I was in the room, the room at the back of the library. Only it didn’t look like the library of Fenbay. There were tall marble pillars, and the rugs lay on a pristine white floor that radiated a cool, pleasant air. The sky was a clear shade of blue with not a cloud in sight, and a golden dome stood against the horizon reflecting so much sunlight it made me see stars after I blinked.

It was my little room from the library, only set inside the House of Wisdom. It wasn’t exactly the room from the library, though. There was only one shelf, with just enough room to fit five books, or perhaps three big ones. At the moment, it had two tomes resting on top of it, their spines too faded to read from afar.

The reading lamps on either side were turned off with their heads pointing at two armchairs, both of which had their back to me. I stood on the edge of the rug, my feet uncovered. I was wearing the clothes I had gone to sleep in.

I had gone to sleep? So, this was a dream. It felt familiar.

The sky darkened swiftly, like hours were passing between my breaths. Soon the dome was an angry red, the pillars a shade of pink, and the floor overcast. A clock ticked. It was the clock from the library, the one that had struck thirteen. It hung on the wall right over the shelf, all hands frozen at six.

My ears rang with a grating noise, like chewing sand with no saliva. The sky faded, the golden dome’s radiance died and it melted into the darkness. Just as the darkness was about to encroach on my entire vision, I heard a distinctly electrical buzz and the reading lamps came to life.

There were two circles of light in an empty sea. Red armchairs floated in the illuminated spots, particles of dust visible in the beams coming from the cloth lampshades. I drifted towards the armchair on the right, careful not to trip over the rug I felt should still be on the floor. The grating grew louder. I clenched my teeth; the sound was infuriating.

It was a comfortable chair. I rested my back against the pillow. It was almost like a bed. I looked over to the other armchair, and squinted.

Someone was sitting there, but I couldn’t tell who. Their image was blurred like a picture from a moving car. The grating sound was coming from the figure, and I finally recognized what it sounded like.

The noise was literally noise. White noise to be exact.  An endless series of greyscale pixels whizzing between the spectrum. Waves from exploding stars, radiating black holes, tiny cellular devices, and mishandled microwaves, scrambled in a code as old as all of existence, destined to outlive me, my loved ones, everything I knew, and everything I thought I knew.

The noise was oddly comforting. I’d heard some people liked listening to white noise at night, it helped them fall asleep. The idea had always seemed ludicrous to me, and despite the warmth in my heart, and the easing of my shoulders, it still seemed like a dumb idea to me.

Couldn’t they tell this thing was evil?

Buzz.

The lights flickered. The static heightened. And I fell into the depths of the armchair.

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The journey to the rest stop on the way to Chart, was uneventful. It was a well-traveled road with plenty of people to keep us company, and Sally’s threatening glare kept any potential troublemakers at bay. Jerome’s coil kept everyone else away too.

Sally tried to get him to stop, but couldn’t bring herself to get close to him while he tinkered with it. As the sun dipped below the horizon, Elenor and Ben began leading our party, although the lanterns and torches held up by our fellow travelers lit the way quite well. Our hesitation from before seemed completely unwarranted.

The rest stop was a collection of inns. A stone slab illuminated by a hanging lantern said the inns had been established by the government in 1455 A.B. for the benefit of all travelers, wayfarers, and wanderers.

We rented two rooms, and Sally insisted we take turns standing guard for the night, electing to take the first watch herself. The innkeeper – a tired middle-aged woman – made Jerome quit working on his coil because the explosions were disturbing the other guests. As the night wore on, and the fatigue of a taxing day settled in, Elenor and I sat alone in our room. I sat on the side of my bed while she sat on the chair beside the lone desk in the room.

This was the perfect opportunity.

“Hey Elenor,” I said.

“Yeah?” she replied.

I was going to ask her how magic worked. I intended to ask her bluntly since I had already concluded that it didn’t matter if she found out I was from Earth. But a strong paranoia took over my head as the words formed in my head, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

An awkward silence hung in the air.

I took a deep breath.

Elenor broke the silence, “I’m sorry we couldn’t catch him.”

“Huh?” I said.

“The guy you were chasing. I’m sorry we let him get away.”

“It’s alright.” I leaned against the wall next to my bed. “He’s an asshole, but a smart one. I’m not sure there’s even a point in me chasing him if I can’t beat him.”

“Is he a header?”

“A what?”

“A member of the upper classes.”

I recalled his shoes, scarf, and suit. “Oh yeah, he’s rich alright.”

“No wonder. His books must be incredibly powerful.”

His books?

“Yeah,” I said.

“But don’t worry, we should be able to take him out if we work together,” said Elenor.

I smiled. “You don’t have to go that far.”

“Hey, I don’t have anything better to do.”

“You could go back to Moxy after you drop me off at Bendeck.”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe.”

Heavy silence.

“Elenor…”

“Yeah?”

“Could you help me practice magic?”

She sat upright in her chair. “Me?”

“Your magic is amazing. The one you used earlier in the day.”

“It was nothing special.”

“No, I mean it. My ears are still ringing. I’ve been thinking about it all day, and the only way I’m going to be able to defeat Demetrius is if I can beat him at his own game. I need to know how to use my magic properly.”

“But if I couldn’t find him today, then his magic’s probably stronger than mine. Tell you what, I’ll ask Sally and Jerome to teach you. They’re better than me anyways.”

“No!” The more people involved, the more complicated the situation would become. “It’s a little embarrassing. I don’t want the others to know.”

She tapped her fingers slowly. “Okay…” Her words trailed. “Just how bad is your magic?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Have you burned one yet?”

What did that mean? “No.”

“Do you know how to burn one?”

“No.”

“Really? I heard the situation in Epil was bad, but not knowing how to burn a book is a little surprising.”

I had to tread lightly because I didn’t even know what kind of country Epil was. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad over there.”

“Which city are you from?”

Crap, I didn’t know any cities in Epil. “I’m from the countryside.”

“No wonder!” said Elenor as she shook her head. “I was assuming you were from one of the free cities. It never occurred to me that people could live in the countryside there. It must’ve been rough, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, nodding.

“Are your family bandits?”

“No,” I said. “Nomads, we’re nomads. Kept moving around, never stayed in one place for too long.”

“Makes sense. Total anarchy out there.” She nodded her head and stood up. “But okay, I understand now. Epil’s been in a sorry state for years, it’s only natural your grasp on magic would be a little weak. For starters, you’ve read more than three books, right?”

I remembered being asked that question before. “Yeah.”

“Good, and you know the rhyme?”

“The rhyme?” I asked.

“Yeah, the Magician’s Rhyme. I know there’s an Epilian version too, Mo said you swapped Bit or One with Static.”

“Must have been a city thing,” I replied.

“It’s really not that important, but they teach it to kids all over the place. Help’s keep a bunch of information in an easy to remember package. I’ll sing you the version Moxy taught me first. It goes like:

Draw from the endless well,

Knowledge bound yet unbounded;

On every shelf,

Three apiece for life,

Lest burnt for greed,

Or taken on lease,

One plants a seed,

To be recalled in peace.”

“It sounds great but I don’t get it.”

“It’s just the basics. Three books on a shelf, each for life. You can burn them for power or give them to someone temporarily, but they’ll always be yours once you put them on your shelf. Unless you die, in which case you can pass on your unburnt books.”

“Oh.”

“Okay, I’m just going to assume you know nothing about magic, and walk you through it.”

“Perfect,” I said, standing up. The room wasn’t that big so we were just a few feet apart.

“Pick a book from your shelf by focusing on it.”

I frowned. She’d skipped a step. “From my shelf?”

“Yeah, look into your shelf, and pick a book.” She skipped it again.

I was about to ask her what a shelf was, when the nagging feeling in my head came back. Judging by the way she was speaking, looking inside this shelf or whatever, was almost instinctive for the people of this world. I couldn’t have her doubting my origin.

Wait, why couldn’t I? I thought I’d had this discussion with myself before. It was okay if she knew. She’d either think I was lying or crazy, but I could live with that. Right?

The candlelight reflected off Elenor’s sunglasses, giving them an orange glow. Her glasses were still looking in my direction, and her fingers were tapping on the side of her hips, which would have made her seem impatient if she hadn’t been tapping her fingers all the time.

Okay, if I couldn’t ask her how to look inside my shelf, then what was I going to do? Maybe I could try to do it on my own. A shelf, right? This was magic so it probably involved chanting something, or using some inner power like mana or energy. Maybe that’s what ‘shelf’ meant?

No, that wasn’t it. I’d tried to meditate and said ‘abracadabra’ before, thinking it might work in this magical world, but it hadn’t. This shelf thing was something else.

Maybe I had to take it literally. A shelf. I should picture a shelf. What kind of shelf? Remember the rhyme, it said three books. So, a shelf that could fit only three books. A small shelf, then. Just big enough to fit three big books, if it needed to. A shelf like the one at the back of the library back home.

In fact, why picture just the shelf. The room, let’s picture the whole room with its rugs and sofas, reading lights and ladders. Just one shelf though, a small one with only three books. No wait, it only had two books.

Why did it only have two books?

“…Val!”

“Huh?” Elenor was shaking my shoulders.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“I was worried. You weren’t responding.” She was breathing quickly.

“I, I’m sorry. I got a little carried away there.”

“Carried away?”

“Yeah, I –” I hesitated. “I was in my shelf.”

“You were inside your shelf?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I told you to look inside, not go inside!”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She walked back to the desk. “When you say you were inside your shelf…”

“I was in a room with a shelf on the wall.”

“That’s impressive,” she said.

“Really?”

“Most people only picture a shelf, grab what they need, when they need it, and leave. I haven’t heard of anyone going into a room before.”

I grinned. The idea had come to me from an old television show I’d seen on the internet. It was the best visual interpretation of a famous book series I’d read as a kid, so I still remembered it.

“Is that how you always look inside your shelf?”

This was my first time, I thought to myself. “Yeah,” I said aloud.

“I’d recommend shortening it to just the shelf. You don’t want to be vulnerable in the middle of a fight.”

“Got it.” I brought my mind back to the room, but only imagined the shelf with a little bit of wall around it.

“You said you hadn’t burned any yet?”

