Wesh crossed the clearing to the edge of the stream. He stopped with his back to the group, moved his hands through the air in front of his face, and released a rain of sparks.

They formed a sheet of light shimmering with watery colors. Then they cleared to form a transparent surface.

A magical window opened to reveal another landscape beyond. It churned with Dark colors and then rose and fell in a constant shifting panorama of different environments.

The image started as a vast desert of dry, cracked flats with mountains in the distance. In a few seconds, a massive forest of towering pine trees erupted out of the flats and then a torrential thunderstorm hit the treetops.

Rain pelted the trees to smithereens, disintegrated the forest, and then crumbled the earth around the tree roots. The landscape exploded and everything collapsed into the Coil’s confused Layers again.

“What do you see, old man?” Barsali asked.

“Eliska is right, of course,” Wesh muttered without turning around. “This Island won’t last more than a day or two.”

“Is there anywhere we can go?” Yvan asked. “That gives us a day or two to find another safe haven—maybe one that will last longer.”

“We should try to find a town,” Niyazi suggested. “Any town will need the Watch.”

“I’ll try to find one,” Wesh replied. “The Coil is becoming more unstable all the time. No town will be completely safe. The same thing that happened to Middleborough can happen anywhere.”

“You said the Voyant Mendicat went after Middleborough to get whatever it is he wanted from there,” Yvan pointed out. “If he destroyed Middleborough, he should already have whatever it is. He would have no reason to destroy the next town we go to.”

“I wasn’t referring to the Voyant,” Wesh replied. “I was referring to the Coil itself. The Coil is becoming more unstable with every passing year. I’ve been alive a long time and I’ve never seen it this bad before. Towns can fall at any time. Landscapes shift and vanish along with any towns that happen to exist in those landscapes. All of that would be happening even if the Voyant didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t you say the Voyant controls the Coil?” Yann asked. “If he can do that, maybe he’s the one causing all this instability.”

“I said it was a rumor that he controls the Coil,” Wesh replied. “We have no proof that he does.”

“You’re a member of the Guardian Templars,” Omer interjected. “If the Guardian Templars don’t know, then who does?”

“The Guardian Templars don’t know everything,” Wesh replied. “We spend our lives studying and trying to learn as much as possible, but we’re only ordinary men at the end of the day.”

“What do you know about the Voyant?” Yann asked.

“Only what I’ve already told you. He’s a powerful magic-user. He might be the most powerful magic-user in the entire Coil. I can’t imagine anyone more powerful than he is, but that doesn’t mean he controls the Coil. I don’t know if anyone can.”

Yann automatically glanced at Eliska. She sat in silence listening to their conversation.

Did she have the power to control the Coil? She used her magic to protect the group, but she couldn’t destroy that cliff without Wesh’s help.

She must have been using her magic to get herself out of dangerous situations for a long time.

She might even have been using her magic to manipulate these landscapes to make them more beneficial to herself or at least less dangerous.

She caught him watching her and turned her attention back to the carcass on the spit. She turned it over to cook the other side and started carving off pieces of the already-cooked meat.

Everyone pretended not to notice when she put the first few pieces into her own mouth. None of the Watchmen said a word to ask her to share the food with them.

She showed no sign of noticing their behavior, either good or bad. She chewed in silence while she sliced off a few more pieces.

She handed the second portion to Neils Surette who happened to be sitting closest to her. She actually smiled at Yann when she stretched her hand across the fire to pass him a wad of shavings.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“Did you really think I was going to eat all of this by myself right in front of you and leave you to go hungry?” She turned around to call over her shoulder. “Come get something to eat, Wesh. We might land in another rock Island with no life in it.”

Wesh kept working on his magical window for a minute before he gave it up. He passed his hand in front of the window, wiped it out of the air, and crossed to the fire.

He sat down crosslegged on the ground on Eliska’s other side between her and Yann. Wesh heaved a shaky sigh.

She dumped a handful of meat into his wrinkled palm.

“Thank you, my dear,” he told her. “You’re a truly generous soul to share this with us.”

She licked the juice off her hand before she started cutting again. She stuffed another piece of meat into her mouth and talked with the food stuffed into her cheek while she served the other Watchmen.

“This one has a strange taste,” she mumbled. “I’ve never tasted one like this before. There must be something in the local vegetation that gives it a different taste.”

“What is it?” Yann asked. “What kind of animal is it?”

“I don’t know what it’s called. I call them squabbles.”

