Kylara sagged a little once she reached the town square. She stopped, put her hands on her knees, and took a moment to catch her breath. Gods, it had probably been months since she had run that hard. She had forgotten how much it took out of you. She needed to start tagging along with the hunting groups again. Had she really got so unfit since she stopped?

She looked up, still breathing heavily. It was a hot day. She could feel sweat dripping down her face. Her hair fell over her eyes in tangled clumps. She wiped her hand down her face to clear it of sweat, then tucked her hair behind her ears. Where would she find someone important?

A new entad was rare but not unusual, something to be watched and monitored but not feared. Every year or so, some new magic emerged.

No, the worrying thing was what the entad seemed to imply. From the patterns on the ground, it was like something had come out of the Desert.

That was different, and very worrying.

Looking around, there weren’t many people around. It was later than Kylara thought–already early evening. That meant that many of the young men would be gone. Dusk was the best time for a hunt. They would be preparing. A lot the older women were missing, too. Usually they would be starting to prepare dinner at this time of day, but right now there were only hints of it. That probably meant that the fishing crew hadn’t come back yet either.

The only people in the square Kylara recognised were Sheep-Eyed Rick and Bryan Marcyn, who were sitting on a bench in the shade of one of the houses. She watched them for a minute. They were summoning food for a group of parrots. Kylara frowned.

That was not a great use of magic. The parrots were already annoying enough as it was. At least it wasn’t ibises.

Still, something about the scene fascinated her.

The two of them were quietly talking and laughing as if they didn't have any worries at all. That wasn’t really something she could relate too, especially right now, but it did make her relax a bit. She let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

Despite her odd encounter by the Desert, things in Kookaburra Creek seemed normal. Peaceful. Calm.

Significantly calmer than before, Kylara made a decision.

She would go to her grandad’s house. He would know what to do.

Roy Kunyjiri, her grandfather, was a retired porter. Back in his younger years, he had been in charge of carrying bags for groups travelling the songlines. For almost twenty years he had been a part of expeditions into the warrens, mostly under the flag of Warrung, although he had spent his last two years with Moahar, where he had met Kylara’s grandmother.

He had retired shortly after. He often said he would have kept going, but even on the mapped routes, the warrens were dangerous. When Kylara’s grandmother had become pregnant, they had decided to settle down–first in Saltsbury and then in Kookaburra Creek.

Other than the Wanderers, Roy Kunyjiri was the most knowledgeable person in Kookaburra Creek. As a child, he had been the one to teach Kylara about the Deserts.

Even if it turned out that he knew nothing, it would not hurt to get his opinion on the situation. She had a feeling he would know what to do.

She set off to see him.

His house was nearly at the exact centre of town. It was not a far walk–nothing was far in a town the size of Kookaburra Creek, but it was an annoying one.

The town had been build bizarrely, and the main street did not run through the town centre like in most places. Instead, it wound around the perimeter in a circular shape, skirting the outside of Kookaburra Creek as if it were a wall instead of a road.

Trying to be quick and skip the long walk, Kylara did not take the main road. It was easier to cut through one of the alleys. She didn't want to waste any time.

She had only gone a few metres down one of them when a voice called out to her, “Where are you going?”

Kylara turned to see who it was.

“You look like you’re in a rush.”

A rather short man with curly hair and a thin moustache stood leaning against the nearest house. When she looked at him, he stood straighter and smiled. It was not a particularly nice smile, but that did not mean much these days. Most people did not smile at her nicely anymore.

“Council business,” Kylara replied simply. The Council would surely get involved, no matter what the thing at the Desert was, friend or foe. They couldn't keep their noses out of anything. Especially if Kylara was involved.

“I see.” He stared at her for a moment, then seemed to make a decision. He pulled away from the shade of the wall.

Kylara did not move as he approached her. She didn’t know why, but she felt like there was something strange about the encounter. She was curious how it would go.

The short man stopped just in front of her.

A little too close to her, in Kylara’s opinion.

She eyed him. He wore a white shirt that was open at the neck and one of the light woollen robes that was favoured by most of the young men of the village. Oddly, he was holding something that looked like a hair clip in his hand.

“Dhaligir, right?” Kylara said after a moment.

“You remembered,” Dhaligir sounded slightly surprised at that, although Kylara had met him before. In fact, they had met quite a few times.

