Nannade woke up with a happy yawn before the rest of the house had even stirred. She didn’t bother with the rope next to her hammock and instead dropped down, landing next to Garrett with a loud THUMP, startling him up from slumber. Then she started her morning routine: stretching and mobilizing her body, going to the spring pool in the forest for a bath and a brush, and return for breakfast, every morning, and this morning she had further reason to hurry. She’d go down to the town to meet up with her friends. Today there would be no lessons for her, no training, no reading, no writing. And as luck would have it, her friends would not have to attend lessons either. But first, she’d have to spend some quality time with her three Teachers.

The four of them sat at breakfast when Garetas brought up a point.

“You’re just going to run out after this, right?”

Nannade nodded, still chewing an entire cheek full of stir-fry.

“Well then, I’ll just have to give you this in advance.” Garetas said and put a package wrapped in cloth on the table. Nannade wanted to reach for it but he poked her hand with his fork. “First, finish eating!”

She ate her breakfast even quicker, barely chewing her food before wolfing it down, despite Elissa’s disgusted face at the sounds she was making and the way she was sitting, hunched over her plate, using the fork more like a shovel than cutlery.

When she was finally done, she reached for the package. She had never gotten something this big and heavy. She unwrapped it and found a glass crystal flask in a leather holder for her belt. Above the flask’s neck, a reel was attached, holding a spool of thick white yarn and a wooden ring at the yarn’s end, the other end of the yarn was hanging inside the flask. She recognized what it was, her own flux flask.

“Amazing, thank you!” she hugged Garetas, then immediately put the entire contraption on her belt, on her left side. She put the ring on her left hand. As she moved her arm, the yarn unspooled and was reeled back in by a spring mechanism, just enough to remain taut. She flapped her arm up and down a few times just to see it work.

“I didn’t know these came with a reel!” she said in amazement.

“Well I had to order it all the way from Halonnes and it wasn’t cheap, but this way the thread is less likely to be cut or tangled up. That’s important for our way of working. That’s also why the holder is inside a normal pouch, so no one can tell from the outside when you close the cover.”

“You mean, your way of working.” Nannade added with a snark while closing the cover. It really was well concealed.

“No, I really meant our. Because one and a half dozen from today, we’ll head out to Calestre together.”

Nannade’s eyes grew wide. “No way, really?”

Garetas nodded proudly. “Yes. But be warned...” he leaned forward on the table and wagged his finger at her. “If it turns out to be too high-risk or you act like an idiot, you’ll stay behind, no whens, ifs or buts!”

“All right all right!” Nannade said, rolling her eyes. She was mainly just happy to get out a bit more. She could barely contain her excitement. “Why didn’t you say so yesterday?”

“Because you need to learn patience and to wait for instructions, Fleabag!”

Elissa interrupted her jubilation. “Now then. Here’s what I’ll give you.” She held a bottle of a thick, oily, blue-iridescent liquid.

Nannade got close to receive her gift, but Elissa quickly pulled it back to say a few more words. “Don’t top it off. Just a bit for today. All future flux will go out of your allowance, understood?!”

“Yes yes, understood!” Nannade said quickly. She gave Elissa a big hug and took the large bottle, bigger than the one wine would come in. She loosened her flask from the holder and got to pouring the flux in, when Elissa held a small metal funnel under her nose.

“You’ll just spill everything, come on, you really do need some patience!”

With the funnel, Nannade got about two fingers worth in, less than a fifth up the height of the flask, but the yarn was well-submerged. She watched the blue liquid get sucked up by the thread, all the way through the spool and up to the ring. She felt the cold liquid on her ring finger. With bodily contact established, all she needed was some spirit willing to ignite the spell with an arcane spark for her. She turned to Faan. “Will you, please?”

“Gladdly, kitten.” He jumped on her shoulder and held on tight. In her little cast book, she found a spell that would do, ripped it out of the book and held it at arm’s length. Faan’s ears twitched and Nannade’s hand burst into flames, as if it had been drenched in lamp oil, but she felt neither heat nor pain, just slight warmth. She moved her fingers and like a puppet on strings, the flame reacted, growing broader or higher, burning with more force or dying down to a flickering, all according to her hand’s gesture and tension. Eventually she found a gesture that narrowed the flame into a flaming torrent, a pillar, almost reaching to the ceiling. Then she closed her fist, hoping it would cut off the flame, but when that didn’t work, she grew concerned. She stayed calm. Intuitively, she decided to reach for the flame with her other hand and pull it off like a glove. The flame heeded and went out. Her heart felt a lot lighter. For a moment, she had been afraid to have started something she couldn’t control. Glee and excitement came over her and she felt like having opened a whole new book in her life. Elissa and Garetas meanwhile were still looking for scorch marks or embers on the ceiling.

