"I just think that an axe would solve most of my problems."

"I'm not saying I disagree," Rian tells her, hands curled around a cup of warm milk. "But why exactly do you think so?"

In this dreary weather, even the brightness of Giada's hair seems dull and diminished.

She sits with her brother in one of the reading nooks in the library, each on a large cushion with woven quilts spread across their laps. Their books lay forgotten on the floor by their sides as Rian sips from his cup. When he sees Giada eying the drink, he passes it to her to try.

Overlooking the reading nook is a window, providing an easy view to the oppressive mid-November fog. The library is comfortable, though, aided by the warmth from the fireplace that Giada had eagerly stoked.

On the other side of the floor, Rian can see Lionel and Zahara in the library as well, which he finds strange given that Zahara's not nearly as passionate of a reader as Giada, and he doesn't think he's ever seen Lionel pick up a book.

Still, they must have been drawn to the coziness of the room. Curled up together on an armchair definitely not meant for two people, they make do by sitting close, Zahara laying her legs over Lionel's.

He's sewing a pocket onto one of her skirts, offering to do so after she had complained once about not having any. She alternates between watching him work, thanking him for his help, and dozing off to the sound of his gentle humming.

As far away as he is, Rian can't hear whatever song Lionel lilts under his breath. He doesn't mind; it seems like it's only for Zahara, anyway.

Giada glances at them now and again, but always brings her eyes resolutely back to Rian.

"The chimera gave me this knife," she says. "And the knife gives me strength. But if I'm so strong, I need a bigger weapon. I'm tired of daggers; they feel like toys in my hand."

"That makes sense," says Rian, accepting the cup of milk she hands back to him. "Where will you get one?"

Giada had always been the one to chop their firewood back at the cottage, but wielding a woodchopping axe and a battle one feel like two very different skills, albeit with some overlap.

His sister is capable, though: bright in almost every way. He knows that already.

"The armory is crawling with every kind of weapon. I'll just pick one from there. And since no one in the citadel knows how to use one, I'll find someone from the garrison willing to teach me," she says.

Rian nods, looking down at the loose red threads escaping from his quilt. "You said it would solve most of your problems. What other problems did you mean?"

Giada looks at him, surprised. I slipped, she thinks. She shouldn't have worded it like that to Rian, of all people. Words don't pass him by. He tucks them carefully away, picking through every part of a sentence to make sure he hasn't missed anything.

She can't tell him about Zahara and needing a distraction while she works past her distraught feelings. It would break open a part of herself he's unaccustomed to seeing.

Thankfully, she's saved from answering by Fallon and Edeline.

"See? I told you they'd be here," Fallon says. He drops like a masterless puppet next to Rian, carefully pulling the quilt around them both so that they're equally covered.

"I didn't disagree with you," Edeline says. She leans against the wall of the nook. "What were you two talking about?"

"Giada's getting an axe."

Edeline blinks. "She's what?"

"Getting an axe. No more little knives for me, Edeline. I'm ready to cleave some specters in two."

"That sounds terrible," says Fallon.

"Good luck," says Edeline.

————————————————————

Oh, who cares? Jasper thinks. None of this matters.

He stares down at the intimidatingly large stack of papers on his desk at Cadeus Falls. It's daunting. It's time-consuming. It's tedious. He'll make a mistake, he knows it.

Oh, well. What's the absolute worst that could happen?

If he fails this task completely, he could lose his clerking position. He wouldn't be able to pay for his lodging without finding a new place to work, so it'll be either that or go back home to his parents.

Alternatively, to obtain money he could ask Viveka for a few pieces of her jewelry and sell them, which would set him up comfortably for the foreseeable future. She has some staggeringly ornate pieces. Or he could ask Marikit for tips on a life of piracy to get by. He could even steal from Tai, which he doesn't have many qualms about.

Having considered all of this, Jasper concludes that he isn't without options. Even in this worst of scenarios, he'd find his way somehow.

