Kira sat up in bed, squinting into the darkness. A sound woke her up, but she couldn’t quite-

Tap! Tap tap!

She glanced at the window by her bed, and saw a familiar face outside her window.

Well, somewhat familiar. And somewhat a face. She at least recognized the eyes, crimson jewels the only feature shown behind a wooden mask.

Kira kicked off her blankets and slid out of bed, opening her window just a crack. “What… Are you doing?”

The masked person who saved her in the Arena earlier that day let out a soft chuckle. They clung to the wall like some sort of lizard, and to her relief, didn’t make a move to enter her room. “Special delivery.”

Their voice was very pleasant. Kira had never heard a voice she liked so much before, smooth and mellow and somehow soothing. They had a perfect voice for audiobook narration. “Oh?”

The masked person reached inside their cloak and pulled out a thick envelope sealed with wax and passed it over to her. There was no name on the front, so Kira turned a quizzical glance at the person. “Who’s it from?”

“Your parents. Fred and Sibyll Hawthorne.”

Kira froze. Her breath caught in her throat, a faint ringing in her ears in the moments of silence before her heartbeat sped up. “What did you say?”

“Your parents. Fred and Sibyll Hawthorne.”

A million questions ran through her mind, but all she managed to croak out was the word: “How?”

“The Fae have a Debt that must be paid to the Hawthornes. The letter was entrusted to us many eons ago, and has been preserved as a treasure all this time. This is for you as well.” The masked person handed Kira what looked like a wooden penny whistle on a long leather string, which was far less interesting than the letter, but she took it anyway. “Blow the whistle and I’ll come running. No questions asked.”

Kira looked at the whistle with a strange expression. “One-time use?”

The masked person laughed, a sound just as pleasant as their voice. “No. Whenever you need me. To save you, to help you, to keep you company. Every day, if you like. I have nothing better to do.”

“Why?”

“The Debt must be paid,” they said, holding a hand over their chest. “The Oath must be fulfilled.”

“What oath? What debt? What are you talking about?”

The masked person laughed again, their eyes sparkling even in the darkness. “Not yet. You’ll get answers someday, but it’s not time for that. For now just hold onto the whistle, and summon me when you like. Us Fae are quite useful, I promise.”

Kira felt suspicious, but she still put the whistle around her neck and tucked it away inside her pajamas. As weird as the situation was, she really couldn’t feel like the masked person had bad intentions. “Alright… What should I call you?”

The masked person hummed for a moment, looking to the sky as they thought it over. Then they turned back to Kira, and she could tell they were smiling by the way their eyes curved. “Nyx.”

“Okay. Thanks, Nyx. For… earlier, too.”

Nyx nodded, then gave a little salute before…

Completely disappearing into thin air.

Kira blinked, and shut the window. Then she locked it, just in case.

She turned on the bedside lamp and crawled back under the covers before opening the envelope. There were several letters inside, one from each family member. Dad, Mom, Robin, Dahlia, Matt, Michelle, Sying, and even Leeto, whose handwriting looked like he’d never held a pen in his life.

Warm words, comforting words. Familiar inside jokes, cute doodles. All written long after the Proclamation, long after she’d gone missing, yet filled with the certainty that the letters would reach her someday. Kira read them several times before carefully stashing them away in her Inventory where they wouldn’t get damaged.

Then she covered her face with her hands and cried. Tears of grief, of happiness, of love. The affection in the letters reached across thousands of years to fill her with the memory of the Hawthornes and how much they loved her.

She wished she could tell them she was alright. That she’d found more family members. More people who cared about her, people willing to quite literally risk their lives in order to stay with her.

That she wasn’t alone, and they didn’t need to worry about her. But they loved her, so they would’ve worried anyway. Maybe they were right to, it turned out things were kind of dangerous for her. Being a human ⟪ Relic ⟫ was tough.

Luckily she had her wonderful friends, her surprisingly reliable classmates, and Ailsa, Vanessa, Pappy Feldar, Sir Karl, and even Lilian. And she was getting stronger, too. Being a Geomancer was pretty awesome.

Kira wiped her face on her pajamas and tucked herself back into bed. Brigit and Ribbon promised to make breakfast for her in the morning, and she couldn’t wait to tell them about the letters.