A knock woke me from sleep.
I jerked awake to find myself at my table, my forehead pressed to my stacked fists. My shoulders ached and my fingertips tingled. The top of my head, where my fist had been resting, burned from the pressure. I blinked several times as I tried to gather my thoughts. I had clearly fallen asleep scouting for new places to find demigods.
The slanting light, slightly muted, indicated it must be near dinnertime. Grandfather would expect me any minute now.
Beneath my arms lay several maps of Letum Wood, dotted with colored ink where I’d attempted to map out demigod sightings. There hadn’t been many throughout Alkarra to record. The children of Tontes and Ventis either weren’t here, or had learned how to be sneaky.
A second harried rap on the door startled me again. I jumped, then rubbed a hand over my eyes.
“Coming!”
Once I opened the door with a spell, Ava spilled inside wearing a school uniform.
She panted, doubled over, hands braced on her knees. A second before I could ask what the hurry was, Priscilla appeared in a transportation spell. A high flush colored her cheeks, hands propped on her hips. A generously pregnant belly hung low—she was days away from delivering a baby. Fatigue showed in deeply-creased eyes and pale skin.
Hands on her hips, she glared at Ava. Ava straightened up, jumped, then screamed when she saw her.
“Ah!”
“Ava,” Priscilla growled. “You can’t run away every time you are reprimanded. Nor can you come to Bianca’s whenever you want. You can’t just leave the school. We’ve been over this before!”
Ava pressed a hand to her heart. She gulped, face still twisted in a grimace. A sparkle on the edge of her jaw drew my gaze. A tear, perhaps? One she hadn’t been able to frantically wipe away before throwing her body inside?
“I . . . I came to talk to Bianca,” she said.
“Miss Bianca.”
The struggle to keep from rolling her eyes was, I could tell, difficult. Ava blinked furiously instead. Thanks to god magic, Ava could speak and understand Alkarran, which had only driven Priscilla to greater educational plans.
Ava loathed said plans.
Ava, who never had to sit through a class before in Alaysia. Never experienced a testing regime, a chalkboard, a timer, nor a textbook.
Fortunately, Priscilla was equal to such a prodigious challenge. Ferocity infused her these late days of pregnancy, generating what Baxter reported as a generalized war against my wild niece, who needs a furious woman to control her.
“Miss Bianca,” Ava finally growled.
Priscilla tilted her head back, staring through light eyelashes. “And did you ask for permission to leave?”
Ava feigned ignorance. “Purr-meesh-un?”
“Don’t try that trick with me,” Priscilla snapped. “You know exactly what I mean because we’ve had this discussion before. You have to ask before you leave. You can’t run amok through the forest here, Ava. It’s not safe! This isn’t the castle. And, frankly,” Priscilla tacked on with an impressive amount of haughtiness, “the castle wasn’t all that safe for you to jaunt around either.”
Truly puzzled this time, Ava murmured, “uh-muck?”
“Wild and crazy and not controlled,” I said.
Ava rolled her eyes.
Priscilla smoldered.
“Miss Priscilla,” Ava said in a rigid attempt at conciliation. “I was taking some fresh air. The room was . . .” she waved her hands, “too small. Too much. School is just a . . . cage.”
Priscilla pinched her lips into an impressive glare. “You were supposed to be taking a test, Ava. You aren’t being held prisoner. This is our fourth attempt for the same test. You know this work! You could have been done in ten minutes, but you keep leaving. Ten minutes, Ava. That’s all I’m asking!”
Ava shrugged. “It’s not fun.”
Priscilla folded her arms across her chest. “Well, you can’t always have fun. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t like.”
The disgusted expression on Ava’s face expressed a strong disagreement. I had to hold back my laugh.
“You cannot run like a wild child in the forest.”
Priscilla sent me a wry look that told me to be totally silent. I dropped my gaze, properly terrified. As a teacher, Priscilla put rigid Miss Scarlett to shame.
“It’s not that far from here,” Ava cried.
“There are dragons. Beluas. Who-knows-what-else!”
“Gnomes,” I added with a glance to my roof. “Who can do magic now, it would seem.”
