I was happily chewing on my rabbit when Jaid said in a quiet voice: “Did Princess die, Kas? Is that why you won’t let me ride her?”

I chewed some more and licked my lips thoroughly, thoughts suddenly flipping over. “Jaid, I – I can’t tell you what happened. It’s a secret – sorcerer’s stuff, you know. I can say that I don’t think she’s dead.” I saw the crestfallen expression on her face slowly give way to scepticism. “Look – I had to give her up, okay? Someone more powerful than me took an interest in her; we didn’t part on the best of terms…”

A dark unicorn, a tricorn of an arch-fiend’s making, swathed in shadows as she lowers her savage trident, bounding at me –

“But yeah. I can’t bring her out. I mean, I literally don’t think I can do it.”

“But you won’t try.” She folded her arms across her chest, giving me the out-thrust lower lip treatment.

“If I did, I might suddenly disappear to a place where for every minute that passes for me, you get to wait about three hours. Aaaand I might never return.”

She finally sensed I wasn’t spreading drop.

“O-okay, Kas. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Yawn,” Jaroan said. I glanced at him. His face was a knot of bored contempt, one cheek puffed out, like he had a big nut in the side of his mouth. “Are we going, or what?”

I ignored him and hugged Jaid, feeling the sad smile on my lips.

“She’ll be fine. Princess is a tough old dame. Come on, let’s get this fire put out and we can pack up the utensils.”

It was mid-morning as we strolled into the town of Blackice Bay. I was getting the hang of my limp – the touch of wraith-essence I was utilising to let me walk set me a little off-balance, but no one was going to question a mage it seemed. I got a few queer looks from some of the fishermen we passed, that was all.

Blackice-town looked like a giant wooden sea-whale that’d beached itself on the boulders and now lay there dying. Only four large ships were docked at the moment, but there were perhaps a hundred or more small boats in the water, and that had to be just a fraction of the fishing vessels. Jetties riddled the rocks, dozens and dozens of minor harbours spread between the proper piers, and then as the beach rose up the stick-buildings did too, from huts to houses and workshops. The tallest building looked to be three floors, and seemed to be a courthouse of some kind, given the triplicate gavel-symbol raised in granite from its peaked roof. The temples were small and simple. We passed a mossy shrine to the Founders that overlooked the town, with its five graven statues facing inwards towards one another… a sad reflection of the Fountains of Merizet back home in Hightown.

This place, for all its differences – it held reminders of where we’d come from, and that only made me think about where we’d ended up.

We didn’t come in through the main road, but headed down the hill from the treeline to the water, then followed the coast, entering along the waterfront. It wasn’t currently raining, but you couldn’t tell because of the sheer amount of cold spray being lifted up from the waves by the wind and rocks. The scents of salt and fish-innards were overpowering – many of the fishermen had already returned with an early-morning catch, it seemed, and their children got involved in the work, merrily gutting and deboning the slippery critters. I noted that the rejected parts were being carefully sorted, placed in their own special buckets – just to what use cod-intestine could be put I had no idea, and even less desire to find out.

“Fancy getting up to your elbows in that stuff?” I asked, nodding towards a group of four children, chattering away excitedly as they used their small hooked knives on a tray of squirming salmon.

“Eww,” was all Jaid said, but she seemed incapable of tearing her eyes off them. She didn’t actually sound repulsed in the slightest.

Was she jealous of their camaraderie, feeling lonely, stuck here with her brothers?

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Wherever we go,” Jaroan said, “we aren’t living by the sea.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, like it was already decided. Would it’ve killed him to simply give his opinion?

“That’s the next thing to make up our minds about.” I stopped and pointed to the itinerary nailed to the post by the biggest pier. “Let’s head over there.”

Through a near-constant curtain of water droplets, I peered at the board. The dates and times were confusingly arranged, and it took the best part of five minutes for me to decipher their meanings. It looked like two of the four big ships were bound for Mund – the others were bound for Myri and Telior.

“There’s the choices then, guys,” I said, tapping the board with my finger. “Myri, in three days, or Telior tomorrow. Or we could wait it out, I guess.”

“Myri’s nice and hot?” Jaid said hopefully.

“Three days, here?” Jaroan’s question was rhetorical. “Anyway, where’s Telior? I’ve never heard of it.”

