At the end of a dirt road forking off another dirt road that ran through the forest, stood a hut. The woman living in the hut stood outside, chopping wood. Her dark brown hair fell on her shoulders and further down from there and her eyes were an earthy green. She was not in her youth anymore, but still long before her withering years. Her long dress – sturdy linen in dark green and cream white – was full of stains from kneeling on the ground, looking for all sorts of ingredients and tending to the forest. A badger’s pelt lay around her shoulders. She was waiting for two travellers that would come down the road, as the spirits of the forest had told her about them ahead of time.

The travellers arrived and she saw that it was who she was expecting. A broad-built man, wearing a long dark cloak, a durable linen shirt under a leather vest as well as laced leather pants and thick leather boots He had blue-ish grey eyes and dark blonde hair as well as a scraggy beard. At his side, a girl, wearing a similar cloak, much too large for her, a simple shirt and pants as well as leather foot and hand wrappings and a cute red bow on her neck.

The woman from the hut knew the man too well. His name was Garrett, or Garetas to most others, and he had learned some arcane and mystic secrets beside her when they were still learning under an old healer named Tirana. That was around twenty years ago and ever since they had been somewhat of friends. He occasionally dropped by without warning, most commonly when he had to hide for a while, wait for a message, or lick his wounds. This time she knew he'd be coming, because he had sent a message a few months back that he was planning to "acquire" an apprentice and asked her for assistance in training that apprentice.

Garrett waved at her from a distance and called out to her. "Lissy, good to see you."

She embraced him for a greeting. Then she knelt down to the girl. From a distance she had suspected the girl to be a beast-human, but now she was sure. Her coat was short but dense, and of a golden colouration. Her red-ish mane was fringy and wild. Her long slender ears hung down at the side of her head and although she looked Elissa in the eyes, she had her head hung low.

"Nannade, this is my old friend Elissa. Greet her."

The girl brought forth a shy "hello" but not much more.

Elissa went to open the door of the hut "Come on in."

The majority of the hut’s interior consisted of the central room. It served for eating, cooking, lounging and now also sleeping for the new guests. The cooking area with the stove was separated by a curtain, behind that were also the doors to a storage cabinet and the study, which had bookshelves and a desk. A large closet-sized cage in one corner housed two blackbirds and an herbalist’s work bench ran almost the entire length of the longest wall, above it shelves with different ingredients and tools for cooking, chopping, dissecting and many more tasks. The door next to the guest-bed led to Elissa’s bedroom.

"You know, I've actually started to think you wouldn't show up any more. I expected you earlier." Elissa said while the guests were taking place at the table. She went behind the curtain. "I'm going to put the kettle on for tea."

"True, we were running late. I didn't factor in that taking the child with me would slow me down this much." Garrett replied.

"I knew that you taking on a child as an apprentice would lead to a lot of learning on your part." Ever since they had learned together under Tirana, Elissa had teased Garrett whenever he made a mistake and hid it behind the expression "learning".

"That's why I've come to you. Only half of this endeavour is training. The other half is taking care of a child."

"I'm no mother. Don't go assuming I can help you raise a child!"

"All women have mother's instincts. Why resist?"

"Instinct doesn't mean I know how to do things!" Elissa made sure to let her frustration with that oaf come through her voice.

"You're still more of a healer and home maker than I am." Garrett had her with that statement. He had never been one for a sessile lifestyle and being on the move with a child diminished the time he could spend training her.

"True, but still. For now, I'll let you stay a month, I owe you that much. I'm sorry if that throws off your plan, but I won't just let someone stay at my house for a year or two out of the blue. Also, there are some people I must consult before I'm allowed to teach anyone anything."

Garrett furrowed his brow. “You haven’t spoken with the Lodge yet?”

“No, I’ve talked to the Arch-Druid and she gave me her okay for now. But she’ll drop by later. It’s not wise to let the entire Lodge be in the know when you Hidden Hands are involved.”

“She? It’s not Loganos anymore?”

“No, his daughter, Loganna, but don’t worry, she’s the same breed of old fart.”

