Cody blanked.

He reran her question in his head, sure his ears had heard her right, and all the same wishing they hadn't. Had Alina faked that curiousity? Was she now cackling in her celestial pocket as she listened in on the chatter he had been roped right into? What was he to do now? Fight her story? Flee? Fat load of use any of that was.

He slowly closed his book, opening his mouth to speak. But he blanked again. The words just weren't there.

He could tell Sariel was shuffling closer to try and see his reaction, the question hanging stale in the air.

"Sorry sir if I spoke too fast, been a problem. Asked if you're married-"

Cody burst, the first thing to enter his head flying right out of his mouth. "God's above." He retched, the dreadful pit in his stomach returning full force. He shot Sariel a cautious glare, reclaiming his space with a couple scooches of retreat. "You may very well be some undercover cog in Alina scheme here to punish me, but we met less than an hour ago." He grabbed his pendant, his woe now aimed more at the gem than anything. "This is not okay!"

"Alina?" Sariel straightened, "That who ya married to then?" Her gaze traveled to Hord'anne when Cody shook his head. "Or...?"

"I am not married, and I'm not getting married." He raised his hand as Sariel opened her mouth. "Please change the subject."

"Ah, sorry..." Sariel looked at Hord'anne with a friendly smile. "You married sir?"

Hord'anne shook his head.

"He said yes." Cody cut in, his lie flying right over Sariel's head.

"That's great! Say, you look like a hulking, beautiful beast of a monster slayer, what do you say about bein my boss Medila's husband?"

Hord'anne drew back, shaking his head and pointing at her.

"That's disgusting Hord'anne!" Cody scrunched his nose up, looking at Sariel with a grimace. "Your boss- patron is looking for a husband and sent you out to find one?"

"Nah, she wanted Corian, but I accidentally killed him. I'm just trying to substitute."

"Substitute?" Cody took on a sinister tone. "You're trying to substitute their husband?"

"Wasn't her husband yet."

"Their fiance. The love of their life... you killed them?" Cody held her gaze, waiting for a hesitant nod to continue prying. "And how has your patron taken that? Have you heard from them since?"

Sariel ate her next words, her shoulders dropping as Cody's words rang louder than they needed to. She cast her gaze to the fire, her brow scrunching as she examined the charcoal it sat upon. Finally, a weight dragged her eyelids down and she turned away to hug her knees. She didn't seem comfortable with the way the conversation had gone. "No, suppose not. She hasn't come back." She rested her chin on her knees, the rest of her words a sad mumble. "I've never been this far out either..."

Cody heard a soft growl from his left, glancing up at Hord'anne as the beast glared down at him. He let out a soft sigh.

The girl who called herself Sariel was confusing, but she still managed to keep good company. He could tell she was trying to be friendly, maybe a little too hard at times - but the smile was genuine. She called herself a warlock, and had named a patron. One too soft, or maybe too weak to have done anything serious about her misadventure. Still, he would be left a wreck if Alina paid him the silent treatment for more than a week. Her record had been three days of silence, and if Cody had hair to pull, it would have been half out by the time she finally accepted his apology.

Sariel could have been in a similar situation, and he was ashamed to have pried far enough to realise it.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"I pissed off my patron yesterday." He blurted, smiling as Sariel lifted her head. "Don't get me wrong. She's powerful, and plays her cards when crossed. I'd be dust where I stood if she had a husband and I somehow found a way to kill him. But... maybe this Medila will come around. Or you could find a new patron, a new boss to give you a boon."

"A new boss?"

Cody nodded. "A new boss."

Sariel stared at him, harder than she'd stared at Horse when he stole her apple slices, or Maddison when he offhandedly told her he liked dogs more than cats. Every connection in her brain was buzzing at full power, processing the sheer weight of the statement Cody had dropped on her. Medila was her boss, her boss until she told her someone else was. That's what Medila had told her. But Cody had seemed so confident in his response, as if it was something one should commonly know. He sounded just like Maddison at that moment. So matter of fact.

