Orenda followed Mary Sue to an estate house very similar to the others she had passed. The land around it was beautiful, and the home itself lovely, well furnished, and gaudy, but Orenda ignored it all.

“I have to go after Bella!” She said, but one of the boys grabbed her with so much strength that she would have had to fight him to pull free.

“You’re gonna sit your ass right down and tell us who the hell you are,” He said.

A man came running into the foyer from a side entrance, saw Gareth and cursed. He may have been Mary Sue’s age, but it was difficult to tell because he had a bandana wrapped around the lower part of his face, covering his nose and mouth, so he was all silver hair and eyes.

“Bring him on!” He said, “Honey’s ready for him!”

Draco came flying down the large stairway that the foyer opened into, and began to fly in circles around the room in an apparent panic. Finally, he came to rest on Falsie’s shoulder.

“What happened?” He demanded.

“A boy who… a wererabbit ripped him to shreds!” Orenda explained and jerked her arm from the boy’s grip. “I demand to see Xaxac Brigaddon!”

“Well,” Mary Sue stepped away from the crowd carrying Gareth off down the hall, “We ain’t buried him yet.”

Orenda stared at her in shock for a few seconds before she asked, “Xaxac’s dead?”

“I warned him!” Draco said, “I told him to beware of Lapus! They told me that Lapus had run away! That they were looking for him!”

“Sharon, my stepmother, has been out every night looking for him,” Mary Sue explained, staring deeply at Orenda with her strange, light eyes. “Orenda Firefist… Sokomaur’s daughter?”

“I… I believe so, yes,” Orenda said.

Mary threw her arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug.

“Mind the staff!” Orenda warned.

“Daddy always said that if you was to ever show up,” Mary said, “We should treat you like a sister.”

“And then she shows up the night daddy dies,” the boy who had grabbed Orenda glared at her.

“We knew they was coming,” Mary Sue told him, “They had nothing to do with this. I’m sorry, Orenda, this is my brother Garon. We call him Ronnie.”

“Oh,” Orenda said, “I’m very pleased to meet you, Ronnie. That was my father’s name, as well.”

“You’re Garon’s daughter?” Ronnie asked skeptically.

“Mary Sue!” A little girl came running in, perhaps twelve years old if Orenda had to guess, holding a baby, “When’s mama coming back? The babies are hungry!”

“I don’t know,” Mary Sue frowned, “We’ll have to give them sheep’s milk, I guess. They’re too little for pap. She shouldn’t be out there running around.”

“How old is it?” Orenda asked.

“About three months,” Mary Sue said, then, to the girl, “Where are the others? Oh, Orenda, this is my sister, Abigale. Some of the younger ones are… well, Sharon tends to have a bunch of younguns at once. My daddy has… we’re a big family.”

“Your accent isn’t as strong as it was when you spoke to that soldier,” Orenda told her, “It isn’t even as strong as when you first spoke to me.”

“It’s a long story,” Mary Sue told her, and to Abigale she said, “Tell the others to bring the babies to the kitchen.”

“Ok,” The little girl said, and went dashing off into the house.

“Come with me,” Mary Sue told her, “I’m… I’m sure Gareth will be fine, Orenda. My sisters, Honey and Bunni both studied medicine as extensively as they could. They’ve treated a lot of the people who come through here. You can imagine that most runaways ain’t in the best shape when we get them.”

“Wow,” Orenda said before she could stop herself, “What names.”

“Their owner thought it would suit pleasure slaves, I imagine,” Mary Sue told her as she led her through the spacious house and into a kitchen where a warm fire blazed, “That’s what they were supposed to be.”

“Oh,” Orenda said, and frowned at the way Mary Sue did everything one-handed as she took down a kettle and turned to walk into what had to be a cold storage pantry. “Would like me to hold the baby?”

“If you like,” Mary Sue handed the infant to her, “Support his head. His name is Wynnter, but he call him Wyn. He’ll stop that infernal screaming once he gets some food. Pray he keeps it down this time. They would rather have breast milk, but all of us must learn to appreciate what we have instead of what we would rather have.”

Orenda leaned the staff against the corner where two counters met and set the mask next to them, then held out her arms to accept the infant. He was much lighter than she expected, and much more fragile. It seemed as if any sudden movement could completely destroy him, as if his life was a fleeting, porcelain thing, and that weakness and innocence set something off inside her, made her want to protect him.

“Hello, Wyn,” Orenda said to him, “My name is Orenda. I suppose I could have been your sister, though you don’t seem to be wanting for sisters, do you?” She bounced softly, looked around the empty room and continued, “I have so many questions… I had hoped that your father would answer them… but I suppose he can’t now, can he? I’ve so many questions and- oh”

She parted the blanket to look down at him, and the sight shocked her, though she knew it shouldn’t have. A little brown rabbit stared back up at her, with the darkest, most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. Nothing on him was silver, and his tiny face held a semblance of humanity, but he was a shifter, and the sight made her once again think of Bella.

