I embarrassed myself in the library today. With the very same temper that drove me to leave the girls, I very nearly lost a friend.

  Brandon wrote to me at work. I would think an ex-husband would be familiar and write to my home, but I suppose it’s possible I forgot to send him my current address. Regardless, he begged me to visit the girls, appealing to my mercy as a mother. My mercy was to leave.

  I tried to burn the letter. Only, it didn’t land in the fire chamber, but on the brick hearth. My coworker, Professor Fennorin Willowbirth whom I’ve mentioned before, intervened and stole the offending letter from the hearth. He knew it was from my ex as had. I uttered as much when I cursed and threw the letter. He dared to offer to keep the letter until such a time as I was prepared to read it.

  Then I yelled at him. I accused him of meddling, of thievery, and of demeaning me. I dare say, the young elfman froze still and allowed the abuse. I hazard a guess that this was not his first time suffering under such treatment. He tucked his head and listened quite penitently. In retrospect, I think this worries me as much as my own outburst.

  When I had finished laying into him, he raised his head. With no expression readable to me and a tenuous tremor in his voice, he asked of me, “Are you truly so angry with me?”

  To say I was gutted is an understatement. My insides filled with slime instantly. I discovered at his question that I wasn’t angry at him at all. It is me. No matter the success I achieve as a scholar, I shall never overcome my failures as a mother and wife. And I made a friend suffer the wrath I hold only toward myself. I admitted only this much to him: that I tend to project my anger when disappointment with myself, and I apologized.

  Writing this, I have yet to discern whether I irrevocably ruined a friendship, or, more hopefully, formed an irrevocable bond.

  I think I shall write back to Brandon. At minimum, he should have my proper address.

  “Dec. 5, 2360” (13 years pre-recollection)

  Entry from Mellark Brandybeard’s Diary

  Mell contained a smile as the two young Etnfrandians bumped elbows over dinner. Of course, Fenn still appeared uncomfortable with the entire circumstance and just had to lean away. He wasn’t changing that quickly.

  Only enough that when they gathered their bags, Fenn consulted them each on the safest methods of travel and, after some thought, decided they would return to Krid’s strategy with a modification: one scholar would be allowed the freedom to take notes.

  This honor fell first to Mell. It was enough to lift her mood. For a while, she could forget the infighting and dangers and just observe.

  She couldn’t sketch like Fenn could, and she wasn’t particularly good at writing and walking at the same time, but she wrestled to pencil every description. The wisps continue to appear at intervals, she wrote, and the girl, despite a potion in her stew, sends longing glances to them. I begin to wonder if it truly is a bewitchment, or something innate to her person. After all, these lands are the origins of her Woodland tribe. At the least, the magic is no longer sourced from the fae-poppies.

  The trees grew larger as they pressed deeper into the Yellow Wood. At intervals, forest creatures would spring away: the fox-like critters and the long-eared mice remained from Ferngal’s forest, as did many of the same smaller breeds of shoth, but they were joined by drifting insects that spun in the air, floating like feathers. Seeds, too, on fluffy white clouds, wafted from symbiotic lichens which hung in increasing length and density from the trees. The overall effect of the falling leaves, the drifting seeds, and the bugs floating in a golden light, one which never waxed nor waned with the day, formed in my mind the impression of suspended time; like a breath withheld in awe of itself.

  She nodded. That was pretty writing.

  “Hold!” Krid’s whisper pulled her from her notes.

  She followed the gazes of the others to see it: It was like an enormous elk had been painted gold. Over his eyes, twelve horns branched in various directions, some furcated, some straight, and one pair even curled around its ears. Its ebony hooves beat the ground, and it snorted out smoke.

  “Look at his horns,” Fenn whispered. It’s ear twitched.

  Mell squinted and discovered stringing on the antlers like he was shedding for the season. But when its head turned, she heard it rattle and clink. It was what she had missed on the sudfieds: strings of bright, colorful beads.

  Fenn gestured her nearer, reaching for the notebook and pencil. “Beads. That means there must be–”

  “People,” she gasped. She grabbed his arm, fortunately his right, so he could continue his sketch. “Do you know what that means?” she asked.

  “Answers. If we can find them.”

  “No–well, yes, but Fenn–food.” She glanced to the others, Fenn following suit. Krid was hunched down, eyes on the stag. Syrdin didn’t seem to care, but at the word food, zhe bit zheir cheek. Gale’s hands were on her mouth, her pupils still far too dilated for the bright morning.

  Mell suppressed a chuckle at the girl’s expression. You’d have thought she was looking at a fawn.

  “A baby,” Gale sighed in elvish.

  When Mell turned, she saw that sure enough, a red-freckled fawn hid beneath the stomach of its father, blinking at them.

  The buck stomped again, a warning.

