"Bubby? Bubby! Are you even listening to me?"

"Sorry," Natan said. "I was just thinking."

"Well, yeah, it is a lot to think about," said Tanner, holding up his new machina as the two brothers walked to the lake. "The weight of the frame is the biggest drag, so if we could get that sorted, the speed- Oh, my gosh! Can you just imagine Jaron's face if this boat beats his on the first test? I hope I sealed the engine compartment well enough."

"I'm sure it will be fine." Natan smiled. His little brother really was a genius with machina, but Tanner's new frame design - of which Natan had already heard in great detail - was actually the last thing on his mind.

He could still do white magic, Phin had told him. Natan had never thought about it. He could see the aether, and he could draw it well enough, which technically made him a black mage, but he'd tried black magic - tried it for years - and he'd never mastered holding the aether he drew. It all poured through him like water through his hands, and no one knew why. It was the reason he spent so much time at the lake with his brother instead of apprenticing to one of the master mages: none of the masters would have him. But lately he'd begun to think there had to be more to life than playing with machina.

He'd considered learning a trade, one involving animals somehow. Grandad had been a shepherd, after all. And Natan rather liked his neighbor Steffan's herd of goats. People always needed cheese, didn't they? But Steffan already had Jasper, and Natan was fairly sure Steffan didn't need two apprentices.

He'd been considering his other options already, but then, by chance, Natan had been out in Steffan's fields the previous day when the white mages came to check the goats. The animals had been mysteriously ill lately, and Moira, stumped, had brought Phin into it. Natan had watched them work, fascinated. He'd even helped Jasper hold the old ram down as the mages administered the potions they'd brought. And Phin had casually mentioned white magic, how you didn't have to draw the aether for white magic. He'd gone on to say there were white mages who specialized in animals. Natan hadn't slept for thinking of the possibilities. Would Phin be willing to take him on as an apprentice?

Tanner continued to talk about the new boat design, the gear ratios. Natan nodded in what he hoped were the appropriate spots, still only half listening. He hadn't yet told Tanner what he was thinking. He hoped Tanner wouldn't take it too hard. The machina were his brother's whole world right now. Natan didn't want Tanner thinking that he loved him any less just because he'd lost interest in their shared hobby. He'd have to talk to their mother, Natan realized. She wouldn't be comfortable with Tanner going to the lake alone every day. He'd have to convince her Tanner would be fine - he was old enough now to take care of himself. Besides, the other boys wouldn't let anything happen to him. And Natan could still visit the lake sometimes. Plenty of the other boys had apprenticeships, and they still made time for it.

"-but we could use paddles if we get the casing right," Tanner said, talking again about his idea for a people-powered machina. "The trick is the shape of the hull, I think. You need the buoyancy to counteract the weight of the engine. If we-"

Tanner yelped as a form hurtled out of the bushes in front of them, something big, that collapsed on the path howling like a wounded beast. Natan thought at first it must be a bear - the figure was too large to be anything else - but then he realized it was a man, filthy, with torn clothes, and with bits of leaf stuck in his hair and beard. The man was covered in scratches, as though he'd run through a thorn bush. He saw the two brothers there, and he stumbled forward, grabbing Natan by the lapels. Tanner screamed, dropping his boat as he tried to pull Natan away, but the old man held him fast. "She's awake! You have to tell them! She'll leave her lair soon! She's almost strong enough!"

"Let go!" Tanner cried, just as Natan asked, "Who?"

"The fire follows in her wake! She'll come! There's no time! Tell them- No!" The man's grip loosened, and he looked down at his hands in horror. Natan realized he could see through the man's hands. "No!" the man said, trying to grab Natan again but unable to do so. His voice grew softer as the rest of him faded. "No! You have to tell-"

And he was gone.

The two brothers stood alone on the path, panting with fright. Tanner clung fiercely to Natan's hand. "Who was that?" Tanner whispered.

Natan shook his head. "I don't know."

"What did he want?"

"I don't know," Natan said. "But we need to tell somebody."

"Yeah," Tanner said, nodding. "Yeah. Let's go." He turned and ran, Natan following, keeping his little brother in his sights. Behind them, Tanner's new boat lay on the path where he'd dropped it, as forgotten as a garbled prophecy.

The sun rose, slowed, stopped. No, not stopped. It was still moving, but only at the normal rate now. Thad breathed in, letting time settle over him once more, and he shivered at the nip in the air. Shiva chirped from her place in Thad's pocket and Thad absent-mindedly patted her head. "Another cold day," he told her. The eidolon chirped again in reply.

He stood, turning to face the path that led back toward the town, and he knew instantly that Orin was waiting for him along it, the old monk's green aura glowing steadily as a guidepost in the thin morning fog. Thad smiled when he met the old man, but Orin did not smile in return. "I suspected as much," the monk said, shaking his head sadly. "You have wasted another night."

"I'm not wasting them," Thad said. "I'm skipping them."

"It is the same," Orin said. "Once the night has passed, you cannot bring it back."

"Yeah, but I can't look for Sarda in the dark," Thad pointed out.

"This may be true, but you could have done many other things with that time, young master Shipman. Least among them, you could have rested."

"How?" Thad said. "How am I supposed to relax when I know he's lost out there? When I know it's my fault?"

Orin tsked. "This fault does not lie with you alone. Sarda's disappearance is a concern for us all. Surely you know some of the sages have lent us their apprentices for the search? We have made maps of his aether trail; there are patterns."

