Kylara walked back to her house to see her grandad, uncle, and her sitting on the old wicker cane chairs and talking.

Her father was writing something on a the back of a sheet of paper. The group was arguing about something.

“No one is going to agree to that,” her father was saying. “Especially Malyun.”

“Well, someone needs to be organising the festival. I don't want them thinking we're trying to run things on our own. We need this festival to be a success if we are to get any sort of approval from the people”

“Add something about how you’d like to do more if you had more time, but its not going to happen this year.”

“Malyun wants to cancel.”

“Tell her you can't just throw your hands up because of a few problems,” Uncle Don said.

“It’s the first time in a hundred years that we are doing this without a warder. People are going to uneasy. You need to rephrase it. Say something about everyone working together, and don't just say who's in charge. And don’t mention Kylara at all. And be quick about it, do it at the beginning. Make your point before Malyun does.”

“She’s going to speak after me regardless.”

“That’s not the point–you need to speak first.”

Her grandad sighed. “I hate doing this,” he said. He frowned and looked back down at the paper in front of him. Just as he did so, the other seemed to notice Kylara. They looked strangely guilty.

“Is this what you do when I’m not around?” she said. “Discuss my mistakes?”

“It’s the speak for the next Oubin Duwirren,” her grandad said. “I offered to do it this year back in September, but now the political situation is different and we need to compensate for it.”

“We need to make sure it doesn’t make people dislike you even worse,” Kylara’s father, always one for bluntness, said. “Don’t be insulted.”

“No,” Kylara said. “I’m not.” It was actually a bit flattering, in a weird way. Kylara’s father usually didn’t take much interest in her. He also tended to avoid his brother. For them to all be working together to fix this for her… it was a bit humbling. “I’m grateful,” she said.

“We should be finishing up anyway,” her grandad said. “The air smells of rain.”

“It’s going to be pissing down this evening,” her uncle said.

Her father groaned. “I was going to go met Cal tomorrow, I might need to hold it off.”

“Why?” Kylara asked, despite herself. From her nineteen years of experience, usually asking her father ‘why’ anything didn’t yield much of an answer.

As predicted, he stayed silent.

“The roads are going to be muddy tomorrow,” her grandad said at his son’s silence. “We’ll have a few washaways. So far we’ve been lucky and it hasn’t rained much this year. Usually this month is the wettest. But since we have no protection over our roads now, it’s different.”

Kylara nodded. There had been water wards protecting the roads before. The water hit the ward a few metres from the ground and was redirected to the sides of the streets. It had been a beautiful sight when it rained–like walking through a giant glass tunnel. Now the roads were just roads. Not pretty at all. That, and now they had to worry about infrastructure.

Uncle Don shook his head. “We’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s not like we live in Pinrith. Our soil isn’t bulldust. We might have an issue by the gilgais but that’s it. Our roads will be fine. Perhaps a little boggy, but fine.”

That was good to know. Uncle Don had a knack for engineering, he was probably right on that account. It made her feel a little better. Before all the wards had collapsed in the town, Kylara had had no idea how much of the town infrastructure relied on them. Even some of the buildings were stabilised by wards. It stuck Kylara as a horrible idea in retrospect, but warding had been reliable for centuries so she supposed she could see the original logic, even if she disagreed with it.

“Did you go to the creek today?” Kylara asked her grandad, changing the topic.

“I did,” he said. “But I hate to report that I didn’t see anything unusual.”

“Did you go to the coordinates I gave you?” Kylara asked.

“I went to the description you gave,” he said, “and then, just to be certain, we walked a kilometre in either direction. Nothing.”

Oh shit, Kylara thought. Had Malyun been there? She would be pissed if she had walked four kilometres for nothing, all because of Kylara’s word.

“Luckily, I convinced Malyun not to come,” her grandad said, reading her face. “You are welcome.”

“I talked to the magsman,” Kylara said.

“Ah. The butterfly summoning, was it an entad?”

“It was.”

“He say anything else?”

“He offered to give lessons to Yalmay,” Kylara said. “And me, if I want. He seemed very generous. I think he used to be a scholar.”

“A scholar huh?” Uncle Don said. He raised his hand and his brother leaned in to take a drag off it, exhaling a puff of smoke. “Might be good for her.”

“We should go inside,” Roy said. “It’ll rain soon. I have a bad feeling about tonight.” He rose slowly off the wicker chair as his sons helped him up. They went inside, and Kylara went to find Yalmay.

