19. Accident

nineteen

The next week passed in a blur as the meeting that would decide their fate in the Enclave drew ever closer. Adrian tried to tell himself it didn't matter. He and Seymour had survived on their own for months—they could do it again. Even if they failed to garner the Enclave's support, they could still enact their scheme to infiltrate a watcher fortress and enter the Diamond Cup.

Somehow, the thought offered little comfort. He wanted to earn these villagers' trust and respect not only because they'd make valuable allies in the fight against Serenity Corp—though a back-up plan wouldn't hurt—but also because he wanted a place, a people, to call his own. Thus, he kept up his regular discussions in the mornings, Seymour joining him more often than not, and devoted the rest of his free time to tournament preparations.

A major part of that focused on training with Heartrender. If she couldn't manage a complex enough Mirror Image to serve as a disguise, then the rest didn't matter. Adrian could tell Lockrod felt neglected by all the attention Heartrender was receiving. He had the daemon practicing on his own, but it wasn't the same as running drills with his daemon master.

I'll make it up to you, he promised after ordering Lockrod away for the third day in a row. Though Lockrod tried to muffle it, his dejection filtered through their bond, making Adrian cringe. Spirits below, there simply weren't enough hours in the day!

Footsteps jarred him from his harried thoughts, and he looked up to find Freya striding toward them. A quivering pile of ever-shifting goo about the size of a small dog trailed behind her, drawing curious stares from passing villagers. Adrian tried not to stare himself as the amorphous daemon stretched and elongated, only to sink back to a rounded blob.

"He started following me around after I gave him some aether," Freya explained when she caught Adrian's curious gaze. "His name is Metamire." Her tone grew defiant. "Personally, I think he's rather cute." She jutted out her chin as if daring him to disagree.

The ooze-like daemon expanded and contracted, reminding Adrian of a beating heart. Cute. Right. He swallowed back laughter as he nodded. To each their own, he supposed.

"I can take him with me today if you want," Freya said.

Adrian blinked, feeling like he'd missed something. "Um, what?"

She pointed to Lockrod, who perked up. "Lockrod. He can tag along with Metamire and me if he needs a break from training. I'm not doing anything exciting—just a few chores around the village. But I bet Metamire would appreciate the company."

Metamire quivered gelatinously in what might have been excitement. Lockrod eyed the daemon as if weighing his options. Then, he chittered and scampered over to Freya.

"Thanks," Adrian said as she reached down to scratch behind his daemon's ears. "He's been feeling a bit down lately. A break would do him good."

"Not a problem." Something flickered behind her eyes, quickly suppressed. "I've never even experienced a daemonic bond before, so it's not like there's much else I can do to help."

Again, he sensed her leave something unsaid. More questions about the true bond, perhaps? He let it go as she wandered off with Metamire and Lockrod. He had plenty else to occupy him.

It turned out Seymour had been right to worry. While Heartrender's control over her technique was greater than ever, what he was asking her to do far exceeded her previous limits. The main problem was accounting for movement. She could create an image of a person easily enough and even anchor it to Adrian. This worked okay when he was standing still. The instant he shifted position, however, portions of his body poked through the static image. The end result resembled a carved cutout of a person being waved about.

It wasn't until he spied a group of kids playing with a wooden puppet, complete with jointed limbs attached to strings, that the solution hit him. Instead of anchoring the entire Mirror Image to a single spot, Heartrender could attempt to anchor the illusion at multiple points along his body. That way, segments of the image would shift along with the matching limbs underneath.

Doing so proved easier said than done due to the incredible quantities of aether and focus required, but Adrian had to admit the result appeared far more convincing, at least from a distance. The only thing Heartrender needed now was practice.

Somewhere amid all the training, Adrian dedicated what time he could to aetherforging. Getting Heartrender to create a suitable Mirror Image was merely the first step. He still needed to figure out how to imbue that technique into a stable relic.

By all rights, his skills were improving faster than they had any right to after only a handful of weeks. Whether it was his access to the true bond or his unusually perceptive aethersense, the basics of aetherforging came naturally to him. He enchanted more rocks, baskets, tools, even food—anything he could get his hands on. Though the configuration of aether channels within each object differed, the process remained the same—work your aether into it while tracing the flow. The better a job you did and the more aether you invested, the greater the effect.

