Chapter 14

“Well, well, well, little Lord Ros–”

“No Master!” I shout. “I no longer use that name.”

He strokes his mustache. “No, nor should you. You’ve brought enough shame to your father’s name.”

“Master who is this man?” Katherine asks.

“Katherine, I’d like you to meet Master Simon Bruhar. He is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Status Magic.”

“Curse Magic,” he interrupts.

“Curse Magic,” I repeat. “Master do you have any leads for me? Anything at all?”

He raises his hand in front of his face and checks his black fingernail polish. “I may have something. We should speak in private. There are too many ears here.”

“I have a room at the Armbear Lodge. It’s not far from here.”

“That will do,” he says.

“Please Master. Right this way,” I say taking the lead.

Master Simon promptly moves in front of me even though he’s supposed to be following. Katherine lines up behind me and we end up walking in an awkward single file formation. I indicate for him which streets to turn on, but I don’t dare step out in front of him again. I feel like a fool walking in single file through the city, but Katherine and I hold formation with him all the way back to the inn. We pass by the weasel in the front and go straight to our room. When I open the door, Master Simon enters first.

Katherine and I follow in behind him. There are no chairs in our room, but I offer him a seat on the good bed. He disregards my offer as if I had said something ridiculous, so I don’t press the issue further. Instead, I just remain standing.

“Master, you have a lead for me?”

He yawns as if he were already bored of our conversation. “Not in regards to your cursed staff. Not directly at least. Rather, there is a certain unseemly matter that you might be interested in.”

“What would that be Master?”

“The inquisitors find themselves in over their heads in dealing with a certain death mage.”

I cross my arms confounded. It seems that knight was hiding something after all. “I had heard a rumor about it Master. But when I went to the castle to talk to the quest manager, he turned me away.”

Master Simon strokes the full length of his goatee. “That’s because they want to keep the matter a secret. It involves a certain member of one of Âme Kingdom’s most prestigious families: the Butterfly family.”

I drop my staff in disbelief. “Silvia!”

He shakes his head and waves his hand. “No, no! Not the golden girl of Winterspring; her less competent younger sister Sidney. You see, the Butterfly family had two daughters: Silvia the older, and Sidney the younger. Silvia was a genius who went to Winterspring Academy and was honored with private lessons directly from Arch Lord Aerolyso. Yet her parents held Sidney back from the school because they were afraid that she would embarrass the family name. Sidney is in every way inferior to her sister. It’s really not all that surprising that in the end she would turn to Death Magic as a way to measure up to her sister.”

I hang my head genuinely saddened by the news. Silvia Butterfly had been one of my best friends growing up. In fact, she and I used to be academic rivals. Of course, she beat me out in the end, but to very this day, I still remember her fondly.

“Are you saddened just to hear that? It gets worse. Sidney has kidnapped a little noble girl. Mmmm…Jessica was her name if I do recall. Apparently, Jessica looks like Sidney did as a little girl and now Sidney is trying to be the mother to Jessica that her mother never was to her or some deranged lunacy like that. The inquisitors sent in teams to quietly deal with Sidney and rescue Jessica, but none of them have returned alive.”

I run my hand through my hair in dismay. This is beyond my belief. “So the inquisitors have marked Sidney for death? Is there nothing that we can do to help her?”

He checks the nail polish of his other hand. “Mmmm…well there may be one thing – the Rite of Penance. If Sidney peacefully surrenders herself to the inquisitors, then they have a process to strip her of her Death Magic powers and rehabilitate her for society. It’s an unseemly ordeal, but it’s the only way to save both her and the girl.”

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“I see. Where can I find Sidney?”

“Where do you think numbskull? At her house. The Butterfly manor is not too far from here. Head out of the front gate, travel for one mile until you see a fork in the road heading west. Follow the road for another two miles and you’ll see a large white mansion on the other side of a small forest. That is where you can find Sidney.”

I steel my resolve. I want to save Sidney. I don’t know if I can, but I have to try not only for Silvia’s sake, but also for my own. I want to believe that someone like Sidney can find redemption. I make a small bow to Master Simon. “Thank you Master. I’ll do my best to save Sidney.”

“I’m not expecting much from you,” he answers. “You don’t exactly have a reputation for saving lives.”

“He saved me!” Katherine interjects.

Master Simon gives Katherine a once over. “Who exactly is this girl?”

“My servant Katherine.”

He strokes at his mustache. “I see. So you call her a servant? How impure.”

My jaw drops in horror. “I don’t mean anything impure!”

Master Simon walks between Katherine and me and heads for the door. “So you say.”

Right before he exits through the door Katherine stops him. “Wait Master!”

He stops and looks at her with a glare that suggests she should speak quickly.

“Tell me about Master Souladonis.”

“Katherine!” I clamor. I’m a little put off that she’s trying to learn about me through Master Simon.

“Well you never tell me anything about yourself! You wouldn’t even tell me your name at first!”

Master Simon’s eyes gleam and he curls his mustache. “Oh. I’ll tell you all about him. His name is Souladonis Theophilus Rosengarden. He’s the only son of a prominent jeweler family from Winterspring. He had been at one time, the most promising young mind of Winterspring Academy. Alongside Silvia Butterfly, he even received private lessons from Arch Lord Aerolyso. But he was a fool and he didn’t listen to anyone. He got it in his head to go to the Forbidden Tower, and–”

“Master that’s enough!” I yell loudly. I approach Master Simon and push him out the door with my body. “Thank you for the information, but you have to go now.”

“Oh, ho, ho,” he snickers. “Little Lord Rosengarden standing up for himself. I shall celebrate your having grown a backbone and leave you in peace for now. But first, a word of advice to the girlie. This boy has a nickname back in Winterspring that sums him up pretty well. Do you know what they call him? They call him ‘the greatest disappointment of all time.’ That’s who he is and that’s what he does. Don’t get too involved with him girlie, or he’ll just disappoint you too.”

Master Simon passes out of the inn cackling manically the entire way. I remain standing numb in the doorway. Katherine tries to console me. “I’m sorry Master,” she says. “I didn’t know that he would speak about you in that way.”

I reply softly, “It’s okay. He’s right about me.”

“No. He’s not right. He’s a creep.”

“Master Simon is a great mage. I’ll be lucky if I ever become half of the mage that he is.”

Katherine places her hand on my shoulder, but I sweep it away. I don’t feel good. I feel antsy and unsettled. Bad memories from my past are starting to bubble up and I have to suppress them. I know only of one way to do it. It’s not something that I can do by my own power; however, there’s a magical elixir that makes bad memories go away. It’s called alcohol. “I need a drink. Let’s go to a tavern.”

Katherine objects. “But what about your friend Sidney?”

“We won’t stay at the tavern long. Just thirty minutes, maybe one hour – tops.”

I pick up Guilt off of the floor and head out. Katherine follows me silently. I bet she’s disappointed in me already.