Making A Splash

  Chapter 18

  ■

  “Sam! Wait!”

  Elle and Mel were running to try and keep up with me, but I was racing along the docks on all fours, weaving around the legs of startled onlookers and early rising dock workers. As soon as I had processed Mel’s explanation—that the only people in the world who have lightning powers were the Empire’s royal family—I had booked it out the door in pursuit of Felda and Bart.

  I had no idea what was going through either of their heads, but I had to try and explain myself, to clear up this misunderstanding before something went wrong. It was Bart I was most worried about; I’d never seen him scared before, except for my sake, when I’d fished up the earthshaker catfish.

  I couldn’t even see Bart ahead of me, but I was eventually able to make out Felda’s back as I barreled along the docks. She was way ahead of me, having left the docks entirely and run out onto the beach that bordered the northwest edge of the village, curving away towards the cliffs and mountains to the north. I lept off the docks to follow her, but it was harder to run on all fours in the loose, sandy soil with the tall grass slapping me in the face, so I pushed myself back onto my feet and kept sprinting.

  I chased Felda’s distant form all the way up the beach as it steadily became rougher and more rock-strewn, leaving the village further and further behind, until she disappeared around a cluster of boulders. Desperate not to lose her, I pushed everything I had into catching up, until I was sure my legs were about to give out. Eventually I reached the same cluster of rocks I’d seen Felda run past, and I stumbled to a stop, taking a moment to catch my breath. Before I’d fully recovered, I heard voices coming from the other side of the rocks, and moved to peer around the side.

  There, on the very edge of where the strip of rocky beach ended and the mountains began, I found a little semicircular alcove formed by fallen boulders and the looming cliff wall above. Tucked up against the wall of the cliffs was a quaint little wooden cabin that faced the ocean, complete with its own miniature dock that extended out into the bay.

  That was where I found Bart and Felda, the former standing half on the porch and half on the sand, the latter standing in his way.

  “Get out of my way, Felda,” Bart said, taking a step forward off the porch of, presumably, his cabin. I realized, with a start, that Bart was clutching at his side a spear that was longer than he was tall, with a shaft made of dark, blood red wood, and a narrow triangular head that came to a wickedly sharp point.

  “No,” Felda said, taking a step to the side. “I’m not letting you do this. You’re not thinking clearly.”

  “Aren’t I?” Bart barked, stepping in the opposite direction, moving smoothly like a prowling panther. “I should have known,” he hissed, clutching his spear tighter. “I knew they’d find me eventually, but I let my guard down, let her get her hooks in me by acting so cute and innocent.”

  H-hey!

  “Bart, I know it looks bad, but there has to be another explanation,” Felda said, her voice pleading as she, again, moved to interpose herself in Bart’s way.

  “I don’t doubt she has one perfectly prepared,” Bart said, narrowing his eyes. “That’s why I can’t give her a chance to regroup. Now that we know what she really is, she’s not going to leave any of us alive.”

  “Bart, do not make me—”

  Felda never got to finish whatever threat or plea that she’d been forming, as Bart’s entire body blurred and he surged forward, swinging his spear around, the blunt butt end whistling as it cut through the air, on a direct course for the side of Felda’s head. Before I could even start to gasp in alarm, Felda’s arm swung up, blocking the wooden shaft with the flat side of her forearm, producing a meaty crack.

  I stared, slack-jawed, stunned by the sudden outburst of violence. Felda’s shoulders rose and fell as she took in a deep breath, then she simply stepped forward, stomping her foot into the ground. Bart jerked out of the way, and the spot where Felda’s stomp landed erupted, throwing sand and pebbles in all directions. He backed away, twirling his spear as he went, striking the ground and flinging a load of sand into the air, just in time to catch Felda in the face and throw her follow-up jab off course. She staggered, spitting out sand, but even when she missed, the sheer force of her punch caused the air to crack, sending Bart skidding backwards several feet on a wave of pressure, until he used his spear to stop himself.

  What… the fuck?

  What was going on here? I knew Felda was strong, but that was ridiculous! And why did Bart have a spear?! Obviously, this had something to do with me, so I had to put a stop to it before someone got hurt.

  Taking a deep breath, I stepped out from behind the rocks, cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted, “H-hey! Stop!”

  “Sam?!” Felda cried, half-turning to face me. “Sam, you shouldn't be here right now, you need to run—”

  “Cold Snap!”

  Bart’s shout drew mine and Felda’s attention back to him. He had dashed to the side during the distraction, and now his arm was pointed directly at me, with a swirling orb of pale blue mist and flecks of ice gathering in his outstretched palm. Felda’s eyes widened, and she kicked off the ground, throwing herself towards me while I just stood there, dumbfounded, as the orb left Bart’s hand and shot straight towards me. Felda reached me just in time to shove me away, an instant before the orb collided with her back and burst into a miniature blizzard. Like a life-sized snowglobe, flecks of ice and snow swirled around Felda's form for several seconds before the spell ended, and she was left panting, hunched forward, looking like she'd been outside in the snow for hours. Ice clung to her hair and clothes, and her sea green skin had taken on an unhealthy pale pallor. She met my eyes and opened her mouth, trying to say something, but before she could she tipped forward, landing flat on her face, and I saw that her entire back side was coated in even more ice.

  “Wh… wha…” I stammered, reaching out and placing a hand on Felda’s shoulder. Between the cold and the ice, it felt more like I was touching a statue, but I tried to shake her nonetheless. The ice was steaming in the early morning sun, and broke off in large chunks. Underneath, Felda seemed okay; she was still breathing, and she groaned when I tried and failed to lift her. Before I could think of what to do, I felt Bart's shadow fall over me.

  “I never thought they'd sink this low,” Bart said coldly, his dark eyes boring into me. “You poor, sad creature. Raised from birth just to kill me. Well, I shall put you out of your misery.”

  I stared up in complete incomprehension, while Bart once again extended his hand, his palm inching towards my face.

  “Frost T—” Bart started, then recoiled away from a streak of dark purple smoke that came from above and behind me, striking the ground and throwing up sand. He swore and hopped backwards as Mel dropped down, seemingly from the sky, and stood over me, clutching her curved, black handled knife with the moon engravings.

  Bart’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and his body blurred again, backstepping rapidly as a series of sharply pointed tree roots came shooting up out of the ground, each one exploding through the sand a half-second too late to catch him.

  I heard a scraping sound behind me, and turned to see Elle, perched on top of one of the boulders. She jumped down onto the sand and came running, putting herself shoulder to shoulder with Mel, and between me and Bart.

  “That's enough!” Elle shouted in a commanding tone. I saw that, like Mel, she was holding the knife I’d last seen her use to prick her finger back in the temple; a broad, leaf-shaped blade with a twisting, vine-like handle.

  “Stay out of this, girls,” Bart said coolly, somehow still sounding threatening despite being on the other end of a wall of gnarled wooden spikes. “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on here, Bart, but you need to stand down,” Mel said, her voice disquietingly calm. I noticed that she had also tied her hair back, revealing the two scars on either side of her right eye.

  “That girl is not what you think she is,” Bart said, lowering his stance and adjusting his grip on his spear. “She’s been deceiving us since the very beginning!”

  “No, she isn’t what you think she is!” Mel retorted. “And if you’d just—”

  Without warning, Bart stepped around the upthrust tree roots and charged forward, whirling his spear over his head. Elle and Mel’s eyes widened, and they moved like they were underwater, both of them raising their blades and opening their mouths.

