While the road (and breakfast) beckoned for immediate action, Shadow held them from leaving the Witch’s hut for a few rather practical concerns.

“Whilst we cannot gift you with the witch’s belongings it seems – or rather we are unsure if we would be risking one of her many, many curses in doing so – she did give us a small sum of coins to use in the various errands she would ask us to run,” Shadow said as he led Jaye to a what looked like a coat room and pulled a few pouches off the shelf.

“Where could you run errands?” Jaye asked, attempting not to fidget and largely failing.

“Within the forest and to its edge,” Shadow said. “We remain within the embrace of her magics so long as we are in her domain, and it was convenient for her to send us to treat with the merchants and adventurers she would employ from time to time.”

“Are those pouches magic? I thought you couldn’t hold anything outside of the hut?” Jaye asked.

“Our existence is more complicated than that,” Shadow said. “That which is the Witch’s, we may interact with freely, for the most part. We could not take your hand because you are not sworn to or under obligation to her. Beyond the bounds of the forest, there will be very little which we may interact with physically. We are, of course, not limited to physical interactions, though we would be inclined to keep our presence unknown to the largest extent possible.”

Shadow lifted a cloak from the rack as well as a staff as tall as Jaye and presented both of them to her.

“These are tools the Witch gave to our use – it was occasionally useful to appear as a hooded figure and the staff leads people to assume the bearer has an arcane bent. That is not a magical effect, it’s just an assumption most will make. As they are for our use, and we shall be traveling with you, they should be free of any curses the witch may have placed on taking her other belongings.”

“Okay?” Jaye said wrapping the cloak around herself and finding that it was as comfortable as a warm hug and heavier than she’d expected. 

She took the staff as well and could feel a quiet thrum of magic sleeping within it. It might not mystically compel people to think of its bearer as a caster of some sort, but they wouldn’t be wrong in assuming it was a caster’s tool.

“Just to be certain, you are sure you wish to do this? There are other means we might find to keep you fed, and there is safety of a sort for you here. We can see the world has not been kind to you, and we doubt we can make any promise of safety for you should we venture beyond the forest’s borders.” Shadow wasn’t blocking the path from the coat room to the door, but he was standing closer to it than Jaye, ready perhaps to face the world outside before her if need be.

“I don’t want the monsters to come here,” Jaye said, the solidity of the staff in her hands as comforting as the current of magic that flowed through the wood.

Shadow chuckled.

“We believe you have heard what happens to monsters who dare venture within this domain,” Shadow said. “Consider that it has been a century since the Witch was last in residence here and yet her curses still stand and no forces have found it worth the trouble to try to lay claim to this land in her absence.”

“She was that powerful?” Jaye asked, having little problem believing that someone who could turn a hut into a seemingly endless library might be someone regular people would just leave alone if they could.

“From the accounts we have read? Yes. She appeared in several historical tomes you see. She and her few sister-witches. They most often appear as monsters, though notably we feel that is because they are subject to no lord or god. Occasionally a tale is written of a foolish noble or overly confident adventurer who tries to rid the world one witch or another. Those which are cautionary tales tend to be rather graphic in terms of the fate which befalls those who rise against the witch, including whatever army they might muster to aid them. Those written as bits of propaganda wherein the witch is vanquished seem to always have addendums penned years later as to the grisly demise of the tale’s author and whomever they were aggrandizing.”

“So what will she do to me when she gets back?” Jaye asked.

“Pay you no mind we would imagine,” Shadow said. “You accepted the hospitality of her home, which we are authorized to offer on her behalf we should note, and behaved as a proper guest. Had she been here to receive you, she might have offered you an apprenticeship, or perhaps simply employed you as an errand girl. In our experience, our witch was largely concerned with issues outside the mortal realm. Those mortals who did not trouble her, she was more than willing to leave untroubled as well. Those who ventured in her domain with ill intentions on the other hand? They were a resource to be converted from their mortal lives into object lessons on why no one should bother her.”

“We should definitely leave then,” Jaye said. “If I stay too long, I’d be a bad guest, and I don’t want to be an object lesson, even if she doesn’t come back.”

“The Witch’s hospitality, once offered, would come with a warning before it was withdrawn. You need not flee her wrath preemptively,” Shadow said.

“We should still go,” Jaye said. “My Dad said it was safer to be on the move, but the other people in the Refuge said we’d be safer staying there, and they were wrong. I want to…”

The pain that twisted her expression showed how recently her Refuge had been attacked, but Jaye forced it away, adding only, “we should go.”

“Then go we shall!” Shadow said. “As we said, it is but two miles to the nearest village we know of, should it still stand. They had seasonal crops the witch was quite fond of a century ago and so we were sent to barter with them once a month or so.”

