Rai didn’t do much sleeping, but he peppered his waking hours with a decent amount of dreaming. Sometimes he replayed a case in his mind; if he only knew it from someone else’s reports, he would stage it like a movie, and try to recall the words as written to recreate an accurate simulation, or at least an entertaining one.

But in the early hours of Sunday morning, slumped in a hard-backed chair with nothing to distract him but a muted pull-up-machine infomercial that would just not end, Rai found himself thinking about his mom. It wasn’t entirely unintentional. He needed her advice.

Sao was swaddled in blankets, face wedged into a pillow. Every few minutes there was a patch of muffled snoring.

Rai’s mother was 245 years old, rounded to the nearest five. Her precise birth year was unknown, but her village had a record of the decade, which showed more initiative than most Life Fountain homesteads. Before moving to Central, Roha had lived just past the border of the Northern continent, in a village that farmed vegetables and fungi for export. The Life Fountains’ healing aura made sure the fields flourished even in seasons of heavy snowfall, and judging by the few times Roha took him to visit, business was going well.

The village specialty was a white-skinned fungal growth that they harvested off a local species of frogs (also kept alive through the winter via aura). The mushrooms, not the frogs, were named Snow Frog, and were simultaneously the richest and most refined thing Rai had ever eaten; juicy as the best steaks (when cut, the insides did resemble red meat) and crisp as the freshest salad (though import laws did not consider them a plant).

Snow Frog was Rai’s favorite and Sao knew it, but thanks to a series of pranks by the powers that be, Rai had never been able to share this delicacy with Sao. Anywhere they went, pallets or freezers or kitchen were always miraculously out of stock.

Rai didn’t believe in curses, but he didn’t have much faith in his luck.

Rai’s mother had lived through troubles of her own that made Rai’s look easy for the most part, but she faced everything with a smile, she never rushed, and she never had a stray word to say to or about anyone. She was very disconnected, he thought, by choice. She floated over the little things, mortals and their day to day worries, death and decay. In a way, she had to. Life Fountains lived long lives and they could only hold onto so much.

There seemed to be a lot of stories about her dropping him as a baby, not out of carelessness but simply because she forgot he was holding him. Advice and warning alike bounced off her cushioned demeanor. But she always found a reason to pick him up again.

Her persistence wasn’t what anyone would call love. Emotion didn't drive her. Roha was gentle but she was not truly affectionate.

And Rai was fine with that. She never embarrassed him by ruffling his hair, or yelling at him to wash his underwear, or jabbering about babyhood mishaps in front of his middle school friends (who in contrast seemed to love whining about their own mothers). She never burst into his room unannounced. She was rarely interested in checking in at all. She left him to his business and in return, he left her to hers. It was a good arrangement.

He hadn’t wanted to visit her hometown when he was in 6th grade. He sulked and snapped at her whenever she brought it up. It was summer - pool season - and his friend group was starting to hang out with girls. There was also an M-rated slasher, already banned in two districts, that he wanted to sneak into in case theirs would be next to pull it off screens.

Grandpa Cadmus asked him, seriously, for his reasons. Rai caved and took the ticket.

There was a change in Roha when they hit that zone of permanent winter, with its glowing paddyfields and snow-covered huts and endless plane of white. She seemed more vibrant. Roha, unlike Rai, was fond of sleep. It wasn’t like Sao’s napping habit; sleep defined her. She could sleep for days - even months - at a time, and did so often at home in Central. But in the icy cold, she was up and about at all hours. She visited friends, shoveled the fields, and went on long, treacherous walks. Rai defied her offers to include him until he couldn’t.

Rai was aware his aura gave him more stamina than the average person. Being a full Life Fountain, Roha had the same benefits and more, but she liked to take her time. From toddler age he had always walked ahead of her, stopping every few meters to watch her catch up (which made crossing roads a harrowing experience), but out on the snowfields she jogged, she skipped, she steamrolled through drifts. She could have left him behind. She didn’t, though. She knew he could keep up.

When they came upon some mountains, she suddenly reached for his hand, and pulled him to her side with a strength he never knew she had.

Careful. Stay close - we will do this together.

She led him in an awkward sidestep along the edge of an otherwise clear path and they squirmed a short distance on their stomachs like seals, and all the time she held his hand. She pulled a rabbit out of a trap along the way, and grabbed some berries off a bush to shove into her coat pocket, all one-handed. Rai got a pine needle in his eye.

