surely be keeping a closer eye on their cargo, and then she’d be in trouble.

The trunk inched past her head; she had to adjust the position of her arm to keep pulling. Surely the end of it had to be past the edge of the wagon bed…

Then they went over a particularly bad bump, the trunk actually bounced off the bed for a moment, landed in a slide, and overbalanced. It tumbled over the back, hitting the ground with a very satisfying crunch of breaking wood.

Not nearly so satisfying as Lance’s cursing.

He brought the entire wagon train to a stop this time, calling the others back to survey the damage. Ruda hardly dared to breathe. The tension of her situation was actually a benefit, as she felt more than a small amount of pleasure at the situation of her captors, and this would be a bad moment to accidentally crack a smile.

“Too heavy,” Lance snarled after a long, silent moment in which the four of them had stood there, staring down at the mess. The wagon had creaked forward a few yards before it could be brought to a stop, so they at least weren’t standing right over Ruda and the others.

Bella sighed and didn’t respond to his accusing tone. “What do you think? Can the box be salvaged?”

“Kindling,” Jim said curtly. “And we don’t have another.”

“We got barrels…”

“None that aren’t in use.”

“Food, right?” said Lance. “We’ve got more’n we need. Dump some hardtack, just enough to make room for this. We’ll be out of the Sea by the end of the day.” Jim turned and trudged past without another word. “Elroy…clean this up. Just forget about the trunk. Gather up the gems in a pile, move ’em over there so we won’t have to carry the barrel far once it’s loaded. Oh, and when you’re done with that, bring out some rope or something to lash down this fucking gate.”

“Uh, the rope’s all packed away,” Elroy said nervously. “I mean, it’s under a pile of—”

“Son of a bitch, can’t anything today go right?”

There came a moment of silence, and then the crunch of boots on gravel, approaching the wagon.

“This is all awfully, specifically inconvenient,” Lance remarked, standing right at the edge of the wagon bed.

“I’m tellin’ you, they’re out,” Bella said from behind him. “The dryad’s bound and the others aren’t gonna be getting up anytime—”

She broke off at the loud slap of a hand striking flesh.

Ruda managed not to tense, not to react at all, despite the rush of white-hot rage. Toby was laid with his feet toward the end of the wagon bed, as was Rafe. If that hand had hit a face, as it sounded, it was Shaeine’s.

Her wondering came to a stop seconds later when a similar slap landed on her own cheek. Her head was knocked to the side by the force of it, cheekbone bouncing off the wooden floor. Ruda stayed limp, let herself roll with the blow, kept her face neutral. This wasn’t the first time she’d played dead, under more pressure even than this. The University wasn’t nearly the beginning of her training.

“Satisfied?” Bella asked dryly. “I really hope so. I’m sure the ride won’t wake ’em up, but you’re pushing it.”

Lance grunted. “Come help me find the goddamn rope. Elroy, get to work. Jim!” he shouted, stalking away. “Where the fuck is that rope buried?”

Ruda listened to them move past, listened to Elroy’s muttering and grunting as he bent and hauled handfuls of jewels over to pile them by the end of the wagon. He was loud enough to give her a clear idea what he was doing. She waited until the fourth trip, as he was turning away to go back for another batch.

After a long, nearly sleepless night followed by a long trip in the bumpy back of a wagon, she was a solid knot of bruises, sore spots, and stiffness in general. Her whole body screamed in pain, rebelling at the speed with which she suddenly demanded that it move, which was just too damn bad. Ruda came upright, less smoothly than she would have liked but still her athletic self, lunged off the back of the wagon, and closed with Elroy while yanking her boot knife free.

One hand over his mouth cut off his cry of surprise; with the other, she reached around and ripped the knife through his throat before he even knew what was happening. Ruda pushed him away, letting him flop to the ground, clutching at his ruined throat. Not dead yet, but that didn’t matter; he was well and truly silent. She turned her back and crawled as swiftly and silently as she could manage into the wagon and over the prone forms of her friends.

Her luck continued to hold. Bella had had the sense to leave her prize behind while going forward to forage in the other wagon. Ruda had to hide herself behind the barrels, watching surreptitiously, and time her grab for when the three were all facing away, but when the moment came she reached out quick as a striking snake and grabbed the bottle off the wagon seat. Hopefully Bella wasn’t looking back to check on it every minute; as enamored as the woman was of her captive pixie, Ruda wouldn’t have put it past her.

Ducking back down behind the barrels, she brought the jar to her face. It was still iced over completely on the inside, but the pixie’s glow was visible nonetheless. “Fross, I’m gonna get you out. We’re still in trouble here, so I need you to stay low, out of sight, and be quiet.”

She ripped away the thin chain binding the bottle, set the tip of her knife into the lead stopper and viciously levered it loose.

Fross could at least follow directions. She zipped out, immediately diving to the floor of the wagon, and managed to keep her voice low, despite the fury filling it. “I am just so mad!”

“Me too,” Ruda said tersely, having turned to face her other somnolent companions. “…fuck. That’s two of us now, and one of them down, but these are still not odds I like. We’ve gotta protect the others, which is a major handicap…” Her eyes fell on the form of Juniper, who was wrapped in thin cords decorated with little charms and bits of marked paper. “…how do you unbind a dryad? Do you know enough about witchcraft to counter the spell?”

“Just rip the cords off, they’re holding the magic.”

“Cake.” She sliced through them, careful not to nick the dryad, and pulled them aside. “C’mon, Juno, rise and shine.”