"Patterns?" Thad said. "What kind of patterns?"

"That is what I am trying to tell you, my young friend. We cannot share our knowledge with you if you hide away from us, particularly if you insist on zipping through each day. I am an old man, master Shipman. I do not move quickly if I can help it."

Thad snorted. He'd seen the old man outrun Kane when it mattered.

Orin chuckled then, as if he'd meant it as a joke. "Come," he said, smiling. "Enough of this brooding. You are needed." He turned and tottered away, and for someone who didn't like to move quickly, the old man moved fast enough that Thad had to Haste his steps to keep up.

"I don't understand it," Jasper said, as his father knelt over the ram that lay panting on the grass. They didn't name the goats, of course - there were too many of them for that - but Jasper had always thought of the cantankerous old beast as Belias, after the horned demon who guarded the way to the Farplane in the stories. "He was well enough yesterday, like the others, but today he ails again."

His father, Steffan, shook his head. "This ram's old, son. Could be the poison hit him harder for it. Still, he's alive. Let's keep him that way, eh? Go and ask your mom for more of that drink she give 'im yesterday."

"Yes, da," Jasper said, not bothering to correct him. Steffan kept calling Moira Jasper's mom, but she wasn't, and Jasper wouldn't call her that. He called her Mo, and that had always been fine with her. Jasper knew she understood.

He set off across the tree-dotted hills that made up the grazing grounds. He'd been all over those grounds, he and his father, and neither of them had seen anything that could account for the sickness. Sure, there was creeper, toxic to humans, and that ivy that gave folks a terrible rash just from touching it, but the goats could eat those. That was half the reason people kept goats, after all. Goats could and would eat anything that grew from the ground, and none of it in this part of the world was deadly to them. Jasper figured he'd know: his family had kept goats on this land for generations. Still, he looked at the ground as he walked, searching for any plant he didn't recognize, anything that might explain what the goats were getting into, and didn't bring his eyes up to the road ahead of him until he'd hopped the fence that surrounded the family farm and took the shortcut to the village's clinic.

When he opened the door, he heard a cry of pain and he hurried inside. There, he found that strange white mage girl, the outsider, kneeling on the floor over that Cornelian. The young soldier clutched at his knee, blaspheming the dragon god as the girl cast a healing spell.

Jasper's stepmother hovered over the girl's shoulder, her face a thundercloud above her crossed arms and her white robe. "Are you that thick, boy?" she barked. "'Stay down' doesn't mean 'take a turn around the room'! How do you expect to heal if you won't rest?"

"Um..." Jasper said. "Should I wait outside?"

Mo turned, noticing him for the first time. "Oh, good! You're here. We'll need you. Just let us fix this mess and you can help us get him back in the bed."

"How long do you expect me to stay in this bed?" the soldier bellowed.

"Until I say otherwise!" Mo snapped at the Cornelian, and the Cornelian flinched - Mo could be plenty scary for a white mage.

"Just stay down, Kane Carmine! It's not as if it's hard!" the other white mage said. Her face reminded Jasper of the day she and the soldier had forced their way past him into the Circle Chamber.

Talk about scary white mages, he thought.

The Cornelian apparently agreed, for he growled in frustration and let his head fall back against the floor tiles. The white mage muttered something sharp, and the Cornelian whispered a terse reply as the girl healed him.

As the two bickered, Mo shook her head, rolling her eyes as she crossed the room to her work counter. Jasper stepped over to her. She sighed. "I assume you need more potions?"

"Yes, ma'am. Just the one draught, as it's only the old ram."

"The one you call Belias?"

Jasper grinned. "Yes'm."

"Hmm," said Mo, shuffling bottles on the shelf just above her head height. "Old as he is, I'm going to send an expectorant with you."

"What's that, then?"

"Should help him breathe easier." Mo set two bottles on the counter then turned to snap at the two visitors, "And that's enough of your squabbling, both of you!" The whispered argument cut off abruptly. Mo nodded to Jasper. "Just lift this great blockhead for us and you can be on your way."

"Sure," Jasper said. "What happened, anyway?"

Mo snorted. "Tried to stand up, the fool boy. Knee buckled under him."

"I thought you said you'd healed it?"

Mo cut him a glare. "We healed what could be healed. The rest will happen on its own time. If he'll leave it alone long enough."

When the girl finished, Jasper helped with the next part, moving in to get an arm around Kane's back as Mo directed him. The Cornelian was big, but Jasper had helped move him before, and the man had the one good leg to push himself up with though Jasper could tell by the curses that it pained him. He thought of Belias again, that ornery stubbornness that said anything could be beaten if you just banged your head against it hard enough. It often hadn't worked for the goat either. "Maybe you should listen to the white mages, friend. They usually know what they're talking about."

"Usually?" Mo said, swatting him in the back of the head.

"I'm not your friend," Kane said, but there was no heat to it. The soldier had clearly worn himself out, laying back against the pillows, face gone pale with his efforts.

"Kane," the girl said reproachfully, "that's enough!"

"We don't have time for this, Lena!" he said, with far more force than Jasper thought he had in him.

Mo slapped him. Both Kane and Lena stared at her, wide-eyed, but it was nothing Jasper hadn't seen before. He knew Mo's interpretation of the white oath to be a liberal one. "Get it through your head!" Mo barked. "You nearly lost the whole leg! You did lose half of it - that muscle's not there anymore! Your leg can't take the weight! You want to recover? Then stay down until we tell you to move!"

