He made it to the apartment building without further incident and walked up the stairs to her floor. When he knocked on his mother’s door, a man answered. Looks like mom had found a renter after all. It was someone he knew well.

“Hugo!” he yelled, “Good to see you. What a surprise.”

“Marius, good to see you too. I sent mom a letter, she should be expecting me,” Hugo said. He was ushered into the apartment.

His mother came out from her bedroom, “Hello Hugo. I saw your letter, but I haven’t read it yet. I was afraid it might be something bad. What is this all about?”

Hugo held back a sigh. She hadn’t read his letter. Probably didn’t read his first one either. He said, “I wanted to check with you to see if I could stay for a few days. At the end of every month they give us leave from the academy.”

Marius clapped him on the shoulder, “Alina was telling me all about that. She is so proud of you, her big shot son. She goes on and on about how successful you are going to be.”

That was news to Hugo. This was the second letter he had sent home, the first was a few weeks ago, and he hadn’t heard anything from his mother the whole time he was gone.

“So,” Marius continued, “I imagine you have chosen your domain by now, what is it?”

Hugo wondered if his mother had even read the first letter he sent home, he had told her everything. He smiled at Marius and said, “Yes, I ended up with the formation domain.”

“Good man. Good man. That is the second best domain there is, I always said. I think you know the first,” he said with a smile. He flexed and made a shimmering blue pauldron appear on his shoulder.

“The way I hear it, formation is number one and barrier is much lower on the list, like five or six,” Hugo said with a smile.

“Five or six? Who do you think you are trying to fool? Everyone knows barrier is best. Even those loony ritualists will tell you that they can’t hold a candle to guys like me,” Marius said.

“Sure, sure,” Hugo said, smiling even wider.

Marius slapped his shoulder and said, “Whatever. Anyway, you should stay. I am sure your mom would be happy to have you over for the next few days.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to take away your bed,” Hugo said.

“I never slept in that room, it is just like you left it,” Marius said.

Hugo winced a bit at the revelation. Marius was sleeping with this mother. Hugo had conflicting feelings about that. On the one hand, Marius was a fun guy. He felt like an uncle, the fun uncle that told him cool stories. On the other hand, his mom had obviously been seeing Marius since right after his dad’s death. Alina moved on right away, without grieving, like she never loved his dad at all.

He suspected that his mom was using Marius for the money and didn’t love him either. As a harvester, he wasn’t exactly heavy with coin, but he did better than an itinerant worker in the city. Maybe that made it ok, Marius was a jerk by swooping in on a newly widowed woman, but he got what he deserved in Alina.

Hugo looked to his mom. She said, "Yeah, you can stay. We can work out payment before you leave."

Marius barked out a laugh, "Alina is just joking. She wouldn't make her son pay to stay with her."

Hugo quirked up an eyebrow at his mom. She absolutely would charge her son to stay with her. But she wanted to get in Marius's good graces, so she just nodded at the implied question.

Hugo said, “Thanks. I would love to stay and catch up.”

“Great. It will be just like old times. I can tell you all about my amazing adventures. In fact, I had an amazing one just recently. I brought something back, do you wanna see it?” Marius said.

Alina put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t do nothing stupid, he doesn’t need to know.”

“Oh come off it. He is your son, we can trust him,” Marius said and shrugged off her hand.

“What is it?” Hugo said.

“Just follow me,” Marius said and led the three of them back to Alina’s room. He opened up the trunk at the bottom of the bed and pulled back the blankets to show what was hiding underneath.

“Is that really... Is that really what I think it is?” Hugo said with reverence.

“Yes. The boys and I got two of them on our last trip out. They got the other one. We lost Herrod, but we got two grandcrysts. Can you believe it?”

Hugo almost couldn’t believe it even though he was looking right at the proof. A grandcryst, glowing and twinkling right in front of him. They were worth an astronomical amount. Not as much as a mana core, but still. Enough to buy this whole apartment building. Maybe even the whole block.

Marius covered it up with blankets again.

“Why are you keeping it here? Aren't you worried that it will get stolen?” Hugo said, “Put it in a bank or something.”

Alina nodded along, “I told him the same thing.”

Marius shrugged, “The bank is closed already for today, and they won’t be open tomorrow since that is Eighthday. I am selling it Firstday anyway, so it is no big deal.”

“Still. Just having it in the house like that,” Hugo said, “Anyway, what are you going to do with the money?”

Marius walked back into the living room/kitchen and plopped down on the sofa. “First off, I am going to get myself a penthouse on one of the main towers in Paarl. You know, one of the really ritzy towers. Then I am going to get my own mana cart, and a driver. He will just drive me around the city, wherever I want to go. And I am going to get a top tier runesuit. You know, the kind that can withstand the hit of a troll? Super strong,” he said.

Hugo sat down and smiled. A grandcryst was a lot of money, but there was no way he could buy one of those, let alone all three. Still, it was fun to pretend. “You should get your own alchemist, have him make you any potion you want, just like that,” he said and snapped his fingers.

