After a couple short hours of sleep, I wake with a start. I’d only barely drifted into the barest surface of sleep, feeling an uncertain fear in my heart. After sitting up abruptly, I look around. I see well enough in the dark — all things in the world give off the light of creation, after all — but I have a sinking feeling in the core of my being, something I can’t shake.

  I call upon my essence to allow me to see the connections of the world again, and am instantly reminded of how little sleep I’ve gotten. I woozily wobble in my sitting position and hold my head for a moment until the dizziness clears. Opening my eyes again, I look around and stand.

  Ayre looks…unbelievably uncomfortable. She’s mostly on her back, but has managed to wrap herself in every layer of the bed setting. The sheet is spooled around a wing, the comforter is looped alternately around each of her legs and tail — each of the three appendages are sticking out at odd angles. And finally, she has built a veritable castle of pillows around her head. I just stare at her. I’m utterly astonished that she hasn’t shredded the bed to pieces given how twisted up she looks and how sharp and spiny her scales can be, but she’s out cold and quietly snoring, so…whatever works, works, I guess.

  Olly, on the other hand, sleeps like a corpse. He’s face down in his pillow — which, if I’m being frank, just seems like an awful way to lay in basically any circumstances — and otherwise perfectly flat on his stomach. His left arm is tucked up underneath his pillow, elevating his head a hair, but his right arm, still ensconced in the sleeve I made, is simply dangling off the bed without touching the ground.

  Neither of them sleep on their sides like a normal person. How strange. I suppose it makes sense for Ayre, since she has wings and a tail, so it’s natural she’d sleep weird. But Olly?

  Actually, Olly lying on his back would leave his arm to either rest on his clothes, or be held out, extended at the elbow, all night, Which will either destroy his clothes and bed, or generally sounds miserable, respectively.

  Okay, fine. Their sleeping arrangements make sense, mostly.

  That distraction cleared from my hazy, sleep-addled brain, I look closer at them. Their connections are as they were, but Olly’s is standing out to me, and I’m trying to think why. Something feels wrong, but I can’t place it. He still has all the fraying connections drifting freely around him like cut ropes on the surface of a lake.

  But…the other one. “Where is it? It was incredibly potent. It couldn’t have just gone away. Even if that person abruptly dropped dead, there’d still be remnants…” I hop off the bed, gliding quietly to the floor, not wanting to bat my wings around and make a lot of noise. I make my way to Olly’s arm hanging off the bed and as I get closer to him his arm jerks as he pulls it up and on top of the mattress abruptly and away from me. I stare at the reaction for a few moments, trying to understand how he knew. He’s clearly asleep — no question about that — and it doesn’t seem like the action roused him in the slightest.

  I shrug, chalking it up to however his weird magic works and look down, realizing where the thread of connection was. It had been hiding behind his arm, and I didn’t see it anywhere because it’s going almost perfectly straight down through his bed and into the floor. It’s no different from before, as near as I can tell, at least.

  “Straight down would mean…” I pause as I gasp, realizing that that must mean they’re currently in the same building as us! Or maybe deep underground. Probably in the inn. Probably.

  I’m somewhat giddy. Considering I may have found an old lover, or a rival who’s hot on his trail, or maybe an estranged friend, or possibly even an assassin from a rival kingdom come to see the job done that clearly failed to put Olly in the ground. Maybe all of them! A childhood romance that went sour, placing them both on opposite sides of the same conflict and the jilted lover taking it upon themselves to take down the prince! It would surely wind up being a romantic ending, I’d assume, so it couldn’t hurt to go get a peek. Doing much more than that, and I could affect their story, which I wouldn’t want to do. This person is probably important, and even if they aren’t to Olly in the grand scheme of things, they still have their own story to tell, and it’s not my place to change it! Even if I am really curious…

  Deciding on a course of action, I quickly make my way across the room to the door with a bit of grumpiness. I always hate walking around on the ground like this, it makes everything feel so much larger than it does when I’m flying. I consider changing shape to be less conspicuous, but doing so would probably knock me out at this point, so I resolve to use as little essence as possible on this outing. Similarly, I’m aiming to stay grounded as much as possible because while my wings aren’t loud, in the dead of night they certainly won’t be quiet.

