“Get home while you still can.” The words hastily flung at me stung as old woman rattled by her cane thumping over the ground. I knew she hadn’t meant them to hurt. She couldn’t have known what she said. Who she spoke too.

Don’t enter the Crystal Woods. The oft repeated warning rang in Silia’s ears though she could not recall who’d first given it. Or who had warned that entering bore… dire consequences.

The power writhed between Ellyn’s hands fighting against her direction. Or perhaps lightning, powerful and blinding in its grandeur. Raging at the audacity of thinking it could be touched by her.

Alfren knew he stood in the woods. Trees had surrounded him moments before. And yet… they’d melted away leaving him in night’s darkness leaning toward the music.

“They killed all the truths.” Antold’s words were flippantly stated as he scurried up the spiral staircase to the bookshelves lined the second floor of his sanctum.

Janessa knew better than to trust Finy’s declaration of “I won’t hate you!” But standing in the shade of the rubber castle as the swings creaked nearby, she wanted to. Too much of her short life had been spent alone, and the chance to share her wonder proved over tempting.

Kathe and Leane darted out of the mouth of the cave with their packs rattling from the pots and pans hastily tied to their packs. Kathe clutched an array of trinkets she hadn’t had time to stow. Stopping abruptly at the cliff’s edge. a few bits tumbled away.

Ratina’s dreams had ever been vivid, a fact her kin, especially her long-suffering mother, had lamented her entire life. Either they lost her too them (ah, the dreams which drifted pleasant), or they were woken by them (when they weren’t she screamed to wake the dead). Either way, Ratina never forgot a moment of them.