Bryn's face was grim at Liam's explanation for his blindness. He'd known Raquelle to be reckless, but this was a new degree of hideous behavior.

When two soldiers were required to take the Marshal Derrick away -- August went with them without protest, as stoic as ever -- Bryn looked at the others with a quirk of his brow. Dorothea explained to him the crimes which the Marshal had committed, and Bryn whistled. Never in a thousand years would he have expected the Marshal to be involved in such crimes against Eldonia. Narissa was destroying the kingdom piece by piece.

"Well. If you'll excuse me, I should return to my sleep." He gave a nod to Liam and Dorothea and padded back up the stairs, his head swimming with all this new information. He only hoped Eldonia and Itelia wouldn't assume [i]he[/i] was evil for being related to Narissa and her ghastly daughter.

To Will's apology, Doc Jolly smiled broadly, and he nodded his great head in slow acknowledgement. His head never came back up, however: his shoulders rose and fell, and he was quite asleep just where he sat.

There weren't many spare rooms in the house (and Bryn had already claimed the only true bedroom) so August found himself shut into a dark storage room with guards posted outside the door. He tried to clear his mind as he had done these past years -- but he slept fitfully, knowing that his sister may well be dead before he returned to Eldonia. He spent the night trying to convince himself that he hadn't killed her, that he'd simply set time back on its course -- but he had to wonder whether the prevention of a war was worth the price.

---

In the morning, while the horses were being prepared on Doc Jolly's farm, Raquelle trudged out of the forest.

She looked a beast, herself. Her hair was full of burrs and leaves. Her dress was muddy and torn. Her shoes were soaked, her nails were broken, there were bags under her eyes and she was terribly, horribly, furiously sick of tree-spirits. Their song was stuck in her head, and it would be days before she could be rid of it.

Raquelle pushed open the door of the hollow just as the morning dawned, and she collapsed into a chair with full intention of sleeping there for the next millennium.