Free Eye of the Tempest by Nicole Peeler

throughout the Territories as a friend to halflings, and a rebel leader. Her reputation is solid: She wants change, but she’s no terrorist or wacko. Everyone does thinks she’s a renegade Alfar. Very few people know her true identity as an Original. But they do know her, and good people whom I trust have vouched for her.”
    I frowned. I remembered Ryu telling me all those months ago, when we first met, that sometimes even supes who wanted to believe something enough could be glamoured. If a savior appears to fall from the sky, are you really going to be working overtime to discredit her?
    Apparently Jane True would , my brain said.
    “Like I was saying,” Nell continued, as if to drive Anyan’s point home, “if we had any doubts about Blondie’s story before that, they were dispelled when the warnings started. There is definitely something lurking in Rockabill.”
    “Is that what Stuart was doing? Was he warning us?” I asked, distracted from my thoughts about Blondie. There was so much going on, so much I’d missed out on, that I had to get caught up as quickly as possible.
    “We think so,” Anyan replied. He had felt me shiver, and his hand rubbed along my shoulders comfortingly.
    “But who’s doing the warning?” I asked.
    “We don’t know. Whatever’s hidden probably has a guard. Maybe an actual guard, maybe a magical alarm,” the barghest answered. “These are some of the things Blondie’s trying to find out.”
    “So what’s been happening? I saw Stuart, but what else has there been?”
    “Lots of odd things,” Anyan replied. “Lots of people acting like Stuart, and chanting that same phrase.”
    “Or writing the phrase,” Caleb added.
    Anyan nodded his agreement. “As graffiti on buildings, or just over and over again on napkins or placemats or newspapers.”
    “Tracy wrote it over and over in her crossword puzzle one day. It was freaky,” Amy said, and I got very pissed at the idea of someone using my pregnant friend as a passenger pigeon for a supernatural message.
    “The Sow’s also been acting up,” said Caleb.
    “The Sow?” I asked sharply, thinking of what had happened to me earlier.
    “Jana Henning lost her boat last week,” Marcus explained. “A really strong piglet popped up right under her, way farther away than any piglets should have been. The crew would have been drowned if it hadn’t subsided just as quickly.”
    “But the piglets have been acting up all over,” Sarah continued. “It’s like the Sow’s expanding or something. Keeping everything away from her.”
    “Well, that kind of goes against the experience that I had earlier,” I said, as all eyes turned to me.
    “I was swimming with Trill. We were playing in the Sow, like we normally do. I got batted down by a piglet that sprang up, but that’s not too out of the norm,” I insisted, as Caleb raised an eyebrow. “But what was out of the norm was that I started to crawl toward the Sow. I don’t know why. At the time, it felt good. It felt like… I dunno, like I was being massaged by the water. But when Trill hauled me back, I was covered in cuts and bruises.”
    The little pony nodded where she stood among our knees.
    “That’s what happened to you?” Anyan asked, his face troubled. I nodded at him.
    “She was really banged up,” he told everyone. “I healed her,” he added, lamely, when Trill’s pony form leered at him.
    “Healing? Is that what’s it’s called?” she asked, clearly ribbing the barghest. I held back a giggle as he turned a rather intense shade of red. Iris gave me a look, arching an eyebrow at me in question. I responded with a cheeky wink that made her smile.
    “And nothing like that’s ever happened before with the Sow?” Caleb asked me.
    “Never. I’ve always gotten a lot of power from her, but I’ve never lost myself like that.”
    “We should keep the humans even farther away from the Sow for a while,” Marcus said. “Just in case.”
    Amy nodded. “And