Rougher than I'd like, but this chapter needs to get out of the way because it's mugging down the bits of the story I want to get to. Hope your Mondays are going better than mine! Also, more than willing to have summary suggestions, because mine only works for the first few chapters.


Rather than answer her questions, Conall had simply turned and started walking. Since it didn't seem to bother Cain that Conall wasn't talking, DG followed along as well and assumed the answers would come. After a minute of walking DG felt the air change, as though she was passing through a magical wall. She looked over to Az, who seemed puzzled for a moment, and then clarity spread across her features.

"You've shielded your villages! That's why the Sorceress could never find you!" Conall grinned at Az over his shoulder before deciding it probably wasn't proper to be grinning at a princess. "I'll need to have Gregory tweak the shields again. No one is supposed to be able to feel their presence. Rather impressive highness." Az stuck her chin out slightly, pretending that she wasn't pleased by his praise, and that there wasn't a pink tinge to her cheeks. DG made a mental note to ask Az about that twinge later.

Within minutes they were to the village, and DG noticed two things right off the bat. The first was that for all the magic these people possessed, they lived very simply. The houses were small and wooden, which she had to admit suited the air of wildness given by the trees spreading out in all directions. She quirked an eyebrow at Az about the distinct lack of modernization, but Az just shrugged her shoulders.

The second was that they were being whispered about as they walked by the villagers going about their daily lives. Or at least, she thought that's what was happening. Then a rather portly fellow with a smile that lifted DG's soul walked up without sparing a glace at the Gale sisters and hoisted Cain into so massive a hug that the stranger lifted him into the air.

He patted a grinning Cain on the back and muttered hellos before putting him back on the ground, and then waved off Conall's frown. "I know you told us to leave him be until you'd had a chance to chat with all of them, but under no circumstances was I not going to say hello to my baby cousin the first chance I got." The man went toe to toe with Conall for a moment before walking back to the group of now grinning Gilis he had just left.

Cain caught DG's eye straightaway, knowing that she was about to make a fuss and mouthed "later" to her. DG attempted to convey "Dang straight we'll talk about this later" via her raised eyebrows, but judging from Cain's smirk she didn't think she'd did a very good job of it.

Conall ushered them into a building slightly larger than the others and DG suddenly understood why the Northern Guild could live so simply. The inside of the building was much larger than the outside, spreading down in a great hall, and reaching up to windows that hadn't been on the outside of the building. The woodwork was exquisite, with great branches twisting together to form the pillars and giving DG the sensation the whole place was growing up from the wooden floor.

Conall walked all the way through the hall with DG trailing behind and starting at the beauty of the building. He led them into a small anteroom off the main room, one just as unique, but complete with much more comfortable chairs. "Are all the buildings like this?" Conall looked mildly shocked, as though now that they were safely away from ears, he was expecting her question to be about something other than the architecture. DG plopped down next to Az on a bench laden with pillows. Raw borrowed a rather large pillow from another one of the chairs and settled himself on the floor, while Glitch chose to stand behind their bench and do his best to look mildly intimidating.

Conall stared at DG again, and the more he tried to read her, the more DG could see a change in his eyes as he used his magic. It wasn't a physical change, or anything she could really describe, she just knew he was using magic, and that he was terribly good at it. DG only had a passing thought about how this level of understanding hadn't happened before, and then the door flew open. In burst a sobbing little girl who skidded to a stop in front of Cain.

"I'm so sorry Mr. Cain! I didn't... you just, slipped." Cain just stared at this slip of a girl, no older than twelve, looking up at him with all the remorse in the world in her huge green eyes.

"I kept waiting for you to get closer to the group, but the Longcoats were getting nearer, and that was the closest you'd been since you'd left the City. So when you turned your horse to go further away, I just took you all right then. I didn't have a good grip on you Sir, but I did it anyway. And I'm so sorry! You slipped and started to re-corporialize. I got you back though! But only after you'd gone through some rocks...I'm so sorry."

The movement was so fluid that for a moment DG wasn't sure she'd seen it properly. One moment the little girl was staring up at Cain, and the next he was on his knees with her in his arms. He stroked his hand over her hair, and shushed her, telling her that everything was all right. "You did an incredible bit of magic, little one, and you didn't do anything worth crying about. You shaved two days off our trip, and that's worth a little of my blood any day." The girl giggled a bit, and DG was almost sure that the girl wiped her nose on his shirt before Cain kissed the girl on the forehead and rose up from his knees to release her back out the door and into the care of the adults standing outside the door who hadn't had the heart to stop her from bursting in.

Cain smiled at her when she turned to wave goodbye, but that smile was gone when Cain turned and his fist collided with Conall's face.

Conall looked back at Cain with a shocked expression and blood dripping from his nose. "Con, you are an idiot sometimes." Conall wiped the blood off his face, and then swung back, nailing Cain in the jaw.

The group of two men and a woman that had been with Conall attempting to patch Cain back together in the woods had come in with them from the forest had stopped outside the door to their anteroom, but the sounds of violence seemed to be enough to draw them through the door. The men didn't seem to notice that Cain and Conall had stopped hitting each other after one swing apiece, and still jumped in between and unnecessarily pulled them apart. The woman moved to put a rag to Conall's nose and looked irked when Conall waved her away.

"Does she look like she got hurt?"

"She was sobbing Con!"

"Because she was worried about you! Not because she was hurt!" The men stepped back at this point, realizing that neither Cain nor Conall had moved from the places where they had been left. They both looked at the woman, thoroughly confused about what in the world was going on. The woman looked to Az, who mouthed something about transportation.

"She's a kid! You can't send kids running around using magic that big!"

"How would you know?"

Cain stared at Conall for a moment, looking at him like he was a complete and utter idiot, and then started to laugh. "How would I know? I've just been chasing around the royal house for the last month, so of course I wouldn't know anything about magic."

DG couldn't take it anymore and put her hand on Cain's shoulder to calm him, and said, "She's fine Cain." He opened his mouth to retort, but DG cut him off. "She's strong Cain, incredibly strong. Pulling us here was easy for her. She could have shipped us three countries away before she felt the strain."

Cain could see the surety in DG's eyes, but though he knew that DG had no way of knowing that. He put that concern aside for the moment and looked back at Conall, who nodded in response. "You know how it works, Wy. Either you're good at lots of things, or invincible at one thing. All she can do is transport. Just blink things out of existence and bring them back somewhere else, and at this, she's the best there's ever been."

Conall stepped forward again, toe to toe with Cain and said, "I didn't hurt her. And I won't hurt them." DG could see Cain's jaw muscle working as he debated with himself.

"You have my word Wy. I won't betray them."

Cain stared back at Conall for a moment; still weighing just how much he was willing to trust a man he hadn't seen in over a decade. And then Cain smiled. "Raw, would you mind putting Conall's nose back together for me? The Village Council told me that if I ever broke it again I would be doing the dishes for the rest of my life. And we don't have that kind of time."

Raw slipped forward and placed his paw over Conall's nose for just a moment to stop the bleeding. Raw's eyes were glazed over a bit, as though the rapid change in emotion was too much for him to deal with. DG had never seen Cain smack anyone around and then smile at them. DG was having strange flashbacks to the Smith boys down the street who used to beat on their baby brother and then close ranks to fight whoever looked sideways at the same brother.

Then it hit her.

"Holy Hell. He's your brother." She stumbled back to the bench and tripped down next to Az, all the while keeping her bewildered eyes on Cain's.

"Deeg..."

"No calming me down Tin Man! All. Stories. Answered. Now."