We entered the master bedroom. Not being threatened this time, I had a moment to admire the area; it was marvelously decorated. This was probably the last time I'd be in a high ranking sorcerer's room. I noticed several enchanted items: heatless lamps that burned silently inside of their monster oyster pearls, a small wash basin constantly flowing with fresh water next to a stack of folded, initialed towels. What was it with sorcerers and all the fountains?

Osoro moved to the fireplace, extinguished as there was no need of extra heat during the day. On the mantel was a painted miniature of a family. Two smaller boys, a man, and a woman. Osoro pushed it down flat against the top. The fireplace creaked. It spun as if on a mechanical pedestal, not knocking anything as it revealed a small dark door.

"What's that?" I asked.

"The stairs to the Divinis's lab. His secondary one. He had a normal one accessible by the cellar stairs in the garden's shed."

"That must have been the one Winsor gave me the key for." I fished into the coin pocket of my formal outfit and pulled out the key. I unlocked the door, and it swung inwards. The far edge disappeared into darkness. The path was dark, the glow of the faint oyster lights was far behind us. I only knew the key was there was because of the cool metal pressing against the soft pad of my fingers. My feet searched out each step. "You know, I'm thinking maybe we should have gotten Winsor's cooperation. He seemed concerned for Mallow. We didn't have to ruin his Age Day."

"Even if he would have cooperated in saving Mallow, I'm not sure he'd be so willing to extinguish his own life, Azark. You are letting his melancholy disposition and small stature trick you into pitying him. As if he is a helpless creature that must be coddled. He is still a dangerous, wretched abomination."

The ceiling was low, and the room spread out only a yard or two, with a door on both sides and in the center. I felt nervous about which one to take.

"Why are there multiple doors?"

"This sort of illusion spell is common with sorcerer valuables. Two of them are trapped," Osoro shushed me. "Now be quiet, I've got to cast and see where this spell leads us..."

Osoro breathed in deeply, and pressing his hands together, chanted.

"Door that hides misdeeds of misery, reveal a heroic path to me."

The third door in pulsed with a gentle light. He moved to it and reached down for the handle before stopping.

"If this knobs has spell or curse, be null. Do not make me worse."

The knob fizzled, and then, blackened. It fell to the ground, rolling across the stone with a hollow ringing sound. Osoro swallowed, and then pushed on the door with his gloved hands. It swung open silently, leading to another staircase.

The room gradually lit up with blue light as we moved along the stairs. Then, I heard something, faint. It was a child's voice, not Mallow's but younger, crying out softly. It was ragged and thirsty.

"Do you hear that?" I asked.

"Yes, quiet..." We reached the bottom, and there the crying continued. We came to another door, and it took Osoro a few tries to dispel this one. On his third failure, the door retaliated. It swung open, slamming into him along his entire body with enough force to throw him back against the near wall.

He wasn't wearing his armor; I was surprised by how much less dramatic it was then when he had been smacked around by the Boeren. No hollow ringing, no metal crunching, just a soft thud of fabric and flesh on stone. I couldn't see much, though this area was dimly lit. Alarm rose in me when I noticed a dark spot where his head, oversized wig and all, had crashed into the wall. Blood? He laid on the floor. I bent down and shook him, trying to wake him again.

"Are you all right?" I asked. Osoro groggily lifted his head, the wig slipping off and falling to the ground. In the dim light, he had no eyes, only dark sockets beneath his brow.

"Yes." Osoro held his face with his hands, breathing unsteadily. "I think I got it. My magic flickered. But it's back now. It's—"

I didn't wait. I grabbed the doorknob and pulled it open.

"Azark!"

"You triggered it; the trap's done. Let's go," I said, marching forward. The walls were so heavy here, it felt as if they would crush me. Wenrick built this path for secrets. Only for secrets. I may be moving toward something darker than I'd ever seen before.

Noise traveled to me.

"Daddy..."

Osoro hurried behind me, cutting off the faint cry I had heard with the sound of his clothes rustling.

"You're a fool, what if it would have blown your arm off?" he asked.

We came to a final door. He opened it.

The room smelled familiar. This room smelled like Winsor did. It was... undiluted here. At the play, in the cabaret... there had been a million competing scents. But here, it was pure sorcery. Pure potions. Pure... a darker scent I hadn't been able to place but was always lingering. There, something simmering in the corner, percolating quietly like a pot of tea. The stagnant smells of past spills soaked the air.

"Come along," Osoro said. He held his own cast orb of light up; the room wasn't quite lit. As he pushed it out further and further, brighter, details came into focus beyond the glowing embers of the cauldron in the corner. Bones and bodies of animals stuffed or skinned were everywhere. Pickled bottles of various creatures, some magic and some not, lined the walls. My own skin crawled. Along the worktables in the middle, frenzied and cluttered, were massive scrolls. On them, a drawing that made no sense to me. Humans, intercut by shapes and pen scratches, notes written forward, backward, reversed, and upside down. Sometimes the words would start out normally and spiral into themselves, becoming black pits of ink and pulp at the center of the paper.