His attempts to aetherforge fruit led to an interesting discovery, albeit one he should have anticipated after Freya's example with the Suprimera tea. Aetherforging didn't simply strengthen the imbued object: it enhanced its intrinsic qualities. Thus, aetherforged fruit grew juicier while Kali's daggers became sharper, and Seymour's armor gained enhanced sturdiness.

Studying those items, he gleaned how experienced aetherforgers had constructed them as a natural extension of his own amateurish work. All it would take was a more skillful hand, a better sense of aetheric flow, and greater quantities of potent aether gradually added over time to reinforce the enchantment from a temporary boon into a permanent attribute of the object.

Someday, he hoped to complete such work himself. He'd already convinced a begrudging Seymour to lend him his armor so he could attempt to repair its drained aetherforging. For now, however, he'd settle for something more fleeting. Even a relic capable of casting Mirror Image for a couple hours should be sufficient for them to sneak aboard a watcher airship.

Unfortunately, despite all his progress with basic aetherforging, he still had no spirit-cursed idea how the more advanced relics functioned. He'd assumed at first that it had something to do with the reverse Surge given the connection to daemonic techniques. But even if Serenity Corp had found a way to replicate the meld in Kali's relics, Crastley had never managed a reverse Surge, so he couldn't have used it to enchant his journal.

Equally perplexing were the differences Adrian gleaned between the respective aetherforgings. The latticeworks of aether in Kali's devices had an artificial feel to them, as if they'd been forced into their configurations. They also appeared more volatile, their aether steadily deteriorating. Crastley's journal, on the other hand, had maintained its enchantment remarkably well. Its aether also felt calmer, closer to the natural flow of a regular aetherforging.

Perhaps two separate methods had been used. If that was the case, Crastley's had clearly been superior. There had to be something Adrian was missing—something vital. Now, if only he had the faintest inkling what it was or how to find it.

He sat pondering the issue one afternoon, lost deep in thought, when shouts suddenly rang out through the village. He frowned, looking up from his work. It was rare to hear so much sound during the day. Had the scouts spotted something worrying?

Before he could decide what to do, the door to his hut burst open. Xander stood there, panting and wide-eyed. "Come…quick…" he wheezed.

"What is it?" Adrian demanded. "What's wrong?"

"Ghosttear…accident…Freya…"

Xander had barely gotten the words out before Adrian was shoving through the door, heart in his throat as he broke into a run. It didn't take him long to trace the continued shouts to where a couple daemons had collapsed in the street. Near the middle of them stood Ghosttear, its frail body flickering even more unsettlingly than usual as it released little plumes of aether.

Spirits below, what happened?

He took a step toward Ghosttear, and a voice cried out, "Wait!" Turning, he saw a group of villagers clustered a safe distance away. One of them—he thought her name was Charlotte—held out her palm in warning. "Stay back! If you get too close, it'll claim you, too!"

Charlotte gestured ahead of her. There, splayed out on the ground a half-dozen paces away, lay Freya. She'd thrown her arms protectively around Metamire. Not that it seemed to have done any good—both appeared unconscious.

Fear shivered down his spine when he spied Lockrod on the ground beside her. His daemon must've been accompanying her as usual while he was busy. Spirits below, how had he not sensed anything through their bond?

"Report," Seymour barked, skidding to a halt beside him. Thank the spirits someone had thought to fetch him from the forest. His comforting presence helped soothe Adrian's rising panic.

"I…" He swallowed. "I don't know. I just got here and found them like this."

"It reminds me of Souleater," the watcher said, his voice grim.

Adrian hesitantly quested out with his aethersense and saw what Seymour meant. Aether roiled in a rough circle about Ghosttear. Though Ghosttear didn't appear to be consuming it, if the effect was anything like what Souleater had done, Freya and the daemons were in grave danger.

Taking the scene in, he realized something else. "I can't feel Lockrod through our bond!" No wonder he hadn't noticed Lockrod's distress sooner.

Seymour's eyes fastened on a nearby villager. "You there! What happened?"

The man stared at him a moment before answering in a quaking voice, "Didn't see the start of it—just Freya running in and collapsing like all the rest."

