A branch cracked under Emerald Edge’s foot as she trekked through the woods in search of Spectrum Song and her unknown assailant. Fallen leaves covered the entirety of the forest floor as they got deeper into the woods, with all the trees around them now bare.
She didn’t like it one bit.
“Did I really have to come along?” Jewel Pin complained, her little dagger brandished in one hand. “I’m not much of a fighter. I could have stayed back with the farmers. Help watch over the supplies and such.”
“No one forced you to come. You did it yourself. Now silence.” Posey had her hands on her bow and bowstring, an arrow already waiting to be drawn back and fired. “We do not want to let this attacker know we are on to them already.”
“How do you know where to go?” Guard Streak whispered to Posey.
Posey dropped into a crouch-walk and gestured for the others to do the same. “I have… skills that let me follow the trails of people and animals,” she whispered back. She stared intently at the ground. “This way.”
Emerald had to hand it to the archer. Living in the forest for so long had given her abilities no normal human would have. The Apple family and Light Speckle had stayed behind to look after the carriages and supplies, along with trying to get back on the main path. Moon Tide and Nightfall opted to come along, deciding magic against magic would be useful here. The spymaster had asked Guard Streak to stay with the others, but the young squire had insisted on coming along.
“Spectrum needs us,” he had said. “I am not going to sit around until she is back safely.”
She had warned him about the dangers of pursuit again, but he had insisted without hesitation. Emerald nodded. If anything, he was a brave young squire.
With Posey crouching now, Emerald could only guess that they must be close to whoever had taken Spectrum.
The air around them had grown more quiet than before. All Emerald could hear were their footsteps crunching on the fallen leaves below them as they carefully made their way forward. She already had one hand on her sword’s pommel, ready for anything.
Well, almost anything.
There came a hiss from somewhere ahead. The former pegasus could not see where it had come from, nor what it had come from, but it sounded odd. It sounded like that of a snake, but then at the same time, not exactly a snake. She hoped it wasn’t more asps. Morn wasn’t here to save her this time, though she wasn’t sure if he would at the moment.
Gabriel squawked from above.
“Movement. Left.” Posey drew her arrow back and swiveled her head in that direction.
“What is it?” Emerald unsheathed her sword as silently as she could. “Did the kidnapper turn back?”
Then she understood. The kidnapper wasn’t alone.
Something darted between two trees on the left, as Posey had said, but it had been too swift for Emerald’s eyes to pick up.
Whatever it was, it was moving low to the ground, or they would have spotted it. Emerald’s mind began to produce possible matches. Was it a human running on all fours? She dismissed that option as soon as she thought of it. She knew from experience that getting around on all fours as a human was uncomfortable and awkward. That only meant that the moving thing was an animal or a monster of some kind.
“Look out!” Moon Tide threw herself at Emerald just in time as something flew past them at high speed.
Emerald made out a flash of green scales and white feathers before hitting the ground. She was unharmed, but the same couldn’t be said for the mage.
“Moon Tide!” Emerald got up and examined the mage’s body. She had long claw marks across her back, tearing right through her robes and skin, cutting deep. Her enemy had talons. Sharp talons. “Hold still, Moon Tide!”
The mage grunted in pain, but she waved Emerald off. “I shall be… fine. Watch out for our… assailant… Tis no simple animal. Basilisk…”
“Basilisk? Here?” Nightfall sounded both excited and afraid. Emerald didn’t know that was possible. “I have only heard tales of these creatures from the old empires.”
“What’s a baseel-lisk?” Guard Streak asked, keeping his sword pointed out in front of him as his eyes surveyed the woods.
“A fearsome and ancient creature… that is… not native to Canterlot. I did not expect to find one out here,” Moon Tide glanced around warily. “But this is not… my usual route.”
There was hissing again and Emerald flipped around. She only caught sight of a green slithering body when she felt a hand wrap around her ankle and pull her down. Moon Tide threw her aside with strength she hadn’t expected in the mage, rolling to a stop beside a tree where Posey was already readying an arrow.
