I woke up face to face with a goat, head throbbing. I huffed in surprise, trying to pull back and away. Instead, I rolled straight into Apis, who was so deep in sleep he didn’t even make a noise as I elbowed him in the chest. When I shoved him harder - anything was better than breathing in goat breath - he made some sort of mumbling sound in his sleep and turned over, his body weight on my arm.

  For a moment I stared at the ceiling, trying to reconcile my situation. I had to get out of this pile. I couldn’t even tell how many blankets were on me. I was midway through shuffling Apis over enough to grab the sword when another face leaned over, staring at us with amusement.

  I shoved myself up enough to get a good look. “I suppose this was all your scheme,” I said to Katla.

  She stepped back and took another bite of the bread she was holding. My stomach grumbled in response. How long had it been since I’d eaten? “I got thrown into the water too,” she said, muffled by the bread. “Why would I do that on purpose?”

  I leaned back onto an elbow. She had a point. I glanced over at the goat and poked him, too. On the third attempt he shuffled over enough to let me stand. Not too soon, either. My arm had started to go numb.

  The cottage seemed smaller in the daylight. It was strange, too, as if even the light up this far north was wrong. As I stared out I could see why- there was a thick fog outside, brilliant white and consuming.

  Within the cottage, there was little to see. A fireplace, the embers low. A single kettle hung over the flames. A rough table, nothing on it. A bed in the corner and an equally shabby shelf. Then, of course, near the fire was the pile of blankets and people. I fished around in the other blankets hopefully, but had no luck.

  “You saw where Duran went?” It was more of a hopeful command than a question.

  Katla waited to finish her bread before denying that she knew where he’d gone. Of course. Why would she start being helpful now? I scowled at the kettle and began to turn the embers over, blowing on them and trying to get a real fire going. This cottage was barren, but surely it had enough supplies to make tea.

  It was only once the kettle had whistled that Apis woke with a groan. I should have known.

  “No honey for this tea, sorry,” I said, offering him the cup. I took what looked like a small bowl, and Katla was forced to use a cookpot.

  “Not good bee weather up here.” He didn’t seem particularly put out.

  It seemed like the moment lasted forever, all of us drinking tea, putting off the problem. Katla broke first, putting down the pot and turning on me, arms crossed. “How do you suppose we’re going to get out of here? I’m sure they’ve already summoned the guard.”

  I turned and looked out of the window again. “I can’t see any guard.”

  “You’re impossible!”

  “We can’t run,” I said. I took another long, sad sip of the tea. It was stale and a little over-steeped. “I’ve got to get Duran.”

  “Duran? The boy and the beetle are dead. Gone! We should decide how much we’re going to bribe the gatesman to take us out of here, and quickly.”

  I finished my tea in one quick, violent swallow. It burned my throat going down. I focused on the pain so I wouldn’t start getting weepy in front of Katla. “I’m sure Duran’s fine.”

  “We did teach him to swim,” said Apis, who had stood up and was brushing himself off. How he still looked that put together, I had no idea. Personally, my cloak was more wrinkles than fabric.

  “There,” I said, and put my bowl down so the topic would be finished. “He’s fine. No more need to debate it. We just need to find where he’d gone.”

  Katla looked like she wanted to argue further, but the goat chose that moment to roll over and twitch, eyes rolling. After a moment, one lid lifted, then another. Still glowing unnaturally.

  “Ah,” Harald said. “So we didn’t die. Delightful!”

  It took three rounds of tea and several more arguments before we finally decided to leave the cottage and put out a search for Duran. Or… well. It took that amount of time before I drew the sword and stomped out into the fog, annoyed with Katla.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “I can’t believe her,” I muttered, slicing at the fog with the edge of the blade. “As if I would abandon my apprentice!” who you didn’t want, said a nasty part of my mind.

  I refused to listen to it. Maybe he was a bad cook, but he was doing his best, and sometimes that was all I could ask for. Besides. He didn’t have anyone else to vouch for him.

  “Please slow down,” wheezed Apis, three steps behind me. “I’m still recovering. And I lost one boot.”

  I put the blade back, sheepish. Apis took what felt like an eternity to make it through the fog. “Miserable day out,” he said, squinting into it. “I’m not positive about our chances. Unless you’ve seen tracks?”

  “No,” I said, resuming the walk and kicking over a piece of seaweed. “But he can’t have gone back to the ocean, so I thought I’d go check the forest. See if there are any suspicious trails. That sort of thing.”

  “Ah.”

  “If you don’t agree, go join Katla. I’m sure she’s checking the rocks for his...”

