Great, already back to the same Hue I always seemed to hate. I just sighed and let it go. "So you came to make sure I did your job?"

He nodded and I rolled my eyes.

The rest of the day was free of elementals at least. Not to mention I didn't have to go fis.h.i.+ng again, since Goldie forced Hue to help after all the gnomes took our fish. Instead I spent some time teaching Ashe what I could about wielding some other weapons like a sword so she didn't have to use an axe like me. She seemed to take to the sword the best, though she enjoyed a mace as well. I'd have to get Ettie to chat with her about what kind of weapon she'd want.

I had a lot of fun teaching her, and it reminded me of the times I'd spent with Ettie, teaching her how to use magic when she was first freaking out over it. The last thing she had wanted to be was a witch. Maybe that was why Ettie knew she had lost her original ident.i.ty. She did have to come to accept being a witch and not a witch hunter, after all.

As soon as dusk hit, we gathered up our things and moved on from the camp to head further north. A few hours into the night and we came across some abandoned sleeping town between the two forests. We were all still tired so we settled in for the night at one of the houses after moving some of the magically suspended people around.

For once I was sleeping in an actual bed again.

The thing that frightened and excited me the most though was when Ashe came to the door of my room. She couldn't sleep either and I patted the bed, next to me.

She crawled in under the blankets with nothing more than maybe undergarments and what looked like the green s.h.i.+rt she had been wearing. We had lain in the bed staring at each other for a good five minutes before she asked, "I... It's okay if we just sleep right?"

I smiled and turned over to put my back to her before reaching behind me to grab her waist and pull her closer to me. "Why wouldn't it be? It's what we always did before in bed together."

She giggled softly and let her body relax against mine as her hands settled around me. It was nice feeling another warm body again.

I really could get used to this.

Twenty-Seven.

Seeing Blue It took me more than a trice to stir from my sleep, despite having felt the heat of the sunlight streaming in at me for quite some time now. It wasn't the sunlight that was waking me or the absence of a warm body against me, which I had expected to be there.

It was a rock being thrown through the window of the room I was sleeping in. I only sprung fully from the bed when a second one crashed through the window as well.

My eyes were blurry with sleep as I stumbled with trying to get my legs out of the covers. My feet just wouldn't cooperate and I tripped to the floor.

A third rock shot through the window and landed on the bed. I pulled myself to my knees, looking over the edge of the bed to see the ma.s.sive boulder crus.h.i.+ng where I had been sleeping.

I jumped up with my eyes wide and stumbled out of the sheet while dodging around the two rocks in the room to pop my head out into the hallway. I could hear grunts and clashes of metal and things breaking in the house.

Did I really sleep through all this?

I turned back to the room and frantically searched for my cloak and weapons. One of the boulders had smashed the chair they had been on and I could see my cloak sticking out from under it. I shot some energy into my muscles and shoved the boulder back out the side of the house it had come from. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my belt and cloak then threw them on.

Once settled in place I stepped up to the hole in the side of the house to see gnomes skittering on the ground below. They hadn't wasted much time coming back. Then again, Hue and I had both been expecting it.

I sighed and turned back to the rest of the house. It was better I helped the others first.

See, I was learning teamwork.

I darted down the hallway before an ondine flew out of a door, right before me. It smashed into the wall and splattered water everywhere. Apparently the gnomes weren't the only ones to come back.

I popped my head around the door where the splattered ondine came from, only to see Goldie fighting off a gnome with her bare fists while it zoomed around her. Two more ondine were poking out of the drain in the otherwise bare bathing room as well.

Slipping a hatchet to my hand, I jumped around the doorway while slicing just in time to catch the gnome. The elemental dropped to the floor and exploded in to ashes. I twirled the hatchet in hand and let a surge of power run through it to imbue it quickly before tossing the axe to Goldie.

"You've got five minutes. It'll evaporate them." I nodded to the ondine, whom were just blobs of water with faces s.h.i.+ning. She grinned wickedly and I turned to head to the rest of the house. I was more worried about Ashe than anyone.

As I hit the kitchen area though, Ashe yelled, "Duck!"

I dropped to the floor without a thought as a gnome flew over me with its tiny pudgy body and slammed into the pan Ashe was holding. She flung it into one of the cabinets and closed the door, using the pan handle to lock it.

The cabinet rattled as I stood back up and Ashe leapt into my arms, hugging me around the neck. "I was trying to make breakfast when they attacked."

She pulled away from me and looked down shyly. "I wanted to surprise you, since you never want me to cook for you if I ask."

"I told you before; it would make me feel like a slave owner if you kept doing all the work in the house and tried to stuff me full of food you made by hand. But..." I pulled her back into my arms and kissed her cheek as she giggled. "...thank you and I'm glad you're okay."

