The first sensation to register was the strong, foul scent of decomposition like a corpse left to rot.

It reminded Mira of the Elnoiran slums, the alleys they’d come from brimming with dead animals hunted and killed for the satisfaction of another. The buzzing of the flies that would land in her hair and the maggots that would find their way onto her duffle bag—her precious bag—and bite at the stitching that kept it together.

Mira gagged at the potent scent and sharply turned from it, forcing her eyes to blink. Everything was fogged and blurred from reflexive tears. Her stomach gave a warning flutter, bile climbing her throat that she so desperately tried to hold back. She felt ill, trying to keep the sensations away by focusing on her surroundings.

A tarp shielded her from the sun, though bits of the blue sky were visible through the thin sheets. If she squinted and blinked the tears from her eyes, she could see bits of white clouds rolling calmly across the sky. Mira moved her head from left to right, something plush behind her; she was laying on a bed, little more than a twin-sized cot with a stiff mattress which was far better than the cold, hard ground, Mira supposed.

Something bleated and she sat up, supporting her weight with her hands and fighting through stars in her vision. She found herself face to face with a goat, its thin, rectangular pupils floating in a sea of yellow. It had two jagged horns in the shape of lightning bolts jutting from its head and a long, flowing pelt of white with black splotches. Stocky and built like an ox with the height of a small horse, the goat shook its head, the fur on its chin swaying side to side like a dancing curtain. Mira tilted her head as the animal scuffed its cloven hooves along the dirt. She was about to reach over to pet just between its horns when a voice to her left said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He bites.”

A woman walked around Mira to stand at the animal’s side, scratching the goat’s face. It stomped its foot and made a small noise in what she assumed to be pleasure. Clearly what the stranger had meant was that the goat was selective. Mira sat up straighter now, legs crossed like a pretzel as she considered the stranger, who tossed a blanket onto the cot beside Mira’s foot.

Unlike most Southern Droidellans and citizens of Maribyss down south, the people of Subsidia were ghostly creatures, pale as a stick of white chalk. They could barely stand in the sun for more than a couple of seconds.

This woman was no exception to the rule and she wore a heavy cloak around her frame to shield most of her skin, which was liable to scorch clean off her bones if she stepped foot in the sun. She reminded Mira a lot of Spiros, the half-sight who did what he could to help save her life by sending her away.

In that way, based on initial appearance alone, the woman made for a startlingly close copy. Her jet black hair, darker than her brother’s hair if that was even possible, was pulled into a long, thick braid that fell at the small of her back and could have been used as a club. She was young, somewhere probably in her mid-twenties—not too much older than Mira herself—with wide, almond shaped eyes of deep, dark brown; intense twin pools of molasses.

And very pretty.

Mira felt the familiar pull of looking into the face of someone who by all accounts would be well, well out of her league, but she tried to allow the fear of being somewhere strange and unfamiliar take control of the reins in her brain. She kept her mouth shut as the woman continued speaking, rambling on as though Mira couldn’t hear.

“He’s a bit of a grumpy old man,” said the stranger, leaning against the animal’s horn, “but Jeralt is pretty reliable when you need to get things done. Isn’t that right, buddy?”

The goat—Jeralt—shook his head, long fur waving with him.

Mira blinked. “You guys … just keep goats with you in your tents?”

“Mhm. Most people here have them. The land just beyond the Maidenwoods which you and your partner there so valiantly busted through screaming is filled with wild ones that we’ve befriended. In fact, you damn near scared most of the goats and sheep away. Soma’s grace, you’re lucky the stampede didn’t kill you.”

Mira felt her brain freeze. That phrase was new, but she didn’t have the energy to decipher it. The only words that did register was of the stampede, and she would have rather been taken out by a startled tribe of goats and sheep than coercion from a mythical beast. “Is it inhabited only by animals?”

“The far land you crossed, yes. No soul would be caught dead anywhere near the Dark Wind’s domain. Aside from two very crazy Droidellans, I suppose. Is that what coal smoke and fumes does to the brain?”

Mira grit her teeth and frowned. “No, it’s called nearly starving to death after being chased by a crazy-ass horse.”

