The word dogged was not an accurate word for what Clarke had been through. No one who liked animals, no one who hated animals, would treat a dog the way he'd been pursued. Through ditches and forests, from caravan to caravan and tracked across flat plains only hidden by tall grass was what he'd endured for a week across the continent.

His stomach growled as the city came into view. Deraforda was home and food and news. He could see people even at this distance outside the walls, more patrolling the top.

His mother was there. Gwen was there. Twinty was there. He wanted to believe that the end was there but even if he found his mother that would be the start of the next run, across the continent, across the sea, somewhere the elven kingdom wouldn't be hounding them.

He scowled, his feet rooted to the spot by the chains of constant chasing and running like his mother must have dealt with his whole life and he couldn't move a step. He told himself an obvious lie, made his mind suck on it like hard candy.

The end and happiness. She'll be there. Gwen and Twinty came to save her after all. We'll be fine and happy. I mean, the town isn't a necropolis. No one has died.

That small thought propelled him through the thinning trees and down into a small ditch where a carefully decorated wooden wall was disguised to look like woodland detritus and a small hatch let him into the ratling burrows.

There were a pair of ratlings just inside the tunnel, old rats stroking sparse whiskers as they concentrated on a game of checkers.

Neither looked up but one spoke.

“Clarke?”

He startled as he hadn't noticed either of them in the dark.

“Yes.”

“Twinty said to go to the escape tunnel under the Whilaway house. They're waiting for you.”

He nodded and began to walk, then jog before bursting into full on leaping strides. Ratlings began to appear that he shoved through, pushing people aside in his madness for closure.

Angry shouts followed him as he ran the length of the rural tunnels and then into the crowded undercity, his chest aching.

He finally found the tunnel, bits of cleaned cave in still remaining as he slammed the gate aside and dashed by guards. There was a heavy wooden door propped open. The vault inside was filled with items and artifacts of unknown distinction, bags of cash laid in pyramids.

He heard Gwen from the next room and the voice he'd been trying to keep in his memory for years, a voice he'd slowly forgotten until recently.

“Can you check it again? I'm kinda stuck on what to do with the next part.”

“Sure...let me just make a couple notes and...alright, how's that?”

“Makes sense...alright, yeah, I think I got it.”

He peered through the door and there she was. Small, frail looking, one sleeve pinned up from the loss of an arm. She already looked healthier than before, her thousand yard stare now seeing things up close.

“Mom?”

He whispered. She didn't hear him but she saw him half trip in through the door and a huge smile broke on her face. Gwen threw a small bit of metal at him.

“Took you long enough.”

Clarke met his mother halfway and she hugged him, barely enough strength to register the squeeze. Clarke embraced her but his arms hovered, like she'd break if he held her too tight.

He turned his head just to make sure no one was going to stab him in the back again and saw Twinty standing there, staring from the door he'd just come in.

The old rat came over and tightened Clarke's arms a bit into a proper hug, nodded, and joined Gwen at her table.

Many minutes passed before she finally let him go, pushing him back to look him up and down, rubbing his arms.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You've really...you've become such a....”

She had a hard time putting it into words, the way he stood, the way he spoke, how much he had changed. Clarke had to say something or else he may never get the lump out of his throat.

“Yeah...I'm sorry, I had to move in with Twinty and I guess I picked up a few bad habits-”

“Hey!”

The rat shouted but Aggatha burst into laughter.

“No, no, I think you turned out wonderfully!”

She turned to one of the tables and picked up Clarke's book, holding it between them.

“I read about what you did to find me. Twinty brought me some of your notebooks and I read what you'd been doing all this time, how you grew over all these years. You got a job, went on adventures and even if Twinty says you're the human version of a lemon that still means you shine bright. A mother couldn't be prouder to have a son like you.”

His grip tightened on the book and he felt his face flushing and his eyes welling. He held the book in front of his face and hastily walked backwards to the tunnel.

“Oh, Clarke, you're going to-”

He tripped as his mother had guessed and fled into the tunnel, just behind the door.

“I'll-I'll be right back. Just gotta write something...real quick.”

