“You want to do… what?” Tola sat in a folding chair around a card table, in an otherwise completely empty living room. Today was the first day we got in our new home, a house for rent that Cheryl had found earlier, but it wasn’t furnished. Cheryl hadn’t had time to move what she had in, but even that would be little outside of the bedroom. We’d have to acquire more later.

Cheryl, meanwhile, paced back and forth. “I want to bait Mr. X. We gotta draw him out of hiding.” She put her hand on the other folding chair, but instead of sitting down, she began pacing again. “Mr. X” was the name we had taken to calling the unknown person who had taught Jared the little magic he knew. We knew nothing about him other than he knows some magic and wants to know more of it.

“So, what, you want me to hold magic classes at the bookstore? See who shows up?”

“No, no… We bait him with a book. We can spread rumors that we have a book of magic, are interested in selling it, see who answers?” Cheryl continued to pace.

“Okay, except we don’t have a book about magic?” Tola crossed his arms, watching the vet tech tread her path back and forth.

“What about your book?” She gestured towards Tola, or rather, the satchel hanging over his shoulder that contained his personal spellbook.

“Mine? It doesn’t even have a title, it’s just a random mish-mash of spells and… Cliff’s Notes versions of theories and such. I hardly think it’s going to be that enticing.” Tola scoffed.

“No? It’s freaking magic! Magic! And we don’t have to show everything in it, we show just enough that someone who knows magic knows it’s legit!” She was definitely wound up, gesticulating wildly with both hands.

I chimed in, sitting on the floor by Tola’s side. “You know, it could work. Just a cropped image, showing the Start Rune and one or two others… Something that’s not a full spell, so you’re not accidentally teaching anyone something dangerous. Or even make up something that looks like a spell but does nothing.”

Cheryl jumped on that. “Yeah! Or like… that!” One hand swept out to where, taped to the wall, was the paper with Master’s “air conditioner” spell, a design that created a chilled breeze. Currently, it was saving on electricity bills by reducing the amount we relied on the machines to do the same job.

Tola sighed. “Honestly, I don’t see the point.”

Cheryl clutched the back of the empty chair. “Really? Some guy is going around… empowering hoodie jerks with fire magic, having them do who knows what, and you don’t see the point in trying to find him and put a stop to him?”

“Correct. Sounds like picking a fight I would much rather avoid.”

The chair scooted across the floor, as Cheryl dramatically “threw” herself back from it, going back to pacing. “Well, I don’t want to avoid it! He’s a danger to the town, to… to maybe the state, the country, to the world! I was born and raised here, I don’t want to see Ida Grove end up ruled by some madman and an army of magic-wielding thugs! Okay, okay, fine. Well, we know he is after magic, right? So maybe he’s got something that will be useful? Like a… spell that… can locate that book you’re looking for? Roffil’s book?”

Tola rolled his eyes. “You’re reaching. Okay, so basically, either this guy is someone I can beat, which means he probably doesn’t know anything I don’t, or he’s someone who has a vast collection of powerful magic, in which case he’ll probably win. Still not seeing a reason to pick a fight.”

“He doesn’t have to know that much, just… something you don’t! And besides, fine, maybe don’t fight him, but at least talk to him? That could be good, right? I bet you’d have stuff he doesn’t, you come from an entire world of magic!”

“Technically, I come from Earth, you know.”

That earned him a harsh glare from the pacing Cheryl. “You know what I mean. You literally have a dragon sitting next to you.”

Tola sighed heavily. “Okay, okay, point taken. Fine, I’ll think about it. How would we even spread this rumor in the first place? Post on Facebook, where everyone’s going to call us fake?”

“Maybe not everyone would call us fake…” The wind was knocked out of Cheryl’s sails.

“Um…” It was hard for me to speak up with Cheryl so animated, so this was my best chance. “What about the bookstore? You could, say, spread word of an auction, claim to have found a rare book and want to see it go to a collector?”

“That’s a great idea!” The tone in Cheryl’s voice was honest, but had more surprise than I liked hearing. Sometimes I think she forgets I’m intelligent.

“So you want to lure a potentially evil and powerful wizard into a spot where Elsie will get caught in the crossfire? I can’t say I like that idea. That’s even assuming Mr. X will come to a bookstore in such a tiny town like this.”

A soft huff at the phrase “such a tiny town” came from Cheryl, but no real protest. “If he met with Jared, he’s probably local? Or at least willing to make the trip. It seems kinda silly to make a long trip just for Jared, so he’s probably pretty close.”

