I finished my goodbyes and joined a procession, walking toward the gates, a truly mind-bending experience. It was very cool once we got to the bottom and walked straight for the rest of the trip.

What a beautiful, wasteful, and inefficient design.

That’s what I thought as I chatted with Felio and Tyler. Kline kept jumping between my and Aiden’s shoulders during the trip and when Tyler tried to reach for him, Kline jumped onto the ground, seemingly willing to walk before letting someone touch him on purpose.

Felio giggled at the scene.

“What’s her name?” Felio asked.

“Kline,” I said. “And he’s a boy.” I nudged his little butt with my foot, and he huffed, walking beside Aiden.

Felio folded her arms. “It’s hard to believe that he’s—”

“Shhh…” I put my finger to my lips. “The time’s not right.”

“You’re a bit evil, you know that?” Felio mused.

“I…” I stopped my retort when we exited a particularly dense patch of trees, and I could see the gate for the first time.

It was a wonder, like the Great Pyramids, the type of structure built by Zeus to keep the Titans locked away.

“Whoa…” I whispered.

“Yeah. It’s something else, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… What’s it even for?”

“Keeping people from trying to enter the Bramble ahead of the Harvest,” Felio answered immediately. “It’s also a symbol to mark the path. Every other part of the divide throws you into the Bramble.”

“Wait… you mean that the Bramble… stretches the entire forest?”

“That’s right,” she confirmed. “And it’s even harder to get over the mountains. This is the only safe path into the forest, so we stick with it.”

“Whoa…”

I was gobsmacked by the sheer scale of the Bramble. It was a 500-square-mile garden weaving between mountains. It must’ve taken thousands, or even tens of thousands of years to create it. Just thinking about it made me feel insignificant, and also guilty for wavering in my convictions after only four months.

“Everything okay?” Felio touched my shoulder, and I shivered.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just nervous about seeing my family.”

Felio’s face lit up. “They’re going to be so happy to see you.”

“Is that public knowledge or something?” I asked hesitantly.

“No, of course not.” She looked at Tyler. “I can just tell.”

He turned away.

“Oh…” I said dumbly. I wish I was that confident. I was sure that my parents would love me after it was all said and done, but I was worried about what they would say to me to their friends and colleagues—or if they would say anything at all, being quick to acknowledge my existence than switching the subject to avoid the pain or shame of the matter.

What does my daughter do for a living? Nothing, actually. She gave up the perfectly good chance at life we gave her and went off to live in a forest like an antisocial psychopath. But she’s doing okay, I guess. Wish we could say the same about ourselves. She’s been out there, blinding and killing people, earning us enemies and god knows what else. But other than that, she’s great. A total peach.

It was a joke.

There was no way that they would ever be able to look at me the same.

“I’ll be okay, sis,” Tyler said abruptly. “I’ll back you up.”

“But…”

“No, seriously. I’m still not sure why you did what you did but… I think it needed to be done… and you were damn cool doing it. Seriously.”

“Oh Tyler…” My eyes welled with tears at his mildly disingenuous bluster, and I knocked him with my elbow. Then I took ten more steps before my mind filled with panic. I threw around my backpack and searched for my pocket mirror. It hadn’t shattered (as it was made with polycarbonate rather than glass), but somewhere in my life or death journeys, the mirror had popped out of the frame and bent and warped.

“No…” I rubbed my face, thinking about how Elana was already shunning me for forgetting when I woke up.

“You can’t be serious right now,” Tyler said. “You know you’ll wig them out if you look good right?”

“This isn’t for them, you jerk,” I snapped back. “It’s for…”

“A boyfriend?”

“Die.” I said.

“Here.” Felio pulled out a mirror and handed it to me.

“Oh my God, you’re a lifesaver.” I immediately set to work, purifying my body and fixing my hair. It was a mess, but Felio pulled out a brush and said, “Here. Sit down.”

I did, and she brushed my hair while I sat there like a sad puppy, mildly humiliated as I let her doll me up and apply light makeup. She enjoyed it thoroughly.

I didn’t.

Well, maybe a little.

If Tyler wasn’t laughing at me.

Thankfully, Aiden couldn’t pile down because he couldn’t stop his parade of beasts, so he continued on ahead, saying, “If I don’t see you later, I’ll see ya next year.”

As for Hadrian, he just smiled and said, “Interesting,” before moving on, which was actually… kind of nice to hear for some reason.

But what little confidence I had was ruined when Felio finished, and Tyler said, “Hey… you actually look like a girl,” and I nearly broke his ribs.

That wasn’t welcome.

“You can keep it—all of it,” Felio said, handing me the makeup, mirror, and brush. “I’ll bring you more next year. Oh, and take this.” She handed me her backpack. It was a whole other pack, but it was light as air.

“What is it?”

“It’s my field equipment,” she said. “It’s not much, but it’s enough to do intermediate alchemy.”

