Growing up, Magic was intimately acquainted with the concept of nightmares.

They were childish things, visions of monsters and demons, that kept toddlers awake at night running to seek comfort between their parents under the covers. They were fictitious imaginations of the mind that took all of your worst fears and put them to motion, a horror story of the brain.

This was no nightmare.

Magic stared at his sister who, with a blankness in those bicolored eyes of hers, was looking back at him—no, not at him. She was gazing a little off to his right and Magic tried to see if there was something behind him that she could be staring at. Yet the Maidenwoods was as it always had been: a barren, desolate wasteland laden with fog.

The noise of something huffing grabbed his attention. Magic turned back to face Mira, whose face was streaked with thin, shiny lines, barely visible in the shadow of the creature looming over her. The sound must have startled his sister, too, because she glanced up and Magic thought he saw a flicker of color in her pale eye—a sliver of motion—there and gone before he could process.

And while he couldn’t see the demon, Magic was certain; this was Beast of the Maidenwoods.

It made a noise that sounded like a wicked, monstrous purr. Immediately, Mira’s head went up and, had it not been for that repeated motion, that brief movement, he would have missed it.

A purple tendril swimming through the pale sea of her iris.

“Mira?” Magic whispered, watching her actions warily. Her eyes drifted lazily towards the sound of his voice. Again, the demon “spoke,” a series of clicks and huffs that ripped her attention away and back up at the creature.

He could see the creature’s cone-like ears twitch inward, its head shaking back and forth before settling to its left. It wasn’t until he heard the demon sputter and shake its head that Magic realized that it was a horse, watching bits of its mane jump out from the edges of the shadow.

He couldn’t believe it. He’d expected the Beast of the Maidenwoods—the Dark Wind as it was called in most mythology books—to be a fearsome but swift creature. Perhaps a wolf. Some kind of fierce, big cat like a cheetah. Maybe even a far off animal that Magic never knew existed, but never in his sad excuse for an imagination did he expect a horse of all things.

Fear rooted him to the ground, dried up words before they could leave his mouth. What was he supposed to do against a demon like this? Everything he had ever heard about the Beast of the Maidenwoods had made it very clear that the monster was not to be tried with. But maybe if he could break the hold it had on his sister’s consciousness, even if for a little bit, it would be enough to set her free of its grasp.

“Mirabel,” Magic said.

His sister’s focus remained on the creature above.

“Mirabellis?”

It was like speaking to an empty shell; no matter what he said, Mira either couldn’t hear him or chose not to hear him in favor of something else. “Mirabellis, look at me!”

Still, Mira did not move.

She did, however, speak.

“Mom?”

Magic straightened. They were three small letters, one tiny word, laced with longing he heard reflected in his own head whenever mining anniversaries came up. The desperation of getting something back, something he prayed to even remember.

Mira’s sudden speech threw Magic into a frenzy—not of panic but of confusion. Mira didn’t have a mother—she died after Mira was born. From what his mother had told him (and what he’d briefly heard Benji talk about), Roslyn Arbesque died on the table three days after. So how could Mira be hearing her now? Or seeing her?

How does it lure its victims?

With the voices of those we hold dear.

Growing up, Mira had only mentioned her mother twice: when they were teens and after her father had ended up in the clinic’s hospital for alcohol poisoning, a few years before Magic graduated from his last year of homeschooling. But Mira’s tales of her late mother were never out of fondness; there was always some layer of spite whenever the topic left her mouth. A mingled hatred and desire for a parental bond she would never have, Magic was always keenly aware of the envious glint that sparkled in his sister’s eyes whenever he spoke of his mother, small trinkets she used to get him growing up. It was the same sparkle she got when they window shopped, stuck behind a barrier of things neither could afford. Magic let her have her lies—her venom and her anger—if it meant preserving her facade.

Alarm prickled the hair on the back of his neck. A trick, he thought.

“Mom?” Mira whispered again, her eyes passing over him until they landed on the riverbank, longing dotting her speech. The shadow behind her made a step towards the water.

Obedient as a puppet, Mira lurched forward as though she were nudged and trudged towards the bank of the river.

Panic buzzed in his limbs and he felt his heart skip a beat. His skin felt like it was covered in bugs. No.

Magic sheathed his knife for the time being, focusing solely on his sister. They’d gotten this far. A mystical horse was not going to take his sister from him. Not over his dead body. “Mirabellis, stop!”