Tola stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Hm, yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Besides, if we lure him in to talk, maybe there won’t be any fire to cross? Er, you know what I mean.” That sounded better in my head.

“I still don’t like it. I can’t sell my spellbook, and I don’t like the idea of just handing over the wind magic book either. Not to such an irresponsible man as this.”

“So it’s a fake auction! We just cancel it at the last minute, claim some problem, no money is taken, no book is given?” Cheryl was back to pacing.

“Somehow, I doubt Elsie is going to go through with this plan. I won’t do it behind her back, it’s potentially putting her store on the line after all.”

I put my chin on Master’s knee. “We could ask her, then. I mean, we don’t have to tell her exactly what’s going on, just that we’re trying to find a collector… Hm, but then she’ll ask why it’s such a big deal that we can’t actually sell the book, so maybe we leave that part out, in case we don’t get Mr. X but just get an actual collector instead…”

Out of habit, his hand came down and scritched behind my horn. “Anyone who’s actually going to put a serious bid on the book is potentially very dangerous, Princess. They’d have knowledge of magic. They might not be our Mr. X, but they could be a different Mr. X.”

I pushed my head into his hand, purring softly. “What if we just… buy it ourselves, at the end? You’ve still got gold Sovereigns, you could put in a pretty large bid… And we could even take it back to Terra with us.”

“Maybe. That still seems like an unnecessary risk. I’ll talk with Elsie and see what she’s willing to do, okay?”

Cheryl sighed, finally plopping herself heavily into the chair. “Fiiiiiine.”

“You want to do… what?” Elsie Brown, owner of the Reading Is Magic bookstore, raised both eyebrows at her employee, glancing down at the dog he always had with him.

“An auction. I was thinking about trying to hold an auction for that book you found. Like a month-long event, people can come in and place bids, and the highest bid at the end of the month gets to buy the book. As long as it meets the reserve price, anyway.” Tola held the wind magic tome in his hands.

“Gee, I don’t know… I mean, I always kinda felt like it was something of a lucky charm, I used it for the sign…”

“Well… I’m not exactly a fan of selling it, to be honest. I was hoping to be able to buy it myself one of these days. But it could get us in touch with collectors, and we could perhaps start getting more books like this and selling them.”

“What’s so special about them? I mean, it’s just some silly game, isn’t it? Not that you’ve told me a lot, you haven’t even told me the name of it.”

“Oh, well, if you have the right books, they’d be almost priceless. You could stand to make a lot of money if you could arrange sales, for a small fee…” Tola tried to appeal to the businesswoman from a monetary perspective.

“What’s the name of this game? It seems pretty shady if you can’t even tell me that much.” Both eyebrows remained raised.

“Oh, ah, ‘Mages of Terra’? Though I think that might’ve been a working title, I… haven’t kept up with it, in this area… I found out about it while backpacking in Europe, and all.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” The eyebrows did come down, though. “You really think there’s that kind of market for it?”

“If you could bring one collector in touch with another, you would be in ridiculously high demand. Even more if you could acquire books from collectors willing to sell, and then sell them to other collectors.”

“Hmph… I don’t know… Maybe…” Ms. Brown thought it over for some time. “I want to see this in action for myself. We’ll do the auction, and if it really brings in that kind of money, I’ll see about getting into that line of business.”

“Thank you so much. I’ll get flyers and stuff made, you won’t have to do a thing.” Tola didn’t exactly look thrilled, he had been mildly hoping Elsie would shoot the idea down.

“So, will you show me how to play, then?”

That froze Tola in his tracks. I looked up at him, but I didn’t know what to say either, even if I was free to talk.

“Ah. I… don’t… have the… main rulebook, that is…” Tola tried to come up with an excuse. It was too late to try to spin it as anything other than a game, though.

“Well, I was reading the book myself. I hadn’t tried since I made the sign, and that was nearly ten years ago. And I didn’t really see anything in there about rules, just talk about wind magic and how to use it. It sure sounded like they were serious.”

“That’s because it’s not a rulebook, it’s a sort of ‘in-universe’ book, made as if it was written by a mage in the game. It’s for flavor, and collectors really love that kind of thing. It… really makes the world of Terra feel real, you know?” I thought he did a pretty good job of sounding natural.

