Shilloh was true to her word.

  She had a night full of sleep and a day of her anger slowly ebbing. The difference in her thinking after a night's sleep was startling. Nick had made a good point. She needed to get him a steak at some point.

  With her head clear, decisions came more easily. She did not appreciate being lied to, but she very much did appreciate getting paid. But that didn't mean quitting wasn't a viable option.

  Going through woods as deep and magical as the Crotan would always be dangerous. But it was significantly less dangerous for her. But only if she got to lead the way and the world guided her path.

  The excursions with the Banes did not let her detour around problems. She was repeatedly put in combat situations where self-preservation could force her to reveal her nature to two near strangers. That was very, very dangerous.

  Sure, there were arguments that Wade and Jasque had been equal to any danger they had encountered. But Shilloh had still been tempted to draw on her powers several times. And that was not acceptable.

  Dryads had been kidnapped and turned into ritual material even in the old world. A drop of her blood was rarer than gold and had immediate utility to boot. This was no fiat currency. It was objectively valuable because it could channel serious natural forces or catalyze all sorts of magical reactions that would otherwise be impossible. Now, in the current world with everything so dangerous, all the powerful elder Dryads who had chosen to leave their humanity behind were still locked in The Vault, and law enforcement was so uneven across the frontiers that it was practically a death sentence to be outed.

  She mulled, and thought, and pondered throughout the morning.

  It took a surprisingly long time for the emotional impetus from yesterday to fade. Particularly the outrage and lingering shock of a near-death situation.

  The problem was that she tended to fixate on any goal that distracted her from her feelings. One time, back home, she had a best friend who got in a car accident. Shilloh had been so overwhelmed and afraid that she had decided that the best thing for her friend was to be surrounded by little folded cranes they had learned to make back when they were girls. It would be sweet and demonstrate how much she cared.

  She had folded hundreds, convinced a buddy to get keys to her friend's car, and filled the whole thing up so she would have a surprise when she left the hospital.

  The next day, her friend called and asked if they were fighting.

  Shilloh had never come to visit her. She had been too busy chugging energy drinks so she could stay up late folding little cranes.

  This time had been worse.

  Throwing herself into the woods and pushing her friend for information had not been the wisest choices. It would be a proper kick-ass move to drop a manilla folder full of 'fuck you, here's evidence that I'm right' onto a desk. But defenestrating herself into a dangerous place in the middle of the night with no preparation wasn't okay.

  Even harder to admit was that the situation may have been a symptom of her non-human nature. Or, at least, her not completely human nature. All Dryads were born almost completely human and chose how much they shifted away from that. The more they did things a human body could not do, the more they became something less human and more capable of handling it. She had been close to one hundred percent human when she found her other life a few years ago, which was why she was able to squeak her way out of The Vault with all the other 'human' magic users.

  But that had changed since. You needed magic and an automatic at your hip to survive in this new world. Part of that shift was that Dryads tended to have bigger emotions. They were meant to be connected by intuition and symbiosis with something too large and complex for the conscious mind to comprehend. Emotions were how their mind interfaced.

  Also, though many people forgot, a Dryad was bound to her home. The Croatan was still hers in a deep and profound way. She drank of it, and it lived in her. She was just as much a part of those woods as a white blood cell was part of her.

  And something was trying to usurp it.

  Heat built in her scalp, and her jaw clenched just at the thought.

  Though it stung her pride, she had to accept that last night may have only happened because she loosened some of her usual control. She had taken in a lot of power, enough that she was a bit less human today than yesterday, which always left her feelings somewhat turbulent. It was also worth noting that she had been horribly stressed and sleep-deprived for months, which probably didn't help.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Still, no woman liked being 'that emotional one.' It was thrown at them like a weapon and used to casually hamstring legitimate grievances.

  Just thinking somewhat similar words put a bad taste in her mouth. Still, not acknowledging how her mind and magic worked would be a critical mistake.

  Not accepting that she had made a mistake would have robbed her of her ability to manage it. So she went back to basics—the things she had been taught in her other life when she grew up with a herd of dyads to teach her.

