Sometime around the beginning of our fourth week, as the glow of the compass spell and the image of the last Grace faded, Raella quietly said, “She’s been walking much of the time we check on her, and the figure is getting larger day by day. She’s approaching our borders.” I had noticed that the figure had shifted slightly away from me, but if the glowing figure had been growing larger, it had happened too gradually for me to tell. I hadn’t thought anything of it until Raella had pointed it out.

Zolambi looked disturbed at this assessment. “What could that mean? Do you think she’s fleeing danger?”

Raella tapped a finger to her chin pensively, considering. “It could mean that. It could mean any number of things. Perhaps she has learned to cast and has heard that elves are mages as well, and wishes to learn more. She could just be coincidentally traveling to another place within human lands that is closer to our borders. Regardless, it will mean that we won’t have to travel as far into foreign territory to retrieve her. And if she is in danger, or seeking us out on purpose…”

“Then it’s time for us to leave,” Greyjon said.

Raella nodded. “We’ve got a plan for this. We need only pack the supplies. We should be prepared to leave at dawn.”

At dinner that evening, Master Zern visited as we sat in our own little dining area, and gifted each of us with normal looking knapsacks that could hold more than expected. “Like a bag of holding,” Lexie said in awe after Zern had explained the gift to us. She held her bag up and looked into it.

Peyton had also curiously reached into hers, but shook her head slightly. “I can feel the bottom, so I doubt it has the same capacity or rules as a true bag of holding.” She poked at the insides of the bag and I could see where her hand pressed out against the sides, although it was an odd effect because she was leaning her entire arm in up to the shoulders. It made it look like her hand ended a little above her elbow. She seemed to realize that the others were watching her curiously, and quickly pulled her hands out of the bag, folding it in her lap. There was a slight flush to her cheeks. “A most generous gift, Master Zern. Thank you so much,” she said, once again all poise excepting the telltale pink of her cheeks.

“You will be doing so much more for us,” Zern noted with a warm smile.

“Will we be returning here after we find the last Grace?” Peyton asked.

Zern shook his head. “No. After finding her, you will be traveling on to the seal. Owing to the difficulties of the past several hundred years, the seal is no longer within elven lands. You will initially be on a diplomatic mission to see if we can reach it. Raella shall be in charge there.”

“So straight on to saving the world then,” Lexie said, her artificial cheer only barely hiding the nervousness we all felt.

“And once that’s done? Will we be expected back here again?” Peyton asked.

I noticed that at her question, Chase and Greyjon both looked carefully at the table, as though something about the question made them nervous. There was a moment of hesitation, but then Zern said, “When it’s all done, you will be free to go where ever you please.”

“For now, we have many preparations, and you should pack whatever you don’t wish to leave behind,” Raella said, effectively ending the conversation.

As soon as we were alone again, Peyton and I exchanged worried glances. She opened her mouth to speak, but I glanced over to Lexie, who had returned to eating her meal. Peyton frowned, and directed a forkful of meat into her mouth instead, chewing thoughtfully. Lexie picked a dinner roll apart slowly, seeming to consider each piece carefully before popping the bread into her mouth. “I caught it too, you know. You guys don’t have to treat me like I’m dumb,” she said once she had swallowed. She put the bread back on her plate and looked up at us. “What’s going to happen to us once we do what they want?”

Peyton sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Should we be trying to run away?” Lexie asked. Her eyes were wide with worry, but she managed a level of calm I couldn’t imagine having at her age.

“I don’t know,” I said, echoing Peyton. “But we should go with them far enough to find the other person from our world and help them out too. The four of us are going to be in this together.”

“Yeah. I guess the four of us are kinda like family, being from the same world.” I wasn’t sure if I would use the word family, but I had the feeling that would feel truer the longer we were together. Lexie returned to eating her meal, seeming satisfied with my answer and her reasoning.

---

The knapsacks made packing easy. We each had three sets of clothes that had been gifted to us, but I still packed the clothes I had arrived in as well. I also took my wallet, phone, and keys – useless, but strangely sentimental. I shoved them into the very bottom, knowing I wouldn’t need to reach them anytime soon. I also took some personal care items wrapped carefully in a small face towel, and finally packed away my sneakers as well. Although more comfortable, I suspected the unusual style would give me away as a foreigner of some sort. If we were going to be traveling in public, it was finally time to get used to the leather boots.

