Fifteen seconds. That’s how long it took Kiri to pull away from James in embarrassment—or at least James thought it was out of embarrassment. It was too dark to see if her cheeks were blushing, and James, quite frankly, didn’t even know if Kiri had the ability to blush. James, for his part, was sad to let her go. Despite how sad she was, there was a part of James that felt happier at being able to comfort her. He didn’t know if he should feel bad about that or not.

Kiri wiped at her eyes, turning so that her back faced both James and Celeste.

“I’m sorry. I… we should find the rest of my people,” Kiri said, breathing out a shaky breath.

James looked up, remembering that a fleet of ships hovered just above the cloud line. It was easy to forget. He could hear the whining of the screw blades and the creaking of the ships’ numerous wings, but it was muffled greatly by the clouds.

“Are you alright—” Celeste asked, but was cut off by Kiri’s abrupt reply.

“I’m fine. I just—let’s just find my people.”

“Alright,” James said, more to stifle a sarcastic reply from his sister than anything. “Any idea where they might be?”

“Nope. But staying here won’t solve that.”

James peered up again. “Yeah, we should leave before Shamran comes after us. Hopefully Bron and the others will be able to distract him for a bit.”

“And not die in the process,” Celeste added.

James nodded grimly and the three set off into the woods. James didn’t want to admit it, but he wasn’t particularly thrilled that they were going in the same direction that those beasts had gone. Their eyes haunted him, so filled with anger and pain.

James watched as Kiri did a circle of the entire perimeter of the barren circle. James was still exhausted from jumping off a ship, so he and Celeste settled down while Kiri trudged along. She came back a few minutes later shaking her head.

“What?” James asked.

“I couldn’t find any footprints. They must have fled before the fire finished burning.”

James looked down and, for the first time, realized that he had been making deep imprints into the ash on the ground. He looked at Celeste and found her staring at her own with deep interest. James hadn’t ever considered it before, but seeing his own footprints was a largely foreign concept for them. Feet didn’t make much of an imprint on metal, after all. He had only ever seen his footprint in the kitchen when stepping on thin layers of powder that fell from the counter to the floor. James smiled to himself, finally seeing the same level of fascination on Celeste’s face that he had felt on his first trip down. He glanced at his own footprints again. So crisp and well-formed and… easily followed.

“We have to cover these up,” James said, standing. Celeste, amusingly, looked offended at the mere suggestion. “Shamran will be able to follow us if we don’t.” James kicked at one of the footprints, cover it but leaving an irregular peak and valley formation in the process.

“Oh yeah, that’ll definitely throw him off,” Celeste said in a tone that made it obvious she was rolling her eyes.

Kiri sighed. “It’s a shame, but we’ll have to leave them. I already feel like we’ve spent too much time here. It’ll be harder for him to follow once we get out of the ash.”

James reluctantly nodded his head. “Which way, though?”

Kiri turned to peer at the part of the field that rose above the rest—the place where her house had been. Behind it, the ground continued to climb its way up towards the clouds before disappearing into the tree line.

“We go up. Even if that isn’t the way they went, it will give us a vantage point to try and find them.”

James nodded. It seemed like a good enough idea. The three set off in that direction.

The farther James walked, the more right he felt about his decision to bring Kiri on the ship. If he had left her, she might not have survived the fire.

James spotted a different glow as they neared the tree line. An orange glow pulsed on the ground. It faintly reminded him of the sparks he had seen on Concord Day. He reached down to pick it up, but Kiri snatched his wrist away from it.

“Have you never seen—” She sighed, letting her voice trail off. “Never mind, I assume you haven’t. This is what wood looks like after it has been burned. It’s still very hot, so don’t touch it.”

Celeste placed her hands a few inches away. “She’s right. You could cook a whisp with this heat.”

The three continued on, taking a wide birth around the smoldering embers. James was both relieved and frightened when they finally crossed the threshold into the forest. He didn’t like being in the open but walking among the trees didn’t provide him much comfort. The contrast of the trees’ dim light and the darkness that occupied the gaps between cast shadows about that made him imagine the dozens of beasts he had seen earlier. Even though James was sure the temperature had hardly changed, he felt cooler walking among the trees, as if the air was lighter and crisper. He shivered.

“So… you can control animals?” James asked after several minutes of silence.

Kiri’s form seemed to become more ridged. “No, I…I’m able to reach out to them, and, if I’m lucky, they reach back.” She tilted her head. “Though, there is a connection between us. It’s hard to explain. We can understand each other without…” Her voice trailed off and she stopped walking. She turned to James and Celeste. “Hold on. Let me try something.”

Kiri was already sitting on a rock by the time James and Celeste turned to look at her. Celeste looked at James and he shrugged. Only the winds knew what went on in Kiri’s mind. James passed the time by watching Celeste, who was inspecting a nearby boulder. A plant had wrapped itself around it, creating beautiful swirls of green. In its light, James could see in Celeste’s face a mixture of amusement and intrigue. He knew she had believed everything that he said, but it was still nice to have her see it all firsthand. It made him want to spread his arms wide and say, See! I told you!

