It was a warm summer morning in Terra Sonalis when Rosalind and her friends left the firm ground, the large leaves they were sitting on swaying gently on the undulating water.

Hans had not slept enough the previous night, so now, the moment he realised that the mermaid pulling their water lily pad wasn't Marigold, he laid down on the smooth, cool surface of the leaf, overcome by somnolence. Soon, he was lulled into sleep by the girls' soft whispers.

There is so much to see, just how can he fall asleep now? Louise wondered, observing her sleeping friend. She left Rosalind's side and sat closer to Hans, creating a shadow to protect his face from the hot, pitiless sunshine.

"He's been worrying the whole night, Louise. He didn't sleep much," Rosalind replied to her thoughts.

"But he doesn't know..."

"No, but Hans feels that there's something that you... that we are not telling him, and it's troubling him. We should tell him soon."

"Not yet, Rosalind. Please," Louise begged, burying her face in the palms of her hands. "He will be very upset."

Rosalind sighed, then nodded her agreement. "I won't tell him until he asks me again. But then..."

"Thank you, Rosalind," the girl told her, looking thoughtfully at the sleeping boy. "That's all I ask of you."

"Fine, let's think of something else now," the fairy said in a more cheerful tone, pointing her wand at their ball gowns. "These are too impractical for the journey. What would you like to wear?"

"The white dress you gave me when we arrived here, and my red shoes, please." Louise beamed at her.

Rosalind nodded, and as she waved her wand and whispered a few words, Louise's rose bloom dress morphed into the one she had asked for. Deciding that Hans looked just too cute, dressed as an elf, the girls agreed to only change his pointed shoes into a more comfortably looking pair of short boots.

"And now mine," Rosalind said, pointing the wand at herself. "I'm so bored with red, and now that my parents can't see me..."

The fairy stood up, closed her eyes, and Louise watched in awe as her red dress transformed into a magnificent azure gown. The colour suited the black-haired fairy even better than red, Louise thought.

"Thank you," Rosalind said, sitting back down and smiling at the girl. "And it will match Blue's wings much better..." she trailed off, looking at the seemingly infinite expanse of water surrounding them on all sides.

"We will find him," Louise whispered. "Do you have any idea where he might be?" she continued after a while, trying to distract the suddenly uncharacteristically taciturn fairy. She didn't want her to be so sad, Hans' worries were enough.

Rosalind nodded, and without turning to the girl, she indicated towards an indistinct shape floating above the distant horizon-- the high, snow-capped mountains, trembling and distorted like Fata Morgana.

"With the Snow Queen," she said after a long while.

From how serious her voice sounded, Louise knew that this wasn't good. "How can you be so sure?" she asked, hoping that the fairy was mistaken.

"The Tree Elves and Garrett said that they met large groups of goblins close to the borders of our kingdom recently. Some of them even got through-- they broke that cursed mirror in the air, high above our lands, and let the shards fall everywhere..."

"But what is so evil about that mirror?" Hans asked suddenly, startling Louise, who did not notice that he had woken up.

Rosalind looked at them this time as she replied, "If even the tiniest of its shards falls into someone's eye, or worse, finds its way into their heart, it changes them forever. They become cruel and cold-hearted and only see the worst and the ugliest things about everything and everyone. Most of them follow the Snow Queen into her realm. At least that's what happened the last time, even though it wasn't a mirror back then, but snow and ice."

"That's bad," Hans said, wrapping his arm around Louise's waist when she leaned her head on his shoulder as soon as he sat up. "Do you think this is what happened to Blue?"

Rosalind shrugged. "It might be. If he found one of the pieces and did not realize what it was..."

They fell silent then. Rosalind kept staring into the distance thoughtfully, Louise drifted off to sleep, and Hans, pushing his questions for Rosalind away, seeing her mood, spent the day by scribbling into his notebook.

When the sun finally started to set, all of them, bored and tired, decided to disembark for the night on a tiny island they were just floating by.

A single willow, growing in its middle, did not leave enough space for everybody to sleep comfortably on the small patch of grass surrounding it, but luckily its trunk was quite hollow, creating a sort of a cave, big enough for Hans, Louise and Rosalind. The two elves decided to spend the night in an abandoned bird nest Skylar discovered high up in the branches. The birds, mermaids, and frogs did not need anything-- there were enough branches and water for them to sleep in.

While Rosalind spoke about the plans for the following day with the birds and frogs, and the elves prepared their meal, Hans and Louise bathed in the lake with the three mermaids.

