At first, Tay was afraid that he’d ruined his friendship with Atro. All Atro did after their duel concluded was quickly pick up his cards, give Tay a terse smile, and then scurry off to collect his now-defunct Bronze card from Em.

Tay dragged in packing up his cards, unable to bring himself to stand and move over to join Atro. Atro said it had been fine, but was it really? Tay had chosen pursuit of his mother’s amulet over Atro getting to Iron anytime soon, and his friend knew that now.

A passing shadow caught Tay’s attention, before he blinked and failed to find anyone around him who would’ve casted it. Everyone was gathered on the other side of the shop, crowding around the final game of round two, it seemed. Even from where he was, Tay could hear Mond’s boisterous laughter.

Mond’s bulky form stuck out from the crowd, and he raised a shimmering white card over his head before exclaiming, “You’ve put up a good fight. But you’re not going to last much longer against this.”

Mond’s opponent was a big-boned woman with sharp cheeks and a pair of wideset eyes. She had smooth skin, and red-painting fingernails that practically plucked the cards out of her hands as she threw them onto the table.

Before Tay began moving over to see who was winning between Mond and his opponent, a shadow passed over the crowd and his eyes caught a glimpse of someone loitering just outside one of the shop’s windows. It seemed they had a spy who didn’t feel comfortable coming inside to watch the tournament. But all were welcomed in the card shop, so who would be content with watching the games from outside?

And no sooner had Tay begun to study the shadow on the other side of the window than they ducked back underneath the sill, as if they had not wished to be spotted. A pinching sensation grew on the back of Tay’s neck—one that pressed him to check out who the spy could be. Something in his gut told him it had to the be the Polamunds.

Maybe Cari had been right? Maybe, somehow, Rantho had already found out that Mond was competing again, and not planning to leave the city. If that was the case, he’d need to be able to stop whomever was snooping around outside.

Without trying to draw attention to himself, Tay glided over to the door of the shop. Atro was still talking things over with Em, and everyone’s attention was still focused on Mond and his duel, so no one should notice if he opened the door. Tay swung the door open as quickly as possible…

“Ow! What’d you do that for?”

Tay managed to whack the door right into the back of the carpenter, who had been hard at work on patching a hole in the roof above the door’s threshold. The carpenter grumbled as Tay begged for forgiveness as quietly as he could, but thankfully the carpenter didn’t give him too hard of a time.

Once he’d said he was sorry for the thousandth time and satisfied his unfortunate victim, Tay crept around the side of the shop and pressed his back to the outer wall. The street was mostly dead at the moment. Kids were either in their grammar schools, or doing apprentice work, and most professionals, like the smith across the way, were toiling with their current labors.

Not that it really mattered whether or not people were about. Years of thieving had taught Tay what he needed to know be to able to make himself both seen and unseen. If he didn’t want to be spotted, he could do so with ease. Provided that he didn’t have to blindly open any doors into any unsuspecting carpenters’ backs, of course.

He tiptoed his way around the shop’s first window, ducking under it so as to not attract any attention from those inside of the shop. The spy would be just around the next corner. Slowly, Tay poked his head about.

He’d been preparing himself for a battle-hardened bruiser, or maybe even one of those scummy guards that had accompanied Rantho. Tay’s skill set was in evading and heckling those sorts of merciless mercenaries. Maybe he should’ve put more weight onto training up his babysitting skills though.

Just underneath the lip of the small, oak-carved window’s exterior sill, Sallamana struggled with a half-rotted crate as she tried setting it up on its side. When she’d managed to right it just the way she wanted, she leaped up onto the crate and tried her best to peek over and into the shop. Maintaining her balance definitely wasn’t her strong suit though, and she kept stumbling off of the crate only to have to hop back up to the window again.

Sally just managed to get her balance perfectly right when Tay crept up behind her, leaned forward, and gave her a light tap on her left shoulder, just underneath her wavy locks of ebony hair.

“Wha—Tay?” Sally exclaimed. She then toppled backward and over the crate, groaning loudly as she gathered herself on the hard cobbled ground.

Sally threw aside the crate, which she’d broken in her fall, and Tay stepped forward to make sure she was okay, before she batted away his hand and pushed herself back up. She dusted off her dress, and when she turned her face up to meet his gaze, her eyes had enlarged to three times her normal size.

The pouting was about to begin.

But before she could say anything, Tay just chuckled to himself. It was truly funny, getting to look down at this small girl who thought she was in so much trouble. Even more so, it was hilarious that she thought she could get out of it by giving him a sweet face.

If only such techniques had worked for him against Madam Principine back in Pyrewood. How much easier his life could’ve been.

“What’s so funny?” she exclaimed, her pouting face warped into one shadowed in frustration.

