Sophie allowed Elowen to explore the path until the light faded behind the thick tree growth and it began to grow dark all around them, only interrupted by the faint blue glow of the mana lamps. They weren’t even halfway to Caulis by Sophie’s estimate, but Elowen’s previous warnings echoed in her mind, all the same.

“We should head back,” she gently suggested, even as Elowen hesitated, seeming to want to continue on further down the path.

“We’ll do it again tomorrow, won’t we?” Elowen asked as she reluctantly turned back, floating on towards the shrine.

“Of course,” Sophie agreed. “We could even go to town if you’d like.”

Elowen seemed pleased by the compromise and danced around Sophie happily the entire way back to the shrine.

Sophie had no trouble transferring Elowen’s bond back to the shrine stone once they made it safely back. Elowen made a small surprised sound once the connection solidified, but she confirmed that it all seemed as it had been previously, for better or for worse.

With the bond back in place, Sophie then recharged the garden stone with her own mana. It didn’t take much… Sophie wasn’t sure how long they had been out on the path exploring, but she imagined it was probably at least an hour or two. If Elowen’s bond only used such a small bit of mana in that amount of time, Sophie was confident they would be able to make the trip into Caulis tomorrow. As long as they got back by nightfall, there should be plenty of mana. In fact, Sophie wouldn’t be surprised if the garden stone’s mana would last Elowen two or three days.

But with the little mana that the garden stone needed, it left Sophie with a lot of mana leftover for the day. It seemed a waste not to use it. After placing the stone back in its usual location on the kitchen counter, she decided to give the rest of her mana to the trees – first the Magewood sapling in the entryway and then on the Dawnwood saplings in the greenhouse. Elowen floated around her curiously, inspecting the trees as she worked. Over the course of the past several days, the Magewood’s appearance hadn’t changed as drastically as the saplings in the greenhouse, but Sophie liked to think that it looked a little happier.

By the time she was finished, it was full dark, and she was feeling rather low on mana and ready for dinner. Luckily, she had her sandwich fixings from the market and Acacia’s freshly baked bread to look forward to.

Elowen hovered around the pile of books on the table while Sophie made not one, but two sandwiches. “Will you read these tonight?”

“We might as well,” Sophie replied, glancing at the pile as she sat down at the table with her plate. She took a bite out of one of the sandwiches and began to sort through the books, separating the library books from the books that Ryland had let her borrow. “Do any look interesting? We could read one together.”

She paused, frowning around another bite of sandwich, when she noticed an extra book in the pile – Ice Caves of the Northern Islands.

“How about that one?” Elowen asked, peering over her shoulder. “What’s it about?”

“Hmmmm, I’m not sure exactly. I think this got thrown in the pile by accident.” Sophie flipped open the book, and after the title page, there was a sketch of the interior of one of the caves. She almost turned the page, but Elowen made a wounded sound.

“There are things like this in the world?” Elowen asked, her voice sounding strange.

Sophie stared down at the sketch. “I suppose there must be.”

“I wish…” Elowen began, but she trailed off as she held her hand above the page, her translucent fingers not quite able to touch the markings there.

“Maybe we could go sometime,” Sophie suggested, thinking perhaps she understood what Elowen had been wanting to say.

Elowen looked up at her, eyes filled with hope. “Really?”

“Sure,” Sophie replied. “I don’t see why not. Although it might be quite a long time before we’re ready…”

To be honest, Sophie hadn’t thought much about traveling around this strange fantasy world. Even though she had moved halfway across the country back in her old world, she wasn’t much of a traveler as a rule. But something about the sadness of Elowen’s situation made her think that one day, she would like to take Elowen to the ice caves.

Elowen clapped happily, and Sophie finished eating her sandwiches, occasionally flipping the page to skim her eyes over the text and pausing so Elowen could look at all of the illustrations.

***

The next morning, Sophie woke up to an unfortunately chipper and demanding shrine spirit peering over her.

“We must go to town!” Elowen declared, her eyes wide with excitement.

“Ummmm… Can I wake up first?”

Sophie was not quite so perky this morning, although all of her mana had re-generated from the previous evening. She still needed her morning coffee – er, tea, rather. She occasionally still woke up yearning for coffee, and this was one of those mornings. Surely if there were ice caves and mana-channeling wyvern in this fantasy world, she would find coffee eventually too.

She made her tea and ate one of the pastries from yesterday for breakfast before she started to feel up to trying to move Elowen’s bond over to the garden stone again.

Elowen floated around her with an almost frenetic excitement the entire time. Sophie couldn’t blame her. It had been nearly a century, perhaps, since Elowen had ventured into town, and they hadn’t made it very far along the path the night before.

“Must you have so much tea?” Elowen complained.

Sophie laughed. “Okay, okay,” she replied. “We’ll try the bond again.”

She rinsed out her tea cup and made her way to the shrine's entryway again, picking up the garden stone from its place on the counter along the way. Sophie’s grogginess had evaporated completely by now, and moving the bond over this morning was much easier than it had been the night before.

