Chapter 25: I Am … I Said

It was cold, wet, miserable, and his leg ached abominably. The perfect day to go hunting. But hell if he was going to be Rove, who couldn't so much as stick a toe outside even with those god awful yellow wellies that were really doing a number on Leo's eyes – and tongue. As in his tongue hurt from biting it so damned much, and he was going blind looking at them.

He grabbed a scarf at random off the cloak tree in his quarters and had it half wound around his neck before he realized it was the cheerful tartan number McGonagall had gifted him with last Christmas. And the fact that McGonagall had knitted it for him herself was probably the only reason he'd kept it. Oh well, it's a scarf, he thought. And it wasn't like it was that much different than any of the others on the tree, all in shades of Gryffindor scarlet, gold, charcoal gray or some combination of the three.

Once you get to a certain age, Lipskit thought, all anyone ever buys you is books, socks, and scarves. And sadly, that day is long before the age at which that is all you actually want. He paused for a moment, while he was still alone, and shook his bad leg as if that would do something about the ache in it. Then he grabbed up his cane and slid it into miniature wellie that kept it from sinking into the mud. It, thankfully, was a sensible dark gray, and the only hint of whimsy about it was the fact that it was a miniature boot that went on the end of his cane. He locked the door to his quarters and headed down the hall toward the doors leading out into the courtyard.

He passed Nearly Headless Nick and the Fat Friar, who seemed to be having a spirited discussion, a gaggle of second years who were looking vaguely guilty as he passed, and Moore holding up a wall while talking with Rowan. He caught a glimpse of a rather trippy-looking pink out of the corner of his eye and stretched his legs so he could get out in the rain before the owner of those robes caught up with him.

Even the freezing cold gunk gushing forth from the sky, the consistency of one of those Muggle slush drinks, was more welcome than Rove would be. He heard the door open behind him, but it shut again much too quickly for anyone to be following him. Especially when Rove practically conjured trumpets to announce him when he came into the room. Of all the faults one could attribute to Maxwell Rove, low self-esteem was not one of them.

Leo looked longingly at the smoke emanating from Hagrid's chimney. Then he shook himself; he had things to do, and slush, knee, and general lethargy from too many days cooped up in the castle were not going to stop him. He peeled off and entered the forest at one of the nearly invisible paths that he knew the … whatever-it-was that he was stalking liked to use.

The day had been gloomy enough before he hit the tree line, but it was instantly twilight once he was in the trees. The ground wanted to make rude noises, sticking to him, trying to suck the rubber boots straight off his feet. Still, he was able to make as good a time as any two-legged thing that wasn't particularly welcome in these woods would have been.

It was beautiful. People like Rove who preferred buildings – with mirrors and fawning audiences – might have missed the quiet beauty. The hundreds of shades of brown, green, gray, with the faintest pokes of autumn gold and burnt orange still lingering. The way the light – and slush – fell down between the tree limbs. The smell of pine, fallen leaves, and under it just a trace of decay. That tree over there – covered now in mushroom spores – giving itself back to the forest.

Leo noticed all of this while orienting himself, looking for the subtle trail markers he'd left the last time he'd come searching. There was the rock that looked like a perched eagle – and there was the dry stream bed. He clambered down the sides of the bank onto the rocks. He ducked under a tree fallen like a bridge and moved silently along. Only the sound of rain on his overcoat and hat and the occasional rustle of a squirrel darting on the branches above kept him company as he searched.

He was half-convinced he'd find nothing in his searching and stalking, but then he saw something up ahead.

It was sheltered on three sides by rocks, and that was probably the only reason it was hadn't washed away. The splash of liquid—a strange kind of swampy mud—well, if it hadn't been mud, he'd have thought blood or some type, like something had been injured, thrown into the rocks. But it was mud.

His eyes tracked up the side of the bank, the leaves and pine needles disturbed, as if something had been chased right through here – and something had been knocked into the rock.

He summoned a vial, and using the edge of a knife, he scooped up as much of the mud as he could manage. It burbled in the vial, like fetid gasses escaping from a swamp, but settled as he slid the vial into his coat pocket, wrapped in cotton to keep it from breaking.