The dryad made no response, even when Ruda leaned over to pat her roughly on the face. “Juniper! Up, girl, we need your help. June!” Finally, in desperation, she slapped her.

Nothing.

“She fell asleep cos she was overtired, remember?” said Fross. “Maybe she hasn’t rested enough yet.”

“Well, that’s a shame, because she is out of time,” Ruda said grimly. She reached forward between the barrels and grabbed the handle of her sword, tugging it out. “…doesn’t breathe, no heartbeat. Fross, do dryads have vital organs at all?”

“How should I know?”

“Wh—you’re a fairy too, aren’t you?”

Fross buzzed a complete orbit of her head in agitation. “There aren’t more than three dozen dryads in the world, and they’re all cozy with Naiya herself. This is like me asking you how the Emperor takes his tea. You’re both humans, aren’t you?”

Ruda sighed. “All right then, looks like I’ll have to test a theory. Juno, I’m really sorry about this. If it turns out I’m wrong, I’ll be really, really sorry.”

She placed the tip of her rapier at a point just under Juniper’s right breast, and before Fross could say anything, shoved down, impaling the dryad until the mithril blade bit into the wood below.

Juniper sat bolt upright, eyes flying open, drawing in a desperate gasp. The sword moved with her body, wrenched out of Ruda’s hands, but that was fine, as she immediately clapped them both over Juniper’s mouth.

“Welcome back,” she said cheerfully. “Here’s the short version. We’ve been kidnapped, everyone else is drugged and won’t be awake for hours, and we’re a few seconds from being in a major fight.”

“You stabbed me!” Juniper said, disbelieving, when Ruda took her hands off her mouth.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I couldn’t get you to wake up. Desperate times, desperate measures, all that shit. Are you… I mean, obviously you’re not okay, but is this, like…debilitating?”

“It’s a hole through my chest,” the dryad grumbled, probing experimentally at the point where the sword entered. “It doesn’t feel good.”

“What I mean is, can you fight? Is it safe to pull the—well, there you go,” she finished as Juniper yanked the blade out and handed it to her. Streaked across its length, and oozing from the tiny wound, was a thick amber goo. Ruda wouldn’t go quite so far as to taste it, but couldn’t resist lifting the sword to have a sniff. She’d been taught about shipbuilding and repair from the cradle, and knew the smell of tree sap very well.

“Right,” Juniper said grimly, dragging herself upright. “Kidnapped and drugged. If I really hated these guys, we could just let them do it and have to deal with Omnu, Tellwyrn, Naiya and Blackbeard later.”

“I’d rather take care of my own shit, thanks. Especially if it means I get to live. You, uh, all right there? You’re moving a little stiffly.”

“I’m exhausted,” the dryad said shortly, “and recently stabbed. I’ll cope. Oh, here’s a dead guy,” she noted, hopping down from the back of the wagon with Ruda and Fross right behind her. “Your doing? I’m kinda surprised, I was starting to think you humans were squeamish about everything.”

“Pff, I killed my first man when I was seven. C’mon, there’s three more to—”

“Hey, Elroy!” Lance bellowed. “Jim doesn’t know where the rope is either, and we don’t have all day to fuck around with this. Get over here and lend us a hand.”

“Only three?” Juniper said grimly. “Easy enough.”

“Wait!” Ruda exclaimed as the dryad stepped around the wagon to face the others, then winced at the storm of shouted curses that rose.

Above them came Bella’s frantic voice. “Wait, no! No! Don’t shoot!”

Too late.

A thunderclap ripped across the badlands and a blast of energy struck Juniper right in the midsection, hurling her backward two yards.

Ruda clapped a hand over her mouth in horror. The lightning bolt had clipped the dryad right below the ribs, blasting a large chunk completely out of her body. Almost a third of her abdomen was gone, its edges seared black and smoking.

“You big—mean—JERKS!” Fross howled, taking to the air. In the next instant, a blizzard roared out of the clear sky, pounding the lead wagon with sleet and jagged shards of flying ice. The three remaining adventurers, Ruda saw as she stepped around to look, scrambled into its meager shelter to avoid the worst of it. They hadn’t let go of their staves, though. Two more lightning bolts ripped out of the wagon, of course not getting anywhere near Fross, but sending Ruda diving back into cover.

Such as it was. One of those staves would rip apart a wood and canvas wagon, along with her sleeping friends inside. She cursed monotonously to herself; now the luck chose to desert her. This was exactly the situation she’d been trying to avoid.

A soft sound from her left caught Ruda’s attention. Juniper was dragging herself laboriously up, staggering as she got to her feet. She listed slightly to the right, as if her torso couldn’t quite hold itself up on that side. Finally she lifted her head, and even Fross fluttered back from her expression. There was no hint of the cheerful openness her face usually held.

“That,” the dryad snarled, “really…really…HURT.”

Then the earth split apart.

The lead wagon was tumbled onto its side as an enormous pillar of wood burst from the ground beneath it, sending shards of stone flying in every direction and causing the rocky ground to crack and shift for dozens of yards on all sides. As it grew from the very stone, the tree twisted itself over to one side, unfurling thorny vines like tentacles to wrap around the damaged wagon and rip it apart, sending the oxen fleeing, braying in terror. The pair yoked to the wagon containing the students tried to bolt, too, but were stopped by tangles of vines tethering them to the earth. There they stood, bellowing piteously.

The three adventurers were plucked from within the wreckage by thorny curls of vine and slammed to the ground, where more brambles twined around them, digging into flesh and holding them firmly captive. Lance’s stream of cursing was cut off as a thick vine wrapped around his head, covering his mouth.

