Lily POV

The river hadn’t taken me far from where I fell, and Forrusht had been close enough for those two to carry me without much delay. After the inn, the only stop I made was to buy the sturdiest rope and leather waterskins I could and fill them up at a well.

“Whatcha doin'?” Kes had manifested beside me, green eyes sparkling. 

“Need to have water on the road.”

“Are the extras for you to use?” 

“Yeah.” I took the rope and began the task of wrapping the sacks in the series of knots and twists that would cradle them before tying them off at the top.

“Isn’t water supposed to come out of that?”

“No.” At a tug, part of the skin got snagged and bulged out awkwardly against the rope. “Fuck’s sake.”

“Why are you tying it off?”

“Because I need to.”

I abandoned the cradle I normally used and settled for just making sure it had some basic support. As I tied off the top, Kes decided to lean down, blocking my view as one of my fingers got caught. “Could you back up!?”

Kes drew back, hands up like they had when I had woken up. “Sorry. Just want to know.”

Stars above, the girl had the kicked-puppy routine down. “Look, I’m just trying to do this, and it's faster to tie it off and go if I’m not distracted.”

“Okay, but can you explain later?”

“Sure.”

When I was young, a magician came through town with a cart full of sleights and trick toys. One that had dazzled me was this candle. Every time you blew it out, it would reignite. If you doused it, it would burn once it found air again. Kes reminded me as such, chippier and energetic as soon as the moment swayed slightly in her favor. She bounced on her heels, clapped, and said, “Okay!” before bounding away to her companion.

Couldn’t tell you why she’d hitch herself to me to go wallowing in rodent-filled mud, but I can’t exactly be picky. Fireboy had gone to pick up some last-minute supplies. He’s pretty easy to read; the immense stress at having agreed to this path was clear to see on his face. It was almost ridiculous to see them next to each other: the small peppy, bubbly girl compared to the large guy with a condition I would  call ‘Stick in Ass.’

“You better thank me for this, Bass.”

Near Forrusht, the border of the Hurpiti and Naiad met in a hazardous mess. Grasslands mixed with river-sodden terrain at junctions of vast woodlands and spots of marsh. If you moved away from the riverways or roads, you could quickly find yourself in a wetland dragging you down to creatures that were all too happy to have your corpse as their next meal. 

The trek on the main road lasted a couple of hours, a much faster pace when not carrying another person, or so I was told. The real fun part started when we took a hard right off the path and ventured into the trees, finding the world turned around almost immediately. It was the part I hated about off-road travel the most. The sudden change, finding your terrain entirely unfamiliar, as if you passed a threshold into a separate biome hidden just out of sight. It was another hour or so when the ground started to give under our feet. Trees gave each other wide space in the looser soil. The dome of leaves blocked the dim sunlight that had fought through the cloudy sky.

Talon held out a hand, and I walked right past. Kes grabbed my wrist and pulled me to a stop. “What?”

Talon was stock still, except for his eyes scanning the surroundings. The leaves, the trees, the ground, every knot and dip in the damp area. When he looked at me, a shiver ran up my spine. The briefest moment of attention, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of being examined, a bug trapped under a plate of glass as someone picked it over with a prodding tool.

“We should be getting close.”

“Yeah, I could've told you that. I’ve been here already, remember?” I kicked up a clot of earth of emphasis. It landed a short bit away with a wet thwop.

Talon's eyes rolled. “I mean that they’re close.”

I was going to say that the nest was much further in, at least another solid chunk of a miserable hike, but the seriousness behind copper eyes held my tongue. “Fine, then. How close?”

He scanned the terrain again, ending on a smiling Kes. “Would you mind taking a look?”

With barely a nod, Kes started in a dead sprint. After putting considerable distance between us, she leapt. Leaves erupted from the ground, spurred by a great swell of wind as if the vegetation was holding her aloft in a swirl of gold and orange. Her foot had just grazed a branch before being propelled forward, lost amongst the treetops.

“Shade’s shit.”

“Language.”

“Really, man?”

“Sorry.”

“She's gonna be alright?”

“Probably,” he said with a shrug. “She tends to fall.”

“What?”

“Not too often, but she gets carried away.”

“Why the fuck would you tell her to go off alone then?”

“Cause she would have done it anyway, and at least she knows I was paying attention to where she went. Plus,” he poked the mud with the toe of his boot. “Softer landing.”

“I had you for a more cautious type.”

“There’s only so much you can be ‘cautious’ when Kes is with you.” The sigh that followed was one reserved for parents with too many children and those getting off a strenuous job that had long hours and paid little. “How well can your powers work here?”

