When it was finally evening and time to swap back to the mundane world to meet the boys, Grace and I reluctantly stood up from where we’d sat all day under the willow tree. We’d talked about this and that, dozed and cuddled, just generally enjoying our little half-day break from travel together.

“You ready?” I asked Grace, dropping her hand so she could wield her pistol properly.

“Yeah,” she smiled, bumping my hip with hers. “Shields up?”

“Okay, I’m going to take us over in three, two… one,” I said, shifting us back into the mundane realm and slamming my shield dome down.

The forest was dark and quiet as we searched the underbrush around us for sign of our friends, but there was nothing but the gentle sway of the wind through leaves around us. Tense moments went by as we waited, nothing stirring, no dorky guys in scary helmets and no enemy mages flinging blasts of fire.

“Where are they?” Grace whispered, lowering her weapon slightly. “And how long can you keep this barrier up?”

“Indefinitely, if you’re touching me,” I replied, switching to mage sight and peering into the forest. 

Trying to see through the forest was an exercise in futility as the whole place was absolutely saturated in magic. I wouldn’t be able to see someone if they were even ten meters deep into the trees. Something was obviously strange about this forest, but that wasn’t our concern right now.

“I can’t see them with mage sight, the forest is too charged with magic,” I told her quietly.

“Do we wait?” she asked anxiously, shifting to place her hand on my arm to fuel me with magic.

“Let me see where they are, hold on,” I said, concentrating on that location spell I’d made way back at the start of my grove.

Casting it, I was immediately aware of Grace and her ring standing next to me. After that were the four of our family still at Avonside. Wait, no… one of the three was a while off from Avonside, not far, but enough for it to be significant.  Then there was Adam’s ring, off further into the mountains. Much further, and moving fast.

“Shit! Adam is that way, about six miles,” I said quickly, pointing out the direction as worry took hold of me. “He’s running I think, judging by how fast he’s moving, but I can’t tell anything else.”

“What? Why? How did you figure that out?” she asked urgently, raising an eyebrow in question.

“The rings. I have a spell that can track anyone wearing our family rings, it’s how I found you all in the first place,” I told her absently, trying to figure out what was happening with all the magical senses I could bring to bear.

We were alone, they’d abandoned us for some reason. Maybe they were running from something and didn’t want to lead it to us? That had to be it, maybe they ran into mages while they were in the town? Crap, but what did we do now?

What if they died? What if all three of them died? I liked Troy! He was nice, and a kind leader, plus he was trans, like me… he was my people. He couldn’t die. Kit was good too, shy and kind, thoughtful and intelligent. Then there was Adam, cheeky, silly Adam. Family, and he obviously cared about Grace and I the same way we cared about him. He was like a big brother, always stirring shit, but there when we needed someone to carry us.

“Hey, calm down, it’s okay,” Grace said, holstering her gun so that she could cup my cheek with her hand. “We’ll find them, we just have to stay calm and think things through.”

“Yeah.. you’re right,” I nodded, leaning my cheek into her hand appreciatively and taking a few calming breaths. Then something odd occurred to me. “You never thought to ask how I was right there in that market?”

“Nope… I was too busy being happy I found you, to be honest,” she said, squeezing my arm. Then she was smiling and looking bashfully down at the forest floor. “Well, I was also struggling to deal with how cute you’d become.”

“Thanks,” I grinned, feeling the compliment hit me right in the gender feels as well as quelling my fear, just a little. “Okay… okay… thinking calm, the guys are obviously being chased, and they didn’t want to lead whoever it is back towards us.”

“Yeah, there is that,” she sighed, turning to stare off into the forest. “How do we catch up to them? How do we help them?”

“I’m not sure we can, because it’s probably mages,” I sighed, feeling helpless. “I might have raw power, especially with you at my side, but that isn’t really enough. I’d be outclassed on skill no matter how much power I threw into any single spell. Bullets probably won’t work either if it’s Fennimore’s crew and word has gotten out. They will have beefed up their shields.”

“So we have no options,” Grace grimaced, glancing around us at the dark forest with its ring-beams filtering down through the canopy. “What the hell do we do?”

I was silent as I thought on the question while trying to keep myself calm. What if we didn’t need to help them? They were heading towards a border right? Not one of the laughably porous ones back in Anve land, but a real, hard border between two entirely different species, let alone cultures. If they could cross it…

“I think it might be best if we simply followed them at a safe enough distance,” I said after a moment. “They probably got directions to Millowhall right? That must be where they’re going, with whoever is chasing them in tow. Once they reach the border into Mossbed lands, their tail might leave them alone and we can reunite with them.”

