The blackness that clouded Allora’s mind began to recede. She found herself in that twilight area of consciousness where one is not quite asleep but not quite awake. The sense of her body was the first thing that returned to her. She was laying on something soft. She felt warm and ensconced in a thick blanket that was pleasantly heavy. Her sense of smell told her that the bedding was clean and recently washed. She almost drifted back into unconsciousness, but a thought was tickling the back of her mind. She knew who she was but couldn’t recall what it was that she’d been doing before she went to bed. It was still shrouded in the fog. There was something she was supposed to be doing. A person she was supposed to protect. It was… He was…

Even in her drowsy state, she felt her forehead knit together as she struggled to remember. Her mind felt sluggish, and her thoughts weren’t forming correctly. Flashes came to her of strange places. Impossibly high buildings covered in glass. There were metallic carriages that moved on small black wheels without any animals or magic pulling or propelling them. And the speed! They moved at impossible velocity over perfectly smooth roads. She had gone to that place. She had traveled there to… to…

Mitchell!

Her eyes flew open as that name triggered a cascade in her brain. The fog was blasted away, and a torrent of memories came crashing through her consciousness and left her gasping. Fully awake now, she fought to order her thoughts. Although her memories had returned, she was still slow in processing the overwhelming amount of information. Over the next few minutes, she was able to make sense of the events and her heart rate began to return to normal. She sat up and groaned at the sudden stiffness she felt. It felt like she’d been sleeping for days, but surely that wasn’t possible. Then the dizziness hit, and she swayed, nearly falling back into the bed. The last thing she remembered was leaving that little town after fighting the assassin. He had been good. Better than her, she had to admit. He had at least a century on her, which counted for something, but she was still disappointed in herself.

Her magic! She had lost her ability to channel her mana in the mountains. In a panic, she reached for it and the warmth came to her call. The power filled her, bringing with it that amazing feeling of life and possibility. She almost cried at having it back. She formed the rune for a simple light cantrip and just let it hover in her palm as she reveled in the feeling of her power. She bounced it back and forth between her palms, which was an exercise she hadn’t practiced since she was a girl.

Finally, she released the spell and ignored the need to call it again and looked at the room around her disquieted by the fact that it should not exist. They had been in the mountains, and it was at least a two-week journey across. There were no towns among the peaks, only ruins left over from the reign of the dragon lords that often held terrible creatures she would rather not come up against. There were no quaint little cottages that smelled faintly of quinnamon and honey.

The walls were a simple whitewashed plaster interspersed with stout dark wood beams that looked ancient and as solid as the mountains themselves. There were soft glowing mage lights set into elegantly carved sconces, and a few bundles of herbs and dried flowers hung from the walls around the room as well. There were no windows, but a doorway blocked by strands of beads that lead out into another room. Next to her bed was a small table with a pitcher of water, a glass, and a selection of fruits. There was a small note with elegant script placed next to the picture.

“You are protected by the laws of hospitality, as are your companions. Eat and drink.”

It was signed ‘Luvari’.

Allora stared at the words for a minute, her brain struggling to comprehend them, and then she sucked in a breath. Only the fey adhered to the laws of hospitality! From time to time, nobles who claimed fey heritage liked to invoke them, but most understood them as just an ancient tradition. If the laws were enforced, however, few would violate them. Archaic practice or not, the old stories of those that ignored them were enough to keep most people in line.

“Oh, Mitchell, what did you do?” she said out loud to herself. Her voice was raspy, as if she hadn’t spoken in days.

That there were serious gaps in her memory was no longer in question. She was missing a lot. Her recollections were fuzzy after their first day into the mountains, and then they just stopped altogether. Much could have happened between then and now, whenever now was.

Despite her misgivings, she could no longer deny the deep hunger she felt and picked up a gawan and bit into it. The crunch of the perfectly ripe fruit was almost as satisfying as the sweet juices that flowed into her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in pleasure as she savored every drop. She was absolutely famished.

She ate it down to the core and debated eating even that before reaching for the small bushel of bashos, and plucking three of the small green fruits from the stems. She shoved them into her mouth, barely chewing at all before swallowing. Only once all the fruit was gone did she fill the glass to the brim with the chilled water from the pitcher and drank it all down in one long pull. Then she fell back into bed with a groan as her stomach protested the sudden fullness.

The pleasure of a full belly was enticing her to doze again when voices came from the other room.

“No, really! It’s not magic. It’s just… What was the word you used? For when something falls to the ground.”

“Korep,” came the reply.

“Right, gravity.”

