“Who are you?” he asked after taking in my appearance.

All my planned wording turned to stuttering after I panicked about not creating any holes in my mask for my mouth. My voice came out mumbled since I’d done such an excellent job of fitting the inside to the shape of my face, including my lips.

“Let’s save the names for after we get me out of the…street.” The original quote was from a grouchy investigator trying to escape the rain, but I improvised.

“Yeah, no. Who, the fuck, are you?”

“I’m here to see Jay.” I hoped to know I wasn’t about to admit to wanting to commit a crime to the wrong people.

He opened the door fully, his palm facing up towards me. “Are you hard of hearing under that?”

I resorted to one of the ideas I had previously discarded since keeping it simple wasn’t working. “Your potential benefactor sent me to help with the gambling house.”

We were about the same height, so he puffed out his chest and squared his shoulders to try to look down at me. When I didn’t move, he poked his head out to check each way before stepping aside to let me in. It was what I had asked for, so despite my apprehension, I walked in to see his friend with a hand wrapped around the hilt of a kitchen knife.

The mage stood behind me with his palm to my head. “You’re going to take off that mask and explain exactly why you would think something like that. How do you know about this place?”

“I just go where I’m sent,” I said with what I hoped was a casual shrug. I was panicking underneath the mask, but since I’d borrowed one line from a book character, it seemed okay to borrow more.

“Take a seat, fists clenched where I can see them,” he said, directing me to a stool the girl was placing upright.

“From your accent, I’ll take it you’re with the foreigner,” the girl said, stepping back from the stool.

I sat with beads of sweat dripping down the back of my neck from having a knife so close to me. “The one who would like nothing more than to support your cause? Yes, I am.”

“Well, we don’t appreciate spies coming into our buildings. That was one of yours last night? That’s how you know about the vote, or did someone talk?” the mage asked.

“No one talked. They were one of ours.”

“What do we do?” he asked the girl behind me.

“Wait for Jay? Maybe even Fergie?”

He pushed the door, which slammed shut and left us in gloomy darkness. “Don’t use names you—”

“She already knows Jay. Fergie was also at the meeting.”

He waved her off and paced across the room while I crossed my legs and tried to pull my cloak over to cover more of my overalls.

“Fine, we'll wait.”

“Who said you had the final decision? That was my idea to begin with.”

He ignored her and turned to me. “What do we call you?”

I’d been concentrating on the knife wielder behind me and hadn’t thought of a name beforehand, so I sat silently as I struggled for an answer. “Twig?”

I regretted it the moment the word came out of my mouth.

“Twig? There seems to be a theme here,” he said, looking at my mask. “Well, this is Kim, and you can call me Burn.”

A knife came tumbling over my shoulder and thunked into the wall behind Burn. “What happened to no names, dipshit?”

“She doesn’t know what ‘Kim’ is short for,” he said, standing back up from where he’d ducked. I’d also flinched yet didn’t think they were paying attention to me.

“Really? How many names shorten to it, huh, Bernard?”

He pulled the knife from the wall and pointed it at her. “Now you’re just being an asshole.”

“Fuck you. I’ll get Jay. You stay here and babysit.” She didn’t mind the knife still pointed at her as she marched past and out the door, slamming it shut behind her with more force than last time.

Bernard was now free to point it at me. “I feel a single thread of mana formed…”

“You won’t.”

We waited in silence while I tried to think of different phrases from all my murder mystery books and stitch them into a real person I could portray. Being myself wasn’t an option since I didn’t want to be here anymore and would have run away at the first opportunity.

One of the villains from the murder in the train story was particularly enticing for the situation. She was described as wearing tight clothing, always lounging with her lithe legs crossed and puffing on a pipe pinched between red lips.

I had almost one of those aspects down with my legs crossed, though I wasn’t sure if anyone would call them ‘lithe.’ She didn’t talk much except to give snippy responses, which I wasn’t sure would play out too well for me. However, it was better than bumbling through a speech trying to appeal to their unknown fondness for animals.

If Sam, Janette, and the duke didn’t care, then they wouldn’t.

