“Rendy,” Tolith called out to her in a dream, “Rendy, please. I know you’re not supposed to do this. I know it hurts. But please, I beg of you, I need to talk to someone!”

No… not in a dream. Orenda opened her eyes and looked around, trying to trace the sound of the voice. Had he gotten into her room somehow? Had he really escaped? He sounded as if he were speaking to her from behind a wall or underground.

She followed the voice to a planter by the bedroom window, where Tolith’s face appeared in the rich, soft earth. He looked even worse than he had when he had left, and she felt for him, but she could not work earth magic, and receiving the scry was so difficult that she could only make out the basics of his face. The fire crystals in her necklace or earrings did nothing to make it any better, and it was amazing that she heard his voice at all.

“Tolith, I can’t accept an earth scry,” She told him, “I don’t know how, and if I did, it would drive me mad.”

“What?” He asked, still far away and underground, “I can’t hear you.”

Orenda made a decision to do something very stupid.

“Hold on a second,” she huffed, and walked to a dressing table laid out in Quiroris’s room. She began to open things that she thought may be jewelry boxes and found a great many creams, tinctures, different kinds of makeup, hair productions, combs, and pins- which is where she finally found something useful. An elaborate hair pin that looked as if it would be worn to expensive parties had an earth crystal, set in gold, at its crown. Orenda took it, walked back to the plant where Tolith still called out to her, and concentrated.

She expected the madness to set in at once, or that the magic would be much more difficult to pull from, or that she would meet some sort of impediment as her body tried to warn her that she was making a mistake in trying to channel a kind of magic through it that it was not built to channel.

But she didn’t. She met none of that resistance. It was almost exactly like working fire magic, and in that instant Orenda realized why it was so tempting to cast outside one’s element. She had often wondered how the mages who did it could be so foolish and risk so much when they had to have known- but there was no warning at all. Only that the dirt became a real face, and Tolith’s voice rang out clearly, and she could see him, see that he was no longer crying, see that his hair was down and he was obviously somewhere where he was supposed to be sleeping.

“Toli,” Orenda told him, “I cannot accept an earth scry. I’ll go mad.”

“Please, Rendy!” he begged, “Please, I need to talk to someone. Everything has become so horrible so quickly! I can’t stand it!”

“Speak quickly then,” Orenda told him, “And know how much I’m risking for you.”

“They’re… they’re having the funeral in two days,” Tolith said, and his shoulders moved as if he was twisting something that Orenda could not see, but she suspected it was his father’s staff. “I shouldn’t have… shouldn’t have said those horrible things to my mother. Now that I know what really happened, I… should have never told her that it was her fault. She’ll remember that forever. I’m a terrible person, Rendy.”

“I don’t know how I would speak to a mother,” Orenda told him, “If I had one. I don’t mean to be rude, Toli, but I’m not overly fond of your mother. She wanted to have me killed because she disliked the way I look.”

“She’s not a bad person, Rendy,” he promised, “She’s just upset. They really did love each other, I think. They just couldn’t make it work. It was arranged, you know. My father had a pretty good territory and, well, you remember class, you know how it all works.”

“I’m sorry about your father, Toli.” Orenda told him.

“I’m a viscount now,” Tolith told her, “I’ll be officially inheriting his title at the funeral.”

“I’m afraid I can’t really remember what that is,” Orenda said, “I get confused. I always had trouble with it, in class. What’s the difference between a viscount and a count?”

“Only location,” Tolith said, staring down at his lap, “My father’s territory was up against the sacred mountains at the edge of the colony. A normal count doesn’t live at the edge, but somewhere in the middle. They’re both lords.”

“Ah,” Orenda said, “An edgelord.”

“Yes,” Tolith sighed. “But I won’t be moving there to take his place. My mother has trapped me here.”

“You said you found out what he was really doing,” Orenda said, feeling a pang of guilt for using Tolith’s emotional state to pry information from him, but it was important to the cause. The knights needed to know what the viscount of the sacred mountain province was doing so far from home. “Does it bring you comfort? What was he doing so far from home?”

“My dad was a great guy, Rendy,” Tolith said, and his face seemed a little warmer, “He was trying to save a group of humans.”

“Really?” Orenda asked because she could not contain her shock quickly enough. Fortunately, Tolith took it more as admiration than dismay.

“Yeah,” he went on, “I like humans, dad does to. My family’s always kept lots of them. They’re probably the smartest animal on Xren. My dad, especially, gets mad when people don’t take good care of them. I was always told that if you get an animal, and then you don’t take care of it, you’re a horrible person and Thesis will punish you. Elves were put here to guide and care for all the creatures on Xren, it says so in the holy texts, not to abuse them. Humans, especially, need that, because they’re so smart, Rendy. They’re probably as close to elven as any animal is going to get.”

Orenda was trying very hard to control her breathing as she said, “Yes, they’re quite intelligent.”

“There’s a ring of thieves,” Tolith explained, “That my father was tracking down, who have been stealing humans and turning them lose into the desert to die. Humans can’t survive on their own anymore, Rendy, they’re domesticated now. Maybe millions of years ago, but now they’ve lost the ability to hunt and forage. They need someone to take care of them. These people, this ring of thieves, doesn’t care about that. They just want to hurt the people they steal from. They’re not even reselling the humans or taking care of them, they’re just dumping them into the sacred mountains to die of exposure. It’s horrible!”

“And he tracked them down?” Orenda asked.

“Yeah, his province was the place they were letting them go,” Tolith explained, “just out, into the wilds of those mountains, never intending to pick them up again, never intending to bring them food or water. It’s so hot out there, Rendy, to leave an animal without water. When mom was telling me about this, about the work he was doing, she started to cry.”