“Yeah, I haven’t.”

“Then pick any book and let me see how you use it.”

I focused on the books, and my eyes widened. I recognized them. They were the books that had vanished when I closed them! The Cannon and The Tempest. So this was where they had gone.

Oh no, I thought to myself. I wasn’t going to be able to return them to old man Ather!

It was a strange thought to have, considering how I’d already left Sett and wasn’t intending to look for it in the first place.

“Good, you’re –” She coughed and doubled over.

“Elenor!” I ran over to her. She was wheezing, and coughing incessantly. I grabbed a mug of water and she drank it. I helped her sit down, but her breathing was still jittery.

“What happened?” I asked.

“My fault.” She groaned. “I’m sorry, I tried to take advantage of your ignorance.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What did you do?”

“I tried to read you. I know it’s rude and invasive, but I just thought it’d be easier to help you if I knew what books you had. Lousy excuse, I know. I shouldn’t have done it. Totally my fault, I…”

“It’s okay,” I said. She tried to read me. What did that mean? It sounded a little creepy.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I can help you anymore.”

“No, it’s alright. I don’t mind it at all, I just –”

The door opened. “You ladies still up?”

“Sally?” I said.

“I heard some coughing. Is everyone alright? Want me to bring you some more water?”

“No, it’s okay,” said Elenor as she got up. “Let me take over your shift, Sally. I could use some fresh air.” She grabbed her stick and left the room.

I tried to follow her but Sally insisted I get some sleep. I tried to leave the room later in the night, but was stopped by a very cranky Sally hugging a pickaxe. Resigning myself, I fell asleep with the ghostly buzz of Elenor’s magic fading inside my head, only to be replaced with the agonizing sound of her coughing and crying out in pain.

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I told the others I’d seen Demetrius in the city, and that he was the person I was chasing. I told Sally what he looked like, and she told the guards to not let him leave. She also asked her contacts in the underground to keep an eye out for him at the unofficial entryways. Elenor and Ben tried to find him using their magic, but they gave up after sweeping the town twice. Jerome pulled out a strange box, cranked a dial, and pronounced that nobody in the city met the description I’d given him.

By early afternoon, I accepted that Demetrius had gotten away again. I cursed for five minutes straight, before calming down. It was a miracle that I ran into him again in the first place, and the plan to follow the Wonders was still feasible. I had to keep moving, and keep my ears to the ground.

At the same time, I was keeping an eye on Ben, still unsure if he was related to the Ben I’d met before. There was a nagging suspicion in the back of my head, perhaps unbridled paranoia, that kept urging me to investigate further, to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. But I didn’t want to do it in front of other people. I had to talk to him alone.

I also had to talk to Elenor about magic. Having gotten a taste of her magic, I couldn’t hold back much longer – I needed to know how to use it! I wouldn’t be able to find Demetrius without learning magic, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to defeat him and retrieve the House of Wisdom without it either.

Between the search for Ben, and the subsequent search for Demetrius, our original plans had been ruined. It would be very difficult to reach the rest-stop on the way to Chart before nightfall. On the other hand, our inability to leave Sett was becoming infuriating. Ironically, despite the scarred Ben’s intervention, it seemed like we would be staying in Sett longer than even we had originally anticipated.

Although to be fair, he had only wanted us out of Sett for one evening. That was something I still didn’t understand, because Sally asked around and found nothing out of the ordinary had happened save for the Raxxer attack that we had gotten caught up in anyways. Was that the thing he was running away from? Didn’t seem like it.

In fact, why hadn’t Sally noticed any similarities between this Ben and the scarred Ben? She was there, she saw both of them. He even knew her name! There were so many things that I couldn’t figure out, and I could only begin to make sense of them once we were out of the city, away from prying eyes and curious ears. But it seemed like we weren’t going to leave the city today either!

“We could travel through the night,” said Elenor.

“Monsters and bandits are more active at night, and the road isn’t very well lit so we could get lost,” said Sally.

“It’s fine, just keep following me,” said Elenor. Sally considered it with a hand on her chin.

“We can use one of my groundbreaking inventions too!” said Jerome.

“Let’s not,” said Sally.

“Don’t worry, this one is revolutionary. I should have it here somewhere,” said Jerome as he dug into his pockets. “There we go!” He pulled out a large metal coil. I instantly had my misgivings.

Sally stepped between Jerome and the rest of us with her pickaxe drawn. “Jerome, you have a bag of inventions that actually work, please stick to them, alright?”

“Alright,” said Jerome. “Just let me test this out.” There was a crackling sound as sparks danced around the coil, and lit up the rings in intermittent bursts of blue and yellow.

“What are you gonna call this one, old man?” said Ben, the only one who wasn’t on edge.

“The Sun Rod!” said Jerome. Sparks flew to the top of the coil, which began to glow blue, yellow, and red. A high-pitched hiss pierced the air, growing more furious by the second, like a kettle agonizing over tardy tea pouring.

“Jerome, that thing is going to blow!” Sally yelled.

“Nonsense,” said Jerome. He waved the coil haphazardly close to his face. “It’s harmless. Look!” He touched the tip of the coil.

Buzz.

Jerome recoiled. The coil hit the floor, and flashed before the hiss and the light both faded. I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding, and Elenor’s hand, which I also didn’t know I was holding. The ground around the coil shone brightly. We were in the Collar’s part of town, just outside the gates, and the passersby reacted with fright and curiosity.

But mostly fright.

“We better go,” said Sally. She put her pickaxe behind her back, and grabbed Ben’s hand.

Jerome scooped up his coil while nursing his finger, and Elenor and I followed.

“With some slight modifications, I can –”

“No, Jerome,” said Sally. “We leave tomorrow, early morning.”

“No,” said Elenor. “We leave right now.”

“You trust his Sun Rod?”

“No.” Elenor tapped her stick. “I trust my magic.”

“I think we should leave today, too,” I said. “Demetrius must have already left the city, which means he must be headed towards the next town.”

“I guess that is the point of this adventure,” said Sally. She sighed. “Fine, we’ll be counting on you to lead the way at night.” She faced Ben. “We’ll be counting on you too.”

He lowered his head. “I don’t wanna go.”

“Ben, don’t you dare start this again!” said Sally.

“Now Sally, don’t scold him like that. His hesitation is understandable,” said Jerome.

“But they’re the first clients we’ve had in months!”

I wonder why, I thought to myself.

“All the more reason to make sure Ben is on the same page.” Jerome looked Ben in the eye. “Ben, I know the past month has been hard on you, but we need to move on. Your master was like an elder brother to me. I had a rough childhood, and an even rougher adulthood, and it was Postick who gave me a new life, a new reason to live! His passing hurt me immensely, and I would do anything to bring him back. But you know what he was like. He wouldn’t want us moping around after he was gone, would he?”

Ben shook his head, his eyes still hidden from view.

“You remember what he liked to say whenever anyone worried about his health?” asked Jerome.

“The meaning of life is that it stops,” replied Ben.

“But?”

“But it never stops because there is no meaning of life.”

“Exactly!” exclaimed Jerome.

I’d read the original saying before. It was a quote from a book by an author who loved turning his characters into bugs. It was a depressing quote, the kind one would expect from a modernist with too much culture on his hands.

I liked this version better.

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“Okay…” said Ben. He still didn’t look up, but began walking down the street.

“Did you sleep well?” asked Elenor as I entered the dining area. There weren’t a lot of people there, but it was so small that it felt congested anyways. Nobody but the innkeeper, who was going around dropping steaming bowls, had the flame-mark of Sett. Most of the people here seemed to belong to the guilds I’d seen the day before.

“Yes, and you?” I replied.

“Fine.”

The innkeeper came to our table, and handed Elenor and I a bowl.

“Sally and her team will take us to Bendeck. We meet at the Collar’s gate in an hour,” said Elenor over a plate of a porridge-like mixture that smelled and tasted like oranges. The innkeeper called it Golpot stew.

“Which one’s the Collar’s gate?” I asked.

“You remember the Check’s gate?”

I frowned. “Checks?”

“Yeah, Checks, as in Cheeks. The middle class.”

“Sorry, we have a different name for them where I’m from.”

“Right,” she said as she leaned closer. “Well, the Check’s gate is the one we came through yesterday. The Collar’s gate is in the Collar’s part of the city, outside the walls.”

“Outside the walls?”

“Not even the Side party would let them live inside the city.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Because they’re Collars. And believe it or not, this is the best city to be a Collar. At least you get to come inside the city, and the guilds won’t deny your requests.”

Getting to come inside the city was a perk? What had these people done to be treated so badly? The name suggested they were prisoners of some sort or maybe slaves. Either way, it drove home just how different this world was from mine. Wasn’t there a history book somewhere that I could read to get up to speed? Oh, but it would probably vanish once I closed it!

That reminded me, I needed to ask Elenor about magic. The jostling chairs, and slurping noises made me put it off until we were relatively alone. I also felt a little uncomfortable when I thought about it. Maybe I’d slept off my cheerful optimism, and telling someone I’d met two days ago that I was from a different world had begun to feel more problematic.

“It’s getting cold.”

“Huh?” I looked up.

“Your stew,” said Elenor, tapping her fingers on the table, rhythmically. “It’s getting cold.”

“Right.”

We finished eating, and I followed Elenor out the back door of the inn. The sky was a pale blue reminiscent of clear tropical beaches and bleached overalls. The sun wasn’t up high enough to surmount the rows of houses and stores that lined the street, but it began to peek through windows and open doorways as the morning drew on, and the buildings became smaller, and more run down. We encountered open drains and the noxious odors that accompanied them, just like we had near the Check’s gate, only the children here weren’t playing pranks on good humored middle aged men. In fact, there were barely any children or good humored middle aged men here at all.

Instead, we found what one would expect such abject poverty to cause: a blanket of melancholy so suffocating it painted the light shooting through the holes in the walls a dull, dreary grey. The people here walked with their heads down, eyes on the ground. Surprisingly, I blended in well, since almost everyone had a scarf wrapped around their head and neck like I did. If anything, Elenor attracted some attention for not wearing a scarf, until people saw her dark glasses and walking stick which elicited the occasional looks of pity, even from the most wretched beggars asking for inketts while holding hats and pots with scraps of paper in them.

