“Hey, Forester!” Holly caught me as I was heading out of the lunch hall, tray in hand, soup in bowl, bread in soup. She had someone in tow.

  “Don’t call me that,” I said in an enunciated whisper.

  “Sorry, forgot it was meant to be a secret. I’ll say it quiet next time.”

  “I meant don’t call me that at all. I have a name.”

  “But it’s so… moribund. So grim. It doesn’t suit you. How’s, uh… Leafy? Leafy’s a cute name.”

  “Morrigan’s fine.”

  “My grandmother knew a person who left offerings for those kinds of spirits,” said the someone. They had a bookish voice, a sweep of dark hair with a streak of white running to the fringe, and a face which shone with warmth and freckles.

  “Oh, right?” I replied.

  “When he died, they found a whole forest of mushrooms being cultivated in his basement.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “Grove,” said Holly, her hand on the newcomer’s shoulder. A half-head taller than both me and Holly. “My secondie dormie. I mentioned you and we chatted it over, and now you’re actually enrolled, we wanna invite you to our room. You can always dip back into the one across the hall if you want, cos I know how you people need time in dark places and such.” She added that bit in a stage whisper worthy of any travelling bard company. “We won’t be offended. We just thought you might appreciate the company and the support. It must be so scary being here and feeling all alone.”

  Grove’s smile radiated a genuine heart. “At least come try sitting by the Ooh for a while.”

  “What’s the Ooh?”

  “Ah, ah,” said Holly. “You only get to know when you come over. If you guys get your secret ways, then so do we. Like all the stuff you brew in your cauldrons to keep you from turning into wild animals like deer and bears and wolves and all.” She again said it like she was passing on a playground secret.

  “Do we?”

  “What else do you brew in them then? Giant black cauldrons. I heard all your villages have them.”

  “...The stew pots? All the taverns have huge pots with a load of stew always cooking in them.”

  “Oh. We only ever make enough food for the people who are actually there.”

  Something irked me, like a slap on the cheek. “For decades, we starved if we couldn’t hunt enough to feed ourselves. Communal stew pots kept our settlements alive after we got kicked out of the valley towns by your people. Didn’t you know?” Holly grimaced like she was fighting down something inside her. She looked hurt: half of me wanted to soften what I’d said, but a louder half really didn’t care at the moment. It felt like the room around us had quietened. “I don’t want to be here right now,” I said, and put my hand on the double doors.

  “Where are you going?” asked Holly in the smallest voice.

  “To brew potions in a cauldron or turn into a wild animal. I’ll decide on the way.”

  *

  The soup was still so hot it stung, but I downed it anyway on the bench outside. It singed my insides like a paper crane’s wings. Deposited my tray back on the lunch hall counter like I was meant to, and took myself away again. After all, the clerk said I could use my free study how I wanted.

  Hill Road dropped in on the Institute the way you would with an overeager relative who took way too much of your time, and then carried on with your own business off somewhere else once you could get away. Up into the woods was where it went, up and up, [dwindling to] a rough-hewn cart track as the dulling canopies closed in around it. The forest had a smell, a smell so thick you could almost see it: dirt, roots, bark, leaves, rodents, birds, moss, seeds. Real things you could see and hold. It smelt of happy younger days before the world collapsed around you, so many times, over and over. It smelt of an escape from the stress, the fear, the pain, the loss, the false hope of something you’d never be or someone you’d never get back. It smelt like me, or rather my soul, if it were a real thing.

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  I wanted a good, simple, peaceful, honest and wholesome and real life. I didn’t want the war and I didn’t really want the magic either. But it was a lesser demon; a means of survival. Now the ache of doing it had left my body, the space the it left was filled with doubt. I couldn’t have set that paper aflame today. It was inane, the entire idea of it. It must have been Kaspar, who’d merely charred his own sheet as a ruse to throw me off the scent. Or feasibly Professor Field. She had such vivacity, she probably didn’t even need magic to light a fire across a room – her energy alone should be enough to trigger spontaneous combustion in anything within earshot.

