I would like to be alone right now. Yes, sorry. I know, I know. I’ll help with cleaning up tomorrow.

No, don’t worry about me. I’m okay. I’m okay. You should go, Kelser. Take care of the elders. I’m just going to hang out here for a bit.

Yes, on my own.

Don’t worry about me.

I’ll be okay.

It took a long time to convince Kelser to leave me alone. And Elder Kezler, he came out too. Elder Brol tried to give me a hug and I had to jump out of the way. Even that dumb old demon Bain Rusta came to try and talk to me, but at least I understood why he would want to do that. Poor guy was nearly groveling on his knees asking for forgiveness. I knew he wasn’t at fault because the Immortals were involved, so I never planned on blaming him for much, but for some reason, I didn’t say that out loud. I shooed him away, saying I’d talk to him later.

The spirit Taoc said something about the Senate. They had voted to thank me for defending their city, although I had a feeling the gesture was meant to help convince me to help them fix things up with magic. They really wanted me to fix the mural in the Senate, too, but I didn’t feel like looking at that face again. Maybe I’d reconstruct it so it didn’t look familiar anymore. Yeah, maybe that’d piss Noel off too.

My thoughts meandered, my heart beat softly, and my legs took me wandering through the woods. These were fake woods, a sort of timber forest grown by the fairies near their capital. Most of the surroundings of the capital had been cleared out long ago, to help defend the city against their enemies. But because these trees were meant to grow quickly and be cut down for timber and firewood, the woods had a strange, uncanny arrangement. They had been planted in rows, stretching on into the distance. This meant I could stand in between two trees and look right through the woods if I wanted to. This was why I’d had to go around asking everybody to leave the woods, and also why they couldn’t just hang around the area, since there was nowhere to hide. Strange, really, to stand among what felt like a dense forest, but to still be able to see in every direction such that you knew you were truly alone.

The sunlight that filtered through the woods was also eerie and strange. I had a feeling night would fall quickly in here. I considered sleeping here, inside the fake forest and its rows upon rows of creepily regular trees, since it would probably hide the moon from my view. I decided against it. The woods might hide the moon from my view, but I had a feeling they couldn’t hide me from the moon’s view. And so I walked through the woods, sulking. Yes, sulking. It was a strange feeling. One I wasn’t too familiar with. In fact, my only other experience with this feeling had also been in this world.

Failure. I wasn’t used to it. Now, I’m not saying I’ve never lost before. Of course I have. Basketball games, bets in school, that one spelling bee where the judge was from the United Kingdom and insisted aluminum had an extra I.

I’d faced failure when I first faced the Immortal of Madness. I’d faced failure when I couldn’t get Noel to stay, when I realized I couldn’t save the elfin Jora tribe, and even when I couldn’t remove the strange magic around the Izlandi Kingdom’s capital.

But this time, it felt different. My defeat had been so thorough, so complete, that I couldn’t help but be depressed. Think about it. The Immortal of Desire had turned back time for me, and yet I still failed. I still let Noel get away with the Book of Annihilation, my one hope for getting back home, and she was going to go take it to the worst possible person in the world, the Immortal of Madness! Honestly, it felt like I’d go mad just thinking about it.

If I wanted to go home, I would have to fight them all again. Noel, Alek, the Immortals of Madness and Evil, and probably hordes of their lackeys and pawns. I would have to go through everybody to get the book back, but if I couldn’t stop them with an entire army behind me, how would I be able to do anything on my own. And yes, this would have to do this alone. I wasn’t about to drag all of these innocent people into a suicide mission. They didn’t need to die just to send me back to my home world.

All sorts of thoughts rushed through my head, and all sorts of feelings flooded my heart. I mulled over the things Noel had said.

Could I trust the Immortal of Desire? No, of course not. But I didn’t need to. I just needed to know that our interests aligned. The birds didn’t want the Immortal of Madness to get that book, and I wanted it for myself. If they got in my way after I got the book, I’d deal with it then. But what about the possibility that the Immortal of Desire had been manipulating and controlling me? I wasn’t an idiot. I knew my actions had been strange and irrational, and I had heard the Immortal insinuate things.

The implications of this were bad, but I had a feeling I could do something about it. I knew my mind control resistance was powerful enough. If it could hold back the Immortal of Evil, surely it could protect me against the birds too? No, whatever they had been doing, it hadn’t been about mind control. Or at least, not the sort of mind control that I had been dealing with before.

I had a feeling this was all about feelings. The Immortal of Desire probably had some sort of ability to manipulate emotions. It was sort of in the name, after all. I didn’t know if the immortal was manipulating hormones or something more metaphysical, but I had a feeling I could temper the effects of that magic the next time I faced it by incorporating some meditation techniques I’d been using to control stress in college. I would have to think about it later. The sun was going down.

I stopped walking. I looked around in every direction. Nobody. Good. If I wanted to spend the night here, I certainly could. I’d be up bright and early to fix the damage in the city, but for now, I definitely wanted to be alone. I wanted to work through my emotions on my own. To take a step back, a deep breath, and a break. A well deserved, long awaited, break.

I jumped up and landed on a tree branch. The canopy was thick but I could still see the setting sun from up here. That wouldn’t do. I didn’t want to see the moon. I used magic hands and wind magic to push a few tree tops together. Then, I used a large vine to tie together some branches and trunks. Soon, there was a thick net on top of the trees in this artificial forest. I settled down among the leaves, weaving together a little hammock with long leaves and vines. The hammock wasn’t very sturdy, and it wasn’t the most comfortable bed in the world, but when I fell into it and closed my eyes, somehow, it felt like I was floating in the clouds. Like a massive weight had slowly slid off my shoulders and fallen to the ground below. I knew I would still have to pick up that weight in the morning. I knew that there was still a lot to do, that I couldn’t afford to run away and hide like this for long. Hiding from my troubles, the uncertain future, and the people who had so many expectations. I knew I couldn’t brush it all aside for long.

But tonight. Just for one night. I didn’t care. This was good. No, this was great. I would face my troubles in the morning. I would let my thoughts ferment for a little while longer until I could figure out what to do. For tonight, I was just going to rest in my little hammock among the trees, hiding from the moon, the red star, and the rest of the whole wide world.