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A nun and a soldier watched a magic trick. They were doing a trick of their own. Leta had returned to the anonymity of her Sisters of Fortitude robes, and Kiran had donned his royal guard uniform. He was still unwilling to admit how he’d gotten it.

The game before them was simple; Leta had seen it a hundred times before. The familiar cadence of the showman washed over her. “I’ve got three cups, two hands, and one ball. Well, one that you can see.”

Har, har, har.

“See, you can follow the ball. It’s so easy! Just guess which cup the ball is under. There you go, you’ve got it. Now let’s make it interesting.”

Then, he added one cup and two balls, making four cups and three balls. Leta couldn’t tell how he could palm so many balls while manipulating four cups. The confident and heavily betting crowd seemed to think the same thing.

His current mark was a young man in season’s old finery. The fabrics were of good quality but showed signs of too much wear. His face was open and hopeful. Leta almost couldn’t watch.

“Ah,” said the man, “a fine young nobleman like you could surely outsmart me. It almost seems unfair!”

The nobleman smiled shyly. Leta wanted to yell at him to stop, but she restrained herself. Instead, she focused on figuring out how exactly the man was accomplishing this trick, hoping it really was just sleight-of-hand. She was becoming increasingly worried that it was something more.

“It’s not skill,” Kiran whispered in Leta’s ear. The sound was slightly muffled by the fabric surrounding her head. Despite looking for evidence to the contrary, Leta had come to the same conclusion. There was something about the balls that seemed hazy and not entirely corporeal. But she hated the idea that this was the man they were supposed to be recruiting. He was taller than Kiran and broad, with a belly that spoke of too much drink. He had a plastered-on smile that only looked sincere when he made a jab at another’s expense. And Kiran thought this was one of the people who was supposed to save the world?

Kiran raised his hand. “I’d like a go if you’d please.”

Leta’s eyes went wide, and she tried to sink further into her robes.

“How heavy’s your coin, son?” he said, bouncing one of the balls on the table. It hit with a thwack. This man was granted the power of a god, and he was using it to scam visitors from outside The Basti out of their hard-earned money.

“I think I can spare a copper stay.”

“A cautious fellow, well, let’s see how ye do.”

His accent wasn’t Bastian, but the rest of him was. He wore clothes that fit the current trends. He wore a hat, of course; his was slouched and emerald. It brought out the greens in the rest of his outfit, which was the going style. Leta thought her head-to-toe black did technically fit in with the tonal look of The Basti, though it was much too hot to be anything but a religious affectation.

“I’ll repeat the rules again for those who haven’t been paying attention, but you look like a smart fella, so I’m sure I’m not telling ye anything ye haven’t picked up en.” His patter was quick and persistent, never wavering or faltering with his quick movements—almost like two people were at work here. He shuffled the cups effortlessly, occasionally flipping one up to expose the ball beneath or tossing it up and catching it in a soft fold of his hat before tipping it back into the cup and carrying on with the dizzying display.

“Alright then, good fellow, keeper of peace and the lady’s guard. What have ye?”

Kiran smiled up at him and shook his head. “Couldn’t very well guess. Gambling’s not right in front of a lady of the cloth.” He nodded his head to Leta. “But ‘twas hoping the coin might go towards thanking you for the use of your facilities.” He nodded to the building behind the showman. He scowled at Kiran, not sure what game Kiran was playing. Leta wasn’t sure either. But in his royal guard uniform, he wasn’t one to be denied.

“Ah, what a generous bloke we have here. Washroom’s second door on the left, don’t leave the seat up now.” There was general laughter from around the crowd.

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Kiran leaned in. “Hope you don’t mind, it’s actually for the sister. She’s a bit too shy to say.”

“Sure it ‘tis.” He gave Leta a lewd up and down. What he could be looking at with her covered in half-inch thick fabric from head to toe, Leta couldn’t possibly guess. But she was happy to escape his gaze and the morning sunlight.

Kiran walked casually into the small home and then started to run.

Leta hiked up the huge amounts of fabric and chased after him. “Kiran,” she scream-whispered at him. “What are you doing?”

He made a tamping-down motion with his hands, shushing her. It made her want to stab him. Getting to her knife under all this fabric would take some work, but Leta would happily make the time.