“I just want to be sure I’m not getting mixed up into some kind of weird witchcraft stuff, don’tcha know? You seem like such a nice young man, I’d hate to see you falling in with a bad crowd, and it sure seems like things are getting pretty wild here lately. There’s that whole mess with Lucille’s boy and the Hellhound, the whole church is in an uproar over it and everything.”

My head dipped a little, and Tola sighed heavily. “I can promise you, there is no Hellhound. That’s the ramblings of an abusive man who couldn’t handle being stood up to by a simple dog, and he spun it in his head until it became something far more sinister so he could convince himself he was somehow the good guy.”

“Oh, right, that was your friend Sharon, wasn’t it? The poor girl mixed up in all that?”

“Cheryl, and yes. And the dog was Princess. Chad attacked Cheryl with a baseball bat and Princess protected her, and he couldn’t handle his own shame at losing his control like that. Or his shame at being broken up with by someone who didn’t want to be with someone who proved he’d pull a baseball bat on her. Clearly, somehow, ‘it’s all Satan’s fault’.” He couldn’t keep the venom completely out of his voice.

“Oh, gosh! You mean your dog…? Well, no wonder you’re so titchy-touchy about it! Still, at least nobody got hurt, right? Poor Chad can get the help he needs now, too.”

“Yes, I suppose. It’s up to him if he’ll take it, though. He didn’t exactly take the lessons of Jesus to heart, after all, did he?” He bit his tongue to keep from adding a snide comment about church-goers.

Elsie shook her head sadly. “It’s so sad, yeah. He was always such a nice young man, too. Such a shame that happened.”

“With all due respect, I don’t know what to feel about you calling him ‘a nice young man’ right after you called me that. I like to think we are very different. I have never raised a hand to someone in anger, unless they attacked me first.”

The bookstore owner laughed softly. “Ope, you got me there! …So, do you get attacked often, then? Like last week, with the kidnapping? What all happened with that, anyway?”

“That was… a mistake. But I think we’ve reached an understanding now, I’d say. At the very least, I severely doubt it will happen again. And if it does, it definitely won’t happen a third time.” The tone of voice sent a slight chill down my spine, which is an impressive feat when I literally have fire magic built into my soul.

“You sure don’t like to talk, huh? You like being all tall, dark, and mysterious, don’tcha?” I couldn’t tell if that was a teasing tone of voice, or if she was actually trying to flirt.

I guess Tola couldn’t either, as he blushed brightly and stammered out a denial. “N-no, no, I just… There’s not that much to say about me, don’t worry about it.”

“If things don’t work out with you and Cheryl, I’m single, you know.” Elsie gave an almost predatory grin.

“Wh–! No, I… That’s not…! Cheryl and I aren’t… in a relationship, we’re just friends, she’s helping me so I can get a place… I mean, we just moved in together, that’s all!”

Elsie showed genuine surprise at that. “Oh, really? You’re moving in together but you’re not in a relationship? You two sure act like it, don’tcha know. I was only teasing, you big silly.”

Tola breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I mean, I don’t mean… Okay, before I make things worse, what I mean is, I don’t know enough about you to even think about things one way or the other. We’re friends, and I’m not in the habit of evaluating friends as potential relationship partners, okay?” He paused for a moment, watching for her reaction.

“Um, okay?” Elsie blinked, processing the statement.

“Sorry, I guess I’ve just seen too many movies and shows where anything the guy says gets twisted into an unintended insult, so I wanted to be clear. I value your friendship too much to want to see it damaged by sitcom shenanigans.”

“You know we’re… not in a TV show, right?”

“Honestly, sometimes, it feels like it’d be a more plausible explanation for my life.” Tola sat down heavily on the stool and started leafing through the wind tome. “I think this page would be a good one to use for the flier. Shows enough to let someone know what… kind of thing is in the book, without giving it away enough that they wouldn’t want to buy it.”

“You can always talk about things with me, you know.” Elsie sat down on the other stool, holding a paperback novel but too interested in watching “James” to bother reading.

Tola, meanwhile, was too distracted with the rest of the book to really pay attention. “There really isn’t that much to talk about, I assure you. I only stay as tight-lipped as I do because otherwise, I’d have to spend hours explaining the meaning behind something inconsequential. That’s all.”

Elsie didn’t seem to buy it, but didn’t say anything more, and the shift passed in relative quiet before she left for the day.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“You want to… what?” Cheryl looked down at me as I sat in the middle of the living room floor. Some boxes were spread around haphazardly.

