From that day onwards, Wenzel and Peter spent more and more time together. They always sat together in class and chatted during the breaks. Wenzel was interested in hearing from him what life in Camenia was like. Apparently, the summers there were super-hot and there was no snow in winter. Even palm trees grew there! Wenzel would have loved to see that, too! Peter talked about the summers he used to spend with his aunt, who owned a vineyard, and how he used to chase her geese around the yard for fun as a child. Wenzel, on the other hand, didn't want to talk about his childhood at all. He had always played second fiddle in the eyes of his parents anyway...

After school, the two of them wanted to sit together and chat some more. But in order to return "home" to his room later than usual, Wenzel had to ask his brother for permission. So, he went to Aurel and asked, if he could stay at school with a friend after class to "do homework and study".

Aurel raised an eyebrow when he heard this. "With a friend? Wimpel has a friend?" he asked in a puzzled tone. He pondered for a moment and then consequently said: "It's the new kid, isn't it? The one with: black hair, side parting, glasses. Doesn't properly speak Ordanese." - "Yes, that's him. His name is Peter," Wenzel replied. "Seems like you found a loser-friend just like yourself!", Aurel uttered. Wenzel held back his anger and didn't show it. Peter was no loser, he was a good student….unlike himself. At first, Aurel was not exactly in favour of the idea. But he eventually allowed it on the condition that Wenzel came home before five o'clock. And he would personally stop by from time to time to check, if Wenzel was actually doing his homework and not something else. When Wenzel heard this, he was both pleased and a little disappointed at the same time. He had thought he could use the time to get away from all the horrible schoolwork. Well, at least he no longer had to be sitting alone in his room.

Now he actually had a friend. And for him, Peter was his best....well, also his only friend, if one excluded Mr Albrecht. Mr Albrecht was the only teacher who was nice to him and who listened to him, but of course he wasn't a "friend" in the sense of him being able to share everything with him. An adult wouldn't understand him, but Peter would. For Peter, on the other hand, Wenzel was not his only friend. There also was a girl from a class below them, one who had Camenian roots, too, with whom he could talk. Nevertheless, Wenzel clearly came to be Peter‘s most important friend. Overall, however, Peter hardly had any friends and was almost as much an outcast as Wenzel in class. But, and this is the important thing here, he would protect Wenzel from the bullying of others in the future.

One day when they were sitting at lunch, Peter moved over, closer to him and quietly whispered in his ear: "What about Amalie? Why don’t you try speaking to her?" Almost shocked, Wenzel didn't know what to say and just stammered incomprehensibly. Yes. That's how it was. Peter had recognised Wenzel's feelings just from the way he looked at her. Now he was trying to persuade Wenzel to talk to her, but he persistently refused. "Come on! You just have to take the first step. It's really not that difficult," he tried to encourage him. But Wenzel was as stubborn as a mule.... or rather he was a coward. With his reputation at school, it was all doom and gloom for such an endeavour anyway. At least that‘s what Wenzel had convinced himself of.

Peter begged to differ. He tried to pull Wenzel away from his table, to force him to his feet and get him to act. Wenzel tried to resist, holding on to the table with all his might. "No!" he shouted loudly. When the other pupils began to look over at them, Peter gave up his attempt. He soon thought of something else.

Instead, he suggested that Wenzel write her a letter and slip it into her bag when they were moving classrooms during the break. No public "display" would be necessary. After a moment's consideration, Wenzel agreed. He sat down and wrote Amalie a love letter. He wasn’t a fan of the term "love letter" and he was terrible at putting his feelings into words, but he tried as best as he could. Then, at the end of a lesson, when everyone was packing up their things, Wenzel did so faster than the others for once, so that he could inconspicuously place the letter in Amalie's open bag as he was leaving the classroom. It was a success. Now he just had to wait and see how Amalie would react. "Let's wait and see", he thought to himself. But there was one thing he couldn’t have known:

There’d be no reply.

Just a few days later, the class would do a geography test. Wenzel's current grade in this subject was ..... concerning. That's why he and Peter sat down together two days beforehand to study for the test. At first, they just finished their homework quickly, a process that took the following form: Peter did the homework and Wenzel copied off of him, slightly modifying what Peter wrote. Then they took to studying a few things together for the test. Peter kept emphasising how "easy" they actually were. "Easy to say, if you're clever," Wenzel thought to himself. The aim was to be able to name the most important countries, cities, bodies of water and mountains in Kaphkos. On the continent of Kaphkos, which was almost entirely taken over by the Ordanian Confederacy, there were five important countries: the cold Corakia in the north, the stormy Zeemark in the west, the warm Camenia in the south, the rugged, mountainous Kasharovar in the east and north-east, and in the centre Ordania with its vast plains and four-season climate.

Wenzel had no trouble memorising the big countries and where they were, but when it came to reading maps and finding rivers, mountains and towns, he had a hard time. There was only one town he could always locate reliably: his hometown, or rather the town he grew up in, Meglarsbruck and the river it was situated on, the Duhn. For that reason, he spent hours practising with Peter to name the places and landscapes correctly. To Wenzel it was an ordeal. The Isara Mountains, the highest mountain range in Kaphkos, was in Kasharovar, but because there were so many mountains there, Wenzel always pointed to the wrong ones on the map. What he also got wrong time and time again, were the exact locations of the capitals of the respective countries. At the end of the day, he was at least able to correctly name a few places in Ordania and Camenia, because their names stayed best in his memory.