“I’m sure,” Orenda said, thinking that Lady Glenlen hadn’t cried when her own son had attacked her, so she was probably fairly good at crocodile tears.

“They would sneak them to the wilderness,” Toli went on, “so dad traced them back. There were a bunch of different stops, it took a long time to find, but he eventually traced the ring all the way back here. He was trying to find where it started, because that’s where he’d find the leader. Mom thinks that it might be that Captain Nochdifache guy, because he’s sunk a bunch of transport and merchant ships, or stolen all the cargo.”

“Oh,” Orenda said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“I…” Tolith wiped his eyes, “I used to believe that I wanted to be a pirate, Rendy. I… let them fool me. I suppose all children believe foolish things.”

“Perhaps,” Orenda agreed, trying to figure out what emotion to feel and which one to project for this conversation.

“Orenda,” Quiroris asked, and she jumped because she had not known he was there. “Are you using earth magic? Why would you do that? I can feel it from the sitting room, the force of it woke me up! Have you gone mad? That can kill you!”

“I had no choice,” Orenda explained.

“No choice?” Tolith asked, “Is someone else there?”

“Are you scrying?” Quiroris asked, held his hand over the plant, and the rings in his ears began to glow. Orenda watched as the entire shelf of plants twisted and contorted into a huge scene, big enough to display a room. She saw Tolith sitting on a large bed in what looked like a playroom that had been cleaned but still held fragments of a childhood like stuffed animals and toy soldiers on shelves, and toyboxes like the ones she had seen in storybooks. He was staring into a tray of dirt that he had apparently sifted and laid out for the express purpose.

“Lord Glenlen!” Quiroris said sternly, and Tolith jumped, as Orenda imagined his face replacing hers in the tray, “I understand that you are upset, but it is… I don’t even know what time it is. It is stupid o’clock in the morning, and you have a scrying tablet, so I assume you initiated this conversation. Did you ask Orenda to cast outside her element to accept your scry and speak with you?”

“All of the adults have gone mad!” Tolith hissed, “Headmaster, please speak to my mother! I want to return to school!”

“Your mother wants what is best for you, Lord Glenlen,” Quiroris explained, “I’m disappointed in you. You realize how badly you could have hurt Orenda, don’t you? What a terrible influence you’re being? Mages who cast outside their element can die. The magic flows differently. Apologise, now! She can hear you; I’m projecting you.”

“Rendy, I’m sorry,” he said, twisting his father’s staff, “I just needed someone to talk to. Almost no one listens like you do… people just… just see money and-”

“That’s enough of that,” Quiroris snapped, sounding like a headmaster discipling a student, “I won’t have you corrupting Orenda. You will not scry her again. If you wish to communicate, send a courier or a letter. Go to bed, Lord Glenlen. You deserve rest. It’s been a trying day.”

“Good night, Rendy,” Tolith sighed, “Goodnight headmaster.”

“Goodnight,” Quiroris said.

“Night, Toli,” Orenda called without knowing if he could hear or see her.

Quiroris waved his hand, and his plants returned to normal.

“Did you go through my things?” Quiroris asked, holding out his hand.

Orenda handed him the comb and replied, “He scried me. I barely heard him and I could see the outline of his face. You saw the sort of shape he was in when he left. I couldn’t very well ignore him!”

“I understand that,” Quiroris said as he walked back to his dressing table to put the comb away, “But you cannot let someone pressure you into doing something dangerous, Orenda. We aren’t joking when we say it can kill you. And it is not a quick or painless death. The mind deteriorates first; mages can live for years in a bought of madness before the body follows suite. The wrong sort of magic will tear you apart from the inside out!”

“His father is dead!” Orenda snapped back, and neither of them realized they were shouting.

“I won’t allow him to hurt you!” Quiroris yelled back, “I know that when you are a teenager that first love feels vast and incredibly important, but it isn’t worth risking your life!”

Orenda stared at him as if he had gone mad.

“You think that I am in love with Tolith?” She asked in a voice that had returned to a normal volume, “Why on xren would you have an idea like that?”

“He’s been courting you for years, Orenda, I’m not blind!” Quiroris snapped, “The gifts, the outings- did you really think that two teenagers could go away to town together for years on their own and just go undetected? We aren’t stupid! I simply thought it was a good match, but now, with Lady Glenlen as she is, you need to pull back and take some time apart.”

“I have never been...” Orenda laughed, “My god, you have gone mad. The whole world has gone mad!”

“You’re wearing his earrings,” Quiroris pointed out.

“I wear the earrings you got me when the mood strikes,” Orenda retorted, “If I fell in love with every idiot who gave me something shiney I would be as star crossed and stupid as poor Kassie.”

Quiroris’s attitude changed in a way that Orenda felt was disproportionate to the thing she had just said. The energy drained from him as he closed the box where he kept the things for his hair, and his shoulders slumped.

“I’m going back to bed, Orenda,” he said, “I’ll give a speech at breakfast tomorrow that I prepared earlier with the staff. There will be no classes for the rest of the week, out of respect for Lord Glenlen’s loss. Do not let me catch you casting outside your element again.”

As he was leaving, he paused in the doorway and reiterated his point. “I’m a powerful mage, Orenda- you can’t hide it from me. If any earth magic is cast in this school, I will feel it. I think you’ve forgotten that. I’m not a fool. I know what goes on around here, whether you believe it or not.”

“Goodnight, headmaster,” Orenda said.

“Goodnight, Orenda.”