“I want to help. You and Master are doing all the work, and I’m just sitting around doing nothing. There’s gotta be a way I can do… something?”

Master carried in another box from outside. “What’s going on?” I had been trying to do better about thinking of him by name, as “Tola”, but right now I really wanted “Master”.

Cheryl shook her head. “She wants to help move.”

Tola raised an eyebrow at me. “What, carry boxes?”

“Yeah. I dunno. Something? Maybe, like, small boxes? I could balance it on my back, maybe use my wings, or… I dunno!”

The two humans looked at each other. Master waved Cheryl towards the door, indicating she should go grab something and that he’d talk to me. “Okay, what’s this about?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s this about’? It has to be about something for me to want to help? To pull my weight, possibly literally? Shoot, my harness is back on Terra.”

Cheryl was almost at the door, she had stuck around a little instead of leaving for a box right away. “Harness?”

“Yeah, I had a harness I could use to carry packs and bags and stuff, it was really handy for trips.” I let my tail wag a little at the memory of me and Master walking down the trail, camping supplies strapped to my body.

“I have to admit, that sounds adorable. I wish I could see it.” She grinned widely.

Master rolled his eyes. “Why are you hung up on this? It’s fine, just sit. You can’t go outside, you don’t even have your illusion on.”

“I can put it on! C’mon, please? There’s gotta be some way I can do… anything? Something? Please?” I squirmed in place, already raising a paw to my collar as I summoned the image of a dog once more to cover my body.

Master pinched the bridge of his nose lightly. “No. There’s no way. If someone saw you balancing a box on your back somehow, they’d throw a fit. Dogs don’t move boxes, and neither do dragons.”

“But… I… I don’t wanna be useless!” I thumped my tail against the floor for emphasis.

“Here we go.” There was a hint of annoyance slipping into Master’s voice, though it sounded so much worse to me.

“You think I like being a… a burden, getting in the way? Making everyone else do everything for me?” Maybe I said that with more hostility than I meant, but the way he had said that stung badly.

“No, but that’s just part of being a pet. There’s just things you can’t do, and things you can. This is one of the things you can’t.” It looked like he was rolling his eyes at me.

“I hate it! I hate this! I hate… me!” I was starting to tremble.

Cheryl closed the door, she could tell the tension in the air was more important than boxes in a U-Haul truck. “Hang on now, that’s not…”

Master tried to interject. “There’s plenty of things you can do, Princess. Plenty of things you DO do. You are hardly useless.”

“Doesn’t seem like it! All I do is stand around and play the dumb dog, and make things difficult. You have to make excuses for me, you have to deal with angry people, you have to make up stories about secret hypoallergenic breeds from Europe to cover for the fact this fur is fake… You’re still dealing with Hellhound rumors because I messed up so badly the one time I tried to do something to help!” I was sniffling now, but this body still wouldn’t let me cry.

Master knelt down, moving to sit on the floor in front of me. Cheryl moved to the side and knelt down as well, speaking up. “Hey now, you were trying to help, you couldn’t know Chad would react like that. And you were incredible, at the house. You managed to save both of our lives, disarm him, and scare the hell out of him!”

“I only had to do all that because I screwed up, I followed him and broke my disguise to threaten him, because… because I’m a stupid beast!” I raised a forepaw and slapped it down, having to fight the urge to claw the hardwood floor and leave marks that would upset a landlord.

Master’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, Princess… That’s not… You are not stupid, okay? Listen to me, it was an honest mistake, that’s all. You were under a lot of stress, you were a little impulsive, but you’re not stupid. And you did great with your second encounter!”

“Yes I am! I’m… I’m stupid, I’m reckless, I’m impulsive… I’m a dumb animal, just reacting and making things worse for everyone…!” I sniffled more. “I d-didn’t even think about… about how I’d… do anything. I didn’t have a plan. Even grabbing Roffil’s book was just… last-second impulse, I was already charging for the circle when I spotted it and decided to grab it! I really thought I’d get here, a-and then make it work somehow, and the first thing I did was get hit by a car!”

Cheryl tried to help. “Hey, it worked out, didn’t it? Because of that, you were brought to the clinic, where you met me.”

“It was dumb luck, and I took a dumb chance talking, and it was more dumb luck that anything worked. It’s the dumbest of luck, for the dumbest of… of animals.” I couldn’t look her in the face, I picked a spot on the floor in front of my forepaws.