  “You don’t have to say it. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “I tried to search for him,” I said, stumbling over a piece of driftwood I hadn’t seen coming in the fog. “I did! If that horror Andrena hadn’t stopped me, he’d be-”

  “Careful,” said Apis, and I was surprised it was his voice and not Andrena’s. “You’re going to trip.”

  He pointed to another piece of driftwood. I stepped over it and sat down, defeated. Lapping at our feet were ocean waves. “I hate this.”

  After a moment, Apis came and sat down next to me. I leaned back into the sand and stared up. I couldn’t even see the sun.

  “Can you ask her to… find him?”

  “She wouldn’t do it,” I said. “She’s miserly about her powers.” But if you wanted to, I would very much like it if you found Duran, I said towards the vague presence I associated with Andrena. In fact, I might even say please. Please? As usual, there was no response. I closed my eyes instead of staring into the fog more.

  I finally forced myself to move when the tide had come in enough to lap at my ankles. There was shouting coming from behind us. It sounded like… Harald?

  By the time I was up and had brushed off most of the sand around my cloak, Apis had stepped towards Harald and was leaning down, nodding solemnly as Harald said something too low for me to hear. I swallowed, then stepped forward.

  “I don’t want to see any… remains,” I started, but Apis held up a hand.

  “We think he’s fine,” he said. “That’s the good news.”

  “What’s the bad news, then?” I didn’t like what he was implying.

  “Ah…”

  “Just spit it out.”

  “Katla’s taken the man in the cottage hostage,” said the goat. He coughed. “I didn’t hear much of the conversation, but I think she’s been calling him a fool. And possibly a coward.”

  “I thought we were being subtle.” No one responded to that. I was left to stew in half-anger, half gratitude, as we walked back to the cottage.

  I could hear the shouting through the windows even as we approached. Katla’s voice was easy to pick out from the man’s, even if they were yelling in a language I didn’t understand. I still knocked twice on the door before we entered. You never knew when weapons would come out, with her.

  A moment later, the door swung open. Katla was in rare form. A blush bloomed brilliant red on both cheeks, even running down her neck. It made her teeth stand out more when she snarled, “You try with him. He is hopeless!”

  I looked past her into the room, where our rescuer had been tied to the table. He spat on the floor and said something to Katla. Before she could respond, I pushed my way in and between them, kneeling on the floor. “Do you speak southern?”

  He looked like he was going to spit again. I backed up, raising my hands. “I-” how could you tell someone not to worry while they were tied up and at Katla’s mercy? I felt the place she’d cut on the back of my hand throb in memory. She was too sharp for her own good.

  As Apis and Harald entered, Katla surged forward, saying something else. I grabbed her by the shoulder, an easy interception. “That’s it. You’re going to go take a walk.”

  “A walk?”

  “It’s where both of your legs work to take you somewhere else.” I pointed. “Don’t make me use the blade.”

  She muttered something undoubtedly rude under her breath as she left, slamming the door behind her. That left Apis, Harald and I with a tied-up-hostage that I couldn’t speak to.

  “You,” I said, pointing at Harald. “You’re fluent in northern, aren’t you?”

  “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Tell this man,” I said, pointing to our hostage, “That if he tells us where Duran went, he’ll be released.” It sounded like a bad bargain even to my ears. “And he’ll get tea,” I added.

  The conversation sounded like it took forever. Half of it, the man wasn’t even looking at Harald, just staring at the floor and muttering in what sounded like prayer. Eventually, however, he started listening. I smiled at him and didn’t lift my fingers off of the blade’s handle.

  “He says he wants the tea now,” said Harald, eventually. “His throat is sore.”

  That, at least, I could do. I waited for the kettle to boil as Apis leaned down and untied one of his hands. We all stayed in silence as the water poured into a different bowl, the leaves floating as their color slowly leached into the water.

  I only handed the bowl down once the water was cold enough not to burn when thrown. The man didn’t seem to have any complaints. He gulped it down, eventually putting the bowl on the ground and leaning back.

  He said something brief to Harald, a sentence at most.

  “He must be joking,” said Harald, as if we knew what he’d said. “I’ll clarify, never worry.” I watched them debate further. The man looked half-asleep already. Was he really trustworthy?Harald sat down after the final exchange, tail wagging in what I now recognized was a nervous gesture. “I…ah…”

  “Spit it out!”

  “He says the boy is at school,” he said. “Which, of course, makes little sense. Many of the boys are at school, yes, but Duran had no admittance or payment. How could he have gotten in?”

  It was true, we’d had several plans and ideas to sneak in just because of the difficulty of putting a student into the Crags mid-semester. Still…

  “It’s Duran,” I said, and found the sentiment hopeful for once. I reached up, pressed a hand to my lips. Was I smiling? “He has a way of weaseling into places.”