“Excuse me?”

“The mud,” another poke with his foot. “There’s a lot of water around us, but it’s all diluted. I know it’s more difficult to wield liquids that are mixed with other materials or corroded somehow, so even though we're in wetlands, it might not be suited for you. I’d like to have an idea of our situation.”

Rational, practical, punchable. “I’ve got some sway. But you’re right. I can’t do a lot.” I raised my arm, calling upon the water lodged in the soil, commanding it to form a sphere before us. The earth began to swell in a thick bubble. The mud resisted, turning to sludge as it weighed down the water. It took twice as much effort just to get it to rise and a mental push that felt the load would double once more when I got it to be a lopsided bubble. I released, and it sloshed back away. “I can do big spurts easier, but it’s running sprints instead of distance. A lot more strain for less headway.”

Talon was nodding along, never tearing focus away from the rise and fall of the sludge bubble. “Okay. That’s not great, but Kes and I don’t have the same limitations. We can take the front, and you make sure nothing gets in from behind.”

“Nope.”

“Huh?”

“I’m going in and straight to the middle. If they’ve got Bass, that’s where they gather.”

“Listen, Lily-”

“That’s happening, Fireboy.”

“Talon.”

“Tomato, potato.”

“That’s not the saying,” he pinched the bridge of his nose, the temperature rising around him. “Look, it’s best if we handle the fighting and you just keep to the back. You’re injured, weakened, and outnumbered.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does if it gets us caught up and vulnerable. Please, just be reasonable.”

“Fuck you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not gonna cower behind you.”

“It’s not cowering.”

“It’s close enough,” I said as I watched Fireboy shift. He could get points for keeping any harsh words from escaping or restraining obvious body language that would give away his irritation. It did little to compensate for the wave of heat that washed off of him or the shimmer rising behind his hands that let loose the smallest wisp of smoke. Tells that came to me as rewards. “I appreciate the help, but I’m getting in there as soon as we find them.”

A part of me would have found great satisfaction in finding the tipping point where the flame would overtake and set the foliage around us ablaze. Instead, he closed his eyes, took a breath that could have filled his entire body, and exhaled. The heat subsided as he opened his eyes. “Tell me about him.” When I didn't understand right away, he continued, “Bass. This is a lot of risk for one person. So what’s special about him?”

“Why? Does it matter?”

Crossing his arms, Talon faced me, attention honed in, the fire dampened. “Yes.”

“Fuck’s sake.” The intensity he was throwing around could have smashed glass. He waited, unmoving. Having to match his gaze, looking up at someone a whole head taller than you, set my nerves on edge, the thought of another crotch shot seeming more desirable every passing second. “He’s important to me.”

“Why?”

What a fucking awful question. So simple to toss around that slapping onto Bass was a grave disrespect. Few things in this world were solid. You can grasp and grab and scrabble to keep something close to you and lose the fight again and again, that anchoring, sanity-keeping thing can be lost far faster than you could imagine. Yet you dig and dig and dig in all the same when you feel the current rise to rip it away. Because it is your's, because it keeps you stable, because there’s nothing else in the world that makes this whole damned world feel liveable and safe when everything else wants to rend you apart. What good is being here when you don’t have that precious thing and knowing that you give them the same security that they give you? That you anchor each other through the storm and make life bearable for each other.

“He’s my home.” The answer sent a flush rising in my face. The fuck kind of childish answer is that? It took every fiber of my being not to tear my gaze away from Talon’s, staring down at me like a kid had walked up with palms covered in paint and a snot-nosed smile.

He smiled. “Okay, then.” A laugh, barely audible underneath his breath, brought more sour embarrassment. “I’m not trying to get in your way. What I’m trying to do is help, and the best way I know how to do that is to make this go as smoothly as possible. It’s uncertain; we don’t know the situation, and it could end up getting the three of us back in the healer’s hut or a rat’s gullet.” He broke eye contact first, looking back at the expanse of the wetland. “I want to get your home back, too.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes Kes happy?”

“That’s it?”

Another shrug. “Does there need to be more?”

I replied with my shrug, facing the wetland, both of us looking out and not taking in anything. “Thanks.”

“Of course.”

It was a few more minutes of silence before Kes dropped from the trees. She looked as if a tornado had sucked her up before vaulting her back. Leaves and twigs were caught in any place that could be snagged, her hair knot had started to come undone, and she was panting as if her lungs could take in all the air and still not recover from what they had just gone through. Still, her face was alight in a wild joy. “Found them.”