Kylara’s lip twitched. Half my job is to memorise things, she thought. Don’t insult me.

“We’ve met before,” she said simply.

It was hard not to meet people in a town the size of Kookaburra Creek. Nearly everyone knew of each other, even if they had not personally interacted. It wasn’t exactly an impressive feat. Kylara had seen him around.

None of their encounters were particularly memorable, but Dhaligir had a distinctive face, and Kylara had taken note of it. His mouth was always slightly crooked. It had fascinated her as a child. He talked a bit oddly, like the words were coming out of the side of his mouth.

Dhaligir had been one class higher than Yalmay at school, although he was three years older than her (Yalmay had been ahead, and he had been behind).

“What do you want?” Kylara said, crossing her arms. She waited for him to move out of the way.

Dhaligir did not say anything. He just stared, like a paralytic rabbit under an eagle’s shadow. Kylara cocked her head, awaiting a response. Still, he made no effort to move.

He just stared at her. His eyes were red and bloodshot.

Creepy. Should I keep talking?

She briefly considered if she should do the courtesy of introducing herself. After all, she had mentioned Dhaligir’s name but not her own. Introductions were always a good conversation starter.

She debated a second, then decided against it. Dhaligir knew who she was.

Everyone knew who she was. It was the problem with infamy. It lead to very one sided introductions.

Introducing herself would probably just come across as patronising. And judging by the redness in Dhaligir’s eyes, he was upset. Coming across as patronising would not be in her favour.

“So?” she asked instead.

“I, er just,” Dhaligir shifted awkwardly on his feet, as if he did not know what to say next, “I didn’t except you to have um, remembered.”

“Your name?” Kylara asked, confused.

“Yeah.”

Kylara smiled patiently, and a bit painfully. This was taking too long. She didn’t have time for idiots.

“We met a few times as kids,” she explained. “You weren’t too much older than my sister in lessons.”

“Sister?”

“Stepsister.”

“Oh,” he said.

Kylara returned her attention to the blocked alley. She stared at him, waiting for him to let her pass. When he did not budge, she made a show of craning her neck past his shoulder to look ahead. He was slightly on the short side, not much taller than herself, so it was not difficult to see over him. He moved his head in front of her line of sight, blocking it.

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Rude.

Taking a deep breath, Kylara rocked back on her feet and waited. Patience was key. He wanted something, and she just needed to figure out what it was. Quickly.

"Is there something I can help you with?" she asked, trying to keep any undercurrents of annoyance out of her voice. Her smile grew tighter.

“I just saw her,” he said, “your stepsister. She came running this way a little while ago.”

That was news to Kylara, although she did not let it show on her face. She had been expecting Yalmay to take a while searching the lake. Had she found Billy already?

“So,” Dhaligir said, “where are youse off to?” He shifted his weight–the second or third time he had done it during the conversation, Kylara noted. It gave her pause. There was something in his voice and stance, something slightly aggressive but also nervous. She suspected she knew where this was going.

She sighed.

She did not have time for this.

“I’m going to my grandfather’s house,” Kylara said, careful to keep her voice neutral. Dhaligir leaned in when she talked. He was holding onto every word she said, waiting for an opportunity. He looked almost hungry. “And I don’t know where Yalmay was going. Probably to the Biraga house.”

Something flashed in his eyes at that.

Great, she thought. I shouldn’t have said that.

Kylara sighed. This was exactly what she wanted to avoid.

Dhaligir was trying to convince himself to pick a fight. This entire conversation was pretence so he could work up the courage to actually engage.

“Biraga,” he said, “Joontah Biraga? That’s her boyfriend, right?” He licked his lips. “Guy’s a bit of a weirdo, I hear. I dunno what she sees in him. It's not like he's the least attractive guy or anything, but you’ve got to admit–he does look like his sister kicked him in the face one too many times in the womb. Yalmay’s weird, but she’s not bad looking. She could do better. Well,” he paused, “if she didn’t get all moody and nasty whenever he wasn’t around, she could do better.”

He looked at Kylara, who was doing her best to glare daggers.

Dhaligir shuffled a bit on his feet. “I don’t get it,” he said, “but I guess he really must have something good on him to get her to stay.”

“It’s because he’s a good person,” Kylara said, surprising herself for voicing the thought aloud.

Joontah was her friend. Dhaligir must have known that, and was trying to provoke her.

