After Valerie fed Amelia breakfast in her room and helped her dress into the temple-provided clothes, a small voice called to them from outside the room.

When she opened the door, the hallway was empty.

“Ready to go?” The chipper voice spoke from thin air.

“A mouse!” Amelia squealed. “It’s so cute!”

On the ground, being scooped up with a look of feigned exasperation, was indeed a mouse. In armor, with a rapier smaller than a skewer belted around its middle. That could talk.

After letting Amelia pet him for a few moments, the mouse — the mouse — reprimanded her. “Young lady, I don’t mind, but you should ask a mouse before picking him up.”

“Oh, sorry, sir Mouse.” She quickly bent over to let him down.

“It’s Elro. Elro, Mouse Knight, at your service.”

“You’re a mouse.” Valerie said at last.

“...yes. Didn’t Paladin Light inform you that I’d be escorting you?”

At no point had she been told to look out for a talking rodent. Though, thinking back, earlier in the morning when she’d been led by a young priest through the halls to Paladin Light, there had been the occasional rodent running in the shadows of cast by the walls.

She’d assumed the critters to be a natural consequence of medieval people storing food unrefrigerated in a drafty building.

She hadn’t assumed they were members of the clergy. What sane person would? But it seemed sanity went unrewarded in this world. She supposed she had a leg up in that regard.

“I see. You’ve never met a mouse before. We do tend to keep to ourselves outside of Rhine. I’ll be on my best behavior. Always am, of course, otherwise the wife gives me an earful.” The mouse chuckled.

“Not a talking mouse.”

Elro’s tiny mouth curled into a grimace. “That would be a rat,” he said in a low voice, “or a mouse who wasn’t feeling sociable. All mice talk. Please keep that in mind. Many mice here would take offense at such slurs, even from a Paladin-appoint.” The mouse straightened and resumed a cheery expression. “Now, if we’re ready, let’s go!”

Well, if there were magic and monsters in this world, how much of a stretch was it for mice to talk? The red sun was far stranger.

Although he’d said, “Let’s go,” the mouse hadn’t moved and continued to stare at her expectantly. She stared back. She had no idea where to go. It was a tossup whether she remembered how to exit the temple.

“Um, I’ll be directing you from atop your shoulder,” Elro said, raising a bead-sized paw into the air. “The streets are dangerous. Horses never look where they’re stepping, dumb brutes. Not to mention the dogs.”

“Ah.” Valerie began to reach down but stopped midway. “Did you say I need to ask for your permission?”

“Ah. Yes, thank you. A good example for the girl.” The mouse cleared his throat. “Please pick me up.”

A talking mouse riding on her shoulder. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Mouse Knight Elro escorted them — and by escorting, he meant pointing the way from her shoulder — to Coleym Hill. She’d seen a little of the city last night on the way to the temple, but the Temple of Light resided near the edge, and close to the gate they’d entered. Walking from the Temple of Light to Coleym Hill took the pair directly through the center of Castia.

As incredible the sight of the city was, Valerie couldn’t help but focus on the sun. The red sun.

The red sun illuminated the city in fiery light, which bore discomforting similarities to the burning village last night. Viewed from a more positive perspective, it was as if this world’s days passed in permanent sunset. Beautiful, in a way, though Valerie suspected she’d get used to it. And the wan sunlight seemed to do little to offset the seasonal chill, she noted as she pulled her cloak tighter. Even the sun’s direct rays failed to recall a fraction of the warmth of Earth’s sun.

The marketplace they skirted around interested Amelia much more, the thoroughfare widening into a large square filled with stalls selling jewelry, trinkets, clothes, and other various goods. In one conspicuously empty section, most of the stalls were unmanned and devoid of goods. The food section. The grassy area next to it, seemingly intended for farmers to set up carts and wagons as temporary stalls, was nearly deserted.

A couple of stalls at the edge of the food section were manned by knights, not merchants, and from the stalls, long lines snaked back into the marketplace.

Amelia wanted to go into the marketplace, but Valerie directed Elro to lead them around the edge. If the Coleym Hill orphanage turned them away, they’d need to trek across the city again to another orphanage. Who knew how long this would take? And Paladin Light had ordered her to return by noon.

Should she say something meaningful to Amelia? They hadn’t talked much, and this might be the last time they would see each other. It felt wrong, like the frayed end of a rope, to part without learning more about her.