Following the disturbed detritus, he walked up out of the stream bank and into the forest, at the end of two long furrows, as if something the size of a – tiger, maybe? – had attempted to stop quickly and had slid for a ways, was a Knarl. It blinked, disoriented, at Lipskit before chittering softly. Its side, he noticed, was gored by claws.

He stunned the poor creature before it could get to its feet, scooping it up, noticing the mud surrounding the claw marks. Leo sighed and tucked the Knarl into his other overcoat pocket, heading back for Hagrid's. He wanted to examine the Knarl before he cleaned and bandaged its wounds, and that was better done where he could see them.

While he walked, he thought. Assuming that whatever had left the mud behind was the same thing that had attacked the Knarl – a not-completely-outside pitch given the mud on the Knarl and the rock – he at least had an idea about the size of the thing he was chasing.

Too bad Knarls couldn't talk.

In Scotland, the weather was gray, slushy, and utterly miserable, as it had been for nearly two bloody weeks. In London, the day was gray and chilly, but there was nary a drop of precipitation in sight. (This was not reflected in the windows in the Ministry offices, which instead showed clear blue skies and merrily waving palm trees.) In Cornwall …

Elaine opened the Daily Prophet to where the weather section should have been and found herself staring at a picture of the Chudley Cannons indulging in what would probably be their only victory lap of the season. Are you bloody kidding me? "Who's got the weather section of the Prophet?" she called.

"Not me!"

"I thought Hudnall had it last?"

"I did, but I gave it to Cresswell."

"I got it!" That was Trainee Cresswell, sprinting with the paper in hand. "Here you go. D'you mind if I have it back when you're done, though?"

"No problem. Thanks, Cresswell." Elaine shot him a tight smile before flipping the paper open, finger running down the columns as she searched for the weather report for … Newquay would be close enough.

"What do you need the weather for?" asked Artemis Kendrick, Elaine's usual partner in investigations, standing up and looking over the cubical wall. "I thought the boss said we were stationed here for the day."

"Going to Cornwall for lunch," Elaine replied. She glanced at her watch. "In about … ten minutes. Need to know whether I should bring my wellies or if just a cloak will do the trick."

Artemis blinked. "Cornwall?"

An Auror learned a lot about her partners. For every ten minutes of firefights and dangerous missions, there were hours of stakeouts, surveillance operations, and shooting the breeze. Elaine could tell anyone all about Artemis's nieces and nephews, her weekly kitchen disasters, and the young man from the floor below her flat who was, "quite fit and very easy on the eyes, until he opens his bloody mouth. Why do the cute ones have to be jerks, Elaine?"

Apparently Artemis could return the favor. "Your people are in Cornwall, aren't they?"

"A few," Elaine answered, pretending she was concentrating on the paper.

"You meeting with one of them?" Artemis pressed.

Elaine bit her lip. "My mother."

"Well, that should be nice."

Elaine almost jumped—she'd forgotten that Trainee Cresswell would still be standing there, waiting for the paper. He smiled pleasantly enough at her. She tried to smile back.

"Oooh, boy," Artemis whistled. "Shall I take this, Elaine?"

"Go ahead," Elaine muttered, trying to get back to the paper.

"Right. Well, here's the thing, Cresswell. Elaine has a somewhat … fraught relationship with her mother. You haven't seen her since … Merlin, when was the last time you saw her?"

"Two weeks after my divorce was finalized."

"You're divorced?" Trainee Cresswell gasped.

Elaine looked up again. "Er …" She pointed to the most recent picture of Rowan pinned up on her cubicle wall; she'd taken it at King's Cross when Rowan got back last summer. In it she was flanked by her friends Zach and Jon and laughing. Looking at it, no one would have guessed what those Slytherin bitches had done to her a couple weeks prior.

And that was just one of the pictures of Rowan she had pinned to the walls and decorating the desk.

"Where do you think my kid came from?" Elaine asked.

"Well … I mean …" Trainee Cresswell looked like he was hoping the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes would arrange for an accident and/or catastrophe that would conveniently take out the floor beneath his feet. "I didn't think that through."

"It's all right," Elaine answered. "Now, if I could just find the bloody weather report …"

"Her marriage was a war casualty," Artemis added sotto voce to Trainee Cresswell.

And Elaine couldn't be upset. Because if there was one rule about getting on in the Auror Office – especially with those few who had been around before the Ministry fell in '97 and those who had been old enough to fight – it was this:

Never ask about war casualties.

