Squirt was never finding peace again.

  Even when every trainee and Queen-sent hunter headed out to start checking the traps, the little girl began following her around asking her questions about every gods damn thing she so much as glanced at, seemingly convinced that Squirt had access to secret knowledge about everything. From the dirt under their feet to the damn moss on the trees, she was relentless in her questions.

  Midday, Squirt thought she might finally get a break as she headed towards her cabin and hopped up the steps. The child made a noise, and Squirt looked back, thoroughly annoyed, only to see the heartbroken expression on the girl’s face. The child dropped her eyes and took a step back, curtsying and saying, “Oh. Well.”

  The moment was painfully awkward for them both.

  Squirt faced forward and glared at the door frame. She had wanted to have some peace and quiet to write up what his lordship requested and craft that tool for cutting up firewood.

  The little girl asked hesitantly, “May I come in?”

  Gods. Did she have to be so…

  So…

  Hopeful?

  The words ended up tumbling out no matter how hard she tried to stop them. “Yeah, fine.”

  She heard the sharp intake of joy behind her but scowled angrily at the child’s next words. “Uncle, too?”

  Damn it all. This had to be a collusion. “No,” she snapped, “And if that’s a problem you can—can go away.” Had she almost said, “fuck off” to a child? Yes. Yes, she almost had. Muttering darkly to herself, she entered her cabin, furious she’d even agreed.

  A few minutes passed.

  The child didn’t follow.

  Scowling, she limped back towards the door, opening it to see the little girl looking crestfallen as the pest uncle had his hand on her shoulder, an absurdly kind expression on his face as he murmured, “It’s alright, Paloka. I’ll be right out here.”

  She shook her head quickly, clearly fighting tears. “No. What if someone takes you?”

  He laughed a little awkwardly as he adjusted the collar of his shirt. “Ah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time that’d happened…”

  She burst into tears, great hiccuping sobs. “N-n-no, I-I d-d-don’t wan-nt to l-l-lo-se you!”

  An exasperated smile on his face, he pulled her in for a hug and patted her back. “Paloka, Paloka, always my little protector…”

  She cried harder, managing the words “Daddy” and “promised” in an otherwise unintelligible deluge of sobs.

  Ah. There was the trauma.

  Squirt closed the door to the scene, cursing her damn decision as she turned back into her cabin. A few minutes later, she exited, not looking at the crying child or the pest uncle as she sat down on her porch, reaching into her pouch and pulling out the components she’d need for enchanting. Wind feystones. Liquid gold paint and a brush. A slate. Metal strips. And finally, a fistful of earth tree leaves.

  She kept focused on her work as the child’s tears were eased by her natural curiosity. Squirt started drawing out the enchantment runes on the slate, her bad ankle straight out and resting off to the side as she worked on the deck. She ignored them both as the sobs fully stopped, and then the child walked up the steps, wiping her face with the back of her hands as she leaned over.

  Squirt only looked at her when she was leaning close enough to invade Squirt’s personal space, and the child immediately shrank back with absolute apology written all over her face.

  Snorting, Squirt returned her attention to what she was doing, focusing her intent on each individual rune.

  This was half the magic of enchanting. Strong magic users didn’t need this step to enchant something, but it would make the end product more stable, like a recipe for the magic to follow. One stray thought could disrupt the intention of an enchantment when crafting a tool, which could at best cause a dud, and at worst cause bodily harm or death for dumbasses that got too overconfident in their efforts. Especially when the fix was so simple, even if it was time consuming.

  For Squirt, of course, the step was necessary. She didn’t have enough magic to cast enchantments or spells on the fly.

  The little girl must have been around others enchanting in this way, as she didn’t say a word. Didn’t distract or otherwise interrupt Squirt’s process. Squirt managed to relax as the world faded to just her and the runes she was painstakingly painting onto the stone slate.

  When her paintbrush finished the last flourish, she rinsed it in a bit of water and paused, staring down at the letters.

  It was the next step that she hadn’t wanted the pest uncle, of all people, to witness. Not when he had gorgeous wings granted to him like a gift from the gods themselves, radiating with power and beauty. A true pixie.

  But when her eyes flickered up to the child and she noted the puffiness of those eyes, guilt slammed into her, and she scowled down at the materials in front of her.

