“You’re sure you don’t want to just go meet Neela and Born?” Tel asked as they stepped out of the fourth merchant’s shop they’d been to that day.

“I don’t trust them,” she said, arms crossed and her finger tapping on her bicep.

“Well of course not,” Tel said. “But you heard what they said. They know…” he stopped and looked around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. The afternoon street was relatively quiet, likely because of the light rain, but he still stepped closer to the wall under the protective overhang above. “They know where the enclave is. We don’t have to go around like this and use a pass phrase that I don’t even know is still valid.”

“We’ve got a few hours until their invitation to tell us more. Let’s at least use the time to see what we can figure out on our own,” Shara said, looking down the street to their left and her eyes locking on something. “And either they are having us followed, or somebody else is.”

“What?” Tel asked, his head instantly snapping in the direction she was looking.

Shara sighed, reaching up to grab his chin and turning his face to look at hers. “Let me worry about the people following us, and if they’re a threat. You just focus on finding that enclave so we don’t need Neela.”

“What if she really knows about where your mother is?” Tel asked. “Or why the emblem on the back of your stopwatch was at that building in the woods? Or what those portals even are? They could answer so many questions!”

“Maybe, but we don’t really know what their motives are. They might not even be who they say they are,” Shara countered, letting her hand drop away from his face.

“Why wouldn’t they be? What do they have to gain by lying to us?” Tel asked.

“Tel,” Shara said, uncrossing her arms. “If they saw us in the woods, they saw your weapon. Maybe they want that.”

“Then they would’ve tried to take it in the woods,” Tel said. “No reason for this ploy, if it’s a ploy at all.”

“We don’t know what they’re hiding from us,” Shara said.

“And we’ll never know unless we let them tell us,” Tel said, and Shara reached up to pinch her nose between her fingers. “And speaking of hiding, what about what you are hiding from me?”

Shara’s eyes snapped up to look at him.

“When were you going to tell me your aunt was the Insurmountable?” he asked.

Shara’s eyes softened, and she leaned back against the wall of the store they’d just left. “I’m surprised you even know who she is.”

“Shara, I may have literally been living under a rock for the last five years, but even I know who the most famous sorcerer in the world is,” Tel said. “She’s a legend, to say the least. Her magic… it… it… I really want to study it! The rumors say she can’t be beaten, at anything. By anybody. She’s even killed Tailcoats,” he finished with the last part in barely a whisper.

“Yeah, she’s real special,” Shara said flatly.

“Ah,” Tel said, leaning against the wall beside Shara. “You blame your aunt for your mother’s disappearance.”

Shara turned just her head along to the wall to look at him. “I don’t…” she said, but stopped, just the sound of the rain pattering on the cobblestones filling the silence. For a long minute she looked at him, and Tel didn’t do anything to hurry her along. “You might be too smart for your own good sometimes, you know?” she finally said.

“That’s been mentioned to me once or twice,” he agreed.

“And apparently not nearly modest enough,” she said with a single raised eyebrow.

“Also mentioned,” he said. “What happened with your mother and your aunt, Shara?”

“You want me to tell you about that when you don’t want to share about the orphanage?” she countered.

Tel pushed against the door in his mind, but he couldn’t completely close it anymore. That voice was always there, judging him. Reminding him… what he’d done.

“And you don’t have to tell me about it, Shara. But,” he trailed off to look down as he scuffed at the road with the toe of his boot. “But, I don’t have a lot of friends… and even though we’ve only been together a few days, I’d like to think you’re one of them.”

“You only feel that way because I saved your life. More times than I can count. Literally,” Shara said, but that soft smile was back on her face.

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“While I’m sure that’s part of it, it’s not everything. I do consider you a friend. And, I’m not very good at much…”

“…but I can listen, if you want to talk,” he finished, ignoring the voice. Whether it was right or not, it didn’t matter – it was better he was this way now.

“Maybe it is better if you hear it from me instead of Neela,” Shara said, keeping her head against the wall, but her eyes down the street where she said she’d seen somebody following them. “Yes, my aunt is who they said she is, the Insurmountable. And, yes, she really is special. Actually, that’s an understatement. Her magic isn’t flashy, it’s simple, and pretty much anybody with an ear knows what it is.”

“She’s better,” Tel said.

“Yup. Her magic makes her better, just a bit, than everybody around her. Faster than the fastest runner near her. Smarter. A better fighter. No matter who she’s up against, or how good they are at whatever they’re doing, she’s simply better. Sports, puzzles, combat, it doesn’t even matter the subject. If she needs to win, her magic gives her the edge.

“It doesn’t automatically make her win, she still need to work for it, and she has the scars to show it, but it gives her the advantage.

