CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was nice, but not the nicest tavern I'd ever been in. Probably was Blythe's nicest tavern though, clean and with a high ceiling. The waitresses and waiters working were attractive and their clothes were spotless despite handling food all day. They had picked their best staff for the occasion. The floors were stone, but not haphazardly placed. Circling patterns of light and dark gray unveiled themselves as I walked. The walls had artwork on them, and although I couldn't get close enough to see anything but the tapestry hanging next to the door, in the distance I saw even more brightly colored clothes, paintings, and some shields.

The food there looked better than my usual fare, glimmering in the diffused candle light. The biggest improvement was the smell. The tiny tavern sat on one of the ascending hills that leads toward the sorcerer manor, so all of the waste was routinely washed away from the street gutters by the rain. Just like the enchanted inn I was staying at, not a one of the customers smelled like farm despite the place being packed.

"Ah...." The server, a cute woman in a tidy apron with her hair tucked neatly beneath a hat placed one hand on my arm. She scrutinized my outfit. "Although you are welcome any other time, this establishment is reserved for sorcerers and Avalons for the duration of the festival. I apologize for the inconvenience."

"I'm a sorcerer's Assistant. You may have heard of my master, Fushon of Merode." I jerked my arm away from her in simulated outrage. "Are you saying that I cannot check the quality of this place for my master? Are you trying to hide something?"

"Ah, ah! No! Okay! Sorry. Most of the Assistants are sitting outside, but you are saving a spot for your master, so I suppose..." She bowed several times. "I saw you were ungifted, and... oh, my apologies... Ah, this way, follow me." She led me to a small table from which all but one chair had been taken and relocated to other tables. I sat down, and she set a small, sleek slab of wood, engraved with the meal options. I noticed there were no prices. If you had to ask, you didn't belong here. I hoped this meal didn't hurt my coin purse too much.

I scanned the immaculate, deep blue table cloth for my eating utensils. If they were wood, I was in good shape. If they were silver, I'd probably be better off gorging myself on the stall food. However, there was nothing to eat with on the table at all.

Instead of the cacophony of bowls, plates, spoons and knifes clattering against each other, I heard chanting. Food was floating through the air, from the plate to the patrons' mouth. Is that how sorcerers ate?

I recognized the red clothed CMA Arcana Enforcement agents. Their masks were off, set on the table. The shorter one was from around here, a pale face and blonde hair spilling out from the band around his head as he sliced through a nice cut of meat on his plate with nothing but his words. He drank from his floating tankard. A jagged, white scar ran across his face, one eye milky white and sightless. Wouldn't he heal any wounds with magic before they scarred..?

The older one had undamaged dark skin, and I realized this must have been.. Qua... Quarantine? Kashimi? The one with the accent was probably the one with the tanned skin, and he had already finished his meal and was reaching for his mask to put it back on, the leather straps falling between his narrow fingers.

"Ah, server..?" I began. The harried waitress stopped at my table and dropped a set of wooden eating utensils on the table before me. They were wrapped in a thin sheath of cloth, worn from many uses and washes. So they did have spoons and knives. Of course. Usually there were only what, two, three sorcerers in the entire town? "I'd like the smoked pork with almonds," I said. My mouth was already watering. I usually got meat salted, not smoked. "And an ale."

"Sure thing. It'll be along shortly."

She left. I searched for something else attractive to entertain me while I waited for my food.

Sorceresses were scattered throughout the restaurant, making this a collection of lovely ladies. Being satiated with my exploits from yesterday, I was content to admire as I waited for my food. A sorceress would probably be offended if I flirted with her, anyway. Sorceress ladies were curvy, padded with extra due to their rich diets and lack of need to do physical labor. They afforded clothes that complimented their shapes. I noticed several wearing loose gowns over tight gowns, with holes sewn at the hips and the bust in the outer gown. I wasn't seeing any more than I would with a normal dress, I was actually seeing less, and yet, how appealing the design was. Hopefully the style would become popular with the ungifted women soon.