"It was that daemon of yours," another villager said, glaring at Adrian. "It leaped on Ghosttear's back. Everything went crazy after that. The nearby daemons started dropping, yours included. Freya tried to help, but she didn't get more than a few steps before she went down."

Adrian shuddered, able to picture it all too well. That sounded exactly like what Lockrod would do if he was trying to play. And during their journey to the Enclave and in the weeks since, Ghosttear had recoiled at even the suggestion of being touched.

"Think we can knock it out from here?" Seymour asked as he studied Ghosttear.

Adrian shook his head. "Anything we try might make things worse. Besides, I don't think Ghosttear's doing this on purpose. I think it's scared."

"Scared?" Seymour's brow shot up. "That thing's panic attack could cost Freya and those daemons their lives! Who cares how it feels?"

Adrian stifled his frustration. For all Seymour and he had grown closer, sometimes the watcher's ruthlessness still caught him off-guard. "What I mean," he said with as much patience as he could muster, "is that we should try to calm it down first."

"Oh? And how exactly do you intend to do that?"

"I don't know! Maybe we can—"

"Look out!" someone shouted right as aether erupted from Ghosttear in an expanding wave.

Seymour reacted in an instant, dodging nimbly back, but Adrian's reflexes weren't as honed. The wave of aether crashed into him. He collapsed to the ground, twitching as his own aether went haywire. The sensation wasn't painful, exactly, but it was still far from comfortable.

I can't feel Heartrender anymore either, he realized numbly.

In fact, he couldn't feel or do much of anything.

"Oh, for the love of the spirits," Seymour grunted. Rough hands seized Adrian, then quickly retracted. From somewhere nearby, the watcher cursed. "Spirits below, just reaching in there is enough to disrupt my aether!"

"Let me try," Xander said, his voice determined.

"Don't be an idiot, kid. You'll end up as helpless as the rest of them."

"I have to do something!"

Hands gripped Adrian on either side, slowly dragging him back. When his trembling head rolled to the side, he got his first good glimpse of Xander. Sweat dripped down the boy's brow and he had his teeth clenched in a grimace. Yet, somehow, he resisted Ghosttear's magic.

Adrian felt the moment he passed beyond Ghosttear's influence, his churning aether all at once returning to normal. He groaned and sat up, flexing his stiff fingers.

"Are you okay?" Xander asked.

Adrian gave him a faint grin as he shakily regained his feet. "Never better, thanks to you. If I wasn't in your debt before, I certainly am now."

Xander blushed and shook his head stubbornly. "I still owed you after how you risked your life to save me from Souleater."

Adrian chuckled. "Well, let's call it even then." He turned to Seymour. "Any idea what happened there?"

Seymour shrugged. "Ghosttear's technique, perhaps?" He narrowed his eyes at Xander. "What I want to know is why you weren't as affected."

"Dunno. I felt my aether roiling inside, but I was able to fight through it."

Adrian thought for a moment. "If Ghosttear's doing something to our aether, Xander's is more diluted than ours. Maybe that's why the disruption didn't hit him as hard."

"Maybe." Seymour said doubtfully. "But then, why did it affect Freya as much as it did? Or all those other daemons? Their aura's aren't that much stronger than Xander's."

Adrian didn't have a good answer.

Tremorfist materialized beside the watcher. Seymour kept his gaze fixed on Ghosttear's twitching form. "All I know is that this has gone on long enough."

"Wait!" Adrian moved in front of Seymour. "At least, give me a chance to talk to it first."

He expected the watcher to argue, but Seymour surprised him by sighing and jerking a nod. "Fine, be my guest. Just make sure you stay out of its area of effect. There's no guarantee Xander will be able to drag you to safety a second time."

Oddly touched by the watcher's gruff concern, Adrian faced Ghosttear and cleared his throat. "Hey there, buddy. Sorry about Lockrod. He was only trying to play. None of us want to hurt you, so you can calm down now, okay?"

He paused, eying Ghosttear. If the daemon understood, it didn't seem eager to comply.

"Wow, how convincing," Seymour said. "Thank goodness you were here."

"Have you got a better idea?" Adrian snapped.

"As a matter of fact, I do. Tremorfist!"

