“Hold on, hold on. I don’t like having my back to the open.” Blanche picked up her bedroll and situated herself between Archie and Barley. She pulled her blankets up to her chin and grinned. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  A cool breeze weaved its way through the dark stable, the hay rustling and the goats and horses perking up and the flames of the lanterns dancing and casting strange shadows. Sutton scooted closer to the lantern.

  Barley leaned over to look out of a window. His face scrunched up in intense study, spooking the rest of the group. Archie looked over his shoulder. Nori moved her bedroll so that her back would be against the fencing.

  “What is it?” Blanche asked as she pulled her blankets even tighter.

  “Well…” Barley considered for a moment. “I’m checking to see if it’s going to snow. This isn’t a story to be told when it snows.”

  “Oh, come on, Bar,” Archie said. “It’s too warm for that.”

  “Hm.” Barley looked at the night sky. “You’d be surprised how quickly the weather can turn here.”

  “Tell the story!” Archie goaded Barley on, but the Khalyan’s troubled face told him how serious the traditions of storytelling were to him. Archie eased off. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  Barley watched the night sky for a while longer and nodded. “Alright. The story begins almost a thousand years ago, not long after Tamani died.”

  “Tamani?” Blanche interrupted.

  Sutton clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Tamani. As in Ambrosia’s daughter. You seriously don’t know that?”

  Blanche recoiled dramatically. “Sorr-ee.” She made a face at Nori, prompting a giggle. “Sorry, go on, Barley.”

  Barley poked at the ground with a long piece of hay as he figured out where to start.

  “There was a village high, high in the mountains. Where the laeror trees grow.”

  “Laeror?” Blanche interrupted.

  “Blanche!” Sutton yelled, his nasally whine startling one of the goats. “Are you going to keep interrupting?”

  “Sorry!” she snapped back.

  Barley laughed. “It’s a rare tree. The heidrun goats eat its leaves. Their milk is what keeps fridges cold.”

  “Thank you, Barley,” Blanche said as she shot Sutton a dirty look. “Okay, no more interruptions. Continue, continue.”

  “Anyway,” Barley continued, “the village harvested heidrun milk and traded it with villages further down the mountain. They lived like that for decades until one day, a terrible storm came through. Now, they were used to storms, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime snow.

  “It piled up over the roofs of their homes and cut them off from the rest of the world. For weeks, they survived under the snow. They dug tunnels to each other's homes. They dug up from their chimneys so the smoke could get out. At some points, it got so cold that the dozen families that made up the village all stayed in the same home, bundling up with each other for warmth.”

  Influenced by the chill of the story, Nori tucked herself into her blankets.

  “Further up the mountain, three men had taken a herd of heidrun to eat the laeror leaves. The snow stranded them in the high mountains, forcing them to make a terrible decision. You see, that far north and that far up, the caves belong to the yetis. But these men had no choice. If they stayed out in the snow, they’d freeze to death.

  “They found a large cave and initially stayed near the edge, too afraid to go deeper. But it got colder with each passing night. They slaughtered some of their herd for the furs, the blood of the slain feeding the rest of the heidrun. But after a couple of days, the men couldn’t control the herd any longer. The heidrun got restless. Some went deeper into the caves. At night, the men would hear the goat hooves echo from deep in the tunnels. They would hear the shuffling of fur, and in the pitch black of night, would wonder if the sound was a yeti coming up to steal them and take them deep into their caves.”

  The shadows of the stable animals seemed to grow and morph. Without thinking, Archie checked behind him. Blanche saw Archie’s movement and whipped around in her scrunched up bedroll, looking with him. They laughed at each other.

  “After weeks waiting in that cave, the men were no longer afraid of the yetis. They were afraid of hunger. All of their goats had either escaped or been slaughtered. The men ran out of food. They went hours without moving, first being afraid of spending their energy, then being too weak to move.

  “Then one of them heard a voice come from deep in the cave. ‘Are you hungry?’ it asked. The man turned to the others and asked which one of them had said it. Not only had neither said it, but neither had heard it.

  “The next day, the man heard the voice again. ‘You don’t have to be hungry,’ it said. The man stood up and followed the voice deeper into the cave. ‘Don’t go!’ his companions urged him. ‘It’s the yetis!’

  “But it wasn’t the yetis. It was the wendigo.”

  A draft of wind poured down Archie’s back as if someone had opened a door behind him. Goosebumps from the cold met goosebumps from fear, but he thought he’d seem foolish for looking. Thankfully, Blanche had no such reservations and checked. All clear.