While admiring, I saw several ladies with scars, and a few with missing limbs that were complemented by billowing folds of rich fabric and jewelry that glinted in the candle light. Instead of repulsing me, I perked up, listening for unusual stories in the crowd. So Sorcerer elves, it seemed, specifically, didn't always heal injuries. Why didn't they?

There was one group not wearing the peek-a-boo dresses. A bunch of lady elves, though none of them were scarred. They appeared to be on the cusp of their Age Day. They had on bits of armor, a chest piece on one, a helmet on another, and a third had greaves. The armor was ornate, even more so than the Avalons' armor. Studded with gems, none of it had the dents or scratches of battle. The group was lively and excited like everyone else, though the words 'attack,' 'Proving,' and 'travel' crossed their conversation often. All were tittering with nervous joy, except one. Tucked away in the corner was a girl not wearing her armor, but dressed all in black gowns that spilled across the ground in swirling lace. She was holding her food bowl up to her face. She wasn't laughing with them. She either wasn't a sorceress or didn't have the energy to cast magic.

About halfway through my meal, the door to the restaurant opened. The door had opened and closed many times before that, but this time the door opening was noticeable because the room went quiet.

I watched as Winsor the sorcerer boy from several days ago walked through, glancing to his left and his right uncertainly. Upon seeing the crowd, his eyes went wide. Everyone was staring at him, except for the girl in black who hid her face behind her tankard. The girl next to her leaned in front of her. A lull dipped into the conversation. Winsor attempted to escape, but the server, who apparently knew him, hurried over. Winsor was persuaded into a seat, one that had evidently been reserved for him, by the cute server.

They talked for several minutes, the woman gregarious while Winsor shifted uncomfortably while attention drew away from him back to the individual conversations at the table. The woman handed him a knife, fork and napkin. Winsor handed them back, but then shook his head, and kept them.

"Even being scrawny like that, he's relatively fine in appearance, considering," someone at the table next to me said.

When it appeared his order had been taken, Winsor sat. Despite all the stares, no one came over to talk to him. Chanting quietly under his breath, he lit napkins on fire, then extinguished them, then repaired them, and then lit them on fire again. When smoke piled atop the area he was sitting, like a bulky, gray cloud, he took note and directed it, in a steady stream, toward the window.

What a waste. If I were a sorcerer, I would use my powers to their full potential. I wouldn't order and wait for food, I'd make it appear. And I'd make it more delicious than anything that man could produce. If I were a sorcerer, I would make myself handsome; I wouldn't let myself be so small and gaunt. If I were a sorcerer, I would have cronies. Lackies. Whole armies of henchmen.

As if on command, the door opened again, and in slipped a gaggle of men. Every spot in the already crowded restaurant was filled. The ages of the men varied wildly, but they were united in their clothes, which were black tunics with dark leggings. Not too unusual, but across the left breast of each one initials were painstakingly embroidered in gold. BROS.

"Enchanted One," one of the elder men, black hair peppered with gray, said to Winsor. Winsor dropped his flaming napkin, which caught on his drink and ignited into a fireball. I jumped up, knocking my chair back. I assessed the area around the many men in BROS uniforms and saw no escape. The other sorcerers in the restaurant all broke attention and stared, before a flood of laughter broke out. It wasn't raucous laughter accompanied by pointing and shouting like I'd receive if I had made a fool of myself.

Rather, it was an involuntary group guffaw that in the next breath everyone tried to stymie. At least, almost everyone. The shorter Arcana Enforcement Agent was laughing loudly and commenting 'what an icicle' before his partner said something quietly and rapidly in a language I couldn't understand.