She turned sharply toward the counter, picked up the bottles she'd fished out earlier, and shoved them into Jasper's unresisting arms before she shoved his shoulder toward the door. Jasper let her push him along, secure in the knowledge that he wasn't the target of her anger, not this time. At the door, he stopped and quickly planted a kiss on her cheek. "Love ya, Mo."

She snorted, but there was a hint of a smile to her lips as she said, "I love you, too, son. Go and treat the ram, you big lug. I'll be home for dinner."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. Yes, she could be scary, but she was his Mo.

The library was quiet today. Jack had been browsing these shelves for more than an hour and had yet to be disturbed by any of the other scholars. No one else needed geography books. Those who weren't helping with aetherite research were still reading up on King Titus the Third, hoping for some insight on the fiend. Jack found he couldn't care less about the Lion of Leifen, not today, not with those pictures nestled safely in the inner breast pocket of his coat: the newer one of the marilith, and the older one, the drawing of his mother.

He'd checked the bestiaries already to no avail. They all seemed to agree that lamia were extinct, that only their cousins the naga remained, but the thing from his memory could not have been a naga, more snake than woman. He'd checked the accounts of the Sisters, seeking descriptions of the Bane, but that too had been a fruitless endeavor. No two versions of the tale agreed on what the Bane had been. Some unillustrated accounts described its size, its teeth and claws, its strength. Some with pictures portrayed a dragon, or a giant, or a beast not unlike a behemoth. The only thing they all agreed on was that the Bane had overpowered and killed the Sisters, three goddesses, daughters of Ramuh.

And that had led him back to the drawing of his mother. She'd been wearing acolyte's robes. He hadn't thought much of it before, but it was all he had now. She and the women with her all wore acolyte's robes, the garments marking them as priestesses. The garden in which they dined on their picnic might have been a cloister garden, judging from the layout, and the structure just visible on the edge of the picture... could it have been a temple? Jack's mother had never mentioned being an acolyte, not that he could recall, but she had been a devout follower of Ramuh. He'd never heard of a Ramuhnish temple before, but if he could find one, maybe he could figure out where he'd come from. What's more, maybe he could find people who still remembered his mother and the beast that had killed her.

He'd scoured the books on temples of the world, the maps, the studies of their architecture. To his surprise, none of the temples he read about were devoted to Ramuh. He knew followers of Ramuh were uncommon these days, but surely at least one temple existed somewhere? He supposed it was possible his mother had trained in a nondenominational temple...

He shelved the book he'd been reading. Lost in thought, he wandered from Geography toward Religion, perusing the shelves as he went, and nearly yelped when he walked directly into another person. The other person did yelp, dropping the books she held, and Jack froze to find himself face to face with Lena, their gazes locked together in surprise.

"I'm sorry," he said, just as she said the same thing.

She blushed. Her hair was tied back in a loose tail, bits of it escaping to curl around her face. She wore her white hood down, but at her collar Jack could see the nut-brown tunic she wore underneath, the one he knew stopped well short of her knees. He knew if he looked down, her calves would be bare.

Do not look down, you horrible lech, he thought to himself. He kept his eyes firmly on hers. "You needn't be sorry," he said at last. "I'm the one who wasn't watching where he was going."

She seemed to shy away from the intensity of his gaze, looking down at the floor, occasionally flicking her eyes up to his so that she was looking at him through her eyelashes in a way that made him question his resolve to stay away from her. "No, I turned that corner rather quickly. You couldn't have seen me in time to avoid me."

"Well," he said, throat suddenly dry. Her aura filled his vision now in a way that was nearly impossible to ignore. "Let's agree to being mutually at fault."

She nodded, looking down again, rubbing her neck with one hand. "I haven't seen you," she said.

"I was afraid I'd distract you," he said, distracted enough himself. "Um, from the healing, I mean."

"Right," she said, sighing but not calling him out on his lie.

He knelt to collect the books she'd dropped, keeping his eyes aimed at the floor, at the books. He caught sight of her feet in the rope sandals that tied around her ankles and- Lech, he berated himself. Lech, Lech, Lech. He stood again, passing the books back to her, noticing their titles as he did so. "Machina?" he asked. "Have you… have you been spending time with Tylen again?"

"What? Oh, no, it's-! It's nothing!" she said, taking the small pile from his arms, holding the books close to her chest. "Just... an idea I had. I'll get out of your way."

She started to dodge past him, but he stepped into her path. She nearly ran into him again before she stopped herself. "You're not in my way," he said, though she stood so close to him that he felt his cheeks heating. They both took a step back. "So," he said, his own research quite forgotten, "go ahead. Run it by me."

"Oh! No! I don't want to bother you!" She took another step back.

"It's no bother," he said quickly, clenching his fist at his side to keep himself from reaching for her.

"Well," she said. She bit her bottom lip, looking around as if worried someone might be listening, but they were alone. Still, she lowered her voice when she said, "Kane isn't well."

"What? But I thought-"

"Physically, he's fine. Or he will be. Eventually." She sighed. "No, mentally. He's… not doing well. Not as well as I would like."

"And the solution is books about machina?"

"He just needs something to do, Jack. Something to take his mind off of… everything else," she sighed again, a small sound of defeat, her gaze still mostly on the floor. "You should see him. He's asked about you."

"Lena-"

"Look, I know the clinic bothers you, I can feel it. You don't cover it well. But it's- Well, we've closed the wound by now. it's not a bloody mess anymore. I... I know that sort of thing is hard for you… He's just so bored, Jack! He'll be off the leg for a while longer as the bone is still weak, but it's... " She looked at him through her eyelashes again, and like a coward he looked away.