Her and Yalmay slept in the same room. Jack had recently moved into the twin’s room. The baby still slept with his parents in their room.

The door to Kylara’s room was covered in writing from Yalmay. It said HELLO, WELCOME TO OUR LAIR in several different languages. Yalmay had carved it into the wood when they were little. Written in slightly more neat, and more recent lettering, it said GOALS: UNIVERSITY PLACEMENT. There had been another line underneath where Yalmay had wanted Kylara to fill in her goals, but it was left blank. A little picture of the two of them was drawn below. They were holding hands. Kylara could tell which one was her because the wood around the hand had been scratched off.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Yalmay,” she knocked on the door. “I’m coming in.”

She always gave her sister notice because you could never be sure when Joontah was coming over.

“Hey Kya,” Yalmay said, looking up from her desk. She was reading a book while eating some jerky. She had an odd way of eating it–tearing off large chunks length-wise and chewing it like eating a straw.

“What are you doing?” Kylara asked.

“Oh, just reviewing.”

Kylara glanced over her shoulder to the pages of the book she was reading. Yalmay shifted slightly to let her look. The book was the only thing on the table–Yalmay never took notes. It was written in a sparse script, with lots of loops that looked the very similar. “Is that Aeyiya?” Kylara asked.

“Yep. Got it from the last tinker that came through, remember? It’s not actually a dictionary, its more of a reference. It’s nice because everything is organised by subject. I’m doing food terms now. Oh, and guess who’s helping me?”

“Joontah?”

“Well yes, but that doesn’t count. He’ll help me with everything. It’s not even noteworthy anymore. No, it’s Uncle Don.”

“Really?” Kylara said, skeptically. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

“Right?! I thought Uncle Roy put up to it–” Uncle Roy, as in Kylara’s grandad. Yalmay and him weren’t related but as he was still her elder, so Yalmay called him uncle. “–but it turns out he only partially put him up for it. Apparently, he wants to go to Aeyiya next winter.”

“Wait,” Kylara said. “He told me he got a discount because he won a bet with one of the cargo men. Are you telling me he was being serious?”

Yalmay shrugged. “Well, I can tell you that he’s actually making an effort to learn it this time. Uncle Roy told him that if you take a crack at the local dialect, people give you more food and you get more girls,” she shrugged. “So he’s taking a crack at it. It’s as good a reason as any, I guess.”

“I suppose,” Kylara said. “How’s Joontah?”

“Oh, you know, the same. He’s worried about his father, who is still pressuring him to follow the family business. His mum is being strict like usual. She yelled at him for losing Billy yesterday, but I think he mostly smoothed it over.”

“That’s good,” Kylara said. She started making her bed. She pulled out the box with all her sheets in it first, then the mattress. It was annoying to have to do it everyday, but you needed to or the sheets would last only a few months. And sheets were expensive. “I have something for you too.”

“Oh?” Yalmay said. “What?”

Kylara lifted the sheet and flicked it upwards, sending it floating through the air to smooth out the wrinkles. “Look at the book I left on your desk,” she said. “The magsman gave it to me. He went to the University and he’s offered to teach you, lessons on languages and things. It sounds like a good thing.”

The sheet settled on the bed and Kylara carefully pulled it, making sure it was even. Finally, with a satisfied nod, Kylara stepped back to admire her work. Then frowned. Yalmay was being uncharacteristically quiet. Usually she would ecstatic at such an offer. Maybe Kylara didn’t present it well? Had she tried to play it too cool? Should she repeat herself?

She turned around to see her face. It was an odd mix of confusion and hurt.

“What’s wrong?” she asked her sister. She eyed her with concern.

“Uncle Don told me about Dhaligir,” Yalmay said. “You didn’t.”

Ah. That.

“Why didn’t you tell me you got attacked?”

“I don’t know,” Kylara replied quickly, before she could figure out why.

Yalmay was not amused. “Well, you should think on it then.”

“I guess…” Kylara shifted on her feet. “I guess I didn’t want to worry you. I had already worried you enough with Billy.”

“I can handle two things at once, you know. And I’m always worried about Billy, that’s completely on him. It is not the same as getting into a knife fight of all things.”

“Sorry,” Kylara said. She ran her fingers through her hair. “Frankly, it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. Dhaligir isn’t exactly the most intimidating person in the Network.”

