“You’re new to this world,” Ferrith continued in a low voice. “So I’m not going to write you off as a complete idiot, but this isn’t the kind of secret you share with people. You just put both our lives at risk. Do you realize now if a paladin asks me if I knew about you I won’t be able to say I didn’t?”

“Sorry!” I said, as he pulled his hand off my mouth to let me speak. “I thought you said you couldn’t get a… one of those Skills, if you weren’t an evil murderer. I’m not! I swear! I’ve never even killed a mouse before.”

“Maybe you’re mistaken. Are you sure that’s what your Skill does?”

“Well, I don’t know for certain it works on other people, but the description of that Brand that was supposedly just like it read differently. It specified it could only convert your own vitality to MP. Mine doesn’t.”

Ferrith took in a deep breath and scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “So you don’t know for sure your Skill can do this thing? That it can suck the life out of other people?”

I shrugged. “Well, I haven’t tested it yet, but—”

“No buts!” Ferrith insisted. “Don’t test it. Don’t confirm. If anyone asks you what your Skill does, just tell them you use it to convert your vitality to MP. Don’t try to lie. Don’t tell them it can do other things. You never know when a paladin might be listening. I told you they’re toothless, but that’s not the case when it comes to black magic. They’ll drag you off to hold a public trial if they catch wind you’re using black magic and there isn’t a nation in this world that would try to stop them. It’s practically their entire reason for existing.” He grabbed me roughly by both shoulders, meeting my eyes with that dark gaze of his. “I need to hear you say you understand what I’m saying.”

“I understand,” I said. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking about the position I’d put you in by asking about it.”

“Well, you better start thinking. Start thinking about how you’re going to hide that Skill of yours, kid.” Ferrith let go of me, but he didn’t move away. “You can’t let anyone learn the truth about it, and if they do, you’re going to have a hard choice to make. Because those paladins? They’ll whip the whole town into a frenzy soon as they think they’ve found some real black magic.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“I do speak from experience,” Ferrith said. “I used to know a girl. She was an adventurer. She had a Skill that she could turn on that would make people feel sick if they got close to her. The closer they got, the sicker. All she wanted was for people to leave her alone. Then one day a rumor started that her Skill could do more than make you sick. Some people said it could kill. That’s all it took. A rumor started, then one day she just goes missing and nobody looks for her. Your life can be taken from you”—Ferrith snapped his fingers—“like that. All it took for her was a rumor, so you have to realize when you tell someone a secret like this you're not just putting your life in their hands, but also in the hands of everyone they tell. This is a secret you need to learn to keep bottled up."

“Noted,” I said. “I’ll be more careful.” What else could I say? He made some excellent points.

“Good,” Ferrith said. “Then we can go.”

“Umm, before we do?”

“What?”

“I was just wondering…” I said. “By your logic, I shouldn’t trust anyone, right?”

“Right,” Ferrith confirmed.

“Well, then I shouldn’t trust you?”

“Of course not. But too bad for you, you don’t have a choice. You opened your mouth and now I know. If you’re smart, you’ll make sure that's the last time you make a mistake like that.”

“But you’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” I asked.

“It wouldn’t serve my interests to tell anyone, no,” Ferrith said.

“Because you have your own secrets?” I asked. I thought back to that mysterious trip to the woods where we risked our lives in pursuer beast territory just for him to collect a handful of pine needles. He’d never offered an explanation for that, nor for the ogres that mysteriously turned up missing every time I slept. That paladin that was trying to connect him to some kind of conspiracy involving masks might not have been right, but he might not have been completely off-base either.

Ferrith’s face locked down. His annoyed sneer was replaced with tight lips and hard eyes. “What do you know about my secrets?” he asked in a quiet voice that somehow seemed more dangerous than the yelling he’d done earlier.

“Nothing! It was just a guess. You seem really tuned into the whole secret-keeping thing. I just thought maybe you know what it’s like.”

“If I did, why would I admit as much?”

“I don’t know, maybe because we’re friends?”

Ferrith let the tension in his expression soften. He let out a clenched breath and rubbed briefly at his forehead. “Look, kid, I know you want to latch onto me because I’m the only one you know in this world, but that’s a bad idea. You should be asking yourself why, if my life was going so well, I would be making my living risking it hunting monsters.” He turned back toward the street and left the alley behind.

I followed after him. “I noticed you didn’t say we’re not friends,” I pointed out. Ferrith rolled his eyes, so I continued. “I mean, just now you tackled me to the ground and gave me some good advice when I was saying something stupid. You didn’t have to do that. That’s the kind of thing friends do for each other. They look out for each other.”

“I just don’t need the attention,” Ferrith said. “Someone gets picked up for… that sort of thing, and the church is bound to question the people close to them. Look, don’t worry about you and I. There is no you and I. I’m taking you to Clarice, like I do for all my intelligent ogres, then we’ll most likely never see each other again.”