As word of Desden's arrival reached her ears, Feyla's mind scrambled to adjust her plans. She'd wanted to catch Desden off-guard in his hideout and have Dormaeus lure him out. There was no time now. Maybe Dormaeus could lure him to the alley. She'd lie in wait and then leap into action, knocking him out and—

The still-healing magic burn on her arm blossomed into pain at Dormaeus's touch. His grip latched onto one of her shoulders as well and threw her against Hobrin.

Hobrin barely had time to move his knives out of her path before they were crashing to the floor.

"My brother is all I have now," Dormaeus said the words like an apology. "Good or bad, you're not taking him."

Feyla's eyes went wide at the blood-red magic sparking in Dormaeus's palm. He stared at her intently—in warning—and then crushed the light in his grip, shoving past the man at the door and bolting down the hall to the stairs. A shout echoed after him. "DES!"

"Ya just had to team up with the crazy wizard," Hobrin snapped as they scrambled to their feet.

"We need to cut him off." Feyla's head jerked to the other door, the one that led to the outside staircase. She could still fix this.

She flung open the door. A hot gust of wind sent the strands of her hair flying back. She could hear Hobrin sliding his knives into place behind her. Feyla bolted down the stairs, half jumping as she raced to cover more ground. "Where would they exit?" she shouted back at Hobrin.

"'Round front! It's the fastest way out from those stairs!"

She nodded grimly, tucking in her chin and dashing around the long building. Oh, how could she have been so foolish? To have let Dormaeus gain enough memories to pick a different side? If only she could have pushed those growing memories back down...

With what? The spell? You'd be no better than Daydrel.

Not that her obfuscation about Laryssa had been much better. Less magical but no less manipulative. During the escape, she hadn't had time to explain it fully but maybe she should have told him sooner. It had all happened so fast... Guilt pricked her chest again—true guilt, not the false feeling so often conjured by the echo of her mother's voice in her head. Feyla allowed it to seep into her fragmented heart and then threw all her mental focus into the blood pulsing through her ears and the building flying past. No longer was she being reluctantly dragged behind the healers. Now the hunt was all her own, driven by her own desires. If she didn't catch Desden now then she'd have no way to lure him out of the impenetrable fortress he'd turned that old summer house into. Not even Hobrin could help her extract him now that Crayden's men had their orders.

The night seemed to reach out hands to grab at the edges of her shirt. She waded through the blackness of the alley, barely avoiding overturned barrels and piles of refuse. The sticky scent of rotten rum stung her nose as she leaped over a barrel in her path. She rounded the building, lamplight now cutting a path for her. Feyla glanced back at Hobrin. He hadn't been as lucky with the barrel and waved her forward while he began pulling himself to his feet.

The shadow of two figures caught her eye in an alleyway across the main street. The drunk idiot from earlier "accidentally" stumbled into her path. Feyla used her momentum to latch onto his grimy shirt and vault herself forward while sending him falling to the ground.

She was on the smaller of the two shadows seconds later. He tumbled to the ground, a cry escaping from his throat. His staff clattered against the broken cobblestone while his yellow hat went sailing.

Wait.

Feyla barely had time to scramble off Mydel before Sandrina's staff lit the alley in a lavender light. The blade at the bottom skimmed the skin of her throat. Feyla swallowed.

"Everbloom," Sandrina said, the word an unmasked sneer. Feyla usually thought of flowers and soothing scents when she saw lavender but the sinister way the cool glow of Sandrina's magic hit the planes of her face was making her rethink that.

Feyla scrambled away from Sandrina's staff and hauled herself up. She jerked her head around frantically. No, no no, she couldn't have lost them, not now, not when she had been so close to fixing everything.

"Feyla?!" Mydel grabbed his signature hat and dusted it off. He held himself at a distance, lingering uncharacteristically close to Sandrina.

Pressure built in her chest. Her breath came out short and weak. She swiped her palm across the tears already stinging her eyes.

