“[i]What,[/i] boy?” Drust snapped as Ghent held up a hand. The Knight placed the katana on the ground beside him. His scowl deepened at Ghent’s first question. “I mean just that!”
	“[i]We[/i] got in, didn’t we, Featherhead?” Elayra answered through an impatient sigh, her piece of toatunt jerky finished. She rubbed the back of her neck, the dull ache there finally beginning to turn into a headache. 
	Drust eyed her for a moment.
	She glanced to him, before looking back to Ghent. She decided to elaborate both for the boy's and Drust's sake.
	“Safe Zones keep the spirits and the emotions out, but these places still let in anything living. And some Spiritayians, like the tichari. Nothing living’s stupid enough to travel Hollow Forest at night, but [i]her[/i] beasts don’t make the habit of putting brains before orders.”
	She paused long enough to reach into her backpack again. This time, she retrieved a water skin.
	“It’s unlikely they'd find us,” she continued. “The tichari steer clear of them, and they can’t see our fire. This place won’t disperse the smoke above the trees,” she jerked her head upward, then winced as the motion angered her budding headache. The light of the fire scarcely reached the treetops. Darkness blanketed the thick canopy stretching unnaturally above them, “and nothing outside the clearing can see the light. But…”
	“Be prepared for anything,” Drust put in.
	“And always expect the worst,” she finished. “Better to be safe than dead, don’t you think, Featherhead?”
	She wiggled the cork of her water skin out with a satisfying [i]pop.[/i]
	“Wait, girl,” Drust demanded as she raised the water skin to her lips.
	She could not stop a glare at her guardian. “Yours has the same water as mine,” she complained as the man reached into his pack again. “There's nothing —”
	His sharp stare brought her words up short. He pulled a small, worn leather pouch from the dark depths of his pack, then tossed it to Elayra.
	The girl caught it in her free hand. With a confused, suspicious glance to Drust, she sat her water skin upright in her lap and pulled the pouch's drawstring open. She removed a bottle reminiscent of a glass inkwell. Only instead of ink, a substance that looked like someone had dumped glitter into strawberry milk swirled around inside. It filled only a small bit of the inkwell.
	Elayra blinked at the bottle in surprise. “Where’d you [i]get[/i] this?” She unscrewed its dropper stopper and sniffed at the opening. It smelled a tangy mix of pine, grapefruit, and brine.
	“A daejinn.”
	Elayra stared at him with open-mouthed horror. “[i]You called a daejinn?[/i] When—”
	“Enough!” he growled with firm finality that shut down any further questions from her. He took a deep breath. “I'm not the one who called it.” He nodded to her water skin, the motion half intentional, half twitch. “Two drops.”
	She nodded. Though she itched to get answers, the fear of further aggravating him won out. She drew some of the liquid into the stopper.
	Drust sat beside his katana, closed his eyes, and took a few more deep breaths.