Velisza gestured at the cover of the first book. ‘Open palm before the open flame.’ “Most of the customs and etiquette will be in there,” she said. “Feel free to keep both books and peruse them at your leisure.”

I traced my hand across the worn leather of the book cover, itching to open it and start reading, but I refrained. This was neither the time nor the place. My interest in “spellrest,” which sounded like a nuanced custom, was mainly to understand the damage I might have inadvertently caused. However, I had already been presented with the bill for the entire incident, so my education could wait.

I needed to get out there, gather my bearings, marshal my resources, and start building myself up. It was time to move on to the main event of the day.

“Velisza, we should move on to the final step of our negotiations: ‘Reaching a mutually satisfying resolution,’” I said, quoting the last item on the list I gave her earlier.

Velisza nodded, her endearing expression turning solemn as she stood abruptly. She pressed her hand on the tower emblem on her chest, causing the crest to glow and spill light between her fingers. “In return for your cooperation in collecting the ‘void residue,’ the Tower offers passage to a reasonably safe destination along with basic provisions,” she said in an official, practiced tone.

I had expected the girl to have some pull in her organisation, but I seemed to have underestimated exactly how much. Making what sounded like a binding declaration on behalf of the power behind her raised my estimation of her standing.

The tiny apprentice removed her hand from the crest and fidgeted. “Um… I’m going to make the provisions a bit more than ‘basic’ because you seem really nice,” she said, her words disrupting the official tone of her earlier gestures.

Yeah, that was probably why I struggled to gauge her standing. She kept see-sawing between a knowledgeable young mage and an excitable teen.

She gripped the vial firmly in her hand and pulled the stopper. The moment she did, the ooze inside turned to vapor. The grey mist hovered above us briefly before surging towards me like a ravenous cloud. I braced, gritting my teeth as the streams of grey stuff entered my body through my mouth, ears, eyes, and nostrils.

I could feel it inside, meandering, wiggling, seeking its prey. For a moment, I panicked. Despite having decided that submitting to this procedure was the best way forward, I feared some kind of treachery. Did Velisza lie to me? Was I about to be hollowed out from the inside? I started reevaluating our entire interaction, looking at it from all angles.

My line of thought was interrupted when the ‘hunter’ started feeding on something inside of me. Instead of feeling devoured, I felt liberated, as if the creature were consuming the hard, crusty shell constraining my soul.

“The literature calls the procedure ‘deeply unpleasant’,” Velisza said uncertainly. She squeezed her hands into tiny fists. “But considering the author, that could mean many things.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” I said through gritted teeth.

I felt vulnerable, as though something were probing a deeply personal place within me. But the sensation itself was almost pleasant, like a very rough massage. I wandered if I was getting numb to having my soul invaded after the rough experiences I have gone through recently.

Before long, the gnawing sensation subsided, and the mist, now much darker, started seeping out of me.

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Velisza’s fingers holding the vial glowed, and the dark mist got sucked back into the vial in a thick oily stream. The newly reconstituted creature was no longer merely murky or black. It was much darker than that, like a hole in reality contained in a vial.

“How do you feel?” She frowned in worry.

I took a few moments to catch my breath and examine myself. It was as if a formless haze has lifted from my body and mind. The ‘void residue’ that was peeled from me may have been something incredibly valuable, but carrying it around seemed to have been bad for my health.

Now that I was no longer distracted by a myriad minor pains and bruises, I could feel several things calling for my attention. I restrained myself from inspecting them further. As excited as I was to start mastering my new abilities, there were more immediate concerns to be addressed first.

“I was right to be hesitant about it,” I said. “It was incredibly invasive and unpleasant, but I’m glad we went through with it.”

Velisza exhaled in relief, then picked her cup with her drink off the table and took another sip.

“So…how did I do?” she asked, hiding her expression behind the cup.

‘Was she asking me for a performance review?’ I thought in amusement. I decided to be lenient with my assessment. Everyone needs to have a starting point. And her charming clumsiness more than made up for lack of practice.

