Promising to yourself all manner of incredible undertakings was easy when you were on the run, your mind too busy thinking about escaping to do anything else; much less so where you were alone and safe, with just your thoughts as company.

What the hell did i do?

Timothy wanted to beat at his head until he fell dead or anything good finally decided to come in it. It could be solved with words, he was sure of it. Even if he couldn’t, even if he lacked the skill for it, he was sure that it could be solved with words. They could have been convinced. If the leaders were stubborn, he could have spoken with the other mages, maybe found some allies. And instead, he had panicked and ran away like an idiot.

The apprentice leaned disconsolately against the wall of a deserted alley.

“What do i do now…” He murmured, passing a hand over his face.

He couldn’t return. After that brilliant exit, nobody would listen to him. Worse, they would probably detain him, just to keep him from hurting himself. Of course, an idiot running away like that…

He couldn’t return to the Tower. The priests would keep a contingent in front of it and even if he managed to sneak in, what would that accomplish? The Tower had to be protected, that much was imperative, and having to choose between himself and Lord Laszlo…

His mind barely acknowledged the chance that Laszlo could have been overwhelmed and the Tower stormed. It was such a terrifying prospect that he dismissed it right away with a rush of terror. It couldn’t happen and so it hadn’t happened, period.

That left him at a dead end.

The Tower burning, the mages killed. Images of tragedy chased each other across his mind.

There wasn’t anybody else, he realized with terror. Nobody else but him could stop everything from turning into a complete disaster. Against the entire Sunner clergy, against that burning light…

His hand itched fiercely.

Suddenly, a sound resounded behind him. He turned with a cry of fear, imagining vengeful priests coming at him.

Down in the alley, a rat scuttled away, disappearing in the shadows.

Timothy trembled with tension, almost expecting something to come out of the gloom surrounding him. When nothing happened, his legs buckled and he slumped on the floor.

He panted hard. Him alone. Alone.

Loneliness and fear felt like a vice around his throat, like a stone lodged in his chest. He had never felt so alone. Never.

That wasn’t something that could be pushed back. It could only be endured until it passed.

Thankfully, it did, slowly flowing away like muddy water leaving his heart. As it did, the words of his Master replayed in his head. He saw the emaciated face of Lare, cheeks incavated and large eyes filled with a silent question.

Those two things, more than anything else, gave him the strength to come out from his despair.

He stood up, leaning with a hand against the wall for support.

“If it falls to me…” he panted. “Then the only thing that remains to do is to try, right?”

He turned to the shadows engulfing the deeper alley. Maybe it was just his imagination but he saw a figure cut among the shadows, watching him with silent, twinkling eyes. He felt that it nodded to him, as in approval. He blinked. The shadows were only shadows. He was alone.

“Calm down now,” he murmured. “Don’t go losing it.”

The Goddess of Destiny, watching him? Now that was rich. He wasn’t so important, was he? If there was someone that deserved to be observed by No-Eyes was his Master, or Lord Laszlo, not the good for nothing apprentice.

He brushed himself up. He still felt tense and half-shocked but at least he wasn’t breaking down anymore. Not like he had the time for it. If he failed…

No no no, he thought, slapping at his cheeks with both hands. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the implications. Just move, act, do. And for all that is holy, don’t think.

It was all he could do to not give into hysterics once again. Not very flattering, he hadn’t ever heard of any knight of the old stories walking around like that, but he couldn’t be picky right now.

Just… keep moving!

He put that thought in action right away, starting in a jog down the alley.

He never noticed the shadow that, darker among the other shadows, watched him go, only to melt away once he was out of sight.

Timothy’s path brought him to the shabbier parts of the city.

The buildings leaned like old drunks against each other or upon the road, making difficult in many places to see the sky. People in shabby clothes walked out and about, their heads held down and rags clutched close or with challenging and awry expressions, their hands closed around weapon‘s handles. Peddlers of all kinds crouched in dirty corners, selling what garbage they passed for merchandise. Life flowed as it always did, in flagrant disregard of any curfew.

Timothy wasn’t surprised. If anything, he wondered if the militiamen had bothered at all coming down in the Shawl, as the slums of Truvia were called. He wouldn’t fault them if they didn’t. That place was dangerous for a man of authority.

Thankfully, he wasn’t one.

He had roughed himself up before coming down there, dirtying and ripping his cape and dusting himself all over. If you didn’t want trouble in the Shawl, you either looked trouble or not worth it. As an urchin, he had made of the second trick a bit of an art.