Mira paused, hesitating as her feet shuffled back and forth in the mud of the riverbank. Magic could have sworn she’d turned her head to glance at him before her attention faltered and returned to the bank. She took another cautious step forward, a haunted, marching toy. As she took a few steps towards the water, the shadow shifted, revealing its flank in horrifying detail.

Magic couldn’t see the creature. Behind his sister was just fog, the same fog they’d been seeing for the last month and a half when they were in Elnoire and throughout the entire journey to the forest to get to the north.

But he could see its shadow which, from the side, was absolutely nothing like the average horse’s shadow and everything like an eldritch demon that belonged in the darkest depths of his mythology books.

The Beast of the Maidenwoods was the average size of a horse, parts of its mane sticking up at odd angles, bent leaves that didn’t have the chance to recover yet. One of them rested on the shadow that Mira was giving off, its hold on her a physical thing. Along the creature’s back were ridges that reminded him a lot of a jagged mountain range, spikes protruding like porcupine quills. Two horns curled at the top of the horse’s head, like the horns of a ram, but less coiled and its fish-like tail swayed up and down as it nudged Mira’s shoulder again with its snout. Without another sound, Mira obeyed until her ankles were submerged in the water, rippling with her entry.

The hold Magic’s fear of the beast had on his heart was less debilitating than the fear of losing his sister. He made three panicked steps forward in time with the clacking of the Beast’s hooves.

“Mirabellis, turn around and look at me!”

The pitch of his voice and the horror laced through it startled Mira back to her senses, if only for a brief moment. Magic was relieved to see her jump and face him silently, the sliver of purple still swimming in her paler eye like a venomous snake. It coiled up and traced her pupil, winding around it like a string wrapped around a finger.

Magic extended one hand out as if he were telling his sister to wait while placing his other hand into his pocket to grab for his switchblade, tracing the embossed image of Ori along the wooden handle. If he could just incapacitate the demon somehow, he’d be able to grab his sister and make a run for it with her.

It was an easy enough plan, but going through with it would be the hard part, especially considering what the Dark Wind was capable of. Hearing about its abilities was one thing. Seeing them was a whole different story.

Mira was still staring in his direction, her face lightly nudged to one side by the horse’s nose. Relief faded some of the tension in his body. He still had her attention. All Magic needed now was to get closer.

His sister blinked, silent tears rolling down her face. “Come back,” she murmured.

“Mira,” Magic said, keeping the now unsheathed switchblade close to his side, “she’s not here. Focus on me; she’s never been here. It’s just been you and Benji. You, Benji, my mom, and me.”

The demon snarled, a low growl rumbling in its chest, and Magic brought the blade high enough for it to be seen as a warning. The rumbling intensified and Mira’s breathing hitched. But something in her posture changed: her shoulders sagged a little and there was a small tremor in her knees. She was wavering back and forth as Magic got closer.

Something cool and wet swept across Magic’s forehead accompanied by a snarl; it stuck to his forehead; energy left him almost instantly and he jerked his head back to separate himself from the Beast, digging a foot into the earth to keep himself grounded. A warning, he realized.

“It’s just me,” Magic went on. “And we’re gonna get out of here.”

Life flickered in his sister’s eyes. “Promise?”

No. I can’t promise you anything right now. I’m working with what we have.

“Promise,” he said, slowly extending his right hand.

The second it made contact with Mira’s long woolen coat, he sliced at the appendage gripping his sister’s shoulder and drove the blade into what he assumed to be the creature’s chest.

The Beast howled, a mixture between a whinny and a shriek. Even the vultures took off and Magic yanked at Mira’s arm to drag her towards the river, propping his dufflebag higher on his shoulder. Mira stumbled after him uselessly and Magic gave harsh tugs on her limb as he pulled her through the lazy current of the water. “Put your bag by your head!” he shouted. “It’ll keep it dry and out of the way!”

His sister stumbled along the rocks of the bank. Magic pulled her up, gripping just above her elbow. “Move quick; that won’t distract the horse forever!”

“Horse?” she murmured.

“Yes. A horse. I’ll explain everything—just run!”

The shrill cries of pain from the Beast petered out when they were halfway through the river, replaced by violent roars of rage that didn’t sound natural. It was a guttural, primal sound that reminded Magic more of a snarling dog than a horse. He was pulling his sister up out of the water by the time the clacking of hooves became audible again.