“So?” Yalmay asked. “You can’t just laugh at everyone who does something bad to you because you think they’re stupid, Kya. It won’t work out in the long term.”

Kylara sighed. “I know,” she said. “But I wish it would. At least Dhaligir’s dealt with.”

She sat down on her freshly made bed. She had only sat down for a few seconds before she was embraced by a hug. She let herself relax for a few moments before pushing away from Yalmay's embrace.

“That’s for the book,” she said. “Delayed hugs are like, not as good as real hugs, but I think you deserve the downgrade. What kind of lessons are they?”

“On languages. The magsman said he studied them at University.”

Yalmay let out a squee.

“He also said you can start tomorrow, you just need to go over there and knock.”

Yalmay suddenly engulfed Kylara in another hug. “Oh my gods, thank you thank you thank you. Are you sure he said that?”

Kylara smiled. “He also said you can bring Joontah if you want. Anyone who wants to come.”

“Will you be coming?”

“Um, I’m not sure. I’ve got interviews tomorrow.”

“Oh, I forgot.” Yalmay slumped. “That sucks. You almost done with them?”

“I’ve only got eight more kids to go.”

“Nice,” Yalmay said. “Shit!” her eyes widened. “Lessons start tomorrow?”

“I mean, he seemed fairly flexible on the time–”

“What are you doing? Do you have the rest of the day free? Can you help me study? I’ve got so much to review and if I want to impress him and I don’t know if Joontah is free…” Yalmay nervously ran her hands together and started pacing.

“It’s just tutoring,” Kylara said.

“Tutoring!” Yalmay looked about to faint. “Not just lessons, tutoring!?”

“Er…”

Yalmay grabbed her shoulders suddenly, and Kylara almost jumped away. “What are you doing right now?” she asked.

“Sitting here?”

“What are you doing later?”

“I was going to try to set up the entad a bit more.”

“The flying one? Ugh.” Yalmay stuck out her tongue.

“I need to show Billy something neat, remember?”

“Sure you do,” Yalmay said in a tone of someone who didn’t believe that was the whole answer but didn’t want to push it.

“I don’t know why you don’t like it so much.”

“You’ve seen me try it,” Yalmay said. “Even when I know what I’m doing, I fuck it up.”

“Yeah, because you refuse to do it a second time. Everyone fucks up on their first try.”

Yalmay didn’t say anything to that. Instead, she simply sat down, cross-legged. “Quiz me,” she demanded. “I need to be on my best form tomorrow.

Kylara sighed. “Fine,” she said. She grabbed the book Yalmay had on her desk, then settled into a comfortable position. She figured that they would be at this a while.

Several hours later, Kylara finished quizzing Yalmay. They had spent about half the time on studying and half on other things, mostly mindlessly chatting. Yalmay was the only person in town (well, other than Multhamurra, she supposed) who never asked her about warding. It was refreshing.

When the sun set, they had not lit a candle or lamp. Kylara’s eyes started drooping, and because Yalmay could tell she was exhausted she called it off. They had gone through almost the entire stack of books and Yalmay had got nearly nothing wrong. Kylara was impressed. She wasn’t sure what her sister had changed recently but her progress was ten times what she knew a few months ago. Kylara had the feeling that she might actually pass the University entrance exam, if Malyun actually allowed her to take it.

Eventually, they were done for the night.

For a long time, Kylara lay on her bed waiting to sleep, reciting names and thinking about the Council meeting tomorrow. Finally, she turned back to Yalmay.

“You awake?” she said.

“Yeah. I can’t sleep. I’m too excited.”

“I’m sorry for what I said to Billy yesterday,” Kylara said. “I fucked up. You were telling me how hard its been with Joontah’s family, and I went and immediately made it worse.”

“It’s fine,” Yalmay said. “Like I said, he’s deliberately trying to be annoying lately. What were you meant to say anyway? Billy asked you a question, and you answered in the only way you could. Truthfully. He needs to learn that if he won’t like the answer, he shouldn’t ask a warder the question.”

Kylara contemplated that for a second. Something about that response didn’t make her feel better.

He needs to learn that if he won’t like the answer, he shouldn’t ask a warder the question.

She suddenly wondered how many times Yalmay had stopped a conversation short, or been too anxious to ask her something because she was afraid of Kylara’s answer. Even once seemed like too many.

She didn’t move for a long time after that. Eventually, she drifted into an uneasy sleep.