  “Ironbark Wa—

  “Shroud of—

  Both Elle and Mel’s spells were interrupted as the edges of Bart’s form blurred, and he advanced on them with inhuman speed, forcing them to abort their chants. Mel raised her arms, trying to bring the blade of her knife up to block the incoming shaft of the spear, but Bart smoothly adjusted its trajectory so that it struck her square on the knuckles, causing her to cry out in pain and drop her weapon. Without missing a beat, Mel's other arm flashed out, an orb of roiling purple smoke shooting forward from her palm. At the exact same time Bart stuck his hand out, and a curved disk of ice the size of a dinner plate formed in his palm. Mel's projectile hit the ice, and was reflected right back at her, striking her in the chest and blasting her backwards off her feet.

  Elle shrieked, slashing at the air with her knife, each swing of her arm accompanied by another cluster of sharpened tree roots exploding out of the ground. Bart, undeterred, smoothly wove his way through the impromptu forest, bearing down on Elle with the inevitability of an avalanche. Eyes wide, she backpedaled and raised her knife for another slash, but again Bart sent the butt of his spear snapping out, knocking the weapon from her hands, then followed up with a rapid-fire barrage of jabs and thrusts to the stomach and sides that sent Elle sprawling to the ground even faster than her partner.

  In the span of a few seconds, all the people who had put themselves in Bart’s way to defend me were thoroughly incapacitated.

  “W-wait a second!” I stammered as Bart rounded on me. Somehow, my brain still hadn’t fully digested the idea that Bart was honestly trying to kill me, but seeing what he’d done to Elle and Mel was enough to finally get the message across. When Bart stuck his palm out towards me, ready to cast another spell, I sprang into action.

  “Ice Sp—”

  I leapt from the ground and extended my claws, swiping wildly at Bart’s outstretched palm. He jerked backwards and I stumbled forward, just barely managing to rake my claws along his forearm, eliciting a cry of pain. I felt a split second surge of accomplishment, which was then completely evaporated when Bart’s bleeding arm blurred and his fist shot out, striking me square in the chest so hard I was send skidding several feet across the sand, rolling onto my back coughing and sputtering and gasping for air, unable to move until I felt Bart’s shadow fall over me.

  “No more interruptions,” Bart said, his voice sounding muffled in my ringing ears.

  With another gasp, I rolled over onto my knees and started trying to scramble away, making it two feet before I felt a stabbing pain shoot up my spine, causing me to let out an anguished yowl. I turned back, and found Bart gripping my tail in a white-knuckled grip. “I’m not letting you escape!” Bart growled, stabbing his spear into the sand with his other hand and raising his arm over his head.

  “Arctic Prison!” he bellowed, and a disk of ice formed in the air, then began to rapidly expand. Recovering from the shock of having my tail yanked, I kicked backwards at Bart, extending the claws in my feet. Rather than risk another scratch, Bart released me, and I tried to scramble away as quickly as I could, but the disk had extended so far, and was now curving downward, forming a massive dome of translucent ice twenty feet across that cast the rising sun in an eerie blue light and, more importantly, left me with nowhere to go.

  “I expected better from you,” Bart said, pulling his spear out of the ground and pointing it towards me. “All the training that must have gone into you. All the effort to deliver you here. Surely you’re not going to give up without a fight? What would your precious Empress think of that?”

  “Bart, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” I shouted, struggling to my feet with my back pressed up against the freezing cold wall of the dome. “I’m not from the Empire!”

  Once more, Bart lunged forward, the edges of his body blurring and wisping off of him like he was made of smoke, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. I could see Bart coming, and I could feel myself trying to move out of his way, but just like Elle and Mel, I was moving too slowly. The razor-edged tip of Bart’s spear was closing in on me, inch by inch, and I was going to die because I was too slow!

  As if responding to my desperation, I felt the same strange sensation of something ethereal moving inside me that I’d felt moments before a bolt of lightning had shot out of my hand, but this time spread across my entire body. Acting purely out of instinct, I mentally reached out for that sensation, and felt an immediate upswelling of energy. Suddenly every muscle, nerve, and tendon in my body was on fire, and I was able to match Bart’s speed, diving to the side just in time to avoid being speared through the chest.

  I gasped, and panted, as I pushed myself to my hands and knees. Time had returned to normal, and every hair on my body was standing on end. I felt less like I’d drunk a hundred cups of coffee at once, and more like I’d had them injected directly into my veins.

  “W-w-w-whatthefuck!” I spoke in a rush, placing a hand over my heart, which was jackhammering so hard it felt like it might burst out of my chest at any moment.

  “That’s more like it!” Bart roared behind me, and I turned as he wrenched his spear out of the ice. “Come, show me what tricks the Empire has cooked up since I left!”

  “F-f-for the last time!” I stammered, struggling to my feet. “I’m n-n-not from the E-E-Empire!”

  I swung my arm out, just for emphasis, but the energy I’d dredged up from… somewhere inside of me moved like a living thing, shooting up my arm and racing out of my fingertips, leaving trails of crackling electricity in their wake.

  I stared down at my hands in shock. Bart scoffed, and lowered his stance, preparing to attack me again.

  “I… I can explain that!” I said, throwing my hands up.

  “I’m sure you can,” Bart replied, and lunged.

  With a yelp, I once again suffused my body with energy and dove out of the way of Bart’s thrust, catching myself on my hands and falling into a crouch. Unlike before, there was no charge, but rather Bart had moved just enough to stab at me without leaving the center of the dome. While I was still recovering, he drew his spear back, took a step, and thrust outward once more, and again I scrambled desperately out of the way on all fours.

  I realized, with a sensation like a boulder dropping into my gut, that Bart absolutely had the upper hand. Even if he moved as little as possible, he could still poke and thrust and jab at me from pretty much anywhere, while it was taking everything I had and then some to avoid being skewered. It was only a matter of time before he pinned me down.

  A sharp, burning pain cut across the back of my upper leg as Bart’s next thrust connected, but only barely. I bit back a startled cry of pain and gritted my teeth. I refocused my mental “grip” and pulled more of the angrily buzzing energy into my body, and Bart’s next strike skittered off the icy wall as I shot forward like a bullet, hugging the curve of the dome. It felt incredible to move that fast, right up until my arms started to burn and my teeth started to chatter. I eased off the throttle when the corners of my vision began to blur.

  “Not good enough!” Bart growled, turning to follow me as I circled him. His spear flashed, and I leaped, but the first thrust had been a feint, and the razor’s edge of his spearpoint sliced a shallow gash across my outstretched forearm.

  With the pain serving as excellent motivation, I was rapidly developing better control over how much of the hyperactive energy I sent coursing through my body. I had to strike the right balance; too much, and I felt like my heart was going to explode, but too little, and—

  “Ah, fuck!” I hissed, another imperfect dodge resulting in another stab of pain as the spearpoint grazed me, this time skipping across my shoulder.

  This wasn’t working. Bart was getting better at anticipating my movements, and I was pretty sure I could feel the pool of energy I was drawing from dwindling. I was going to run out of it eventually, and well before Bart ran out of stamina. If I didn’t do something to turn the tides, and soon, it was only a matter of time before I took a direct hit, but what could I do? He had a spear, for crying out loud! It had so much reach that as long as he stood in the center of the dome, Bart could hit me anywhere I ran, but I couldn’t hit him back, not without getting closer—

  Oh… duh…

  With a roar that was half-frustration, half-pain, the next time Bart missed his thrust, I pivoted on my foot and turned to face him, charging past his spear point. I dropped onto all fours as I did so, and though Bart tried to retract his spear and backpedal away, he was now the one moving too slowly. I leaped upwards, arms outstretched, streaks of lightning trailing from my extended claws, aiming for Bart’s chest, ready to tackle him to the ground.