Terror rocked his gut. He pushed Mira in front of him with a harsh shove against her shoulder blades and, when she did not budge, Magic snagged her jacket by the wrist and ran with her in tow, pulling her along as they weaved through the closely-knit trees of the Maidenwoods, pushing through the plume of newly dense mist.

Magic didn't know when it happened, but the fog, which had been clearer before, was thick. Everything looked similar in the pale, lavender cloud that made his skin burn with anxiety just trying to avoid it. Trees appeared five seconds before he could register their presence and he weaved left and right to avoid their trunks, hoping and praying they were still on the right track to the mountains. Their duffle bags clashed with branches and caught against their straps alongside branches with unearthed roots that threatened to trip them.

The Beast made a harsh whinny and Mira woke up; she shrieked alongside it and quickened her pace, latching onto the back of Magic’s coat. He would have complained about it had they been in any other scenario but for now, he was relieved to have his sister within his personal space.

“Welcome back,” he wheezed. “Keep running!”

“What are we—?”

“I’ll explain later. Run!”

The sound of hoofbeats was fast approaching. Magic felt his pulse in the back of his head, blood roaring in his ears. He didn’t even know he was sure where they were going because of the fog and he considered himself lucky if he didn’t smack his face directly into the bark of a rotting tree. If all they came out of the woods with were bruises and scratches from wayward branches, Magic would consider that a win.

Teeth clucked to his right. He yanked Mira to the left as she shrieked. “Magic,” she shouted, “run faster!”

“Stop talking!” he shouted back. It was a bit callous and insensitive, but they needed to keep their wits about them in this hell. “Concentrate and follow!”

It was far easier said than done. The horse was there at every turn, outpacing and outmatching them, its hooves thundering along the dirt with the snapping of jaws and nauseating, slippery feel of what he thought was grass that sometimes swept over Magic’s skin. It had made him feel like an animal being herded by a dog. Redirection after redirection had his mind spinning. He didn’t even know how long they’d been running or where their running had taken them—assuming they were on the same path still.

With a grim realization, Magic shuddered at the idea that perhaps the Beast preferred playing with its food before it ate. It would certainly be one way to go. Just not the way he would have chosen.

Between Mira’s shrieks and the sadistic whinnying of the horse whose hooves were pounding along the packed earth, Magic hoped and prayed for Ori to end this hell, to give them some kind of sign that they were free from this Beast. He didn’t know how long he could keep running or how long he could feign enough confidence for the both of them.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Adrenaline was making a fool of his limbs, rendering them numb, floundering things that stumbled over stray roots and scrambling to squeeze between closely-knit trees. Then, as if his prayers were answered, he saw it through the edges of the fog: the outskirts of the forest that resembled the lush green forest they had entered.

A set of dead trees, packed together in a row like a trail of mourners, their branches arced down and their trunks sagging was the only barrier between them and the remainder of the lush green forest. Magic quickly skirted to the side, his bag catching once before an additional tug set it free. Mira passed through the tree in the same manner, bag catching on a branch, but despite her attempts to tug it free, the duffle remained where it was.

Magic broke free of his sister’s hold, the disconnect an almost physically painful thing as his heart lurched. He pivoted and took a step backwards watching his sister struggle with the bag which had wedged itself clumsily between the trees. Even from the distance he was at, Magic could hear Mira whimpering and cursing, her hands trembling as she tried to swat away the branches. The more she tried, the tighter the squeeze became and the horse, which had ceased its sounds, made a high pitched vibrato, as though it were laughing.

Mira whirled, staring at him wide-eyed. “I can’t get—it won’t—”

“Leave the bag there,” Magic shouted, waving her over. But his sister was as stubborn as she was hyper and made desperate pulls on the bag’s straps to free it. “Mira, leave it there—”

“But it has my things! Mags, it has the money, and my clothes, and I can’t—”

“Take what you need!”

“But Magic—”

“Ori’s feathers, Mira, take you what you need and hurry up! We need to go!”

Reluctantly, his sister dragged out materials from her bag and sprinted towards him, snagging his hand and running towards the bright expanse of the woods beyond.

The fog began to dwindle the further they ran. Magic wasn’t sure how far away from the center of the woods they’d gotten, but the clarity was astounding and he slowed his pace a little, hoping to ease his sister into calming her down. “Mira, slow down a little.”

“Not until we’re far from that thing!” Mira said between pants.

