"Henry, are you certain that you do not need some sort of handle?"

Henry glanced at Teslas bemusedly, shaking his head. Then he turned his shining eye back at the at-last-completed result of their work. "Please, I am a master of the aerial."

"If you say so," replied Teslas with a grin. "Well, venture out and test it, then. Preferably over a water body, just in case you do fall off."

With a scowl, Henry picked up and hoisted the prototype onto his shoulder. "I shall not fall off. I have never fallen off a flier's back, except when I meant to. And today will not be the day."

"Whatever you say!" was the last thing Teslas uttered, and Henry rolled his eye. The moment he stepped through the curtain that concealed the workshop, his frown fell, and his pace quickened. This was it—finally, what he had been waiting for since the day he had received Charos.

At first, Thanatos had refused as adamantly as in the beginning, but eventually, Teslas and Henry had persuaded him with joint efforts to at least partake in "a few experiments."

"Death, let us experiment!" exclaimed Henry the moment he stepped through the vine curtain and spotted his flier on the beach.

"Oh no." Thanatos lowered his head again the moment he spotted what Henry was brandishing. "Did I seriously promise that I would let you try this?"

"Indeed!" Henry grinned. "I shall say what I always say: What is the worst that could happen?"

"I could be seen," said Thanatos sourly, but nonetheless, he allowed Henry to strap the prototype around his neck. "Now all we need is a leash, and the humiliation shall be flawless." Narrowing his gaze, he stared down at what indeed resembled a wide leather collar.

"Not at all," assured Henry. "It looks like quite a fashionable accessory."

"Why do you not wear it then?"

"Were I a flier, I would!"

Thanatos stared at him with a scowl. "The things I do for you never cease to amaze me," he mumbled, allowing Henry to mount up more reluctantly than usual. "Let us just get this over with."

Henry pulled himself into the prototype and momentarily found it odd to sit on an artificial surface. He swayed back and forth but eventually decided that, despite the unfamiliarity, the saddle prototype was decently comfortable. He brushed the smooth leather, tested the accessibility of the lever, and nudged Thanatos, signaling that he was ready to commence the test run.

Thanatos lifted off at once, and, despite his confident act, Henry found himself immensely grateful that nobody was here to watch. Floating above the clear lake, the thought crossed his mind for the first time that maybe adding a handle would have been a good idea after all. With gritted teeth, he threw one last glance down; it was far too late now. "Are you set?"

"As I'll ever be."

Henry inhaled, then gripped the lever tightly and pulled it to the right. Subsequently, the saddle did exactly what it was supposed to—it rotated. Initially, it moved precisely ninety degrees, but Henry's shock caused him to cling to the lever, causing an additional ninety-degree rotation. And this, in turn, sent Henry—who was utterly unable to maintain his grip with only his own strength—face-first into the lake.

Mere moments later, his head broke the water's surface, and he coughed, shaking his wet hair out of his face. The first thing he registered was Thanatos' laughter. "Did you not even think to add a handle?" he mocked before he could be bothered to heave his bond out of the water.

"I needed no handle when we performed a maneuver like this fighting the cutters!" yelled Henry as he lay in the white sand, clothes and hair dripping like a drowned rat. "To involuntarily fall off the back of a flier . . . What times!" He crossly dragged the wet hairband out of his hair and pulled his drenched shirt over his head. "Do not dare tell anyone about this."

"About the lowest moment for our master of the aerial?" asked Thanatos, staring at him bemusedly. "I will consider it. It shall hinge on how much of a brat you are."

In return, Henry began to chase him around the lake, wielding his wet shirt like a weapon and shouting lighthearted threats. "If you—tell anyone—I will keep that thing on you—forever!" Henry pressed out between pants, nearly keeling over on the beach, exactly where he had started. "You cannot take it off without me!"

Thanatos rammed his head into his back, and Henry toppled forward with a sharp cry. "I dare you."

For a moment, Henry lay stomach-down, with his cheek pressed into the sand, as they laughed vigorously together. Then he scrambled up to all fours. "I am jesting!" he exclaimed suddenly. "I would not do that. Never!" He rose to his haunches and turned to Thanatos. "Think not that—"

"Take ease; I thought no such thing," assured his flier, coming up behind him.

