Despite Kel’s insistence on pursuing the thief, Caaron wouldn’t let the boy go.

“But they have the book!” Kel couldn’t tell if he was more furious or sad; It was like a hole had opened up beneath him. His one safety net, the one thing that could have saved him, was gone.

Tears of frustration and despair poured down his cheeks. In the last week, he had felt an actual thrill of hope instead of the growing fear that he would have to work in the Hardstahd manor. Now that hope had disappeared.The thought of being at Derry and Gerald Hardstahd’s beck and call for ten years nauseated him. And he knew for a fact that they wouldn’t stop there - they would find a way to keep him under foot for the rest of his life.

Caaron gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Go. Rest. We will deal with this in the morning.” He said nothing of the tears, for which the boy was thankful.

Drained, Kel trudged back to the darkened barn. He slowly climbed the ladder up to his loft, the will to reach each rung diminishing after the last. The “boy” creature was gone, which was not unexpected. He was honestly thankful it had disappeared back to wherever it came from - he really wasn’t in the mood for the thing’s cryptic and stilted conversations.

Despite his exhaustion, Kel stayed up the rest of the night, trying to concentrate on the brown book to distract from the depression that now weighed on him from all sides. It was all for naught - at one point he got so angry he wound up melting a hay-bale by mistake. It sank, drenched in bright green acid, like a drowning ship. Just like me, he thought to himself. Finally, exhausted and tired of existing in general, Kel passed out.

He slept well past dawn.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Caaron already stood outside the house, staring at the shattered window, when Kel finally emerged from the barn. The old man frowned, stooping to examine the ward totem that should have defended their cottage from the robbery. “I just don't understand it,” he poked at the small wooden spike with miniscule runes carved into the base, “Did it fail? Did someone know how to undo the enchantment?”

Kel felt a wave of guilt, an empty feeling that spread from his gut.. He had undone the ward by the window when he borrowed the black book the other night. If he had just listened to Caaron they would still have the book, safe and sound on the shelf, and he would have been able to learn the contents no matter how slow the pace.

Caaron stood up and squinted at Kel. "To find a thief, we have to know his motivation. A hungry man doesn't steal books, so we have to assume that someone knew what this was.” He began to pace in front of the window. “There aren't any other sorcerers around these parts, so I have to also assume someone meant this as a personal attack and not a way to gain power. Which means,” he gave Kel a significant look, “The Hardstahds." He turned to look back at the house. “I’m just trying to figure out how they found out about our plan.”

Kel felt the awful feeling in his stomach worsen. He shouldn't have let his anger get the best of him the other day when he had blurted out the plan to Derry. He shouldn’t have shown off his magic either - that had only made the threat even more real. Derry must have told his father, who then hatched a plan. But how had they known which book to steal? He definitely hadn't blabbed about that part. Still, he wouldn’t feel right until he came clean.

“I…I may have told Derry that I was trying to get into the Academy.” He couldn’t make eye contact with Caaron. It was just too hard.

“You what?” The old man froze mid-pace.

“It was the other day, when he was picking on Ryla. I was just so mad - it just sort of came out.”

Caaron rounded on him, shaking him by the shoulders. “Hal blast it, boy. If I hadn’t half-raised you, I’d think you were the stupidest child I’d ever met. You told the son of the mayor, the man who is going to take you as his slave, the exact loophole we were planning to use to get you out?”

Now that he put it that way, it did sound really stupid.

The wise man backed off and put his fingertips to his temples, as if he had a terrible headache. “I feel like the world is upside down. You’re spilling your most precious secrets like a blithering idiot and Derry is outwitting my magic and stealing my books. The gods truly have left us.”

Feeling another stab of guilt, Kel was compelled to speak again. “About that...the truth is that I,” he hesitated, but he had already started the sentence. This was going to hurt. “I fiddled with the ward so that I could use the book.” It did sound tragically stupid now that he thought about it.

“You what!?” Caaron’s trembling vein was beginning to make a reappearance.

“I sort of... borrowed the black book. The spell went wonky, though…” So. incredibly. Stupid.

“Of course it did. You’re an apprentice. That book is meant for master wizards. I’m surprised you didn’t manage to kill yourself.”

“I understand.” Kel kept his head lowered.

“Do you? You disobeyed me, dismantled my ward, and allowed someone to steal a book of immense power? Do you understand all of that!?”