"Hexes and ice." Winsor's face colored a deep pink and stayed that way as he focused his attention on the fire. He cast. "Fire ignited by mistake, extinguish as if doused in a lake." The spell worked, the fire disappeared. Winsor took another step back from his table, biting his bottom lip. "While the spell saved us from harm, now the table is abominably moist..." He observed, chiding himself. Another tiny wave of laughter, and Winsor's face went from pink to red. The BROS closed in, forming a circle around his table, blocking the mocking stares of the other patrons.

"Suppose that's the 'in a lake' part, Enchanted One." Pepper, as I now called the apparent leader of the BROS in my head, suggested. Winsor rolled his eyes with youthful contempt.

"Undoubted that is the cause. I am not a simpleton. I was merely taken by surprise. I lacked the time necessary to conceive of a spell with no unintended ill effects."

"Don't be embarrassed, Enchanted One, before your father was a powerful Divinis, he miscast." A bearded BROS supplied, smiling at Winsor with a gap toothed grin. "Why, I remember this one time he finished his casting with a rhyme that saved us from a rampaging hoard of Kobeetles, but only by casting everyone within the mile into sheep. We all had to bundle up your dad to keep him from dying of frost shock, since he had only intended to transform the kobeetles into sheep, and as you know..."

Winsor glowered at the bearded BROS, one onyx booted foot tapping the floor impatiently. The bearded BROS smiled ingratiatingly before falling back into his spot in the arrangement. "It takes a lot more power to transform an entire town to sheep than a few kobeetles." A pause. "We was warm though, so your father ended up all right in the end."

"Such a fact is readily apparent." Winsor's lip curled. "I stand before you on two legs instead of four. Clearly not a lamb."

The BROS all laughed, as did a lot of the restaurant that was listening in on the conversation, though the BROS were laughing with the unseen father. The restaurant was laughing at him. It was a pretty amusing mental image, a lamb sorcerer. Could you even cast if all you were capable of was bleating? My chortling died down as the serious contemplation hit me. I didn't really know how magic worked... I'd never been this close... besides that creep who wanted Mallow back in the day. And now, they were everywhere. I felt like a sheep myself, surrounded by wolves.

Winsor was icily unamused, and composure grew like a heavy fungus back onto the atmosphere of the room.

"May I assume that you will eventually do me the honor of divulging the exact reasoning behind interrupting my meal? Or do you intend to keep your motivation a mystery? I'm obliged to tell you that as a mystery, it is a very sorry one."

Pepper cleared his throat.

"Your father suggested that you might like some company for dinner, and we were between errands, so I volunteered."

"My father, may many charms be laid upon him, was mistaken on this account," Winsor said. Pepper, instead of reproached, was relieved.

"So you don't want us to join you for dinner?" Pepper asked, confirming.

"Must I simplify my speech further? I hardly expect you to be as brilliant as myself, but all the same, this issue is not unduly complicated." Winsor sat back down. "Be gone with you. I'm not privy to what you occupy yourselves all day with, but it must be something important. Father wastes a considerable amount of coin that would otherwise be spent on furthering magic research paying you. So, whatever that is, go attend to it." He cast a spell, making the wood of his fork malleable, and twisted it into looping shapes. I knew the fork had no emotions, but if I had to attribute one to the knot shapes, I'd call them angry.

The BROS all regarded each other.

"As you say, Enchanted One. After all, when this festival concludes, we will be taking orders directly from you.—" Then, Pepper stopped, his face blanching.

Winsor dropped the fork and stared up at Pepper. His mouth opened a little in stunned surprise. And then, falteringly...

"Could.... Could you repeat that?" Winsor asked. Then he scrunched up his nose. "I mean, I command you to repeat that."

"Uh, unfortunately, Enchanted One, I recalled urgent business your father said we were to take care of, uh, before we joined you for dinner."

"You are full of deceit. It will not due to obfuscate the trut- wait- " Winsor said. But Pepper, along with the rest of the BROS, was already backing out of the restaurant quickly. Winsor stood up and watched them go, confusion, agitation, and something like giddy surprise crossing his face. He sat back down in his seat solidly. He ate quietly except for the chants in between bites.

