Hina ran through the patterns that made up the barrier working through her mind. Hooks, then spiral, then knot. The patterns came readily to her mind when she reached for them—it had only been a couple of days ago that she had last tried it.

It was different this time. The patterns were friendlier, more responsive to her desire. They rotated peacefully within her mind, hardly twisted against her at all. Because she had done this before? Or because of where she was?

Hina added a thread of power to the cycle of symbols. And then pressed the point of her branch down into the ashy mud. She projected her intent—and the working lurched as the balance shifted, but she was expecting it this time, and she held on, holding the edges of the working firm with her mind as she traced a circle in the mud.

She drew the smallest possible circle that would fill the space between the doorway and the door while she continued the cycle of patterns. The working snapped together and a wave of weariness followed.

The barrier stood in the gap, a crude loop in the dirt. She'd done it. Hina sat back on the stone tiles while she caught her breath.

"That'll tell us if they try to get in?" Kai frowned down at the circle from where he was leaning on the wall nearby. "Even with no-one in it?"

"I don't see why not," Hina said. "And yeah—so long as they can't move the door. Or there isn't another way in, or... We can stop watching the door now."

"Okay." Kai shrugged. "Gonna start drying stuff out." He picked up his bag and water bottle and dripped his way over to the fire.

The fire looked warm and friendly and Hina wanted nothing more than to sit and rest. But there were too many things to do. Kai had the right idea. All of their things were soaked though, their food supplies needed to be checked—the packaging might have protected some of the beans, but the open bag they had been eating from would definitely be wet, and would spoil if left unattended. Wet clothes would go moldy, and then she wouldn't have anything to wear to the entrance exam. And the food would spoil.

Hina was hungry.

It had been a long day. She forced herself to her feet—she'd deal with the food first, that was the most important thing. If their food all spoiled, it would be a long and hungry walk to Blandmanch.

Hina picked out the open bag of beans from the pile of wet things. It was soaked through, but the bag was nearly done anyway. She could cook the rest of them now.

The beans hit the water with a series of tiny splashes. Hina shook the bag to get the ones that were stuck to the paper.

The other bag of beans in Hina's pack looked okay. The wax paper was wet on the outside, but the water hadn't gone through.

Taking the long iron poker from where it leaned in the corner between the wall and the mantlepiece, she poked at the fire. Embers flashed as she spread out the blackened logs into a low flat platform and balanced the pot on top. Hina lifted the lid off. "Can you watch this? Stir it occasionally?"

Kai was sitting nearby, surrounded by all of the things from his bag and holding his book out towards the flames while he leaned against the wall for support. He gave a tired nod.

"The beans haven't been soaked—except by the rain, anyway—they're going to take ages," Hina said. "I'm going to check the other stuff."

Clothes next, and she had to figure out some way to hang them—they wouldn't dry in a bundle on the floor. She found the string, and inspected the wall. The blocks were large and uneven—a crack, there where the stone jutted out, would take a loop of string.

Another spot further along the wall took the other end of the string, and she tied something like a clothes line, with three thin lengths of jute twisted together and tied at the ends—enough that it could hold a handful of heavy, wet clothes. She hung up her best dress and shift and left them there, dripping on the floor below.

When she had found places for each of her garments, she got to work on hanging out Kai's clothes. They'd all dry eventually.

Kai's book had wet pages.

Hina stopped. The letters and cards would be soaked through. Were they all ruined?

She carefully picked the envelopes and the set of cards out of her pocket and separated the pages. She spread them out on the hard stone of the mantlepiece. The outer pages, especially the cards from Gerda, were soaked through. Some of the ink had run.

There was nothing to be done other than to dry them out. She'd just have to wait and see how they looked once they were dry.

Hina looked at the hard stone floor where Kai was sitting, and then at the rug, warm and green and inviting. She patted the skirt of her dress. She wasn't dry exactly, but she was close enough.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The rug was warm and dry and the softest, most comfortable surface she'd sat down on in days. She sank in by just the right about. Sitting down felt good, but... She tried lying back. Yes, that was better. All of Hina's worries drained away.

* * *

Light streamed in through the doorway onto Hina's face. Kai was snoring quietly beside her. The fire crackled, burning merrily, the cookpot on the stones nearby.

Hina's stomach rumbled.

The beans were delicious and still warm, somehow the best thing that Hina had ever tasted—much better than they had any right to be, for all that she hadn't spiced or seasoned them—it was boiled red beans and nothing more.

A warmth spread through her, and with it came a sense of comfort, like everything was going to be all right.

She ate her fill, and thought about that warmth. The beans should have been cold, shouldn't they? She wasn't sure how much time had passed.

Daylight was coming in through the doorway, but otherwise the light inside was much the same as it had been. And she wasn't sure what time they had arrived, not with the storm and how dark it had been in the forest.