"I would not like you to think that—" Henry cut himself off and hastily began to unclasp the saddle prototype. "That I am taking advantage of you . . . or anything along the lines," he said after a pause. "I promise that I would—"

"Henry, be still." Thanatos cut him off. "It is . . . I know that. And by everything we hold dear, I promise that I will be honest if something is truly bothering me. How many times wish you for me to repeat this promise?"

Henry sighed. "I know that you have repeated it many times," he said, running his hand over the smooth leather of the saddle prototype. "I just really wish not to be a burden anymore. Never anymore. Not—"

"You are not," asserted Thanatos. "I mean, caring for anyone is a kind of burden, but it is one that I am choosing to carry for your sake. Because you are worth it. So, at last, be still."

"You mean that?"

"Yes, I mean that. And now go!" exclaimed Thanatos, pushing Henry so that he fell over once more. "Go, go, go. Add a wretched handle to your wretched saddle, and then we shall conduct as many experiments as you like. I wish no longer to fight with you over this . . . or anything. So go!"

"Are you serious?" Henry scrambled up and whipped around to him, eye shining with excitement.

"I am," said Thanatos, and jumped when Henry threw his arms around him with no warning.

"No bond is greater than mine. None!" he exclaimed. "You shall not regret this. You and I shall—"

"I shall definitely regret this," said Thanatos, "but I also don't mind."

"Are you certain?" Henry released him, frowning. "I wish not for you to agree just to keep the peace," he urged. "I will not force you if—"

"Stop." Thanatos stared at him with narrowed eyes. "Doing something for the sake of someone else out of fear is distinct from doing so out of love. And I shall never again let myself be driven by fear."

Henry's face lit up with a wide smile. "Me neither," he vowed, then his smile fell. "But . . . But even if you decided to partake in this for my sake, at least say that you understand why I am so eager to realize this design. You understand, no?"

"I do," said Thanatos sourly. "In fact, my greatest irk is that I do understand. And so, I cannot entirely reject it. A saddle that allows the rider to rotate by 360 degrees freely . . . most regrettably, holds tremendous potential. It changes not that the idea of a saddle makes my fur stand on end. But I shall endure it anyway, for your sake . . . and for the sake of science." He shuddered. "How much harm can a few experiments do?" he mumbled quietly to himself.

"You are pushing past your comfort zone to support my vision," said Henry with a smile. "Do not pretend that this is worthless."

"And for the science!"

Henry laughed. "I am very grateful either way."

"You should be," grumbled Thanatos. "But it just so happens that I have faith in your vision."

"I will not disappoint," vowed Henry. "And you know that progress can only be achieved when one ventures beyond their comfort zone."

"I know," said Thanatos with a smile. "I just so happen to recall a time before you left yours . . . Recall the entitled, spoiled prince who nearly starved himself to death before he would sustain himself with raw fish."

"Do not speak about that," Henry shushed him. "We do not speak about that. Oh, I pity you for having to put up with me the way I used to be."

"I pitied myself too," said Thanatos sourly. "But I could not abandon you either way. I could not let you die, no matter the misery of your constant nagging."

"Let us do something." Henry nudged him with a crooked grin.

Thanatos flattened his ears and groaned. "Day in and day out."

"But even if I was infuriating, you were a listless pile of misery."

"With no life, yes."

"I did not even look at it from this angle," said Henry, sitting with his legs crossed. "That I was doing you a favor. That I was . . . sharing with you life. I looked at you with pity, but it evoked no desire to help. Only irritation." He stared down at his hands. "I shall no longer look at the lightless with irritation," he said quietly after a moment's pause. "I shall look at them and see their potential to regain their light . . . in the way that we regained ours."

Henry thought about the time he had spent lightless—aimless—and suddenly thought that his first month in exile compared to that sensation more so than he had realized. The feeling of being lost—within himself and the world—and pining idly, with no aim or direction, burned at the back of his mind, and he shuddered. He had been like so in the Dead Land and later on the island.

As Longclaw's champion, he had not been lost—he had been dead.

"I cannot stand being lightless," he said quietly. "Not myself, and not anyone else either."

