The afternoon sun cast long shadows across Thaddeus's rebuilt garden as the Fragmented Flame worked to repair their latest bout of agricultural destruction. The irony wasn't lost on any of them that they'd returned to exactly the same activity that had marked their first day in Eldoria—fixing what they'd broken through enthusiastic but imprecise arrival.

Spark had appointed himself supervisor of the operation, perched atop a wheelbarrow with the regal bearing of a creature who considered manual labor beneath his dignity.

"No, no, you're planting them upside down again," Ember called to Pyra, who was enthusiastically shoving what appeared to be a glowing turnip root-first into the soil.

"How can you tell which way is up on a vegetable that glows?" Pyra protested, holding the turnip at arm's length. "It doesn't have a face!"

"The root end is typically the part that goes in the ground," Cinder observed dryly, carefully spacing her own plantings in a straight row. "Revolutionary concept, I know."

"Says the woman who just tripped while carrying the fertilizer," Kindle muttered, unable to resist taking a shot at the distracted Cinder.

Thaddeus emerged from his cottage carrying a pitcher of what smelled like mint water mixed with something that definitely wasn't mint. His floating cat Nimbus trailed behind him, passing through the open gate and drifting sinuously toward the overturned birdbath.

"I see you're maintaining your traditional standards of horticultural competence," he observed, settling onto a wooden stool that creaked under his weight. "Though I admit, your technique has improved. Last time, you managed to plant a cabbage with its leaves buried and its roots waving in the air."

"That was an artistic choice," Pyra declared, accepting a cup of the mysterious beverage. She sniffed it cautiously. "What's in this?"

"Mint, lavender, and a touch of clarity moss to help with decision-making." Thaddeus's eyes twinkled with mischief. "Though in your case, I may have added too much optimism root."

"Is that why I suddenly feel like reorganizing your entire herb garden by color gradient?" Pyra asked, eyeing the somewhat chaotic arrangement of plants with newfound enthusiasm.

"Absolutely not," Thaddeus replied firmly. "Touch my herb garden and I'll turn you into a decorative shrub."

Pyra's eyes lit up. "Can I be firethorn?"

"No."

"A pink carnivorous plant?"

"No."

"A shaggy green moss with subtle bursts of orange and yellow?"

"No. As charming as you would be on the doorstep, we'll skip the shrubbery spell."

"Damn." Pyra frowned. "Is optimism root actually a thing, or were you messing with me?"

"Yes and no. It's an old spell that enhances enthusiasm, usually by temporarily lowering inhibitions. Not the healthiest thing for regular use, but useful if you want to encourage someone to part with their gold more easily. An overabundance of optimism can be a powerful disincentive to rational reflection." Thaddeus refilled his cup. "Though as far as side effects go, brightening someone's mood isn't so terrible. Especially when that someone could use a bit of looking on the bright side."

Ash, who had spent the last hour secluded in a corner of the garden with a shovel and a pile of vegetables, made her way over to refill her own drink and leaned her head on Ember's shoulder with a sigh.

"Are we done yet?"

Ember gently nudged her forehead with her own. "No, but we'll take a break soon. You've earned it."

"Good."

A few moments passed as everyone enjoyed the silence.

"We never asked why you named the cat Nimbus," Cinder remarked, gazing thoughtfully at the black-and-white ball of floating fur.

Thaddeus stroked his beard, allowing the question to hang in the air a moment.

"I thought of Nimbus's name in terms of what he is," he replied finally. "A creature born of the air and bound to it by unknowable ties. A cloud that changes with the weather, adapts with the needs of its surroundings, always in motion, never resting, always perpetually on the cusp of—"

"Pretty sure it was a joke about how he's always right above your head," Pyra interrupted.

Thaddeus harrumphed. "You take all the suspense out of the narrative, girl."

She grinned shamelessly.

"As I was saying, Nimbus is a feline of many mysteries. He does as he wishes and remains aloof no matter how hard I try to engage him. He's been with me for thirty years, yet he rarely deigns to touch the ground. He's independent to a fault—one might even call it stubborn. He occasionally disappears for days to pursue his own unknowable motives."

