While neither Jasper, Tai, nor the clockmaker Skander are having the best of days, Giada's isn't going much better.

While opening the drapes in the rooms throughout the Taymon cottage that morning, she had had to keep herself from mistakenly ripping them right off of their fixtures. No matter how gentle she thought she was being, the drapes were tugged more aggressively than she intended, leaving her tense and irritable as she moved through the house.

Upon arrival for her work at the archives, she had been soothed by the familiarity of her surroundings, but this tranquility was disturbed in the late afternoon, when she caught the young student she was meant to be training flipping through one of the most fragile copies in the entire archival system. Giada had snatched the book back and scolded her abashed student, demanding to know how she had even managed to take it out of the locked case it had been in.

The altercation ended with her trainee subdued for the remainder of their time together, but still offering no satisfying explanation as to how the book was accessed in the first place.

Giada is frustrated: with her student, with her own overreaction, with the newfound strength that seems to trickle through her limbs. If opening the drapes was difficult, her usual tasks of handling rare books are near-painful in the amount of concentration it requires for her to not accidentally crush them into dusty scraps of paper. When she had snatched the book back from her trainee, she had been elated to find that it remained in one piece in her grip.

Her work finished for the day, the late afternoon sun muted for the moment by overhanging clouds, Giada goes to the place where she knows her mood will improve.

The archives, like the university, are located in Beledon's city center. The Taymon cottage lies much farther to the west, where congestion gives way to more scattered dwellings before ending at the western forest.

Instead of hailing a carriage to take her to the western end of the city walls, where she will make the rest of the way by foot, Giada heads east.

It's not a challenging walk, in and of itself, less than an hour's brisk pace from the archives. Still, its location will mean a later return to the cottage, and the possibility of her siblings waiting in futile frustration for her to show up to the evening meal on time.

Worth it, though. Always worth it.

She knocks on the door of a three-story townhouse with faded paintings of daisies along the border. Not a minute passes before the door is opened by Zahara's father, waving her in. He explains that her brother Dalmar is not at home, out attending to a patient, but Zahara is in her room.

Giada thanks him, then eagerly climbs the stairs to the attic, passing similar embellishments as the daisies on the door: on the furniture, walls, stretching down to the floor, an artist has clearly left her paint-stained touch throughout the home with images of vines, flowers, patterns of leaves.

Giada climbs the final steps to the attic, pleased to find Zahara in her usual sketching pose: lying down on the ground, paper spread before her and lead stylus in hand.

The attic isn't vast, but it is beautiful in the way that any space Zahara occupies would be, once she decides to call it her own. The light green walls are covered with images of bright pink flowers on vines that spiral to the ceiling, birds with beaks open as if mid-song. There is a quilted bed, a small chest of drawers, a table with a wooden chair (presumably for her to work on, but used more as a surface area of storage space) and little else.

Zahara looks up at her with her bright grin. Placing her stylus on the ground, she stands to pull Giada into a hug.

"You know, when I said I'd understand if you get preoccupied with work and pay less frequent visits, I was lying, right? Come more often than once a week if you want to keep me happy."

Giada glows. She moves to sit cross-legged on the floor near Zahara's sketching materials.

"I'm sorry, Zahara, but I really have been busy."

Zahara hums, assuming her earlier position and picking up the stylus once more, but she angles the paper and tilts her head to obstruct Giada's view as she draws.

"With work?" she asks.

Now it's Giada's turn to hum in reply, her eyes fixated on the waning sunlight coming through the attic window, a gentle fall that brightens the wood of the floor.

"I like Kalila, even if she is a little quiet and tense most of the time. But I caught her today looking at one of the oldest texts in my domain of the archives, without anyone's permission, and somehow getting past the locked case it was held in."

"Are you sure you didn't leave it unlocked yourself?"

Giada treasures Zahara's friendship over most things, but that doesn't stop her from feeling vaguely irked at this suggestion. "I would never."

Zahara taps her stylus against Giada's knee in apology. "Well, I doubt she has time to master lockpicking when she's already a student, trainee at the archives, and a fifteen-year-old in a sizable city." She pauses, looking thoughtful. "Do you know, I have no idea what fifteen-year-olds do for entertainment anymore. And I'm happy about it."

Giada looks at the way the sunlight continues to filter sweetly through the window, this time falling on the two braids in Zahara's hair, one laying along her back and the other hanging forward over the paper where she continues to sketch.

"You'll need to brush up on your knowledge of youth pastimes soon, though. Isn't your cousin coming to stay?"

"In two days, actually. I'm supposed to be clearing a space for her up here right now, so if my parents ask, that's what we were doing." She sets her stylus down and sits up.

"Here," she says, handing the paper to Giada.

Giada is pleasantly chilled to find that the sketch is of her.