As he walked, bent down and unassuming, he noticed that the tranquillity was a lie: at the doors and in the street corners, people congregated in groups, their murmurs quick and eyes tense. They felt it, Timothy knew. With the fine senses of the underbelly, they sensed that big things were afoot.

He felt a stab of bitterness. If only the mages felt the same…

At least the buzz meant that he was given even less notice as he moved. He knew where to go, every corner a reminder of a bitter childhood. It hurt to walk those streets again, but he persevered. That was no time to be lost in memories.

Still, not even his urgency was enough to make him go past a particular spot. It was an unassuming place like there was a thousand more in those filthy neighborhoods: a thin side street, littered with refuse, running with filth. A long, shabby fence ran alongside the street and at the base of it, a little hole, probably made by rats forcing their way through.

Timothy would have made good progress by running that little street since it was a shortcut.

Still, he didn’t go there; he barely acknowledged its existence, a stray thought filled with pain and nothing more.

It wasn’t time, he said to himself. Maybe one day, but not now. Now it wasn’t the past calling, but the present.

He moved faster, making his way through the crowd.

His path brought him to almost deserted alleys, where the only people he met were vagrants or thugs that gave him the stink eye. Eventually, he reached a dead end and stopped.

In the past, it was an alley sneaking its way through the shambolic maze of buildings, but in some moment a house had come down, obstructing it with a mass of rotten wood, shingles and broken plaster. Someone had built a small hut out of it, massing together the debris string. Beside a crooked door, a string had been stretched between two sticks; a couple of filthy rags dangled on it, as well as a mass of bones, - Timothy recognized with a shudder a cat’s thigh- , herbs and other, less identifiable objects that seemed to have been cobbled together with everything that was around.

Timothy stopped at the entrance of the alley, panting.

Urchins, barefooted and with stained cheeks, watched him with wary curiosity.

Timothy felt his heart constrict at seeing their appearances. In his heart of hearts, he had always nurtured the hope that, by studying with the Master, he would have been able to do something for poor people like them. It was a foolish notion, of course. Him? What could he ever do? But still…

He shook off those thoughts for another time, and stepped into the alley.

There was a rust-red sheet of metal beside the door. He rapped his knuckles against it, one time, and then two times quickly.

Then, he waited, holding his breath.

“Who’s there?” creaked a voice from inside. “I‘m not seeing anybody!”

Timothy felt his lips form a tentative smile at hearing that voice.

“It’s me!” He called, rapping his knuckles on the sheet. “It’s Timothy!”

For a moment, there was no answer; then, a groan, followed by sounds of shuffling and rattling.

Timothy stood back as the door creaked open and a rag-wrapped figure stepped out.

Timothy watched him.

The young man was tall and slim, even the mass of rags that he wore as clothes barely managing to make him look bulkier. A series of trinkets and baubles had been sewn into the ratty cloth, rattling as he moved.

The eyes he turned on Timothy were of stunning gold, at odds on his stained face, and sparkled with hostility. His hair, tangled and messy, could have been any color under the mud that caked them. There was a tension to his knotted body, like an animal ready to pounce, a presence to it that made him look bigger than he was, making Timothy wonder how he had managed to fit inside that little hut.

The apprentice fidgeted under his stare.

“Arpal,” he mumbled with an uneasy nod.

The young man ignored him. “Look who decided to show his face,” he hissed. “I thought great mages didn’t lower themselves to mingle with filthy mortals, Timothy.”

Timothy was wounded by his words. He and Arpal went way back, to the times when they were both urchins struggling to fill their bellies. They had been close friends back then, the closest two lonely orphans could come to, sharing what little food they had and covering each other’s back.

But then he had gone to the Tower, and Arpal had remained behind. The thought his old friend had always been with him during those years. He would help him, he had promised to himself in his dreams, him and all the other orphans and poor and dejected of the city.

Now, he wondered if those were just fanciful dreams.

“You’re not fair,” he mumbled. “I’ve been sending you things, haven’t i?”

He said so dishearted. His wasn’t a life of luxury: the Master fed and clothed him, but that was that. Nothing more was given. He had sent what he could spare to his old friends but he knew they were nothing but drops in the sea.

He could do more, he knew he could.

Arpal snorted. “Yeah, sure. The crumbs.”

Timothy looked down. Of the two, he was the lucky one, they both knew that. It was something he had always felt guilt for.