Mitchell and Lethelin, Allora thought. They were here. She needed to talk to Mitchell and find out just what had happened and learn what this little respite had cost them. There was always a price when the fey were in involved. Mitchell wasn’t ready to deal with something like this, she needed to–

Allora stopped herself. She had to stop treating him like he was a toddler. Mitchell wasn’t an idiot. Far from it, actually. She could see how hard he applied himself to the tasks she put before him, and he had a sharp mind. Watching him grow in confidence over the last several weeks had brought her no small amount of joy. She could see in him the seeds of a leader. He was constantly asking questions about even mundane things and took far too long to consider choices in her opinion, but he often came to the right conclusion and seemed resolute when he did. From the laughter and light tones drifting through the beaded doorway, they were obviously unharmed and in no danger. She needed to let go of her fear for him and let him make his own decisions if he was going to be the monarch they needed. With that thought in mind, she vowed that she would not criticize or second guess any choice he made while she had been ill. She was weakened and stiff, but she was alive and so was he.

As was the dock rat, she acknowledged reluctantly.

“I will take you there if I ever get to see home again. You’ll love it!”

“I think I’d rather yank a dragon’s tail,” Lethelin retorted.

Allora could hear the smile in her voice.

Suddenly, the elf felt a pain in her chest. The two of them sounded so happy. There was a playful tone in Mitchell’s voice that she hadn’t heard in so long. Not since the night she met him, actually.

She remembered seeing him talking on the small device that so many of the humans had on his world. She had struggled with a weakened version of the translation spell she had been forced to cast to save mana. It had made it so much harder to talk to him, but it had taken significantly longer to locate Mitchell than she and Revos had anticipated, and she had been near the end of her supply of mana stones. Her own mana took nearly a ten-day to recharge in that environment.

The city had been unimaginably large, as well. Allora was no country girl, she had grown up in Lorivin, the capital city of Awenor. It wasn’t the largest city on the continent, but it was close enough. Even it had been dwarfed by the human city of Fee-nix. It had taken her hours to get anywhere without one of the vehicles that the humans on his world had used, and she had never imagined such a poorly designed city. The humans of his world must have gone insane, she thought.

Triangulating his position with the tracking spell had been all but impossible. She could only get the general area that he seemed to spend the most time, but she could never arrive there in time to narrow it down. It was only after she risked staying out all night to travel while he slept that she started to get close. By the time she had located him outside the theater, only a few miles from where she had narrowed down his residence to be, she had barely slept for three days. (More than one vagrant had received a rude awakening when they thought her a simple girl wandering at night where she didn’t belong.) Finally though, she had been close enough to track him down.

The two-wheeled contraption that she’d…borrowed to move at faster speeds had been invaluable, once she figured out how to stay upright on the wobbly thing. Allora had been able to cover ground much faster and the streets of the city were some of the flattest she’d ever seen. The night she finally caught up to him–with the tracking spell still active–she could feel him leave his residence only a couple of hours after arriving. Allora had groaned at the thought of more time chasing him down but, as she pedaled the ingenious device as fast as she dared, she felt him come to a stop barely a mile from her. She was able to close the distance at long last. Even with the spell fading, she could see the glow it put around his form.

Seeing him after so much time spent searching had almost been anticlimactic, she remembered thinking. He was slightly taller than her, which Allora always appreciated in men, but not as muscular as she would have preferred. He had looked in somewhat suitable condition to her trained eye, but it was a physique built more for speed than rather brute strength and power. Allora had grown up around the Knights and the city watch and they had bodies suitable for armed combat. As near as Allora could tell the people of Mitchell’s world did not use things like swords in battle so it made sense that he wouldn’t have the build of someone who had been swinging a blade or battleaxe from a young age.

Still, he was pleasing to look at, she had noted. Thick, dark brown hair cut short, a strong jaw and sharp nose. As she had gotten closer, she also noticed his eyes, which were a dazzling shade of sky blue that she had been immediately drawn to. He had a kind face, she thought. His voice was gentle and his movements sure and confident. He didn’t move like a fighter, but he moved like someone comfortable in their own body. She had spent enough time training with tutors and educating others as she’d gotten older that she knew he would take to fighting well with the proper instruction. And she also couldn’t quite suppress the tingle she had felt inside as she imagined his shoulders, chest, and back filling out as he learned the martial skills he would need to survive in Tewadunn. Almost against her will, she had envisioned massaging the sore muscles in his back as she helped him recover after a day spent sparring. A blush had flared in her cheeks and she was nearly at a loss for words when he finished his conversation on the little device and it was time for her to approach him.