  “Frost Nova!”

  Bart completed the chant while I hung in mid-air, and a gust of frigid wind exploded outwards from his body in all directions, throwing up sand and slamming me hard into the wall of the dome. I slid to the ground, shivering, my whole body coated in a thin layer of rapidly melting frost.

  “Rookie move, cat,” Bart said, and I cracked my eyes open to look at him. He was looking at me strangely now, the rage that I’d seen in his eyes when the fighting started replaced with an unfocused, sad expression. “You know me better than that.”

  “W-w-wh…”

  “Why?” Bart said, taking another step towards me. “I told you why. Because it's wrong! I tried to talk you out of it. I tried to make you understand, but you just wouldn’t listen, so you've left me with no choice…”

  I rolled over onto my back, staring up at Bart in complete incomprehension. He told me what? Tried to talk me out of what? I had no idea what he was on about; it was like he was talking to someone else.

  “I'm sorry it had to come to this…”

  My eyes widened as Bart stood over me, holding his spear high with both hands, the tip pointed down towards me. Desperate and confused, I shakily raising my arm, trying to force whatever energy I had left out through my hand, but Bart’s foot flashed out, kicking my hand aside and pinning my arm to the ground under his boot. The gathered energy discharged, lancing out as a bolt of lighting that struck uselessly against the wall of the dome with a crack!

  Without another word, Bart raised his spear higher, then drove it downwards with all his might.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself for the pain, but it never came. Several seconds passed, and I cricked my eyes open, finding the bladed tip of the spear embedded in the ground inches from my face. Above me, Bart was panting, and gasping. His hands slipped from the shaft of the spear, and he stumbled backwards, falling to his knees with his head hung low and shoulders drooping.

  “How many times…?” he asked weakly, between breaths. “How many times do I have to kill you, cat?” His shoulders heaved, and he dropped his face into his hands. “How many times before you’ll stay dead? I tried to stop you, I did! But you wouldn’t… you wouldn’t listen!”

  I lay there on the ground, sore and bleeding and confused, and watched as Bart shuddered and began to sob, his already incomprehensible words being legs intelligible and more hysteric. Never, in a million years, would I have ever thought I’d see Bart like this. He always seemed so cool and confident, mysterious and stoic. Now, despite having won the fight handily, he looked utterly defeated.

  With a moment to catch my breath, I pushed myself up onto my elbows, careful to avoid the spear as I sat up. I flipped over onto my knees, then climbed to my feet. Confused, and at a loss, I took a step towards Bart, and then another, and when he didn’t seem to react, I gingerly placed a hand onto his shoulder.

  “H-hey…” I said gently, trying to sound soothing despite the tremors in my voice. “Hey, it’s okay…”

  Bart surged forward, and though every instinct in my body screamed for me to dodge, I held my ground. Bart’s arms closed around my torso, and he buried his face in my stomach, his shoulders rising and falling as he continued to weep.

  “I'm sorry…” he said, his voice wet. “I'm so, so sorry, cat… if I’d just tried a little harder… then maybe you'd still be…”

  “Shh…” I said, placing my hands onto Bart’s shoulders again, trying to emulate what Felda usually did whenever she comforted me. “It's alright… it's going to be alright…”

  My ear twitched, and I looked up as the dome shuddered suddenly. There was a heavy thud, followed by a crack, and then a massive sea-green fist punched through the icy wall. The arm retracted, and I saw Mel peer in through the opening, locking eyes with me. She disappeared, and a moment later I saw her knife come flying in, trailing a thin stream of dark purple smoke. A split second passed and Mel appeared in a puff of the same smoke, gripping the handle of the knife. Before I could overcome my surprise and tell her to stop, she thrust her hand out towards Bart and I.

  “Moondust Slumber!” Mel bellowed. Glittering purple smoke spewed forth from her palm, enveloping the both of us. Immediately, my body felt heavy, and my eyes began to droop, as an overpowering sense of drowsiness wrapped around me, like a warm blanket fresh out of the dryer…

  “W-wah… wuh…” was all I managed to get out before I felt myself tipping over like a felled tree. The last thing I saw was Mel’s face as I dropped straight into her arms, where I promptly fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep.

  ■

  All around me, the wind howled.

  I was trapped in the eye of a hurricane. Safe, for the moment, but one wrong move and I would be swept off my feet and carried into the sky.

  I covered my ears, and cried out for someone, anyone, to help me, but I couldn't even hear my own voice over the noise. Terrified, I fell to my knees and huddled on the ground, waiting for the next gust that would scatter me like a pile of ashes. Even with my eyes squeezed shut, I could still feel it coming, barreling down on me like a speeding train, shrieking like a banshee.

  Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the storm vanished without a trace. The noise cut out so suddenly it left my ears ringing, and the gale force winds that had been threatening to blow me away dwindled away to almost nothing, replaced by only a gentle breeze. Tiny gusts of air caressed my cheeks and ran through my hair, like soft fingertips, and I opened my eyes.

  I was sitting on the edge of a dock, looking out on the bay, my toes dipped into the water. I could see dark shapes moving beneath the surface, and I wondered idly if I could catch them. I thought about standing up, and realized I was already standing.

  The wind coming off the sea was gentle and warm, and carried smells from across the entire world: sea salt and sweat and blood and tea, wood and rope and iron and canvas, smoke and dirt and steel and ozone. The deluge of scents was strange and familiar, and made my head swim. Tilting my nose up, I tried to get a better sense of them, taking a step forward, then another, then—

  I stumbled off the edge of the dock, and tumbled into the dark water below.

  ■

  “—am?”

  Someone was calling to me. But I couldn’t hear them. I was underwater.

  “Sam? Can you hear me?”

  The wind caressed my face again. It smelled like berries. I tried to breathe in its scent, but ended up breaking out into a coughing fit.

  “Shh, it's okay, you're okay,” the wind soothed. No, wait. That was Mel’s voice…

  With great effort, I pried my eyelids apart, and was greeted by the sight of Mel’s face looming over me, her expression full of concern. Her close proximity startled me, and I tried to jerk away, but realized too late that I was actually lying on my stomach, and my muscles were entirely uncooperative, resulting in only a lot of useless flopping. I opened my mouth to try and speak, but could only cough, expelling a mouthful of dark purple smoke that left a sweet aftertaste in my mouth. Before I could fully start to panic, Mel laid one hand on my back, and moments later I felt her fingers on my scalp, scratching behind one of my ears.

  “Easy, Sam, easy. You’re safe now, I promise,” Mel soothed, and I quickly sagged back into the soft surface beneath me.

  “W-where…” I wheezed, one last puff of purple leaving my lips, then tried again. “Where are we?” Craning my neck so I could look around curiously, I found I was sprawled out on a lumpy, unfamiliar couch that smelled overwhelmingly of sea salt, inside a wood-walled room that I'd never seen before. The decorations were sparse; a single bookshelf that held only a few books, the extra space occupied by things like large seashells, colorful bits of coral, and a couple of glass jars filled with odd, multicolored sand. To the left of the couch were a pair of doors, and to the right was an open door frame through which I could glimpse a little kitchen nook, where a heady-duty iron stove sat against the wall, a fire burning inside of it and a kettle placed on top of it.

  “Bart’s cabin,” Mel said, reaching up and brushing some of my hair out of my face. “How are you feeling? Does it still hurt anywhere?”