  Damn it all.

  She fought down the nausea and panic at the notion of revealing her wings, revolted by her own terror at something that had happened twenty gods damned years ago. Revulsion turned to anger as she glared down at the gold and said, “Just… don’t tell anyone about my wings, alright?”

  Confused, the little girl nodded and asked, “Why—”

  “Just don’t,” Squirt rushed out. “Just… don’t.”

  Another awkward pause as Squirt gathered herself. It took several tries for her to even work up the nerve before growling in fury and releasing her wings. She refused to look at either of them as she started to place the stones on the slate to start the cast, wanting to get it over with—

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The little girl put her hand on Squirt’s head, drawing Squirt’s scowl up. Only the girl’s bright blue eyes weren’t on her, but on her pest of an uncle just as his magic burst out. Pure fury and violence raged in those glowing violet eyes, and with a start, Squirt realized the child was shielding her.

  The child was shielding her.

  Gods, she was pathetic.

  Leaving them to their pissing contest and wanting to get this over as quickly as possible, she rapidly engaged the enchantment, running her magic through it and focusing on her intent as she fed it each material in order, then poured her magic in as the base melted and recombined into the desired product.

  Finished, she put her wings away, surprising the other two out of their stare off. Wary as his magical aura had receded, but his anger had not, she stood, ready to bolt if she needed to. The anger melted as he opened his mouth, then shut it, turning his head away.

  The little girl, meanwhile, inspected the object in Squirt’s hand. “What’s that?”

  Squirt sighed heavily. It appeared the child was no longer bothered by her earlier panic. “… come on, I’ll show you.”

  Her uncle took a step closer saying, “Allow me to carry—”

  She snapped, “Fuck off, I don’t need your pity,” as she carefully made her way down the stairs.

  Exasperated, he ran his fingers through his hair, “Please, allow me to help—”

  “I don’t want to owe you shit!”

  “I owe you a life debt, woman!”

  She muttered petulantly, “I was just doing my gods damned job.”

  He threw his hands up. “Gods. You are the most stubborn creature I’ve ever met. Just—say your need, and I will bring it to you. No debts, no payment.”

  She eyed him suspiciously, but there was an earnest desperation to him that only reminded her of his words last night. The words that had been rattling around in her head rent free ever since.

  Scowling, she dropped her eyes to the ground as silence fell between them. When she broke it, her voice was quiet, but no less frustrated for it. “Fine.” She pointed. “About three clicks that way is a felled tree. Bring it here.”

  Genuine excitement and relief shone in his eyes, and he nodded. “I will.”

  He quickstepped away.

  She scowled. Damnit. Not even with her wings did she have enough magic to learn quickstep, much less casually use it to impress a girl. That alone told her more about his latent power than any display had ever done.

  That and his utter carelessness. To think nothing of such a display of power. Either he didn’t care, was purposely showing off, or was so out of touch he genuinely didn’t know that no one this far out could quickstep.

  Then in a burst of wind, he quickstepped back, while carrying the tree in one hand. He deposited in front of her with a grin and said, “See? Easy.”

  She stared at him in dumbfounded agitation. “… I hate you.”

  He shrugged with a cocky grin. “I’ll take it.” Then he waggled his eyebrows at her as his arms casually went behind his head. “I can always worship at this altar later for you to hate me less.”

  The little girl said from behind her, “But I thought you weren’t sleeping in her bed yet.”

  Dead silence. Slowly, Squirt lifted her wide eyes to his face, and saw him, of all things, blushing.

  “Ah, non, zil’il, that was, uh, well, my goddess, I can explain—”

  Her voice so evenly tempered he truly began to sweat in fear of her rage, she said, “Explain what she meant by yet?”

  The little girl, only too helpfully, eagerly, and brightly jumped in to answer. “Oh, because he said he was courting you, but he had his own bedroom and normally when he’s courting someone they’re in his room like all the time and—”

  The pixie pest jumped forward and covered her mouth with his hand, his face bright red as he hissed out, “Non, zil’il, that’s not, you can’t just say that, now she thinks—”

  Still eerily calm, Squirt asked mildly, “Thinks what, pest?”

  “Ah, well, um, you see, I uh… that courting and this courting are different, you see.”

