Orenda hung the poster of the rabbit on her wardrobe and surveyed it for hidden meanings. It seemed rather innocuous, in that it was a normal rabbit, fat and fluffy, standing in a field being adorable. Behind the field was a vast ocean, stretching off into the horizon. For flavor, there was a silhouette of a ship against the sunset, or perhaps sunrise, it was difficult to tell with a still image. She eventually had to admit that there was nothing to be gained from studying the poster, and realized that she had been absentmindedly twisting the studs in her ears. She was supposed to do this, and it was an easy habit to fall into.

She sat down on the bed and took out the receipt.

It was much more interesting than the poster.

I don’t have much I can tell you, but I follow the path of order. I’ll try to help in any way I can. Quiroris is not one of us. Say nothing, and write nothing down. Burn this and I will give you a new receipt. I know you can. It is nice to see another fire mage.

It was so little, but it was the best solstice gift she could have possibly gotten.

Orenda was thankful when the other students began to trickle back into the academy, not because she particularly missed them or delighted in their presence, but because it meant the dining hall would reopen and she would no longer have to spend as much time in Quiroris’s company.

She was taking her breakfast in the hall reading over her schedule for the following semester when she caught a glance of blond hair from someone who had sat on the other side of her table and braced herself, believing it to be Kassie, for the ordeal that was the sound of her voice.

Instead, it was a voice she did not recognize that said, “Hey, Rendy. Did you… get a different pair of earrings?”

The voice was significantly deeper than she had expected, almost one she would credit to an adult, so she was a bit put off when she looked up from the paper she had been reading and found herself looking at Tolith. His hair was somehow lighter than she had expected, having changed during the month and a half he had been away, and his normally pale flesh had somehow acquired a red tint that seemed a bit like a rash and looked painful. It was peeling away in some places.

“What in Xren happened to you?” She asked.

“Oh, yeah, it looks awful,” he said, “Dad’s place is on the shore and we went out on his boat and I got a real bad sunburn… learned to put that lotion on, after that… it’s bad. I know it’s bad. It’s gross.”

“It really is!” She agreed, “Your flesh is peeling off!”

“Yeah you don’t think about it in the winter,” Tolith sighed, “Or like… I didn’t. So this is happening now.”

Orenda knew she should not be calling attention to his predicament, as he was obviously embarrassed about it, but his ears, especially, looked as if they belonged on a ghoul. There were small strips of curled skin peeling from them, and she found the sight nearly put her off her breakfast.

“We’re not gonna tell my mom,” Tolith continued, “I don’t want them to have something else to fight about. She’d get really mad. I’m not supposed to go out on boats and stuff because I have a ‘delicate constitution’ or something… it’s stupid.”

“I mean,” Orenda said, feeling as if she was stating the obvious, “she was right, wasn’t she? You’ve obviously fallen ill. This has to be some sort of illness.”

“And we’d never hear the end of it,” Tolith narrowed his eyes and ripped his muffin in half, “that’s how she is. If she’s right about something, you never hear the end of it. I’m not some… invalid that needs to be confined to a tower… I can do things. I mean, it looks bad, but I’m not dying.”

“I can’t imagine,” Orenda said, “I never had a mother who tried to keep me safe. I’ve been forced to become quite hearty. At the workhouse, people with more delicate constitutions were wiped out during bouts of illness. There was a certain season each year that would thin our numbers a bit.”

“Thesis’s eyes,” Tolith said with eyes the size of saucers.

“But I survived them all,” Orenda said with pride, “It takes more than a bit of disease to knock me down for very long.”

“But on the ship,” Tolith said, “the pirates must have-”

“I was never a pirate, Lord Glenlen,” Orenda huffed, “I haven’t a clue who started such a preposterous rumor.”

“Yeah, I… I believe you,” he said, sipping his juice, “I’ve just… never seen a workhouse.”

“I daresay you did not miss much,” Orenda said, “they produce very little change. The days are quite monotonous. Other than the sun sickness, did you enjoy your holiday?”