She had used a weakened charm spell to ensure a successful introduction and he had invited her with him to watch that… moo-vee of the strange wingless dragon destroying the city and killing all of those people. It had been truly horrifying to see how much he had seemed to enjoy the spectacle, and she had been extremely relieved to hear that it was a fiction.

Allora also recalled the joy that he took in explaining the strange food to her, and the memory brought a small smile to her lips. It had been so wonderful, too! She’d never tasted anything like it. The combination of the meat, bread, cheese, and other things on it had been a marvel to her tongue. Especially after days and days of fruit that she’d managed to acquire, not always through honest means.

Mitchell had been so earnest as they talked. She had almost imagined that she could be just a regular girl with him at that inn or theater, or whatever it had been. No mission, no Awen, no one hunting her. She could just be a girl out with a handsome boy with eyes like the spring sky over the Shadow Glenn. But then Allora had felt the dagger press into her hip while they spoke, and she remembered that she could not be that girl. She could never be that girl. At that moment, she had hated it all. She was so very tired of running and hiding; of fighting every moment of every day. But Allora had a mission.

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“Do your duty in all things,” her father had told her often when she complained of the strenuous training and study she had gone through as a child. “You cannot do more, but you should never wish to do less.”

Allora wished she were the one laughing with Mitchell. She saw how he smiled at Lethelin when they chatted so freely in the cart. She wanted to be the one back there enjoying pleasant conversation and hearing about life in his Fee-nix and laughing about the thief’s adventures in Varset. But every time she had wanted to join in and share some of her own tales of being a child in the palace or the mischief she got up to, she found she didn’t know how to. Then there was the fear of getting too close to Mitchell or even the dock rat, lest she have to–

Allora’s mind rebelled hard against that thought, and she shuddered involuntarily. Unbidden, the memory Davry’s wide eyes suddenly filled her mind as her blade had pierced his heart. He hadn’t even looked hurt, merely shocked. He had died almost before the mortal wound had registered. And she’d run. Left him there in that abandoned farm building.

Allora felt her eyes begin to moisten, and she squeezed them shut to ward off the tears. What she’d done had been necessary. It had been her duty. Knowing that didn’t stop the ache in her heart, though. And if she allowed herself to feel for Mitchell and it came to that once more… Allora didn’t think she would have the strength to do that. Not again. Not to him.

But she was so very tired of being alone.

Allora hated having to push him away. She could see how desperately he was trying to bridge the divide between them. She carried the small touches and quiet moments they shared together like talismans in her heart. Her memories were still cloudy but she could remember how much her rejection in the foothills had hurt him. How much she had wanted to tell him that none of this meant anything without him, too. She had wanted to tell him how much she loved and honored him. That she was immensely proud of the progress he had made and how she stood in awe at his determination and his will to keep pushing forward, even when he was walking blindly into nearly everything. And he was doing it all for her.

Allora’s chest went tight at that thought. She struggled to draw breath and she felt an ache in her nose that always meant she was close to crying. Knowing what Mitchell was putting himself through every day made her feel unworthy of his affection. She was no fool, she knew how Mitchell felt about her. But if she failed again. If she lost him…

Lethelin’s giggle came through the door again and Allora suddenly felt rage fill her. Rage she had not known since the first days after the coup. It should be her in there! Not instead of Lethelin, but with her. With Mitchell! Didn’t she deserve happiness, too? Hadn’t she suffered enough? Where was it written that she must deny herself even life’s most simple pleasures? She could die at any time. She may well be lying in this bed because she had nearly died. She still didn’t know where she was or why. What if she died without telling Mitchell how she felt? She did not want to meet Denass with that shame on her heart.

She would not.

“Enough, now,” Allora said quietly. She found she was almost scared to say it. Then again, more forcefully. “Enough, now.”

She sniffed, took in a deep breath, and got control of herself. Well and truly enough.

Allora knew she needed to get up and get moving. Wherever they were, she doubted that Mitchell and Lethelin had managed to save Awenor while she was unconscious, so that meant there was work still to do. She was about to rise when she felt a weight between her legs pressing the blanket down. She shifted and then there was a huff from under the blanket and something moved.

Allora froze. There was something in the bed with her. She saw then that she was covered by two different blankets. Whatever it was seemed to be between the two. She looked around for one of her blades but didn’t see them. The thing between her legs shifted again, and she heard a long sigh and a hot breath on her left knee.

Carefully, Allora lifted the top blanket and exposed the space between her legs. Curled up there was a small dragon. Its red and blue iridescent scales glimmered in the mage lights as she revealed its full form. The creature had formed itself into a coil, its supple wings folded along its long body not unlike her blankets had been a moment before, and its head rested on its tail. As it came fully into view, one eye cracked open and gave her a baleful look.

