Zach shifted position a bit, giving Des better access to the fire’s heat. It hardly seemed to matter whether they were in quite a lot of contact. They’d slept cuddled together with the others for a couple of weeks, and besides, the warmth felt good. To himself, at least, he’d admit that the friendly contact did too.

While JC, Charity, and Jo quietly kept working on food preparation and Vanessa went out to gather a few things they wanted, an enthusiastic conversation was happening in the middle of the floor.

The two woodland faelings had left. The pair who had been sleeping had woken up and eaten, after which they had been persuaded by Jo to be on Kayla’s list before wandering off. Callie, after yawning with increasing frequency, had conceded that she was tired and had excused herself for a nap, although she’d chosen to sleep here instead of over in her own room.

The foxes remained, and another faeling had arrived with a pair of fish in hopes of a meal. She’d rapidly overcome her nervousness. Just as well, because she was pretty much completely Emma’s opposite: she glowed, not hypnotically like the wisps, but with a constant gentle light that obscured other details. Zach wasn’t sure what was under the light, if anything at all. The colour seemed to change with her mood, but she could also control it consciously. Zach had seen her fishing one night, wading into the water and dimming her body while brightening the light around her hands so the fish came to investigate. That made it relatively easy for her to scoop them up with a wisp-silk net to take them to shore and then club them on the head with a rock.

Which meant that currently, Kayla was part of a ring consisting of all three foxes, Emma who had apparently decided to take Kayla at her word that the inability to see her clearly wasn’t a problem, and the light fae. The conversation was fast-paced and highly animated, and the subject kept changing, as the subjects of casual comfortable conversations normally did.

*Everything okay at that end?* Alison asked.

*Yes,* Zach said. *Kay’s making friends. That’s gotta be a good thing. Not everyone is so dead-set against humans that they can’t see her as she is.*

*Good. And yes, the more who like her, at least enough to be open-minded, the better the immediate future is likely to go. It may not do much to get them trusting Riley or our other humans, but it’s a foot in the door. Theo’s fretting a bit, worrying about her after that attack and all, but if she’s making friends, that’s important. And the sort of thing Theo can relate to. Who’s there?*

*The fox trio, currently,* Des said. *Right now they’re telling Kayla all about how they played a trick on that big troll guy that led to him rolling down a hill into a stream. They seem very flattered that she’s laughing and cheering in the right places. Also, Shine, who just finished telling Kay how she climbed up as high as she could along one of the edge cliffs and found an empty cave. And before that Emma described stealing a handful of things they needed right out of the house at night.*

*They remind me of kids,* Zach said. *A bunch of adolescents with an appreciative adult audience.*

*To be fair,* Alison said, *we don’t know how old they were when they were grabbed. They might not know. I’m devoutly hoping that no one on this island was still a kid when they were kidnapped.*

*Unlikely,* JC said. *There are contradictions in the descriptions of what it takes to wake fae blood up completely, whether you need a second flare of the same nexus or a blessing from a full fae or both or something else—honestly, I’m not sure anyone’s completely clear or that it’s the same for everyone—but I don’t think it’s very probable for an actual child. Nexi flare at regular intervals but that’s usually at least twenty years and most of them are longer. A full fae might do a full blessing on a child, I suppose, but what I found suggests that they usually want at least some sort of reason or excuse, and blessings at birth are a fairy tale invention. Also, I’m not sure Isabel and all would bother kidnapping kids, it probably wouldn’t be worth the extra complications to have a group of kids around.*

Zach figured it was no more productive than it would be comfortable to speculate about what Isabel and company would consider a good cutoff age. “No kids” was good enough.

Des twisted away, out of contact—Zach felt like protesting, but belatedly, he picked up on the same trigger: Kayla had broken off in mid-sentence. He sat up too, and found her rubbing at her arms, her expression rather bemused.

“It’s way too early for Riley and all to be back,” Kayla said. “But the Gate just opened. And it was only for a couple of seconds, way too short for anyone to come through. Wrong number?”

*Ali!* Zach said. *Kay says the Gate opened for a couple of seconds. Can you go check it out?⁠*

*What? Going! Erica? Heading for the Gate, Kay says it opened very briefly. Keep an eye out here, okay?*

“I think we’d better go check it out,” JC said. Zach could feel her frown, even though there was nothing to see.

“Agreed,” Kayla said. “I’m sorry, guys, this has been fun, but if someone is using the Gate without our knowledge, we need to figure out what’s going on. Um, I apparently have a sensitivity to wizard magic that means I can feel it as static with hot or cold or tingles, that kind of thing, against my skin. I know how the Gate feels.”

“Then of course you should go,” Jo said briskly. “It’s not as though we’re very far away.”

“I could come,” Emma said, shyly. “It sounds as though you’re going to have a lot of people to feed and look after. Um, unless they’ll be afraid of me, since I suppose they can’t see me properly either...”

“I think it would be okay,” Kayla said gently. “As long as you can be a little patient with involuntary reactions until they get used to everything. Our friends are going to do their best to be sympathetic but four of them have even less experience with faelings and all than I do.”

“Of course I can do that. I remember being pretty freaked out when my friends and I changed. Hmm... one’s a water fae and can’t really leave her lake, I should visit her soon and tell her what’s happening.” She sighed. “The other one’s a green fae and she won’t talk to us very often any more.”

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“That’s sad,” Kayla said.

“She was never really a social person anyway. She got along with me and Lynn okay, but she was only really into environmental activism. So it isn’t a huge surprise. But I wish she’d at least check in now and then. She could vanish and we’d never know. Or Lynn or I could.”

“No you can’t,” Zach said. “No one else ends up in Phrixos’ fucking lab.”

