The Emporium had vanished behind them, but the four marks it revealed had not left their thoughts.
Mia and Sphinx moved quickly across the land, carrying Lenora and Lewd farther from the place where the shop had disappeared. Sphinx's Behemoth wings shifted with every powerful stride, while Mia's three Cerberus heads watched the road, the sky, and the forest surrounding them.
For a while, neither woman spoke.
Lewd continued seeing the map.
Whisperfen.
The Elven Empire.
The mark that moved too quickly to follow.
And the one that had disappeared from the White Tiger Kingdom before reappearing in Briar Glen.
"Do you think there are really four Derpys?" Lewd finally asked.
Lenora looked across at her from Mia's back.
"I don't know."
It was not the answer Lewd wanted.
It was the only one Lenora had.
"I saw two versions of him," Lenora continued. "The Dragon-Wolf and the Harpy were able to exist separately." She looked ahead again. "But four different marks appearing across the world at once—something about it feels wrong."
Lewd's hand moved toward the small pendant hanging around her neck.
"Maybe the items we chose can help."
Lenora glanced at her before looking down at the ribbon tied around her wrist.
"I never asked what yours did," Lewd said. "Derrpy explained it so quickly before the shop disappeared."
Lenora touched the ribbon.
"It keeps my clothing clean. Not just this dress. Any clothing I wear while I have the ribbon."
She looked down at the damaged maid dress she still refused to abandon.
"I'll have to repair and clean this one first. After that, the ribbon should prevent it from becoming dirty again."
Lewd's ears lifted.
"That is so awesome!"
Lenora blinked at the sudden excitement in her voice.
"I wish I had picked that," Lewd continued. "I didn't even know something like that existed. You could travel through mud, fight monsters, sleep outside, and your clothing would still look new."
A small smile appeared on Lenora's face.
"That was the idea."
She looked toward the pendant around Lewd's neck.
"What did you choose?"
Lewd lifted it carefully.
"It's an artifact that allows me to keep track of the people I love. All I have to do is say their name, and it tells me where they currently are."
Lenora's smile changed.
She already knew which name Lewd intended to test first.
Lewd held the pendant between both hands.
"Derpy."
The artifact became warm.
Faint symbols appeared around its edge, glowing softly against Lewd's fingers. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a voice whispered from inside it.
"Briar Glen."
Lewd stared at the pendant.
Lenora stared at it too.
The answer had not been loud, but both of them heard it.
"Briar Glen," Lewd repeated.
"That means the map wasn't broken," Lenora said. "At least not about that mark."
Lewd looked back over Sphinx's shoulder, searching the path behind them. At first, she saw only trees and the long trail of disturbed earth left by Mia and Sphinx.
Then she noticed something moving far behind them.
Something white.
Something surrounded by frost.
"Lenora…"
Lenora followed her gaze.
Crysha was running after them.
She was so far behind that she appeared smaller than the trees around her, her cloak and hair trailing while frost burst beneath her feet with every step.
Lenora looked down at Mia.
"Mia, slow down."
All three heads kept facing forward with the deliberate stillness of someone who had heard perfectly well.
"I think we accidentally left Crysha behind," Lewd said.
Lenora gave her a look.
"Mia kicked her off."
"I know, but I thought she would catch up."
They both watched the distant ice goddess struggle after them.
She was not catching up.
The magical items Mia and Sphinx had purchased began to glow.
Light formed around both creatures, gathering near the objects they had hidden after leaving the Emporium. The magic passed across their bodies before settling around their throats.
"The pendant may be correct," said the center head.
Lewd nearly fell from Sphinx's back.
Lenora stared down between Mia's three heads.
Mia had spoken.
Not through burning words.
Not by scratching a message into the ground.
She had spoken aloud.
"The four marks could be a cover for Master," the center head continued, as though nothing unusual had happened. "They may exist to prevent anyone from knowing which location truly belongs to him."
"You can talk?!" Lewd asked.
Sphinx released a tired breath beneath her.
"We could always talk to one another," he said. "You simply could not understand us."
Lewd immediately looked down at him.
"You can talk too?"
"That is why we purchased the artifacts."
Lenora's ears stood completely upright.
"You're telling me that after all the messages you two have written on the ground, you could have spoken this entire time?"
"No," said the center head. "We understood each other. The artifacts allow our voices to be understood by you."
"You were very slow about it," the left head added.
The center head turned toward it.
"That is not helpful."
"It is accurate."
"It is not helpful."
Lewd slowly settled back onto Sphinx.
"Oh."
She remained quiet for a moment.
"That is still incredible."
The center head returned to the more important subject.
"The marks may carry Master's magical presence without containing Master himself."
Lenora's expression became serious again.
"What else could carry enough of Derpy's presence to fool the Emporium's map?"
Mia's three heads glanced toward one another.
"His shed skin," said the right head.
It was the first thing it had said.
"His what?" Lewd asked.
"Master has shed parts of himself before," the center head explained. "If enough of his power remained inside the discarded skin, a magical item might mistake it for him."
