“What’s he doing?”

  Menium chirped a response while nodding sagely.

  Melody looked at him with an eye raised before she turned back to Felix. After frowning for a moment, she shrugged.

  “I guess you would know best. I know you’re saving to hire some explorers, but I’m not sure crawling around on the ground looking for change is going to work.”

  Felix nearly smashed his nose against the ground when he heard Menium starting to defend his ability to scrounge for change. Not able to take it anymore, he dismissed the memory of the dustless grove he’d been studying in the deserted plaza.

  Pushing himself onto his feet, he swatted the dust from his knees before turning to see the scepticism melt from Melody’s face with every passing second she was regaled with stories of how poor Felix had been in the past.

  “Ugh, why are you believing him? You’re going to make me regret teaching you to understand him.”

  Menium immediately chirped in protest, insisting that every story of how poor he’d been was true. Seeing Melody’s raised eyebrows, he could only look away. Kicking the plaza’s cobblestone with the tip of his boot, he tried not to blush.

  “Ok, well, technically those were true. But I wasn’t looking for change! It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do that.” He bit his tongue as he realised he’d slipped up.

  “Anyway. I was studying a formation we stopped at on the way here. You remember Agrona showing me how to do it when we first got here?”

  He swept his hand over the plaza. “I’ve been practising, I needed a space large enough to recall the dustless grove.”

  Melody straightened at the mention of the grove, letting Felix sigh in relief. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a small copse of trees that form a natural formation. Whenever they lose a leaf, it breaks into motes of dust before it ever manages to fall to the ground.” Felix frowned.

  “I thought it would be the easiest formation to study. I might not have a plant affinity, but there’s no denying my connection to plant mana at this point. I’ve spent so long studying them, I’m actually surprised I haven’t started developing a plant affinity.”

  Melody completely ignored the second part of what he said. “If it breaks into dust, why’s it called the dustless grove?”

  Felix could only shake his head. “Saying it’s dust isn’t strictly speaking accurate. The mana loses its structure and breaks apart, it looks like dust when it’s falling but it dissipates before it ever reaches the ground.”

  Melody frowned.

  “C’mon, we can talk about this on the way back. I think I’m done here, for now at least.”

  Melody quickly lost her interest in the dustless grove when Menium started telling her about the hot springs they’d visited. As they left the plaza, Felix noticed an old dwarf waving him over.

  “Can I help you, sir? Sorry if we were in your way.”

  The bit of the man’s weatherbeaten skin Felix could see through the beard was so wrinkled that Felix thought the man might be older than the Stonehold. Felix hadn’t noticed him while he was investigating the grove in his memories, but seeing the man’s gnarled hand clutching a broom, he thought they might have interfered with his work.

  Shaking his head, the man levelled a pitying look at him. “No, you weren’t in my way. Here, take this.”

  The man handed him a small pouch before he turned to walk away. Rasping out a final. “You take care of that child, ok?”

  Looking at the little bundle the man had given him, Felix carefully opened it to find a scant few coins. He quickly looked around, but the old man had already left. Looking up at the sky, Felix wished the earth would swallow him so he didn’t have to face the embarrassment.

  ‘I’m never training outside again.’

  Stuffing the pouch in his pocket, he ran after the other two, doing his best to hide his embarrassment behind a plastered smile. He didn’t notice the old man looking at him from the window of a decrepit shoe store, wiping the wetness from the corner of his eye with a frayed handkerchief.

  When they finally managed to squeeze their way through and into Agrona’s home, they were assaulted by the clamour of satisfied customers and mouthwatering smells. While Felix got cleaned up, Melody went to see if she could help in the kitchen while Menium tried to wring some snacks out of Agrona’s soft heart.

  When Felix eventually made his way back downstairs, the last batch of customers had been served, and Agrona had taken her place at the counter. He smiled when he saw her reading a cookbook he recognised. Some things hadn’t changed since their days at the Crossroad, though he was glad his manic reading over the last few years meant he was familiar with some of the obscure tomes she scoured for recipes.

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  “Hey, Agrona.”

  She nodded at him, but didn’t close her book.

  “How was training?”

  Felix squirmed a little in his seat. “It was fine.”

  He didn’t know if it was the tone of his voice or his failure to sit still, but Agrona was suddenly all too happy to put her book down.

  “Tell me all about it.”

  Felix writhed under Agrona’s scrutinising gaze. “Ah, well. I think I’ve figured out why Uncle Valenther wanted me to study formations.” Fortunately, her gaze stopped pricking his skin once he mentioned actually making progress.

  “Good, good. I knew a couple of months of studying dwarven formations would help. So what did you find?

