TEAM CARROT
"I take it back," Lily grumbled as she carefully picked her way down the temple stairs. "You are not cute, you are not enchanting, you are a rotten beast and I hate you." She was bleeding from a few shallow scratches across her hands and thighs, but nothing that wouldn't heal up within the day—she'd managed to maneuver the drake mostly into the cage before it really woke up, so at least she hadn't had to deal with teleporting too, but it was still quite the trial.
Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, she set the cage down with the others (as much as she wanted to set it down sharply and get the little monster back, she couldn't make herself) ad dusted her hands off. She frowned in concern at the little group clustered around Meryn and her wounds, but when Spook dropped his next bombshell, her attention was entirely diverted.
Magic. Just think of it.
Lily grinned excitedly before she could stop herself, but quickly suppressed it into a mysterious smile, the kind that had often enticed customers to her side. She strode forward confidently and sat gracefully, folding her legs and placing her palm firmly on the edge of the strange design Spook had drawn.
"Certainly not an opportunity you see every day," she said with a wink to the artist sitting next to her. She quieted quickly, though, as Spook gave his instructions—think of something you want more than anything in the world.
More than anything.
Lily's eyes closed and the image popped into her head all but instantly. It was one dream that had sustained her for many, many years—through good times and bad, through crossing lines she had never meant to cross. Some of the women in her profession had scoffed, saying that dreams were useless—you just had to buckle down and get through the day, do what must be done. Privately, Lily begged to differ. To do what must be done, dreams were vital.
Every time she thought of it, the picture grew more and more detailed. She could smell the spice of the fireplace, feel the warmth upon her skin; hear her father's belly laugh as one of her sisters finished a joke. She didn't need to open her eyes to see the feast before her—she could smell it clear as day, the kind of bounty they had never been able to afford, meats and sweets and braided bread and fresh fruit with no mold or spots. Father would be serving the girls first; Ara would be pouring the cider; Ilinda and Eola would be sneaking candies when they weren't supposed to and father pretended he couldn't see. There was a feast on the table, there was no more work to do, and she couldn't see it but she knew the coffers were full of gold, stray coins scattered across the table. Lily could imagine every detail—the grain of the wood on the table, the glow of the fire on Eola's strawberry hair, the sparkle of the fine jewelry and fabrics everyone wore. The only thing that was hazy was the woman at the head of the table—the face of her mother, who she had last seen when she was two years old—but the lack of detail was made up for by a raw mixture of love and grief. There was impression of bright red hair like her own, laughing blue eyes, and a wide smile with a helter-skelter twist. The one thing she could see clearly was the look of love between her mother and her father.
It was the oldest dream Lily had—and the one she had clung to most tightly.