They stood next to a red plank in a small alley and waited for the right moment.

“Are you sure no one is watching?” asked Liv. “Let’s pretend we are here by mere incident.”

Kaan scouted around them with his sharp eyes and listened for approaching footsteps.

“No one is near,” he said.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” Though she had asked far too many times already, he showed no trace of annoyance, but she wished it did. “My whole life people have been watching me. I can tell.”

She tied up her hair, put on one of the knitted hats and pulled it over her face. She had cut two holes for her eyes and was expecting to look like a brave vigilante in the disguise, but it turned out she felt warm and stupid instead. Covering your face doesn’t make you evil, she told herself. Plus, it was a clever thing to do if you were to live outside the law.

“Keep an eye out,” she said and threw the empty bag over her shoulder, then climbed over the plank and landed on a backyard of dried mud. She hunkered and sneaked over to the backdoor across the yard, gave the handle a gentle push and slid open the door. The clerk sat in the middle of the room with his eyes fixed on the street outside, biding his time to harass the next customer to step inside his store. He played with a silver coin which wandered between his fingers.

Liv’s pulse throbbed like beating fists against her temples and her blood started rushing to her head. She admitted she had been naive to hope for an empty room and cursed her rotten luck, then accepted the clerk’s presence as an exciting challenge. As quiet as a night assassin, she crept to the counter and lifted the strongbox off the shelf. The clerk fumbled with his finger, and the coin rolled away on the floor.

Liv sensed his movements behind her. She let go of the strongbox, then swung around with her arm outstretched and her fist clenched tight. The blow met the astonished man between his eyes. Without hesitation, she struck him again with her other hand and scratched her knuckles against his teeth. He was tougher than she expected a sales clerk to be and threw himself at her before she could run outside. The man slapped her in the face and cracked her lip. His hands found her throat, and she screamed in panic. Liv bit his finger and tasted warm iron as his blood mixed with hers. He jerked his hand away and flew across the room as she kicked his chest. She stumbled to her feet, but before she could reach the door, the clerk tackled her and flung her back against the floorboards. A shelf fell over, and the lines of items smashed to the floor. She kicked her legs and slapped her hands against his face, but her blows grew weak and only triggered him to fight harder.

Liv searched the surrounding floor with her shaking fingers and caught hold of a hard and cool object. A cast iron candlestick. With her last powers she struck it against the man’s head. He lost consciousness and collapsed on top of her, as numb as the constable outside of Southport.

She crawled to her feet and tore the perfume bottles from the shelves next to the front door. A suffocating scent of flowers filled the air and she screamed out what remained of her anger. After catching her breath, she took the key that hung around the clerk’s neck and picked up her bag. She unlocked the strongbox and emptied its content before she rushed out through the backdoor.

Kaan remained where she had left him and did not say a word as she jumped over the plank and showed him her booty. They headed towards the inn, but chose another road than the one they had arrived by, along an empty street with small box-shaped villas on both sides.

Liv’s forehead was thick with sweat and her face so pale that one could wonder if it had ever seen the light of day. Every part of her body ached, and she sensed that she was bleeding somewhere, but it was not the pain that troubled her. Things had gone wrong. Even if she told herself they were right to steal from Arthur Greene, recalling how she beat the clerk unconscious nauseated her. She found it impossible to stop herself from replaying the fight in the store in her head. Kaan had shared little details of the events leading up to his escape, but she understood that he had injured two of the Dream Park’s officers, maybe killed them. Above Southport, the constable had been aiming his rifle at them before she struck him. In both cases it had been self-defense, but this was different. At least she had felt strong after her earlier fights, but now sickening feelings of guilt and regret came storming as a hurricane.

Kaan walked two steps ahead of her. She grabbed hold of his hand to slow him down, bent over and spewed onto the gate of a house that looked like a smaller version of Shannon’s villa. Her father had taught her the importance of witnesses, and she knew that it was best not to leave any behind. Had she dared to leave the clerk unconscious if he had seen her face? Once more her stomach turned itself inside-out. She breathed and started walking again. Kaan put his arm around her shoulders and walked her back to the inn, neither of them uttering a single word.