Juniper limped toward them, glaring. Seeing her approach, Bella frantically redoubled her struggles against the vines holding her down. “I told them not to shoot!” she babbled. “It’s not my fault!”

The dryad wasn’t moving smoothly enough to kneel with any particular grace; she more fell to one knee beside the bound woman. “It wasn’t me!” Bella wailed. “I’m sorry!”

“Don’t care,” Juniper said curtly, drew back a fist, and slammed it straight through Bella’s chest into the ground. The woman emitted a strangled croak that was all but drowned out by the sound of breaking bone and tearing flesh. Her body thrashed once, weakly, as Juniper yanked out a moist handful of meat studded with bits of ribs, and then fell still.

Actually, everything went comparatively quiet at that point. The sudden thorn tree, its work apparently done, had stopped growing. Fross settled on Ruda’s shoulder; not minding the cold, the pirate turned her gaze away from Juniper to the two bound men. Blood pooled under both of them, and neither was so much as twitching. Those vines had very large thorns.

“Guess that’s one way to do it,” Ruda said grudgingly. She glanced down at her sword; sheathing it wasn’t going to be an option until she’d cleaned all that sap off. What a mess. A sudden, sickening pop caught her attention; she looked up again just in time to see Juniper tug the sleeve off Bella’s arm, which she’d just pulled free from her body. “Augh… Juno, please don’t do that.”

“What?” The dryad half-turned to face her, scowling. “Oh, for the… You people and your nonsense. Look, I’m sorry about your funerary customs or whatever, but I have an actual, real problem. I’m exhausted and injured, I need protein and calcium and mass. I killed this, so I’m eating it. That’s life. That’s how it works.”

“Whoah, whoah, easy there!” Ruda said soothingly, holding up her hands. “Sorry, knee-jerk reaction. You take care of yourself however you need to, hon.”

“That’s okay, I forgive you,” Juniper said brightly, and just like that she was as cheerful as ever, despite the carnage around her and the burned chunk missing from her own body.

“By the way, I, uh…didn’t know you could do that. Call up trees to fight for you.”

“Oh, I can’t,” the dryad said offhandedly. “That wasn’t me.” She lifted the arm to her face and bit off the thumb, and Ruda instantly decided to find somewhere else to busy herself rather than continue that conversation.

“Did you know she could do that?” she asked Fross as she strode back to their wagon. The oxen now seemed as placid as ever, which struck her as odd, but what did she know about beasts of burden? Maybe it was something else Juniper did.

“She…that wasn’t her. She told you that.” Fross buzzed her wings somewhat weakly, and it occurred belatedly to Ruda that she might have exhausted herself again with that wild torrent of ice and wind. “Do you… You don’t know much about dryads, do you?”

Ruda paced around to the back of the wagon and clambered up, bending down to check on the others. They were all still out, but breathing normally and she detected no wounds. “Fross, I’m from the sea. I can tell you exactly how to kill a mermaid, but why the hell would I know anything about dryads?”

The pixie emitted a soft chime that Ruda had learned to recognize as laughter. “Yeah, well… Let’s just say that killing a dryad is an exceptionally bad idea. You, uh, didn’t realize that Juniper’s technically a demigoddess, then, I guess.”

Ruda stopped short and looked over at Juniper, who she could just see over the barrels out the front of the wagon. She immediately looked away again; the dryad was sitting amid the ruins of somebody, chewing busily and holding up two red, dripping handfuls.

“She…are you serious?”

“I don’t know if… I mean, probably not the way you’re thinking. They’re not a species; they don’t reproduce. But, yeah, Naiya created each one individually. Some people call them daughters of Naiya, which is pretty much the relationship. So, yes, never kill a dryad.”

“She wasn’t killed,” Ruda protested, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at Juniper. “There she is.”

Fross buzzed her wings briefly. “Um, yeah. That’s why. In the first place it’s pretty pointless; it doesn’t exactly…take.”

“…oh.”

“And in the second, very, very bad things happen to people who kill dryads. If nature itself is mad at you, well, you pretty much don’t get to be alive anymore. As you just saw.”

“Well, I’m learning all kinds of fascinating new shit today,” she muttered, picking her way carefully back to the rear and sitting on the end of the wagon. “For future reference, Fross, that’s the kind of information I’d really like to have about someone before I stab them.”

“How was I supposed to know you were gonna do that?! I don’t usually assume my friends are going to act like crazy people!”

Ruda grinned at that. “Well, it hasn’t been a total wash. In fact, hell, I’d say we came out of this pretty good.”

“Did you… I’m sorry if this is too personal, but did you really kill somebody when you were seven? That’s, uh, that’s pretty young for a human, isn’t it?”

Ruda snorted. “Oh, that? Wasn’t my idea. Some asshat assassin or thief or something broke into my father’s fortress, and just happened to come in through my window. Punaji kids sleep with knives under their pillows. Fucker got blood on my teddy bear.” She scowled. “I’m still pissed about that. Why, seven’s not young for pixies?”

Fross chimed again. “I’m three years old.”

“…oh.” She cleared her throat. “Well, anyway, as I was saying, we’re doing pretty good. Obviously, I’d have been happier if June hadn’t gotten hurt, but it looks like she’s gonna be okay, with some rest and…” She glanced back at the dryad and winced, averting her eyes again. “…nutrition. The rest of our gang are having their beauty sleep. And as a bonus, we scored a free wagon, two oxen and a shitload of jewels!”

