The peikko turned his head towards her as she approached and Kaitlyn noticed his hands were bandaged. She smiled as she said, “Welcome, can I offer you some food and drink?”

“Please,” the deep voice of the peikko almost shook her bones, “Give the lady our gift.”

The mennin quickly opened it’s pouch and pulled out a perfect crystal. Kaitlyn blinked at the exquisite gem in her hand and said, “This is…. much too much. There is no way I can trade for this…”

“Gift,” the peikko repeated firmly, “Accept and give?”

“He doesn’t believe in the idea of economy,” the dwarf said as he came in the door right behind them, “their kind believes that the world is wicked because of money.”

“It is a very beautiful gift,” Kaitlyn said sincerely and put the gem in her pocket. “I would be honored to share my home with you.”

The peikko bobbed his head and went to sit in a back corner. Kaitlyn did a round to check on all the patrons, summoning more ale for the merchants, extra bread for the elves, and bringing some water to Jee. The dwarf almost skipped back outside and Kaitlyn shook her head, mildly curious what he might have built in her yard.

Night fell outside and Kaitlyn found herself more busy, her magic hands bringing food and drink to the patrons. Jee fulfilled his duties admirably, and still managed to flirt with Kaitlyn, Javorora, and surprisingly the peikko. Kaitlyn found herself chatting with him when the elves went outside to sleep in the yard. Soon after, she approached Jee to tell him it was time to stop.

“I have wanted to tell you,” he said, glancing at her arms, “as lovely as your illusion is, it is not as lovely as your natural appearance.”

Kaitlyn glanced at the image of stars and swirls covering the jagged scars and shook her head. She said, “That is very kind of you, but I have to disagree. Besides, my master wants me to learn illusion magic and this was very good practice.”

“I have heard good things of your Master Garthis,” Jee said, “would you mind showing me the illusion structure he taught you?”

Kaitlyn couldn’t help but be excited. She didn’t have a lot of people she could discuss magic with, and kitsune were supposed to be naturals with illusions. She set a mug on the table and began building her image around it, slowly merging a yellow shade into the wood and making what look like leaves sprouting from the handle.

“Oh my,” Jee said, “he isn’t very good at illusions, is he.”

“I…. no, he said it wasn’t something he was a master in,” Kaitlyn said.

“Allow me to help you a bit then,” Jee said. He gently touched the spell around the mug and she gasped as he began moving her magic around. This was not something Master Garthis had ever done. Yet Jee did so with ease.

He paused and his smile to her made her stomach clench slightly, her breath surprisingly quick. As he made changes to her spell, she saw what he was doing. It was exactly what Master Garthis had mentioned: creating a spell which was concise enough to be sustainable but complex enough to be believed.

“What is that glyph you drew into the side there?” Kaitlyn asked.

“It is the glyph ‘to be’ in elvish,” Jee said, “well in one of their languages. I find it be a great… shortcut when I’m building an illusion.”

“But isn’t that like… transmutation?” she asked.

“Not in this case,” he said, “here and here, where it binds to the rest of the spell actually takes the glyph and turns it from a transmutation to just an experience. Do you know many glyphs?”

“Only a few dozen, and most of them are way simpler than this,” Kaitlyn said. “He has given me a book of them, but it’s really hard to remember their meanings.”

Jee nodded and said, “I think it took me most of a century to become proficient in them.”

“A century?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Yes, but I wasn’t concentrating just on them,” he said.

“Humans don’t even live that long,” Kaitlyn sighed.

Jee raised his eyebrows and said, “Your master is several centuries old. Plenty of human mages find paths to extend their lives. Magic itself offers great protection from many mundane illnesses. Surely you haven’t gotten sick as often since you came into your magic, did you?”

Kaitlyn frowned and said, “I didn’t get sick often before I got it. And I have… issues with my magic.”

“Ah, but you are still young,” he said, “I doubt you would have failed to notice if you were older as most witches are.”

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“Isn’t it rude if I ask how old you are?” Kaitlyn asked.

His smile once again made her insides warm and she felt a blush on her cheeks. His fingers reached up and he ran his thumb on her cheek. He spoke very quietly, his voice slightly husky, “I am old enough.”

She smirked and said, “That is the most evasive answer you could have given me.”

He threw back his head and laughed, a true laugh ringing with real mirth. He was grinning when he looked at her and said, “It has been a long time since someone has called me on my bullshit.”

“Because people are super respectful of your power?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Partly,” he said, “those that hope to receive something from my power.”

Kaitlyn nodded and said, “I’ve seen how others treat Master Garthis and Linmell when they are here. They act like my master is… either always about to attack them and they avoid him or they fawn over him.”

“But you see him differently,” Jee said.

“Well yes,” Kaitlyn said, “he’s my master. He’s my teacher and my friend.”

“It’s a power thing,” Jee said, “you have power, so it is less intimidating to you.”

Kaitlyn huffed and said, “I have raw power, but my control is still minimal and I only know about a half-dozen spells.”