It was embarrassing. Luckily nobody had been around to see them.

As they were leaving, snow began dusting down as it always did in the afternoon and he heard a thunderclap. An enormous white cloud dropped from the opposite ridge and consumed the valley they’d just crossed, ripping up trees and boulders. His mother’s grip loosened as the rumbling subsided and when it was quiet he felt her hand move to his cheek and again she pulled him to her side.

Thank goodness. Thank goodness you’re here.

The villagers found his story underwhelming. The friend whom they were staying with said Roha (and many more) had a sense for movements of snow; landslides and blizzards. Lying in bed that night and listening to snow gather and fall from the roof, Rai was indignant. It had been the only time he was sure his mother really cared about him.

Of course she had only held his hand, pulled him close, extended her protection for practical reasons. Rai’s father, the unvaried human, had died in an avalanche. Her natural apathy wasn’t strong enough to want to see her son go out the same way. But that was a perfectly good reason for the firm grip, the fingertips to the cheek. The final, melodramatic thank goodness. She was never intentionally dramatic.

Roha showed affection only if she had a reason to. He admired her for that; lectures about unconditional love and filial obligation had always made his skin crawl. He and her owed each other no debts. So when she held a hand out to him, he could be sure he deserved it.

—

Morning rolled around. The departing night took with it the cold and the fog. Unfettered, the dawn sky gleamed, sparking off the frozen dew, and the grass suddenly looked a much richer green.

Rai and Sao took their hot drinks in the dining room. It was stuffy, so Guy opened one of the glass doors facing the patio. The air was so clear, Rai realized they could see the tip of one of Myrmilion’s towers over the trees.

Sao took off his coat and rolled his sleeves up at the wrists - one side to hide the blood, and the other just for symmetry. Rai noted that Sao had patched his forearms lightly with the makeup he usually used on his face. Less thorough than the face - maybe it was less important, or he was running low on the stuff. The extra inches of exposed arm had Marinell almost swooning to the floor.

Luckily for Florien, his father had the sense to excuse himself before any incident, saying he had to drive son and the laundry back to Myrmilion.

They were left in Guy’s capable hands. He brought them eggs and toast with a scoop of stewed mushrooms, and surprised them with four sausages that he said were a gift from one of his many local friends. “It’s not much, but it’s too much for just me. And there aren’t any other guests to get jealous, so…”

Fed and watered, the guests went to check out. Their car was waiting for them, dropped off in the space closest to the hotel by the dutiful Hode (who was nowhere to be seen by the time they stepped out).

Rooted to the front steps, Rai took a sharp breath. “Was this all he could find?”

“Yes. But they’ll hold up better than normal wheels, right? With all the mud and ice and sharp rocks, you can never be too careful.”

Sao gave the repairs a bemused once-over. “More resistant to Cherry attacks, I would say.”

The tyres were almost twice as large as the previous set; treads the size of bricks, rubber protruding several inches out either side of the chassis. The limp shell of chipped green paint (really more chips than paint) perched on top of the four rubber monstrosities looked sadder than ever.

Rai took another deep breath. “It’ll work. Thanks.”

Back in the lobby, Rai signed the guestbook one more time and found himself hesitant to step away. An interaction involving his wallet would have him eager to leave, but without the need to do so here, he just felt guilty. “Well, we had a great time.”

“And it was swell having you here.” Guy stowed the book away. Inanely, Rai wondered if Guy with the guestbook would win in a fight with Cherry and her faerietale cudgel. Cherry would probably come out on top.

“Maybe it was a good thing you stayed another night,” Guy said. “It’s finally a nice day for a drive.”

They looked down the length of the lobby and out the open doorway, at the square of pastel dawn hanging over the parking lot.

“I used to work in the city, you know,” Guy said. “You’ll wanna come back. The sky around Temperance is like nowhere else. There’s magic in the air.”

Rai thought of the Mainline Police force’s recent announcement about tracking for metaphysical crime (a stupid title; magic wasn’t metaphysics. Rai planned to send in a complaint or two about terminology). The judicial system was formalizing a way of documenting how the pull of magic for incantations was tracked through the air.

“I’m not kidding,” Guy said, reading his mind. “One of the Citadel Founders came from around here - the richest one. The terraformers, you know ‘em?”

As if Rai had intimate acquaintance with pre-century plutocrats. “Uh, the Citrines?” No, the one after that in the middle-school civics textbook. The other C-name. “Chrysoprase.”

