"True, you are too tall for this bed," she agreed, looking at it. "Maybe I'll try it."

"Suit yourself," he shrugged.

The door opened, and Dolanna peeked in. "Are you going to eat?" she asked. "It has been waiting for you for hours."

"Oh, yes," Sarraya said, flitting into the air and zipping past Dolanna's head.

"I am getting a little hungry," Jula admitted. "The mice don't go very far in this shape."

He nodded. "We're about to go to bed. Is everyone settled in?"

"More or less," she replied. "Your pack is down in the living room. You have your staff?" He pointed to it, where it stood in the corner. "Jula is going to need some new clothes, Tarrin."

"I know. As soon as Phandebrass finishes, I'm going to take her to a tanner."

"Tanner? Sarraya can conjure the clothing, dear one. Just ask her."

"She could," he admitted. "I didn't think about that."

"Sounds like I need to find out about Druidic magic," Jula said. "I never studied it."

"It can be useful," Tarrin said, standing up.

After eating a stew Dolanna had kept on a smoldering fire in the kitchen, Tarrin and Jula padded through the dark, empty house. She told him that she had placed a Ward around the outer fence that would keep out everyone not mystical in nature, and Phandebrass had cast some magical spells to protect the house for the night against those mystical beings, so everyone could sleep without having to post a watch. Tarrin trusted in the magic of his friends, but they weren't dealing with an enemy that was easily deterred. That made him a bit nervous. When he got back in the room, he picked up his staff and shapeshifted with it, making it disappear into the elsewhere. That way it would be right in his paw, if he had to deal with any kind of supernatural visitor in the night. He kept the door open as well.

Jula took off her clothes without much hesitation, then shapeshifted into a cat and jumped up on the bed. Tarrin joined her, and they were soon joined afterward by Chopstick and Turnkey. Jula didn't quite know what to make of the two small drakes, until they settled down on the bed with the Were-cats and went to sleep. Tarrin didn't mind. The drakes liked sleeping with him, and there was plenty of room. He laid down and put his head on his paws, and closed his eyes. He would sleep, but it would be a very light sleep. Nobody was going to sneak up on him during the night.

"Tarrin!" a voice called, from far away. "Come on, suta, it's time to get up!"

Suta? That was what his mother called him, Ungardt for son. Tarrin opened his eyes and found himself back in his old room, back on the farm in Aldreth. Everything was where it was supposed to be. His bed and the large chest at the foot of it, the washstand with the chipped basin, the small table in the corner by the room's only window, that had the sooty lantern atop it. He sat up, looking around in confusion. How did he get back here? A look down told him that he was still a Were-cat. How did he wind up in Aldreth?

A dream. This had to be a dream. But how could it be? He was wide awake. He could smell everything around him, from the spiderwebs high up in the rafters, cobwebs his mother never ceased to complain about, all the way to the strong soap she made him use to scrub the floorboards. Drawing a single claw, he poked it into his arm, and felt very real pain. They always said that you couldn't feel pain in a dream. Well, if that were true, then he really was in Aldreth. It was just impossible.

"Tarrin! Get up!" his mother, Elke, boomed in the kitchen below. A sudden bang on the floor told him that she picked up the broom, and was smacking it against the ceiling again. She always did that when he didn't move fast enough for her. "You're going to be late!"

Late? Late for what? He swung his feet over the bed and stood up, banging his head on a low rafter. He cursed, holding his flattened ear and looking up. The ceiling was where it was supposed to be, it was him who was taller.

"Are you ever going to stop hitting your head on that beam?" Elke shouted at him. "By Dallstad, boy, I think it's softened your brains!"

He moved a little aside and looked at everything, still confused. It was his room. A look out the window showed the forest in its riot of fall colors, and there was a cool bite in the air. It was his room. How did he end up back here? It made no sense. He picked his pants up from where they were slung over the chest and pulled them on, then took a shirt off a peg by the steps leading down to the ground floor, pulling it over his head as he came out his door. The door opened into the kitchen. Jenna's room was just down the hall, and his parents lived in the room on the other side of the attic. Jenna. Where was she? And where was his father? If this was indeed some kind of strange dream, it would be weird if they weren't here too.

His mother looked just like she was supposed to look. Tall, narrow-waisted and buxom, she was Ungardt to the roots of her blond hair. She had a no-nonsense way about her that had always intrigued him, and was probably why he liked Camara Tal, Jesmind and Triana so much. They had similar personalities as his mother, so they were women he could understand. She wore a torn shirt and a pair of worn leather breeches tucked into her calf boots, and she was standing in front of a Tellurian wood stove. That wasn't supposed to be here. It had been placed in front of where the kitchen's fireplace was, an iron pipe running to the chimney to vent the smoke from the fire. He could smell the fire, as well as the ham steaks she was frying in a pan atop the new-smelling contraption. When did they get that stove? When did they come back to Aldreth, for that matter?

"Where is father and Jenna?" he asked, sitting at the table, feeling it. It was the same table. The very feel of it was so familiar, so home, that he couldn't deny it. However it happened, he was home.

"Eron took Jenna into the village," she replied. "She's going to magic out a few treestumps for Thendle Barston's new farm field. I think she's also going to make eyes at Lukan Longbranch," she chuckled. "That girl will be married by spring. I'll bet money on it."

"Lukan? He's a boor. Jenna hates him."

"He's done some serious growing," she told him. "You'd better eat. You'll be late. You know what happens when you're late."

"Late for what?" he asked.

Elke turned and gave him a flat look. "Did that beam knock your mind out, boy?" she demanded. "You'll be late for the same thing you do every day. And you know how much that annoys me," she glared.

"What?" he asked nervously. Getting Elke Kael mad was never a good idea.

"It's not right," she bristled, turning around. "You should marry her, Tarrin! I don't approve of this, this relationship." She growled. "Then again, it's her fault," she snorted. "I don't see why she makes you live here while she lives not five minutes away. It's crazy."

Who? "What?" he asked, completely confused.

There was a knock at the door. "Tarrin!" a voice called. "If you're in bed, I'm going to come up there and get you!"

Tarrin nearly fell out of his chair. Jesmind! That was Jesmind! What was she doing in Aldreth? It was madness! And what was going on? Things had happened, things he had no idea about. Was this a dream? Was this real, and he really had knocked his head on the beam one time too many? He put his head in his paw and tried desperately to figure out what was going on. The last he remembered, he was in Dala Yar Arak, sleeping. This had to be a dream! But if it was, why did it feel so completely real?

She appeared in the doorway to the living room, and she was as lovely as he remembered. Tall and lean, with the defined body of a Were-cat, Jesmind looked at him with those penetrating eyes of hers. She was wearing a simple buckskin vest that left her arms and midriff bare, and showed quite a bit of her ample cleavage, and undyed leather breeches that were ragged around her ankles. Her white fur was gleaming clean, and her red hair was tied back from her face with a simple thong that rested on her forehead. Jesmind looked absolutely radiant, and the sight of her was enough to make his mouth go dry.