The park was odd during the day, the sun shone through the leaves in a way that made the shadows run across you. It was beautiful, it was artistic, it was weird. This forest was always weird.

Ratface hadn’t really paid that much attention to it when she’d come through before. It’d been dark for one, but there was also the question of what was normal. She was in a forest controlled by a demon, the normal trees looking particularly aesthetic wasn’t exactly that high up on her priorities.

Yet it should have still stuck in her head as weird. She shouldn’t have brushed off seeing eyes in the night like it was nothing. So the question was what had stopped it.

She could hear fighting in the distance, Albert’s grunts were familiar after the number of fights they’d gotten into. It was only that followed by the clack of wood meeting wood. Whoever he was fighting was so good as to not even make a sound.

Ratface wasn’t stupid, all of these points added up to something. She was just hoping her conclusion was wrong.

She strode through into the same clearing they’d had the goblin party in. She didn’t bother hiding; if she was wrong then whoever was there was friendly, if she was right then sneaking wouldn’t help anyway.

Albert was halfway though an attack when she got there. It was obvious the training was paying off. He attacked a little faster, leapt a little higher. It was unnatural and if she squinted, she could see the wind wrap around him when he did it.

His opponent met his attack and turned it to the side. His spear slammed into the ground next to her, and he collapsed to the ground, gasping.

“You can breathe when using the wind, it is encouraged,” she said.

The woman smiled at Albert, then turned to face her.

She was in forest greens and had a bow slung across her back. Her ears were pointed.

Ratface’s brain screamed elf, but she noticed the rounder face and the stockier body.

“Half-elf,” she whispered.

“I prefer Hannah,” said the half-elf.

A half elf wasn’t much better than an elf in Ratface’s book, half-elves tended to be in enforcement roles in Lurian, anything the elves deemed too tiresome to do on their own. They took out their frustrations on who they were enforcing, usually the goblins.

She was halfway through drawing her knife before her brain caught up with the name. She paused.

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“The defier?” Ratface asked.

“Again, just Hannah is fine,” said Hannah.

Ratface stopped drawing her knife and shoved it back into the sheath. She’d heard of this woman. Her infamy was so widespread that it had reached even goblins.

“You killed elves,” said Ratface.

Hannah shrugged.

“Only to run away, my story is far more boring than it sounds. How can I help you?”

Ratface paced around the half-elf. She looked over to Albert who had moved on from gasping to resting.

“I don’t suppose you can teach me that?” Ratface asked.

Hannah looked over to Albert and helped him up.

“Albert is lucky, someone in his family got intimate with a wind-spirit. I can teach you how to harness your blood, not make new magic.”

Ratface frowned, with a wind spirit? How did that even work? Still, it made sense that a half-elf could help with awakening old powers. If they grew up with elves, then they were always taught as much so they could be useful. Supposedly the blood made them more willing to follow orders as well, it was why Hannah was so famous.

She walked over to join them, and Hannah stared critically at her.

“I don’t know why Claudette would send you to me, goblin’s blood is only ever goblins blood. Yours is no different.”

Ratface knew why, it’d be the glamour. She couldn’t bring herself to say it though. Yes, Hannah had killed elves but that didn’t mean she’d saved goblins, Ratface knew the difference.

“You should tell her,” Albert said, “she’ll help her, and you can trust her because she can’t leave.”

Hannah gave him an annoyed look at that, but Ratface was grateful. It was useful to have a friend who understood her mistrust.

“I have a glamour I need to get better at using.” She saw Hannah’s eyebrows raise, so she clarified, “it’s not mine.”

“Well, that’s considerably less interesting but it’s still something. The good news is that my advice probably wont change. What’s the problem?”

“When it leaves my head, I feel foggy. It’s like I can’t think straight.”

“Ah,” said Hannah. She held out her hand and a small bird formed on it.

“Do you know the first task elf children are given when they activate their glamour?” she asked.

She pushed the bird into the sky, and it flew further into the forest.

“They have to send it away, right? To increase their endurance.”

“That’s only half of it,” said Hannah. She closed her eyes and held out her hand. “The other part is about trust. Glamour’s are elves’ innate magic; it is a wilful magic that will buck if you try and order it too firmly. You’re spending too much of your mind trying to hold onto the glamour which is why you feel so lost.”

She put her hand out and an apple fell from the sky into it. She took a bite of it as the bird came to rest of her shoulder.

“You have to trust the glamour to work with you, or else it won’t.”

Ratface snorted.

“Trust huh?” She pointed at Albert. “I trust him because he put his life on the line for me, he did the right thing even when it’d hurt him. I’ll aways trust him to do the right thing.”

She pointed at her head.

“That thing in there is keeping parts of my life from me. How do I trust that?”

Hannah shrugged. She seemed much shyer now that she wasn’t in her element.

“I couldn’t say. It was my glamour who saved me in the end, who defied the elves. I can’t imagine a world where it would hurt me.”

Ratface stalked off before she could hear another word. She didn’t know why that made her so mad, only that it did.

It was frustrating, she realised, that a glamour could save someone. The ones in her were just a weight against her. That was all magic ever way. How could she trust that?

If she didn’t, Halmir was in trouble. She hissed as she walked away. You didn’t trust the wolf just because it was all that could save you from the bear.

Yet she would need to, if Halmir was to wake up again.