She led us down the wide street empty of any signs of movement. Silence pressed in, broken only by the sound of our footfalls against the gravel pavement and the distant marching growing closer and closer.

Elizabeth had taken step beside me, her face impassive and jaw set. When she noticed I was watching her, she flashed me a quick but unimpressive smile, as if she was trying to convince me that nothing was wrong.

I didn't even have to ask to know that she was not fond of whoever was leading us to safety. Well, I at least hope she's leading us to safety.

I gave Elizabeth my best shot at a comforting smile before quickening my pace to match Thomas'.

"Hi."

"I'm not in the mood for this right now, Alexander," he said dismissively.

"You have to talk to me eventually, you know." I dropped my voice to a whisper as I added, "and who is this person, anyway?"

A laugh sounded from the front of the group. "Wow, Alexander," she said, an amused tone heavily lacing her voice, as if I had told a joke. "I mean, I know you lost your memory but I expected you to know who I am." Her voice, to put it simply, was absolutely beautiful. It was perfect in so many ways, like a soft and warm melody beckoning me in.

I blinked in surprise that she had heard me. I also found myself tongue twisted at the quality of her intonation. But before I could follow her response up with any more questions, she turned sharply down an alleyway so narrow we had to walk single file in order to pass through. Her fingers brushed against the wall, and a doorway appeared before our eyes. Not missing a beat, she walked through.

Usually, it's not a good idea to follow strangers down narrow alleyways and into strange doors. That's how you get murdered.

We followed her inside, the doorway disappearing behind us as if it had never been there to begin with.

The room was dimly lit, smelling earthly. I could just see plants of all shapes and sizes crawling up the walls. They looked sinister, and I had to hold back a breath of unease as one approached Elizabeth slowly. A ball of fire lit on her outstretched palm, and the thing returned to its position splayed against the wall, almost warily.

"Who is she?" I asked John.

"Maria." The way he said it implied that everyone knew her by that name alone. That she was respected, feared.

"And I'm supposed to know who that is?"

"Well, she's only the most powerful creature to ever walk the realms."

"I thought that was Fredericks."

Maria snorted as she continued to lead us through the building. "I'm offended that you would even begin to compare me with that... ant."

John cast me a telling look. "Some say she's a star."

"A star?" I repeated.

"Yeah. A fallen star."

Elizabeth's posture stiffened even more somehow.

"And some say I'm Divinity herself!" Maria chirped brightly. "And they aren't, like, entirely wrong!"

She opened another door, this time letting the rest of us pass through first.

The room that greeted us appeared much more habitable. With a start, I realized that it was a shop.

Trinkets and magical looking artifacts were displayed throughout the room in a neat order. Some were colorful, some elegant, grand, and meticulously crafted, and others radiated power so strong I could feel the energy flowing from them like sap from trees.

Angelica walked over to where Lafayette was sitting and took his hand. Relief poured through his gaze as cuts and bruises earned in the skirmish disappeared instantaneously. He uttered a quick word of thanks as she moved to do the same for James.

I watched as Hercules looked at Lafayette with a concerned gaze. I could tell that he was trembling to speak, but the thought must have been abandoned as he walked over to a shelf of tiny spheres floating in vials. Upon further inspection, I discovered that they were planets.

"Now," Maria drawled slowly, taking her place at the counter across the room. She folded her arms on the polished top and leaned against it. "What are you all doing here?"

I approached what appeared to be a baby's mobile and began to inspect it. I ran my fingers across the finely crafted glass creatures floating in midair below it. There were strings connecting the animals to the silver arms of the mobile, but they were invisible.

"Running reconnaissance," James explained sullenly. "And then things went to shit."

"Ah, par for the course," Maria said. "Hercules, please don't mess with that." She didn't even spare him a glance.

"I was only looking!" he protested, setting one of the bottles down on a shelf with a clink.

"Anyway, I guess you can all hide in here until they leave."

"Really?" Elizabeth remarked wryly. "I believe that's the nicest thing you've ever done for us."

Maria's smile widened at the comment. "Oh, Lizzy, I do nice things all the time!"

"Like what?"