“That’s the thing. I think we are—just, stop and listen to me.”

His sister braked, slowing her steps to match his pace. When they stopped and turned to face the direction in which they came, Magic watched the fog gather and swirl as though it were held back and contained behind a wall. Beyond it, the Beast howled, grunting and huffing.

Mira flinched and stood behind him. Magic placed a hand in front of her defensively, but if the demon decided to charge through the fog, he had no weapon to defend themselves with.

To his relief, he didn’t have to worry about that. Despite its tantrum, the Beast did not approach, did not sound as though it were closing in on them. It simply gave a long, mournful sounding wail before the sound of hoofbeats retreated, growing further away until the only sounds in the forest were the new chattering of birds and the sound of Magic’s heartbeat in his ears. His nerves slowly returned to normal as adrenaline coursed through his limbs, slowly petering out to nothing. And the rest of the Maidenwoods seemed to be doing the same.

One by one, more birds began to twitter and rodents slowly crawled out from their hiding spaces as if sensing that the predator had gone and would no longer claim them for a meal. And Magic was thoroughly pleased to have not been included in that menu of possible entrees.

From his peripheral vision, Mira dropped to the ground. He found her sitting on her haunches, hands pressed together and resting against her forehead. Her shoulders were trembling through the fabrics of her jacket. A few seconds later, Magic watched her sprawl out on the ground, laying on her back with her hands over her face while she sobbed.

Discomfort sat in his gut as Mira cries grew in intensity, starting as a mild weep to a fearful howl. Had he the words to comfort her, Magic imagined that this would be where he would say them, but nothing … “right” came to mind. None of the things he could have said in the moment seemed like they would do the job well enough, so he sat on the ground and laid down beside her in silence instead, allowing her the space to use as she needed.

Mira blubbered into her palms. “I heard her, Mags,” she said, sniffling back her tears. “I heard her.”

“You heard an illusion of her, Mira,” he replied. “You know that. I know you do. The Beast was only emulating what you thought she would’ve sounded like.” Her sobs briefly increased in intensity, but she nodded, unable to choke out words.

Magic continued. “It was an illusion of the Beast to get you to follow it into the water. Nothing more, nothing less. You’re good.”

“I … I don’t feel that way. What if it comes back?”

It was a valid question. What was stopping the Beast from coming after them a second time? But the noises it made once they had broken free from the dense cloud of fog made it sound as though the creature was annoyed or even frustrated by their exit. If the Beast truly wanted to go after them and claim Mira for its victim, why hadn’t it come after them already? “I don’t think it will.”

“How do you figure, Mags?” She rubbed at her eyes and rolled onto her side to face him, propping herself up on her forearm.

“If it wanted to, it would’ve gone after us. But it didn’t. It left.”

“What the fuck …”

“Mira, the Beast … I wouldn’t waste the brain power trying to come up with a reason. It left and didn’t follow us further. That’s a win.”

“But it tried to kill me! It was stalking me by the tree, Magic! It was talking to me, it—The entire time we were there, it was watching and waiting! And I heard it all and it was terrifying!” Mira took a gasping breath, brushing hair from her face as it stuck to her skin, flushed and rosy. He’d never seen her like this, so frantic and wild. “It went after me,” she repeated, struggling to lower her voice. “What did I ever do to deserve its attention?”

Magic only blinked, sidestepping her question for the time being to consider a bigger one. “It spoke to you?”

Mira rolled onto her back again. From this angle, he could see her jaw twitching, fingers flexing and curling into her palms as she did everything in her power to remain still. He had a feeling she didn’t want to say more than she already had—Mira had a way of seething in her own emotions in a way that rarely made sense to him. For now, he let her be.

There was something else about the whole thing that didn’t sit right with him. He’d been right in front of the Beast when it was courting Mira towards the water, leading her like a sheep for slaughter into its depths. And yet, despite it all …

“Were you able to see it?” he asked.

“Huh?” Her voice cracked.

Magic pushed himself into a sitting position, knees bent with his arms wrapped around his shins. Adjusting his glasses to better see in the growing glare of the late noon sun—and it was late in the afternoon by the cast of the shadows—he sighed and looked around the emerging life of the forest. “The Beast. I couldn’t see it.”

“Because of the fog?” ventured Mira.

“The fog shouldn’t have made a difference. I saw its shadow, which means that—theoretically—I should’ve been able to see the demon in its entirety. And I couldn’t. It was just a shadow.”