  Approaching the door, I look it over and think about my options. I could crawl underneath and there’d be enough space for me to do so…but I’d need to crawl. So that’s a pass. Try to open it up directly? Wasn’t paying attention when Ayre was talking about how doors worked, seemed boring. Pass as well. Finally, I settle and realize that there are significant bits of light making their way around the door frame and into the room at its edges. Won’t have to crawl or open the door and risk waking everyone.

  Perfect. I slip through the crack between the door and its frame with relative ease, following the dull pink luxlight as I do. It gets uncomfortably tight and Olly definitely absolutely calling me fat comes to mind, causing me to pout a little as I suck in my stomach to squeeze through. It gets worryingly tight, so I push harder for a few moments and abruptly pop through like a cork coming out of a bottle.

  I recover after falling sprawled out on the ground for a few moments and dust myself off. Looking around at the colossal space, I spy the staircase and sneak my way over to it, crouching low and carefully placing each footstep. I jump at every small noise from the adjacent rooms, which slows my progress further, but I’d rather not be caught or seen.

  In a town like this, I haven’t the slightest idea of how people would react to me. Adventurers from every walk of life, townsfolk who live near enough to fae lands to surely have rumors and stories, and anyone else with sharp eyes. Can’t know who might mean me harm, so I resolve to be as careful as possible.

  Making it to the yawning drop down the stairs, I feel a bit of vertigo. Normally, I have no issue with heights while I’m flying, but being grounded just feels viscerally wrong while dealing with heights like this. I try to push it aside as well as I can and lower myself down onto the first step carefully. I take the next few by sliding down and off onto my feet, and for the final few for this section of the stairs, I hop off and glide to the bottom. For my myriad virtues, patience with physical activity is definitely not one. Especially with five more of these switchback flights to traverse.

  Rounding the corner to the next one, I see nothing of interest or concern, so I just hop and glide down. All but the final one go similarly. As soon as I leap into the air to glide down with a little more abandon, I hear a latch turning on the door directly in front of the staircase. Absolute worst-case scenario. I’m somewhat transparent, but I’m still gold. Flying will scatter luminous dust that will be impossible to miss.

  I panic through my options before noticing a small hole in one of the baseboards on the opposite side of the stairs. I cease gliding and drop to the ground clumsily, falling to my knees and trying to scrabble forward towards the little hole — about large enough for me to stand in while crouching.

  The door swings open at the same moment I throw myself forward into the hole, and I catch a glimpse of the person stepping out. A young girl a little taller than me in my normal scale form steps out, and her eyes instantly locked onto my retreating form as I tumble into the relative darkness of this little gap. Recovering from a second pratfall, I get to my feet as quick as I can, which leaves me almost doubled over and kneeling in the dust. The sheer indignity of landing in dust! I move back to the opening and peek around, only to see the girl staring right back at me. All but guaranteeing she actually saw me this time.

  With panic growing, I turn into the darkened hole to consider going deeper into it, but when I turn, my vision is blocked by dense gray fur and small beady eyes. Caught entirely off-guard, in the dark, while already stressed and worried about being found, I do about the worst possible option I could do in the scenario.

  I scream, and fall backwards out into the open when the beast lunges forward at me. Landing hard on my butt, the creature continues to charge forward at me, so I scrabble back and away from it, pushing off the adjacent step with one foot and one hand. The act also sends me off my current step and landing even harder on the next one.