  “He doesn’t look pleased,” Krid hissed. “I think we’re in dang–”

  He didn’t get to finish. The giant elk-king charged him.

  He yelled in surprise and rolled away. “Syrdin, flank it! Gale, arrows!”

  “I can’t shoot him! He has a baby!” Gale cried.

  Fenn showed less remorse. He dropped his book and pulled out his freshly constructed mini-bow.

  The best defense was to avoid conflict entirely. Thus, Mell raised her hand toward the buck and issued her spellbound command, “Flee!”

  The buck pointed its many horns toward her and–magic washed over her in a wave. Flee, it said. It was her own spell reflected back. “Shit!” Her legs started running out from under her, moving away from the beast as fast as they’d swung in twenty years. Frustration escaped her in a string of curses. She hadn’t failed so miserably since she’d been a Dalthen.

  Fenn cocked an ethereal arrow into place. “Mell?!” he called as she passed.

  “It’s my spell!” She grappled for control of her body, wrestling to stop, or at least slow down, but it would not. Her mind and body wanted to escape. Her feet pounded inevitably on, drumming up more anger.

  “I’ll get her!” she heard Gale call.

  Gale? Mell gritted her teeth. She doesn’t know how to help me! Her body jolted with every impact of her legs.While running was slowly becoming less painful the longer they journeyed, she would never make it for the eight or so hours before her spell dissipated. She started conjuring a counterspell of her own, but she only knew how to perform those as rituals. Bouncing along, it would be extraordinarily difficult to do. Nearly impossible. She moved her hands into runic gestures. She had to try.

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  Krid was bellowing his battle cry behind her somewhere, growing quieter. She peeked over her shoulder to see Syrdin shove Fenn out of the stag’s path into the dirt. “Fenn!” Gale’s cry came from over Mell’s other shoulder.

  Mell swiveled her head forward to watch for trees and narrowly missed one, stumbling. She started her ritual spell over again, gathering magic to herself through her circlet.

  She heard a squeaky, “Get Mell,” break through her concentration. Fenn was fine.

  Mell was less fine. Her sides were already twinged with pain. She was running too fast. It was interesting how the word “flee” had implied a sprint. She set that aside to ponder later and focused on isolating the spell for her counter. The ground jarred her knees with sharp pains. Still, she endeavored on.

  Then a glowing stool appeared at Mell’s feet.

  Oh crap. Her legs tangled in it and she came crashing down, banging her head, shoulder, and at least one knee and elbow into the unforgiving ground. Pain burst through her a second later, concentrated in her forehead.

  As she lay dazed, face-down in the leaves, she heard Gale’s light steps catch up to her. “What do I do?” How do I break it?” she asked in a panic.

  The world swayed lightly. It took Mell a few moments too long to realize she meant the spell. Fortunately, she had no urge to flee whatsoever. She groaned, bringing a hand up to massage her brow where the circlet had made the impact worse. It throbbed with such conviction that the world darkened. Cognitive recalibration. “Already done,” she growled.

  “Oh thanks to beauty!” Gale crouched and began to lift Mell by her arm. “I had no idea what I was going to do!”

  Mell hissed with pain. “No, no! Not yet!” She shoved Gale’s help away, almost falling flat again. She rubbed her joints to make sure everything was intact–she’d rather not heal around a dislocation or misaligned fracture.

  In the distance, Syrdin hurled insults at the stag in elvish. Probably, it was some kind of technique to confuse or overwhelm the beast–regardless of whether it could understand. In her painful ire, Mell resonated with the string of creative expletives.

  “Here, let’s heal and go. They need us.” Gale’s face had twisted into a grimace. Obviously, she understood them. It was her native tongue.

  Warm magic spilled through Mell, clearing her of every ache she’d accumulated since the start of the day in what was quite probably an extravagant waste of magical energy. Their encounter with Ferngal had taught her to be more sparing. If she’d had any less energy remaining that day, Krid would be dead.

  “It would be better if you and I didn’t engage.” Mell corrected Gale with a sharp tone. “We should offer light healing if needed and stay out of the way. You can shoot if you think you can tolerate it.” Gale would be an obstacle to the others in close combat, but she could shoot arrows just fine from a distance. If her morals allowed her to.

  Gale recoiled as if the idea were an attack. “What?! But what if–!”

  “We aren’t fighters. You don’t want to hurt it, and I don’t want to die. Let them handle it.”

  “But they might get hurt without me!”

  “And we will heal them and protect them–from a distance.” Mell hauled herself up, grasping a tree to relieve weight from an arthritic knee. Magic had a tendency not to heal what the body itself believed was natural. “Where’s my staff?”

  The next string of insults from Syrdin cut off with an, “oh shit!”

