Kaitlyn was so glad when everyone left. She needed time to process what Javorora had said, which apparently everyone else had known. Did that make Master Garthis a prince? Over the next few days and she recovered, Kaitlyn couldn’t help but mull over this. What would a prince want with her? Maybe since his mother wasn’t fae he was considered a bastard, unrecognized by his father.

By the time she was hobbling around, she had decided he just was a bastard or some other kind of child a king couldn’t or wouldn’t recognized. Cilvic took over much of her gardening duties. She had no idea where he was sleeping, in the evening he seemed to just disappear as she began to get ready for bed.

When Cilvic brought in his first real harvest of leek and potatoes she began picking out one of the crates she had used over the winter. Cilvic said, “Why don’t I just put them in the cellar?”

“There isn’t a cellar,” Kaitlyn replied.

“Yes there is,” Cilvic said. He moved over to a spot almost in the center of the room and tapped the floor. It rang hollow. Kaitlyn’s eyes went wide and she said, “I had no idea.”

“I’m pretty sure the entrance is under the loom,” Cilvic said, “I suspect you moved it the least when you cleaned everything.”

“That is true,” Kaitlyn said, “it’s too heavy to move easily. I mostly worked around it.”

She stepped outside and called Fapallo with a questioning chirp. He trotted over and she spoke in common, “Can you help us move the loom? We think we found a cellar.”

Fapallo entered and walked over to the loom. He finally lay on the floor and began to carefully edge forward, looking almost like a massive dog on the floor. Kaitlyn put her hands up at the top of the loom as it began to wobble away from its spot towards the center of the room.

Once they had moved they looked over the spot it had stood on carefully and sure enough, there was a well made trap door, even the handle blending into the floor. Kaitlyn pulled it open and Cilvic held up a hand, “I should go first, I can do a short teleport if there’s anything dangerous down here.”

Fapallo growled a “No.” and then whistled, “I go. I am guard. It is mine.”

Kaitlyn put her hands on her hips and said, “I will send down my flame spell first, make sure the air is healthy.”

Both looked at her in surprised and Cilvic said, “How would it not be?”

“Gods only know what might have been rotting down there to foul the air,” Kaitlyn explained. “It might need me to burn everything anyway. Scoot over Fapallo, I want you beside me while I do this because your eyes are better than mine.”

Fapallo stuck his head down the hole while laying on the floor while Kaitlyn sent her flame into the cellar. There wasn’t anything she could smell, and she expected Fapallo to warn her if he smelled anything. Her flame stayed bright and red, flickering slighting in what might be a breeze as it shifted down. The ladder had long since collapsed, the molding remains laying on the floor. Kaitlyn would need to build a new one.

What they could see, the cellar was deep and dry. It went across the entirety of the house with several stone pillars to support the floor of the house. Fapallo hopped down after a moment and Cilvic followed, “You might have to help me out again big fella.”

Fapallo chirped a response, but Kaitlyn had no idea what it meant. The two of them disappeared and Cilvic called up, “We found some lamps! This place is perfect ya know.”

Kaitlyn looked at the loom in the middle of the room and said, “Except I have no idea where to put you now.”

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Cilvic clung to Fapallo’s back while he climbed up from the cellar. Kaitlyn asked, “How deep is it? How long does the ladder need to be?”

Fapallo tapped his nose and then flicked his tail twice. She said, “Twice your height? That’s huge.”

Cilvic nodded and said, “It is a beautiful cellar. It will be cool all summer. You could make the most amazing wines down here. Or mead if we had honey.”

“I did see plenty of bees last year… what if we built some hives for them to come to the garden? Do you think we could get some honey?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Certainly, do you know how to make a hive?” Cilvic said.

“Not precisely, but I know how to find out,” Kaitlyn said. “I would also like to make a table and some benches for the front yard, when the elves come they have to sit on the ground and…. well I’d like to improve that experience.”

“Now, a table I can make,” Cilvic said, “I’m not artist, but I know how to put together simple furniture.”

“Good,” Kaitlyn said, “Tell me what you need as far as tools.”

“Yes ma’am,” Cilvic grinned.

Kaitlyn spent that day searching for the perfect trees to make into her ladder. She didn’t need big trees, she needed two trees about the width around of her thigh. Fapallo went with her and they practices her dragon language. They worked on whatever new words they could find as they walked. She already knew “tree” but she learned “rock” and “flowing water” during their rock with the variations for stream, river, and even waterfall. She found several trees which could work, and finally selected the first one to work on.

She cut down the tree nervously. She had not forgotten Master Garthis’s warning about cutting trees, but she needed this one. She then trimmed off all the branches from the section she needed, the base until almost twenty feet up. She then used some rope to tie the tree. Fapallo then took the rope from her and began dragging the log back towards her hut.

By this time Kaitlyn was shaking, pain creeping up her arms both from the effort and from her curse. It was all she could do to follow Fapallo and could stumble towards home. When they arrived, she stripped her clothes and used her fire spell to heat water in the bucket for a quick little bath.

Cilvic was already working on debarking the log, with a magical efficiency Kaitlyn had to admire. She was trying not to directly stare, but kept watching out of the side of her eye. Fapallo came over and whistled, “I go hunting now.”

“Good hunt friend,” Kaitlyn replied, distracted from her attempt to look at Cilvic working. As she looked back, thinking about the dragon language for another moment, she saw the threads of magic Cilvic was using the lash the log.

It was only a moment, and Kaitlyn gasped in surprise and then it was gone. Fapallo stopped and chirped, “You ok?”

“Yes,” she responded in dragon, almost not thinking, “Good hunt friend.”

She tried for the next hour to recreate or recapture the glimpse of magic she had seen. She ground her teeth, got a crackling headache on top of her other pains, and by the time it grew dark she was no closer to figuring out what had allowed her to see it for that moment in time.

When Fapallo returned she was still outside, laying on the grass in the yard and staring up at the stars. She had eaten with Cilvic and come back outside. She had told the brownie she just needed to be alone, but that wasn’t true. She hurt and somehow the idea of being in a house that used to eat people was the only way to end the hurt… today it was the last thing she wanted. The stars above her were beautiful and she found herself dozing on the yard. When she woke up and made her way to her bed, dew was on the ground.

When she woke up again, she ate breakfast and went with Fapallo to get another tree. She was excited when she found one pretty close to the hut. They repeated the process to cut down the tree and then strip the branches. Today, since it was closer Kaitlyn gathered the larger branches as well to take home.

Cilvic had the first log completed debarked and had drilled holes about two and a half hands apart. He immediately set to work on the second log they brought in. While Cilvic worked on the ladder, Kaitlyn started kneading some bread to go with her day’s stew.

Cilvic had the ladder finished soon. Kaitlyn admired the ladder and said, “If we brought two more logs, could we make one so I could get on the roof?”

“Of course,” Cilvic said. “A good ladder is always useful to have around.”

The ladder itself turned out beautifully. Like a magical artist had created it. The two primary logs had been debarked and smoothed, then holes drilled at regular intervals. Cilvic had somehow created perfectly evenly sized bars which then slid through the holes on the primary logs. On the outside Cilvic had used wooden pegs to prevent these bars from sliding back again.

Kaitlyn and Cilvic maneuvered it into the house and down into the cellar with relative ease. Fapallo then offered to help, taking crates of vegetables from Kaitlyn at the top while Cilvic delved into the dark space to organize. Kaitlyn delighted in the extra space and got Fapallo to help her move the loom to the side of the room.

She stood with her hands on her hips, smiling happily to find the house did have the cold cellar she had always hoped for. She tapped her foot and wondered how she had never realized before the hollow echo.