When we returned to camp, my grandmother was waiting for us with a grim expression on her face. “How are our guests?” I asked uncertainly.

A sigh escaped my grandmother’s lips before she replied, “At the moment, they should both be eating dinner with the troupe. It is difficult to communicate with the Undine, and she seems confused and wary of us. I believe that we have convinced her that we mean her no harm and that she is our guest instead of a prisoner, but it might help if Vesha spends some time with her since they’re both Elementals and seem to be close in age. She will stay with your grandfather and me until we arrive at the capital, Kaelyn.”

Vesha nodded. “I doubt that I can communicate with her, but maybe seeing another Elemental will help her to relax and settle in until we can get to Hindra. I don’t think that the different types of Elementals interact much, since we generally stay close to our elemental nodes, but the knowledge I got from my time in the eternal flame tells me that we can see each other for what we are and that we generally respect one another.”

“Good, try to engage with her over dinner,” Grandma said with a nod before turning back to me. “It is the Elven girl that I am most concerned about though. The poor girl is half-starved and skittish. Even Cylia and the twins, who are closest to her age, couldn’t get her to play with them, Zenna told me that she fled to a corner of the wagon and started crying until she wore herself out. It is difficult to tell if she even understands us because she has either been too scared to try speaking to any of us or she can’t for some reason.”

“She could ‘ave been raised in captivity,” Master Nirlyn suggested. “We found documents tha’ said she was bought at a Srach slave market a month ago, but no records on ‘er afore tha’, so who knows ‘ow long she was there or when she was separated from ‘er parents.”

“We found her alone in a cage. The other cages in her wagon held wild animals, so I doubt that she got much social interaction to learn how to speak while with them. Or the humans running the menagerie traumatized her too much to speak,” I added bitterly as I thought of what Sharai had told me about the collar the young girl wore.

“Aye, that is possible,” my grandmother agreed with a scowl. “Wilden examined her after she fell asleep, he believes that she is roughly two and a half years old. She needs some proper meals and someone to care for her and show her some love. Lorne mentioned that she was reluctant to leave you, Kaelyn, so she might react best to you.”

Reluctant was putting it mildly; she had fought tooth and nail to hold onto me when I handed her over to my grandfather, all while screaming and crying in protest. I had just become an adult; did I really want to have a child to care for? Especially with so much else going on in my life. We had already decided that it might be best if she stayed in our wagon with Vesha, Master Nirlyn, and me, but I did not know anything about raising a child.

Well, the troupe did raise children communally. When one of their parents was busy or away from the camp, one of the other adults watched over them. Sometimes one or two of us would watch over all the children in the troupe at once while they play together or have their daily lessons in reading, writing, and other things with Tanna. The girl would have to become comfortable with the other members of the troupe before that could happen, but Vesha and Master Niryln would probably help me. Master Nirlyn had only been a couple of years older than I was when she adopted Vesha too.

After a moment of thought, I grudgingly nodded. “Aye, I will do what I can, at least until she is comfortable with the troupe, and we can choose a proper mother for her.”

We followed my grandmother to the fire, where the troupe was gathered for our evening meal. I spotted the Undine first, sitting with Tanna and Wilden. She seemed less confused now, but even sadder than before. I was not very surprised at that since I would probably be upset too if I were far away from home with a group of strangers that I could not communicate with. I imagined that she had more reason than that as well if she remembered anything that happened while she was tainted.

The young Elven girl was harder to spot, mostly because she had not been eating with the others, but rather hiding behind a tree while Selice attempted to coax her out. Once I spotted the situation, I quickly moved to join Selice and put on a smile in the hope that the child would not feel threatened. Crouching down to her level and summoning a pair of faerie fires so she could see me clearly, I told her, “It is going to be okay; you are safe here with u…”

I did not get to finish before the girl barreled into my chest and clung to me tightly. The poor girl was shaking in fear and her cheeks were wet with tears. “She’s been like that since we woke her and brought her out here for dinner,” Selice explained in a worried tone.

Maybe it was a bad idea to leave her with others when she resisted it so hard, but I did not want to endanger her by having her with me when I fought the Undine. People who looked human seemed to terrify her, but I was obviously not human, and I did not look like any of the other Voyagers. My skin was quite a bit paler, my hair lavender-hued instead of black, my eyes slit-pupiled and violet, and my pointed ears were a lot more prominent than those of my troupe. Then there were my wings as well.

-Perhaps one of her parents or fellow captives in Srach was a Faerie,- Sharai suggested as I held the girl and cooed softly to try and calm her. -It would explain her reactions to you.-

“It is possible,” I agreed as I gently stroked the girl’s blue hair. “Shhh, I am right here,” I assured her as I picked her up in my arms and carried her toward the fire to warm her up and get some food into her. At least the rain had stopped for the moment, though the girl’s antics had half covered her with mud and it was likely getting all over my clothes.