"And so, if one does not remember what drove them in the past, you will drive them in the present?"

Henry stared at Thanatos, wide-eyed. "You recall that?"

"I will recall that for all eternity," said the flier. "It was the most defining moment in my history since going into exile. The moment I thought that maybe . . . I could live again."

"I will drive anyone who cannot drive themselves," Henry proclaimed. "Perhaps then I can be something more than a forever-aimless outcast."

"You already are," retorted Thanatos. "And I cannot put into words how proud I am of you for it. Have you not so many names and titles that you cannot count them on the fingers of one hand? Are you not the first human to utilize a flaming sword? To become a gnawer champion? To cross that second echolocation threshold?"

Henry's smile widened. "Soon to be the first human to use a saddle."

"Oh, do not remind me."

"But I will!" exclaimed Henry. "Until you can be proud of it too."

Thanatos groaned. "Why do I have an inkling that you will succeed in this too?"

***

With a single hand, Henry heaved the supply crate off the construction, which Thanatos had carried. "The rest is for the human settlement. Lovelace sends her regards."

The tall, brown nibbler before him nodded. "Tell her we are all beyond grateful, and send her our regards as well."

A second, light brown mouse came up beside him. "If it were not for her supplies and your deliveries, these trying times would have cost many more lives."

Henry tipped an imaginary hat to the two. "I am happy to be of service."

Despite frequent visits to the nibbler colony at the Fount for supply runs, Henry had only conversed with a few of the inhabitants, such as the colony leader Camus and his partner Vectra. The colony was in desperate need of supplies, especially since their trading partners had been depleted by the plague, though not as desperately as the Fount settlement itself.

"Let us get going," he called Thanatos, who seemed to be in brisk discussion with a gray nibbler with long fur. "You know that York becomes impatient when his supplies don't arrive exactly on time." Henry laughed, rolling his eye.

Thanatos gave the nibbler a nod. "Very well, Cartesian. The best of luck." Then he grabbed the half-empty carrier and signaled Henry to mount up.

"Run like the river!" Henry waved in Camus' and Vectra's directions.

"Fly you high, Death Rider!" they returned the greeting.

"Now the fun can commence," said Henry with an eager grin.

As they left behind the beach bordering the nibbler colony, he recalled how hesitant he had been when Lovelace had first asked him to deliver goods directly to the Fount. They need supplies more direly than the nibblers, she had claimed. After the plague, most of their trading allies either lack resources or have decided to refrain from engaging in trade with humans altogether.

Henry hadn't known what he had expected when he had arrived with his first delivery, but certainly not the grateful faces and the warm welcome York and Susannah had extended him and his trading party. Apparently, word of his aiding the questers in the jungle had spread through the human cities, and the emergence of an unfamiliar yet evidently heroic outcast had fanned its fair share of rumors. Wherever he went, he drew curious and even ardent gazes, along with whispers such as "He is the outcast who saved Queen Luxa's life!" and "The Overlander and his previous quest have him to thank for their making it through!".

Some had even approached him—among them York and Susannah themselves—to extend words of gratitude for his aid. As long as he was the acclaimed Death Rider who had risked his life for the questers and a friend of the nibblers, he was apparently welcome—or so York had, somewhat rigidly, stated.

Since then, Henry and Thanatos had made the trip there quite frequently, and Henry had yet to hear a word of complaint from anyone's mouth except Howard's . . . Then again, it would have surprised him more had Howard not complained. Perhaps the sole downside of his regular visits to the Fount was that, now that they had been formally introduced, he could not believably feign forgetfulness about Howard's name anymore.

It was a peculiar twist of fate: Throughout his entire sixteen years in Regalia, Henry had never been particularly fond of the Fount or its residents; York, Susannah, and their children were not his relatives by blood, and he had never considered them as family. But now, the mere thought of spending a day in their keep and their city filled him with exhilaration.

The Fount was not particularly grand or lively, with just around a thousand citizens compared to the three thousand in Regalia. Nevertheless, it was better than nothing. Perhaps the reason I find it so enjoyable has nothing to do with who they are, Henry suddenly thought; perhaps it is simply the prospect of being around humans again.