Jack huffed in frustration. "I'll… I'll see what I can do."

She lifted her head to gaze hopefully at him. "Really?"

He chuckled at the face she made. Gods, she was adorable. "Yes, really. I… You're right, about the clinic and me, but… I'll try."

"That's all I ask!" A relieved smile bloomed on her face. "Thank you. Truly, thank you. I know how hard it is for you, but Kane needs us now. Please just try!"

Oh, but that smile did things to him. He couldn't look away from it. "I promise."

Her blush deepened. She reached up, tucking one of her loose curls behind her ear, and he finally realized he'd been staring. "I'll, uh... I'll go," she said. "I know you have work to do."

"Yes," he said awkwardly. He wanted to ask her to stay. For a moment, he imagined the two of them studying at the same table, side by side, but a chill crept in even at that innocent thought. He again remembered the irresistible pull of her aura against his the night they'd walked around the lake together, how he almost hadn't been able to stop himself. The aura that was right here, right now, so close… Stop it. "Right. You should go."

She nodded; surely she'd felt the temperature drop? "Do you think Master Pearl will let me borrow these?" She tilted her chin toward her books.

Jack shrugged. "Don't tell him."

She laughed, a high, clear sound. She stepped forward, closing the distance between them. Juggling the books to one side, she reached up, hugging him around his neck, pulling his head down to hers as she stood a-tiptoe to kiss his scarf-covered cheek. He felt her breath on his ear as she said, "Take care, Jack," before she hurried away.

It took him a moment to recover, to shove the ice back down. She was long gone by the time he remembered what he'd been looking for in the religion section, but he couldn't regain his focus. He took several books back to his table, forced himself to flip through a volume on the history of the Rahmuhn church, reading the words without taking them in, thinking only of Lena, of her aura, of how it would feel to draw it in.

He would have to tell her. That was all there was to it. He couldn't avoid her forever, and if she learned what he was- Well, if she hated him for it, she at least deserved to...

Wait. Something caught his eye. He turned back a page to the illustration he'd just passed, read the description that went with it. It was an artist's depiction of the Magisterium, the temple of Ramuh in the ancient city of Mysidia where the Sisters had died. The city had been abandoned a few years before Leifen fell - the attack on the temple had disrupted the aether flows there, creating an aether waste, making the landscape completely uninhabitable - but plenty of stories of Mysidia survived. The majority of the population had made it out with their lives, after all.

Jack couldn't be sure how accurate this illustration was, whether it was drawn by one of those survivors or merely someone who had a secondhand description. The picture showed the inside of the temple, the part of the cathedral called the nave. That was where the altar resided, where the priests would stand to lead worship services. Where Ramuh himself was said to have stood centuries ago, back in the days when he still appeared to his people.

There were no people in this picture. The cathedral was empty. There was only the altar with Ramuh's flame upon it, a glowing fire inside a metal cage. Jack couldn't be sure, but it looked as if the flame itself was... an orb. An orb small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

The scene didn't get any better no matter how Kane glared at it.

"And you can just stop making that face," 'Dine said, arms crossed over her chest. "It's not as if we've tied you down."

"Haven't you?" Kane said, gesturing toward the contraption that held his leg suspended in the air. Now that the swelling had subsided, the white mages had bandaged him from ankle to thigh in a plaster cast, completely immobilizing his leg.

"They wouldn't have had to if you'd stayed put," his father pointed out.

"Whose side are you on?" Kane said.

"Yours, of course," Redden said, grinning. "Particularly when you don't seem to know what's good for you."

'Dine rolled her eyes. "The bone is brittle. We've pieced it back together, but it has to heal the rest of the way on its own. That means daily spells, potions, a special diet, a-"

"Yes, great," Kane said, interrupting her. "When can I walk on it?"

'Dine glared. "A month."

"A month?!"

"At least a month. And that's if you stay off of it like we've told you. Then maybe we can talk about teaching you to walk again."

"What? I'm not going to forget how to walk!"

"Care to bet on it?" 'Dine said severely.

"Kane," Redden said. "Your muscles will atrophy in that time. You'll need to rebuild them."

Kane opened his mouth to protest, but 'Dine talked over him. "I assume this is where the cursing starts, yes? I'm sure I don't need to be present for it. I'll be going. Wrede has the next shift. I think. I don't actually know. Nor do I care. Frankly, I don't see why one of us has to be with you at all times at this point, but the others outvoted me. If you've any further questions, save them for him."

Redden shook his head as the clinic door closed behind her. "A real piece of work, that one."

"How is she even a white mage?" Kane asked.

Redden shrugged. "To hate people as much as she does yet still believe they all deserve healing? Something to be said for her commitment, I suppose. It's the oath she loves: the oath and what it stands for. Apparently, that's enough."

Kane harrumphed. He glared at the cast again - it filled his view prominently.

Beside the bed, his father pulled his pipe and tobacco pouch from his pocket.

"I'm sure the white mages don't allow smoking in here," Kane said.

Redden shrugged again. "Well, one of them ought to show up and stop me. Shouldn't Wrede be here by now?"

"I don't know. I haven't figured out their schedule. It seems random."

"White mages don't run things the way you're used to them running in the guard house," Redden said, flicking his pipe alight with a spell. "I'm surprised Lena isn't here more often."