Nannade checked her flask. “It actually went down a bit, amazing.”

She put Faan down on the ground and ran out the door with a “Thank you so much, goodbye!” but Garetas quickly took after her, grabbing her by the wrist.

“Not yet, Fleabag! Medicine and hygiene!” and pulled her back into the hut. Garetas handed her the bitter brew Elissa made and after she painfully downed all of it, she also had to take the minty-tasting stuff and slosh it around her mouth. He noticed her making annoyed faced during the procedure and reminded her. “You got way to pretty teeth to neglect them.”

She spat out the fluid through the door and showed her teeth in defiance. “Happy now?”

“Sure, have fun!”

She was almost out the door when he had one more thing to say. “Remember: Masquerade.”

“I know! I KNOW!!”

With that, she stormed out the door. Garetas, Elissa and Faan stayed behind in the now much quieter hut.

“That girl will one day run headlong into a wall.” Garetas said.

“Just seven more years until the madness ends.” Elissa reminded him.

Nannade ran down the path from the forest to the town. She didn’t know whether the others would be ready by now, but it was the eighth day of the dozen so they should get the day free today and there weren’t any lessons until afternoon.

She arrived at Melanie’s farm, somewhat out of breath, and immediately started banging on the door. Melanie opened and looked at Nannade in surprise.

“Oh hey, why are you here, did something happen?”

“Is Carstennas still here?”

“What? No, he’s by Thoristan’s place helping with the cattle.”

“Ugh, damn, thank you anyway.” Nannade ran off without waiting for Melanie to answer.

Thoristan’s ranch was further down the road and Nannade could see the boys’ blonde tufts next to the cows from a distance.

After she had loudly arrived, Carsten and Frederick joyously wished her a happy name day. They helped driving the cattle on the meadow and when Frederick and Thoristan weren’t looking, Carsten grabbed Nannade by the wrist and ran up the hill to the forest.

“See you at the place!” He yelled to Frederick and increased his pace. The forest he was heading to was on the other side of town from Elissa’s hut and they took quite a while to get there up the slope. They were just at the first trees and he was catching a breath. Nannade was feeling only a little winded, but she put on a show for the sake of Carsten’s ego. After they both felt ready, they walked into the forest together.

Carsten had always been a bit brash with her, but today he was especially eager to string her along. She was just happy to see him and the others. “What about Fiona and Karina and Frederick?”

“They’ll catch up, no worries.”

They came to the pond he had talked about. She could hear the frogs croak, tadpoles scrimmaged in the water, and a family of ducks was slowly paddling across the pond. Carsten sat down on a fallen log and invited her to sit next to him. Nannade obliged and told about her gift. She showed him the mechanism and explained why it was so important.

“So, you actually can’t cast spells and need this instead?” he asked at one point.

“No... well, yes, I can’t cast spells by myself, but I can ask spirits to do it for me, even people with the Arcane Gift need to touch flux when casting spells.”

“Can you ask one now?”

“I’ll try.” She said and Carsten replied with an excited expression. He had a cute way to be curious about things, especially magic. She looked around and let her senses come to rest. She sensed something close by. At a greater distance from a place of power, she needed to let her mind enter a calmer state to pick up more faint presences. Moments later, she felt a small spirit – possibly one of water – coming closer. She whispered a few words of encouragement to it and it came even closer. She tore off another one of the spells she cast earlier, held it with the claw of her left pinkie and pricked her middle finger with the claw of her thumb to release a few drops of blood. The bloody bait worked and the spirit came even closer. It finally agreed to the deal.

Nannade snapped her bloodied fingers and as the flame roared into existence, Carsten’s eyes opened wide, full of wonder. Nannade could feel the spirit had left and again played with the flame like a puppet.

Carsten carefully brought his face closer. “Doesn’t it burn your skin?”

Nannade shook her head.

“Can I touch it, is it safe for me, too?”

“I don’t think so, be careful.”