“Ah. That reminds me.” The woman dug through a pouch slung over the goat’s back, rummaging around in its contents until she produced a small bottle, roughly the size of an eight ounce bottle of liquor willed with a clouded liquid that reminded her a lot of a deep puddle clouded by the presence of loosely packed dirt. Mira unconsciously shuffled a little away. The stranger cast a small teasing smile in her direction. “What?” she asked.

“I want to know what’s in there,” Mira said, her voice embarrassingly small.

“I’m not here to poison you if that’s what you’re assuming, celetiza—”

“Don’t call me that.”

The woman frowned. “Is that … not what you are?”

Mira pursed her lips. Wouldn’t it be great if she knew? “If you’re going to call me anything, I’d rather you use my name. And if you can promise that your little concoction won’t kill me, then maybe I’ll consider telling you what that is.”

The stranger nodded and handed over the tiny bottle, then took another from the goat’s satchel and tapped the two together. “Bottoms up,” she said and tossed the drink down.

Mira drank hers a few seconds later, trying not to gag at the taste. It had the grainy consistency of eating soil or mud with the metallic tang that reminded her of blood. She almost threw it up when the woman pinched her nose shut and covered her mouth. Mira latched onto the woman’s arms, sinking her nails into skin. The stranger made a pained sound but didn’t move despite Mira’s thrashing.

“Don’t,” she said. “It’s a healing tonic. Good for fatigue. I know it’s not a desirable taste, but give it time.”

Mira broke free, hacking and stumbling off the cot to rest her hands against a tiny table for stability. Even standing in one place made her limbs tired, but the more she worked to slow her breathing, the less her body ached. It was an agonizingly sluggish process, waiting for her strength to return and when she eventually felt stable enough to stand, Mira reached forward and hesitantly clung onto the saddle resting on the goat’s back. The animal made a low bleat, but didn’t reach to bite or hit her with his horns.

The woman smiled, a wide, face-splitting grin. She was far too pleased with herself. “So,” she said, “what name do I have the honor of addressing you by?”

Mira rolled her eyes. And when she introduced herself, the stranger held out her hand. “Louisa,” she said. “Pleasure to meet you and welcome to the Southern District of Subsidia.”

Subsidia. So they’d made it after all. Mira had a feeling they’d been close to the mountains but she was always taught that the Subsidian districts were below ground, not above them. “I thought the Districts were inside the mountains closest to the river.”

“They are. We’re the outliers. Some of us grew tired of sitting in the dark one day and just set up camp further out. Of course, we took precautions.” Louisa motioned to the tent walls. “We’re pretty fragile human beings in the sun.”

Mira looked her company up and down. “Yeah, I can tell. My brother is paler than me and he can survive pretty well in the sun.”

“Ah. Yes, your companion.” Louisa slowly stroked the goat’s horns, lost in thought. Then she leaned against the sturdy animal she called a companion and rolled one of her wrists in a circle. “Is there something wrong with him?”

What isn’t? she thought, but held her tongue. “That depends on what you consider to be wrong.”

The Subsidian gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders as if dealing with temperamental people stumbling half-coherent out of a haunted forest was just another day on the job. “Wouldn’t talk to a single soul or answer any questions. Refused everything some of the guys tried to give him—thought they were something else, I suppose.” The woman huffed, rolling her eyes and Mira found herself aggravated at Louisa’s dismissive tone. “Stars, I don’t even think he had a clue where he was.”

“Which tent?” Mira tightened her grip on the goat’s saddle, pulling it slightly towards her. The animal wavered a little and stumbled in her direction with a gruff sounding bleat.

“Yellow one with a tiny stack of brown boxes outside of it. Beside a traveling cart with fruits. Poor Clemont is with him right now and, last I checked in with him, he didn’t have much luck and he’s the only one persistent enough to try. I still think he’s wasting his breath, though, poor kid …”

Mira didn’t stay to hear more. She burst through the open flaps of the tent and made a beeline for the tent her brother was in, the blanket Louisa had given her wrapped around her shoulders. It didn’t take long to find; it was the only tent that reflected the sun’s rays because of the piercing color of its fabrics that made Mira’s eyes hurt.

Her entry caused little disturbance in the tiny hut. Two people were huddled in the corner, most of their skin and parts of their face covered by hats and scarves, concealing their identity. The only thing to set them apart was their height and stature, one tall and stocky, the other small and stout.