In a series of quick strokes, Zahara has put together a remarkable likeness. The Giada of the picture mimics her current pose, legs crossed and eyes far away. She had even included the strands of Giada's hair falling out of their day-old updo. The drawn Giada has an intense look to her face, portrayed through the angle of her brows and some imperceptible glint in the eyes. Instinctively, she loves it.

You made this like it's nothing, but I'm going to keep it forever.

She is saved from having to express her embarrassingly emotional gratitude by Zahara's next question: "Have you given any more thought to figuring out your gift?"

"Well the more I think about it, the more I'm sure it's given me strength. I have to hold everything so much more carefully now, to keep from ripping or crushing them. It's less intense if I place the knife far away from me, but it's so hard to put down, somehow." She ruminates on this for a moment before continuing. "I found a note on it this morning that said 'Dragon', but that didn't help anything. You know I'm no artist, but even I could tell already that my knife's design is dragon-inspired."

Zahara tilts her head, soft voice coming out confused. "You got another note?"

"Didn't you?"

Zahara stands quickly and goes to the chest of drawers, where a small jewelry box lies on top, light pink roses painted on the lid. She opens it before triumphantly holding up a small piece of paper.

"I have one too," she says proudly.

Giada comes over to read it, sketch still held carefully in her hands. All it says is Shield.

"Try putting it on," she suggests.

Zahara acquiesces, pulling the golden amulet she received as a gift onto her neck.

Nothing happens.

"If it's a shield, then let's give it something to shield you from."

Giada picks up one of the blank pieces of paper from the floor, crumpling it in her hand before throwing it at Zahara with no warning.

It bounces off of her face.

Giada frowns and tries again, once more too quick for Zahara to counter.

"Are you aware that there are other parts of my body you could be throwing it at?"

Giada tries a third time, aiming now for Zahara's arms. This time, her friend sees it coming and holds out her hand to block it from hitting her body.

A faint golden light shimmers through the air where he fingers are, and the crumpled paper falls to the ground after not having touched her at all.

Giada steps forward in surprise.

Zahara looks at her own hands in wonder. It had been faint, more a dull glow than a proper light, but there had been some change in the air where her hand had moved to shield herself. The two friends exchange a glance, a veritable world of possibility on what exactly this gift is and what it could mean coming swiftly into their heads.

"Let's try that again!" Giada says, already reaching down to retrieve the paper.

But, curiously, Zahara shakes her head, her demeanor suddenly more lethargic than the now-early evening warrants.

"Maybe some other day."

Giada looks her over with a concerned eye.

"What's wrong?"

"I just... suddenly, I feel as if I need to rest. I don't think I can shield myself like that again right now. Maybe tomorrow. Or some other day, just after I sleep a little." She trails off, eyelids heavy.

Giada helps her take the amulet off and get to the bed, where Zahara rests her head on her arms to sink into sleep before even getting under the covers.

Giada looks at her, feeling helpless to do anything but leave.

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Having given up on Giada returning in time for their meal, and correctly guessing that she was either still at the archives or gone to visit Zahara, the three remaining Taymons spend the last light of day on their own pursuits.

Edeline is in the parlor room with Hilo, now less encumbered with the passing of his pupils' exams. Declaring that they wanted to get away from witnessing more of their sister's overly saccharine courtship, Rian and Fallon retreat outside, Fallon tending to his roses and Rian reading a book in the grass.

Fallon's gloved hands brush through the flowers in his garden, searching for any dead or spent ones to cut away. All the while, whispers filter upward through the soil, climb stems and jut against thorns and blossom, brilliantly, along with the roses as they strive to reach him, all echoing the same word written on the note left with his gift this morning: Witch, Witch, Witch.

Fallon does not know what to do about it. The word is no real clue, since his leather tome remains as blank as it ever was. The soil seeming to speak to him is new, though, but he doesn't know how to speak back.

Suddenly conscious of his brother's eyes on him, Fallon tries to school his face to look less concerned and preoccupied before meeting Rian's discerning gaze.

"What is it?" he asks as innocently as he can manage.

"You have an exam soon, right?" Rian places a finger between two pages of his book to keep his place as he addresses Fallon.

Fallon hums in acknowledgement. Of his three siblings, Rian is the most likely to remember such a detail. "So?"

"So, shouldn't you be studying?"

"Shouldn't you be getting a job?"

Rian just squints at him before returning to his book.

Fallon is about to fall back into his own task when something in the far trees on the other side of the yard catches his eye. He stands upright for a better view.

Something pale moves through the trees, the sun's waning light just enough to illuminate a set of sharp teeth, coming closer.

Author's Note: One of this story's tags is 'romance' but I haven't gotten explicit about that aspect of it yet. Purely out of curiosity, are there any guesses as to which characters that applies to? (Edeline and Hilo don't count, since I hit the reader over the head with that one).