“I think we need to call it a night, Wendy,” Loki said. He rested his arms on an overturned refrigerator, leaning on it.

Matt and Willa were sitting on a log next to the pile, and Tove stood next to them, drinking a bottle of water. Only Duncan still helped me as we struggled to pull a shredded mattress from a tracker house. I had to stop using my powers, because it killed my head every time I did.

Only three streetlights in the entire town still worked, and Matt, Willa, Tove, and Loki had taken their break by one. They’d stopped working about fifteen minutes ago, but I insisted that I keep going, even though I was exhausted, and my head felt strange.

“Wendy, come on,” Matt said. “You’ve done as much as you can do.”

“There’s more stuff to do, so clearly I haven’t,” I said.

“Duncan needs a break,” Willa said. “Let’s quit. We can do more tomorrow.”

“I’m fine,” Duncan panted, but I stopped pulling on the mattress long enough to look up at him. He was filthy and haggard. I’d actually never seen him look so terrible.

“Fine. We’re done for the night,” I relented.

We walked back over and sat down on the log next to Matt and Willa. She had a small cooler of water and handed a bottle to each of us. I opened it and drank it greedily. Tove paced in front of us, fidgeting with his bottle cap, and I don’t know how he had the energy to walk that much.

“We’re getting this cleaned up, and that’s good,” Matt said. “But we’re not doing anything to rebuild. We’re not even qualified.”

“I know,” I nodded. “We’ll have to send another team down that can rebuild and do more specialized cleaning. After we get back to Förening, we’ll really have to get people down here.”

“I could work on some blueprints, if you want,” Matt offered. “I can design stuff that’s quick and easy to build but doesn’t look cheap.”

“Yeah, that would be really fantastic,” I said. “It’d be a great step in the right direction.”

Matt was an architect, or at least he would’ve been if I hadn’t dragged him to Förening with me. I’m not entirely sure how he spent his days at the palace, but it would be good for him to work on something. Not to mention that it would be good for Oslinna.

“The good news is that the damage seems to support what Kenna was saying,” Loki said. He stopped leaning on the fridge and walked over to sit next to me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The hobgoblins aren’t vicious or mean, not really,” Loki said. “They’re destructive and irritating, sure, but I’ve never known them to kill anybody.”

“They have now.” Willa gestured to the mess around us.

“I didn’t think murder was their ultimate goal, though,” Loki said. “They were trying to destroy the town. And even when they fought with that team the other night, they didn’t kill most of them.”

“How does that help anything?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Loki shrugged. “But I think they aren’t as hard to defeat as we once thought. They’re not fighters.”

“I’m sure that will be real comforting to all the dead people here,” Tove said.

“Alright.” Willa stood up. “That’s enough for me. I’m ready to go inside and get cleaned up and get some sleep. What about you guys?”

“Do we have places to sleep?” Duncan asked.

“Yes,” Willa nodded. “Kenna told me that most of the bedrooms in the palace weren’t that damaged, and they have some running water if we want to get cleaned up.”

“Well, I definitely want those things.” Loki got up.

We all walked back to the palace, but Tove lagged behind. I slowed down to walk with him, and he twitched a lot. He kept swatting at his ear, like there was a mosquito or a fly buzzing by, but I didn’t see any. I asked if he was okay, but he just shook his head.

Kenna showed us to the extra rooms in the palace, and I felt bad for taking them. She pointed out that were too many people for the bedrooms, so she didn’t want to divvy them out amongst the survivors in the ballroom.

Besides that, the rooms she showed us weren’t in such great of shape. They were small, and while they didn’t have major damage, they were in disarray. Our whole room seemed to slant slightly to the side, and books and furniture were tossed all over.

I straightened the room up and let Tove shower first. Something seemed off with him, and I thought it would be better if he had a chance to rest instead of doing more work. I wanted nothing more than to rest my head, but I wanted to make sure Tove was alright first.

“What are you doing?” Tove asked. He came back to the room after the shower, his hair all wet and a mess.

“I’m making the bed,” I said. I was smoothing out the sheets but I turned to face him. “How was your shower?”

“Why are you making the bed?” he snapped and rushed over to it. I moved out of the way and he pulled down the sheets.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know it would upset you. I thought it would be –”

“Why?” Tove whirled around to face me, his green eyes burning. “Why would you do that?”

“I just made the bed, Tove,” I said carefully. “You can unmake it if you want. Why don’t you get into bed? Okay? You’re exhausted. I’ll go shower, and you get some sleep.”