Someone shook Aaron’s shoulder. He gasped and sat up.

“Your turn,” Christian told him. Only the whites of his eyes were very visible.

Aaron scrubbed at his face. Many of the men had set up camp in locations near the shimmer. It was easier than riding to and from the castle, and he had done the same. He climbed out of his bedroll, noting that the fire had gone out and the four men around it all seemed to be snoring.

Christian had already wandered off to find his own place to sleep, and Aaron didn’t blame him. He was so tired of being near the shimmer, of worrying that at any moment, he might be lured into it and attacked, but it was his shift and he wouldn’t ask anyone else to take it. He picked up his sword belt out of the dirt and strapped it on, something he had become quite proficient at doing one handed.

He walked along the shimmer, staying on the inside of the walls. He did not want to get lured in, like so many others had. Every night, soldiers pulled people away from the shimmer, waking them from a sort of trance, or followed them in and pulled them back out. Sometimes, people were wounded and sometimes they were dead.

Gillian had told him that this normally would have been the mage’s job, since they were the ones who could walk into the shimmer without risk, but that was back before Gillian had even begun soldiering, when Taivalon had more than one mage. These men were all the country had to offer to protect their own, but they would do their best and hopefully Hailey would figure out what was happening and fix it.

A child wandered through the darkness, he could see her trying to catch a fairy in her chubby little fingers. She couldn’t be more than five years old. A man chased her yelling, “Natalie, Natalie come back. It’s a bad fairy.”

But the child hurried on, not listening to her father’s calls. Aaron hurried to intercept the child. He caught her up in his good arm and the child struggled against him, pushing at his chest and neck. “I want to get the fairy,” she said.

“No, it’s a bad fairy,” Aaron said, trying to mimic the child’s father’s tone of voice. At least he thought the man had to be her father. He glanced around. Where had the man gone?

He turned to see the man disappear into the shimmer. He cursed and then apologized to the little girl, who didn’t seem to understand what he was talking about. He chased the father into the shimmer, shifting the little girl to his other hip. She was a beautiful child with big brown eyes, which became wider as they stepped into the shimmer.

She struggled against him. “Mama said not to go in the shimmer.”

“I know. We’re just going to get your papa out and then we’ll come right out. He had thought about putting the child down and telling her to go home, but this had to be safer. He found the man, and put down his daughter. This would be so much easier if he had two hands. He knew that shouting wouldn’t work. Tugging on them didn’t seem to work once they were inside the shimmer, either.

He slapped the man across the face. The little girl began hitting Aaron and kicking him. The punches didn’t hurt, but her kicks to the shins did.

“Don’t you hurt my papa,” she said.

Fortunately, the man woke. “Where are we?” He asked Aaron.

“In the shimmer. I need you to go home. It’s that way,” Aaron pointed and was relieved when the man picked up his little girl and headed out. Aaron was relieved to be on the other side and received to see the man and his daughter walking back the way they had come.

The long night continued. He glanced at his pocket watch constantly, longing for his shift to be over of the sun to rise. The darkness with the glow of the moon on one side and the glow of the shimmer on the other was wearing at him. He saw a figure in the distance and groaned. He would need to stop another person from walking into the shimmer.

But the person didn’t seem to be walking that way. She was heading straight for him. As he got closer, he realized it was Hailey.

“Aaron, I’m so glad I found you!” She ran towards him, slamming into his chest. He hoped she was ok. He grabbed her shoulders and held her at arm’s length.

“You’re looking better.” Even in the moonlight, he see that her eyes were bright. She had brushed her hair, and she wasn’t as unsteady on her feet.

“I know, I finally got some sleep.”

It’s not possible for her to look this good after looking so ragged, he thought. Even if she slept from the time he saw her last until now, he didn’t think it would make that much of a difference. It would help, but Hailey needed days of sleep, not just one night. Maybe she had figured out a spell though, something that could keep her running on no sleep. That seemed the more likely option and he didn’t push her on it. If she was getting sleep, he wasn’t going to complain. He looked at her again. She was waiting for him to respond. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

A strange expression crossed her face.

“What is it?” He asked, taking her hand.

Then she was blinking back tears. The change in her moods was a bit fast. Maybe she hadn’t gotten enough sleep.

“Oh, Aaron. It’s just that there is something I need to show you, but it’s a big secret. You won’t be able to tell anyone else and I don’t want to put that kind of burden on you. You already have so much to worry about.”

“Look, I promise I won’t tell. You have a lot on your shoulders lately, more than me. Whatever I can do to help…”

She hugged him tightly. He had started to forget how much he felt for her, how much she needed him. It felt good to have the normal Hailey back. She took his hand, and said, “come, let me show you. Then she led him into the shimmer.