The gate itself wasn’t that different from the Check’s gate, except the mood here was more somber, and the rows of houses kept going beyond the gate – albeit with a noticeable drop in quality. The guards here stood around doing nothing, eyeing the crowd lazily while occasionally stepping forward to ask questions or take tolls from merchants with large backpacks.

“What if they stop us for what happened yesterday?” I asked.

“They won’t,” answered Elenor.

“You sure?”

“Yep, the guards here aren’t like the others.” We walked through the gate. “Remember when I said even the Side party won’t let Collars live inside the city?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s only partially true. The party’s come under new leadership lately, and their leader’s been loosening the rules. The guards here are all Collars, with their barracks just outside the city. They look the other way if a fellow Collar wants to move into a house inside the walls. They aren’t officially allowed to be there, but nobody talks about it, so it all works out.”

“I see.”

We stopped outside a wooden house, just out of sight of the gate. Elenor tapped her stick, and wiped some sweat from her forehead. “All of this is pretty new, too. Last time I came here, the Collars had only just started setting up shops inside the city.”

“You came her often?”

“Used to come every month. Had to stop last year because…” She paused. “Because Moxy was acting weird. I thought she was sick, so I made her potions and supplements, and stayed in to take care of her.”

“That’s why you were out looking for something the night I came?”

“Yeah, I got lost in the forest on my way back. In retrospect, she was probably trying to drive me out that night, but let me come back so I could leave with you.” She cursed under her breath. “Do you see them yet?”

“No, although I only know Sally. Do you know what the rest of her team looks like?”

“She said it was a small team. They have a fiddler and his apprentice, who does a bit of finding on the side. They should be here any minute now.”

Elenor tapped her stick at regular intervals, like a clock. I kept an eye on the streets. Although the people inside the gates had been wrapped up, and shrank into the ground, most of the people here were normal. Their poverty showed in the rags, and sun-beaten clothes they wore, but for the most part, they seemed like ordinary people. They talked and laughed, and there were kids frolicking in the streets, letting their laughter carry through the dirty alleyways.

The only unusual sights were the wrapped-up figures walking to and from the gate, and the lines of marks on everyone’s necks that explained why they were called ‘Collars’. The marks ran at the base of the neck, each shaped like a flame, and a dark shade of grey that made them look like tattoos. They didn’t have any marks on their cheeks, so the people who covered their necks with scarves looked like they didn’t have any marks at all.

“They’re here,” said Elenor, breaking the rhythmic tapping of her walking stick.

Two figures – one considerably taller than the other – broke from the crowds and walked over to us. Sally’s piercing blue eyes peeked out from under the inconspicuous rags covering her face, making the whole getup even more redundant than you’d think. The shorter figure to her side wore rags that barely hid the contraptions on his knees, and the contours of his face, such that I could identify him as the crazy man I’d seen outside the Fiddler’s Guild, even before he uncovered his face.

“You’re late,” said Elenor.

“My apologies,” said Sally. “But I’m afraid we will have to be later still.”

“My darned apprentice wandered off somewhere, and I absolutely must find him before we set off!” replied the man in a surprisingly young voice.

“We need to leave the city today,” said Elenor. “We won’t make it to the first rest-stop before nightfall unless we leave soon.”

“We understand, that’s why we came here,” said Sally.

“You want me to look for him?” asked Elenor.

“The kid’s a finder,” said the man. “And a pretty good one, too. We’d need an even better one to locate him.”

“You mean he’s trying to hide?”

“He didn’t want to go.”

“Then why force him along?”

“It’s… complicated. And complicated stories are stories for the road! So how about it, could you help us out?”

Elenor grumbled under her breath, but didn’t seem particularly displeased. The compliment must have gotten through. “Fine, but you’ll have to knock off the provisions fee.”

“Fifty percent,” said Sally.

“Seventy-five.”

“Deal.”

Elenor led us back into the city, through the Collar’s gate, and up the road leading to the guilds. She would stop to tap her stick, taking increasingly longer pauses as we neared the city center, and took us into some weird alleys before backtracking onto the main road.

“You were right, this kid is good,” said Elenor, stopping to tap the ground twice.

“And he isn’t even a full-time finder! A right prodigy, that one. I’d love to say it’s because of my teachings, but I’ve barely known him for two months,” said the man who still hadn’t told me his name.

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Fourteen.”

Elenor nodded her head. “Definitely a prodigy if he can hide from me this long.”

“See why he’s worth the wait?” said Sally.

“It’s always nice having another decent finder along. Means I don’t have to stay up all night by myself.” She tapped the ground again. “I was trying to find him based off what I remembered about him from when we met yesterday, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Did he know that I was the one who hired you?”

“Yeah, he did. Seemed stoked to be working with you, in fact,” said the man. “I didn’t imagine that he’d run away at all!”

“Well,” said Elenor, putting her stick to the ground. “Guess we’ll have to split up and look for him. I need you guys to move around a little, and let me bounce my magic off you. Try not to step too close to buildings, and don’t run out of earshot.”

Magic? She was going to use magic?

I followed her directions down the street leading away from the guilds, stopping just far enough that I could still make out the glint of sunlight on her glasses. The others stood in similar positions down the various streets leading out of the intersection while Elenor stood at the crossing, although I could only see Sally on the street to my left, since the man was hidden behind a ramshackle building.

“Focus on the sound, okay!” yelled Elenor.

What does that mean? I thought. Focus on the sound? The sound of what?

As if in reply, Elenor pointed her stick to the sky, and smacked it onto the ground. A crisp, clear crack accompanied the twang of metal hitting stone, and a puff of dust arose around the point of impact.

“Not good enough. Focus harder!”

As Elenor raised her hand again, I closed my eyes. Her display was impressive, but being a part of this magic was more important. I took a deep breath. The crack came again, with the vibrations of the metal stick serving as accompaniment. After reaching my ears, they didn’t fade. They bounced inside my head, getting amplified by every collision inside my skull until I was on the verge of exploding into a cacophony of noises. The vibrations flooded out of me, receding into the distance until I could hear my own heavy breathing and racing heart.

“Found him, come on!” said Elenor, running towards Sally, who began to run down the street before Elenor had even reached her. The man ran down that street too, well behind the other two.

Yet I stood shell-shocked in place. I could still feel my heart thumping inside my chest, and the ghosts of the sounds that had taken over my head still haunted me like the static that plays in your ears if you focus on it too long. Several thoughts ran through my head, but I couldn’t separate them from each other so I ended up thinking about nothing.

I was jostled out of my stupor by a figure running down the street. The figure probably intended to pass by but had been walking to fast and clipped my shoulder. Thus, my already disoriented self fell on the ground.

A loud thump, and a bunch of other ones. The familiar sound of flipping pages.

I looked over to see a bunch of books strewn across the sidewalk, with a black-cloaked figure rubbing their head in the middle of the mess.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said the figure, standing up. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

I frowned. Something danced on the edge of my mind but I couldn’t quite grasp it. “Do you need any help?”

The figure began collecting the books on the ground. Gleaming white hands – almost too white to be real – appeared from under the black sleeves to gather up the heavy tomes. “I’ll be fine, thank you for your concern.”

Sunlight hit my eyes, making me squint. Something on the figure’s wrist was shining. He looked up, and I met his deep, dark gaze.

“You…” I said, holding my breath.

He left the last book on the ground, and ran.

“Get back here!” I said, chasing after him.

It was him. Demetrius; the boy who had stolen the House from me, beaten me up, and left me to die! He was here, he was right here! Screw going all the way to the capital, that damned book thief was right here!

I followed him down the street, up an alley, through a busy crossroad, and around an open-air fruit market. My chest hurt from all the frantic breaths I was pulling into my lungs, and my legs protested the extensive exercise, but I kept going. Demetrius didn’t slow down at all, and I almost lost sight of him twice.

I didn’t have much energy to spare during the chase, but there was one thought that crept into my mind while I ducked around corners, and jogged up inclines: what was he doing here? I didn’t have the time to ponder an answer. He disappeared around a corner near the inner wall, and I ran as fast as I could to make sure I didn’t lose him.

And there he was! For some reason, he’d stopped near a house just before the wall. The gates weren’t on this side, so he couldn’t keep going down the larger road, and would have to go back into the alleyways where he could trip up on any number of annoying obstacles. This was my chance! I had to catch him during this rare moment of indecisiveness.

It’s funny how sound such flawed logic can seem to an oxygen-deprived, adrenaline-filled brain. I didn’t stop for a second to wonder why he was suddenly so short, or how narrow his shoulders were, or how the patches near the bottom of the cloak all but announced that I had the wrong person.

I tackled him from behind. My head hit the stone pavement, adding to the bombardment of dizzying and confusing experiences I’d had in the past few minutes. He shifted, groaning straight into my ear. I forced my hand to move, and latched onto his cloak.

A muffled voice said, “Get off me!”

I let go. It wasn’t Demetrius’s voice. I moved off the figure, and sat on the ground, breathing heavily. I looked around but there was no trace of Demetrius. I cursed, and stood up, but I didn’t know where to go. He could be anywhere!

I heard the familiar sound of metal on stone. “Elenor,” I said, catching my breath. “He was here!”

“Got it!” said Elenor. She ran over but was overtaken by Sally.

“Don’t you dare move a muscle!” shouted Sally.

I was too caught up in Demetrius’s appearance to realize she wasn’t talking about him, never mind the fact she didn’t know what Demetrius looked like nor that he was the person I was looking for. Since Sally was charging straight at me, I looked behind me, expecting to see Demetrius running down the street. But the only thing behind me was the red-haired kid in the patched cloak, and an empty street. The kid was on his feet now, and his black eyes stared behind my head, with Sally’s growing image reflected inside them.

I turned, wanting to ask Sally where she had seen Demetrius, but she took a step to the left, and aimed her pickaxe over my shoulder. Fingers wrapped around my arm, and I was pulled to the side, straight into Sally’s path. She stopped with her pickaxe stuck in the ground, inches from my feet.

“The first clients we get in over three months, and you run away on the day we’re supposed to leave?” said Sally.

