Mamie left them in the wagon and stepped out into the burning neighborhood. Lyam heard her yelling at the crafters, demanding their attention. They eagerly obliged, not without yells of their own. Mamie, despite her age, was agile on her feet and swift with her movements. Lyam and Emma saw her shadow through the canvas sheet, bounding across the street and drawing the crafters away. There was stamping of footsteps in her pursuit. Then two more shadows ran across the canvas. The coast was now clear.

“Emma, now!” Lyam said in a hushed whisper, leading his sister out of the wagon and down the street. They rushed into the opposite direction.

“Will Mamie be okay?” Emma asked as she followed her brother, clutching onto his hand.

“She is tough. She will make it,” he said, feeling a bit uncertain about his own words.

They went down a bend in the road, passing by a bloody hand peeking out from under a burning heap of stone and straw. Emma whimpered as she noticed the limb. One of the fingers was bent sideways.

“Don't look at it, Emma,” Lyam said, running faster. “Keep looking at me okay? Look at where we are going.” He looked at her and made himself smile. “We are going to Eisdel. We'll meet with Mamie there. Keep saying that.”

“We are going to Eisdel. We'll meet with Mamie…”

“That's it.”

Emma kept repeating it over and over. They kept retracing the path he had taken.The smoke was thicker than before. They covered their noses to keep their lungs from getting scorched. They kept moving. They just had to get to the town square without running into the crafters. Mamie would circle back to them. Maybe they’d meet her before they started on their way to Eisdel.

“Just a little more distance, Emma,” Lyam said, feeling a swell of hope in his heart. “We are almost there.”

They passed by the only tavern of Vermeil. Broken glass crunched under their boots, the smell of ale and wine and burnt flesh mingled with the stench of smoke. The children winced as they kept moving. Emma was starting to cough now. “Keep your face covered, Emma.” He clutched onto her hand tighter.

The smoke had gotten thicker, the path was barely visible now.

Emma coughed again. “Brother, it's suffocating.”

“Just keep your breathing slow. Don’t breathe too heavily.” Lyam held her hand tighter, partly to make sure he didn’t lose her in the oppressive pall and partly because he was scared of getting lost himself.

The smoke was growing denser. Lyam’s eyes started to sting as he tried to navigate the foggy darkness engulfing them. Emma whimpered behind him again. “Hang on, Emma. We're almost out of here.”

The darkness seemed to dissipate. He hadn’t quite breathed a sigh of relief when Emma shrieked.

“Where do you think you runts are going?!” a voice snapped. It was the woman with the whip.

Lyam's first reaction was to swing at the woman. She dodged him with ease and knocked him in the forehead with the handle of her whip. Lyam winced as he felt the crystal against his skin. It was hot as burning coal.

The boy stumbled backwards. The woman yanked Emma towards herself. The little girl sobbed and struggled to free herself. But the woman’s fingers just dug into her wrists and wrenched painfully. Emma shrieked again.

Lyam whipped out his slingshot. He plugged a steel marble in the woman’s face. She was much closer this time so her eyes were a much easier target than the last time he’d shot her. Their assailant was too slow to react. The marble struck her straight into her eyeball. The woman groaned, gripping her face. Lyam charged at her and drove his shoulder into her torso, pushing with all his strength, toppling her over. She went down with a loud thud, a cloud of ash rising up around her. She frantically reached for her whip, Emma kicked it away from her.

Lyam grabbed his sister by the wrist and took off running.

“Not so fast!” The woman flung something at them.

A glowing green crystal tumbled in front of them. There was an explosion. Emma shrieked again. The children found themselves facing a curtain of flames, blocking their path. Lyam dragged his sister to the right while the whip lady was reaching for her weapon.

Lyam and Emma rushed into the first building they saw. “Brother, that place is burning too!”

“We need to get that woman off our trail first.” He slammed the door shut behind him and turned to look around. Large pieces of leather were suspended from hooks in the ceiling. More leather was stacked on a desk next to big needles and threads and thick metal scissors. Several drums stood in one corner of the room. They were in a tannery.

“Brother, use this.” Emma pointed at the desk at the center of the room. “We can block the door with it.”

Lyam managed to smile. “Perfect, Emma!” The children dragged the desk by the door. Surprisingly, the woman hadn't kicked it down and burst in yet. But a high window next to the door exploded. Three green crystals burst through. Lyam quickly dove towards his sister and covered her with his own body.

The next thing they knew, the room was drowning in flames. “Are you alright, Emma?”

She nodded. “Are you?”

A large piece of debris had struck him in the back but he just nodded at her. He reached up for one large segment of leather hanging by the hook. He snatched it down and covered Emma with it. That would give her some protection against the fire.

“You two better come out of there on your own or I'm going to flatten you under the rubble!” the woman growled from outside.

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She flung another crystal into the tannery. Lyam yanked Emma deeper into the building before they were engulfed by more flames. They passed by another line of suspended leather pieces from the ceiling. The fire in the outer room was raging fiercely. Eventually, the smoke found its way to them. Emma coughed and so did Lyam.

“My throat hurts…” she said in a weak voice.

“Just hold your breath for a minute.” Lyam made his way to the opposite wall and stood under another high window. He locked his fingers together and held out both his hands. “Put your foot here and grab onto that window up there. Quick!”

Emma hesitated a bit but did as he instructed. Lyam boosted her up several feet. She climbed out the window and dropped herself carefully to the ground. Lyam was about to jump for the window himself when a loud crash from the outer room grabbed his attention. The shapecrafter lady appeared. “Don't you dare!” she raised her whip.

