Pelican Town was in incensed whispers. For the good part of a week, concern and mystery buzzed through the valley air—someone saw Abigail with bandages around her ankles, another hadn't seen Alex on his daily runs with Dusty, and yet another heard Sebastian had sequestered himself in his basement. "Yet another" referred to Sam, who, after trying and failing to check up on his best friend, had meandered down to the Banks to confide in who he hoped held more clues.

But Kutone had no answers, and just as many questions as Sam. For his sake, however, as well as her own anxiety, she stopped herself from mirroring Sam's agitation. She set a cold can of cola on the table, and sat down across from him.

"Sam traced swirls and zigzags across the cloudy surface of the can. "Thanks," he mumbled, but made no move to open the drink. He sighed and scratched his head, his blonde hair settling like a dry, stringy mop. No rockstar gel artisanry today, not that Kutone could blame him.

"Robin asked me to let him rest for at least a week." While she reached under the table to give Oki a half-hearted facial rub, she eyed a canvas tote bag slumped over her kitchen counter. "Harvey's recommendation."

"So much for doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Did you try talking to Abigail or Alex?"

"Have you ever tried talking to a freaked-out Abigail?" Sam snapped up the tab on his cola, and took a mighty swig. "Pretty sure it was her that started the 'oh my Yoba, Sebastian has ice powers' fairy tale that's been going around town."

From what she'd seen around Stardew Valley, "ice powers" were hardly the strangest tale Kutone had heard. Which was why, instead of questioning the rumor, she had packed a hot canister of cider in the bag, and another canister filled with a spicy vegetable broth of her own design. "If Alex is saying the same thing…"

Sam slammed his fist onto the tabletop, spooking Oki underneath and nearly spilling his drink. "It makes the entire story even weirder! Ab, Seb, and Jock Strap go into the mines—for what, no one's saying or has a goddamn clue—they get beaten to shit and come back. It's a standard story for anyone who's not you or Marlon!"

"But the town's in a tizzy about it because Sebastian's lying so low."

"And because Abby and Alex are telling the same exact story, and now my best friend's locked himself up in his basement and won't come breathe some air with me! Okay, look, I get it—everyone's worried. But get this: I offer to buy him a pack and he wouldn't even say 'fuck off'! Some weaksauce 'can't', and, that's it?!"

Good thing Sam was losing himself in his own tirade. Voicing his frustrations likely helped him unwind his tightly-coiled worry, but it also killed any curiosity he held regarding Kutone or her thoughts. As Sam took another gulp of his cola, Kutone's thoughts went to the letter she'd found in her mailbox the morning after Sebastian, Abigail, and Alex had resurfaced from the mines. The telltale calligraphy had instructed her to keep the rest of the message unread until she had the chance to see Sebastian for herself. Supposedly, the wizard had business with both at the same time.

"I should have gone with them."

Kutone leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Now you're being ridiculous."

"I'm the party's warrior, Kutone! I should have been there—Mom looked after Dad well enough, and Vince knew he had to keep cool, so I didn't even need to stay home!"

"Vincent stayed cool because you were there. Jodi was able to look after Kent because you were there for your family. You can't blame yourself for not being in two places at the same time."

"But something would have turned out different. I'm not gonna say everything would have been good, but something would have been different."

"Maybe. Maybe not." She leaned forward against the tabletop, as forlorn Sam stared into the dark lip of his soda can. "I could say the same thing—Marlon could say the same thing—and we still wouldn't know for certain.

"Understand this, Sam—they're okay. They're alive. That's what matters. Abigail and Alex need some time to recover, and we're going to figure out what happened to Sebastian."

Sam grumbled a half-hearted reply, swigged the last of his soda, and with a huff, slammed his empty can back on the table. Grumpy upset shadowed his features into a frown. "I swear I'm gonna throttle him when he decides to poke his head out that damn basement."

Kutone snorted, drawing a hand over her face to hide her smile. "I'm sure he deserves it."

He toyed and spun the can between his fingertips, before dragging his chair back and standing up with a sigh. "Look after him 'til then, will you? I'll work with Abby, but promise me you'll keep me posted on Seb."

She stood up as well, stopping once at the kitchen counter and shouldering her bag before meeting Sam at the door. Shooing Oki back inside, she stepped out, closing the door behind them. "I'll see what I can do," she replied, adjusting the bag's strap. "I promise though—Sebastian's not as fragile as you think."

Sam descended the veranda steps, and after a deep inhale, stretched his arms toward the sky. "That's exactly why I get worried about him." He stared at the milky clouds above, then shook his head. "He thinks he can deal with whatever, and he can, most of the time. Then when he needs us most, he just sorta…" He drew his arm down, like a security door shuttering closed. "Y'know?"