She would not raise to the bait. And Yalmay being nasty? Well, that was his side of the story. She did not believe it for one second.

Still, it was best to avoid a fight. Kylara looked past him to the street beyond. Dhaligir moved his head in front of her line of sight again.

“I recommend you move,” she said gently.

“No.”

Kylara stared at him, then walked to the side of the alley, hoping he would change his mind and let her pass without issue.

He did not.

He moved his arm in front of her.

“You gonna make me move?” he taunted.

Kylara said nothing and put her hands in her pockets.

She wordlessly walked around him and tried again, this time going to the right. He moved his body yet again, blocking her way. He was not that much bigger than her, but the way to the houses were built the alley was narrow enough that she could not simply move past.

“Dhaligir,” Kylara said, voice lower.

“What’s that on your face?” he asked.

On her face? The question surprised her.

She reached up feel her check, and felt something wet. Her finger came back streaked in red and white.

A cut.

She had not realised it was there. The fact that she'd missed it was odd. She must have snagged her check on a branch when running. Moving her finger up her check, she traced the cut. It was fairly long, but no more than skin deep. Good. She did not need a scar on her face. She already stood out enough as it was.

“It looks like blood,” Dhaligir said dryly.

Of course it’s blood you idiot, Kylara thought. Nothing much gets past you today, does it?

She tilted her head. Well, apart from me.

“It is blood, isn’t it?” Dhaligir said. He smiled widely, crooked and without showing teeth “Were you in a fight?”

The glimmer in his eyes was more obvious now, and Kylara was instantly weary. Her eyes flickered briefly down to his hands, which were balled into fists. She would need to stay on guard, wouldn’t she?

She sighed. How annoying.

He wavered a bit on his feet, and Kylara watched him closely for any signs of being drunk. Maybe if he was drunk she could get away with staring the fight. Argue it was for his own good. Just a quick punch to knock some sense into him. Then she could go about on her way.

But nooo. She was not allowed to start fights. And Dhaligir looked completely sober anyway. He was just being a bully.

New technique then.

“I was by the Desert,” Kylara said. Maybe that would spook him.

Although she doubted it. Most people their age avoided the Desert. But they weren’t superstitious about it. Yalmay was a bit of an exception.

Dhaligir looked a bit baffled at her suggestion that she casually hung out by the Desert. He backed up about half a metre, but then stood fast.

Kylara looked at his face again–really looked. His eyes were bloodshot, but the skin around them also looked swollen. There was a slight puffiness in his cheeks. It was hard to judge, because she did not have a good picture of what his face looked like normally, but it looked like he had been crying.

That was… convenient. She smiled at him. With the way he had been acting, she had been expecting a fight from the start.

But if he was crying, that probably meant it was more about insecurity and resentment than true hatred.

And surely the cure for resentment was not more resentment?

She could deescalate this.

Her grandad had once told her to treat anyone who insulted you as a friend, not an enemy. Don’t act offended, don’t act shy, upset, or defensive.

All she needed to do was treat him like a friend. And maybe distract him a bit.

Dhaligir wanted her to be either a victim or someone he could easily hate. He would struggle to fit her into that mould. She was not an easy victim. That was why he was being so roundabout about getting to the point. He was working hard to make her into someone he wanted to fight.

Kylara just needed to do the opposite. She would show him she was likeable.

People in general (and Dhaligir–she suspected–especially so) were lazy. They would give up if it was too much effort.

“Look,” Kylara said. She smiled. “You’re obviously upset at me. I can leave. It won’t take me long to find another way. We can talk about this later, if you want?” She said it cheerfully, trying not to get upset or defensive. That was what he wanted.

She turned to leave. “My parents are going to move out of Kookaburra Creek,” he shouted.

Kylara stopped walking.

“What?” she said.

“They’re going to Bormbora to start a new life.”

She turned back around. “Are you going with them?” she said after a moment. Moving was a big deal, especially to somewhere as far as Bormbora. It required the songlines to get to.

“I don’t know.”

“When are they leaving?”

“I don’t know. Whenever the next trek out from Saltsbury is, but gods know when that’ll be. A few days? Weeks?” He shrugged. “Months? It’s whenever the fucking warblers want to take us, I guess. It’s not like they care, we’re just business to them.”