“You have been doing this for less than a decade, right?” he said, “I was last here about a decade ago, and you were not here. To have as much control as you do, and to be able to build a spell as complex as the one you had on your arms this evening… you do yourself a disservice.”

He suddenly leaned close and whispered in her ear, “I will not fawn, but I will seek your favor because if you are this powerful when you are young… I shudder to think the immortal you will become.”

Kaitlyn felt Jee’s whisper from her ears down through her spine and into her toes. She half-gasped and twisted her hands together in her lap. He didn’t move away from the closeness, instead she felt him inhale deeply. She actually could feel him smile against her ear.

His nose gently touched her cheek, then his lips. He whispered again, drawing more shivers from her, “I’ve heard stories of you, but I would love to hear your tale from your own lips.”

Kaitlyn found herself leaning towards him, remembering how good it felt when Claus treated her like she was beautiful and special…. she was surprised when Jee’s hand touched her cheek and opened her eyes to see him looking at her with concern. His thumb stroked her cheek and and she realized tears were leaking from her eyes.

“Who hurt you,” Jee asked gently.

“My fiance,” she replied with a soft sigh, “both literally and figuratively.”

“He beat you?” Jee looked truly appalled.

Kaitlyn snorted a laugh and then said, “Yes. When we arrived in the forest he used my pain and blood to draw a unicorn.”

“No!” Jee looked truly horrified.

Kaitlyn stripped the illusion from her arms and said, “It bled on me, healed me of the injuries Claus caused, but died in my arms.”

The memory didn’t hurt as much anymore, but it still brought up all the pain she remembered. She said, “He said it was for our benefit. That the money would fix everything and someday I would appreciate what he did to me.”

She said, “I ran after the unicorn died. He said he was going to do it again since the first one healed me. Healed my broken legs and feet. Healed the knife cuts he carved into my skin… he literally tortured me and was going to do it again. And he said he loved me.”

The anger had not faded, and she felt her own magic broiling under her skin. She forced herself to calm and continued the story, “I ended up here. This was just a tiny hut in the woods. Abandoned. I hid when Claus and his bastard hunter came through. A black unicorn found….”

“BLACK?” Jee exclained.

Kailtyn nodded, “I was not doing well, I had been running barefoot through the forest and hadn’t eaten in a few days. But it was definitely a black unicorn. It cursed me. It told me the only reason it didn’t kill me was because I wasn’t actually the one who killed it’s kin.”

“Can I ask what the curse was?” Jee asked.

“It doesn’t make much sense,” Kaitlyn warned, “You will know us until you understand us. You will only speak to us until you are worthy.”

Jee frowned and said, “You are right, that doesn’t make much sense.”

“It apparently blasted open my magic potential,” Kaitlyn said, “drove me into magical shock. Javorora found me and got Master Garthis to come and help stabilize me. But the curse was somehow entangled in my magic and my skin. This house… it was just a little witch’s hut in the woods and somehow it got tangled with me. Which was fortunate, because the curse was killing me through my magic.”

Jee looked around the house and nodded, “I knew I sense magic here, so you didn’t build this with your power?”

“No, there have been at least two previous witches,” Kaitlyn said.

“And it was abandoned when you found it?” he looked surprised.

“Abandoned and basically falling apart,” Kaitlyn said. “The magic was completely dormant until the unicorn blasted me open. Master Garthis has some theories, but without being able to recreate the situation, we aren’t perfectly sure what happened.”

“And how long have you been here?” Jee asked.

“Just over two years,” Kaitlyn said, “There was a… thing last fall and I spent almost ten months in a magical bubble. It only felt like a few days to me.”

Jee now looked surprised and said, “What was this thing?”

“The house…” Kaitlyn hesitated, surprised she was telling a near stranger so much, but it felt truly refreshing to get some of this out, “I’d been trying to untangle some of the worst spells. You know, like the one where the house wanted to eat people. That’s part of how the previous witches powered everything. I didn’t want that, so I was trying to untangle it. I found… a memory or something. I saw some of the past of the house. I saw how the house previously looked.”

She smiled as she thought about it, “I reforged my bond with the house. It’s more… mutual now. And when I woke up it wasn’t a little witch’s hut, it was what you see. And I had a hell of magical backlash as I was thoroughly drained.”

“I can only imagine…” Jee leaned back a bit. He stared at her a long time and then said, “That is pretty amazing you know. I’ve never heard anything like it in centuries. I do think I know who one of those previous witches might have been. A house that eats things… there is a tale far in the northern lands of a witch who used to have a house she fed the blood of children to. I thought it was a boogeyman tale, but maybe this witch somehow came down here.”

“Oh?” Kaitlyn perked up, “Master Garthis tried to find out who she might have been, but he wasn’t finding anything.”

“Oh, she hasn’t been a real character in those lands for about eight hundred years,” Jee said, “she’s just a myth now. I thought she was a myth until you said your house wanted to eat people.”

Kaitlyn stared at him and said, “Eight hundred years?”

He nodded and said, “Maybe even longer. Like I said, even among those people she was essentially just a myth.”

“What was she called?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Baba Yagga,” Jee said, “roughly it translate into evil grandmother.”