“It was effort, you can’t really plan in situations like this, you kind of have to fly by the seat of your pants. And c’mon, you have wings, you’re good at flying!” Cheryl smiled at her own joke.

“Yeah, but I can’t wear pants anymore. I messed that up. If I hadn’t, I could be helping move boxes, instead of making you two sit here and try to cheer me up.” I didn’t take my eyes off their assigned spot.

Master leaned in, trying to get himself into my field of view, but he had to resort to using a hand to raise my chin. “Maybe, but if you hadn’t, I’d have been dead several times over by now. We went over this, remember?”

I pulled my head away at that last part. “Yeah, I remember. Just… it doesn’t… feel comforting right now.”

Cheryl nodded. “Nothing ever does, when you’re in the middle of it. That’s what depression is.”

Master sighed, scooting closer so he could pet along my neck more easily. “It’s not about moving boxes, is it? It’s about… making up for faults, but no matter what you do, you– I mean, your brain finds a way to make it not count. So you’re racking up debt but you can’t repay it. No matter how much you give. Nothing’s ever good enough for that fear.”

I sniffled and nodded. “I hate it so much. It never goes away. What do I do…?”

Master put both arms around my neck, hugging me and pulling me in close. I rested my neck on his shoulder and sighed, draping my head down his back. “I don’t know. You don’t owe me. You are incredible, more than ‘good enough’, more than I could hope for.”

Letting out a soft whimper, I shuddered. “N-nnh… No… Wh-what about… all the trouble I cause? I mean, Ms. Brown still looks like she wants to fire you because of me…”

“I think you’re imagining that. She likes me too much to do that, and she hasn’t had any allergy problems with you. I bet if we could let her pet you, get to know you, she’d even be thrilled to have you around. I know I am.”

“B-but we can’t let her, because… because of wh-what I am… I cause problems just by existing…” I sniffled again.

Cheryl smirked a little. “Really? That’s what you pick up on? You know, I have half a mind to talk to your parents and scold them for how you were raised. Seems like it always goes back to childhood, after all.”

I stiffened, freezing in place, eyes wide. I had barely a single thought to my old family, they were part of my old life, the human that was gone, not me.

Master felt the reaction, pulling back lightly so he could look me in the face. “Princess? Are you all right?”

I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? I just stared blankly, letting out a soft whine.

Master tried to prompt me. “You know… They’re probably worried about you. Maybe we should contact them?”

That snapped me out of it, and I shook my head. “Oh, yeah, that would go great. ‘Hey, mom, guess what? You’re a grandmother! To five little scaly hatchlings with chronic heartburn! Yeah, the mother? Oh, that’s actually me, yeah, I’m a girl now. Well, I say girl, but I really mean egg-laying dragoness breeder bitch.’ She’d love that.”

Cheryl and Master both winced awkwardly. Master scritched lightly under my chin. “Okay, so we don’t tell her that, but we could say something like, ‘I can’t tell you the details, but I’m safe and I’m happy’?”

“Tell her how? The phone? When I sound like this? I’m pretty sure I didn’t sound like you, so I can’t have you stand in either… But then, I can’t actually remember! Maybe I did!” My tail thumped the ground in irritation. “I’ve… forgotten… a lot, I think. I’m not sure. I can’t remember…” My head sank again.

Cheryl gave a worried expression, but Master wasn’t watching. “Hey, it’s all right. It’s not important. We can do it over text, using the internet. Find her on facebook or something.”

“I don’t want to. Please. I… I can’t do it.”

“I’ll do it for you. What’s her name? Where does she live? What about your other family? Father? Brothers? Sisters? Anything?” Master’s voice was so kind, but…

My wings started to stretch out, pushing through the illusion, as my heart raced from the stress. “No. Don’t… Please, j-just let it go, I don’t want to…!”

“Why not? They’d want to know you’re okay, if nothing else, right?”

“I don’t! I’m not okay! I’m an animal! They’re better off thinking I’m dead, everyone would be better off if I was!” I pulled away and started heading towards the bedrooms, I couldn’t take it, I needed to be alone.

“Princess, stop!” It was a commanding tone that I don’t think Master had ever used towards me, outside of when he was pretending to command me for the sake of others. It actually made me freeze in place for a moment. “Come here.”

I turned back, blinking in surprise. I didn’t know what to think. Part of me wanted to scream at him, to roar. Part of me wanted to run away. I found myself slowly walking towards him instead, but I think he saw the conflict in me.

