They left Madra in the morning, heading east. By evening, they'd arrived at the area Felix now knew to be the Osenia cliffs, gateway to the sea. The land here was greener than Madra had been, grassy plains that eventually dropped off into a sheer rockface, with nothing but air all the way down to the ocean many feet below. A few craggy spires jutted up out of the water to the east, making a precarious bridge across the strait. Felix eyed the stone with hesitation. They'd have to cross it tomorrow.

Once they'd made it down to the lowest plain, Sheba ran straight to the edge, unburdened by any such misgivings. A group of Madrans was there already, fishing poles in hand, pointing to something out at sea. She looked with them, and then beckoned to the others. "Look!"

Jenna and Kraden hurried over, but Felix followed more slowly, and hung back from the edge until Sheba grabbed him by the arm and pulled. "Look!" she repeated, urgently.

He inched closer, paying careful attention to his footing. One wrong step and he'd be down there, suffocating under the waves—

—the waves. Right. He finally looked where she was pointing, and saw what all the fuss was about.

The ruins of what must have once been a ship tossed back and forth, heaving on the swells. He watched as the water picked up pieces of stout wood, longer than he was tall, and dashed them against the rocks as though they weighed nothing. Further out, in the middle of the wreckage, the tattered remains of a flag could just be seen.

Felix's stomach clenched. One wrong step and they'd be like the flag and the ship, nothing more… A piece of flotsam tangled in the ragged cloth and stuck there, bobbing.

One wrong step.

He tried to tear his eyes away and found he couldn't.

"Whose was it?" Jenna asked, softly, and he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

One of the fishermen spat. "Champa boat. Serves 'em right. They won't be raiding for a long time, now."

Not the prisoner's. Good, he told himself, and it didn't do quite enough to quell the tightness in his chest.

It did a little to break the awful reverie, though, and he considered the rocks again. They'd have to make it across—all of them, an old man, a child, and two none-too-graceful others—without falling in. Felix glanced back down at the smashed remains of the pirates' ship and tried not to think about what would happen if they did. Even a swimmer would be little match for the crashing waves, and with spires like that he had no doubt that the bottom was rocky. A fall would easily mean death—and not a quick one. He backed away even farther from the edge, his heart beginning to race.

One wrong step.

No.

"…Felix?" Jenna was tugging at his sleeve.

She'd been talking, he realized. "Huh?"

She gave him an odd look, but left it at that. "Sheba and I are gonna try fishing. Can I use your knife to make a fishhook?"

He'd gotten it with the rest of the supplies they picked up in Madra, and unlike the sword it was a tool he did know how to use. Fishing, though… "The edge is dangerous."

"We'll be careful! Please? It'll make the food last longer."

She had a point, and there were that handful of fishermen there, alive enough.

One wrong step.

If he told her no, she'd ask him why.

Without a word, he handed her the knife.


In the end, fishing proved to be too mind-numbing an endeavor for both Jenna and Sheba to endure, but Kraden stepped up handily and caught them several fish, which, when cooked over the fire that Jenna got going (a far more riveting task) made for quite a satisfactory dinner.

Night fell and Felix took first watch. All around him in the dark the waves crashed against the earth, and after an hour he'd begun to think the sound might drive him mad. The sea was everywhere, inescapable, and this close to it they were only moments away from ending up at its mercy.

He got up to pace, trying to calm his jangling nerves. A bare sliver of moon shone in the sky, lighting the cliffs' edge with an eerie blue glow. Further out, the shipwreck was still visible, inky blots on inkier water. He hesitated to walk to too near, but couldn't stay away, and spent the rest of his watch in a kind of back-and-forth dance with the dreadful vision. When the hours finally passed and Jenna's turn came up, he wrapped himself tightly in his cloak and pressed his back to the rock wall against which they'd built their camp, trying to draw strength from the stone. It was still, at least, and silent.

They woke early to warm sun and a slight breeze, and after a breakfast of cold fish shared by everyone except Felix it was time to head for the edge.

Huge fingers of rock erupted from the water's surface, of a height with the plane where the Adepts now stood. Most of the rocks, at least, were fairly close together, with a few thick, rough-bodied vines threaded around the gaps in the stone. Felix—stomach in knots, and glad of skipping breakfast—took the lead for the crossing, moving slowly.

If he focused on the stone it wasn't so bad. He kept his eyes fixed on it, and only on it, letting the craggy green-grey rocks fill his vision and trying to block out the noise of the sea. The stone beneath his feet was blessedly solid, thousands of years worth of stability connected all the way down to the bones of the earth and once he had his mind on that it almost wasn't so bad.

They made their way across one spire, then another. The spaces between were small enough that if they joined hands they could make it—all except Sheba, who leapt over the gaps as though they were nothing and pretended not to see Felix's disapproval.