A goat was stationed in this tent, too; it was less stocky than Louisa’s goat, but sturdy enough to carry someone on its back, wiry brown and white fur looping in curls along its body. Its large horns were coiled, arcing behind its head before pointing dangerously forward and it lay peacefully at the tent’s entryway, long limbs tucked beneath it.

She found Magic lying on his side atop a cot in the center of the hut, a smaller boy with a large hat on his head crouching in front of him waving the same liquid tonic Louisa had given her.

The boy Mira assumed to be Clemont was pointing the bottle towards Magic, who shook his head without a word.

“All I’m trying to do is help,” said Clemont. With a voice like that, squeaky and uncertain, he couldn’t have been older than fourteen.

Magic didn’t speak, only tucked his chin further into his chest in avoidance.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Soma’s grace ... Look, it’ll taste like crap, but it’ll help.” Mira had to give the kid credit; he was holding his ground surprisingly well despite the clear frustration coating his words.

Mira held a hand out towards the peaceful animal by the entrance and, when did nothing, she leaned against it. “You should take his advice, Mags,” she said and her brother immediately lifted his head, glancing in her direction, glasses askew, hair curled and poking out at odd angles. His features softened when his eyes settled on her. Silently, she noted the speed at which they moved back and forth, scanning her as if for additional reassurance that what he’d seen was no hallucination brought on by exhaustion.

She approached and sat at the edge of the cot, reaching over to pull him into a sitting position. Magic didn’t put up a fight, which, judging by the open-mouthed shock on Clemont’s face, her brother had resisted for a while. Mira smiled a little. “It’ll help.”

Magic leaned into her, practically sinking into her embrace like a limp doll that just had its strings cut. He didn’t even have the strength to hug her back. He just lay there, face pressed against her shoulder. “No,” he mumbled. “It won’t. Not that kind of help.”

In the stunned silence of the tent, Mira could hear the crackling of his breaths, the strains of his wheezes. The space between her jaw and neck where his head fell was uncomfortably clammy and cold. Tentatively, Mira held onto his wrist, feeling for a pulse which raced rapidly beneath her touch.

Warning signs.

And exactly what Mira feared about arriving here.

She motioned for Clemont to hand over the tonic. If Magic wouldn’t accept the help from a stranger in this state, she may as well do it herself.

Sorry, she thought before jamming the open bottle into her brother’s mouth and pouring down the contents.

Magic’s reaction came immediately; he hacked and lurched forward. Mira tossed the empty bottle aside and pinched her brother’s nose shut, clapping one hand over his mouth much in the same manner Louisa had done to her moments before. Clemont hastily backed away, knocking into the side of a table.

A manic frenzy raged in Magic’s eyes; he went rigid and still beneath Mira’s touch, bucking and tossing his head in a futile attempt for freedom. Mira didn’t budge. She kept her hold on him through his resistance and, after a bit of struggle and silent apologies he could not hear, he complied.

She released him and he gasped, shuddering and coughing—from the aftertaste, she presumed. He collapsed against her again, curling into himself as though he were a sick child desperately looking for comfort or warmth.

Clemont held onto his big floppy hat with his hands, scrawny looking arms poking through the sleeves of his tunic. “Oh, miz Deiasi,” he muttered, “was that violence necessary?”

Mira shrugged. She’d been forceful, yes, but certainly not violent. Which, of course, she could be if she truly wished to. But she was far too tired to pick a fight in semantics with the boy, so she simply said, “He wouldn’t have taken the help from you.”

“I swear, you Droidellans keep getting weirder.” Clemont retrieved the empty flask and placed it on the table he’d bumped into. “Not even the last one I met was like this. Bit of an oddball, sure, but my father says it's because of the chemicals. Does it do something to the brain when you’re surrounded by it too much?”

Mira felt her brother flinch accompanied by a harsh shudder as though he’d caught a chill from an oncoming breeze. With the presence of other people, even entertaining a conversation with Magic would be difficult. But if she could find a way to disperse the crowd…

“Clemont, was it?” she said, watching the boy sputter with a tiny, tired grin. “Louisa told me about you—it was how I found the tent. What’s the best food you guys have?”

The pale boy blinked, looking between her, Magic, and the exit. “We have a few lizard eggs that can be fried. If you’re okay with lizards. If they have lizards where you’re from.”

“I thought you said you’d met Droidellans before.”

“Well, I did, but it wasn’t for very long. It wasn’t even really a meet, it was a one sentence exchange.”

