As a result, I crossed over the barrier where I’d left, near the skunk trail, and returned to my tent after checking Ethan’s tent to see if I could hear anything.

I took my satchel off as soon as the tent was closed behind me and took off the light jacket I’d been wearing. The weather wasn’t cold, but night was still night. Now that I was back in the camp and the feelings associated with being inside the barrier were even clearer, I couldn’t wait to get out again. That would have to wait.

Sitting down on the edge of the cot and considering, for the first time since the day before, considering closing my eyes and seeing if sleep would wash over me, I was startled by something moving inside my satchel and I unbuckled and then lifted the flap. Out flew what I could only assume was a faerie, though unlike any faerie I’d ever seen or interacted with before.

Where Moment or Maeve or other faeries were naturally very attractive, this faerie made them seem plain in comparison. The faerie also seemed to get some joy out of surprising me and flying around the tent, checking the poles and under the cot, inside the sleeping bag, and even the backpack Ethan had given me.

When he slowed down enough for me to follow his movements with my eyes and not feel some deep sense of rage and a desire to rip his little faerie wings from his body, I could see that this was a male faerie and that told me things went from not good to really bad in such a short span of time that I had to consider what I was actually going to do next. As in, did I try to capture the faerie and take him back to the clearing. Was there any time for that?

He didn’t give me much of a chance to put any real thought into it and landed on my open satchel and said, “I’m Faelix.”

“Flora Rose,” I said. “I’m sure you know that already.”

“Yes,” he said. “You’re a hot topic of conversation around the faerie realm.”

“I can’t imagine why,” I said.

“It’s your nature. But that’s not it either,” Faelix said. “It’s more to do with what happened after they trapped you.”

“Who trapped me?” I asked.

“Can’t talk about that, you knew that already, but I can’t and I shan’t,” he said. “Mostly because my mother would have me beheaded and fed to the crows and ravens. And I don’t need to tell you how uncomfortable that can be.”

“I’ve never been beheaded or eaten by anything,” I said. Yes, I was feeding what he was doing, which was avoiding having to answer why he was here and what I would have to do next.

“I would’ve expected a princess or maybe a more noble faerie to have sneaked into my satchel,” I said, sitting down on the cot.

Faelix lifted off the satchel as I sat down and hovered for a moment before landing again.

“What makes you think I’m not one of those two things?”

“You’re male, so you’re not a princess. And I don’t know anything about faerie culture when it comes to the males and lets be honest what I do know suggests you can’t be all that important if you were able to hide in my bag and make it out of the faerie enclave.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Faelix nodded. “Seems true,” he said. “And it seems false.”

I didn’t really want to spend time figuring out what was true and what was me filling in the blanks and shewed him off my bag so I could look inside.

“You are not very organized,” Faelix said. “Which made it considerably easier to hide when it was time. You could use a better system. Especially going forward.”

“My system is fine,” I said and while putting my hand into the bag and opening the storage portal, I had to swat Faelix away again. Some things are personal.

It took a moment to locate my notebooks and ink and a pen, but when I did I was quick to close the portal again and then the bag.

Before you question my intentions, I never said I didn’t use notebooks, I said it would take time to convince a notebook it belonged to me and that I wasn’t fond of the kinds of magic involved with notebooks. I am, also, not fond of being powerless and having no access to magic and the notebook as well as its companion grimoire would hopefully allow me access to something. I needed to really feel magic and my powers.

“That’s not gonna work,” Faelix said. “Not the way you want.”

“And what way is that?” I asked.

“Magic. It’s blocked. Well, mostly blocked. Not really blocked, but also definitely blocked. I have some ideas about that, but I’ve been told to keep my mouth shut and to stop thinking about things like that.”

Up until that moment, and while it may seem like a very short period of time had gone by (and it was for most people a very short period of time) it was a very long period for me. It’s a brain thing. Anyway, at that moment I realized something that may have been overlooked by almost everyone else.

“What do you know?” I asked.

“About what?”

I glared at Faelix and he smiled back at me.

“The problem in the valley is a blockage of magic and I believe it is also true that the monster over there,” he pointed straight to Ethan’s tent, “is responsible for the blockage, but I don’t necessarily agree destroying the monster will free the magic. Though I could be wrong.”

“Why?” I asked, hoping the single word was enough to keep Faelix talking.

“Why what? Oh. The monster. Yes, well, this particular monster isn’t the first one to have entered the forest. There have been many before. I’ve counted at least seventeen. Though I could be off by one or several.

“Anyway, their appearance does correlate with the loss of magic in the forest, or the limit of magic in the forest, but it may be coincidental as well as causal. I think there is more to what’s going on than a monster showing up and everything else shutting down.”

“Like what? What else is going on?” I asked.

Faelix nodded and landed on my satchel and took a seat. I was certain if he’d worn glasses, he would’ve adjusted them before continuing. This was not a dumb person, though as a male faerie he was probably dismissed as being less intelligent and less capable and therefore less worth listening to. While, at the same time, giving off the impression that he was both very intelligent and well informed and liked to show off.

“There have been no sprites in the forest since the monsters arrived,” he said simply.

What?

“Who cares about sprites?” I asked.

“Probably nobody,” Faelix said. “But isn’t it odd that one of the fundamental parts of the natural world, representations of the very essence of magic …”

“I’m a representation of pure magic,” I said, cutting him off.

“True. But are you a representation of the essences of magic The small bits that make up the great are whole?”

I had to think about that. While it was true that I did represent the pure nature of magic in the world, therefore having a lot of powers, I’d never considered what he was suggesting when it came to the essence of how my powers worked or, for that matter, how the powers of others worked from magic to religion to everything regarding the natural world and the origins of everything.

“What does that mean?” I asked and realized I was gripping my notebook to my chest in anticipation for what he was going to say next. I had no idea what I expected, but I think I wanted to get the purity of what Faelix was getting at into my notebook and then work with the ideas through a different process of question and authority.