“I’m sorry…” said the red-haired boy hiding behind my back.

“The only reason my pickaxe isn’t picking through your head right now is because of Jerome, you understand?” she continued. “He was so stupidly happy when he told me he had an apprentice, I almost dug the moron a grave right there and then!”

“I never agreed to it!” said the boy.

“Yes, you did.”

“Grandpa made me do it, that doesn’t count!”

“Now you listen here Ben,” said Sally as she reached for the boy’s ears. “Your grandfather just wanted what was best for you, so you better listen to him. Understand?”

The boy avoided Sally’s reach by moving me around. “No!”

“Carol Ben Stane,” said Sally, slowly, through gritted teeth. “If you don’t come with us right now, I’m going to drag your behind all the way to Bendeck!”

I frowned. That name was familiar. The boy whimpered behind me, and grabbed my arm harder. I stiffened, and held my breath.

Why did I do that? It was almost as if I was expecting to be thrown…

Ben Stane.

My mind blanked. I glanced over my shoulder. He had the red-hair, and the face had its similarities. But there was no scar on the neck, no weariness in the eyes, and he looked much younger. This wasn’t the same person who had dragged me around the city, fought off all the guards, and vanished at the touch of a ghostly feline. He just had the same name, the same hair, and the same grip. It was all a coincidence. Just one, giant accident.

I recalled a saying from a book I’d read once. The book itself had seemed remarkable at the time, but hadn’t aged well. The saying, however, was forever relevant.

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“There are no accidents.”

Quiet breathing greeted me when I woke up. It wasn’t mine. I leaned against the wall in my room, careful not to break it. The sheets were damp, and I felt parched. I reached for the pitcher of water the innkeeper had left by my bed, and poured it into an earthen glass. My reflection stared back at me from the smooth surface of the water without a ripple to distort the image.

Gray eyes stared back, a familiar sight, albeit one I didn’t see all that often. My hair was a mess, and the oiliness of my nose told me I hadn’t showered in two days. I winced; the cut on my back was still hurting. It hadn’t even been that deep, but it hurt so much.

This reminded me of home. On holidays and during the weekend, I’d wake up without an alarm, and stay in bed, the accumulated warmth of the night keeping me company. I would usually turn on some ambient music, and drift in the afterglow of a full night’s rest, not thinking, not worrying, not stressing about anything.

I listened to Elenor’s breath, letting the events of yesterday glide over me without staring at them too long. I let my questions go unanswered; how I got here, how did magic work, where was Demetrius, and did I want to go back? The question about magic lingered a bit longer than the others, not because I was thinking about it properly, but because it led to so many more.

The many stories that I had read over the years, made me expect a direction once I fell down the rabbit hole. I expected some assistance, a guide, a little tutorial of sorts. An overly protective goat-mother might have been too much to ask for, but surely a world that put books on such an important pedestal would have a beginner’s guide?

Elenor’s breathing wasn’t like the ambient music I’d ripped from the internet. It was rougher, like someone had put gravel into a noiseless video game sound effect. It didn’t have the orchestral arrangement, the violin, the flute, the harp that went with the humming voice of a woman who’d dipped her throat in honey. Her breathing was rough, disjointed, occasionally interrupted by another sound – sometimes a whimper, sometimes a grunt.

But it was warm, and real; something that music played from a lifeless device plugged into the wall all night, couldn’t be. Those sounds didn’t come from the synthesized chords of long-dead musicians, frankensteined together to press the right buttons in my head. They were coming from a living human being, who lay on the other side of the wall, lost in a dream world I would never have access to.

Perhaps her thoughts were even stranger than mine.

The breathing stopped. Sheets were moved, the floor was tapped, and the door was opened.

I waited for it to close, but it didn’t. Was she standing in the doorway, trying to recall a dream she thought she’d had or had she left the door ajar, unclosed, stuck in the middle, and unable to come to a state of rest.

I left my bed, and walked out of my room wearing the simple blue shirt and shorts Elenor had bought for me the night before. Barefoot, I stepped into the hallway, reached into the emptiness, and pulled the door closed. Back in my room, I slipped into the shoes Moxy had given me, and pushed my hair off my forehead.

Then I gave in to my desires, and jumped back onto the bed, pulling the sheets over myself while trying to go back to the aimless drifting I’d begun my day with. It didn’t work, but I kept trying anyway.

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The blur stopped moving, and I could finally make out what it was… sort of.

With luscious blue fur, and a wolf-like head and body, it was a beast that could almost have been cute and cuddly, or at least majestic. However, the three reptilian stingers on its back, and the purple forked tongue that flicked from its snout, removed any admiration a dog-lover such as myself could have held for it.

The Raxxer became a blur again as it shot back into the fray, knocking a guard onto the ground as it followed most of the other blurs to surround the dual-wielding armored figure who appeared to be the leader of the guards. The figure kept the blurs at bay with glowing swords, while rolling out of the way of the explosions that seemed to spring out of nowhere.

Ben and I continued to hobble towards the gate. Even if the guards saw us, they were too preoccupied to give chase, with the few who attempted to do so getting knocked out by the Raxxers.

We were almost at the gate when we heard a grunt, a shout, and the clanking of armor. The tall lady had appeared out of the smoke, Elenor still clinging tightly to her back. Some of the blurs shot towards her, but she avoided them and their explosions with relative ease. The dual-wielding guard had also escaped his encirclement, and was dodging explosions while rushing towards us.

Seeing that they were about to catch up to us, Ben planted his feet, brought his other hand back again, and propelled me forward in what had now become a familiar movement. Lurching forward, I managed to keep my wits about me. I was almost out of the gate, and anticipated Ben grabbing ahold of me somewhere right outside the city. A Raxxer sped by my side. Elenor shouted my name again, and the sound of the guard leader’s swords slicing through the air pierced through the whistling winds whipping across my body.

Ben’s fingers wrapped around my arm as he pulled me to the side. A shadow flew over my shoulder, inches from my head, and crashed into the ground several feet in front of me. A familiar blade stood lodged into the earth just outside the gate. The air above the blade shimmered, and blue veins shot out of the blade’s handle, stretching over and around us to form a forcefield that went all the way to the blade on the lead guard’s back.

Elenor and the tall lady were outside the field, and despite the tall lady’s frightening use of her pickaxe, the forcefield remained intact. Even the Raxxers couldn’t break through the field, the ones on the outside bombarding it with explosions while the ones inside clawed the walls while wailing like injured puppies.

Ben didn’t stop running, not even when the guard leader bounded within arm’s reach. As we reached the wall of the forcefield, Ben kicked the blade on the ground, dislodging it, and shattered the forcefield. The tall lady had circled around the field, anticipating that we would escape, and so the guard leader, the tall lady with Elenor on her back, and Ben with his fingers digging into my arm, were converging just outside the city of Sett. The Raxxers howled, and their blurs began following us, leaving a trail of explosions in their wake.

“You know what? This is getting a little tiring,” said Ben, jumping sharply to the side, and dragging me along. “We’re outside the city, so it should be fine now.”

The tall lady stopped, and stared at Ben, but the guard continued to charge towards us. The Raxxers circled us, kept at bay by Ben’s humming, but the shockwaves from their explosions made my teeth jitter.

We were in an open area with a few large rocks lining the paved road that led away from the city. There was nobody on the road, and no wildlife nor plants for miles. Torches were affixed to the rocks, creating fluctuating bubbles of light that stood out against the darkness of the night. The moon that had been lighting up our escape thus far, hid behind a veil of clouds as the red gleam of the guard’s swords – compounded manifold by its reflection in the guard’s armor – pierced the darkness like the eyes of a raging beast.

The guard leapt, armor clanking, swords poised to fall like a burning guillotine. Ben and I stood stock still, me because I was scared out of my wits, and Ben because he had a penchant for theatricality. The tall lady threw her pickaxe. Elenor jumped off with her stick pointed right beneath her. But both were eclipsed in my vision by the blades slicing through the air as easily as they would probably slice through my skin. I couldn’t close my eyes. There is something about imminent death that makes you stop like a deer in the headlights.

Blades inches from my face, the guard jerked to a halt. The swords faded like the last traces of sunlight before merging into the darkness, a light clank the last sign of their existence. In the dim torchlight, I could barely make out the outlines of two figures standing beside the guard’s silhouette, all of whom promptly disappeared into the shadows.

My heart was racing. I couldn’t digest anything that had just happened. Turning to Ben, the only person who could possibly explain what was going on, I began to speak but was interrupted by a now familiar cry.

“Val!”

“Elenor!”

Elenor and the tall lady were closer to the torch, so I could see the concern on Elenor’s face, and the anger on the lady’s. Elenor’s reaction surprised me. We had only known each other for less than a day, yet here she was, lines of worry crisscrossing her face with her bottom lip pulled back a little.

“Let my client go,” said the tall lady, addressing Ben. “I won’t ask twice.”

“It’s okay,” said Ben, letting go of my arm. “She’s out of the city, that’s all I wanted.”

“Come over here, Val,” said Elenor, beckoning with her hand.

I didn’t move. “Why do you want me to leave Sett?”

“Like I said, bad things will happen if you stay in the city. I don’t want you getting hurt, that’s all,” he answered.

“Bad things like what?”

“Like what happened just now.”

“You’re saying that’s because of me?”

“No, but you could’ve gotten hurt.”

“Why are you so concerned about me? I don’t even know you!”

“It’s… complicated. Look, I’ve gotten what I wanted, so I’ll just go away now.” He took a step back.

“But what if I go back into the city?” I asked, taking a step closer despite Elenor’s indignant tapping.

“It’s okay, you can go back now.”

Wait, what?

Elenor stopped tapping. I was speechless. After kidnapping me from the streets, dragging me across the city, and fighting dozens of guards, all to get me to leave Sett, he said it was okay for me to go back?

“If you think she can’t go back because of the guards, you don’t have to worry about that,” said the tall lady, raising her pickaxe.

“No, I mean, if she wants to go back to Sett now, it should be fine. I just didn’t want her to be in Sett back then. Twilight. I didn’t want her to be in Sett during Twilight.”