“Daphne and Spiros said that the Beast had a bunch of stories about it—and Daphne even included a horse when she told us about the Spectacles. Do you think … the Beast is like Ori and those other—?”

“No.” The audacity of it made him flinch as though she’d struck him. Stars, she may as well have. “Not possible. Ori is nothing like that in any of her myths. The Beast of the Maidenwoods—The Dark Wind—is the complete opposite. Literally. It’s the shadowbringer, the demon that whisks people away to their death. Ori isn’t like that.”

Mira squinted. “How would you know?”

“Because I’ve read enough books to know. The Beast of the Maidenwoods is a different menace entirely.”

“I’m not saying they’re the same, Magic. But I am saying they might all be connected somehow. Don’t spin this to be an attack.”

Magic scoffed and turned away. A breeze ruffled through the surrounding trees and he shuddered, suddenly acutely aware that he was sitting on the dirt in soaking wet clothes. He peeled a little bit of his shirt away from his chest and immediately regretted his choice; the wind bit and he curled into himself, trying to find another way to distance himself from Mira’s words.

He didn’t want to consider the idea. In fact, he would rather Mira not insinuate the idea at all. Magic had spent so much time whispering wishes in the dark, hopeful prayers for a hopeless son willing to trade a soul for consolation from a higher being.

The possibility that Ori could be something dark and sinister like the Beast of the Maidenwoods made him anxious—no, the feeling was more than that, but he couldn’t put a name to it.

Something touched his shoulder and he recoiled, shuffling away from the pressure. Mira was sitting up now, the clothing she’d taken from her duffle bag in her lap. Something sad lingered in her eyes that made his chest tighten. “I’m not trying to irritate you,” she said, by way of an apology, “I’m just … trying to figure out where we go from here. Do you think we’re still going in the right direction?”

Magic was grateful for the change in topic. “I think so. I tried to keep us on the same path.”

“Okay. Good.” She didn’t sound good, though, and based on the way she fidgeted with the strings of the hoodie, there was more she had to say. “You’re gonna be okay when we get to the northern city, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Subsidia is in the mountains, Magic.”

“Yeah. I know that.”

“They used the mountains to develop the city because it’s a natural barrier against—”

“I know that, Mira. I payed attention during my History lessons—”

“Magic, most of the districts are inside the Peaks,” Mira said, “You have to go through the tunnels to get to most of them. The Central District is smack dab in the center of Subsidia’s territory.”

He paused. For a moment, Magic felt his heart stutter, his mouth dry—he had to force words past his lips. “It’ll be fine,” he said, voice nothing but a wisp of air. Mira just stared, the furrow between her brow enough to tell one silent tale: I don’t believe you.

Of course, she never did. Not when it came to anything related to the mountains—the same mountain range that acted as a burial ground for miners in every mining district back home in Droidell.

Perhaps she had every right not to. But the thought of being watched and fretted over—compounded by the deeply rooted anxiety of having to go anywhere near the mountains—irritated more than Magic wanted to admit. Even Mira’s presence, about arm’s length away, was far too close for his liking. His skin felt hot despite the fall chill and the crisp bite of the wind.

Magic pushed to his feet. “It’ll be fine. Look, we’ll worry about the mountains when we get there. I will worry about it when we get there—”

“Magic, I really—” Mira interjected.

“—until then,” he went on, stressing his words, “what we should be focusing on is doing something about our clothes. You have your extra stuff, right?” Mira nodded silently and Magic motioned somewhere off in the distance. “Go find a spot and get warmer clothes on. I’m gonna look around for some sticks and stuff to make a fire with. Maybe find some other materials to keep it burning overnight.”

“You still have the letter?” Mira asked, standing.

“In my duffle.”

“Okay.”

“Get going,” he said.

This time Mira didn’t reply. She didn’t even move. Her gaze found his in the same way she used to do when they were kids, a silent version of a question he could never answer.

Are you okay?

He’d always answered “Yes,” not because he was okay or because he enjoyed lying to people—it was always quite the opposite and left him with a sick feeling in his gut—but because he never knew how to explain otherwise.

Feelings were fickle things to him. Always changing form and never making sense. He’d learned the core ones and different shades of their colors—fear leading to anxiety or sadness to defeat—but too many of them had too many faces.

It was always so much easier and spared everyone else so much trouble by just agreeing and moving on.

