Accompanied by her facto, Zuri had gone off to conduct more research into our home. Hotene, as always, had left by herself to test a birchbark canoe t...at she’d finished the previous summer.“Isotopes,” Zuri said, coming to a stop in front of me.“Huh?”“Isotopes,” she repeated, her smirk turning into a triumphant grin. “In the water.”I shook my head. “I don’t follow.” Standing up, I brushed away the last of the curled pink wood shavings that still clung to my skin.Surviving Longshot’s launch. Finally, they came to an attic room filled with yellow stocks. No one else was there. The elderly one accompanied Eve to the closest stock and shoved her arms and head into the appropriate half moon shapes and brought the top of the stock down. The lock creaked; the restraints were in place.The serious one picked up a switch and whistled it through the air, creating a perfect whooshing sound. Greta soon revealed herself to be a master. The old bitch went light on Eve’s behind, to begin with,. Mom came up to us and joined the hug, turning this into a sappy greetingcard moment. "Okay, this is getting weird," I joked, causing everyone tobreak off the hug and laugh.I started to slink away as they sat back down again, before Mom stopped meby asking, "Are you sure you don't want to talk about what happened thismorning?"I had no idea what to say to that. Certainly, there was nothing to gainfrom telling her the truth, right? I just turned away from her and said,"No... I'm fine." I. " What does the Queen's note say?" No idea. His Grace didn't say." Great." After a moment's pause, she groaned. "Oh, fuck." What?"She pointed. From the patch of trees downstream, figures came into view. Felek climbed to his feet, Anelie rising beside him. He let out his own groan."Couldn't they wait until after dinner?"Felek counted at least two dozen Elves, maybe even thirty. A bit over half were female. He could tell that, even from this distance, from the hair color. While males only had.