No, it was better this way. Less painful.

Besides, Amelia barely spoke. She hadn’t asked questions when Valerie, after waking, feeding, and dressing her, had said that they were going for a walk. Last night, the girl had lost her family, watched them die, and nearly died herself. Anyone would be quiet.

On second thought, Valerie reversed direction, catching Elro by surprise, and led Amelia into the marketplace. Periodically glancing at the blood-colored sun rising in the sky, she let Amelia flit from stall to stall like a bee tasting flowers until the girl hovered at a stand that sold cloth dolls stuffed with straw. After being encouraged to pick one out, Amelia tugged on Valerie’s sleeve and pointed to a sky-blue horse.

No, this horse had a horn. A stuffed unicorn.

Dazed, Valerie handed over one of the silver coins Paladin Light had given her. Too much for the unicorn, judging by the reaction of the shopkeeper. Sophia’s face overlapped with Amelia’s, and memories flooded her mind. Watching as Ruben read a picture book to Sophia, seeing her face light up, giggling and laughing and pointing a pudgy hand at the unicorn. The screams of excitement as she unwrapped a unicorn on her third birthday. Amelia, clutching the blue unicorn to her chest. The pink unicorn she’d left in the glovebox of her car.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

The craziest thing occurred to her: unicorns could be real, here. Amelia could see one in the flesh one day. Could unicorns be ridden? By God, Sophia would’ve exploded with envy.

As the trio left the marketplace, Valerie was smiling.

Past the marketplace, Valerie noticed that a number of the buildings they passed were nearly identical, as if entire blocks had been developed through a mail-order house catalog with a limited selection. A clear, concerted, wide-scale renovation effort, in which function had been more important than aesthetics. The new buildings looked sturdier, with thick walls covered in the same earthy-red plaster as the temple, solid-looking window shutters, and heavy doors. With their boxy shape, they weren’t very attractive, but they weren’t distractingly ugly.

Once Valerie had overcome the red sun, she decided the city was too orderly. Too undisturbed for having accepted thousands of refugees last night and the gates being barred to all entry and exit. Although the city was building temporary shelters in common areas to house the majority of refugees, many had opted to stay with relatives or friends within the city last night. That meant the people of Castia had friends and family in the villages that were beyond the reach of both the city’s limited evacuation effort and Paladin Light’s desperate sortie. Friends and family who were missing, whom the people of Castia couldn’t contact, who, if they managed to survive, upon reaching the city might be barred entry. That the city was quiet might have been an indication of the tension in the city, but no windows were nailed shut in preparation for riots and looting. No groups of angry adolescents gathered in protest; no old men argued in the streets over the decision to close the gates. It was as if the people of Castia were all on the same page and were prepared to weather the hard times together.

As they walked up a long, sloping road that curved gently, stopping twice to let Amelia catch her breath, Elro had them veer off the street to a property with a stone wall and a wooden gate.

“This is it,” the mouse said in her ear. It made her neck itch, hearing a voice from literally over her shoulder. When she looked away, if she ignored the weight on her shoulder, she could forget that he was a mouse. Briefly.

A small sign hung on the gate. Coleym Hill Orphanage.

“I’ll stay here,” Elro said out of the blue, patting her shoulder with his paws. “You can put me down.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” Valerie asked. The street was empty. The buildings weren’t richly decorated like those in the area around the marketplace, but this area didn’t look like a slum. If the orphanage needed a guard, one would be posted out here.

Besides, how well could a mouse guard an entrance? He called himself a Mouse Knight, and he carried a sword, but … he was a mouse.

“I’d rather not, Paladin. Please.” There was a strangely desperate note in Elro’s voice.

A personal matter? No point in prying. “That’s fine. Let’s go, Amelia.”

On the other side of the gate, neatly trimmed grass led to a manor partially obscured by small trees. As they approached, the trees gave way to a yard with several young boys running around, laughing and shouting at each other.

This was a good place. A good home.

Noticing Valerie and Amelia approaching, two of the boys broke off and ran into the manor. The manor itself, made of gray stone and with steeply sloping roofs, wasn’t large, but several additional wooden buildings had been erected beside it.

“This is your new home,” Valerie said carefully. “Doesn’t it look nice?”

Amelia peered out from behind Valerie’s leg, curious brown eyes taking in the sights of the boys, the house, the yard. Valerie watched her closely. The girl didn’t seem opposed to the idea. She looked interested. Not crying. That was good.