“Yup. Maverick magicians, since medieval times. Ripped apart the earth and remade it to their liking - or the highest bidder’s specs. The colors, the cold-resistant grass, the lack of birds - those were all experiments in preparation for launching floating islands. Sound familiar?”

Softball question. Rai tried not to look too relieved. “Like the Citadel.”

“That was the goal. Honestly, it was pretty impressive that the project got off the ground at all, stayed up for over a hundred years, too. But that was then. The Founder’s been dead for ages, and the Citadel is sinking and their old magic wells around here are going dry. The lingering fuzz around Temperance is almost gone - so we’re getting more birds and squirrels and bugs. And rats.” Guy savored the word rats. “So, you see why I’m okay with a critter or two getting in? Nature wins eventually. Faeries are just mutant humans, they removed themselves from that natural order. They should never have messed around the way they did.”

“Um, the fae today can’t really be held accountable for the experiments that made them,” Rai said.

“I guess not. Sorry, I think a lot about what Muka says sometimes. He has a lot to say about faeries - I should know better than to repeat it all. But at the same time, since he lived there, he should know… right?”

“Better than you or me, sure.”

Growing impatient out in the parking lot, Sao called out, waved. At the sound of his voice, Guy pushed back his wiry hair and stood up straight.

“This is goodbye then, sir.” The little manager’s mask was back on.

“For now.” Rai tugged the Birdsing box off the counter and hitched it against his side. “But keep the soap and towels ready, Guy. The way things are going, we might just find ourselves back here for another night.”

—

They drove along the street past a line of three-storey homes with shingled sides, large lawns and tight-drawn curtains. They made for anxious viewing. Unlike the ones in Birdsing, Rai couldn’t tell which were abandoned or not.

At the end of the street was a slightly more overgrown patch, with tiny butterflies dodging through the grass. Squarely center stood a house with a sloped roof and a white porch with weeds growing between the boards. The windows were curtained and further obscured by grime from weathering. It creaked laboriously with the breeze.

A quintessential haunted house - except for the color. The walls were baby blue wash, spotted teal and brown in the corners with water damage. The paint on the porch was peeling and some of the silvery grey roof tiles had come off, giving it a patchy look, but it was only noticeable if you stared long enough. Not bad looking, definitely not a dump - but sad in a way. Forlorn. Holding it together while waiting for something. For what? The place reminded Rai of Thomi. Must have been the color.

“So this where Lamort lived before he took off?” Rai said, slowing the car at a turn.

“I think so. A year abandoned, by Marinell’s estimation.”

“Still in pretty good shape. You want to have a closer look?”

The clouds above them parted, and an outpouring of sunlight lightened the house’s brown stains to a powdery pink. On top of all its frailty, the thing looked like it was made of cotton candy.

Sao sat quietly, and after what felt like eons, shook his head. It didn’t seem like a real answer.

—

Rai’s Grandpa Cadmus was not a biological relation, but made for better family than any of Rai’s actual grandparents. Rai had never met any of them, and was sure they had no interest in him.

A Life Fountain himself, Cadmus and his wife Lem had stepped in when Roha settled down for an impromptu two-week nap, leaving Rai, still a baby, to fend for himself. Since then the old man (who despite a permanently middle-aged appearance was hovering around 320 years old; his village had no records so everyone had to take his word for it) had always provided for him, advised him, and made sure he finished school and found gainful employment.

While his mother Roha could appear superficially affectionate, Cadmus did not believe in making people overly comfortable when it wasn’t necessary.

Cadmus worked at a hospital, vetting and training fellow Life Fountains to use their aura for healing. Rai’s aura had never been strong enough to try, but he often found he was grateful to be excluded, because the work took a nasty toll on Cadmus at times. And Cadmus was a full-blooded Life Fountain, working with other full Life Fountains; borderline immortals trying to share their healing abilities, and sometimes that wasn’t even enough to save a patient.

Cadmus could be cold, which annoyed Rai when he was a kid. It annoyed him even more that Cadmus maintained that frosty expression when Rai hurt himself, or others, or tried to lash out at the old man himself. Rai knew pretty well now, and not without a tinge of loathing for his idiot child self, that Cadmus had so much on his plate that he was numb to impotent nonsense.

