The wanderer woman immediately went over to Rowan, tipping her hat to Jieun and Willow as she passed them.

  She spoke without even attempting to lower her voice. “A little birdie tells me we should be outta the Echo’s domain. So can I borrow the girlie for a moment?”

  “Are you sure we’re safe to talk?” Rowan rumbled, still speaking softly.

  “Sure as I can be, which is plenty sure. Trust the source with my life.”

  “Then feel free if she’s feeling up for it.” He said at normal volume while glancing at Willow to gauge her reaction.

  She wasn’t thrilled with the idea of sating the Scholar’s insatiable curiosity right now, but it beat the boredom of doing nothing.

  “If you wanna meet my friends they’re sleeping right now.”

  “I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t disappointed to hear that, but I want to talk to you, not them.”

  “All right.” She struggled a bit to get up, her body still not quite wanting to obey her.

  “Willow, you should rest. Whatever she wants can wait.” Her aunt interjected, shooting the wanderer woman a dirty look.

  “We can have our little chat right here if it puts your mind at ease, it just looked like it’d be slightly cramped if I joined ya.”

  “I can leave.” Yew said as he got up, and before anyone could say anything hopped off the back of the slowly moving cart.

  Willow felt a bit bad. She knew her brother had been dealing with a lot before the move, and since things had turned out the way they had she hadn’t been spending as much time with him as she wanted.

  She’d try to fix that soon, if possible.

  Scholar Mu slipped into the vacant spot next to her aunt with a shrug. “Works for me.”

  Jieun's face now bore the faintest hints of a scowl.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Willow asked while staring up at her mentor, her head laying in her aunt’s lap.

  “First I wanted to do a quick checkup and see how you’re doin’.” She said while placing a gloved hand on her forehead.

  “If that’s all right with you, of course?” She asked the child, seeking consent for a qi pulse. Which was a thankful improvement over the first time they had all met.

  Which she gave with a small nod and a quiet. “‘Sfine.”

  Scholar Mu performed the exam with as much professionalism as the strange woman was wont to show.

  “Your pathways are still a bit frayed round the edges, but you’re healin’ up fine. Should be right as rain in a few more days.”

  “When should my spirit sense come back?” Willow was tired of making do without a key tool she used to make sense of the world.

  Mu frowned. “Somethin’ wrong with your senses? None of the damage I’m seein’ should be affecting that. Hang on.”

  The wanderer took a deep drag on her pipe, and blew the resulting cloud of sweet smoke over the child, the concept of spring heavy within it.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Willow felt the energy course through her pathways, mapping out the metaphysical veins that energy used to travel through her body. Until eventually that energy got stuck trying to reach her forehead.

  “Ah, there’s the bugger. You have a piece o’ Huey stuck right there by your inner eye. Probably why you're so muddle headed right now as well.”

  Her aunt snorted. “Some healer you are. Why didn’t you notice it before?”

  “First of all, I could do without the sass. Second, the girlie here has one of her spirit’s inner spaces placed right on top of it, so it’s hard to get a clear scan of that section. Should be able to get it out in a jiffy.”

  The spring filled smoke left her body, though its restorative properties left the majority of her body feeling quite refreshed. Then Mu rubbed her hands together before placing them on either side of her head.

  “This might sting a little, but bear with me.”

  A bolt of Knowledge surged through the pathways in her head. It didn’t hurt, but it definitely wasn’t comfortable. Being in such close contact with the concept made the girl feel like she was on the cusp of knowing something incredibly important, but kept stopping short before she achieved understanding.

  She idly wondered if that was how the wanderer woman felt all of the time.

  “Gotcha.” She heard Mu mutter to herself.

  Suddenly the blockage cleared and Willow could feel the currents of the world again, a sense returned after days with its lack. Like when your sinuses had been clogged due to an illness and suddenly you could smell again.

  She could feel the solid earth qi in the air and the surrounding path. The way her father was silently reinforcing and adjusting things as their group slowly continued on. She felt the concern of her aunt at the procedure currently being performed, and the burning curiosity of the one performing it.

  She felt her brother’s despondence, and Willow wished she could help him right now.

  She felt Mister Joaquin's grouchiness and the Faber family’s fear.

  Wait, fear? Why were they afraid?

  Willow sat up, startling both Mu and Jieun.

  “Careful now. Don’t move too much, can’t imagine that was comfortable.” The wanderer cautioned.

  Ignoring the concern of the two adults for now, she looked towards where the Faber family was walking. Uncle Lucius silently pulled his handcart, while Aunt Sarah whispered something to both of her children.

  The fear she was feeling was mostly with Sarah and the two children rather than her uncle, but he was also feeling quite a bit of discomfort.

  “Are you all right, Willow?” Aunt Jieun asked her, quite concerned by her niece’s odd behaviour so soon after a medical procedure.

  “Why’re they so afraid? The danger’s gone, right?”

  Both women looked in the direction the child was.

  “You can sense emotions from that far away?” The scholar asked, giving Willow a strange look.

  A nod, curls bouncing with the motion. She didn’t quite care that yet another one of her secrets was revealed to the wanderer. She was more concerned about what she was sensing.

  “That a recent thing?” Concern quite clear in the question.

  Willow was growing frustrated that her question wasn’t being answered.

  “No, I’ve always been like this. You still haven’t said why they’re afraid.”

  “That’s cuz I don’t rightly know. Told them the Echo shouldn’t be a threat any longer.”

  Mu thought for a few moments.

  “Could just be nerves from travellin’. Had a brush with danger, and now they’re worried it’ll happen again. Some folks are like that, though I don’t understand the point.”

  From the way her aunt kept glancing towards the cart with spikes of fear Willow doubted that was the case.

  Oh right, she was being rude. She gave her mentor a gap toothed grin that she wasn’t quite feeling.

  “Thank you Miss Mu for fixing my spirit sense!”

  “You’re quite welcome, but now I have more questions for you, not less.”

  Right, she’d come here to talk to her. Not for medical reasons.

  Hopefully they weren’t too weird.

  “What’d you want to know?”

  Scholar Mu puffed on her pipe a few times while giving her apprentice a scrutinising look.

  “How did you get ahold of two fragments of Balance?”