Fross buzzed down to the scattered gemstones, avoiding Elroy’s cooling body, and then returned to the wagon. “Those, um, jewels…have blood on them.”

Pulling a bottle of rum from within her coat, Ruda grinned, yanked the cork out with her teeth, and took a swig.

“And that, my beauty, makes ’em the only kind worth having.”

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2 – 18

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She fought in broad daylight.

Light encompassed Trissiny: her own energy, drawn from Avei, as well as the blessings of Omnu and Themynra laid upon her. Omnu granted peace, which was an ironic sensation under the circumstances, but she certainly appreciated the core of unshakeable inner calm while she fought among two dozen foes each more than three times her size. His blessing was also one of life and healing, which she also had cause to be thankful for, especially the first time she took a kick full in the chest from an equine hind leg. Her breastplate didn’t so much as dent, its silvered steel having been a gift of the goddess, but she felt her ribs break and skin rupture, and then set themselves instantly right, with a pleasant tingling sensation.

Themynra, as Shaeine had said, was a goddess of judgment, and Trissiny was grateful for her assistance as well. She had been skeptical at being told of the drow goddess’s association with Avei, but in the heat of this melee, the matter began to make a great deal more sense. Her mind already held the knowledge she needed of martial arts and military tactics, but she found herself thinking faster and three steps farther than she usually did, deducing where a strike would fall or an enemy would maneuver almost before they did.

She whirled among them, unable to reach higher than their equine backs, but nearly impossible for them to strike—and when they did land a hit, immediately back on her feet, unhurt. It was a battle of attrition, and while the centaurs might have expected to win that had it just been her, they were facing off against the power of the gods.

It helped a lot that they could hardly see. Trissiny moved in a mobile blaze of light that blinded and confused them; they could either look right at her and accept momentarily blindness and longer-term damage to their night vision, or look outward into the darkness, and fall afoul of the rapidly dancing little human with the inhumanly precise sword.

That didn’t mean she was going to win. Themynra’s touch told her the odds, and Omnu gave her peace with it. Gods or no, she was an imperfect vessel for their power, and her enemies had power of their own.

After the first clashes, though, the warlocks had pulled back to let the warriors face her. Her divine light didn’t effortlessly snuff out their spells the way Juniper’s fae magic did, but rather reacted against it—violently. It was quickly proven that whatever sources they were drawing on, Trissiny’s was stronger. Curses hurled at her rebounded or exploded at the outer edge of her aura; the two demons initially summoned to attack her had died excruciatingly within seconds, one bisected by her blade, the other struck insensate to the ground by a burst of radiance, to have her boot slam down on its throat. The third had taken one look at her and fled across the prairie, its shrieking warlock in pursuit.

Trissiny learned quickly that the best place to be was right in front of them. To the side, they could turn swiftly, using their bulk to knock her over; behind, she was in range of those mighty hindquarters, which was very much to be avoided. No blessing or healing would save her if a kick took her head off, which they seemed fully capable of doing. She had gained some insight into why the barbarian lord whose tomb had hosted her party had been given his name, now that she knew firsthand which end of a horse was not to be messed with.

Too far back, and they sent arrows, spells and javelins at her, which she had ways of dealing with, but that forced her to expend her energy with nothing to throw back at them. No, the sweet spot was right in front; they couldn’t reach her with their hands, and she was quick enough to deflect their longer weapons on sword or shield. From that range, she could reach their human bellies with her blade, which seemed to hold some vital organs. They were most likely to rear up and slash at her with their hooves, which afforded her the chance to dodge beneath them and put her sword into their lower bodies. From there, it was somewhat tricky to disengage her blade and get away before being crushed under their falling weight, but the centaurs were only faster over long distances. Up close, she was the more nimble.

Three lay dead, now, with half a dozen more still on their feet but bleeding or limping. A further four were alive but immobile; Trissiny had found that the creatures were just as vulnerable as horses once their legs were broken. Of those, only one had tried to continue the fight with bow and arrow, and had subsequently lost a hand as a lesson in why one should not launch a ranged attack on a mobile foe when one could not run away.

She wasn’t even tired, yet. It would come, though, she knew it. So far, she still didn’t feel the burning sensation of too much Light, despite the fact that she was using more than at any previous point in her life. That was coming, too, however. It wasn’t a pretty way to die.

What would be, would be. Live, die, it hardly mattered. She was protecting her friends. She was the hand of Avei. She fought.

Sword, shield and boots were equally useful for breaking legs. Shield and aura both worked to deflect attacks. Her blade bit into flesh, her power pushed back against curses. Trissiny rolled under their legs, smashed their limbs, maneuvered them to collide with each other, slashed at them till their blood ran under her armor. Those who survived this night would remember Avei’s wrath.

The blast of a hunting horn split the night. One long note, two short ones, a pause and a final bleat. She didn’t know their signals, but Trissiny suddenly found herself alone. The centaurs peeled away in every direction, flowing around her at a respectful distance to regroup.

She held her ready stance. Were they retreating? Had she convinced them they couldn’t win this? She hadn’t yet convinced herself of that… Then again, they were expecting easy prey; the fact that she was not might be enough to dissuade them.

A sudden fear chilled her as she watched them gather together. What if they just backed off and went around her, after her friends? She’d never catch up in time.

The centaurs, however, held their position, about fifty yards distant, excepting the nine lying wounded or dead on the battlefield. Thirteen still in their ranks, as best she could tell; they were milling about enough to confuse the matter.

Then, they parted, and their leader emerged from the throng.