Finally, she found the report she was looking for – of course it would be sunny and unseasonably warm in Cornwall – and handed the paper back to Cresswell, who seemed glad to escape.

She flopped into her seat and checked her watch. She had seven minutes before she had to leave. Somehow the idea of setting out early did not appeal.

Instead, she took a much-perused letter from the pocket of her robes and smoothed it out on her desk.

The letter was short, simple, and to the point.

Elaine,

I have heard some troubling rumors. I think it wise that we meet and discuss them in person. I will be dining at home on Thursday, November 12, and your sister will be out. Please join me for lunch at one o'clock.

Yours,

Mother

PS: This concerns Rowan.

Elaine ran a hand through her hair. Bloody hell. Even after all these years, Igraine knew what would get her to come running. Mentioning Rowan's name – it was like a bloody dog whistle. It was pathetic.

Except …

Elaine took a deep breath, folded the letter back up again, and shoved it in her pocket. She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes.

"Auror O'Blake?"

Elaine let her fingers fall open.

A short, tubby wizard in a bottle-green suit and violently purple robes thrown over them stood before her desk. He looked down at her with an expression that could only be called distaste. He was young, much younger than Elaine, but there were already harassment lines setting around his eyes and brow wrinkles forming from a perpetually put-upon expression.

She didn't even have to take in the ink-stained fingers to know the type at fifty paces. Mid-level bureaucrat and parchment-pusher.

"That would be me," she answered, trying not to sound like her teeth were grinding. "Can I help you?"

The wizard cleared his throat and took a sheaf of parchment from his robes. "There is a bit of a problem with your use-of-force report from the incident that occurred on October the thirty-first. I was filing the appropriate copy in the permanent records in the Minister's office when I noticed that question fifty-six had not been answered—"

"Wait. Hold on. Back up. Who are you, where are you from, and what do you want?" Elaine asked.

The wizard's nose wrinkled. "Er—right. My name is Gorgias Hume, third level clerk, Minister for Magic's office. I'm in charge of filing the use-of-force reports. As I'm sure you know, the Minister retains a permanent record of all uses of force—"

"I know," Elaine interrupted. She glanced at her watch. "Look, I have an appointment I need to be leaving for – is there any way we can handle this after I get back from lunch?"

"I'm afraid not," Hume replied. "You see, since the incident was nearly two weeks ago, it is past time that the report was filed. Unfortunately—"

"We're given three working days to get those reports in. I got mine in on time. If you're behind in the filing, I fail to see how that's my problem." Elaine raised an eyebrow. "And like I said, I have an appointment. This can't possibly wait until after lunch?"

"No," Hume repeated. "Now, as I was saying—"

Elaine rolled her eyes. "Give me the bloody report and let me answer question fifty-six, then."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible." He took another sheaf of parchment from his robes. "Because of Protocol 34.8, it is essential that all three filed reports be filled out at the same time and be filled out identically. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to do it again. And I'll need it by the end of business today."

Elaine's jaw fell. "You're bloody kidding. It's a forty-five page report. In triplicate!"

"I most certainly am not. You are aware, I am sure, that Minister Shacklebolt is quite serious about ushering in a new age of transparency and tolerance here at the Ministry—"

"First, it's been a decade, so I'm not sure we're ushering in a 'new' anything anymore. Second, if I know Kingsley as well as I think I do, burying Ministry officials in pointless paperwork was not what he had in mind."

Hume's jaw had fallen – probably because she called the Minister by his first name. Well, she and Kingsley had been fighting Death Eaters together when this fellow was still collecting Chocolate Frog Cards. After something like that, one didn't just stop being on a first-name basis.

"N-nonetheless," Hume stammered, "the—the report must be done—and as I need it by—"

Elaine rolled her eyes and stood up. "Look, son – I'm sorry about missing a question, but poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Put the reports on the desk, and I'll get them done when I get them done."

"Auror O'Blake—"

"Or," she raised an eyebrow at him, "I can fill in question fifty-six now, and you can go back to your filing, and we can forget this conversation ever happened." She looked at her watch again. "You've got thirty seconds to make a decision, Mr. Hume, because I'm already running late."

"Auror O'Blake!"

That was when Hume did something incredibly stupid. He pulled out his wand.