“Why?” I finally managed to ask.

“Because it was dangerous.”

“Why was it dangerous then, but not now?” asked Elenor.

“Don’t go digging too deep into this, Elenor. There isn’t always an explanation for everything. Relax a little, would you?”

“How did you know my name?”

“What did I just say?” I could almost hear the smile on his face. Oddly enough, it made me feel happy too.

“Answer her question,” said the tall lady.

“I did, Sally.”

The tall lady’s eyes widened. “How did you –”

“Know your name? Okay, you know what, I’ll tell you all about it over a cup of Golpen juice.” He took a step forward.

Sally raised her pickaxe. “You’re not going anywhere until we get some answers.”

“Look, I already agreed to tell you everything. It’s a bit of a long story, alright? Let me have some juice, it’s been a long day.”

“Fine,” I said.

“You sure we can trust him, Val?” asked Elenor.

“Yeah, I mean, he did just rescue me.”

“See?” said Ben, stepping forward and clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Now let’s go get that sweet, sweet Golpen juice!”

Sally lowered her pickaxe, but kept a strong grip on it. “Fine, follow me. They’ll be looking for us in all the usual places, so we’ll have to sneak in a little carefully.”

“I’m not worried, everything should be fine now!” said Ben, cheerfully, as we walked off the road.

“At least tell me this,” asked Elenor.

“Wait for the juice!” said Ben.

“Just one question.”

“Fine, but only one, okay?”

“How did you get rid of the Raxxers?”

“That’s easy, I…” Ben stopped.

I turned to look at him. “Ben?”

“Crap, I forgot about the Raxxers.”

As if on cue, a loud explosion rang through the air. It was too dark to see their bodies, so all we saw was a host of piercing yellow eyes surrounding us. They blurred as the beasts moved, leaving trails of light in my vision like afterimages from when you stare at the sun too long. Sally readied her pickaxe, and Elenor tapped her stick, which seemed to make the eyes closest to her halt momentarily. Ben wasn’t humming.

“I still have no idea what’s got these Raxxers so riled up,” said Ben.

“Agreed, they shouldn’t be this aggressive, even in heat,” said Elenor.

“They shouldn’t be targeting us so specifically, either,” said Sally.

“Well, since I’ve already agreed to tell you everything, I might as well show off a little,” said Ben, stepping forward, and provoking angry growls from the stream of eyes. “And…” He paused for dramatic effect, and I waited for the eyes to fade the way the guard’s glowing swords had.

An explosion rocked the ground, sending a shockwave that sent Ben reeling backward. He steadied himself, but I saw the disbelief in his eyes under the moonlight that had broken through the clouds.

“This isn’t right…” he trailed.

The Raxxers growled again, and numerous explosions rang out. Sally raised her pickaxe, and Elenor tapped her stick repeatedly. The eyes began to close in, slowly restricting the circle until the four of us were standing back to back.

“Ben!” I said, shaking his shoulder.

“I don’t know what happened. Why didn’t it work?” he mumbled in reply. Or at least I thought he was replying to me.

“Hum, hum that tune you were humming before!”

“The only reason it wouldn’t work is if…”

“Ben!”

The eyes stopped. Their slit pupils, the blue veins in their eyes, they stood out against the barely lit earth. The eyes blinked, and slowly receded into the darkness.

“Why did they leave?” asked Elenor, tapping her stick. “There’s no one else around.”

“We should go,” said Sally, eyeing the surroundings while keeping a tight grip on her pickaxe.

I heard a mumble. “What did you say, Ben?”

“My magic…” he whispered. “It isn’t working.”

“Was it burnt or shelved?” asked Elenor.

“Burnt.”

“That is odd,” she agreed.

“We can talk about this later. Right now, we need to get into the city,” said Sally.

“No, you don’t understand. If my magic isn’t working, it can only mean…” he looked at me, and his eyes widened. “Look out!”

I had the wind knocked out of me again as he shoved me back. I hit the ground, and my teeth rattled inside my head, and my stomach lurched and threatened to jump out of my throat. My swimming vision settled, painting an ethereal scene before my eyes.

The silvery moonlight highlighted the contours of Ben’s body. It deepened the depths of his eyes, the creases on his forehead, the crookedness of his nose, and made the scar on his chin seem like the serrated teeth of a great white. His hair was set aflame in a silvery blaze, the edges threatening to drip over like molten silver.

His lips, perhaps the most unblemished part of his face, were stuck in place with, what I would retroactively imagine to be, my name frozen on it. The full moon made a crescent in his eyes, but the crescent didn’t move, wax, or wane.

A black cat rubbed against his legs, purring affectionately. It glanced at me, the moonlight painting its eyes white, and giving the pincers at the end of its whiskers an even more ethereal air. The cat jumped onto Ben’s shoulders, and sat down as if to take a nap.

“Ben!” I shouted, moving towards him. A firm hand clapped my shoulder, fixing me in place.

“Don’t, or you’ll get stuck too,” said Sally.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A Limbog…” said Sally, her voice barely a whisper.

“I couldn’t sense it at all,” said Elenor.

“It doesn’t make or reflect sound,” said Sally. “You can’t see them coming either. Nobody knows where they come from, nor where they go after they’ve gotten their target.”

“Don’t just stand there, help me save Ben!” I said.

“It’s impossible,” said Sally. “Limbogs never let go.”

At a loss for words, I looked back at Ben. His feet were illusory, fading into the darkness of the earth. Clouds obscured the moonlight, dousing the silvery fire on his hair, and erasing the crescents in his eyes. As the clouds shifted over the moon, he descended further into the void.

The moon peeked out, but Ben was gone.

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Author’s Note: Hi again! Hope you’re enjoying the story as much as I am. You know, I wasn’t sure if writing these author’s notes in advance was a good idea, but I’ll keep them for now! Also, here’s a protip: there’s always a sneak peek on the patreon page!

The red-haired man led me through winding alleyways, weaving between panicking civilians, and the occasional panicking guard. We were moving away from where I had entered the city, and the buildings on either side began to suggest that we were in a different part of town. The drains here were covered, the roads swept, and the houses weren’t on the verge of collapse. The people who ran and screamed here, did so while wearing washed clothes that didn’t have patches on them.

I jerked to the side as the red-haired man turned into an alley I hadn’t noticed was there, and began running down a deserted cobblestone path surrounded by smooth brick walls that blocked most of the dying sunlight. The tug pulled me from my state of confused compliance. I slipped my hand out of his, and stopped running.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

He turned around, and reached for my hand again. “Damn it! I said there’s no time to explain. Come on!”

I took a step back, and stared into his black eyes. “I’m not going anywhere without an explanation.”

He stamped his foot. “We do not have the time for this Jean!”

I stared back adamantly.

He cupped his hands, and brought them to his forehead. Then he whispered while tapping his foot incessantly. He brought his hands back down. “Look, Jean, I know this is a lot to take in, and you’ve only just gotten here, but please listen to me. We need to leave Sett right now, or else something terrible is going to happen.”

“How do you know my name?”

He brought his hands to his face, and took a deep breath. “You told me, of course.”

“But I don’t know you?”

“Yes, you do, will, have – look, just trust me on this one, please? I’m Ben, Ben Stane. And I would love to tell you everything about myself, and how I know you, and what we’ve been through together, but this really isn’t the place nor the time.” An explosion rang out as if to punctuate his sentence. “See?” He reached for my hand again.

I avoided it, and stepped back again. “Those explosions are far away, I can get away on my own. Also, you seem to know what they are, what if you planted them or something?”

“Planted them? I don’t need explosions to get you to come with me.” He narrowed his eyes. “In fact…”

I eyed him warily. “Don’t you even think about it.”

“Think about what?”

Fingers clamped down around my arm as I was pulled along again. He had gotten behind me without my noticing it, and in my surprise, I forgot to resist. He had been in front of me, and I didn’t blink nor look away, so I deduced that I had been foiled once again by my ignorance of magic.

“Let go!” I tried to slip out of his grasp again but to no avail.

“Why was I hesitating,” he mumbled to himself, barely loud enough for me to catch. “Nearly forgot she wasn’t all that scary…” He said something else but an explosion in the distance drowned it out.

“Where are we going anyway?” I asked, resigning myself to the situation for now. He held the upper hand as long as his magic was a mystery.

“Outside Sett, through the Eastern gate.”

As the houses, and stores grew increasingly nicer in appearance, and the crowd began to emanate a sense of confidence, satisfaction, and melancholy that were characteristics of the economically well-off, a giant, blood-red wall emerged from behind the painted facades, and decorative trees. Ben ran straight towards the only visible gate, which was heavily guarded by fully armored soldiers who didn’t seem perturbed by the explosions that were slowly encroaching towards the red wall.

“Halt, please present your identification marks,” said the lead guard – a tall woman with a glowing red sword hanging unsheathed from a crystal belt.

Ben didn’t stop. The lead guard frowned, and the others readied their weapons. There was movement along the top of the gate, and the corners of the wall. Turrets swiveled, pointing their nozzles in our direction. There was a red line in the ground several meters from where the guards stood, only a few feet from us.

“This is your final warning, the F-A-F will not be responsible for the consequences.”

“Here we go,” said Ben, stopping just short of the line; turrets, swords, and tense eyes poised to strike him – no, us – down. However, instead of stopping me, he brought his other hand back, and used my inertia and his strength to propel me across the line, and straight into the assortment of readied weapons.

With my heart jumping into my throat, I cursed myself for trusting Ben. Wind whipped past my face, and snatched the scarf that hung loosely around my neck. Flashing lights flooded my field of vision, some signaling death by magical machineguns, others declaring execution via shiny voodoo swords. I met the lead-guard’s narrowing eyes as she reached for her sword, her mouth twisting open to order a swift end to my short and ill-advised adventure.

Her pupils were a fiery shade of red, like tongues of flame licking the insides of a glass orb. I stared into them, convinced they would consume me. But the dancing flames froze, then flickered as her eyelids wavered, before being put out for good by the rocky road she collapsed onto. The ethereal lights that lit the upper corners of my vision puttered out as the turrets died down, and the glowing lines of magical swords and spears fell on the ground like emergency lights on a burning airplane as their owners joined the lead-guard on her mission to inspect the durability of the local infrastructure up-close.