I glanced around the room, wondering what else I would need to take with me. As far as personal belongings, that was all I had to my name here. Assumably the food and traveling supplies were being arranged by Raella and the others, as well as anything else we could need. I paced my room for a moment, like I used to pace hotel rooms before checking out, nervously wondering if anything would get left behind and lost. It was still light out, and felt too early to sleep, but I wondered if I should try anyway. I have no idea when I’ll be in a bed next, I realized. I should sleep in one while I have the chance.

Instead, I walked out of the room.

My thoughts raced. I could maybe defend myself in a physical fight if I needed to, but I still hadn’t managed any sort of casting. How dangerous was the world beyond? I had felt so stifled at the idea of being in the tower as a prisoner at first. And now I was terrified at the idea of leaving and traveling out in the world. I thought of every monster I had ever encountered in a fantasy game. Would there be giant rats? Giant spiders? Giant… giants? There was any number of mega-fauna in a game.

And not just giant creatures. What about living plants, or ghosts, or demons?

I walked up the stairs. I had heard that Master Zern’s quarters were in the upper floors of the tower. Just around the bend from the floor Peyton and Lexie stayed on, I ran into the barrier again.

I frowned as I absently rubbed at my nose, wondering if it had stayed up the entire time. They had allowed us to roam freely since the initial tour, but I realized I had never tried to go to the top of the tower after that. I tried to picture in my memory the spacious room where we had been summoned as I placed a hand on the barrier. I very lightly put my fist against it, wanting to punch it. There had been a time when I was younger and angrier that I might have. But what purpose did that really serve?

With a sigh, I turned and walked back down the stairs slowly. I decided to leave the tower, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when I was actually able to exit at the bottom. The barrier being present up top had put me a bit on edge, almost making me feel as much like a prisoner as I had the first night here.

I decided to make my way out to the stables. Partly, I wanted to go and familiarize myself a bit more with my horse. But I also knew that Peyton spent most of her evenings there as well.

I didn’t spot her at first as I entered, as they had many animals handled here, but as I stepped further in to where my horse was kept, I passed by Peyton in the stall with her horse. She was feeding it from her hand, murmuring quietly to it as she did so. I leaned against the entrance to the stall and studied her. She had a very angular face, with high cheekbones and a long thin nose. She also had a very strong jaw and chin for a woman, and even without make up, she had enviously clear skin.

Sensing my presence, she glanced up at me and smiled. “Hello Lucas,” she said. I nodded in response, feeling a bit too tongue tied to respond properly. We didn’t spend a lot of time together one-on-one, and it still sent my mind reeling just thinking that in our own world she would never have any reason to speak to me, and I would never have the guts to speak to her. She glanced out at the fading light of the day. “Should probably head back to the tower soon and try to sleep early. Could be the last time we’re in a proper bed for who knows how long,” she said, echoing my earlier thoughts. I nodded again, my mind drifting back to everything else I had been thinking earlier as well.

She continued rubbing a hand along her horse’s neck, and frowned at my extended silence. “Are you okay?” she asked, sounding sincerely worried.

I considered all the things running through my mind. I didn’t want to share all of it – maybe it was insecurity, maybe it was just that I didn’t think she’d really care. So I settled for saying, “I was just thinking about how many giant animals there are to kill you in fantasy games.”

She smirked. “I had my suspicions that you were a full on nerd, but you really don’t say much.”

“Well, you know. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

“Hmm. Who said that originally?”

“No clue.”

She chuckled, but then kind of grew contemplatively quiet herself. “You know… if Lexie and the other one don’t know, we’ll never be able to find out where that quote is from.”

I considered that for a moment, and wracked my brain trying to remember the source of the quote. Finally giving up, I said, “Well, we’re in a new world now, so maybe it’s mine. I said it here first. Maybe we should just claim all those little nuggets of wisdom as our own? Publish an entire book of quotes, attribute them to ourselves.” I grinned, and with an overexaggerated dastardly tone, added, “No one would ever know.”