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Tired from all his studying, Wenzel looked at his watch to realise, that it was only four o'clock. They still had an hour to go. Then, out of nowhere, Peter suddenly asked him the most important question he had ever asked him: "Hey, Wenzel! On some afternoons, when you're just totally exhausted from school, you go somewhere and afterwards you look like you’re feeling a thousand times better. What's going on there? Do you have some kind of condition?" Wenzel, clearly caught off guard by what Peter had just asked, stared blankly into his eyes, but immediately turned his gaze away again. What excuse could he come up with so quickly? There was nothing but a gaping void in Wenzel's head. He was definitely tired from studying for so long. His gaze wandered out the window, where one could see all the flowers being in full bloom outside, as well as the lush green of the sprouting plants. "Wenzel?" he addressed him in a somewhat worried tone. There was no answer. While his gaze remained fixed on the nature outside, he didn’t utter a word. The songbirds‘ chirping could be heard in the background.

..........

"You believe in magic, don't you?" Wenzel started his response. Yes, this was indeed happening. Wenzel continued to tell him about his magic and the pendant. The main reason for this was simply, because he trusted Peter. Unconsciously, in the back of his mind, of course, his awareness that Peter seemed to have no aversion to the worship of saints, that is, the worship of magicians, had also contributed to this. To say that Peter was surprised by what he had now learnt would be a massive understatement. Nevertheless, he didn‘t believe Wenzel completely. He did, however, give him the benefit of the doubt and he treated everything Wenzel said as if it were true. Moreover, he promised not to tell anyone else.

"So, your magic is in a pendant?"

"Yes."

"And why don't you just steal it back, at least in a way, that Aurel doesn’t get wind of it missing?"

"I ..... I haven't been able to do that, yet. I even made a wager with Aurel once, that I'd get it back permanently, if I could beat him in a long throw contest.

"Seriously? Then why didn't you accept it?"

"I did! I even won it. Although, I'm sure, Aurel actually just let me win. When I got the stone, I keeled over like I always do and, when I was unconscious, Aurel took the stone away from me again!"

"So, you don’t have any control at all?"

"I do have control! At least, now I do. I just wasn't used to being in my 'normal' state. But I've been practising for a long time now and I can pull myself together."

Peter pondered for a moment, but then advised Wenzel not to steal the pendant. It would only cause problems with everyone around him.

"If you're not planning to run away, then I wouldn't do it. You'll just get yourself into trouble."

Wenzel had no intention of running away. He wouldn't even know where to go. "Yes, you're right," he agreed with his best friend.

Wenzel passed the test they had two days later. He had just made it by a hair's breadth, but the few places in Ordania and Camenia that he could name correctly had made all the difference! His teacher in the subject was also Mr Albrecht, who had (most likely) been gracious enough to let him pass, but it was a small victory for him, nonetheless. Wenzel took what he could get.

Soon, however, Wenzel would actually take the pendant from Aurel! No, he would not steal it permanently and he had no intention of running away, even though he hated it here. It was late at night and Aurel was so sound asleep, that his snoring sounded like he was sawing the wood of an entire forest. Wenzel slowly crept over to him and nicked his soul from the top drawer of his bedside cabinet. He just wanted the relaxation of being whole again, at least for a few hours. That was definitely risky! If he fell asleep, which was very much possible, because it currently was blackest night, Aurel would catch him red-handed with the stone in his hands come morning. There was no way that he could let that happen! So, Wenzel tried very hard not to fall asleep. He was as tired as it gets, but managed to stay awake with great effort. He still achieved the desired effect of making his usually constant headache and feebleness disappear.

Suddenly, Wenzel felt as light as a feather. Hovering above the ground, he looked around him: He was surrounded by black shards, a countless number of them. Wenzel turned round and glanced at what was beside him and behind him. There was a huge sea of shards all around him. No matter where he looked, an endless sea of shards stretched out in all directions. Some of the large, man-sized shards were covered in purple tatters. To take a closer look at them Wenzel moved closer to one. A light breeze caught the rag, which looked like it used to be a cape, and blew it away. At that moment, the shards abruptly turned to stone, but not just any kind of stone. There were a lot of bricks and other stones, but also wooden beams, sticks, tools, furniture and other things that were suddenly scattered everywhere. Wenzel was standing in the middle of ruined houses. Screams and whimpers could be heard in the distance. With his left foot Wenzel stepped into a puddle, as he turned around to orient himself. All around him was destruction. Wenzel had a very bad feeling about this. This scene was as real as, if he was actually standing in this place.

But all of a sudden, he was jolted out of the moment and opened his eyes. Wenzel was looking up at the dark ceiling of his room. When he looked over, he saw Aurel sleeping in the neighbouring bed. He was still snoring. Yes, Wenzel had lost consciousness again, but he had apparently only been out for a short time. There was only one thing, he was sure of: This had been a vision of the future. He didn't know what to do with this knowledge. He spent another hour with his soul, but had no more visions. Then he returned the pendant unnoticed.