Nimbus continued his circuit of the fence, having elected to ignore the conversation.

"Are we still talking about the cat?" Ash inquired drily.

"Hush and let the old man wax poetic," Cinder said, her tone somehow fond and exasperated at the same time.

Thaddeus snorted. "I can see I've lost you all to the dulcet effects of clarity moss. More work and less sass, please."

"Yes, grandpa," Ember said cheerfully.

"Do not call me that," Thaddeus said sternly.

"Yes, grandpa," Kindle repeated with a grin.

"I mean it!"

"Of course, grandpa!" the remaining members of the Fragmented Flame chorused.

Thaddeus turned bright red. "None of you can appreciate my wisdom! I'm going back to my work!"

"Be sure to take the cat with you, grandpa!" Pyra shouted helpfully.

"Get out of my garden!"

Nimbus followed him through the gate, seeming unimpressed.

The rest of the day passed in an easy rhythm of mindless repetition, and the five of them eventually found themselves sprawled comfortably in the center of the garden, exhausted but pleasantly so.

Cinder held a fistful of dirt in front of her, allowing it to dribble slowly between her fingers. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Kindle leaned her head against Pyra's shoulder and idly flexed her hands. "It's strange, isn't it? We can go to a new place and do a thousand new things, but we always seem to return to these same questions."

"Well, yeah," Pyra replied, pausing to scratch Spark's head. "We're creatures of habit."

"It's not a bad thing," Ember noted, crossing her ankles and resting her hands behind her head. "We do all right in a crisis, and we've managed to avoid total annihilation this long."

Ash stretched her arms over her head, apparently considering the matter before settling on a final opinion. "Habit has its place."

The late afternoon breeze tickled their faces and playfully tugged at loose strands of their hair. Birds sang in the trees around them as the shadows lengthened in preparation for sunset. Spark lay on his back, happily splayed across the soft grass.

They shared a single mind, but each had her own thoughts.

"I'm glad we came here," Kindle said quietly. "Even if it is only a temporary change of pace."

"I'm glad we're together," Pyra agreed. "Whether we're in Amaranth, or elsewhere."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"We've all made this complicated mess work," Cinder said, her voice warm. "I'm proud of us for that."

"Complicated," Ash said thoughtfully. "But worthwhile."

"Very much so," Ember agreed.

They dozed together until the sun set and their stomachs were audibly grumbling.

Thaddeus had laid out a simple but appetizing dinner of roasted vegetables, mushrooms, and eggs—all of which was now ready. They ate eagerly, reflecting on their busy day. Nimbus munched on scraps of roasted mushroom that they slipped into his bowl. Afterward, they washed off the dirt and grime in a cool bath.

***

The sleeping arrangements proved just as chaotic as they had several months ago, though with considerably less argument about territorial rights. They'd learned to accommodate each other's preferences: Pyra insisted on sleeping by the window, Cinder always slept within easy reach of a door, Kindle claimed the center of the cluster, Ash slept near Pyra but apart from the rest, and Ember found comfort in the hammock farthest from the door.

Spark had grown too large for convenient lap-sitting, but he stationed himself near the door with the protective instincts of a guardian.

"So." Thaddeus paused in the doorway to nod at the array of hammocks. "Will you be setting off in the morning?"

Ember glanced at the others before responding. "Not just yet. We were thinking it would be nice if we could all stay here awhile."

"If that's all right, of course," Pyra added.

Kindle nodded. "We could help with the garden, or anything else that needs doing. Just... anything to take our minds off of things for a bit. Even temporarily."

"That sounds like a perfectly reasonable request to me," Thaddeus replied. "Far be it from me to prevent such sage advice from its intended target."

"Yeah, that," Ash agreed. "We need to, um... something about reflection."

He scratched the tufts of his beard. "You mean you want to reflect on what you've learned here?"

"Exactly."