The daemon huffed and pounded his chest. Adrian preemptively flinched, bracing himself against the deafening sound. To his surprise, when the Stunning Howl came, it was much quieter than he'd expected.

Seymour smirked at his reaction. "After that fight with Shadowlash, we've been practicing focusing his technique in a more concentrated burst. It's a far more efficient use of aether, perfect for disrupting a daemon's channeling or even shattering small objects."

"It's also much easier on my eardrums," Adrian said.

He could tell when Tremorfist's technique hit Ghosttear because the daemon ceased shuddering and froze in place. Adrian held his breath. If they could break Ghosttear out of its instinctive defense, maybe they could better reason with it.

His gut clenched when more aether burst from Ghosttear in response. Rather than spread outward like it had before, however, it coated the collapsed daemons. Something about the magic struck Adrian as familiar, and it took him a few heartbeats to realize what. Kali's relics. Their aether was similarly unstable. Could the two somehow be related?

The gathered crowd screamed, scattering for cover as flashes of energy split the air. Adrian shoved his speculation aside and ducked beneath a streak of aether. He looked up just in time to see a spinning line of force similar to one of Lockrod's Unbendable Rods narrowly miss his head. It hung there for a few seconds before winking out. Panning his vision across the area, he glimpsed more of those same rods alongside other aetheric bursts in different configurations.

His spine tingled when he realized what he was witnessing. That hadn't just looked like Lockrod's Unbendable Rod—it had been his daemon's technique, along with a half-dozen more stolen from the other stricken daemons. Assuming he was right about Ghosttear's connection to Heartrender, what exactly had Serenity Corp created in that spirit-cursed lab of theirs?

"I admit, you might've had the right idea," Seymour said. He dodged an eruption of virulent green energy followed by a blast of tempestuous wind. "Maybe violence wasn't the answer."

Adrian rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you think?"

"It's not like your plan worked out any better."

"At least, it didn't make things worse!"

Seymour huffed. "Well, if you've got any other bright ideas, don't hold back."

Adrian's gaze darted from Seymour to Freya to Lockrod to Ghosttear. There had to be a better way to handle this beyond brute force, but what? He couldn't safely approach Ghosttear, and even if he could, he didn't know what he'd do once he got there. Most daemons, especially when unbonded, struggled interpreting human speech. And with how far gone Ghosttear was, Adrian doubted mere words would reach it anyway.

If one of his daemons had lost control of its aether, how would he help? Try to bolster it with his own aether, perhaps, like what Tremorfist had done when Seymour bonded Shadowlash. Either that or attempt to soothe it through their bond.

But neither of those were possible with Ghosttear. Adrian didn't have a link with the daemon, nor any way to communicate with it using aether. If he had a daemon capable of sending like Arbiter Janice's, then maybe…

His pulse racing, he fumbled in his pockets. For a moment, he feared he'd left what he needed in his hut. Then, his fingers fastened on cool metal, and he brandished Kali's badge. The spiked crescent moon's aetherforging had continued to decay, marring its silver surface with flecks of rust, but it should still have enough juice to attempt a close-range mental link. Perhaps that would have more of an effect on Ghosttear than words alone.

Adrian fed aether into Kali's badge to activate it and focused on the trembling daemon. Hi, Ghosttear, he sent, projecting a sense of safety through the tenuous connection. It's me again. Everything's going to be all right, but I need you to calm down. Can you do that for me?

No response, just like with his earlier verbal plea. Seymour shifted impatiently beside him while the remaining crowd watched with bated breath. Ahead of him, Freya's sprawled arm twitched, and a shudder racked Lockrod's back.

Frustration tensed Adrian's jaw and shoulders. All of them were counting on him. This was his chance to rescue his friends, not to mention impress the villagers with the true bond's potential. And he was blowing it.

Please, Ghosttear. Whatever might've happened to you in the past, you're safe now. I know you don't want to hurt anyone. All you have to do is stop channeling your aether.

Still nothing. He tried again and again, beseeching Ghosttear with a mix of words and images and raw emotion. None of it seemed to register. If Ghosttear heard him, it didn't bother to respond.

