Nyssa:

The pleasant tinkle of glass clinking together drifted around the kitchen. Nyssa sorted through her jars of herbs, selecting a few. She was low on rosemary. She made a quick note of it on her wrist amongst other scrawled reminders. She pounded the herbs under her pestle, humming a tune she remembered from her childhood.

She added the herb dust to the bowl holding Morea’s crushed mulberries, mixing them together. The smells and comforting ritual of making this potion, the actions so practiced and familiar, lulled her into soft contemplation. Her mother would spend long mornings much like this; grinding herbs and singing while Nyssa did her homework or practiced her transformations.

“What is fennel good for?” Mum asked, her long, soft curls falling in dark waves down her back.

“You can hang it over your door and it will keep the witches out,” I said, laughing at my joke. Grandma was a witch but she never had a problem with fennel. Whenever she visited she would push tiny fennel seeds into our keyholes to keep evil from entering. Mum glared at me from over the kitchen bench, her expression looking a lot like Grandma’s when I teased her by suggesting she had warts.

“It guards against dark magic,” I clarified. Mum nodded once, approving. Mum never missed an opportunity to test my knowledge about the People or the Real World. Whether we were tending to her herb garden or sitting at the dinner table, she liked to hold impromptu assessments.

She reached for another jar. “What is the best way to stop a Dearg-due?”

“Bury her and cover the grave with stones,” I answered immediately. It was an easy question. I was fascinated with vampires and we had covered Irish folklore last week.

“What are line-walkers?” she continued, smiling a challenge. I chewed on the end of my pencil while I considered my answer. Mum mixed the bowl of mush, her eyes sparking with good humor from the other side of the kitchen bench.

“They can use the ley-lines,” I say. Mum opened her mouth to admonish the short answer but I forestalled her. “They can see where the lines connect to other places and use them to travel across long distances.”

“Good,” she nodded again, “and why do they have this ability?”

“They are descended from elves,” I say, returning to my drawing. “The elves have the same ability to use the ley lines. That is how they travel to earth from Alfheim.”

Mum leaned over my shoulder to peer at my drawing.

“That is very good, munchkin, ” she said, kissing the top of my hair. I couldn’t tell if she was talking about my drawing or my answer but I beamed anyway. She handed me a bowl of sharp smelling purple paste.

“Now go wash your hair, girl.”

Her laugh followed me down the hall.

Nyssa snapped out of her reminiscing with a jagged gasp. While daydreaming, she’d allowed her control to loosen and consequently been ripped into a vision. Viciously, unexpectedly. Her breath was caught somewhere between her lungs and her throat, catching on the jagged places in her chest. The bowl Nyssa was holding clattered onto the bench, spilling its contents. Liquid splashed onto her ankle, dribbling over her jeans and soaking into her sock.

Headless to the discomfort, Nyssa trailed her shaking fingers sharply through the cool sludge congealing on the counter top. She described a shock of dark hair, pushing the red-purple concoction over the vivid white of the bench with her fingers.

A strong jaw, eyes in shadow, the firm curve of austere lips, familiar even though she’d only seen them once.

His face took shape; serious, earnest, intense.

“Damn it.”

Finn was summoned to the kitchen by the clatter of plastic against tile and Nyssa’s soft swear. He found Nyssa elbow deep in sticky paste, fingerpainting on the bench he had just cleaned.

“That’s brilliant, that is,” he said, ire thick in his voice. Nyssa didn’t respond, her stained fingers hovering above the mess she had made, retracing the smudged lines. Her eyes were unfocused and her stance stiff.

She’d seen something.

Finn stepped gingerly over the mess dripping onto the floor and scooped up the abandoned bowl, discarding it in the sink.

“Damn,” he said on the back of a heaving sigh as he eyed Nyssa’s artwork. He swiped through it roughly with a rag and that was enough the knock Nyssa out of her dreamy deliberation. She jerked towards the sink, scrubbing her arms under a stream of too hot water.

Finn came up beside her, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly and dunking his rag in the water. He swore softly at the heat and twisted the faucet to cold.

Hot and cold. Both burned her, rubbing against frazzled nerves.

“You picked a fantastic medium for your bloody artistry, Nys,” Finn said from his hand and knees. He was scrubbing at the puddle of sludge oozing its way across the kitchen. He wasn’t having much luck, succeeding only in pushing the mess around.

“Finn, I-” She needed to leave.

“Yeah, I know.” He leaned back on his heels, his flopping mop of hair falling between his eyes and glasses. He blew it out of the way with a little ppft and a grin.

“Well, I guess this is goodb-” she cut herself off, and bit her lip. She was dripping soapy water all over the floor.

Finn never liked to say goodbye. For whatever reason, he couldn't shake the feeling that if he said those words, they would come true. Permanently. Unconsciously, Nyssa had picked up this habit. Not that she believed it was bad luck, but she didn’t want to give her brother any more reason to worry.

Finn grinned, sadness flickering behind his eyes.

“Yeah, I know.”

A little bit of information about the Real World in here. Hope you enjoyed it.

The next part of the chapter was the first thing I wrote in the whole book. I wrote it before I had any idea of the plot or the characters and it really set the theme for the rest of the story. It's one of my absolute favorite parts, just because I love the interraction between Del and Finn.