“I assume everyone sees what I see … and everyone feels how I feel.” My head swims and my ears ring and I am only tethered by his hands holding on to mine.

“And how do you feel, Leora?” Oscar’s eyes are searchlights, reading my face – I feel like he could read my mind too.

“I—”

“Our beds are all ready.” Mel comes back towards the fire. I’m sure she sees Oscar and I drop hands and shift apart, but she makes no comment. I’m not sure whether I am glad or cross that we were interrupted, but when I look at him from the corner of my eye I catch him looking back at me, a little smile playing at his lips.

Solomon and Tanya join us, and we sit in a friendly silence. The fire throws sparks into the gaps between our conversation.

“I suppose they’ll be at the fireside in Featherstone too right now,” I say. “Ready for a meeting or a story or some food.” I think back to those times we were all together in Featherstone. Some nights those meetings felt like one soul in many bodies; other times, it felt like the tension crackled louder than the flames.

“I don’t know what stories they tell these days, what lies Sana shares.” Solomon looks so sad and I remember that it was him I first heard tell a story around the fire – a story that was at once so familiar and so different it left me stunned. We ease back into the comfortable dream state that happens when you’re around a fire – the hypnotic beauty, the feeling that nothing beyond your circle of light exists.

“Will you tell a story, Solomon?” I ask, and he smiles.

“Not I, Leora.” The firelight brings out the smile lines on his face, and the worry lines. “I know you are here for a reason. If I want to hear any story tonight, it is the story of what brought you back – and what brought you out, storyteller.” His dark eyes meet Mel’s. “I have always wanted to hear a tale told by a true storyteller.”

Mel looks at me and I nod. She sits cross-legged, her back tall and straight. Looking each of us in the eye as though sewing our souls together, she draws our attention tight, until all we see is her. Only then, does she begin.

They say that when you reach the heights the only way you can go is down. And so it seemed for Mayor Longsight. A young leader, cut from the same cloth as Saintstone’s heroes. Mayor Longsight had gained the love and trust of his people and, it seemed, even his enemies respected him.

Until one morning when the community gathered to watch as the mayor shared his latest success – a spy mission. He stood high on a podium – seen by all his people. They saw a woman in black scale the platform. They saw her plunge a blade beneath his ribs. They saw the flood of blood that spilled from their leader and they saw him fall.