The creature now stood above Moon Tide, glaring down at her with beady red eyes. It was an odd creature, not one Emerald had ever seen in Equestria or this world. It was long and slender like a snake, but from its body sprouted two taloned feet and a pair of bat-like wings, and its head was that of a chicken. A chicken with rows of dagger-like teeth in its mouth and a long tongue. It continued to look at the mage, and it was then that Emerald realized she was in some kind of trance. She didn’t look away. Instead, she stared straight at the basilisk’s eyes, even as her body turned to stone.
“Moon Tide!” Emerald picked up her sword and ran at the monster.
“Do not look at its eyes!” Nightfall raised an arm over hers and removed a jar of magic from her pack. “One look and you will be frozen like rock.”
The mage threw the jar in the general direction of the basilisk and it exploded into flames, the orange tongues of fire licking at the trees and the ground. The creature looked up and hissed, but stopped short when one of Posey’s arrows hit it in the neck.
It growled and broke the arrow shaft off before bounding off into the forest, disappearing from sight as the fire began to rise higher.
“Moon Tide, we need to get her out!” Emerald rushed to the flames, but shielded her face as they lunged in her direction.
The fire began to spread, licking up the tree trunks and leaping from branch to branch. Smoke billowed from the burning wood and made Emerald’s eyes water.
“This is not good,” Emerald coughed. “We may just have started a forest fire.”
“Moon Tide should be fine. Fire doesn’t burn stone. But as for us…” Nightfall looked back down the way they had come. “We need to go!”
“What in the world possessed you to throw a firebomb in the middle of a forest?” Emerald asked Nightfall, exasperated. “This is something Secret Fire would do, not you!”
“Perhaps I’ve been spending a little too much time with him… And fire seemed good at the time.”
“Enough talk. Move!” Posey pushed the mage ahead. “And keep an eye for that basilisk. We do not know where it is now.”
The spymaster looked back at Moon Tide’s frozen body again, then followed her friends away from the fire. They would find a way to bring her back. They would. But for now, they needed to get away from the fire. Dying wouldn’t help her.
“We need to help Spectrum! We cannot run!” Streak readied his shortsword and stopped in his tracks. “The kidnapper is past this part of the forest. If we go on, we can outrun the fire. At least for now.”
Emerald nodded and sprinted off further into the forest after him, the rest of the group following close behind.
An owl hooted ahead. It sounded like laughter.
“Wait, it’s daytime,” Nightfall said as they went along. “There shouldn’t be any owls.”
“Then who’s laughing?” Guard Streak asked.
Posey held up her fist and the whole group stopped. They had come to a thicket of brambles that were arranged like a wall. Pointy bits of greenery prevented any further advance.
Posey pointed through the brambles. “Baba Yaga.”
“We need to get in there.” Emerald peeked over them. “That or the fire burns us all.”
“Can’t we just go back to the carriage?” Jewel Pin pulled at the muddy hem of her dress. “This place is just dreadful.”
“We cannot just leave Spectrum behind!” Guard Streak said hotly.
“And we will not be.” Posey looked around, then up and down a tree next to the bramble barrier. “I think I have a way over.”
Emerald caught on and nodded. There didn’t seem to be any other way into the compound the witch had set up. “We have to climb.”
“Climb?” Jewel Pin looked as though she had been told they could fly. “How am I to climb? I am but a seamstress, not some monkey.”
Posey flashed her an annoyed look. “Then stay down here with the fire.”
Jewel Pin watched as everyone else began climbing. She slumped over and stomped her way over to the tree, following the others, rushing as the fire began to creep closer. “Why meeeee?”
“We need to get high enough to jump over the brambles.” Posey was the fastest, reaching the top of the tree in only a few seconds.
