Throughout the entire night, Tryle wrestled with his thoughts. Had he been surprised by the humans’ ignorance? Yes. Should he have been? Probably not. The tribe had been telling him his whole life how the world was only as big as Lundy village. That beyond the Woodlands was far too dangerous, far too inscrutable and forbidden. The humans had dominated everything outside the forest’s boundaries for themselves. To venture into their territory and attempt to learn their secrets only courted death.

Tryle had known all this, deep within, but had been too afraid to vocalize, even to himself. Furthermore, what he’d always felt in the faintest of terms but never mentally expressed was the idea that he was not crazy. But then if he wasn’t crazy, what else could he be besides not being crazy? What did that mean for him as a goblin?

It had become clear he was caught in a dilemma he’d never once considered. Either stay with the tribe and be ostracized for his thoughts. Or be with the humans and be eternally misjudged for his looks.

And now that he did think about this tradeoff, the messier the whole situation seemed. The debate was tyrannical. It demanded answers. Before, Tryle had been afraid of not knowing enough about the world. Now, his experience was giving him a taste of what parts of the world he should be scared of.

Tryle woke just as the sun crested the horizon. He opened the cottage door slowly and peeked inside. Everyone was still asleep. He was about to tiptoe down the hallway, only to find his rucksack and Gumbo’s discarded bag of breaching tools sitting by the door. A small, woolen coat with a baggy hood was folded neatly on top of his rucksack. It looked freshly knitted.

Tryle stared at the coat for a long moment before draping it over the rocking chair. He went through the contents of his rucksack: water flask, tallow, compass, underclothes, flint and tinder…nothing was out of place. Henna had even remembered to pack his drawstring bag of Tudor fairy dust and an extra-large travel cloak for sleeping, along with extra rations.

Because the rucksack was smaller than the normal-sized travel sack he’d left behind with the raiding party, Tryle would have to forage for much of his journey, anyway. But he decided to keep the rations. A goblin never passed up free food.

As he was rummaging around, his knuckles brushed against something smooth and rigid. It was the Grappler. Tryle held Gabriela’s invention delicately in his hands. Every scientific instinct within him was crying for him to take it with him and upgrade it to his heart’s desire. His fingers itched to fiddle with its casing, tease apart the silk-like rope coiled within. The things he could do with it…

But he couldn’t bring himself to put it back in the rucksack. It had been merely a toy to appease him. He placed it on the seat of the rocking chair, underneath the woolen sweater.

The thin columns of the porch threw weak shadows across the floorboards. When he hoisted his rucksack over his shoulder, a voice behind him said: “You’re quite the early riser, Bodkin.”

Henna was standing by the kitchen table in her nightclothes. The mountainous woman looked wearing a baggy nightdress and fluffy slippers, but Tryle did not so much as crack a smile.

“I think I’ve rested enough for these last few weeks to get a head-start today,” he said stonily.

“Why don’t I put on some tea?”

“I should get going.”

“It is much too early for you to leave now, dearie. Can I not at least send you on your way with some warm drink before you go?”

Tryle looked out at the meadowlands, every tree and blade of grass and rock tinted with morning blue. The cottage’s window glass were foggy with cold.

“Okay. A cup or two, and that’s it.”

Henna made up with the pot and kettle with her usual efficiency. She filled bowls with mint leaves and peppermint grounds. She prepared bottles of various liquid sweeteners. Sitting at the dining table, the bubbling water and clattering of mugs and sharp scents struck Tryle with a sense of familiarity and impending alienation, a soon-to-be distance from his leaving. But those feelings had already been there, hadn’t it? From the moment he’d fallen down the chimney of this cottage, Tryle was and always would be a stranger to these people.

Henna sprinkled mint leaves in her mug and dolloped a generous helping of honey into Tryle’s. They drank in silence. The honey was tenderly sweet, but when Tryle had drained the last drop of tea from his cup, there was a bitter aftertaste on his tongue.

He put down his cup, slid off his chair, and picked up his rucksack again.

Henna said, “May I walk with you? Only to the edge of the forest.”