But it was Cadmus who went to all of his parent-teacher conferences; taught him to drive and budget and light a stove; chewed on the cops until they let him off with a warning, when he was caught breaking into a warehouse where really, truly thought he might see a ghost. It was Cadmus who wrapped him in a blanket and handed him large coffee, when Rai came home from his first big horrible successful investigation, and told him he did well and called the school to get him the week off.

It was Cadmus and Lem who came armed with cameras and bouquets to watch him graduate.

Cadmus was not the kind to hold a kid’s hand or pat his cheek and say things like thank goodness thank goodness. He didn’t associate with premonitions. But like Roha, when he cared he cared with reason, and if reason was given to earn his full praise, the earnest energy accumulated in a man three centuries old was paid out in full.

You did good, kid.

And you knew you had done real, tangible good. As a kid, Rai had hungered for that attention but realized the best way to get it was to find his own work, and do it well.

As time went on, a different hunger set in. He wanted to be on the other side, to make someone else feel that way. To care, strongly but practically.

And not be corny about it. In short, whenever the thought crossed his mind, it was already ruined.

—

The sky went from gold to teal to blue, and the road from mud to dirt to asphalt. One barely-distinct lane became four. The cover of trees petered out, and they found themselves on a perfectly bland road that Rai recognized as Interstate Highway 77 from the online maps.

The trees were in their fall colors. A hawk dove out of the woods. Almost simultaneously, their phones blipped with the sudden influx of incoming messages, and that’s when they knew they were well and truly out of Temperance. And as if cars had been held off by the same magic that had held off the birds, traffic began to pick up around them.

Rai caught a few wary glances from the other drivers. The grip of Temperance wasn’t gone completely - his souvenir, his new ultra-wide treads, stretched dangerously close to the edges of the lane. Gritting his teeth, Rai eased on the gas pedal, letting anyone and everything pass him.

Sao was fully occupied in answering messages on his phone.

They made a stopover at the I77 Mall, which was marked on the highway signs with a white carousel horse. The Mall consisted of a short strip of stores and cafes, and a domed, indoor complex, where there really was a functioning carousel, a behemoth of painted wood and flashing bulbs, and a huge trail of kids in line to ride it.

Next to the carousel ticketing stand was a machine for bus tickets - just outside was a depot with plenty of routes headed to Core Mainline.

The mall’s worn-out ATM was low on funds. After Rai had taken out a few hundred, the machine’s withdrawal option was disabled. Rai handed Sao a few of his bills. Sao fed him some polite refusals before finally taking them and excusing himself to ‘do some shopping.’ Rai watched him stroll down one of the carousel complex’s four hallways. Once Sao was out of sight, Rai felt his head clear a little.

He got two coffees and settled against a wall. The first one was gulped down within seconds, and he wished he had gotten three, but he needed to save. Save the coffee, and the money, for what he had planned.

Sao, looking a little too pleased with himself, resurfaced from the cramped hallway with a string-handled paper bag. Rai wasn’t sure it was him at first. He had on a brand new sweater, mint green with the I77 carousel horse on the front. The horse hung lopsided in what might have been a jaunty angle, or a printing mistake.

Rai had never seen Sao in a piece of graphic clothing. It seemed like a bad sign.

“I might ask you to go on ahead,” Rai said, handing over the coffee. A peace offering.

“Oh.” One of Sao’s smooth eyebrows went up. “I suppose you know already that I don’t drive, but if you’re putting your confidence in me...”

“I mean, you can take a bus back to the city. It will probably be faster than my driving anyway. Way less chance of getting lost.”

“And you?”

“I’ll file a couple of requests and head back to Temperance. There are a few things I want to look into.”

Sao took the tiniest sip from his paper cup. Rai's nerves twitched.

“Rose and Lamort. I’m going to ask Central to see if they can wrestle with Interstate and come up with any missing persons reports or family connections. It could be nothing to worry about - maybe they’re both really in Garland. Or maybe it will be nothing at all. As in, no information.”

“So my assignment is to wait for that news too?”

“You can take the rest of the week off,” Rai said. “I actually put in a request for Monday and Tuesday, both of us. These Interstate trips don’t always go well, so I did it just in case.”

“So this is how you use your vacation days.” Delicately so the coffee wouldn’t spill, Sao folded his arms.

“If you’re concerned-”

“I am.”

Rai inhaled sharply to absorb that punch to the gut. “You can help me from the outside. Wait for my call, hound HQ to actually look into my requests… you know how they are about missing people before a body turns up.”