The thought had never crossed his mind, but all of a sudden, he found it entirely plausible that he was starving for the company of his own species. Well, that and the endless praise and attention, he mused with a grin.

But what had astonished Henry the most was that it had been Howard's younger siblings who had formed the strongest attachment to him, despite their brother's disapproval. Little Chim, Hero, and Kent adored nothing more than his exciting tales, his clever jokes, and his curious weapons and gadgets.

Henry had never quite connected with them as Henry, but as the Death Rider, he had found that the children had grown on him. Especially Chim, with her blunt honesty and her habit of telling him all her siblings' secrets, he had quickly taken a special liking to.

Stellovet had done her best to maintain an air of indifference toward him, but her eyes betrayed her true feelings, reflecting the same eager anticipation as her younger siblings' whenever he was in sight. Gradually, she too had more or less abandoned her act, and by this point, there was hardly anyone more excited about his visits than her. Henry's grin widened as he recalled her leaning out of a window so eagerly to see him on his last visit that she had almost fallen out.

Only Howard would always skeptically raise an eyebrow whenever his siblings gathered around the outcast and bombarded him with questions. Like Andromeda, he had fully recovered from the plague, but he had visibly lost weight and his features had matured considerably, similar to Henry's own after his first month in exile.

However, his spirit appeared unchanged, as did his stance toward the Death Rider. Henry had even overheard him advising Stellovet to steer clear of the "dangerous outcast," but she had simply responded: Did you not say that he saved all of your hides on the waterway? To this day, Henry almost burst into laughter whenever he pictured the utter shock her words had brought to Howard's face.

A particularly pleasant surprise had awaited him during one of his earlier visits, when there had been Luxa, Gregor, and Hazard at York's keep, along with its usual residents. Apparently, Luxa had wanted to give the Overlander and Hazard, who had moved to Regalia to live with the royal family following Hamnet's death, a tour of the Fount.

They had enjoyed a rather pleasant day, and he had felt relieved to discover that Ares was still alive. He has been out of the hospital for over three months! Gregor had beamed, and Henry had smiled in return.

His smile had disappeared when Henry had inquired why Gregor was in Regalia so frequently these days. His mother was still in the hospital, he had explained. From what Henry had gathered, the doctors had found that Overlanders had a resistance to the cure, so it had eased her symptoms but had not entirely eliminated the plague from her system. More experiments had been necessary to tweak the formula, which had taken longer than anticipated. While they were feeling hopeful about the latest attempt, it would still be a long time before she could leave the hospital—probably another four to five months at least, according to Gregor.

The Overlander's impatience had been evident, yet Henry quickly surmised that Luxa welcomed the opportunity for him to spend more time in Regalia than she let on. According to her, he had been frequenting the Underland nearly every day for the past ten months, and the two had visibly grown closer. Typically, Henry would have relentlessly teased her about it, but like this, he found himself rambling to Thanatos and the mice instead.

With a smile, he pictured Luxa's laughing face and her hair, now long enough to be tied into a small braid once again. It had been good to see her again. She had matured so much that he had nearly not recognized her, and with a tinge of disbelief, he had reminded himself that both she and Gregor were now thirteen.

A wave of that feeling, when children grow in your absence and catch you off guard, washed over him, and his smile widened. Although he also felt a pang of sadness that he had missed Luxa's birthday . . . at least Gregor had brought it up so that he'd had an excuse to extend a late congratulations.

Suddenly, his thoughts turned to his own eighteenth birthday. Wasn't it around this time of year?

Henry briefly pondered whether, at some point, his age would lose its significance. If time would blend into never-ending weeks, months, and years, would there come a time when he couldn't even remember how old he was anymore?

After a brief pause for thought, Henry scrunched up his nose in frustration. He had more important things to worry about than something as inconsequential as his age; it did not need his attention.

So, he brought himself back to reality. When his eyes locked on the scape flying by below, he immediately identified the subdued murmur of human voices, accompanied by the delightful and new scents of food. Beneath him stretched an array of gracefully arched, well-kept stone structures, with a thin river branch winding its way in between. At last, he caught sight of the grand central keep topped with its dome-shaped roof, where York and Susannah resided . . . Ahead lay the Fount.