I tell them about inuriagi, my new friends, the necromancy, the botched ‘escape’ and I am crying and barely able to tell them about everything Ebony went through. We had at some point moved to sit in a circle on the ground, my back against a boulder, and the entire time my eyes are focused on the ground in front of me.

A moment of silence passes as I finish.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

Wrapped completely around myself and the rock behind me, I finally look up, and the first thing I see is Lory’s broken face.

As I mutter the words, her face turns to anger, and the responds.

“You should be.” She says quietly. The others snap out of their lost faces and look at her confused. “You just watched.” She says again.

“Lory-” Jacob starts to scold, but she stands up, cutting him off.

“She was bleeding out in your arms, and you did nothing!” she yells, tears streaming down her face, and mine start anew because I know she is right.

I hug myself tighter and tighter and tighter, nails biting into my skin as I watch, wide eyed, as Jacob and Tom stand up, grab Lory’s arm, and she falls into them, Silver popping up with fear on his face as he watches with me.

“You have magic, you could have done something, made some potion, something! Why did you just let her die?!” she wails the last part into Toms shirt as he holds her in a hug.

I look back down at the dirt, knowing she is right.

There must have been some spell, some potion, but I just wouldn’t think of it…

“Lory, stop.” Jacob says gently as he strokes her back. I wish I could disappear.

I wish it had been me that died.

“Hey,” Silver is suddenly crouched besides me. His face is full of denial and confusion but he pushes a smile through still. For me. He shouldn’t do all of this for me. I let Ebony die, I-

“I’m s-” I start to say through tears, the words almost shut down again just like yesterday, but he cuts me off.

“You know she doesn’t mean it, right?” he tries to say it in his usual light way but his voice is to shaky, and he clears his throat.

Of course she means it, she has every right to, and why would she say it if she didn’t?

He gently, with as little contact as possible, uncurls my fingers from my arms, where there are deep red indents left from my nails biting into me. He finally loses his smile and just looks worried.

I try to say something again, but I can only mouth it.

‘Sorry’ I mouth to him. Sorry for making you worried, sorry for bringing this to you, sorry for losing her when I should have done some-

He shakes his head.

“May I…?” he asks, gesturing for a hug. I nod, doing the one thing I can for him after everything I have done.

He wraps his arms around me and holds me for moments, more than I expected, and I don’t hate it. While it is still uncomfortable, it is nice to be compressed wholly, the pressure helping to take some of the internal pressure off, and as I feel a tear drip onto my shoulder, I timidly return the favor, squeezing him, not quite sure if my arms are in the right positions but hoping I am helping at least a fraction as much as he is helping me right now.

We finally draw apart and I look at Lory again, on the ground being comforted by a disturbed and confused set of twins, but I can see that she is not quite as angry as she was moments before.

Silence slices through us, seeming to stretch the gap between me and her, and Silver goes over to comfort her as well.

Time passes and eventually everyone calms down as much as they can. We circle back up, Lory glaring at me at first but then refusing to look at me, and Silver and Tom leaning on Jacobs shoulders, Jacob with his head on Toms. He seems to be the least disturbed by all of this, having not been as close with Ebony as everyone else was.

“So what do we do now?” he asks no one in particular.

The words echo through my mind, all to similar to the ones spoken by Wey what feels like so long ago. My heart picks up a beat as my brain struggles for a moment to discern the two situations, one now seeming so much more realistic, and for a moment I question who I am sitting with, stuck far beneath the surface of my memories.

“It… It sounded like they had a plan…” Tom says timidly, drawing me out of my head.

He looks deep in thought, Silver on the other side looking the same as he fiddles with some blades of grass in front of him.

“Yea- why are you here and not going to that Council thing you were so worried about getting to?” Lory says, glaring at me once more.

“I… didn’t have enough supplies…” I say sheepishly, knowing that it is not the full truth.

She rolls her eyes at me, but Tom, Silver, and Jacob look at me like they know.

“So you need supplies? We can get you some.” She says curtly.

Silver shoots a soft glare at her before turning to me. “Of course your not going alone, though. I’ll bring the wagon that we used so that we don’t have so much on our backs. The horse food takes up quite a bit of space in that but it still is helpful,” He says.

Now my brows bunch together. “What do you mean?”

“What? I am coming with.” He says, and the twins beside him nod.

Lory looks slightly taken aback, and at first the hesitates, but eventually nods as well, not looking at me.

“You shouldn’t-” I start.

“Yeah, we should.” He says.

I feel terrible. I brought all of this onto them, and instead of choosing to live their normal lives, they want to come to a place that might be dangerous for them? Who would want to abandon everything they know?

I shake my head, knowing there is no way to make them change their mind when they have that expression on their face, fractured as it may be.

Silver turns to Lory, who sits beside him, and quietly asks her if she is ready to go. She takes a moment and a breath before nodding.

“But only for Ebony.” She says, purposefully louder than Silver had. “If those people at this ‘Council’ can stop her awful parents, I’ll do it.”