“He sure kept it in the family. Just like the nobles. It’s the same aristocratic bunch as anywhere else.”

“But she’s not unreasonable. Until she had a talk with the girl, I can’t say anything for sure.”

“I understand.” A rare statement from Garrett.

She didn't expect him to not understand, but she did expect him to try her nonetheless. She could tell it didn't dent his mood a bit, so he either had a back-up plan or some way to make her let them stay regardless.

Elissa had come back to the table and turned to Nannade as she sat down. "Why don't you tell me about yourself? Oh wait! I'll tell you about me first!" She adjusted her dress to look proper and tilted her head, contemplating for a moment. "I'm Elissa and I'm what you could call a witch. I do mostly healing and soothsaying for the people who come to my house, and sometimes visit the village when people send for me. I learned together with this guy under a woman called Tirana. You could say we are friends from youth. Many people come here to buy medicine or advice from the spirits. I lived here since I left my Master's house. I think Garrett wants me to teach you things like the basics of the arcane and the mystic, medicine and some other useful skills, but you may ask me anything else as well if you have any questions."

The girl’s shoulders were still slouched and her ears still hung low, but she looked very attentive to Elissa while she was speaking.

After a moment of silence, Elissa encouraged her. "Go on, it's your turn now."

Nannade looked over to Garrett. "You don't have to tell anything if you don't want to." He told her.

"My name is Nannade, but only Pappy and Mommy called me that, everyone else called me Fibi. I lived with Mommy and Pappy in a room, but Pappy stopped coming home one day. Mammy did work for men. Then Teacher Garetas came and took me with him."

Something started to dawn on Elissa. She turned to Garrett and tried to ask him something but what she wasn't sure what words to choose in front of the girl. Garrett saw the question on her face and answered. "Her mother was a whore-slave in some run-down inn in Prannten." He turned to Nannade with a stern expression. "It's best you learn these words and what they mean as soon as possible, life will not be soft on you." He turned back to Elissa. "Nannade was apparently often in the room when her mother 'worked', in another stable box. After I heard some self-important mercenary boast about how he frequented the services of a crolachan and how a child was crying in the room, I had an idea and started to investigate. I used a life essence transferal on the glyphs of their slave collars to transfer the punishment of death from Nannade's collar to that of her mother. The mother had agreed to this. Then I got Nannade out of that basement. That was almost two dozen of days ago."

A silence fell in the room. Nannade lookeddown at the table, her posture showed something like shame.

"Don't look like that, you did nothing wrong.” Garrett told her. “You just had bad luck with the circumstances of your birth." The kettle started to hiss and Elissa got up to make tea for the three.

When she had returned to the table, Garrett spoke up again. "Oh, and as to why I brought her here, just as well as teaching her, I need you to help me guide her body's growth. I know you're no expert on crolachans, but you still know a lot of things about medicine that I don't."

She actually had a book concerning crolachans and other non-human peoples, but she could tell that most of the information in it was hearsay or rumour at best; she'd rather consult an old waif's idle prattle than that book to care for a child’s health.

"So, will you help me?"

Elissa shook her head. “You know, when you come here to lick your wounds, I always assume you had been locked in battle with some rogue magister or evil warlock or abominable werewolf, but this I can’t assume away. You took away a little girl to train her. And now, you want me to brew that stuff your master forced you to drink for HER? She’s a child!” She gave her voice a more concerned tone to drive home her point.

“So was I. I actually had it better than that girl. When my teeth got knocked out, it was because I got myself into a fight again. This girl was chained to a wall in the room her mother was raped in. It was disgusting in there for even a few minutes.” His attitude turned severe.

“So what, you just pick up a traumatized kid and think it’s okay because it isn’t quite worse?”

“We pick up children from the streets because they are largely without affiliations. My teacher picked me because I was a street kid with a mage for a father. That’s rare. And so is she.”

Elissa sighed out her frustration, slapped her hands on her face and sighed some more.

"I don't know. I'd much rather take her off your hands, but I don’t know if I can take care of her either. And she's probably nowhere as safe as she is with you. But then again training her to be one of your trade? I already think it was reckless of Tirana to have taught you."