Cautiously he reached further and then stopped a finger’s width away from it. “I can feel the heat; I don’t think it’s safe. Can you extinguish it?”

She repeated the glove-gesture from earlier. He took her still outstretched hand. At first, she was startled, but then she felt his warmth and softness.

“Your hand feels normal, as if it hadn’t been touched by fire at all.”

“Well, yes, Elissa had taught me to include a redirection layer that shielded me from any primary effect and....” She saw his face and stopped. He had no idea what she was talking about. “...I made sure it wouldn’t hurt me, so...”

He closed his hand a bit tighter and moved a bit closer. She felt like looking away. A chill went down her spine and she felt every hair on her body stand on end, but it subsided and she was just fine with sitting like this. Her heart was in panic, but her exterior remained calm.

They spend a little while, just sitting close to each other, holding hands and exchanging occasional comments. Some time passed by and Carsten let go of her hand. Only now did she realize how sweaty her hand was. It felt cold and alone all of a sudden. Then he inched even closer, put his hand around her shoulder and pulled her to him.

She didn’t know to react, but she was able to stop herself from springing into defensive action as if in combat. After a heartbeat or two, she relaxed and leaned against his shoulder. She just wanted to relax for a while, tell him how glad she was when they could be together, even about her upcoming mission. But between them she had to build a wall of secrets and lies. Maybe, one day, she could return and talk to him about everything. That day was in the far future. But this day was now and she intended to enjoy it as much as possible.

“Remember when we met?” Carsten asked out of nowhere.

“Yes, of course.” She answered half absent. Her thoughts already carried her to that day.

“Elissa had brought you along, I don’t know why, and we had lessons with druid Peterus.”

“She wanted me to meet other children, and to not let my status go to my head.” she looked up to him, but he was in thoughts.

“That obviously worked.” He made another pause. “My brother and I kept pulling your tail and you were starting to cry.” He was almost laughing.

Nannade had a much different recollection of events and shoved him with her shoulder. “HEY! I was not! You cried when I slapped your dumb face.”

“You tore through my skin with your claws.”

“Oh boohoo. Elissa healed it right away anyway, so no harm done.”

“If she didn’t, I’d had this wicked scar on my cheek and I could tell people that I was attacked by a cougar or something.”

“You’re an ass!” Nannade put her hands on his thigh and poked his skin with her claws just the tiniest bit to tease him.

He couldn’t suppress his smirk anymore. “And you cried.”

“Should we check whether you’ll cry if I pull on your tail.”

“I don’t ha...NO!”

“Thought so.”

“The other children in the classroom were really scared of you after that. I think one mother actually went to Peterus after that and said you should be removed from class.”

“I was there once. It’s not like you could keep up with me in class today. It was just all really new to me back then.”

“Maybe you should teach me then so I can skip classes and be with you more.”

“Maybe.” she didn’t know how serious she was about that. She stood up and walk around a bit. She didn’t like to admit it, but even a day of lazing around made training seem less fun. It was best if it was something daily. She at least wanted to build her flexibility every day, it was her one advantage over her Teacher Garetas. She did her usual exercises to stretch her arms and legs on a large, sun-warmed boulder by the pond.

“What are you doing that for?” Carsten asked.

“I have to stay nimble, for the dance.”

“Will you really do it this Harvest?”

“Hopefully. When I did it, I can finally move on.”

“With what?” when Carsten asked that, Nannade realized she might have said too much, she can’t tell him she will leave Sturreland shortly after adopting a familiar.

“New parts to my training.” she just had to hope he didn’t figure anything out. Or maybe she wanted him to.

“Does that mean you’ll leave?” He sounded sad.

“Well, maybe...” she was looking for a way out. “...it’s more similar to...”

“You never told me you’d leave. And so soon.” He stood up and went over to her. She was doing a split and he knelt down to her. “We might only have two or three months left!”

Nannade realized in a flash that she didn’t even have to lie, the truth had prepared a little lie for her. “It’s just that I have to spend some time with another member of the Lodge and watch them do work and attend trials to learn about all the laws of the Lodge, it’s called ‘moral commensuration’. It won’t take more than three months and I might get to travel back to Elissa’s in between. I’ll probably be mostly in Sosken.”

“Oh.” Carsten seemed only a bit happier with that answer. “But still. We barely see each other as it is.”

“I come at least once every dozen.”

“Yeah, but I can’t visit you, and there’s so little to do. Why is Elissa so strict about the forest?”