“That’s… a plan,” Grace nodded slowly. “I don’t like it, I don’t like being separated from them, but I think you’re right.”

“Neither.” I said, and then took a chance and dropped the barrier. “Do we want to get started? We’ve been kinda sleeping all day, so we might be able to make some miles while that energy lasts.”

“Sure, let’s do it.”

We moved through the forest rather than the road, using Adam’s position to guide us. Keeping off the road just seemed like a good idea due to the fact that they were being chased, we didn’t want to run into the pursuers after all.

The forest was very different at night, quiet in an almost eerie way that had us watching our backs. It wasn’t as bad as the plains, thank goodness, but hearing the call of some creature we didn’t recognise in the distance was a different kind of paranoia. It didn’t help that the wind was perpetually playing with the leaves in the canopy, creating a constant rustle that had been pleasant during the day, but now that we were relying on our hearing, it was a problem.

Thankfully, navigating during night time on the ring was significantly easier than navigating on Earth at night. There was a muted strip of light arcing across the sky after all, rather than just the relatively small point of the moon.

“How close are they?” Grace asked, a few hours after we’d started moving.

“Let me check,” I replied tiredly, casting the spell to track the rings.

Except this time, nothing happened. I could only feel Grace’s ring next to me, while the other rings were gone completely. Slow, gnawing panic began to set in and I rushed to cast the spell again. Maybe something had gone wrong?

With the second casting, I felt all the rings where I had expected them to be and breathed a sigh of relief.

“What?” Grace asked, searching my face with her gaze.

“The spell messed up for a second there,” I said, staring down at my arm where the flower tattoos had been. “But it worked when I tried again.”

“Oh, I didn’t know spells could fail like that,” she said, looking thoughtful.

“Neither did I…” I murmured, too quiet for her to hear.

We kept moving, but my thoughts stayed with the spell misfire I’d just experienced. I could have sworn I’d cast it properly… and yet…

“Do you see that?” Grace blurted, not a few moments later, and I jerked my gaze up to follow her pointed finger.

I gave a squeak of fright when I laid eyes on it. A pair of large, golden eyes stared at us from a tree some ten yards off. They weren’t doing anything, just staring, and when I squinted I could make out the form of some crouched bird, like an owl or something. We froze as it watched us, but it didn’t seem bothered by the fact we’d seen it. It just… stared.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Grace mumbled sarcastically, tugging on my arm to keep us moving.

After the bird we didn’t run into anything for another hour, and we were getting tired, so we decided to stop for the night and go back to the grove.

“I’m just going to do one last check of Adam’s position before we go back,” I said to my friend, fighting a yawn.

“Righto,” she replied as she caught my yawn with one of her own.

Reaching into my grove, I pulled magic through my plants and cast the ring locator spell, watching as the vines and flowers wrapped around my arm and wrist. The spell completed, and I focused on the information it gave me…

“Shit!” I swore, spinning around in confusion. “How the…”

I was staring back the way we’d come, in the direction that my spell now said that Adam was in. Had we somehow passed them? But that couldn’t be right, there was no way they could have made it all the way past us in the time since my last check… what the hell was going on?

“What’s wrong?” Grace asked, squeezing my hand anxiously.

“My spell! It’s… pointing us backwards now. This isn’t right, they should be in front of us still,” I told her, my thoughts whirling. “They should be… something isn’t right. Something is messing with us.”

“Let’s get back into the grove,” she said urgently, pulling me back to face her. “We’re safe in your grove right? We’ll figure out what to do in there, where we have time.”

“Yes… yes, that’s a good idea,” I nodded, closing my eyes to take us back through.

Pulling at the fabric of reality, I pushed between the threads towards the Nameless garden. I felt my grove, familiar and safe as it beckoned to me from within.

Then, with a sudden, head splitting tug, I felt our transition from mundane to garden space change, become twisted. I could only observe with dawning horror as I realised that someone or something had grabbed us as we’d been halfway through, redirecting us somewhere else entirely.

The trip was short, but still filled with panic as questions and worries surged through my mind. Then we were out, dumped unceremoniously onto lush, wild grass. I didn’t wait for any attacks to come, instead I just slammed my barrier shield down as fast as I could bring the spell up. That, thankfully at least, worked.

A high, trilling voice rang out in amused song nearby, “Oh my, isn’t that cute.”