  I let out a pained “Oooow!” as I try to rise to my feet just in time to see the creature looking down at me from above and wiggling into a position to pounce at me. I begin focusing my magic to open my storage to pull out my weapon but am bowled into in my moment of focus. The impact sends me and the creature rolling down the next few steps with heavy thuds at each one, sending painful shocks through my body each time. The final thud, which dumps us onto the landing, is directly in the head, leaving me dazed as the creature recovers more quickly than me.

  As I shake my head out, I see it speeding at me at an almost wolflike lope. If a wolf was really fat, kind of round, had six legs, and tiny beady eyes with green essentia illuminating them.

  Actually, it’s basically nothing like a wolf, I guess.

  The errant thought distracts me long enough for the monster to bowl into me again, this time much more painfully since it’s not a glancing blow. I feel pain spreading around my midsection where the bulk of its mass impacts me and knocks me sprawling again. Luckily, it keeps charging forward after knocking me down for a few more steps, giving me a slight spreading pain in my ribs that stings sharply when I try to get up again.

  The pain brings me a little bit of mental clarity and I actually finish my first bit of incanting.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  [Guardian blade, gifted by grace, guide my hand!]

  The weapon, my dragonbone needle-rapier I named The Princess's Wit, manifests in front of me. Since I tended to refresh these enchantments in the morning, calling upon them was nearly effortless apart from the focus needed to do it. Putting them away will be costly, though.

  I feel the familiar weight of my weapon in my hand and immediately feel much more confident. The creature, actually a literal monster, I realize, seems to hesitate after I arm myself, so I lunge with the point extended after I bring myself to a ready stance. Father taught me how to fight, and while it’s not something I like to do, I know I’m at least competent at it. I aim to show this thing the price of attacking a princess while she’s busy.

  It narrowly slips to the side, causing the sharpened point of the blade to scrape along its side, digging a shallow gash instead of running it through like I’d intended. Freed essence leaks from the wound, scattering into the air before dissipating. As it slides from its dodge, and before I can recover, I feel the essence pressure in the room change as it forms a connection to me. Red, angry, and hateful. The link will remain one-sided, however.

  The moment I spin to raise a guard, a stone rockets at me with worrying speed, conjured by the creature.

  I duck at the last moment and hear it whistle past my ear where my head had just been, where it collides with the wood baseboard behind me with the sound of splintering wood and scattering scree that breaks apart into free essence shortly after impact. I turn back to see the creature conjuring another, having backed up a few more inches away from me, seeming to prefer to engage at range now that I’m armed and wounded it.

  Why does this monster have to be smart? Couldn't I have found a mouse sized goblin or something?

  A new projectile fires at me again with the same speed, but I’m able to bring my weapon into a meaningful guard. I catch the stone on the tip of the blade mid-sweep, the impact causing it to explode and scatter pebbles across my body with a series of painful impacts that leave behind welts.

  Snarling at this thing, I call my second ally as I step back by degrees to give myself time to react to the seemingly never-ending stone-throws. I block, parry, or smash one with each syllable of my incantation, but always get sprayed with painful fragments no matter what.

  [Sacred shield, sworn to serve, stand steadfast at my side!]

  As I finish my incantation, I smash a stone with my pommel, only to realize that a second one was mere fractions of a second behind it. I clamp my eyes shut for the coming impact, but instead I hear a wooden *thunk*. I open my eyes to see my shield spinning like a coin on its edge after the impact it absorbed.

  “Thanks!” I commend him for his timely arrival, surely something done deliberately after the incantation. He is my shield, after all. He must have good dramatic timing.

  Feeling much more confident now that I’m fully armed, I will my shield before me as I make to close the distance. The monster keeps firing stone after stone at me that are either blocked by my floating shield or destroyed by my blade and then blocked by my floating shield.

  It’s almost too easy.

  I get within distance for a lunge and immediately perform a feint instead, bringing my blade-tip up with a twist as it fires through the spot it expected me to attack from. With a sweep through the opening its missed shot left, I cleave the tip of my rapier through its side, moving into a quick pirouette to reposition to be slightly behind it as it reels in pain. Using the motion of my spin, I plant one foot and finish a true lunge to land on my other.