“Thank you. Look, I’m sorry I pushed so hard. I didn’t mean to cause you to… panic like that. If you really don’t want me to, I won’t, okay? I just know that if it was me, if you disappeared, I’d want to know. I… I love you, Princess.” He patted his lap lightly and smiled.

I trembled as I took another step closer. And another. Finally, I rushed forward, nearly crashing into Master as I pressed my chest into his lap, burying my head against his chest and sniffling, whimpering as his hands stroked along my neck.

“There’s my girl… That’s it… Stay with me. You don’t need to run from me, I’m always going to be here to take care of you, okay? I want to take care of you, that’s what being an owner is. You’re my pet, that means that I’m going to take care of you.”

I whimpered more, closing my eyes tightly. “B-but I don’t… want you to have to… I w-want to be able to do things, I don’t want to be a burden…”

“Shh-shh-shh… Easy girl. You’re not a burden at all. Yes, there’s things I have to do, but they’re easy. They’re so minor, compared to how happy I am to have you with me, understood? I don’t even see them as… as anything, they’re as natural as breathing to me, and I’m happy to do them.” He kept petting down my neck, hands stroking through the illusory fur.

If I could cry, I’d have been soaking his shirt with tears. “Hnnh… M… Master…”

“That’s right… I’m glad to be that, if that’s what you want me to be. We’re a team, whatever form that team takes, it doesn’t matter.”

I pulled back enough to look up at him, and then pushed in under his chin, moving in to push my chest against his. “I love you, Master… I-I’m sorry I’m such a mess…”

“Silly girl, you’ve been through… through so much. The fact that you’re even in one piece is amazing, even if you’ve got some scars. I’m so glad you’ve survived, I’ll be here for you. And over time, you’ll heal those scars, little by little. Maybe you’re a mess, but you’re MY mess, got it?” His hands stroked along my scales, though he had to find the right spot, the illusion made it a little hard to tell where my head actually was since my actual neck was a bit longer than the dog neck it appeared to be.

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little, blushing and nuzzling in. “You sure you’re okay with a mess like me as a pet…?”

“I’m not… sure why you insist on being a pet, but yes. I’m okay with whatever mess you are, because I’m okay with you.”

Cheryl smiled as she watched the exchange. “You two are so adorable together, you know that? Just like a married couple.”

Both Master and I blinked, pulling away and blushing deeply. I huffed in irritation. “It’s not… You really gotta… watch what you say, you’re gonna give people the wrong idea, or get the wrong idea…”

Master was similarly having trouble knowing what to say. “That’s right, we’re just a team. There’s nothing going on!”

Cheryl laughed. “It’s so much fun to tease you two, though.”

“You want to… what?” In Des Moines, a sharp-dressed man glared at the young man laying in the hospital bed, his arm encased in a set of braces made to keep things in place. Jared had been having to undergo a number of surgeries, one at a time, each one implanting a metal brace and screws to piece together broken fragments of bone.

“I said I want to quit. I don’t want to work for you anymore. I’ll never touch magic again.” Jared was using all his courage to speak.

“You don’t just… ‘never touch magic again’. It’s a part of you now. It’s knowledge, you can’t simply forget it. Knowledge, I remind you, that I provided!”

“Yeah, well, I can try to forget it! Even if I don’t, if I never use it, it’s the same as forgetting it! I just want to live a normal life, I don’t… I don’t want this.”

“Don’t want what?” The man narrowed his eyes. His “Apprentice” was acting strange for someone who had an accident in the abandoned house he had been using as a hideout and meeting place.

“Just… all the secrecy. All the covering up of stuff. I don’t know what I’m doing, and you won’t teach me more magic anyway…”

“I won’t? Jared, you wound me! Sharper than a serpent’s tooth, and all that. Of course I will, as soon as you’re ready! But every time I send you to investigate something, nothing comes of it…”

“How’s that my fault? The bookstore didn’t have anything!” Jared squirmed in the bed, wincing as the motion made his arm ache. The bindings weren’t completely immobilizing.

The figure leaned in, bringing his face close to his apprentice’s, and he didn’t bother to hide his disgust at the proximity. “It HAS to be hiding something. If not there, then somewhere. Make no mistake, there is outside magic in our Ida Grove, and it’s magic I simply MUST have.”

Jared had nowhere to go to try to pull away, flinching at his master’s invasion of what little space he had. “Look, I… I don’t even know why you’ve got such a hard-on for it. Might doesn’t make right, you know.”

