Fortunately, ‘too much’ is a fairly flexible metric in most circumstances.

  Terenei returned not only with further updates from Serru, who was making good time, Zanshe, who confirmed having cleared her schedule indefinitely other than one commitment tomorrow, and several more family members and family friends, who all wanted to say thank you, but also with a potion bottle full of sparkly liquid with white swirls among a dark purple-red.

  “My grandfather sent it,” he reported, handing it to me. “He says it’s extremely uncommon to take so many Elixirs that it leads to side effects, but it does happen now and then. Not many alchemists have ever made this, but the formu is listed in standard reference books. Some of the ingredients are uncommon and one is downright rare, tracking that down is what took him so long. Usually obscure potions like that are really tricky to do and only very experienced alchemists are likely to be successful at them. That, apparently, is a form of Recovery that is very specifically designed to speed healing after too many Elixirs. It won’t work instantly, you may still be tired for a while, but it will be faster than otherwise.”

  I eyed the potion, then shrugged, uncorked it, and swallowed it. What was the worst that could happen? I was unquestionably a mess. I’d slept through a lot that should have woken me, and when I brought my dispy up to peek at it, it was still blurry and my mana meter might have barely reached half after something like forty-eight hours.

  It tasted tart, like fresh raspberries, but there was a gentle creamy vanil tang as well. I gave Terenei back the empty bottle. “Thank him for me, please.”

  “I will.”

  He was right about it not being instantaneous, but I hate to think what it would have been like without it.

  After our very early start, everyone was tired. We did room-service for supper, Aryennos going downstairs long enough to ask for meals of whatever they had for a couple of felids and a couple of humans because we didn’t care what. A mature human woman and a young lmid woman delivered four different meals along with dessert and drinks and a pte of cut fresh fruit and one of mixed cheese.

  I still fell asleep while the four of us were listening to a sort of radio py, a comedy about a felid trying to open a bakery and cafe with endless advice from family and friends and neighbours, mishaps and misunderstandings and straight-up bad luck with building and supplies and staff, and not because I wasn’t enjoying the story. I might not have when I first got here, but by now, I knew the world well enough to have some grasp of what was going on. My friends just covered me with my weighted bnket and left me alone.

  I missed sunrise on the Pass the next morning, but Terenei didn’t. His painting of the sunlight on the crystalline walls was breathtaking and I resolved to try harder to get up in time the next morning.

  The day, for me, passed quickly: while my friends took care of Serru’s shopping list, I stayed at the inn with Myu, catnapping a lot with her and distracting myself from my own thoughts with my new pyer when I was awake. I went out of our rooms only twice. Once was for a long hot soak in a downright sinful bath-tub in a private room in my human form, which loosened physical knots I didn’t even know I had. On my way to the stairs, back in felid form, the jotun woman now at the front desk intercepted me to hand me an envelope.

  “This was dropped off a short time ago. We don’t get many saurids here, it’s colder than they like. He said it was for the newcomer who stopped the festival raid. That’s you, correct?”

  I kept my sigh to myself. “Well, I stopped some mossling infections, at least. The wardens did the rest.”

  “It’s yours. I hope you enjoyed your bath.” She went back to the front desk.

  “Very much, thanks,” I told her, not caring that it was an odd thing for a felid to say, and opened the envelope on my way up the stairs.

  Hey! Word’s going around that there’s a new newcomer making a spsh! You just got here? I’ve been here a while, and I’d love to talk to someone else from home. There’s a park close to your inn, turn right when you go out the door and left at the first corner. It’s not cold, there are fireflowers pnted in it, so it’s actually comfortable even after dark. How about I hang out there this afternoon and maybe you can drop by? I’ll probably be the only saurid in sight, and I’ll recognize you.

  It was signed with a scrawl that read, Logan.

  Man, that guy just didn’t give up.

  It was possible I might have fallen for it, had I not already known that was the Zombie King’s name.

  I was just too tired to deal with this crap. I tossed the letter in my bag once I got back to our rooms, and curled up with Myu to listen to more music.

  The other trip out was for dinner in the restaurant dining room with my friends, and I noticed that both of the people waiting tables, a pair of youngish jotuns, deflected people gently away from our table. The woman told us simply, on one stop to check if we needed anything, that there were people who wanted to thank us but respected that we needed recovery time.

  I was up in time the next morning to watch the spectacur sunrise on the Pass with my friends, the sun creeping up and making the crystalline walls dance with light and colour.