An old woman with gray hair tied up in a bun and a wide face lined with wrinkles ambled with short steps down the stone pathway from the manor. When the woman reached them, Valerie was wearing her best smile.

“This is Coleym Hill Orphanage?”

“It is indeed. I’m Carer Nennata. I’d invite you inside, but I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. If you have a new arrival … ”

Nennata pointedly eyed Amelia. A little off-put, Valerie nodded, which elicited a heavy sigh from Nennata.

“When I started working here, I swore I’d never turn a child away. So, please, I hope you know that it hurts to tell you we can’t take any more in. I already have the children sleeping on beds in shifts. This morning, eight children have been brought by, the poor things. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them. The temples’ll try to feed them, but they’re stretched for money, same as we are. We’ve sent messages to the capital, and, gods willing, their orphanages will pick up the slack, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough.”

Valerie grimaced. Paladin Light had warned her of this, but she’d hoped that Amelia would be in the orphanage during the negotiations.

“I’ll cover her costs.”

The old woman’s demeanor brightened considerably. “Oh, in that case, we’d be happy to take her.”

Pouring the gold from the pouch into her hand, Valerie, realizing how it would look to the girl — it was as if Valerie were paying the woman to get rid of her garbage — glanced at Amelia. Wide, watery brown eyes stared back at her.

“You’re — you’re leaving me here?”

Oh.

Valerie berated herself. The girl was five; how could she be expected to figure it out on her own? No one had told her? Of course not. It had been Valerie’s responsibility to explain before they’d left the temple to prevent a scene here. It was just … she hadn’t found the right time. She’d been thrown off by the new city and its ridiculous red sun. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been ripped from her world and deposited into a burning village besieged by monsters. Any part of that was too much for a normal person to handle.

Fuck this twisted world for ripping her from her home, trying to kill her, and dumping this helpless crybaby into her lap.

“Where are you going? V-Val?” Amelia asked in a quivering voice.

“I’m not your mother, kid,” she snapped.

The girl burst into tears, and Valerie looked away. The old woman displayed that expression of condemnation that old women honed in their spare time.

In a few days, the girl would forget about her. She’d be happier here. Would that her parents hadn’t died, that her world weren’t so broken, that she could’ve had a happy childhood.

Some kind couple would come by and see her and love her and care for her.

“Come now, darling,” the old woman crooned, “Don’t cry. You’ll have lots of brothers and sisters to play with. They’re all happy to meet you! Smell that? There’s an apple pie in the oven!”

The old woman took Amelia’s hand, and Valerie pried her own hand free. The pair entered the orphanage, the old woman chattering, Amelia with her neck twisted backward, silently pleading. Valerie picked up the unicorn that Amelia had dropped, not sure what to do with it. The old woman returned alone and reached for the money hesitantly.

“I feel like a Thief, taking this money you know. I wish I could take care of all the children that come by. But we have limited beds, and the price of food’s going to skyrocket, with the gates being closed. I have to care for the ones I already have.”

Pushing the coins into the old woman’s wrinkled hands, Valerie nodded, wishing the woman would stop her inane chattering.

“Are you a relative? Friend of the parents?”

“No, I’m with the Order of Light. Found the girl in a village last night.”

The old woman nodded knowingly. “Some people just aren’t the mothering type. You lot do a lot of good in this city. The king’ll send the knights to help soon.”

The old woman couldn’t have struck Valerie harder if she’d used a baseball bat.

“I’m sure you’ll take good care of her,” Valerie said, trying to keep her face expressionless.

The old woman continued the conversation, but Valerie didn’t hear it as she left the orphanage. When she closed the gate behind her, she staggered and leaned against the wall for support. This reminded her of — of —

“Paladin-appoint?” Elro scurried up to her. “Are you all right?”

The words passed through Valerie’s ears. She clutched her chest, her hand over the pocket where she’d transferred the pieces of her photo. The last time they’d been happy together, where she smiled, on the beach, one arm around Ruben’s waist, one arm holding Sophia.

“By the Light, this is why I hate orphanages. Paladin-appoint? Paladin-appoint?”

And a young boy stood in front, cheeks straining from stretching his smile comically wide because he believed “bigger is better” applied to smiles.

Valerie, Ruben, Sophia — and Jack.