"I have the full backing of the Minister behind me!" he demanded. "You—you will get this report filled out. Correctly, this time! Or—"

"Or what?" Elaine asked, shaking her head and trying to push past the official.

"Or—stop! Impedimenta!"

The Auror who couldn't have a Shield Charm up before the first syllable of her adversary's spell was off his tongue was the Auror who got sent home in a pine box after very few missions. Hume's spell collided with Elaine's Shield, a bright light flashing and leaving purple spots dancing before Elaine's eyes.

That was when Elaine lost her temper.

"You, sir, are an unmitigated ass!" She lifted her wand and pointed it at him. "So bloody be one!"

Transfiguration had always been one of Elaine's talents.

Sometimes she regretted that.

Hume bleated in terror—then started braying. His ears sprouted up, turning brown and velvety. He collapsed to all fours, his arms lengthening as short, bristly brown hairs covered them.

It took only a moment for one ass to be replaced with another.

Then the ass – seeing it was, in fact, a donkey in a government office – panicked and ran off, and Elaine realized this might not have been the best idea.

"Elaine!" Artemis yelped as the donkey ran past her desk.

Swearing under her breath, Elaine took off running after the ass. Artemis took off running after Elaine. A few more Aurors joined the chase.

They ran past the Head Auror's door, which opened as the stampede ran past. "What the bloody hell is going on?" Elaine heard her boss cry out as he started running with them.

"Elaine turned a bureaucrat into a donkey!"

"Again? Oh for—it wasn't my brother-in-law this time, was it?"

"No, not this time!" Artemis shouted back.

"Thank Merlin."

As she ran after the donkey, shouting spells to try to turn the damn thing back or slow it down, one thought managed to streak across Elaine's mind.

Guess I'll be a bit late for lunch with Mother …

Hagrid's cottage was as warm and welcoming as ever. He didn't even look in askance as Leo stumped to the door with an overcoat containing a vial of half-sentient mud and an injured Knarl. The little hedgehog-like creature was still out from Leo's stunning spell but probably due to wake soon, so Leo didn't do a whole lot of explaining first – just asked for somewhere well-lit and the first aid kit.

The claw marks on the Knarl were fairly wide, but not overly deep. Whatever had made them seemed to have aimed this swat to hurt, not to kill. That … was troublesome.

In Leo's experience, most creatures – of magical nature or not – did not aim for cruelty. Cats did, sometimes, mostly out of boredom. But those were domesticated cats, bored house cats usually. For feral or wild cats, hunting something required time and energy.

So whatever had hurt this Knarl had the time and energy to spare, and it was … bigger than he'd expected. No one who had spent as much time around apex predators and those species marked XXXXX by the Ministry as Leo had walked away from that without some idea of how such predators worked and how they thought. Unless it was faced with a long, prey-light, barren season, something the size of a tiger wouldn't go chasing something the size of a hedgehog. Not even for fun.

… Maybe especially not for fun …

The wound cleaned and claw marks examined, he started winding a bandage around the body of the Knarl, who was stirring. Hopefully it wouldn't give Leo a snout full of quills for his trouble. It made a soft squalling noise as it slipped back into consciousness, squeaking anxiously as it tried to orient itself. The Knarl blinked and peered around.

"So what're yeh gonna call it?" Hagrid asked as Leo set the little fellow on the table.

"Call what?" Leo replied distractedly and intelligibly as he let the Knarl smell his fingers.

"Call the Knarl, o'course." Hagrid said, scratching the ears of his dog. "Seems yeh've made a friend."

"It's not a pet." Leo's brows drew in and down as the Knarl rubbed itself against Leo's palm after having done its best to check out the bandages around its midsection.

"So yeh say, but yeh do know he's gonna have to be cared fer."

"Right—at least until the wound heals," Leo acknowledged.

"So yeh need to name him somethin'."

"Because I have so many hedgehogs in my care that I need to keep track of them all with a name." Leo thumped down into the chair to his left, the Knarl toddling over in his direction; it wasn't hard to see that the poor thing was terrified. He picked it up as it started to whimper and ran his hand over the quills to try and reassure the Knarl. The whimpering quieted and Leo caught the edge of Hagrid's smile as he turned and reached for the firewhisky. He held up the bottle in inquiry, and Leo nodded, taking the tumbler handed to him.