Bowing his head, he went to sever the connection and sensed a flicker of…something. A hint of fear and pain, radiating from some distant, unreachable point. It felt almost like it had come from one of his daemons, but his bond with Lockrod remained disrupted, and Heartrender's presence in his mind was as solid as ever. Yet, if it hadn't come from either of them, then…

Ghosttear?

The sensation vanished so quickly, he wasn't sure if he'd imagined it. He certainly didn't feel anything now. Assuming it hadn't been a hope-fueled figment, what in the name of the spirits had happened?

Waving away Seymour's demands for an update, he crouched by Heartrender. Do you feel a link with Ghosttear? he sent. A connection of any kind?

She projected only uncertainty back. She wasn't sure what he meant or how to identify such a link if it existed. Spirits above, neither did he. He was acting on pure instinct now, grasping at straws. He couldn't shake the feeling that the brief link he'd sensed was the key.

There was only one other thing he could think of to alter his perception of aether.

Up for a reverse Surge? he asked Heartrender. Maybe we can figure this out together.

They'd attempted the difficult maneuver numerous times since Freya brought it up that first week at the Enclave. Now that he had a better grasp of the concept, he found it much easier to properly attune his aether to hers. However, it still took a lot out of them, and he could only hold it long enough to cast a Mirror Image or two at best. Thankfully, what he had in mind shouldn't require the use of any techniques.

Heartrender dutifully extended her aether. As they'd practiced, Adrian vibrated his own in sync, slowly aligning it with his daemon's until their dual reserves snapped together and became one. Not unlike what happens with aetherforging, he thought absently. The flow of aether shifting to match the given object.

Heartrender's thoughts intermingled with his, the experience even more intimate than sharing a body via a Fusion. Sorting through the confused jumble, he struggled to extend their shared aethersense, scouring for anything that might represent a mental link with Ghosttear.

There!

So thin as to be practically nonexistent, a faint line of aether stretched between Heartrender and Ghosttear. Though nowhere near as strong as the bond Adrian shared with his daemons, the intrinsic connection might be enough to send an impression where Kali's badge had failed.

An uneasy corner of his mind wondered why such a link existed in the first place. Did it prove that both Heartrender and Ghosttear had been part of the same Serenity Corp experiment? He cast the conjecture aside to consider when he didn't have a crisis to resolve.

Avoiding anything as complex as human sentences, Adrian flared his and Heartrender's joined aether and focused once again on projecting a sense of calm and safety.

No response from Ghosttear. Either the feelings weren't transmitting through the threadbare link, or Ghosttear wasn't listening.

He gritted his teeth and channeled still more aether through the makeshift bond. At this point, he was doing the mental equivalent of screaming Calm at the top of his lungs.

His reverse Surge with Heartrender wavered. An instant later, the mental meld shattered, thrusting their minds and aether apart. Adrian staggered, left feeling dizzy and strangely hollow. He might've fallen had Seymour not been there to catch his arm and bear his weight.

"Please tell me whatever you did worked," Seymour said.

Adrian shook his head, unable to speak yet, and studied Ghosttear for any sign his message had gotten through. Even if it had, how would the daemon react? Would his efforts serve to soothe it or only enrage it further?

For a long, nerve-racking moment, nothing changed. Stolen techniques burst in the air above Ghosttear, aimed at nothing in particular. Freya, Lockrod, and the other affected daemons remained where they'd fallen.

Then, all at once, the eruptions of aether ceased. Ghosttear's shivering subsided, and it shook itself as if throwing off water. To Adrian's utter astonishment, the daemon plopped down, curled up, and closed its eyes. Apparently, it had received Adrian's message loud and clear, and decided that now was the perfect time for a nap.

Adrian took a tentative step forward. Sensing no change in his aether, he rushed to Freya's side. She blinked up at him, appearing tired and a bit dazed. Metamire quivered against her side in a way that was probably meant to be soothing but came across as grotesque given the creature's resemblance to living ooze.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

"I'm fine," she groaned, waving him off. "Check on Lockrod."

He hesitated but the urge to obey was too powerful to resist. Trusting her at her word, he kneeled near Lockrod. Relief flooded him when he realized he could sense their bond again. He wrapped his arms around his daemon, pulling him close. For once, Lockrod seemed content to be held rather than scampering about.