“Yeah!” Toli said with great excitement, “We went to the temple and dad had this big party for like two weeks, which isn’t ideal because I’m not very good with that sort of thing, but the food was delicious and my mother sent me my own carriage with two new horses, so I’ve got that now, and my dad took me out riding with them, around the port city there. He’s really good at riding, he can shoot, can perform archery on horseback. And we went sailing a lot, like I said. He used to be a sailor, you know, before he married into the nobility, he used to be in the navy, so when I visit him he likes to teach me a lot about ships. But my mom can’t know, because I’m not supposed to do that sort of thing,” he rolled his eyes, “but we went fishing along the coast and I caught a cobia the size of my torso!”

“Is that quite large?” Orenda asked, “for one of those? I’m unfamiliar with fish, really. I’ve never had the opportunity to fish.”

“Yeah, it’s impressive,” Tolith said to his eggs as he cut them into bite sized pieces.

“That sounds delightful,” Orenda said, “for you, I mean. You look delighted. I daresay I would not much care for ships or sailing or any of that. Water in large quantities like that makes me ill. But I wish you well.”

“So did you have a good holiday?” Tolith asked.

“I did, actually,” Orenda said, “the look on your face when you asked that tells me that you believed I would not. I discovered a new print shop and have taken quite a liking to the proprietor. I do believe I’ll be getting most of my printwork done there in the future, and they do sell mass market paperbacks as well, so I may get those there.”

“And you got another pair of earrings,” Toli said, “So… somebody else is… getting you presents…”

“Yes,” Orenda said, “though I had forgotten, likely because I do not care to remember. Felearn grates on my nerves.”

“Oh,” Toli said as if a great weight had been lifted from him, “A teacher got you a present.”

“Yes, and I daresay I grow weary of being treated like some street urchin deserving of pity,” Orenda spat, “I have no need of his charity. I’ve paid my tuition. I’ve as much of a right to be here as anyone else!”

“Yeah, he’s… I don’t know, Rendy, adults are strange. I’m not looking forward to it, being one of them.” Tolith said.

When Orenda returned to her room, she saw that the mail had been delivered. Stacks of letters were neatly arranged on the desks of her roommates, and she wondered who had written them early enough that the mail had beaten them there. She did not, at first, even look at her own desk, because she knew so few people she never received any mail, but when she went to the wardrobe to retrieve some books she needed to return to the library, she was forced to walk past it, and saw that a parcel rested there, waiting for her.

She skeptically made her way to the thing and studied it, but instantly distrusted it, because it did not seem as if it had been mailed at all. The return address was listed as within the city itself, and she knew no one who would have sent her anything from within the city, but more than that, the seal of the delivery service looked… strange. She walked to Kassie’s desk and looked at one of the letters that had been delivered to her, then back at her own parcel and found her suspicions to be correct. The wax seal of her own parcel was different, the rose in the middle that signified inclusion to the Urillian Empire was wrong. Orenda thought that hers may be counterfeit.

Still, she carried it back to her bed and opened it, peeling back the string and parting the unassuming brown paper. When she lifted the lid, her face lit up.

More coins, gold, silver and copper, littered the interior of the small box, but whomever had sent it had been more intelligent this time, lining the box with several layers of scrap fabric to prevent the coins jiggling and weighing it down with a sort of a paste to hide the bulk of it. There was a piece of paper folded over the coins in the exact size and shape of the box, as thick as the paper that made it up, as if it would function as a sort of false bottom, which Orenda opened and found to contain a letter.

Don’t let the bastard take it this time. These Urillians are getting on my last nerve. Something needs to be done about this, and I hate to be the one to do it. But if I don’t do something, I won’t be good out here anymore- the damn guards are hot on my tail and their leader is coming for my blood. Don’t let them touch you. I’ve heard what happened to the library, but I’ve made arrangements and you should be safe where you are for the time being. I promised that I would come for you when it was safe, it simply still isn’t safe out here. But I love you, Orenda, and I promise that one day we will be together. I think it’s what he would have wanted, isn’t it? Happy Solstice, for what that’s worth. Stay safe. Stay alive.

I love you more than you will ever know,

Gareth

Postscript: I heard about the bathhouse. You have to learn to push back against it. You can’t let it weigh you down. You have to learn to fly above it.

Once again, the signature was accompanied by the strange symbol, the mask with the sword and contraption crossed under it.

Orenda stood, opened the wardrobe, and buried the box of money under all the other things piled within.

Gareth was alive!