As it snapped into place and Sophie slid the garden stone in her pocket, Elowen twirled excitedly, holding her hands up to look at them. “Oh, if only I could manifest as well! It would be just perfect.”

Sophie felt a small twinge of something like guilt at the statement, but pushed it aside. She had no idea how long it would take for them to get Elowen back to her old self, but at least this was a step in the right direction.

Elowen floated on ahead right through the front walls of the shrine, testing the limits of the bond. Sophie laughed but took it at a more sedate pace, heading back to the kitchen to stuff all of the library books from the table along with Ryland’s book on ice caves back in her Tailored bag. Then she finally made her way out to the courtyard, with Elowen already waving at her from the path, a huge grin on her face.

Sophie couldn’t help but smile in return. This was the happiest she had seen the spirit – perhaps since the last time she tried burning an offering for her.

Today in the daylight, Sophie felt far more confident about their experiment, and they made it all the way to the main road with Elowen always floating a few feet ahead, pointing out every new flower and marveling at various forest creatures she met along the way. She paused when the path finally opened up to the huge dirt road that led into Caulis and glanced down the way towards the city gates.

“Oh,” she said softly.

“Is everything okay?” Sophie asked when she finally caught up to her.

“I’m not sure –” Elowen replied, but then she shook her head. “It’s fine. Let's just keep going.”

Sophie noticed that Elowen didn’t answer the question, exactly, but she didn’t want to press her too much about it. She couldn’t imagine how all of this must feel. Even if Elowen had walked the same path many times before, that would have been nearly a hundred years ago. Who knew how much had changed. It would be quite overwhelming.

Elowen hung back a bit at the gate, seeming slightly confused, but she quickly followed when Sophie passed through the gate easily, like she always did. One of the usual guards nodded to her, completely unconcerned about Elowen.

Of course, the guard couldn’t see Elowen, so there was that.

When they stepped into the town square, Elowen paused again, staring around in astonishment.

“It’s –” Elowen gasped and raised her hand to her mouth. “It’s completely changed.”

Sophie glanced over at her sharply. “You remember something?”

Elowen nodded, seeming somehow upset at the memory, but before she could say anything further, a small, fluffy white creature bounded towards them, dragging its leash along the ground.

Elowen floated back in surprise, but Sophie immediately knelt down to grab the creature, who seemed awfully excited to see her. By the floppy ears and lolling tongue, Sophie decided it must be some variety of dog, although this particular dog was so covered in fluff that it was a little hard to tell. She carefully wrapped its leash around her fist.

Just as she was standing up with the dog firmly leashed at her side, a very young girl with her light brown hair pulled back in a braid, scampered up as well. Her face was streaked with tears, and she sniffled a bit. “Sam!” she shouted down angrily at the dog without even giving Sophie a second glance. The dog immediately jumped up, pawing at her clothes and wagging its tail happily, completely oblivious to the trouble it was in.

A few moments later, a frazzled-looking woman with her own long, brown hair pulled up into a bun joined the group, placing her hands on the little girl’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized to Sophie. “Sam got away from us.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Sophie insisted, and she handed over the leash.

The lady began to apologize again as she ushered both the girl and the dog away, but before she could manage, the girl finally looked up at them and stood absolutely still, tilting her head with confusion. She glanced between Sophie and Elowen and then back to Elowen again and finally pointed directly at Elowen. “How come you’re see-through?”

Sophie nearly choked on a laugh in surprise, and the woman glanced to where the little girl was pointing, obviously confused as well. She frowned down at the little girl and seemed like she was about ready to chastise her when Elowen asked, “You can see me?”

The little girl nodded, stepping forward out of the woman’s grasp. “Of course!” She reached out as if she was going to grab the hem of Elowen’s dress, but her hand went right through the spot, and Elowen giggled. The girl glanced at her hand, obviously surprised at the result. “Are you real?”

Elowen laughed again and bent down slightly, placing her hand on the little girl’s head. She glowed a bit, and Sophie’s Mana Sense pinged as Elowen did something. “I sure am,” she replied. “You know, you’ll make a fine priestess someday.”

The woman continued to glance between the girl and Sophie and confusion. “Is there something –” she shook her head. “I mean –”

“She's talking to the shrine spirit,” Sophie reassured the woman. “I’m Caulis’s shrine priestess,” she explained, but it didn’t seem to help much.

“The shrine spirit?” the woman repeated, still glancing over to the spot where Elowen was chatting with the young girl, but obviously unable to see her.

Sophie nodded. “I suppose this one must have the makings of a shrine priestess within her.”

The little girl glanced up at her curiously at the statement, and Elowen nodded in agreement as well. “She does! She will have that path open to her when she’s ready.”

The woman still sounded quite uncertain about the whole situation, but she thanked them again for catching Sam, and finally left to continue on about her day. After she left, Elowen glanced around them in wonder again, her earlier mood seeming to have vanished after all of the excitement.

“Can we go to the library?” she asked, twirling eagerly at the mere idea.

Sophie wanted to ask her more questions about how Caulis had changed, but she decided that they would have time for that later, so instead she nodded. “Sure, it’s right this way.”