When the harvest season came, the temperatures began to creep downward slowly. Those few weeks between mid-September and mid-October were frankly unremarkable. Classes were going well and rehearsals had been in full swing. Of course, the first rehearsal was a table read which was always the driest, most difficult rehearsal of all, in Evergreen's professional opinion. After that, they started into the music and it was equal parts unsettling and colorful, so for that oxymoronic reason, it was a lot of fun. Evergreen never suspected that the magic of theater could be as magical as it was in the theater.

As promised, he tried out for the school talent show and he made it in, of course. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Professor Park thought that Evergreen was the best thing since sliced bread, nothing, of course. He presented another humorous song about all the things that could go wrong with potions brewing. It came from the combination of his own personal experience and also that of Aaron, as they had gotten closer. Aaron and Link were present for the auditions, and they were both busting a gut over the clever lyrics. He wasn't as nervous as he was in the past because the same fairy that he had seen in numerous places in the castle had returned with her friends and gave him a perfect backing. Few things were more magical than having fairies as one's background singers.

The fairy in particular seemed to have some kind of real interest in whatever Evergreen was doing because he saw her more and more increasingly around the school. It was like she followed him to his classes, waited for him and even attended rehearsals with him. All fairies spent the majority of their time around the Sayre Theater, but the one specifically did not. At first, he thought all fairies looked the same, but it didn't take long to realize that they look as different and diverse as human beings do. He just wished he could speak fairy or that the fairy knew English so he could find out what exactly she wanted.

It was during one of their rehearsals that Evergreen was off to the side of the stage, and he was looking at the fairy in question who was flitting about near where the ropes were located for the various curtains and other dropdowns. She occasionally landed on the large, bright red curtain for a moment to glance down at Evergreen, to make sure that she still had his attention or something.

"What are you doing?" he called up to her.

She quickly flew down to Evergreen's eye level and shrugged with a wink, then returned to her place above his head.

"Don't you have a part in this show?"

She just made a tittering sound that could have been a laugh for all he knew.

"Drink me?" came the voice of Autumn, their Alice on the stage. "Well, a little probably wouldn't hurt."

Evergreen turned to where Autumn was and she took a drink of some potion and suddenly, she seemed to vanish. That is, she vanished, but her clothing remained, all falling on the stage where she stood. In the next moment, he saw a little head and bare shoulders appear in the mess of the garments. She seemed more angry than embarrassed at the thing. It was a good thing she was only a few inches tall, or that could have been even more embarrassing. Evergreen knew he had some secondhand embarrassment for her. In no time, her robes were shrunk with her and then they continued the scene.

Evergreen didn't really have too big of a part, so he spent quite a bit of time in the wings just watching the goings-on. Being in a musical was definitely different from Shakespeare. Sure, he loved Shakespeare and the plays on words, the deep cutting plots, but being in a musical was about as much fun as it was hard work, that is to say, a lot of it. Singing some group song with its accompanying dance number one moment and then watching two people in wild costumes yell at each other the next.

It was wonderful indeed, even with the occasional cutting bitterness of the mandrake leaf he had been keeping his mouth for many weeks now. It was a good thing that he was already considered pretty odd by his peers, so no one asked him why he kept cringing, every time he accidentally tasted part of the leaf. He would rather not have had to explain his attempting such magic as animagi.

"She's back." Seta said at Evergreen's shoulder.

"Who's back?" Evergreen asked.

"Your fairy stalker."

The young wizard turned toward where Seta's ear was pointing to see the little humanoid creature gliding above their heads. She was dressed in what looked like a dress made of woven grass. It was lovely. She, like all fairies, was also glowing brightly. Each fairy was covered in fairy dust, and they were different colors, depending on their personalities. The more subdued fairies were in shades of blue, while the more outgoing ones glowed yellowish. Evergreen's little 'fairy stalker' as Seta said was actually glowing with a golden, almost caramel-colored sheen, which he couldn't help but find strangely appealing, despite feeling slightly annoyed at the fairy who was emitting it.

