Aletheia and Eris mumbled endlessly together. Melitas gathered they had found some revelation on the child’s curse, but never paid much attention—nor, thankfully, was he invited to. Unbanishable monstrosities of night and shadow were well beneath his talents to handle, of course, but he also knew that Eris was famed for her skill as an exorcist. If she did not know how to handle this problem, Melitas had little desire to linger and find out more. Sometimes disengagement was the correct course, even for a battlemage such as him.

They were almost done with this business. The Boyar would be cured, an inexhaustible fountain of wealth would pour down upon them, and their names would be sung from Ewsos to Kem-Karwene. With luck, his ability proven, Melitas would be invited back to the College of War in Pyrthos, where he could resume his studies in more comfortable surroundings.

…or he could linger, in immense danger, and hope Eris deigned to share her spells with him. Peril fretted him not, yet he doubted she would do it. She was not a team magician.

But Aletheia was.

The town of Bahaty came into view on the horizon. They were in the north of Veshod now, on the coast, far past the Spire and the Oldwalls. They reached an ancient fortification, the half stretch of a ruined wall built along the top of a hill and toward a watchtower. Such ruins were everywhere in this part of Veshod. Having been spared the worst ravages of the Fall, the grasslands were still scarred with the traces of structures made of huge black stones from a time before the secrets of true magic were lost forever. Two thousand years ago, the people of Veshod built metropolises to house millions, with apartments ten stories tall and fortresses impenetrable to even the worst of demons.

These days, their descendants lived in mud huts.

The Boyar’s fortress was beyond the town, out on the water. It was built on an island and unreachable except during low tide, across a very narrow stone bridge. Melitas couldn’t see it now. But in a gap in the wall he could see the town itself.

It was mostly made of mud huts. A few had thatched roofs. The roads were unpaved, the chimneys coughed black smoke, and there wasn’t a tree for miles.

They had passed a dozen places just like this one in the last week. But Bahaty was the Boyar’s domain, and that made it their destination.

They made camp beneath the wall and crumbling tower. Eris’ lights were beginning to drive Melitas mad, and though he only had to endure them for one more night, he couldn’t resist his impulses.

“You’re going to attract the whole of the town to us come morning,” he told her as she pitched her tent. Corvo helped her silently. “You can’t leave these lights burning all night.”

“I cannot?” she said without looking at him. “It seems I already have.”

“How do you think we’ll greet the Boyar, if a thousand savages come running out to see your magic? We could all be stoned before we made it to the fortress. And who else will come visit? A Seeker, perhaps? Someone a lot more dangerous than your ‘Shadow Man’.”

Dorian stood nearby, readying his sleeping roll. “He has a point, Eris.”

She glared at the old man. Then she glared back at Melitas. But a smile broke at the corner of her lips, and she snapped her fingers.

The lights went out. Instead a new one ignited within the tent.

“How right you are, Dorian. ‘Tis dangerous to be so conspicuous. For tonight, we will be content with one light.” She flipped her hair with a sudden snap of her neck, like a princess at a ball, before stepping up to Melitas. “Do not press your luck any further.”

He took her advice. And for how bright the tent still was, its fabric glowing from within like a lantern, he decided to go the other way around the wall, to the place where he could watch the town in the distance. He set himself up for the night there.

But he couldn’t sleep. His heart spasmed with anticipation. He endlessly imagined how their encounter with the Boyar and his mother would go. The other magicians seemed convinced the acorns would work—yet what if they didn’t? And then what if they did? His head roared with a thousand outcomes, most of which involved the unwavering adoration of scores of beautiful maidens. It was too much to put out of mind.

That was when the shadow moved.

On the edge of his peripheral vision. Something in the dark, where it was blocked by the wall before the moon, in a spot of shade, moving nearer to him.

He gasped. He scrambled out of his bedroll, untangling himself from blankets and sheets, and tried to prepare a spell of fire that would shed light.

But he hesitated, and that was long enough for him to see that the shadow had a source.

A girl.

Aletheia. She stepped into the open and gazed downward at the distant view, where only a few burning lights were visible on the horizon, and then out beyond at where the moonlight sparkled across midnight-black waters of the Veshod Sea.

She had her bow in her hand, clutched more like a stuffed animal than a weapon, and she stared for a while. She hadn’t noticed him.

Then she glanced up at the wall behind her. It was fifteen feet at that parapet, and the tower was three times taller. For a moment she seemed to stare at its top, doing nothing more than that, and then she froze.

She stopped moving. She stood completely still.

Melitas blinked.

She disappeared.

A ripple of expended mana came to him through the air. It was sweet, like the burning of oil in a lantern, and he recognized it—he had smelled it when Eris had teleported to the top of a boulder on the day they found the Oak of Spring.

Aletheia knew the same spell. Of course she did. She knew every spell that Eris did, didn’t she? Weren’t they friends?

They didn’t much seem like it, he had to admit. But that’s what they were.

She must have teleported up to the top of the wall for a better glimpse at the view.