  “I think the reason lies in the difference between artificial and natural formations. From what I’ve read and what I’ve seen in the Stonehold, artificial formations are more forceful. It’s like throwing a stone into a stream. You force the water to flow around it. You shape it to your will.”

  Felix scratched his beardless chin. “With natural formations, the mana is shaped by the environment and the environment is shaped by the mana. I figured that out a while ago, but seeing artificial formations really drove it home.

  “If I’m not wrong, then the reason the plants in my Inner World can’t sustain life is that I’m shaping the plant and then shoving in life mana. I’d need to find a way to let the two grow together. They can’t sustain each other.”

  Agrona smiled.

  “So, a seed? It took you this long to figure out that plants grow from seeds?”

  Felix deflated.

  “If only it were that easy. It’s not like I haven’t studied seeds before. I’ll admit it’s been a long time, and it’s probably worth another try, knowing what I know now. The problem’s with the plant mana.”

  “How so?”

  Felix sighed. “My Inner World, it’s not like it actually has any plants in it. There’s a reason I can’t just picture something and have it burst into existence. Everything in there is made of mind mana. Even with all the studying I’ve done, I don’t have a plant affinity. Without it, I can’t really understand what makes a plant a plant. Giving it life should have helped me with that. If I can make something that behaves exactly like a plant and give it life, then it could figure out the plant part of things.

  “If I have to grow it from a seed, then I’m going to need to understand how the plant mana works, and if I understood that, I’d probably have a plant affinity and I wouldn’t need to worry about all of this.”

  Agrona looked at him with wide eyes. “Felix, have you been trying to understand plant mana by growing a plant in your head? Have you been trying to gain a plant affinity this whole time?”

  Felix suddenly felt the urge to study the shelves behind Agrona.

  “Well… I thought that might be a happy little side effect. But that’s not exactly it. I’m still trying to figure out how life mana can turn into mind mana. Though somehow that seems even less likely than giving myself a plant affinity.”

  “I don’t know if I should be horrified or impressed. All of that is so far beyond your level it’s not even funny. Heck, I think it might be beyond my level.”

  Felix looked down at his hand. A dry, hollow chuckle escaped his chest before he could stop it.

  “Tell me about it. I finally understand why Alvara said I should give up on being a Traveller. It’s not that I’ll be able to go far if I can get over the hurdle that’s my affinities. I’ll already be far, if I can get over it.”

  Felix looked up at Agrona and shrugged. “That’s my path, I guess. What can I do except walk it?”

  Agrona opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but she stopped with a scowl. After thinking about it for a moment, she shook her head. “Nevermind.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re honestly doing so much better than anyone could have expected. As much as I think you were an idiot for rushing ahead and losing your arm to clear the Ways. The fact that you could do that, that you could push yourself that far, shows that you have the grit to push past this as well. A normal person wouldn’t have given up once they saw your final gate. They'd have given up at every step on your path.”

  Agrona reached over and patted his hand.

  “Yet you’re still going.”

  “Agrona… did you just call me abnormal?”

  The warmth didn’t fade from her smile, and she didn’t pull back her hand. “Yup.”

  Felix laughed. He couldn’t help it. Without realising it, the pressure of his situation had been wearing on him. He was stuck in the Stonehold for months, with a long and slow journey ahead of him. Even if he reached his destination, there was no telling how long he’d need to wait to find an escort to get to the Continent's side of the Highlands, and even then, his troubles weren’t over. He still had no idea where the Smiling Monk’s Pagoda was, or even if Lara and Claire actually went there.

  He didn’t know what they were doing. Were they on the run? Under siege? Was Aster with them? So many things bearing down on him, and all he could do was sit and bash his head against the same problem he’d been trying to solve for years.

  Without realising it, he’d fallen into the sullen mood that had been his ever-present companion at the Crossroads. Maybe it was the familiar environment that brought out his old insecurities, but instead of supporting him like she used to, Agrona just calls him weird.

  Maybe it was her roundabout way of saying that he’d grown to the point where he doesn't need that type of support. Maybe she wanted to cheer him up by cracking a joke, or maybe she just genuinely thought he was weird.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. She was right. He could worry about the girls, he could be frustrated with the journey ahead, and he could be dissatisfied with his limited abilities. But he couldn’t doubt his path. He’d already pushed so far beyond what’s possible that he had no reason to doubt he could keep going.

  “What’s going on?”

  Melody and Menium poked their heads out of the kitchen to see what they were doing.

  “Ah, you two, come join us. Felix here was just about to tell us what happened with his training this afternoon.”

  Felix’s grin froze on his face.

  “Ah, didn’t I already tell you?”

  “You told her you were looking for change?”

  Agrona’s eyes gleamed. In the end, he couldn’t avoid telling them about the old man and his generous donation.

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