Hailey made the mistake of looking at herself in the mirror. It was still dark out, but she had work to do. She looked terrible, even in the faint glow of the moonlight. The circles under her eyes were getting worse. She pulled off her nightgown and her favorite plaid green dress. It hung on her. “You need to eat more,” she reminded herself. Her voice sounded weak in her ears. She pulled on her stockings and her boots, then she took a brush to her tangled hair.

The little gray kitten blinked sleeping green eyes at her, stretched until her whole body shivered and then curled back into a ball and went back to sleep. It had adopted her in a way and lately, it was the kind of companionship that she needed. All the cat wanted from her was food and maybe a corner of her bed. It didn’t interrupt her research usually and roamed the castle during the day. The meals that Hailey had remembered to eat were partly from the cat rubbing against her ankles and mewing up at her.

She petted the sleeping cat and left her room, leaving the door a crack open so that the cat would be able to get out later. She was about to go rummage through the kitchen to see if there was anything she could find to eat, when something felt wrong. Goosebumps popped out on her skin.

Hailey grabbed her satchel and created a portal. Her cat blinked up at her, clearly annoyed that such a bright thing had suddenly appeared nearby. She had to go to the soldiers. Something was wrong.

The smell of blood ad decay hit her as soon as she stepped through the portal. More people had clearly died and she felt a pang of guilt, looking at the line of bodies that he soldiers had laid for families with missing members to come and claim. Her heart twisted, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that something here was wrong. She looked at the men sleeping, but couldn’t find Aaron. Where had he gone? She stepped into the small hope where they had housed the wounded and found more men in need of healing. There were always more.

A little boy gasped when he saw her. “Don’t hurt me!”

“I’m here to help.” She put a mage light on the floor, waking some of the men. She was here, she might as well do something useful.

She was running low on magic. The rest she had gotten had done little to help her regain that, and maybe she would have to sleep longer, but that meant letting people die. It was bad enough that she had given up entirely on trying to find a young mage to train. Surely more of them were being taken from their homes, and there was nothing that Hailey or anyone else could do about it, but looking into the eyes of the boy, who still seemed afraid of her she was glad she was here.

“Are your legs the only thing that’s hurt?” She asked, looking at him.

“No, I hurt my arm too.”

“What happened?” Hailey asked him.

“The soldiers said I jumped off of the wall. I didn’t go around it, I climbed it and jumped off before they could get to me. They said that a girl would come and heal me, but you don’t look like they described. They didn’t say that you were sick.”

“It’s ok,” she said as she ran a test on him to see what she could do. His legs had been broken. One of the healers had been here, because they were set and splinted. The arm that he said was hurting had only been scraped. She pulled her spell book out of her satchel. She had been writing down the spells that she used most often. She had memorized the one to close and begin to heal a gash, but bone knitting was one she had not used as often, and though she was pretty sure she had it memorized, she didn’t want to risk getting it wrong.

She glanced over the spell, then rubbed her hands together and placed them on either side of one of the boy’s legs. “This will make your legs feel better, but it will also make you sleep. I don’t want you to be afraid. She spoke the word of power that would start to mend his leg. His muscles went slack and a look of relief crossed the boy’s face, but he did not sleep until after she had healed his other leg. Then he slumped down into his pillow. The gasping breaths that he had been taking became steady.

When she had finished with the boy, she moved to the men and one woman who had injured themselves. Again she got that feeling of wrongness. She couldn’t seem to shake it. “I will be back to heal you,” she told them.

She hurried along the section of the shimmer that Aaron and his men were supposed to patrol. Trees blocked her view. Then she saw the gap in the wall, and there he was, heading straight into the gap. “Aaron!” She screamed at him, but he was already being swallowed by the shimmer. He didn’t even glance back.

She hurried after him, stepping into the shimmer, which was much more difficult to see through. He was laughing.

“Aaron!” She called again, but he was walking away, and she could make out someone in front of him now, someone familiar. At first she thought it might be Gillian, but as she got closer, she could see the white hair in the moonlight. That wasn’t Gillian, it was her. Someone had cast a spell on themselves to look like Hailey. She cast a spell, clearing the glamor. She could see a fairy holding Aaron’s attention, trying to keep him away from her. The tiny naked woman grinned a nasty grin at her and flew away.

Aaron followed, “Hailey, I’m coming! Wait!” He stumbled through the other side of the shimmer.

She ran to catch up. Maybe if he saw her, he would stop following the other Hailey. She tripped, falling flat. Her knee, and elbow were bleeding and she had cut her forehead on a rock.

She pulled herself back to her feet. She was so tired, but she couldn’t let Aaron be killed in the forest. The blood ran down her face and she wiped at it, trying to see. She swayed taking deep breaths. Pain lanced through the back of her head. Someone or something had hit her. She blinked, but her vision would not clear. Everything had gone black.