My heartbeat stalled, and I looked at her with trembling eyes. Then I dropped the pack and fished through mine. “Surely there’s something—”

“Stop.” She grabbed my hand.

“But…” I muttered.

“It’s not free.”

“Oh… then what do you want?”

“For you to wait on your stuff,” Felio said, looking into the Bramble. “I saw you looking for it, but… it’s not worth it. Not now. Just… wait a few years. If ever. A lot of people have entered the Bramble over the years, and very few survived.”

I swallowed hard and looked into the forest. It was an honest, thoughtful request. With Felio’s alchemy equipment and the supplies I traded me for, I could do just about anything at my skill level. And next year, I could order new alchemy equipment entirely.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Yes, I would go after it. Not necessarily for the alchemy equipment, but because of the teleportation arrays and illusionary ward. But for now, I didn’t want to risk my life. I had barely scratched the surface of soul pacts, and I was talking about conquering the most notorious soul forest in perhaps the entire multiverse. I would wait.

“Okay,” I said.

Felio hugged me. “Thanks, friend. Now go see your family.”

My eyes welled with tears. “Okay, friend.”

She giggled, and we walked to the gate together.

2.

Doug waited outside Galfer’s Gate with Tanya and their dog, Gatsby, writhing in anxiety. His intestines were so tight and knotted he felt like plucking one would release the snapping twang of a guitar string.

For the last two days, he saw harvesters stagger out of the gate like the walking dead, each missing limbs or shaking and wheezing from unknown illnesses. He watched one harvester put down their friend, only to realize their arms were green and rotting just by holding their friends.

Panic.

Panic everywhere.

Screaming, bartering, pleading, apathy. It was a warzone with a government and family members with the means to save people, but watching apathetically with the mindset that, “You knew the risks, so bear the consequences.” These were the people that she was with for the last week. It was terrifying.

Yes, Mira had spent four months in there, dealing with plants that liquefy muscles and rot bones and peel skin, but that didn’t make things easier. If anything, it was a reminder that she could die any day, and having Tyler out there made it worse.

What if they were both dead?

No. He pushed the thought out of his head for the tenth time since breakfast and put on his mask.

His wife wasn’t taking it well. She was trembling, arms folded—tears welling in her eyes. The sight pierced his heart with conflicting forces. He didn’t want to console her when he needed consoling, but she was his wife and this was what husbands did.

Doug’s job, in his mind, was to support his wife and enable his children. In the case of the latter, his goal was to give them the freedom to do whatever they wanted. Tanya’s job was to be emotional, worry, research, and veto things when their kids were in danger or things went too far. And right now, she was doing her job extraordinarily well, and he wasn’t.

“Come here…” Doug wrapped his arms around her, and she sobbed in his chest.

The two stood there in silence, letting the world crumble around them. Then, time sped up, and the area burst with motion and hysteria when someone exited the gate.

Doug looked up and almost collapsed to his knees. Aiden had arrived with ten beasts. One was the size of a rhino, an animal that could flip a car with ease, but it had large jaws that could bite through a motorcycle. The others weren’t better. There was something that looked similar to a jackal but it was the size of a tiger, and there was another beast that was blunt and cracked around the edges, as if it were trapped in stone and loosely broken free.

These were the animals of Areswood Forest.

The Claustra family approached Aiden and Brexton, conversing for a few minutes before Aiden broke off and circled the area. Once he spotted Doug and Tanya, he waved and said, “She’s coming! Tyler’s okay, too!”

Doug tried to answer, but Brexton waved Aiden over, forcefully introducing him to a woman.

“She’s coming…” Doug whispered.

Tanya stopped sobbing, holding her breath as she processed; then, she started wailing, tears of joy this time. Gatsby pawed at her and Doug wished he could just leave her in his care, but Doug also understood that a dog couldn’t replace his love, so he held her tighter.

Then there was a shift.

Brexton suddenly turned toward them, stopping Doug’s heart with a serpentine gaze. Only it wasn’t fixed on him. It was someone right beside him.

Doug followed Brexton’s gaze and saw a towering man with a sandy brown crew cut staring at him. He would later know the man as Typhus Dante, the head of the Dante in the First Domain and Hadrian’s surrogate father.

He wouldn’t have thought that if he didn’t make eye contact. Beyond the white and blue wyvern crest denoting him as one of the Dante, he didn’t look particularly inhumane—but his eyes told another story. They were sharp and chilling, piercing and exacting; just locking glances left Doug’s soul shivering.

Typhus’s wife—or what Doug assumed was his wife—was the opposite. She was the most objectively attractive woman he had ever seen, but she lacked power, control, and agency, as if she were hollow, self-starved, and brittle, like a beautiful antique doll whose eyes seemed to follow you when you’re alone at night. It was like she had no soul.

“Doug?” Tanya whispered. “You’re hurting me.”

Doug realized that he was squeezing her too tightly. “Oh, sorry. Just… keep still.”

“Why?”