“They transport people twice a month,” Kylara said. “It’s already the fourth, so the next date is twenty-first.” She used to go to Saltsbury fairly often on warder’s duties. She had their schedule memorised.

“I guess they’re leaving on the twenty-first, then,” Dhaligir said. “They’re in Saltsbury now arranging everything. Not with the warblers, obviously. They won’t even talk to people like us. They’re with some lowly assistant or something.” Dhaligir shook his head and smiled bitterly. “Mum and dad still think they give a shit about us, it’s almost funny. Mum won’t even call them warblers like normal people. She insists on worldhopper. Like anyone calls them that. Pompous pricks.”

Despite his words, Dhaligir seemed to relax a bit. He kicked some dirt up, which the wind caught and whipped into Kylara’s eye. She blinked hard, but did not move.

Careful, Kylara told herself. He already hates the worldhoppers. Give him a chance, and he’ll turn it to you. Warders must not seem too different from worldhoppers–from some perspectives at least.

“I’ve heard Bormbora is beautiful,” she said, cautious but not too hurried. While Dhaligir was distracted by his hatred of the warblers, she doubted that he’d continue to try to provoke her.

“That’s what they say,” he said.

Kylara had never been to Bormbora herself. She doubted many in Kookaburra Creek had, other than perhaps her grandad and a few others. But she had heard of it.

Oh, she had heard of it.

The city of a thousand isles–they said it was paradise. The beaches were made of the finest white sand, the skies the clearest blue. The houses were built by the water, so close that you could step outside and touch the water during high tide. All the houses were built to float. And the ocean itself–they said it was so calm and peaceful that you could see the lights of the city below.

Bormbora was split in half. One half of it was above water on a string of islands. The other half was built on the reef below.

It was one of the greatest feats of engineering the world, built many centuries ago by a great team of warders working together.

Walking through the tunnels was supposed to be an otherworldly experience. You could reach your hand out and touch the water above you, letting fish nibble on your fingers without getting wet yourself.

Kylara had always wanted to go, even if just to see what was rumour and what was true, but the Council would never allow it. Besides, warders were banned from the city.

“Have they ever seen the ocean?” Kylara asked Dhaligir. He seemed to be relaxing.

“My mum’s mother was from Bormbora, that’s why they’re going. Gods know why, but she thinks she has some sort of connection there–the sea in her blood or some nonsense like that. But she’s never seen it herself. Hell, my sis is afraid of the ocean.”

“I see,” Kylara said.

She had only been to the ocean once before, and it had been underwhelming in some ways and overwhelming in others. She was not sure had liked it, although it had been hard to distinguish the ocean parts of the trip from the rest, which had just been a stop in an itinerary. Kylara had barely been there for more than a few hours and it had been on official business.

But while the rest of the trip had blurred together, she still remembered the ocean clearly.

They had travelled out to the island–a sandy, flat place located leeward of a reef (whatever that meant). It had been home to a colony of noddy terns, who nested there in hundreds of thousands during the summer before flying back across the sea.

Even though she hated birds, the place had been beautiful. The ocean was magnificent. Bigger than Kylara could have ever believed, stretching as far as you could see. It had been so vast. The sight of the waves crashing against the shore, the sound of the water rushing up onto the beach, and the smell of the saltwater...

True, a disturbing number of the wards that she had set up had involved… bird excrement. But Kylara still smiled when she thought of that island.

“I’ve heard Bormbora is a good place,” she eventually said. “People have a good life there.” They said each island was unique, with all different walks of life represented. There was something there for everyone. “As long as they obey the laws, I think it’ll be an easy adjustment. I’ve heard it’s easy to build a life for yourself there.” Bormbora was a stop on enough of the songlines that there would be plenty of outsiders there. Plenty of people to fit in with.

“They shouldn’t need to,” Dhaligir said. Kylara froze. His voice was tinted with aggression again. He had been gradually getting less tense since the mention of Bormbora, but now things were reversing.

Perhaps she should have walked away before. Perhaps she should walk away now. But her guilt kept her from moving.

“They shouldn’t need to move,” Dhaligir repeated. There was a tear in his eyes. “My parents had already built a life for us here. They worked hard. Everyday, they worked hard. Really hard. It’s all gone now.”

“I’m sorry,” Kylara said.

“Everything they had, its all gone. Even our house. We have nothing. All because of you.”