“You can’t argue with this, surely?” Wen the fly was back, holding out a headless rabbit toward me. She seemed to be under the impression that I drove her away because of her failure to provide food. The real reason was that I didn’t want her to interfere with the dragon girl in any way.
“Stop coming back,” I said firmly.
A shadow fell over Wen’s eyes. “Huh? What makes that your decision?”
“You disturb the peace.”
“I’ll be quiet, then, so let me stay. You won’t have a problem then, right? Or are you trying to keep my sister all to yourself?! That’s it, isn’t it?! You want to split us up! You want her all to yourself, and you want me to get lost. That’s so unfair. Do you know how unfair that is? Do you?!”
Her eyes flashed as she marched closer. When I tried to put my hands on her shoulders so I could get her off me, she pushed them away and grabbed my shoulders instead, glaring at me with open rage. I stared back at her, running my hand over the knife on my hip.
“I don’t care how fair it is.”
“Are you serious?” the fly spat venomously, keeping her gaze steady. “It’s because she likes you and won’t get mad no matter what you do, huh?! You’re the sneakiest sneak who ever sneaked!”
I tried using my flower fae ability to probe the depths of her intense emotion and figure out if she would kill me, but the sheer envy enveloping the surface of her mind was too thick for me to get through.
Maybe I should play it safe and kill her.
The problem was, unlike with the snakeborn or flower fae, I couldn’t justify killing this girl. The snakeborn had stabbed me with a knife. The flower fae would have become my enemy if I refused to help her kill the dragon girl. Even if I joined forces with her, the dragon girl would have easily overpowered and killed me. In reality, the question I faced each time was: Who do I want to try killing?
I had no evidence that the flightless fly wanted me dead. Assuming the instructors were watching our every movement, I needed to consider how they would interpret my behavior before I acted. Wen had been darting around the dragon girl, angering the boy within me. I soothed his rage with a sigh and decided to give her another chance.
“Promise you won’t go up to her carelessly. You seem to get on her nerves.”
The fly’s anger vanished at once. I thought she wasn’t going to say anything until she clapped back with a quiet “No, I don’t.”
“It was her idea to dump you somewhere far away after you fell unconscious.”
“Huh?!”
Surely, she understood that no one would appreciate someone as clingy as her? This wasn’t the case of the dragon girl being overly sensitive. I would get just as annoyed if I was in the same position.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, and the fly started pulling at her own hair in frustration. “How could she?! Doesn’t she realize that I adore her?!”
All I had done was point out something she was doing wrong. Was that any reason to get so upset? I guess in my previous life, she would have been in kindergarten or grade school. Though my memories were hazy, I knew that kids could be very impulsive at that age. This world was the strange one. Even if we were forced to grow up quickly here, it would be difficult to make children mature emotionally. This girl was too young to be convinced by me using her own logic against her.
“I like you,” I said, “but you don’t like me, right?”
She sniffed. “Right.”
Actually, I didn’t like her one bit, but I was trying to keep things simple for her so I could explain.
“You might love your ‘sister’ a whole lot, but you understand that won’t make her like you, right?”
“No. I don’t understand.”
I clicked my tongue, but then again, what did I expect? She hated me, so why would she see my point? I studied my own reflection in my blade and thought about other ways I could get her to understand. I wondered why I felt obligated to do so in the first place. The dragon girl was the one with an unwanted little sister, so this was her problem to deal with.
“Fine. But at least get permission from her before you hug or touch her. You have to promise to do exactly as she says. Do that, and you can stay. If you break that promise, you have to leave and never come back. That’s your second promise. Okay?”
She nodded right away. “Okay.”
I had to wonder if she even understood what she was agreeing to.
✦ ✦ ✦
I was rushing around the perimeter of our camp and laying traps when I caught sight of another child. I got down from my tree branch and walked straight toward him.
He was huddled up and warming his hands at a campfire. “Who’s there?!”
Though I recognized his face, I didn’t know his name. His ears were long but not elf-like, so he was probably some kind of spiritborn. At first, I thought he was staying put because of the cold, but then I realized there was a reason he couldn’t move away. His red eyes narrowed in suspicion when he recognized me.
“Hardhead.”
Apparently, my nickname was here to stay.
“That’s me. You hungry?”
His stomach growled the moment I asked the question. He looked embarrassed, so I shot him a sympathetic smile and pulled some dried meat from my clothing. “Want this?”
“You’re not giving that to me for free.”
He was spot on, but my request wasn’t going to be unfair. “You can have it if you let me borrow that for a while.”
I pointed at his knife. It was red-hot, transformed into an arcane tool capable of combustion. It was how he had started the fire. Monk had made it in his spare time with his incredible aptitude for manipulating essence, and it was a much more technical tool than my extra-sharp knife. I had decades’ worth of knowledge but, as hard as it was to admit, they paled in comparison to that five- (maybe six) year-old’s natural genius.
That said, I was shameless. I had no qualms studying his technique and copying it. I handed over the meat and gazed intently at the knife given to me in return. I suppressed my ability to perceive essence as much as possible and heighted its accuracy. I examined the differences between this knife and mine, going as deeply as I could.
“Hey.”
It looked like both our arcane tools had required the same amount of essence to create. I felt slightly more from the blade than the rest of the weapon, suggesting that it was only the metal that could spark fires. That meant it was possible to turn just one part of an item into an arcane tool. I never thought of doing anything more than making an entire object harder or sharper. Children were capable of a flexible type of thinking that adults couldn’t emulate. I guess perseverance was all I really had going for me.
“You done?”
Focusing on the weapon, I imbued it with essence. The tip of the blade burst into flame. At that moment, I felt it transform into a different arcane tool altogether. I sighed, both impressed and disappointed. My knowledge of these tools was still imperfect, and that was exactly why I realized that this knife was just like Sister’s—it sapped you of your energy. I gritted my teeth.
“Can I have it back now?”
“Yeah, I’m done. Thanks.” I gave him back the burning knife and trudged away with a sigh.
Seeing me off, the boy only gave a confused hum.