His mother held an inkwell after him with a little shake.

“Don't you need this?”

Twinty chuckled.

“I'm sure he has plenty of liquid to write with.”

------------------------------------

He returned a while later, his emotions pushed back down to normal levels to see Gwen by herself, quietly fitting metal pieces together around a central jar composed of thick glass.

“Where's mom?”

He sat beside her, watching as she looked over pages of notes all written out in his mother's handwriting and turned back to putting the pieces together. Clarke looked at them, not to read but to enjoy the penmanship and the fact that it could exist at all.

“She had to go with Twinty and check on another project.”

“A what? What project? We need to get out of here.”

Gwen pushed the device between them.

“Believe me, I tried to convince her of that too. Alouella just sent me ahead to make sure Aggatha-”

“Please don't call her that. It sounds bizarre.”

“-to make sure your mama was safe.”

“I doubt that's what she meant.”

“Well that's how I'm telling the story. Anyway, once we got settled in she just got to work asking me to build this. She'd just materialize the pieces out of thin air and I'd fit them together. Oh, and look at this, look.”

She held up several pages of notes, each one written in his mothers neat print handwriting.

“Do you know what this is?”

He pointed at the machine she was putting together.

“Right but do you know where she got these notes? From inside me! She did this thing where she...just...opened me up like a book. Not literally but there was light and symbols floating in the air and she said it was just everything written inside me! And this is the thing I've been seeing in my head, in my dreams for years!”

Clarke recognized it from Gwen's cafe and the trip to Whaler's Wharf. It was similar, though there was no way to remove the glass bit or a pour spout.

“It's a coffee maker? Why would mom want that?”

“Something for me to do I guess. She was really happy that I had helped you so much, wanted me to know how much it meant for you to have a friend like me.”

She fitted the last few pieces together and did a little dance in her seat.

“It's so nice to see it in its perfect form. I always felt there was something a little off about it since I was building from half seen dreams.”

She picked it up, cradling it to her chest like a newborn and whispering to it.

“I love you coffee machine number twelve.”

“Oh, you've finished another!”

Aggatha and Twinty were back, a box of ratling cuisine carried at Twinty's hip. He set it on the table while Aggatha fussed at the coffee machine.

“Thought you'd be hungry after all that walking.”

Clarke's stomach growled at the smell, crying for the food to be in his belly. But he had to say something first about everything going on.

“Mom, what's this I hear about you doing some kind of projects? This city isn't safe and we need to make plans to get away where no one will find you. We're even sitting under Whilaway's house and I have only just realized I don't know what happened after you were teleported away because there's a huge gap between what I was thinking I'd find and what I have found-”

She had been setting out the food on plates she'd swiped from Whilaway's house and she gave his cheek a firm little pinch.

“You're such a worrier. Clarke, my little man, you need to eat and rest for now. You've earned it. You have my word that we'll talk but for now just let me and Twinty look out for you. We're all going to be fine.”

Her eyes shone, big and bright and her expression was care and kindness, a look he'd been starved of for many years. He couldn't remember the last time he'd dropped his guard, always worried or working or tense from danger. The only other people who could get that reaction from him were...

Alright. We are all safe, I understand. But at least tell me what happened after you were teleported here. Where is Whilaway?”

She laughed and shrugged.

“Oh, that. That's nothing important.”

“Actually-”

Twinty interjected.

“I'd been wondering that myself. You were already free when we arrived.”

They waited for an answer, standing at their chairs until she finally relented.

“Well, I just sort of stabbed him.”

They waited for more of the story and when no more came Clarke prompted.

“Is that...it?”

She nodded, already eating.

“Yes. Now eat, your food is getting cold.”

He exchanged a look with Twinty who shrugged as the situation seemed to back her up.

“But...where is the body?”

“Clarke.”

Twinty had taken a seat, leaving him the only one still wondering over the mysteries of who and where.

“Your mother made people disappear for years. I think we know.”

He couldn't deny that but now worried for her mental state. But, seeing as the food was disappearing and the answers had come easy he set his book down and sat for something he hadn't had in many years.

A family meal.