Ted kept his poker face firm. If it slipped, even for a moment, he might never get it back.

When he’d needed his father? Abandoned. The moment he was free, the moment he dug himself out of the shit life had dealt him? Abducted. Ripped away on the brink of success to rescue the same man who’d abandoned him.

Fuck. That.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears. He didn’t have to do it. He could say no. He could find his way home and leave this world to deal with its own shit.

That was an option. Technically.

His chest boiled, indignant heat spreading through every limb. That was the worst part. He didn’t get a choice about it, about any of it. Not really. No matter how much he hated it, he couldn’t abandon an entire world. He had to keep smiling, keep going, keep doing the right fucking thing when no one else ever did.

The quest sat at the back of his awareness, taking up space with its smug certainty that he’d carry it out. If only there was a way to smash it into a million little pieces and leave it all behind.

He snorted. At least he didn’t have a clue where his father was. Couldn’t rescue him without that, and the Divine Empire lead was at least thirteen years out of date. Who knew where he was now?

That was a problem for the future. Right now, he had other issues.

Ted gave Reltan a much-deserved smile. It wasn’t his fault. “Thank you. That’s been most… illuminating.”

Reltan bowed in his seat. “I am always happy to have such an attentive learner, Ted of Earth.” Looking up, his eyes darted over Ted’s shoulder. He forced out a wider smile and his voice quietened. “Not everyone is so happy to sit and learn.”

Ted looked around to see Cara sneaking through the room. Her gaze jumped around, like a mouse on the lookout for a cat. How was she even more ill at ease amidst her fellow wood elves than him? “Over here,” he said, waving her over.

She dipped her head back at him, approached, and crossed her arms. “Did he behave?”

Reltan’s smile warmed again. “He is a most admirable learner, though I fear none of the crafts here are a good fit for him.”

Her expression softened and she relaxed a little. Not that it lasted. She stiffened right back up, her regal poise plastering over the cracks. She cocked her head and stared at Ted, her gaze piercing into him.

The tingling ripple was absent, but she wasn’t being subtle. “You’re Identifying me, aren’t you?”

“What?” She shook her head and broke off the stare. “Why would you even suggest something like that?”

Why indeed. He raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a no.”

Her lips pursed. She said nothing, glancing around the room, her hands coming together and idly fidgeting.

“It’s okay.” Ted stood and smiled as warmly as he could muster. It had been a long, hard day. “I’m just curious why I didn’t feel it.”

Her gaze snapped back to his, her emerald green eyes wide. Her head cocked, her mouth opened, and no words came out.

Ted froze. He’d said something wrong, hadn’t he? She stiffened up even further. The silence between them grew. Awkward, uncomfortable, and no end in sight.

She wasn’t going to answer, was she?

He dropped his gaze and sighed. “Never mind. Forget I mentioned it.”

“No!” A pained expression flashed across her face. “It’s not that, it’s just… Haven’t I mentioned perks to you?”

Ted blinked. Perks? A kid in a candy store, he focused inwards. Perks, perks, there had to be something about perks.

A deluge of information flooded out. There was a lot about perks.

Cara’s expression brightened. “Have you even hit level 1 in Identify? I’ll go over it.” She nodded to Reltan. “Thank you for keeping an eye on him.”

He bowed his head. “The pleasure all belongs to me. He has been a very appreciative audience, something, alas, the youth are not always.”

Ignoring Reltan’s comment, Cara beckoned Ted with a sharp hand motion. “Come, it’s getting late.”

Ted thanked Reltan again and followed. Despite his longer legs, he had to jog to match her pace through the treetop passages. “What are perks? I—” He paused. What was the inner sense called? “—looked inwards, and I swear my brain nearly drowned in how much I got back.”

“Each level of a skill, you get a perk point, same as getting an attribute point for your level.”

“I get attribute points?” A query revealed 2 attribute points waiting to be assigned. He could make himself stronger, or smarter, for that matter. He frowned. Would being smarter change who he was?

Would he really care if it did?

Cara glanced at him with that increasingly familiar disbelief, but at least she slowed to a normal walking pace. “Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Willpower, Personality. Those are the six core attributes you can level, either through life experiences or by spending points from leveling.”

“So I could train and make myself stronger, or smarter?”

“Yes, and no. Almost all your points from life experiences come while growing up. Adults only get minor stat points for free, and even then, only from major achievements. Whatever stats you have now, you’re pretty much stuck with, besides points from leveling. Ah, here we are.”

She pulled open the door to a small yet cozy, if rather messy, room set within a tree. On Earth, it would have been an enormous tree, but here it was positively modest.

