Wizards and Witches didn’t have a union. That came as no surprise to anyone who, for one reason or another, was forced into pursuing the life. It was the same story—newbies either found themselves wrapped up in the action or thinking too far ahead. Overconfident or overthinking. There wasn’t much difference apart from who was holding the shotgun to your chin: your enemy or yourself.

Among the survivors who found themselves making a job out of it, they’d eventually find a loose coalition of mouths and opinions. ‘Work with these people’, ‘avoid contracts from them’, ‘I know a guy who knows a gal who can help you with that’.

The network fulfilled mercenary matters but worked just as well if one needed their taxes filed, a gun serviced, an injury dressed. In the corners of the world that didn’t see the light of the world-famous ‘Geverdian Privilege’, other magic users were some of the last few reliables.

They were all Wizards and Witches but were once bankers, mechanics, nurses, and teachers. Skills attained ‘on the outside’ as it were, like conscripted soldiers, like convicts.

Not Colte. Liam Colte, a Firestarter, an Arsonist from a long line of Devil’s Mutts. Being a Wizard was a family trade to the small cult of bloodlines nestled in the heart of Aerilia. One generation after another, slitting their wrists, dancing over hot coals before the avatar of Hell. Those who woke up to crying mothers and—after many gruelling years—proud fathers were Wizards and Witches by trade.

That was their attained life skill, their one-and-only value in life. Outside the world of Wizards and Witches, they were nothing. On the inside, however, they made for good branches from which that loose, yet strong network could launch. People knew him because he knew what he was doing. People knew him because he knew who to call and what to ask.

People knew him, and more importantly, owed favours to him. He’d scratched many a back in his career, favours piled up to his gills.

For the time being, all his contacts existed in a little black book—a name, and a phone number, repeated endlessly across tens of pages. Notes and reminders were written in the empty spaces beside them, the number of characters directionally proportional to how useful Colte found them.

Down the list he had gone, turning page after page, etching a blue tick into the paper with every phone call he sent out. People would talk, then the news would travel like a dew drop from the branch down the spider silk, farther than his black book would ever take him.

Or that was the intention. Almost a month down the line, his investigation was coming up short. Either nobody else could speak on his latest inquiry, or nobody wanted to. Hearsay, urban legends and quite literally fairytales were all he had to show for it.

The lapping waves brushed against Colte’s window too eagerly, spraying the sill with cold, murky water. He looked up from his desk—a storm on the way. Grey clouds greeted him through the stained glass still an hour or so removed from Aerilia. He stood up, feeling the ache in his side flair in protest.

Combat in an aching body was fine, Trench Brain hadn’t gone so far as to deprive him of adrenaline to numb the pain.

He closed the window, doing up the latch with a tired, all-too-relatable click. Aerilia Lake bid him farewell with another playful splash of water, and he took a moment to pause, arch his back, roll his shoulders, scratch his neck.

His ink pot was leaking onto the desk.

Another stain he’d brood over in three months, asking his past self why he didn’t clean it up when he could've.

It wasn’t a pigsty of a room. In all fairness, for a middle-aged travel-for-work bachelor, the place was held down well. But, over many years, mistakes here and there built up. The few visits he made to Evalyn’s home had put into perspective the difference an extra pair of hands made.

Then again, the few times he’d been to Marie’s had never ceased to amaze him. Prim and clean, ends, edges and all manner of loose pieces tucked under and stapled like it was open for house inspection.

He liked it at Marie’s flat, even if it got lonely drinking between the two of them. Four had been a party; that put a company of two into perspective.

Extra pair of hands. He’d tried it. Many had. Evalyn was about the only person he’d ever seen pin another unlucky soul down with her for more than a year.

‘Good for her,’ he’d always say to himself. Shame there hadn’t been a ceremony. Double shame he’d been the first face to greet her once the honeymoon was over.

Daydreaming again, off to another place the moment things got quiet. Colte trudged towards his seat, all but collapsing into it as the moonlight faded from the room. Each small stain, cobweb, or drop of hardened wax called out to him like needy children.

Colte sunk his head into his arms, mentally flicking through his black book, searching for a number to call for house cleaning services when...

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Phone ring. Shrill, like an infants beckoning. Another thing to add to the list of needy children. His inquests. Black book. He couldn’t think of any other reason for anyone to call, especially at such an hour.

“Hello?” he grunted, forcing the voice out of his throat when it refused to pronounce the H correctly.

“Hi, Colte?”

“Hi Iris,” he said, sitting upright. “Why’d you call?”

“…nothing,” she said after a pause. “Nothing. I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure,” he replied. “If it’s about my little investigation, I haven’t really found anything more.”

“Oh…that’s okay. That’s not what I want to talk about.”

“Oh?”

He heard the little girl on the other end shift through the wire. “Do you remember, years ago when you first met me? You said something I didn’t really get at the time. I want you to explain it again.”

“I don’t think I can remember that far but I can try my best—”

“You can do anything, but not everything…you said that, and I think I understand. But I want you to tell me again.”