“You are,” Tay said. “You think you’re in trouble just because I found you?”

“Are you going to tell Mond that I’m here?” Sally asked.

“Only if you don’t tell Cari that either of us came here.”

Sally visibly brightened—seeming to brighten in the dark candlelight of Peace and Quiet. Her eyes beamed and the white strands of her hair shimmered against the oily black ones. “Deal!” she said.

Sally all but danced around him for a couple moments, almost like she was feeling the need to celebrate not being in trouble. Eventually, she came to rest just in front of where he’d clasped his deckbox to his belt. She had the largest smile just staring at it.

“How was your first duel?” she asked. “I saw you win against that round-faced man!”

“That wasn’t my first duel, but yes, I did win,” Tay said, only cringing on the inside to know that he’d stopped Atro from advancing to Iron for now.

“Are you going to win the tournament, Tay? You have to win and then you have to get me all the best cards from in there.”

Sally yanked him over to the shop’s other window, which must’ve been where he’d caught a glimpse of Sally the first time. With his help boosting her up, Sally smooshed her face up against the glass and got a good look over at the counter.

“Look at all those cards,” Sally said. “If only Mond wasn’t competing too. I’d really want to see those cards up close.”

Tay’s brow had begun to sweat, and his mind couldn’t kick the fact that Sally had brought up that Mond was competing in this tournament, along with asking him if he’d win the tournament altogether. Those two facts seemed contradictory. Only being presented those two points could Tay’s mind finally begin to grapple with the fact that he was going to have to either face Mond in the next round, or he was going to have to face someone who’d beaten Mond.

In other words, he was royally screwed. So, he distracted himself by asking, “Why are you so afraid of him finding out that you came here, Sally?”

Sally pushed off from the window glass and paced down the wall of the shop with her fingers dragging along its exterior. “He doesn’t like me thinking a lot about Runicka. At least, not competitively. I don’t know why. He’s dueled me hundreds of times and he should know better than anyone that I’m ready to compete in a tournament like this—I really am!”

Sally spun about and beamed at him, smiling wide. “He doesn’t want to see how strong I’ve become with my deck. But if he could, I’d be able to duel in this tournament, and the next one, and the one after that! And eventually I’d be playing in the championships—just like he did!”

Sally’s bright eyes gleamed as she stood proud and strong before Tay, half of his height but twice his fervor toward Runicka. Maybe it was the way she was smiling, but Tay recalled how worried Mond had been when he’d told the big man about his intents to climb the ranks of Runicka.

And Sally wanted to climb all the way to where Mond had been. To where Mond had rejected the game, his champion title, and everything surrounding Runicka on a competitive level.

Maybe it wasn’t so hard to see why Mond had a problem with Sally coming here, after all. She wasn’t too young. She was just too inspired by it all.

Tay asked, “Why would you want something like that?”

Sally grinned. “Are you kidding? Because Runicka is the best thing ever. I mean, you realize that, right? You just learned about it—how fun do you think it is, Tay? The best, right? It’s the absolute, most amazing thing in the world.”

Sally plucked a card from a pocket in her dress and showed it to him. Its art was full of trees, but within them was a shadowed figure with vines growing out of their back.

(20) Lord of the Forest Unstable

Shout: Stable and Latent revenants you control gain +2 Power.

Uproar: this revenant gains +2 for each Stable and Latent revenant you control.

Echo, Provoke 5 >>>

Sally hugged the card to her chest and beamed at him again. “I dream of being able to summon my cards. To summon revenants. We all act like magic has fled from the world, but we’re able to just conjure these creatures out of nothingness. How is that not magical?”

And Tay, perhaps for the first time since having Mond’s Skywing Lord burst out of white incandescence right in front of him, thought about how truly extraordinary Runicka cards really were. There were hundred of tales about people who could raise the dead and tame hurricanes, but a runekeeper could call demons out of darkness and bring rocks to life. These cards really were something else entirely—Sally was right on that front, at the very least.

“It—it is fun,” Tay admitted.

Sally’s smile widened, and she threw her arms around him, bouncing up and down.

“And it is magic,” Tay continued. “There’s really no denying that, no matter what anyone says.”

But Tay felt cold run down his back as he remembered exactly what Mond had told him after their duels against Rantho. Tay remembered exactly how injured Mond had been. There was so much blood in this game at the higher levels. So much blood over so much coin.

“It’s magic,” Tay repeated, “but it’s not magical, Sally.”

She pushed off of him, like he’d just insulted her. “No, you’re wrong,” she said. She glanced down at her card and brushed her finger across the front of it. “This game is all that matters. Mond’s only who he is because of Runicka. Same with me. Same with you now.”