Suddenly he had an idea.

He ran around to the wall’s edge. It ended abruptly with a pile of rubble where the brick frayed and the dark masonry crumbled.

He tried to climb it. He made it halfway, too, before realizing that there was no need.

He stepped back and imagined floating to the top. Just as he had beneath Eris, he levitated to the top.

This time he made it all the way. He came to a gentle rest on the ramparts, and ahead of him was the shape of Aletheia.

He took one step toward her and collapsed. A wave of nausea hit him. His muscles erupted in ache. He had expended far too much of his Essence, draining the mana in his bloodstream rather than the magic in the air to power his spell. But he knew he looked like an amateur to be so winded after a simple spell, so he rose, and he strode confidently toward her.

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She was staring at him. In the moonlight her features were unreadable. When he came closer, she glanced toward the view, leaning on the parapet and, seemingly, inviting him to stand near her.

The invitation was accepted. He mimicked her gesture from a foot or so away, trying to seem confident and capable.

“You know,” she said, voice hushed, “there are stairs in the tower.”

Melitas scoffed. “Of course I know,” he said, panting. He did not know, as he hadn’t thought to check. “I could say the same back at you.”

“My spell didn’t leave me radioactive.”

“Radioactive?”

“You smell like a Manastone mine.” She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, glancing his way, before returning to the view.

She was very small for an adventurer. Not really what he had imagined when he left the Tower. One heard stories of rogue wizards like Eris, or wizened warriors like Dorian, or ancient elves like Trito, but Aletheia—she seemed remarkably normal, if it was possible to remark upon normalcy. She had been stoic and direct while she led them first to find the keystone for Bornimir’s sword, and then to the Hydra’s lair. Compared to Eris, he felt her to be a satisfying captain, although, naturally, Melitas presumed he himself would have been far better still.

But she had almost seemed to disappear since Eris’ arrival. Only in moments like these did he really remember that she was there at all.

He looked at her back while her eyes were forward. He couldn’t quite figure out why he had stopped noticing her. She was pleasingly petite, very fit, athletic, well-shaped—pretty, too, although also plain, and he found her to be much too muscly in the arms. He especially liked that she tended to wear tight-fitting pants, which hardly any other Kathar women did….

“Did you want something?” she asked.

He was losing track of his objective. Women often had that effect on him. He tried to refocus. He pried his eyes away from her and instead leaned forward, looking ahead as she did.

“Well, I—a Manastone mine?” he said. “Is that a compliment?”

“Sure,” she said. Her voice was less affected than usual. It oozed deadpan. She seemed disinterested, perhaps even morose.

He decided to be direct. “Actually, it was your spell that caught my attention. Eris cast it in the woodlands, too. I’ve never seen it before. What’s it called?”

“Blink.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s called Blink.”

“Oh. I see.”

He caught a smile forming along her face in the dark. “It’s called Blink because it only works once everyone who can see the caster blinks.”

“Naturally. That’s what I suspected.” That this girl saw through him so effortlessly was terrifying. “I don’t believe I’ve seen that one in the libraries. Nor heard of its use by the Magisters.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“…then where did you learn it?”

“An old friend.” She sighed. “I wish he were here. He would know what to do.”

“You and Eris seem to have an awful lot of old friends. Any others I should know about?”

Finally she turned to look at him. She gave him serious consideration. Her golden eyes were the only color he saw across her body in the shadow. “Are you trying to flirt?”

“Why would I be trying to flirt?” He tried to laugh the question off.

“Because I’m the only accessible girl, and you’re a teenage boy.”

“There’s Eris.”

“Eris isn’t a girl. She’s a praying mantis. Also, she doesn’t like you.”

“Do you not like me, either?”

“Not especially.”

“Oh.” Melitas felt his intestines sinking. This was not exactly how things were intended to go. He was powerful, of course he was, and handsome, and, in his opinion, generally charming, and he didn’t quite understand what had gone wrong.

She sighed. “I’m sorry. That was mean. I’m—I came here to be alone.”

“I thought you would’ve been alone already.”

“I was,” she said.

“…then why did you come here to be alone?”

Now she shrugged, and she smiled again. “I was lonely.”

“Then I’ll keep you company,” he said. “In fact I was thinking—I was thinking you might teach me a spell. This ‘Blink’ perhaps, in recompense for what I’ve done for you and Eris on this expedition.”

“What have you done, exactly?”

Melitas nearly exploded in indignity. “I slew the Hydra. Have you forgotten?”

“Oh. Right. I had.” She considered his proposition for a moment, before replying, succinctly, “No.”

“No?”

“It’s too powerful. And too rare. My friend—wouldn’t approve. And I don’t trust you enough yet.”

“So I have to earn your trust? After what we’ve gone through together?”

“We haven’t gone through anything together,” she said. “If you stick around, maybe I’ll teach you the spells you’re ready to learn. Like Floating Disk.”

Now Melitas felt a surge of real anger. “You would teach me, an initiate of the College of War, a useless spell like Floating Disk?”