His feeling of relative peace and comfort was disrupted by Kiri, who spoke from the rock.

“Found one,” she muttered to herself.

Before James or Celeste could question what she meant, they heard the sound of something moving across the ground. They both jumped, spinning towards its source. A pair of green glowing eyes peered back at them through the patches of darkness. The eyes bobbed up and down, indicating that it was coming closer. James and Celeste each took a step back while Kiri took a step forward. Out of the darkness, illuminated by the light of a violet glowing tree, was an animal that came up to James’s knees. Its body looked as if two people grabbed opposite sides of it and stretched it out, long and spindly. Rolls of fur circled its body giving the impression that it was both stretched and squished together at the same time. Its cylindrical body sat on six girthy legs. The skin around its face was scrunched up even more than the rest of his body, and a long tongue drooped from its mouth, split through the center towards the end. Its fur clung to its skin, giving no sway as the beast lumbered towards them. James also found that he couldn’t tell what color it was. Rather, it seemed that its fur reflected whatever color was sent his way, causing his coat to shift between purple, green, and blue as it approached. It stopped a short distance away from them and then rolled over, kicking its feet in the air and letting his tongue flap over his face.

“That is…” Celeste began. “…the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen!” James disagreed.

“You can pet it if you want,” Kiri said, showing a smile for the first time that day.

Celeste’s eyes lit up with such intensity that James half-thought they were glowing. She scurried over to it, midway between a cautious walk and a dash, balancing her eagerness with her desire not to scare it away. She reached down rubbing its… tummy? There were so many rolls that James was having trouble figuring out where it started and where it ended. The creature quickened the pace of its feet wagging and wiggled its body about. Kiri knelt down next to Celeste.

“It’s a torta. They’re usually very friendly” She scratched behind its ears, or at least that’s what James assumed those flaps were. “And this one has agreed to help us.”

“Help us how?” James asked.

He raised an eyebrow at the thing as it rolled back and forth to get the momentum to put its feet on the ground. Finally, it did so, going into a sitting position and tilting its head at him. James looked to Kiri and found that she was doing the same.

“He says he knows the way they went, and torta have an incredibly good sense of smell.”

Celeste patted its head. “I’ll call you Tor. Is that okay?” The creature looked at her and tilted its head again.

“The name confuses it, but it doesn’t seem to care,” Kiri said.

“You can talk to him?” James asked.

“Not in words, but in… emotions? Yeah. Something like that.”

That didn’t make much sense to James, but the last two days taught him to roll with the punches, literally and figuratively.

“Oh, mighty Tor, can you show us the way to Kiri’s people?” Celeste asked while squeezing its cheeks. It let out a noise that reminded James of the swirling of the screw blades. The sound of gears grinding against gears. It didn’t hurt his ears, but it certainly didn’t sound pleasant. “How adorable!” Celeste squeaked, forcing an eye roll from James.

Tor wiggled its body around and started to walk in front of them.

“It seems like we were going in the right direction,” Kiri said, following it.

The three walked along in silence letting Tor guide the way. The terrain became steeper as they walked, making James’s legs cry out for a break. He could see that Celeste wasn’t fairing much better. More than once Kiri had to grab her to keep her from falling to the ground. Walking over the uneven ground was hard enough. Factoring in the steep incline they were walking on, James was just impressed she was staying on her feet at all. Even he, who did a lot of running and climbing on the numerous Vinci ships, was having difficulty. Rocks loosed themselves from the ground, tumbling down the slope behind him and causing his foot to slip in the process. One of these rocks almost hit Celeste on one occasion. It was, unfortunately, light enough to see her glare. Tor and Kiri didn’t seem to be having as hard a time. It made sense. Kiri had grown up on the ground and Tor had six legs. That had to help.

Eventually, the ground started to level out, making it easier to walk. James was slowly becoming accustomed to the sounds of the forest. The creaking of the trees, the jostling of branches, the various calls of the surrounding wildlife; it all added to the forest’s wonder… and its eeriness.

As they walked along the trees, a new sound cut through the branches and twigs. A whooshing noise that reminded James of rushing wind could be heard faintly in the distance. The noise got louder as they approached, until it settled into a deafening roar. They emerged from the tree line to find a river filled with rushing water. The three of them were misted with water when one particularly vicious ripple struck a large stone boulder that lined the side of the river.

“What do we do now?!” James yelled, but all he got in response was Kiri pointing to her ear and waving him back away from the river.

James and Celeste collapsed once they were far enough away from the river that they could hear each other.

“What do we do now?” James asked again, this time at a more reasonable volume.

“We find a way across,” Kiri said.

In response to this, Celeste groaned and James’s stomach growled. He felt a spike of embarrassment as Kiri set her eyes on him. She looked off into the distance, pondering her surroundings.

“Wait here,” she said, walking off into the forest.