The man smiled thinly, then shot Brexton with a chilling glare before turning his gaze back to the gate.

“Nothing…” Doug whispered.

Time slowed down for about ten minutes until things shifted again.

A procession of cheering and screaming from the crowd behind Doug blasted his eardrums. He turned to the gate with a galloping heart, hoping it was with Mira, but found Hadrian walking through the gates.

His team was carrying someone, and the sight of them caused a riot of activity as family members called for healers. But soon, the group dispersed, leaving Hadrian to speak to the Melhans alone.

The Melhan father was stone silent and amicable, but his wife was hysterical, screaming at Hadrian and the Dante for answers before her husband dragged her and her son away, ending the public spectacle that would surely cause them much-dreaded humiliation.

Doug was relieved when he left, feeling nervous about the hidden story for a reason he could place.

Hadrian walked up to Typhus, performed a strange bow, then clasped the woman’s hand with hollow tenderness.

“Report,” Typhus ordered.

“I’ve returned with four packs of torok meat, two pounds of soul cleansed torok meat, two peak torok cores, and ingredients requested by Mira’s patron god,” Hadrian said.

“Soul cleansed torok meat?”

“Yes. I believe it’s best not to grandstand regarding our Harvest. It has yielded a bounty with thorns.”

Typhus shifted his gaze into the crowd where the Melhan family disappeared.

“And of the Melhan?” he asked.

“I told them the Dante would report in private. The same would be prudent of us.” Hadrian’s eyes glided to Doug, and he turned away. “Should we leave?”

“No,” Typhus said dryly. “I have something to give Ms. Hill.”

Hadrian raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Nothing that’s children’s business.”

Hadrian’s face twitched, but he turned away. “Yes, father.”

Doug focused on the gate nervously, watching the path. He suffered in silence, clutching Tanya for another half hour before the atmosphere shifted for the last time.

“She’s coming!” someone yelled. Then, hundreds or even thousands of people who had gathered to see Mira pressed up against crowd control barriers as members of the press flooded the area.

Doug’s heart pounded steadily as he squinted, looking through the path. There was a group walking forward, and people at the front said, “She’s with the Hellara,” followed by, “That’d make sense.”

Doug laced his fingers with his wife’s and pushed forward. No one stopped him, even the family members. He wanted to think they had respect, but they were both flanked by Dante guards. Whatever the case, the path magically cleared, and once he reached the gate, he could finally see Mira.

She was…

Beautiful.

And it made him laugh. It was just so absurd that she would disappear into the forest to be a mountain woman and leave a normal girl.

Mira was running before he choked out a third laugh, flying at him with supernatural speed as she called out to them.

That made him and Tanya cry.

Laughing and crying, he welcomed his children as they rushed over the barrier line, entering the Third Ring. He almost couldn’t believe Mira entered as if feeling that he was blessed that she accidentally crossed and chained herself to civilization, but when she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, sobbing and communicating her emotions, he felt the sorrow and knew she wouldn’t stay.

Tyler wrapped around Tanya to complete the natural order.

Daddy’s Girl and Momma’s Boy—just as it always was.

Gatsby flew forward with energy that only Labrador Retrievers could manage, wagging his tail and zagging and jumping around them as Mira laughed and petted him.

Kline, who was jumping back and forth on Mira’s shoulder in an extreme game of Avoid the Lava, finally got fed up with the hugging and sobbing and activity, so he jumped off, stretching his legs.

Gatsby took that as a declaration that he wanted to play and flew at him. Kline dodged as if by magic, moving so fast that Doug saw an afterimage.

Gatsby turned his face right, left, back, forward, zagging twice, and then spotted Kline. As if understanding he was bested and couldn’t win by normal means, he plowed through Doug, Mira, Tanya, and Tyler, catching Kline off guard with the sheer brazenness of the action. But Kline didn’t get spooked. He just jumped to the place Gatsby would land, waited, and then slapped the dog’s snout before bounding back onto Mira’s shoulder.

Gatsby hit the ground and then looked around, howling slightly, and the rest of the family couldn’t help but fall victim to a spurt of laughter.

“Be nice,” Mira giggled, rubbing Kline’s ears. “He’s your brother.”

Kline huffed and put his nose in the air, thought about it, then stared down at Gatsby like a commoner before a king and meowed authoritatively.

Gatsby sat down, adding a tail thump.

“It seems you’ve both become bossy,” Tanya laughed, wiping her eyes.

Kline meowed, turning down the sass a little bit. It made Tanya melt.

Mira turned to Tanya, then the crying restarted as they embraced. It was probably hard for them, having seen each other the day of the summoning, only to be ripped apart and sent off to another world. It made Doug’s heart ache thinking about it. But they were finally reunited. Finally.

He turned to his son. “So? Did you behave?”

Tyler’s lips curved into a “No, but it’s not my fault,” expression, complex yet expressive, sad almost and complete. His eyes said, “We’ll talk.” Doug didn’t press him.