Emerald followed along, her years of learning from Posey paying off, though she still had a lot to learn. Guard Streak didn’t do too badly, but Nightfall and Jewel Pin were having trouble climbing up.
“Ah, this isn’t working,” Nightfall fumed. She reached into her pack and brought out a bottle of light blue liquid. “Heads up!”
She hurled the bottle at the brambles. The potion burst on the spikes, releasing a cloud of smog. When it cleared, the brambles were frozen over with ice.
“Much better,” Nightfall said, then picked up a fallen branch and smashed the frozen thorns out of the way.
“You could’ve done that sooner.” Posey leapt off the tree and landed in a roll, her bow already in hand.
“I think we may have lost the element of surprise,” Emerald observed. She too dismounted from the tree and landed on the ground. “Whoever took Spectrum will have noticed the forest on fire by now.”
They advanced through the cleared brambles and shrubbery, and were met with a most unusual sight. There, right in front of them, was a kind of cottage. It looked as though it had fused with a thick tree in the clearing. Its roots protruded from the ground, looking a lot like chicken feet with their gnarled, curling tendrils. Sharpened wooden stakes had been driven into the ground in a ring around the house, and the only source of light was a huge cooking fire with an equally large cauldron boiling on top of it.
“What in the blazes is this?” Nightfall muttered. She drew a green potion from her pack and hefted it, looking around.
“It looks like a house,” Jewel Pin pointed out the obvious.
“Spectrum! Spectrum!” Guard Streak shouted, looking around. He stepped closer to the house, but Nightfall Gleam held him back.
“Touch nothing,” the mage said slowly. “There may be hidden spells or other such traps around here.”
“And there’s that basilisk about,” Posey added. “We cannot afford to let our guard down. Not here.”
As the smell of smoke grew closer, the group shuffled forward toward the house. The cauldron was stewing with some kind of potion, and was emitting a foul stench in the clearing. Emerald moved over to the cauldron and peered inside, instantly regretting doing so. There were animal parts bobbing in the broth, and Emerald struggled not to retch at the gruesome stew that was in the pot.
Suddenly, from somewhere around them, a devious cackling erupted into existence, echoing all around them. Emerald didn’t know where it was coming from, but it was likely from the one who had taken Spectrum.
Emerald brandished her sword and looked around, then quickly fixed her eyes on the ground in case the basilisk was about. The shine of the blade caught her eye and she had an idea. Keeping low to the ground, Emerald angled her blade so that she could survey the surroundings in the sword’s reflection. She hoped that if she saw the basilisk in her blade’s reflection, she wouldn’t turn to stone.
The front door to the tree-house opened, and the laughter intensified. There was a short, dumpy looking figure on the doorstep, with shaggy dark hair and a face that was so ugly that it would have broken any mirror, had there been one nearby. She was dressed in ragged brown robes and was holding an oversized fork in her right hand.
“Baba Yaga…” Emerald breathed.
“Witch! Unhand the young lady and return her to us!” Guard Streak rushed forward a few steps, holding his shortsword high.
“Vkusny rebenok,” she cackled and removed a potion from behind herself. “Dlya menya…”
“Down!” Posey yelled as she tossed it.
Guard Streak raised a hand to protect his face, but with a precise shot from her bow, Posey broke the bottle midair, spewing purple mist across the area between them and the Baba Yaga.
“Don’t breathe this in!” Nightfall covered her mouth with her sleeve and ushered the others away from the purple cloud. “By the looks of it, toxic magic. Far deadlier than any poison magic the druids would know.”
Posey fired two arrows through the cloud, but the sound of them thudding into wood signaled that they must’ve missed their mark.
“We need to find where she’s keeping Spectrum. We need to save her!” Streak hissed to the spymaster.
“We will, young squire.” Emerald gave him a quick pat on the shoulder, then tightened the grip on her sword. “But first, we have a witch to kill.”
