Kay kicked open the back door. Tristan hadn’t stopped asking stupid questions about the ocean the whole way back from the beach in between complaints about his feet hurting. Let them hurt. Kay shoved Tristan into one of the chairs at the table Helen had just stood up from.

“The idiot was on the beach.” Kay stomped back to the door and slammed it shut. “What were you doing? Going for a swim?”

“The shoes were an accident,” said Tristan. “I wanted to ascertain the exact properties of the red water. I’m sure it will be very useful in the future. Maybe it will even be important in defeating my enemies.”

Helen placed the knife she had snatched up back on the table. “Were you hurt at all? I can’t help if you lost any limbs but I can replace your shoes.”

“Only my pride was hurt,” said Tristan. “That and...ah, my feet are a bit cut up from running with no shoes on. Kay was really inconsiderate on the way back here. Are you a mystic, by any chance? I need to find one.”

Helen shot Kay a warning look. “I’m not a mystic or herbalist or anything like that,” she said, taking a pair of Kay’s old boots out of a trunk. “My name is Helen. I’m assuming you are Tristan? Did you come to Luer looking for a mystic?”

“Yes. I’m on a quest to defeat a great evil and I need a seer to give me a prophecy that I won’t believe and can try to make not come true.” Tristan helped himself to the bread sitting on the table.

Kay stared. Only someone from Birai would dare eat before they were offered food, and there were no farmers in Dymouth. What was Tristan planning? Could he be an assassin or spy? Who could have sent him? He didn’t seem smart enough to be dangerous. Kay shook his head. The sooner Tristan left the better.

“Stop sulking, Kay, and help Luis get some water. We need to get our guest’s feet tended to,” said Helen. “Can’t have him getting an infection.”

Kay scowled and stalked outside. Couldn’t have him getting an infection. Helen would be concerned about such things and not if her guest would stab her in a fit of insanity. Luis was already at the well in yard, lifting a bucket to the edge. Kay snatched it from her. The bucket dropped into the well with a satisfying smack. Kay growled. He’d have to retrieve it at some point, but not right now. Instead, he yanked the other bucket off its rope and hauled it inside.

Luis skipped ahead, ignoring Kay’s seething. He would apologize to her later. Tristan was still babbling to Helen about his life as a farmer and pig keeper, his quest to vanquish the villains who were going to destroy the world, and what it meant to suddenly find himself as the one chosen to do all this when he really didn’t want to be or do any of it. Kay narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t heard that Tristan didn’t want to go on a “quest” before, that was new. Either Tristan had more sense than Kay had given him credit for or he was lying. If he was lying about that, what else could he be lying about?

“I think I’ll travel south tomorrow,” Tristan said. “I need to find some clues to my enemies and I hear the towns along the mountains are quite dangerous. If anyone knows anything, they’ll be there.”

“That’s stupid.” Kay couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “It’s dangerous everywhere. That’s just the way the world is. But to deliberately go looking for danger is something only idiots would do. You seemed like an odd but decent person before—now you’re just flat out insane.”

Helen turned her eyes to the cealing as though an answer might be written there. “Kay. That was unnessecary.”

“No. You’re wrong.” Kay planted both hands on the table and glared at Tristan. “This boy declared I was destined to be his best friend earlier today and I refuse to be part of this—this--”

“Quest,” Tristan offered.

“Ah, yes. Quest.” Kay spat out the word like rotten meat. “I’m not going. I have a job here, and Helen and Luis. You can just leave in the morning and walk off a cliff for all I care.”

Kay strode out the back door, slamming it behind him. The alley was cool and calm. A gust of wind ruffled his hair. Kay stared up at the sky where the stars flickered between fragments of clouds. Usually the stars made him feel better, but not tonight. He couldn’t wait for Tristan to leave. There were several towns that could swallow a person, never to be seen or heard from again. And beyond those towns and the arm of the mountains was Elsarra. He had been there only once long ago when he first set sail. Men of sense didn’t go to Elsarra.

Kay turned down the alley, away from the pier and the beach. He let his feet take him to where there used to be a garden. But it was all dead trees and dried leaves now. Nothing grew well in Luer. Luis’ new seeds would probably die too. That was the way of life—there and then gone.

He watched the wind grate the shattered branches against the sky. As though they were trying to rake the stars from the heavens. If the stars fell, what would go wrong in the world next?

All the lights were out when he returned home. Everyone must be asleep already. Well, everyone except Helen. She stood quietly outside the door waiting for him. She always waited for him to come back when he stormed off. Kay stopped a few feet away from her.

“Feel better?” Helen peered at him from the shadows. “If you’re done getting angry at everyone, I have something to say to you.”