Colte let out a low hum as he pondered it. “I did say that didn’t I?”

It wasn’t as though he’d forgotten the phrase itself. He’d parroted it a million times to his mentee over the years, but she’d eventually proved him wrong in a sense.

Restrictions abound; Evalyn still lived her life tied down like a convict. But holding a family while she worked was all she had ever asked for. In a sense, she’d proven him wrong, but the point still stood.

“You can do anything, Iris. Anything you want to. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to do everything.”

“So what does that mean?” the little girl asked.

“It means exactly what it sounds like. Say you…want to settle down and live a happy life, but at the same time use your powers like a God, you know? Pick out good and evil like you’re weeding a garden.”

“I can’t do both.”

“Exactly. Seems obvious, but when you’re like us, it’s hard to see why that isn’t possible.”

“Why not?”

“Why…because the world doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because that wouldn’t make sense.”

“But I’m asking why—”

“Iris.”

He put an end to it, resetting the conversation back to zero.

“Iris? To act like a God, you can’t be human. To live like a human, you can’t be a God. People have made sure that we can’t live like humans, and they’ve made damn sure we don’t act like Gods. At least…not ones they can use.”

“But…never mind.”

“Sorry, Iris. Being out in the world for as long as your parents or I have taught us these things. In the end, we’re living things, with weird weaknesses and vices we can’t help but fold to. Maybe you’re different, but I’d like to think not.”

“…why not?”

“Because you deserve to be a little girl for as long as you want to. Then, you deserve to be a woman for as long as you’d like. It’s a privilege you see.”

“Okay,” she said in that candid way her younger self always had. Wide-eyed, never quite sure if what you’d said had gotten through to her.

“It’s a conversation better had with your parents, or at least in person. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Jolly,” he chimed, glancing at the clock hanging over the doorway. “It’s late, you’re going to sleep soon?”

“Yes. I’ll try to.”

“Good girl. Sorry if I startled you. Feel free to call anytime, all right?”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Night.”

He heard the line cut before three beeps trailed, softly into his ear. Another rustle.

“This is the operator. Would you like to make another call?”

“Ah! No, no thank…hang on. Hang on, why is there an operator on this line?”

“…this is a state-run tele company?” the operator answered, the words sounding like a question.

It wasn’t. Calls from Evalyn’s house were normally redirected to her alibi apartment, but Colte had been careful to set up a specific Aether Line connection from his house to hers.

“Where did this call come from?”

“West of Excala, sir, the neighbouring region. I’m not at liberty to disclose an exact address.”

“For god’s sake.”

The receiver connected with the body too eagerly. A clunk and a startled chime from behind the dial shouted in protest as Colte stood, forgetting about the pain in his side entirely.

Another ring, begging for his attention as he moved to put on his coat. His eyes flashed between the dial and the door, two, three times. He sighed.

“Hello?”

“Hiya, Colte? Liam? I got the right number, right?”

“Yeah, you did but…sorry I don’t recognise your voice.”

“No, no, don’t mention it. I’m a guy you helped out when I was in a tough spot. Thinkin’ of taking the barrel to me own head ‘n’ all that.”

“I see…I hope you’re doing better now. How can I help you?”

“I’m fine! Getting by now. Pay’s great, better than I could’ve—never mind. I heard on the grapevine you were lookin’ for something peculiar.”

“Anything related to a few key phrases, yes. They were Tetrica, Spirit of Destruction and—”

“Until utopia begins. Yeah. No Colte. No, you might’ve screwed up Colte. Screwed up big time.”

“Screwed up…the hell are you talking about?”

“Now…listen close mate. I’m telling you this to return a favour all right? You scratched my back now I scratch yours. No one wants to tell you this because they’re too bloody scared but I’m not. I’m not so I’m going to tell you.”

“Please just…if you have any information—”

“Get off their tail, mate. Get off their tail because people know you, right? They know you. Back when you helped me outta my tough spot, there was these fellas that tried to get me off me feet first. But I didn’t like ‘em too much because of what they were offering, aye? I’m a solutions guy I like it when people, come to me, with solutions.”

Colte nodded along out of courtesy.

“But these people, right? They were like…they talked to me like the people who’d tell me off when I said I’d go straight. You know, ‘The world doesn’t work like that!’ or ‘It’s the world that’s screwed up not us!’, and they kept promising me a ways to fix it but I just pinned them as a bunch of anarchists, yeah?”

“Who were those people?”

“…now I don’t wanna go spouting anything for your sake. Curiosity kills the cat you know, you don’t know if they’d treat you the same they treated me.”

“Just tell me, please!”

“All right! All right…I don’t know his name, but don’t go spouting this stuff like you been doing in fact, don’t spout anythin’ else you can’t account for all right? This ain’t a call for someone who knows how to tune a piano.”

The caller breathed. “It was a random dude, all right? Some…Wizard it was that I passed ways on a contract with…he told me all this crap, then told me to ‘find the Provenance’. I don’t know if that’s their boss or their company address, but they left off with that damn slogan.”

“Until utopia begins.”

“That one.