Lyam launched himself off the ground with all his strength, grabbing onto the window pane. The woman's whip cracked on his calf just when he was about to climb out. His britches caught fire. The boy shrieked and flailed. He yanked himself up and dove out into the street, landing roughly on his feet and spraining his ankle in the process.

Emma saw his burning britches and gasped. She unwrapped the sheet of leather he had draped about her in the tannery and threw it down on the flame, snuffing it out. He was still wincing from the pain in his ankle but he pulled himself together. And they started moving again.

The shapecrafters didn't ambush them on their way back. Eventually, they made it out of Vermeil and near the forest. This time, Lyam ignored the slaughtered sheep close to the forest.

They took the dirt trail that led away from the village and towards the city of Eisdel. But before they could get any further, Lyam came to a halt.

Emma frowned. “What happ–”

“Shh!” He pulled her behind a tree and whispered, “be quiet.”

Emma swallowed hard, a shiver going down her spine. They heard footsteps approaching.

Then they heard a man say, “Are we done yet?”

“Not even close,” another man answered. “We have just twenty eight of these runts. Marcel wants us to bring all sixty.”

Lyam peered out from behind the tree. The two men were carrying a child on each shoulder. The children were all unconscious. “This village is too big. Why are there so many damn kids here?” one of the men said.

The second man scoffed. “Commoners, they breed like rabbits and give birth like pigs.”

“You used to be a commoner too.”

“And I'm glad I'm outlawed now. Can't imagine being one of these sad slobs.”

“But getting back on track, we need to block this trail. Margaux said two of these piglets managed to flee. We don't want more of these getting away.”

“Right, I have another shape stone for this.”

Lyam watched them as they walked past the tree with the children. They hauled the kids into a big wagon. Then they moved a few feet past the vehicle and disappeared.

After that, Lyam saw a big wall of fire erupting on the trail, blocking the road to Eisdel.

###

“Didn't Mamie say the woods are haunted?” Emma said as she followed her brother through the forest.

Lyam glared into the darkness as he kept walking with a limp, his leg was hurting more and more with each step. “You saw we can't go to Eisdel. At least not for now.”

“When will we go then?” Emma said, glancing nervously around herself. The trees were abuzz with the chirping of crickets and the screeching of bats.

“In the morning,” Lyam said. “When the sun will be out and the crafters will be gone. We'll meet with mamie and everything will be okay. Keep saying that, Emma.”

“We'll meet mamie and everything will be okay. We'll meet mamie and everything will…”

###

Emma had stopped repeating the affirmation after walking a few meters. He could hear her breath growing shallow as they kept moving. “B-Brother…I need water…my throat hurts.”

Lyam winced. “Just walk a bit more. I'll find you some water soon. We need to get to a shelter first.”

Emma collapsed to her knees, breathing raggedly. “I-I can't.”

The boy sighed. He crouched in front of her. “Hop on.” He turned his back to her.

“But your leg?”

“We can't hang around in the forest for too long. We need to get to a shelter quick. Just grab on, Emma.”

She gingerly wrapped her arms around his neck from behind. Lyam lifted her on his back and started walking again, wincing a bit. They were back on their path.

Lyam's unsteady hobble came to halt as he arrived at the entrance of the Shadow Castle. The same place that looked haunted in the evening looked serene as the moon itself. Or maybe it was just a play of shadows.

He didn’t care either way. It was still safer than running through a village on fire. The boy carried his sister inside.

Moonlight poured in through the cob-webbed windows, painting shadows of all shapes and sizes on the weather beaten walls. Lyam got the same feeling of being under a lake once he entered the ruined building.

It was so quiet, so stable, almost safe, almost beautiful. He carried Emma up to the second level and walked into a room. He cleared the broken tiles off the floor and gently laid Emma on the leather sheet they’d snatched from the tannery. She had fallen asleep on their way over. He didn't bother her.

Lyam took the spot by the window himself. It was the same window from which he had seen the smoke rising out of Vermeil. He was so exhausted that the image felt like a distant memory. Even though it had barely been more than an hour since the disaster.

He leaned back against the wall and caught his breath. The excitement and fear still hadn't worn off. So even in his static position, he still felt rushed, still felt like his limbs were moving and his heart was ready to burst out of his chest.

He sat there, trying to absorb the castle's silence and the peace of the situation. That's when Emma groaned on her blanket but she didn't open her eyes. He gave her a soothing pat on the head.

He looked down at his wounded leg. The skin was red from the fire and swollen and slowly turning bluish. He frowned. It certainly wasn't just a sprain. He had probably hurt himself deeper than the skin when he had jumped out the window.

Lyam looked away. He tried to find comfort in their current predicament again. But his mind was just as rushed as his body. He was about to let out a groan himself when his eyes happened on something. Something blue and faintly luminescent in the opposite corner of the room, away from the moonlight. It had a smoldering glow in the darkness. Like a firefly breathing its last moments. Lyam squinted in the dark to better perceive it. But other than its dim glow he could barely make out anything else.

He leaned out in its direction when his hand fell onto something smooth and solid, like a sandalwood stick. He frowned in the dark and held up the thing.

The moonlight illuminated it in its gentle glow. But it didn't help ease the ominous feeling Lyam felt in his chest at all. The thing he had touched and the thing he was holding right now was a rib-cage. Big enough to belong to a human and small enough to belong to a child.

Before he could conceive any thoughts on it, a feral growl rang outside the castle walls. It seemed like the real owner of the house had returned. And it sounded really hungry.