“—to stay in character when we’re in-world.”

Reeve looked around the outer bailey. A dozen or so more ranks had joined those that had been in place when she’d been pulled to the lobby, but the portal hadn’t yet opened. “OK,” she said to herself, “it’s still not pausing when we’re all logged out, but at least we got back in quick.”

“So, please call me Gyl,” Millie said.

“Yeah, sorry, I know.”

“Guile?” Walter said. “As in, cunning?”

“G-y-l.” Reeve said. “But, knowing Millie—sorry, Gyl—she probably meant the play on words too.”

“What we into here?” Millie said, looking around the bailey and then up at the battlement. “That’s a lot of undead.”

“Undead? Z-zombies?” Walter said, turning to look up toward the wall in the direction Millie was staring.

“Undead and zombies aren’t the same thing, Mr. Wi— Wait, can I call you by your gamer tag, Mr. Williams? I prefer not to break character when in-world.”

“Well…,” Walter said.

“We’re both Reavyr,” Reeve said, frowning.

“Still?” Millie said. “Even after the glitch you were telling me about at school today?”

“He hasn’t changed it yet,” Reeve said.

“You could,” Walter said slowly, “use a term of endearment with which the Twins graced me.”

“Nope,” Reeve said.

“Wurmslayer,” Walter said.

“Wurmslayer? That’s bad-bass, Mr. W.!” Millie said. “Sorry about the language. And the stupid profanity filter. You seem like the kind of parent who wouldn’t want their child using language like that. My parents don’t care as long as I don’t get in trouble for using it in school. And I’m kind of used to letting it all hang out in here. They’ve never visited this world. Anyway, totally going to call you Wurmslayer, Wurmslayer. I’m Gyl. Nice to meet you. Cool green suspenders and trench coat action—like Neo and Frodo had a baby.”

Reeve rolled her eyes as the caster and pyromaniac apiculturist accountant shook hands. Pulling her UI to her, Reeve checked the game time readout and did some mental math. She snapped her fingers at Millie a few times. “Hey, that’s all great, but I need you to enchant a trunk before the portal opens, and we only have a few minutes.”

Twenty minutes later, Reeve, Millie, and Walter stood flanking an ironwood trunk, which was dark brown with reinforcing bands of oily-black iron.

Reeve checked her UI again.

“I don’t like waiting,” Millie said. She pulled at the wide, open cuff of one of her sleeves and then tilted her head back and shook her braid loose from where it had caught on her robe’s cowl. “Is she usually late?”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Reeve frowned. “We were together almost the whole time my dad and I were in-world, so Dusk didn’t have many chances to stand us up. But that was eight years ago. Almost eight-and-a-half, I think. Maybe she’s changed. Plus, she’s been kind of busy trying to fix the broken pieces of an empire.”

They stood in silence, and Reeve’s gaze slowly moved over the rows of Neecriots, all of whom were watching her expectantly.

Three hours later, Reeve stood, arms crossed, behind the trunk on which Millie and her father were playing their twelfth game of chess.

“Good thing you had us rush in here, Reavyr,” Millie said. “Wouldn’t have wanted to miss a moment of this. No offense, Wurmslayer.”

“That one’s the bishop?” Walter said, pointing at a rook among the admittedly abstract set of pieces Millie had conjured.

Reeve reviewed the increasingly disordered rows of Neecriots, many of whom had taken seats in the grass or left their spot behind for a shaded one where they could lean against the wall.

“Do you think,” Millie said, as she took one of Walter’s knights—or maybe that was a bishop, Reeve wasn’t sure—“this is Dusk’s way of giving you an idea of what it was like for her,” Millie looked over her shoulder and up at Reeve, “but, you know, for her, she was waiting for eight years. Sorry, eight-and-a-half years.”

Reeve switched her naginata from one hand to the other and glanced up at the sun, which would soon pass out of sight behind the outer wall. “How long a march is it to Thhia?” Reeve called to Larry and Sea Mist, who were lounging on large pillows under a well-furnished tent that their guards had assembled and then continuously upgraded to the point of baroque opulence over the preceding few hours.

The two turned to each other and spoke in low voices for a few seconds before responding.

“It has been years since any were allowed to travel beyond the city,” Sea Mist said, “but in the days of the empire, the travel would be at least two weeks if on foot.”

Reeve stared up into the sky for a few seconds. “That’d be almost half an hour of real time,” she said. “Mom’d definitely come pull us before then. We can’t take that long to get back.”

“Checkmate,” Millie said. “And just in time! I’m guessing this is our ride?” She stood from the end of the trunk on which she’d been sitting and straightened her robe, leaving Walter sitting at the other end frowning, brow knitted as he stared at the board.

A smokey ring was floating toward them across the grass, growing as it did. The appearance of the ring had been spotted by the Neecriots, who were hurriedly reforming their neat ranks. The ring stopped its drift and hung rotating in place.

Through the portal stepped Leaf. Her black scout’s cloak was soiled with dust and dirt and in places shone wet. She held in one hand the short silver cudgel Reeve had seen on a number of occasions during their time together. Her long silver hair appeared to have been hastily tied back with a leather strip. She first looked over Reeve’s party and then scanned their surroundings, taking in the castle walls, bailey, and Neecriots, both living and undead. Without a word to Reeve, Leaf stepped to the side.

Another woman stepped through the portal, her fur-lined cloak longer than Leaf’s cloak and ice-blue, save for where it was spattered with blood. Her skin was so pale as to look ice itself. Her short-cropped blond locks fell barely to her eyes. One hand held a bloodied dagger and from the other palm light glowed from a half-cast spell held ready. Her eyes too scanned their surroundings as a massive American cheetah padded through the portal and came to stand at her side.

“Reeve,” Dawn said, “well met. I wish we were reuniting under different circumstances.”

“Whoa,” Millie said, eyes wide, grin curling her lips.

Reeve pushed past Millie to approach Dawn, who, like her sister Dusk, looked older than when Reeve had last seen her. “What’s going on? Dusk said she’d open the portal hours ago.”

“My sister has been taken,” Dawn said. “Although still in The Wilds, I felt her mind go quiet, and I returned to Thhia in time only to strike down a few mercenaries left by the abductors to delay us as they made their escape from the city. They are gone, and she with them. Come, we need you.”