“It’s best to start small.”

“I’ve started small already. You’re hardly older than me, you know. You will not teach me Floating Disk.”

“Okay. How about Hold Portal?”

“I can see what you think of me, then,” Melitas said. “Underestimate me at your own peril. If you don’t want my help, I should do just as well without you. And as for the curse—or whatever it is—on that child, be grateful to know you shan’t have my help in lifting it.”

He was furious now and near to lashing out. Magicians were rare anywhere in Esenia, especially in Veshod, and he had come this far with the intention of being special. Aletheia, and now Eris, robbed him of that.

He had turned his favorite professor to cinders with a single spell. That was power he knew he had. Immense and dangerous. It was within him, as sure as it was within any magician. That these two women would not recognize it was their loss. He did not need to endure it.

Aletheia sensed his anger, because her deadpan softened, and she said, “Melitas. I didn’t know any real spell for years, after I started traveling with Eris. And Eris—when she left the tower, she didn’t know any at all, except Wisdom of the Sages. She learned most of the rest from books. You can’t just skip the line and ask us to teach you rare magic. It isn’t safe. You’ll kill yourself trying to use it, not to mention the people around you. You have to earn it.” She sighed. “And the fact that you killed your own professor just shows that you aren’t ready. I’m sorry. You need to learn how to control your Essence.”

His teeth never parted as he spoke: “Then teach me. Fine. Do you want to start with—with Hold Portal? Then let’s start with it.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. It’s too much work. And… you aren’t worth it. Not yet. We’re not even friends.”

She seemed to take no joy in the words. Eris would have savored every syllable, telling him he was worthless, that he should kill himself, that she would kill him for him if he preferred. But Aletheia wasn’t cruel. He had seen already that she was patient and kind. And for her to repudiate him like that—she meant every word.

Melitas wanted to show her his power. He suddenly came to hate her. He could do to her like he had done to Professor Rasena. She had been a powerful warmage; what was Aletheia? A small girl? Nothing, not compared to a Magister, nor even to Melitas himself.

His cheeks were red. His skin felt hot everywhere. He imagined what she would look like when turned to ash and blowing away in the wind.

But he held himself back. He needed to wait until tomorrow, when he had met the Boyar. Then—then he could let his anger loose.

He turned and stormed back down the parapet. “Ugly bitch,” he said as he turned, and Aletheia said nothing in response.

He made it to the wall and jumped to the ground. A quick burst of mana was enough to break his fall—that was easy magic. Then he retired to his bedroll.

He still couldn’t sleep. He covered his head in blankets anyway.

“Is he awake?”

Melitas stirred. He pulled the blanket down to his neck. The moon had set and the sky was pitch dark, but it was still night. At first he saw nothing but black against black.

And then he saw two red eyes.

He recognized it. He knew what it was without ever having seen it before.

“Do not scream. I will not harm you.”

He tried to scramble away. He didn’t know any spells of light, except to conjure flame, but he could not concentrate closely enough to use such directed magic. Instead he shook his head as his heart exploded.

“Get away,” he said. “You—abomination! What the hell are you?”

“Don’t you want to play with me?” it said.

It kneeled down, to bring its head very near his.

Melitas closed his eyes.

“I will not hurt you, if you play.”

He dared to peek. The Shadow Man brought a tendril-like and inky hand up to his face; and when it brushed against his skin, he felt pure ice.

“You will like this game,” it added.

“What?” he whispered. “What game?”

“You do not like the small one. She will not play with you, because she does not value you. Nor do you like the mother, for she plays with no one. Not even my little crow. She is cruel and evil. She treats you and I as though we are enemies, when we seek only to be friends.”

Melitas had to focus to speak through his panting. “You—you listened to what I said? To Aletheia?”

“Of course, silly magician. I hear everything said in the dark.”

“What do you want?”

“I have watched you. You desire the cruel mother’s stick. You have watched it from afar. You have mumbled on it in your sleep.”

“I have?”

The dark head nodded. “And I can see, you would like the small aunt to suffer, for how she has treated you. But you needn’t suffer in return.”

“You want me to kill them,” Melitas said slowly.

“No. You need only to make it dark.”

He had calmed for a moment, but his heart picked up again. He began to shake. “Do it yourself,” he whispered.

“I cannot. The magicians make it bright the moment they see me. I am driven away. But if they could not make it bright, then I could do to them as I did to the troll. Then my little crow will be mine forever, and no one will stand between us. And you will have revenge for how cruelly they have treated you—and Eris’ magic items shall be yours.”

Melitas shook his head. Yet he stared at the Shadow Man closely, and he saw a new flurry of visions.

He could forget the Boyar. The Tower would not be his concern. If he had Eris’ staff, and her focus, and if he were to be known as the one who killed her—he had had these thoughts before, hadn’t he? And now, with this monster’s help, they could be put into action. Showing Aletheia her mistake would be nothing more than dessert.

“Okay,” he said. “Consider it done.”