Three children came into the room, all with the same face, and all carrying babies that Orenda suspected were rabbits. They all eyed her wearily, timidly, and Orenda smiled at them as nonthreateningly as she could.

“Hello,” She said gently, “My name is Orenda. I’m told this is Wynnter. I’ve been following a white rabbit, and it led me here.”

“I’m Abe,” One of the boys spoke, “And this is my sister, Bell, and my brother Gary.”

“Is Gary short for Gareth?” Orenda asked.

“Yeah,” The other boy answered, “I was named after a guy named Gareth. He’s a pirate, and he has all kinds of adventures. He’s really brave and he’s gonna visit me one day.”

“He’s my uncle,” Orenda said. “He is brave. He’s very brave. I once saw him fight a demon.”

“Really?” The boy asked.

“Yes,” Orenda said, “And Bell? Are you also named after a pirate?”

The girl nodded, but did not speak.

“There’s quite a few babies here,” Orenda said, “You seem to have a surplus.”

“There’s always lots of babies,” Abe said.

Orenda hummed in agreement, and began to sing as she rocked Wynnter.

“Little bunny Foo Foo,

Hopping through the forest,

Scooping up the field mice,

And bopping them on the heads.”

“My daddy always sings that,” Bell said, “He sings all the time. My mommy sings too, but not in a while, because she always gets real mad when she’s pregnant.”

“I’ve heard that everyone gets angry when they’re pregnant,” Orenda said, “It’s the hormones.”

Mary Sue came back up from the pantry carrying a bucket of milk, and began to hum to the tune of the nursery rhyme as she poured it into the kettle. Orenda watched her and thought of everything that she wanted so desperately to ask her, of how she would not ask it in front of the children. Then, she thought of what it was like to be a child, to want to know things, to want to be included, and to know nothing, to have life exist as one mystery after another, and of the pain that brought.

“Mary?” Orenda asked.

“Yes?” Mary Sue asked.

“How much do they know?” Orenda asked.

“Oh… actually,” Mary Sue set the kettle over the fire to heat and said, “There are enough adults here now. Y’all really oughta head to bed. Just because your mama’s gone doesn’t mean there won’t be chores to do in the morning. Let me just round them up.”

She walked out of the room, and Orenda turned to the children.

“How old are you?” She asked.

“We’re twelve,” Abe said.

“All of you?” Orenda asked in alarm, “At the same time? Are you triplets?”

“No,” Gary shook his lead, “There are four of us. Our sister Abby is twelve too.”

“When I was your age,” Orenda said slowly as she thought back on it, “I met some of the best friends I would ever have. People who are still quite dear to me.”

“We don’t have a lot of extra friends,” Abe said, “Because there’s so many of us.”

“I wonder how it feels to be born with friends,” Orenda said, “I may be a bit jealous of you, if we’re being honest.”

“How come you look like that?” The girl finally spoke.

“Oh,” Orenda looked down at her torn dress, at the wound she had closed on her stomach, at the blood that still stained her flesh and clothes because she had not had a chance to wash. She realized she probably looked terrifying to children. “Oh, darling, I’m sorry, I didn’t think… I can’t really help it. I was injured on my journey here.”

“You have a crown,” The girl pointed at the tiara Orenda still wore, the wedding gift from her grandfather to her grandmother, “Are you a princess?”

Orenda found the way she asked that question to be strange. There was no wonder in her voice- it was an accusation, as if a princess was a terrible thing to be, as if the girl was deciding whether or not she could be trusted.

“No,” Orenda said.

“No gods, no queens,” The girl said, “Only mortals.”

“You’re quite right,” Orenda said to her, “The circumstances of one’s birth are no basis for a system of government. I wish I was as smart as you, Bell, at your age. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.”

Bell nodded at her.

“What would you like to be when you grow up?” Orenda asked her. She had meant to say more, to explain the foolish notion she had had as a child, to explain why she had had it so that the children could learn from her experience, but Bell spoke as soon as Orenda paused to draw breath.

“Free,” Bell said simply.

“You will be,” Orenda promised, and nodded to the staff leaning against the counter, “I pulled that staff from the Sacred Flame in the Sacred Mountain Temple, back on the fire continent. I’m from the fire continent. It was quite a trip to get here.”

“Oooh!” Gary and his brother began to push and shove each other in an attempt to get to the staff, but Orenda called to them.

“Don’t touch that,” She warned, “It’s hot. It burns anyone it doesn’t like, and it doesn’t seem to like most people. It’s very disagreeable and after I’ve killed the Emerald Knight with it I’m not sure what I’ll do with it.”