  “Still?” I asked, blinking, and only then did I realize exactly how sore I felt. My entire body was one big ache, like I'd spent all day yesterday doing a particularly demanding full-body workout, and this was the dreaded morning after. Not only that, but there was a dull, throbbing pain in my back, and several lesser pains all up and down my arms and legs, which were covered in bandages.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Oooowww…” I hissed, sinking limply back into the couch.

  “There it is,” Mel said, letting out a chuckle, before reaching down and picking up something from the floor. “Here, now that you’re awake you can drink this.”

  “This” turned out to be a glass bottle filled with syrupy red liquid, and even though I was sore all over, I couldn’t help but grin as Mel held it up to my lips. She tilted the bottle slowly, and poured a miniscule amount of the liquid into my mouth. It tasted like cherry-flavored mouthwash, and the second I swallowed it I felt the aching in my muscles and the burning from my cuts begin to lessen.

  “Ooough… finally,” I said, lifting my tail and swishing it happily through the air. “I can’t believe it took me this long to try a healing potion.”

  “It’s not a drink, Sam, it’s medicine,” Mel chastised me, gently. “And you need to sit up so you can drink more of it. We already used an entire bottle of salve on your back, and these cuts, but for some reason it wasn’t enough to heal you completely. Whatever Bart did to you in there, it must have messed you up worse than we thought.”

  “Huh?” I said, and tried to push myself upright, but as soon as I did the numbness started to fade and the pain returned, so I settled on just flipping myself over onto my back, letting out a groan as I did.

  “Ahh… geez, ow,” I said, shaking my head and reaching for the bottle. “Ugh, anyway, I don’t think this is all Bart’s fault. He never landed a single direct hit on me, except for when he blew me into the wall with a spell.”

  “What?” Mel asked, confused, while I tipped the glass back and swallowed another mouthful of potion. “How? Did he stop using that haste spell on himself?”

  “You mean when he went all blurry? No,” I said, licking my lips and wishing I had something to help with the astringent aftertaste.

  “Then how did you…” Mel trailed off, turning in her stool as the leftmost door next to the couch creaked open, and Elle stepped out, gently closing it behind her.

  Upon seeing I was awake, her eyes widened, and she rushed over to the couch, sweeping me up in her arms.

  “Sammie!” she cried, squeezing me so hard I had trouble breathing. “How are you feeling? Did the potion work? Let me see how your back looks.” I felt the back of my shirt lifted and let out a sharp giggle as Elle poked and prodded and fussed over me.

  “H-hey!” I yelped, squirming. “S-stop, I’m ticklish! And I’m fa–fa-aha-fine!”

  With a squeak, Elle released me, and I flopped back onto the couch, groaning. Abashed, she leaned over me instead, gripping the sides of my face with both hands. “Sorry, I’m just so glad you’re okay!”

  “I-it's okay,” I said, catching my breath after my brief laughing fit. Tilting my head, I rubbed my face into Elle’s palm, then reached up and placed my hand over her’s, looking back and forth from Elle to Mel. “Honestly, I should be the one asking how you two are. You both got beat up really bad, and on account of me, too.”

  “Not that bad…” Mel sulked under her breath.

  “Sammie, no,” Elle said with surprisingly firmness. “What happened today was not your fault.”

  I didn't totally agree with that, but I wasn't willing to press the issue right now.

  “What… did happen back there?” I asked, furrowing my brow as the events of the morning began to come back to me. “I mean, back in the tavern Bart seemed like he was terrified of me, but when I caught up with him and Felda it sounded like he thought he had to kill me, like I was… dangerous, or something, and he kept accusing me of being from the Empire…” Not to mention near the end, when he stopped making sense altogether and started talking like I was someone else. “That I can understand, a little, but… he attacked Felda before you two got there! He attacked you!”

  I felt a sudden spike of anxiety as I replayed the events of the fight in my mind, rolling onto my side so I could reach out and wrap my arms around a startled Elle, pulling her in so I could cling tightly to her, as though I needed to make sure she was real.

  “C-carefully, Sammie, your bandages…” Elle cautioned as she leaned over me, hugging me in return and gingerly rubbing my still aching back. “Me and Mel are fine! Bart, he… he was definitely pulling his punches, I think…”

  “But why?” I asked, lifting my head up to stare into her amber eyes, my mind awash with freshly churned up feelings of confusion and betrayal. Elle frowned, exchanging a glance over her shoulder with Mel, who let out a heavy sigh, turning to look at the door Elle had just come though.

  “I… can’t say anything for certain, only speculate on what I saw and what we’ve learned over the years,” Mel said, her voice uncharacteristically grave. “Are you… at all familiar with the concept of ‘battle fatigue?’ It’s an affliction of the mind; warriors leave the battlefield, but still carry the battle with them.”

  “Uh… oh…” I said, releasing Elle and slowly easing myself back into the couch, since sitting up was getting painful again. It wasn’t hard to figure out that Mel was referring to something like PTSD, or some other kind of lingering trauma that Bart must have suffered at the hands of the Empire. “Yeah, I… I’ve heard of that. Not personally, but we were taught about it in school.”

  Mel nodded, looking away from the door. “We’ve known Bart almost as long as we’ve known Felda. I always suspected he used to be a soldier, just from the way he carried himself. After what happened today, I’m sure of it.” She turned to me, reaching out and brushing a hand across my forehead again. “Seeing you shoot off that lightning in the tavern must have unearthed something and sent him into a panic. That’s the only thing I can think of, because I don’t think he’d ever have attacked any of us if he were in his right mind, especially not you or Felda.”

  I frowned, staring up at the ceiling. If that were true, and I had every reason to believe that it was, that threw everything that had happened into a new light. Now, my feelings of betrayal were going to war with a sudden flood of guilt that I had been the one to stir up such terrible memories for Bart that he’d lashed out at all of us. That was probably why he broke down towards the end of his fight with me; he was reliving something so unspeakably horrible that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend it.

  I had no idea how I could begin to apologize for something like that, but I could at least tell Bart—and Felda, too—the truth about what had happened in the tavern, and put some of their worries to rest. Speaking of…

  “Where are Bart and Felda now?” I asked, turning to Elle. “I need to talk to them as soon as I can.”

  Elle seemed thrown off by my sudden change in demeanor, taking an extra moment to answer. “They’re in there,” she said, nodding at the leftmost door. “Felda’s watching over Bart. He seems alright, for now, but he hasn’t said much since Mel woke him up… uh, I mean, since he woke up!”

  I raised an eyebrow at Elle’s obvious attempt to re-word what she’d said, and Mel chuckled, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  “I think it’s too late for that, Elle. Sam saw me cast the spell, afterall,” Mel said.

  “That sleep spell?” I said, titling my head. “Yeah, I saw it. Why, was I not supposed to?” Lowering my voice to a whisper, I asked, “Is it, like… forbidden dark magic?"

  Mel snorted and covered her mouth, then reached out and ruffled up my hair, making me squawk in surprise. “No, you little goof,” she said, shaking her head and glancing at Elle before continuing. “It’s just that that spell is kind of distinctive. It’s one of the signature spells of my cla—er, of my family, so I don’t like to use it unless I have to.”

  “Why not?” I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but this was the first time I could remember Elle or Mel mentioning either of the families.

  “Right, you wouldn’t get this,” Mel said, laughing wearily and reaching up to rub the back of her neck. “It’s complicated, and something we’ve been planning to tell you about for a while, but we really should save it for later, when all three of us can sit down and talk.”

  “Oh, uh, right, sorry,” I said awkwardly.