The Knarl stretched its neck out curiously, sniffing at the drink before sneezing and shaking his head. Leo laughed a little. He lowered his left hand – the one holding the Knarl – to his knees, where the creature climbed off his palm onto his lap and balled up for all the world like a small, spiny house cat. It chittered before closing its eyes and apparently going to sleep.

To ignore the smirk that Hagrid was giving him, he floated the towels he had used to clean the wounds on the Knarl over to him, paying special attention to the mud mixed in with the blood. It bore out his initial guess of "swampy," thinner than normal mud, about the consistency of blood, and distinctly shot through with algae. It smelled like a swamp too.

He took the vial out of his pocket and swirled it around in the light. Unlike a normal liquid that would have just spiraled around in the vial, this … moved, independently of the movement of the vial, creeping up the sides, probing at the cork.

"What's this?" Hagrid asked.

"I don't know," Leo admitted. "I found it near the Knarl—and some tracks of a sort. I think it came from this thing I've been tracking."

"There's no swamps near here," the shaggy man said, looking as intently at the vial as Leo was.

"None so close that this would have survived being brought here by something," Leo agreed, taking a drink of firewhisky and enjoying the burn as it went down. "Which says to me that this is somehow—part of this creature? I've never heard of something that literally had mud for blood—only figuratively, by arseholes describing Muggle-borns."

Hagrid snorted and took a long drink.

"I'll have to do some research—we have no idea what might have been in those ruins." Leo sighed.

"Summat botherin' yeh, Leo?" Hagrid asked.

"Yep," Leo said. "We don't have any idea about those ruins. I would swear to you—and I'm certain you'd swear to me—that those ruins … Just. Were. Not. There five years ago." Leo's hand fell to stroking the Knarl on his lap as he took a long drink of firewhisky and stared at the vial on the table. "We don't know anything about them, Hagrid. What defenses were there, what protections might be in place. We just don't know. I tried to tell Rove that we needed to know before we went risking kids in there."

"But …" Hagrid trailed off, scratching at his beard.

"Exactly." They were both thinking the same thing, even if Hagrid was too kind to say it: the thought of working with the Ministry, of having a legacy all his own, was too much for Rove. He was near desperate to prove himself as something other than a piss-poor successor to McGonagall. He, of course, couldn't do this by being a good headmaster and building that legacy – or maybe that was just Lipskit's take on the subject, which was hardly neutral.

"Tha's not all, is it?" Hagrid rumbled a moment later.

"Admittedly? No."

"So what is it?" Hagrid topped off Leo's glass, and Leo paused for a moment, holding it up to the light.

"I'm guessing you know about Rowan?" Leo lulled his head back and petted the Knarl in his lap. He heard Hagrid shift.

"Summat about it," Hagrid finally acknowledged. "Mostly just Elaine askin' if I could keep an eye out for Rowan when I could."

"Well, the whole story—well, doesn't need to be known by anyone, except maybe Rowan." Leo sighed. "But, well, I can't—through methods fair or foul—find anything out about Julien Bellerose. We have the dossier on him from the Ministry, but other than that, the man might not even exist for all that anyone knows about him."

"Funny you should mention him," Hagrid rumbled. "I saw him the other day—in the Hog's Head with—well, he was takin' some pains to keep from really being seen—but it sounded like Victor Yaxley."

Leo fought to keep from sitting bolt upright, though he couldn't entirely keep his grasp from tightening around his glass. "Yaxley, you say? What would he be doing in the Hog's Head?"

"Dunno—they 'ad enough charms laid around their table that they coulda been planning to take over the world or planning a Muggle movie marathon and I wouldn'a known. Wouldn'a even known 'twas Victor, 'cept I recognized 'is voice as 'e was leavin'."

"Well, shit." Leo sighed. "That doesn't sound good. Did you mention it to anyone?"

"Just Elaine, she—well—she likes to know whenever 'er relatives show up in Hogsmeade." Hagrid said. "Should I 'ave? Like Harry?"

"Honestly, Hagrid? Fuck if I know." The Knarl butted its head up into Leo's palm and Leo absently fell to petting it again.

"Yeh really should give him a name," Hagrid said. Leo picked up the sleepy creature and looked at him.

"Dragon."

Cornwall was having a St. Martin's summer.