“I know. And I’m really, really sorry…”

The old man threw his hands in the air. “Why did I bother taking you on if you were just going to throw it away over your pride? Five years I’ve been teaching you and for what? You’re still just a child!”

Kel felt his face grow hot. He was already admitting his mistakes. Caaron didn’t have to rub it in. “Well I wouldn’t have had to do it if you had started teaching me more advanced spells.”

The old man scowled, the vein in his forehead bulging. “You didn’t have to do anything! What you had to do was keep your head down.” He wagged a finger at the boy. “ You aren’t ready. I’m starting to think you might never be ready.”

“So what - you’re just going to let me become a slave?

“Of course not! But even that would be better than what could have happened if you mangled the spells in that book.You’re standing here, so I assume it just fizzled.”

Kel ignored that. Bringing up the creepy thing he had summoned wouldn’t make this argument any better. “So then what was the plan? Was I ever going to learn anything useful?”

Caaron stammered in disbelief. “Useful. Useful!? Boy, I’ve taught you more than most people dream of knowing. People have sold their very souls for some of the skills you possess.”

“And what good will it do me if I’m serving the Hardstahds?”

“Thanks to your own stupidity, you very well may find out!” The wise man turned on his heel and stormed away, shaking his head and cursing. His ranting echoed among the rocks and trees that bordered their yard until the slamming workshop door stifled the noise.

Kel had had enough anyway. Arguing with Caaron wasn’t going to solve anything and he needed that book back. He sat, glowering for a minute, until he calmed down enough to take in his surroundings. He turned to look at the broken window, patched from the inside with parchment paper. Dried blood still splattered the stones below the broken glass and a puddle had gathered on the ground below, but after that there were only droplets that had fallen sporadically in the yard as he (or she) had fled. The thief had stemmed the bleeding, but it had been a deep cut. There would definitely be a trail.

He scanned the ground nearby for blood but it was very hard to make out anything among the grass and weeds. Then he saw it - tiny drops of crimson beaded with the morning dew in the blades of grass a few feet away from the window. He looked up from it to find another splotch of blood further away; every few steps there were another few drops heading out toward the packed dirt road that crested the hill, swept by the cottage and down toward the town. He reached the rounded curb of the road, where a sign pointed visitors down toward Fellow’s Glen and followed the trail of blood as it zigzagged across. Surprisingly, it did not lead down the road into town, but rather back up the hill and into the trees beyond the cottage.

Had it not been Derry? Kel’s mind raced - had it been a random incident, just brigands roving through the woods? Had his confession meant nothing? He’d heard stories of the robbers along the highway and he wasn’t sure he wanted to meet the thief if it was one of them. There was a rugged path through the underbrush, which became less of a path and more of a trail of trampled leaves and broken branches the further along he went.

With every step he took deeper into the forest, it seemed to become darker and darker, with a luminous green glow that made him feel he had entered another world. Despite this, it was teeming with life. Squirrels skittered among the branches above him and chased each other around the trunks of trees. Birds sang a cacophonous song punctuated with chitters that he had never heard birds make before. Were they talking about him, announcing his presence?

Suddenly, the trail took a steep downward slope and he came to rest in a ravine. Kel looked down one way, then another. This was no ordinary ravine. Years of rain, plant growth, and decay had worn the sides into something resembling two hills joined at their bases, but the carefully laid stones in the center and unnatural half-pipe design of the edges stretching before him made it clear - this was a Faerie road.

The chittering birds stopped and the woods became unnaturally still. If the blood trail took off down the road, Kel would have to follow it. It wasn’t a welcome prospect though. The Fae were gone, it was true, but people still went missing on these roads. Unnatural things tended to happen along their borders and even learned men like Caaron - especially learned men like Caaron - warned everyone they knew to stay away from these places. Something about the curved shape of the edges unnerved him. It reminded him of that day when the portal had opened by their house, carving a semi-circle into the earth.

While he searched the ground, vividly afraid that some unknowable evil just out of eyesight could ambush him at any moment, Kel muttered words of protection. The silence was maddening, this fear and unexplainable anxiety seeming to last an eternity. Then, he breathed a sigh of relief - there were broken branches up across the road, smeared red with blood. He felt warmth flood him - the road had literally given him shivers - as he carried on and away from the Faerie road. Whoever the thief was, at least they were good about leaving obvious clues.

