It was getting darker.

In my haste, I was having a hard time grasping exactly what Dorbish looked like, or even how the streets were laid out. But I was pretty sure I was following the girl. She was leaving a faint, barely noticeable trail in the ambient mana. It was difficult for me to see—as if someone had thrown a rock into a pond and I was seeing just the last few ripples in the water before it went back to being still.

Mana was all around me, but some of the mana felt a bit different and when I focused on it, I could tell that the mana had been recently tasked with doing something. I could only assume that this something was masking the girl’s presence, for there appeared to be no other magical disturbances anywhere in Dorbish, which I found troubling.

Even when my father slept, he disturbed the mana around him more than what I felt here. There was time for pondering that later. For now, I could only be grateful, as even small spells along the trail would have disturbed the ambient mana enough to make it impossible for me to see where this girl was going.

After nearly half-an-hour of twists and turns I would be unable to repeat if my life depended on it, I found myself at the door of a small house. Sweat dripped from my brow and I was breathing heavily, both from running and from the energy I had spent Casting the entire time. Hands on my knees, I took a moment to recover. When my heart finally began to slow, I straightened up, wiped the sweat from my face, and approached the little house. I wasn’t certain what I would find if I knocked on the door, but I was too naïve at that time to consider doing anything but walking right up to it and finding out.

The house was a small, depressing looking structure that was in dire need of repair and refurbishment, like both of its neighbors. A quick glance around me told me that if Dorbish had a nice part of town, this was not it. Trash and rotten food cluttered the ground. Only a smattering of people were on the narrow street—a vagabond who was napping against the wall of a nearby building and a few folk who walked swiftly and with the hoods of their cloaks up, as if they knew that to dally here after the sun went down was to invite danger.

I raised my hand to knock on the shabby looking door in front of me when it abruptly opened. A large, pale man filled its frame, torch in his right hand.

“What do you want?” He peered down at me as if I were a bug that had wandered into his path, and he was contemplating whether to squash it. When he spoke, I could see that despite the shabby exterior of his living quarters, his own body was clean and well maintained. His white teeth gleamed in the torchlight. My body began to prepare me to flee before my mind had a chance to catch up.

This was a predator. Time to tread carefully.

“Apologies for disturbing you at this late hour. My name is . . . Filo. ” I saw no reason to give this man my real name. “I’m here to see my friend.”

I tried to sound noble and imposing, a force to be reckoned with, but there’s only so much a slender 16-year-old boy can do in the presence of an absolute unit of a man.

The burly man squinted, taking a closer look at me upon my mention of the word “friend.”

“There’s no one here but me.”

“Uh, I’m sorry if I held her up. I wanted to apologize and let you know that it’s my fault she was late.”

Oh, younger me. What a fool you were back then. What a naïve fool.

“There’s no one here but me,” the man repeated. “Now leave.” And then he shut the door in my face. I hadn’t gotten his name, but I would find out shortly that the man I had just met was a fellow called Fodyrn. A real nasty fellow.

If I could do it all over again—if I had known at that moment what I would eventually learn about Fodyrn, about this house—I would have walked up to that shack and as soon as he showed his face, proceeded to blast Fodyrn into submission with a few choice spells.

Younger me really had no idea how bad people could be and how you had to deal with the foul ones. I don’t have that problem anymore. I didn’t fully learn this truth until years later, after I made a few more costly mistakes, but my misstep with Fodyrn was an early preview of what was to come. What can I say? I try to assume the best in people.

I turned and walked back the way I had come, unsure of my next steps. Fodyrn saved me the trouble of thinking about this one too long, because a few moments later my world went black.

* * *

I awoke slowly, my head ringing with pain thanks to the bash I had taken to the back my skull. It hurt to open my eyes, but fortunately for my aching head the room I was in was almost dark, a small, solitary candle flickering in a neaby sconce. I was underground. The lack of ambient light from any windows and the stale air made me feel pretty good about that assumption.

My hands were bound just above my head and I hung from them, which caused a horrible ache in my arms and shoulders. My feet hung free but were bound together with a rope. I closed my eyes again. I couldn’t hear so much as a cricket chirping. No point in calling out for help.

I wasn’t an expert on the workings of the criminal underworld, but even a fool—and I was definitely a fool at this point—could offer some decent guesses as to why he had me tied up in an underground room somewhere. The scary looking man wanted to know how I knew who the girl was or how I had tracked her to this house. I was thinking which one he might care about more when I realized I wasn’t alone. It was a strange, but no longer unfamiliar feeling.

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The room appeared to be empty save for a small table and chair in the center of the room and the aforementioned sconce. If I hadn’t recently experienced the feeling of having my mind . . . manipulated, for lack of a better word, I would have trusted my eyes. But I know understood that my senses could not be trusted.

I turned my head toward the corner of the room I felt most certain was empty (an odd thing to think when dealing with a small, barren room with corners one should be equally confident are empty) and focused on seeing who I knew was there. It was much harder with a splitting headache and eyes that wanted to be closed. After a few long seconds of focusing I finally started to make her out, leaning against the wall. Not clearly, but enough to know she was there.

