Aira wasn't pleased to hear from Ken that I had experimented with meat explosives before, but she looked too...defeated to berate me.

  She was silent the whole time we picked out our meals and sat at our tables. I grabbed stew, because stew was the fucking best. Surprisingly, Aira did the same. She normally ordered Rondu steak with a side of greens, because unlike most hunters she valued a varied diet. She was just staring at her stew, thinking about something I could easily guess.

  I left her to it as I munched on the meat bits of my meal, it was her fault that she cared. Maybe this incident would make her reconsider. One could only hope.

  She didn't speak, so neither did I, eventually she grabbed her spoon and started eating. She made a face at the taste, which was funny, but it returned to the new flavour of somber she decided to wear.

  "Hey, why don't we go to the balnae today?" I said with a smile.

  She looked up at me and let out a sigh. "I appreciate your concern. If only you cared about yourself as much as you do for others."

  "I care plenty for myself," I huffed. "Why do you think I'm still trying to get stronger?"

  "I honestly don't know if its conviction or escapism that drives you now, I'm not sure it even matters."

  "Come on! It's training, think of it like that and it seems much less macabre," I said.

  Aira let out a snort. "Macabre is certainly a word for it. Did you learn that so you could describe the bullshit you put yourself through to others?"

  "Nah, dictionary." I shrugged. "My ma' was adamant that I learned some written language before the goblins came round and made a mess of things."

  "Your mother...I don't think you ever told me her name."

  "Didn't you look in the census?"

  "Only where the elves were, not their names. Felt disrespectful."

  I chuckled. "I wouldn't have cared. Her name was Asna, and she could read the World like it was her lover. I imagine that made my father quite jealous. She told stories, lots of stories. About the world (and the World), about the half dozen children she'd raised alongside their antics, and even a bit about her own childhood.

  "She was kind, but stern. The limits of what she would tolerate were clear, and I dared not to cross them...most of the time. Though her composer broke a bit when she found out I could do magic, it was weird but not...bad."

  "Do you think she would approve of what you're doing to yourself now?"

  "She's dead. The dead don't get to have opinions," my words were a little too sharp, but that was uncalled for.

  "You don't believe that, or else you wouldn't be doing all this," Aira sighed.

  "Like I said, training."

  "Sure."

  I shrugged, she wouldn't understand, and that was fine. I didn't need approval or understanding, I just needed strength, and the path I walked was giving me that, so I was satisfied.

  Was I?

  A person was more than what they could kill, but what about witches? We were slaves to the pursuit of power, for whatever reason that drove us. Whether we could justify it to ourselves was irrelevant. Every tragedy, every transgression, all in the name of power.

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  Alvir didn't have friends, he even alluded that his relationship with the coven was one of practicality rather than companionship.

  Did I need friends? Did I need loved ones? Did I need a shoulder to lean on?

  Or was that all weakness?

  I wasn't sure, and didn't particularly like the thought, so I buried it down in the back of my mind where it could rot and continued with my stew. We didn't talk, we just ate, and when we were done we stood and separated.

  Her heading off to tend to whatever business she had, while I walked east towards Alvir's store.

  The sight of him made me scowl, but I followed when he ushered me to the workshop. Learned more about magic, so suffering his presence wasn't all bad, even if some of the things I learned didn't feel applicable at the moment.

  My day continued, sparring with Xae, chopping veggies with Argyle and...living.

  It was nice. It was comfortable. It was an insipid lie that said life was kind.

  So I reminded myself with training, I reminded myself with pain.

  Then, one day, something was different.

  I didn't know how I could tell, it was like the World, except not. Twisted in some fashion that I didn't recognize. Constantly there, constantly gnawing at me.

  "What's got you in a twist?" Trakas raised a brow as he handed me a mug of ale.

  I hummed. "Nothing, something just feels...wrong."

  "Might be your body telling you to give it a break, you know, sanity and all that? I hear it's rather healthy to practice."

  I shook my head and he shrugged, not bothering to continue the conversation and instead going to serve another hunter. I was thankful for it, he had grown a kind of respect for me, but he was still a jackass. A tolerable jackass.

  I drunk my ale in blissful peace, until someone decided to sit next to me.

  "So you're the elf girl huh? Honestly I expected something more." A voice that was too smooth to be natural said, but I didn't register that.

  Why didn't I register that?

  Didn't matter.

  "I may have learned to write, but that doesn't mean I'm suddenly giving out autographs. Piss off."

  The woman barked a laugh, somehow both loud and quiet at the same time. "Don't worry, little button. I'm not here for such a petty thing as that, I just heard from a very chatty rat that you wanted something of an introduction."

  It took a second for the words to properly register, when they did I spat out my ale and paled.

  The woman found that infinitely hilarious, singing a tune that had no business escaping a human's throat. I looked to my right, and beheld a witch.

  She smiled something wild as I looked at her, so many scars criss-crossing over each other exposed by a sleeveless toga. It was grotesque, and I couldn't imagine what kind of abuse her body had taken to have such things.

  Her eyes were gold, beaming like two small suns to mark a severely disfigured face.

  She was missing the right half of her nose, with patches of flesh being gone to show the white skull beneath. She was missing a few teeth, and her lips were ripped off to leave scar tissue as a substitute. There was a large scar that started from the right of her forehead, making a jagged journey down past her nose, crossing the chin, and disappearing under her toga from her neck where I assumed more horrific scars lied in wait.

  It was only then that I noticed her mana.

  Quiet, authoritative, with a jesters smile as they dragged a knife through someone's heart.

  "No need to complement my beauty, I know I'm positively stunning." She whipped black hair back like she was some sort of model, shifting her smile to something that I assumed was supposed to be charming. "Though it might be a little much for your immature gaze, but I like to get rid of the illusions when meeting a new witch."

  I hissed and looked around frantically to see if anyone heard. To my surprise...no one did, not even that shithead Everett with his oddly good hearing.

  The laughter brought my attention back to the witch.

  "Oh, that's precious. Did you think I'd scream out our witchiness while surrounded by so many dashing killers without a failsafe?"

  I glared at her, but didn't dare say anything.

  This woman was strong, much stronger than Alvir. I didn't understand how I knew, but I did.

  Like when a bunny was under a tiger's gaze, there wasn't anything silly like proof required.

  "Oh, don't be a bore. Come, converse! I went through all this bother just to see our next prospect, it'd be disappointing if you were so filled with fear you couldn't manage to speak."

  "I'm not afraid," I lied. "Just trying to figure out the rules of respect is all, considering the circumstances."

  "Hmm, not a bad reason, if it were true. No matter, I can teach you plenty about how to sell a convincing lie later, but for now...well, we have a coven to introduce you to. Alvir has been hogging you all to himself, the possessive rat that he is, it's well past time that you got to meet the rest of us!"