“How are you been?” He asked, dejected.

“As usual,” Arpal replied scornfully. “Living in the trash, you know, not in a fancy Tower.”

Timothy clenched his fists. “Stop it,” he said, hurt by his words. “I’ve not been living in luxury either. You know that.”

Arpal averted his eyes and said nothing.

As neither spoke, Timothy scratched at his hand. His scars pulled and itched something fierce.

Fidgeting, he looked around, an old habit from the days as an urchin to make sure nobody was listening. Sure enough, street urchins, small and furtive like wood birds, peeked from the entrance of the alley.

Timothy put up a tentative smile.

“One Moon for each of you if you give us a moment.”

The urchins watched each other with eyes wide open. An entire Moon? Wow!

They nodded enthusiastically to each other, then turned to Timothy and did the same, before scampering away.

The apprentice’s smile became indulgent for a moment before his expression turned serious as he turned back to Arpal and gestured for him to get close.

The young man still wore his pout but did as he asked. Small change or not, urchins earned much of their bread by peeping and listening.

“I need your help,” Timothy murmured with urgency.

Arpal snorted. “Of course. Go figures.”

Timothy grimaced. Guilt put a stone in his chest but he pushed it away: now it wasn’t the time for that.

Arpal noticed it too, and instantly became more attentive. The greater part of him truly resented his old friend but the rest, where cold logic stood, knew that guilt-tripping him was a good way to secure some help in the future. Seeing that it wasn’t working made him realize that whatever he needed help with, it was something big.

Arpal was an entrepreneur at heart. Where big things happened, that he knew, there always were chances to exploit.

“There have been voices,” he began, eyes twinkling with a sly light. “They say big stuff has been going on lately. A big ruckus at the Tower… and now priests going out and about…”

Timothy nodded, tensely relieved that he already knew that. That made things easier.

He told Arpal everything; his Master’s absence, Lord Laszlo, Alphonse and Lare, his clashes with the priests, his run across half the city in search of a solution and how he had failed at the House of Dust, his meeting and subsequent escape from the mages and how it had brought him there. He didn’t omit anything, speaking uninterruptedly, often tangling with his own words. He hadn’t realized how much he needed someone to talk to about all that mess. As soon as he started speaking, it was like a dam had burst.

Arpal listened to everything, hiding his reactions behind a veil of attention. When Timothy mentioned Utar-Helios, the young man glanced at his hand and paled slightly. He quickly regained his composure but not enough that Timothy didn’t catch the shift.

The apprentice felt a mix of guilt and relief: Arpal could be resenting him for his better luck but at least he still cared. That made him happy.

When he finished his tale, Arpal had a wary expression.

“Sounds like a fine mess,” he said.

Timothy smiled bitterly.

“And you want my help…” Arpal’s golden eyes shone with suspicion. “In what way?”

“Oh, don’t worry!” Timothy hurried to clarify. “I don’t want to put you in danger or anything. I just…” He stopped, paling. Now that he was about to say it, what he needed didn’t sound so without danger.

“Just?” Arpal pressed.

Timothy fidgeted, filled his lungs with air and said it, all in a single breath.

“I need your help to get inside the Om Council.”

He expected a complete rejection, followed by loud screaming and being kicked away. What he didn’t expect was for Arpal to turn thoughtful and silent.

His old friend caressed the golden stub covering his chin, looking deep in thought.

“What’s in there for me?” He suddenly asked.

Timothy had gone there half-expecting an immediate refusal. Hearing that question sent him both reeling in confusion and scrambling for an answer.

“W-well!” Timothy raked his brain for a reason why his old friend would want to help him despite the danger. “O-oh! I-if the Sunners get the best in this, they may arrive here too? You know, become n-nosy!”

Arpal shrugged. “Better for me. Maybe they are finally going to set up a cookhouse that actually works.”

“B-but you are a…”

Arpal looked him straight in the eyes. “Yeah, i am a mage as well,” he said, slowly and deliberately, in a way that made Timothy’s chest throb with guilt. He was relieved when Arpal shrugged, averting his gaze. “Not difficult to hide it, for me.”

Timothy fell into an ashamed silence. Arpal was a Rattler, a self-taught mage that relied a lot on implements to compensate for his inferior abilities, or lack of formal training as in his case. Timothy was well aware that Arpal had more talent than him; and like him, only much more, he was adept at hiding his own presence, a skill that they had picked up as children from a beggar mage.

