After settling a price for the potion, Casey and Helewis left the library, heading back into the city of Queeran to meet up with Thea and Wilky, which they did relatively easily considering the complexity of the city. Next, they had to settle the dispute of who would be riding with who. It was decided that Casey would ride with Helewis, the prisoner, to keep an eye on him, while Thea would ride with Wilky.

"So... how does this work?" Wilky asked Thea, as Thea struggled to mount the black horse, Tempest. Casey had found a place to get saddles and bridles, and showed them how to put them on the horses, but this didn't make matters any easier.

"You just... um, you just have to pull yourself up... like... this?" Thea finally heaved herself onto the horse, only to stare in terror down at the ground below. The fact that she was wearing a long dress and had to ride side saddle only made it worse. She felt like she was going to slip off. How did people do this so easily?

"Are you sure you know how to do this?" Wilky questioned suspiciously.

"I know exactly what I'm doing," Thea breathed, picking up the reins.

"Okay then! I trust you." Wilky replied, putting her foot into the stirrup and jumping up in one try, easily perching on the horse's back behind Thea. "Woahhh this is high," she said, giggling. "Cool!"

Casey rode Ditto up beside them, Helewis sitting calmly behind him.

"Alright, ready to go?" Casey asked.

"Yeah. Sure. Let's go." Thea muttered, kicking her heels into Tempest's sides, as she'd seen other people do. The horse remained immobile.

Casey laughed. "Like this." he nudged the horse, snapping the reins, and Ditto trotted off at a steady pace. Thea imitated him, and though it took a few failed attempts, they were soon trotting along beside Casey and Helewis.

"You're having a bit of trouble with this, aren't you?" Wilky asked Thea.

"Nope, nope, I'm fine. Been awhile since I've ridden, that's all."

They left Queeran behind, riding along at a faster pace than before. Thea began to get the hang of it after while, and realized that it was rather calming, with the rhythm of the horse's hooves on the ground, and the steady movement of the horse's back beneath her. Even the height didn't bother her as much.

Wilky, on the other hand, had been enjoying this since they started. She was loving the break from walking, and the speed at which they could now travel.

When the road got rougher, Wilky put her arms around Thea's waist and leaned her head on her shoulder. Thea squeaked and stiffened at first, but gradually relaxed, and didn't push her off. It didn't take long for Wilky to fall asleep, once the ride became smoother once more.

Meanwhile, Casey and Helewis led the way. Helewis would have also appreciated the break from walking, except for the fact that Casey seemed fond of showing off his riding skills, suddenly speeding up or causing the horse to jump into the air. Helewis was a good rider, but had always hated surprises of any kind.

They rode well into the evening, before starting to look for a place to camp for the night.

"I like riding horses," Wilky announced to Thea, upon waking up. "It's so much faster and I'm not tired at all! I mean, a little sore, but it's better than walking!"

Thea nodded a bit. "Sure. Yeah. It's great." she was trying to figure out how to bring the horse to a complete stop. She kept kicking it with her heels, but its response to this was a snort and a slight speeding up. "Stop, crift it, stop!" she exclaimed in frustration. Casey and Helewis, a bit behind them now, had already stopped and were dismounting. Leaving Helewis with Ditto, Casey began running over to them, amused at Thea's failure to control the horse.

"C'mon, Tempest stop!" Wilky said, poking her staff at the ground below.

"This horse is so crif- ahhhh!"

Without warning, Tempest plunged into a full gallop straight ahead.

"THEA! SNAP THE REINS!" Casey called after them. "Or just... I don't know! JUST HOLD ON!" He began to run, though his speed was nothing compared to the horse. Tempest was fast, and for some reason, refused to slow at all.

"Slow down! Stop!" Thea spluttered, snapping the reins, beginning to panic. Wilky's arms were wrapped around Thea's waist, as she desperately tried to hold onto her staff without falling off the galloping horse.