"Under my command, but that would mean..." The rest of what he mumbled was too quiet for me to make out. Either way, I was all done eating. The waitress was waiting for my payment, politely but vigilant as she hovered near the edge of my table. I set out the coin to set her mind at ease, and then ordered another one of their fine brews.

The elven girl in black passed my table, taking a rather winding route that focused on staying out of sight of Winsor's table, her friends standing in front of her to block her from view. The elf in front was giggling as if they were up to something nefarious.

I was at a cross roads. I could walk away now, limiting my acquaintanceship to the sorcerers' Assistants. It was already a good step up from my former circle of entirely ungifted. There was no immediate reason I needed to have a sorcerer under my influence. And yet, how could I pass up this opportunity with a sorcerer sitting only a few yards away, dejected and friendless. How could I resist the perfect target? I'd never seen a sorcerer so exposed and vulnerable, like an injured fawn in a forest clearing. Maybe not a fawn. Maybe a fox. He was weak, but he would still bite if I made a mistake. It was one thing to have an ungifted angry at you, but a sorcerer...

Oh. But to have one to influence, to perhaps exploit. I didn't exploit Mallow, but all the same, our friendship was more beneficial because of her myriad of innate Enchanted abilities. She was a powerful ally and, after choking down the guilt over leaving her in the dungeon, it occurred to me that Winsor stood to be even more powerful. If I had achieved all this, the boots, the carriage, two horses, and hardly ever being hungry with Mallow's magic at my request, what could I do with Winsor under my sway?

I worked up my courage, and once I was sure my legs wouldn't give out from the nerve of what I was trying to do, I moseyed on over to the table where Winsor sat. His dark eyes flicked across my features. An expression of dawning recognition softened the alert and frightened features. Those big eyes strengthened the fawn-like impression.

"Enchanted One, I haven't seen you since the play, where the fool shoesmith showed such rudeness," I said. This had the dual effect of making him both defensive, because I was bringing up his previous public humiliation, and yet a comrade. We both shared a dislike for Bernard.

"You show a certain level of impertinence by daring to approach me without invitation." Winsor scrutinized me up and down. Some of the tension left his shoulders, which had been hunched up in silent, suffering anxiety. "I suppose I could spare a moment. Either way, it is hardly surprising we've not talked since. I have been occupied, and it is not as if we are regular acquaintances to begin with." The color sunk away from his cheeks. He acted annoyed, but my presence was already making him feel better. So far my plan was working. I was a diversion from his humiliation. He talked down to me to ease out some of his obvious social anxiety around the other sorcerers.

"May I pose a quarry to you?" That's what Enchanted people called questions, right? Even if it wasn't, I had conveyed the question with such confidence, I was sure that was how he would interpret it.

"As I have considerable intelligence as a sorcerer, and you with hardly any as an ungifted, it is only proper I answer any reasonable question, to be sure," he said.

What a little icicle. I was quickly seeing why this kid had no friends, even among his own kind. Thankfully as a salesman I had become an expert at being friendly with even the most obnoxious individual, and didn't let my offense at basically being called stupid show.

"As you are a sorcerer, you no doubt know where the local Potionary is."

He exhaled, causing the dark hair in front of his face to flutter.

"I don't have any regular Assistants like yourself as I find they are irritating and underfoot far too often, so I do visit the Potionary frequently to get ingredients." He sniffed.

This was a topic for a good second meeting. I didn't want to act like I was overtly interested in being his friend quite yet; it would come across suspicious. Some small talk questions and general deference would go a long way the next time we met.

"You see, I—" Before I even finished formulating my cover story, Winsor stood up. He sniffed me. I was reminded of Bernard's rudeness handling my feet. It was amazing that he could smell anything above his own smell, which I was now realizing was characteristic and not a product of that day we sat side by side on the benches.

"There is something... It's not you... but you're around magic frequently. But not sorcerer magic." He squinted at me. "Your master must have you handling magical creatures, exotic ones too. But you... you're here alone? Whose Assistant are you again?"