"Are...are you okay?" Mydel asked. He shifted his feet awkwardly but didn't move further.

"I had them!" Feyla shouted. Her hands curled into hard, shaking fists. Sandrina's grip on her staff tightened but Feyla paid it no mind. "I was so close! So, so close to catching Desden and making everything right. And if you hadn't distracted me—"

"Don't put your failures on us, battle healer," Sandrina growled. She moved Mydel behind her and pressed forward into Feyla's face. "Every problem you have is because of your own selfish goals. You betrayed Master Alverdyne and now you've betrayed your own guild as well. I don't know what you claim to be fixing but I highly doubt that anything you're doing could improve this situation at all."

"No! I am not a failure! I can still fix this. I will fix this. And I'll do it without the healers, or my mother, or even Sedgewick. And once I do, everyone will finally get it. And they'll...they'll see me. She'll see me." Feyla clutched her chest, fingers gripping the necklace underneath her shirt. The single-minded drive that had pulled her along since she'd decided to hunt Desden alone started cracking, taking her composure with it.

"You've literally fixed nothing!" Sandrina shouted back. "The Carrows are still at large, and Master Alverdyne practically had a breakdown because of you."

"I wasn't trying to hurt him." Feyla gripped the necklace harder.

"Yeah, well, you did," Mydel snapped. "Master Sandrina had to drag him away from a bottle."

Feyla's shoulders trembled under the weight of everything that had happened. Sedgewick hadn't been like the others. He'd seen her. Not a conniving gold digger or an incompetent child but the whole of her, both good and bad. Sedgewick saw her messy, sensitive, perfectionism and he still called her smart, capable and caring. And when he'd trusted her with his fragile, healing heart, she'd vowed to protect it.

But you didn't. And now she'd failed at the one task that might have given her a chance to right everything. In fact, with Dormaeus's memories returning, she might have made it worse.

"And now we're stuck going to Hobrin for help because Master Sedgewick never came back— Ouch!" Sandrina smacked the back of Mydel's head and he shut his mouth.

Feyla didn't let shock freeze her. She shoved Sandrina aside and grabbed Mydel by the shirt. "What do you mean 'Never came back'?"

Mydel's eyes bugged out. He tugged at his shirt and freed it from her hands. "He went to the guild house to see you. We were supposed to meet up afterward."

"Mydel!" Sandrina hushed.

"She might know something!" he shot back.

"He...came to see me?" Feyla asked softly, hope rising in her chest. "Why? What did he want?"

The two mages exchanged a worried look. "So, you didn't speak to him?"

"I wasn't even with the healers at the time." Feyla straightened to her full height and jutted her chin out. "I've left the guild. And I took Dormaeus with me. Not that it did much good, apparently. He ran away with his brother when I was trying to use him as bait."

Sandrina's brow furrowed. She summoned an essence flame to better light the alley. "So that puts us back to asking—

"Lady!" Hobrin called out. He skidded to a stop behind Feyla, panting as he caught his breath. "Someone ought to clean up that alleyway." Hobrin's ears jerked upright at the sight of Sandrina and Mydel. "Sandrina?"

"There you are, Hobrin," Sandrina practically sighed in relief.

"Wait, you two know each other?"

"Yeah, and piece of advice? Don't play Rifts with her. You'll lose all your money." Hobrin clapped Sandrina on the shoulder and the woman didn't even threaten him with bodily harm. In fact, she looked rather smugly pleased.

Feyla had to blink at the strangest thing she'd seen all day.

"I was hoping your cousin's men might have picked up something on where Master Alverdyne is."

"Thought he was with you," Hobrin answered. He turned back to Feyla. "Take it the Carrows got away?"

"Oh, yes. She failed," Sandrina answered before Feyla could.

Feyla gave the taller woman her best glare. "Could you stop trying to tear me down for two minutes?"