It was a pseudodragon, she now saw, not a true wyrmling. She had never seen one before but had heard about them often enough. That it was here helped to allay some of her fear about their fey patron. Pseudodragons would not pact with evil creatures. Then again, the fey sometimes had motivations and desires so alien to mortals that describing them as evil might not even apply.

Allora had only ever seen one fey in her life when it had come waltzing into the palace and through all the layers of guards like it was on a walk through a garden. Spells and weapons simply glided off the creature like water over a river stone, and it had hardly seemed to pay the warnings and attacks any mind. Their efforts were little more than a breeze ruffling the Fey’s hair. It had ignored everyone, strolled aimlessly through the halls until it came to a large tapestry hung in one of the lesser banquet halls, took out a notebook, jotted down something and looked like it had made a sketch, then simply vanished.

No one had known what to make of their fey visitor, but it hadn’t hurt anyone, nor done any damage, so everyone tried to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. Who knows what it could have done if it had wanted to, but it had seemed to regard the mortals scurrying around trying to stop it or talk to it as one might regard insects crawling about in the dirt.

But if their host had bonded with a pseudodragon then she probably wasn’t overtly evil.

“Hello, little one,” Allora said. Her voice sounded somewhat better after the water, but it was still scratchy. She wouldn’t be singing tavern songs anytime soon. “I am sorry to disturb you, but I need to get up. If you would be so kind.”

Pseudodragons were surprisingly intelligent, and she had no doubt it could understand her.

The creature closed its baleful eye and didn’t move for long enough that Allora wondered if it was going to ignore her, but then its wings began to straighten and flex. It unfurled itself and made a great show of stretching and sighing to let her know just how inconsiderate she was being before chuffing and jabbing the stinger at the end of its tail lightly into the meat of her thigh. Not enough to break the skin, but enough to let her know that it could have if it wanted to. It hopped lightly off her bed and then crossed over to the bed on the other side of the room and burrowed under the blankets there.

Allora couldn’t help but grin at the creature as she watched the bedding bulge and twist while it settled in.

Getting slowly to her feet, she wobbled before she could stand fully upright. Whatever had been wrong with her had sapped her strength, and Allora knew she was not fully recovered. There was nothing for it, though. One foot in front of the other, she told herself. One foot in front of the other gets you where you are going.

Allora approached the beads on silent feet and could still hear Lethelin and Mitchell talking quietly.

“This one is called the Viking.”

Allora had never heard that word before. Viking. He was mixing Common and his native language again. Engish or whatever it was called.

“See, it starts slow but gets higher on each swing.”

“Stollar’s balls!” Lethelin exclaimed at whatever Mitchell was showing her.

Allora peered through the beads and saw the two of them snuggled together on a large overstuffed chair. In his hand was the small communication device people on his world used. She hadn’t seen it since she’d dug it out of the chest of their belongings after freeing themselves from Ivaran all those weeks ago. He had told her it was dead. Allora hadn’t understood at the time how something that was never alive could be dead, but she got the impression that whatever functions it had on his world weren’t working on this one. It was a curious phrase. Apparently, it was dead no longer.

Allora felt that stab of pain in her gut at the sight of them so comfortable with each other. It wasn’t jealously, exactly. She didn’t want Lethelin off of him, even though she still didn’t trust the thieving little dock rat. Instead, seeing them so close reminded her once again of how lonely she was. It had been ages since anyone had held her like that. She wanted Mitchell to feel that at ease with her, as well. She wanted to see what a Viking was. She wanted to go where Mitchell had promised to take Lethelin if they ever traveled back to his world.

“Enough, now,” she whispered to the universe. “I deserve happiness, too.”

Without announcing herself she walked through the beads and into the larger living area.

Mitchell and Lethelin looked up at once, but whereas Lethelin pulled away from Mitchell so fast she almost jumped, Mitchell gave her a smile like the sun coming over the mountains.

“You’re awake!” Mitchell called out.

“Yes,” Allora responded simply.

She felt slightly guilty for having interrupted them. She found she didn’t know what to do with her hands and so crossed them in front of herself as if she were being scolded by the weapon’s master for not keeping her blades polished.

Mitchell got up from the chair and, before she could say anything else, closed the distance between them in three long steps and wrapped her in his arms, then lifted her up.

“Oh!” Allora cried out as her feet left the floor. She wasn’t very high off the ground as she and Mitchell were of a similar height, but he held her tightly. The human spun her around once, then set her gently to her feet but didn’t release her. Nor did she want him to.

“I was worried about you,” he said softly.

