“Pour me another drink, darling, if you don’t mind,” Gareth said, and Orenda emptied the bottle into his glass.

How much of the story was true? If it was true, Bella could corroborate it. Falsie was close enough to have seen it happen. If it was true, Orenda was the cause of her mother’s death. If it was true, Gareth had been maimed protecting her.

“I was beautiful, once,” Gareth said, “Like Ronnie. That’s… that’s really all I had going for me, you know. We were both beautiful. On the outside. But I was never much of… I didn’t… I never wanted to go with her, you know? We had already lost so much, and I knew that going after the Emerald Knight was asking for trouble. But Ronnie… Ronnie had made a decision, early on in life, that he was going to be something, you know? That he was going to be someone. I think he thought he was a fairy-tale prince. I think he thought that he was going to save the princess, and they were going to live happily ever after. And he found Soko, or… the second time, you see, we found her, long after she found us, and she was a leader, she was very much like… she had all those qualities you associate with royalty.”

“You’re drunk,” Orenda said, not with judgement, just because it was true and she thought he may not know.

“I’m very often drunk,” Gareth agreed. “But we were… we weren’t, you know? We weren’t heroes. We were never going to be. We were ordinary people, once we grew up. Being a gifted child doesn’t mean anything once you grow up, especially if all the people who told you how smart you are were dead. It didn’t mean anything, but for those first ten years or so, when we were still young and small and truly believed things, they told him he was special, and he… he really started to believe it, Orenda. He really thought he was. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t anybody. He was just another mortal who went before the Emerald Knight. He was never smart, I don’t think, looking back on it. Not smarter than I was, and I’m a goddamn idiot. I should have known that, I think. I should have told him, but I didn’t, not until it was too late.”

“And the strange thing is,” he said with slurred words, “That Soko was smart- she was well and truly gifted with intelligence. If she hadn’t listened to him, hadn’t tried to protect him, she would… she could have done it, I think, eventually. We were, she was, that is, wearing them down, the empire. The Emerald Knight can’t be everywhere at once, and the plan was to keep the Knights of Order going on the edges, in the colonies. He couldn’t be everywhere in the world. You can’t do everything, no matter how strong you are. That was a good plan, to wear them down. It has to, you see, to have an empire, it has to be worth more, for the people, to be part of the empire than not. And it wasn’t. It never was, for any of them. Xandra hasn’t wiped us all out, and they have this… with the humans, with people like Bella and Xac, or not… yes, like them. With humans, they want them, but they want them to work for them, to keep them, and you can’t… that won’t work forever. There are more of them than there are of us. If there’s any hope at all, it lies in the humans. An elf can’t do anything, not really.”

“Gary?” Falsie’s voice was accompanied by a knock on the door.

“Yes, come in, old friend,” Gareth slurred.

Falsie came in holding the hand, wearing a set of goggles that had several different lenses that could be flipped down.

“Ah hell,” he said, “I can smell it from here. You’re shitfaced. I need you to have working fine motor skills so I can test this.”

“My drunkenness is no impediment,” Gareth argued.

“Ya can’t cast for shit when yer drunk,” Falsie argued, “Nobody can. Magic is in the blood.”

“I’m not that drunk,” Gareth argued.

“Rendy, can you hold this for me?” Falsie handed her the hand, “Put your hand inside and touch the crystals. Make a fist.”

Orenda obeyed him.

“I just wanna test it,” he said, “Move yer hand inside, touchin the crystals. I don’t know if it’ll work and it not on ya, but Gary’s gone and let himself fall apart.”

“I was just telling Orenda about the night Ronnie died,” Gareth said.

“Ah,” Falsie said with great meaning, “Not a happy story, is it? But that’s all over and done with, and yer here now, and that’s worth something.”

Orenda made the fist and touched the crystals, and the hand balled itself into a fist to match. She unclenched her hand as much as she could in the confines of the sleeve, and watched the hand follow her movements.

“This is amazing, Mr Falsie,” she said.

“Eh,” he said, “Just Falsie. If it’s ‘Mr’, it’d be ‘Mr Hillheart’, and that’s my daddy’s name.”

“What’s your real name?” Orenda asked.

“Harold,” he answered simply, as if it wasn’t a secret, and Orenda chided herself for thinking that everything was some kind of mystery. “Harold the lesser. Little Harry. That was my daddy’s name too. Falsie’s mine.”

“I’m told I was named for my grandmother,” Orenda said.

“That ya were,” Falsie said, “seems it works. Don’t fuck it up again, Gary.”

“You tell me that every time,” Gareth took the hand from Orenda and went about the process of strapping it back onto the stump of an arm on his left side, “And every time I tell you that I absolutely will.”

“You don’t need a mask,” Orenda told Gareth, “It doesn’t look that bad.”