  “A long, long time ago, possibly even before Ambrosia, an evil man walked the earth. His evil was so intense, so vile, that it infected the ground he walked on, leaving traces of his wickedness.

  “He became known as the wendigo. And while some say he is long gone, the wendigo’s presence remains. When you find yourself walking the same path that the man had walked, it's said you can hear the wendigo’s voice.”

  Archie winced and looked at the ground. A disembodied voice of evil. Ancient creatures. It was all a little too familiar. Across the lantern, Nori watched him.

  “Back in the village, the people worried for weeks about the herders. But then, one day, one of them returned. Just one. The man that had heard the voice. But he didn’t seem like himself. His body had twisted and grown. He stood as wide as three men.”

  Barley stopped and looked around at the others. He raised his eyebrows at Blanche, inviting an interruption.

  “A Glutton?” Blanche asked.

  “Exactly,” Barley said. “We believe that Gluttony is a form of possession. The wendigo tempts the weak-willed, and when they give in to his whims, they commit terrible acts inspired by their insatiable desires. That is when the wendigo takes their bodies for itself.”

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  A chill went down Archie’s spine. He remembered seeing the transformation firsthand. Mr. Ackers had attacked his own child for sneaking some food. He transformed then and there, the sounds of his bones and flesh warping having plagued Archie’s memory ever since. He shuddered at the thought.

  “The villagers were confused by the man’s new appearance, but celebrated his return anyways. He claimed that the other two men had died of starvation. At first, the villagers believed him. But then, a few days later, someone caught him eating more than his share of rations. Some of the villagers started to turn on him.

  “One of the children died of the cold. The Glutton offered to bury the child, but one of the other men didn’t trust him. So the Glutton went with the man to bury the child.”

  “The other man didn’t return!” Blanche interrupted.

  Sutton threw a little ball of hay at her. Archie and Nori laughed, but Barley didn’t. Telling the story seemed to pain him.

  “No, the man returned. But he was different. Changed like the other man. Transformed. A host for the wendigo. The snows continued, and their food supply got lower and lower. They didn’t have enough for everyone, and especially didn’t have enough for two Gluttons.

  “Resentment built, and the villagers spoke in whispers about what to do about the Gluttons. They wanted to cast them out, but lacked the resolve. However much these men might have changed, they had grown up with them. And they wondered if they even could force the Gluttons out. The villagers grew weaker with every passing day, but the Gluttons remained strong.

  “Then one day, the mother of the dead child had a terrible dream. She woke up screaming that her child had never been buried. At first, she was dismissed, but hysteria soon overtook the village. The father demanded to be taken to the grave. The Gluttons offered to take both parents, so they went with the Gluttons. The father never returned. The mother did, but she too had been taken by the wendigo.”

  Sutton coughed, making Blanche jump.

  “The rations started to run out, but while the villagers wasted away, the Gluttons only grew larger. Some villagers died of hunger. Others went to the Gluttons, desperate to learn how they managed to survive. For every two people that went to the Gluttons, only one came back, and they too had been possessed by the wendigo.

  “And then a voice rang out from above the snow. As it turns out, of the three men that had gone high into the mountains, only one had died. The second had run away and hid. He returned to the village, shouting a warning.

  “‘The wendigo has taken him! The wendigo has taken him! He killed him! He ate him!’”

  Barley looked around the fire, letting suspense build. Nori bit her lip. Archie checked behind him again. Sutton and Blanche held their bedrolls high against their faces.

  “He dug his way through the snow and found their tunnels, but upon seeing the villagers, he wished he hadn’t. For there were none that had been untouched by the wendigo. It had already gotten all of the villagers. One by one, it corrupted them. You see, the wendigo wants to spread itself. Once it has created one Glutton, that Glutton will work to create another. To tempt another.

  “That’s why Gluttons always get along with each other. You’d think they would be at odds with each other—competing for resources. But instead, they work together, for they are possessed by the same spirit. In a way, they are of one mind.

  “The man saw the horrors that had unfolded. Half of the villagers were gone, but there were no graves. He knew the wendigo would try to spread through the country, so he tried to flee to warn the other villages. But the Gluttons caught him. They brought him back to the village and tied him down to a stone.

  “And then the wendigo spoke to him. It offered to help him survive. All he had to do was go to the other villages and spread the wendigo. The man refused, so the wendigo declared him a lost cause. The Gluttons, with the wendigo’s permission, killed the man and ate him. And when the snows ended, the wendigo instructed the Gluttons to corrupt the other villages. And to this day, when you’re high in the mountains and hungry and desperate, the wendigo calls to you.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Barley clarified, “the end.”