She didn't think it had been night-time. Late afternoon, maybe?

Standing as close to the doorway as she could while keeping clear of the curve of her barrier, Hina looked outside. The day was bright and clear, the sun out of sight. It must be late morning by the shape of the shadows in the trees.

She'd slept late, then. Slept for a long time, if they'd arrived in the afternoon.

They'd wandered through the forest for most of the day, then been chased up a hill through the rainstorm. And she'd managed to do the barrier working for the first time—a warmth rose up in her chest. But it had been a lot, so no wonder they'd slept late.

But now, she felt rested and comfortably full. And it was a beautiful day out there. Hina could handle whatever came next.

There was no sign of the beasts, the clearing around the tower was rainwashed and empty.

But she wasn't willing to cross the barrier to be sure, not just yet, not given the effort it had taken to put up even such a tiny barrier.

The idea of setting one around the whole campsite in the evenings when they camped seemed entirely out of reach for now.

But, it was something she could work up to. Something to practice.

Hina looked around the room. She'd barely glanced at it the night before—stone walls and floors, fireplace, rug, sleeping brother, spooky sourceless illumination, great big door. Had they even tried the handle last night? She had been distracted, but she didn't think so. It seemed like a pretty big oversight to ignore another potential source of problems, but it hadn't come back to bite them this time.

The door was a twin of the one at the entrance, over three times Hina's height, and made from some kind of metal, all in a single piece. There was a ring for pulling on at the height of Hina's head, and a keyhole below it.

The ring creaked as Hina lifted it, the cold metal chilled her hands. She pulled, first with her hands and arms and then she leaned back, putting all of her weight into it. The door didn't move. At all. It didn't even wiggle against the latch, like the front door to the bakery did when it was locked.

"Didn't move for me either."

"Good morning."

"Morning." Kai rubbed at his lower back. "Still got company?"

"I didn't see anything. I didn't want to take down the barrier to check until we were ready to go." She nodded towards him. "Are you injured? I should have asked last night. You had blood on your arm."

"No, I'm..." He looked down, rubbed at his right arm. "I'm fine. Slept funny. Rolled on something hard." He looked at her. "You're not hurt, are you? Your face," he touched his own cheek.

Hina remembered the blood from when they were running. She touched her cheek. Something flaked away, but there was no pain. "Seems okay."

Kai grunted.

"There's food in the pot, but we should get out of here as soon as we can. Let me know when you're ready."

Hina considered practicing one of her exercises, then remembered the papers getting wet and setting them out to dry.

The letter from the academy had been protected by the envelope, it was stained around the edges but still readable. She hoped the admissions staff wouldn't judge her too harshly for getting it wet. The invitation from the grove and the academy exercises were similar: stained but readable.

The cards that hadn't been inside envelopes were less well off: the ink from the lesser barrier card had run across the page. The first few lines were okay, but the rest of the card was obscured by a swirl of black ink.

Hina supposed it had been the last card she had looked at, at the top of the stack in her pocket. It would be a shame to not have the paper to refer to, but it was the one she'd spent the most time with over the last day or two, and she had more or less memorised the working, so it wasn't a great loss.

Hopefully she could pick up a notebook in Blandmanch. If she could write down what she remembered, it could be a useful reference for later. And there were other things that she had been learning that it might be useful to record. Like the patterns that she'd seen when she used the sigil.

The ambit strengthening exercise was mostly readable. The ink had run at the edges, but she would be able to figure it out, she was pretty sure.

The last card, the lesser sigil of guidance, which Kai must have put onto the mantlepiece, looked fresh and new. Hina didn't want to look too closely, but there was no water staining. The paper was crisp, thick and white. Hadn't it been yellowed before?

The first envelope she tried tore when she tried to open it, the paper soft and fragile. The second one held up, though the paper felt brittle. She put all of the papers into it and then wrapped it in the wax paper from the empty bag of beans for waterproofing, and put the bundle away into her pocket. She would need to find a better way to store these and soon.

Another rain storm could be a disaster.

She went through the clutter by the fire and collected her things put them into her bag. The unopened bag of beans was dry to the touch. And the ones from Kai's bag seemed fine too.

So long as at least one of them didn't spoil, they were okay. It was only a few days walk to the next town, surely. They would be fine.

Hina took down the clothes, which were stiff but dry, and took down the string she'd used to hang them. She untied the loops she'd made at the ends of each piece and wrapped it loosely back around the spool.

"Ready?" asked Kai. His bag was on his back, and his hammer was held loose in his right hand as he stood near the door. "I don't see 'em."

Hina took another glance around the room, her left hand checking the envelope in her pocket, her right finding her knife on her belt. The tree branch was tied to the side of her bag, which she slung over her shoulder. "Okay, I'm ready. Go ahead."