He simply followed Keandre’s directions and arrived at the cottage without any trouble. It wasn’t the garden that told him he had the right spot, but rather the woman fleeting from one side of the window to the other. That was, without a doubt, Lustris; she hardly changed in the years since he’d last seen her.

Tavin knocked on the door and waited. It took three seconds for her to open it.

“I told you already I’m not—Tavin!” Lustris’s face changed immediately after she realized who was at the door. “Oh, I thought you were someone else. Just forget about that.” Her expression changed again when she began to think about the situation, however. “Wait a minute. Why are you here? Imre didn’t say anything about you coming for a visit. I didn’t think you’d be in the area at all.”

“Lord Abassi wanted us,” Tavin explained simply. “While we were here I wanted to visit.”

“I… suppose that makes sense.” A fragment of doubt remained in her tone, however, as she stepped back to let him in. “It’s getting late, so sit down for a little while while I prepare the spare bedroom. That’ll give you more time to explain what you’re really here for.”

“Thanks,” Tavin mumbled as he sat down. He decided it would be better to start off with something casual rather than beginning with favors. “How’ve the two of you been doing?”

She didn’t look amused. “Asking about things you should already know about? Lydia did the same thing when she needed something, you know. I can’t tell if it’s something you got from her spirit or something you learned on your own.”

He sighed. “You’re not looking for a bit of smalltalk first, then. I need to borrow Muriel for a day or two.”

“What do you plan on doing?”

“There was this place I went with Mother and she wants me to—“

“You can stop there. I’m telling you now that you’re not going.” Lustris went to do something in the kitchen before wandering to the room on the other side of the cottage. She left the door open so they could still talk, though. “The two of you aren’t going anywhere. You’re only staying here because it’s too late for you to go back to Lord Abassi’s estate.”

“I didn’t even say what we’d be doing yet,” Tavin pointed out dully.

She came out for a moment to grab the stray blanket off the couch before disappearing back into the room. “You didn’t need to. I’m not going to let you do anything that involves you and Muriel.”

“But I need her—“

“I’m sure whatever it is you can find a way that doesn’t involve her. Somewhere in you should be the ability to work around the situation like a Stone. Use it.”

“There’s no working around this and I’m not leaving until you let me bring Muriel with me.”

Lustris came back out, sighing as she passed him and walked towards a whistling teapot. “I’m doing this for her sake and yours. I don’t think I need to remind you of the kind of state she’s in. She benefits from predictability, repetition. I can honestly say no one can be sure what she does without it.”

He understood the kinds of things they saw from his spirits, even if he hadn’t been there himself; the nightmares the handful of survivors dealt with. For several of those children, it had been their second time losing their family… Muriel was the last, though still not quite stable.

“She’s just going to bother you anyway,” Lustris continued after a long pause. “She won’t realize when something’s making you uncomfortable. Even if she didn’t talk, I know about the way you feel around her. It’s just not safe.”

“I can handle it,” he insisted.

Of course, he was proven wrong when one of the doors creaked open to reveal a sleepy-eyed Muriel. “Lustris..? You never told me we were having guests…”

Only when she saw their visitor and locked eyes with him did he remember exactly what it was like to be around her.

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\.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*./

He stepped back immediately as soon as Elena suggested it.

The girl wasn’t normal. She might’ve looked the part: her hair was a grayish pink and she wore matching clothes to the other townsfolk. But she didn’t feel that way. He wouldn’t be able to have a comparison for it until Natheniel lost his feather necklace seven years later, though hers was to a more subtle degree. It was the untamed power of a dream given mortal form; something he couldn’t quite explain why he felt it (unlike the presence of Skiá), nor could he ever put it into words. It was an overwhelming sort of sensation, one that made him feel sick being around for too long and often developing a headache afterwards.

Elena glanced back at him. “I know you don’t like strangers but I need you to help.”

Lydia rephrased it into a much blunter statement as she ushered him closer to the girl. “You’re being rude. Stop making the situation worse and be nice.”