“How am I to reach you? Or you to reach me, in an emergency? We’ve seen firsthand that it’s difficult to take calls in and around Temperance.”

“I’ll stay in some inn on the highway - one with basic modern amenities. No way am I staying at the Saturn again”

“It wasn’t that bad.” Another conservative taste of his coffee.

Rai wanted to turn 180 and face the wall. There were plenty of times he was grateful Sao was on his side, softening up anyone who fell into his conversational path and squeezing them for all they were worth. There was a (somewhat sadistic) pleasure to see him work. Being on the receiving end of that treatment, and knowing it, not so much.

“Sao. I’m just going to do some more routine questions. Maybe pick up another mushroom lunch. And maybe I’ll take a look at the tunnel again. That good enough? Nothing outrageous is going to happen.”

Another sip. “To them, or to you?” Sao sighed. “I really am concerned. Since my talk with Marinell I keep thinking of this missing Lamort, where his abandoned family might be, what drove him away. Knowing there’s a prior unsolved disappearance increases my worries about Rose. It also appears that the letters and mayor have a more insidious meaning than we suspected.” And then, lowering the cup so he could say directly to Rai's face: “You going back is actually convenient for me. I’d like to come along too.”

Of course, Rai thought. Shouldn’t have expected any less from the King of Excuses. And yet Rai found himself smiling. He wanted to burst out laughing. “I tried to make them think you were just some pal of mine along for a joyride. Guess I shouldn’t have bothered. Seeing us both back, tag-teaming in interviews, it’s going to be obvious we’re investigating something.”

“Perhaps we can say that Cherry convinced us.”

“It will give her less reason to have another go at the tyres if she thinks we’re there of our own free will.” Rai clawed a hand through his hair (which hadn’t been washed in two days and felt like it). “But we’re better off not putting any extra blame on her.”

—

Some teenagers were feeding a pack of feral cats at the edge of the parking lot, by a pile of rotting leaves. The air was humid, the grass browning. Rai could just barely make out the muffled jingle of the carousel. Everything felt dirty and real and alive.

The thought of heading back to the woods, the ghost towns, the grassland drenched in some old magic, suddenly made his throat tighten.

It was ridiculous. He’d looked into cases that were far worse from the get-go. Where guns were involved. Cannibals. Groups of killers, killers of groups. And he’d made much stupider decisions when he did not notify anyone where he was going, did not document why, and went completely alone.

He really was getting old, letting one change in routine upturn his entire approach.

Sao buckled himself into the passenger seat and tucked his mall bag under the glove compartment. There was something white in it.

“Sao,” Rai said. “We got along pretty well with everyone, but in my experience, these little towns can get clannish when they have something to hide. A person might not have done anything wrong themselves, but against nosy outsiders, they’ll feel the need to defend neighbors they’ve lived with their whole lives.”

“True. I did live in a small one myself, for a time.”

Rai almost latched onto that - oh, when was that, who did your town rip apart? - but realized he was being deflected. He thought of Cadmus, who seemed impervious to teasing. “I hope I can depend on you to stay close. Without phones or internet or even a normal police station, it’s going to be hard to get help if things go south.”

“You suspect serious foul play, then.”

Rai thought of Roha. Her premonitions of disaster - but Rai didn’t have that sense. No innate bond with nature, no centuries under his belt to manifest some magic foresight. He had a sense of suspicion, but that went wrong about as often as right (if he was being generous to himself). He thought of the way she held his hand. Kept him close. Made it look cool.

“Sao?”

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“What I mean is that it could just be the two of us against the rest. We should be prepared to look out for each other. Stick together. And all that.”

Sao smiled in his typical way that looked very nice but revealed nothing.

Rai thought of Florien, who had waited until Sao was out of the room before letting loose. He had seen something in Rai that excited him, made him eager to talk about Cherry and the missing girl Rose. Gripping Rai’s hand like he was possessed, candlelight flickering in his eyes, he had been unable to stop himself once he started.

Whenever Cherry said something really stupid, Rose would clam up and just smile and Cherry thought she was on her side.

Rai prayed that he really was completely wrongheaded when it came to premonitions.

“Rai?”

“Yeah? I’m still here.”

A snort. Sao liked goofy little setups like that. This was a guy who could be nostalgic for five minutes ago. “This all sounds very exciting. Why don’t we send out those requests and get going?”