Ember hid a smile and held up her hands with exaggerated politeness. "Please, grandpa, we would be ever so grateful if you'd let us stay to, um, learn for a few more days."

Thaddeus shut his eyes with a pained look.

"Why I let any of you into my garden, I'll never—" He closed the door, huffily muttering under his breath as he retreated.

The girls dissolved into giggles.

"You're too much, grandpa," Pyra called jovially.

The muffled response of "Good night," had a decidedly amused edge to it.

"I told you he'd like it," Cinder said, wiping tears from her eyes.

Ember sighed happily, settling into her hammock. "I think I'm going to miss him when we return to Amaranth."

"He'll miss us more," Ash decided. "He probably hasn't had so many people around to annoy him in months."

"We should come and visit more often," Kindle proposed. "Between missions and incidents and whatever other crazy situations we get caught up in, it'd be good to check in."

"That sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan to me," Ember agreed. "We can have him babysit Spark sometimes, too. On days that we're busy or have to do more dangerous things."

Spark's responding chirp was only vaguely indignant.

"So, we're staying at Thaddeus's place for a while?" Cinder asked. "Acting as farmhands?"

"We'll be helping a friend in his garden," Ember replied. "Getting back to basics."

"Honestly, that sounds nice," Kindle sighed. "After everything that's happened, it would be really nice to slow down."

"A change of pace won't solve our problems," Ash reminded her.

"Oh, I know, but..." Kindle made a vague gesture.

"But a change of pace would be nice," Ember finished.

"It would," Pyra agreed. "Very, very nice."

"Then that's what we'll do." Cinder rolled onto her side with a smile. "We've earned a good break."

"Agreed," they all said in unison.

As darkness settled fully outside the cottage windows, the comfortable quiet stretched between them. Kindle's breathing had already evened into sleep, while Pyra made soft clicking sounds that meant she was trying to stay awake but losing the battle. Spark's purring provided a steady baseline to the peaceful symphony.

"This is nice," Ember murmured, her voice barely audible in the darkness. "Just... existing without anyone expecting anything from us."

"Mmm," Ash agreed, her usual philosophical observations muted by drowsiness. "No reports to file, no schedules to maintain, no political obligations to navigate."

"No Magisterium breathing down our necks," Cinder added with satisfaction. "No Marcus plotting our social calendar for maximum family advantage."

"No Guild missions that everyone expects us to complete in half the allocated time," Ember continued, settling deeper into her hammock.

The litany of absent pressures was strangely soothing. Each responsibility they didn't have to think about felt like a weight lifted from their collective shoulders.

"You know what's funny?" Kindle said suddenly, proving she hadn't been as asleep as they'd thought. "We spent so much time complaining about our situation in Amaranth, but we never actually tried to change it. Not really."

"What do you mean?" Pyra asked, stifling a yawn.

"I mean, we kept talking about how trapped we felt, but we never seriously looked for alternatives. We just... accepted that Amaranth was our only option."

Cinder shifted in her hammock, the rope creaking softly. "Because it felt like our only option. Where else were we going to go? What else were we going to do?"

"But was it, though?" Kindle pressed. "We kept saying we needed to understand our curse, find answers about our condition. And then we just... stopped looking."

A thoughtful silence fell over the room. Outside, an owl called from somewhere in Thaddeus's garden, its voice echoing through the still air.

"We got distracted," Ash said finally, her tone carrying a note of surprise. "By daily concerns, by political complications, by Spark's needs. We forgot the larger questions."

"We forgot a lot of things," Ember said slowly, something nagging at the edge of her memory. "Didn't we have... wasn't there something specific we were supposed to find? Some group or organization that might have answers?"

The question hung in the air like morning mist, substantial enough to feel but too insubstantial to grasp.

"Well, Thaddeus told us that the Magisterium could probably help with our condition," Cinder remarked after a moment. "Wasn't that what we were trying to figure out?"

"He did tell us that," Ash agreed, "but we never followed up on it."

"That's because Beatrix gave a pretty bad first impression, and then we got busy," Pyra pointed out sleepily. "Like all the time."

