Julia's room had received a second covering of paper. She'd gone from dusting to smattering to something that Penny would like to colorfully call 'conspiracy board fodder', or 'chain mail, but with paper, and for a wall'. Some of the papers were dressed with notes in microscopic handwriting, or elaborate character art or scenes, while others just had slashes of manic inspiration across them. As Penny passed one paper, which declared 'FIRE WOLVES', with ten underlines, she once again gave herself a mental pat on the back for her excellent taste in authors to provide her service to.

"I can't figure out where it's supposed to go!" Julia said.

"There was an outline," Penny noted.

Julia ran her fingers through her hair. "We've been off the outline for chapters, Pen-Pen. We're on uncharted ground."

Of course we are, thought Penny, but outwardly she just gave Julia an understanding nod. "I'm sorry. A lot of this is probably my fault. If I'd never incensed Hemera, she might not be so hard on Kai and them now--"

Julia cut Penny off. "But I like Hemera!"

"Kai also might never have lost all the fingers on his left hand at the Battle for the Dams," Penny said, her head spinning. "I could have intervened with that. They didn't even get an Emblem out of that! They were just helping a bunch of total strangers!"

"That's their whole thing," Julia smiled, nervously laughing as if the entire thing was some elaborate, obvious joke. "Helping strangers, I mean."

"I know," Penny said. "I'm just trying to get to the end, and it just feels like they're moving further and further away. Even with the Emblems, what are they supposed to do? There's no central organ of government."

The book was roughly a hundred computer pages by now, of which Penny had helped with maybe thirty. It did not look like they were closing in on the end at any deliberate speed. Julia shrugged.

"Maybe it's just not fixable," Penny said.

Julia's eyes fell. "Do you really... do you really think that?"

"I don't know," Penny held her arm in her hand, trying to massage the stress out. "Gwen says that you shouldn't stop a story until you at least hear what it has to say, first."

"Well, that's something." Julia's arms were folded. "You call your grandmother by her first name?"

"Is that weird?"

"I think it's cool."

"Me too, just, no one else does." Penny felt numb as she shrugged her shoulders. Stop thinking about Gwen, she told herself. Stop talking about Gwen. "She's outside right now, you know. She can't come into the book, under any circumstances, but she wanted to be here."

"Oh," Julia said.

"She thinks she can," Penny explained, her voice accelerating, growing frantic as the growing pace of her heart. "But you know, she can't... it's not her job to come after me. It's my responsibility for me not to have to have someone come after me."

Julia put her hand on Penny's. "I'm going to take better care of you this time."

Penny shook her head. "You can't be aware of me, okay? Whatever you do. You have to keep going like I'm not there."

"Pen-Pen," Julia said.

"If things actually do go south, or if you find you've got to go way, way back, maybe I can give you a refund or something. I don't want you to have to pay for me doing a bad job. It'll come right out of my savings," Penny resolved.

"Pen-Pen."

Penny turned. The nickname was excessively sugary, she'd always thought so, and it was usually accompanied by a teasing tap on the shoulder, or something of that ilk. Still, Julia said it with such a fierce sincerity that it was hard not to feel comforted by it. "What?"
Julia drew her hands around Penny, draping her in a hug. Julia was warm, and she was there, far more there than anyone else was-- as everyone else seemed to curve away from Penny, just enough for her to feel the absence, Julia was truly, entirely there. Penny leaned back into the hug. "You've done so much more than enough," whispered Julia.

When Penny removed herself from the vice grip of Julia's arms, she stood by the computer. "Living room," Penny insisted. She considered brushing herself off, too, but that might read as excessive.

Julia picked up her laptop like a delivery pizza and dragged it into the main room. Guinevere was sitting just below the window, the sunlight reaching long fingers through her white hair and illuminating it like all the dust in the room. A nervous Ms. Whittaker sat beside her, her dark hair framing her tensed shoulders. On the opposite side of the room, on the opposite couch, were Ms. and Mr. Zaragoza. They probably thought they had some stake in this.

Penny closed her eyes. She'd already implicated so many people in this ridiculous shenanigan of hers, and all when she didn't need it. Honest.

Julia put her fingers on the keys.

Granma watched from behind rimmed spectacles, the twin of Penny's own. They knew each other from behind the glasses, and Penny could feel all of her pride, and beneath that, knifelike, all of her fear.

The book grabbed her before she could grab it. Penelope felt elation rise from her like wings, then wings rose from her, and ink burbled in her veins. Her immaterial body, with all its perfect muscles and unblemished skin, landed in the midst of a scrubland. She folded her arms back. A hot wind rose up to meet her, pushing the side of her face like a dog meeting its owner for the first time in years.

"Missed you too," Penelope told the plot.

It answered only by growing more insistent. Penelope knew this would be a travelling juncture, as Julia had wanted to 'ease her back in' (a fun notion if Penelope had ever heard one), but nonetheless Julia had been sincere about it. Her travelling sections tended to drag, heavy with prose that felt that it needed to be there even when it didn't. She couldn't make characters walking fun for the life of her, but she couldn't cut it, either, so between important scenes, which were what Penelope had been proctoring, the book sagged. Penelope could feel it as she got closer, the wind abating, replaced by a feeling of terrible gravity.

