Kell laughed. “A proper little pest, wasn’t I?”
“Ha! Co-conspirator, more like. And a guardrail. If it was mischief I couldn’t do with you, then maybe it wasn’t wise. I was a lot older than him back then,” Verandil explained. “Still a child, mind, but older.”
Verandil’s cheery face drew sober when he remembered why Kell had caught up to then surpassed him in age.
Kell leaned closer to Verandil. “Hey. It’s a good thing Dad heeded my dreams. A lot of dads would have thought it just a nightmare, not a warning.”
“But it happened to you,” Verandil said. “You did wake up all alone.”
“I’m not alone now.”
“And you never will be again.” Verandil twisted to hug Kell around the shoulders. “You’re home.”
Kell squeezed Verandil tight, then turned to watch as the air changed and they passed from Honeymeadow to the Village That Chooses Its Own.
They passed between trees taller than Waterdeep’s towers, their canopies far overhead. Beneath them, the scent of fallen cedar and fir needles and their gentle returning back to the ground. Ferns and ivy flourished in the bones of an ancient cedar, and a clump of waxy white stems that grew out of leaf litter rose to nodding, bell-shaped flowers.
Kell tried to see the birds that sang—he recognized the rapidcheer-cheerof a songbird’s gossip call, as Lorzok called them.
He twisted around. “What are they saying?”
Lorzok, looking up into the branches, smiled. “Strangers! New friend strangers! Come see!”
He trilled, and small brown birds landed on the wagon’s side.
“Leave the sacks alone,” Lorzok said. “They’re for the Brewmistress.”
A particularly interested warbler backed off, bobbing his head.
“I’d better not let the Brewmistress know that the birds mind you, friend Lorzok,” Verandil said with a laugh. “She’ll get you to hold regular meetings. Here we are.”
The badgers slowed their pace and rolled to a stop, and Kell found himself in a forest that was a village. Paths wide enough for the wagon to travel wound among the trunks of impossibly large trees with homes growing out of and around them. Lights sparkled above them, bright enough to chase away the shade of a platform pitched high overhead. Kell watched as a curving wooden platform rose slowly to meet the village’s rooftop.
“That’s Dad’s house,” Verandil said, gesturing toward a house with a wide porch and a gentle ramp that led to the path. “He’ll be—”
But a voice called out, “Verandil, what kept you?”
Dad.
“I found something interesting, Dad,” Verandil called back. “Come down and see him for yourself.”
“ ‘See him for yourself’? That’s a funny way to put it.”
Kell braced himself as the platform moved. He knew to expect the wheeled chair, but as the fairy who raised him was lowered into sight, Kell’s heart sighed in pain.
Cream-colored suede sheaths covered his legs, rising over his knees, but one leg ended just above the ankle, and the other below the knee. His shoulders were wide and strong, and his hands rested on the hoops of dark walnut that he could use to propel the light, agile chair that curved perfectly to his small size. One set of long iridescent wings spread outward, but the wings on his right side were missing.
He squinted at the wagon as the platform sank. “See him? I see more than one ‘him.’ Good day, friends. What brings you to—”
He went silent and stared at Kell as the platform came to a stop. His eyes narrowed until he squeezed them shut and took a deep stuttering breath. His left wings shot up and fluttered, but he had to wait for the platform to carry him.
“Kell.”
“Dad.”
Terandis pressed his lips together, then grabbed the hoops of his steering wheels and shot out of the platform, using every ounce of his strength to wheel down the ramp as fast as he could. Too fast for the curve coming up, Kell reckoned with growing horror.
But Terandis Redsong flexed, making the chair jump instead of topple. He kept his front wheels up as he sailed through the air, landing on his left wheel, pivoting on it to aim at Kell as he sped forward, perfectly in control.