"Ah, my master is Merode of Fushon." I stammered, taken aback by his proximity. And I reversed the names. Crud. Winsor's eyebrows furrowed. He rubbed his chin for a second, then shook his head. He leaned in.

"You lie."

"He is not very famous—"

"He does not exist." He tilted his head. "My devotion to magic, its causes and history, have lead me to studying all of the families and keeping up on their lineage through letters. I have never heard of a Merode of Fushon."

I laughed, trying to diffuse the heat the kid was giving me. He watched me, warily.

"Though. If he were rogue, then perhaps... Is... your Master not in good standing with the Arcanacracy?" He asked, his little voice falling. His eyes glittered. His reaction confused and alarmed me. Why would he want to hear of my master not being in good standing? A fictional master at that.

I weighed my options, as I often did when trapped, in under a second, though my reasoning was so layered and called back to so many events that to write it out, line for line, would fill pages. Ultimately, I settled that lying to this kid was embarrassing, but being thought to be in bad standing with the Centralized Magical Arcanacracy would be lethal. My mind went back to that missing town and the dark void of silence that now stood in its place, all life eradicated on contact with its shadowless sheen.

"You caught my lie." I laughed. "My master is indeed made up. You're cleverer than most. "

"I am a sorcerer," Winsor said. "Of course I'm cleverer than you." He sipped his drink petulantly, but smiled around the rim as I dipped my head in a bow of his superiority.

The worst thing I could do now was panic. I didn't think being called out as a fake would ruin my chances with this kid, not judging by his reaction to the idea of my master being a rogue sorcerer. He may play by his own rules as well. He didn't seem like he was going to call the guards... though if he did that would be ironically hilarious. I'd probably end up in a cell next to Mallow. Explaining how I got there without infuriating her was bound to take some imagination if it came to that.

"Why?" he asked after several seconds.

"All those that bask in the glow of the sorcerers are warmer than those outside of it, Enchanted One. However, I love my freedom too much to actually devote myself to one man or woman."

Winsor spun the fork in a few more knots, these contemplative rather than terse.

"I see," was all he said. Then he sighed, hopelessly disappointed in something, before he grabbed a napkin from the table. The fork fell with a soft clunk.

"Instead of being so much dross,

rearrange these splotches of dinner sauce

so what Azark seeks he'll come across,

and never in Blythe be at a loss.

Napkin that is such a bore,

become the map that he needs more."

The stains moved, until they formed an overhead view of Blythe. It was different than the view from my room, but still familiar. He pointed to a small spot that had been marked with a yellow sauce into the dim brown used for the rest of it. "I do not usually perform magic for others, but you provided diversion which is always valued. Here, this one is the Potionary. The establishment should be open still, if the proprietor is not visiting the elephants. He's been there nearly every day this week. Have you seen them?"

"Oh yes. They are grand creatures."

"I believe so too." He handed it to me, a shy smile on his face.

I took the map into my hands and studied it. It took a few moments to make sense of all of the landmarks, but I figured pretty quickly where to go next. I went to set the napkin back on the table, but Winsor swept his hand.

"Keep it," he said. "The enchantment will probably only sustain itself until the end of the week. Even if it would last forever, this is my city and I have memorized it... people think I do not leave the manor, not realizing that because they do not see me does not mean I do not see them." I kept my expression a pleasant smile as my back felt chilly. "Such a map is of no use to me."

"Thank you so much, Enchanted One. I am staggered by your generosity." I bowed. Winsor was content with this, but barely. I bowed even lower. "You are of the highest order, a most magnanimous master of Magic, a wise and acclaimed arcanacrat whose protective nature could never be done full justice. I am eternally humbled to be gifted this—"

"Yes, well, you better be along then." Winsor's cheeks were tinged with pink again, and a nervous but pleased smile plucked at his lips. "It's going to be closed if you don't."

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