“Squabbles!” Niyazi repeated. “That’s an argument.”

She shrugged. “That’s just what I call them. I don’t know their real name.”

“It’s a long-tailed gar,” Wesh interjected.

“That makes no sense!” she countered. “They don’t have a long tail.”

“You would have been a genius if you only received some education,” he replied. “There are four varieties of gar—the tailless gar, the mottled gar, the hyperlight gar, and the long-tailed gar. The long-tailed gar is called that because it has the longest tail of the four.”

She shrugged that away, too. “I guess I learned something today, but I know more about what they taste like. I’ve eaten hundreds of these things and none of them tasted like this.”

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“You have me beat on that one, my dear,” Wesh replied. “This is the first gar I’ve ever eaten.”

Eliska turned the other way to survey the other Watchmen. She’d already given a portion of meat to Yvan, Omer, Neils, Niyazi, Vidal, and Barsali.

They all gathered around and thanked her as politely as possible when she served them. The gar kept getting smaller and smaller as she sawed the meat off the bones.

Rien sat off to one side with his head turned as far away as possible. He didn’t watch the others eat. He didn’t take part in the conversation. He made no move to come forward so he could accept her generosity.

She shot him a brutal look on the side and went straight back to what she was doing. She didn’t insist that he come and get something the way she did with Wesh.

She took another piece of meat for herself and started passing out the last scraps to everyone else, starting with Neils in the same order she served them in the first round.

Yvan got to his feet, went over to Rien, and bumped his shoulder. “Come over and eat,” Yvan snapped in that tone every Watchman understood instantly.

Rien had served under Yvan Dilnao for too many years not to understand that order as the command it was. The hair stood up on the back of Yann’s neck when he heard his father’s tone. Yann would never want his father talking to him like that.

Rien obeyed instantly, got up, and wedged himself into the circle between Omer and Vidal.

Rien mumbled, “Thank you,” when Eliska gave him some of the food. She didn’t respond.

“So where will we go if we don’t scout the area?” Niyazi asked.

“I don’t know,” Yvan replied. “Maybe Wesh can help us with that.”

“There’s another Island three Layers down from this one,” Eliska interrupted. “It has towns in it. You should go there.”

Yvan’s head snapped up to stare at her. “How do you know that?”

“It isn’t hard.” She wiped her hand on her pants, snapped her fingers, and made sparks fly from her fingertips.

She spread her palm and the sparks gathered there in a revolving miniature tornado. The tornado expanded into a six-inch representation of a coil and then widened.

The image zeroed in on a few different turns of the spiral. As it got bigger, more distinct Layers appeared with colors, shaded areas caught between the Layers, and tiny landscapes caught in the confusion.

The picture kept widening, but it never got any bigger. It stayed right there in the center of Eliska’s palm.

She zoomed in on one particular Layer. The whole party looked in on a miniature picture of a forest.

“That’s where we are,” Eliska told everyone.

“That’s amazing!” Barsali gasped.

The spiral turned a little farther and dropped down three Layers to another tiny landscape of hills, rolling farmland, towns, and roads crossing the countryside.

“It looks like a stable Island,” Eliska remarked. “They don’t have the Watch, though. It might not be very old as Islands go.”

“You should come with us,” Yvan told her. “You said you wanted to go to Middleborough to get work. You could do it there.”

“No, I won’t go there.” She did something to the image and shrank it to show the Coil again.

The rotating spiral contracted to a ball-sized representation of multiple Layers all coiled on top of each other.

Layers in the upper sections collapsed on top of each other, exploded in arrays of light and sparks, compressed into Dark Layers, and swirled in different colors before they reformed.

“The Layers are too close to this Island,” she pointed out. “It won’t last.”

“Why did you suggest that we go there, then?” Omer asked. “We could all die there if the same thing happened.”

“It might not collapse for years.” She closed her hand and the image vanished. “It might never collapse.”

“Where will you go instead?” Yann asked.

“I’ll stay out in the chaotic Layers. I know how to move around there. I’ll find Islands like this one where I can stay a few days and then move on. It’s safer than going to towns. I never go to towns unless I have to.”

“Did you have to go to Middleborough?” Vidal asked.

Eliska stood up and squeezed her cloak again. It must have been dry enough. She took it off the rack, wrapped it around her shoulders, and tied it at the neck.

“I didn’t have to go there and I don’t have to go to that town. Staying away from people has kept me alive this long. I would be stupid to change my strategy now.”

