That night, Rachel stretched out on the living room rug next to Lana, placing herself just close enough that Lana wouldn’t be able to escape a conversation. The storm continued to worsen, having grown from a drizzle to a downpour while they ate. Rain drummed incessantly on the windows, obscuring all but the wavering light emanating from a kitchen window across the street. Rachel’s ear twitched, noticing a barely-audible string of pattering footsteps as someone dashed across the alley below.

  Lana stirred, rolling towards Rachel to stare up at the ceiling. Rachel lay on her side, facing Lana, though Lana showed no sign of having noticed her presence.

  “Are you comfortable?” Rachel asked, hoping Lana would understand the implied question.

  Lana tilted her head to face Rachel. “The best research often requires discomfort.”

  Rachel thought back to her months spent at the Celestine Library, and the horrors experienced by Jason and all those who died to secure that knowledge. “I didn’t mean physically.”

  “Neither did I.” Lana turned to her side, letting their forms mirror each other. “Nobody in Trensicourt hasn’t heard a rumor or three about Tassel. Meeting him, speaking to him… it’s as terrifying as it is intriguing.”

  “Tell me about it,” Rachel sighed. “Why follow him?”

  Lana tucked a hand between her head and the pillow. “I guess Matt didn’t tell you. I’m a historian - history student, really - specializing in the Cielist revolution and the end of the Theic Age. Tassel must be a bottomless well of knowledge all but lost to-”

  “Shh,” Rachel urged. “Keep it down.”

  “None of what I’m saying is a secret,” Lana protested.

  Rachel bugged her eyes out in exasperation. “Back to the point.”

  “Right, right.” Lana closed her shoulders slightly. “I’m… I don’t really know. I feel much as I did when I left Kadara to study here. Not endangered, not really, but… uprooted.”

  Rachel wished she could show that she sympathized. She knew the feeling, having been stolen from her world so long ago. She supposed she could at least dilute it, seeing as she was masquerading as a coast dweller.

  “I know what you mean. Sort of, at least.”

  Lana smiled. “You said you came from Whitehead?”

  “Mm.” Rachel nodded. “Not so far as Kadara, not even close. But it’s weird being in the city. So much noise, so much chaos.”

  “You’re handling it better than I ever did,” Lana admitted.

  Rachel mirrored her reluctant smile. “I have to.”

  Lana shook her head, then readjusted it in her palm. “No, you don’t. Fear is fear, whether or not you show it. Don’t let it muzzle you.”

  Rachel wasn’t afraid - at least, not for the reasons Lana thought she was - but she played along. It was shockingly easy to build her persona around the assumptions people had so far made about her.

  “Fear…” she trailed off. “Are you afraid?”

  Lana glanced away from her and drew in a deep breath. “We’re all afraid. But… less here, now.”

  Rachel had to resist raising her eyebrows. Out of all the possibilities she had entertained, she had missed this one. She had never considered-

  Lana reached out through the darkness and took Rachel’s hand.

  Caught off guard, Rachel could think to do nothing but hitch her breath. More quickly than should have been possible, panic set in, locking her muscles and grinding her thoughts to a halt. Her hand tightened around Lana’s, but that only prompted Lana to squeeze right back as if to reassure her.

  “I’m-” Rachel stammered. “I don’t-”

  Quick as a blink, Lana withdrew her hand. “Oh, prongs, I’m sorry. I should have-”

  “No,” Rachel said quickly, cutting Lana off. “Not your fault.”

  Rachel took a great amount of solace in the fact that people still cursed the same way in the distant past. In the same thought, she supposed that Lana’s touch hadn’t been… terrible.

  “I get hopeful,” Lana said, more to the ceiling than to anyone in particular. “Too much, these days. Makes it hard to make friends.”

  Rachel, still facing Lana, rolled onto her back and mirrored Lana’s listless upward stare. “It must be hard. Even here, in the big city.”

  Lana sighed. “I don’t know. You’ve probably never been courted by a woman before, being from out on the coast.”

  Unless she counted two of the guides at the Celestine Library - and maybe Ulani from the Temple of Mianamon if she really stretched it - she hadn’t. She almost felt tempted to lie - she had gotten so well accustomed to deception since she had returned to Earth - but she resisted.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “First time for everything,” Rachel replied, rolling to face Lana. “Don’t give up.”

  Lana shifted against the rug. “Hm.”

  Rachel rolled away from Lana and curled up on the edge of the rug as silence grew like moss from the forgotten corners of the room. She felt… strange, as if her organs had been torn out of her chest and replaced in all the wrong places. She wasn’t attracted to Lana, not at all, but the knowledge that there was love in such a jarring, hostile place was comforting.

  From the back of her mind, she recalled her first meeting with Matt. She remembered how strange it felt to be confronted so quickly with the reality that Lyrian had not disappeared when she had left. Perhaps more jarringly, Earth had continued on without her and Jason while they were in Lyrian. Jason had had friends on Earth. They had grown up, grown apart, but they still lived. If nothing else, Jason’s shadow only hung darker over them as time had passed.

  Rachel thought of herself - how cold she had been to Matt, how secretive she had become around her parents who were still too relieved at her return to know better. Even now, when she thought of who Matt had been back then, she felt a twinge of contempt. Now, though, the thought of him was almost… comforting.

