Phineas finished moulding the earth around the wriggling hand and entombed it in the ground under his flowerbed. This day was proving to be a terrible headache. He had been out treating the Meerly’s cow after it had gotten its leg cut open on a fence when every single ward in his house went off at once. Worse than that, he had felt Cinder’s massive explosion of mana. He had never moved faster in his life. Two different haste spells were cast in moments, and the trees around him had been nothing but a blur. Phineas had prayed to every single god he knew of and half of the ones he didn’t.

If the worst had happened and Cinder had been found by the Inquisition… He shook his head. Best not to dwell on possibilities. Now comes the hard part. Brushing off his hands, Phineas turned to head back into his cabin. The warmth of the afternoon sun gently caressed his back. A cool breeze swept past him, startling the birds returning from their winter migration.

I’m not putting this off. I’m just… enjoying the spring air. He sighed. No, I’m putting this off. This is going to be a lot for them. I’m getting too old to protect them. It should have taken me minutes to get back here, not an hour. If Emyr was any more competent at magic I doubt I would have been able to save them. I’ve gotten careless. Phineas squared his shoulders and walked back into his house.

It was frankly a mess. Quill had sat down at one of the tables and now had his head in his hands. Cinder was sitting at the foot of the bed that the Andhara heir now lay in. Ah, right. She’s still awake. The girl was now sitting upright with her back against the headboard. Her hands were folded in her lap and she looked every part the royal at first glance. Her hands were folded to keep from shaking. There were iron manacles around her wrists. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. And yet she still tried to present a calm and collected front. Phineas felt a surge of pride for her. Her father would be proud.

“Now then. It appears we have much to discuss. Before any of you ask any questions, I will tell a story. It should clear up a few things for you all. For clarity’s sake, this takes place three years before the First Crusade.”

A young soldier yawned as he continued his patrol. The night was quiet like always. Midsummer air wrapped around him like a blanket, and fireflies blinked lazy paths through the air. The soldier continued closer to the forest’s edge, peering through the darkness for appearances only. He didn’t know whether or not his superiors were watching him. He doubted it, but just a few days before one of his squadmates was assigned double latrine duty because he didn’t check these woods. Better safe than sorry.

The trees loomed large and dark before him. Thick foliage twisted around overgrown roots and hidden animal paths stood in stark contrast to the farmer’s field he was stationed in. He had to blink multiple times before he believed what his eyes were showing him. A faint flicker hidden deep inside the tree cover. Firelight. All the fatigue left him in that moment. The soldier didn’t know why he decided to investigate the fire instead of reporting it to his commander. “Maybe it was a hunter” he’d rationalize later. “Or a travelling tinker.”

Or maybe it was a small voice inside his head urging him forward. A gut feeling that he needed to do this. Maybe even divine intervention. Whatever drove him forward didn’t matter as he picked his way through the undergrowth. It was slow work due to the thorns and dense vines. Some minutes later he could finally make out the small campfire the light came from. He stepped up to it, his eyes taking time to adjust as he spoke.

“Excuse me, I’m afraid you might want to put out your fire. You’re real close to the Coalition’s Expeditionary Force encampment. Some of the other patrols might not take too kindly to that by principle, and…” His voice trailed off. He could now see clearly the scene in front of him.

A heavily pregnant woman was sitting in front of the fire, grunting in pain. Her hair was matted back with sweat and her face was pale. The soldier swallowed hard. He wasn’t trained for this. Sure he could take take lives, but bring them into the world? He didn’t know where to start. Thankfully the woman glared up at him.

“Are you just going to stand there? Or are you going to make yourself,” She stopped for a moment to let out a sharp hiss of breath. “ -useful?”

One thing he had learned in the military was how to follow orders. Everything order the woman gave he followed without thought. It was long and arduous work, and he was sure he would be punished for missing his check in, but this was more important. When the child finally appeared he wrapped her in his cloak. The mother began to chant, and the color in her face rapidly improved.

“Healing magic?” The solider exclaimed. He opened his mouth to ask more questions, but realized that the woman had fallen into a deep sleep still clutching her newborn to her chest. The soldier added a few logs to the fire and propped himself up against a nearby tree. He couldn’t just leave a mother and child alone in the woods.

Phineas cleared his throat. “That woman was a demon. Quill, before you say anything, know that you have been brought up learning only the victors side of the story. Before Delathir came along and convinced the world that all their problems were caused by demonkind, they were known as the Firstborn. As you both must have guessed, I was the soldier in the story. I travelled with that woman for two weeks to reach her clan. She was from a branch family of the Andharas, and wanted the head of her clan to bless her child. On the trip there she was ambushed by bandits and barely escaped with her life. I stayed with the Andharas for a time, helping them with anything I could. That’s how I earned that necklace Cinder’s holding. It was a gift from the clan head, Huino Ohnd Andhara.”

He pointed at the small pile of blankets where his best friend’s daughter now slept. “And over there is his daughter. She’s wearing an identical necklace. The enchantment on it should only allow the two necklaces to project an illusion of the surroundings. Not whatever it was you managed to do.”

Phineas pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “This may come as a shock to you both, but I don’t know everything. Cross dimensional travel is beyond me, and that patch I threw over the hole was sloppy at best. We have at most three weeks until it reopens. Now, we have much work to do. Time is now in very short supply. I have favors to call in and travel bags to pack. Quill, I’ll need your strength momentarily, and Cinder I need you to start preparing traveling rations. We’ll need about a months worth to be safe.”

Leaving his two apprentices staring at him like he had grown a second head, Phineas grabbed his walking staff and a small leather pouch before leaving the cabin. Normally he wouldn’t have bothered with the pouch, but he was in a hurry today and couldn’t waste the extra time making the spell perfect. He walked for fifteen minutes, checking to make sure the children weren’t following him.

The setting sun painted the sky with bright pinks and oranges. In front of him rose a large stack of boulders, remnants from an ancient landslide. Phineas began to chant and slam his staff into the ground. Three to the left from the cracked one. The last light of the sun curled around him, taking physical form and flowing like water towards the boulder he had specified. It vanished into the surface with a slight ripple, then the boulder vanished.

Phineas sighed and peeked through the hole the illusion had left. A small bracelet sat inside the hole, glowing with magic. It was made of gold, with nine bright white gems embedded in it. Three of them had cracked, and no longer glowed, but the other six were almost too bright to look at directly. He picked it up gingerly, and slid it onto his wrist. Immediately the glow vanished, and the bracelet shimmered for a moment before projecting a minor illusion over itself. It now appeared to the world that he was wearing a small beaded leather cord.

He opened the pouch, taking out a lock of dark brown hair, two small diamonds, and the dried branch of a fig tree. He laid the hair down on the boulder next to him and pinned it down with the two diamonds. He lit the fig branch with a small fire spell and placed it behind the diamonds. The smoke welled up into a small flat plane. It took a moment to clear, revealing the furious image of a female elf. Her hair was a deep brown, the same color as the strand in front of him. She was standing in a wooden room lit mostly by candles.

“Phineas, I love you dearly but we agreed not to contact each other at this time. I was going to get in the bath you bastard. Two minutes later and I don’t know if I’d forgive you.”

Phineas smiled. “We both know that’s a lie my dear.”

The glare on the elf’s face softened slowly. Then she burst out laughing. “All right, you wouldn’t have done this without reason anyways. What’s the problem?”

“Huino’s daughter is currently asleep in my cabin.”

Disbelief, confusion, and shock rotated through the elf’s face. She blinked multiple times, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

“What the hell did you do?”