Familiar hands caught my arms, and we were running down the street again, a horde of hooded figures jumping out of view in our wake. A familiar crystal belt now adorned Ben’s waste, with an unfamiliar black sword attached to it unsheathed.

I couldn’t stop to catch my breath, so my heart continued to pound in my throat, which meant I couldn’t ask Ben for an explanation either. What kind of magic would let him knock out so many people in the time between him throwing me over the line, and the lead-guard giving the order to shoot?

“We’re almost there,” said Ben, his voice finally breaking me from my stupor.

“How did you…”

“No time to explain. We –”

“Val!”

“Elenor?” I said, looking behind me.

Adding to my count of strange things I had seen that day, Elenor came barreling up the street on the back of a tall lady, the same one who had stared at Ben and me outside the guilds. The tall lady’s strides were huge, and her gait quick, but what really cut the distance between us was how she kept jumping and sliding over and around obstacles like a parkour specialist. Ben, on the other hand, had to weave through pedestrians – most of whom gave us surprised or indignant looks – and urban foliage like leafless trees and trash bags.

“Elenor? She should be outside the city, why is she here?” asked Ben, not stopping.

“You know her?” I asked.

“It’s complicated.”

“Let go of Val!” shouted Elenor as the tall lady jumped over a group of red-robed teens. Guards would show up from time to time, but they never unsheathed their magic swords, opting to wade into the walkways and chase us through the streets instead.

“Almost there…” mumbled Ben. A giant wall, shaped like the one outside the city but as tall as the inner wall, stood at the edge of a crossroads with a road leading through the heavily guarded gate, and another leading up to a mansion larger than any other building in the city.

An audible grunt. The tall lady jumped onto a wall, and used it to launch herself at us. Ben stopped suddenly, brought his other hand back, and propelled me forward like he had at the previous gate. He grabbed me again several feet ahead, running even faster but with heavier breathing, and with a tighter grip on my arm.

This gate was lined with dozens of guards, all of whom prepared their weapons as soon as they saw us. There were no warnings this time; the turrets swiveled to take aim, and charged at the same time. A fully armored figure stood on a raised dais between the turrets, two giant, glowing swords crossed behind their back.

Ben stopped, and brought his other arm back. There was a grunt behind us. The figure on the dais said something I couldn’t hear. The turrets lit up, the swords glimmered, and Elenor cried my name. I was expecting to be launched into the frenzy, my insides churning, cheeks burning, and heart racing through the mushy rollercoaster in my head.

But instead of being shot forward like a stone from a slingshot, I was pushed aside, roughly, and slammed into a wall. An explosion flooded my ears, leaving them ringing before deafening me with silence. The pain of being shoved into a wall was superseded by the forceful wave that swept over me, and the shrapnel that hit my back.

I took stunted, agonizing breaths. The houses on either side were on fire, and through the thick black smoke, I could see the edges of a hole in the ground. As my hearing returned, it began to retreat again as my ears were battered by more explosions – not as loud as the first one, and coming from the direction of the gate.

Ben appeared by my side, and tried to help me up. I tottered, unable to feel my legs. I could taste the blood in my mouth trailing down my raw throat. Ben grabbed my arm and slung it over his shoulders, before helping me through the smoke.

On the other side, were more holes on the ground and on the walls. One of the turrets had been absolutely annihilated, as had the dais. Several guards lay unmoving on the ground, while others waved their swords at blurs that kept circling them at dizzying speeds, causing explosions that shook the ground and sent bodies flying.

I tried to say something, but my words got caught in my throat. Ben tried to approach the chaotic scene from behind, eyeing the moving blurs cautiously, and humming softly.

The humming helped me regulate my breathing, and calmed me down enough to untie my tongue. Still, I barely managed to squeeze out a question, “What are they?”

Ben stopped. One of the blurs had moved towards us.

“Raxxers,” he said, before standing his ground and humming with all his might.

<Prev|TOC|Next>

j

“Do we really have to sneak into the city?”

“Yes,” replied Elenor, without further explanation.

Instead of going through the gates the way Moxy had advised, Elenor led me through an old pipe that had once been a part of the city’s sewage system but had fallen into disrepair over the years. Someone had sawed through the metal bars covering the pipe’s mouth, and the muddy floor suggested it was being used frequently to avoid the spear-wielding guards standing by the main gate. Surprisingly, the pipe didn’t reek of human refuse, despite it being caked onto the walls, probably because of a trail of purple flowers that spewed a thin stream of white vapor into the air. Elenor made me pop a bit of green jelly into my mouth to ‘fight the Sweetflower poisoning.’

After we emerged into a decrepit house near the wall, Elenor made me wrap a brown rag around my head, leaving a little slit for me to see out of. We snuck out through the backdoor and began walking through a crumbling street scented with vomit, piss, and the unwashed bodies of dozens of pedestrians and beggars.

Despite their evident squalor, the streets on this side of the city were alive with bickering, talking, and the noise of children playing. Every so often, some of the children would snap their fingers and sparks would jump out, making the adults around them scold or chase them. Near the corner, a group of kids managed to light a bearded middle-aged man’s shirt on fire. The man had to tear off his shirt and stomp out the flames, by which point the kids had already escaped into the winding alleys and narrow pathways that crisscrossed through the wall of shabby, multi-colored buildings that lined either side of the streets.

I noticed the flame-shaped burn marks on the kids’ cheeks light up whenever they made the sparks come out of their fingers. This world’s magic was fascinating, but confusing, especially because I was certain Demetrius had used it to steal the House from me, yet I couldn’t remember any scars lighting up on his body at the time.

“In here,” said Elenor, pushing open the door of a muddy red-bricked building. The bright sunlight cast a shadow across the sign that hung over the door, so I couldn’t read what it said as I walked in.

“Take this,” said Elenor, handing me a key.

“What’s it for?” I asked.

“Your room. Upstairs, the second one on the right. We’ll stay here while we look for a ride to Chart.”

“Can’t we get there on our own?”

“We could probably get to the city walls but getting inside would be impossible.”

“Couldn’t we just sneak in like we did here?”

“No, Sett isn’t like the other cities in Fore. It’s the only city run by the Side Party, so there aren’t as many guards here, and the ones who are, are all registered with the Fighters Guild.”

“The Fighter’s Guild?” I asked, as we left the building.

“Yeah, that one over there,” said Elenor, tapping her stick in the direction of a red, triple-storied building at the end of the street. There was a yellow building to its right, and a blue one to its left, both triple-storied but with markedly different designs. While the red one had large balconies, and thick iron balustrades outside scratched windows, the blue one was mostly made of stained glass with metal paneling, and the yellow one looked like a brick house stacked on top of a mud hut stacked on top of a bunch of iron rods with sheets of metal soldered onto them.

There were different types of people outside of them too. The red one – or the “Fighter’s Guild,” as the crudely written sign over the salon door called it – attracted well-armored figures, most with a sword or spear slung across their back. These people, despite their scars and deadly weapons, chatted with each other like they were taking a coffee break at work. Groups of people walked into and out of the building, some lugging bags and nursing closing wounds, others exchanging plans for the day.

The people around the blue building reminded me, at first, of the mindless drones buzzing around the high-rise office buildings back home. Most of them wore black suits on top of immaculately pressed white shirts, with bright blue ties and pocket protectors.  Every so often, a person in ordinary clothes would appear, usually with a bag or pouch in hand, and depending on whether they were going inside or coming back out, they’d have a nervous, satisfied, or profoundly dissatisfied look on their faces. A metal plate hung on top of the swiveling glass doors, with “Finder’s Guild” stenciled on it.

Around the yellow building, people in ruddy, unwashed clothes mulled around with tiny trinkets and strange contraptions. Most ordinary people steered clear of this building, with the few who went in through the simple wooden door making sure to avoid the many unidentifiable objects littering the rocky courtyard and path. A glowing yellow sign made of rocks, rods, and feathers declared it the “Fiddler’s Guild.”

Although most of the people around the guilds had the flame-shaped burn marks that the people of Sett had, a few had burns shaped like three wavy lines, or a water droplet. I saw one person around the Fiddler’s Guild with a triangular burn mark, who ran inside with his cheeks alight while wildly waving a wooden claw.

“I’m going to get a copy of the Gazette from the Finder’s Guild, there’s always an ad or two by mercenaries and guards,” said Elenor, tapping her stick in the direction of the blue building.

“And what should I do?” I asked.

“I don’t know, just keep your face covered, I’ll be back in a second.”

A few people on the streets had been staring at Elenor’s face for a while, but when the people around the guilds saw her, they either looked away or greeted her respectfully. Most of the pedestrians stopped staring at her after that, but I noticed a hooded figure near the alleyway continue to stare at Elenor’s back as she entered the guild. A tall lady with a pickaxe noticed the figure and eyed them warily, prompting the figure to step back into the alley.

I stood at the corner, looking at the guilds and all the strange and unusual people they attracted. The lady with the pickaxe stared at me too, suspicious of my hidden face, probably. I didn’t meet her gaze but felt it bore into me nonetheless. The burn on her cheek was shaped like a water droplet, which shone with a soft gleam in the corner of my vision.

Waiting for Elenor to come back, I looked at the buildings on the other side of the street. There was a store selling fruits and vegetables, one with dresses and shirts hanging from rods in the storefront, and a windowless store that just said “Shop” on it. The uninviting décor ensured nobody would go into the Shop, passing by its unassuming wooden door as if there was nothing between the colorful berries and dresses in the windows on either side.

Elenor still hadn’t come out yet. I was feeling a little hungry, so I walked over to the store with the fruit, only to realize that I had no money. The people in the store exchanged purple roots and orange pods for little scraps of paper at the cashier’s counter while I watched a black-haired kid nibble on a bright yellow sphere. He met my eye, and raised the fruit towards me. I stared blankly at him until it clicked – he was offering to share.

While I hesitated, I looked around. The kid’s parents saw him offer the fruit to me but their gaze didn’t stop at the sight, and they continued picking more fruit from the stalls that lined the shop’s walls. He offered the fruit again, and I found myself accepting it. I broke off a small piece and kept it for myself, giving back most of it to the little boy. The fruit was tangy, but had a sweet aftertaste.