“It’s fun, but you don’t know how dangerous it can be—how much it’ll cost you.” Tay knew just how dangerous his climb to Iron would be once he started going after Rantho. And if he had another choice to chase after his mother, he would’ve taken it.

But he had no other choice.

“You’re going to keep me from it too then?” Sally said. Her eyes dimmed a bit, and her face contorted as she cast her gaze to the ground.

Tay could hear the words of Madam Principine ringing in his ears. He’d asked her so often to be allowed to explore the town of Pyrewood and meet all the villagers. “You children are vermin to the world,” she would always say. “That’s what they choose to see you as. I choose to see you as something more. You can be of value to me, but only if you listen to what I say. The outside world is a dangerous place for orphans, Taygion. It’s not for you. They’ll only hate you for existing.”

Tay wanted no place in telling Sally who she could and couldn’t be—what she could and couldn’t want.

Before he got a chance to respond to her though, a soft roar echoed from within the card shop. Tay couldn’t stop Sally from scurrying over to the window again and hopping up and down. He came up behind her, and scooped her under her arms to prop and support her on the sill again.

“Mond won,” Sally said. She turned her eyes up at him. “I knew he would.”

Tay smiled, and then his smile fell to the floor as he realized what Mond winning actually meant. In the winners’ bracket, there had been two winners. Mond was the latest.

And he was the first.

“That means that you’re going to face him in the final duel!” Sally exclaimed, patting her hands on the sill.

“Fourteen, I’m a goner,” Tay said. He had to place Sally back on the ground and then took a couple steps back.

Maybe he should’ve just allowed Atro to have the victory? Now, he was going to have to face the former champion in all of Runicka.

“You’re not a goner,” Sally said.

Tay had been breathing fairly heavily, but he now caught his breath looking down at Sally. She was smiling up at him, a tiny sun in the middle of an underground city.

“You’ve been coming here every day all week!” Sally continued. “I’ve seen you coming and going. I saw you win against that other fellow too. You’ve gotten so much better than when Cari and I were trying to teach you.”

Part of Tay really wanted to tell Sally that this time, she was wrong. That he hadn’t gotten any better since starting, because then he could’ve just taken the loss against Mond without even trying. But, like she’d been about the magic, Sally was right.

He had beaten Atro. Atro used to wipe the floor with him every single duel they had against each other. It didn’t matter what deck Atro had played, he’d always win. And now, Atro had played him with his best deck and Tay had bested him.

He was better now. He had a firmer understand of the game than he had even a couple weeks ago, and new deck that felt like it actually aligned with how he wanted to play the game. He had—he had—

Something brushed against the inside of his ears, and shivers suddenly came all across Tay’s body.

It’s time, it said. Return now.

His deck box suddenly felt like it was burning hot, and his ears felt like they were going to freeze off his head for a minute, but then both sensations melted into his body and then vanished slowly.

When Tay recollected himself, he noticed Sally raising her brow at him. “Are you okay, Tay?”

His attention must’ve been visibly shaken. So, he said, “Yeah, I just thought I heard something. But it's nothing though. I guess it's time for me to check back in.”

Sally pursed her lips, and then kicked at the ground. “Yeah,” she said. “I think you can win, for all that it matters.”

“No, I can’t,” Tay said. And when Sally looked up at his abashedly, he smirked. “At least, not without you in there to support me.”

All at once, Sally’s face blossomed into a radiant smile, before contorting into a frown, then transforming into a scowl. “I can’t go in there! Mond would kill me.”

“He’s the one paying for me to play here,” Tay said. “All this was his idea.”

“You’re different,” Sally said, turning away. But she pushed her hair behind her ears, and glanced back at him. “He likes you. He probably wants you to be the one to follow in his footsteps as Runicka champion, and not me.”

“Did he ever tell you anything about why he quit being the champion, Sally?” Tay asked.

Sally crossed her arms. “No. He almost never talks about it with me. Just Cari.”

Tay raised an eyebrow to that, “And Cari never bothered talking about his Runicka history with you?”

“Cari and I never talk about Runicka alone, Tay. Not since our parents—”

We must go, the presence—his card—said. Now!

As Tay clasped at his freezing-again ears, Sally tilted her head to the side and raised an eye brow to him. Tay tried to laugh it off though as the simultaneous coldness and warmness married within his body again.

Before Sally could point anything out though, Tay then said, “If you come in with me, I’ll make sure that Mond sees it our way. And if he doesn’t, you’re just going to have to convince me that I can beat him until I actually do.”

Sally absolutely beamed at him. “I’ll get to go in the card shop?”

“You’ll get to watch me show Mond why he shouldn’t underestimate us at Runicka.”