Cooler wind picked up Vantra’s purplish-red hair and flapped it around; she set her overstuffed backpack down on the dock’s worn wood and grabbed it, muttering. Her ends flew in her face as she dug for a stretchy band.

Fyrij tweeted with garbled insistency and nudged her arm. Through the strands, she saw a dangling leather strip held tightly in his mouth. Good enough. She avoided his enormous front tooth, took the offering, and tied a messy tail.

He hopped around on the pack, wings out, black fur and feathers ruffling. She cupped him in her palms and kissed the top of his soft head. “My wondrous little one, thank you.”

He chirped and nuzzled her chin with his pudgy grey nose.

Fyrij gave the best nuzzles.

He pushed from her hands and glided to her shoulder, where he hunkered down and thrummed. The lower pitch harmonized with the rhythmic lapping of grey-blue waves against the supports. While not the beat of the rainforest, the river had its own unique cadence, and the polyphony with the land-based entity soothed.

She set her hand on her chest; the rhythm of the Labyrinth may have faded, but the experience made her more aware of the land and water around her. Would that continue, or would it, too, fade, until she no longer heard any rhythm, and forgot about it?

Disconcerted, she reached for her pack strap and paused; sure enough, a dangly green stem hung from Fyrij’s special pocket, yellowish ooze bubbling from the severed end. He must have found a bloom he liked and snatched it; the foliage never survived his plucking, but the stones and random hard objects he snitched rested in a small treasure chest Kjaelle made for him, one he proudly continued to fill.

“We need to teach you how to dry things,” she said, fighting not to wince as she opened the flap and poked the stem into the interior. Crusty black gunk marred the sides, and she did not want to know what it had once been.

Had it leaked into the main compartment? Ew ew ew. She needed to check his stash more often.

He twittered at her, noncommittal.

Thump thump thump. The wheels of the cart rolled over the dock’s boards, with Lorgan hauling and one of the Badeçasyon pilots, Nuçya, pushing. The scholar’s oversized crate strained against the straps tying it to the small, wobbly platform; hopefully they moved all six onto the Loose Ducky before it broke.

Kjaelle halted next to her, eyeing the two struggling to heave the book-heavy box up the pirate ship’s ramp. “Do you think they’ll make it up?” she asked.

Fyrij flapped his wings, chirped, and shook his head in a jerky, bird-like way.

“Hmm, me neither. Doesn’t the Loose Ducky have a—”

Nuçya yelped and triggered Ether Touch; the cart and its cargo phased through them and rolled down the ramp, picking up speed. It shot into the broad walkway, forcing startled passersby to leap from its way, and rocked to a stop before it hit the edge of the dock and the squishy soil beyond.

With a sigh, the elfine floated to the bemused scholar and the annoyed pilot, who showed fang at the load, their deer-like ears laid against their scalp.

“I bet Kjaelle’s going to remind them the pirates have a hoist and they should use it.”

Fyrij’s excited joy at the suggestion drained away, his wings falling, and his black-eyed gaze darted towards the shore. A growing crowd watched the mini-Joyful cart their belongings from a sleek black Badeçasyon aircraft and onto the just-as-sleek wooden pirate ship, whispering and nudging each other.

“They’re just upset that we’re unloading from a flying craft,” she said. Many ancient spirits found flying machines unsettling; they preferred the know-how of their own time periods, which was why the port city of Selaserat relied on foot, wagon, and magical ziptrail travel. Elfines who lived on Talis thousands of years previous founded it, and other faelareign from slightly younger thousands of years previous inhabited it. Most of those beings preferred the comfort of their time-period technology, rather than that of later generations.

Local living populations seemed just as happy to use the outdated modes of transportation, too.

Fyrij dug his talons into her shoulder, and his darker tweet of disagreement made her frown. What—

She froze.

No. No.

A hand clapped on her shoulders and she jumped. Kenosera cocked his head at her, his teasing grin fading. “What happened?”

She shook her head, grabbed her pack, and scurried up the ramp to the ship’s deck, Fyrij flapping to keep his balance. The nomad followed, his green-brown eyes on the dark crimson glow leaking from the pocket where she kept the Sun shard and her Sun badge. He did not say a word until they reached the safety of her onboard room.

“Vantra? Are we in danger?”

She let her burden fall from her hand. The top sagged over, and the glow dwindled. “I have to tell someone.” She shoved her fingers through her long bangs, fighting for a calmer tone. “In the crowd. I saw Gisdrelle, the one who confronted us before the flood, who hit Qira with the mephoric emblem. Oily hair, scars crisscrossing her face.”

Fyrij buried his trembling form into her neck as Kenosera whitened. She set a hand on his fuzzy back in reassurance as the nomad stepped into the doorway; Katta squeezed past him, a black leather pack slung over his shoulder. His calmness scratched at her.

“Katta! Did you see?”

He stopped and nodded, his midnight-blue eyes glinting, fiery Darkness washing through the air. “The rot of hate and failure surrounds her and her companion, a disgusting perfume.”

She had a companion?

“The Light-blessed will apprehend them.”

“And then?” Kenosera asked.

“And then we shall see, how easily she cracks.”