The queen called the outside guard and instructed her to bring us some burning charcoal. I exchanged a glance with White Flower, and she nodded at me. Cool, we were starting to work as a team: she didn't need words to confirm that she was in control of the situation, and I didn't need to worry about it.

It did not take long for the guard to come back in with a metal shovel with charcoal still glimmering. Following the queen's instructions, she gave it to White Flower.

The fairy took a small flower from one of her pockets; I think it was a dried-out snowdrop. Hm, funny thing, I thought the robe was only an illusion; where did that dried snowdrop come from? She must have some kind of hidden inventory.

I did not have time to think about it as she asked me to borrow her a knife. She took my knife, made a small cut to one of her fingers, let a drop of blood on the dried snowdrop, and put it over the burning charcoal whilst healing herself.

As she handed me the bloodied knife, I first wanted to clean it before storing it. My first movement was towards the sleeves of my blouse, but it would taint my blouse if my blouse would not be an illusion.

I chuckled at the idea of cleaning it over an illusory blouse and then absentmindedly wiped it clean with my fingers before I sheathed it. I did not find anything else to clean it with, and as I was observing her hocus-pocus, I was not processing my actions through my brain; only a couple of strained neurons must have done the thinking.

Subsequently, I've instinctively put my dirtied fingers into my mouth to clean them. Wherefrom does that instinct come, I do not know. It could be our lizard's brain, or does it go even deeper?

The surprising part was the shockwave that rolled over my taste buds. Her blood tasted delicious! Our eyes met for a moment. She shrugged, continuing her spell, whilst I was at the same time drooling and became aware of what I did.

No, I am not going to transform into a fairy vampire and suck her dry. I was ashamed and shocked. What if I get hepatitis or anything like this from it? I banned the two stupid neurons from ever thinking again and tried to concentrate on what she was doing... liking my lips. Magic, the fucking magic tasted so good. She is pure, concentrated mana with good flavours. Tasting much better than those mana potions… err, a new business opportunity?

I shook my head and looked at what she had done, trying to chase out the mercantile thoughts from my mind.

There was a magic circle with a radius of about two meters around the charcoal now, but all I saw inside it was grass and flowers. OK, yes, beautiful flowers, knee-high, but that was all. Nothing happened.

Err, OK, the grass undulated under a breeze that I could not feel.

White Flower waited for several seconds, then looked at the queen and shrugged.

The queen raised a brow.

“Was the charcoal not good?”

White Flower shook her head, flapped her wings raising in the air, and said another magic word. The circle widened even more. I stepped back to avoid it. The view extended over the glade, and even more of the background became visible. As White Flower walked slowly around the circle, farther and farther parts of the clearing became visible. She stopped suddenly, yelling surprised, and with fast hand movements made the magic circle disappear. But it was too late. A giant harpy had appeared in the middle. The queen drew a small ceremonial knife, but I was faster and jumped at the harpy with both katars drawn. I encountered only air.

The circle dismissed, White Flower made a step backwards afraid of my katars as the harpy disappeared, whilst at the same moment, more guards erupted into the room, ready to attack me.

Sure. They hear screams and find me jumping with long knives in front of their queen armed with a small butter knife, or paper cutter, or whatever that small thing was good for...

It was only a fast gesture from the queen that stopped them. The queen shook her head, looking at me:

“She was not really here!”

She was speaking of the harpy. She dismissed the guards.

Drats. I failed for it. But the same was valid for the queen; she also had drawn her little knife out. We stayed there another couple of seconds, looking tensed at each other.

White Flower murmured:

“This is not possible!”

I looked at her, wondering:

“Did your summon go to the wrong place? Why did you summon it?”

“I did not...” - White Flower shook her head, watching me with glassy eyes - “As I said, it is not a real summon, it is just a dialogue window to the unicorns' glade. That was the unicorn's glade. Something happened. Something dreadful happened.”

White Flower's shock was visible.

“Can the harpy still see through the magic circle?” - The queen looked inquiringly at her.

“No! I stopped the spell… but….”

“But?”

“She saw us… “ - she sighed and flapped her wings, discontinuing her line of thoughts - “It doesn't matter. What matters is that what we saw was the youth-water fountain's glade” - she repeated - “it was the youth-water fountain's glade. There should be no harpies there. There can be no harpies there but unicorns.”

“And still there was one!”

“Yes. It means the harpies have both springs. The unicorns have been defeated or banned. It means the harpies can use their ageing water unrestricted. They can get old and then return to the youth spring and rejuvenate themselves.”

“Can it be that there was only one harpy there? Somebody allowed her to go there? Maybe the unicorns are somewhere else? I don't know, went hunting?”

I didn't mean to say hunting, but where could the unicorns go?

“No”, - White Flower answered, shaking her head and giving me a confused look - “never. The unicorns live their lives backwards; they are born old and grow younger to end dissolved in the glade because they are creatures of the youth-water spring. Yes, some of them sometimes do wander the world, but most of them are always around the spring. It is there where they do not get wasted; they are generated from the ground around the spring; it is the water from that spring that gives birth to the unicorns there; it is their circle of life, do you understand? There can be no harpies. Something is wrong.”

“And if they do not live anymore? Maybe somebody found a way to break their circle of life?”

The queen was interrupted by a commotion outside. We heard screams, people yelling and running. I was immediately embraced by the fairy before I ran outside the tent to see what was happening. When I was outside, she was already a tattoo on my skin.

Fire. Somebody was running with fire through the camp. Was that a fire elemental? For a moment, I feared an elemental had attacked the camp, but there was something odd with it. It did not strike at the people but rather seemed to run randomly. As if panicked?

No, oh God, that was somebody, somebody was covered in flames, running, screaming, amazons were running behind, yelling, a couple of tents were already under fire whilst girls with buckets of water were working to put it down.

>

I've cast my speed spell as I started to run to catch the poor slob. If someone's clothes do catch fire, the person should discard those clothes, roll on the ground to extinguish the flames and allow the others to help, not run panic-stricken between inflammable tents?

It was a girl. Naturally, we are in an amazons camp! She was running chaotically and was slow; it was not difficult to get her. I healed her as I touched her. The fire did not cease. It was not her clothes that were burning; those were already burnt out. She turned and looked at me. A frightened Thiara was looking at me with imploring eyes. What the fuck was happening?

All her skin was burning, her crisped fingers clamping themselves on my hand, burning my skin. She tried to escape and run away.

“Knock her down!”

My other hand shot like a piston. A clean boxer hit. Thiara's surprised eyes watched me for a fraction of a second before her head flew to the side as if hit with a baseball bat. Instant K.O.

The fire ceased suddenly as she fell like a rag.

Oh, my God, I hope I did not kill her!

I healed her even before she hit the ground. She did not move. The heal took me out of my speed spell, but my heart was still crazily drumming in my chest. Is she dead?

Happily, my tattoo gave me the answer to my unasked question:

“She lives. She is only knocked out. It was a spell gone wrong! I meant for you to only knock her down so that I can soothe her, but it worked like this too; no need for me to come out now...”

A spell? What spell? Who could have spelt it? Oh, fuck! I did tell her to summon fire, didn't I?

I sighed. I took the girl in my arms, lifting her gently from the ground, watching the commotion around us.