  The needle does what needles are supposed to and dives effortlessly through its hide with a slick, wet tearing sound that makes me cringe. I remind myself this is no beast. It is a Monster! With a capital M! A servant of the Demon King!

  I am, however, quite surprised when I cannot withdraw my weapon as its body hardens around it. I am even more surprised when a column of stone punches up from the floor. It catches me square in the abdomen and tosses me backwards tumbling through the air to land hard on my back, weapon remaining lodged in the creature.

  It charges forward, and I see an actual threat now, with me disarmed it has all the advantages over me, and I’ve landed backed up against a wall. Not only that, but it springs at me before I can get off the ground, large buck teeth meant for gnawing through things much sturdier than a fairy dives at me, clearly aiming to chomp me.

  I let out a yelp as it lands on me. It weighs substantially more than me and so pins me completely. It rears its head back, opening its mouth wide with a hiss. At the moment I see saliva dripping from its… aged… teeth, I remember something in a moment of clear brilliance. A call back to my first fight on the first day of this adventure! How appropriate.

  My shield, which had been looking for an opening, finds a very literal one and slams itself into the monster's mouth with considerable force. With Sir Henry Slinks, I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, so the shield was careful. It’s not careful this time, and I hear the sickening sound of teeth snapping from the impact.

  On opening my eyes, I see part of the sound was also my shield snapping as the creature completes its bite through the wood, even with broken teeth.

  I’m completely disarmed, pinned, and the thing is not much worse for wear. I start to incant something more aggressive, mentally scolding myself for not doing so right at the start. I’d already been found out so there wasn’t any point in not doing s-

  My thought is cut short as a blur collides with the creature’s side from a boot that is about five times its weight and size. It is swiftly removed from my presence and sent careening down the hallway where it hits the exterior wall with a really, really, gross sounding crunch and falls to the ground, a spreading cloud of freed essentia beginning to emit as its body breaks down after its demise.

  Remembering that a boot large enough to turn that creature into a sack of jelly is nearby and that I am definitely not as tough as that thing. I look up and see the youngish girl peering down at me curiously. I panic and scrabble backwards into the corner of the base of the stairs.

  She holds up her hands in the universal “Please calm down” gesture before speaking quietly in heavily accented Eldaran common. “Are you okay?”

  I slowly nod, looking around as subtly as I can for a route of escape, only half listening.

  “Sorry that took so long, I really didn’t want to kick you. I hate chewers.” Her voice is genial, and it makes me pause my escape plans and actually look at her. She’s got deep-ocean blue hair hanging down messily, darker tanned skin, sharply pointed ears, and soft eyes. She’s also very lithe overall, looking unlike most mortal races I’ve encountered. All of her traits point to one conclusion. She’s an elf, one of the very, very distant relatives of the fae. Even further removed than the sidhe. Less than the humans, though.

  She stands up to her full height again, and walks over to the far wall quietly and retrieves my needle and the two pieces of my shield that got sent flying. I decide to fly a little bit. I’ve been found out, so there’s no point in making my apparent savior bend over fully to talk. In fact, I could have avoided the entire fight if I'd just flown at the start! Grumbling, I flutter up to a nearby bookcase shelf and land lightly, feeling bruises on my ribs and maybe the feeling of something floating beneath the surface — possibly a broken bone? Never had one of those before. Whatever it is, it sucks.

  The elven girl hands me my things carefully before stepping back. She locks her hands behind her back looking bashful. “Might be a dumb question, but… are you fae?”

  I nod, “I am.” I answer shortly, but directly. The question really left no room for interpretation. She saved me, but people seldom do that sort of thing for free, or so I've been led to believe.

  She almost squeals, but definitely squeaks. She doesn’t look old by any means, but elves seldom do, so her very girlish reaction of excitement puts me at ease a good bit. Father said the young responded to us better than adults do, on average. “I always wanted to meet one! What’s your name? Oh wait, I’m not supposed to ask that, am I?”