I could have held there all day but another rock crashed through the door leading outside from the kitchen. We both jumped and I fiddled with a hatchet as a gnome popped out of the rock.

I had been ready for it, but I hadn't been prepared for the three ondine emerging from the sink before one of them shot a stream of water to knock the hatchet from my hand.

The gnome then shot right into my face, pulling and ripping at my nose and lips with sharp teeth and claw-like hands.

My fingers yanked at the beast before I finally forced some magic through it to explode it into dust. Ashe pulled me down to dodge another forceful dart of water. She was holding my hatchet in one hand while her other hand pulled my hood down to see the damage the gnome had caused.

"Oh Gnidori, that's really bad." She explained as her hand moved to touch my lip, and it stung.

"I know. I know." I grabbed the hatchet in her hand and pushed a soft enchantment over the axe. "That should help you freeze off those annoying blobs."

I smiled, but she wouldn't return it. Her hand was delicately feeling around my nose and lips. I grabbed her wrist finally. "I'm fine. I've had enough things bite me to know it always looks worse than it is."

She frowned but nodded as darts of water still flew over our heads. I let go of her wrist and sidled towards the kitchen door. "You'll be good?"

She scrunched up her nose and exclaimed, "I'm always good!"

I grinned and glanced over her one last time before dodging two more shots of pointed water and slipping out the door.

Gnomes were darting everywhere outside, but I was most concerned with the pile of them in the middle of the dirt street.

I pulled another hatchet out and forced the same freezing enchantment I'd given Ashe, before charging the earthen elemental pile. A mere foot from them though and they all scattered to leave a broken and severely damaged Hue lying in the street with his dirtied up blue attire.

I rolled him over and his face wasn't fairing any better than mine. "Hue?" I called while I heard a few gnome guffaws around me somewhere.

Hue stirred and coughed, looking up at me with beaten blue eyes through all the torn skin and missing flesh on his face. "Come to hear my final words?"

"Oh shut up." I growled and lifted him up and over my shoulder. "You'll live. I learned something new on the day I killed Gabbi."

He laughed, at least as well as he could manage, which was mostly a coughing fit. I nearly reached the door to the house again when two gnomes swarmed my feet and tripped me into the doorway. Hue hit his head hard enough against the ground to make me cringe.

I couldn't delay though, so I slipped past the door and dragged Hue the rest of the way inside before setting him against the kitchen island.

Ashe wasn't in the kitchen anymore, but three frozen ondine were staring at me like creepy statues. I turned my attention back to the blue prince, crouching over him as I slapped his face to keep him awake.

"Wake up," I slapped him a couple more times. "Come on stay awake, Hue! Don't make me get an ondine icecube and drop it down your pants." I said to him. He sputtered a laugh as his eyes opened again.

"Good job, now stay awake. The spell I'm going to use will help you, but it might also be a bit painful. Can you handle it?"

He seemed like he was trying to say something but settled with a shake of his head instead. I nodded back before igniting a spark of magic on my left finger and tracing designs over Hue's arms and face with that finger. It left a trail of magic lingering over him.

When I finished, I pulled my hand back and let the flame of magic spread from my finger all down my arm before I smiled at him.

"Alright Hue. Here comes the pain part." I called before slamming my hand forward and releasing the energy along the lines I had drawn. His entire body ignited with a rainbow fire as his chest heaved out at me and his eyes rolled back.

I could see the effects take hold as the skin grew back along his face, but it was a blotchy color, s.h.i.+fting a few shades of color before settling on Hue's dark cocoa tone. It was incredible how fast that spell was working to repair him. Then again, I had set out to learn a strong healing spell after what I did to Gabbi.

The energy died off in my hand and Hue's chest settled back down as I beamed with pride from seeing his body mostly good as new. Even some of the scars he had as a kid around his jaw were gone.

Hue lifted his head up and smiled at me.

That smile grew twisted though when his face seemed to slowly meld into the spider veins and pointy cheeks of Nera the Blue Faerie. My eyes followed the change with complete disbelief, seeing the blue dress appear and her wings, until it reached the hands.

That's when I saw the blue energy acc.u.mulated in her fingers, fractions of a second before all that energy released right into my chest and violently fired my back through the wall of the house. I'd never felt so much blunt and forceful pain collide with me in some many different directions at the same time.

I couldn't make out which way was any direction as I tumbled across the dirt floor between the house I had been ejected from and the one my body finally crashed into.

My head hit the wall of the other house, strong enough to send the world spinning even more.

I tried to move, but my hands, legs and even my head just wouldn't go anywhere where I wanted it to.