Besides, what's a stack of paper? When broken down to its individual parts, it's nothing but flimsy thinness.

That's nothing to Jasper. He's traveled worlds, he's escaped specters, he's come close to losing his name and his soul at the May Market.

How can this hurt him?

With that in mind, he begins.

————————————————————

What Tai lacks in emotional intelligence, he makes up for in self-assurance.

Which is to say, he can be both oblivious and conceited.

Neither of these traits serve him well when he travels back to the citadel, trying to beat the heightening sharpness of the evening air. He stews silently from atop his horse, aggravated by what he perceives to be a wasted handful of days.

The sky is gray, the trees of the western woods grow brittle, the winds are cutting, and Tai cares for none of it because he feels insulted. His father had recovered quickly as he had guessed, but in all his four days at Beledon, Tai hadn't been granted an audience with Aedus Kade. The council is resolute that he should receive no visitors. There had been some sort of breakthrough in his training with the grizzled old veteran, and now he progresses at an unprecedented rate.

"He'll be the finest swordsman in Beledon by the time the year is out," one councilman had insisted excitedly to Tai.

How? He picked up his family heirloom sword for the first time only six months ago. How can he surpass all the old veterans like Tai's mother— or the people who had been training from childhood like him— in less than half a year?

It's baffling, impossible. It feels like wishful thinking on the part of the people of the city. As if some no-name farm boy will be the key to salvation only because they shove him toward the lock and insist it's so.

And now Tai's wasted his four days of visiting Beledon for the month. Whenever anyone with a chimera gift or who resides in the citadel would like to visit, they send a letter of request to the council. For everyone but Hilo, who comes more often for his work, those days of visitation are limited to four a month, barring extraordinary circumstances.

Insulted, annoyed, and whirling with questions about Aedus Kade, Tai's mind is so preoccupied that he doesn't see the specters coming.

Typically, when someone like Hilo makes the journey back and forth through the wild, he welcomes the aid of Lionel, whose raven form monitors the way from above to spot any specters and suggest areas to avoid. Tai had scoffed at that and travels with nothing but his borrowed horse.

Truthfully, the specters blend into the drained color of the landscape so well that even being more alerted wouldn't have helped him much. The first one emerges from seeming nothingness to grab hold of his leg from where he sits astride his horse, talons piercing through the cloth of his trousers just over his boots. Tai hisses at the sudden pain.

He kicks out his leg to dislodge the monster and send it to the ground, spurring his horse on faster before it can clamber back to him. He's almost to the citadel; he can see the hill it stands on through the bare tangle-work of the trees.

As Tai's horse covers the distance between the specter and the hill, he turns his head back. The monster follows, and it isn't alone. Tai counts nearly a dozen of them in total. Inflated opinion of himself as he has, even he knows that he doesn't stand a chance against the entire group at once.

The walls encircling the outpost are in sight, soldiers lazily lounging about the top as they always are. Tai tries to summon enough breath to shout for their attention as he races across the plain, but there's no need. They've already spotted him and his pursuers.

Tai brings his horse to the foot of the hill, urging it up the road to the gates. Above him, the soldiers stationed on the wall loose arrows through the sky. Nearly half of the specters fall, but there are still seven coming.

Tai's horse has outdistanced them easily. He could retreat inside the walls with it and let the soldiers take care of the rest, but that isn't his way. Let him show the members of the garrison what his gift can really do.

Unwilling to bring the animal into the altercation, he dismounts. Landing on his feet freezes him for a moment, stunned by the swipes of pain running up from the slash on his right leg. It's such an icy sensation, with an undercurrent of cruel, hazy heat. Is this what Rian bore? His respect for Edeline's quiet younger brother grows.

The soldiers on the wall let loose another round of arrows as the remaining specters reach the foot of the hill. More fall, leaving only three. Now that, Tai can handle, even in this state.