“Because it’s a sacred place full of spirits.” That was only half of the truth. The other half was that Teacher Garetas was rather secretive about his training of the girl and preferred a seclusion where he didn’t have to keep up an act.

Carsten was still kneeling right in front of her. She got up and he did so too. She suddenly realized he was almost close enough for their toes to touch. Still, he set out to come another step closer, bowed down, raised his hands to her shoulders and closed his eyes.

Nannade took a reflexive step back, her heel stepped off the edge of the boulder, her foot slipped, she fell backwards into the shallow water, her bottom hit the ground hard.

“NO, DAMN!” she stood up but it was too late. Her entire cast book was wet, ink leaking out from between the pages.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to!”

“What was that supposed to be, what the taff were you doing?”

“I didn’t know you’d do that and slip, I’m sorry.”

She got back up on the boulder and watched a big puddle of water flow from her feet. “Well, I have to go home and change. The leather will get messed up if I don’t take care of it.”

“Please just wait a minute.” He came closer again.

“Don’t worry, we can walk to the entrance to the forest together.” She was going through all her pouches and pockets to make sure none had accumulated any water or mud.

“That’s not what I meant!” He was again very close. He grabbed her by the shoulders. It took Nannade a lot of control to not strike out at him. Then he pushed his lips onto hers.

Nannade was in shock. It was warm and soft, but also sudden and scary. Carsten ran his hands upwards from her shoulders, up her neck, over her scars, onto her cheeks. When his fingers had arrived behind her ears, her lips had joined his in their motion.

He eventually let go of her. She was still in awe. He smiled at her.

“I’m sorry.” he said with a grin.

She laughed “Don’t keep apologizing, you ass!” This was a new feeling to her. Weird, exciting, happy. She wanted more of it, it felt right, but a doubt in the back of her head remained and kept popping up. Fiona. Nannade thought Fiona and Carsten had been a much better fit. But now that he had chosen her, she didn’t mind as much.

Nannade finally managed to separate herself from him for a moment. “Why me? Fiona is so much more... fitting. You know she really loves you!”

He just smiled and came in closer again, but she turned her head away.

“No, seriously, why me?”

He seemed to find the question silly. “Fiona is just, boring, but you are... I don’t know...”

Nannade didn’t like where this is going, she wanted to poke it just a tiny bit. “What? Exotic?”

“Yes” his face lit up. “You’re exciting!”

She felt something creep up her spine, like a cold shudder. “Carsten, that’s...”

“What? Not good enough? But I do, I think you’re so much more exciting than anyone else.”

Nannade wanted to accuse him of... something, but she decided to give Carsten the benefit of the doubt, he had never truly mistreated her. “How?”

“Well...” He was stalling, she could tell. “You can cast magic. And I like your teeth.”

“That’s all? Just because... I mean I’m more than...” She didn’t know how to begin.

Their spat was torn apart by Freddy barging onto the scene. “Why did you tell me we’d go to the cave and then end up here? Come on, that’s not fair.”

Carsten’s eyes were wide open, his head darted between looking at his brother and at Nannade. “W-What? No, I said we’d be here, really!” He answered after hesitation.

“No, you said we’d show Nannade the cave because maybe there was a spirit inside.”

Carsten looked at Nannade, who was starting to realize something.

“Did you lie to him to have me for yourself here? Did you even tell Fiona and Karina?”

Carsten’s expression grew more and more frightened. She had heard and seen all she needed. She raised her hand as far as she could for a slap and he quickly ducked his head in, but he would probably like the scars. So instead, she clenched her left to a fist and smashed it across his jawline from below.

Carsten went down, holding his face and groaning in pain.

“I’m sorry, Nannade, please, believe me.”

Nannade was holding back tears. She was used getting heavy hits from Teacher Garetas, cuts from knives, bites from animals, and she learned to never even utter a whimper, but this was a different form of pain, it struck deep, deep down.

“I just wanted some time with you alone, to ourselves!”

“What am I to you? Just some exotic beauty to possess? You're...” She felt her breath shudder, her jaw jittered, she couldn’t really hold back anymore. “YOU’RE SUCH A BASTARD!”

She kicked him, again and again. She couldn’t bring out any more words, she just turned around and ran down the slope, back home. Carsten tried to yell something after her, but she was screaming at herself, her stupid self, and could not hear anything.