Priscilla looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. The interruption of her bluster forced her to take a breath. She did so raggedly.
Ava’s bottom lip trembled. One of her shoes had come off on the run over here, and a braid loosened on her left shoulder. Fully awake now, I put a hand on Priscilla’s forearm.
“How about I chat with Ava? She’ll return as soon as we’re done. I will vow for her that she will take your test before she goes to bed tonight.”
Ire bled out of Priscilla, a breath at a time. They remained locked in a staring contest that ended when Priscilla muttered, “Fine! I will allow it this one time, but not again. Ava, you must keep yourself safe.”
With one last frustrated, care-burdened sigh, Priscilla disappeared. Ava turned to me with sparkling eyes. I opened my arms. She crashed into me with a sob.
There she remained for several minutes, crying against my chest, until she’d vented it all out. Finally, she stepped away, mopping her cheeks with the back of her wrist. I used my foot to hook a chair and pull it out, then pressed her into it.
“Sit,” I murmured, a hand on her shoulder. A quick, silent calming blessing left her gooey against the seat, finally relaxing. “Let me get you some tea. Then you can tell me all about it.”
* * *
“I’m like you! I’m an outside girl, not an inside one. We didn’t have walls in Alaysia. They’re . . .”
She trailed away with a shuddering glance around. Only my experience in the land of the gods helped me to understand exactly what she meant. Wide sky and open ocean, with nothing but daylight for structure.
“You want to be outside playing instead of inside learning?”
“Yes!”
The word came out half cry, half sob. She doubled over, forehead on her hands, and wept again. Leda and Priscilla had been slowly confirming that Ava’s education had been minimal, at best. Hardly surprising.
A figure appeared in my shadowed doorway.
Baxter.
Priscilla must have written to him. He cut a worried glance to me, concern in his eyes. I waved him off, shaking my head. He eyed Ava, then disappeared. I assumed he hadn’t left, but watched invisibly.
While Ava let her emotions take charge for a second time, I hesitated over my approach. One day, not that many years ago, I’d been in similar circumstances. Hated restrictions, wanted more than books and lessons. Papa trained me outdoors every time he could, but he’d been gone more often than not. That led to extensive lessons with Mama and Grandmother, in the house or the Tea and Spice Pantry. I knew this bottled-up feeling very well.
I reached over and put a hand on Ava’s arm. She peered at me through a curtain of kinky hair. Her youthful face reminded me that this was about more than just school. Ava had lost her parents, her homeland, her language, and her friends. With her and Baxter here for certain now, a settling in had to occur.
A painful settling in.
Her age—almost-twelve—and all the riling, new emotions that escalated with such a time, made it worse. Jikes, but the girl was just hitting puberty. It might take all of us to get her through this alive.
“Ava, I know how you feel.”
She straightened, filled with hope. Tears streaked her cheeks. She reached up, swiping the tears away with an impatient brush of her arm.
“You do?”
“It’s hard to be inside when adventure awaits.”
She nodded, then her nose wrinkled. “How come you can do whatever you want? If it’s so dangerous, maybe you shouldn’t run around either.”
I tilted my head back and laughed. “I haven’t always done whatever I wanted. I had to learn from books first, just like you.”
Deep skepticism showed on her wrinkled face. A long, thin finger pointed in the direction of the school.
“There?”
I nodded again. A flustered sigh escaped her as she dropped her forehead back to her arm and let out a dramatic breath.
“I can’t. It’s too hard.”
Baxter’s eye roll could be felt from across the room. Ava continued, undaunted.
“Learning makes my head hurt, and reading is so boring. I don’t care about math or Alkarran history. All of it takes too long. I want to be back on the water, in the sea spray.” She patted her cheeks. “With the sunshine.”
“Would you want to learn more about Alaysia?”
Her growl echoed off the table. “No. I hate that place.”
Couldn’t blame her there.
“What are you excited about?”
“The ocean.”
“Easy. Ask Miss Priscilla if you can learn more about the ocean. Nautical things, or trips to the sea, or something. Then, you can use those things when you grow up and make your own decisions. This education will prepare you for that real life experience. Do you see?”
