The darkness around my eyes dissipates. I look straight ahead and see that Sidney is still clinging to me. I shove at her shoulders to pry her away from me. Her light blue eyes twinkle with a hint of moisture. “You’re not going to stay are you?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

Her head drops and she pinches her eyelids to stop herself from crying. “What you said about not loving yourself. I know how you feel. I’m the same. But I thought that if you love me, and if I love you, then we both could be happy and we wouldn’t have to feel alone anymore.”

I cross my arms and answer unsympathetically, “Happiness means nothing to me. I only desire redemption. Until I’m freed from my past, I can never concern myself with happiness.”

“What exactly did you do?”

“I got my girlfriend turned into stone by a monster, and until I find a way to break the curse and restore her, I have only one purpose in life.”

She lifts her head with a new hope. “Can I help?”

I answer plainly, “No Sidney you cannot. You have to do the right thing and turn yourself in to the law.”

My answer doesn’t please her. She silently moves to the kitchen cutlery and grabs a long knife. She then walks towards me sticking the knife out at my face. I step back and lift my hands into the air calmly. “Sidney, what are you doing? Put down the knife.”

“No!” she screams. “If you can’t love me, then I might as well die!”

Sidney then turns the knife on herself. I reach out my hands in an effort to placate her. “Sidney calm down. That’s a little extreme isn’t it?”

“No!” she screams again. Her whole body begins to shake violently. Needless to say, I’m really scared at this moment, but for which of us I couldn’t say. I take a small step towards her and she lifts the knife above her breast. I immediately stop. “Woah Sidney. Don’t do it. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

A river of black tears drips through her makeup down to her cheeks. “No I don’t! Either I take my own life now or the inquisitors will torture me and then chop off my head!”

I keep motioning to her soothingly with my hands. “That’s not true Sidney. My master told me that if you just accept the Rite of Penance, then you will be able to rejoin society and everything will be okay.”

Sniffling, she asks me, “What will I have to do?”

I tell her truthfully, “I honestly don’t know Sidney, but anything is better than dying. Please. Just put down the knife.”

Her body continues shaking violently, but I can see that my words are starting to get through to her. “Please,” I ask again.

“Will you stay with me and help me?”

“I will do everything that I can for you Sidney.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

She hesitates, positioning the knife just above her chest. Its sharp tip wails loudly from its carnivorous desire to taste her heart. I breathlessly wait for an eternity for her to respond to my supplications. Her hands continue to tremble violently while she listens to the siren call of the blade. I repeat my promise and gain her eye contact. Using the gentle purple glint of my eyes, I reassure her that everything will be fine. Her hands freeze in consideration of her options. I continue waiting breathlessly for yet another eternity. Finally, Sidney concedes and drops the knife.

I breathe in a deep sigh of relief. That was rough. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t even realize my own hands were trembling. I look at Sidney. Tears continue to drip slowly from her eyes as she hangs her head. I move in and hug her in a meager attempt to comfort her. “Sidney,” I say with my arms around her. “It’s time to release Jessica and the inquisitors.”

“Okay, but I have to give you a cup of tea first.”

Sidney prepares two cups of tea for us. We slowly sip it away, sitting at the small table. After ten minutes or so, we finish drinking. Now Sidney is a little calmer, and a little more resigned to her fate. After she washes the two teacups in her sink, she leads me through her mansion to her private bedroom. There, I find Jessica lying on the bed with a teddy bear. When she sees me she looks afraid. “Jessica,” I say softly. “My name is Souladonis. I’m here to take you back to your mommy and daddy. Are you ready to go home sweetie?”

She nods silently and hops out of the bed. But as we leave the room, she sees Sidney and becomes even more afraid. I can tell that her reaction hurts Sidney. Surely, Sidney must have known that her plan of kidnapping a family could have never worked. But as bad as I feel for Sidney, Jessica is the top priority in this rescue mission. “Listen Jessica. Ms. Sidney is sorry for keeping you here, but she’s willing to let you go home now. Right Sidney?”

Sidney begins to sob bitterly. Then, wiping at her eyes, she faintly answers, “yes.”

I take Jessica by the hand. Next, we follow Sidney down to her dungeon, which is actually nothing more than an old wine cellar. Inside I find Katherine, a team of eight inquisitors, and two adventurer mages who had thought to take on the death mage quest and failed miserably. Both of the two lone mages had tried to defeat Sidney one on one. Obviously, they were doomed to fail. Yet the inquisitors had come at Sidney in two waves of four and, nonetheless, failed just as badly. I imagine that even if all eight of them had attacked her at once, Sidney probably still would have won with her speed and patented Chain Lightning spell. Just thinking about her lightning stings me even now. Ouch!