“Nice of you to make time to visit me.” I tried to sound calm, despite the situation I found myself in. I had a few things going for me. First, there was my great relief that I had successfully tracked the girl down and not let her slip away forever. Second, I had the wonderful naiveté of a privileged young man who’s never really had to deal with a nasty situation. Well, outside of being forced to eat mushrooms and sleeping outside on the rough ground when he would rather be in a comfy bed with a good book.

The girl was simply staring at me, and as I began to see her face more clearly, I could see her expression growing darker when she realized she had been noticed once again.

I needed to figure this girl out. “What’s your name?” I gave her a weak smile. I didn’t have a lot of experience with other kids, but I felt like this would have been a tough case regardless.

The girl simply folded her arms across her chest, squinted her eyes at me, and was gone.

***

I came to with the realization that I must have slipped unconscious again. My arms and shoulders had somehow found a way to hurt even more. All things considered, I was doing okay, except for my parched throat, the deep regret I hadn’t eaten even a few bites before chasing the girl, and a damp sensation on my leg that suggested I had urinated on myself. Okay, yeah, you could make the case that things were not going great.

At this point you’re probably wondering why I hadn’t just spelled my way off the wall. Maybe you’re yelling at past me to get my act together. First off, mean. Second, this all happened a long time ago, so you’re wasting your breath. I’ll have judgmental you know I had what felt like a good reason for holding back. The shock that someone would abduct me had now turned my mind to the possibilities of all kinds of nastiness. The first of which was that the man I had met at the door was potentially a far better mage / fighter / killer than me and that any attempt I made to flee would result in immediate negative consequences from which there would be no second chances.

The smack to my head had brought to mind one of my father’s many lessons—I could practically hear his voice in my head—“When you find yourself in a sticky situation and are unsure of what to do, consider first the possibility of doing nothing, as your best option might not be immediately apparent.”

Of course, there were exceptions, like maybe you were in a burning building . . . or a pack of wolves was chasing you. Actually, there were a whole slew of exceptions, but the exceptions only proved the rule—when the cost of failure was high, be certain before taking any action. I wasn’t sure how high a price I would pay for messing up here, but it seemed prudent to consider that it might include never leaving this room alive.

What someone even as idiotically naïve as I was realized at this moment was that I would have some time to face and evaluate my foe. If he had wanted me dead, I would already be dead. I silently vowed that leaving me alive would be a mistake that cost him dearly.

I heard the door open and to my surprise I could now make out the violet-eyed girl out with ease. In her hand she held a cup of some sort of liquid. She walked up to me, placing the cup to my lips. As thirsty as I was, I hesitated.

She shook her head as if she knew what I was thinking and motioned with her free hand to hurry up. I relented and took several gulps of cool water. It occurred to me as I swallowed the briny yet somehow still delicious liquid that I knew a water purification spell, but—water down the hatch—I consoled myself by considering that until I knew more, it was better to hold off on any spell casting.

“Not much of a talker are you,” I managed to croak out after a few gulps of precious water.

She nodded her head in agreement. This was progress. Something other than frowning or disappearing on me. I would find out much later how much effort it had taken for her to enter that room fully visible. But of course, I was too young and worried about not dying to think about such things in that moment.

“Any chance you can let me out of these chains?”

She hesitated. I tried to guess why.

“I won’t go anywhere, at least not yet. If you’re worried about getting in trouble you can chain me back up, but if I don’t have a few minutes to relax my arms and shoulders I may not last until your boss decides to visit.”

She pondered something for a few seconds and—whether it was my words or something she thought of herself—she pulled the chair over, stood on it and undid the lock holding my hands against the wall. I unceremoniously hit the floor and crumpled to the ground. I was still in pain as my arms adjusted to freedom, but at the same time a sense of relief came over me as the throbbing in my shoulders began to recede somewhat.

“Is the . . . big guy nearby?” I didn’t know if they were related, but I didn’t want to presume one way or the other for now.

She slowly shook her head “no,” but I got the feeling she actually meant yes. I thought of what I could say or do to get her to open up to me. For all I knew, she was here on behalf of the scary brute and attempting to get some information out of me.

“You can at least tell me your name. Mine’s Warren.” I decided to go with honesty. It turns out that I’m a terrible liar, but it should also be said that there is power in saying what is true. Every mage knows that.

She looked at me with a very serious face, which made her look far older than the 10 or 12 she appeared at first glance. And then she pointed at her eye. I was confused. She pointed at her chest and then her eye again, this time holding her finger in front of her eye and looking at me expectantly.

“Your name is Eyeball.” She squinted at me, her head tilting sideways, as if making sure I was being serious and then shook her head again before pointing at her chest and then her eye again.

“You’re trying to tell me your name though.” She nodded her head vigorously this time.

“Your name is Brow. . . Eyelash . . . no it’s Pupil . . . surely your name isn’t Cheeks.” She indicated no after each guess, while continuing to point to her eye. I could see her growing frustration and decided this probably wasn’t a great time to be teasing her. I knew her name. I couldn’t explain why, but I felt like I had always known her name.

“Your name is Iris.”