Garrett raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to lecture me on my work ethics again?"

"No, no. Not at all." Elissa pressed her fingers on her forehead. "I know you're not some common assassin or brutal thug, but still..." She turned to the girl and looked into her frightened eyes. "Somehow I think this cutie deserves better."

"Could those be motherly instincts trying to protect a little child?" His words stung like a needle made of salt.

"Have you ever thought about what she might want? Nannade, you must have an opinion, what do you want?”

"She's nine years old.” Garrett interjected. “And almost all of that time she was locked in a basement. She couldn't tell you what she wants because she knows nothing that she could want."

Elissa paid his interjection no heed and looked at the girl.

Nannade looked surprised that someone was addressing her for a moment. She looked to Garrett, but he wasn't returning the look. Then she turned to Elissa. "I don't want to be put in chains again."

Elissa sighed and got up. "I give up. Anyway, I said one month, do you want to settle in? I set up my second bed over there and another cabinet. That's all I can give you. I'll be back outside chopping wood."

"Let the girl do it! She needs to put on as fast as possible."

"You'll let her swing an axe? What if she hurts herself?"

Garetas flashed a cocky smile at Elissa. "Then that will be a learning experience."

While the girl was chopping firewood outside the hut, the two adults sat inside and finished their tea.

"Why would you go after a dumb rumour to get such a specific girl?" Elissa asked Garrett after a quick glance through the window. She sat so that she could keep an eye on the girl.

"It wasn't a rumour but a first-hand report from a witness."

"Granted, but still: Why? Aren't there enough street rats running around?"

"Because I didn't want a street rat. I wanted that kid. Her kind is nimble and quick and has good reflexes. I just know she’ll make an excellent Hidden Hand."

"She's a rarity. I remember you being very cautions to never get any scars on your face so people wouldn't recognize you as easily. How can a beast-human ever infiltrate anywhere unnoticed?"

"She'll do. She's smart. She observes her environment very well and quickly notices when something isn’t right. I'm confident she'll figure something out. Also, I don't intent on keeping her in these lands forever. We'll move south and to the shore where her people are a bit more common."

Elissa rolled her eyes. "You're so smart when it comes to killing, sneaking and lying, but then you pick up a bundle of problems and immediately get attached to it. How you survived this long is beyond me."

Garrett had a look around. “Where’s the cat? You still have the cat, right?”

“That cat’s name is Faan and of course he’s still around; Faan is my familiar.”

“Fine fine, no offense intended. I thought, you know, since cats don’t live that long...”

“As I said, Faan is my familiar. He’s not going to die of old age as long as I’m around.”

Garrett threw his hands up in the air. “Guilty of not knowing everything. Anyway, he can tell whether she’s a medium, right? That would clear many things up.”

“Yeah he can. I’ll call him, he’s probably up on the roof again.” She called out Faan’s name and as she did, blue-ish smoke escaped her lungs like from a tiny chimney hoarding a huge smoky fire. Shortly after, a grey cat with bright stripes jumped on the window sill from the outside.

“Oh, is this about the girl?” He asked with a voice without mouth.

“Yes. Did you get a look at her?”

“Oh yeah, she’s a medium. I noticed when they came down the path. She even is already awakened, so she shines brightly.”

Elissa turned to Garrett and smiled with satisfaction. Garrett returned an irritated and confused look. “You know I can’t hear ethereal voices, what did he say?”

“She’s a medium, but an awakened one.”

“Wait, you make it sound bad. Isn’t that good?”

“It’s troubling to know someone who led her life is already awakened. I was around the spirits in the forest a lot when I was a child, but her? In the city?”

“Prannten doesn’t have any functional wards to keep away spirits and demons, why do you think it’s such a dirt hole? The walls themselves barely hold up.” Garrett seemed relieved about the news, not worried. “Wait, could that mean she attracts spirits?”

Garrett seemed nervous, which was never a good sign, Elissa had learned. She decided to investigate. “Why? What happened?”

