Elayra quickly stepped back when she nearly collided with Ghent, a hand moving instinctively to the dagger hanging beside her quiver.
	She gave a sigh of relief that it was only him. Placing the end of her bow on the ground, she looked him over as he did the same of her.
	Elayra’s change of clothes, consisting of a green knee-length dress, a brown overcoat laced at the front and sporting slit puff sleeves at the shoulders, a pair of pants, and tall boots pulled over them, remained mostly dry thanks to the barrier above her. Mud caked the souls of her shoes, and a few dark patches splotched her well-worn garments from windblown rain.
	Ghent, on the other hand was drenched, looking like something a kid had tried to drown before taking a walk in the park. But he could have been worse. Such as not even there.
	“You actually came.” Elayra smirked. As much as she refused to admit it, having him there was a welcomed relief. After everything, Ghent had come. Maybe, just [i]maybe[/i], that bode well for them. “I’m impressed.”
	She looked at him questioningly, wondering what she, “too,” was, before he elaborated.
	“Right,” she drew out the word playfully, looking up slightly to meet his gaze, “sure you weren’t.”
	Elayra’s smirk turned into a scowl when he asked about what had happened. She opened her mouth to answer, but he went on to his next question before she could speak.
	[b]“You guys got into a fight, didn’t you?”[/b] 
	Again, she tried to respond with, “It doesn’t matter,” but her mouth snapped shut and she looked at him in surprise at his accurate assumption. But then, he rambled on. Her fists clenched at the concept of Drust “abandoning” her, accompanied by Ghent’s sigh and reassurances that kept her from responding.
	[b]“You hurt anywhere—”[/b]
	“For the love of Absolem!” In a swift movement, Elayra gripped one of her arrows by its damp blue fletching, drew it, and shifted the sharp tip to point threateningly at Ghent’s chest. “[i]Stop talking![/i]” She gave an irate huff and placed the tip against his shirt. “Drust didn’t [i]abandon[/i] me. This world and the Curse don’t mix well, so he’s waiting on the Wonderland side of the portal. For both our safety. Now, if that satisfies you,” she bit, quickly replacing the arrow in her quiver, “we’re wasting time.”
	She brushed by him, her expression sour, and headed to the front of the storage shed. She shoved the door open, leaned her bow near a window, and reached inside to where she had placed her pack, ready to go. Forgetting about the bruise on her back, she slung the pack over her shoulders, and gasped when it thumped painfully against the spot she could not reach to tend to.
	Trying to adjust the pack so it would not be bothersome, she turned and walked carefully toward the road, stopping once Ghent was in her sight.
	“The portal’s in an alleyway between Frank’s Book Barn and Hava Java,” she informed him, annoyance at him and at the ache from the bruise in her voice.