  “Awh, it’s alright, Sammie, it’s nothing… that serious,” Elle said, leaning down and giving me a quick peck on the forehead, effectively derailing my train of thought for the time being and, just as importantly, dispelling some of the funk I’d fallen into before thinking about confronting Bart and Felda. “You just focus on feeling better.”

  “Heeey, I got hurt too, let me get in on this,” Mel said with a cocky grin, leaning over Elle’s shoulder. Elle playfully rolled her eyes and turned her head, catching Mel’s lips with her own. I watched, flushing even more than I already was, and felt a twinge of embarrassment at how I was still too nervous to actually kiss either of my girlfriends. Especially after today, when they’d both put themselves in harm’s way for me.

  Maybe I should… use some of the money I’ve been saving up and take them on a date?

  “Don’t think I forgot about you,” Mel said, suddenly looming over me again. She raised an inquisitive eyebrow; a question, without words. An invitation. I nibbled on my lip, then nodded, and Mel leaned down, but didn’t encroach. I leaned up, but rather than just another chaste peck on the cheek, I nuzzled my own cheeks affectionately against the side of Mel’s face a few times, then gave it a chaste little peck before flopping back onto the couch, red as a tomato.

  There! That’s progress, right?

  Obviously, Elle couldn’t resist gushing over how “cute” I was after that, and I couldn’t not give her another kiss too, and from there the three of us might have gotten caught in a loop of passing the same cheeky little kisses back and forth for an hour or so, if the kettle on the stove hadn’t started going off a few minutes later. Elle jumped up to attend to it, rushing into the kitchen. Once there, she removed the kettle from the stove, setting it on the counter, and retrieved a teapot from one of Bart’s cabinets, filling it with steaming hot water before pulling out a small cloth satchel from her pocket, dropping it into the pot and replacing the lid.

  “There,” Elle said as she returned to the couch. “That just needs to steep for a few minutes.”

  “What’s that? Tea?” I asked, lifting my legs to make room for Elle again. At some point during our, uh, “recuperation” it was deemed that I was healed enough to move, since I could now do so without wincing in pain, and the pair had found themselves moving from in front of the couch to on it, and I’d found my way onto their laps. Which, to be fair, was pretty typical for us, by this point, but I was feeling especially clingy today.

  “Tea, yes, and medicine, of a sort,” Elle said as I laid my legs across her again, her hand settling onto my stomach. “It’s the serasflower tea Bart usually drinks, and some colin’s leaf.”

  “Oh, that’s the stuff Bart drinks for his insomnia, right?” I said, tilting my head under Mel’s constant but gentle scratching. I didn’t know what either of those plants were, but I remembered the tin of tea that Bart had bought on my first day in this world, when I’d followed him out to do some shopping. Again, another thing that made more sense now that I knew a bit more about Bart.

  “Yeah,” Mel said, switching from one ear to the other. “That, plus the colin’s leaf, should help settle his nerves and keep him calm when we go in to talk to him.”

  “And by ‘we’ you mean ‘all three of us,’ right?” I asked, rolling my head in Mel’s lap to look up at her.

  I could see the indecision on her face, and I think she even increased the intensity of her scritches in an effort to distract me, but eventually she sighed and nodded.

  “Yes, all three of us, if that’s what you want.” Mel said, smiling. “Honestly, I’m surprised you’re so eager to do this so soon. I’m nervous to go in there, and Bart wasn’t even trying to kill me.”

  “Mel,” Elle said harshly, and Mel looked somewhat abashed.

  “Oh,” I said, frowning and crossing my arms. “I mean… I’m trying not to think too much like that. Now that you’ve explained it, it makes total sense. Like you said, Bart never would’ve attacked us if…” I stopped myself just short of saying “If I hadn’t set him off” because even I knew that was being overly harsh on my part. Clearing my throat, I reached up, poking Mel on the nose.

  “But you’re right, that was really scary. You and Elle can wait out here, if you want,” I said, grinning, and Mel snickered and brushed my hand away.

  “Sam, it was ‘really scary’ when I fought the giant sloth that almost took out my eye,” Mel said, pointing at herself with a thumb. “That fight back there was terrifying. I knew Bart was strong, but not that strong. I couldn’t do anything…” Mel sighed, reaching down and poking me in the forehead in return. “But still, no, we’re goin’ in there together. We’ll be there to help convince Felda and Bart that your story is genuine if they don’t believe you.”

  “Heh, good, because I was actually going to be really nervous if you didn’t come,” I said with a sheepish giggle.

  Shortly after that, Elle declared that Bart’s tea should be about ready, and we rose from the couch as one. Elle returned to the kitchen to retrieve the teapot, coming back with the teapot resting on a small wooden tray along with a pair of cups, and together we approached Bart’s bedroom door. Elle’s hands were full, so Mel gave a soft knock.

  “Come in,” Felda’s voice answered from the other side, and Mel glanced back at both of us one more time. I nodded firmly, and Elle smiled and did the same. Mel smirked, then reached out and opened the door.

  Stepping into Bart’s bedroom, I found it decorated much like the living room; shells, starfish, a few preserved fish skeletons even, and some sparkly lumps that were either gemstones or colored glass. There wasn’t much in the way of furnishings; aside from a small desk and dresser, there was the bed, which Bart was resting on top of, his back propped up against the headboard, and a single chair, which Felda had pulled up beside the bed. Upon our entry, Felda turned in her seat, and I felt my stomach drop slightly. It hadn’t just been Bart who’d looked at me with fear in his eyes when I’d shot lightning from my fingers. Felda’s face, moments before she ran out of the tavern, had been hard-edged and wary, in a way that made my fur stand on end just to think about. And that was before she’d taken a hit intended for me, and nearly been frozen solid because of it. Without realizing it, I avoided meeting Felda’s eyes, too afraid of what I might find there, until I heard her rise from her seat and begin walking towards me.

  I could feel Felda standing over me. Tentatively, I lifted my eyes from the floor, trying to only look through my periphery, until she knelt down, bringing herself down to eye level with me, and I saw the concern and sadness in her eyes, obliterating any worries I had that Felda would never look at me the same after thinking I was somehow affiliated with the Empire.

  “Sam…” she said, raising a hand as though to place it on my shoulder, but held back at the last second, as if she was also hesitant to proceed. “I’m so sorry… I shouldn’t have—”

  I stepped in, throwing my arms as far around her much larger frame as I could. “It’s okay!” I said, squeezing Felda and laying my head on her shoulder. “I’m just… I’m just glad you aren’t hurt!”

  On the contrary, Felda seemed remarkably unscathed from the fight. Elle and Mel both had bandages around their right hands, from where Bart had struck them to disarm them, and the less said about my state, the better, but Felda looked fine, if a bit disheveled.

  “I shouldn’t have run off,” Felda said sadly, wrapping her arms around me in return. “I should have told you what was happening, or warned you to stay in the tavern. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have let my guard down like that; I know what Bart is capable of.”

  “And I should have listened when you told me to run,” I said, trying to give the bit of her back that I could reach an encouraging pat. “I shouldn’t have been there to distract you in the first place. I just wanted to explain myself so badly, and I guess I wasn’t thinking, but I never thought…” Turning my head, I peeked over Felda’s shoulder, catching Bart’s eye. He quickly averted his gaze, but I wasn’t letting him get away that easily. I squirmed my way out of Felda’s grasp and hurried over to the side of his bed, gasping out, “Bart!”

  Bart turned to face me, startled by my exuberance, but just as quickly lowered his eyes, staring down at his hands in his lap.