“Well, shortly after we left Prannten, I started to feel observed. It seemed familiar but dangerous. On the farming estate, I caught a maid snooping through our room, but it couldn’t have been her who stalked me. I got used to it, but I still felt weird.”

That was indeed a troubling thing. Garrett wasn’t aware of the presence of spirits, but an especially strong presence could still set off his heightened senses for dangers. “I guess it can’t harm to have her sleep here. The hut is well warded, otherwise, the sprits of the forest would never leave me alone. If need be, I can put up additional wards.” Elissa made a mental note. She would have to look further into it later.

“So you can train her in all things spirits, right?”

“Maybe she really is a suitable candidate, but whether she’ll be allowed into my care is still the Arch-Druid's decision. And even if, I won't chalk this up to mere friendship. If you want me to do it, she'll stay with me until I deem her ready to leave my care again!"

"Wow, what's with that? First you wanted to practically turn us away, now you're trying to force her to stay?!"

"If she is awakened, she needs to know how to deal with spirits. I don't want to teach her to commune and deal with the spirits just for you to put dumb ideas about it in her head, because you don’t know the first thing about it."

"Alright then. She'll stay here until your arbitrary standard is met. Might actually allow me to go work somewhere for a while. I can't live off savings forever."

Elissa said nothing. She wanted him to realize the severity of his promise. She looked him deep in the eyes and stood up. "This isn't just a promise by word."

"You want to spill blood over this?" Garrett seemed almost excited about the prospect. "Sure, if I have to seal my words with my blood, I will do it. I'll swear a blood oath."

Elissa noticed that the sound of wood being chopped had stopped. With a sudden shock of worry, she quickly looked outside. The girl had moved the chopping block closer to the hut and was standing on it reaching for the edge of the roof. She started to make small jumps. Elissa got outside and just as she reached the door, the girl made a large jump forward, managed to grab the ledge of the roof and immediately lost it again. She fell on her bottom and started groaning and whimpering in pain. Elissa decided she would have a talk with the girl. She stuck her head through the window and looked at Garrett.

"You know what? I'll take her into the forest for a while. Not to the Glade, I just want to get to know her. You stay here. I'll know if you follow me."

"Don’t worry, I'll stay here. I won't intrude upon your territory." He gave Faan a displeased and distrusting look while the tomcat was grooming himself on the table.

Elissa had put on her cloak and asked Nannade whether she wanted to take stroll together. The girl agreed and Elissa took her by the hand. The girl's fingers felt surprisingly soft apart from the claws. Together they were wandering on a small path that wound between the trees.

"I want to ask you a few questions, if you are fine with that."

Nannade nodded.

"Garetas agreed to let us be, but even if he tried, he couldn't get to us here, so you don't need to worry about him."

A moment passed, during which Nannada's ears listened in all directions and she looked around carefully. The hut had already disappeared behind the trees.

"What Garetas told back there, about how he freed you, was it all true?"

The girl nodded.

"And has he been nice to you."

The girl nodded again. "He gives me lots of food. He even makes sure that I eat it all."

"And does he hit you?"

"He did a few times."

"What?" Elissa looked at the girl, but she wouldn't have been able to find any bruises on her regardless. "Where? When?"

"When I was slowing down while we walked, he hit me on the back so I would walk faster."

"Oh. That isn’t really ‘hitting’. I meant more like with a fist or foot or a slap in the face."

The girl thought about her words, then replied "I guess he didn’t hit me."

"And did he ever do something scary in front of you?”

"When I was in the dark room, after Mommy held me, he pushed my head on the ground. I couldn't see or hear anything but it was scary."

"Anything else? Like threaten or kill a person?"

"He made that spell with my vial, where he made me bleed and then everything went dark." Nannade held up a small glass crystal vial on a leather string around her neck. It was obviously a vessel that was used to preserve and contain blood for blood rites. It was filled with bright red blood at the moment.

It intrigued Elissa what she was doing with that thing and why she had it in the first place. "I want you to tell me exactly what happened."