“Thanks so much,” I said, crouching so I was at eye-level with him. “I’m Val, Val Forster.” I offered him a hand.

He shook it. “Kino Paley.”

“That’s such a lovely name! Well, I have to go now, but thanks for helping me out there, Kino.”

He nodded. “My momma says if you see someone in need, you better help them or else you’re a tumbling Flopflapper.”

The proverbs in this world were something else, I realized. “Then you’ve got an awesome mother. See you later!”

“Bye!”

I wasn’t interested in the clothing store, since trying on clothes with a scarf wrapped around my face was a dumb thing to do, and the ‘Shop’ wasn’t all that intriguing either. I was about to cross the street to wait for Elenor, when a tall man with a package tucked under his arm opened the Shop’s door from inside. He tucked the package into his robes, and eyed the crowd. His lips moved as he said something, and merged into the line of window-shoppers outside the fruit store.

I looked away as he suddenly turned his head in my direction. Facing a dull red dress, I observed him from the corner of my eye. He vanished into the crowd, but I waited, went inside the clothing store, pretended to look at a few shirts, then came back out. I joined the stream of pedestrians walking to the fruit and vegetable store, but ducked into the Shop instead.

There was no window, so the only light inside came from the candles that lined the walls. The room was empty, save for a wooden counter at the far end with nobody behind it. The only thing on the counter was a metal bell, which I tapped gently, making a ring echo around the dimly lit room.

A muffled grunt came from the wall behind the counter, and a portion of the wall swung inward like a door. A white haired old man came hobbling into the room. His flowing white beard trailed the floor, and his bright green eyes shone from under drooping eyelids. He was hunchbacked, although it was hard to make that out since he was wearing a large purple backpack.

“Wasn’t expecting someone today,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice.

“Just looking around.”

One of his drooping eyelids lifted until I could see the candlelight reflecting off his eye. “You don’t come to the Shop to look around, young’un.”

“Ah, sorry, I’ll see myself out,” I said. I’d already edged closer to the door. “See you later, sir.”

“Wait,” he called out.

I kept creeping closer to the door. “I really should get going, my friend’s waiting for me.”

“It’s okay, I won’t take too long.” He moved out from behind the counter. “Clef or Epil?”

I reached for the door, but there was no doorknob. “Fore, sir.”

“Nonsense, you’re not from Fore. A Forian could never find this place.”

“I stumbled inside, is all.”

“Like I said, that’s impossible.” He was a few feet from me now. I could see the waves of wrinkles on his face. They sagged over the burn-marks on his cheek, and rippled across his large forehead and chin.

I put a foot on the door behind me and pushed, but it didn’t budge. His eyes followed my foot, and his other droopy eyelid lifted as well.

“Are those Moxy’s shoes?” he said.

I looked at my feet. “Yeah, you know her?”

The old man smiled. “Of course, I do! This changes everything, come in, come in. Don’t be afraid young’un.” He waved for me to follow him as he walked to the door behind the counter. A handle appeared on the door behind me but I followed the old man because I’d caught a glimpse of what was behind the door he’d walked through.

“Have a seat, and don’t worry, I won’t ask any questions you don’t want me to ask.” He gestured to a leather armchair beside a low standing table, but I didn’t sit. Instead, I gawked at the rows of books that lined the walls.

“So many…” I said quietly.

“Impressive collection, isn’t it? Been collecting them from Headers and government storehouses for years.” He poured a drink from a boiling kettle into a little teacup, and put it on the table in front of me. He grabbed another teacup from the shelf where he kept the kettle, and sat on the larger leather armchair on the other side of the table. He didn’t take off his backpack, so he was leaning halfway across the table.

The drink seemed hot, but that wasn’t why I didn’t touch it. “How did you know these were Moxy’s shoes?”

“A simple deduction, young’un. The craftsmanship, the style, the aura, all of it is patently Moxy’s. Plus, those M’s on the side – classic Moxy Melsam.”

“So, you know her?”

“A little. We used to work together.” He took a sip. “A long time ago.” He cast his gaze to the side and stopped speaking. I took the pause in the conversation as an opportunity to survey the room.

There were four rows of books along the walls, each of them running all the way around the room with only the topmost row out of reach. Most of their spines weren’t labeled, and the ones that were, were so faded I couldn’t make out what they said.

“Excuse me, I was reminiscing,” he continued. “Now can you tell me if you’re from Clef or Epil?”

“As I said, sir, I’m a Forian.”

“So, you don’t want to tell me. It’s fine, really. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a Forian nationalist either. Here, look.” He straightened the wrinkles on his cheek with his hands, and showed me his strangely shaped burn-mark. It wasn’t a flame, or a water droplet, or any other mark I’d seen so far. Instead, it was shaped like a flower.

“Do you trust me now?” he said, letting his wrinkles fold up again as he went for another sip of tea.

I frowned beneath the scarf. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is.”

“Really? Old age may have disfigured it a bit, but surely you can tell that it’s a poppy?” he asked, teacup on the edge of his lips.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Then you know what that means, correct?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t know about Project Poppy?”

I shook my head.

He looked at me strangely, drooping eyelids twitching irregularly. “I see,” he said quietly, leaning into his backpack which was leaning into the chair.

After a moment of silence, I remembered that Elenor was probably waiting for me, and decided to leave. However, I couldn’t leave empty-handed. “Um, sir,”

“Please, call me Ather, Ather Angel.”

“Thank you, my name’s Val Forster.”

“Lovely name.”

“Thank you, Mr. Angel.”

“Ather.”

“Right! Ather, I was wondering if you would let me read one of your books. I’ll give it back before I leave the city.”

“Sure. You’ve read more than three books, right?”

Odd question, I thought to myself. “Of course.”

“Then go right ahead.” He grabbed the untouched teacup on my side of the table as I stood up to look at the bookshelves. He drank it quietly while I perused his collection.

To be honest, there wasn’t a lot of perusing going on. There were no labels, and most of the books looked like they hadn’t been touched in years. I didn’t know where to start, so I grabbed one randomly. Opening the first page, I realized that it was a play by a playwright who was quite famous on Earth. I flipped through the Acts and Scenes, stopping at the Epilogue. I’d already read this book in the library back home, so I didn’t want to borrow it. But before putting it back on the shelf, I read the very last line.

“Let your indulgence set me free.”

When I closed the book, it vanished. Holding my breath, I looked over at Ather. He was sipping tea while staring at the ground quietly.

“Thanks so much!” I said, pretending to hold something behind my back.

“Don’t mention it, young’un,” he said, not looking up. “I hope to see you again. Farewell.”

“Likewise.” I walked backwards into the empty room with the counter. I sidestepped out of view of the door, took a few breaths to calm myself, and stared at my hands. The book was gone, just like the book I’d read at the House. Since I knew this was a magical world, I tried to call for the book somehow. I thought of the title, the characters, the first and last lines, and whispered the author’s name, but nothing happened.

I needed to find a way to understand this world’s magic immediately, both so I could return the book, and because I didn’t want every book I closed to vanish before I could even read it! But how was I going to learn about magic without giving away my otherworldly origins?

Wait, why was I trying to hide that in the first place? Someone like Elenor would give me an explanation about magic if I asked for it, and it was unlikely that would make her think I was from another world, but even if it did, why did that matter? As long as they didn’t hand me over to the government for dissection, I’d be fine. And I wouldn’t have to dance around explanations about the culture and norms of Fore, either.

If I had questioned my actions sooner, perhaps I could have asked Moxy for a better explanation of the Wonders. That would have helped me track down Demetrius more easily!

Resolving to finally getting a grip on this world’s mysteries, I opened the door of the Shop, and stepped into the crowd. I crossed the street, and went back to the place where Elenor had left me. The sun was descending, painting the sky behind the guilds a mix of red, orange, and blue. The crowds around the guilds thinned as people said goodnight to their colleagues, friends, and neighbors, and went back home. A few people went inside their guilds after saying farewell, while the number of people leaving the guilds decreased.

Finally, Elenor’s brown hair bobbed into view outside the Fiddler’s guild. She tapped her stick, looking exhausted. I was walking towards her when I felt something tug my head from the side. I turned and saw a man with the end of my scarf stuck on his armor.

“Sorry young lady,” he said, trying to pull it loose without tearing it.

“It’s okay,” I replied. He was wearing full-body armor with a helmet and everything, so I couldn’t tell what he looked like. His armor was so shiny, I caught a reflection of my face staring back at me. I also saw my eyes widen as I realized that my face was bare.

“Here you go,” he said, as the fabric came free, and he looked up.

I grunted as the wind was knocked out of me. The armored man’s surprised shout faded as I slammed into the ground, head spinning in a daze. I heard some loud tapping in the distance, as well as confused voices closer by.

Pain shot through my knees as I was dragged across the floor, skin scraped raw against the abrasive floor. A hand caught me under my armpits, and my stomach lurched as the wind cut across my face. Finally, I felt a smooth wall behind me as I was put gently onto the floor. I caught my breath and turned my face.

A hooded figure crouched next to me, the same hooded figure I’d seen outside the alley near the guilds.

“Sorry about that, but there’s no time to explain,” said the figure, leaning forward. The fading sunlight illuminated the corners of his fiery red hair, the tip of his crooked nose, and the edges of the nasty scar on his chin.

“Who –”

“No time,” he interrupted. “We need to get out of here now, Jean.”

At first I thought the explosion had been in my head – a product of this strange man blurting out my name – but then there was another, then another.

“It’s started!” he said, grabbing my hand and forcing me up. “We need to get out before –”

Against the cacophony of explosions and screams, and against the backdrop of encroaching twilight, a single sound cut through the noise to echo inside my head. It sounded like a growl played on a harpsichord, and despite its obviously unsettling nature, it softened my heartbeat, and deafened the explosions to a quiet pop, and the screams to a simple whistle.

“Want some more?” asked Moxy.

“Thanks, but I’m good,” I replied, setting aside my plate, and popping the last piece of bread into my mouth.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, her back to me as she put away the dishes, and cleaned the strange triangular stove she’d used to make breakfast.

