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It’s so good to be back at Kaer Guangling. Better still to recognize the sights and smells of her own home, now that the curse is broken at last.

There is a happy shriek from the doors of the keep proper as Qingyang and her company ride into the courtyard. “Niang!”

Qingyang’s eyes prickle with fresh tears — she’s been crying so much more easily in the last couple weeks; a side effect of the cursebreaking perhaps — and she dismounts with alacrity. She is just in time to catch Mianmian as she barrels into her with all the force of an Aard. “My sweet girl,” Qingyang murmurs, clutching her child tightly to her.

Zhuoying follows his daughter at a slower pace. He clasps Zixuan’s hand, then bows to Jiang Yanli. The sorceress nods regally from atop her palfrey and accepts Zhuoying’s hand to dismount. Qingyang is aware of all this in a distant sort of way, her witcher-sharp senses processing what goes on around her while the bulk of her attention is on the precious bundle in her arms. Her sweet daughter, her Child Surprise.

It is galling to think that, with the curse upon her, she had not known the child given to her by Destiny, that she had been a danger to her. Mianmian squirms a little as Qingyang’s arms tighten around her, and Qingyang takes a deep breath and consciously loosens her grip. “I missed you,” she tells her child. Then, as Zhuoying approaches her at last, she presses her forehead to his and repeats the words.

“It is good to have you home,” Zhuoying says, “my lamb.”

Qingyang lets the warmth of the greeting settle into her bones, lets herself believe that she is, at last, home. After a long moment, she exhales and steps back, setting Mianmian back on her feet.

“Right,” she says. “Introductions. Zhuoying, this is Jiang Yanli, the mage who helped to break the curse upon me. Lady Jiang, these are Zhuoying and Mianmian. My family.”

Jiang Yanli raises her eyebrows at this — witchers are not known to have family who are not other witchers — but her smile is gracious and she sounds entirely sincere when she says, “It is an honor to meet those who are dear to Witcher Qingyang.”

“Be welcome to Kaer Guangling, Lady Jiang,” Zhuoying answers, more smoothly than might be expected from a simple merchant. The etiquette of the Griffins has rubbed off on him in the years since Qingyang asked him to follow her on the Path rather than be parted from his child by the Law of Surprise.

It takes some time before they all make it indoors. Zixuan looks pleadingly at Qingyang until she grins and lets him show Jiang Yanli inside. She and Zhuoying, with Mianmian’s dubiously helpful input, stay behind to curry and stable the horses.

Ealdred and Coën meet them in the main hall of the keep. Qingyang embraces her brothers, each in turn.

“Welcome back, sister,” says Ealdred.

“Trust you to leave with a curse and come back with a mage,” says Coën.

“Hey,” Qingyang protests, laughing, “she’s Zixuan’s mage! I am just the fortunate recipient of her beneficence.”

“Oh?” says Coën, drawing out the syllable gleefully. “And just how did Zixuan find himself a mage?”

“You’ll have to ask him.” Qingyang smirks. “Preferably over supper, so we can all enjoy his blushes.”

Supper is a feast, and not just because witchers always have ferocious appetites. Qingyang’s brothers want to celebrate her recovery in high style. George and Zichen had been out hunting, apparently, and a few of the trainees rig up a spit in the fireplace in the main hall for one of the boars they returned with.

Qingyang returns to the hall with her hair still wet from her bath and finds Jiang Yanli deep in conversation with old Keldar at the end of one table. Zixuan is sitting next to her, chin propped on his hand, clearly content to sit and watch the mage and the teaching master talk. He starts when Qingyang joins him on the bench and elbows him.

"Hey!"

Qingyang sticks her tongue out at him and then turns her back, straddling the bench. "Braid my hair, please, brother?"

Zixuan exhales an amused huff and a moment later Qingyang feels his fingers, deft on her scalp, dividing her hair into sections.

"You're good at that, Master Witcher," Jiang Yanli says a minute later, breaking off her and Keldar's discussion of the taxonomy of cursed monsters.

"Years of practice," Zixuan replies. Qingyang can hear the smile in his voice.

"He can do you next," Qingyang offers, smiling wickedly when Zixuan fumbles a crossover.

"I-I couldn't possibly," he stammers. "Lady Jiang's hair is already so beautifully styled."

"Thank you," Jiang Yanli says softly, though with good humour. "I'm afraid I've been rather profligate with my Chaos to maintain my style during our journey. I hope you won't think less of me for that."

Old Keldar snorts. "No, that's about what one would expect from a mage," he says. "You're all about keeping up appearances."

"Keldar!" Zixuan protests. "Lady Jiang isn't superficial."

Jiang Yanli laughs. "You're both right," she says. "For mages, appearance is important. But it's far from the only thing that matters."

"No," Qingyang agrees. "There's power." She holds carefully still while Zixuan works his way down her hair, watching as the rest of the trainees start coming in from the training yard or down from the library.

"Yes, there is power," says Jiang Yanli. "Power to make a ward or break a curse or, if one is very powerful or clever or lucky, power enough to remake the world." She pauses, then says delicately, "And I do not only mean the power that comes from channeling Chaos."

Zixuan ties off Qingyang's braid at last, allowing her to turn on the bench. She leans forward slightly over the table so she can meet Jiang Yanli's eyes. The mage's face is grave. "I take your point, lady mage," Qingyang says.