Igraine sat in the gardens, determined to enjoy it as long as it lasted. She took a deep breath, eyes closed, surrendering herself to experience. The warmth of the sun. The smell of the salt. The sound, muffled, of the waves crashing onto the rocks below.

And then she opened them, because there was work to be done.

Where was Elaine?

It was past two. Elaine had said she would come. It had been a hastily scribbled note, barely a line, but it had been in Elaine's hand. Even after all these years, Igraine knew it. Even if it had been so long – decades – since Igraine had anything like regular correspondence with her elder daughter …

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Elaine would come. Her daughter did not break her word lightly, little as she might like to give it. If she was delayed, well, she was an Auror. Things came up. How many times had Perseus missed an appointment, only to show up an hour or two late, his cloak scorched and torn, apologizing and apologizing?

Igraine told herself not to worry. It had been so long since she had worried. Once she had always worried, as much as she'd worried about Perseus and more. Then she had closed her heart to that feeling. But it took very little to open her heart again. She'd learned that the hard way, more than once.

Igraine took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. She needed to stop letting her mind run around in these frustrating circles.

She opened them and looked around the gardens. Only a few of the bushes still had leaves on them, red and gold and defiant. They'd had two killing frosts since the end of September, but these leaves would hold on to the last.

And the rest? The beds were empty and turned over for the winter. The grass was smoothed under their feet. Brown, green, and more brown.

Hopefully Elaine would be … amenable to eating here, speaking out here. They'd had happy times in the gardens. With luck Elaine would see that, remember that.

If Igraine leaned back, she could remember …

"Dad! Watch this!"

Elaine came out of the castle at a run, thirteen and gangly, her brand-new broomstick in hand. She hopped on in mid-run and kicked off the ground. Higher she climbed, higher …

She rolled to the side, hanging on to the broom with one hand and—her FOOT?! "Starfish and stick, Dad!"

Igraine wanted to shout—wanted to tell her daughter to get back on that broom, what was she thinking, she was going to fall and then—

But Perseus was laughing, clapping. The warm summer sun caught the blond in his hair, the flash of his smile. "Ha! That's my girl! Starfish and stick! But I thought you wanted to go for Chaser?"

"Sure I do; this just seemed like fun!" And Elaine twisted, and suddenly she was back on the broom, right way up, and Igraine could breathe again. "Get your broom, Dad; we'll toss the Quaffle around!"

"Well … if you insist …"

He turned to Josie, hanging back and holding Igraine's hand, eight years old and with eyes wide as saucers. "What do you say, Josie? You want me to get your broom too?"

Josie watched as Elaine flew from one side of the gardens to the other, doing barrel rolls and waiting until the absolute last second to make a turn. "I don't think I want to fly like that, Daddy …"

"What, like your sister the daredevil? Would I ask you to do that?" He crouched down to her level and tapped her nose. "How's this: it'll be you and me against Elaine. Let's put her through her paces."

Josie giggled. "Okay, Daddy."

Then Perseus straightened, a laughing light in his hazel eyes. The sun caught the flecks of gold and made them glow. "And what about you, Igraine? Care to join us?"

"I think I'll keep both feet on the ground and make sure you lot don't kill yourselves," Igraine said lightly.

"As always." Perseus leaned in for a kiss. It would just be a quick one; she knew that. Any more and Elaine would start making retching noises and Josie would join in. "That's my girl. Making sure the rest of us stay alive."

The kiss was short as Igraine knew it would be, but Perseus's lips tasted of sunlight, and of gold—

She came to herself with a start and a gasp. That—that had almost felt real. As if for a minute she had traveled back, back before it had all gone wrong, before Josie got pregnant and Elaine got married and Perseus … died …

Igraine put a hand to her head and shook it. And then she realized what had brought her back to the present.

Her wand had buzzed – the wards on the house had been set off. Elaine must have arrived.

About time. Igraine tapped her wand against her throat. "Sonorus. I'm in the gardens."

She tapped it again. "Quietus."

Igraine stood. She waved her wand, and one of the small chairside tables floated over. A few more wand waves and it was large enough for a table for two to eat al fresco. Finally, she floated over two of the chairs.

She completed her preparations just as she heard feet crunch on the gravel path behind her. "There you are," Igraine said, starting to turn around. "You've certainly taken—"

She made it all the way around.

She gasped.

"You!"