Nannade was sitting on the table in Elissa's hut, Garrett, Elissa and Arch-Druid Loganna stood around her. It had been seven days since Garrett and Nannade arrived and Loganna had finally come to approve of the girl.

Loganna put her thin, wrinkly hand on the girl's cheek and pushed her head over to tilt it, then she inspected her neck.

"What's your favourite colour, girl?" Loganna asked with her dry voice.

Nannade thought for a moment, visibly daunted. "Blue! Like the sky." She finally brought forth.

The tall, thin woman leaned closer to inspect the girl's eyes. Nannade could not lean away any further than she already did.

"And what is your favourite game to play?" Loganna had been asking Nannade many questions like this, not out of pure interest but because she was probing the girl, looking for signs of trauma.

"...I played chase with the children at the big house."

Loganna turned around to cast an inquisitive glance at Garrett.

"We stayed at a farming estate's guest house for a few days to rid her of fleas and lice and get her fed better. She played with some other kids there."

Loganna turned back around. "Let me ask you something else. How many people are here in this room?"

Nannade was confused. "I see Teacher Garetas, Teacher Elissa, Faan, you, and the lady owl."

Loganna leaned back and hummed in contemplation. "Interesting."

She turned to Elissa and Garrett. "And you said she does not have the Arcane Gift?"

Elissa shook her head. "We did the simple soot test and no pattern showed."

Loganna made a concerned hum. "Hmmm. Still, she does have the Mystic Gift, that much is obvious. This should be enough for her to be inducted into your care, Elissa."

"So you'll allow her?" Garrett asked.

Loganna's head turned to Garrett in a sudden movement. "I have never approved of a Hidden Hand's apprentice as the Arch-Druid so far. It was my father who approved of you and I will keep an eye on you and the girl, Garrett, especially in regards to that trauma of hers! I'll enter the paperwork directly into the archives myself, no process necessary. She'll be an apprentice of Elissa's for all intents and purposes."

Elissa furrowed her brow. "No induction ceremony?"

"Of course not. She's only your apprentice for bureaucratic purposes. The Highest Circle will understand." She took her staff and headed for the door. In the frame, she stopped and turned to Garrett one more time. "And stop it with the blood magic, Garrett. You're now living a stone toss away from a place of power, I'd hate to see you cursed or worse by jealous spirits." She turned to Elissa. "Do a proper appeasement with him!"

"Yes, High-Sister!" Elissa put her hands on her heart and bowed her head, Garrett did the same and Loganna answered them in kind before heading out the door

Nuuph, her owl familiar, flew from the windowsill to Loganna's shoulder and in a puff of blue smoke, transformed into a pair of huge ethereal wings protruding from her back and carrying her up into the sky above the treetops.

"WOAH, she can fly!" Nannade said with bewonderment.

Elissa put her hand on the girl's head. "Yes, as the Arch-Druid of Sturreland, she is empowered to draw upon the life force of everyone and everything that lives here."

"In other words," Garrett interjected, "she's sucking the life out of you."

"Shut up, Garrett, that's not what's happening at all." She turned back to Nannade. "Don't listen to him, she's not sucking anything out of you. All living things exude a tiny bit of life force all the time, even during sleep. It gathers in streams and pools we call 'ley-lines' and 'places of power'. You will learn more about that soon enough, because you are now my apprentice!" Elissa smiled at the girl and the girl smiled back.

Garrett scoffed again. "On paper! She's still my apprentice. To keep you safe, Loganna gave you a cover-identity."

"Garrett, for the sake of all living things, you wanted me to teach her. You even made a blood oath and if you don't stop your pettiness, I'm am going to call upon it."

"Fine, have it your way then." Garrett got up from the chair. "I'll be out looking for a nice place in the forest to train her then."

"You will do no such thing, you heard Loganna, first we'll do an appeasement! And I don't have all ingredients here, so I'll go to the village, you wait here." Elissa put on her sandals and then paused for thought. "Actually, Nannade, do you want to go to village with me?"

Garrett again spoke up. "Hey, didn't we agree to keep this a secret? Now you want to parade her around town?"

"I sooner or later will have to. She also needs a robe as my apprentice. We got this cover-identity precisely to distract from the fact that she's a secret. The harder we try to conceal her, the more obvious it will become once even the tiniest bit of information gets out."

Garrett wanted to protest, but Nannade came to his side. "Do I have to go with her?" She looked at him with big, confused eyes.

Garrett put a hand on her shoulder. "No, you don't have to do anything."

"Oh come on Nannade, it'll be fun. I'll introduce you to some nice people." Elissa said with a smile.

Nannade looked back to Garrett. He sighed. "Fine, you can go with her, if you want to. Elissa is trustworthy."

Nannade smiled and came to Elissa's side.

