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“Is that what that is?”
“The ward line’s northern anchor runs through the deeper forest. The magic’s stronger near it, so creatures drift that way.”
“So, the Lantern went where the magic’s steadiest.”
“Practical creature.”
“All my creatures are practical. Rowan runs a territorial operation. Gerald guards the entrances. The Margot cohort has designated windowsill positions. They have more organizational structure than my kitchen does.”
“Your kitchen is organized.”
“My kitchen is functional.”
He half-turned, enough for her to catch the shift in his expression, then faced front again.
There it is.
She redirected her attention to the trail. They found the Lantern under a fallen oak near the creek, tucked into the root system, its glow dimmed to about a third — the anxiety-dim she recognized from the Margot cohort after the boardwalk incident. Not hurt. Waiting. “Oh.” Quietly. “Hi.” The Lantern pulsed once.
She crouched, then sat, leaf litter and all. It was a jeans situation she chose not to think about. She settled at its level. No reaching. She’d learned that from the cohort. You sat, and you let them come to you. Her voice was the same calm one she used for nightmares, nothing urgent about it. “It’s okay. You did the right thing. The forest is good. You found a good spot.” The glow brightened a fraction.
“It’s been strange lately. I know. But it’s getting less strange.” She tilted her head toward it. “We’re working on it. Tor has a whiteboard.” The Lantern came out from under the oak. Half glow, two-thirds, full. It settled a foot to her right and stayed. Still. Calm. Not investigating or relocating anything. It was present because it was present, and calm because it was calm, which was information she would process later.
She had been talking to a magical raccoon for weeks. Talking to a glowing ovoid in a forest was, by comparison, normal. When she finally turned back, his gaze rested on her with an expression she had not named — a third one.
He glanced away first.
Tor said it quietly, not to her, as if he had not meant to say it aloud. “She talks to them.”
“Always have.” She stood up and brushed off her jeans. “Three children, one ex-husband, various houseplants, and now an expanding portfolio of magical creatures. I talk to things. It’s an entire system.”
“Does it work?”
“The children turned out well. Two of the houseplants didn’t make it. The ex-husband is still unresolved.” Her gaze drifted to the Lantern, glowing happily at her right side. “The creatures seem responsive.”
Tor’s gaze dropped to the Lantern for a moment, back at her. “Your technique.”
“Which technique?”
“The approach. With the Lantern. It’s —” he searched for the word, the way he always did when the professional term wasn’t right, “— effective.”
“High praise.”
“It’s an accurate observation.”
“I’ll put it in the gratitude journal.” She started back toward the trail. “Under ‘better than the houseplants.’”
The walk back was slower. The Lantern floated between them, equidistant, like a creature with ideas about where everyone should be, and it enforced those ideas. Mirelle didn’t editorialize. The Lantern had earned its right. She hadn’t anticipated the nudging. It bumped Tor’s arm, deliberate and brief, then retreated to center. He checked his sleeve where it had touched. It did it again a few minutes later. “It likes you.”
“It’s running an assessment.”
She tracked the Lantern as it drifted back toward Tor’s shoulder. “I think you passed.” The Lantern settled near his arm, proprietary, and Tor walked without moving away from it. She noted it but said nothing. The trail opened into a gully, the trees taller, the light clearer. Mirelle let her daydreaming go. “You mentioned ships in bottles once. During a training session. I don’t think you meant to.”
“I don’t remember that,” Tor said.
“You were discussing the difference between contained practice and open-system work. You said ships in bottles only function within their own logic.” Her eyes fell on the path ahead. “I thought about it afterward.”
The creek ran alongside them.