Maria's mouth opened to answer, then she froze as she considered it, but her smile didn't disappear. "That's a great question!"

The tension between the two was so thick, I was surprised I couldn't physically see it.

"So what's her deal?" I asked John quietly, following him as he went to inspect a globe that was spitting out a projection of the view from the top of a birch tree overlooking a secluded lake.

"Well, Maria doesn't fight for either side. She just... kinda enjoys to watch the chaos descend," he told me, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"There's something quite enjoyable about it!" Maria shouted from the other side of the room.

John winced at the realization she had heard him and turned back to the globe. He spun it around and traced his finger around an archipelago in the middle of the ocean. The image above the globe flickered to correspond with a scene of one of the islands.

"I mean, between her and Elizabeth. What happened?"

"Uhh... I wasn't there, so... urm, don't ask me. And trust me. You kinda don't want to know."

"Now I want to know."

"Alexander. You don't want to know. If you like being a moral person, trust me and don't find out."

There was a not-so-well hidden snicker from the front of the room.

I left him to toy with the globe and went to explore a shelf of seemingly normal crystals shaped into various forms of dragons. I picked up a darker pink one and began to study it. It was smooth and warm to the touch. Despite its small size, the details were very clear and very easy to see. It was a beautiful piece, but something about it gave me a horrible, twisting feeling to my stomach.

"Like it?"

I jumped in surprise, the small dragon going flying. But instead of crashing against the floor, its intricate wings began to flap and carry it through the sky. The dragon landed on the shelf besides the others without so much as a falter. The moment it settled down, the life was pulled out of it like water down a drain, and it became still once more.

"Careful with that stuff!" Maria ordered. "Do you know how long it took to make the wings?"

"You made that?"

"What?" She frowned. "No."

"Well—"

"Anyway, you really don't remember anything at all, huh?"

The thought of the dragon dissolved immediately into the air, as well as the feeling it brought when I ran my fingers down its smooth side.

"No. I'm sorry."

"Can you still do magic?"

"Well... I mean, I can, but—"

"But not the skill level you used to excel with." She pulled the words right out of my mouth.

"Yeah."

She appeared thoughtful for a moment. Then, she held up her hand, and something appeared in it like it had been there the whole time.

It was a necklace. It seemed simple enough, the lace being a soft cream color. The charm was that of a star either crafted from gold or painted golden. It was quite dull compared to everything else in the shop.

"Uhh, I know better than to accept gifts from powerful store owners in magical lands. There's always a catch. A price. What is it?"

Maria's laugh was stunning, perfect. So perfect that it was unnatural. "You know me very well! And you just met me a few seconds ago! I'm impressed! Well, tell you what. Consider this a gift! From one friend to another. For free." She held out her hand delicately, the lace catching on her fingers so I could get a clear and perfect view of the charm.

I was hesitant in taking the necklace from her, but it seemed rude to deny her gift. "Does it do something?"

"Does it have to? Sometimes the best gifts are the ones that you create meaning for yourself. For instance, you could give it to your friend over there to fix the gaping hole in your friendship." Her head dipped towards Thomas, who was talking to James. As if he heard us talking about him, his eyes drifted towards us.

"I—"

"But yes," she continued, disregarding what I had to say as if it was nothing more than a dead caterpillar. "It does do something."

"What does it do?"

"Oh, it wouldn't be any fun if I just told you!" she exclaimed. "You have to figure that out for yourself!"

I watched her for a second more before pocketing the necklace. "And what about these dragons?"

"Hmm? Oh, those? They're nothing special really," she said, her gaze drifting towards the tiny trinkets. "But they were really hard to find. Do you know how much time and effort it takes to find Tourmaline that lively? I had to consult Merfolk! And talking to those vain airheads is never fun." She frowned. "Would they be called airheads? Or waterheads. Waterheads! Got a ring to it, no? And you know what's even better? On Earth, melon is another word for head! So I can call them watermelons, and it totally makes sense! I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?"

"How much for it?" I asked, nodding towards the pink dragon.

Her ever present grin somehow widened even more. I wondered if it hurt her or if she was immune to the pain by now. "You don't have anything I want! Thomas, however..."

