In the hours Piercing Gale and I had been under the effects of the drugs day had turned to night and the ghost town had become lively. It seems the girl from the inn wasn’t lying, there was a festival going on. I could smell food frying, hear the low murmur of voices, and the sound of an entire village’s feet. But something felt off, felt unlike the festivals in Ves’hil’n’s childhood memories.

I quietly kept to the alleyways and shadows and made my way closer to the main road. As I crouched at the edge of the alley and watched the villagers mill about I realized what was wrong.

There was no shouting, no running around, no laughter. There didn’t even seem to be many smiles on the villager’s faces. I frowned as I watched them go through the motions of a fake, hollow festival.

“Are you looking for your friends?” I had to quickly clap my hands over my mouth to muffle my shout of surprise. Then I looked down at the source of the voice.

A little girl was crouching next to me in the alley, looking up at me with wide, innocent eyes. The red and orange festival lanterns cast sickly looking shadows across her pale face and her black hair was pinned down in a neat and intricate updo. The top half of her outfit was layered, elegant, and pristine. Her skirts were not so lucky on that last point. It was clear her crouching here was not the first time her long skirts had touched the dirt and there were even stains where she had obviously wiped sticky, sweet syrup off her hands.

I stared at her, briefly weighing the pros and cons of answering truthfully. Finally, I nodded.

The little girl seemed to grow tired of crouching and flopped down on her butt, two dirty, bare feet poking out of the many layers of her skirt. “I can lead you to your lady friend, no one is really guarding her. But your other friend is with Big Bro- the Master so he’s in a lot of trouble.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

For a moment, I worried that Piercing Gale had been caught but then I realized the little girl had no reason not to assume Night Lover was my friend, “who is this ‘master’ and why is my... friend... with him?”

“The Master is big brother Tenin.” The girl looked around before leaning in conspiratorially, cupping a hand around her mouth, “but I don’t think it’s really big brother Tenin,” she whispered in a voice barely quieter than her normal speaking voice.

I leaned in as well and asked in a raspy whisper, “what do you mean?”

“After Lord Lochu died, he changed a lot. He used to sneak me candies and pick me up all the time. And he hated the way Lord Lochu treated everyone in the village. But then when Lord Lochu died he moved into his house and made everyone call him master. He still married big sis Raan like he promised but she cried on their wedding day. Mama said people cry when they are really happy sometimes but I don’t think she looked happy at all. Both of them used to play with us all the time but big sister Raan always says she’s too busy now and a few weeks ago big brother Tenin his Kul for calling him big brother. And I know I’m right cause when I told my mother she said to never say it a-”

“And what does he want with Night- with my friend?” I asked, cutting off the talkative little girl’s ramblings.

She shrugged, “big sister Raan just told me it’s cause he’s special and we are holding this festival because of him. She seemed really happy about it.”

I rested my heels on the ground, settling lower into my squat as I thought about the situation. The demon in this town seemed to be some kind of body-stealer and it wanted to steal Night Lover’s. Could the demon tell he was one of the demon lord’s weapons? Is that why?

“Tii! Where are you?” a woman’s voice called, breaking through my thoughts. The little girl’s eyes flew open in panic and she stood, “oh no! That’s my mama!” She brushed off her backside as if that would clean her filthy skirts, “do you want me to show you where your lady friend is or not?”

“Be careful, I don’t think you can deal with this enemy alone.” Piercing Gale’s words echoed in my mind.

But I ignored them and nodded, “take me to Death-Bringer.”