And her name is…

When I push the wardrobe door open the sun filters through the drawn curtain and my glasses are still in place at the door. I drag the pillow and blanket back to the bed and remake it a little less perfectly than it was. Then I start getting ready for the day, looking through the closet for a pair of pants and a sweater.

When I’m done I sit on the bed and wait. Nyx is right. I don’t want to wander the house alone. I’m not afraid of getting lost, I’m more afraid of people knowing I’m here.After a few minutes I start searching the room again, looking for anything weird and memorizing every object in the space. If anything is added or removed I want to know about it.

I’m just exiting the bathroom when I hear a knock at the door and rush to return the glasses to their place before opening it. Nyx is standing there in another jumpsuit, adjusting her glasses with a large smile on her face that only grows when she sees me.

“I half thought you might take off in the night. I’m so glad you didn’t. Here,-“ she hands me two keys and points to them. “This is the key to the room, and house keeping’s copy. I figured you wouldn’t want anyone coming in without your knowledge, and they know to leave fresh linens and towels with me. We’ll change your bed together and bring the laundry down to them when we’re done.”

I find myself smiling too despite myself. I didn’t think it could be possible for someone I’ve just met tounderstand me so well, but my smile dips a bit as I wonder if she has other motives…

“Stop that,” she scolds me playfully, linking her arm with mine and placing one of the keys on the table inside the room as she pulls me along. “I’ve been where you are, I’ve seen people where you are, and I understand the types of things that cause the most unnecessary anxiety.” She waits outside the room with me as I lock the door and tuck the key into my pocket. “I want to earn your trust, but I also want to deserve it. I’m okay waiting for your friendship, because I think you’re worth it.” I’m blushing and she’s smiling. “I don’t think wanting to kill ki.. Kheliq makes you a bad person. I don’t even think wanting to kill his whole court makes you a bad person. Most of us here are because we’re part of the Sun Set court ruled byHelion but couldn’t play bocce with Kheliq.”

“Awe why not. He’s so personable,” I chide and she snorts.

We make it to breakfast and everyone watches us enter. I meet everyone’s eyes and take the same seat I’d ended in the night before. Most of them look away after I look at them, except Tiago who looks ready to talk.

“Don’t everyone be thrilled I didn’t leave all at once.” I laugh. “With me it’s always best to lower your expectations.”

As Tiago is about to speak the plates are being put down, and he tosses my cutlery without missing a beat. “So I was thinking, about you not dying and not killing anyone, and wanted to ask you about your affinity.”

My eyes follow the fork as it bounces down the table and when they dart back to Tiago and his completely serious expression I can’t help but laugh. It starts as a giggle I try to stop, but I can’t and then soon I’m grinning and laughing at this large, seriously kind man.

I take both of his hands in both of mine and lean down to kiss the knuckles of his thumbs. “Thank you Tiago. I’ll answer whatever you want.”

Nyx scoffs jokingly. “I didn’t get a ‘thank you’ like that.”

“You weren’t raised in Thuadhi like Tiago where that is how you show appreciation,” I return, still smiling at Tiago as I drop my hands.

“You’re from Thuadhi?” He gasps.

I shake my head and snort, “no. I’m from Darlenten; born, raised, and spent all my days.” I see the question forming and I know the others are thinking the same. “Do you think I’d be born with the affinity I have and my mom just kept everything from me? My hair is blue,” I giggle again. “Even in a small town that’d be weird, but regardless my mom told me everything I needed to know, some of that being cultural.”

“How’d you know that’s where I’m from?” Tiago asks, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Because you made me laugh, I’ll even give you that answer for free. But really, you look like you’ve been trained to pull trees from the ground since you could walk, an affinity like transportation would best fit with the trackers and hunters, andyouwerethe one to find me at the lake, right? Thuadhi.” I shrug.

He marvels a little. “Well you’re right, and I appreciate you knowing my culture. None of the rest of ’em bother.” He barks a laugh and then returns, “So about your affinity…”

I daintily slide an egg onto a bit of bread. “Ask away.”

“Yesterday you coughed blood and said you can’t drain dead things… but then after the potted plant you looked.. better? But they’re both wood…?” I see his question, and he’s trying to be unnecessarily polite.

I finish my bite and then point around the room to corresponding items. “Activeenergy, as instillalive, and renewing its own energy can feed me. That’s people, creatures, and plants. Things, like anything wooden, metals, natural fibres; these things have no way to renew their energy so it isinactive. Things like plucked fruit out picked fruits, things that can’t renew but lose energy over time give energy but it’s not usually substantial. I can still take the energy when it’s inactive, but the effort to what I get from it usually is net negative.”

“Does it need to die?” Tiago asks, and he does it so plainly I know he’s killed before.

I shake my head.

“Anyone on death row?” Ealdian asks nonchalantly.

“Does it hurt?” Nyx asks instead.

I shrug. “Doesn’t need to be. They can quietly just fall asleep or… not so quietly. -And before you ask, my first escape attempt didn’t go well.”

They all just stare at me, but this is something I won’t apologize for. The smile pinches at the corners of my mouth remembering what I did. My attempt may have failed, but the abuse from the guards took a step back after that, even if it picked up when Kheliq was there.

