Felix poked the fire with a twig and watched the flame creep slowly up the edge until it almost reached his hand. Then he threw the twig into the base of the fire and watched it flare up as it consumed the wood. When is Jonquil coming back? It's almost dawn. Felix pushed a lock of coal-black hair back from his face and tucked it behind his ear with a bored expression. His hair had grown almost two inches since he'd left Janos' farm, and his whole life, behind. Looking back over his shoulder, he watched Ala'na's chest rise and sink with slow breaths beneath the furs she was covered in. Her face was flushed and feverish, as it had been since her hand was lopped off by Everett. Some part of him hated his brother for that.

But why was he so angry at him for hurting the troll? Everett was just trying to save him from Ala'na. Still, he didn't have to go so far as to lop her hand off.

He turned back to the flames in their makeshift fireplace, staring deep into the shifting embers. The fire flickered and danced, and to Felix they seemed to have a strange beauty. So beautiful, he thought, and so wild. He looked deeper, deeper, as if he were sinking into the fire, and then the flames shifted and reformed before his eyes. He saw a face floating in the fire, burned and malformed and full of rage. Half of his face was a ruin, almost a skeleton, with the flesh sloshing away in the intense heat. The other half frowned with hatred, staring at him angrily, and the flames seemed to whisper, "Traitor, turncloak, you betrayed me, you left me…"

Felix recoiled in shock, not believing what he was seeing, but the face was gone just as fast as it appeared, and suddenly there were only flames again. His eyes brimmed with tears from the exertion of staring into the fire, and Felix looked away, rubbing his eyes with a sleeve. He looked up again when his eyes were dry, but the flames just flickered merrily. Did I…did I imagine that? Was that…Everett? It looked like Everett, sort of, but why was half of his face burned like that?

He heard a faint tap-tap-tap. Felix whipped his head around, looking for the source of the sound. A pebble tumbled into the cave, rolling slowly to a stop. Something was at the entrance of the cave, and from where he sat he couldn't see what.

"Hello?" Felix stood uneasily. "Jonquil, is that you?" There was no reply.

His eyes darted around for a large rock, or a knife, or anything that he could use as a weapon. He slowly crossed the cave to Jonquil's bedroll and clutched the spear that she propped up near it. He held it in front of him uneasily, his hands shaking as it gripped the shaft. "Hello," he said again, too afraid to move.

Nothing answered. Maybe it was nothing, an errant gust of wind. He forced one shaky foot in front of the other, edging along the cave wall towards entrance.

"HI!"

Felix wailed like a girl and fell back on his rump, hard, and broke the spear as he fell. A boy no older than him with skin as pale as milk was waving at Felix from the cave mouth, beaming a white smile. Or is it a girl? It was hard to tell—he had long, straight, silver hair that flowed down past his shoulders and covered his left eye. The right eye was large and bright green, sparkling with youth. The eye was unnaturally green, greener than grass in spring, greener than the shiniest emerald. He (or she) stepped into full view, and Felix could see that he was queerly dressed, with an absurdly small sleeveless black shirt cutoff at the midriff and skin tight shorts that ended three inches above the knee. He (or she) was a good two inches taller than Felix, and was as slender as a stick with small, girlish hips and skinny arms. He sported thick gold bracelets around both wrists and ankles, and wore a large red pendant around his neck that seemed to glow in the reflection of the fireplace. He crossed the cave, and held out a hand to help Felix up, smiling the whole time as if he knew some inside joke.

Staring, Felix realized that he was either a very flat-chested female or a very feminine male, but his young age made it even harder to tell. Felix decided to consider him a male until he knew otherwise. Felix grasped the hand and was helped to his feet, where he wiped the dust off his breeches.

"My name is Rowan Longstrider," he piped excitedly, "But my friends call me Squirrel. What's your name?"

"F…Felix," he stuttered, accidently saying the name that Ala'na had given him instead of his real name. It was all happening too fast for him to think. "What are you…why are you…"

"Here?" Squirrel flipped his hair. It gleamed silver-white in the firelight. "I am an alchemist," he said as he tapped the ruby red amulet that hung from his neck, "and a mapper. You ever wonder how people know where to place mountains and streams on maps? That's my job." He bent at the hips and snatched up the two halves of the spear in his pale, girlish hands. He pushed the two halves together and half-said, half-sang a word of power in a different language that sounded queer and alien in Felix's ears. The pendant that hung from his neck seemed to glow even more with a deep red light, throbbing as if it had a heart beat, and then he held out the spear to Felix.

He grasped it and realized that it was mended so well that it looked as if it were never broken. Felix tried to bend it to no avail. It was even sturdier than before. "How did you do that? Are you a wizard or something?"

"I told you," insisted the green-eyed boy, "An alchemist. What I do is not magic; it is a simple conversion of matter. It's closer to science than magic, to be honest." The amulet grew dull once more. "Why are you here, hiding in this cave, boy? I've lived in this cave for years; this is my home, not yours."

Felix gaped. "Years? You lie. How many years old are you?"

The boy smirked with amusement. "Many and more. But that is not the point. You are in my home. I must insist that you leave at once." The bracelets around his hands and feet jangled as he passed Felix and went further into the cave floor barefooted. He seemed to just notice Ala'na.

"And what is this," he said with a sudden flicker of annoyance, as he stared down at her, "A troll? In my cave? This is getting stranger and stranger." He stepped to Ala'na. She rolled over beneath the furs as if in response, and her knee poked out from the blankets, but she did not wake.

"Well, yes," Felix began shakily, "but she—"

"Is a troll. She is the enemy of our race, fool. She will kill us when she wakes." Squirrel snatched the spear from Felix and lifted it over his head, upside down, wrapping both hands around the shaft.

The spear was wrenched from his grasp. Squirrel spun around and was shoved with a meaty green hand. He staggered back, tripped over Ala'na, and fell on his arse.

"Don't EVER touch my spear," barked Jonquil. Felix had never been so glad to see her. She seemed to sense his relief, for she glanced over at him, scowling. "Idiot boy, I leave you alone for one day and you can't even handle that. Who in the seven hells is this human?" She looked back to the boy on the ground.

The boy named Squirrel stood slowly, the bracelets around his wrists jangling loudly as he brushed off his black shorts, and bowed politely. "My name is Rowan, but my friends call me Squirrel," he said for the second time that day, but in Orcish this time. Jonquil eyed him warily, her hand clasping the hilt of her sword. Noticing her hostility, Squirrel spread his hands to show that he meant no harm. "I am not armed, nor human," he said with an easy smile, pulling back his curtain of silver hair to reveal a pointed ear. "I am an elf."

Jonquil relaxed her posture, crossed her arms across her bust, and gave a bark of laughter. "Hah! Oh, man, Ala'na is going to love this."