  After a quick breakfast—no one in the restaurant commenting at all on the fact that I was now human instead of felid—the rest of us packed up while Terenei went to get the ornithians so we could load everything in the wagon. Myu cimed the front seat next to Terenei, arranging herself in a comfortable curve that left no room for anyone else. No one made her move. Terenei’s hand, whenever free, drifted sideways to pet her.

  A mature jotun woman waited for us on the Pass side of the town. She was solidly-built and muscur under her leather and chain-mail, her skin a soft brown and her hair warm deep gold with coppery highlights in the early sun. She sat comfortably on the driver’s seat of a rge wagon—not much wider than ours, but longer, and everything about it looked like it was made for heavy use. It was packed full of boxes and bags and barrels. Four immense horses with great shaggy feet were pulling it, two of them warm golden-brown with paler manes and tails, one white, one bck.

  “Ready?” she asked amiably.

  “Any time,” Terenei said cheerfully. “Lots of food, winter tents for us and the ornithians, medical supplies, everything that we were told we might need for a lot farther than Brightridge.”

  She nodded. “Always a good idea to have too much in the Highnds. You won’t need it if we can stay on the main road and the weather holds, but things happen. Let’s go.”

  Seeing the Pass itself, a glittery gap in that high ridge of stone, had been impressive from our balcony even without the rising sun.

  Going through it was enough to leave me speechless. Walls of crystal, sparkling in the sunlight, rose on both sides of us higher than any of the buildings in the town, high enough that even Anezke and her big wagon and horses looked small in that space. It was mostly white, but in pces I saw colour, pink and purple, yellow and green, blue and orange and even brownish-grey.

  The road sloped upwards, the gradient gradually increasing.

  When we emerged from the Pass, we got our first look at the Highnds proper.

  It was rocky, to say the least, and horizontal surfaces were scarce. Rises and ridges of stone extended off into the distance, and they definitely trended upwards, and the highest parts were dazzling white. That wasn’t to say it was barren. There were patches and lines of dark green, and the soft yellowish colour on some slopes made me think it might have vegetation of some sort, but it was unarguably high, and beautiful in an untouchable sort of way, and pretty much what something called the Snowfell Highnds should look like.

  The road split in three, one to the left that looked like it went more up, more quickly, and one to the right that seemed to have limited upness at least immediately, and a middle route that we stayed on. Serru had expected to miss Zanshe and take a route that did not go through her town; maybe the ring road directly to the Quincunx was that easier road on the right.

  The road was broad enough for two-way traffic, at least here. I hoped that would continue but wasn’t holding my breath.

  “Peace and Cheer will be okay, right?” I asked. “They shouldn’t have to strain themselves hauling us around.”

  “They’re not even noticing,” Terenei assured me. “I’m watching them, I promise. They do enjoy a bit of exertion, but I’m not going to let them wear themselves out or come to any harm. Rex. You’re better today, you sound more like yourself, but still look tired. Do whatever you need to look after yourself. Enjoy the scenery. Change to felid and catnap. Listen to something. Maybe try sketching some of what you’re seeing. Your guitar’s in your bag.”

  Yeah, he was one to talk about looking tired. At least his hair was in a neat braid with a ribbon through it, but I still saw no jewellery or accessories or makeup.

  “It is?”

  “I put it there before we closed up the house.”

  “My ability to notice anything is terrifying right now. I’ve reached in there multiple times to get things since then, and it’s probably the biggest single item in there.”

  “You have been... not yourself,” Heket said diplomatically. “You have not even been pying with the toy you normally always have in your hand when it’s empty.”

  That was an understatement.

  “It’s not rude to want to do something on your own,” Aryennos said. “You’ve said things a few times that sound like that might be the case in your home.”

  “Sometimes.” I didn’t have the energy to get into the social nuances of road trips.

  “It can be fun to talk,” Terenei said. “And hear stories, even if they’re the casual kind and not the proper kind, or listen to Aryennos sharing research, relevant or otherwise. But it’s not necessary, and wouldn’t be even if we didn’t all recognize that you’re still recovering. I’m curious about the other healers who have been able to have an effect on mosslings or zombies, but that can continue to wait until you’re feeling clear-headed enough to absorb it. It’s very clear you’re trying to keep busy and not think. There’s a novel in my bag you can have if you want it, it’s a fictional adventure about a small group of friends who try sailing out into the sea farther than any maps reach and what they find out there. As far as I know, nothing they find is real, but it’s a good story.”

  “I’m not sure I could make my eyes focus,” I admitted, even though the wagon had less bounce than most cars. “But I might just find something to listen to. How about I move to the back so you can still talk if you want to without me in the way?”

  “That seems fair,” Heket said.