Thea would've nudged the horse's flanks with her heels, if she wasn't so afraid to move.

"What's happening?" Wilky yelled fearfully.

"I hate this horse!" Thea exclaimed helplessly.

"Theaaaaa!" Wilky screamed. "I'm slipping!" In trying to shift her staff to a more comfortable grip, Wilky had lost her balance and was now beginning to fall. The ground was moving so fast beneath them it didn't even look like a solid entity... if she fell, she'd plunge right through it... like water... "THEAAAAA!"

Thea grit her teeth, looping an arm through the reins and twisting in the saddle to grab Wilky's hand. The violent movements of the horse made this difficult, but finally their hands clasped. Wilky held tightly to Thea with one hand, and held her staff with the other.

"Don't let go," Wilky whimpered, squeezing Thea's hand so tightly she could hardly feel her fingers.

"I won't." Thea promised, leaning back in an attempt to pull Wilky back up, but Wilky was too heavy, and Thea wasn't very strong.

Wilky took another look at the ground racing below her, Tempest's churning black hooves. She closed her eyes so she couldn't see it, and focused on the steadily pounding hoof beats.

Thea tried again to haul her up, but instead of helping Wilky regain her seat on the horse, she felt her slipping further. Wilky shrieked as their hands slipped apart.

A flash of red light shot past them, nearly hitting the horse, but narrowly missing. Instead, it startled Thea, who lost her grip on Wilky's hand.

Wilky screamed, a long shout of short-lived horror, as she felt herself falling without end, into the flashing ground below.

"Really? Really, Caster? It's not funny."

"I thought it was. It doesn't hurt her. You can't tell me what to do anyway. You're the prisoner here, Bronsky boy."

"Casey, this really isn't a joke. She could've died."

The first thing to register in Wilky's consciousness were the familiar voices of her bickering travelling companions. The second thing was the pain. Her whole body felt as if it was being gnawed at by a hundred tiny insects. At least, what she imagined that would feel like. She wasn't sure. Basically, everything ached. Moving was unthinkable, but because she was bored of seeing the back of her eyelids, Wilky forced herself to open her eyes.

Her surroundings were bright at first, but slowly dimmed as her eyes adjusted. It appeared to be morning, and Thea, Helewis and Casey sat nearby. Thea's crossbody pack had been put underneath her head as a pillow.

At first, Wilky couldn't understand why everything hurt so much. The previous day, they'd been riding horses... of course, there were the horses standing nearby, Ditto and Tempest. And then... then they'd tried to stop... and Thea hadn't been able to stop, and the horse had sped up, and Wilky had slipped, and... Wilky had fallen.

Well, no wonder she felt like she'd fallen off a moving horse galloping at sackan knows what speed. She had.

Groaning, Wilky forced herself to sit up, eyes closed in concentration. She was aware of how lucky she was not to be dead, but right now, she just wanted to stop suffering. Yes, that would be nice.

"Wilky!" Thea was the first to react to her arrival back in reality. She jumped up and knelt by Wilky. "Are you alright? Casey got your staff, though it took us a while to find it. Also you broke your leg but Casey fixed that too... you'll just need to be careful. I'm so sorry, I promise, you haven't missed much... how do you feel?"

Wilky kept her eyes closed, taking a deep breath of cool morning air. She opened her eyes and stared at Thea intently. For once, Thea looked legitimately concerned about her. That was a new one. And still... why was Thea so sorry about this? She had had things under control, she had said she wouldn't let go, and yet...

"You let go." Wilky whispered.

"I know, Wilky, I'm so sorry, I tried, I know this is all my fault, you could've died..."

Wilky climbed carefully to her feet, her left leg nearly giving out beneath her as she did. Her staff lay nearby, in one piece, thankfully. Even though she could've easily found another channel point, she was starting to become rather attached to this particular piece of wood. It had a different feeling now that she'd begun using it to do magic. She knew exactly where to position her hands along the grooves in the wood, and not only that... it had a certain character to it, to the knots and splinters, something that could never be perfectly replicated.

