“Well,” Nettal said from behind Addie. “That could have gone better. Are you hurting anywhere?”

“No,” Addie gasped out, suddenly feeling like she needed to sit down. “I don’t think I’m hurt.” She landed on her bum, the cold stone seeping through to her legs. She just needed to catch her breath.

Even though Addie said she was fine, Nettal still came over and laid a hand on her. Nettal’s eyes flashed green for a moment, causing Addie to feel a soothing warmth pulse through her body. Suddenly, she felt tired— no, she felt drained. Like she’d used up all her energy, and now she just needed to droop into the floor.

Nettal held out a hand, crouching down. “Come on, Addie. Let’s get out of this creepy church.”

From behind, Addie felt Squishy’s wet nose poke into her arm. “Come, Addie.”

Even Lotty seemed concerned; his bright, green-slitted eyes stared into Addie from beside Nettal.

Tentatively, Addie put her hand into Nettal’s. Her cousin’s hand was a bit bigger than hers, but that’s just because she was older. Addie was certain she’d grow more soon. She couldn’t be short forever!

With a small grunt of effort, Nettal helped Addie back to her feet. Still holding hands, the two girls exited the church, followed by their magical companions.

The bright light of day greeted them once again; the darkness from the church had almost made Addie forget it was still daytime. She had to squint as her eyes adjusted to the brightness. Luckily, since they were facing west, the Binary was behind them at this time in the morning, so her eyes adjusted quickly.

Too bad they had to walk through all this head-high grass again.

“Pleh!” Addie spat another errant piece of grass fluff out.

When all the stalks blew around in the wind, the grass always seemed to find its way into Addie’s mouth!

They had already stopped by the city and were now headed out toward the west ruin site. When they checked the throne room, the girls confirmed the east side crystal near the man was properly glowing red. Now that the two crystals were glowing, Addie felt sure that the strange man was somehow related to the ruin sites. Still, Addie thought it was strange how learning new abilities at the ruin sites was related to the crystals around the man. According to Nettal, he wasn’t dead, and yet his heart wasn’t beating, nor was he breathing. What a strange man.

Staring out across the endless fields of grass, Addie’s mind continued to wander. She thought about the empty city just behind them. She thought about all the people that might have lived there, and yet she also wondered why there weren’t any bodies. Clearly, the man had lived there at some point. Well, Addie thought with amusement, the man still lived there, actually.

Still, Addie couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to all of those people. And what did the fog demon have to do with all of this? Who bothered to set up the walking armor and the headless ape near the ruins? Why did her book know about the ruin sites, and why did her magic have all kinds of new abilities stored away in those sites? What had her book been doing in the library back in town? Was Mr. Lomain’s town somehow related to this abandoned city?

Overall, Addie did a lot of thinking. She thought so much that her brain began to hurt! After that, she just peacefully stared at the rhythmically swaying grass. One foot went in front of the other, her legs never tiring due to Nettal or Lotty’s frequent bursts of healing magic.

Squishy enjoyed the walking, too. He would go running off, disappearing among the stalks of grass only to return an hour or so later with ‘new reports regarding our surroundings.’

Ember was content to just sit within Addie’s soul, her magic ever warm and soothing. Throughout the trip, the cracks in Addie’s soul had mended more and more. She was still injured – she knew that much – but she was healing, too. Every day, random memories came to her, things she hadn’t even realized she’d forgotten. Small warm moments with her father, exciting memories of sneaking out into the village, and even one memory of Rob, the werecat, napping next to her in the crawlspace above the kitchen.

The memories seemed so paradoxically distant yet also infinitely close each time she remembered one. She could smell the various stews from the kitchen as if she were only just now reliving that moment. Yet, each memory brought a pang of distant sadness— those moments had long ago passed, she knew that.

Even with over half of her soul cracks healed, Ember still found a way to contort herself inside Addie’s core. Each time more of her soul healed, she didn’t feel like Ember was getting closer to being kicked out. Quite the opposite, actually. With each new rift mended, Ember’s spot in her soul felt even more warm and pleasant. More and more, Addie had the feeling that Ember truly belonged with her.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The Binary had begun to set now. The sky had turned a deep purple near the bottom of the horizon, with slightly brighter reds higher up and reflecting into the clouds. Despite being a common sight for Addie these last few days, something about the scene struck a sense of awe through her. With the Binary setting, they’d need to set up camp now.

“Here is good, right?” Addie asked into the air.

“Hmm?” Nettal turned around to face Addie before looking back up at the sky. “Oh yeah. Okay,” she agreed.

Since she could feel he was still quite a ways away, Addie sent her thoughts to him directly, “Squishy, can you find some dinner for us?”

“Already on it, my lady.”

In response, she directly sent him her feelings of gratitude. If the western ruin site was just as far as the eastern one had been, they’d probably have five more nights after this until they reached it. Not that Addie minded the gentle nights by the fire.