I frowned. “Let’s have a look.”

We made our way to a nearby tavern, a rickety wooden building that seemed to shudder with the wind. I seated the twins in the corner, not too near the fire and the other patrons, then ordered ale and water. Before I even had my map out the short, curly-haired barman came over with our drinks.

“Hey, do you know where Telior is?” Jaid asked.

“Let the man go about his business,” I said, smiling up at him apologetically.

“Yeah.” Jaroan spread out the map, and pinned it down with a candle-holder to stop it rolling up again. “We’ll find it.”

“Never a trouble,” the barman said, immediately tapping on a shoulder of land to the west, across Northril. “Thar’s Telior, to be true.”

“Part of the Realm?” I found myself asking, looking down at that section of the world. I didn’t recognise any of the names around Telior – but then about ninety percent of the names on the map were new to me.

He didn’t reply immediately, and I looked up to find him grinning appreciatively.

“On the run, are yeh, young mage?”

I flicked my eyes around the room. No one else was looking this way, their eyes on their drinks or their drinking-buddies…

Damn it. Me and my big stupid mouth.

“Don’t yeh worry at it, lad. Yeah,” he tapped the map again, “Telior’s one bit o’ the world they didn’t conquer. Their kings pay tribute, or whatever yer call it. S’ppose it ain’t so bad up there, s’long as yer don’t mind the cold. Most’ve ‘em’ll speak Mundic, if thasser concern?”

I winked at him, saying nothing – he just laughed lightly, then cleared off to see to some other customers.

I turned to the twins and spoke softly.

“We can try Telior, and head south from there if it’s a bit chilly for our dear sister.” I took Jaid’s hand and squeezed. “It’s important we find somewhere we can all put up with.”

“Course it is.” She pulled her hand from mine, glaring at me. “You’re definitely taking my opinion into account. Definitely. I say stay but he says go, so we go – I say Myri and he says Telior, so –”

“Jaid…” Jaid, you’re more agreeable than him, so just compromise, okay?

I swallowed.

“Look, I’m doing my best. Jar’s right,” I saw some rare surprise in his gaze at that, “Myri’s still part of the Mundic Realm – right in the heart of it, in fact – and if we –”

“But your special friend said it didn’t matter where we went after Blackice Bay, didn’t he? Wherever we go, we’re safe.”

“Oh, I know,” Jaroan muttered with a fresh scowl on his features, “now we’ve arrived in Blackice Bay we can go straight back to Mund! In fact, there’s this apartment in Helbert’s Bend on a road called –”

“Enough!” I put my hand on his arm, not roughly, but with no gentleness either. “Enough. Yes, Jaid, technically you’re correct. In practise, though, that’ll never fly. It was always my intention to get us out of the Realm. Myri sounds nice, sure –”

“Your intention! Yours! What about me? What about us?” She looked at her twin. “Jar, you’re with me, right? You don’t want Kas making all the decisions for us, do you?”

“Are you thick?” he bit back. “Or do you think I am?”

“Oh no, I get it.” There was fierceness, viciousness in her snarl. “You’re fine with it, so long as he’s siding with you.” Her eyes flashed to me. “Well, Jar was right – you’re not my dad,” she curled her lip, “you don’t get to boss me around. If I want to go to Myri, by –”

“If you really want to go to Myri, we will,” I said firmly, trying to ignore the (not merely outraged, but hateful) glare I received from Jaroan. “We will, Jaid. But this isn’t a holiday. We aren’t just trying to go somewhere nice. And you’re both right – I’m not Dad. But why do I keep ending up here? I wish I was, I wish I knew what to do, I wish I had the confidence to just tell you what we were doing but I don’t, I –”

“Okay.” She said it in a small voice, looking down at the water in her cup like she was scrying the future in it. “Okay. We’ll go to Telior. As Mortiforn wills…” A wan smile spread across her face. “But once we’re there, I get to decide where we go next.”

I looked at Jaroan, pleading with my eyes –

“Oh, fine,” he said magnanimously. “Jaid gets to pick next.”

Despite his tone, and the continuing cold expression on her face, Jaid stalked around the table and pulled him into a hug against his will. He looked to me for help, and I just smiled.

For the first time, when I again told myself time would fix whatever was wrong between us, I actually believed it.

* * *