He didn't notice Seymour's approach until the watcher stopped right beside them. He looked up to find Seymour glaring at Ghosttear's resting form.

"We should kill the spirit-cursed beast now, before it loses control again."

"No!" Freya said, sounding horrified. "It was all my fault, not his. I wasn't keeping a close enough eye on Lockrod and—"

"You're right!" Seymour whirled on Freya, who shrank back in surprise. "It is your fault! What were you thinking, rushing in like that? You could've been killed!"

Freya swallowed and looked away. "I was only doing what you and Adrian would've done."

Remembering how he'd collapsed trying to reach her, Adrian had to admit she had a point.

Seymour, however, scowled. "I mean it. Adrian and I have experience facing off against daemons that you sorely lack. Leave the heroics to the actual daemon masters!"

Adrian's initial spike of pleasure at Seymour's pseudo-praise morphed to alarm when Metamire jiggled between Freya and Seymour, his aether blazing.

Seymour gave the daemon a surprised look. "Spirits below, what's gotten into that thing?"

"He's only trying to protect me," Freya said. She crouched down and stroked the daemon's back—or its front? Hard to tell with a pile of goo. "It's okay," she cooed. "I'm fine."

Seymour narrowed his eyes, his gaze flicking from Freya to the daemon as if working out a difficult puzzle. Adrian thought of Freya sprawled in the dirt, arms draped protectively around Metamire, and suddenly it all clicked.

"That's why Xander wasn't as affected!" he said, drawing questioning looks from the pair of them. "Whatever Ghosttear was doing affected daemonic techniques, not aether alone. Xander doesn't have any bonded daemons, so the magic rolled right off him, while I do so it knocked me out. And…" He focused on Freya, the words bursting out of him before he could think better of them. "And so do you! You bonded a daemon!"

With the way Metamire had taken to trailing Freya everywhere she went, he'd suspected it would only be a matter of time. And she'd had plenty of opportunities to study Crastley's journal, first with her mother and then with them. It'd be easy enough for her to figure out how to form the requisite runic circle in secret.

Freya paled, and Adrian noticed that the area around them had fallen deathly silent. The remaining villagers stared at them with expressions ranging from curiosity to disgust to outright horror. Someone shoved through the crowd toward them. Leda. Any hope Adrian had that she'd missed his blurted confession dimmed when he saw the tears glistening in her eyes.

"Tell me he's wrong, child." Leda made as if to embrace Freya, then cringed and lowered her arms. "Tell me you didn't break our covenant."

"I…I…" Freya buried her face in her hands.

Leda's face collapsed with a crushing sadness close to despair. She whirled on Adrian and Seymour, teeth bared in a furious grimace. "You! This is all your fault. You've corrupted my niece, poisoning her against us exactly as I knew you would!"

Seymour snorted, unfazed by her reaction. "All we've done is open her eyes. Serenity Corp's way is wrong, I'll give you that. But that doesn't mean all daemon bonding is inherently evil."

"Lies!Nothing but lies!" Leda backed away from them, eyes wide and nostrils flaring. A tremor racked her as though she were under the effect of Ghosttear's technique. She pointed a trembling finger toward the forest's edge. "Get out. You've done enough harm to the Enclave already. We will not suffer your corruption here any longer!"

Adrian's stomach sank when he heard murmurs of agreement ripple through the gathered crowd. Not as many as there would have been a few weeks ago, true, but still far more than he liked. Had this single incident been enough to erase whatever goodwill they'd earned?

Elana's authoritative voice cut through the growing tension. "What is the meaning of this?"

Adrian turned to see the crowd part around the Enclave's leader. She hobbled forward with the aid of her white staff. By the disarrayed state of her shawls and the sweat slicking her face, she'd rushed to get here.

"As I've told you numerous times, Leda, Adrian and Seymour are our guests, at least for the next four days. Until then, they are welcome here, regardless of your personal opinion on the matter."

Leda's face reddened, though with rage rather than embarrassment. "You'd still take their side, dear sister, even after what they've done to your own daughter?"

Elana's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?" Her gaze fixed on Freya's tear-streaked face. "Freya, dear, what's wrong? I heard there was a wild daemon attack. Were you injured?"