Then they came to the end.

The last gap was easily twice the size of the others—jumpable, if they were careful, but not so easy. He looked down, and saw the waves breaking white against the spire's base. He froze.

One wrong step.

"Felix?" Kraden called from behind him.

He couldn't remember how to speak.

Kraden called out again, and he finally unclenched his throat. "…yeah?"

"Everything all right?"

How long had he been staring at it?

One wrong step.

No one else thought it was a problem.

He closed his eyes and heaved himself over the gap.


The rest of the morning passed more calmly, and as they walked the grass started to thin, and the air grew warmer. By the time they truly crossed over into the desert, everyone was sweating.

They stopped briefly to rest in the shade cast by a stone pillar, and Jenna pulled out the strange card to use as a makeshift fan. "I knew it would be hot," she moaned. "But not this hot. The sun is evil."

Kraden mopped his face with his handkerchief. "It's only a few days."

"A few days?! I'll be melted by then. Sheba, can't you conjure up a breeze or some clouds or something?"

Sheba, however, wasn't listening. She'd unpinned her shawl, and as they watched she shook it out and carefully draped it around her head and shoulders, shading her face and neck from the worst of it. At their questioning looks, she smiled a little, shyly.

"I grew up in a desert, remember? We don't like sunstroke any more than you do." She looked wistfully out at the drifting sand. "This kind of reminds me of home."

Following Sheba's example, Jenna wasted no time doing the same with her own cape, and Kraden deftly repurposed one of his sashes. Sheba turned to Felix. "Aren't you roasting?"

He remembered the last time she'd traveled through the desert. Her hands had been bound, and she hadn't said a word the entire time. He'd offered her water and she'd shaken like a leaf.

Jenna took his silence for denial, and scoffed. "Yeah, right! If you keep going like that you'll die, and then we'll get stuck carrying your corpse. At least take your cloak off!"

His cloak was heavy wool, thicker than everyone else's and not even suitable for a head-covering. He was loath to give up the protection the collar provided his neck—but if he kept it on, the heat would do him in before they even got into a fight. With reluctance, he rolled it up and stuck it in his pack, along with his gloves. Everything else stayed.

When he'd finished that, the girls were looking at him, contemplatively, but before they could insist on anything else Kraden intervened.

"Here, Felix, take this," he said, holding out his other sash.

Unable to think of a polite refusal, Felix put it on. It was bright yellow and smelled vaguely of knee ointment.

Thus arrayed, they set off across the sands.


Sunset brought with it some relief from the heat, and as Felix took first watch, it was practically pleasant. Kraden and Sheba fell asleep almost instantly, but Jenna spent a while arranging and rearranging her cape, which she'd been using as a bedroll, before giving up and coming to sit next to him instead.

"I've been thinking."

He raised an eyebrow. "How concerned should I be?"

She poked him lightly in the arm, but her face stayed serious. She was silent for a bit, settling more comfortably on the ground, and finally said, "At Venus Lighthouse, after we escaped—me and Kraden—we ran into these soldiers. Tolbi. They tried to stop us, and we had to fight them."

He turned to look at her, but she waved him off.

"We were fine—the fire scared them away pretty quick, but…"

"But what?"

"Afterward, I-I felt bad. It's just…" She trailed her fingers through the sand, dragging them in abstract patterns. "It seems unfair, you know? They weren't Adepts."

"Adepts or not, they would have hurt you if they could." His hands clenched into fists. They hadn't, he reminded himself, but he should have been there to stop them.

She said nothing, and he wondered why she'd brought it up.

At last it dawned. "Is this about the pirate?"

"How'd you know?"

"Your face. We don't need Sheba around to know what you're thinking."

She poked him again, harder this time, and then sobered. He sighed.

"We're just making sure that he goes quietly. We're not there to attack…but we will defend ourselves, if we have to. There's nothing wrong with that." He gave her half a smile, trying to reassure. "We might not have to. Toss a few fireballs and I'm sure he'll come along."

He almost thought it was the truth. He hoped it would be.

She smiled back and got up, stretching. "Thanks, Felix."

Once she'd fallen asleep, he took out his sword and ran through drills, back and forth across the sand. She'd been in danger, and he hadn't been there to help.

He wouldn't let it happen again.


"Watch out!"

Felix leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding the giant claws slashing at him from the front and the fireball Jenna sent flying from behind him. They'd painstakingly trekked through the desert only to find the path out guarded by a ten-foot-tall scorpion—and it hadn't taken kindly to being woken up.

He paused, just out of its reach, breathing heavily and trying to think. The fight had gone on too long already, and he hadn't done enough to end it—weapons did little against its armored shell, and the sand here was a far cry from the solid earth and stone Felix was used to, and far less happy about bending to his will. The girls had had better luck with their attacks, but though the monster was burned and blasted it was also, regrettably, still alive.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as a bolt of blue lightning snapped out of the sky—and missed, striking just inches from the scorpion's head. Quicker than sight, its tail lashed out, whiplike, to strike back, and Sheba fell with a scream, clutching at her arm.