Before they left through the door, Garrett said a few more words. "Keep her safe, Elissa, do you hear?"

Elissa had to double check, just to be sure it was really Garrett and not an impostor. His face and voice showed genuine worry. He was no bad guy, just a bit pragmatic and a lot stubborn in his ways.

"I will." She gave him that old smile of hers, the one she had used from the day they had first met.

"We'll get you a robe for when you have to partake in rituals by the Lodge." Elissa was holding Nannade's hand while they were walking down the slope to the valley, where Heimeden lay, the nearest village.

Heimeden wasn't big, but it had a rest stop, a tavern, a village hall that also housed a shrine, and a general goods store that doubled as a post office. It was built along a road frequently travelled by traders on their way from the southern shore to the northern shore, and so anything could be acquired if one waited long enough, ideal for Elissa to acquire any ingredients she desired. And ideal for Garrett to keep correspondences for his contracts. If she left for the village by dawn, she could be back at the hut before noon, even during the winter months.

Elissa noticed that the girl would occasionally look at Elissa's right hand, where Elissa wore the seal of the Lodge – a group of trees with a crowned crow above it and surrounded by a ring of hands – drawn in filigree lines glowing with magic colours, pulsing and changing in sync with her heartbeat.

"Do you want to know what this is?" she asked and waved with her right hand.

Nannade nodded.

"It's a seal. The seal of the Lodge of Sturreland. That's the name of the druids, shamans, witches and mages that rule all of this land," she made a wide sweeping motion towards the valley. "and much more land beyond that."

"You rule this land?"

"Haha, no, our power is invested in the Highest Circle and their power again in the Arch-Druid. The Highest Circle sets the laws of this land, the Guardians and Striders enforce them and together with the mayors, the Lodge makes sure that the grain they harvest is put to good use, stored, and sold for a fair price. And this seal proves that I am a part of the Lodge and that I'm allowed to cast magic."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"But Teacher Garetas doesn't have one and he casts magic!"

Elissa smiled again. As one of the few people to have insight into Hidden Hands, she enjoyed passing on this rare knowledge. "He has something similar, but not on his hand. Do you know where?"

The girl pondered for a moment. Then she remembered visibly. "Oh! Here, there, on his back!" She pointed to below her right shoulder blade. "I saw it when he was taking a bath. But he has several of them!"

"Yes. He is allowed to hide that which is normally on his hand, that's why he's called a Hidden Hand. And he has several because he was trained by many different groups of magic users, Universities mostly, but also the Lodge of Sturreland. These groups gave him their mark of approval."

"But what if someone casts magic without a seal?"

"Then they will be put on trial and punished as an outlaw. But if someone with a seal does something forbidden, they have the right to be tried by the group that gave them their seal. That means, if I enter a foreign land and break a law, then the Lodge will punish me. But even if the foreign land refuses to let me be judged by the Lodge, the Lodge will send someone to represent me during the trial."

Nannade was contemplating the many different things she had just heard. "Will I get a seal?"

"You will get your first mark of approval here, yes, but only if you learn well and don't break the rules."

"Are there many rules?"

"Yes, so you should do what your teachers tell you."

"But what if you two tell me different things. Like you did back there?"

Elissa had to stop for a moment. Nannade looked surprised at the witch's deep contemplation. "Well... Garrett is your Teacher, he can always demand you back from the Lodge. But I am officially your guardian. Let's just say: when it's in front of other people, listen to what I say. In other cases, listen to him."

It seemed to please the girl's curiosity, for now.

They had come close enough to Heimeden that the first people came into sight, farmers taking care of their cattle and sheep on the meadows.

"Those are huge deers!" Nannade said while pointing at a herd of cows.

Elissa had to giggle. The girl had discovered some of the many animals of the woods in her short time outside of the basement. Deer were her favourite, but squirrels made her the most excited. "No, those are cows. The villagers keep them as cattle for all sorts of purposes."

"Oh. Do they not live in the forest?"

"No, they live with humans. They do many useful things. Like give milk or pull carts." Elissa stopped and waved to the man herding the cows in the distance. He came to meet them and Elissa introduced Nannade to him.

When Nannade asked whether she could touch the cow, he led her over to the herd and let her pet them and feed them from her hand. Whether it was magic being cast right in front of her or seeing cows for the first time, Nannade was rapt by seemingly everything.