Above, Gabriel squawked, which Emerald knew by now, was a warning. A blur of green twisted out of the brambles to the left and Emerald swung her sword, squeezing her eyes shut in case it was what she suspected it might be. She missed, but there was a screech as Gabriel swooped down and drew the basilisk’s attention from Emerald.
Baba Yaga screeched something in that language that Emerald didn’t speak and threw another potion at Guard Streak. The squire saw it coming and dodge rolled away, leaving the potion to break on the ground. Twisting vines sprouted up from the splash zone, whipping around with thorny tendrils and ripping up the dirt.
“What the…” Emerald muttered as she blindly swung her weapon at the basilisk, once again hitting nothing. She had not seen such powerful magic, not even from Clover the Clever back in Canterlot.
Gabriel slashed at the basilisk with his talons, swooping in and out of the monster’s view so he would not be turned to stone.
In the meantime, Posey nocked an arrow and fired it at Baba Yaga, but the hag waved her hands above her head and a gust of wind blew in and deflected the projectile.
Nightfall Gleam threw another potion, and it seemed that the bottle was too heavy to be blown away. It smashed onto Baba Yaga’s house and covered the bark with sizzling holes. Baba Yaga turned around and screeched as one part of the trunk collapsed in on itself.
“Moy dom!” She was suddenly at the mage, smacking her across the face hard enough to send her falling back. “Vasilisk! Glazet’!”
As Emerald swung her weapon again, she was suddenly barreled into. As she fell, she felt talons walking over her, but the basilisk didn’t stop at her. As the spymaster opened her eyes, she watched as the monster whipped over to where Baba Yaga was standing and threw its eyes wide open.
“Do not look!” Emerald had instantly jammed her eyes shut, throwing herself and Jewel Pin to the ground.
Posey pulled her bandana down over her eyes to protect herself. Guard Streak had raised an arm to cover his eyes, and Nightfall scampered back from where she was, keeping an eye on the leaf-covered floor beneath herself.
The basilisk shrieked, alongside the hag’s harsh language, it made a cacophony that scratched at Emerald’s ears. And there was another sound. Crackling. The smell of smoke. The wildfire was getting closer.
“How are we going to stop this thing?” Guard Streak shouted from a short way away.
Another cry from the basilisk, but Emerald did not dare open her eyes. She heard Baba Yaga say something, then there was the twang of a bowstring and the basilisk’s shrieking took on a whole new level.
Emerald decided to open her eyes, keeping them low to avoid looking directly into the basilisk’s red eyes. The creature was flailing about, trying to dislodge something that has gotten stuck in its cheek. From the corner of her vision, Emerald could tell it was one of Posey’s arrows. She had somehow hit her mark even with her eyes closed.
“Good shot, Posey!” Jewel Pin cheered.
That had been the wrong move. With a growl, Baba Yaga was suddenly beside the seamstress and jabbed her fork into her thigh. Jewel Pin screamed and flailed about with her dagger, by some good fortune managing to cut the hag on the arm with it. While she was distracted, Guard Streak leapt on her from behind, grabbing on to her back and driving his shortsword through her shoulder to keep himself from falling off.
“Vasilisk! Ah! Vasilisk!” the witch cried out. She dropped her fork and reached over her back, trying to dislodge the squire.
Emerald had been about to join in when the basilisk slithered over, whipping its tail around and knocking her on her back. Posey took aim with her bow, but there were too many people moving around in the melee. She was not confident that she would not hit one of her friends by mistake. However, through the hole that Nightfall had burned through the witch’s house, she could see a smudge of rainbow colored hair inside.
“Aha,” Posey said, jumping over a row of stakes and making for the shack.
She kicked the door down and entered with her bow drawn, just in case there were any other nasty creatures lurking about inside. The inside of the house was littered with animal pelts and open bottles and wooden cups of foul-smelling liquids. The floor was wood, but covered in rotten leaves.