  “Hello, Samantha…” he said somberly, his face tightening. “I don’t expect you wish to hear what I have to say. Even I struggle to put into words the… bottomless depths of regret I feel for—”

  “Bart, I am so sorry!” I cried urgently, cutting him off and leaning over the edge of the bed slightly.

  “W-what?” Bart said, his brow furrowed and his tone incredulous. “You’re sorry? For what reason could you have to be sorry? You did not jump to several completely illogical conclusions and attack several innocent people in a mad rage, did you?”

  Behind me, I could hear the clatter of porcelain as Elle set down the wooden tray and began hastily filling one of the cups.

  “No, I didn’t…” I said, frowning, my tail lashing slightly. Bart was angry, that much was obvious, but not at me. I’d been expecting him to be upset with me, but then, I always expected people to be upset with me, whether I knew what I did wrong or not. No, he was clearly most angry with himself, and having been on the other side of that more times than I could count, I had to try and help.

  “But I did shoot that stupid lightning bolt right in your face and scare you and everyone else half to death!” I shouted.

  “That only happened because of my sigil!” Bart roared back, sitting forward on his bed. “It could not be more clear that you’ve never even used your innate magic once in your life! It was complete and total happenstance!”

  “Exactly!” I said, snapping my fingers and pointing at Bart, grinning triumphantly. “It was a total accident. I didn’t mean to shoot that lightning and dig up gods-know how many horrible memories for you, just like you didn’t really mean to hurt anybody, right?” Bart opened his mouth, but I held up a hand and charged again. “So, if you feel like you need to apologize for what you did, even though you didn’t really mean to do it, I’ll accept that, but only if you accept that I’m sorry too, even if it’s for something I didn’t mean to do either, okay?”

  Bart’s expression—confused bordering on irritated—softened slightly as I went on. His hands, which had been gripping the sheets beneath him, relaxed, and he let out a sigh, letting his head hit the wall behind him with a dull thump.

  “That is… extremely magnanimous of you, Sam,” Bart said, bringing a hand up and running it down his face. “To a fault, one might say.”

  “Ah, Bart, I have your tea here,” Elle said, approaching from the other side of the bed, holding out a cup of faintly steaming, inky-black liquid that smelled of liquorice. Lifting his head, Bart took a deep breath, and reached out to accept the cup with both hands.

  “Thank you, Elle,” Bart said, his voice stiff and formal, his eyes lingering on her bandaged hand. He raised the cup to his lips and took a few tentative sips, then one longer pull, before letting out a relieved sigh. He sat there for a few moments with his eyes closed, periodically taking sips from the cup, while behind me Felda settled back into her chair, reaching out and pulling me back from the edge of the bed, which I had started leaning further and further over in my excitement to apologize.

  “Alright,” Bart announced, finally opening his eyes again and turning to meet my intense gaze. He studied me in silence for another moment, then dropped his eyes to his cup. “Sam, I… thank you. For your patience. And your apology, though entirely unnecessary, is appreciated as well. As you said, you could not have known how badly it would affect me. I suppose not telling you that my little trick with the sigil circle would expose any innate magic you had was my mistake. I thought, perhaps, that you were keeping it a secret for obvious reasons, but then, why the insistence on learning magic…”

  Bart trailed off and shook his head, raising his cup for another, longer sip, then glanced back up at me. “I would like to apologize, not just for my assumptions, but my actions on this day. Clearly, you are not of the Imperial bloodline; your hair would be golden, were that the case. An extremely obvious and foolish mistake on my part, and one that led to so much pain and very nearly led to your death. All I can think to say is that I am truly, deeply sorry, and I hope that you can someday forgive me. It has been an honor to be your instructor in the art of angling, and I am confident you will flourish without my teachings. I will… ask Hubert from the bait shop to put aside some time to continue your education.”

  I waited, just in case Bart had any more to say. When he continued to stare into the black depths of his half-empty teacup, I finally opened my mouth and blurted out, “Uh, yeah, apology accepted! Obviously! But what’s all that about continuing ‘without your teachings?’”

  Again, Bart’s eyes were wide and full of confusion as he stared at me. He glanced down at his cup, then over to Felda. “How much leaf did you tell Elle to put in this?”

  “The same as always, Bart,” Felda said, leaning forward and placing a hand on Bart’s shoulder. “I told you you were being too hard on yourself, as usual.” Turning to me, Felda said, “He was convinced that you wouldn't want to keep training under him, that you’d be too frightened, or too resentful, to ever want to be near him again.”

  “Whaaat?” I said, turning back to Bart. “Bart, are you nuts?” I winced. Bad phrasing, but thankfully I don’t think anyone caught on, since that probably didn’t translate to them. “Y-you’re the best teacher I’ve ever had, and you’re probably the best fisherman I’ve ever seen, too! I’m sure, uh, Hubert is fine, but there’s no way he can get me good enough to win that competition in time!” I put my hands on my hips, trying to give him as stern a look as I could manage. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve gotten kind of… attached to everyone in this room, and that includes you, so I really don’t wanna have to leave the village…” I trailed off, pausing to catch my breath, my cheeks flushing slightly at how worked up I’d gotten. Once I could speak, I concluded by simply saying, “So, yeah. I forgive you. Period.”

  Bart’s mouth hung open slightly as I gave him a rant of my own, but snapped shut again when I finished. “Sam, I tried to kill you less than an hour ago!”

  “Psh,” I said, crossing my arms. “No you didn’t.” At that, I could feel every eye in the room turn on me, not just Bart’s. I held up a hand, then motioned out towards the beach. “Okay, yes, you definitely attacked me, I can't deny that, but at one point you had me stunned, flat on my back, completely helpless. You could have skewered me, easily, but you didn't. You just stabbed the ground, and then collapsed.”

  “I didn’t…” Bart’s brow furrowed, and his gaze turned inward slightly as he reached up and rubbed his forehead. “I… admittedly I do not remember what happened towards the end very well.”

  “Well, after you trapped me in that ice dome, it was all I could do to just run in circles and avoid getting stabbed clean through, but then—”

  “You what?” Felda asked, interrupting me with a mixed expression of shock and concern. “You avoided Bart’s attacks? How did you manage that?” She looked to Bart as though he might offer some answer. “I assumed the only reason you weren’t more injured is because some part of Bart knew to hold back.”

  Bart opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again, reaching up and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. The more I try to recall what happened after I cast the Arctic Prison, the hazier it gets.”

  “Ah, yeah, about that,” I said, coughing nervously. “I wanted to save this for later, but, uh, I’m not really sure what I did or how I did it. When you came at me, it was like time slowed down. I could see you coming, but I physically couldn't move my body fast enough to get out of the way, and I thought I was done for. But then, I felt something kind of”—I raised my hands, gesturing vaguely in the air before clenching them into fists—“move inside me, like, the same weird tingling I felt when the, uh, when the lightning came out, and I reached out for it, and suddenly I could just move faster.”

  A single heartbeat passed. Then a second. Then everyone started talking at once.

  “You did what?!” Felda shouted, aghast, shooting up out of her chair.

  “...be possible if you've never…” Bart was speaking under his breath, his words drowned out by the rest of the commotion.

  “—wonder it took so much potion for you to start healing, Sammie!” Elle cried frantically, putting both hands on my shoulders and spinning me around to start fussing over me.

  Meanwhile, Mel just threw her head back and laughed.