I shook my head clear and looked at Tiago. “Is that the answer you were hoping for?”

He looks to Vera. “I bet you there’s a section of forest ready to lose its leaves that won’t be noticed if they do so early…”

She pouts, then nods. “It’s a walk though. You’ll need more clothes…”

“You aren’t seriously about to give her power, are you?” Ealdian retorts, and honestly I’m proud of him. “She smiled while admitting to killing people, and we don’t even know why he caught her!”

They all look toward me and I check my face.

“There’s a question in theresomewhere, I just know it,” I return, saccharine sweet of course.

“Why did King Kheliq have you in the dungeon?” Ignacio asks.

“Because when you have magic blood, you want to always know where it is. Personally I’ve always preferred it in me but Kheliq liked it in a jar, on the floor, across the walls…”

“You know what I mean!” Ignacio snaps out and I shoot him a glare.

“To be clear, I could kill you all in a second, but Nyx took my pain away and Tiago threw my fork so I like them. The rest of you just have something I want, information, and, I’m hoping, a way back in his court.” I stand and they all lean away from me a little. “I have been snapped at and questioned for six years in that dungeon, and while I’ll tolerate the second from you for this exchange, I willnotput up with the first.”

His expression softens. “I’m sorry. I just mean… someone like you would be one hell of an ally. I just don’t understand what led you to be in his custody?”

I sigh and sit down. “I helped someone. Darlenton is on the human side of the mountains, and apparently some stupid Sioga went too far. He fell down the cliff face and ended up at our lake on the shore. He was broken and bleeding to shit and I saved him… and he went back to tell his cousin, Kheliq, about the magical girl he’d met.

“From what I gathered they couldn’t find the village. I had brought him back up to a path on the south side and sent him on his way. They were searching for me for weeks apparently, and then we had our annual fireworks…”

“And it led them right to you,” Ealdian finishes and I nod.

“They didn’t ask for help, they didn’t give me the option of coming. He didn’t want an ally, he wanted a possession. Kheliq marvelled at how normal I looked and started killing people so I’d know I was alone….”

I stand up suddenly and my chair falls backward, crashing to the floor. They jump, or at least I assume they do, but I’m more focused on the window. I’m not ready to remember the details of that night and I won’t cry in front of strangers. I’m not sure if they’re talking to me but I can hear the murmur of voices behind me and I feel someone approach, but I skirt to the side to avoid their touch.

When I meet their eyes it’s Nyx’s soft expression that looks into my cold dead one. “You have every reason to not trust us. I…” her voice cracks and she hesitates. “I was the healer for Kheliq’s prison for decades… when I finally got out.. those memories will haunt me for the rest of my life… It’s not the same. I know it’s not the same. But you don’t need to be alone.”

I don’t nod this time. I just look at her, a healer that would have helped him break and rebreak people, and touch my top lip briefly to my nose.

Then Tiago is near me as well, far enough that I couldn’t reach out and touch him, but near enough that his voice doesn’t carry very far. “What will you do if you get back inside Kheliq’s domain?”

“I’ll kill him,” I return easily.

He glances over to the end of the table I ruined and the plant I nearly killed. “What stopped you before?”

I grit my teeth. “I tried. There’s something different about him. I was too weak to kill him without dying first, and after that attempt .. they made it clear I’d die before accomplishing my goal. My death isn’t worth it unless I can take him with me.”

He nods with understanding and remorse. “I have my own reasons for wanting him dead, but I’ll leave that honour to you if you promise to make it hurt.”

I reach my hand out towards him. “You have my word.”

He doesn’t hesitate in taking my wrist as I grab his and we shake them once solid.

We return to the table and our breakfast. There is a nice lack of conversation for a while until Tiago tells me he thinks I should work out with him when I’ve regained my strength. Nyx immediately started to yell at him that I’ve been starved for a half dozen years and the last thing I should be doing is lifting weights. I countered that lifting a jar of tomatoes would probably require a spotter and he returned that he had heard of an affinity like mine, passed down as a story through generations, and that I’d be fine in a week.

I won’t tell him I think he’s right. Even as they are discussing what areas of trees I could siphon energy from, and whether siphoning sick trees would make me sick, I remain uncharacteristically silent. Ealdian grumbles about the idea the whole time, and Ricard has apparently found his voice to flat out refuse being a part of anything I’m involved in. Don’t know what I did to deserve his ray of sunshine but hey I’m not going to let him shit on my parade.

Two hours after I’ve woken up, I’ve eaten and I’m in a room full of people giggling and sewing away at winter clothes. The loudest of them is a man who seems to head their little group and he tsks at how small I am.

“You better be in here sizing up every week,” he orders. “I’ll tell the kitchen to put extra meat and potatoes on your plate. Really, I’ve clothed children that used more fabric than you.”

I’m laughing but Nyx is scolding him and brieflytells him I was in Kheliq’s prison.The others in the room gasp but to his credit he doesn’t even look at me all that differently. It was like he had already guessed something to that degree.

Then he tsks his tongue again and whispers, “I’ll tell the kitchen extra desserts too.”