The town as quiet by the time we came back into the first streets. A few people were out and about, still, and the street lamps were on, but after the ground-shaking evening I'd had, it felt too quiet.

"Féilailín," Síle said as we walked hand in hand. "The midsummer festival. Is tomorrow."

"Will they expect me to do something for it?" I asked, feeling pre-emptive stage fright. "The guild."

"I don't think so," Síle replied, shaking her head. "We haven't had Fí-Réalta here for many years. But you'll have to ask Danna to be sure."

I wasn't entirely clear if the twinkle in her eye was teasing me or some sort of excitement.

"Pshh," I said, smiling but letting go of her hand. The guild was just ahead. "Well, here we go."

A small but sizeable crowd awaited us in the foyer of the guild. I wasn't sure what would happen, but they all started cheering and clapping. Síle also turned to me with a big grin and clapped.

"Fí-Réalta," Maela said to me as she walked over. She picked up my hands gently and looked at the markings. "Danna's Touch," she said a little bit more loudly, and the room started clapping again.

Starweave. It was hard to believe they were applying that word to me.

"What happens now?" I asked in my wobbly voice, in English since Maela was there.

"Usually," Maela replied, "you would stay here for a little while. A new Starweave would then go to the capital, Ard Shanaclair. For training."

"Ard Shanaclair..." I muttered.

"And you will become Tánaiste Luanach," she finished up.

I would have choked on my drink if I'd had one. Lunar heir. Princess.

I held up a hand and went to sit down heavily in a chair. It was too much.

A free magic transition and goddess tattoos weren't? I was thinking in my head, and that got me laughing lightly again.

Less than two weeks in that place. Unbelievable.

I stood up again and said quietly to Maela, "I can't stay right now."

She didn't seem to be following me.

"How do you know English, anyway?" I asked Maela.

"Some of us study La Lune," she replied. "Bastien is one such. As am I."

She called out to him and he walked over.

"Please explain, in Clair," Maela said. "You can't stay right now?"

"I will try," I replied. "I have family. Friends. A life, through La Lune. I can't just abandon them suddenly."

"What is the alignment?" Bastien asked. I stared at him blankly. "The time alignment," he continued.

I hugged my stomach, feeling an ache coming on.

"10 hours here, 1 hour there," I said quietly, looking down. "Wait, it changes?"

"How long will you need?" he asked.

To up-end my entire life? Maybe never seeing my family or friends again? Never finishing my degree at UBC?

"At least a week," I replied, feeling that ache drop lower. He sighed.

C'mon, I'm not enjoying this either, I thought. But it was a practical question; he wasn't making accusations.

"Alyx Covington an Fí-Réalta," he said, looking me in the eyes and putting his hands on my shoulders. "You are not our subject; we are yours. We just need to plan."

I nodded. My subjects? I couldn't wrap my head around that, still.

"Please stay for Féilailín if you can," Maela said. "The summer solstice celebration."

"What do I need to do?" I asked her.

"Nothing," she replied. "Just come and light candles with us. It may give you a feel for the future."

The gathering took place in the centre of town, near those giant Starweave buildings. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, I could now look at them and see... something. It was like being able to "view source" on a web site and see the code. I wouldn't have time to stare at it for a while, but all I could think was, spill the tea, no cap!

I meant it as a joke, but all that did was make me sad and homesick again.

The sun was setting.

A circle of bricks wide enough for perhaps half of the town's inhabitants surrounded a tall pole with a huge candle on top. A gathering of townsfolk had started to arrive.

Someone from the guild, the Consoeurie, was handing out small candles with a little paper holder to keep wax from falling on hands, but not yet lighting them.

At some point, the number of people coming overflowed from the brick circle, and the newcomers had to stand on the grass.

I was standing near the guild people handing out the candles. They had given me a robe to wear, or maybe a poncho? It was large and white, with iridescent spirals along the bottom hem. Holes that became hidden in the folds of fabric let me reach out with my arms when needed. The whole thing was extremely comfortable. Soft, warm without being suffocating, flexible. Even by Earth standards, it looked very expensive. The others had similar robes.

My role was to greet people entering the circle. "Tá Danna la," I said to each one, smiling. It was an old Clair saying: Danna be with you.

Each person nodded their head at me.

A feeling of anticipation, almost an itching inside, had me very discreetly waving my hands around again, trying to let out the excess energy.

"I'm sure you know," Maela said next to me with a knowing smile. "But it's time."

Maela reached up with her fingers and surrounded the wick on my candle. A brilliant little stream of red-coloured magic reached to the wick, and suddenly the flame was on it and growing.

The crowd parted as we walked toward the centre of the circle. The two of us stopped to light other people's candles one at a time. Each of them lit someone else's candle nearby, and so on. As we reached the centre, a substantial number of candles were already lit, and the waves of flame continued to grow.

In the centre itself, a raised brick platform held the pole for the large candle overhead. The group of us from the guild went to the front of the crowd after lighting candles.

A man walked up to the platform and ascended a short set of stairs. Émeric, that was his name, if I remembered correctly. He turned around and rang a tiny bell several times, and the crowd slowly quieted.

"We are gathered today to honour the mother," Émeric called out, "in her climb toward the zenith of daylight. We are gathered today to wish her well on her journey toward the valley of winter."

"Bannig Danna," the crowd murmured together. I only understood some of what Émeric said, but I did catch the crowd response. "Bless Danna."

"We thank her for her bounty."

"Bannig Danna."

I felt something building in me, but I had no words for what.

"We are here to offer her light for her journey through the dark," Émeric called out again.

"Bannig Danna."

"Let us sing to her now," Émeric said. He began to hum, holding his candle up.

The crowd started to hum, too, a few people at a time, and then the rest, all holding their candles aloft. I felt woozy; something was with me, inside. I surrendered to it.

I walked gently, as if on air, up to the platform next to Émeric. He looked surprised, briefly faltering in his humming, but he smiled and began to hum again.

"My beloved children," my voice called out.

I noticed with relief and some amount of chagrin that my voice had finished its resonance shift. There was nothing masculine about it, anymore. I was kind of in love with it. But I was also chagrined that all of my own attempts at voice training hadn't come close to what Danna had given me overnight.

Everyone's candles in the audience began to drift upward toward the large candle. The crowd lost some of its humming in favour of surprised exclamations, but as some held the line, the others started again. When the candles all reached the large one, they vanished in a brilliant light, and the large candle had become a glowing orb that was difficult to look at.

"Thank you," my voice called out. "Until we meet again. Bannig tu."

Now it's your turn, my child, a kindly voice said inside my head, surprisingly in English. Align the leys.

I looked up at the sky, thinking that I had no idea what to do, but in that moment, I could see so much more than before. A million tendrils of colour forming a web of energy as it sped across the sky, wavering back and forth, some of it disconnected or cut. I raised my arms as before, the markings glowing with flowing colour. The candle's orb of light flew into the sky, filling gaps and closing the broken parts of the web, pulling them back into flows where they'd frayed.

It is done, the voice said. Rest now.

Suddenly bereft of the power and the presence, I just managed to sit down before passing out. My last vision that night was Síle's concerned face.