He drags himself over to a better vantage point, watching the specters climb up to him. He takes the vial of sand and uncorks it, letting the material fall fast into his hand.

Within seconds, a long spear has swirled to life in his grip. Tai brings his arm back over his shoulder, takes aim, and throws.

The gray of the spear arcs through the air, cutting true through the whiteness of a specter's chest and pinning it to the earth. Its two companions remain unfazed, relentless in their chase.

The sand of the protruding spear dissolves back into its original form, leaving the lifeless body and flowing toward Tai's outstretched hand. He wills it into a sword; the monsters are now close enough to make it preferable.

It's easy work for a man whose mother handed him a sword fifteen years ago, and trained him ever since. The two specters fall dead within minutes, a tangled mess of pale bodies and red blood. There, Tai thinks. Let Aedus Kade do that if he can. If he isn't too busy being coddled and fawned over.

Every time Tai had shifted or put pressure on his right leg, a wave of agony beat against him. Even when he stills after the fight, the sensation echoes, leaving him light-headed. He crushes the sword back into sand and returns it to its usual bottle. 

Guards stream from the gates to congratulate Tai on his little victory, but they falter when they see the way he limps. A few come to his aid and slowly, painstakingly, stars and sparks and the alternating gain and loss of heat wreaking havoc in his head, Tai is aided past the gates that close decisively behind him.

"Take me to Fallon. And Dalmar, up at the citadel." His horse still carries Fallon's jar of salve, but that had been for a bite, not the sinking of talons into flesh that ails Tai now. 

"You shouldn't go all the way up in this state. Stay here while our own physician tends you, and we'll get a messenger to bring those two down," says one of the soldiers. She sends for someone to dash up the rest of the hill to ask for Dalmar and Fallon.

Between one blink and the next it seems (he isn't sure, his senses feel muffled) he's sitting down on a stool, and one of the garrison's physicians is propping his leg up to clean the wound and examine it.

Tai feels tense. This isn't Dalmar, who he's accustomed to being tended to on the rare occasions he lets himself. And it isn't Fallon, with his mystic book.

The physician takes note of the rigid way Tai holds himself. His eyes are unfocused from the pain, but the rest of his face is stubborn in its refusal to show it.

In an attempt to preoccupy him as he dabs at the cut, the physician uses an old, tried-and-true tactic for distraction. "Got a sweetheart waiting for you, back home?"

Tai knows exactly what the man is trying. But he isn't some ordinary, gullible soldier sighing away at whatever lovely thing he imagines waiting for him when he returns. He won't participate.

"Yes," he says.

The cut must be poisoned. I've lost my mind.

The physician, relieved to get a reaction from  a patient so reticent, keeps going. "Beautiful?"

Tai's eyes remain unfocused, for a different reason now. "Very," he murmurs.

"What else?"

As the physician continues his work, Tai goes on. "Perceptive. Easygoing." His mind tries to retrace itself back to the pain again and again. But he's been told by many that he can be stubborn, and he uses that now to drag it away. "Hardworking."

The physician gives him an encouraging smile. "Well, with good luck and proper care, you may be reunited soon."

Tai, pensive now, glances down at his leg, cleaned of stray blood. "Thank you."

Outside the room is a small commotion of worried voices. Fallon and Dalmar must have arrived.

The door is pushed open, and while the two he had been anticipating are the first to enter, they aren't the only ones. Edeline's blonde head is visible right behind them, Zahara asks after him worriedly, and even Kit ducks in. Skander is there too, his eyes anxiously scanning over Tai. Behind them, it sounds like even more of the citadel's residents have come down. He can pick out Giada saying something to Rian.

Puzzle worms his way through their legs and leaps onto Tai's lap. He makes a disgruntled noise at the sudden weight, but pets the cat anyway.

Narrowing his eyes at the group and trying to keep his head above the overwhelming waves of attention and pain, Tai asks, "Why are there so many of you? It's completely unnecessary."

But inside, he feels warm.

(And not just from the poison.)