Timothy burned with embarrassment and agitation. Putting out those reasons had been stupid. But he really needed his old friend’s help. What else could he say to convince him?

Arpal smirked and smacked him playfully on the shoulder.

“Stop wracking your brain, pal. I am just messing with you.”

Timothy blinked at him in astonishment. “You are?” He asked in confusion.

Arpal’s smirk turned lop-sided, eyes glinting. “Of course. What else are friends for?”

Timothy needed a moment to register. When he did, relief filled his chest. “Arpal, you…”

The young man tussled his hair, averting his eyes, grin still there. “Just…” he said, not looking at him. “Put a good word with your Master for me, alright?”

“Oh… oh!” Timothy’s relief died as quickly as it had come. “Yes, of course, but…” His shoulders slumped. “He’s not the type to listen to me, you know…”

“Eh, it’s okay.” Arpal shrugged. “You just try, and who knows.” He grinned at him. “Maybe lady fate will finally decide to smile to me.”

Timothy was moved beyond words by his generosity. His old friend…

Arpal smacked him again, then walked away.

Timothy covered his mouth, masking a small sob with a cough. Master wouldn’t give two shits about any person he recommended to him but that didn’t mean he would let that great show of friendship unpaid. He would help him, he promised. He would find a way to get him out of that horrible place. He owed that to him at least.

He didn’t notice the sly light that twinkled in Arpal’s golden eyes.

The young man quickly walked at the alley’s entrance and sprang to look around the corner. Two wide-eyed urchins, rags hanging from their bodies, were there. The first was quicker to react, turning and bolting like a startled hare. The other wasn’t so lucky: Arpal’s fingers were digging in his shoulder before he could follow his friend.

“Go to Burao,” Arpal ordered, dragging the startled kid close. “Tell him that i send you. Tell him that the priests are having an Om Concil and that i want to know where. Tell him that i will pay him as usual. Understood?” He shook the kid when an answer wasn’t quickly forthcoming. “Understood?”

“Yes yes, alright! Just let me go!” The orphan protested, struggling in his grip.

“Be back here in ten minutes with his mark,” Arpal’s words took a threatening edge. “If you’re not, the next time i see you, you’re going to have a bad time.”

That said, he pushed him away, almost sending him on his backside.

“Move!”

The child didn’t need to be told twice. As soon as he recovered his footing, he was already bolting, naked feet slapping against the dirt.

“There’s no need to be so rough…” Timothy said, walking closer.

The glance Arpal threw him dripped with irony. “We don’t all have Moons to give away if you remember.”

Timothy lowered his head and said nothing.

The threat was effective, having the urchin scamper back even before the ten minutes had elapsed.

“He said he’ll look into it,” he said, handing Arpal a rag upon which a rune had been roughly scribbled.

The young man took it, looked at it for a brief moment, then crumpled it and threw it away.

“Fine. Wait here. I’ll need you to bring me his answer.”

The orphan pouted but didn’t protest. He knew better.

“Here’s something for your trouble…” Timothy said, handing him a small coin.

The orphan’s expression brightened. “A whole Moon!” He said, admiring the coin. “Thank you, mister!”

Timothy smiled a little, trying to ignore Arpal’s glare. He hadn’t much himself, but that was money well spent without any doubt.

The waiting wasn’t long. Soon enough, the urchin had scampered out and back, bringing the news.

“Burao says that there is a bunch of robes at the Spire. A lot are Sunners but there are Bonies, Greenies and Spikes as well. He says they squabble a lot less than the usual, so that means that it‘s something big.”

The child made his report as a small soldier then fell silent. Two other urchins had returned with him and now they eyed Timothy, hoping for a little something. The apprentice smiled and gave a Moon each.

“So, straight at the Spire,” Arpal murmured as the urchins ran away laughing.

“Yes,” Timothy agreed, thoughtful. He was impressed by the efficiency of his friend’s information network but put it aside to focus on the matter at hand. An Om Council at the Spire meant that the Sunners were giving this meeting all the chrisms of officiality.

He felt his heart start to accelerate. It was just as he feared: An-Helios wanted to exploit this chance at its fullest.

A glance exchange with Arpal confirmed him that his friend had reached the same conclusion.

“Fine mess you and your Master managed to make,” he said with a nervous laugh.

“Not the Master, no.” Timothy shook his head. “Only me.”

And as such, it fell to him to make it right.

He took a deep breath and, pushing down on the tension rising in his chest, he said the only thing he could:

“Let’s go.”