  I smile, “You needn’t worry about that. I’m not one who is given over to tricks and traps. Words matter, but so does intent. It’s a common misconception.” I explain with an air of mystique, trying to lay it on as thick as possible to meet expectations. It wouldn’t do to shatter the illusions of a young girl. “My name is Lilidh O’Ceilidh, Heir of the Court of Tale and Song,” I bow a little with a flair, “And I believe I owe you for your assistance. You may ask of me one thing, and if it is within my power to give without undue hardship or with the intent of causing harm to others, I will grant it.”

  Her eyes go wide at the ritual statement and I see the gears start to turn. After a few moments, she speaks again. “I know the Fae don’t like to get involved in society — the man I study under told me as much -- he has spent most of his life studying the fae and esoteric essences.” She takes a deep breath. “I understand this might be a no, and if it is, that’s fine. But, could I spend my request on asking that you visit my father?”

  I take in the request, per my restrictions it is valid, and I’ve already granted it mentally with the world as witness. “That is amenable. Who are they?" Fae and strange essence researcher is certainly a job title.

  “Wystan Archibald Dawnstar, of the Dawnstar family.” She smiles inwardly, chuckling at something that she mumbles. After a short recovery cough, she continues, “He works out of Kharbon. Do you know where that is?” I nod, “Then I can tell you his address. He would take you in at any hour of the day.”

  I continue nodding along, waiting for an opportunity to ask a question. “I have to admit to curiosity as to why you would ask for this. I could have granted you a mote of my power, permission to enter Fae lands, even a place among us in the court. Why is me meeting this man so important to you?”

  She gets a sad smile. “He and his wife took me in when I was young, and he is in poor, and worsening, health. Alya, his wife, has hunted high and low for something to cure or ease his symptoms to no effect. That’s why I’m out here, I heard tell of an alchemist in Meadowfields who specializes in curatives.” She looks a little embarrassed, but pushes through, “He always wanted to meet one of the fae — for all of his studying and research he’s never even seen one, let alone met them. If he is to leave this world soon, I would prefer he see his life’s work done than to gain anything myself.”

  I have to choke back a lot of emotion after the explanation as I watch her face, so filled with sadness at the oncoming loss. I maintain my composure though, keeping an aloof air. “That is more than agreeable to me. I was intending to head towards Kharbon anyways, so it is convenient and if your master is well studied on essentia, he might be able to help me, even.” The girl lights up, like I’d hoped she would.

  “It would mean the world to me, thanks. Well worth kicking a chewer in the middle of the night.” She gives a sly grin as she looks around.

  “Can I ask your name? No tricks, promise.” I ask, I’ll need a name to keep in mind in the future.

  “Mereia Dawnstar.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mereia. Can I trouble you for one tiny thing? It is a trifling task.” I keep up the expected air and language as best I can, even though I’m feeling a good bit of excitement building. This could be a lead to help Olly!

  “Ask and I’ll try to do it.” She responds earnestly.

  “Can you carry me up to the sixth floor? I’m pretty beaten up, and climbing the stairs will be abject misery in my current state.” I decide to abandon my current quest. I’ve used too much essence and not gotten enough rest to risk anything happening when I find the person who evidently hates Olly so thoroughly that it’s formed a permanent bond. Another time, this outing has already been productive enough. Maybe in the morning. Hopefully, Olly’s estranged lover assassin friend from another kingdom is a late sleeper.

  She nods emphatically and extends her hands for me to step on them.

  In short order, Mereia delivers me to the top of the stairs, I conjure a candy for her as thanks for the ride with my last dregs of power, and then scamper back to the room when she leaves line of sight. Olly and Ayre are both dead to the world, and I intend to join them with a smile on my face having now found a potential route to help Olly beyond just saying platitudes.