“You’re going to fight the Emerald Knight?” Abe asked skeptically.

“That’s why I traveled here,” Orenda told them, “I’m going to kill the Emerald Knight, dethrone the empress, and free everyone. I’m tired of living under Urillian rule.”

“Nobody can kill the Emerald Knight,” Gary told her.

“Nobody could kill daddy either,” Bell said quietly, and both boys fell silent.

“The Emerald Knight is alive,” Orenda said, “Anything that lives…” She could not bring herself to finish the thought in front of children, not on the night their father had died. It would be in poor taste.

“My father is dead, as well,” She said instead, “I never got to meet him.”

“What happened to him?” Abe asked.

“He died in battle,” Orenda said, “that’s what I was told. I was there, but I was too young to remember it at all. I don’t even remember what he looked like..”

“Somebody cut our daddy’s head off,” Bell said softly.

“Oh,” Orenda said, “That’s… that’s actually how my father died, as well. That’s… what are the odds?”

Orenda was trying very hard not to let her nerves get the best of her. She was almost positive that the young man, Lapus, had killed his father. He was probably imitating Xac’s famous finishing move from his days as a cage fighter. It had nothing to do with the Emerald Knight. Why would he do that? What could bring him to kill his father? All the other Brigaddons seemed so happy.

Lapus had taken the last person who would have known her mother away from her. He had destroyed her ability to learn about her past. He may have taken Gareth- that is, Gareth the elder- from her as well. If he had, she didn’t know what she would do. Part of her felt like revenge was worthless- but the other part of her looked at the situation and saw a boy who had a perfectly good, perfectly loving family, who swooped in out of nowhere in the middle of night and took the only person who Orenda could claim a blood relationship with living anywhere on Xren. He had no right to do that. He had no reason to do that.

Mary Sue came back into the room followed by an entourage. Falsie came behind her with Draco on his shoulder, and Anilla behind him, followed by Sarya leaning heavily on Barbra Allen. Sarya’s head had been wrapped, but her eyes were glazed over and she was unsteady on her feet. Orenda had not heard the crunch of bone over the sound of the fiddle shattering, and hadn’t understood how bad the damage had been.

“You can’t fall asleep, baby,” Barbra Allen told her as she sat her down at the table.

“Mighty tired,” Sarya said softly, “I feel like… Feel like I got run over by a carriage. That feller packs a wallop. I damn near thought he killed me.”

“Here, gimme one of them,” Falsie held out his arms, and all three children stared at him. It was possible that they had never seen a dwarf before. “What? You don’t trust your old uncle Harry? Here, I’ll show you how to hold a baby. The secret is a nice, full beard, somethin for them to really snuggle into.”

“Harry?” Abe asked.

“Xac mighta called me ‘Falsie’ or-”

“You’re Falsebeard the pirate!” Gary exclaimed, “You’re the clockwork man who can make all kinds of stuff!”

“That I am,” Harry said.

“My big siblings are inventors,” Gary said as he stepped forward and handed Falsie the crying baby, which he held expertly and bounced gently, “I want to be an inventor, too, but not in a stuffy lab! I want to do what you do- travel the sea and put stuff to the test! We have to hide here all the time…”

“He’s old enough to be workin on a ship,” Falsie told Mary Sue.

“Ask his mother when she gets back,” Mary Sue said, “Sailing is a fine profession, and they are getting old enough to be sold out to apprenticeships. We could even do that legally, or… legally enough. I know Gareth has a record, but I think dwarves can own slaves. I’ll have to check. I’ve got a pretty good legal library, it’s just that that sort of thing doesn’t come up often.”

“Really?” Gary asked, “I could go?”

“We’ll see,” Mary Sue said.

Another woman came into the room holding a bag, looked around at all the new faces, and held it out towards Draco.

“I got the change of clothes you wanted, Draco,” She said, “I hope they fit.”

“Anything would have to be better than nothing,” Draco said, “Open the door for me.”

“Where are you going?” Orenda asked.

“I gotta go find Bella,” he said as if if was obvious, and as soon as the woman opened the door, he spread his wings and took to the air.

The woman turned and her eyes fixed on Orenda. She walked up to her and took one of her hands in both of her own, which gave Orenda a moment of panic, as she was afraid she would drop the baby.

“I’m so happy to meet you, Orenda,” the woman said, “My name is Sokomaur Brigaddon. I just knew you existed; I always knew you were out there in the world somewhere looking for us. Daddy always said we had another sibling, but he called you ‘Bruanna’ or ‘Gareth’.”

“I was going to be ‘Gareth’ if I was a boy?” Orenda laughed.