"Just take it," Thomas said, surprising me at his sudden nearness. He held out a delicate white feather in his hand.

"Dragon's all yours," Maria said distractedly, her eyes fixated on the feather. She took it from Thomas eagerly and held it up in the air like a trophy before running over to the counter.

When I cast Thomas a glance, he shrugged. "Avion feathers. Really useful for magic."

"Oh."

Silence pressed hard on us for a good few moments. When I opened my mouth to speak, he cast me a warning glance.

So, I did what every normal person does in this situation that somehow mends all of their problems.

I sang, "Oh Thomas, well you seem quite sad. Oh Thomas, can I help you be glad? Oh Thomas, please don't be mad. I'm sorry I made a huge fucking mistake. Oh Thomas, I should have listened to you. Oh Thomas, is there something I can do? Oh Thomas, I'm sorry you're so blue. I probably just fucked everything up."

In retrospect, it was not the best thing I've ever come up with, but I was pretty proud for coming up with it as I was going along.

And it did its job.

A smile was tugging at the corners of Thomas' mouth. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, trying to suppress it. It wasn't working very well.

Just as I started what would be the wonderful and impactful third verse, he quickly interrupted.

"Stop, please. You've made your point." He gave up, and his mouth was swept into a grin. "You make it very hard to be mad at you, did you know that?"

"It's because I'm so cute, isn't it?"

"Yeah. We can go with that if it makes you feel better."

"It does. Very much."

Thomas sighed and sat down on a nearby bench. I followed him.

"I hate being mad. It takes a lot of energy. I'm glad that's over."

"Why were you mad then?"

"To prove a point."

"And how'd that go?"

"It didn't," Thomas said. A sigh escaped his lips as he brought his legs up to his chest and hugged his knees. I followed his gaze to where John and Lafayette were experimenting with a spell or object or something while Hercules looked on. Lafayette created a few perfectly circular and smooth stones, and John would create a wind so strong that it blew it all away.

"Thomas... Thomas, I'm sorry."

"It's alright Alexander."

"No, but seriously. I should have listened to you. And I didn't. And I hurt you. I'm so sorry."

Thomas turned his head so that he was peering at me from his wonderful eyes.

"I missed your friendship."

Thomas' smile became so overpoweringly warm that I couldn't help but feel a lot better inside.

"Me too."

"Can we forget this ever happened?"

"Yes please."

An explosion sounded from the front of the room, so sudden that Thomas jumped, his wings flaring open. His eyes hardened with a hot fierceness.

"Whoops! My bad!" Maria sang. "Thomas, you didn't tell me that your feathers were explosive!"

Thomas gave me an amused look and folded his wings. After mumbling a brief apology, he walked over to where Maria was leaning against her counter. There wasn't any trace of an explosion at all.

"Can we go now?" Elizabeth called. She was leaning against a bookshelf, looking like she'd rather be somewhere else. Angelica was sitting on the ground in front of her, eyes closed and hands resting on her crossed legs in a peaceful state.

"Well," began James as he set down a strange pointy weapon thingy on a shelf. "If they aren't gone by now, maybe they, like, kinda deserve to kill us?"

"James."

"What? I mean, it's devotion. That's all."

Maria laughed, the chillingly perfect sound being even more obscure hearing it again. I just noticed how familiar it sounded too. "I'm surprised you guys are still here, to be honest. Also, I kinda need you to leave so I can open this place up again. My lunch break went a little bit longer than necessary, no? Tell you what, I'm gonna open up a portal so you can out of here and we can all move on with our lives, okay? But it'll cost you!"

Thomas sighed before James walked up to him and plucked a delicate feather out of his wings. I saw Thomas wince in pain for a second, as if being pinched.

"Great! Thanks!" Maria accepted the gift from James.

Without warning, the space next to her suddenly tore open as seamlessly as cutting a hole into a piece of paper. The portal was so perfect that I could see the castle through it, standing tall amongst the sea of trees.

"Well, quia nunc vale!"

I followed the others through the portal, feeling a great deal more at ease when my feet touched the soft grass carpet of the forest floor surrounding the castle.