To stop myself from going down a route that could get a knife embedded in my chest I looked around the room instead. It was connected to the front showroom by an open archway so that I could watch blurry outlines of people walking past the display. “How has no one found this place with so many mages walking past?”

“Well, our watch can’t just bash down doors around here because they ‘sense’ something. They still do, but that’s for the other districts. Over here, these buildings are owned by people who’ll gut them in the chancery.”

“Fergie’s mother?”

He ignored me in favour of carving out something in the wooden wall. “Among others. It’s unfair, but we must use all our advantages if we want to fight back.”

“Against the watch?”

“Against a system that tells me my friend is worth less than me for not controlling mana.”

“Alister agrees with you on that?”

He scoffed. “We need the numbers. He has his uses.”

I tracked the group of people rushing through the back alleyway towards us and hoped they’d move past, the door banging open to crush that hope to bits. Being a mage, Jay didn’t need to look around to see where I was. His scarf flopped about his neck as he stomped over.

He barred his teeth at me as spit flew from his mouth. “It was you! You were the one sneaking around last night.”

His group, including Alister and Brigette, who were not in their kudu and owl masks, came in behind him. He reached for my mask; I raised my hand towards him and sent a blast of air an arm's breadth away from his chest.

Jay’s legs lifted off the ground as the top half of his body flew back towards his group, who were already making way for his tumble outside the door. They took a second to look in stunned shock before a variety of makeshift weapons and bare palms were levied at me.

If I tried to move too fast with my legs crossed on a stool that tipped from side to side depending on where I leant, I would have fallen down in a heap.

So, I froze and hoped they would forget I was there if I stayed still.

“Wait, wait,” Jay said, picking himself off the ground using the doorframe. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Jay turned his palms away from me and nodded in my direction. “I deserved that.”

“The fuck you did, that thing is intruding.”

I stayed quiet to see if he’d do all the talking for me. No one else was calming down since pointy metal and collections of mana were still aimed at me. To try to lower some tensions, I lowered my raised hand and tucked it back inside the folds of my cloak.

“Twig, right? You spend a lot of time in forests?” he asked, approaching me like a frightened mouse. I appreciated the slow movements since I was at least one of those things.

“I do—did.”

Jay collected a three-legged chair and stood it up to sit in. He had to perch on the front lip since leaning backwards would have left him on the floor.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“Are you hiding pointed ears under that hood?”

It was now the second time someone had called me an elf, third if the treant counted, and I couldn’t decide whether being one would be better for my current predicament or not. “Maybe.”

“Well, we appreciate the help offered to us. Right, everyone?” he asked to unenthused and confused faces. “ Can I ask how you knew? And why we’re getting help at all?”.

Alister closed the door and walked around me to look out the glass display in the front. He didn’t react when we made eye contact, so I felt safe in the knowledge that he couldn’t recognise me with the mask. The rest of the group found places to prop themselves up against while still tensing their hands on the grips of weapons.

“It was me yesterday, upstairs. I told them of your plan, and they think hitting the gambling house is a good step to invest in.”

“We can do this ourselves. We don’t need a caretaker if that’s what he thinks,” Brigette said.

“Shush,” Jay said. “I got to the third year at Poitzers Academy before being forced out, so I know a thing or two more than the rest. Your mana was hidden yesterday, even to me. That spell was also hidden until the last moment. How are you doing that?”

“A trick.”

“One that you can share? We’re always looking for teaching materials.”

I shook my head.

We had a long discussion on what I could do to help them, and for most, I didn’t have an answer. His questions were starting to make me feel like this was a mistake and that I should just let them carry it out on their own.

However, they didn’t care about any of the creatures locked in cages. They were after the safes and roe strongboxes throughout the upper floors, not the basement. I had to go with them if I wanted anything to be done.

Some wishful thinking wanted me to hope that a robbery would close them down and they’d set all the animals free in the Red Forest, but that was doubtful at best.

A bell in the distance interrupted his latest attempt to find out where I was from and who I worked for. I’d mostly hinted at being good at getting into places I wasn’t supposed to be in but refrained from giving examples like Tamil, the palace, and here.

“Fergie should be out of class about now,” Bernard said.