“This your place?” There had to be a more charitable word than messy, but he couldn’t think of one.

A collection of random objects littered the floor, ranging from half-finished bows to potted plants, most but not all upright, at least. A few lay on their sides, their dirt spilling out onto the smooth bark floor.

A small creature darted forward and climbed effortlessly up an equally disorganized set of shelves. It leaped through the air, landed on Cara’s shoulder, and nuzzled against her earlobe.

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“Hey there, Nibbles,” she said, her silky soft voice laden with affection. “I missed you too.”

The creature lived up to its name, eagerly nibbling gently upon her ear. It most resembled a large mouse, except with oversized legs and a hyperactive tail.

“Nibbles, this is Ted. Ted, this is Nibbles.”

The moment she finished talking, the creature darted across Cara’s shoulders and leaped onto his. Its damp little nose pressed against his face, sniffing frantically, while its thin tail batted surprisingly hard against his shoulder.

Whatever it was, it was a fearless little thing. “Boy or girl?”

A smile lit up Cara’s face. “Girl. She stays in my room a lot more than I’d like. It’s too dangerous out in the Forest, and most people don’t appreciate her… well…”

“Unrepentant curiosity?”

“That, and her penchant for chaos.” She sighed, kneeled in front of the toppled plants, and set about carefully repotting them.

Tiny teeth nibbled at Ted’s ear, driving the point home. “How does the nibbling go down?”

Cara spun up and around, potted plant in hand, her eyes wide. “She’s nibbling you?” She stared and blinked several times, then a smile snuck across her lips. “Huh. Guess she likes you.”

He reached up and stroked Nibbles, ready to back away at the first sign of trouble. Yet instead of backing up, the little creature nuzzled her silky soft fur against his fingers. “I guess so.”

“That, or she’s just glad that you aren’t shooing her away.”

“Who could shoo away something as cute as this?” A lot of people.

He petted the loudly purring Nibbles and watched Cara work. Sorting out the mess Nibbles had made of her plants, she was slow and methodical, paying attention to every detail.

The moment she finished with that, she switched to frantically moving the clutter into a precarious pile on one side of the circular room. “There.” She smiled, but her gaze cast down rather than meet his. “This is my place. You’ll be staying here until…” She floundered and looked around the room, as if it would somehow provide a less awkward conclusion.

Her discomfort had a certain appeal. She was, after all, his jailer.

A twist in his gut reminded him it wasn’t that simple. Without her, he’d still be walking the forest floor.

Or worse.

No point beating around the bush. “Until they’ve decided whether or not to throw me to the wolves?”

After a moment’s thought, she nodded. “They wouldn’t put it like that.”

“It’s fine.” He shrugged. Mistrust wasn’t anything new. Usually, though, the cold shoulder on the horizon was rather less deadly. “You can have the bed.”

“You should take it. I find the tree-song’s soothing.”

The tree could sing? Ted raised his eyebrows and stared at her until she elaborated.

“Oh, right. While touching the Great Forest, we can connect and share our feelings in the tree-song. It’s… it’s hard to explain to anyone who has never felt it.”

“That’s a wood elf thing, isn’t it?” His heart sank at her nod. Not that he’d ever want to experience it. Being connected to all those minds? How could anyone ever want that? “Is that why you’re all barefoot?”

Her eyebrows raised, but differently from usual. Less like she was wondering how he could be so damned ignorant, almost like he wasn’t completely useless. “Mostly.”

“Can you communicate that way?”

“Yes, and no. It’s not words, more of a swirling cloud of feelings and concepts. We do, somewhat, communicate across the Forest with it, but it can take a while and isn’t very precise, especially for anything complicated.”

Ted nodded. It tugged at his heart, almost sounding tempting, as crazy as that was. All those people, all those minds—even long life wouldn’t be worth that. “I’ll take the bed then. So, perks?”

She breathed deeply and plucked at her bottom lip. “Perks. Yes. Your Identify is still level 0, isn’t it?”

Thinking about Identify didn’t bring up any information. He hadn’t noticed any notifications about it, either, though he might have missed one. “I can’t tell.”

“That would be a yes, then.” She squared up to him and swallowed. Her foot tapped against the floor.

What was she waiting for?

After a long moment, she looked up and met his gaze. “Stare at me, really hard. Try to see who I am, what I am.”

He remembered the piercing stares he’d received all evening. A burden best ignored became a blueprint, though a poor one.

Did it simply happen, or did he have to focus in a particular way?