Penelope's blades slit out. She could cut excess without getting too close, since it was a style concern separate of the book 'content', but the closer she got to actually altering what was going on, the more the motions up ahead seemed to jolt, like she was watching an especially temperamental television screen instead of what was, for the moment, ostensibly her reality. She could at last see Kai, Arwen, and Alisha travelling together, in a small cluster of color that set them apart from the drab setting. It was likely a lack of focus, but Penelope liked how their vibrance framed them... she really hoped Julia was putting that all in.

Still, as she drew closer, she found her eyes settling on Kai's gait. She wasn't sure if Kai had lost more limbs since she left him, but his complexion was ashen. The bleak sunlight formed a crown of light on his head as he limped forwards.

"We should settle," Alisha suggested.

"There's still sunlight to travel by," Kai protested.

"That wasn't a consideration when we started before dawn," said Arwen. When she pulled away from the group, it brought the entire three-person jumble with her. Alisha's arms dissipated, and she looked nervously up at Arwen.

Arwen grabbed some sticks and struck them together.

"Throw them down," Kai said.

With his good hand, he started a fire. It strained upwards, pulled into a funnel by magical force, and did not move towards the more enticing brush around them. His face was brightly illuminated by the dance of the flames.

"One more," he said.

Arwen nodded stiffly.

"We're really settling down, then," said Alisha, sounding disappointed. "I call first watch! Who knows if Hemera's going to come around?"

Kai grimaced. Penelope's hand went to her own neck.

"She won't," Arwen said. She put her arm back, and Kai laid down upon it, so that he was staring up at the stars.

"We'll get there, won't we?" Penelope heard Julia's anxiety whining through Kai's voice.

Neither of them answered. The fire died down again, and the boy who would be king and his two companions lay beneath the stars. Penelope cut a stray semicolon, a fondness for which Julia seemed to be quelling, but besides that, the scene was unblemished. Penelope's shoulders sagged. Around the fire, which she could only watch from afar, the danger seemed nullified, faint.

Then there was the equally faint ruffle of bushes. Penelope dodged out of the way, becoming invisible, and a thin mist of ink blossomed around her blades as she became the color of the trees around her. At the fire, Alisha's large eyes blinked, and the girl grew treelike arms, propping herself onto her feet. "Who's there?"

Not me, thought Penelope. I'm nowhere. I'm no one.

Hemera crossed in front of her. Penelope shrunk further against the tree. Alisha rose to meet her, and a shadowy mass reached forwards and held a struggling Hemera in the air. The invader gasped, a noise unbefitting of her station, and Alisha raised her other arm. Her eyes narrowed, she said, "Coward." Two knives fell from Hemera's sides, embedding themselves in the ground.

"I'm no coward. I would have woken him before I fought him," Hemera snapped. "Don't you dare call me a coward."

Alisha did not budge. "Then what did you want? Don't tell me you want diplomacy, after what happened at the Battle for the Dams."

Hemera had given them a moment of respite after they'd averted the catastrophe their battle had caused, somewhat inadvertently. Hemera's help had been invaluable in evacuating the citizens from the area, as well as in beating back the Chain Gang in the following days. Kai's fingers, which had become massive stone gates, now protected the civilization below from the roar of the waters. Prince's fingers. Royal blood and bone. The Font cherished his flesh like young daisies loved the sun. They paid handsomely for it.

"You keep him from fighting his own war. He wants the crown, he should win it by blood," Hemera claimed.

"That's not the way we do things," Alisha said.

Penelope did not need to do anything. Kai did not need to do anything. Hemera's expression shifted. "Let me down."

Alisha dropped her. Hemera brushed her clothes off. "Go on," Alisha said. "If you have anything to say besides sorry, now is not the time for it. Come again, and I will make you sorry in the name of all of the morals you claim to believe in."

Penelope waited. Hemera nodded stiffly, her face clenched into a grimace, and she disappeared into the night.

"What happened?" asked a meek Kai, from the fire.

"I took care of it," Alisha promised, settling back down beside him. "Night terrors. You know."

"I don't know. What's the problem? Is there going to be more?" Kai leaned over to retrieve the Emblem and his body shook imperceptibly, in a way that hit Penny straight through the heart. She dropped to one knee, as if she'd been hit, and watched Kai tremble as he held the third Emblem. "The Tides Broach." He said. "Tell me where to aim. I've wanted to test this out."

"It's over," promised Alisha. "Kai, go to sleep."

The two of them settled. Penelope could as easily step through to the next day, but she found herself backing up. Her eyes darted towards a nearby tree, once she was sufficiently out of range, and she cut a tree in two with her blade, reality paring into a hole through its center. She slashed meaninglessly at the air and foliage, which recovered around her. Penny could feel the bleed seeping out of her, leaving her even more breathless.

Penelope held her ground.

From the dark gouges she'd left on reality, color began ebbing back. A look at her canisters assured her that her outburst had left her low on ink. "I'll do better next time," she said. The wind whistled around her. Julia was going to go forwards. She had to move on, or she'd lose hours. "I'll do better. I'll do better."

She stepped through.

The living room was quiet, but equally mundane. A girl sat on her computer, typing a story. Her mother and grandmother sat on one side, unusually pensive. The Zaragozas, on the right, were drinking coffee. It was, by all accounts, a common afternoon, and a girl came through the air, her hair spilling out around her as she became a child again.

Her hands shook.

Her grandmother was still watching her with those kind, soft eyes. Penny averted her own gaze, for fear she could hurt someone with all the fire in her skull.