  “Scary!” Blanche said with glee.

  “Scary,” Sutton said with dread.

  “It makes sense,” Nori said. “Is that what you believe? That the wendigo is the cause of Gluttony?”

  “Yes,” Barley said. “Or some version of that.”

  “Then how do people outside of Khala turn into Gluttons?” Archie asked.

  “Well. The evil man wasn’t from Khala. He traveled here. So wherever he walked in his life, the wendigo exists.”

  “Consider me a non-believer,” Blanche said. “As much as I love scary stories, I know most of them are just fairy tales.”

  Archie caught Nori’s gaze across the fire. “It exists,” Archie said. “We heard it.”

  “What?” Blanche leaned away from Archie as if he might eat her at any second.

  “Not far from Ambrosia City. When we ran into the licertes. When I got this.” He pulled up the leg of his pants, showing the jagged scar on his lower leg. “Before they attacked us, we heard a voice.”

  “What did it say?”

  Archie remembered the last thing he heard before the licertes attacked.

  Tell me, Archie. Are…you full of essence?

  “It…it wanted to eat me. Or I guess feed me to its pets.”

  “Have you heard it since?”

  Archie wondered if his nightmares counted.

  “No,” Nori answered.

  The group breathed a sigh of relief. Archie decided not to tell them the truth. That he had heard the voice in his dreams. That even if it didn’t speak with the same cadence, the voice had prompted him into what Sutton had deemed ‘Gluttonous episodes.’ Archie wanted to believe that those days were behind him. He had resisted. He had made the kulkida risotto. He was pure of heart.

  They sat in silence. The lantern fought a losing battle against the darkness.

  “How about a happy story?” Sutton blurted out to a chorus of agreement.

  They sat in another moment of silence as they waited for a volunteer. Archie looked at Nori, recalling all of their adventures in the last year. The blueberry picking that ended in a fight for their lives. The time he had embarrassed himself at Cafe Julienne. The secret risotto operation that put Archie in Prince Waldorf’s private kitchen prison. Kidnapping a child—couldn’t talk about that one, either.

  The weight of each trauma started to stack up in his mind. He stared at Nori, trying to find the good. He had so many happy memories with Nori, but he couldn’t think of them without thinking of their inevitably tragic ends.

  “Oh!” Blanche slapped Archie’s arm. “Tell them about when you thought you had a Blue Orchards apple.”

  The funny memory cut through Archie’s trauma, bringing a smile to his face. “Oh, man…”

  Archie didn’t think the story was worthy of everyone’s attention, but he already had it. They leaned in to listen, eager to wash the scary folktale from their minds.

  “Well, when I first got to Ambrosia City—I realize now that I was practically a country boy—the first thing I did when I got off the carriage was walk up to a fruit stand—actually, he called me over. This guy, old, bald, talked a mile a minute.

  “He spotted me as an outsider immediately. Offered me a ‘newcomer discount,’” Archie said in his best imitation of the man’s gruff, city slicker accent. The group laughed, Blanche hardest of all. Archie made brief eye contact with her before continuing. “Half a silver for a ‘certified Blue Orchards apple.’ Of course, I didn’t ask to see this certificate.

  “I didn’t have two gold to my name and I still didn’t even think about saying no to paying that much for an apple. I mean, I was new and it was blue! The outside was, anyway. Past the skin, it was just a normal apple. Turns out this guy had been running around town selling counterfeits.”

  The group laughed and the night didn’t seem as dark anymore.

  “I ended up spending the rest of my money to see Tataki fight Pepper Ivy.” His voice trailed off in happy memory. He considered himself lucky that he got to see the great Tataki fight—even if it was from the top row in the stands. “I ended up having to scrub dishes at some tavern for a place to stay that night.”

  More laughter.

  “You could have just gone to the Academy,” Sutton said. “They wouldn’t have said no to you staying there an extra night.”

  “Did I mention I was a country boy? I didn’t know how city life worked—I didn’t want to impose!”

  “Yeah, you didn’t even know you were ripped off until I told you,” Blanche announced for the whole group to hear. Then she lowered her voice a little. The others could still hear, but her words were undeniably for Archie. “When we get back to Ambrosia City, we should go find that guy.”

  Archie laughed as a little burn grew in his cheeks. “Yeah. That’d be fun.”