No more time.

Felix sprinted forward, ramming his sword between two of the armored plates on its back before it had a chance to follow her. The thing whirled around, far faster than anything that size had any right to be, and as it did his sword, still stuck in its flesh, was wrenched out of his hand.

He had all of two seconds to realize just how very bad this was before it plowed him over, sending him sprawling on his back and bouncing his head against the ground, and the only reason he didn't scream was because he'd bitten his tongue with the impact, and then it was there

—he still had his knife but everything was claws and fangs—

—up, he needed to get up, but his body didn't want to listen—

—he reached out to the sand but it wouldn't help him—

—no time

The scorpion bore down on him, pincers snapping.

Clumsily, he scrabbled backward, seeing double and frantically trying to get away from whichever claws were the real ones when Jenna shouted at him, a huge cloud of white-orange flame blossoming between her hands. "Cover your head!"

That he could manage, and he flopped over, pressing his face into the sand just in time to feel a wall of heat sweep across his back.

The scorpion shrieked, and there was an awful crackling noise, and the creature didn't move again. When the world had stopped spinning long enough for him to move again, he turned over to discover that Jenna's fireball had left only a blackened husk, stinger still gleaming deadly-sharp in the desert sun.

He spat red and rolled slowly to his feet, a deep ache starting to thrum down his head and neck. He'd have to heal it, but Sheba needed help first.

Jenna and Kraden were already crouching next to her. A nasty gash, bleeding freely, ran from her elbow down her forearm, nearly all the way to the wrist. Her other hand was held fast in Jenna's, squeezing until the knuckles went white.

He should have thought faster.

He hoped he could fix it.

He knelt in front of her, trying not to wobble. "Let me see." Carefully, he picked up the wounded arm to take a better look, and she hissed in pain.

"I need to see how bad it is," he told her, and nearly growled in frustration. Any half-decent healer would already know.

She winced, and Felix realized she'd probably felt that. He took a deep breath and made himself speak softly. "Can you move your fingers?"

She twitched them in answer, and grimaced.

Not too bad, then. He ought to have enough power to fix it. "Cure," he murmured, and as he did amber light glowed at his fingertips and spread around his hands, growing to encircle her arm. It took a while to reach full strength; he hadn't done this much—only his own minor injuries, or Jenna's bumps and bruises. Alex had always been the healer.

He did make a noise, at that, and she flinched. He had to tighten his grip on her arm to keep it still, and she cried out, which only made the guilt wrench at him harder, and he reined it in just in time to lock it down and think an apology at her before it made things even worse. He forced himself to focus on her arm. Psynergy would heal, but he had to tell it what to do.

Under his concentration, the edges of the cut slowly began to close, the skin knitting back together. Once started, it was only a couples minutes' work and at the end her arm was whole again, looking just as it had before. She bent her fingers slowly, then her elbow, and smiled at him. "Thanks."

He gave her hand a squeeze—gentle, this time—and looked up at Jenna. "You all right?"

She had smears of soot running up one arm and across her face, and the very end of her ponytail looked singed, but she was sitting up straight and steadily. She nodded, and he believed her.

They stayed there a little while longer, resting and very pointedly not discussing how much worse it might have been. Felix was silent as they got themselves back together, but once the weapons were cleaned and everyone had had a chance at water, and he'd had a go at fixing the throbbing ache in his head, which wasn't entirely successful but at least it was better than nothing, he spoke up. They'd got through this, but there was still the matter of the pirate to take deal with, and no one knew what he might be capable of…if he was even there.

"All right," he said. "Next time we're up against something big, we…"


In the end, he needn't have worried. The pirate was still in Alhafra, and the fight to take him down was short, swift, and brutal. As Felix looked at him down the length of his sword—both of them gasping and drenched in sweat, because Briggs the Pirate fought like a madman to the last—he understood what Jenna had meant. Towns along the coast had all lived in fear of this man, but in the end he was no match for Psynergy. It did feel a little unfair.

Then again, there were people injured, towns in shambles, and an innocent person sitting in jail because of his actions. Thankfully his judgment was in the hands of the town elders, with Madra's mayor as witness, and all Felix had to do was secure his promise of surrender and leave the moralizing to the officials. He watched them take him away and wondered if perhaps he ought to feel worse about it.

He tried not to dwell on that as they prepared to return to Madra. They'd done what they came to do, the pirate was unhurt and with the proper authorities, and they were on their way back to the prisoner Adept, who might not have been the most helpful, but who at least had a working boat. With any luck, a week from now, they'd be under sail.

Finally, things were going right.