Tanya and her grandfather stood together, staring down a wounded Sylvanandra.

"You can both relax," the elf sorceress said. "I lost, fair and square."

"You wouldn't care about that if you weren't bound by an oath," Tanya said.

"True. But I am, so you win. I've got to go back to Europe and tell Taliesin Cromlaire what happened here. You know we'll be back eventually, right? Especially if you're bullshitting about the ring..."

"We'll be much better prepared next time and you know it. Attacking us again would be impractical. Besides, I'm not lying about the ring." Dr. Myrden adjusted his sleeves. "I'm a quack, not a liar."

"No, but there's something you're not telling us." Sylvanandra turned away and walked into the forest. "But fine, fine, you win for today. Go ahead and have you victory party. It feels like half of you have already started."

"What do you mean?" Tanya blinked.

"I MEAN YOUR FRIENDS ARE BANGING!" The elf sorceress turned back and shouted. "AND I CAN SENSE IT BECAUSE SHADOW MAGIC! YOU KNOW, ALL THE BANGING!"

"Alright yes fine," Tyra groaned, hanging her head in her hands. "You've made your point, please just go away now."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"YOU WANT ME TO STOP TALKING ABOUT THE BANGING? BECAUSE THEY'RE BANGING!"

"Stop," Dr. Myrden said. Sylvanandra laughed and walked off into the forest, disappearing into the shadows. When she was gone, he turned back to his daughter.

"You were really impressive tonight," he told her.

"I was barely scraping through." Tanya was glad her father had decided to just ignore the comments about bang--dammit, now that deranged elf had HER doing it! "I only came out here in the first place because..."h

"Because I've been ignoring you."

"I wasn't going to say that."

"No but it's true. I've been ignoring you. You were always so independent, I forgot you needed help too. So forgive me, and I'll try to do better."

He put his arm around her, and she leaned into him.

"Thanks dad."

There was a moment of silence.

"For a second I thought you were going to say something about..."

"I wouldn't, let the touching moment happen."

Kyle and Jenny sat together, looking up at the stars.

"So that was a weird day," Jenny said.

"Not really lately," Kyle laughed.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"No don't be," Kyle said. "There's been more than enough good stuff to balance out all the life threatening peril. And it's not like the wish made Sylvanandra and this group she belongs to exist, right?"

"No, it doesn't work like that. Wishes manipulate existing reality, they can't create people or places that didn't exist before. The wish probably gave you all that magic though, and everyone else. Well, most of them."

"There you go then," Kyle shrugged. "Something like this would be happening anyway. Someone would have to deal with it. I do wonder though, about the other two people."

"Ohh, the other two wishes!" Jenny said. "Yeah I have no idea. No way to tell unless something really obvious happens."

"Yeah. See? There's a lot of this we can't know. And there's a lot we can't control. But in the forest before, I decided to try and control what I can. I think I need to get stronger, Jenny. A lot stronger."

"You're pretty strong already. You beat the elf."

"I'm not that strong. We got lucky. She was playing around, Dr. Myrden tricked her into that oath, a few lucky hits...if she'd come at us seriously from the start, it would have all been over. I want...I want peace, and happiness, that's all I want really. But if I'm going to keep it I need to be at least as strong as Sylvanandra. And it sounds like her boss is even stronger."

Jenny slid close to him, hugging his arm.

"Okay. I'll help."

The two of them sat together for a long while, staring up into the stars.