  “A-ah, okay, okay, one at a time!” I squeaked, swatting lightly at one of Elle’s hands until she pulled back, cheeks flushed green. Everyone obligingly stopped freaking out, and I took a moment to collect myself. Sighing, I turned back to Bart and Felda, rubbing at my temples. “Okay, this is not the order I wanted to do this in, but… I need to come clean, to both of you, about where I’m actually from. Maybe that might make some of this make more sense.”

  I looked between the pair, and they exchanged a glance. Bart grunted, sitting up further on his bed, and held his empty mug out. “Think I’m going to need a second cup for this.”

  “Yes, I would appreciate one myself as well, if you don’t mind, Elle,” Felda said, smiling.

  “Of course,” Elle said, and at least she and Mel still seemed cheerful. Elle took Bart’s cup, then filled it and the second cup she’d brought with more of the still faintly steaming tea. Once Felda and Bart were both settled, they turned to me expectantly. Meanwhile, I’d been spending that time trying to collect my thoughts, so I’d know exactly how I wanted to break the news to the pair.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “No,” Bart said, taking a sip from his cup. “But at this point I have to hope whatever you’re about to tell us will restore some sense of stability to the world.”

  “Alright, that’s definitely your last cup,” Felda said to Bart, playful but reproachful, before turning to me with a smile. “Go ahead, dear.”

  I let out an anxious chuckle, then shook my head and crossed my arms, trying to give them both my most serious expression. “Okay, so, right off the bat: You’re completely right, I am not from the Empire.” I let that sink in for a moment, then pressed on. “And I also have no idea why I can make lightning shoot out of my hands. Until this very morning, I had no idea I could do that.”

  To be honest, I still hadn’t fully processed that fact myself. I was kind of keeping that one on the back burner until I could deal with it later, after things were more calm and everyone was alright again. Bart and Felda’s expressions had grown puzzled, and I held up a hand.

  “Oh, and before you say it: no, I’m not from High Society either,” I said, snickering a little at the way Bart and Felda’s eyebrows shot up in unison. “Actually, for the first couple of days I was here, I didn't even realize ‘High Society’ was actually a place, I thought you were all just talking about, y’know, regular rich people.”

  As I knew from my eavesdropping early on in the first week, that had been Felda and Bart’s go-to theory for my origins, and without that to fall back on, they obviously found themselves adrift with no clue what to expect next. To that end, I decided to stop dancing around the answer, and finally lay it all out on the table.

  “The truth is, I'm not from anywhere in this world, at all. I’m from another world entirely. An, uh, Outsider, if you know what that means,” I said, unconsciously bracing myself; for what, I couldn’t say. Both Bart and Felda looked frozen, the former slowly turning his head to look at the latter, whose grip on her cup of tea suddenly slipped, causing it to nearly spill out of her lap before she caught it with a start.

  “A-a-an Outsider? From Ea… f-from another world?” Felda stammered, her eyes distant as though she were looking through me. “That’s… that’s amazing!” Like a spell being broken, Felda suddenly seemed herself again, shooting up out of her chair so abruptly I jumped. “Oh, Sam, I never in a hundred years would have guessed that you… but that explains so much! All the things you didn’t know when you arrived, and all the things you do know that you shouldn't!”

  Bart, meanwhile, remained speechless, his gaze still fixed on Felda with a fresh look of concern. He stopped, though, when he noticed me staring at him, and sat up a little straighter in his bed.

  “Ah, yes, I… I have heard the legends of Outsiders, although I always thought that they were just myths,” Bart said absently, bringing a hand up to his chin. “Folktales meant to elevate historical figures and add a bit of flavor to their legacy. But Felda is correct, that would certainly explain your odd mannerisms, especially those that set you apart from your kin…”

  “Hey!” I said, then blinked and shook my head. “I mean… okay, yeah, that’s probably fair. I mean, for starters, I wasn’t a weird half-cat, half-girl thing before I came here.”

  “Really?” Felda asked, her voice full of delight.

  “Yeah, before I ended up here, I was human, and a—” I cut myself off suddenly, realizing what I was barreling headfirst into saying without even thinking. Before I could even start second guessing myself, both Elle and Mel appeared over my shoulders, each one offering a hand for me to take. Which I did, gratefully, giving them both a squeeze before continuing. “And, uh, I was a guy. Or rather, I guess I thought I was, but I was actually wrong, I’m still kind of figuring it out. But, uh, yeah, I was like this when I woke up, and I guess it’s because the gods decided this body was better for me, or something? Aaaaand… well, I can’t say I disagree, exactly…”

  “I think they get it, Sam,” Mel said with a chuckle, squeezing my hand.

  Indeed, both Felda and Bart were looking at me pensively, but not at all like I’d just said something completely outrageous or shocking.

  Felda must have noticed me staring expectantly at her, because her eyebrows lifted and she tilted her head. “Mmh? Oh, were you… oh, Sam,” she said softly, holding a hand out towards me. With a glance to Elle and Mel, I released their hands and stepped forward, and Felda leaned forward in her seat, once again enveloping me in a hug. “Have you been afraid to tell me this whole time because of that?”

  “Well… it wasn’t entirely that, but I won’t say I wasn’t a little scared, even after how well Elle and Mel took it,” I admitted, nibbling nervously on my lower lip. Felda squeezed me tighter and patted the top of my head, then pulled back.

  “Sam, if you’re happy the way you are now, that’s all that matters,” Felda said, plainly and simply. A week or two ago, being faced with such direct and unconditional support would probably have reduced me to a bawling mess, but now it just warmed my heart. Okay, yes, my eyes did get a little misty, but I did not cry!

  Beside us, Bart cleared his throat, and I turned to look at him.

  “While I’m still not certain I fully believe your claim, there are many stories from olden times of the gods reshaping the forms of mortals to reward—or sometimes punish—them for their deeds.” Bart said, seeming unsure of if he wanted to look at me, or look at the wall. “One such fable tells of a red-haired warrior who, depending on who you ask, either broke off an engagement with, or insulted the daughter of, a priestess of the Goddess of Love and War, so the goddess placed a curse on the warrior, such that any time his body came in contact with cold water, he would turn into a woman.” Bart paused for a moment to take another sip of tea, then let out a chuckle. “Of course, in most versions of the story, it turns out that the priestess’s daughter fancies the red-haired warrior in his new form just as much as the old, and they end up falling in love and getting married after all.”

  “Oh, I love the red-haired warrior,” Elle said, swooning against Mel, who caught her with a yelp. “I prefer the version where the warrior wants to break off the engagement to the priestess’s daughter, so they pray to the Goddess of Love of War for a solution, and she bestows the same effect, but it’s framed as a blessing, not a curse. When the warrior goes to show the priestess’s daughter, she just laughs, because she isn’t bothered in the slightest.” Elle let out a delighted sight, then waved a hand in the air. “There’s a lot more stuff in the middle in this version, like the red-haired warrior having to keep their blessing a secret, and fight off several of the daughter’s other suitors, but in the end they do still end up falling in love.”

  “Huh…” I said, tapping my chin. “That sounds really fun. I’d like to read that story sometime…”

  Elle sat up and beamed, clapping her hands together. “Oh, I’d love to read it with you,” she said, then turned to Bart and Felda. “Speaking of stories, you should hear some of the ones from Sammie’s home. Her world doesn’t have any magic in it, or so she says, but there’s all sorts of amazing things, like a… oh, Sam, what was it? The flat thing that can talk to anyone anywhere in the world?”

  “That's either a phone or a computer, and both of those are way too complicated for me to get into right now,” I said, chuckling. It had taken me long enough to get the idea across to just Elle and Mel, and mainly because I didn't know that much about computers or phones myself.

