It was Loupe’s first night without Reina and she hated it. Squinting at her watch in the moonlight she saw that it was already past four in the morning. Sleep was hopeless, but she had already known that when she had unrolled her cot that evening. She had spent the last hour staring at the canvas roof, saddle sore and wondering what Reina was up to. Loupe didn’t particularly like the city, but she liked being away from Reina even less.

Slipping on a jacket, Loupe went outside. The cool, late spring air soothed her bedwarmed skin.

They were camped in the thin trees at the edge of the forest. In the darkness the mountains were invisible, stitched seamlessly into the blue black of the night sky. They had only arrived yesterday and would stay for at least a week, maybe a fortnight. They had teams doing work in the city and deeper in the forest where there were said to be refugees fleeing the city’s unfair taxes and debt collectors. Earlier that evening the band had been short tempered and sluggish, everyone tired from the journey. Tents had been hastily erected, the horses, cows, and sheep fed, and then everyone had gone to sleep.

Or Loupe had thought. She saw now that she was not the only one awake; watchmen and guards paced between the tents and crouched in small circles playing games of cards by firelight. They called her by name and waved for her to join them, but she didn't feel like playing. Instead she wandered through the maze of canvas tents, sleeping pack animals and their rumbling breaths until she was free of the trees. In the clear night she found a boulder to sit on, facing away from the camp. From here she could see the first rolling hills that led out to the sea which she could just make out glinting in the distance with reflected starlight. To the south was Bardo, where Reina was, glowing a hazy greenish blue from tall the biolights.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

She took out the notepad and pencil she kept in her jacket pocket and began to draw by moonlight. She didn’t need to see to draw. She didn’t need to breathe or eat or sleep or even think while she was drawing. The images just poured like water from her mind and spread onto the paper. Details snagged at her consciousness forcing her to straighten a line, blur an edge, lighten a shadow. The picture always told her when it was finished, like a favorite teacher smiling proudly from over her shoulder.

She thought she had been drawing her sister, but when she looked over her finished work she saw herself, lying asleep in a fairy ring of trees, surrounded by wolves. Their soft gray fur enveloped her like a bed. One slept with her, its tail tucked around her legs, a second was a pillow for her head and a third sat awake, its ears pricked for danger. She was smaller than Loupe, no older than eight. Her eyes were too big for her face, even closed and her shoulder blades protruded. It was one of her better sketches, worthy of color and ink. The wolves felt alive, the trees watchful, the girl lonely.

When Loupe finally looked up from her drawing, the sun was rising.