*

Kaan tossed his cap in a corner of the room when they returned to Moriah’s house. He lay down on the floor below the foot of the bed and fell asleep the moment he closed his eyes, his face as still as a doll’s. The elf acted like they lived in a world free of worries. Liv never felt that way. She tossed and turned on top of the hard mattress, exhausted but with a never-ending stream of troublesome thoughts running through her head. Half-way through the night she sat up, lit a candle and allowed her mind to process everything that prevented her from falling asleep. She looked at Kaan. If she had not experienced them herself, it would be impossible to comprehend the wild universe of dreams taking place behind his eyelids. More than a week had passed since they first met and her original impression of him had faded. She remembered how she had mistaken him for being intelligent. Now she knew he was interesting, at best.

The next morning they ate their breakfast on a bench outside of Saint Rafael’s bakery. Kaan stuffed his mouth full with more food than could fit in it. Liv patronized at him when he gulped chunks of sugarbread and sprayed crumbs onto both of them. She settled for a cup of tea and a thin slice of raisin-bread. Once they had finished eating, she bought a lute from an instrument maker on the other side of the village and returned to the inn.

Two more days with similar activities drifted by. They had their breakfast at the bakery, then went for a walk before they ate lunch and drank a pint of ale at the pub. Kaan slept for most of the afternoon while Liv played her lute. When she stuck her head out the bedroom window, she could see every road leading up to the village. If any persecutor from Sommerfort or Southport appeared they could escape up the mountain. Yet staring at the view gave her no insights into dreams. It did not take long for her to tire of sitting by the window, and she began to doubt that the encounter with the elf lady had even occurred.

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She was well aware that uneventful days are the best for someone on the run, but she could not prevent restlessness from sneaking up on her. On the third day she decided that she would teach Kaan to read. They both found it an interesting idea at first, but soon changed their minds. Liv had never tried to teach another person anything, nor had the elf ever experienced a proper education. Even though he recognized the letters and could discern a few words, it did not take long before she snapped the book shut and started playing her lute instead. Kaan left her alone and walked with lengthy strides up the hill to the forest.

It was dark outside when he called for her from below the window.

“I’m back,” he said. “Can you unlock the door?”

At the foot of the stairs they met Moriah, who warned them not to make noise late at night and reminded them when their next payment was due.

“Now that you’ve disturbed my evening peace, will you share supper with me? You were outside for hours and must be hungry.”

Kaan accepted the invitation and explained that he was indeed starving. The innkeeper looked at them in disgust and prayed to the divine for enough money to never host guests again, yet he wanted them to take his offer. Moriah cursed himself for his sinful need for companionship and wished he were stronger. He dreamed of becoming a monk bound by a sacred vow of silence and to embark on a desolate pilgrimage to prove his righteousness. But no holy order accepted his application, no matter how much he begged for it, and he would never obtain the status of a genuine servant of the church. The monasteries even refused to hire him as a janitor.

Within a few minutes they sat at the kitchen table dipping black pieces of rye bread into a tasteless beet soup.

“I assume you’ll celebrate Mass at the heavenly chapel tomorrow?” said Moriah. Kaan and Liv had no choice but to agree. “I heard that some thief robbed the Greene’s store the other day. Have you visited it? Yes, I thought so. All visitors go there. How tragic that evil exists in our blessed village. It’s the Greene family’s fault that scum started coming here.”

“Moriah, what do you know about the Greene family?” asked Liv.

“Oh, almost everything. Old man Greene, who died when I was a boy, came to our country as a bachelor. I don’t know where he lived before that or what made him move here, but trust me when I say that he was a fortune hunter, and a successful one. When he came to Saint Rafael, he had more money than most decent people could dream of. No one knew how he’d earned his fortune, but there were ugly rumors flying about. He married the beautiful daughter of Lord Avery. Most important to the old man Greene was not her beauty, but that the Averys belonged to the ancient nobility and owned a large estate in the valley. Lord Avery had no male heirs and his daughter would inherit his wealth, including vast stretches of land outside Frostport. You see, if you want to know the Greene family’s story, it’s actually the Avery family I should talk about. In turn, I need to tell you the history of Saint Rafael. You see, the two are interconnected.”

