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Almere didn't care that her magic weapon was a seemingly average spoon. It was hers, and it was magic. She could summon it out of thin air, which meant that they shared a sacred bond. It was her Excalibur, her Mjolnir, her Holy Avenger.

Right now, it was melting.

It wasn't melting in a good way, either, like it was trying to shift so that she could finally become a Squire. Was that how that worked? She didn't actually know. It felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. Powering up had been getting to the point where it just felt easy as breathing, but this time she'd had to work for it.

Then once she got there, the spoon felt mushy.


The first thing she did was message Mechelen, before she could let herself panic all the way. She started towards her house, so they could meet halfway, but she could already feel the uneasiness rising.

The spoon continued to melt. By the time Mechelen got there, it had dripped onto the ground, a little bit at a time, like a candle that was all the way burned. All that was left was a tiny, wobbly stem, and as Mechelen showed up, she threw that to the ground too. Then her eyes widened as she watched what happened to Mechelen’s tapestry.

“It’s my fault,” she said, flingers trembling slightly. “There was Chaos in that observatory, right? There was evil?”

Her lip started to tremble, too, as she looked from one weapon puddle to another. “And I talked! I told the forces of evil that I was scared of losing my powers, that it would just about break me, and they must have heard, even though we stopped that robot.”

Part of being a knight meant being brave, but it was already getting so hard not to cry.

“Because now they’re coming for me. It’s happening.”

Almere leaned into Mechelen’s hug, and even hugged her back tight. She was still being very brave, and not crying, even holding her breath so that she couldn’t let out a sob. She was saying that it wasn’t because of what Almere had done, or because of the Chaos on the other world at all, but Almere wasn’t so sure.

What had been Mechelen’s fear? Letting people down. Almere remembered.

Of course Almere didn’t care if she had powers or not, but it might feel like she was letting people down, or that it was easier too, if she couldn’t protect them in the same way anymore. Or, maybe it wasn’t that and it was just that whatever had heard Almere was coming after her friends, too.

She tried to nod, though.

“Okay,” she mumbled.

“But if it’s something else, then what do you think it is?”

A note appearing out of nowhere was enough to get Almere to pull away from Mechelen, as much as she could really use the hug right now. It was also enough to get her to think about something besides just the magic and the melty spoon for a second.

This was affecting other people, too.

Other people that had been on Urania, the note said, and the anxious part of Almere wondered if her fear had been enough to mess things up for all of them.

On the other hand, maybe it was something bigger.

“There’s strength in numbers, right? Power in friendship?” Neither of them really had the answers, but maybe someone else would. She wasn’t always the best at making friends or talking to new people, but this was something that might take more than the two of them.

“It’s probably a good idea to see if they found anything else. Otherwise, I’m just going to worry more.” She swallowed, still clearly not quite done worrying. “If you want to see, I’ll go with you.”