"Are you sure this is the only way?" Wolfcange asked as he, Fifer o'clock and Oircer stood in a section of her garden.

"It's either this or I let Bookneeders down. And he takes back all the recycled materials I used to make my soul. I've come so far, away from the Grove. I don't want my efforts to be all in vain. Besides there's SzsoSzso...I don't know where I'd be if it weren't for you, Wolfcange. This child deserves the same love. Oircer did you get the item I needed?"

"Yes, but Bookneeders was curious to know why an heir-a-minister would need it considering I don't have a soul and if I wanted to, I could use my own power of the Grove to get one," Oircer said, handing Fifer o'clock the item.

"I have a mirror of equilibrium thanks to Wolfcange's blacksmith skills. And his willingness to sell it to me less than half price," Fifer o'clock said with a smile hitting Wolfcange on the arm with a friendly slap. He smiled back with his hand on her cheek, tilted her chin upward with his thumb. She took the alchemy stone from the paper bag. She laid the stone and the mirror side by side on a chunk of bedrock. "I guess I could thank JackabyRyan for the idea. He reminded me I do have unique skills as an alchemist. I let desperation get the better of me that's why I didn't think of this before."

"Bookneeders sharpened the alchemy stone for a nominal fee," Oircer informed Fifer o'clock. Fifer picked up the stone, her eyes roving over it.

"Bookneeders honing skills are definitely unmatched, such detailed precision," Fifer o'clock said with a wide smile and widened brimming eyes.

She put the alchemy stone back on the bedrock beside the mirror.

"Guys, you can leave. This ritual I'm doing doesn't require you two to be here. "And it's spiritually evasive what about to do," she said striking a match on the bedrock and holding it up between her fingers.

Oircer and Wolfcange looked at each other. They both shrugged and left. For a moment they both looked over their shoulders as she began the ritual. They both winced at what she was doing.

Afterwards, Oircer and Wolfcange returned with avocado deviled eggs.

cauliflower crusted grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken pad Thai, cinnamon butter bombs, coconut oil mayonnaise, creamy cauliflower mash and keto gravy, crustless spinach quiche, fathead nachos. Being Sansagorin, she lived on a strictly ketogenic diet. She'd been intermittent fasting before the ritual to cleanse her soul.

She separated the mirror of equilibrium and the alchemy stone by putting them in different sack cloths.

"The alchemy stone holds only a few fragments of my soul to help with locating SzsoSzso," she said weakly to Wolfcange and Oircer as they ate. "Tonight, I'll rest and use the stone to locate the child."

Just before dawn, Fifer o'clock took the two sack cloths from under her pillow and went to her garden.

When Oircer returned and Wolfcange awoke, she was gone. She'd left a note addressed to them both with a shard of the alchemy stone. "I know I'm not alone I have you both. But on this, I must walk alone. This shard of the alchemy stone has a fragment of my soul in it. Only use it to find me if I don't return," she instructed them.