“Yes.”
“Help Miss Priscilla nudge your lessons in the way that will set you up for success later. Communicate with her. It will help.”
She brightened. “Can I?”
“Can’t hurt to ask. If you cooperate more, I bet she’d tweak some lesson plans.”
A tentative smile appeared. “I’ll try. Yes. That’s a good idea.”
“Also, what if we brought your birds here?”
Her voice pitched higher in surprise.
“My manulele?”
“We could bring the sanctuary to my house. When you finish your schoolwork, you can come here to see them. We’ll talk to Baxter and Priscilla?”
She shot out of her chair and slammed into me, arms thrown around my neck.
“My manulele! My friends! Please!”
“We’ll talk to Priscilla and Baxter, but you have to listen to Priscilla. Do you understand? Trust her. She wants the best for you. Right now, learning whatever you can is for the best. One day, you’ll run free again.”
With a shuddering sigh, she nodded. A swipe of her arm removed the tear tracks.
“I’ll go back now,” she whispered. “And I’ll take the test.”
“Thank you.”
Ava sighed.
I nodded to the door. “Run back in a final taste of freedom for the day. Tell Miss Priscilla that I said you could run alone this one final time. Then, tell her you’re sorry, take the test, and once that’s done, I’ll talk with her and Baxter about the birds.”
Ava zipped out of my cottage and onto the trail in a blur. Moments after she left, Baxter reappeared. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and banged his head into the wall. This time, I didn’t restrain my giggle when he screwed his eyes shut and groaned.
“I’m not going to make it until she’s seventeen. I’m not. going. to. make. it.”
His stark tone, each word punctuated by another thud of his head, tickled me so much I laughed again.
“Yes you will,” I cried. “You have me and Priscilla and Leda. Ava just needed more women. Positive women,” I added as a wry aside. The little I knew about Ava’s birth mother, Christa, wasn’t warm or caring.
He conceded with a lift of his eyebrows.
“She’s finally adjusting to her new reality, Bax. Give her time and space. She’ll figure it out. She’s all spirit . . . and a bit lost. We’ve all been there.”
A ragged sigh followed. He shoved a hand in his pocket and leaned back against the wall. “Well, thank you for helping.”
“My pleasure. Can the manulele birds come here?”
“They’d die in this forest. Every creature would want to eat them.”
Cavernous voices rose in my mind. Not saplings. These were deeper, more mellow calls.
We welcome all life.
She belongs to us.
We protect what she protects.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I murmured.
The rapacity of the forest’s words startled me. Their willingness to protect something wasn’t a surprise, but the intensity in which they offered it was. Outside the window, a nearby bush shook, the tips creaking against my windowpane. He glanced at it, eyebrow lifted in question.
I held up two hands. “That was not me. It’s all on you, Bax. The forest took offense to what you said. The trees said they’d protect the manulele.”
“How was I supposed to know? Fine. I just don’t want all of the manulele birds to die and Ava to be heartbroken. I can’t exactly go back to Alaysia and get more of them,” he added as a bitter aside.
“I’ll help Ava figure it out. The forest will do the rest.”
“Then I will use magic to send their sanctuary and hedges here. Niko has requested another dinner with me tonight. I’ll send them after that.”
“Tonight would be soon enough. How goes the search for Nicomedianthekus?”
His lips tightened.
“Not well. Speaking of, I need to get back to it. Priscilla sent me a message and I came right away. Merrick is waiting for me in the South.”
“Tell Merrick and Niko I said merry meet.”
Baxter’s gaze lingered on me for a moment. “Merrick’s a good witch, B. You chose right. He’s . . . everything you need and want. Something important that not many are able to find. Keep him.”
The absolution of my decision to break apart the budding romance Baxter and I had, and return to Merrick, affected me more deeply than I expected.
“Thanks. That’s my plan.”
He gave a smile, a salute, and left with god magic. I turned to the window, where the bush remained.
“You better stave off the gnomes,” I muttered to the bush.
A shudder of leaves followed.