She’d said to see who she was, what she was. Anything and everything could be important. He studied her—the chestnut pixie cut, those emerald green eyes that kept wandering away, the tensed, slightly reddened face that tapered away to a slender chin.

Her hands refused to stay still, fidgeting constantly. Her leather armor fit snugly, not restricting her motions at all.

Still nothing from that inner sense. What was he missing?

Tightness spread through his chest. It wasn’t comfortable for either of them, but Identify would be worth it, and better to learn it with a friendly face. Staring at Reltan for this long would have been worse.

At least she was cute.

And those were knives at her belt that she was idly fidgeting with. Yeah, best to keep his mind on the job at hand. Not that that was helping much.

How much longer were they going to do this? “I’m not getting anything.”

Cara breathed deeply but didn’t look away. “It might take some time. I’m a lot higher level, you’re skill level 0, and…”

Her eyes closed. She took another deep breath and, almost immediately, his inner awareness finally did its job.

Cara Tolabar So’aroaska

Level: 12

Identify skill increased 0 → 1!

“I got it!” A rush of dopamine shattered the awkwardness. “Pleasure to meet you, Cara Tolabar So’aroaska.”

She held on for barely a second before bursting into laughter, which Nibbles joined with hurried squeaking.

“What?” The laughter was contagious. He couldn’t stop it. “What?” he asked again, between fits of laughter.

Each time he repeated the question, Cara laughed harder. After a few attempts, he gave up asking, and went along with it, doubling over and giving in to the laughter.

He was safe, at least for the moment. That ever-present tension, held so long he’d forgotten it was even there, drained away.

When had he last relaxed like this?

Had he ever?

Pain stabbed at his chest and his laughter skidded to a halt. Best not to think about that.

Cara finally managed to bring her fits of laughter under enough control to answer. “That pronunciation? Just… no. It’s meant to be lyrical, not…”

“… Not like a cat being drowned?”

“Your words, not mine. Second, that’s not my name. Well, okay, technically it is, if you’re writing a contract or you’re Jeremy and really, really mad at me, but otherwise, it’s just Cara, okay?”

Still catching his breath, Ted nodded. “Cara it is. What does the rest mean?”

“Tolabar is the name of this village, my home. So’aroaska means ‘she-who-hunts-and-kills’. When you name me like that, you’re saying I’m the ranger from Tolabar who is called Cara.”

“Got it. Guess that is a bit formal and impersonal, huh?”

“Little bit, yeah. But it’s okay.” She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, composing herself. When her eyes opened again, she once more had that graceful poise that all wood elves seemed to have. “Identify leveled, right?”

“Yeah. Level 1 now.” Thinking about Identify perks triggered a rush of information. Still a lot, but manageable, and he skimmed through it. “I see it now—I have a perk point and a bunch of options. Fast, Stealth, Thorough, Distant, Piercing—hey, what’s Piercing do?”

“Piercing helps cut through Deception. Pretty much useless in the Forest, that’s for guards in a city or inquisitors. I’d hang onto the rest of your perks until you’ve got a better idea of what you want to be, but a level of Stealth Identify is pretty much essential on the Forest floor.”

“That’ll let me Identify without people realizing, right?” The earlier incident, and Cara’s reaction, came to mind too late. He could have worded that better.

She winced but carried on. “Yeah, if you don’t stare like a dolt. There are extra levels of the perk, but don’t bother with them. One level’s enough, at least for all the creatures I’ve ever come across, and I’ve never known anyone spend perks just to know someone’s Identifying them.”

Ted nodded. All too easily, he could imagine Identifying a creature to see if it was too dangerous to hunt. The way it would notice him, turn its way too high-level teeth toward him, and charge.

The perk point went straight into Stealth Identify. There would be other benefits—like not having to remember the names of everyone Reltan had introduced him to—but not getting eaten by monsters outweighed pretty much anything else.

“Thank you.” Remembering Reltan’s mannerisms, he bowed his head.

Cara rolled her eyes. “What are you, eight-hundred? Anyway, tomorrow, I’m hunting again—and you’re coming with me.”

A knot formed in his stomach and tension flooded back into his arms and shoulders. They’d barely escaped the snake with their lives. If her arrow had glanced off, if it hadn’t been stunned, if he’d missed…

He hadn’t missed. They’d won. He’d walked away with another level and improved skills. Hiding away wouldn’t accomplish anything. It was a risk, but a worthwhile one, especially with Cara to teach him.

Sitting around doing nothing wasn’t an option, and learning to hunt had to be better than going back to Reltan with his tail between his legs and signing up to be a mediocre crafter for the rest of his life. “Happy to help. What else can you teach me?”