Sphinx slowed his pace, allowing the distant Crysha to gain some ground.
"The map could be following a magical signature," he added. "It may not understand the difference between Derpy and something created from his body."
Lenora thought about the four marks again.
"One of them was moving."
"Yes," Sphinx said.
"A shed skin shouldn't be able to move on its own."
"No," Sphinx agreed. "It should not."
Lenora's hand went still against Mia's fur.
"One did."
Both women looked at her.
"The night before we left the Emporium." Her voice had gone quiet. "Something came out of my shadow. It looked like Derpy. It had the harpy wings and it floated and it leaned against the wall like it was tired, and it told me its main body was unconscious somewhere else." She swallowed. "It told me exactly what it was. It said the harpy form was just skin that molted back at the musical dragon incident."
Lewd's ears dropped.
"You spoke to it?"
"I hugged it," Lenora said. "I apologized to it. I cried in front of it." Her jaw tightened. "And then Mimi came out of it laughing, so I don't even know how much of what I was talking to was ever really him."
The road passed beneath them for a long moment.
"That changes what we are dealing with," the center head said.
"It moved," the left head said. "It talked. It remembered things."
"It comforted her," the right head added.
The center head was silent for a while.
"Then it is not skin," it finally said. "Not only skin."
Lewd looked down at her pendant.
"Could one of those things hurt him?"
"We don't know," the center head answered.
"Could it believe that it is him?"
None of the three heads answered immediately.
"We don't know that either."
The lack of an answer made the road feel less safe.
Lenora looked back again. Crysha was still running after them, though the distance between them was finally beginning to shrink.
"Slow down," Lenora ordered.
This time, Mia listened.
The four of them continued talking as they travelled. Lenora and Lewd asked about Derpy's discarded skin, while Mia and Sphinx explained what little they understood. None of it was enough to confirm their theory.
It was only a possibility.
But possibilities had a way of becoming dangerous around Derpy.
By the time night fell, Crysha still had not caught them.
They stopped travelling and made camp, deciding to wait rather than force her to chase them through the darkness. Mia and Sphinx returned to their smaller forms and settled near the fire while Lewd and Lenora sat across from one another.
The campfire crackled between them.
Lewd watched the flames for a while before looking at Lenora.
"That odd bunny girl…"
Lenora lifted her eyes.
"Who was she?"
Lewd leaned slightly closer.
"She seemed to have it out for you."
Lenora released a small sigh.
"She is a relative of mine. Mimi trained under my mother, Eclipsa."
Lewd went very still.
"Eclipsa," she repeated.
"Yes."
Lewd looked toward the darkness at the edge of the camp, and then back at the fire, and decided not to say what she had heard Crysha whisper into her own hands over a glowing map.
"Your mother trained her?"
Lenora nodded.
"Mimi is older than I am, but she always tried to outdo me. She wanted the attention placed on her."
Lenora moved a loose piece of wood farther into the fire.
"But my aunts took an interest in me. Crysha. Volkra. Even Mimi's mother, Jinxi. They all spent time watching me, teaching me, or deciding what they thought I should become."
Lewd's ears rose slowly.
"Wait." She looked toward the dark treeline again. "Crysha is your aunt?"
"Yes."
Lewd thought about the ice flower.
She thought about it for longer than she meant to.
"That explains a great deal," she said quietly.
"It usually does."
Lewd glanced toward the darkness where Crysha would eventually appear.
"That must have made Mimi jealous."
"It did."
Lenora watched the fire shift around the wood.
"Then the time came when they were allowed to choose which one of us would leave."
Lewd understood before Lenora finished.
"They chose you."
Lenora released another quiet breath.
"Yes."
There was no pride in her answer.
Only memory.
"I wasn't ready, but they kept urging me to go. They told me it was an opportunity. That there was more beyond Carrot Field than what our family allowed us to see."
"So you left?"
"I packed a small bag and left Carrot Field in the middle of the night."
The flames reflected in Lenora's eyes.
"For the next forty years, I wandered across the land. Some places were close enough to reach within days. Others took years. I kept travelling because I didn't know where I was supposed to stop."
Lewd listened without interrupting.
"Eventually, I met a human," Lenora continued. "I thought he was cute."
Lewd smiled.
"You travelled with him?"
"For a while. We found a guild and decided to join together. I made a lot of friends there."
Lenora's expression softened as faces from long ago moved through her memory.
"We called ourselves the Black Ops Guild. We—"
"There you are!"
The familiar voice came from beyond the firelight.
Lewd and Lenora turned.
Crysha stood at the edge of the camp.
Her carefully kept hair had become a tangled mess. Twigs and leaves hung from it, one side of her cloak was covered in dirt, and exhaustion had turned her normally controlled expression into an angry pout.
She did not look at Lenora.
She looked directly at Mia and Sphinx.
"I can't believe you ran away and left me there!"
Mia and Sphinx suddenly became very interested in the campfire.