Mira hummed, tapping her chin. “Right … Fried eggs are fine. Give us what you have.”

Clemont frowned, then stood and waved to grab the attention of the other people Mira nearly forgot were there. “Raoul,” he said, “come with me to grab the guests some food, please?”

She turned in time to spot the tall stocky man bow deeply and wait for Clemont to exit the tent before following the pipsqueak out. Mira doubted the tent’s other occupant was remotely interested in conversing with them, but she kept her voice low anyway so as not to risk unwanted interruptions.

“Talk to me,” said Mira, pressing a finger on the inside of her brother’s wrist.

“It’s hard to breathe,” Magic replied. Not like he needed to say anything; she could hear the wheezes between his desperate gasps for air. “The mountains. They make it hard. And my face…” He rubbed at his chin, the sides of his face along the edges of his mouth and closest to his nose—the exact places where Mira had placed her hands—and began to scratch at them. “It burns.”

Mira pushed his arms down, trapping them against his legs. She could not afford to have him panic here.

Some kind of cross between a groan and a whimper lodged itself in Magic’s throat, the drumbeat in his wrist thundering against Mira’s hand, the speed of it increasing. No. She needed a distraction to get him back on track. “Tell me a story,” she blurted.

“A story?” he echoed.

“Yeah. Like you and Amelia used to during the Light Festival when we were kids. Talk to me about the bird.”

“I thought you hated those.”

“This isn’t a discussion, Magic, tell me about the bird.”

He nodded against her shoulder. “People say in the books that the earth was coated in darkness until Ori created the sun and the stars in the sky. She blessed them with the first light—the sun—before going on to decorate the night sky. Shooting stars are ones that fell off her wings too quickly and dropped to the ground.”

“Good,” Mira said, listening for the return of Clemont and his companion, but when the only sound she could make out was that of faraway chatter, she squeezed his wrist. “Keep going.”

“One story had her promise gold to a group of farmers in the far west part of Droidell,” Magic went on, rambling as if he feared forgetting it all. “but she was needed elsewhere the day of the deal. She made up for it by blessing them with gold that never lost its value. The gold would reappear even after it was used so long as the farmers used it with good intentions.”

“And what happened to the ones who didn’t?”

“Their limbs turned to gold. And eventually they melded with the earth.”

All Mira did in response was nod her head. The mythology never interested her; in fact, if anything it confused her. But she knew it brought a good deal of comfort to her brother and the redirection seemed to be helping. No longer was there a racing pulse beneath Mira’s fingers and Magic’s breathing, though it was atrocious, was better than it had been.

He twisted his arm and held onto her hand, squeezing her fingers in a death grip while his breathing calmed enough for him to mumble, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied. “Feel any better?”

“I don’t like it here.”

“I don’t, either. A little too weird for my liking. Then again, they’d say the same of us.”

“They already have. A lot.”

Mira sighed and would have responded had the tent fabrics not ruffled to signal the Subsidians’ return. Celmont handed over a long tray with the oddest looking meal Mira had ever seen in her life—even from her peripheral vision she could spot Magic frowning at the dish.

Mira didn’t know what lizard eggs looked like, only that she assumed them to be no different from what a quail egg looked like when it was broken: normal. The yolk was a dark orange, nearly burnt, surrounded in a sea of dull brown egg white, fried on a slice of toast with a hole in its center to fit the contents of the egg. Sprinkled on top of it were what Mira could only assume were spices, but they didn’t look like any spice she remembered being in her kitchen cabinets at home. The only difference between her and Magic was that Mira hesitated before taking her bites. He did not.

The pale boy seated himself in a chair just opposite them, the hat askew to reveal the features of his face and Mira had to pause for a minute just to take in the sight. If Louisa had reminded her vaguely of Spiros in passing, this boy was nearly a mirror image. His pale skin shone faintly from the sun peering in through the gaps of the tent and though his face was round with sharp cheekbones, Clemont had the thin, lean body of a runner, strands of dark brown folded onto the top of his forehead. His wide eyes, both a curious dark brown, searched them intently and a mulberry colored birthmark was sprawled across his left eyebrow.

And when he lounged back in his chair, Mira could practically see the attitude radiating off of him that reminded her so much of the Subsidian who helped her in Elnoire. “I have a question.”