"Daddy..." A faint cry. I hurried past the oddities and moved toward the noise. It wasn't my girl. Instead, it was a little boy. A mop of blonde hair sat on his head. He was scrawny. Suspended in a pristine iron cage, his body was covered over with tiny red markings cut into the skin. His manacles pulsed with enchantment. As I drew nearer, I saw blood traveling from his wrists along the chain links, defying gravity as they flowed into a large covered urn sitting on the floor outside the cage.

"I'm here to help," I said. Osoro wasn't looking at the boy, but instead regarding the urn, covered in the same markings as the boy's body.

"The writing says Winsor's ashes are here. His original ashes, not the matter he's made of now." He grabbed the handle, as if to throw it. "Without this, the Divinis has no reason to keep making sacrifices. Maybe—"

"Wait, don't," I said. Winsor couldn't die, not scared and fighting, not without understanding. So arbitrarily.

He set it back down, the chains clinking.

The caged boy lifted his head and regarded me quietly.

"Are you two..." His eyes were filmy and white, blind but listening with pale brown corneas. "You don't sound like the Divinis. You're really here to help?" He curled, and I saw the shifting of a soft woolen blanket wrapped around him. An apple tumbled from his lap and hit the bar. He moved. The pillows behind him pushed against the bars, a few down feathers drifting to the floor.

"We'll do whatever we can, Chrys," Osoro said. Chrys lifted his thin, pale neck in the direction of Osoro's voice.

"Sir Osoro. I'm so glad you're here. You're going to save me?"

"Yes, Chrys," Osoro answered. "I'm sorry it has taken me so long."

"How do you know his name?" I asked. Osoro didn't look at me, couldn't look at me. Memories stirred: Missing. Age 8. A BROS cleaning graffiti from a stall wall. He knew. Osoro had known Chrys was here.

"I know it was hard. They are your friends, the Divinis and his family, but I am glad. So glad you're here to save me now. I miss... I miss seeing things," he whispered. "I knew it. I told her. I told the magical girl, the monster smelling girl... our families wouldn't give up on us."

"She's down here?" I asked quickly.

"Yes, I hear her crying there, and sometimes I shout things to her, when I am strong enough. Shout to cheer her. Sometimes I sing. Once the Divinis got mad, but he didn't hit me. He... got mad. And sad. And said sorry, but he made me be quiet," Chrys touched his mouth.

"There." Osoro followed his blind gaze. Across the room, something that didn't belong sat in the corner of the stone floor. It glinted in the ghostly light of Osoro's spell. Delicate curving silver bars, forming a massive cage that scraped against the stone ceiling. Inside, a bevy of silken sheets, a cornucopia for food, a bottle of wine, and there in the center... generating her own gentle, pulsing glow, Mallow. She didn't look up at the disturbance. Her arms were folded, her face buried against them and the pillow. Her hair, long and well brushed, spilled down the arrangement of pillows like a trickling fountain on a mountainside.

"Mallow!" I cried. Why wasn't she moving? Why wasn't she slamming against the bars, screaming? She'd never surrendered before, never even considered it. Why... why is it now, she was stagnant?

Her face lifted, her orange eyes brilliant in the faint light. As I ran over, I swatted at one of the massive ribbon tails that hung down from the top of the cage, the silky opal colored fabric repulsing me.

"Mallow," I repeated. "It's all right. It's all right now. I'm here."

She lowered her head again, in a daze.

"Mallow!" I cried. Her head jerked up.

"Dad," she said. Tears spilled down her face, and she jumped to her feet, sending the silken pillows flying every which way. "Dad," she repeated, and she moved over to the edge of the cage. She reached her hands through. She took mine, which felt small and tiny. "I thought it was another dream," she said, her voice hoarse. "I thought..."

"A dream?" I asked. Osoro, next to me cast a spell to melt through the bars. He flinched back, sparks like lightning singeing his fingers.

"I'd been dreaming about you rescuing me... to resist the mind magic... I was so tired..." She hiccupped a sob and trailed off.

"It's cursed. This might take a few moments."

"Yeah. I'd been dreaming of you," her voice was raw from crying "Because... I... I didn't think you'd actually come for me." She clutched her elbows. I watched helpless as tears rolled down her cheeks. This was not the first time Mallow had cried, but this was the first time I had felt, really, what not being there when she cried anymore would mean. My chest tightened. Waves of guilt, shame, and relief washed over me all at once. I felt like I might lose my balance. I had given Mallow so little reason to trust my resolve.