  She took a step closer, the rage making the emerald green of her eyes swirl as she asked, “Oh? How so?”

  He wilted. Visibly wilted. “… because they were courting me?”

  She stopped.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced away, his blush in full effect, his other hand on his niece’s mouth, though he’d clearly forgotten her. “I… I liked the fun of it, but… none of them would have given their lives for me like you did.”

  Bitterly, she said, “Believe it or not, you’re not special just because I saved you. I checked every damn body I came across. You were just the only two breathing.”

  He smiled warmly at her, with a softness she barely recognized. “Yes.” Then he shrugged, his smile tilting wryly. “Can’t you see how wonderful that makes you?”

  He hadn’t spent thirty minutes beforehand burning the bodies of children just so they weren’t ravaged by feybeasts. Anyone would have been a blessing to risk her life for at that point. Anyone else would have saved him just the same, probably without getting him hurt.

  Leveling him with a glare of icy fury, she unhooked the latch and flipped the switch on her air blade, pulled up the goggles around her neck to cover and protect her eyes, and then slowly dragged the blade through the tree. Sawdust flew as the blade slowly cut through each layer with minimal resistance.

  The round snapped off cleanly, and she then broke it into neat, even pieces. Then took a step to the left and repeated this. After the third go, she reached into her pack and grabbed more tiny silver feystones no bigger than her pinky fingernail, inserting them into the tube to fuel it.

  That was one currency she’d had twenty years to build up.

  The work was monotonous and messy but simple. After she finished, she brushed as much of the dust off herself as she could and headed to the creek. Taking off her boots and socks, she waded into the ice-cold mountain water, pulling out a rag and washing herself off, including dunking her head to rinse the dust out of her short hair. Then she took a seat on the edge of the river, resting her foot in the water while she pulled out the board, parchment, quill, and ink.

  The child again sat uncomfortably close to her, snuggled into Squirt’s side like it was the most natural thing to do even as Squirt tried to lean slightly away. The girl didn’t say a word. Just quietly watched Squirt drawing on the parchment.

  Gods. It didn’t help that the child was genuinely bigger than she was.

  And already greatly outclassed her in raw magical prowess.

  At ten.

  Squirt wasn’t sure if she should be more awed, furious, or embarrassed.

  Then, eventually, the little girl’s body became heavy, and her breathing evened out. Squirt glared, but the child shifted and suddenly she was terrified of waking her. Reluctantly, she accepted her fate, shifting somewhat to make sure the child remained comfortable and wasn’t at risk of spilling expensive ink.

  Quietly, the pest’s voice whispered, “She’s barely slept since her healing sleep.”

  Squirt scowled at the parchment, focusing on her work before grunting out, “Not your first time getting kidnapped?”

  Awkwardly forcing himself to laugh, he answered, “Ah, no. Though they only have ever taken me. Never others before.”

  Silence fell between them, and he slowly took a seat on the child’s other side, keeping her between himself and Squirt. She pulled out her notebook, flipping to a page and sketching out the feybeast she was writing about. “She’s important to you.”

  “Well… yeah.”

  She shrugged. “The others probably weren’t important to you.”

  Silence fell between them again before her eyes flickered over to him. Despair was written all over his face. He’d genuinely never thought of it before. Never realized. And now he was drowning in obvious guilt.

  She went back to her drawing, her brows furrowed. That was his problem. It wasn’t her business.

  How like an important, powerful fey to have never had concerns like safety for their loved ones. It just blew her mind. She’d never been targeted personally by powerful fey, but she’d been around long enough and forgotten about often enough to have heard the backdoor dealings and the secret plots of one powerful political fey against another.

  Simple fey out in these backwoods were a simple lot. If they hated you, they hated you, and they never acted like they didn’t. If they hated you, they wouldn’t bargain with you. That was it. You couldn’t do business with them. It was something beautiful in its simplicity.

  Piss off too many, and you’d be ostracized, and that alone could be a death sentence in these parts.

  Powerful fey games were cruelty embodied. This man was at least a full adult, meaning at least the age of twenty-five. He clearly grew up in that world.

  And yet he had never realized?

  Privileged jackass.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon stewing in those thoughts, never quite able to get his heartbroken expression out of her mind no matter how hard she tried.