“I don’t want to…” Tavin defended weakly. “I-I don’t…” He couldn’t get the words out. He wanted to tell them that he didn’t feel comfortable; that there was something about it that he didn’t like about it. It wasn’t anything about her particularly, at least not in the way they probably assumed.

“Don’t want to talk to girls or are you getting dizzy again?” Lewis sounded like he was trying to help, but he also sounded like he was teasing Tavin. Suffice to say it didn’t help the situation any.

“It’s neither!”

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem,” Lydia decided. “I don’t know what’s up with you this afternoon but it needs to stop.” She was actually acting like his mother. Usually Imre (and occasionally Dimas when talking to both of the boys, but hardly alone) used that kind of voice. That voice that he knew better than to try to deny, if not just by watching Natheniel’s failures at doing so.

Tavin opened his mouth to give one more bit of protest before deciding that it would be in vain. He finally walked up and sat in front of the girl. “Would you rather talk to me? They can go away, if you want.” To show this, the three adults all stepped back.

“Who are you?” the girl asked, tilting her head. She calmed down a bit, at least, and her crying had reduced to little hiccups.

“Prince Tavin Envi von Mikkel,” he responded.

“That’s not what I meant. I know who you say you are. That short lady told me you were ‘Tavin.’ I’m asking who you are.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all!” He looked back at Lydia. It seemed the adults were all focused on something he didn’t get. Lydia was busily digging through her satchel for something and both Elena and Lewis were looking at the crowd.

“It’s one of two options,” she replied breezily. “You’re either Light or Dark. You don’t feel like the rest of these people.”

“I could say the same about you,” he returned.

“So you get that part but you can’t actually answer the question?”

Lydia came up to them with a small charm. “We’re going to help you find your parents, okay?”

“I don’t think I have parents,” the girl remarked. Apparently talking with him had improved her mood, since she was willing to talk about it now.

“We’re still gonna try!” Lydia bent down and offered her the charm. “Until then, keep this safe for me, okay? It’s for something really important.”

Tavin knew what it was supposed to do; it was imbued with Truth magic to let non-magic users (namely Lydia, as that’s ultimately who it fell into the possession of) determine if someone was a human, Skiá, or Fos. He didn’t quite understand why she was giving it to the girl—there wasn’t really any true reason to suspect her, after all—but his mother’s knowing nod kept him from questioning it.

They tried asking around to see if anyone recognized her. While a few of them did, it was just as a random kid they had passed on the street. Elena tried to get any information she could about the girl; anything about when she first started appearing, if she’d mentioned a family to anyone else, and even if there was anyone in any surrounding villages that looked similar to her. If the questions weren’t answered in a shrug, it was just a blunt “I don’t know.”

By the end of the day, they had no new information about her. Lydia had just checked them in at an inn for the night, so they were all huddled in the single room they were given.

“Don’t feel bad about not knowing anything,” the girl said, particularly to Elena. “I don’t know anything either. I don’t even know if they exist…”

“That’s awful!” Elena immediately started thinking of some other way she could help. “Oh! We’ll bring you with us, and when we get back to Lelishara we can ask Imre about finding your family. They’ve got to be somewhere in Seothia.”

“Well… I don’t know about that,” Lydia mumbled absently. She was looking at the charm the girl had returned about an hour earlier; it had a vague gray glow, a sign that the girl had been human. “There are some people who don’t have birth parents.”

The adults shared a common understanding. Tavin only pieced parts of it together in hindsight, after research brought him to a similar topic.

“Either way, you’re going to need a name for now,” Elena remarked to the girl. “How about Muriel?”

“Muriel?” Lewis repeated. “Isn’t that one of the names you and Adrian considered using for your kids?”

Elena smiled. “If she doesn’t have a family, then she’s going to need one. I’ll happily take her in and I’m sure Mom’ll appreciate another grandchild.”

The girl blinked. “Muriel… I think I like it!”