"Thank you so much for coming back." The merchant bowed to Erin as she finished up on the last plant, her hand still glowing green from the open energy of her gate. "I''m so sorry I was unable to stop the fiend who took you!"


    "It''s alright," Erin said, looking back to ensure Sayed and Jean stood behind her at the door.


    Jean smiled back at her, and Sayed gave her a thumbs-up. Erin turned back to the merchant.


    "Do we still have the same deal as before?" Erin asked. "You''ll send supplies over to our ship, right?"


    "I already signed the paperwork." The merchant nodded. "I''ll have some of my men send it over within the hour. Just make sure you have someone ready to take it in."


    "That won''t be an issue." Erin smiled. "After last night, we''re being extra cautious."


    "Well, thank you for returning." The merchant bowed to her. "If you''re ever in Dry Turtle again, please stop by, and maybe we can work out a second arrangement."


    "Sure." Erin smiled as she walked toward Sayed and Jean.


    "Are we ready?" Jean asked.


    "Yeah, let''s head back," Erin said, and the three of them departed the shop.


    The crowds of Dry Turtle stretched out before them in the humid heat of the day after the long rainstorm. Mud still covered the streets, and the people who marched out had to deal with that problem, but that wasn''t enough to stop commerce in a place like Dry Turtle.


    Erin stood on the patio and checked every single person in the crowd. After what had happened the night before, she couldn''t be too careful. If there was one thing she learned from the entire thing, it was that she would always watch her back.


    "Alright," she said, looking back to Jean and Sayed. "Let''s go."


    "Take your time, brother." Sayed smiled back at her. "It will not all come back at once."


    Erin''s ears burned, but she ignored the comment. They were treating her like a child who might be taken without a word at a moment''s notice. She appreciated it, but she hated it. She shook her head as she marched into the crowd and headed back toward one of the shuttle stops.


    The three of them melded into the crowd, Sayed and Jean keeping behind her as she pushed through people toward the main road. Erin was still a little nervous, but melding with the crowd''s movement helped her a little. She only looked behind herself a few times as she walked to make sure there wasn''t a towering figure ready to knock her out.


    She was so focused on those checks that she didn''t notice the kid who ran into her before it was too late.


    Thump.


    "Ow," Erin said as she fell backward, only catching herself on one foot.


    The foot sank into the dirt, and Sayed''s hands were on her shoulders immediately afterward to balance her. She clutched at her stomach, catching a small object the kid had dropped when he ran into her. She looked down to find him, but he was already gone. At least, that would have been what happened if Jean hadn''t grabbed the kid by the collar and held him up in the air with the solid strength of his bony hands.


    "Now," Jean said. "What strange fate has made you run into us?"


    He held the kid up in the air by the collar of his brown shirt. The kid was dressed in simple clothes: a shirt and pants. He kicked his muddied boots in the air as he struggled against Jean''s hold. Jean stood unmoving, waiting for the kid to tire out and give up.


    "Let me go!" the kid said.


    While Jean handled that, Erin checked what she had caught. It was a small piece of paper, rolled and bound with a red seal. She recognized it immediately and quickly brought it in close to her cloak. She slid it into a pocket before anyone else on the street could see it.


    "Put him down, Jean," Erin said. "He just ran into me. Nothing was stolen, nothing was harmed."


    "Are you certain?" Jean asked.


    "I am," Erin said. "Let him go."


    "As you command." Jean chuckled, letting the kid down.


    The boy sprinted off into the crowd the moment he was free, as the revolution had trained all its delivery agents to do. If spies were around, they didn''t want children like the boy to be caught. Jean''s ability to grab him threatened to expose part of the network.


    "Who was he?" Sayed asked.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "No idea," Erin said, starting forward again with the message concealed. "But what happened yesterday is no reason to bully a kid."


    "He was tiny," Jean said, following after her.


    "Hardly a worthy opponent," Sayed said. "Now, if he had been a grand beast, then we might have had an interesting fight on your hands."


    They continued talking as Erin picked their way toward the shuttle stop. She couldn''t pull out the letter while walking with the two of them. They both knew she worked with the People''s Revolution, but that didn''t mean that she revealed every little secret of the operation to them. She would need to wait until she was back in her room on the ship to read over the letter.


    The fact that the revolution had even managed to find her was amazing by itself. The last time they knew her whereabouts was on Lundao before they had stolen a Military Police cruiser to find out what was hidden in Death''s Yard. Since then, she hadn''t been able to contact them at all.


    She scratched at her hand as she walked underneath the small shelter next to the shuttle stop. Her hands itched to get the letter, but it would have to wait. Together, she waited with Sayed and Jean for the shuttle to arrive so they could return to the ship. It was almost time to get the ship out of Dry Turtle and on to Grim Aegis.