She gave a brief laugh, and then seemed to consider the idea further and descended into a fit of contagious giggles. I found myself laughing along, though I found the idea more sad than funny. But maybe that was the funny part. Then shaking her head, she dusted her hands off on her pants and whispered good night to her horse.  She turned to face me, practically glowing in the light of the setting sun, the copper in her auburn hair glinting. “I’ll walk you back to the tower, if you like?”

Seeing how beautiful she looked, thinking about her laugh, I felt slightly taken out of the world again. Something like this would never happen to someone like me. It had to be a simulation. “Oh, no, you go ahead. I’ll head back later. I came down to check on my own horse.”

“Fair enough. Goodnight, Lucas,” she said, “Don’t stay out too late.” And then she walked past me and out of the stables. I watched her go, rubbing at the side of my head, then walked over to my own mount’s stall and started to brush her out. I didn’t have a lot of experience with taking care of a horse, although one of the stable hands had shown us before and I had watched others do the same things. Regardless, Drifter, the mare that had been assigned to me, was very patient with my ministrations.

I went back several minutes later, took the last bath I was sure to have for awhile, and settled into my bed. I stared at the ceiling that I had become used to over the past few weeks.

---

I didn’t get a wink of sleep.

I heard movement out in the dining area and Lexie’s muffled voice enthusiastically thanking Alissa for the food and I groaned. It had been an awful night of feeling like I should drift off at any moment, without that moment ever actually arriving. There were no windows so I couldn’t see the lightening of the sky, but I knew that it was happening even if I couldn’t see it. I could just feel the coming day laughing at me. But I couldn’t clear my mind. It wasn’t just the dangers of the world, but what was going to happen to us if we completed our mission. Or if we’d even be able to complete our mission if I never learned to cast. Or what would happen in this world if we chose not to complete our mission. I had wondered what kind of person the fourth Grace was. I wondered how uncomfortable sleeping in the woods would be, especially after riding all day on horseback. I wondered if Raella teaching history was as boring as learning history back home.

Finally, I forced myself up and splashed some water on my face and went to go eat breakfast. Peyton raised an eyebrow as I sat down at the table. “Didn’t get much sleep, I take it?” she said.

I grimaced at her in response and shoved a sausage into my mouth to chew it silently. She did her best to suppress a smile and continued to eat her own breakfast. “Wow, you look like shit, Lucas,” Lexie said cheerfully after she swallowed her own food.

I gave her a long, flat wordless stare.

After breakfast, we said our final goodbyes to Alissa and Quince. Alissa presented us with some new clothes and said we might want to change into them before we left – more comfortable travel and riding clothes. “Since part of the mission is a bit diplomatic, I’ve also given Raella some more presentable clothes for you to wear at a royal court,” Alissa said.

“You’ve been so kind to us, Alissa, Quince. Thank you for taking such good care of us, and for everything you’ve done,” Peyton said.

For a moment, Alissa seemed to want to say more, but then Quince placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled at us. “You’ve been the ones that have been kind to us,” he said simply.

“It’s been an honor,” Alissa said, her eyes bright with tears.

After that, we left for the stables.

They had a wagon and our horses saddled nearby. “First, we’ll perform the compass spell to get our bearing,” Raella said, all business. They arranged us and began casting, the light of magic springing up around us. Once again, the fourth Grace was walking, and did seem to be slightly larger in size. She was still mostly south west of us. Greyjon mounted his horse as soon as the spell was finished, as did Zolambi. Raella and Chase climbed into the wagon and sat up front. “We do have your horse ready for you,” Chase said cheerfully to Lexie, gesturing to the animal tied to the back of the wagon, “But I figure you’d be more comfortable riding in the wagon?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Lexie said, giving her placid mare a wide berth to hop into the back of the wagon. I watched Peyton easily mount her horse in one fluid motion, patting it on the neck and whispering in a low voice to it as I clumsily pulled myself up onto Drifter. I wondered how sore I was going to be by the end of the day.

“Well, if we’re ready then,” Greyjon said. Zolambi was very quiet and very pale in the morning light, and though his face was calm his horse was skittishly shifting back and forth, like it could sense his nervous energy. I wondered what it was like for a former slave to knowingly return to the land that had enslaved him. “Let’s be on our way,” Greyjon directed, and started out at the head of our procession.