“The elder Gareth wrote, of course,” Soko went on, “So we knew you were a girl. And we knew you were really named Orenda. Yet still, daddy always called you ‘Bruanna’. He wanted to find you.”

“Gareth is a good name,” Gareth said.

“But there are already so many,” Orenda told him.

“You’ll have to be lil Gary,” Falsie told him, “I was always lil Harry. Makes things easier.”

“But I won’t always be little,” Gary protested.

“You’ll always be littler than big Gary,” Falsie explained, “They made um big on the fire continent.” He looked down at the baby and said, “Oh, hey, mine’s a kitten.”

“They’re called ‘kits’,” Barbra Allen said, “A baby rabbit is a kit.”

“And this is a kitten,” Falsie turned to show her, and sure enough, the baby in the blanket was not a rabbit, but a tiny orange and black kitten.

“Apparently my father’s biological father was a weretiger,” Mary Sue explained as she poured the milk into strange little contraptions that looks very much like teapots except for the size, the position of the spout, and the cloth covering the spout. “Autumn is the only one that inherited it, out of all of us. I don’t know what we’re going to feed her. The rest of us are allergic to meat, but I suppose she’ll be overly fond of it. We’ll figure something out.”

“Autumn,” Falsie said as he pulled out a chair and took a seat at the table, “I’m sure you make as pretty a girl as you do a kitten. Hush that hollerin and carryin on.” He held out a hand and Mary Sue handed him one of the kettles. He seemed to be an expert at it; Orenda wondered where he had learned it, and he answered as if he had read her thoughts. “Last time I did this,” he said, “Was for another little girl, named Orenda.”

“Can one of you take this?” Mary Sue asked as she took another of the babies from her little sister. “This is Spring,” she told Anilla as she handed him over. She took the final baby, parted the blanket to look down at her, and said, “And this is summer.”

“That makes how many now?” Falsie asked.

“Twenty one of us living,” Mary Sue told him, “Twenty four altogether if the records are right. Daddy studded twice before, you know, before he joined the Knights. Not all of us made it. But the little ones have fared much better. You young’uns head to bed. We’ll have a big day tomorrow.”

Orenda stared down at the little boy in her arms as he sucked on the contraption, silent now and leaning into her as if he trusted her, explicitly, with his life. His father was dead, and he would never know him. She suspected he was too young to have yet been branded- and she wanted to create a world where it would never happen. She didn’t understand how anyone could look into those beautiful dark eyes and do anything that would ever cause this tiny, delicate creature an ounce of pain.

“I’m gonna make some soup beans and cornbread,” Soko said as she tied on an apron, “You folks must be starving.”

“I am,” Sarya said. She had been mostly silent, and had spent a great deal of time staring off into space.

Barbra Allen rubbed her back and asked, “I don’t reckon y’all’ve got any tea or coffee or nothin? Anything a body could use to stay awake?”

“I’ll put some coffee on, too,” Soko promised.

“I can make healing potions,” Anilla said, “If that helps.”

“Sure couldn’t hurt nothin,” Soko said, “We got a bunch of herbs and whatnot, if you need them.”

“The other fire elf,” The man Orenda had seen in the foyer walked into the room and pulled down a bandana that had been covering his nose and mouth. “What’s your name?”

“Orenda,” Orenda said.

“What kind of blood do you have?” The man asked.

“This is my brother, Sonny,” Soko said.

“Yes, hello, pleasure to meet you,” the man said quickly and dismissively, “What kind of blood do you have?”

“I don’t know what you mean?” Orenda told him.

“Your mamma was an earth elf, your daddy was a fire elf. Magic flows through the blood- I need to know what kind of blood you have. My sister sent me down here- listen.” He put one hand over his mouth, in thought, and Orenda thought he was so young, and the silver beard was so striking against his dark skin, and it was annoying her how distractingly beautiful every person in this house was.

“Ms Firefist, we’ve gotten him cleaned and patched up, but the truth of the matter is that he just doesn’t have enough- he bled out so much out there. Elves can’t- I don’t know how to explain this to someone who doesn’t know what a… there are types of healing that have nothing to do with magic, as I’m sure you’re aware, but all healing needs a knowledge of magic. We can take blood from one person or animal and put it into another, but in elves- well, in other things, too, but in elves, they have to match. I need to know what kind of blood you have. Fire or earth?”

“I don’t know,” Orenda said, “I… I want to say fire? But I once received an earth scry and it did nothing to me. How exactly are you planning to get my blood out and put it in someone else?”

“You can’t have both,” he argued, “That isn’t how elves work. What magic do you cast?”

“Fire,” Orenda said decisively. “But what happens if you give him the wrong kind?”

“His body treats it as a poison, rejects it, and he dies,” Sonny said, “Come with me. Soko, get Wyn.”