"She's here all the time," Kane said. "Just not when you're here."

His father made no response to that. They sat in silence, Redden puffing away, the sweet smoke filling the room reminding Kane of home a little. His father had run out of the more floral Cornelian Tobacco after they'd left Melmond, but the woody variety they produced here was close enough in scent.

"She really is angry at me," Redden said at last.

"She is," Kane said. "I've been telling you."

"I thought... I thought I was protecting you."

"Protecting me?"

Redden shook his head. "All of you. From her."

"That's ridiculous."

Redden chuckled bitterly. "It seems that way now doesn't it? In hindsight?" He sighed, sending an eddy of smoke dancing toward the ceiling. "Aliana was my fault, son. Not a day goes by that I haven't regretted that."

"Your fault? But Garland-"

"Not her death," Redden said. "Her life. Her life with you and Sarah. That was my idea."

"I don't understand."

"She didn't always live in the castle. When the mage wars began, she was living at White Hall. She had students, taught anatomy - I'm led to understand she was a good teacher. I was the one who convinced Cascius to use her to root out the Brotherhood. But... it changed her. To go from being surrounded by white mage novices to spending her days among terrorists? She grew to hate us, hate everyone, everything. After a few years of that… We were actually afraid of her for a time there, afraid of what she might do. Hate without conscience. That was when Cascius moved her to the tower."

"She was a prisoner?" Kane asked, horrified.

"No! Not... Not exactly. We just needed her to be away from people, that's all. A chance to get clear of those negative emotions. She knew what was happening to her, son. She agreed with us. She went willingly. But..." He sighed. "It wasn't working. We still needed her. And every time we exposed her to another member of the Brotherhood, she became unstable again. And then one day, I was watching you and Sarah playing together in the garden - you couldn't have been more than three years old - and the two of you were so happy together..."

"Ah," Kane said, understanding it now, remembering Aliana as the kindly nursemaid who had cared for him and his princess while their fathers were about the important work of running the kingdom. And if they sometimes took Aliana away for an hour or so while the children had their lessons, that was hardly unusual, was it?

"It fixed everything," Redden said. "Cascius started telling her we were rooting out the Brotherhood to protect you, and other children like you, and the hate stopped affecting her."

"Because we loved her."

"Yes," Redden said, nodding. "I didn't see the harm in it, Kane. Yes, you two loved her, but you would have outgrown her eventually. All children forget their nannies, given time. But you were still a child when she died. You still loved her like a child. When I saw how much you grieved for her, you and Sarah both-"

"I don't regret our time with Aliana," Kane said.

"She never loved you, son. Not really."

"You keep saying that," Kane said, shaking his head. "I'm not sure it matters. I think... I think the important thing was that we did love her... She got to spend those years with us being loved, instead of alone in a tower with nothing but hate. Love shouldn't be about expecting something back."

Redden smiled a sad smile. "That almost sounded wise."

"I'm not as dumb as I look," Kane said.

His father chuckled, then cocked his head the way he often did when he was feeling the aether. "Wrede's nearly here. I should finish this pipe outside."

"Yeah," Kane agreed.

Redden bent down to plant a tender kiss on Kane's forehead. "I love you, son. I don't say it enough." Then, before Kane could respond, he stood and headed toward the back door.

The wind came right off the lake, carrying the scents of pine and wet earth, the feel of the water, the cold. Lena folded her arms inside her robe, noticing for the first time the speck of blood on her sleeve that Wrede's cleaning spell had missed. Another chore for later, she thought, hunching her shoulders against a sudden shiver. She smiled despite herself, thinking of Jack.

She could feel him from here. He was still in town. She hadn't even asked him what he'd been up to. She had been so focused on Kane. Still focused on him, she thought, for it was on his account that she forced herself to walk back to the lake's docks to engage in what she was sure would be an uncomfortable conversation. She sent her senses toward the water, concentrating on that, drawing strength from the calm, cold lake in whatever way she could.

She could feel the whole lake now, not just the water, but the life there, everything in it. Fish, plants, birds, the boys at the docks, their auras. She walked right to them, knowing exactly where they were. She had known her powers were growing stronger - she'd been healing Kane for days now, and each day her body had given out well before her power had - but still, it was unsettling. She chalked it up to the orbs, as she could feel that too - her bracelet in Fiona's lab was a spot on the edge of her awareness. She knew Kane had been changed by their experiences in the earth cave, those changes made obvious because he hadn't been a mage, and she knew Jack's strength had grown as well. She kept meaning to ask Thad if he felt it too, but there just hadn't been a good time.

The boys weren't swimming - the water had quickly grown cold as the winds had changed, as autumn set in - but they were still at the same dock where they had spent those last warm days of summer. Jaron and Dav were racing, having launched their boats parallel to the shore now rather than toward the lake center, and the two young men ran along the shore after them, ready to retrieve them with the aid of long sticks when their little motors stopped. Lena stood at the end of the path for several minutes watching the action, wondering who would win, before she took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Tylen was on the beach, he and Balen kneeling over a disassembled machina, poking it with their tools. Balen noticed her first. Smiling and laughing, he had turned to say something to Rowan and saw her there. His eyes widened as though she were a frightful thing, his smile fading. Rowan turned her way, quieting as well. Balen elbowed Tylen, and when he turned around, it was surprise rather than fear that Lena felt from him. Surprise, and guilt.

"Lena!" he said, his smile hesitant. "You... you came back!"

"Can I speak with you?" she asked.