Tryle shrugged morosely. They went along the flagstone path of the front yard and out the quaint wooden gate.

Somewhere at the rear of the cottage came a clanking noise. Cadoc came striding out, half-armored in his breastplate and bracers.

“Sir Cadoc, there really is no need,” said Henna.

“Your Majesty, if I may…”

“I will be fine. I would like some privacy as I give my farewells to Bodkin. If you please.”

“Allow me to follow you a ways out. Surely you cannot expect me to completely disregard your security.”

Henna sighed, but gave no further protest.

The sky began to lighten to a pastel blue as they walked along in silence. Cadoc kept a respectful distance behind them, but Tryle could still hear his armor clinking and ticking like a many-handed clock, counting down the seconds until he returned to the Woodlands.

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As they neared the forest, Tryle felt increasingly claustrophobic. Compared to the open fields, the trees seemed much like a cage, sealing his future within. He held Gumbo’s bag of breaching tools in both hands. It was heavier than he expected, the bottom dragging along the ground. Tryle decided that if it got too cumbersome, he would leave it somewhere for the tribe to pick up later.

When they were a few hundred yards away from the low rock wall, Henna came to a halt.

“So this is where we part ways, Bodkin.”

Tryle avoided her gaze, nodding wordlessly.

“I enjoyed your company greatly, even under the circumstances in which we met. Perhaps when we next meet, you’ll have gotten stronger. Keep good form on your deadlifts, and make sure to eat enough to put more meat on those skinny bones of yours.”

“I don’t think any more goblins will be coming around here. Not the ones from Lundy village, at least. You’re probably no longer considered an easy target.”

“But surely you’ll tell them they have nothing to fear from me.”

Tryle said nothing.

“Won’t you, Bodkin?”

“I’ll tell them what happened. That I was treated well.”

“But not that we are friends? I hold no ill will towards you, dear. Nor towards your people.”

And a lot of people like you killed a lot of goblins like me, Tryle thought.

He finally raised his head. “I believe you, Grandma Henna. But I just don’t think a long-term friendly relationship is objectively possible.”

Henna’s craggy face sank a little. Her dark eyes were sad. “I see.”

Tryle felt a pang of regret. “Good-bye, Grandma Henna. Thank you for your hospitality.”

He gave a little wave and began to turn away, but Henna clasped his hand and pulled him into a warm embrace. “You’re very welcome, dear. Thank you for being such a good guest.” She pulled away and patted him affectionately on both shoulders. “I wish I could be there to witness all your future discoveries. Safe travels.”

At that moment, there was a faint whistling sound from high above, followed by a light thud.

A hundred feet away, an arrow was embedded in the earth, its wooden end vibrating from the impact.

In a flash, Cadoc had planted himself in front of them with his sword drawn. “Get down, your Majesty!”

Tryle and Henna both tensed, but the sky remained clear. No more arrows came arcing down.

Tryle peeked around Cadoc, his eyes widening as he recognized the beige ash wood of the shaft.

“Wait, that’s from my village!”

Cadoc shot back a dark glance. “What?”

“Something’s attached, too. Look!”

Cadoc advanced cautiously with his sword outstretched, eyes trained fiercely on the forest’s edge. He pulled the arrow out and backed away quickly. A piece of old parchment was tied to the shaft with a ratty coil of string.

“We must get out of bow-range. Keep behind me.”

Once they had moved a safe distance away, Cadoc unrolled the parchment. A crude, badly-spelled message was written in charcoal on one side, the messy English letters slanted and spaced apart at odd intervals.

Cadoc read it aloud: “Giv owar tribul membur back alive to treeline at begining of nite. Doo it or die.”

Tryle scoured the rest of the page, but aside from a few oily thumbprints there was nothing more. Nobody in the Lundy raiding party had planned for long speeches, apparently. He looked again at the forest but nothing stirred.

His thoughts were racing. Had Gumbo survived? Had he led the rescue party here? Or had the village voted to come back for him?

“Did you see where it came from, Sir Cadoc?” asked Henna.

