Aleph inspected Tetora’s unconscious form in a brisk, business-like manner. “Demonic poison,” he confirmed. “We will need to act quickly in order to stabilize him. Please assist me.”

“O-okay.” I knelt across from Aleph and laid my hands on Tetora’s stomach.

“What are you doing?”

“Isn’t this… how you heal someone? I just think good thoughts and…”

“Rae. You are not a priest.”

“But they use amity, too. So maybe…” I tried to picture Chester. Cotton Cheesecake. Hanging out at Nora’s house. Nora. Nora was curled up in a ball a few feet away from me, her tiny form wracked with silent sobs. My good thoughts faded. Sometimes, you just can’t fake it.

“I appreciate the effort, but we must use another tactic. Start a fire, and boil a tin of water, please.” I got up and quickly gathered what I needed to comply with Aleph’s request. He then opened his sack and pulled out a small leather bag.

“Put these in the tin.” He handed me various sachets of herbs he had pulled from the bag. I dropped them in and watched them boil. After a few minutes, I retrieved them as instructed, and he placed most of them directly on the wounds themselves before bandaging them. Aleph put one unboiled sachet directly under his tongue, however. Afterward, he opened up a small wooden box full of needles. Tetora soon became a pincushion, with Aleph swiftly inserting them all over the front of his body with practiced skill.

Aleph pointed. “We must keep him warm, so keep the fire going.”

“Are we… safe here?” I asked as I added firewood.

“For the moment, relatively speaking. It will be a few days before those demons reform completely, and the sanctum we banished them to is far away from here. Ragnerus’s recruiters come in pairs but eliminate any competition, so it’s doubtful others are nearby. The animus they discharged will be enough to keep animals and even some demonic beasts away as well. However, we did not find the other hybrids and humans in the area we were searching. We will still need to be alert.”

“I see…”

“How is your head?” he asked, as if he just remembered my short-range flight into the tree trunk.

“Ah, it’s as hard as ever! Just… a little tender on the outside.” I then glanced meaningfully at Nora’s backside before turning back to Aleph. He nodded, silently dismissing me to attend to other things.

“Hey,” I sat next to Nora. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Nora sniffled, wiping away tears with her sleeve.

“Is it okay if I give you a hug?”

“I don’t deserve it!”

“Sure you do. You’re my friend. You can have all the hugs you want, no charge.”

“It’s all my fault Tetora got hurt!”

“Is that so?” I tilted my head to the side. “I thought the demoness attacked him, not you.”

“But if I had just listened to Tetora and—”

“She still would have attacked someone. Most likely, Tetora again. He’s the fastest and arguably the most dangerous, though I think Aleph is just as much of a threat.”

“But I didn’t listen! I completely lost my temper, and I ended up making her stronger! What the hell was I thinking?!” She punched the ground in frustration. Honestly, it was strange. As long as I had known her, she had never been so angry that she lost her reasoning. It was a completely different story for me, though.

“Well…” I scratched my cheek. “Did you do it intentionally?”

“No! Of course not!”

“There you go then.” Leaning back against a tree trunk, I recited the words I had read many times before: “Sometimes bad things happen, and there’s no way to prevent them. Sometimes, there are things we can do to keep it from happening again. Either way, that doesn’t mean you should keep punishing yourself, especially when you didn’t intend for the bad things to happen.”

“I thought you said you didn’t remember much from the story, but now you’re quoting it back to me!”

“It’s… coming back to me?”

“...All of it?”

“I just remember certain parts. You know, the ones that helped me through some tough times.”

Nora sat up slowly and held out her arms. “I want that hug now. You offered.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I hugged her tight. “Just don’t wipe your snot on me, okay? I really hate it when you do that.”

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“He’s going to be okay, right?”

I didn’t know for sure, honestly. “Aleph’s doing everything he can to help him.”

“Just tell me everything’s going to be fine.”

Oh, what would Raelynn say in this situation? “Everything will be as it should, so long as we do our best.”

“That’s not what I asked you to say.”

“I know.”

“Stop saying her lines and say your own!”

I cringed. “Sorry.”

“Well?”

“Everything’s going to be just fine,” I lied with another hug.

A few hours later, Tetora regained consciousness, though it was clear he had developed a fever and didn’t know where or who he was with. We applied additional boiled poultices, and Aleph stayed glued to his side. Nora tried to act normal, but I knew a few minutes of telling her it wasn’t her fault wouldn’t fix everything.