Most of the villagers were delighted by Nannade, both her cute demeanour and her exotic exterior. She was shy around them, hiding behind Elissa's legs and only carefully greeting people. Elissa got the ingredients she needed, luckily it was nothing too uncommon, and the general goods store always had a bit of incense and other paraphernalia for her, they knew what she would order most frequently. The tailor took the girl's measurements and Elissa's next stop would be the big hall, where a druid of the Lodge was teaching the peasants' children right now. Every other day, they'd get lessons in the basic mundane things. It was the Lodge's answer to the universities' free education programs. They hoped that more educated peasants could do more complex and valuable work, but for now, quite a few peasants were deploring that their children could no longer help out on the fields. Elissa wanted to introduce Nannade to the children to make sure they knew who she was. As an apprentice of the Lodge, Nannade would be somewhat of an authority figure in the future, similar to a princess, but Elissa wanted to make sure it would not go to the girl's head; she should not believe herself above others. It was on the way to the big hall that Elissa was contacted by her familiar in her mind.

"Garrett said he saw a ghost."

Elissa was sure that's not what Garrett had said, but when Garrett grew nervous, it was seldom without reason. And he would also have had to poke and annoy Faan for quite a while until he was willing to spare the effort for such a long message. She decided to turn around and go back up the hill.

"But what about the other children? Will we get to see them?"

"Another time. We need to get back to the hut for now."

Garrett was visibly distraught when Elissa finally came back.

He hurried over to her and spoke in a hushed voice. "It's back, that weird presence I told you about. It must have found her here despite your wards."

"Garrett, my wards don't fail. I'm sure it's because of the stench of blood magic on you. I got all I needed, so we can do the appeasement."

Elissa was preparing Garrett for the appeasement. He was kneeling topless in the hut. With a paint made from clay, chalk, water, herbal extracts and a tiny drop of his blood, Elissa was painting runes of appeasement, atonement, cleansing and friendship on his body.

"Why are you doing that, Elissa?" Nannade asked at one point.

Elissa made sure to keep her thin brush steady to not mess up the many fine lines of the runes as she answered. "Well, spirits don't like it if life force is used for arcane spells. Spirits are born of life force and so they demand that all life force be spent on the nature that had brought them forth. But Garrett makes frequent use of blood for his spells."

"Is that bad? Is it forbidden?"

Garrett answered this time. "Using someone's blood to supply a spell gives you power over that person. That's also how the sigils of slavery work. It can also change how a spell works; it carries what the magisters of the universities call 'taint'. They consider it impure because of that. But smart wielders of magic use this to their advantage and work it into the spell itself. Like I did with your mother's blood. Because her blood was let to free and protect you, it makes such spells stronger. If the wielder knows how to use it."

The girl remained still for a while. "So all of this is to show the spirits that he means well?

"Yes. It removes the stench from him and he will ask them for forgiveness." She could hear Garrett grumble at the mention of that. "Shut up, Garrett. I told you time and time again, those who can't convene with the spirits shouldn't use blood magic so freely." She got back to drawing. "These runes depict concepts and meanings in a way that spirits can understand them, and together, they form something like a contract, an agreement."

"And Teacher, what is that weird mark there?" Nannade pointed towards a set of nine crosses that seemed etched in his skin above his heart. "I've never seen this before!"

Garrett smiled at the girl. "It's complicated. Let's just say that I made a promise so strong I can't break it." He technically could, but he knew he would be at Elissa's mercy of he decided to break his blood oath; with his blood, she had power over him.

The runes and patterns were done and it was time for the next step. Garrett was given a shallow wooden bowl to hold in both hands. It was filled with fresh spring water and a drop of his blood was put in. Then he was led outside into the forest.

Elissa raised her voice to song. Many spirits started to gather; like coming out of the water, they emerged from beyond the mystic veil, slowly immersing themselves in reality itself. Nannade marvelled at the lots of different animals, leaves blowing in the wind, dancing little men; all not entirely real, not entirely of this world, yet gathered around them at this moment. Elissa was used to them, Garrett could only feel their presence by the tingle of his hair, but to Nannade it was completely new. She had barely seen any spirits during her stay here, maybe a tiny bit between the trees, but not so freely and openly as right now; and who knew what kind of experience awoke her to be a medium, what spirits she ever saw?

Elissa suddenly felt something unfamiliar. For almost two decades she had lived in this forest, yet never had she felt such a presence. Old, starving, secretive. She could only tell its presence for fractions of a moment, like a whiff of an unfamiliar scent. She tried to see it directly, but it seemed to be in every shadow, as if a fog had descended upon the forest.

Garrett said the lines in the runic tongue he had been taught and Elissa was back in the now, performing the ritual.

"Take my apology, old ones, and be assured, that life shall find to life by my hands, and no strange words shall be whispered or written in my blood anymore."

The spirits drew close, except for one, and took from the water each a drop, then Elissa gave Garrett the signal and he poured the remaining water over his head, and as the water washed off the paint, it took the stench with it.

There he stood, drenched, cold, half-naked in the forest. Nannade started to giggle, then her head darted around towards the forest. Where she had looked, Elissa felt a void. Something had been there. She had seen it and so had Nannade. Elissa knew that Garrett getting nervous was not without cause. It would warrant further investigation.