I was about to correct her in that her parents weren’t awful, they are quite nice really, but I see no point in it, knowing she might interpret it as me defending them during their inuriagi use.

“Shall we get packing then? Sounds like this should happen sooner rather than later.” Silver stands up and stretches, offering a hand to help Lory up, giving her a pat on the back when she is standing.

Bile rises to my throat at what I am about to say and make us do, but it has to be done.

“We…” I take a breath and choke down what is in my throat. “We should bury Ebony before we leave.” I say quietly, again not looking at Lory.

The blood leaves everyone’s faces, but they eventually nod.

“It is usually done at night, so we have time to do other stuff first,” I clarify, though as I say it I realize that we might have to use a different method than normal because of her proximity to the village. I suppose we could just bury her body whole rather than burn it…

“Then let’s start packing,” Silvers voice still cracks but he says the words in a cheerful tone, clapping his hands together dramatically.

“Oh, yea, you need new cloths, don’t you?” Silver says as we near the vast village again.

I look down at myself and nod sheepishly. “I didn’t bring any spare over-garments.”

He looks between me and Lory for a moment, then says, “Maybe you could borrow some of Lory’s cloths?”

Lory souls and rolls her eyes.

“Right, Lory” he says forcingly, and she reluctantly nods.

I awkwardly nod a thanks to her, but she already isn’t looking, which brings feeling I cannot quite discern, but know I do not like. I had expected her to be mad at me, all of them to be actually, but the longer this draws on, the more I realize that this might permanently change our relationship. My heart speeds up and I look up at the sky, blinking back tears.

Just yet another change in this now vast sea of them.

We cut through the outskirts of the town again till we are little more than halfway to the other side. We turn and inter the fray, all of them, even Lory, subtly positioning themselves around me so that I am not seen.

We arrive at Lory’s small house that it squished on ether side by a barber shop and a candy shop.

She brings me up the stairs, assuring me that her parents were out at their work and that she was the only child living there.

She picks out some cloths that she does not mind lending, though she now minds lending them specifically to me, and she leaves as I change into one that looks relatively similar to what I usually wear. The fabric is much smoother than the usual fabric that I would wear, though it feels thinner as well, and the yellow is more on the green side, though it is barely noticeable and still passes for simply a dark yellow, and the trim and details are a deep orange. It even fits me perfectly, though the sleeves may be a tad to long on the coat.

I pick two more, a green one with a yellow sash and a white one with a red sash, which she haphazardly stuffs into a back hanging on a rack.

“Um… how did you come by this gown?” I ask, for these colors are not her usual style, and she is taller than me so the skirt fitting relatively perfectly is odd, for it does not look old.

“I don’t know, I just did.” She says curtly.

She locks the door behind us as I look around. Where could they have gone?

Silvers identifying hair catches my eye to the right, and they come up. Silver saunters over, excitedly and proudly holding open a paper cartridge of wrapped, colorful… oh! They are human candies.

He gives Lory a look as he sees me, but she ignores it.

“Silver, do we really have the money to be doing this?” Lory says, coming up beside me and crossing her arms.

“Oh, of course!” he says dramatically, and a smile peaks through my lips as Jacobs face does the same, shaking his head.

Lory stays home to pack, Silver handing her a brown colored candy as we leave. We travel on the outskirts once again, Silver enthusiastically points at each brightly colored piece stuffed in a tube with the top torn off, listing off the flavors that should not be giving them that color.

I pick a strawberry one, and the paper is hard and chalky as I take it and slip it into my mouth.

The flavor jumps at me, much sweeter than I had expected, and the texture is that of chalk, the tablet dissolving in my mouth, leaving an overly sweet aftertaste.

“What kind of candy is this?” I ask as we near Tom and Jacobs home, somehow even smaller that Lory’s.

“…C-candy…?” he says with a shrug, gaining a small chuckle out of Jacob, who shakes his head.

“The cheapest ones,” He says.

“Read the package, mutton-heads,” Tom says, swatting his brother in the back of the head slightly as we arrive upon the door. Their mood tones down as they turn the key, noticing the apparent wear on even the outside of the house.

“We shall see you a dusk, my fellows!” Silver calls as we leave, earning another smile by Jacob as he slips through the door, the click of a lock sliding back into place being only faintly hear as I turn around and follow Sliver home.

“So, learn any new spells?” he says quietly once we reach the outskirts again.

I nod, sadness overtaking me and he looks frightened immediately.

“Sorry, sorry, you don’t have to think about that if you don’t want to…” he says, knowing that it was with Ebony that I always learned new spells.

I mumble a sorry as well and we continue on in an awkward silence for a second.

“Y’know, Lory actually got that dress for you while we were traveling, her own little memento.”

She did?

I look down at the dress, the fit and design finally making sense. And that must mean…

I had seen a new looking teal dress with a reddish-purple sash in the closet, and had momentarily noticed Lory looking at it with an expression I could not quite make out. Those were always her colors, and now that I think about it, the dress did not seem as if it would fit her.