  She couldn’t help but hope that life in this unfamiliar Lyrian could offer a sense of colour.

  Feeling suddenly alone in the darkness, Lana sleeping quietly next to her, Rachel closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, wondering if Tassel was still awake. She didn’t even know if she wanted to talk to him - he was far too much for Rachel to handle right now - but it was preferable to her thoughts. She found nothing in Tassel’s direction, so she reached further afield, wondering if there were any other wizards within communication distance. Even if there were, she supposed, they would probably be keeping a much lower profile than Tassel seemed to.

  Rachel frowned. She had figured that, even while he was sleeping, she would be able to find Tassel through the background fuzz of the city. Now, though, he was nowhere to be found.

  Tassel? she tried. Nothing.

  Wishing she could just let it go and sleep, Rachel stood up and snuck to the door separating the living room from the hallway beyond which Matt and Tassel slept. She contemplated going to the bathroom - there was a slight pressure on her bladder - but she decided it wasn’t yet worth braving the toilet again, even if it did empty straight into the sewers. That bathroom door stayed closed for a reason.

  She pushed open Tassel’s bedroom door. Its hinges creaked softly, but Matt slept straight through it. She could hear him - not snoring, really, but breathing about as loudly as humanly possible. She inched further into the room, listening with razor-sharp ears to ensure she was right before she had to cross the room and wake somebody up.

  Tassel?

  Still nothing.

  Not for the first time, Rachel wished she had a candle. She inched further into the room, the complete lack of light making it nearly impossible to make progress. Matt’s breathing was her only compass, and it outmatched the constant drumming of rain on the windows enough that she quickly found herself at the foot of Tassel’s bed. She felt around it - double size, or maybe a queen - then walked around the side that was not heaving like a runner after a marathon. She ran her hands over the covers, looking for Tassel.

  Nothing.

  She reached further until she felt Matt’s back, expanding as he breathed in. Hardly believing it, she reached to Matt’s other side at the minute possibility of Matt playing big spoon to Tassel, but found nothing.

  Tassel was gone.

  Careful not to wake Matt, Rachel slunk out of the bedroom, easing the door shut behind her. A creak in the floor of the living room nearly scared her to death, but Lana simply rolled over and kept on sleeping. Rachel was beginning to wonder if Lyrian was taunting her with narcoleptic friends as if they were consolation prizes for Jason’s nonexistence.

  She strode to the window, staring out at the lightless maelstrom outside, and sighed. Even to find Tassel, she wasn’t willing to go out in this storm. He probably had some spell to keep him warm and dry. She wondered if she could manipulate the rain around her for long enough to walk any meaningful distance. She doubted it.

  Even in the direct presence of Maldor, she had not seen such potent power as she sensed in Tassel. As threatening as Maldor had been, and as lucky as she had been to defeat him, she had done so. She couldn’t imagine Tassel even flinching at the string of commands she had used to throw Maldor to the dungeon floor, and she had since had years of practice.

  Maybe he really was the Eldrin who had ended the Age of Wizards. Who would end it.

  Closing her eyes, Rachel knelt next to Lana and shook her shoulder gently. Lana drew a deep breath, shifted, then exhaled. “Rachel?”

  “How long do these storms usually last?” Rachel asked.

  “Good morning to you too,” Lana grumbled. “A few hours. Depends on the wind. Why?”

  Rachel froze, but only for a moment. “Got the sudden urge to go for a walk.”

  She had almost said she couldn’t sleep. As a resident of the coast, though, being unable to sleep in a storm would have destroyed her. She couldn’t break character - not now, not ever.

  “You coasties really are weird.” Lana shifted slightly, and Rachel realized her hand still rested on Lana’s shoulder. She hastily pulled it away.

  Rachel found her spot on the rug - no longer warm, of course - and stretched out on it. “Would have been nice for Tassel to give us a blanket.”

  Lana laughed voicelessly. “At least it’s warm in here.”

  Rachel closed her eyes and visualized the wood inside the iron stove across the room. She called heat to it - not enough to start a fire, but enough for the dead coals to pulse a slight red. Strangely, she detected another enchantment there, as if Tassel had left a tiny part of his power in the stove, breathing just enough heat into it to keep the temperature comfortable.

  As much as Rachel saw it as a brag, she appreciated the effort.

  “Why do you remain with him?” Lana asked, cutting the comforting silence in two.

  “Matt?” Rachel asked.

  Lana let out a short breath. “Tassel. What could he grant you besides exile?”

  Rachel sighed. She couldn’t tell her the truth, of course - she would run straight to Matt with it - but a heavy weight in her throat stopped her from saying anything else. As much as it was saving her, keeping her close to Matt and, in a way, keeping him alive, she was dead sick of lying. All it would take was one slip, one mistake in front of anyone she and Matt both knew, for it all to come crashing down.

  “We’re hoping he can help us find our friend,” she finally said.

  “Somebody else from Whitehead?” Lana asked.

  Rachel did not reply. All she could do was close her eyes and hope. She hoped that Matt would never realize that Jason wasn’t in Lyrian, yet knew that he eventually would. She hoped that Tassel hadn’t abandoned them, yet hoped in the same breath that he had.

  And she hoped that, after all had transpired, that she could forgive herself in the end.