Magic held his sister’s stare and nodded once. He spotted the shift in her jaw, the uncertainty that came with it, but she didn’t question him and he didn’t try to push his case. If Mira truly wanted to nudge him for an answer, she could—and would. Now, she allowed him to be and only grabbed his wet jacket sleeve by the wrist and moved it back and forth like a handshake. And then, a few seconds later, she vanished into the labyrinth of tree trunks.

In his sister’s absence, he foraged for additional materials, gathered sticks and used sharpened rocks to carve poorly made holes into thick, dried branches that lent themselves well to firewood. He harbored dry leaves and herbs to stuff inside the sticks for the fire to catch on.

In his youth, Magic learned to tell the difference between which pieces of wood would make the best fire. When winters were predicted to be harsh, he’d accompanied his mother into the furthest edges of the forest’s reach to gather firewood to place by the stone mantle of the hearth in their house. Magic trained himself as a kid to use his glasses as a magnifying glass and catch rays of sunlight to make fire with their heat after Mira had given him the information when she’d gotten back from school one day. Simply to see if she was lying, which she sometimes did to trick him, he tried just to see if he could.

The first time he’d done it, it shocked him.

Every time since, he ignited branches before bringing them inside to toss them into the hearth and kickstart the flames in the fireplace.

He felt like he was back at home, staring at a steady tide of reds and yellow, the hues twirling together in ribbons of orange. And it was nice for a while, the calm crackle of the dry leaves from their place inside the sticks. But as the fire grew and Magic laid a circle of rocks to contain its spread, he caught a glimpse of the forest through the tendrils of curling gray smoke, its deep shade an ominous thing, rendering the view a haze.

He paused, one rock in hand, rooted to the ground by some unseen force.

The scent of burning leaves tickled the inside of his nose; an invasive bug crawling through him and the urge to pick at his palms, to dig his nails into skin just to keep himself sane returned. Not that he could with the wraps around his hands; wet as they were, they were still a wall between himself and the internal war. Still, Magic tried, pushing the damp fabrics against his skin, the squelch of water enough to briefly bring him to his senses.

But it wasn’t enough to drive away the scent of ash.

It wasn’t enough to drive away the taste of it.

Are you okay?

No. Magic could feel himself losing control of his thoughts, the downward spiral that came with the overwhelming dread. The nauseating feeling of vertigo and sickness, the feeling coming on like a forceful tide. He closed his eyes. Shuffled away from the fire.

“Magic?”

If he could force himself to stop thinking, stop feeling, maybe he could focus.

Oh, Stars, wouldn’t that be nice.

“Mags?”

The voice was a hook, wrenching him from the deepest dregs of his brain. Magic started and scrambled away, one arm raised. It wasn’t until he realized Mira was crouching in front of him with a concerned look on her face that he noticed he’d raised the arm with the rock in it. Slowly—and slightly embarrassed—he put it down.

How long had she been there? And how long had she been sitting there trying to get his attention? It unsettled him knowing that Mira could have been watching him zone out for several minutes. Magic didn’t want to be face to face with her questions. Not ones he didn’t have the confidence to answer while he was still waiting for his heart to calm to a slow and steady beat.

All his sister did was raise an eyebrow. Mira didn’t push anything and didn’t say anything more other than, “Looking at anything interesting?”

It was an open-ended question to address the problem. But it was open enough that he could skirt around it. “Not really. Just about things we could use in the forest to keep us going until … Until we get there. To the mountains.” He hadn’t meant to sound so afraid. Magic took a breath and tried again. “You caught me at a bad time, Mira, that’s all. There’s nothing else to it.”

Again the crease between her brows.

Again the doubt.

And again Magic found himself irritated by Mira’s concern.

If his sister sensed anything, she didn’t show it this time in her face; she took a deep breath through her nose, wiggling the ring on her left index finger and shook her head, annoyance heavy in the set of her jaw. She took a few steps away and dragged an overturned log towards the fire. “I can watch this if you want to put something warmer on from your duffle bag,” she said. “I’ll also find something we can hang the wet clothes on so they can dry. Maybe we can build a second fire to speed up that process?”

The idea of building a second fire and doubling the smoke in the air was something he would have rather avoided. It made it hard to breathe, a cinch around his chest. He could already see it now, the smoke, feel the flakes of it on his skin …

But Magic didn’t want to be difficult.

So he agreed and left to tend to his own personal matters while Mira tended the fire.