The trek seemed to take hours. He continued trudging through the underbrush, wondering if he would ever find the black book again.Then, almost by happenstance, the trail led him to something covered in so much ivy that it looked like a massive tree. It was an old watchtower. They occasionally dotted the roads between towns, forgotten waypoints that had served the legions of a country that existed long before Fellow’s Glen or the Empire or any of it. He made his way around, to where the newly beaten path led into the tower. He expected it to be overgrown inside, braced himself to have to fight wild animals or perhaps the brigand himself, camped out with a fire and a readied blade. Instead, he found what looked like a clubhouse.

There were small tapestries depicting hunts and battles hanging from the stone walls. The dirt floor had been cleared of debris and a table and chairs had been set in the corner. There was even a divan, something Kel himself had only sat on once before when he visited one of the wealthier families in town. A small, rounded cask was set up in the corner. He pulled the stopper and gave it a sniff, then blanched. Ale. Strong, warm ale. An old sword hung over a small, functional fireplace. The blade was rusted and old, but it was real. The jagged edge looked like it had seen some tough battles back in its time. Finally, a larger banner adorned the southern wall. It bore two crossed pickaxes, two mountains, and a bear superimposed over them, as if it was spanning between the two peaks. The Hardstahd’s coat of arms. So he hadn’t been wrong about who had done it. And to think - Derry had a hideout this close to his home and he had never realized it.

Kel looked toward the back end of the room. Where the stairs that would have wound around up the tower had halfway crumbled away, a new ladder had been set to allow the occupants to reach the second flight and the upper landing. It was all interesting and he wished he had a place like this to practice magic rather than the barn.However, out of all of the nice stuff around him, the one thing he didn’t see was the book.

“Good one, Der!” A raucous voice chortled somewhere out in the forest. Kel tensed - laughter filtered into the room, dampened by the trees. They were here! He looked around for an exit, but the only door was the one before him, where the sound of excited chatter was growing louder. Instinctively, he clambered up the ladder and onto the second flight of stairs, just out of sight. A thick, drawling voice sounded above the others “...stayed here last night. Couldn't come home to dad with this gash.”It was Derry and his friends, most likely some boys his age who he had not yet managed to piss off.

“He'd smack me for hunting boars with my bare hands again." Derry gave a hearty laugh, accompanied by unenthusiastic chuckles from the others. He came into view, framed momentarily in the doorway before stepping inside. Right. Kel thought to himself. That's a thing that happened. Two other boys followed behind. Kel recognized them from town: Ewin and John. Their parents were merchants. It was likely that Gerald Hardstahd had leaned on his influence to get new playmates for Derry. It was well known that none of them ever stayed for long.

“Oy Der, can I grab some ale?” The smaller and thinnest of the boys, John, eyed the cask in the corner. The motivation for their friendship was now becoming clear to Kel.

The bully gave him an appraising look. "I 'spose you can. Just a swig, though - I can't have my dad noticing his stash dwindling. Got to wait at least another month before I swipe another cask.”

"Right." John didn't care to listen for another minute, but immediately grabbed a tankard and began to fill it with the foul-smelling stuff.

Ewin, roughly Derry’s height but a bit pudgier, looked around eagerly. “Where is it? I want to see the witch’s book.”

“It's here.” Derry lifted the banner to reveal a recess in the stone. The black book sat there looking sullen, if that was possible for an inanimate object.

Derry snorted and spat, lifting it to show the other two.” Mages and wizards and the like. Thinking they’re so smart with their fancy words. I would have broken that boy’s nose if father wasn’t so keen on having him as a servant. Doesn’t want me to break our property, you see.” He moved out of Kel’s sight, toward where he knew the fireplace was.

The other boys nodded. “Gibbs-damned right.” John said. “Shitty commoner!” Ewin spat.

Kel gritted his teeth. These boys only had their wealthy families to take care of them because his great grandfather had been gracious enough to allow them to live in his settlement. They had even played together, once upon a time before his family had disappeared and Hardstahd had become mayor. And now here they were, insulting him. As if he had done anything to earn their ire. The acid spell came to mind, but he shook his head - he didn’t actually want to hurt anyone.

“I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he finds out we burned it.” Wait, what? Kel peeked down over the edge. Derry had placed the book in the fireplace. Was he serious?

“You gonna conjure some fire?” John burped.