“Somewhere around the treetops, but I cannot say much else for sure.”

Tryle knew of only a few goblins that could make a shot from that high up. A warm feeling built up in his chest, tempered by surprise. One goblin in particular came to mind, but she couldn’t have come all this way for him, could she?

“The timing is fortuitous,” he noted. “I was on my way to leave, after all.”

Cadoc said nothing, crumpling the parchment to a ball in his armored fist. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not.”

Though it was hard to decipher, Tryle thought something in his tone had shifted. “Huh?”

“What’s wrong, Sir Cadoc?” said Henna.

“If the goblins are indeed here to collect their kinsman, why do they demand we wait until nightfall to return him?”

“They probably think you’re holding me hostage,” said Tryle. “Hence the deadline.”

“And yet they shot the arrow only as they saw us approach. Why not show themselves, instead? They must be close enough.”

“To make sure you saw the message,” said Tryle, confused. “And maybe out of fear. They know how strong Grandma Henna is.”

“Or to lead us on. And they’d have to have seen you are alive and well.”

“Bodkin means to be on his way and his tribe has arrived to collect him,” said Henna. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

“I’m saying these goblins might mean to finish the job they started,” said Cadoc irritably. “At the time they choose.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Tryle. “They wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know?”

“For one thing, because I’ve spent my entire life with them,” said Tryle. “And for another, because your logic doesn’t add up. If my tribe wanted to rob you and raid the cottage, they would have done it already. They wouldn’t have given away their position. You said it yourself — they could’ve sprung an ambush as we got closer to the woods. So why didn’t they? Maybe because they’ve fought Grandma Henna before. Maybe they don’t have the numbers. A lot of them are probably injured from the last time they were here.”

“Not to pillage the cottage, but to kill the Queen responsible for their first ignominious defeat. Which is why they want to lure us out here when it is dark, so they can pick you up and pick us off at the same time.”

“We don’t take revenge against humans,” said Tryle. Especially not without the promise of loot, he thought.

“I agree,” added Henna. “The goblins I fought were more stupid than bloodthirsty. They are also intensely loyal. They will carry each other off the battlefield before attempting to slay their enemies.”

“I can just walk away right now,” said Tryle. “What is the issue?”

Cadoc blocked his way. “And add one more to your raiding party’s number? One with intimate knowledge of Queen Wei and the layout of her lodgings? I should think not. No, a better course would be to keep you as a bargaining chip and force a meeting on our terms.”

“They already know the layout of the cottage,” said Tryle in exasperation. “Y’know, from trying to rob it. You’re not making any sense.”

The tip of Cadoc’s sword casually traced a circle in the air. “The note only said to bring you alive, goblin. Not necessarily unharmed.”

Henna placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “Sir Cadoc, there is no need for those kinds of threats.”

“This is so stupid,” said Tryle impatiently. “The moment I’m back with the tribe is the last we ever have to see of each other. The warriors from Lundy probably don’t want to come back here, ever. Everybody in the village was debating over raiding your cottage in the first place, since our scouts thought they saw a Berserker Wolf in the area.”

“A what?” said Henna sharply.

“A Berserker Wolf from the Shadowlands. Ridiculous, I know. Yorin was going on and on about how big it was, but the way he was describing it made it sound like any other timber wolf to me. The goblins in my village are prone to exaggerating what they —”

“Did you see anything on the night of the raid?”

Tryle thought for a moment. “I did happen to see some weird lights in the trees that I thought were eyes, but I only saw it once. And I was pretty tired. Nobody else said anything, too, and you can bet someone would have if they saw what I saw…”

But Henna was no longer listening. She scanned the forest with renewed alertness, her brow furrowed. “Sir Cadoc, I’ve changed my mind. Bodkin stays for now. Leave another note for his tribe informing them of a meeting at noon.”

Cadoc’s expression had also suddenly turned grave. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Tryle waved both his hands. “Wait, wait, what’s going on? Why are you not letting me leave?”

“If what you’re telling me is correct, then your tribe is in great danger. And if I let you go now, I believe you will die with them.”