When the mer-girls retired into the depths for the night, they joined the others who were already seated around a large flat rock laid with food, thanking Rosalind for drying up their clothes as soon as they climbed out of the water.

The second day of their journey was similar to the first.

At the beginning, Louise and Hans were excited to watch all sorts of water creatures emerging from the deep waters coming to look at them, and observe Rosalind conversing in Fish Language, but when the lake finally narrowed enough for them to see land on both sides, and the water started to flow a lot faster, they were happy for the change.

Right until the frogs and mermaids, struggling against the current, pulled their leaf to the shore in the evening, and Rosalind showed them what lay beyond, or better, under the horizon.

"I know, I know," the fairy said, raising her hands in the air in a placating gesture to dispel their panicked thoughts and objections which started to form in their minds the instant they saw the waterfall.

The loud, noisy cascade was very wide and impossibly tall. The water rushing from the lake, now tinged purple and orange by the setting sun, turned into a river where it reached the edge of a precipice, and hurled itself down the rock face, exploding in an iridescent rainbow where it hit the surface of a small but apparently very deep pool.

"We can't do this, it's impossible!" Hans called over the constant roar of the dashing current, taking Louise's hand in his protectively as he looked towards their water lily boats. They suddenly looked very fragile.

"All right, we will fly from here," Rosalind agreed. "Now let's say goodbye to our friends.

Of course, this was the place Garrett had mentioned. His frogs and the mermaids would head back towards the lake from here.

Hans felt very sad after he waved to Marigold one last time and watched her disappear under the water, following her sisters. For some reason, he had a feeling that he would never see her again. The boy turned his face to the darkening sky, and, closing his eyes, he spent a few moments in a silent prayer, for all those whom he loved and cared about both in this and his other world. He wasn't sure at all where this adventure would take him, whom of them he would ever see again.

Then, he joined his friends, who already prepared everything for the night in a small copse of trees growing close to the lake and the roaring waterfall.

"Let's keep watch, then. I'll stay up first, I'm not tired yet. But the three of you," Rosalind instructed, looking at the birds, "need to rest properly. It seems that from now on we'll need you to carry us and..."

"What's going on?" Hans interrupted her speech, intrigued, as he sat next to Louise and filled his leaf with food. "Why do we need to keep watch?"

"Rolo and Skylar discovered a settlement of Tree Elves in a nearby forest," Rosalind informed him.

"And?" Hans asked around a mouthful of what seemed to be a sort of a pumpkin pie.

"We don't know them."

"Hmm, why don't we go and introduce ourselves? They might know something about your butterflies and help us."

"Because not every elf and fairy in this kingdom are loyal subjects of King Rosario. Those who live this far from the Rose Castle usually have a good reason for doing so. If they recognise Princess Rosalind..."

"Thank you, Rolo," Rosalind interrupted the elf's explanation. "Let's just say that not everyone living in Terra Sonalis agrees with my parents and likes their decisions, Hans. We must be careful tonight, and tomorrow morning, we'll leave as soon as the sun rises. Some butterflies are by the sea, as Rosabea said, and I'm sure that we'll find them if we follow the river. I know from Blue that that's their favourite route."

Once the elves cleared the dishes after the meal, everybody except Rolo and Rosalind laid down to sleep. They didn't have any proper shelter tonight, but Louise and Hans did not mind at all sleeping under the stars. The summer night was warm, and they had enough soft blankets to feel comfortable. They huddled as close together as Roza and Rolo usually did and fell asleep in no time.

They were woken up, or rather scared back into consciousness, by Skylar's loud warbling in the middle of the night.

"Quick, quick, follow me!" the bird called.

As they were too stunned to run quickly enough in the near complete darkness under the trees, pierced randomly by long shafts of weak moonlight, she got behind them and pushed them in the direction of the lake with her wings, all the way the water's edge, as many times as she could while flying herself.

"What's going on? Where are the others?" Hans called desperately as the nightingale made them board one of the water lily pads, which they had left moored to the roots of a plant sticking out from the muddy bank the evening before.

"We were supposed to fly down the waterfall!" he protested as Skylar cut the string holding the leaf in place with her beak, letting it follow the current towards the cascade.

Hans finally noticed the rest of their group boarding the other leaves and following their example when Louise spoke softly, "Hans, I'm scared..."

She buried her face in his shirt, and he embraced her tightly as Skylar said, "Sorry, Master Hans, but we don't fly well in the dark."

Then their leaf precipitated down the clamorous waterfall, which looked like a cascade of quicksilver under the light of the full moon, followed by the other two.