“This should be interesting,” Mira mumbled through her food, half to herself and half to her brother, who was sitting upright now, but pressed against her shoulder.

“What brings you to Subsidia?”

“That shocked to see someone who’s different from you?”

Clemont puffed his chest, his cheeks inflated like an indignant chipmunk. “No. We’ve had a few foreigners come through and stay here to visit family, but no one’s passed through in the last few years. It’s just rare that we get visitors from any side of Circadia. Most of you southerners are too deterred by the cold.”

Magic shuffled around beside her, keeping his head down and focused on the food he was practically shoveling into his mouth. She was tempted to nudge him with her elbow to get him to show some decency in front of company but thought better of it. “Jovie Miller,” he whispered. “Do you know her?”

Mira frowned; she would have preferred to make her case first and wasn’t fond of the interruption, but Clemont didn’t seem to notice her minute irritation. He did, however, scoff and roll his eyes. “Celez Vesza? Of course. Most Sighted families do. She’s the reason we live out here.”

“That’s a title,” muttered Magic with a raised brow.

“It is,” Clemont insisted. “And she’s highly known for that title, too.”

“You don’t seem too pleased at her being mentioned, though,” Mira said.

The boy scoffed. “I’m not. It’s her fault my brother isn’t here with us. She warned him—and the rest of us—to leave four years ago because of a rumored Cardinal attack ground around. Turned out to be true. We packed our bags and left just a day before it happened, and we’ve been stuck out here since.”

“Why didn’t your brother just stay out here with the rest of you?”

“Jovie and the librarian said it was too risky for him to stay with us. They gave him enough supplies to get to the west on goatback. Cardinal activity was lower there when he left, but now it’s apparently way worse based on the whispers that come up through the tunnels. Absolutely useless.”

Mira squinted. She didn’t remember being told anything about a librarian, and the mention of it made her feel slightly stupid. Surely, if it was important Daphne would have included that in her instructions.

Then again, Daphne went to sleep with several cups of alcohol in her system, so maybe it just slipped her mind to include that bit of information. “How do we speak to her?”

The boy drummed his fingers along his knees before pushing the chair back; the screeching against the earth made her and Magic cringe. Even the goat, which Mira had forgotten was there because it was so quiet, bleated at the noise, accompanied by a hushed thump as if a pillow had fallen somewhere onto the ground.

“The Celez Vesza won’t talk to anyone outright. Anything that does go to her goes through the librarian first. And the pipsqueak, too, if she’s there.”

Magic gave an exasperated sigh. For once, Mira couldn’t blame him. All of this and now there were more hurdles to go through because the woman with the answers wouldn’t give them the light of day.

“What’s the name?” Mira asked.

“Vallian. Vallian Roenthall. He does the record keeping and filters out the relevant information. You’ll find him in the Central District Library. If you take the leftmost tunnels through the mountains, you’ll get to the Western District first. Getting to the Central District is just continuously heading east from there.”

Magic shuddered, nearly dropping the food in his hand on the tray. Mira grabbed onto his jacket by the shoulder. “What’s the fastest route?”

Clemont smiled, a mischievous one that was befitting of his age, and looked over to the tent’s entrance. “I can give you more than just a faster route. Bjorn! Bjorn, here boy!”

Immediately, the smaller goat huffed and rose clumsily to its feet, head bobbing in and out as he trotted lazily forward. Now that Mira got a closer look at the animal, it didn’t look all that frail. It was just as stocky and oxlike as the one she’d seen before. The only difference between this goat and the other was its bright blue eyes and slightly shorter height.

Clemont patted the animal on the back, massaging its horns with the other. “I can let you borrow him. Trusty little steed, this guy is. He’s been all over the mountains—in fact, he was due to deliver a few things but we had a bit of a problem with the transport. If you can promise to bring the package along with you on your travels, I’ll let you use him.”

Magic took a breath, wiggling his fingers as he handed over a tiny portion of his meal to Bjorn, who sniffed it and calmly took the toast from Magic’s hand. To Mira’s amusement, her brother also ran a hand along the goat’s curled horns. “He can’t carry us both,” he pointed out.

“Oh, I know,” Clemont said. “You let me worry about that. In the meantime, sit tight with Bjorn. I’ll grab your second goat along with some things you can bring with you for yourselves and the goats to keep them moving.”