"Of course!" he said, quickly. "Yes, of course! Whatever you need." He stepped toward her, then looked down as though surprised to find the tools in his hands. He handed them off to Balen then walked over, joining Lena on the path.

She walked away from the lake, letting him follow. When she was sure they were out of earshot of the others, she stopped. She turned to face him, and she felt anew that guilt, that shame, she had sensed in him before.

"Lena," he said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "I'm-"

"Don't apologize," she said. "Don't you dare. Because you're not sorry for what you did to Jack. You're only sorry I wouldn't stand for it."

"But he's-"

"I don't care," she said. "I don't want to hear it, and I don't accept your apology so don't even bother."

His mouth snapped shut. Whatever his reasons, Lena felt his contrition, just as she felt herself blushing for shutting him down. He nodded, looking at the ground. "I, uh, heard about your friend. Kane. How is he?"

Lena sighed. His question was genuine. No matter how Tylen felt about Jack, no matter how he'd treated him, Tylen was still a good person, someone who cared for other people. "Not... not good. Not as well as he could be, anyway. He's healing, but it's slow going. That's... that's why I'm here, actually."

Tylen cocked his head. "What do you need?"

"Kane's... not used to being helpless. He's a warrior, thinks of himself as a warrior, a guardian. He doesn't know how to think of himself now that his body's no good to him. He needs something to occupy his mind. And I know he's curious about machina so I thought..."

Stokes grinned. "So you came to me?"

Lena snorted. "Don't get cocky. I checked at the library first, but Pearl sent me to you."

"Oh." His grin vanished. Lena tried not to be pleased at the disappointment she felt from him - it was petty of her - but she couldn't stop herself from smiling. He saw that smile, and his own crept back in. "Well, I do have some books that might work for you. Basics. He can read, I assume?"

"Tylen," she said, a warning in her tone.

He raised his hands in surrender, but his grin remained. "Sorry. Couldn't resist. I'll check my collection, see what I can find."

She nodded. "Thank you. That's all I ask." She turned to leave, but he reached for her hand.

"You could ask for more," he said. "I thought... for a while there, I thought we were friends."

"We were," she said. She shrugged. "And we might be again."

"But not yet?"

"No," she said. "Not yet."

He nodded, releasing her, and she continued up the path back to the clinic. Though she didn't look back, she could still feel him there, watching her go, before he returned to the water.

Alistair picked up the gauntlet, inspected it, put it down again. "One gauntlet, mythril," he wrote in the ledger. He didn't know much about armor; he wondered if there were anything else he should say about it. Oh, well. He shrugged, then he moved on to the next artifact from the collection Orin had retrieved from the settlement the old maps called Dagmar's Landing. The scholars had already dismissed the items as so much junk, nothing magically significant, but as it was ancient junk, remnants of the lost empire, it all had to be cataloged and stored in his library. More work for him. Alistair sighed often as he worked, in case anyone was listening. He wondered if there was space in that corner of the archive where the Mysidian pottery shards were kept.

He turned to find Alphi, one of the apprentices, hovering nearby, either too respectful or too cowardly to interrupt his work. "Yes?" Alistair asked tersely. "What is it?"

The young man blushed. "Master Pearl? Lord Orin wonders if you've another map of the lake's east side, or at least if he can write on the one you've given him already."

"Yes, yes," Alistair said, picking up the tarnished silver bracelet with the hole where a decorative stone would have gone. "Tell him he can write on the one he has. Tell him I've extra copies of all of the maps - the ones he has are his to alter as he wishes." The apprentice bowed. Alistair waved him away.

He studied the bracelet a moment before he went to set it down beside the gauntlet, but the gauntlet was no longer where he'd left it. Instead, Alistair stifled a shout of surprise at finding Orin's boy standing beside the table, holding the gauntlet up to peer inside it. "Gods, boy! I've told you to quit doing that!"

Thadius grimaced. "Sorry! I wasn't trying to scare you, I promise! I just forget to make noise sometimes, that's all."

Alistair shook himself, knocking the fright from his limbs. "No matter," he said, plucking the gauntlet from the boy's hands and replacing it on the table. "And why, if I may ask, are you over here instead of assisting Orin?" Lord Orin directed the search for the missing prophet, Sarda, by coordinating the apprentices. Each went out in the mornings looking for traces of the man's aura from the night before then reported back to Orin to chart their discoveries on the maps, but as the days had worn on, Sarda's path had grown more twisted so that Orin had pulled his own apprentice in to assist him.

The boy shrugged. "I did that already."

"When could you- ah. Never mind." The other apprentices had only finished reporting to Orin a few minutes ago, but this boy, Alistair reminded himself, was a prodigy of time magic. Alistair had seen it in action. He himself had gained two hours of study the day before while mere minutes had passed for everyone else, just because he'd been standing too close to this boy as he worked.

He bent over his ledger again, wrote, "One defensive shield bracelet, silver, spells degraded, keystone missing. Two inches diameter, sized for a child." Then, noticing the bracelet was gone now, he retrieved it from the boy's hands to set it beside the gauntlet. The boy had picked up something else from the table before Alistair had even finished setting the bracelet down.

Prodigy, Alistair reminded himself. Prodigies became sages, and sages decided how his library was run. It didn't do to make enemies of them when they were young. He sighed, letting his annoyance go as best he could. "Surely you could be helping Jack with his project then?"

Thadius scowled. "He won't tell me what his project is."

"He was helping Fiona study the aetherite, last I checked."