  Mell peered through the trees to see zhem fly into a trunk and latch on like a squirrel. Fenn was half-dangling-from, half-running-along-with the beast, clinging to its shoulder. While Krid–Mell craned to see around the next tree as she began to walk–Krid was hanging onto the beast's back hoof as it hobbled on three legs.

  “Oh shit” was right. Mell angled along the side of the encounter, trying to gain the range to heal when something happened.

  The beast reared and tripped on its captured foot. Fenn fell to the ground.

  “Fenn!” Gale screamed again. Fool girl! She didn’t even have her bow ready yet. It rested in her hands without an arrow. She was really bad at this.

  The beast flailed on the ground for only a moment before finding its legs again. “Now get!” Krid smacked its flank with the broad side of his sword. Fenn rolled out of the way of its hooves before it could run him over. He looked up to see where the cry had come from.

  The beast’s beady, bloodshot eyes fixed on Gale at the same time as Fenn’s unspectacled ones. Its horns lowered. Then it charged, barrelling at supernatural speed toward the two of them.

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  Mell split to shelter behind a tree.

  Where she’d left, Gale stood frozen, her gaze locked with the creature’s.

  Move!” Mell cried.

  Nothing.

  “Dodge!” Mell commanded with magic.

  Not a moment too soon, either. With eyes wide and face still frozen, Gale sprung away. Only narrowly, she avoided getting toppled as the ragged edge of her skirt met the beast’s knee.

  The stag kept going. Kept running, baying with anger. The fawn, having sheltered in a bush, cried out and chased after him. Mell watched them sprint headlong, deeper into the woods.

  Then she turned on Gale. The stupid girl had almost gotten herself trampled. “That’s why I told you not to engage! You hesitate. You freeze. You are not good at this.” She gestured to where the others had been fighting. “There’s a reason Krid tells you to climb trees and shoot. Because we need you to Stay. Out. Of. The. Way.”

  Syrdin hopped down from the tree, clapping dirt off zheir gloves. “Not wrong there.”

  “Mell, please don’t be angry. She’s trying to help.” Fenn actually defended her.

  Angry?! If he thought this was angry, Mell had something to show him. “And you idiots let her chase after me? She doesn’t know one thing about magic dispellation. At least send Fenn.”

  “I just saved you from that spell!” Gale retorted. She pulled a twig out of her braid with a flick. “You could at least show some gratitude!”

  “Oh, thank you for almost killing me on the way. I’m old, Gale. Human. Falling hurts. Tripping breaks bones.”

  “Hey!” Syrdin snapped. “Nobody here wants Gale dead. She went off to get you, doing something that wouldn’t kill her. And she did it. And nobody died. So chill the fuck out.”

  Mell opened her mouth with a comeback, but to her complete surprise, Fenn hugged her.

  Fenn did.

  “She’s fine, Mell. You’re both fine. It’s alright,” he said.

  The anger shattered with a tremor in her shoulders. They’d all been fighting for so long. Fighting to survive. Fighting each other. She’d felt she was the only sane one in the group. Now she was the one yelling? But Gale didn’t listen, Fenn didn’t speak up enough, Krid was always bossing everyone around, Syrdin couldn’t stop being snide, and everyone was almost dying every day. She hugged Fenn back. “Gods, I’m so tired of this.”

  “I know.” He probably should’ve squeezed her or offered some similar comfort, but of course he didn’t. There was only an unsure pat to her shoulder at too wide an angle before he let her go.

  She released her fears with a chuckle. Even when Fenn knew what to do, it would always come with a flourish of awkward insecurity. She was very sure of that.

  “So, you’re not mad at me?” Gale asked almost timidly.

  Mell shook her head. “Maybe frustrated. And you should keep your distance during fights. But no.” She had admitted to Fenn, once, that she had a bad habit of projecting her anger with herself onto others. She was mad; angry that cooperation was in the hands of each of them, and none of them would do it. But in her heart? She was mad that her spell had taken. Mad she’d caused more trouble. And terribly disappointed that she couldn’t fix this, just like she couldn’t fix her family all those years ago.

  She didn’t think Fenn, with his hundreds of years of life, would remember a detail like that. Apparently he had.

  She watched Fenn turn to Krid. “Do you think you could follow the stag’s tracks? He had beading in his antlers, which means he might be tame–albeit protective. We might find a civilization if we follow him.”

  “He was not tame,” Gale argued.

  “Not domesticated,” Fenn agreed. “But he has at least befriended the locals, because someone with opposable thumbs has been decorating him.”

  Mell took one final sigh. It was nice to see that Fenn and Gale could speak to each other again, even if there was an uneasiness to Fenn’s shifting weight and bitterness in Gale’s replies. And, with the fresh reminder of Fenn’s capacity for understanding, she felt they could resolve it.

  Things would get better.

  Eventually.

  She just had to trust Fenn. But gods did he need to trust himself.