Lark landed on the tall blue grass that tickled my chin. The extreme height of the overachieving plant made our journey treacherous, but Lark and her family refused to go any farther. Thorn slid me down his wing and took off with a farewell nod. Dragons refused formalities the way Droillo refused to keep his sticks away from the floor of my house. I endlessly had to clean up after the aigamuxa like he could make his messes right at home in my house when I'd never even invited him over. He was worse than a wood troll with losing things he claimed were dear to him. He gushed about his stick collection and then scattered its remnants throughout my house.

"You want to ride on my shoulders?" Droillo patted my back vigorously and went back to humming before I could answer.

"Why do you ask a question, then not silence yourself for the answer?"

"Sometimes I feel so joyful my hums escape without permission."

"Now your hums have a life of their own." I rolled my eyes and flung his arms away when he went to grab my waist. "What are you doing?"

"I thought you might like to see how wonderful it is on my shoulders."

Grass poked me in the eye, and I stomped on it. "Never will I want to experience life on your shoulders!"

He tapped his chin with his finger. "Oh, I could understand how suddenly becoming tall might frighten you."

"That's not my reasoning!"

We walked. Well, I walked, and Droillo skipped like he wanted a griffin to note his odd movements and pluck us from the ground. When I asked him to stop for our safety, he told me I was a great friend for wanting him to live until we could return home. He still did not stop skipping. I contemplated tripping him more than once, but Zinnia's stern face in my thoughts kept my actions to grumbling.

A wooden sign with shimmering golden letters proclaimed we'd arrived in the wizard lands. The sign should have had a subtitle that informed people they should turn back, except in times of great need, like saving their best friend. It was a place I had no desire to return to as it contained humans. My nose crinkled in disdain at the thought.

"You smell something terrible, my greatest friend in all the realms?" Droillo squatted in front of a rock and let a small red bug crawl into his hand.

"Your greatest friend is Zinnia. Do not call me a lie, and why are you asking what I smell?"

"Your nose looks displeased."

"I am thinking about how terrible humans are and how I have to enter the place they live most." I stepped over the border into the wizard lands and removed one of the tracking stones Naysava had given me.

"Humans aren't terrible. Zinnia is half of one."

He had a rare point with his words. For the first time that I could recall, total nonsense hadn't poured from his mouth. "That's true. Zinnia is amazing and wonderful. All of her is perfect, including her human side. It's all other humans who are the worst."

"You say that about trolls too, even though they're a cousin species to me."

"That explains a lot about you."

"Ogres too. We're all in the same family."

"I believe it." I tossed the stone in the air as instructed, and it spun for several immense minutes before stopping and pointing north. I kept it in my hand but studied my map of all the magic lands. "Grasshopper Hollow? Whatever would Zinnia want to go there for? It's a place of misery and constant rain."

"It's good your mushroom beard is gone."

I closed my eyes and squeezed my fingers into fists. "Would you not bring up my trauma? I don't mention your burrow collapsing!"

"My burrow blew away. I worry about your memory sometimes, Bog."

We followed the stone, and I wondered if it would indeed stop at Grasshopper Hollow. The rain poured like a mischievous god laughed at us as they released bucket after bucket on our heads. Droillo splashed in the puddles with his arms extended in the air like water was some foreign treasure he had only moments to indulge in before he never experienced it again. My bald grayish companion stayed out in the rainy streets while I walked under the canopy.

I extended the rock to allow blue light to give us better visibility of the storm-dim streets. For a moment, I thought our guide would bypass the town and go on to another, but it made a sharp left turn and kept going until it found a right path to take. It stopped at a small blue cottage that had blue and red mushrooms in neat little rows, all protected by a tiny white fence. The porch had a cover, and rickety wooden steps led to a red arched door. All the boards creaked under my boots as I knocked on the door. A yellow curtain in the left front window parted before the door flung open.

"You!" I slammed the stone against my hand. "This can't be right."

Oscar, the boy wizard who was awful at magic, leaned in the doorjamb, wearing foreign clothes. He was from the human world, so his simple red shirt and blue pants probably originated from there too. His black hair sat on his head in a chaotic mess, and the left side of his mouth tipped into a sly smile. "Bog! Droillo! It's been a minute."

I smacked the rock again and turned it in a different direction, but it spun right back to Oscar's door. "This has to be wrong?"

Oscar scooped the rock from my hand and turned it over in his hand. "A tracking stone. A very low-level one. You wanted to find me?"

I yanked it back from him and barely stopped myself from kicking his shins. "Of course not! Why, in the name of potato farming, would we want to find you?"