"We'll burn the house down!" came a voice from the stage. Autumn had grown to three times her normal size and her arms and legs were sticking out of windows of a set piece that soon would be painted to look like a house.

Seeing Autumn like that, a giantess in her own right, literally large and in charge, helped Evergreen get a proper look at her. She was just a few months older than him, she had a dancer's body, meaning that she was both lean and muscular, she had long, dark hair that framed a model-esque face. She was lovely indeed, not like Sandy Blackbird, a close confidant of Maggie Habitatio, one of Evergreen's first magical friends, but Autumn had a certain natural sweetness to her. They had spoken only a small handful of times over the past few weeks and Evergreen honestly was quite fond of her. Not romantically, of course, because he was still quite taken with Bianca, but still.

"Wow. That's impressive magic!" Evergreen exclaimed. It was the first time that they were rehearsing with the growth and shrinking potions.

"It is, isn't it? Courtesy of my special brand of Bunnybury magic." Seta replied.

"That's yours, then?"

"It sure is. No one over three feet tall can enter Bunnybury after all."

He remembered a story Beatrice once told him about how her ma had visited Bunnybury during one of her trips to Oz. She drank a potion which shrunk her from four feet down to two and a half in order to enter. Dad also once mentioned how he had to "get short" when he visited Bunnybury to meet with Seta's dad. Curiouser and curiouser as Alice would have said. Maybe someday Evergreen could visit the town himself. Maybe someday Seta could finally go home.

Looking at Seta, who had leapt down upon the floor, Evergreen was touched with a certain measure of affection. All this time, Seta had been keeping an eye on Evergreen, making sure he stayed safe and that he had access to the magic when necessary. By doing so, he likely sacrificed much back in Oz. Family, friends, a career? All for Evergreen. Plus, the bunny puts his own life on the line as much as possible for Evergreen's sake. He never deserved such a loyal friend. He picked up Seta suddenly and gave him a squeeze.

"What was that for?" Seta asked, struggling out of the embrace.

"I appreciate you. I figured you should know." Evergreen replied.

"I appreciate you too, Evergreen. Now, if you don't mind, I have a scene with Autumn there."

"Have fun, White Rabbit."

That night, after dinner and a study session with Valerian, Evergreen found himself once again, lying awake in his dorm room. It was no surprise that Seta was also awake at that moment.

Seta's bright, purple eyes were trained on the window, looking out over the darkened landscape. There were a few scattered lights down below and off towards the horizon coming from the City of Adams. It wasn't a large town, but considering Ilvermorny was right smack dab in the middle of a dark zone, with no artificial light when the sun went down, other than that coming from the school, which was invisible to No-Majes and also from the lodge down at the foot of the mountain, so any lights from there were pretty strong. It had been said that darkness cannot drive out darkness, but only light.

"Hey Seta." Evergreen whispered, just slightly louder than Link's snoring off in the nearest bed.

"Hey Evergreen. What's going on?" the bunny whispered back, turning his ears toward Evergreen, but still looking out the window.

"I wanted to ask you something that I've been thinking about." He briefly hesitated before taking a breath.

"About Bunnybury, you mean?" Seta asked, his whiskers bristling slightly with a wiggle of his nose.

"Yeah…"

How did Seta know what Evergreen was thinking? That was interesting.

"Do you miss it?" Evergreen asked in a moment. "Do you miss your home?"

"To tell the truth, I do miss it, but I've been living with you for longer than I was there at this point, even though you weren't aware of it most of that time. Bunnybury is a part of me, sure, but you're my home as much as or more than it is."

That same feeling of affection that Evergreen felt at rehearsal for his bunny friend returned and he couldn't help but smile. Seta's words sounded genuine and not like he was pining over something that was lost. It was difficult to not feel quite special after such a pronouncement.

With that, Evergreen turned over and fell fast asleep and it was a sleep void of any horrors that he had seen with his own two eyes or even with his inner eye.