“Yeah,” Jay said, leaning his chin on the palm of his hand. “He gets paranoid with new people around. What do you think we do with this one?”

I drew everyone's attention by moving for the first time during the whole exchange. “I’m going to have lunch. Can I know when to come back for…planning and such?”

“Hmm,” Jay said and locked eyes with me. “We’re having a meeting tonight, and you’re actually invited this time.”

I simply nodded and made my way past him to the door Brigette was leaning against.

“I don’t like her being here or letting her leave,” she said instead of moving. “How do we know she won’t sell us out.”

“Exactly,” Alister shouted from across the room. “And how is she going to make us roe? Does this weird fuck and her boss want a cut?”

Jay looked to me for an answer, and I shrugged. “No cut.”

“Let them out. We’ll see them again tonight.”

Brigette lingered but pushed off the door, and I was in fresh air again. Yet I couldn’t breathe deeply because of the mask. I pulled the hood further over my head to hang across my face as I shaped the mask into a long bangle to sit on my opposite arm from the amber bracelet.

Someone was watching me from the roof as I exited the alley into a busy street. I didn’t look back and walked away from the castle's direction. My watcher lost sight of me as I crossed the street behind a new row of buildings, and I pulled off my cloak to drape over my arm.

The hair on the back of my neck didn’t stand on edge again, so I hoped I’d been lost in the crowd. The place I’d bought lunch from with Gram was around the corner, and I bought the lunch orders I remembered the knights standing guard wanted. In my daze of recalling the conversation with Jay, I almost forgot my own order.

On my walk back, I tried to think about what I was trying to accomplish and if this really was the best way for it. The best answer I had was to ask Jeremy for help. He could, but would more likely get me put in chains before even thinking about it.

The knights greatly appreciated the paper-wrapped rolls and paid me back despite my urgings not to. There was an ulterior motive to it all besides being friendly, which I felt guilty about. They’d be less likely to ask me where I was if I came back displaying where I had just been.

The way they checked every person as if they might be hostile made Jay seem too relaxed about a stranger being inside his meeting place with a mask on and vague promises of help. His first reaction made sense, but it was all weird after that.

I almost didn’t hear the horse-drawn carriage approaching me in time to step out of the pathway. The coach driver's angry swearing and the horse's annoyed whinnies convinced me to stop with the endless questions and doubt while I walked through the inner gate.

Everything would be just fine.

…

Caypa kept shuffling around above me while I tried to carve out a little statue of him. He didn’t understand its importance to me. Admittedly, it wasn’t, but he could still be a considerate bird and sit still.

My newfound love for the art form was motivated by my want to breathe through my mask the next time I formed it, but making the statue look good enough for my nightstand was still a decent goal.

I kept the guilt of having Haily bring my lunch out to the hammock again to myself and spared her from bringing another fish. Caypa was eyeing the colourful specimens swimming around in the pond below despite having picked through a carcass I didn’t care to identify from his thoughts.

“What do you think?”

He wasn’t impressed with the little groves I’d made for the wings instead of making them spread out and detailing every feather.

Just like when Linh had asked Sam and I about her drawing, it reminded me of Trissa. The sounds of Caypa, the wind through the remaining leaves, and the chatter of the palace died away. Replaced by the thumping of my heart and buzzing in my ears.

She’d like it here and appreciate it more than me.

Sam dumping himself at the foot of my hammock shocked me out of my recollection. The wooden figure that had been thrown up in surprise came down to hit me in the stomach. He reached over to pick it up, and I scrambled to grab it from him.

“Give it back,” I said with a kick to his shoulder.

“It’s so cute…what is it?” he asked with a grin I wanted to smack off his face.

“It’s a Caypa.”

“A what?”

When I pointed to the bird in question, his eyes widened. In his effort to get up, he tipped the hammock over, and I was dumped onto the ground along with my figure while he pointed his palm up towards Caypa.

“You know what that thing is, right?” he said, not taking his eyes off the bird.

I glared at him from my seat on the grass, not deigning to answer. They were saved from each other when other vultures flew overhead, and Caypa flew off to join them in the pursuit of food one of them had seen.

“Sorry about that,” he said, offering me the same hand he’d pointed at my friend. I took it and tried to pull him down with me but ended up just pulling myself up.