And Maddison was smart.

She scrunched her brow, squinting at Cody. "I can do that?"

"I mean it's harder if you gave them something really valuable to hold onto, like your soul. But I mean..." He shrugged, giving the campfire another stick to eat. "If they want nothing to do with you, find someone who does."

Sariel nodded, then tilted her head. "But how do ya know?"

"Know what?"

"If someone wants to do with you."

He shrugged, chuckling at Sariel's word choice. "It's just a feeling. Me and Hord'anne have been 'doing' with each other for years. We're pretty good pals."

Hord'anne nodded along to Cody's claim, his tail thumping behind him like an excited puppy.

"I've been doing Maddison for five days, and he yells sometimes, but he don't yell like Medila." Sariel replied, smiling at her words, but still pinching her hand nervously.

Cody frowned, but on the inside, there was a flicker of entertainment. "Maybe don't word it like that."

The next hour was spent tending to the meal. It was a young doe, but still required Cody to use some spell work for even cooking. Once he had the body cooked well enough to Hord'anne's tastes, he focused on the small chunks of meat he had left aside for himself and Sariel. He gave the sticks of meat a rub of spices before his final sear, hoping the seasoning was to Sariel's taste as he distributed one fresh and steaming kebab of deer meat to her.

Her muffled gasp of delight when she bit into it relieved his anxiety a little bit. She either really liked it, or was very good at pretending she did.

He gave her some time to chew down a couple of mouth-fulls, eyeing the roasted body that Hord'anne was casually munching on. He was definitely holding back his gluttony in front of Sariel.

"Did you catch this outside of the forest?"

Sariel shook her head, earning an odd look from Cody.

He looked down at the roasted deer, chewing it more slowly now. He had gathered some surface-level details of the fairy domain they were in. It was visually stunning, remote, and welcoming. He wouldn't dare to call it beckoning. If it was a trap, very few fairies had the patience to watch their prey for this long without screwing with them. Passive fairies were far more common. They set up their domains like little pop-up art exhibits. They thrived on the attention and awe they received when guests wandered in and beheld them.

But they were very organized about it. The entire domain was dusted with their magic. Beasts that could not be adored, or provide them with attention, were driven out. The ones they kept were pets. Like a deer. Cody twirled the stick of meat nervously, looking for magic. Hells, the deer could have been one of them.

He lowered the stick of meat, suddenly losing his appetite. Somehow he knew the answer to his question before it came out of his mouth. "And the fairies were okay with that?"

Sariel looked up at him, mouth filled with deer meat again. "Who're the fairies?"

Cody chuckled nervously, eyeing the quiet forest cautiously before turning back to Sariel. His hand had subconsciously moved to his spellbook. "The... fairies? The ones that live here. You haven't been approached?"

Sariel took a big bite of deer meat and shook her head. When she'd gotten the hunk down her throat she gave her mouth a rough wipe, offering the meaty bone to the familiar crow sitting beside her. "You two are the only people I seen up here."

Cody flinched when something buzzed by his ear. The little creature startling Hord'anne as it ducked under his arm and whizzed over the campfire.

Just as he was able to focus on it, the small creature flew up to Cody, steering back when it noticed the licking flames on his head. Flower petals were plastered to its hips as a sort of skirt, and its body was thin and stick-like, a scratchy yellowish green that glittered from its transparent wings. It chittered, raising a little splinter of wood that it had adorned as a spear. The weapon was clearly made in haste, the little fairy staring at Cody with wide black eyes.

His guess had been right. This fairy was a Klare Blume. They lived in colonies, mostly detached from the more powerful rings of fae and fairy-kind. Their queen had died in a time before books, oral stories passed down being the only evidence that they once held competence and power. The death of their queen had left them dumb and defenseless. They made art where they colonized, they died, and they were forgotten. But they were relatively harmless.

A greeting was just about to roll off his tongue when he saw a shadow pass over the fairy, Sariel shooting out like a cat to slap it downwards.

Straight. Into. The campfire.