Zixuan frowns, looking between them. "Do you? I don't."

Qingyang tallies on her fingers as she speaks. "Who laid that curse on me? For what purpose? Was I its intended target, or were you, since we are known to travel together, and you have ties to a noble house? If it was I, what would my incapacity gain the caster? Did they want something from the School of the Griffin? What do we have, apart from our reputation, that someone might want? Or was it our reputation that the curse was meant to take from us? Certainly, a Griffin gone feral would make a good scapegoat for someone who wants ill feeling to come our way."

Qingyang stops speaking with two fingers left unbent. Zixuan nods grimly. "All right, I do take your point."

At that moment, the younger trainees, under Zhuoying's direction, begin to set the table. Qingyang takes her elbows off the board to give them space to maneuver.

"I'll tell you one thing," Zixuan continues in a lower voice. "We're the only Witcher School remaining with the backing of the local lords. If something happened to jeopardize that, we'd be as vulnerable as the others."

They all pause to take that in. Keldar harrumphs. "Seems the trouble that came upon you is not yet over," he says.

Zhuoying comes over to the table just then. "That's a lot of grim faces," he says, sitting down across from Qingyang. "I thought we were celebrating.”

Qingyang looks around and spots Mianmian watching Zichen occupy himself with the boar on the spit. She reassures herself that her child is all right and turns her attention to Zhuoying, who smiles sympathetically as if he followed the trajectory of her thoughts.

"We can celebrate and plan at the same time," she tells him. They fill him in on their conjectures, and his face grows alarmed.

"You're not leaving again right away, are you?" he asks.

Qingyang exchanges a glance with Zixuan and is relieved to find wordless affirmation on his face. "No," she says, reaching across the table to grip Zhuoying's hand. "Not right away. I think I'll stay and teach for a time."

"We'll go back out to investigate," Zixuan says, then falters, looking sidelong at Jiang Yanli. "That is, if Lady Jiang is amenable."

Jiang Yanli smiles. "Lady Jiang is amenable. I have the puzzle between my teeth now. I won't be satisfied until we solve it." Qingyang never really forgets that Jiang Yanli is a formidable sorceress, but looking at Jiang Yanli's face and the determination hiding under the mild tones, she is reminded of it anew.

"Thank you," says Zhuoying. He swallows and forges on, words brimming with emotion. "For bringing my beloved home to us. For going out into danger again on her behalf."

Qingyang is grateful that witchers cannot blush, or she would be. Jiang Yanli accepts the gratitude courteously. "It's more interesting than Aretuza, at any rate," she adds lightly, and the moment breaks.

At that time, the platters of food begin arriving, brought by witchers and trainees alike. Zixuan and Mianmian, as the newest returnees, are excused from serving. Mianmian comes to the table, carefully balancing a platter of freshly carved boar in her small hands.

Qingyang grins at her daughter as she begins loading up her plate. "Are you being helpful for Zichen, Mianmian?"

"Yes, Niang," Mianmian says. She allows Zhuoying to relieve her of her burden and then climbs onto the bench beside him. Zhuoying takes over dividing the meat out on all their plates. "Uncle Song says he's glad you're all right and to please enjoy this meat with his compliments."

"Thank you, Mianmian." Qingyang looks across to the hearth where Zichen is still carving. "I'll speak with him later."

"Are you all right, Niang?" Mianmian asks. Her little face is tense and Qingyang feels a pang. "Were you hurt?"

Qingyang hesitates. "No, but I had a bad spell on me, which your Uncle Zixuan and Lady Jiang helped break." She leans across the table to pile stewed vegetables on Mianmian's plate. "I really am all right now. And I will stay home for a bit before going back out on the Path."

The tension leaves Mianmian's face at Qingyang's words. She finally starts eating. Relieved, Qingyang applies herself to her own meal.

After that, the party goes into full swing. Half an hour into the meal, Keldar rises and gives a toast — cutting through the roar of a hall full of witchers and trainees all having conversations at speaking volume — and that seems to break the seal, because after that Qingyang’s witcher siblings keep coming up to her with toast after toast. Someone breaks out the White Gull at some point and the night devolves from there.

As soon as Zhuoying catches a whiff of the caustic drink, he laughs and, catching Mianmian around the waist, declares, “It’s time for little griffins to go to bed now.”

Mianmian complains sleepily, but it’s clearly just for the principle of the thing. They’ve allowed her to stay up well past her bedtime, given the celebration.

Qingyang rises, but Zhuoying waves away her offer of help. “Enjoy your poisonous spirits,” he laughs. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

Qingyang kisses first his temple and then Mianmian’s and returns to the table where Coën — of course it’s Coën — is instigating a drinking game.

So it’s with a pounding headache and deep regret that Qingyang sees Zixuan and Jiang Yanli off the next morning. Zixuan, too, looks a bit bleary, though he handles his horse adroitly enough.

Qingyang embraces him tightly before he mounts. “Stay safe out there,” she tells him.

“We’ll be fine,” he says. “And we’ll avenge your curse.”

They part and clasp hands one last time; then Zixuan mounts his Suihua and urges her toward the gates.

Jiang Yanli smiles at Qingyang. “We’ll see you soon,” she says.

Then she turns her horse to follow Zixuan’s.

Qingyang watches them until they pass the boundary of Kaer Guangling. Then, shaking off her worry for them, she goes inside.