“Did you speak to Remee?” I lay back down and refused to move my feet so he could sit again, but I had to move them since he didn’t care and tried to sit on them regardless.

“I did…or tried to. I doubt it’s a different Fergie since he said to keep it quiet and that he and the others are just blowing off steam for a moment. No one’s been hurt, and the damages are minor and covered by the bank.”

A broken window didn’t sound minor to me. “Why isn’t he involved then? Would you?”

“Definitely not,” he said quickly. “I don’t have reason to. According to Dad, no one has reason to. There are jobs available for everyone that would cover food and shelter, so anyone committing crime is just doing it cause they’re rotten people and want what others have. I actually had some respect for Fergie before all this.”

That sounded an awful lot like what people would say about snakes. They’re scary creatures because they bite people despite them not wanting to bite anyone at all. The analogy might not have been the best since I didn’t like Alister for the same reason Sam mentioned, but the others didn’t seem so bad. I wondered if he'd consider me rotten for not wanting to vividly recall the pain of a drawn-out fight whenever I walked down a certain street. Maybe he'd care more if there was a law against keeping animals in cages just big enough to contain them.

“I’d say we stay away from anything to do with them for a while,” he said. “Sadly, that means less dancing.”

“Mhmm.”

…

I’d left the castle with the other support staff for the chiefs before the gates closed. Leaving alone would be too memorable, and I didn’t want to be asked where I was going. I planned to return before midnight and hoped the knights on duty didn’t ask too many questions besides my name.

The hood of my cloak was pulled back as I walked around the surrounding streets away from the meeting point. It was interesting to see the difference in people’s steps and attire on their way home: collars were loosened with ties undone, blouses were wrinkled, and pants had lost their creases. People looked more relaxed and less likely to scream at a passerby for getting in their way.

The next two days saw most places closed as they were the tenth and first days of the week, with the fifth being a half-day. I didn’t know if the towns and villages also followed that, but I thought it was nice everyone got a break.

Once the sun had set and the streets got quiet, with only a few groups walking together to the pubs or a lone person getting home late, I pulled up my hood and turned my bangle back into a mask with breathing room this time.

Someone was sitting atop the first building at the alley's entrance. I couldn’t see them in the darkness, but they were near the chimney jutting out of the slanted tiles. They didn’t see me either, nor sense me.

I’d moved my necklace to sit against my skin and drawn out the mana at the first notice of a mage being much higher than they should be. The next person keeping watch near the door wouldn’t have any problem seeing me if I walked in, so I stopped and climbed up a property a few doors down.

As I reached the second floor and started making my way across, I considered that this was a bit much and that I should have just gone through the door like a normal person. The locked windows and my aching fingers made me confident that would have been the better decision.

The wooden latch was easy enough to tilt away once I’d spent agonising seconds trying to differentiate it from all the other wood.

Everyone inside was waiting downstairs except a few watching from the roof. I thought there might be more people than this morning, but I couldn’t be sure with them all clumped together.

I strained my arm to push open the window while the other clung to the indent I’d made. The person below didn’t hear it open or my quiet tumble inside.

I remembered to shut it this time before heading downstairs and waiting at the last landing.

“—why do you think you can make this kind of decision without me? I have the most to lose out of all of us,” Fergie said.

“I assure you, out of all of us, you’ll get the most lenient sentence if we get caught. So relax,” Jay said.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You already got kicked out. I still have my time.”

“Then we better not get caught.”

I made my way down the stairs to stand at the entrance to the showroom and put some mana back into the crystal. “Hello.”

There were a few scrapes of chair legs and a gasp from the person closest to me. The non-mages didn’t care as much and simply turned.

“I told you she could be useful,” Jay said to a stunned Fergie. “Ali, go get the idiots who didn’t tell me she was here.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“Take the mask off,” Fergie said. “None of us are wearing ours, and if you’re going to join us, you have to show some trust.”

“Make me,” I said, hoping no one would.

“Relax, Fergs,” Jay said, slinging his arm around the boy so he couldn't approach me. “Twig is going to show some trust by breaking into Clem’s for us. Right, Twig?”