Robin stood in the wood, sun slightly warm on his face and the bark of the tree he hid behind rough on his hands. The clearing was full of Crimson Bedstraw, yes, but also thornlings. They were small and ranged in size from several inches to about two feet tall. Roughly humanoid, they looked like tiny wicker men made from roses and briars and hawthorn twigs.

‘Well,’ Eli whispered, ‘what’s the plan?’

What was his plan? He already had the dye he needed. Was it worth fighting a bunch of monsters to maintain that secret? Was it worth confronting Eli about his lie?

‘There are other patches of Crimson Bedtraw in the forest. I say we try one of those. No need for a pointless battle here.’ Robin started backing away quietly. ‘Though it’s odd there are so many thornlings here. I didn’t notice them when I scried out the patches earlier this morning.’

‘Maybe they weren’t active,’ Eli replied softly. ‘Or maybe Cherry sent them.’

‘How would she know to do that?’ Robin watched the priest carefully out of the corner of his eye.

‘Maybe the wood sensed our path and told her. We did take a while to get here. There would have been plenty of time for her to organise some form of response.’

‘All the more reason to retreat, then,’ Robin said. Then he decided to test Eli just a bit. ‘Maybe we should just go back to the tower and see if we can find any paint or root you might have missed.’

‘I didn’t miss any,’ Eli replied. ‘I can promise you that.’

That definitely twigged Robin’s Insight. He knew all about lying with the truth and the words Eli’s just used smacked of it. If he hadn’t been suspicious, they might have flicked right past without Robin thinking anything of it, but now? His stomach clenched.

Robin stopped in his tracks. There was something else in the forest.

‘Do you hear that?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘It sounds like a lot of voices, all whispering at once.’ Robin cocked his head to one side, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. But he couldn’t. His Survival was letting him down, even combined with [Wayfaring Stranger].

‘I don’t hear anything.’ Eli looked suddenly very wary. ‘Maybe we should get back to the tower.’

Robin felt a wave of emotion at those words. It wasn’t fear exactly, more like concern. The strange thing was, it didn’t feel like his emotion. He was angry, and freaked out. He wasn’t concerned.

He looked at Eli. The thornlings had been left behind in the clearing. And while there might be small animals all around he couldn’t see, if it wasn’t his own emotions Robin was feeling, was it Eli’s? How? No. First figure out if it’s a fluke or not.

‘Hey, Eli,’ Robin said, ‘have you heard the one about the knight errant and the shepherdess?’ And proceeded to tell a fantasy version of one of the rudest jokes he’d ever heard.

He was rewarded with a short laugh and a wave of mixed amusement and irritation. Mostly irritation. Even Eli’s laugh had sounded a bit forced.

Robin was definitely feeling Eli’s emotions somehow. Was this a shadeling thing? There was so much magic in this world. It could be a gift from the sky-rowan, maybe, or something he’d unconsciously absorbed from the tower’s interface? One of the magical plants he had gathered this morning? Well, no point looking a gift horse in the mouth if it could help him get to the bottom of whatever Eli was up to.

‘We haven’t time for jokes. Let’s just get back to the tower. It’s not safe out here.’ The priest stepped quickly through the wood, taking a more direct route back to the tower than the one Robin had followed to get to the clearing and secretly gather herbs and plants.

Robin followed, his mind churning. Eli’s feelings weren’t always matching his words. It wasn’t a lie detector test per se, but maybe he could use it like one. It would certainly help him figure out which questions were worth chasing more.

As they went, Robin forced conversation between himself and the cleric. It wasn’t difficult. This was hardly the first foraging trip they’d been on, chatting quietly so as not to draw the attention of the trees or Cherry’s pixies.

Robin quickly amassed a few areas that didn’t match up, emotionally, with what Eli was saying. Particularly concerning was his lack of emotion when Robin brought up Vané. He didn’t get any anger off of Eli when he asked about the cleric losing access to his divinely-granted abilities temporarily, and he didn’t get any sense of awe or love or devotion in general when the deity was brought up.

The elf was definitely a divine caster of some form, though. Robin was certain of that. Based on the spells he’d seen Eli use and the way they had felt…the way they had felt. Hmm. There was something there but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

The whispers in the forest around them suddenly sharpened. They’d followed the two of them the whole way back, but the sound kept slipping out of Robin’s mind as he focused on figuring out the threat closest to him.

‘What?’ Eli had stopped, noticing his reaction. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s those whispers,’ Robin replied, looking around. ‘They just got more agitated or something.’

‘We need to get you behind the tower wards, and fast.’

Eli quickened his pace again and Robin had no choice but to follow. Wards definitely sounded good right now, and the tower was someplace he felt safe. He was confident he had a much better handle on its systems than Eli did, so if worse came to worse, Robin would be safer there than anywhere else.

‘Wait.’ Eli froze before pointing carefully ahead. ‘Do you see that?’