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Finally, with everyone accounted for, we head back to Magali. All the way there, the inquisitors grumble and say bad things about Sidney, yet I stand close by her and don’t allow any of them to touch her. By the time that we arrive in Magali, it’s already three in the afternoon. The first thing that we do is lead Jessica to her house. Next, the two adventurer mages depart to a nearby tavern to heal their bruised egos with drink. Afterwards, the rest of us travel towards the castle. There’s another dance taking place in the town square that catches my eye, but I don’t leave Sidney’s side. I continue on with her all the way to the Chief Inquisitor’s office.

When we enter, Chief Inquisitor Rupert des Chevaliers stares down Sidney. “What are you men thinking bringing a death mage into my office unfettered?”

His men don’t answer, so I answer for them. “These are the men that were sent to hunt down Sidney Butterfly. It turns out that they weren’t dead, Sidney just had them locked up in a wine cellar.”

“Is that so?” he states rising to his feet. “You men report for a medical evaluation and then get some R&R. As for you, Souladonis, how did you know about all of this?”

“My Master, Simon Bruhar, told me about Sidney.”

“I see. Master Bruhar. That makes a lot of sense.”

“Listen!” I say pleading. “Sidney is a good person. She only joined the death mages because she was lonely and wanted to make friends.”

Unmoved, he asks Sidney, “Is that true?”

She doesn’t speak. She merely nods her head yes.

“That’s the most pathetic reason that I have ever heard for somebody wanting to become a death mage. To make friends. Pfft!”

“Please! Allow Sidney to undergo the Rite of Penance!”

He sets his chin in his fingers pensively. “The Rite of Penance? I wasn’t expecting this, but I do suppose that it is the ideal ending to this case. Speaking of which…”

He takes a stamp from his desk and presses it on a sheet of parchment. Then he moves in front of me and Sidney. He hands the parchment to me. “What is this?” I ask.

“It’s the deed for the quest reward. You want it do you not?”

I take it and stick it into my coat pocket. “I want to know that Sidney will be okay.”

He shrugs coldly. “That is no longer your concern. Guards, take Ms. Butterfly to the dungeon. I want to interrogate her immediately.”

The guards begin to lead Sidney away. I try to follow after them, but Des Chevaliers stops me. “Souladonis!” Sidney screams.

“Sidney!”

I try to get past the Chief Inquisitor, but he’s practically a human mountain. “Don’t hurt her,” I tell him.

Coldly, he replies, “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

He then shoves me aside and follows after Sidney. I feel so powerless now. I wish that there were something more that I could do to help Sidney. But for the time being, all that I can do is turn in the quest for my reward.

I venture to the small room with the bored knight in it: the one who told me to leave when I had asked about Sidney before. He’s still sitting there on his stool, wearing chainmail armor, and looking completely bored. I’m sure that this guy hates his job. Walking up to him, I set my deed on the counter. He looks it over indifferently. “Oooh, so the big shot completed a major quest did he? I bet you’re wanting a really special reward aren’t you?”

I ignore his rudeness. I’m in no mood to fight. “As a matter of fact I am. I’d like the king’s head apothecary to fashion a remedy for the petrification curse for me.”

He looks at me with a blank stare. “Did you get that?” I ask.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. He takes a sheet of parchment and scribbles on it with a quill pen. “You want a remedy for the petrification curse from the head apothecary. But he’s a busy man. Don’t think that you can get it today.”

“When do you think then?”

“I don’t know. Two, three days maybe. Come back on Friday.”

He hands me the receipt without a care in the world. He had better not mess up my request or I’m going to melt his face off. But now the quest is officially completed, and there’s nothing more for me to do other than wait. I exit the castle with Katherine behind me. I’m clearly in a bad mood and worried about Sidney, so Katherine hasn’t said anything to me in a while. But I break the silence and speak to her. “Katherine, I’m tired and really worn out from all of this. Do you mind if we go back to the inn and rest for a while?”

“No, I don’t mind. I’m tired too.”

“Thanks. We’ll have a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant. Then tomorrow, we’ll work on your magic.”

“Great!” she says excited. She wraps her two arms around my right arm, but then quickly realizes that the mood is completely wrong for that. She detaches herself from me and walks beside me normally. I feel kind of guilty about ruining her good cheer. “It’s okay Katherine. You don’t have to act blue just because I’m a bit low-spirited. I’m just really tired and worried about Sidney. But she’ll be alright. She made the right choice. At least, I think–”