"I know."

Likely because she was the same way, she knew that a shuttered spirit like Sebastian required a special kind of dedication. That had, after all, been the same magic he'd spun for her sake. Dedication, curiosity, a listening ear.

It was her turn to provide.

For the inhabitants of 24 Mountain Road, a dispirited, absent Sebastian usually spurred no alarm. Upon Kutone's first steps into the house, normalcy appeared to reign, and yet, she caught Robin's concerned glances toward the basement corridor. Demetrius worked in his laboratory with trench-like furrows in his brow. Even Maru, on her way to the doctor's office for her shift, paused by the steps, and pursed her lips as though restraining the shout she wanted to throw down into the basement.

So it was relief, Kutone knew, that unwound the tension in Robin's shoulders as she welcomed Kutone inside. "He's alive," said Robin. After a quick shiver, she zipped up her vest and buried her hands in her pockets. "He comes up for meals and he seems normal enough."

Kutone eyed the space heater behind the shop counter, and crossed her arms to hide the shudder of her shoulders. Nippy? Chilly? "It's goddamn freezing in here," Kutone said.

"I know. I know!" Robin covered her face with her hands. "At first I thought the insulation had busted somewhere in the house, but then I realized—I realized…" She sighed and dug her hands back into her pockets. "No. Even you wouldn't believe me, would you, Kutone? I know you've seen so much here in the valley, but maybe you'll tell me I'm being paranoid this time, but it's just so noticeable—!"

"—Abigail's been saying Sebby has 'ice powers' of some form?"

At this, Demetrius's gruff shout reached the women. "It's a biological anomaly!"

Robin rolled her eyes. "Demetrius is determined to find a 'cure,' but you can imagine what being called an 'anomaly' does to Sebby."

It might have contributed to his self-mandated quarantine. "What do you think, Robin? As his mother?"

Robin buried her nose into the collar of her vest, and closed her eyes in contemplation. "I think…" She inhaled deeply, poked her head back out of her collar, and dropped her voice to a murmur. "I think Sebby's eyes look so much like his dad's."

"Wait." Kutone, boggled by the apparent tangent, adjusted her bag's strap again. "What?"

"His father's eyes," Robin remarked. "I mean, Sebby's always had such pretty eyes—cloudy, gray, foggy—right?"

"Right, but—?"

"—But then he comes back from the mines that day. They all went to Harvey's, got bandaged up, and we scolded them enough we probably crushed their spirits a little. And I look at Sebby and his eyes just—the fog's cleared from them? And he has his father's eyes, Kutone! Bright, nearly white, icy gray eyes—and that's when I realized it's become so cold, like we're in the middle of winter again!"

The content of Robin's panicked rambling shouldn't have jarred Kutone so much. But this sudden talk of fathers and having the same eyes… Somehow, she felt like an intruder. Sebastian had said nothing else about his father, since that mid-autumn when Kutone asked about his motorcycle. "Dad" was never a subject in Sebastian's talk, not even as an offhand remark, like the figure alone never existed from the beginning. Impossible, of course, but Sebastian's alarming lack of regard for the subject deterred Kutone from asking further. She knew private, sensitive matters from the caginess of her own issues, after all. Why would she poke around about someone else's, when she refused to open up about herself?

Oblivious to Kutone's reservations, Robin puttered on. "It's just like before," she whispered. "When his father—uh—oh dear—it really is like before. It got cold then too. Winter in the middle of spring! He'd been so distant from both of us, and there was snow—Oh, Kutone, is Sebastian going to walk away too?! I know he's been saying he wants to leave the valley, but is this how he's going to do it?!"

Seeing the tears beading at the corners of Robin's eyes, Kutone clutched Robin by her shoulders. "Slow down! Slow down, okay, Robin? I'm not here to say one or the other, but Sebastian's downstairs, right?"

"Right." Distressed Robin pressed her palms to her temples, and tried to breathe. "Right, Sebby's downstairs. He's resting. Working. One or the other. Just like always."

"Just like always," Kutone echoed. "Just like always. He hasn't walked away, and he's not going to walk away. Okay?"

They shared some deep breaths, until Robin shook her head. "O-okay." Sprigs of her red hair sprung free from her ponytail, as she deliberately blinked and turned a baffled stare to Kutone. "Okay. Talk about a conniption, huh?"

"Let's not," Kutone replied. "But I've never seen you like that."

Robin tried brushing her wayward strands of hair back into line. "A heck of an embarrassing fit." She sighed again. "I've just been so worried about him..."

"Will you let me see him? Maybe I can figure something out."