“We’ll practice casting while we go?” Jaye asked, and nodded towards the door.

“Indeed. In fact, we believe you would do well to practice a few different spells,” Shadow said, stepping aside so they could both venture outside the hut at last and begin walking. “As we mentioned, casting the same spell repeatedly can be dangerous because the path the Awakened Aether takes through the caster can lead to overchanneling accidents, even if each individual cast is well contained. A clever caster however can work with different spells which flow along different paths to allow themselves greater flexibility and more casting capability within a given period of time.”

“Should we start with the shadow spell again?” Jaye asked.

“A variation, yes. Let us see how close you can come to casting me. That will suggest what other spells might be efficacious for you to balance your inner harmonies with.” Shadow lead Jaye down a new path, drifting backwards to keep his attention on her while remaining perfectly aware of what lay on the path as well.

Jaye paused as she mentally prepared for the version of the spell she’d been taught, but Shadow beckoned her onwards.

“You demonstrated enough proficiency last night, let’s move on to a more useful level of casting,” Shadow said, continuing to lead her onwards at a comfortable walking pace. “For great and terrible spellworking, complete stillness may be required but for common casting, and more importantly, battle casting, being able to work a spell and remain in motion is essential. It is of course also more challenging, but the sooner you begin practicing it, the sooner you’ll achieve the mastery you need.”

“Battle casting? You think I can do that?” Jaye asked, a note of hungry hope in her voice.

“We would pray that you never need to, but we are aware that there are no gods who would receive our particular prayers and we would rather see you prepared with a skill for which there is never a need than faced with a need for which you lack the skill to survive.”

Jaye was delighted with that idea and listened eagerly as Shadow described the small variations to the spell she’d cast the previous evening which were needed for her to claim him as her shadow.

Predictably her first try failed. As did her second and her third. And her fourth and fifth.

None of that diminished her glee though. She’d messed up casting her first spell plenty of times and, like Shadow had said, each time she failed to cast the new one, she could feel she was learning something.

“Shadow Be Mine.”

The surge of magic that went through her on the sixth casting was like no other she’d experienced. Rather than being swallowed in darkness, she felt herself bursting with light, to the point where she lifted from the forest floor without shifting to her avian form at all.

“This is more than WE expected!” Shadow said, flowing like smoke from where he stood to swirl around Jaye’s floating form.

Jaye said nothing, feeling a connection form only partly through the magic she’d called forth. There was more there though. Deeper threads that ran between her and the lost and lonely person she’d called out to.

Would she offer him a pact? Was he offering her one?

She would have felt guilty claiming him if it had been to fill her own need to be cared for, but there was more than that. The companionship he was offering was the same as the companionship she had to offer. Together? Together they wouldn’t be ‘whole’ or ‘complete’ but they would be better than they were alone. 

As the magic spun down and Jaye settled gently to the ground, she found herself…well alone wasn’t quite the right term was it?

“Our lady Jaye,” Shadow said from within the staff. “We believe you have more than successfully cast our spell.”

“Was I supposed to do it like that?” Jaye asked, not in the least bit regretful of the outcome.

“You cast the spell flawlessly,” Shadow said. “So well in fact that we believe you won’t need to cast it again.”

Because they belonged to each other. Jaye was sure the Witch could call Shadow back, anyone who could enchant a whole forest was definitely more powerful than Jaye could ever hope to be, but barring Shadow’s original creator, no one would ever be able to tear them apart.

“You said you needed to stay hidden?” Jaye asked. “Why was that?”

“We are not what one might call a ‘natural entity’ and as such many of the usual binding and wards the powerful use to keep themselves and their possession safe are not proof against us,” Shadow said. “As a result, if we are discovered the reception we are given is usually a poor one and involves overwhelming amount of spellcraft being lobbed upon us.”

“Is that going to be a problem? Will you be able to stay hidden if you’re stuck with me?” Jaye asked.

“Being with you is a better shroud than we could ever have hoped for,” Shadow said. “Just look at all the places we can hide! We can be here,” his voice came from the staff, “or here,” his voice came from behind Jaye, where her natural shadow lay, “or even here!” his voice came from under her feet. “More than that though, we are not what those who’ve dealt with things like us would imagine us to be. In a century of study, we have learned more than a few techniques to hide ourselves from the tricks of arcane sight that allow casters to pierce our natural abilities to shroud ourself. No, we shall not be discovered unless we allow ourselves to be. Our only concern now is for you.”

“Why for me?” Jaye asked.

“You have said they now employ hunters to track down unbound Nature’s Blessed, and your eyes, all solid black as they are, carry your heritage too clearly for anyone to miss. What do you say we do something about them?”