Though, she did have to snuggle up with Nettal for warmth. Addie dreamed of the day she could sleep by herself in a proper bed again. Not to mention how... icky she felt all over. She could just jump in the stream nearby, but if she did that, she just knew the water would be freezing.

In the end, everyone snuggled up next to the embers of a dying fire. Squishy took his customary place right on top of Addie, and she tried to complain about him making it hard for her to breathe. As always, she was ignored. Nettal lay next to Addie, the two of them easily protected from the ground by their thick ponchos. Lotty curled up, impressing Addie with how flexible he was— easily able to turn into a furry ball next to Nettal.

Night came as it had a thousand times before— the two girls drifting into slumber’s embrace. Addie didn’t have to worry about sleeping out in the open; she completely trusted Squishy to guard them or warn them if he sensed danger.

When Addie woke up, she couldn’t breathe. But then again, she didn’t particularly need to, nor did she care to. She stared at the starry night sky as she aimlessly drifted up toward it— her ethereal body not constrained by such silly things as gravity.

She stared down below, directly at Nettal and herself. She studied her own face, turning darker from the many days without a bath. Nettal looked much the same.

In total sync, her eyes moved to Squishy at the same time he tilted his head up to stare at her. Even with Addie like this, they could feel and sense one another.

Addie willed herself to drift down closer to Squishy. When she reached him, she playfully shoved at him. At the same time his body went limp, a lightly glowing, ethereal blue version of Squishy popped right out of his body.

Trying to open her mouth to talk, Addie quickly remembered that didn’t work. She focused, sending him her thoughts instead. “Want to go explore? Maybe we can go find the ruin site early!”

She didn’t know why she had the urge, only that it felt like a fun idea. From past experience, she knew that her body was still getting proper sleep, anyway, so why not spend the night doing something fun?

Being in this state, Addie felt more confident. It had a dreamy quality that made things not quite feel real, like no matter what she did she’d be fine. Like in a dream, when she knew all she had to do to escape from something bad was to force herself to wake up.

She held out one transparent hand toward Squishy. He brought his paw up before using it as a step to clamber onto her shoulders. Even though she could feel his comforting presence, he didn’t add any uncomfortable weight to her shoulders in the slightest.

“Perhaps we ought to be more cautious, my lady?”

“Checking the ruin site out early wouldn’t be dangerous, it would be more safer, actually! Like when you do that ‘scouting’ stuff,” she argued.

He curled his neck around so he could narrow his eyes and stare directly at her.

“Fine, but we shall only scout the site from afar. Once we spot it, we shall return here.”

That sounded good to Addie!

“Okay!” She happily agreed.

Something about waking up in her ethereal form really excited Addie. Suddenly, the night-time secret trip to the ruin site felt a whole lot more fun.

The surroundings blitzed past the two of them. Rather than feeling like she was soaring forward, it felt more like the world around them was rapidly flying by underneath them.

“There!” Squishy shouted through his thoughts, pinging Addie’s attention directly over to what he saw.

Sure enough, he’d spotted the ruin site. Unlike the fort they’d found the first time or the church they’d found the second time, this time the ruins seemed like they were once a wooden house. But something seemed off, like the structure wasn’t entirely real.

Addie couldn’t help but wonder what made these particular places so special and how they could be related. A church hardly seemed similar to a fort. Not to mention a fort to a simple house.

Something inside the building called to her, almost like an invisible force was reaching out and attempting to suck her in. Addie had dealt with invisible forces trying to get her to do things before. She remembered that old witch with the twisted sense of hospitality.

Nodding her head and firmly making up her mind, Addie decided not to get any closer. Besides, she wanted to figure out what exactly about this house seemed so... off.

“Do you feel that too, Squishy?”

“Hmm. My eyesight is not particularly great, and I cannot use my spatial sense in this form. What do you see?”

She quickly sent him an image of the house through their thoughts, basically letting Squishy see through Addie’s eyes.

“That house is ethereal, much the same as us.”

Now that he had pointed it out, Addie couldn’t unsee it. She could see straight through the wooden walls to the grass on the other side, the stacked walls of logs even had a slightly blue tinge. The image of the house almost seemed to drift in an invisible wind, dancing to a song no one knew. Despite being slightly transparent, Addie couldn’t see into the inside of the house at all. She saw only the outside log cabin walls, then the grass continuing behind it.

“Haunted house,” Addie said to Squishy.

“I believe the house is no more haunted than you or I.” He lifted the corners of his mouth up into a toothy smile.

Addie rolled her eyes. “Should we go back?”

“Wait,” Squishy commanded. “Send me the image of the house again.”

Addie did so, curious as to what he might have noticed.

“Look on the front porch.”

There, amid the darkness of the night, and only visible through the light reflecting off of them, Addie saw eyes.