Signs of her distress still shaking her, Robin gestured to the corridor. "Harvey's at a loss, Demetrius thinks he can make a scientific breakthrough, and Sebastian's not talking. Maybe you're the magic gate into the matter."

Robin's face, still pink with upset, squeezed into restrained sobs. "I'm so glad you're here!"

Kutone's thoughts, as she returned Robin's tight embrace, flitted back to Sebastian's words at the outlook over Zuzu City. How pathetically little it would matter to everyone… if I just left. Disappeared. All this worry over him, and he had no idea! Or maybe, he chose to ignore the concerns his closest paid him. Something superceded the opinions of his immediate circle. Hell, until Kutone had given him some form of proof, he hinged on disbelieving her as well! But for Robin, for Demetrius, for Maru, Sam, Abigail, and even the townspeople whispering to each other—that concern was the only proof they could provide.

Yet Sebastian remained ever so blind.

She left one last warm squeeze around Robin. "I'll scold him as his girlfriend should," she said. "He'll come around."

With a nod, Robin finally let Kutone go, and with the corner of her sleeve, patted away her tears. She crept into the hall with Kutone. "He'll at least be happy to see you. I know it." At the steps, she watched Kutone descend, before sauntering into the laboratory. Likely, Kutone figured, for Demetrius's comfort. Hopefully he could read her teary face at this critical moment.

Puffs of her own breath came out cloudy white, as Kutone rapped her knuckles against Sebastian's door.

"I didn't lock it."

She reached for the knob, but the sear of the metal's iciness had her hissing in pain.

A shuffle behind the door responded, followed by a beleaguered, "Shit… is it that bad…?" Steps hurried, the door's latch clicked, and Sebastian poked his wary face out. His ghostly pallor practically glowed, and his usually glossy hair had gone coarse and matted. The bags under his eyes were more like bruises, likely a result of persistent sleeplessness. Seeing Kutone wringing her hand, however, the exhaustion in his features cleared for just one second. "I thought I heard you upstairs," he breathed.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Kutone replied. Astounded, she reached out to touch him. "My god, Sebastian, you look like hell."

He ducked away from her touch and pressed one hand over his eyes to rub out the insomnia. It didn't work. "I know. I know I do. Couldn't sleep—can't sleep, it goes out of control. I have to stay up else I'm going to freeze my entire family to death… And no." Sebastian shot a pointed glare at the bag over Kutone's shoulder. "No, there's literally nothing you could do for me, and I don't mean that to turn you away, Kutone, I swear."

"You better take that back." She reached into her bag and pulled out the canister of cider. The hot liquid inside sloshed about with her shaking. "Because I made some hot cider and a lovely soup to warm you up. Now let me in."

Dumbfounded Sebastian stared at the canister in Kutone's hand. His eyes—bright and icy as Robin noted—closed once as he shook his head. "For me," he said, gesturing to the bag.

Kutone shrugged and spread her arms. "I'm here for you, Sebastian. I know I said something like that before. Maybe on some rainy autumn day, once upon a time?"

He chuckled. "'That goes without saying.'" After a moment's regard, he threw open the door and yanked Kutone into his embrace. Drawing the quilt over him around Kutone as well, he buried his nose and lips into her hair. "You wouldn't lie to me."

"I meant it, so, my lord you're cold!" She slid her arms around him anyway, and pressed her cheek against the frosted fabric of his sweatshirt. "And you smell!"

The longer he held her, his strength drained away. "Too tired," he mumbled, slumping over Kutone. "Even the hot water… turned to…"

"Seb—Sebastian, wait—!"

He crumpled against her, buckling both to the floor in a tangle of quilt, bag, and Kutone's squeak.

With sleep settling over Sebastian, however, his breath—visible puffs of air before—then frosted the strands of Kutone's hair just before his lips. Cold spikes of pain blasted through Kutone's nerves at every point of contact between them, but rather than risk Robin's worry upstairs, she bit down her screams and moved. Hauling Sebastian over her shoulder, she dragged him to his bed, threw him down, and drew his comforter and quilt over him. She dragged a space heater closer to the bed and rubbed him down to the best of her strength, but nothing. Icy crystals still blew out of his mouth.

She would have considered it beautiful, if not for the blooming red patches of frostbite along her skin. "'Biological anomaly' my ass!" she hissed, rummaging through her bag. "If these aren't goddamn 'ice powers,' I don't know what it is!"

Her fingers crumpled the parchment of the wizard's letter as she ripped it out. After one last glance at it, she gazed down at Sebastian. She'd seen him for herself, just as the letter demanded. Ice crystals propagated around him—his sleeping, Kutone decided, was too dangerous. For him, and for everyone in the house.