It took a while for Nannade to explain the entire event and she obviously couldn't describe many elements since she didn't understand them to begin with, but from all Elissa heard, she could piece together very well what had happened. He had obviously created a protective charm with the mother's last blood. These effects could be strong enough to unconsciously cast a crude spell or curse at the moment of death, but Garrett actually managed to seal some of that powerful magic into the glass crystal. He probably had more spells in his head than she in all her books; sometimes, he scared her. To make and then give the girl such an object showed some genuine interest in both, her safety and her abilities.

"Was that the first time you saw magic?"

Nannade shook her head. "I saw the owner make Mommy and me obey, he just said a few words and my whole body hurt. That’s magic, isn't it?"

"Yes, the sigils of slavery are a form of magic. Do you want to cast magic too?"

"Can I? I don't know how!"

"Not all humans are able to cast magic like Garetas and I can. We want to find out whether you can do it."

"Then can you teach me?"

"Surely. But tell me this and please be honest: if you had the opportunity, would you want to do something other than be Garetas' apprentice?"

Nannade didn't say anything for a while, she seemed to be deep in thought. Finally, she answered. "I don't want to go back into a room like before. I don't mind anything else. But if Garetas says that I will forever be free once I learn everything, then I want to do that."

"Even if it means you have to lie, steal and even kill?"

"If I need to do that to be free, I'll do them."

"Even if it means not being free from him, having to do what he tells you until he lets you go?"

"He said if I can escape from him, I'm free."

That sounded indeed like something that Garrett would say. She understood why the girl had tried to climb on the roof. But she also knew that him saying that meant he'd chase her to the ends of the world as long as he felt as if she still owed him. She thought about the implications of caring for a child a lot. She never had a permanent man in her life and she was also not a mother. But for some reason she felt as if she had met Nannade at just the right time in her life. "I think I'll teach you." She replied and it felt as if Nannade was very happy about that.

"Can I ask you something?" The girl asked cautiously.

"Sure."

"Why do you call him Garrett?"

Elissa couldn't help but chuckle. "We're not in slavers' country anymore, so people here don't mind calling close friends by shorter names. But If you want to address him as a teacher, you should stick to Garetas."

“And who was the person with you in the hut? He said I shine brightly.”

“That was Faan, my familiar. He’s a cat, but he’s also a spirit, albeit one with a physical body. You can hear him because you are a medium, a person with the mystic gift who can therefore see and talk to spirits effortlessly.”

“What are these spirits?”

“It is very hard to explain; they are like the gods of the trees and the animals, the rivers and the mountains; it’s best if you experience it yourself. There are many spirits in this forest, that is why I live here.”

“Are they nice?”

“They sometimes are dangerous, but if you properly learn how to talk to them, you have nothing to fear.”

The girl looked around, and her attention was quickly drawn to any sound she could hear.

“Say, Nannade, what do you know where you come from?”

The girl shook her head. “I always was with my mommy. But she once told me that her mommy came from the west, from an island, where all the people are like us, and the humans leave us alone.”

Elissa knew a few basic things about crolachans. Not many remained in Ackarom, most lived far to the west on a chain of islands that were mountainous and heavily forested. Travellers said they build their houses in the trees, where their claws were ideal for climbing. They were much sought after as ship crews for their climbing prowess, resilience, stouter stature and tight social bonds. She thought about the girl growing up with just her parents and probably never seeing another of her kind. Sturreland, lacking any coasts, had probably barely any crolachan inhabitants to begin with. What a lonely outlook.

When they arrived back at the hut, Garrett was busy with his equipment and his notes. The news of her final decision made Garrett very content and Elissa wasn't sure exactly why. Of course, it was what he had planned, but why he was willing to hand potential control over Nannade's entire training over to Elissa? Maybe he was glad he could take a back seat and let the woman do the child-raising things. Or maybe he trusted her and her abilities so much that he really wanted Nannade to learn from her as much as possible. She decided not to overthink it. For now, it was time to make supper. She still had enough in the storage cabinet, but she’ll have to start buying more tomorrow. By then, things would surely seem much less worrisome.