Spectrum was lying in the corner, bound with vines and with a roll of bark stuck in her mouth to keep her from making any noise. Her eyes fell onto Posey and she perked up.
“Spectrum! There you are,” Posey said, relieved. “Are you hurt?”
Spectrum shook her head. Posey extended her hidden blade and began to saw through the vines, the honed steel severing the plant life easily. When she was free, Spectrum pulled the roll of bark from her mouth and spat.
“Ugh. I don’t see what Emerald gets from eating this plant stuff,” the squire said, standing up.
“It’s probably an acquired taste,” Posey said plainly. “We should go help outside. The battle isn’t over yet.”
Spectrum walked over to a pile of weapons that had most likely belonged to other victims of Baba Yaga and chose an ornate short sword with a gilded hilt. “I am ready for some payback.”
They stepped outside and took in the scene. Emerald Edge, Guard Streak, and Jewel Pin were wrestling with Baba Yaga just outside the ring of stakes, while Nightfall was throwing potion after potion at a wall of fire that was creeping closer to them. The bottles burst into clouds of frost, but the flames were burning too hot for them to have much of an effect. The basilisk was fighting Gabriel, vainly trying to return to Baba Yaga’s side.
“You witch!” Jewel Pin drove her dagger into the hag’s foot.
Guard Streak had one arm around her neck, trying to choke her out, but it looked to be a losing fight.
Not wasting any time, Posey and Spectrum joined in the fray, with the archer already letting loose an arrow at the basilisk’s side. It pierced its skin, drawing blood, and its attention. She quickly looked away and pushed Spectrum to the ground, averting her eyes.
“Do not look into them!” she warned. “Its gaze alone will turn you to stone.”
The creature screeched and ran over, its talons digging up dirt with each step.
“Eyes down, squire.” Posey unsheathed her hidden blade and waited.
She listened, waiting for the basilisk to get closer, and when she heard Gabriel squawk above, the archer whipped around and jammed her hidden blade right into the neck of the approaching monster, keeping her eyes averted from its head.
The basilisk screeched and roared, jumping and raking Posey’s arms with its sharp claws, but that only pushed Posey to repeatedly stab her blade into its neck more and more.
And then with a warcry, Spectrum leapt over her, using her shoulder as a springboard. Landing on top of the monster, she sliced at its wings and back with her acquired shortsword, sending feathers and blood flying up into the air around them.
With their combined assault, the basilisk finally fell, falling to the ground, gurgling in its own blood as its life faded away.
“Easy.” Spectrum hopped off the dead monster and flicked her sword in the air. “Wouldn’t you say I have the qualities of a knight, Posey?”
“Moy vasilisk!” Baba Yaga screamed like a banshee and threw Streak and Jewel Pin off, their weapons still stuck in her as she suddenly dashed forward in a blink of an eye, knocking Emerald and Posey to the ground. She grabbed Spectrum by the neck and lifted her into the air, squeezing hard.
“Let me go!” Spectrum squirmed in her grasp. She lifted her shortsword, but Baba Yaga swiped it out of her grip with a gnarly hand. Emerald and Posey sprinted for Spectrum, but a blast of wind knocked them back.
Then Jewel Pin rose to her feet, swaying as she did so. Her dagger was still embedded in the crone’s foot, but she staggered forward, keeping her center of gravity low in order to foil the witch’s foul wind magic. But she was unarmed.
“Jewel Pin! No!” Emerald shouted. But the seamstress paid her no attention.
Spectrum kicked at Baba Yaga’s arm, and they all heard a crack, but the hag’s grip did not loosen. The squire’s face was beginning to turn purple from lack of air.
And that was when Jewel Pin drew her tailoring scissors from her belt and thrust them into the back of Baba Yaga’s neck, with such force that the tips emerged from the other side.
“Oh!” Emerald covered her mouth instinctively.
The witch gasped and spat a mouthful of blood in Spectrum’s face before letting go of her. She reached for her neck, then tipped over to the side, convulsing on the spot.