Ember stretched her arms over her head. "Well, if they're gonna start treating us like research subjects anyway, we might as well try to learn what we can from them before we have to figure out how to protect ourselves from their prying. Especially if that's where all of Amaranth's best magical knowledge comes from."

Another thoughtful silence greeted this declaration before Cinder spoke again. "Yeah, we still want answers. We just got distracted by building a life first."

Ember made a vague hand gesture. "Life got in the way, but it shouldn't prevent us from learning the truth. No more putting it off—we'll talk to the Magisterium about our condition. We might get answers, or we might have to search for another organization with the relevant knowledge. Either way, we want clarity. If they can give us that, great. If not, we'll find someone who can. It's past time we had answers."

Pyra sat up abruptly in her hammock, causing it to sway dramatically. "Wait. Speaking of answers... didn't someone tell us about some group that studies exactly our kind of weirdness?"

The room fell silent except for Spark's gentle snoring.

"What do you mean?" Ember asked, a faint memory stirring at the edges of her consciousness.

"I remember..." Pyra frowned, her flame-colored hair catching the moonlight filtering through the window. "Someone mentioned scholars. Memory scholars? Who knew about consciousness stuff?"

Ash bolted upright so suddenly her hammock nearly dumped her onto the floor. "The memory people! There were memory people we were supposed to find!"

"Memory people?" Cinder repeated skeptically, though she too was sitting up now. "That's remarkably vague, even for us."

"No, no, she's right," Kindle said excitedly, bouncing slightly in her hammock. "There was definitely something about memory. And... and archives? Secret archives?"

Ember pressed her palms against her temples, trying to coax the elusive memory into focus. "It was someone on the caravan. The bard! Malik told us about them."

"YES!" Pyra exclaimed, then quickly lowered her voice to avoid waking their host. "The bard with the ridiculous hat. He said there were scholars who could help us understand our condition. They had a weird name..."

"Started with M," Kindle contributed helpfully. "Or maybe N?"

Ash's brows drew together, as though solving a particularly difficult equation. She gazed intently at the ceiling and seemed to have forgotten how to blink. "Definitely M. And they preserve knowledge through memorization rather than written records..."

"The Mnemosynes!" Kindle shouted, then immediately clapped her hands over her mouth as Spark startled awake with an indignant chirp.

"Shhhhh!" Pyra hissed. "Don't wake up Thaddeus!"

"That's it," Ember breathed. "The Mnemosynes. Malik said they might be able to help us understand our consciousness transfer."

"We completely forgot about them," Cinder said slowly, as though replaying past events in her mind. "Our entire original quest. We just... forgot."

"How do you forget an entire quest?" Kindle asked, staring at the others in amazement.

"The same way you forget anything else when more immediate concerns take precedence," Ash said, though she sounded slightly stunned herself. "As you said—life gets in the way."

Ember stood up, beginning to pace the small space between the hammocks. "This is what Thaddeus meant about losing sight of the forest for the trees. We got so caught up in managing our complications that we stopped pursuing our original goals."

"And once we got comfortable," Cinder said, "we forgot those goals ever existed."

"We forgot a lot of things," Ash said, still staring at the ceiling. "So now the question is, how do we find them? Malik said they had no permanent location."

"He also said there was a chronicle-house in Amaranth where messages could be left," Ember recalled. "We could start there."

Pyra yawned, rubbing her eyes. "So, are we doing the Magisterium route first, or the memory people?"

"We're doing both," Ember said decisively. "I'm not committing to any one solution until we've thoroughly investigated all the potential options."

"That's reasonable," Kindle agreed. She shifted in her hammock and glanced at Ash. "Did we forget anything else really important that we should immediately chase down, or can we go back to bed now?"

"I hope not," Ash replied, closing her eyes with a deep sigh. "Otherwise, we're in even worse trouble than I thought."

"I think we're good for now. Good night, everyone." Ember resumed her position, finally stilling her jumbled thoughts long enough to quiet the noise in her head. "We'll work out the details in the morning."

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