“She’s down here,” said Kiran.

“She?”

They passed through a small and filthy kitchen. There were plates and pans caked with old food. Flies buzzed around, deciding where to make their home, but there were too many options. There didn’t seem to be additional rooms connecting to the kitchen. Kiran pulled up short at a blank wall, then started gently tapping at it. “She’s down here. I can tell.”

“Who?”

Kiran finally turned to Leta. “The next one. The one I’m supposed to gather.”

“What about slime ball out there? There’s no way all that sleight of hand was real.”

“I don’t know what he was doing, but he’s not the one I can sense. She’s down here. There must be—” He turned and felt around at the side of a cabinet. Most of the furniture in the room was coated in dirt and grime, but not here. He was on to something.

“Get out of the way.” Leta used a flat palm to press against the side of the cabinet for any abnormal give. Nothing. She walked around to the front of it and opened the cabinet door: there it was—a small lever. She pushed it down, and as she did, a door right in front of them popped open, revealing a staircase. If Kiran hadn’t been one hundred percent sure that something lay beyond here, there is no way Leta would have ever found the secret passageway.

“Well, I’ll be Wadu’s—”

Kiran stopped her mid-blaspheme. “We don’t have much time. He won’t like us in here and will eventually take a break to ensure we’re out.”

The stairs were old and rickety. He must have built the hidden door around a pre-existing basement. The space below was filled with cobwebs, old jars of preserved food, and what Kiran had been looking for.

Leta could only see her by the light of the kitchen above. The small girl sat crouched in a corner, seemingly lost in a waking dream. Her hair was a wild black mass around her head and streaked through with white, despite her age, which couldn’t be more than twelve years. She had a soft and far-off gaze and appeared to be moving invisible things around with her hands. No, not things. Balls.

Leta gasped. “It’s her.”

This finally drew the girl’s attention. She seemed to drop her invisible balls, and then her gaze focused on Kiran and Leta for just a brief second. In that second, she made a decision: to ignore two interlopers to return to her task. Whatever the man above did to her, it made her more afraid of him than the two unknown entities that had her cornered in the basement. Or maybe she wasn’t afraid. Maybe she was simply resigned.

“Who are you?” She spoke to them, but the sentence was only barely a question.

“My name is Kiran, this is Leta. We don’t mean you any harm.”

“You don’t mean me any good.”

“I—I do,” said Kiran. He was clearly thrown off by this conversation from a girl who seemed to be a captive in a dank basement. “Is he keeping you here? Are you a prisoner?”

“It’s fine down here. He feeds me. He don’t beat me. I don’t get rained on. I’m ashborne, not going back. Don’t ruin this for me. Go away.”

“I think you have a very special power and could do a lot of good in the world.”

“Why would I want to do a lot of good in the world? The world don’t do good to me. I eat good here. My teeth don’t wiggle anymore and the rash on my neck is going away. He lets me outside sometimes, on slow days.”

Yes, thought Leta, but what will he do to you when you enter your womanhood? Or if you falter? What if you want a different life? Or to taste freedom once your hair stops coming out in clumps and you can think straight again? Will you be so happy with collecting cast-offs, then?

“All I want is a chance to talk to you more. Maybe we can meet up later?” said Kiran, undeterred by her reluctance.

“I said no. Please leave.”

“If you’re worried about food, or water, or shelter, we can help you with all of that! Look, she’s a nun, she wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Don’t like nuns,” said the girl. Leta couldn’t blame her.

Kiran continued. “We have a safe place for you to stay. You wouldn’t be locked up in a basement.”

“I’ve signaled that I am in danger,” she said, her tone still without inflection. She was just a service worker trying to do her job. “I would go now if I was you. Unless you like beatings. He’s right good at ‘em.”

Kiran stuttered a meaningless reply, too shocked that his rescue attempt had come so far and been refused. Leta, on the other hand, was already in motion. She’d seen enough of the showman once today; she’d not see him again, and certainly not while angry.

“I’m Kiran,” he said again, “just think about it. I’ll be back.” Leta thought it was stupid for him to give her his real name again but didn’t have the time to say so. Fortunately for them, the kitchen had a backdoor, as the showman was barreling in through the front.