I knocked on the warped wooden door of a crooked cabin nestled just inside the treeline outside of Graybarrow. Birds scattered. Something inside hissed—or maybe that was the kettle.

  “Ebbin,” I called, “open up. We need to talk about soup and international fungus diplomacy.”

  There was a crash, a clatter, and what sounded very much like someone tripping over an animal.

  The door creaked open.

  Ebbin squinted out at me through a mess of uncombed gray hair and a beard that might have contained entire civilizations at a micro scale.

  “Nojin,” he rasped, like a man thirty years older than he probably was. “I was just making soup.”

  “Of course you were.”

  “I used different mushrooms this time.”

  “Not the point.”

  He opened the door fully and waved me inside with a hand wrapped in three different bandages. “Come in, come in. Tell me what the fungal tribunal wants this time. More compost? A decorative apology mushroom?”

  “You know they’re delicious,” he added as he shuffled toward the stove.

  I sighed. “They are. No one’s denying that. But those ones are off-limits. The Mycari grow them special. Sacred. Magical. Something-something cultural reverence. You can’t just toss them into stew because they smell nice when they sauté.”

  Ebbin snorted and poked at the fire beneath a dented pot. “I’ve been hearing things, you know. Word is, you’ve been disappearing. Like—poof, gone. Folks say you vanish for minutes at a time, like some sort of magical hiccup.”

  I leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Yeah, well. Turns out some overeager summoner on another planet fumbled her scroll and accidentally yoinked me mid-morning routine.”

  Ebbin raised a bushy brow. “You serious?”

  “Deadly.”

  “And you’re still here, chatting with me about soup?”

  “She keeps throwing me back when we’re done.” I shrugged. “Not like I have a say in the matter.”

  Ebbin let out a long whistle, then gave a raspy laugh. “She? Figures. Bet she’s got a pretty face, at least.”

  He pointed a spoon at me. “Because no one makes you do anything, Nojin. Not unless you want to be there.”

  “She’s persistent,” I muttered.

  “That’s code for pretty,” he said, stirring the pot.

  I pointed a finger at him. “Let’s get back to why I’m here.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Ebbin groaned theatrically. “Fine, fine. Lay it on me, Mayor.”

  “You’re being formally reprimanded by the Council of Spores for harvesting sacred bloomcaps. Again.”

  He held up both hands in surrender. “They were growing wild!”

  “On their consecrated ridge.”

  “They didn’t label it.”

  “They chanted a blessing over it for six days and built a mushroom-shaped cairn. You think that was just festive landscaping?”

  Ebbin grumbled into his beard.

  “As part of your punishment,” I continued, “you’re writing a formal apology. In sporeprint.”

  He dropped the ladle. “That’s cruel and unusual.”

  “Exactly the point.”

  Ebbin gave me a look somewhere between impressed and betrayed. “You’re serious. You’re really making me do sneeze calligraphy for the mushroom mafia.”

  “They’re a council, not a mafia.”

  “They tried to duel me over a truffle once.”

  “Because you cooked it in front of them! At their sacred brazier.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “It was poorly placed.”

  I rolled my eyes and stepped further into the cabin. “You’re lucky they didn’t demand a finger.”

  Ebbin held up his bandaged hand. “They might have. I can’t remember what happened to this one.”

  He let out a low grunt, then glanced sideways at me. “So, this summoner. She really worth the trouble?”

  I opened my mouth. Closed it. “She’s… trying. Harder than most. And she’s in over her head.”

  Ebbin snorted. “Aren’t we all.”

  He gave the pot a thoughtful stir, then muttered, “Just don’t let her drag you back into being who you were. You’re a decent mayor, Nojin.”

  “Low bar,” I muttered.

  “Still counts,” he said, then added with a sideways glance, “Even if you pretend you didn’t build this whole town out of scraps and strays and make it feel like home.”

  I looked away. “Yeah, well. Someone had to.”

  I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. “Look, you don’t have to write a long letter. Just enough to keep the Mycari happy and stop them from waving spores in my face every other day. And stop stealing their mushrooms.”

  Ebbin raised an eyebrow.

  “I’d appreciate it,” I added quietly. “Especially now that I can be yanked off the planet at any given moment.”

  Ebbin gave a begrudging grunt that might've passed for agreement. I left him to his pot and his muttering, stepping back out into the sunlight.

  The path into town wound between tangled underbrush and crooked trees. Halfway down the trail, a figure burst from the foliage to my right.

  “Mayor Nojin!”

  I didn’t even flinch. “Barley.”

  What an idiot to think he'd given up.

  The preteen practically skidded to a stop in front of me, hair wild, cheeks flushed, and eyes brimming with desperate hope.

  “Have you decided yet? About taking me on as your apprentice?”

  I kept walking. “Still don’t need one.”

  “But I’ve been practicing! I reorganized the potion pantry. And I'm getting much more handy!"

  “Barley,” I said, glancing at him, “help around town. Be kind. Learn from people. That’s more useful than fetching scrolls and asking me for the twelfth time.”

  “So… you’re thinking about it?”

  I sighed. “Go see if Yuuhi needs help baking.”

  “No way,” he said, shaking his head. “Last time I tried one of her brain-boosting cookies, I couldn't blink for two hours! My eyeballs stung like crazy."

  I grunted and kept walking. “Good. Builds character.”

  Barley trotted after me, undeterred. “So, where are you going now? Is it a secret mission? Another mushroom meeting? Wait, what if it’s the duel? Are you gonna fight Trith today?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Oh! Can I come watch? Or—wait, should I warm up for a dramatic slow clap at the end?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but the air around me shifted.

  Barley’s eyes widened. “Wait. What’s happening?”

  A low chime echoed from beneath my feet. Crimson lines traced into the dirt.

  I scowled. “So soon? I was just there.”

  Barley stumbled back a step, eyes wide. “Did you step on something weird?”

  “Something like that,” I muttered, as the magic flared brighter.

  Barley looked around frantically. “Are you gonna explode? Should I run? Should we run?”

  I turned and jabbed a finger at him as the red glow rose. “If you really want to take a step toward being my apprentice, go duel Trith in my place.”

  “Wait, what? Me?”

  And then I vanished.