Blowing warm air onto her open palm, she raised her hand. "Baby, I'm sorry," she muttered, "but you really are about to freeze me to death!"

A forlorn Sebastian, with a bright red handprint restoring some color to his features, sipped on a mug of hot apple cider. In between the moment he let himself fall asleep and the moment Kutone slapped him awake, he'd hurt her, and the crazy old man from the tower had somehow appeared in his room. He cast a dismal gaze down the red patches on Kutone's face, arms, and even her hand pressed on his knee as she sat next to him.

"She held a piece of parchment in her other hand. A letter, Sebastian realized, from the gossamer handwriting. Past the first crease of the letter, however, a sigil glowed, angrily, like flame-licked lava. A transport sigil, the crazy old man had boasted, that activated the moment Kutone opened the rest of the letter. Something like that. Sebastian found no desire in himself to express his doubts. "I'm sorry," he breathed. He released one hand from his mug and gently traced Kutone's frostbites. "I'm sorry, Kutone."

As Kutone turned to reassure him, the crazy man spoke first. Amusement laced his voice. "Why apologize for your own awakening, boy? You understand you're at a momentous crossroads, surely?"

Awakening? Exhaustion weighed heavier the more Sebastian tried parsing the man's words into coherent statements.

After a long stare into Sebastian's eyes, the man tipped the brim of his pointed hat over his eyes. "So you've yet to suspend your disbelief. Considering this valley's history, I suppose this is merely an inevitability."

Kutone turned her wrist and wove her fingers with Sebastian's. She held him tight. Like always. "Talk, Rasmodius. What do I need to do?"

Rasmodius sniffed and stroked his purple beard. "Nothing, were it absolutely up to me. Either his Void eats him up completely and freezes him to death, or he makes the Void his own. This must sound familiar to you, Adept."

Fatigue needled the corners of Sebastian's consciousness, but he turned his gaze to Kutone. Her lips had hardened into a thin line. "What is he talking about?"

"Spirits' Eve!" said Rasmodius, giving Kutone no chance to distract the conversation. "You must remember, boy, how she fell into a death-like sleep for nearly four days? Were she a born resident of the valley, I believe she might have awakened in a similar manner as you currently find yourself struggling with. Her powers might have involved the sea—!"

The exhaustion peeled back. "Powers?"

Kutone's words hissed sharply. "Don't give him ideas, Rasmodius! I nearly—!"

"—Or maybe she was purely shadow." Rasmodius settled a silencing, dagger-like glare on Kutone. "The absolute abysses of the Void. She would have made an excellent Shadow Diviner."

With a swish of his black robes and cape, Rasmodius turned to Sebastian's computer desk, where his dagger and throwing knives laid in a veil of frost. He approached the desk in long, gliding steps, and picked up the sheathed dagger. Unsheathing the weapon, Rasmodius sighted along its double edge, hemming and hawing his approval. "Intriguing. Very intriguing. A legitimate sample of cold iron!"

Shadow Diviner. Cold Iron. Terms Sebastian found himself keeping up with. He noted Kutone's confused expression. "It's an alloy. Any metal and enchanted…" Sweat broke out in an icy sheet down his back, as he met Rasmodius's knowing simper. "…Enchanted ice."

"Highly, highly effective against vanquishing Void Spirits and their undead cohorts, second only to anything infused with Solar Essence. The dwarves would forge this metal to use against the Spirits in their ancient war." Rasmodius sheathed the blade, and set it ceremoniously back on the computer desk. "However, the dwarves had no means of procuring enchanted ice on their own—magic was not a blessing bestowed upon them. So they turned to a different source."

Stardew Valley." Inside, Sebastian was screaming at himself. This entire thing was just a legend. A goddamn fairy tale. Of course he'd heard the stories about the ancient war: Dwarves on Void Spirits, warring over their racial differences and their territories. Magic and technology at odds and locking both sides into a perpetual stalemate. Human intervention became the key to settling a ceasefire. Folklore! Children's books! Tabletop RPG games, for crying out loud! And yet, Sebastian went on, even with Kutone's baffled stare on him. "The valley residents aligned with Void and manifested in ice…"

"I see your disbelief melting away, boy."

And he hated it! He could hear the squeals of cracks stretching across his perception of his world, as well as the shattering in the distance. Now, of all times, he even liked Demetrius's wording: biological anomaly. That was simple, and in-line with everything Sebastian knew about himself and the valley. "The valley residents," he started again, breath trembling, "they produced enchanted ice through breath and touch. So long as they communed with the valley spirits…"

He grabbed that last bit of reality with every last ounce of his stumbling soul. "That's it. This isn't real; I'm dreaming—I don't do any communing and I don't know any valley spirits—!"