Tor hesitated before eventually rolling onto his back and kicking at the sky. Kiri returned a few minutes later carrying something in her arms. She tossed one of whatever it was in his direction and another at Celeste. James reluctantly caught it. He looked down at an oval shaped object that gave off a glow of white faint enough to make him question whether it was really glowing or not.

“It’s a parapara fruit,” Kiri said, taking a bite.

James looked down at the fruit with extreme skepticism. He heard a crunch and looked up to see Celeste eating hers. She clearly wasn’t as worried as he was, and by the look on her face it didn’t taste bad. Bracing himself, James took a bite and felt his system go into shock from the sweetness. The texture was odd, but the taste was incredible. James took another bite, and then another. He was about to take another when he spotted Kiri’s glowing eyes on him. He looked up and found her smiling, amused at his enjoyment of the fruit. She turned away as soon as they locked eyes, and James’s felt his stomach flutter.

Not only did the fruit fill him up, but James could also feel a slight spike to his energy, which put a spring in his step.

“Alright. Ready?” Kiri asked, staring off into the distance. Her focus was clearly on finding her people.

“Yeah, but which way do we follow the river?” James asked.

Celeste knelt down and patted Tor’s stomach. “Do you know which way they went?”

Tor started his rolling process, but Celeste decided to roll him onto his feet herself. Once on his feet, he turned towards the river and stood up on his hind legs. Standing like this, Tor was almost as tall as James, the realization of which made James take a step back. He watched as Tor took a deep breath in and then let it out. He did this several times before eventually falling to his feet.

“I think he knows which way they went,” Kiri said.

Without looking back, Tor started off in the direction to the right of the river. James, Celeste, and Kiri exchanged glances, then followed after him. He took them on a winding path through some of the denser parts of the forest. More than once, James had to climb over boulders or shimmy between trees to keep moving forward. Little chips of bark clung to his clothes as he did so, dotting them with light. Just as James was fearing that the path was getting too overgrown to walk through, he emerged into an opening. A dozen or so feet in front of him the tree line picked back up, but to his right and left there was open space. Not nothing per se, but the density of the trees thinned noticeably, and on the ground, hundreds of small stones crunched beneath his feet. It felt much different than the dirt he had been walking on. James shot a questioning glance at Kiri, but only got a shrug in return. Tor didn’t seem as interested in the area, as he simply turned left and started walking towards the river. As they followed Tor, James expected the faint whisper of the river to turn back into a roar as they approached, but instead it stayed relatively hushed. Even with the reduction in sound, a part of him still expected to be met with roaring rapids. Instead, he was met with a more gradual flow—still quick enough to carry you downstream, but not quick enough to injure you with a quick slam against a rock. A collection of rocks, all flat on the top, extended from one side of the river to the other. The current whipped around them, slowing down briefly before accelerating downstream.

“I suppose we’re crossing that,” Celeste said.

Kiri nodded, but didn’t move any closer. The water was tamer here than it had been upstream, but it still had the ability to wash them away downstream. Surprisingly, Tor was the first one to step forward. Celeste reach for him as if to save him from a terrible fate, but he launched out of her grasp, landing on some rocks halfway across the river. James eyes widened in surprise and Celeste let out a high-pitched squeak. At first, James had thought the creature’s six legs were beyond strange, but now he was borderline jealous of them.

“That. Was. Awesome!” Celeste said before quickly hopping onto the first rock to catch up.

Kiri went next, jumping onto the rock next to Celeste, then quickly jumping to the one in front of her. Celeste, in turn, jumped to the one next to Kiri. She almost stumbled but caught herself. She looked at Kiri with an expression that seemed to say, that was close, and they both laughed. James was the last to go, determined not to be shown up by Kiri and his sister—nor the bundle of rolls that had already made it across the rocks, for that matter. He stepped on the first rock cautiously, then increased his pace with each rock thereafter. It wasn’t long till he passed Kiri and Celeste, the flat stones passing by as a blur beneath him. Then, one shifted, causing him to lose his balance. Kiri reached for him but wasn’t able to make it to him in time. The last thing James saw before hitting the water was Kiri’s worried face, which he found strange. After all, she had hated him less than twenty-four hours before. That face—and Celeste’s distant yelling of his name—disappeared as the water engulfed him.

James instantly felt as though his shoes were made of steel. He had heard of swimming but saw it more as fantasy than reality. You were lucky to see a bucket of water in Vinci, let alone a body big enough to swim in. He flailed and kicked, but that just made his body start to spin, making him lose all sense of direction. His heart thumped in his chest, using up his oxygen at an alarming rate. Everywhere he looked there was a faint glow of blue. He watched as it started to darken. This confused him until he realized it was his vision darkening, not the water. Darkness consumed him, and in his last moments of consciousness, he felt something—someone—grabbing at him. Their fingers slid down his arm, unable to gain purchase. With his last ounce of strength, he shoved his hand forward, grasping for anyone—anything—that could help him. He felt fingers interlock with his own, then passed out.