The boy shook his head. "Not anymore. He's got all of Sarda's drawings with him and he's comparing them to stuff from books."

"More research on Titus's fiend, I expect?"

Thad shrugged. "Don't think so. He's got a picture of his mother that Sarda drew for him."

"Hmm," Alistair said, frowning. "That hardly seems useful, given the circumstances."

"Did you know her?" the boy asked.

"Who? His mother?"

The boy nodded.

"Nobody knows his mother, boy. She didn't come from here." He picked up the next object in the line, a figure carved from white stone. He was no earth mage, but he knew enough earth magic to identify the stone's crystalline structure, as well as to see it had been carved with magic rather than with tools. "One white moonstone carving, spell-shaped, bear." He reached for his ruler to get a precise measurement. His ruler was gone.

He glared at the boy, who at least had the grace to look sheepish as he passed the ruler back to him.

"Well," the boy said. "Where'd he come from, then?"

"Who-?" he started to ask, before his mind could retrace the conversation a step. He really didn't need this distraction. "If Jack hasn't seen fit to tell you about his past, I see no need to interfere," Alistair snapped. Prodigy, he reminded himself, but he was losing patience. "Haven't you anything else you can be working on?"

"Not really," Thadius said, grinning. He picked up the gauntlet again. "What are you going to do with all this old stuff?"

"Save it for future study."

"But it's junk!"

"Yes, well." Alistair shrugged. "It's all we've managed to retrieve from one of the settlements. Perhaps some scholar someday will see something we've missed, something that will tell us what happened back then. We never have figured out why the airships stopped working, you know. Afterwards, the empire was in shambles and those settlements were lost to us."

"Really? This is all you've got?"

"I just said as much, didn't I?"

"None of those settlements were close enough to walk to?"

"Young man, I think you underestimate how prevalent airship travel was back then. The Leifens gave no thought whatsoever to placing villages on top of mountain peaks - or even in the middle of impassable forests! - if they enjoyed the view. Their ships could transport them between such places in the time it would take a man to walk across this village. They valued beauty and scholarship over practicality."

"So you couldn't just walk there?" Thad repeated.

"No," Alistair said firmly. "The only one we could reach from here was Stonebough, on the slopes of Gulug, but it was destroyed before then." He could see that the boy was about to ask a million questions so Alistair raised his hand to beg the boy's silence. "The records are spotty - lots of inconsistencies - but we know something happened at the forges, some disaster. Likely Gulug erupted and wiped the place out. But whatever it was happened prior to the fall of Leifen - immediately prior. In the confusion that followed the death of the airships, it sort of got lost in the shuffle."

"Oh," Thad said. He looked... disappointed, perhaps? As if he had hoped for a more interesting story. He shook off that disappointment quickly, smiling as he asked his next question. "So where are you going to keep this stuff? All the shelves here are full."

Alistair sighed, turning back to his measurements, noting the carving's height down in his ledger. "Don't remind me. But I'm sure there's space in the basement... somewhere. We'll add it to the archive."

"Basement?" the boy said, head cocked. "Archive? You mean there's more stuff to see here?

Alistair scoffed, but he couldn't keep the pride from his voice - the library was his life, after all. "Well, of course! We keep the books at ground level, but not all learning comes from books. We have a fine collection of realia: art, artifacts, magical weapons, tools, machina engines-"

He turned to set the bear carving aside, and saw that the boy was gone. Alistair sighed. Prodigy, he reminded himself. It didn't do to anger the prodigies, particularly in an academic career.

He set the carving in the row beside the bracelet, noticing as he did so that the light hit a flaw on the back. He picked it up, inspected it again. Yes, it was subtle, but he could just see where a piece of the carving had broken off at some point in the past, the break worn smooth by time and the elements while the original spellwork preserved the rest of it. Wings? Alistair thought. Not a bear then. He picked up his pen, crossed through the space in his ledger where he'd written "bear" and above it wrote "moogle".

Days passed. More days. Days and nights and potions and pain. He grew sick of the bed, despite having longed for it when he'd been stuck on that operating table. Now, he was stuck in the bed, his leg in a cast, the cast in a brace, the brace held immobile by ropes and pulleys. He couldn't move without help, not even to relieve himself, and all of the white mages, including Lena, were quick to point out that he had only himself to blame for the cast. What was all the more irritating was that Kane knew they were right.

He slept too much. Well, the mages didn't seem to think so, but Kane couldn't get over the feeling that he should be doing something. Moving. Working. Anything but lying there, helpless. Sleeping through the day. But there was no reason to be awake, not really.

He woke one afternoon - and he knew it was afternoon by the way the light from the window played on the ceiling - and he stared up at that light, wondering how long it would be before he drifted off again, when he heard someone clearing their throat and he turned his head to see Jack sitting on the stool beside his bed. Gods, finally something new. "Hey!" Kane said. "I was beginning to wonder when you'd turn up!" He tried to sit up, remembered he couldn't, and flopped down again.

"Hey," Jack said in reply. The silence stretched out between them, too long.

Kane sighed. "Aren't you even going to ask what I've been up to?"

Jack snorted, a poor approximation of a laugh. "Yes, of course. Where are my manners?"

Kane smiled. "I wasn't aware you had any. You didn't even come visit your injured friend, after all."

Jack really did laugh at that. "Gods. I'm... I'm sorry I didn't come around sooner. I... This place, it's hard for me."

"I get it," Kane said. "Really, Jack, I do. Lena said... Well, whatever. It's fine." He barked a short laugh. "It is good to see you."