He was so close, she thought. His body was warm and strong, and he smelled clean. Despite herself, she felt her body lean into his and he welcomed her. Before she knew it, her head was resting on his shoulder, and she sagged against him.

Allora didn’t know where they were or what had happened, but at that moment she didn’t really care. Mitchell was okay and he was holding her. She closed her eyes and let him. Her arms encircled his waist, and he held her back.

Mitchell turned his head slightly and kissed her just above her ear. Then he whispered something in his own tongue that she didn’t understand. It sounded like lub-oo or something. His language was so strange. So many harsh consonants mixed in with smooth sibilant ones and strange vowel combinations.

“What?” she asked him, not moving her head.

“Nothing.”

Allora pulled her head away to find him smiling at her, almost sadly.

“Some other time.”

Allora wanted to press him. She didn’t understand the words but they felt important. She was about to ask again when suddenly, Lethelin was beside them, looking only slightly embarrassed.

“We have loads to tell you!” the thief said. “You won’t believe it!”

“If I could sit down first…” Allora said, feeling suddenly dizzy. It was just because her body was weak from her illness, she told herself. That was all.

Mitchell led her over to the sofa they’d been sitting on, and he sat next to her, throwing the blanket around her. Before she even realized what she was doing, Allora was snuggling into him and breathing in the scent of the forest that came off his freshly washed skin. Lethelin brought her a cup of tea and then sat across from her and Mitchell as they began to tell her everything that had happened since they’d left the village behind.

Lethelin had been right. Allora could hardly believe it.

***

Luvari sat down on the bed opposite of where Allora had just lain, smiling. Nix’s head poked up from under the blanket and she gave her a reproachful stare. She was the only one that could see or hear Luvari in her present state. A result of their bond.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I only gave her a little nudge. The poor thing was twisting herself into knots.”

Nix expelled some air from her nose.

“Why? It wasn’t her fault. The training those knights go through drives them to think only of their duty first and everything else second.”

Nix cocked her head and bumped her nose against Luvari’s leg.

“Well, so what? She would have done it anyway; she just would have tortured herself about it for a little while longer. She needs him. And he needs her just as much. And they’ll need the thief and the sorceress, too. The tension between the three of them is slowly strangling them and they can’t afford that any longer. Not if what I’ve seen is to come to pass. You know it as well as I do.”

Nix peered at Luvari, flicked her tail under the blankets, and then retreated back beneath them to continue her nap.

“Well, I wouldn’t have to lecture you if you would stop trying to disagree with me about things you already know to be true,” Luvari responded primly. “Go back to sleep. You are always contrarian when you’re tired. It makes you cranky. It’s unbecoming.”

Nix’s tail flicked again but Luvari chose not to rise to the bait.

In the living room, as the people of Mitchell’s world called it, she could hear Mitchell and Lethelin recounting their adventures from when they left the little mortal village at the base of the Peaks. Luvari never could understand why so many of the other Fey ignored the mortal races. To her, that path led to ennui. Mortal experiences were so vibrant and varied. They packed so much emotion and struggle into impossibly short lives that Luvari didn’t know how they got anything done at all from all the stress of it. What must it be like to be a mortal? She had wondered that often enough over her timeless existence.

If she wanted to die, she could always return to Mitchell’s world. And maybe she would one day. It would take awhile but, she reasoned, there were worse places to end one’s life. After all, they had Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. A confection so sinfully delicious that she almost couldn’t believe such a magically dead universe could make such a thing. Yes, dying there wouldn’t be such a bad thing. A novel experience. She wondered what came after that. But the answer to that riddle would have to wait for another day.

“It was a little terrifying,” Mitchell said. “You were glowing and impossibly strong. You were sucking the life out of me or something.”

“Probably sucking out all your mana,” Lethelin speculated before turning to the elf. “Oh! And I got to hit you in the head with a cudgel. A big one!”

“Leth, you said you wouldn’t gloat.”

“What?” Allora said, a note of anger in her voice.

“Don't flash your violet eyes at me! I was saving the monarch’s life,” the thief shot back defensively. “You should thank me!”

Luvari grinned. So much emotion. It must be exhausting. And exhilarating.

“Goodbye for now, Mitchell Allen.” Luvari said quietly into the empty room. She could taste his first name on her tongue and through that she could also taste Mitchell’s mother, and her mother before her, and on down through the centuries of his world. She savored the sensations. She had a piece of him now and it would be hers forever.

“I’ll be seeing you again. But do take care. Your troubles are only just beginning.”

Nix poked her head up from beneath the blankets when she felt the bed shift. She looked around the now empty bed chamber and expelled another blast of air through her nose in a most indignant manner. Then she pulled her head back and slept once more.