  The road climbed on, clinging tight to the steep hillside. Dry leaves crinkled under my boots, like the dusty pages of all those hundreds and hundreds of books on the self-indulgent Institute’s warehouse of shelves… It was a place that was very shelf-indulgent. I [smirked/smiled] to myself and kicked through a pile of crispy russet. Kicked at some little stones and they skittered across the gravel. It felt nice. Not beholden to anyone out here, living my own life the way I decided. Really, that’s what I wanted. The small life in a nice little hut somewhere out in the woods, with plenty of birds around and maybe a little flower garden. I kept walking up, rounding a bend. Something peaceful, something I could call my own, that’s all I wanted. Well… and my brother back, safe and healthy. We’d wanted it together, him and I, but some things just won’t ever be possible. I tried not to let it dampen my mood as I kicked along the gravel some more, sending tiny pebbles scattering, some off the sheer decline at the side of the road and away into the deep woodland, and some towards a small fence between two colossal firs.

  A sweet little two-room hut wedged in a rocky gully, moss blanketing a cascading wall of boulders that wrapped around the back, and out front, all the way to the fence, a sheer carpet of foxgloves, pink and purple and blue and white, vibrant as any I’d ever seen. There must have been thousands. My hands were on the fence but it was surprisingly sturdy and solid for how it looked. But the flowers… So soft, so entrancing, so enticing. Their scent encircled my mind like a gripweed and I had to shake myself out of it: this was someone’s house, and they certainly wouldn’t want a stranger prying at somewhere they’d very clearly wanted to keep private and away from the horde masses. I made myself step back. A little paradise so much like the one I’d envisioned, like the life I longed to live, so perfect, it felt almost like I’d called it into being.

  I’d come plenty far enough for today and I realised I had no idea how long I’d walked for. I pulled my schedule from my inner pocket. Free study might be my own time, but history class certainly wouldn’t be. And even in my thick cloak, the woods always held an impermeable chill at this latening time of year.

  I hastened back down the road.

  *

  By the time I got back to my room door, both my head and workbook full of the Era of Turmoil from about a thousand years ago, Holly was waiting by her own room. She looked like she’d been there a while. “How was your first day?” she asked with a deliberate brightness.

  “It happened.” I dipped my head and made for my door and she stepped in my way.

  “Wait. Look. I guess you maybe think I’m the worst person in the world right now and I wanted to say I’m sorry, cos I clearly upset you. You travelled super way far from your home to be here. You don’t seem to know anyone else at all. I’d be so scared if I was that far from home like you are, so I wanna make our dorm a home for you. From now on, it can be your new home.”

  I couldn’t get past her. “I’d rather not be in there with you.”

  “Then – then I’ll stay in the cold and empty room tonight so you can be in the nice, comfy, cosy, warm room.” I looked up. “I mean it. And I also meant it when I said I’d never really talked to a Forester before. You guys mope around under your heavy cloaks and shoot people glares and don’t ever give straight answers if I ask questions. So I’m sorry for not knowing. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You clearly don’t know anything about us.”

  “So tell me! If I say something wrong, help me learn instead of pushing me away. I want to hear. You can't make friends without understanding someone, and I wanna be friends.” I huffed and stood my ground. She still wasn’t getting away from my door. “And I don’t wanna overstep again, but it feels like maybe you aren’t used to having many friends. So I guess it’s tough for you to trust me, right? The question is, do you wanna be alone the entire three years you’re gonna be here?”

  *

  I dumped my stuff in the corner of the room, right in the patch of grey light from the last pallid rays of the day through the window. It was a nice window. It was a nicer room. Colourful paper hangings zigzagged around the ceiling and a different flowering plant sat on each bedside table and the plush rug on the floor matched the cushions on each bed and the desk below the window overflowed with magical miscellanea. A translucent cube, shin-height, sat in the centre of the room. Holly tapped a symbol on it – Grove reclined on their bed, nose-deep in a thick book – and the cube glowed captivating oranges and reds, flicking like it held a campfire inside it. A lovely warmth spread through the room.

  “Ooh,” I said softly.

  “So now you see,” said Grove proudly.