She held her skull-staff in one hand and the hunting horn in the other. Stepping forward, she tossed the horn to one of her number and continued on at an even pace, alone, her gaze fixed on Trissiny.

The towering centaur came to a stop. Then, very deliberately, she raised her staff high over her head, and nodded once to the paladin.

For a moment, Trissiny felt only revulsion. A warlock among a tribe of warlocks, rapists, and the gods only knew what else was not worth treating as any kind of equal. That, she realized, was only her faith talking. And in the end, there were some things which were about faith, and some that were about being a warrior.

Trissiny returned the salute in the Avenist fashion: sword hand over heart, blade vertical beside her face, and a shallow bow.

They lowered their weapons at the same moment.

The centaur broke into a canter, calling upon her power; shadowy forms, an inky purple against the night sky, began to circle above her like vultures over carrion, first one, then more, till they swirled above her head in a twisted vortex. As she accelerated into a full gallop, the skull head of her staff burst into sickly green flame.

Trisiny charged to meet her, shield forward, blade held out and ready to strike. Her aura intensified till the other centaurs couldn’t look, her sword burning almost white with divine energy. A tone like the chime of an immense bronze bell rang across the prairie, and in the final sign of Avei’s favor, golden eagle wings lit the air behind her, as if to lift her from the ground.

From the point where light and shadow met, the tallgrass was blasted flat for a quarter mile around.

 

The little hillock wasn’t much in the way of shelter, but it was something, and in the endless flatness of the Golden Sea, something was plenty. Small, thorny bushes decorated it, interspersed with craggy little protrusions of rock. It had also held a few grouse, which were now roasting over their campfire. Not much else of interest was to be found, but the travelers had made the best use they could of it. With the hillock on one side and the two wagons drawn in a loose V formation, they formed a sheltered little triangular nook, lit by their campfire.

The oxen were tethered outside the formation, and Jim sat atop the modest high point of the hillock, still plenty close enough to speak to without shouting, keeping watch. The other three sat cross-legged on the ground around their campfire, laughing, chatting, and waiting for dinner to be done.

“Somebody’s coming,” said Jim suddenly, standing up.

A hush fell over the group; Bella slipped a hand into her vest to grasp at one of the talismans hidden there.

“Trouble?” asked Lance tersely.

“Dammit, man, if I knew I’d have said so. Shut up a minute and let me look.”

Moving slowly so as not to create noise or cast dramatic shadows, Elroy leaned to one side, picking up his staff and Lance’s, which he passed over; Lance accepted the weapon with a nod of thanks. Bella was fingering her amulet now, almost silently whispering an invocation of some kind. Lance had little understanding of witchcraft, but it seemed to involve almost as much muttering and superstition as he expected from clerics.

“It’s those kids,” said Jim, his tone more bemused than relieved. “The ones from the other day. Well…half of ’em, looks like.”

“Tellwyrn’s kids?” Bella asked, biting her lip. “Hell.”

“Ain’t likely to rob us, then,” Lance mused. “How far?”

“Bout a hundred yards. Makin’ right for us. No surprise there, what with the fire.”

“You say there are fewer?”

“Yeah, I count… Four. No, five, one’s unconscious and being carried. They got some kinda floating glowball for light.”

“Down part of their number and walkin’ around in the middle of the night,” said Lance, frowning in thought. “Sounds like trouble. Anything comin’ after ’em?”

“Not that I can see. They ain’t hurrying, either. Look plumb wore out, to me. Kinda, y’know…trudging.”

“All right. Hands near weapons, but until we get a sign otherwise, I’d say it’ll pay to be neighborly.”

“You sure?” Bella asked carefully.

“Tellwyrn ain’t a good enemy to have. We’ll be polite until a compelling reason not to pops up. Like I said, they ain’t likely to mean us harm, and it sounds like they’ve had some trouble of their own .”

She nodded slowly, Elroy doing the same. They waited in silence for the few minutes it took the students to reach their camp.

The little brown girl led the way, stepping through the gap between the wagons with naked steel in her hand. Lance’s eyes flicked to the sword, and Elroy’s hands tensed on his weapon. Her posture wasn’t aggressive, though; the blade was practically dragging along the ground. She looked angry and tired, but relaxed slightly as her eyes widened in recognition.

“Oh, hey,” she said. “It’s you guys again.”

“Evening,” Lance said mildly. He glanced at her unsheathed weapon and came to one of the rapid decisions that had marked his career up to this point. “We weren’t expecting to run into y’all again. It’s not often that paths cross twice in the Golden Sea.”

“Perhaps the gods brought us,” said the tall, dark-skinned boy, gently pushing past her. “Sorry to barge in on you like this.”

“Ain’t no trouble,” Lance replied. “Elroy, point that thing someplace else, nobody here’s bein’ hostile. Sit a spell, neighbors. Food’s not quite ready, but you’re welcome to the fire. Unless I’m mistaken, there were more of you previously.”

“We’ve had…a day,” the boy said ruefully, glancing back as the last of his companions entered, the drow and the half-elven man, who was carrying the slumbering green-haired girl. “Thanks for the welcome. You’re the first good news we’ve seen in quite a while.”

“Centaurs?” asked Bella, tense.

“A good way behind us,” said the boy, nodding. “But we’ve not seen them in hours. It looks like we lost them.”

“Are you sure?” Elroy asked nervously.

“They are not stealthy creatures,” said the drow, and Elroy started violently, twitching his staff in her direction. Thankfully, she ignored this. “I would have heard any pursuit. No, we’ve left them behind…though the price was steep.”