I carefully fed the girl before eating my meal and the poor girl was in rougher shape than I first believed. She had probably not had a decent meal in her life from the way that she tried wolfing it down at first, though she looked at me desperately before doing so, as if asking permission. At least she slowed down when I demonstrated eating slower, though it was a good thing that I was holding her plate for her. Every time that someone raised their voice a little too loud, she became startled and practically tried to burrow into my chest.

Once I was certain that she had enough to eat and plenty of water to drink from my water skin, I started to eat my own meal while she cuddled in my arms. As I ate, I took note of Vesha eating and attempting to interact with the Undine. The latter seemed less wary now in the Salamander’s presence, so perhaps Vesha being so obviously comfortable with her adopted troupe made the Undine realize that we were not going to hurt her.

I asked the girl in my arms, in both Common and Fae, whether she could understand me, but she just looked up at me in confusion. I think that she realized that I was talking to her, but she did not have the knowledge to understand what I was saying, let alone respond in any meaningful way. With a sigh, I finally gave up and slowly reached for the slightly mangled coin purse that I had lifted from one of the bodies that we found earlier.

The coin purse had drawn my attention, not because of the money that it might contain, but because I could feel a faint magic emanating from inside. The magic felt very similar to that on the collars and cages, so I had snatched the purse up to inspect. Inside I had found a small fortune in coins and a ring of small keys. The coins were gold and silver, not copper, and the keys were the source of the magic that I had sensed.

Hoping that the keys were what I suspected they were, I quickly extracted them to attempt to remove the girl’s collar. As soon as my hands got close, my new young charge panicked and tried to squirm away. I grimaced at that as it hinted that she knew all too well what happened when people attempted to remove that collar from around her neck. Pushing down the rage and desire for vengeance that boiled up inside of me at that thought, I tried to soothe the girl, hold her still, and unlock the cursed device all at once. “Shhhh shhhh, it will be alright. Soon, you will never have to worry about that collar again, little one.”

Each of the keys had a slightly different magical feel to them and I had to fumble through them before finding the one that seemed to be the closest match to the collar. I did not want to risk activating the spell on it and harming the poor girl. It was a struggle with her fighting me, but I finally managed to get the proper key in hand and insert it into the small lock that secured the collar in place. The key turned with an audible click and as the lock fell open, I released a breath that I had not realized I had been holding in relief.

I tossed the foul device to the ground and turned toward Vesha as I tried to soothe the poor girl who was now crying and clutching at her bare neck in confusion. “Honey, could you please destroy that horrid thing?”

“With pleasure,” she agreed. Then the Salamander stood up, snatched the metal collar up in her right hand, and then that very same hand erupted into flame. Within a minute, the flaming fist that clutched the offending device was white hot, the metal melting in her grip and dripping into a molten pool on the ground.

I was half-afraid that the display would have startled or even scared the Undine that Vesha had been sitting with a moment earlier. To my great surprise though, the Undine watched raptly as the deed was done, and then relaxed visibly as she nodded toward us and smiled faintly. It seemed that we had earned her trust.

Once the girl in my arms finally calmed down, I came to a decision. I could not keep calling her ‘the girl’ or variations thereof, especially if she was going to be staying with our troupe for the foreseeable future. “She needs a name,” I said.

“Aye, she does,” Aunt Sivelle agreed. Neither she nor the others offered any suggestions though.

Was this going to be all up to me then? It needed to be a good name, but I was unable to think of anything that I really liked and that suited the girl. I wondered briefly what my parents would have called her if they were still alive, but still, nothing came to me. Instead, my thoughts were just focused on my mother as I cradled the girl in my arms and made soothing sounds. My mother.

“I… I think that I would like to name her Kalara, after my mother,” I uncertainly propositioned after a moment as tears stung my eyes. All the while, I worried about how the troupe, and my grandparents in particular, would react to such a suggestion. I was not encouraged when I saw that their eyes seemed to be as teary as mine. In fact, most of the troupe seemed to have a glistening wetness about their eyes in the silence that followed.

It was my grandfather who finally broke the silence, nodding as he cleared his throat to speak. “Aye, that’s a fine idea, Kaelyn.”

The name had the unintended side effect of causing the members of the troupe to reminisce about my mother that night. We talked about the good times that they, and I, shared with her and hoped to become as close to her new namesake. Since the ground was still dangerously slick and muddy, Selice put off our dance practice for the night and it was only when Kalara drifted to sleep in my arms that I returned to my wagon a bit early to place her in the cot that I usually slept in.

I did not return to the others then, except to briefly give Cylia and the twins the sweets I had promised earlier, though I kept one for Kalara. I still needed to feed Zaiya and spend some quality time with the owlet, and as I was doing the latter, I soon discovered that Kalara had night terrors. I whispered to her softly and stroked her hair soothingly to calm her down when she awoke and then took the lap harp from the instrument cupboard to play and sing her a lullaby that I remembered my mother playing for me when I was a child.