As Wilky moved to join the others, she noticed Casey watching her intently, his expression making it evident that he was trying not to laugh. She rolled her eyes.

"What did you do?" she asked, folding her around across her chest.

Casey shook his head innocently, except for the fact that his cheeks were turning red.

"Your hair is partially blue," Helewis deadpanned. "By the way."

"Awwww, you didn't have to ruin the fun, Louie," Casey scolded, tousling Helewis's hair (which Helewis couldn't do anything about because his wrists were still bound by the strange invisible string burned his skin when he strained against it. Fun.).

Wilky shook her head, glancing sideways and raising a strand of hair to see that it was, in fact, a rather pretty shade of blue.

"Could you turn it back?" she asked. "Please?"

Thea made a small noise, and all three of them looked at her.

"Is there an objection?" Casey asked innocently.

Thea blinked, seeming not to realise she'd made any sound. "No? No objection. None."

Thea was watching her, those golden eyes sweeping over Wilky's weakened body and blue hair with something desperate and searching about them. For a long moment, their eyes met, until Wilky tore her gaze away, lest the moment last too long.

Casey sighed and pointed his wand at her, speaking a spell, and Wilky watched her hair turn back to its normal shade of auburn.

"So anyway, Tempest," Casey said, as Wilky sat down on the ground, making herself as comfortable as possible while she still ached. "The horse wasn't just stubborn or free spirited or anything, it was cursed. I could see it in his eyes."

"It was?" Wilky asked, horrified. "Who would do that?"

Thea sat down next to her. "Wilky, when the horses ran away from us in Queeran, that might have been part of it."

"You think that Thagron guy sold us cursed horses?"

"No." Casey said. "This is probably sorcery, so I'm not an expert, but I believe that the horses could have been enchanted for a certain amount of time, so that someone could control them. This is a very limited magic, which means unless the horse handler enchanted them right then and there, they weren't cursed when you bought them. It must have been soon after, because we never encountered anyone on the road."

"The man who gave them apples!" Wilky exclaimed suddenly. "When the horses ran, there was a man in a cloak who stopped them and then fed them apples which I thought was nice at the time but... I guess..." her face fell. "I guess he cursed them."

"What? What cloaked man?" Thea blurted. "I didn't see a cloaked man!"

"Because you were too busy suffering," Wilky explained. "You hadn't caught up to me."

"I broke a rib!" Thea snapped, pressing a hand to her chest. "I was in actual pain!"

"Pfffft I know. But I also knew Casey could fix it easy and we paid money for those horses!"

Thea rolled her eyes. "So, there was a cloaked man?"

"Yeah."

"What did he look like?"

"He wore a cloak. Other than that I didn't really notice."

"Helpful." Thea looked over at Casey, and though Wilky could sense there was some mental conversation happening between them, she hadn't the slightest idea of what it was.

"Hello?" Wilky said. "Maybe share with those of us who can't speak minds?"

"What?" Thea asked. "Share what?"

"Whoever that cloaked man was, he probably cursed the horses. Why, I don't know," Casey summarized simply. "Those apples might be part of it."

"Cursed apples?"

"I'm pretty sure it's a thing. A sorcerer thing. Something to do with potions and whatnot. Anyway, whoever was in control could have fed Tempest a cursed apple to control him for a time, and they decided, for whatever reason, to make Tempest bolt and nearly throw you off."

"Why would anyone do that?" Wilky asked incredulously.

Casey just shrugged. "Test. Show off. Who knows?"

Helewis glanced between Casey and Thea. "I think we-"

"Torizet," Casey said lazily, pointing his wand at Helewis, whose mouth kept moving, though his words were no longer heard. He glared at Casey, and yelled mutely at him. Casey grinned.

"That's better."

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