“Oh, right... sorry.”

“It may take a little time for that to sink in completely,” Jo said. “It’s been a fact of life for as long as we’ve been here. But we’ll adjust, just like your friends.”

“We should go,” JC said. “Emma, I’d love to have the help.”

Zach untangled the rest of the way from Des and stood up. “Fingers crossed for no adventures on the way.”

“Since Emma can ban anyone from here and they know it,” Jo said, “that’s unlikely. For that matter, JC can, but since fewer of them are familiar with our newest house fae, that will be less effective.”

JC stopped moving at all for what Zach figured was easily three full seconds. “You hardly know me.”

“Enough to know that, under other conditions, you’d have found your way here to join us,” Charity said. “Jo’s right, you’re one of us.”

“But I...”

Zach traded looks with Des, and the latter rolled her eyes.

“Jace,” Des said in exasperation, tail swishing. “Say thank you. Accep’ fren’ship.”

“Thank you,” JC said quietly.

“Okay, kids,” Kayla said briskly. “Jo has my notebook, we’re leaving the cookies here, so we’re heading back empty-handed. Let’s go, everyone up. I want to know what’s going on back at the Gate.”

With Emma present, they wouldn’t be able to just tell Kayla whatever Alison found out. It seemed like a reasonable trade-off: it would probably be good for JC on many levels to have another house fae around, for one thing. She might also be an extra voice in reassuring alarmed faelings that the world hadn’t ended a second time.

They did make excellent time, though, especially since they weren’t pausing to admire or explore the local terrain the way they had been on the way out. Kayla didn’t have the strength or endurance of a faeling, but she was in reasonably good shape; they let her set the pace, without making an issue of it, but that pace wasn’t so slow as to be frustrating for her companions.

Of course, she wanted to get back quickly, too.

Conversation was mostly limited to JC and Emma talking about what was going to need doing. Zach wasn’t sure how Heather or the others would feel about a couple of house fae insisting on taking care of laundry and cleaning the cottages along with making meals, but there was no point bringing that up now. With any luck, it would be possible to get across just how deep the need to be what they were really ran.

Heat senses, but not regular vision, focused abruptly on something the size of a housecat that bent the grass in a narrow track to either side as it passed, a short distance away.

“What the hell is that?”

Des had stopped as well, ears swivelling and tail twitching.

One hand dropped to her waist and jerked free the knot that held her sarong as a skirt, so the folds of spotted yellow fabric fell out of her way.

Then the cat dropped to a crouch, gliding towards the moving mystery with impressive control and grace—in perfect silence, each furred paw coming down with care. She avoided the scattering of twigs and fallen leaves, and even the grass failed to rustle as she stalked her target. How a bipedal humanoid body could move like that probably would give some people an aneurysm, but it looked to Zach like the most natural thing in the world for Des to do. It was just... Des being Des. Cats hunted. It was that simple.

Zach stayed ready, in case it turned out to be more of a handful than expected and Des needed backup.

JC, meanwhile, stepped between Kayla and Des’ quarry; Emma looked a bit puzzled, but hovered close, alertly.

“What is it?” JC asked.

“Dunno,” Zach said bluntly. “Can’t see it but it’s warmer than its surroundings. And it’s moving. On the ground.” He gestured with both hands to give them a rough idea of the size.

“I don’t know of anything that could be,” Emma said.

“Give Des a sec,” JC said. “I don’t know whether she can see it but she can hear it. We should have it in no time.”

“I don’t like this coincidence of timing,” Kayla muttered.

Neither did Zach. Was the thing a trap of some kind?

Des crouched lower, muscles tensing, black fur shining in the sunlight.

Her pounce was over so quickly that Zach wasn’t sure any of the others had even been able to track it.

Des straightened, holding at arm’s length something that looked vaguely like a tadpole or possibly even a sperm, one end bulbous and rounded, tapering to a narrow blunt point, but it was as long as her forearm. The colour kept changing, now the green of the fresh grass, now darkening to match Des’ arms, as it thrashed and writhed.

“I have never seen anything like that,” Emma said flatly. “I’ve never even heard anyone talk about anything like that.”

“Better get Niko to look,” Zach said grimly.

“Kill?” Des asked. “No’ think I can hol’ long.” She was using both hands, now.

“I assume there’s no way that’s any kind of faeling,” Kayla said.

“I really don’t think so,” Emma said. “I’ve never seen a faeling who wasn’t at least roughly humanoid. I mean, four arms, or a tail instead of legs, those are fairly extreme.”

Zach eyed the distance, took a couple of steps closer, and turned forty-five degrees so he could snap his tail around and into the squirming thing. He felt that odd little spasm of the muscles in his tail—it actually started farther up than he would have expected, and rippled swiftly down to the end.

The captive immediately went rigid.

“Thanks,” Des said, and picked up her sarong to wrap the odd creature in.

“I wonder whether that’s what came through the Gate,” Kayla mused. “It seems pretty unlikely that it opened the Gate alone, though. So why is it here? Des, you’re fast. Instead of waiting, why don’t you take it to Niko right now? We’ll go via the Gate and see if there’s anything there to see.”

Des hesitated. “No’ wan’ leave you.”

“I’m sure two house fae and a dragon can keep me safe and Zach knows the way well enough. It’s fine. I’d rather Niko had that thing before it can wake up, and the sooner he has it, the sooner he can tell us what the fuck it is. Please, Des?”

Des heaved a sigh. “Be safe.” She picked up the pace considerably, loping off into the woodland.

“Also,” Kayla said, “since we don’t know how long it will stay paralyzed, it’s probably best in our resident almost-wizard’s hands. Okay, kids, Gate to look for any evidence, and then we’ll go see what Niko thinks.”