Robin followed the cleric’s finger. At first, he saw nothing, but after a moment, he caught a glimpse of a dancing mote of golden light.

Pixies!

‘I do not need this right now!’ Eli all but growled, before muttering something else to himself.

Robin’s new Perception might not be yet superhuman, but it was definitely sharp enough to catch a few of those words. Eli had muttered something to himself about ‘backstabbing dryads not staying bribed.’

Now that was interesting. Robin considered running off into the forest but dismissed the idea almost immediately. Cherry was still a problem and he needed to dye the thread red before he risked that. It would be easiest to do that at the tower. And he wasn’t quite ready to give up on access to those magics. He needed to scry out the best path to the Sisters Sharp’s current location for one thing.

But if the cleric had been working with the dryad before being betrayed, what was he really after? And which god, goddess, or other deity did he truly serve? Robin was becoming increasingly convinced it wasn’t Vané.

‘We need to hide until they pass.’ Eli cursed.

Robin agreed. He already had one crisis to manage. He didn’t need to add fighting pixies or running into Cherry to that list.

‘Over here.’ Eli gestured to a patch of bracken.

The bracken filled a small hollow between two trees. They crouched down and Robin covered them with an illusion. Thankfully [Visual Phantasm] was both larger and longer lasting. Then, they waited. After several agonising minutes, the pixies drifted past them, motes of light tinkling and dancing, eventually passing from view.

They remained hidden for several minutes more, just to be safe.

‘The last thing we need right now is a bad joke like that,’ Eli whispered.

Robin blinked. Of course! It wasn’t Vané Eli followed! It was Nevarre! It had to be. Eli’s love of rude jokes, the way the cleric’s magic made Robin laugh and feel, the ease with which the elf always went along with Robin’s trickiest plans—all of that fit with Eli worshipping the elvish God of Mischief.

‘Yeah, I can see how that might annoy Nevarre,’ he said, testing his theory on impulse.

The flare of alarm and amusement that roiled off of Eli at those words all but cinched it. The cleric had to be an acolyte of the tricky deity.

But what did that mean? Robin had impressed Nevarre in the caves, enough to receive the [Cutting Words] cantrip from him. Was this whole setup to help him? An elaborate prank? Both?

A God of Mischief had to be a dangerous ally to have at the best of times. Let alone when you didn’t know where you stood. Robin needed to handle this carefully and with excellent humour. Getting angry and confrontational would probably just make Nevarre laugh harder at the cosmic joke that was Robin’s life right now.

‘You know quite a lot about elvish culture, then,’ Eli was saying.

‘A bit,’ Robin hedged, ‘though it’s not really homogenous, is it? That’s like saying you know a lot about human culture when there are actually—huh, I don’t even know how many—loads of different human cultures.’

‘True, but Nevarre isn’t one of the most widely known of deities outside enclaves of my people. Even within them, he’s not one that is universally revered.’

‘Well that’s idiotic. What’s more important than a good sense of humour?’ Might as well throw in some flattery. Can’t hurt. ‘My people have a saying, that laughter is the best medicine, and honestly, wouldn’t that make Nevarre a boon and an asset to anyone?’ Robin touched lightly on the idea because of the sensations he’d felt when Eli used [Purge Impurities] on him.

Pride, approval, and a tiny bit of suspicion flowed from Eli. Robin thought furiously. How could he trick Eli into revealing what the deal here was?

The tower appeared through the trees. They were nearly back. Robin relaxed the bit of his mind that was constantly on edge, watching for danger from the forest. The wards were close.

Robin focused on his questions again. Annoyingly, Eli was focused more on the dangers around them, even though they were close to safety, and kept dodging or evading Robin’s questions. Worse, the cleric was clearly worried about something, and that emotion was so loud it all but drowned out the other things he was feeling—the things Robin needed to sense more clearly if he was going to figure this mess out.

Well, he had this new ability and, even with his limited control, it was helping. Maybe he could figure out how to use it more effectively.

Robin attempted to force the strange sensation that fed him information on Eli’s emotions into greater clarity. Something struggled at the edges of his mind, like an animal trying to free itself from a snare. The feeling flickered, emotion coming in and out of focus like a stuttering radio. Then Robin yanked at it with his mind, drawing it in, and he wasn’t just feeling Eli’s emotions, he was hearing the elf’s thoughts!

‘We need to get inside,’ the elf was saying, but he followed that up with thinking, we’re too exposed right now. Cherry’s ruined the whole thing and I need to get—

Robin didn’t know how he knew this is what was happening, but he knew it was happening.

‘We need to get behind the wards, now,’ Eli said urgently, ‘and cut off the source of those whispers before—’

Eli stopped speaking suddenly. Consternation and concern flashed across his face.

‘What?’ Robin snapped, expecting another trick or evasion.

‘Your eyes,’ the cleric said, ‘they’ve turned golden.’