    <hr>


    Wen sat in her room, leaning over her ammunition cylinder as she focused on freezing it. The battle was over, and she had won. She should have been happy that she had taken down the water woman, Miss Brooke. However, it wasn''t enough. She had been lucky. Jean had been there to be a distraction, and she had been able to get Mari out of the fight. If either of those conditions had changed, she easily could have lost.


    That was the reality. She wasn''t strong enough.


    She sat the cylinder down, and waves of vapor came off it, the same as her hands as she looked around the room. She had the power to freeze and make things cold, but that wasn''t as useful as she wanted it to be. She had her gun and her bullets, but once those were gone, she had nothing left. That was the reality Miss Brooke had taught her, and it had been a painful lesson.


    She closed her gate, releasing her hold on the cold that wrapped around her hands. A numbness that hadn''t been there before caused a faint tingling sensation in her fingers. Concentrating the cold into the orb against her skin had damaged the nerves in her fingers. It would heal over time, but until then, her fingers and hands were slightly slower than normal. Charging the cylinder probably didn''t help, but she wanted enough ammunition prepared.


    "You''re too prepared," she said, standing up and walking toward the door.


    As she entered the hall, she saw Alex returning from outside. He was rubbing at his wrists and only turned to notice her after. He threw on a smile that he hadn''t had before and started walking toward her. An unsettling weight dropped in Wen''s stomach. She had wanted to be alone for a while to come to terms with what happened. She had even managed to avoid Mari as she caroused around the ship.


    Wen started back into her room and sat down, putting her hands in her lap and staring at them. Maybe he would pick up on it and go away. If only she could be that lucky.


    "I handled the Port Authority." Alex''s shadow fell over her door as he leaned against the corner. "They''ll keep an eye out for Miss Brooke, but they don''t think they''ll find her."


    After a minute, Wen whispered, "That''s good. I don''t want to run into her again."


    "That''s unlikely." Alex sighed. "A while ago, we ran into a man called Mister Deadman on an island called Nowhere. He called himself a Finger, the same way Miss Brooke did. Even through his rhyming, Artur''s made it clear they''re related."


    "On Diamond Peak, one of the bounty hunters was named Mister Foley," Wen whispered.


    "He''s probably with them, too," Alex said. "Bargen told us a little about it all. There are Knuckles who work for Fingers who work for Hands. In this case, the Hand is someone named Miss Malone. They work for people called Underground Lords to further their own interests. To me, it sounds like a massive black market of sorts."


    "Mafia and gangsters, all very American." Wen smiled.


    "Don''t look at me." Alex raised his hands. "I only went to university there. I was born in Argentina."


    A silence passed between them. Alex was the only person she had met on Erth that was from Earth. She had journeyed for a long time, but they both seemed to be the only people who came to the world from that shared place. Neither of them knew enough about the process to know why, and that was partially why Wen had chosen to join up with Alex. He was searching for a way back, and there had to be some answers on the way.


    "Did you ever imagine this is where you''d end up?" Wen asked.


    "Did I ever imagine that I would have been transported to another world full of islands, magic, and monsters?" Alex asked, raising an eyebrow before laughing. "No. I was going to head back and get my masters in Political Science. Then I was going to go about teaching, I guess. I never really had plans after that."


    "The day I came here, I wished I could be anywhere else," Wen said, looking at her hands and clasping them together in the vain hope it would drive away the tingling sensation. "My fiance had just dumped me, and I was taking a walk in the park to clear my head."


    "That''s why you don''t care about going back?" Alex asked.


    "Maybe," she said. "It wasn''t the end of the world, but if I went back, I would have to confront that, wouldn''t I?"


    "I know the feeling. Back home, I was about to confront my dad about something in our family. When I do go back, we''ll have it out, one way or another."


    Wen looked up at him, but he was looking down the hall, back toward the front of the ship. She knew he wouldn''t share much more than that, but it was a piece of information that she hadn''t known before. They were both tossing out a small secret they wouldn''t have shared, and it helped soothe a little of her pain.


    "There anything else bothering you?" Alex asked, turning back to her.


    "My hands are still numb," Wen said, smiling as she held up a hand with partially clenched fingers.


    "I never knew a curse could hurt a user," Alex said, crossing his arms. "I always thought there would be protections built in for it."


    "I''ve never used it that way before." Wen gestured to the cylinder. "I''ve always chosen the safe path when it comes to my curse. Sometimes, I think that''s why it''s so weak."


    "Well." Alex walked over, kneeling in front of her and grasping her hand with both of his hands. "One thing I learned from Jean is that pushing yourself makes your curse stronger. What you did yesterday is what you have to do to make it grow. Keep pushing yourself like that, and it''ll surprise you someday with the next grade of power."


    His hands were warm as he held her hand, and he gave her a wink before he stood and started out of the hall. Wen stayed there for a while, thinking about his words. Was her real problem the fact that she didn''t push herself? Was it because she chose the easy path? Words she hadn''t thought about in a long time returned to her.


    "Why do you always settle?" she whispered.