“Yes.”

“Glad to hear.” She finished cleaning up and sat down in front of me. There was another empty chair to my right behind a plate of eggs and a loaf of bread. Moxy looked at the untouched food and frowned. She yelled, “Elenor, come down already, your food’s getting cold.”

“Be there in a second,” said a voice from upstairs. I’d already been surprised by how big the hut was from the inside, but after accepting that I’d come to a new world, a little space-bending magic wasn’t going to upset my sensibilities.

“Right, a little advice for the journey,” said Moxy, leaning closer. “Since you don’t have any burn marks, you should pretend to be from Clef. No offense, but Epilians aren’t very well-liked around here.”

“No offense taken, but couldn’t I just get some burn marks?”

“The people of Fore don’t have just any burn marks, their burn marks are very specific, and they’re tied to their social class, and city of birth. So unless you have campfires on your cheeks, you won’t pass as a local in Sett.”

“I see.” Branding citizens? This new world was already making me uncomfortable.

“Sett’s the closest city, by the way. You take the forest path out the Broken Woods, and it’s a few hours walk to Sett. Elenor will get you into Sett using my name but you’ll want to find a way to get into the other cities. I recommend a caravan.”

“Where’s the guy I’m looking for?”

“He’s in Bendeck, the capital. You’ll need to go through four other cities first; Sett, Chart, Devel, and Bass. Once you get to Bendeck, go to the Black Kettle Bar at midnight, the guy’s taken a shot of Coldwyrm there every night for twenty years.”

So specific, I thought. But what if someone else was taking a shot of this Coldwyrm or whatever? I needed more to go on. “What’s his name?” I asked.

“Henry.”

“What does he look like?”

“Black hair, blue eyes, about six fingers taller than you. If you can’t find him, just ask the bartender for help.”

“Got it,” I said, when I heard a knock behind me.

“Finally,” said Moxy. “I thought I’d have to go up there myself.”

“Sorry,” said the voice I’d heard yesterday as I heard another knock from the stairs. “Yesterday was exhausting, what with the Flaxxers going into heat, and the Flopflappers migrating for the summer.”

“I told you, you didn’t need to run the experiments,” said Moxy as a figure stepped into view.

“Yeah, yeah, but you would’ve complained about it the next day, I know you Mo,” said the brown-haired girl wearing sunglasses. She tapped the ground with the large metallic walking in her hand, and turned to face me with a big smile on her lips. “And you must be –”

“Jean,” I said, getting up to shake her hand. “Jean V. Forster.”

“Mas,” she said, shaking my hand with one hand as she put her stick against the table, and fixed the red pin in her hair. “Elenor Mas Cramer.”

“Jean, honey,” interjected Moxy. “Like I said, you need to pretend to be from Clef. Elenor and I don’t care because we’re Humanists, we’re shunned by society too, but you really don’t want to be known as an Epilian around here.”

“Oh right,” I said. “Sorry. The name’s Valkyrie, Jean Valkyrie Forster, but you can call me Val.”

“What a lovely middle name! Make sure to introduce yourself properly from now on.”

“Will do.”

Elenor had already sat down, and was about to finish eating her breakfast. She tapped the plate with her fingers while eating, humming a quiet tune that I couldn’t hear. The light from the glowing moss that lit the room reflected off her sunglasses.

“So you’re an Epilian?” asked Elenor between mouthfuls.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, committing to the convenient explanation of my origin.

“What’re you doing all the way here?”

“Looking for someone. He stole a book from me.”

“Damn,” she said. “That sucks. I hope you get it back.”

“Thanks.” I found this world’s love for books incredibly heartwarming. Both Elenor and Moxy had expressed so much concern for the stolen book, something the people of Earth would have never done.

“Alright,” she said, picking up her dishes.

Moxy moved to the sink and grabbed the dishes from Elenor. “I’ll take care of the dishes. You two get going. And Moxy, take the travel pack in the closet, we haven’t heard from Sett in a while so it’s best to be a little prepared.”

“Got it, Mo,” said Elenor, tapping over to the closet, and swinging a backpack onto her shoulders.

“Right, take care honey,” said Moxy, waving a hand in the air as she washed the dishes. Elenor walked to the door but I hesitated.

“How long have you two known each other?” I asked.

“I’ve raised her since she was a baby,” she replied, not turning around.

“But –”

“Come on Val,” said Elenor from outside.

“Hurry along now,” said Moxy, her voice lower than usual. “You don’t want to be stuck out there at night. I’ve given Elenor all the supplies. Also, I left a fresh pair of shoes for you by the front door.”

I looked at her back, she wasn’t even pretending to wash the dishes anymore. After another call from Elenor, I left the hut. I threw off the one shoe I’d been wearing before, and slipped into the leafy green sneakers with little Ms on them, that were leaning against the wall by the front door.

“Finally,” said Elenor, tapping her stick. “Let’s go.” She started walking toward the edge of the clearing, and I followed. As she reached the dense thicket of trees, she tapped them with the orb on top of her stick, and the trees dove to either side, making a path that stretched into the horizon through the green sea. I was far enough down the rabbit-hole to be unsurprised by this, but not enough to be unimpressed, so I let out a whistle.

“So do you know where that person is?”

“Huh?” I said.

“The person who stole your book.”

“No, but Moxy, your uh…”

“Mentor, step-mom, whatever.”

“Yeah, she had a lead that I’m following right now. It’s where we’re going.”

The trees swung back into place as we walked further down the path.

“Oh, so that’s why you’re going to Sett.”

“Yep, then onto some other cities she mentioned. Chart, Devel, and Bass, I think. The guy with the info is in Bendeck.”

“You’re going all the way to Bendeck? You’ll need a good guide for that.”

“I have you, don’t I?”

She chuckled. “I’ll put in a good word for you at Sett. A few guys in the Fighter’s guild owe me a favor or two, should knock off a few Inketts from their charges.”

I frowned. “You don’t –”

“Don’t mention it,” she interjected, tapping her stick on the ground, and walking as briskly as ever. “Mo took a real liking to you for some reason, kept talking about you for hours last night. I haven’t seen her that excited in years, this is just my way of repaying you for that.”

A booming roar rang through the air, sending flocks of pink birds flapping away.

“Raxxers,” said Elenor before I could ask. “Don’t mind them, they get a little loud when they’re in heat. Nothing to worry about though, they’d never hurt a bumblefly. Not unless you attack them first.”

“Right.”

“What were we talking about again?”

“Guides. Look I’m sorry but I feel like we’re not on the same page here.” I stopped and faced her.

“What do you mean?” she asked, tapping her stick in my direction without facing me.

“When I asked Moxy for her help, she asked for a favor. She wanted me to take you with me.”

She leaned her stick forward while pressing its tip into the ground. “To Sett?”

“No.”

Elenor turned swiftly, and tapped her stick on the ground. The forest path stopped closing for a moment but then the trees slowly began gliding back into place. Elenor rushed forward and hit the trees with her stick. They didn’t budge.

“Mo! What the hell are you doing?”

The vines hanging from the branches above her uncoiled, landing on the ground with a loud thud.

“Open the path, now, or I’ll never speak to you again.”

The vines flopped around on the ground.

“What do you mean that’s alright with you? When I get my hands on you –”

A single vine separated from the bunch and began tapping the ground in a pattern. I watched quietly, both because of the strangeness of the event and because there was a distinct solemnity to the occasion.

“No, I will not. I’m going to go to Sett, get a pinch of Tinpin, and cook up your potion for you.”

The vine tapped.

“Why are you doing this? Why would I even want to go to Bendeck?”

More taps.

“I don’t care. That doesn’t matter to me. You know it’s never mattered to me.”

The other vines slithered back into the underbrush.

“No, no, I’ve never thought about them for a second. You raised me, not them. They can go to hell for all I care!”

Elenor cut a pitiful figure standing in front of a wiggling vine, tapping the ground with her stick – in frustration, I reckoned, because she wasn’t walking anywhere. I couldn’t see her face because she had her back to me, but I could see the frustration in her arms.

“No, I… you’ve been reading me, haven’t you?”

The vines tapped furiously.

“Don’t lie to me. You promised you wouldn’t do that. You promised!”

This time the vine didn’t tap on the ground. Instead, it slithered forward and gently knocked on Elenor’s shoes. She kicked it away.

“You know what, fine! I don’t need you. You’re a liar, and an ass!” She turned away, face lowered to the side away from me, and began stomping away.

The vines stood up, and after seemingly looking at her for a while, they turned towards me, and nodded politely. I nodded back.

“Come on Val, let’s go. We aren’t welcome here anymore.”

The vine – in all its inanimate fauna-ness – seemed to shudder, as if it had been cut from its roots. The tip in the air leaned forward before stopping, lifting the leaf on its head towards Elenor’s furious figure, then slinking back into the decomposing leaves and splintered twigs that blanketed the forest floor.

As we left the forest, the path no longer closed behind us. Perhaps we were on a public path now, instead of the magical forest path from before. Or maybe we had been severed from the fantastical parts of the forest after Elenor’s exchange with the vine. Either way, the overburdened trees and the tepid, humid air were no longer as oddly welcoming as before, having taken on a distinctly normal feeling that seemed incredibly out of place in this world of wonders. Now we were just two teens walking through the woods.

The woods eventually gave way to open plains, and empty roads leading to a city just barely visible upon the horizon. Elenor walked five steps in front of me, a distance she maintained by furiously tapping her stick and increasing her gait whenever I tried to walk up to her. She didn’t stop once we left the forest, but she did pick up her stick and refuse to tap during the last few paces when we had trees to our sides. She eventually brought it down on the crumbling stone road that the dirty, somewhat grassy forest trail gave way to, a few feet from the edge of the forest.

We walked the rest of the way to Sett silent, save for the rhythmic tapping of Elenor’s stick on the pebbles along the road. Somehow, it always seemed to make the same sound despite the unevenness of the road.

It was only when the walls of Sett began to loom, and a throng of travelers started to coalesce around us that I noticed a whimper in the rhythmic tapping of Elenor’s metallic stick, and a crack in her otherwise steely breathing.