For a moment, all that could be heard was the hag making increasingly small sputtering noises as the corpse began to still.
Emerald got to her feet, brushing some dead leaves off her legs. “Jewel Pin… I didn’t think you had it in you,” she said, shuffling over to Baba Yaga’s corpse to make sure she was really dead and to retrieve her sword.
“I didn’t think I had it in me either,” the seamstress confessed. She reached down and pulled the scissors from the witch’s neck, shaking them to get rid of the blood. “But I couldn’t just stand by and let that horrid creature have her way with us. We did not escape from Canterlot just to be done in by some old hag.”
“I guess she is good for something, after all…” Posey slung her bow over her shoulder and readjusted her bandana.
Spectrum sat on the ground, legs splayed and one hand massaging her throat. "Thanks, Jewel Pin," she coughed. "That witch had one nasty grip."
"Spectrum!" Guard Streak rushed to Spectrum's side and hugged her. "You're alright!"
"Of course I'm alright," Spectrum said, patting her friend on the back. "I'm too good to just- wait. How are we going to get out of here?"
Emerald looked around, her smile sliding off her face. The fire had now completely surrounded the witch's hut, and the air was filling with smoke and ashes. It was incredible how they had not noticed until now.
Nightfall held open her pack, revealing it to be empty. “I’m afraid to say I have run out of magic.”
"I would suggest we take cover inside the shack," Jewel Pin backed away from the flames. "But tis wood too."
"The old hag wants to take us with her?" Spectrum exclaimed. "Talk about your sore loser."
Nobody wanted to tell the squire that the fire had been set by them.
As the ring of fire grew ever closer, Emerald and her friends backed up until they were standing in a small circle outside Baba Yaga’s hut. The spymaster looked around for something, anything to help fight the fire back, but the witch had picked a terrible place to live if there was ever a fire. There was absolutely nothing to fight it with, maybe except the contents of the cauldron, but they couldn’t get there now, with the fire already past it.
“Well, this is not how I thought it would go,” Nightfall admitted. She clutched her bag as the flames began to consume the stakes.
“I did not kill the Baba Yaga just to die here!” Jewel Pin wailed.
Spectrum held on to her fellow squire tightly. “Streak, if we don’t make it out of this, I’d like you to know I like you!”
Emerald opened her mouth to say something, but then she felt something wet strike her nose.
“Huh?” She looked up, and was rewarded with a raindrop hitting her in the eye. More fat droplets of water fell from the cloudy heavens, hissing as they landed upon the fire.
The light shower intensified into a steady drizzle, then into a full-on downpour. The forest fire withered under the aqueous assault and the orange tongues of flame shriveled up and died.
Emerald pushed a lock of her wet hair from her face. She felt relieved, a sentiment that was shared by the rest of the group as they watched the rain douse the fire.
“Whew,” Spectrum said, kicking out a small lick of fire that lingered by her foot. “That was lucky.”
“Imagine if it hadn’t rained,” Jewel Pin shook her head like a dog, spraying water everywhere. “We could have died here!”
“We could still die,” Nightfall offered as she retreated under a tree to avoid the downpour. “You can get all kinds of illnesses from being cold and wet like this.”
“Beats burning to death, though,” Spectrum remarked.
The rain washed away the last of the flames, and continued to fall in a lighter drizzle as the group ducked into Baba Yaga’s hut for shelter. Inside, they found many old weapons and a pile of valuables that had no doubt been taken from the hag’s previous victims.
“Well, tis not like leaving it here will do anyone much good,” Jewel Pin said as she began stuffing her pack with treasure.
Emerald shrugged and let her be. She decided to search the rest of the house. Nightfall was examining a shelf of potions, keeping any that she thought might be safe and useful. The rest of the shack had a ramshackle bed with a basket next to it, most likely for the basilisk. There were three oblong objects inside the basket. They were grey and green mottled, and Emerald picked one up, examining it.