“Amazingly well,” I said with conviction. “You not only covered all the important points, but also sowed a substantial amount of goodwill between us.”

I could see her ears turning red behind her cup.

“Is it fine if we have a normal conversation now?”

I did promise earlier that I would linger behind and talk, so I agreed with enthusiasm.

My enthusiasm waned quickly. As it turned out, “normal conversation” meant her barraging me with volley after volley of personal questions, listening to my answers from the edge of her seat, her blue eyes wide in astonishment. By the feel of her questions, she sounded sheltered, as if most of her life experiences came from books rather than real-life interactions. It fit perfectly with the image I had of her.

I never revealed any specific details, keeping my answers curt and generic. Part of the reason being that despite viewing Velisza as a lovable teen, I couldn’t shake off the knowledge that her organisation kept abused prisoners in their basement. I had no context for what exactly was happening there, but I didn’t want them to have too much information about me. In fact, I wasn’t even comfortable with what they did know. But there was little I could do about it now.

Now that my presence there was optional, and I didn’t have the threat of death to distract me, I was looking for a way out.

Luckily, Velisza seemed to have read my eagerness to leave, if not the exact reason for it. After a final question about my favourite foods, she made good on her promise of ‘provisions’ and materialised a soft linen backpack out of thin air.

I pulled it open and was delighted to see a set of folded robes, a bag of assorted coins, a water canteen, and a couple of bricks of what I expected was hardtack. As I was adding the pair of books she gave me to the bag, I heard something like a clank of marbles from the side-pocket.

I turned to Velisza with an eyebrow raised in question.

“Memory spheres, they contain the basic lessons about aether control,” Velisza said, blushing. “I no longer need them, but they could do you a lot of good.”

My heart skipped with excitement. I was certain that having them would save me an incredible amount of time and effort. Seeking an instructor or a school was towards the top of my priority list, but having these in my pocket gave me plenty of leeway to adjust.

“Thank you very much, young lady,” I said. Then, remembering the goodbye the Entity gave me when sending me off to Galassia, I added: “may the shadows flee before your light.”

With that, I turned and walked through the portal of swirling white light overlapping one door, leaving Velisza and the beautiful study room behind.

…

Velisza of the ‘Faceless’ coven tracked the departing otherworlder through her mystical senses. As the portal closed behind him, the comfortable study room dissolved in a swirl of light, revealing the truth: a square box of solid obsidian stone. Within moments, the cosy furniture and inviting bookshelves vanished, replaced by cold, unyielding walls.

The stone room left behind was a perfect prison for anyone unable to swim through solid rock or incapable of portal magic. The air felt colder and more oppressive, a stark contrast to the inviting illusion that had concealed its true nature.

“What do you think, sister?” Velisza asked, her voice much deeper and more mature than a moment ago.

“I think you should get rid of that youthful mask. It is off-putting on someone your age,” her sister remarked coolly. From the shadows, a slender woman with solid-black eyes walked out, her spaded tail swaying behind her.

“I like him,” Velisza said, ignoring her sister’s remark. “His emotions…delicious. I bet he’d be ready to die for the ‘little Velisza’ with the lightest push.”

“Maybe to protect you. Romantically, he was more interested in the books you gave him than yourself,” her sister mocked. “And besides, ‘Surviving Old Monsters’? That’s what you gave him? He won’t survive the attention it brings.”

“So, he doesn’t like young girls.” Velisza shrugged dismissively. “I can be anyone, anything.”

“Blood of the first sister! This is no time to be playing with children!” her sister snapped. “Nothing about the plan changes! Ignore the boy and keep searching. He is not what we are looking for!”

Velisza gritted her sharp teeth, a hint of irritation in her voice. “He may not be what we are looking for, but if he survives what comes, he may prove useful.”

“Nothing about the plan changes,” her sister repeated, enunciating each word before turning and melting into the shadows.

Velisza looked at the familiar vial, whispering to herself, “nothing changes…Until something does.”