Rasmodius stroked his beard again. "Ah, but lovely Kutone does, doesn't she?"

Sebastian watched the rebellious spirit leave Kutone's features in a defeated pallor. "You can't mean—!"

"—The Junimos," said Rasmodius, waving one hand to the ceiling. A glowing sigil shone in the space above Sebastian's and Kutone's heads, "bestow Stardew Valley with magic unlike any other province of this world. Their blessings enrich the children of the valley with a natural affinity for magic—all they ask for, in return, is gratitude, expressed in physical gifts to them, and between members of the community."

Rasmodius flicked his other wrist, throwing the lock into the basement door's knob. "Timeless spirits as them, however, do not understand the flow of change in relation to human time. Humans forget their debts. Stardew Valley lost its spirit of community and gratitude. Singular convenience took the place of joined effort. Magic, an unnecessary luxury that drew a segregating line between the haves and have-nots."

Magic. He was looking at an honest-to-Yoba wizard.

And he had the same thing running through his icy breath. The walls of his world disintegrated into glassy pieces.

Potential. He could be worth something. He could be worth Kutone, with this gift only he could use.

Rasmodius's grin, almost sinister, seemed to agree with Sebastian's thoughts. "The efforts to restore magic to Stardew Valley began with Kutone's grandfather. And now, thanks to Kutone's own contract and work with the Junimos, magic begins to flourish anew. The first to awaken to his natural ability—you, boy, are that child.

"It makes sense, might I add, that a child of Void would forge a new something out of the nothingness of his aspect. Your friends might hopefully follow suit, if you follow my tutelage."

Kutone squeezed his hand tighter. "No," she hissed. Taking his hand into both of hers, she directed Sebastian to look into her dark eyes. "What he's proposing to you," she slowly started, "is too goddamn dangerous for you to consider doing, for any reason whatsoever."

"Kutone—"

"You're excited—I know you're excited, Sebastian, I can feel it, okay? You want it so badly, but you have to understand!" She let go of his hand and pressed both of her hands against his face. Pressed her forehead against his. Her warm whisper kissed his icy breath, and the overflow of his choking emotion solidified his resolve, despite what she said next. "You already have what you need, without having powers or anything! I told you, didn't I?—you have to be you. Everything you have and don't have. Only you."

"I might have what I need," Sebastian replied, "but I don't have what I want."

She jolted back. "What could you possibly want that you'd risk something that nearly killed me?"

Her question stirred a storm of interlinked thoughts in Sebastian's head. The cold room of his boyhood. His mother crying over the kitchen table. The echoing clumps of footsteps heading to the door. The deep, final click of the door closing. The distant bellow of a departing train. Running his lungs and legs ragged to catch up. Counting days, weeks, months, years. Places to belong, things to do to make him belong. Drifting.

Drifting.

Drifting.

Then finally finding his place, in her deep, dark eyes, in her sadness, in the soft contours and curves of her body, in that sweet mellow voice that both broke and built him. In her kiss, in her embrace, in her scent, in her smile, in her worry now.

And wanting to anchor her, and everything about her, as close to himself as he possibly could. To never let go again. He had to be strong enough to never let go. Again.

"A lot of things," Sebastian said instead. "And I think I'm willing to gamble on this one."

"You begged me not to worry you, you hypocrite!"

The anger in her voice pierced him like a venomous barb, but that too, he wanted to keep. "Then please, Kutone. Help me."

"Help you?!" she spluttered. "Why didn't you ask me before?! Before you went into those mines! Before all three of you got hurt, and before all of this awakening shit?! Why didn't you ask me anything, Sebastian?!"

"I wanted to do something on my own!" he shot back. "Something within my own power, something I could do and be proud of!"

"That doesn't mean you have to do it without help!"

"I didn't want to rely on you all the damn time!" He pressed a hand against his face and rubbed down. "But now I'm asking you. I've done what I could, and now I know I can't go on without you. Please, Kutone."

She sighed, exasperated, but the needle-sharp edge melted out of her voice.

Rasmodius folded his hands into the wide sleeves of his robe. "It seems we've reached an agreement?"

Sebastian gave Kutone a moment's chance to rebel one more time, but from the defeated shake of her head, she'd give no fight. He owed her another debt, but whatever came out of this, he swore to do more than just repay her.

The wizard gave a wry smile, and unfolded his arms. A flick of his wrist, and two gems sparkled, floating, over his palm. "Then..." One a gift given, the other a gift to give. "Let us begin."