“It also makes her an absolute nightmare to try to impress or live up to,” Shara said. “She taught me to fight, and really, if I’m honest, there’s no better teacher in the world. And, maybe I didn’t outright disappoint her, but the only person she ever respected was my mother. Sometimes I think she only took the time on me because her sister asked her to.”

“What is your mother’s magic?” Tel asked.

Shara looked away from Tel, then back at him and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen it.”

“But you’re sure she’s a sorcerer?”

“Oh yeah. Not a single doubt in my mind. Auntie knows what her magic is, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

“Does it have something to do with why your mother left?”

“Don’t think so,” Shara said. “It might, but Auntie wouldn’t talk about it. Every time I asked, she told me to train harder. That, when I was ready to know, she’d tell me.”

“Aaaaaaaaah,” Tel said, the pieces clicking together.

“What’s aaaaaaaah?” Shara asked him, her eyes narrowed.

“I understand why you don’t want Neela to tell you where your mother is. It’s been bugging me, why you didn’t want to go for the easy answer, but now I know why,” Tel said.

“Oh? Why don’t you share?”

“Because you don’t want anybody to tell you. You want to find her yourself,” Tel said.

Shara blew out her breath slowly as an older couple walked past, arm in arm. Both with grey hair, the man held an umbrella that really only covered the woman beside him, his entire other arm already soaked through. Still, despite the rain, they had wide smiles on their faces, and even stopped to playfully splash in a puddle. Well, as much as two people that old could really playfully do anything.

“It’s the only puzzle I haven’t been able to solve myself, you know?” Shara finally said when the couple stepped into a shop across the way, the man shaking out his umbrella before vanishing in behind his wife. “I begged Auntie to tell me for the longest time, but it was always back to training. Finally, I figured I’d just have to do it myself.

“That was when I hit the road.”

“With a mission to save useless Clocksmiths?” Tel asked.

“You’re not useless, Tel,” she said, looking at him again. “I wouldn’t put any money on you when it comes to riding, you really are terrible at that, but back there in the woods? Under that kind of pressure? You came through.”

“Only because I had you watching my back,” Tel said, an unfamiliar warmth in his chest and rising up his neck. “We make a good team.”

“Yeah… yeah, we do,” Shara said, something else in her voice. Distraction? Sadness? Regret?

Tel opened his mouth to ask Shara what she was feeling, but paused at the voice in his head. Insulting, demeaning, threatening, sure, Tel was used to those things. He deserved those things. But, snarky? No, that was far worse. The door had been open too long. As soon as they found the enclave, he needed to bury himself in work until the door was fully closed again.

If it stayed open much longer, if too much more of what he’d locked away bled through…

Fire crackled all around, the heat of it pushing on him like a physical thing, and embers floating through the air to mix with the pink butterflies. Screams of pain, gurgles of death, and bodies on the ground. Something fast and deadly moving between the trees, glinting silver. The flash of a blade in front of eyes glowing black…

No! No! Push it back in.

Tel stepped out from under the overhang and turned his face up to the falling rain, shockingly cool after the vivid memory of the fire’s heat. Standing there, just standing there while the few people on the street weaved around him, he forced himself back into the moment. Into the now. Into who he was. Who he chose to be.

“You okay there?” Shara asked, not following him out into the rain.

“Sorry,” Tel said. “Just realized I haven’t felt the rain on my skin in years. Don’t know what came over me,” he added, then stepped back out of the rain, a hand pushing his mop of wet hair out of his face. “You were saying you hit the road. Have you been following your mother ever since?”

“Clues of her, yeah,” Shara said, one eyebrow raised at him as small rivulets of water ran down his face. Good thing he kept everything important in waterproof pockets.

“What kind of clues?”

“Anything I can find, or pay for. It… hasn’t been cheap. Information brokers don’t work for free. Not even for a pretty girl like me,” she said, clearly affronted by the fact.

“Oh, so the job to come to my enclave, you were doing that for the money to pay for more information?” Tel asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Shara said.

“Are… are you still going to get paid, after what happened?” Tel asked. He was the only survivor, and nobody in their right mind would pay for his life. They wanted people like Grund to make it out of there.

“I’m working on a backup plan,” she answered.

“Well, if there is anything I can do to help, anything at all, just ask,” he said. He had money, and quite a bit of it too, but something told him outright charity wasn’t what Shara wanted. She was trying to prove to herself, not anybody else, that she could do what she put her mind to.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Tel,” she said. “Like you were saying, we make a good team. But, one thing at a time. Any more shops we can ask about the enclave here?”

“A few,” he said. “Next one shouldn’t be far. Can you tell me more about your mother on the way?”

“Sure, if you want, but only after we get something to eat. I’m starving.”