  “Really? No magic at all?” Bart asked, sounding intrigued.

  “Yeah, but it's not like you're imagining,” I said, knowing where this was going. “Since my world didn't have magic to fill in the gaps, we focused way more on science, like, uh, engineering and chemistry and physics, and learned how to do all sorts of stuff through technology that this world just uses magic for.”

  “Like what, for example?” Bart asked, and I furrowed my brow, wondering where to even start.

  “Tell him about the light globes,” Mel suggested, and I nodded.

  “Oh, yeah, that works,” I said, holding up a hand. “So, you know how here, if you need to light a room after dark, you use candles or enchanted lanterns? Well, where I'm from, we figured out how to make light by enclosing a very thin wire inside a glass bulb, and then running electricity through it, so the wire glows.”

  “Electricity?” Bart repeated the word, and Elle bounced excitedly on her feet.

  “Oh, I remember this one too!” Elle said, beaming. “Electricity means ‘harnessed lightning.’ Sammie's world discovered a method of generating their own lightning on command, involving… spinning things very fast, and magnets, right?”

  “Yeah, basically,” I said, scratching the side of my head, and not for the first time wishing that Morgan were here to explain things better than I could. “Some guy discovered if you spin a copper disk between two poles of a magnet, it generates electricity, and about two hundred years later, every piece of modern technology runs on it.”

  Bart opened his mouth, probably to ask another question, but Felda politely cut in, “I'm sure there is no end to the fascinating tales you could share from your world, but perhaps we should return to the topic at hand?”

  “Oh, shit, you're right.” I blinked, realizing just how far off track we’d gotten. I had already gone through a lot of this once before with Elle and Mel, and if I had to do it again with Bart and Felda, we’d be here all day. Tilting my head, I asked, “Uh, so, where were we?”

  “I believe,” Bart said, nodding at Felda and holding up a hand, “that you were in the middle of explaining how you managed to use an incredibly dangerous and difficult to master technique to avoid my attacks when I had you completely cornered.”

  “Oh!” Felda gasped, her eyes going wide. “Thank you for reminding me! You definitely shouldn’t be on your feet so soon if that’s the case!” Without warning, she reached down and scooped me off my feet, placing me on her lap. “If you did what I think you did, then it’s a miracle you’re even standing.”

  “H-hey…” I said, flushing and squirming slightly in Felda’s lap. “I feel fiiiiine.”

  “That’s because the potion is numbing the worst of the pain,” Elle said, approaching the side of the bed again. “Honestly, I’m concerned too. I don’t even know what Sam did, but I could tell her body was in bad shape when Mel pulled her out of that dome. You two seem to have some idea, even if she doesn’t.”

  “Hold on, this sounds like we’re gonna be here a while longer. I’m gonna go get some more chairs from the kitchen,” Mel said, sticking her hands in her pockets and heading for the door.

  “B-bring one for me too!” I called out as she opened the door, but the smirk she threw over her shoulder told me that probably wasn’t happening. Well, fine. It wasn’t like I minded sitting in Felda’s lap, it was just a little… embarrassing.

  We sat in awkward silence, waiting for Mel’s return. Elle turned her head, glancing at one of the shelves of trinkets, and said, “Ah… this is… actually a very nice place you have here, Bart.”

  “Thank you,” Bart grunted, rubbing the back of his neck. “I built it myself…”

  Finally, the door was nudged open again, and Mel returned with two wooden chairs hooked under both arms, placing them down beside the foot of the bed. She dropped into one, and Elle sighed and gently took her seat in the other, leaning over and laying her head against Mel’s shoulder.

  “Alright, go on,” Mel said, laying her head on top of Elle’s and smiling at me.

  “Well, for starters, I don’t think it’s fair to say you ‘cornered’ me,” I said, turning to Bart, who raised an eyebrow. “Because, y’know, it’s a dome?”

  Bart stared at me, uncomprehendingly, while Elle let out a groan and Mel once again burst out laughing. A second later, Bart’s other eyebrow joined the first and half-laughed, half-scoffed and shook his head. I couldn’t help but giggle at his and Elle’s exasperation.

  “Uh, other than that, there’s not really that much more to tell,” I said, leaning back against Felda, who brought a hand up to rest atop my head. “Like I said, I knew I needed to get out of the way, but I couldn’t move fast enough, then I felt that weird tingling all over, and when I reached out for it, it was like… bzzt! And suddenly I could move faster, way faster, but it felt like… well, I guess it felt like I had lightning in my veins, or something.”

  “You’re not too far off,” Bart said, running a hand down the side of his face and cupping his chin. “To start with, that ‘tingling feeling’ was your mana. From the sound of things, you’ve never felt it move before, so you were unfamiliar with how to direct it, until a moment of desperation required you to do so instinctively.” Bart cocked his head to the side, looking at me out of the corner of one eye. “And if you were able to achieve such speeds that you could counteract my personal haste spell, then you were most likely overcharging your body with your own lightning magic, to speed up your reaction times even further, and push your muscles beyond their normal limits. In that case, it really is a miracle that the fight didn’t last much longer than it did; you were almost certainly doing more damage to yourself than I was…” Bart trailed off, turning to look out the window of his bedroom, which provided a view of the cliff walls and the ocean beyond that hugged the curve of Torgard’s rocky coastline.

  “That explains why I’m sore everywhere,” I said, looking down at my hands, idly tapping two of my claws together. “To be fair, I wasn’t really thinking. I just ran in circles over and over until I realized I needed to get close to you, but when I tried you, uh…”

  “Hit you with the Frost Nova, right?” Bart said, turning back from the window. “Rookie mistake, assuming that I’d be defenseless just because you’d gotten inside my range.”

  “Heh, yeah,” I said, chuckling weakly. “You said pretty much the same thing in the middle of the fight, actually.”

  “Really?” Bart asked, raising an eyebrow. “I spoke to you? During the fight?”

  “Uh huh,” I said, nodding, then reached up and tapped my chin. “Well, at first you were talking to me, and it was less ‘talking’ and more ‘threatening,’ but then at some point you started saying some weird stuff that didn’t make any sense, and you started calling me a ‘cat’ for some reason.”

  Bart’s face fell, some of the color draining from his cheeks, and I felt Felda tense beneath me.

  “A cat?” Elle said, furrowing her brow. “That’s… strange, and kind of rude, but why…” Elle trailed off as Mel placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a look that I was pretty certain meant “wait” and motioned to Bart with her eyes.

  Bart let out a sigh and turned, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and rising slowly to his feet. He walked over to the window, reaching up and flipping the latch before raising the window, letting a fresh, sea-scented breeze blow in from outside. Bart hunched over the windowsill, taking in deep breaths of the salty air, before standing up and turning to face the rest of the room.

  “Bart…” Felda said, stirring behind me. “You don’t have to do this today. Surely it can wait until you’re feeling better?”

  Apparently she knew something we didn’t, which wasn’t that much of a surprise, considering how long she and Bart must have been friends for.

  “I’m feeling as well as I am likely to for the foreseeable future,” Bart said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall beside the open window. “Sam's chosen to confide in us some very personal and potentially dangerous information. Maybe I feel like I owe it to her to do the same. Or maybe I just want to excuse my actions…” He met my confused gaze, took a deep breath, and said, “I wasn’t calling you ‘cat.’ I was calling you… Kat. As in…” Bart turned his head to the side, his face hard as iron, his hands clenched, as if he had to physically struggle to force the last word out of his mouth. “...Katherine.”

  (End of Part 1)