“Yeah, it does,” Falsie said, “Don’t lie to him, girl, he knows what’s what.”

“You don’t even notice it, after a while,” Orenda argued, “I had forgotten about it.”

“It doesn’t look like us,” Gareth said as if that settled the matter. He motioned for his gloves and Orenda slid them across the table to him. “See, Falsie, look, I can work it perfectly fine.” He wiggled his fingers as he slid on the thin glove, but they barely moved, not nearly as fluidly as they had when Orenda had been playing with it.

“That one keeps the water out,” Falsie explained, “I’m from the fire continent too. None of my stuff works underwater. I’d love to learn how to do that, but in all my years I’ve never seen clockwork that won’t rust eventually.”

“You’ve been so kind to my uncle,” Orenda said.

“Somebody needs to,” Falsie said, “Hey, is that boy with half an ear and the burned up face your lover? He’s been standin on the deck a his ship hollerin up a storm for you. Been aggravating the shit outta me. Bilge threw mop water on him to try an make him stop but he just keeps right on goin.”

“Oh god, I hope not,” Gareth made a disgusted face as best he could, “You can do better, Orenda.”

“He’s not,” Orenda said, “And you… you really did kill his father. I know you didn’t mean to, but he has a right to be upset.”

“And I shot him in the face,” Gareth reminded her, “I daresay he does have a right to be angry, but you don’t know how badly I don’t want to deal with that kind of nonsense right now. Is it late? I feel as if it’s late.”

“Gareth,” Orenda laid a hand gently on his forearm, “We really do need to return to the temple. I need you to show me where it is. None of the expeditions have ever come back. I don’t think the Urillians can take the environment.”

“Nah, they can’t,” Falsie said as if he knew exactly why, “the only reason they got up there the first time is because my mama, god rest her soul, made that armor for them. We learn from our mistakes, us Hillhearts. We don’t make the same ones twice. We like to make room for new mistakes. That’s how you learn and grow, girl. Won’t no earth elf ever get armor like that again.”

“Yes, well, that can be your family motto,” Gareth told him, “for us, I think, perhaps… ‘I’m good right here’ would be a good motto. As in ‘Hey Gary, would you like to go fight the Emerald Knight?’ ‘Why no, as a matter of fact, I’m good right here.’ Or ‘Hey Gary, would you like to return to your childhood home so you can relive the first or second worst day of your life?’ ‘No, as difficult as this is to believe, I’m good right here’. That’s the new Firefist motto. The Nochdifache motto.”

“Why did you change your name?” Orenda asked him, “Why did you name me Nochdifache?”

“Because they’re looking for Firefists,” Gareth explained, “My mother was the high priestess, and Ronnie just… literally screamed that at the Emerald Knight. We need to stay in hiding. We don’t need to go looking for trouble. We’re good right here. Can you pour me another drink?”

“There isn’t anymore,” Orenda said.

“Yes there is, in that cabinet,” he pointed. “Oh, and Orenda? Your full name, I believe, should be ‘Orenda Solomaur Firefist’. Sokomaur had a sister, another amazing soldier, named Solomaur, and I think they would have named you for her.”

“You must really dislike ‘Bruanna’,” Orenda said as she opened the cabinet.

“I think you should name your children for people who meant something to you,” Gareth said, “Ronnie was named for our father and our maternal grandmother, Shiron and Garenda. I was an afterthought, but they did name me after my grandmother as well. She was the high priestess before mom was. Thesis often chose people in our family, if you believe that sort of thing.”

“You don’t?” Orenda asked as she opened a new bottle and poured him a fresh glass.

“No god would allow the things I have seen,” Gareth said, “I don’t fear hell, Orenda. I’ve spent most of my life asking, ‘Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?’. I don’t fear any demons, least of all Morgani Magnus. What the hell is a demon going to do that hasn’t already been done to me?”

“Yer drunk, Gary,” Falsie said, “He gets like this, gets real blasphemous when he’s drunk. But he wears the medallion of a priest.”

“My mother gave it to me,” Gareth said, “That’s why I wear it. And it works. It’s better than a staff or wand or somesuch nonsense. I don’t think Bella would carry a wand if her grandmother hadn’t given it to her. Some people are sentimental old fools, or sentimental young fools.”

“You have to take me to the temple, Gareth,” Orenda said, “I deserve a chance. I’ve been having dreams about the staff.”

“Dreams?” he asked.

“Yes,” Orenda said, “I’m standing before a giant flame, and a mage staff inside calls out to me.”

“How did you even know it was there?” Gareth asked.

“I didn’t,” Orenda said, “I heard it in my dreams before I ever knew it existed.”

His face contorted into a look of confusion, and he said, “Ask me again in the morning, alright?”