Hobrin looked to Mydel for clarity but all Mydel could do was shrug. "Well, least you'll still know where the Carrows are heading," the half-goblin said. "He's hiding out at some lord's old summer house just outside the city."

Feyla nodded. She turned everything she'd learned in the past few hours over in her mind. The Carrows were heading Desden's new hideout. Sedgewick had gone looking for her, but she'd been long gone with Dormaeus by then. So where would he... "If Sedgewick wasn't told that I had freed Dormaeus then he might have assumed that he'd taken me. Maybe he went after him and didn't want to wait."

Sandrina nodded in agreement. "Hobrin, was the summer home Desden was hiding in called the Laliwell?"

"How'd you know?"

Feyla and Sandrina exchanged a look. "They're going back to where it all started," Feyla said.

"Where Lady Calinya's family died." Sandrina nodded.

"But how can you know that mage of yours would know to search there?" Hobrin asked.

"He's Sedgewick," Feyla answered, her certainty more solid than the cobblestone under their feet. "He always figures it out."

"But that was hours ago," Mydel cut in. "If he's not back now and the Carrows are still running around the city then something must have happened."

For the first time since she'd tucked it in, Feyla pulled her betrothal necklace out. "There's one way to be sure." She pushed her magic into the tiny rune disc in the back. "He gave me this in case I was ever in danger. If he can come, then he will."

The four of them went back into Hobrin's office to wait. Feyla checked the necklace constantly. She even spoke into their linked scrying orbs but no response came. He's not coming," she admitted finally. A clammy worry stole the warmth from her fingers. Whatever had stopped Sedgewick must have been very bad. What are you planning, Desden? After wiping her sweaty palms on her leggings, she stood and tucked both items back away.

"Maybe he's ignoring you?" Mydel suggested half-hesitantly.

"No. Sedgewick wouldn't ignore me if he thought I was in danger. Not even after everything I did." She tightened her gear belt and whirled around to face the two mages. "We have to go get him."

"Since when is there a 'we'," Sandrina asked, raising her eyebrow incredulously. "Last I checked, neither of us liked each other." She ceased petting Hobrin's rat and slid off of his desk.

"That doesn't—doesn't...matter," Feyla finished slowly. She paused, momentarily adrift. Then her eyes darkened like an approaching storm and she clenched her fists. "You don't have to like me. You don't even have to think well of me. But make no mistake, Master Sandrina, you are going to help me."

"Why would I need your help? Everything you've tried has made things worse."

"Because this time..." Feyla started down at the necklace Sedgewick had so lovingly given her. "I'm doing it for the right reasons. And besides, failures or not, I'm the closest anyone has come to catching Desden and the only one who's caught Dormaeus. You need me."

Mydel sighed, getting up from his spot on the rug. "She's right, Sandrina."

"I didn't ask for your opinion," Sandrina answered, not dropping Feyla's gaze.

"We got our memories wiped and our butts kicked last time we tried. The only reason we almost got him is because of Master Sedgewick and now he's gone too." He nodded toward Feyla. "It's not magic but she's good at what she does. Which might be our only hope."

Sandrina slowly and deliberately turned her stare to Mydel. "We could go get more mages."

"And give Daydrel another reason to call us incompetent and overpaid to the lord's council? Feyla and the other two healers got closer than anyone. They didn't need a whole task force to do it either."

Sandrina's brow twisted in conflict. Finally, it smoothed into resignation. "As much as I dislike the idea, we'll have to try it."

Feyla clasped her hands together. She gave Mydel a thankful smile but he didn't return it. Not forgiven then. That was okay. He could be as angry as he liked as long as he helped her. She ran her fingers along her belt, checking out for the fight to come "Then let's go find Sedgewick."

****************

Author's Note: Well, it made me rage and cry from frustration but the chapter's done! How will Feyla and Sandrina's tenuous new alliance work out? Will they discover what really happened to Sedgewick? And is Feyla finally done trying to "fix" everything?