  She thought logically; but still acknowledged her feelings as a factor and a messenger bearing valuable information.

  The question was whether she should continue working with Wade and whether she needed to do more to warn people.

  First and most important point point. She would not reap any benefits if she died. Second point, she needed money to buy property. Shilloh needed that because she was capable of living for a very, very, very long time. And—if she was cautious and lucky—she could even survive long enough to see the other dryads come out of whatever layer of The Vault they were trapped in.

  That was her priority. That had to be her guiding light. Not righteous indignation or the temptation of a good old 'fuck you' moment.

  This whole thing with Wade and Jasque being over would solve so many problems. Cause really, what was the worst that could happen?

  The death of Forsythe.

  But what was the worst thing that was likely to happen?

  A few people would be hurt because she trusted the process. Then there might be a second wave of blightbanes going out hunting when Wade's fuck up came to light. If that happened, then she would have already done what a responsible citizen ought to. Hell, actual training for blightbane certification had explicitly told her that informing a Bane and then stepping back was her obligation.

  There was also a not insignificant chance that they had some good reason or rule that stopped them from telling her what was happening. Magic was weird. Maybe this creature would hunt down people who knew about it or get stronger based on the fear it spread. Shit. It may just be valuable enough that they were afraid she'd hurt herself going after it alone.

  Those thoughts grounded her.

  She rolled her neck, feeling something pop. Her home phone rang, and she let it go to voicemail. She used an older hardwired phone and cassette tape voicemail. That meant her new resolve was immediately tested by the sound of Wade and Jasque asking her to help them plan the next excursion.

  It was a pleasant surprise to realize that she was more annoyed than angry.

  Before she did anything, she checked her cell phone and saw that she had already lost service. Still, she typed up a message to Nick thanking him for the reality check. She set it to send as soon as the phone reconnected, which, considering the address given to her by Wade, would likely be soon.

  It looked like she would be headed back towards New Town. The PAAW tended to keep their communications in better shape. They took on too many risky situations as a buffer species to let communication make those crises even worse.

  ~~~

  After showering, Shilloh was ready to go forth and feign humanity. Luckily, today wasn't a field work day, so she put on something comfortable.

  Joggers were good. They were 'sports apparel', so people were less judgey even though they were pretty much sweatpants. Also, pockets. One should never underestimate the sheer joy and relief that came with women's pants that had actual working pockets. They helped her mood to an almost embarrassing degree.

  Because she was wearing joggers, she put on a pair of sneakers that were too pretty to actually exercise in, a plain V-neck, and just enough jewelry to soften the otherwise utilitarian impression: just a bracelet and some epoxy rings that had little flowers suspended in them. She considered a necklace but decided to pass.

  If she went so far as a necklace, then she might also feel the need to do makeup. Better to firmly put herself in the 'casual and comfortable' category rather than the 'meticulously coifed while feigning casual' category.

  She finished by putting slightly damp hair in a ponytail and threading it through a baseball cap. She probably should have gone for something business casual, but her anger had only cooled, not recovered.

  She may not dress professionally but fuck 'em. Lying wasn't professional either, was it?

  Shoving hands into her pockets (her real working pockets) helped fight off the anger, but it was still there and still poignant. Breathing exercises helped, but when Fraulein didn't enter the car, she regretted the loss of a 'maul Jasque' avenue and realized the exercises may not have been helping as much as she thought.

  Hopefully, she would be able to wrap things up in a professional manner. If they were condescending assholes who tried gaslighting her about how the limb stealers were claiming the territory, then she didn't know what she might say or which newspapers she would use to ruin their reputations.

  Damn them, their reasons, and their secrets.

  NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

  Piracy Notice: If you’re reading this anywhere other than Scribble Hub, Royal Road, or my Patreon then this is pirated. Please let me know by going to the Jeffrey Nix website’s contact area so I can get really annoyed, complain to my cat, have her tell me this never would have happened if I had just gone back for a Ph. D, send a takedown notice, and get back to writing.