“Do I look like some asshole sorcerer? No, just a flint and some pitch.” Derry squatted with his back to them, reaching over the hearth. Kel heard a gurgling noise and a few scraping sounds. His eyes widened. “NOOOOOO!!!” he yelled as he slid down the ladder and ran to the fireplace. He had moved without even thinking. The vagabonds shouted with surprise, even Derry, who stumbled to the side as Kel barrelled through. He grabbed the book, now wreathed in flames, with his bare hands and yanked it out of the fire. Before the other boys could move, he had ripped down the large banner and thrown it over the book to smother the flames.

Composing themselves and pretending they hadn’t just jumped ten feet high apiece, the older boys closed in on him while he patted down the burning book. “The hell are you doing here?” Derry menaced.

Kel stood, satisfied that he had put out the flames. “I could be asking you the same.” he nodded at the smoldering book, still smoking from beneath the now-ruined banner. “That’s my master’s.”

“I’m your master.” Derry glowered threateningly.

“Not yet, you aren’t. Right now you’re just a puffed up thief.”

Wham. Kel saw stars. He had expected the punch, but it still hurt. Derry swung again, but this time Kel was quicker. He dodged to his left; Derry couldn’t punch with his injured hand, so he had at least that advantage. The two other boys tried to grab Kel from behind and he raised his palms facing backward, over his shoulders. A dazzling burst of light flashed and they staggered back, blinded. John stumbled over the table and fell over with a shout. Ewin banged into the sword on the wall, which fell to the ground with a great clanging sound.

Kel brought up his fists, ready for another flurry of strikes from Derry but they didn’t come. The older boy had strafed to the side, where Ewin had tumbled over, and was picking up the sword. His face lit up with malicious glee. “Let’s see you magic your way out of this one.” Derry fell into a fencing stance, standing in profile with the large sword held daintily like a rapier, the tip pointed at Kel’s throat. He must have been ridiculously strong to hold a heavy sword like that. “I’d rather not kill you - dad’d have a fit. But if I maim you, it should be alright.” He set forth with a series of jabs, running Kel further into the room and away from the entrance.

The other boys, slowly getting to their feet, were incredulous:

“What are you doing, Der!?”

“Put the sword down!”

Kel frantically looked about for an exit while he dodged. His stomach sank as he realized he was cornered. He waited for Derry’s next lunge and rolled to the side, landing against the wall. Taking a deep breath, he curled his fingers and murmured the words “Umoram buko.” No one seemed to notice.

“I’ll just take an arm then, to keep you from twitching those fingers so much.” Derry sneered before he brought the sword down. Kel gritted his teeth as the blade sliced his shoulder and then, miraculously, deflected before it bit any further into him. Seizing the opportunity, he threw a blast of wind along Derry’s arm. The gust combined with Derry’s considerable momentum to send the sword flying from his grip. The bully’s eyes went wide with shock, giving Kel all the time he needed to punch him straight in the nose as hard as he could.

Derry fell to the ground like a sack of rotten potatoes. He rolled on the floor, groaning and holding his nose. Kel didn’t give himself time to revel in this small victory; he quickly moved between his felled attacker and the weapon. He couldn’t wield the sword like Derry; he would barely be able to pick it up as it was and that certainly wouldn’t be very threatening. Instead, he used what was available to him. He waved his hand in a sweeping motion and the sword sprang into the air, coming to rest just above his head, it’s edge poised menacingly at his aggressors.

John and Ewin were shaking. Whether this was from realizing their “friend” was a sociopath or the boy aiming a floating sword at them, Kel couldn’t tell.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Derry?” Ewin yelled.

“Gibbs-damned madman!” John howled as he turned to run.

Derry slowly picked himself up from the ground. His nose was bleeding profusely and was twisted to the left at an awkward angle. “Oy, where you going?” He yelled at the two as they fled. He looked up to see Kel standing ready, the blade hovering above him. For a moment, that unmistakable look of fear flashed over the bully’s face. Fear and pain, the only two things that seemed to keep people like him at bay. With a final glare, Derry turned and ran after his fair-weather comrades.

Kel waited, poised to fight a second round until he heard their footsteps and thrashing through brush fade.Then he breathed a sigh of relief and released the spell, dropping the sword to the ground. His bluff had worked - he could pick up the sword, but he certainly couldn’t have swung it. Even holding it aloft had been extremely taxing and taken most of his concentration.

He walked over to where the black book lay, its cover ashen and scorched, and tossed aside the banner he had used to extinguish it. He gingerly opened the burned cover. Maybe it’s okay, he thought. It hadn’t been in the fire for long. He began to turn the pages and immediately lost all hope as they crumbled to ashes in his hands.

Caaron was going to murder him.