The innkeeper chewed down a mouthful of black bread, grinding it with his equally dark teeth.

“Saint Rafael, who you probably know much about already, was one of the first missionaries in Anland. After performing more miracles than I can keep track of, he came to what the natives called Skyberg, the place we refer to as Mount Domedus. Here he fell in love with the mountain and its proximity to heaven. Together with his disciples, he built a small chapel and settled to live right here where the village and chapel named after him now stand. To their dismay they discovered that the woods nearby were swamped with wild elves and gnomes which caused many problems for the settlers. The missionary urged his followers to be kind and insisted that they should convert the creatures to the true faith. Learned people nowadays agree that this was the famous missionary’s only major mistake. Theologians know beyond doubt that elves and gnomes don’t have a place in the afterlife, and thus we don’t talk about it. What was I saying? Ah, right, a disciple named Adam Avery was in charge of the chapel’s construction. After Saint Rafael’s death, he received the forests around Domedus and a stretch of fertile land in the valley as a reward for his service.”

Brother Moriah talked for a long time, rambling on about important dates and forgotten men in the history of their community. He explained how the property had passed through the centuries, how Saint Rafael grew and how villagers rebuilt the chapel countless times. Kaan tried to keep up with the story, but failed. He could not understand why people dead for generations fascinated the innkeeper like that. Liv had spent more time than she wished for at history lectures and ate her soup without listening to a single word.

“So it came to pass that Lord Avery’s daughter inherited the forests of Domedus just a month before she gave birth to her second son, Arthur Greene,” said Moriah. The mention of the name alerted them. “The old man Greene died soon afterwards. At that point, the villagers lived a peaceful life, and many generations had passed since their forefathers captured the last wild creatures. Only a herd of domesticated elves and gnomes owned by the Averys remained. Arthur Greene’s mother was clever but had a peculiar heart. The lady made the boskets bigger and allowed the gnomes to leave and enter their barns as they pleased. She opened an inn and invited visitors to walk amongst the pens. People from the city could see creatures they only knew from their bedtime stories, and it turned out they were willing to pay good money for it.

“In the good old days, only pilgrims traveled to Saint Rafael. Over the years, visitors came in numbers to entertain themselves at Skyberg — that’s what she called it, she took the natives’ name. She brought creatures and animals from near and afar. Towards the end there were trolls, naiads, leopards, giant turtles and micro bears living in the woods. The lady was not a Believer and treated the creatures in obscene and irresponsible ways. She gave them beds to sleep in and served them human food to eat. When a rumor spread that she even taught the elflings to read, the villagers had enough.

“I don’t know who or whom was behind it, but one night both the inn and the surrounding woods, yes the whole of Skyberg, stood in flames. Missis Greene died in the fire and her youngest son Arthur inherited the ashes. Already as a child he was obsessed with money, and that trait only grows stronger with age. He moved to Sommerfort and took everyone associated with Skyberg with him, where they opened the famous Dream Park.”

“And the Beings? What happened to them after the fire?” Liv asked from between clenched teeth. Kaan’s face was even paler than usual. It was the first time she saw him scared.

“The creatures either burned to death or escaped into the woods,” said Moriah, emphasizing that he refused to refer to the inhabitants of Skyberg as Beings. “It is said that the last thing Missis Greene did before she died was to open the gates to pens and barns. We don’t know if that’s true, but it caused us great trouble to catch the devils.” The innkeeper straightened his hunched back and beamed with pride. “I took part in the chase myself,” he declared.

At these words, Kaan and Liv flew up from their chairs. The elf threw his bread into his soup, splashing red liquid onto the yellow-white napkin Moriah had tucked into his shirt. Liv tried to prevent herself from injuring the old man. She shook with exertion and clenched her fist so tight her knuckles cracked. The two of them walked up the creaking stairs without saying a word.

“The fire is the best thing that happened to our village since the sacred time of Saint Rafael,” the innkeeper called after them. He sat alone in deep thought until late that night and stared at the half-eaten bowls of soup that his guests had left on the table.