“You two should get some sleep,” Aleph said. “I can handle things for now.”

His words were more of an ironic curse than an actionable plan. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep. My mind lingered on the demons we encountered. They were raw, half-formed entities that delighted in tormenting their enemy and feeding off their fears. Worst of all, they seemed to be just playing with us until they burst into flames, anyway. Had they wanted to kill us outright, I felt there wasn’t anything we could have done to stop them. Deep down, I wondered… Was he anything like them?

Aleph tapped my shoulder. “Rae, it’s your turn to take watch.”

“Right,” I said as I stood up.

“Keep the fire going and wake me up if he becomes too much to handle.” What does that mean exactly?

“Okay.” I walked over to where Tetora was and sat down.

“Where’d he go?” Tetora asked me in a slightly delirious tone.

“He just needed to rest for a little while. I’ll sit with you.”

“Noooo. I want the handsome doctor back.” Tetora rolled over sluggishly so his back was facing me.

“Handsome? …You think so?”

“... Isn’t it obvious?” He turned his head back slightly to gauge my reaction, and I could see his eyes were focusing correctly again.

“I guess. He’s not my type, though. I kinda think of him as a father figure.” A father I never, ever wanted to disappoint with my actions or contrary beliefs.

“Oh, but he’s mine!” Tetora sniffed. “Just... so you know.”

“Does he know?”

“What do you mean, does he know? Of course, he knows!” Tetora’s voice was considerably stronger now.

“Does he feel the same way about you?”

“Another question with an obvious answer!”

“Hey! You say it’s obvious, but you two are the ones who define your relationship, not me!” I just hated it when people just assumed that sort of thing. Nora and I had been accused of being more than friends many times in the past, and honestly, I felt it insulting and debasing that two girls couldn’t get along without fighting over romance or being in one with the other.

“We are together,” Tetora confirmed. “I thought this was a good time to tell you.”

Was his injury even more severe than I thought? I felt a nauseating fear rise from my stomach. “Why are you–”

Tetora waved his hand. “I could have blamed it on the demonic poison if our relationship upset you.”

I sighed with relief. “You cheeky cat! But why would you think it would upset me? I’m happy for you two!”

“It upsets many people, so…”

“Fffftttsss!” That’s the closest I could come to spelling out the indignant sound I made.

Tetora groaned as he rolled back over. “I always wanted to tell Raelynn. I would not have met Aleph had it not been for her.”

I looked up at the sky. “She probably knew and kept quiet about it, especially if you’re right about it upsetting people. I’m sure she wasn’t upset about it, though.”

“Maybe. We were more careful back then, even with each other. We were going to say something after… the defeat of the demon king. If anyone could convince the church to allow two grandmasters to marry, it would have been her.”

“Wait, that’s the problem people have with your relationship? Because you’re both grandmasters?” I was way off the mark.

“Romantic relationships would interfere with our Purpose.” Oh, for the love of… Aleph and Tetora!

“Walk me through that one!”

“We are to train our juniors and lead our respective clans. Cross-clan marriage at that high a level would distract us and those we serve.”

“And just how much training and leadership have you been able to provide to your clans, living in the middle of nowhere?”

Tetora grunted. “... Aleph says we are setting a good example as educators and leaders by following the council's will.”

“You don’t seriously agree with that, though, do you?”

“I think we need to do more, yes.”

Damn the council! Isolating Relias. Banishing Aleph and Tetora. Trying Laverna for crimes she didn’t commit. Subjugating hybrids and persecuting dark mages. “Ugh. I’m trying to be a believable Raelynn,” I sighed. “But I kinda just want to beat the absolute tar out of the council. That’s not all that heroic, is it?” I mean, she never did that in the story. Of course, now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure she ever even met them.

Tetora grinned. “Did I not tell you once that if a hero does something, it must be heroic? So do not let semantics stop you from doing what you think is right.” Violence alone probably wouldn’t solve everything, though, even if the Goddess herself believed so.

Aleph came to check on me a little while later. “So… too much to handle?” he asked nervously.

“Not at all. Is it okay… to tell Nora?” I yawned. “When it’s time to wake up, that is.”

“She already knows. Oh, that he’s awake and talking, too.”