“Great idea. I can get my own runist too. Train them up and I can get my whole squad geared up in runesuits. And he can do up my penthouse too, make it soundproof so we can have wild ravim parties and no one will know,” Marius said dreamily.

“You better not have any wild ravim parties,” Alina said, “At least not without me.” She grinned wildly.

“Do I have to be the responsible one and say neither of you should be taking drugs?” Hugo said.

Marius shrugged, “Rich bastards take it all the time, it’s probably fun, right?”

Hugo just shook his head. Ravim was a new drug that burst onto the scene just last year. They said it rotted your brain. Marius was going to burn through his money so fast. He would be shocked if the harvester wasn’t broke again by the end of the year.

They stayed up late talking, thinking about ways to spend money and reminiscing about the good old days. Hugo slept in his old bed after refusing an offer to stay up and drink. He didn’t plan on drinking again for a very long time.

...

Hugo was woken up in the middle of the night by banging and shouting. It sounded like it was right outside his room, so he opened his door to look.

Dark shapes danced in front of him, silhouetted by a glowing blue man. Marius was using his power, wearing a suit of armor created by his barrier domain.

Not knowing what this was about made Hugo hesitate briefly. But whatever was going on, he knew which side of this fight he should be. He jumped forward, punching one of the shapes.

It was a person in all black clothes, and instead of getting hit, the silhouette flowed out of the way of his punch, then grabbed him. Then with effortless ease, it threw Hugo back into his room. Hugo slammed up against the far wall, and fell to the floor.

He had the breath knocked out of him, and it took a bit for him to be able to take a gulp of air. Once he was breathing easy again, he barreled out of his room. Marius wasn’t in the apartment anymore, he stood in front of the open door.

Letting his suit of armor dissipate, Marius looked to the sky and swore. The echoes bounced off the other apartment buildings, the only sound in the night. Hugo walked up to the door. The only thing he could see was a few neighbors peeking out of their windows. The attackers had fled.

“What happened?” Hugo said.

“They stole it! They broke in and took it. They wouldn’t stand still, just worming around until they distracted me. I didn’t see where they went,” Marius said and then started swearing passionately.

Hugo surmised that they had taken the grandcryst.

His mother came out from their room clutching her nightgown. She looked at the overturned furniture, but said nothing.

Once his tirade of swears slowed down, Marius walked back into the apartment, slamming the door shut on the way in. He casually flipped the couch back over and flopped down. He put his hands in his head and said, “Who? I didn’t tell no one, I didn’t piss off anyone, who would do this to me?”

Hugo looked down, he saw a bit of chipped porcelain on the floor. It was an ear. He pointed it out to Marius and said, “I think it was the fox gang.”

“How do you know it was them?” his mom said angrily, “Was this you? Did you tip them off?”

“I recognized the color, that’s all,” Hugo said with his hands up.

Marius pushed her aside, almost negligently, “Think, woman. When would he have told anyone? He has been here the whole time. The only one that has left this apartment since I got here is you.” He narrowed his eyes at her.

Alina was shocked at the accusation. “Of course I didn’t tell anyone. I would never do that, I love you,” she said, wounded.

“Well, I sure as dust didn’t tell anyone!” Marius yelled.

Hugo could see where this was leading. He didn’t think his mother would do that, but then again he didn’t know her well these days. He still decided to jump in, “Is that true, Marius? You didn’t tell anyone that you were coming to visit my mother? Not even your squad?”

Marius thought about it for a second, “Well, of course I told them I was going to go visit my girl in the narrows. But I didn’t tell them who it was, let alone where she lived. I just said I was going to wet my... um. I told them I was visiting your mom.”

All this talk about their relationship made Hugo sick to his stomach. He just didn’t want to think about them in that way. He threw his hands up and sat on the couch.

“If Hugo is right,” Alina said, “And this was the fox gang, that is all the info they would need. The foxes have eyes everywhere. There isn’t anything they don’t know in the narrows.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” Marius yelled.

“I tried to get you to put it in the bank!” Alina yelled back.

Their argument carried on, both of them unwilling to admit fault. Hugo could see that they weren’t willing to see the reality of the situation. The grandcryst was gone. Nothing was going to bring it back. He picked himself up and went back to bed without a word. He didn’t get any sleep, but at least it was quieter in the other room.

He expected things to end up like this, as soon as he saw it in the trunk. Certainly not this fast, but he expected things to get here eventually. They always did. He didn’t know if it was a family curse, or just how things were in the narrows. Nothing good lasted.

It made him think about his own career after the academy. Would he be able to break the curse and rise above his station? Or would he find himself yelling at someone ten years from now, totally unwilling to admit his own faults?

He promised himself he wouldn't let himself fall into old patterns. He was going to make a better life for himself, to rise above the morass that was the narrows. If he got successful enough, he could even help others get out. He knew he could do it, as long as his resolve never broke. Hugo nodded to himself. He could do this, and he would.