“Then it sounds like you’ve more’n earned a little rest,” Lance said solicitously as the four carefully arranged themselves to one side of the fire, Elroy having stood and circled around to stand between him and Bella. The blonde main carefully laid out the green-haired girl to one side before seating himself. “Hell, I’m not gonna make you kids wait on this to finish cookin’. Bella, why don’t you find something for our guests to eat? They look tuckered out. Hey, break out some of that special cornbread of yours.”

The others twisted their heads around to look at him in obvious surprise. “The…special cornbread, Lance?” Bella asked uncertainly.

“Now, don’t be stingy,” he said with gentle reproof. “We’re doin’ okay for supplies, and you can have all the cornbread or whatever else you want once we get back to civilization. These kids needs a little somethin’ to pick ’em up after the day they’ve had.”

“Sorry,” she said, flushing. “I just… Yeah, sure, gimme a second.”

She stood and stepped over toward one of the wagons, but reared back in surprise when a glowing silver ball zipped around from behind them. “Need a hand?” it asked in a bright, somewhat squeaky voice. “I’m getting good at carrying stuff!”

“Holy shit,” Bella whipered in awe. “You’re a pixie.”

“Um…yes?” The pixie bobbed in place a couple of times. “We’ve met before, you know. I was there when we ran into you out on the prairie.”

“You were? How did I not see that?”

“Oh, well, it’s my coloration, I guess. I’m told I can be kinda hard to spot in broad daylight.”

“I bet we’ve got all kinds of stories we can share,” Lance said pointedly, “but we’ve got hungry guests, Bella.”

“Ah. Yes, right.” Grudgingly tearing her eyes away from the pixie, she hopped up onto the wagon and vanished within. “Comin’ right up.”

The special cornbread was wrapped up in oilcloth, bound with some of Bella’s charmed twine to keep it fresh. In short order she had undone this and was passing around tin plates, breaking off chunks of bread for the students.

“Y’all go ahead and dig in,” she said, smiling warmly. “You’re welcome to some bird, too, when it’s ready, but we can wait on that. Looks like you kids have had a hell of a day. Is your friend there all right?”

“She’s just tired out,” said the half-elf, managing a weak grin. “…hopefully. We’re not a hundred percent sure. She doesn’t seem sick or injured, anyway.”

They accepted the offering of food with murmurs of thanks; only the boy tried to demur, insisting on sharing, but Bella was too gently persistent, and Lance managed to distract them by asking about their situation.

For all that the story was fairly straightforward, it seemed hard for them to get through. Toby, as he introduced himself, took the main role in laying it out, with occasional interruptions, mostly from Ruda and the Professor. The drow remained silent, eating quietly, and Fross just sort of drifted about their heads, commenting little.

He was carving the birds by the time they were done, and waved off their refusals with a smile as he refilled plates with fragrant fresh grouse, in addition to passing shares around to his own people.

“So the long and the short of it is,” he said carefully, “y’all have had one hell of a day.”

“Few days,” Ruda muttered, chewing. “…this is really good cornbread.”

“Bella’s special recipe,” he replied easily. “It’s got beans baked right in—you probably noticed that—and a dusting of cinnamon on the top. Your ma’s recipe, wasn’t it?”

“No, Lance,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It was Mother Gowan’s, the woman who taught me the Craft. Honestly, do you even hear words when I talk?”

“Depends on how much I’ve had to drink,” he replied, grinning at her, then sobered, turning back to their guests. “At any rate, I’m glad to hear the rest of your crew aren’t a total loss. Sounds like you managed to send ’em off to safety, at least. Well, except for the paladin girl. Reckon she’s all right?”

An obvious pall fell over them. Ruda’s features twisted into a virulent scowl and she glared into the fire as though it had just insulted all her ancestors. Toby glanced down at Juniper, lying stretched out a safe distance from the fire, as if to reassure himself that they hadn’t lost any more members of their group while he’d been talking.

“We hope and pray it is so,” said Shaeine. “There seems little more we can do at this juncture.”

Lance nodded. “That’s life, sometimes. You expect help from your University?”

“Yeah,” Ruda said quickly, an edge to her tone. “Tellwyrn will know if anything happens to Triss. She’ll take care of it.” Toby glanced sidelong at her, uncertainty plain on his face, but he made no comment.

“Well, regardless, you kids are welcome to spend the night here,” Lance continued. “We’re headin’ back to the edge of the Sea as quick as we can make it, and I gather you’re planning the same?”

“We are,” Toby said, nodding.

“Good, then there’s no reason not to help each other out. We’ll cover the watch tonight, since you’re kind of under the weather.”

“Not necessary, we’ll gladly…” He yawned hugely, mid-sentence.

“So I see,” Lance said dryly. “Tell you what, anybody still awake when it’s time to change shifts can draw straws for it. Fair?”

“’s fair,” Toby agreed, nodding again. He and the others were all visibly sleepy now, lulled by fatigue, the cozy fire and a belly full of hot food. Shaeine had set her plate on the ground after nearly dropping it once, and Rafe was already stretched out on his back next to Juniper.

“We’ll just see about getting’ squared away for the night, then,” Bella said, rising with a smile and leaving her half-eaten plate of grouse. “You still want to help, Fross?”

“Oh! Uh, sure, what can I do?” The pixie fluttered curiously over to her. Bella smiled, clambering up onto the nearest wagon and reaching under the seat.

“Well, we always keep somebody on watch, as you can see. That’s just basic common sense.”

