Kendra Kandlestar and the Shard From Greeve by Lee Edward Födi

for Jinx wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and Captain Rinkle. They did not see the vile Een, but even so, they kept their pace up. After two days, they reached a river that served as the border to the mighty Fengir, that great stretch of forest that stood between them and the Seas of Ire. Search as they might, they could find no crossing, so at last, Jinx built a small makeshift raft with sticks of wood and a bit of twine. By the time they reached the opposite bank, the raft had crumbled apart, but it had served its purpose, and so they continued on their way, trudging with trepidation beneath the somber shadows of the Fengir.
    The way was cold and dark, and they suffered for supplies. After all, they had not prepared for a journey of such length, especially in the late autumn. At night, they slept in the hollows of trees or in small rock crevices, huddling together for warmth. For food, they subsisted on the meager Een cake that Professor Bumblebean had provisioned, along with wild roots and nuts.
    “What do you think they’re doing back home right now?” Oki asked one miserable, chilly night as he nibbled on a bit of Een cake.
    “Sitting round a warm fire, sipping tea, and telling tales of old,” Jinx mused.
    “I wish I had a cup of tea,” Oki said. “Something to warm my whiskers at least. As for the tales—well, I have my own tail. ”
    “Your puns are growing less inventive by the day,” Jinx told the mouse. “I think your brain is starting to freeze.”
    “Everything is freezing here,” Kendra declared.
    “We’re headed south,” Jinx said. “Maybe we’ll leave the frost behind us.”
    But the next morning, they awoke to a skiff of snow on the ground.
    The forest, of course, harbored many perils. One night, several days into their journey, a hungry fox decided the Eens would make a quick and easy snack, but he soon found himself on the wrong end of Jinx’s poker. With a few well-placed jabs, she sent the poor creature yelping and scampering back to its den to lick its wounds and face nightmares of insects wielding weapons of steel.
    Then, a few days after the fox incident, the company stumbled upon a ragtag camp of Goojun warriors. The small, toadlike beasts were perhaps more surprised at this encounter than our Een adventurers, but it was Goojun instinct to attack, and attack they did. They had little fight in them, however; it was obvious that they had recently suffered in some terrible battle, for they sported all manner of cuts and bruises. As such, Jinx made quick work of the creatures, swinging her poker and beating them so soundly that, in the end, it was all the slurping Goojuns could do to flee.
    There was one more troubling problem that the three companions encountered as they journeyed through the Fengir: They could not shake the feeling that they were being followed. It was Oki who sensed it first; Jinx was quick to dismiss it as jitters, but she came to believe Oki after being awoken one night by the snapping of a twig. To the grasshopper’s trained ear it sounded like a footstep, but a quick search of the area revealed no one.
    “It might be Captain Rinkle,” Kendra suggested.
    “He wouldn’t sneak about,” Jinx countered. “He’d just come storming in, swords a-swinging.”
    They started keeping watch that night, but found no further evidence of a tracker. If someone was following them, he was now using greater stealth.
    During the first weeks of the journey, Kendra committed to practicing magic with her Eenwood. Each night, after they had taken a humble meal, she would sit quietly and try to tune her mind to the wand. This met with little success, for she continued to struggle with settling her mind. It did not help to feel the shard pulsing from within her pouch, so close and ever-present; it gnawed at her mind, like a termite feasting on wood. Kendra simply could not focus.
    Finally, one night after Oki and Jinx had fallen asleep, Kendra set aside her