The man straightened, a cruel smirk on his lips. “Oh, but it does, my dear crude-worded apprentice. And I have the might, which means you have no right to quit serving me. I don’t even need to waste magic on you.” Reaching out, he smacked Jared’s arm, causing him to let out a strained cry of pain.

“Hrrgh! Th-then why do you… care…? About some outside magic?”

“Because, fool, the more magic I have, the more might I have, and the more right I have! And I need ALL the right I can get, to take back what’s rightfully mine!”

Jared panted heavily, trying to will the arm to stop throbbing painfully, to no avail. Maybe once his “Master” left, he could call a nurse and ask for pain medication. Until then, he’d have to deal with his head spinning. “W-well, there’s nothing at the bookstore.”

“Hmph, then where, pray tell, did the book you brought me come from?” The man clicked open the latches on a briefcase, opening it and producing from inside a leather-bound tome with a large crystal set into the front cover. He held it up for Jared to see, not that it was necessary.

“I told you, some girls found it and sold it to me, they didn’t know anything about it.” The answer came through gritted teeth.

“And where do you think it was before they found it? You think it’s just random happenstance that the same shop with the runes in the window and the book with the same runes show up in the same town? This is new, and it could only have come into Ida Grove by way of that shop!”

“Well, I don’t know! Neither of the people working there know anything!”

“Neither…? The shop is owned by one Elsie Brown, with no employees.”

“What? No, there’s a guy that works there. B-but he doesn’t know anything about magic. I checked, I swear!”

The severe man scowled again, using the book to smack the wounded arm. “Fool! A bookstore with runes in the window gets a new employee at the same time a magic tome shows up, and you don’t think there’s any connection? You are worthless! And to think, you whine about not being ready for more magic. Never mind, I’ll have to see what I can learn about this mystery guy on my own.”

Jared let out a scream as pain shot through his arm and into his chest, writhing on the bed until it started to subside. He had only barely been able to keep up with the words said to him, but as he gasped to catch his breath, beads of sweat appeared on his brow. “Hnnngh…”

“As for you, boy, think twice about such foolish things as ‘quitting’. You’re on thin enough ice as it is with me, especially after such a boneheaded mistake as this arm. Because of your clumsiness, I’m forced to get my own hands dirty doing the tasks I brought you in for.” The book was returned to the briefcase, which was then closed and locked. “Ugh, if only I could unlock the secrets of this… The power I would have, once I could gain mastery over demons… Perhaps gain the bidding of this ‘World of Chaos’ these demons come from… But I need more! Whoever wrote this is some kind of magical genius!”

“I’ll… I’ll scout… Once I’m back… Hnngh, you don’t… have any magic that’d… help with that? By any chance?” The arm’s throbbing was unbearable, it was taking all his effort to keep from just constantly screaming.

“Pah. You shouldn’t have fallen down the stairs in the first place. We’ll see what use I can find for you when you get back. Perhaps you should spend your time thinking of something, some way to make up for your failure.” With that, he stormed out of the room, leaving Jared alone to frantically hit the call button with his good arm.

Once the warm glow of the pain medication dulled the pain in his arm and let his thoughts clear, he knew what he had to do. Picking up his cell phone from the bedside table, he scrolled through his history and pressed dial.

“Hey, Ro, right? It’s me, Jared. Yeah, book guy. Hey, that guy that was with you before? I gotta talk to him. It’s important. Tell him I’m ready to help.”

“You want to… what?” Ro didn’t recognize the number at first, but the screen showed a history that said she’d called it before, so she answered it.

“I said, I want to help. Look, I… I think I messed up, bad.” The pain meds were making him a little loopy, so he was on the verge of tears.

Ro, however, wasn’t moved by the emotion in his voice. “Like, I guess, but how do I know you’re even telling the truth?”

“Why would I lie? Look, just tell him, and when he’s here, I can tell him what I need to tell him, okay? Please?”

Rolling her eyes, she glared at the phone in her hand. “Ugh, whatever. Fine, look, I’ll tell him, okay?”

“Thanks. And, for what it’s worth… I’m sorry about calling you Roach as a kid, okay?”

“Ugh! Jared! …Thanks. It’s actually nice to hear you say that.”

With the call ended, Ro went back to studying runes. Surely she’d pass along that message in a minute, she just wanted to finish what Jared had interrupted first.