“Ooh! I can stay on watch, I don’t need to sleep!”

“I know you don’t,” she replied, smiling, and pulled forth a lumpy knapsack. “But I was going to say, in addition to keeping a pair of eyes out, I always lay some simple protections on us and set a few wards for the evening.”

“Wards? Oh! You’re a witch!”

“Bingo!” Bella grinned. “So you see why I’m a little embarrassed. Imagine, a witch not noticing a pixie.”

“Aw, shucks, don’t worry about that. Human eyes aren’t made for spotting white lights in broad daylight.”

“Well, regardless, we’re all together now, and that’s what matters.” She had set her sack on the wagon seat and was laying out items, old charms, bundles of herbs, bones, crystals and a pint-sized glass jar with a lead stopper and swirling designs inked on the sides. “So, while I’m sure you’re very talented at lifting things, maybe you can help me out with this instead?”

“Well…sure! I’ve never assisted a witch before, it should be interesting. I mean, where I was born we didn’t really run into humans at all, but I’d heard about humans who used fae magic and I always thought that must be the most fascinating thing, so, yeah, I’d be glad to! Sorry if I ask too many questions, I don’t know very much about the Craft and I always love to learn new things.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Bella said easily. She had tied a thin silver chain around the upper rim of the lead stopper and laid two springs of dried herbs in the bottom of the wide-mouthed jar. “Here, let me show you. Can you come down here, please? Right by the jar.”

The pixie obediently buzzed downward, doing a lap around the jar before settling on the wood next to it. “What am I looking for?”

“What I need you to do is very carefully infuse those dried leaves with just the tiniest bit of pure elemental magic. Careful not to overdo it; if they burn up we’ll have to start over.”

“I dunno,” Fross said nervously, “I’ve never tried that before.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing, darlin’, I’ve got plenty more. A few false starts won’t hurt us any. Here, try to get a straight shot; can you perch on the rim of the jar?”

“Easy peasy!” She buzzed her wings once, bounding up onto the very edge of the jar’s mouth. “Oh, I see your point, this thing’s enchanted to bar magic.”

“Exactly,” Bella said, nodding, “the power only goes in and out through the mouth, that way I can control it. Now…let me walk you through it. Don’t draw on any magic yet, just start by looking at the herbs.”

“Check. I’m looking.”

“Look hard. Really focus on them, get a feel for them. Let the herbs fill your awareness…”

Her wings buzzed briefly, but Fross made no reply, her light dimming slightly in concentration as she peered down at the bits of dried plant at the bottom.

“Very good,” Belly cooed softly. “Nice and still. Hold that in your mind, and now…”

With a single motion, she knocked Fross forward with the lead stopper and then drove it firmly into the mouth of the jar, trapping the pixie inside. Quick as a cat, she snatched up a length of woven cord wrapped in an elaborate pattern of silver thread, winding it three times around the jar, and tied it off. Inside, Fross buzzed about frantically, though she barely had room to extend her wings. Her voice was reduced to meaningless squeaks by the thick glass.

“Ah!” Bella set the jar down on the wagon seat and shook her hands. “Cold!” She held them out toward the fire, but her savagely triumphant grin didn’t so much as waver.

“You about done, then?” Lance asked dryly.

“Oh, I am so done,” she purred. “Got everything I ever wanted right here.”

“Really? You were just supposed to put her out of commission. What do you want her for? What can you possibly do with a captive pixie?”

“What can’t you do with a pixie?” she retorted gleefully. “She’s a little bundle of pure elemental magic, endlessly self-replenishing. Doesn’t need to eat, sleep or breathe, and no matter how much power I pull from her, she’ll produce more. Most witches only dream of binding a pixie! You almost never see them unless you go where they live, and then they’ll mob you if you mess with one. Ohh, this is ten times better than that haul of jewels we found.”

“Yeah, that’s great and all,” Elroy said skittishly, “Bella gets her little glow-toy, and meanwhile we just probably pissed off Arachne goddamn Tellwyrn. For what? I’ll eat my boots if these kids have anything worth taking in their pockets.” Gingerly, he reached out and nudged Toby with a toe. He and Ruda had slumped over backward and were now stretched out side by side, their feet toward the fire. Only Shaeine still sat up, but she was slouched heavily and just as deeply asleep.

Lance permitted himself a smug smile. And they’d told him bringing the special cornbread was a waste of time in the Golden Sea. Preparedness; that’s why he was in charge. He stood up, stepped around the fire, bent down and picked up Ruda’s sword. “Have a look at this,” he said mildly, holding it out toward Elroy.

“Oh, c’mon, that? Yeah, sure, the gems’ll probably sell, but dammit, Lance, they ain’t nothin’ compared to what we’re already hauling! How the hell was that worth the risk?”

“Don’t assume the sparkly part is the most important part, dummy. Hey, Jim, come down here. Have a look at this.”

Jim picked his way down the rocky slope and approached curiously, plate in hand and chewing. He froze, though, staring at the sword in the firelight, going wide-eyed. Lance could almost swear his elongated ears perked up slightly.

“Okay, what are we missing?” Bella asked, tearing her eyes away from the glowing bottle. Fross had iced over the interior, hiding herself from view.