“What are these?” Emerald wondered, turning the object around in her fingers.
Posey joined Emerald and picked up another of the objects. “I think…” she said, scrutinizing the oblong item. “I think these are eggs.”
“Eggs?”
“And judging from where you found them, I would hazard a guess that these are the eggs of that basilisk,” Posey concluded, staring hard at the egg in her hands. “These could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.”
Emerald paused to consider this. The obvious thing to do would be to destroy them before they hatched, but deep down, the former pegasus knew she did not have it inside her to do such a grisly task.
“What should we do with them?” Emerald asked quietly.
“Without their mother around, I don’t know if these will ever hatch,” Posey replaced the egg she was holding in the basket. “The best thing to do would be to leave them here.”
“Oh! Alright.” Emerald put her egg back into the basket just as she had found it, happy that she didn’t have to break them. She had experienced enough violence for the day. Then something occurred to her.
“Oh! Do you think that Baba Yaga has a cure for petrification here?”
Posey considered the question. “For Moon Tide, I assume? I do not think that is necessary.”
“What? Why not?”
Posey nodded at the window. “Because here she comes now.”
And lo and behold, Moon Tide came stumbling out of the treeline, her robes smeared with damp ash and soot. The mage saw Emerald and the others inside the house and waved. The rain had dwindled down to a few spotting drops, and Emerald went outside.
“Moon Tide!” Emerald exclaimed. “You’re not stone anymore!”
“Is that what happened?” the mage said. “I remember looking into the basilisk’s eyes, and then the next I was all alone in the rain in the middle of a burnt forest. You must have broken the curse and stopped the witch’s flames,” Moon Tide pulled the former pegasus into a hug. “Thank you. I’m in your debt.”
“Don’t mention it.” Emerald said, pulling away after a couple of seconds. “Spectrum and Posey slew the creature, and Jewel Pin struck down the hag herself. As for the forest fire…” Emerald grimaced. “I’m afraid we started it. A bit of wayward magic.”
“What would possess any of you to use fire magic in a dried out forest like this?”
“I apologize, not one of my better moments…” Nightfall dusted her robes and grinned sheepishly. “Still, we won!”
“We could’ve all burned.” Posey didn’t look too happy about that.”
“But we got out unscathed! Mostly.” Nightfall eyed the archer’s injuries. “Still, I see this as a complete victory!”
“And those are wounds we can easily heal up, so do not you worry.” Moon Tide searched her pack for potions. “I trust the squire has been rescued?”
“That she has.” Emerald smiled and turned to the two young ones, who were only just coming out of the house, with Spectrum holding an old engraved musical lute of sorts.
“Look what I found!” She waved it around excitedly, then began strumming it, producing scratchy sounds. It must’ve been a while since it was last played. “Kievan folk tunes!”
It didn’t produce a very nice sound, at least, Emerald thought so, but it was still somewhat interesting to listen to.
“Uh, Sp-Spectrum?” Streak asked her. “About what you said e-earlier… Was it tr-true? That y-you li-like me?”
Moon Tide took a sniff at the air, then grinned.
The Kievan folk music stopped abruptly as Spectrum’s face turned a bright red.
“Th-th-that’s… Uh…” She suddenly put a hand to her ear and looked out to the woods. “I think I hear Honeygold calling us. We should go.”
And then she was off in a blink of an eye.
Emerald and the others watch her go. The spymaster couldn’t help but laugh. It was nice to see something normal after an intense battle with a witch and a beast, even if it left Guard Streak standing there wondering if he did something wrong.
Jewel Pin joined them outside, her pack bulging with gold and jewels. “Look what I found!” she said, looking pleased. “We’re going to be rich!”
Posey rolled her eyes. “Yes, Jewel Pin. Yes, we are. Now why don’t we get back to the others? I’m sure they will want to hear about what happened.”