§ The clearing that Alwain used for her headquarters was a stone circle, fairly complete from what I could tell. It had all nineteen stones around the perimeter, but also a strange stone table in the center. I wondered if this was truly something from the Ancient Fairy Age or a place built more recently, in homage to such places. …

§ Shindzha’s eyes grew wide as she woke and saw me before her. Of course, she was disappointed to discover it was only a projection, which I had to spend time explaining, but I think it gave her reassurance that I was there in any form. “At any rate, I won’t be able to physically approach you until we sort …

§ The fairy looked first alarmed, then a bit offended, as she stared at the accusing, baleful light from Urrit’s device. For his part, Urrit was pale white and uncertain what to tell her. “Dore, relax and stay as you are,” Alwain ordered as she unfolded her legs and slipped off the box built from rock slabs. As the fairy …

§ After my ordeal dealing with the Lady of the Red Tower, my nerves remained frayed for some time. I almost didn’t register the trip back. But I had to fly rather than turn immaterial, because of the fairy warrior with the bead dress who accompanied me as Alwain’s intermediary. That’s right, my negotiation was a qualified success. At least, …

§ I had actually been in bed for several hours at this point, which was unhealthy, so Rhea made me rise. But upon discovering how sweaty I had become, my lady’s maid Genette immediately sent me straight back into the bath. To my embarrassment, she and the chambermaids clearly misunderstood why Mirea and I were so sweaty. My poor pink-haired …

§ For a while, just for a little while, I virtually forgot I was only along for the ride. My self-proclaimed little sister’s mind whirled almost too fast for me to keep up as we zigged and zagged around the cave, keeping Tuck the pooka distracted for as long as we could. I don’t know if the worry I felt …

§ I was still a little salty about the way Sen and the others had been pushing me around. I had a couple sisters back on the plantation, and these seniors reminded me a lot of them. My sisters were at most only distant blood relations, but they raised me. They had been around puberty when I was a baby, …

§ While Kiki continued exploring the cave, my Servant’s concerned eyes remained fixed upon her.  It had begun as a cave, but someone had improved it with square-cut stones forming a drystone wall across the entrance, and cut niches of various sizes into the natural rock. The front wall had partially crumbled where the door once stood, but the stones …

§ I will never learn to like it when Sen suddenly takes over the [Blood Effigy] to make me do or say things like a puppet, but I had to accept that I was out of my depth in this case, and she needed to. Still, when I got a moment, while the fairy knights and the Reladorian mages huddled …

§ It was true that Shindzha’s safety trumped my dislike of acting as a puppet for the gods, and perhaps my elder incarnations, but I was still quite annoyed. I had a right to be! Shindzha was here rather than safe and sound in her cell in Narses due to the meddling of the older incarnations, and now, the reason …