“See how the light shines on it?” Lance said, slowly turning the sword to make the firelight gleam on the blade. “Not like steel, more like it’s soaking up the light and glowing, right? This, lady and gents, is mithril. Honest-to-gods dwarven-cast mithril. Magically non-conductive and damn near indestructible. This blade would stop a wandshot; it’ll be around long after the Empire is dust.” To demonstrate, he took the rapier’s blade very carefully in both hands and attempted to flex it, to no effect. A length of steel that thin would have bent easily. “This here shaft of metal is worth three times our entire haul of jewels. Add to that the fancy handle, and this is a weapon that should belong to a prince or high priest.”

“Damn,” Elroy whispered. “What’s that little girl doin’ with it, then?”

“That, Elroy, is the best part,” Lance grinned. “See that blue jewel on her forehead? She’s Punaji—a pirate. The obvious answer to what a scruffy teenager is doing with a piece like this is that she stole it. That’s what Punaji do. So whoever actually paid for this thing will be lookin’ for her, not for us. That’s assuming they ain’t at the bottom of the Azure Sea with a slit throat.

“So our plan’s the same: we head back to civilization and sell the jewels. Now, though, we re-invest some of the proceeds in, shall we say…gentrification. Proper outfits, introductions. It’ll take some doin’ to get into the right circles to sell this sword; can’t just anybody afford something like this, even if we don’t let it go for its full value, which we ain’t gonna get. Even so, once all the effort’s made, we just doubled the size of our haul, easy.” He caressed the slender blade as lovingly as Bella was now fondling her bottle. “We are made. After this score, we can retire and live like lords until we get so tired of decadence we’re ready to shuffle ourselves off the mortal coil.”

“You are rather glossing over the complication of our…guests,” Jim pointed out.

“Right,” Lance said, drawing his attention away from daydreams of wealth and idleness, back to the present. “That’ll be an extra step or two, but nothing too onerous.”

“Just slit their throats and have done with it,” Jim said curtly.

Lance shook his head. “You heard the girl. They die, Tellwyrn knows. Wouldn’t put it past that lady to have ways of keeping an eye on the life force of her students. I’ve heard stranger things about her.”

“That sounded like a bluff to me.”

“T’me, too, Jim. But given the risk involved, and the fact that we don’t need to call that bluff, we won’t.” He nodded at Bella. “Our resident witch here can use that memory spell we laid on Lord Calwynth last year. We take ’em out of the Sea, find someplace relatively safe where they won’t get immediately killed, lay the whammy on ’em and haul ass out of there. They’ll wake up amnesiac, which’ll slow ’em the hell down without calling Tellwyrn down on us.”

“It’s a good plan,” Bella agreed. “No permanent harm, even, just for a humanitarian bonus. They’ll get most of their memories back eventually, but not the ones most recent before the spell. So they won’t ever know what happened or who to look for.”

“Sounds foolproof,” Jim said, narrowing his eyes. “I distrust foolproof. It never works out in practice.”

“Well, there’s one complication,” Bella admitted. “Lance, I don’t think my memory spell will work on the dryad.”

“So…that’s an actual dryad?” He let out a low whistle. “I sorta figured green hair was trendy in Tiraas these days. Kids’ll do any dumb fucking thing to piss off their parents.”

“Lance Rogers, any woman wandering around the Golden Sea dressed like that is either a dryad or about to be a corpse. Use your head for somethin’ besides a hatstand. Look, I can bind her so she won’t wake up, that’s easy enough. We’ll leave her someplace separate, somewhere in the Golden Sea. Animals won’t mess with her, and the Sea is twisted by fae magic; she’ll be right at home until Naiya sends somebody to wake her up. If she ever does. She ain’t exactly the most attentive mother. But we sure as hell do not want to bring her any harm. A pissed-off Tellwyrn would be nothing compared to a pissed-off Naiya.”

Elroy jumped in startlement at a sudden movement from Shaeine, but she was only tumbling over on her side, finally overbalancing. He grinned weakly at them. “Well. Um…sounds like a plan, then?

“It does,” Lance agreed. “And we’ll get started on it first thing in the morning. We ain’t more’n a day or two from the outer rim, if that. Bella, anyplace special we should look for to leave the dryad?

“Anyplace’ll do, in a pinch,” she said, chewing her lip and staring thoughtfully down at Juniper. “Could just drop her in the middle of the prairie and it’d probably be fine… But someplace meaningful would be better. We should hold out for a grove, something that could be sacred to the fae. If we don’t come across anything, we’ll just ditch her, but showing a little respect will go a long way toward appeasing Naiya.”

“She ain’t gonna be mad about us putting the girl to sleep, then?” Elroy asked nervously.

“We didn’t put her to sleep, I’m just gonna keep her that way. Which, in a roundabout way, is probably for her own good, if her so-called friends let her wear herself out running in the first place. Anyway, fae have very different sensibilities. Long as we don’t do her active harm, we’re not pickin’ a fight.”

“All right, then,” said Lance. “I want two people on watch at all times tonight. One looking outside, and one keeping an eye on these kids. We don’t want any surprises, and let’s face it, Tellwyrn doesn’t let just any jackass attend her school. It’ll mean short sleep, but in three days this’ll all be behind us, and we’ll be on our way to wealth and privilege. Jim, you take a rest; Bella, you an’ me’ll have the first watch, since it looks like you’re too busy getting’ cozy with your new pet pixie to sleep anyway.”

“Aw, you know me so well.”

As they talked, Ruda’s hand twitched toward Toby, and viciously pinched the skin on the back of his wrist. His breathing didn’t vary in the slightest.

She cracked an eye open a slit, to glance up at the four travelers, then immediately shut it as they dispersed, two into the wagons, the leader toward her and her companions. There she lay, limp and breathing deeply.

Waiting.

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