What had I been thinking?

I knew a faerie would be after my cloak soon, and I just gave the worst one of all her magic back.

Be wary of the faerie... great warning, Hue.

I'd have to make a mental note to punch the real Hue, as soon as it was possible for my mind to process more than which direction the floor was. Even thoughts were difficult to form with the bright light of morning bleeding into my eyes and tearing at my soul.

Ha. I guess I had my answer.

I hadn't been thinking.

Would I ever learn my lesson?

Twenty-Eight.

Seeing Red I must have pa.s.sed out for just a moment because when my head lolled around I could see puke at my side and smell the acidic scent of my own p.i.s.s.

It really wasn't a pretty sight.

I stumbled to get to my feet, even with leaning against the wall of the house I had hit. My ankles and knees tried to buckle in on me as I stood, but I forced them to stay locked.

Nera casually strolled around the corner of the house. She didn't take the step through the hole I had made in the wall because she used to say she was too delicate of a blue rose for anything but feathers or petals to be at her feet.

I laughed just thinking about it, well tried to, but all that came out was a slew of blood which I spewed at my side.

"I never truly thought you would be so easy to fool with just a simple potion. I had rather come to expect there to be an old fas.h.i.+oned duel with you before I would ever be touched by your magic."

My head rolled as a forceful pressure appeared over my eyebrows while I pulled my hand from leaning against the wall. I had to put it back to keep myself from falling over. I could feel the blood trickling slowly down the side of my head. I must have hit it harder than I originally thought. It felt like it would almost coat my face and although it worried me, it wasn't as bad as the faerie in front of me.

I held back more of whatever wanted to come out of my mouth before managing to say, "It would have been that long."

She just held up a long, delicate finger and wagged it. "Don't be so cruel to your superiors, Red Faerie. You should be glad I am even showing you such mercy right now."

I spat whatever had acc.u.mulated in my mouth before looking up at her again through the messy tendrils of my hair. "You think you're superior. That is cute."

Her aversion to my comment showed as she recoiled back with a nasty look on her face. "You are just begging to die, aren't you?"

I grinned and lifted a hand to wipe the blood from my mouth. "I'd never beg with you. You're so easy, all I'd have to do is ask."

"Well if you want to die. Let me be your faerie G.o.dmother and grant that wish for you." She rose her hand up. A spell was coming.

I pushed off the wall and held my hand out, but my vision was still only just settling into less than two images of everything. I felt the energy run into my hand to be ready against her. But then my balance tipped and I dropped forward into the gravel and dirt and all the energy dissipated.

"This is just plain sad." She laughed cruelly before her hand outstretched toward me like a creepy old tree branch. Just as I could see the blue energy gather in the hand while I pushed myself to my knees, an axe shot through the air and sliced Nera's hand off just below the wrist.

She screamed so high pitched, if the gla.s.s in the house hadn't been broken, it was now. Her thick goopy Sidhe blood dripped from her wound as she pulled her stub to her dress to cover it. Her hand just stayed lifeless and almost grey-looking on the floor, letting all the red mola.s.ses-like blood out of it. I'd almost expected the hand to pop to life and crawl back into place.

My eyes s.h.i.+fted to Hue standing thirty feet away while I attempted to steady myself to my feet again. He smiled and tipped his hat while Nera turned on him with a vicious look.

"You stupid street-blood prince!" She spat before her remaining hand twisted up and swiveled in a circle. At the end of the motion a spark of blue popped at the tip of her finger. Another spark just above Hue's head popped as well and his hat when soaring through the air to land near Nera's severed hand.

When the prince stepped forward to attempt retrieval, the faerie-woman crushed her hand into a fist and a blue bubble s.h.i.+mmered into existence around Hue.

The bubble sparkled and glowed more intensely as Hue was lifted in the air while inside it.

I had seen Nera use this spell before. She called it *falling star' and she was famous for it. It allowed her to travel huge distances almost instantly.

"Goodbye annoying prince, enjoy the bottom of the sea you'll be visiting." Nera mocked before she just flicked her hand out. I threw my hand forward though, as my leg gave out and dropped me to a knee. My vision was still shaky but I drew on the energy I had taken from Nera when I locked her magic and managed to halt the bubble as it spun around in a circle about ready to leave.

I spat more blood and some nasty black stuff to my side while I strained to stay focused and yelled to Hue, "I'm in your harbor. Tell me nothing about what happened here, but warn me about her!" I thought for a moment, "And make it a useful warning about my cloak being stolen!"

My hand dropped to my side and the bubble Hue was in sped off through the air and vanished in the sky. My breathing was heavy from the pure brute force of redirecting that spell in my severely messed up state.