He snickered and stepped back, extending his arm into his house. "Come in. Not sure why anyone would care about doing anything in the name of potato farming, but then again, no one loves vegetables as much as you."

"Where is she?" In one swift moment, I moved from disbelief to realizing something was wrong. I retrieved the wooden dagger from my hip. "Where. Is. She!"

Oscar popped an eyebrow. "What are you going to do with that? Give me a splinter?"

"I can jab with it! Where is Zinnia?"

Amusement fled his face as he narrowed his brow. "Why are you asking me?"

I waved the stone in the air, wondering if I pelted his head, if he'd gain brains and magic skills. "This, as you already stated, is a tracking stone. It's set to tell us where Zinnia has been."

"Wait. Why would you need to track Zin?"

I charged into his house and paced across his grey plank flooring. "Like you don't know!"

"Little man has gone insane in the last several months. Shouldn't be too surprised you were pretty much there the last time I saw you. But if I knew why you were tracking Zin, I wouldn't have asked. Are you cheating at hide and seek or something?"

I bolted forward and rammed my weapon into his leg because it was the easiest place I could reach without having to uncomfortably stretch my arms. "Why would the tracking stone think Zinnia has been here?"

He smiled at my sword like it tickled rather than wounded and took a sit in a large chair. "Probably because she has been here more than once, but the last time was over two weeks ago."

My chin dropped to my collarbone. "Zin visits you? Whatever would she do that for? You lie!"

"Why would I lie about that? The stone even confirmed it."

Droillo let out a squeal of delight and clapped his hands. "It's so cute and fuzzy! I've never seen anything so adorable in my life!" He cradled a small, black, furry creature in his large hands.

"That's Aster. My sort of familiar. I'm terrible at making them and pretty much any assignment. I have about two weeks to attach her to my soul or she vanishes back into fairy dust," Oscar said.

Aster meowed like she knew she'd be dust in two weeks. We all knew it, and Droillo shed a tear.

Oscar gazed between Droillo and me. "Oh, come on, guys! No faith in my abilities at all? You already assume the kitten is toast?"

Droillo sniffled and hugged Aster close to his chest. "This poor baby never stood a chance. What an unlucky fate."

"Geez! Okay, then. I know where not to go when I need some cheerleaders. Now back to Zin. Do either of you want to fill me in?"

I tucked my sword back in its sheath. "Nope, we'll be on our way."

I hurried to the door, but Oscar was quicker and held it shut with his palm. "What is going on, Bog? I know we've had our differences, but the one thing we have in common is that we both care about Zinnia."

"And me!" Droillo shot us a massive toothy grin and returned to petting the kitten.

Oscar and I stared at the aigamuxa for a minute before returning to our standoff.

"What is going on with Zinnia? Tell me before I turn you upside down and shake everything out of your pockets."

I crossed my arms and stuck my chin in the air. "Never."

He kept his palm on the door but glanced above me. "Droillo, if you tell me what's going on with Zin, I'll give you a stick I found that has a yellow flower on the end."

Droillo's head jerked up from the kitten. "A yellow flower?"

I threw my arms up. "Come on! It's not like the flower won't fall off in a few days."

Oscar pointed across the room. "It's in the blue basket under the red chair by the fireplace. If you tell me about Zin, it's yours."

Droillo looked at me with a second's hesitation before rushing to the basket. He held the stick triumphantly in the air like Oscar gifted him gold. "Zinnia is missing, and we have no idea where she's gone or why."

"Traitor!" I shouted.

Oscar's hand dropped from the door. "She's missing? For how long?"

"If you tell him more, I swear I will rip the yellow flower off that stick and stomp on it," I said.

Droillo sniffed the flower. "Bog is under a lot of stress. This is the prettiest little flower I've ever seen." Droillo told Oscar everything we knew.

I broke the stick in half but left the flower attached. It showed Droillo I meant business while keeping my cruelty to a Zin-approved level.

Oscar threw items into a bag. "Why wouldn't you tell me she's missing? You don't want me around so much that you won't let me help you find her? You really are out of your mind!"

"We don't need your help, or rather backfiring magic."

"Well, that's too bad because now you're stuck with me." He placed Aster in a tiny pack that allowed her head to hang out of the top and strapped it against his chest.

I stepped out the door first. "It's not like we can't lose you in a busy market or something."

He waited until Droillo exited with the half of the stick that had the flower. "Then how will you find her?"

"With the tracking stones."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the stones. "You mean these?"

I gaped and fumbled for the tracking rocks in my bag but came up empty. "Thief!"

He shrugged. "Whatever gets me to my girl."

"Your girl?"

Oscar sent me another shrug and tossed the second stone into the air. "To the west, we go."