She walked away from the fire, walked down the bank to the stream, and squatted there to wash her hands and the blade of her knife.

She left the remains of the gar on the spit over the fire. At least half the meat still clung to the bones. She left enough for all the Watchmen to enjoy at least one more meal. She didn’t try to take the gar with her.

No one said anything for a minute as the Watchmen took in this latest turn of events. She really planned to leave this food for them—for the same people who arrested her and insulted her to her face.

Yvan bumped his knuckles against Yann’s elbow to get his attention and then jutted his chin at Eliska from behind.

Yann frowned. His father jerked his head toward her to tell Yann to go talk to her.

Yann didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t want her to leave. He’d never met anyone like her. He understood enough of Wesh’s comments to know that even Wesh had never met anyone like her.

Yann was starting to get a much clearer picture of what Wesh meant when he said she might be one in a million.

Yann also understood much better now why she didn’t want to stay with the group. She developed a system for keeping herself alive in the Coil. That system didn’t include other people.

She was right about one thing. She would be stupid to change anything about her methods, especially considering the dangers out here.

He had no earthly clue what to say to her. He did know he had to talk to her at least one more time before she walked out of his life forever.

He followed her down the bank, squatted next to her, and glanced over his shoulder to make sure the others were out of earshot.

“Can I ask you something?” he began.

She didn’t look up from washing the grease off her knife blade. “If you want to.”

“What’s the earliest thing you remember? Do you remember where you were in the Coil when you first remember being out here by yourself?”

Her head shot up and she narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you want to know that for?”

“I’m just curious. You know so much more about the Coil than we do….”

She snorted in his face. “You don’t know anything about the Coil. I bet none of you has been out in the Coil before, not just rat-face over there.”

She didn’t turn around to indicate who she meant. Rien didn’t have a rat face, but Yann couldn’t fault her for insulting him any way she chose to.

“So?” he asked. “What do you remember about where you were when you were that young?”

She bent over her knife and muttered under her breath. “I don’t remember anything. Even if I did, the Coil changed too much back then. I wouldn’t be able to find out where I came from if I tried.”

“Are you sure? Maybe if you try, you could find out who you are and where you came from. You might have some family out there waiting for you.”

“I already tried, okay?” she snapped. “Do you think I didn’t spend years searching? Whatever Island I was born in doesn’t exist anymore. The Coil changes too fast like Wesh says. That Island is long gone.”

Yann looked away. Her words didn’t betray any interest in the subject at all, but her tone sure did.

She tried to keep her voice dismissive and scornful of the whole topic, but a note of broken hopeless despair crept in despite her best efforts to hide it.

She distracted herself and him by pulling her bag forward, digging out a chipped piece of sharpening stone, dunking it in the stream, and rubbing her knife blade against the stone in a circular motion.

Yann couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t imagine a life worse than this—to wander alone in a landscape of destruction with no one.

It was worse than wandering with no one. All the forces at work in Eliska’s life blocked her from connecting with anyone.

All those forces worked together to make it not only impossible for her to get close to anyone but actually benefitted her when she kept away from everyone. What a tragic waste.

She interrupted his thoughts. “What about you?” she asked. “The men of the Black Watch take a vow of celibacy and forsake all family. How did your father come to have you?”

“I don’t know that. He never talks about it. I was born in the Watch and grew up in the Watch my whole life. The Watchmen are the only family I’ve ever had. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

“That’s against the Black Watch oath, too,” she pointed out. “Watchmen are supposed to volunteer of their own free will. The Black Watch isn’t supposed to initiate anyone underage because they can’t volunteer willingly with full knowledge of all the risks.”

Yann shrugged that away. “I guess not, but it’s the way it is for us. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“You don’t know that because you’ve never known any other way.”

He finally worked up the courage to turn around and look at her. Her dark eyes bored into him in ways he couldn’t explain.

She studied him from inches away. He’d never spoken to her alone at this close range before. Her presence did something to him. He wasn’t sure he liked it, but he could no longer deny the effect she had on him.

She looked away first. “You should go back to them. You wouldn’t want any of my worthless wretchedness to rub off on you.”

“Why would you say that?” he countered. “I’m trying to be nice to you. Why would you assume I think that way about you?”

“Don’t be nice to me. Being nice to me gets people killed.” She stuffed her stone back in her bag, slid her knife into her boot, stood up, and cast one last glance at Wesh and the Watchmen sitting around the fire. “You can make my excuses to everyone. See you later."

End of Chapter 7.