Erria was already awake. She stood next to the dining table, shoving items into her leather bag with a concentrated look on her face. Elawynn, on the other hand, was tucked under the covers on the bed behind me, still asleep.

  “Are you going somewhere?” I asked.

  Erria picked up a metal box from the table and carefully positioned it inside her bag.

  “I am going to the library,” she said.

  I shoved the thin sheet off and sat up.

  “The library?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I need to do some research. It’s urgent.”

  Erria stepped closer to the door, and I was about to let her leave, but I didn’t want to be left alone with nothing to do again.

  “What are you going to research?” I asked hastily.

  Erria stopped in the doorway. She glanced in my direction, but not at me. She was looking at Elawynn.

  “It’s about my sister.” She paused. “Every time these… transformations happen, she gets weaker. I need to do research, so I know what to do.”

  Erria turned towards the exit again.

  “Can I come with you?” I said.

  “Okay,” she replied, “but you should hurry.”

  I nodded, rushed my arms through the sleeves of my jumper and hastily assembled the scarf around my neck. It’s not that it was cold; it wasn’t. Not for a human, at least. It was protection from the sun, not cold.

  I rushed out onto the porch, still feeling a little dazed from sleep, my hair tangled and ruffled. Erria gave me a nod of acknowledgement and begun walking.

  I’d expected Erria to turn towards the city, but she walked into the same direction we had headed in to forage mushrooms. I rummaged through my head, wondering whether I’d simply forgotten which direction the city was in. Could I have been misremembering? But, the further we walked, the surer I became that we were heading deeper into the forest.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The library,” Erria replied.

  “I understand that,” I said, “but why are we heading away from the city?”

  Erria glanced up at me, her facial expression almost confused. Then, she shook her head.

  “No, we’re not headed to the city. The library I want to visit is in a druid village. Their villages normally have some very good libraries.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know much about druids at all. I knew that there weren’t many back home on Dorran, and I knew there were plenty here in Zellodania, but I didn’t know much more than that. I’d come across some villages while navigating the forest, but whether they were druid villages or not I would not be able to say. I’d avoided coming into these villages, not knowing who could live there and how they might feel about half-vampires.

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  As we walked, I imagined the types of libraries these druid villages may have, the types of people who might live there, but it wasn’t long until these thoughts left my head, displaced by a general feeling of fatigue.

  About an hour into walking I was starting to regret not having eaten breakfast at home. To make matters worse, my feet were already getting sore. Being a weakling half-vampire didn’t help. At times like this, it was easy to be envious of human stamina, but at the same time, I had to remind myself of how lucky I was to be merely a half-vampire, not a full one.

  Finally, Erria stopped. Was this the end of our walk? I looked around, trying to peer through the foliage, but no village was in sight.

  Erria sat down on a log and opened her bag. She slipped out the metal box she packed and looked up at me.

  “I wanted to take a little rest from walking,” she said.

  I sat on the log next to her, afraid to ask how much longer it would be until we would finally reach the library. Erria opened the box, revealing a neatly packed lunch. The meal seemed to be made up of starchy tubers cut into cubes. A golden sauce was drizzled over the top.

  “It’s taro. It grows well here in Zellodania,” she said. She fished out a fork from her bag and offered it to me. “You should try some.”

  I tried a piece. This plant didn’t grow on Dorran, but I found it similar in taste and texture to potato. Together, Erria and I cleared out the lunchbox in no time. Soon, it was time to start walking again.

  “So, these druids,” I started, “are they welcoming to outsiders?”

  “Yes, very much so, as long as you respect their customs and religious beliefs.”

  Erria continued walking, not elaborating much further. I tried imagining the village, but scenarios of various cultural mistakes bubbled into my mind. It was already difficult enough to get used to Zellodania, and I imagined Druid culture to be even more dissimilar to what I was accustomed to.

  “What types of customs does one need to respect? Is there anything I should know before we go in?” I asked.

  Erria seemed to think for a bit.

  “Don’t damage their village, and especially not their plants. Don’t waste food or pollute the environment. Be respectful in general.”

  I nodded. This all seemed simple enough.

  “And are you sure they don’t have anything against half-vampires? Or vampires in general?”

  Erria shook her head.

  “No, I think that’s more of a Dorran thing. No one here would even really know the difference between half and full vampire. They might not even assume that you’re a vampire at all. They may just assume that you’re a pale boy with red eyes.”

  “Huh.”

  It seemed like things worked a little differently here. On Dorran, red eyes were enough to instantly brand you as a vampire. It’s not that people hated vampires; with its perpetually overcast weather, there were enough vampires on Dorran that people were simply used to them. Being a half-vampire, on the other hand, was considered an outcome of immorality by some ignorant people. I was not correctly a vampire, and not correctly a human.

  “And for what it’s worth,” continued Erria, “I think even on Dorran the negative attitude towards half-vampires just stemmed from jealousy.”

  I glanced at Erria curiously.

  “Well, think about it. As a half vampire, you have all of the positives – no aging, no diseases – and less of the negatives. Half vampires get sunburnt less, right?”

  I nodded. “That’s right. And we need less blood, too.”

  Erria gave me a warm smile..

  “See? It’s just objectively better. They only get away with the bad treatment because half-vampires are rarer.”

  I smiled back. Erria faced forward, and I did the same. Through the trees, I saw the village. There were a few wooden and stone buildings harmoniously interspersed with old trees. A taller building, maybe two or three stories tall, stood out from the rest. It was made almost fully of wood, with vines twining up the walls in decorative patterns.

  We walked through the village straight for the library. A few kids were running around the village, playing some sort of game. They stopped running and stared at us with green eyes as we walked. Nearby, a few people tended to a garden. They looked up at us too, and for a second I was worried, but they smiled at us. All of them wore simple clothes in green or shades of brown. Their hair was worn in long hairstyles. I felt a little out of place, almost like an invader in their village.

  Finally, we stood in front of the library. Its doors were thick, with various plants and animals engraved into the wood. Erria pushed on the door and it creaked.