A vicious smile twisted Leda's lips. She opened her mouth, no doubt to elaborate on how Adrian and Seymour had dragged the poor girl into sin, but Freya spoke up first, her voice quavering.

"P-p-please, Aunt Leda! Th-that's enough." Fresh tears clung to her cheeks as she met her mother's eyes. "I…I…" She gulped, gathering her resolve. "Metamire and I forged a true bond. I'm a daemon master now."

Her declaration garnered more cries and murmurs from the crowd. Adrian couldn't hear them well enough to tell whether they were outraged or supportive. Probably a mixture of both.

Elana, for her part, appeared shocked into silence.

"There, you see?" Leda declared triumphantly. "The girl admits it herself! Surely, you realize now I was right. These outsiders are nothing but trouble. Let us be rid of them, once and for all!"

Seymour bristled beside Adrian, but he motioned the watcher to silence. Standing up for themselves would only make things worse. Their fate lay in Elana's hands. Hers…and her daughter's.

"It's not like that!" Freya protested. Squaring her shoulders, she raised her voice so the other gathered villagers could hear. "All Adrian and Seymour have ever done is try to help us. By now, most of you have spoken with them yourselves. You know as well as I do that they are good people who have offered us nothing but the truth."

"The truth?" Leda said disbelievingly.

Freya gave a firm nod. "Yes, the truth, whether we've wanted to hear it or not. What we do with that truth is up to us, and I, for one, intend to do everything I can to help them in return." Her voice turned imploring as she faced Elana. "Please, mother, you have to understand."

Elana still didn't say a word. She kept her face an unreadable mask. The only sign of anything amiss were the deep wrinkles between her eyes. Tension gripped Adrian. If she turned against them or even just refused to defend them, it was clear which way the winds would blow.

Perhaps sensing she had the upper hand, Leda smirked even as she shook her head sadly. "Oh, she understands all right. She understands how you gave into temptation and became the very thing we fled to avoid. But it's not too late." She turned toward Elana. "If we banish these interlopers, we can excise the corruption before it spreads and—"

"If you banish them, you'll have to banish me too!" Freya strode to stand beside Adrian and Seymour with her arms crossed and a defiant set to her jaw.

Adrian leaned into her. "You don't have to do this," he murmured. "We'll be all right."

"I'm not doing it for you," she said. "Or, at least, not only for you. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do."

An expectant silence settled over the crowd while Elana studied her daughter with that same unreadable expression. When she rapped her staff hard on the ground, Adrian jumped at the sudden sound. Seymour rolled his eyes.

"Enough," Elana said, her voice weary. "Freya, come with me. We have much to discuss." Her eyes flicked to Adrian and Seymour, her expression softening. "I assume we have you to thank for resolving the initial incident here?"

Adrian cleared his throat. "I, uh, I suppose so, yes."

Elana nodded as if she'd expected as much. "Then, I imagine you'd like to get some rest. No doubt we'll have time to talk again ahead of our upcoming meeting." She turned to leave, Freya trailing after her with her head bowed.

"Have you lost your mind!" Leda screeched. "You can't honestly plan to ignore this…this travesty! That'd be akin to endorsing daemon bonding!"

Elana paused. Without looking back, she said, loud enough for her voice to carry, "I know not all of you approve of the true bond or would wish to adopt it yourselves. And I ask that, if you are interested, you hold off until we can discuss how best to move forward as a community."

She took a deep breath, her shoulders tensing. Adrian found himself holding his own breath, his skin tingling with anticipation for her next words.

"However," she continued, "I have seen enough to acknowledge the truth of Seymour and Adrian's claims, and I find myself agreeing with my daughter on their virtues. Perhaps…perhaps we can find a place for their true bond among us after all."

Beside him, Seymour went rigid. Adrian could hardly believe his ears. A giddiness he hadn't felt since…well, maybe since before his parents had died bubbled within him. It wasn't quite a complete endorsement—Elana hadn't even confirmed whether or not they'd be allowed to stay. But it certainly seemed like a promising sign. Perhaps all their plans would work out after all.

"You are no sister of mine,"Leda hissed. With one last withering glare directed at Seymour and him, she turned on her heel and stormed off, vanishing into the stunned crowd.