"You, too," Jack nodded. He flicked his eyes toward Kane's leg, toward the contraption that kept the plaster cast elevated, effectively tying Kane to the bed. "Are you recovering well?"

Kane shrugged. "Well enough. I keep feeling like I should be doing something."

"You are doing something. You're mending."

"You know what I mean," Kane said. "Moving. Working. Anything but lying here."

"Yeah," Jack said, nodding. The silence stretched out again.

"Jack," Kane said, crossing his arms behind his head. "If you're about to apologize for my injury, you can forget it. I've already had Shipman in here with that nonsense."

"No!" Jack said quickly. "It's not that!"

Kane arched an eyebrow. "Then what's with you? Even you aren't usually this awkward."

Jack sighed. He rubbed at the space between his eyes, the place where Kane knew all of Jack's headaches started. "I've been doing research."

"Color me surprised," Kane said, rolling his eyes. "You've found something?"

"Maybe," Jack said. "I'm not sure."

"So what are you telling me for?"

"I didn't know who else to tell." Jack shrugged. He took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and passed it to Kane. "Do you know what this is?"

"Sure," Kane said. "One of Sarda's pictures. The Sisters' Bane. He's showed a drawing of it to me before."

Jack nodded. "That's what Thad said, too. But, well, we only have Sarda's word for that. The Bane could have been anything. The descriptions of the creature from the historical accounts are so vague - it was large, it was fast, it was as strong as ten men..." Jack shrugged. "That fits literally dozens of entries in the bestiaries. Why didn't anyone think to describe what it actually looked like?"

"You know how I'm always saying historians are useless?"

Jack chuckled. "In this instance, I'm inclined to agree."

"Doesn't matter, anyway," Kane said. "If Sarda says that's what the Bane looked like, I believe him. Gods, Jack, you've seen his other drawings, right? He drew my mother - a woman he never even met! - accurate down to the way she parted her hair! He sees things in those visions."

"I know," Jack said quietly. He held up another drawing, pointed at it. "He drew my mother too."

Kane shrugged. "Then you know he's right." He studied the picture in Jack's hand. "She's pretty," he said.

Jack nodded, collecting both pictures before folding them up again, returning them to his coat. He sighed. "I never thought I'd see her face again, you know? Even just as a picture... It's... I can't explain."

"You don't have to," Kane said, nodding. It made sense to him, at least. "Does this have anything to do with your research?"

"Everything," Jack said, bowing his head as he looked at the floor. "These drawings, my mother - the orb was hers before it came to me. I think... I think I know where it came from."

"Yeah?" Kane said, perking up. He tried to sit up again, but gave up with a hiss of pain. "I'm fine! I'm fine!" he said, waving away Jack's concerns. "I'm just... That's exciting news, Jack! I mean, we woke my sword in the cave where my father found it, right? That can't be a coincidence."

"It is exciting," Jack said, still looking at the floor, his voice gone whisper tight. "And huge. This thing, it's... It's big, Kane. Too big. Bigger than me at any rate."

"No," Kane said, twisting his hand to grab Jack's collar, growling at the pain that even that much movement caused him. He made Jack meet his eyes. "What did I tell you, Jack? You don't get to yield, remember?"

Jack's scarf twitched at the edge, a sure sign of a grin. "This is exactly why I came to you."

Kane grinned back at him. "You planning something stupid?"

"Maybe," Jack said. "What would you say to a trip to Mysidia?"

"Mysidia?" Kane frowned. "Like, 'the ruined city in the middle of the hostile aether wastes,' Mysidia? That Mysidia?"

Jack sighed and took a breath. He sounded like he was about to begin a lecture. "I know it sounds insane-"

"Gods, with everything we've seen, it doesn't sound that insane!" Kane shook his head. "Alright. Anything in your research talk about how to cross the wastes?"

"No. But I have an idea about when. The aether ebbs and flows with the seasons. The currents are weakest in the heart of winter, at the solstice." Jack's eyes flicked to the foot of the bed. "There are no waterways this time. We'd have to go on foot."

Kane's eyes tracked toward his injured leg. How long had 'Dine said his recovery would take? "When's the solstice?" he asked.

"Weeks from now," Jack said.

"More than a month?"

Jack shrugged. "A little less than two."

"Alright then," Kane said, nodding. "I'll be ready."

"Kane, you could stay-"

"Not a chance," Kane said. He reached out, gripping Jack's arm, what he could reach of it. "We're a team. The four us, and father and Orin. We all go. That's not up for debate."

"You're in no condition to-"

"I'll be ready," he said again more firmly. He would. Daily spells and potions and a special diet, 'Dine had said. Fine. He'd do it. He'd do whatever they told him. "Plan the trip."

Author's Note - 8/6/21 - Wait, what? Mysidia wasn't in FFI? Yeah, I know. Bear with me. It's gonna pay off. You trust me by now, right? I know what I'm doing. I hope.

I don't know how things are going for the rest of you, but my corner of the world is still struggling with Covid. The Delta Variant is everywhere and spreading fast. Things that were starting to open up have started closing again. It's beyond frustrating. But I'm doing well, my family is doing well, and I hope all of you are doing well also.

Work was busy this summer, what with the library's annual summer reading program. Lots of virtual activities this year, but they still took a lot of focus. I'm further behind than I would like on my writing schedule, but I anticipate an uptick in my creativity now that that's out of the way. Be safe out there, readers.