Art: "Quick Draw" by ShadowReader29

One such power, I will write to you of. The Spell of Obtainment is perhaps the most famous example – most uses of dark magic are so elusive and so carefully hidden or destroyed that they are not worth mentioning. But because darkness runs indirectly within your family, I feel an obligation to discuss this wicked incantation with you.

❂❂❂

The Erelandia police arrived shortly afterward. Nell felt like he was going to throw up on the tablecloth. Not from the blood – the grim reality of death was normal for him at this point – but from the shock.

Carmen was tiny – barely five feet tall. But there was a dead body, slumped on the floor and bleeding. Nell checked the pulse; the man was dead. The police cuffed Carmen's arms and legs, then muzzled her face so she couldn't use her sharp teeth as a weapon. The chief, a large Shrumish man with a bushy mustache, crossed the room.

He crouched beside Nell. "Good doctor...will he live?"

"He's already gone," Nell said softly. He'd barely gotten a word in before the murder happened. Did Carmen care? Did she know that this man had a family? A home?

But something twisted inside Nell – he wouldn't have had the courage to defend the victim. Nell hid behind the Vernish peace codes as an excuse for his spinelessness. His inability to fight, his frozen, stiff body as the other man was stabbed in the gut.

He exhaled. "I'll do an examination – we'll need to contact his family."

The chief of police grunted. "Report back to me in the next fifteen minutes with the information. We're putting the felinetta in one of our mobile cells until she can be transferred to Dryl."

Nell looked over at Carmen, whose eyes betrayed fear. She was just following orders. He forced himself not to direct his hatred toward her, but at Shadow Weaver. Why had the Horde senselessly murdered this man, especially since they were in a contract with him? It didn't add up to Nell...

Pull yourself together! He began searching the man's pockets, trying to find a wallet or an information card or something. His hand touched something hard, and he pulled it out. A holo-pad – one of the newer, smaller ones that only the richest merchants and royalty could afford.

It likely had the information Nell needed. So he slipped the device into his pocket and kept searching. Shortly after, he found a card. Miles, son of Arlon of Bright Moon. He nodded, bringing the card over to the chief of police. "I found it."

"Thank you," the Shrumish man said, nodding. "Son, I think you'd best leave now. We'll handle it from here. She's not like that Shadow-Weaver you kids keep battling – she's powerless now."

"Of...course." Nell hadn't been planning to stay anyway; he felt as though his entire body would shatter if someone even touched him. Biting his lip, he clenched his fists and left the party, stomach sour.

✧✧✧

Micah didn't receive a response from Nell till the next morning. The older man opened a communication channel, and even then, he still looked shaken as he told Micah the news. Miles, son of Arlon of Bright Moon –  the founder of Kocian Miners – was killed by a five-foot-tall felinetta who was under Shadow Weaver's thumb.

Now, as Micah took mirror after mirror to the hotel where his friend was staying, his head spun with questions. Why would they want to assassinate this man to begin with? Miles was knowingly corrupt, but he wouldn't double-cross Shadow Weaver with a sword at his throat, would he?

Sighing, Micah exited the mirror into Nell's room. The Del lay in bed face-down, wearing the same outfit as the night before. His glasses rested on the nightstand, and he didn't look well.

"Nell?" Micah ventured. "Are you alright, buddy?"

"No, I am in fact not fine," Nell said, his voice muffled in the pillow. "Just take your precious holo-pad and go. I did what you wanted."

Micah frowned. "Why are you upset?" he said. "The mission succeeded, didn't it?"

Nell looked up from his pillow, eyes swollen and red. Without his glasses on, he looked even younger than his thirty-four years. He's been crying, Micah realized, a prick of concern in his chest.

"Hey," Micah said as Nell put on his glasses. "Talk to me. What's going on?"

"I...I don't want to talk about it."

"Why not?"

"Because it's foolish. And shameful."

"But I'm worried about you," Micah protested. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Yes, because someone was murdered in front of me," Nell snapped. "By a cultist, no less."

Micah had seen people die brutally in battle, and the sick feeling had long since been replaced by a quiet sorrow. This visceral reaction felt strange to him, though he'd been like Nell only five years before. I'm losing it, he thought momentarily. I'm becoming like her.

"Nell," Micah said, "I'm sorry. I had no way of knowing that Carmen would even be there. Shadow Weaver hasn't been around since our last battle, so I assumed..."

He trailed off as Nell hugged himself, avoiding Micah's eyes. "I'm not blaming you." Nell stood. "This is...my fault. Let's go home."

✧✧✧

Shadow Weaver heard the news: Carmen had succeeded, but was captured. A week passed before she could act, however. At least Bright Moon took forever to transport their prisoners to Dryl – sometimes up to a month.

She'd taken a mirror to Erelandia; now, she needed to find her servant. The odds were that Carmen was inside the police headquarters, awaiting transport to a more secure prison. That meant Shadow Weaver had time to break her servant out.

Shadow Weaver scouted the police station from a tree. She would need to be careful; though she had been making a steady recovery from her broken ribs, they still ached slightly whenever she breathed. Luckily, sorcerer policemen were trained to use their magic for detainment of the ordinary citizen – not a sorceress trained in battle.

Shadow Weaver turned her back on the station, unmasking and downing a vial of moondust. One couldn't drink too many bottles at once, for they risked stomachaches from the Pull – or worse, poisoning from the solution that lingered inside drinkable moondust. Unfortunately, Shadow Weaver had learned this the hard way.

Yet she needed the extra power. The Spell mended her broken bones even as Shadow Weaver pulled her mask on.

She bolted toward the police station, hurling a shot of dark magic into the glass. The door shattered, the alarms went off, but Shadow Weaver propelled herself forward into the room.

She'd seen Meyan police stations before; the prisoners were always kept in the back of the house. Paying no regard to the shouting guards, she sped ahead, leaping off the walls as if defying gravity itself. Her hair snapped like a dark flag behind her; she felt a laugh escape her throat, a laugh of pleasure. This was where she belonged – on the chase, mocking those who hated her.

Shadow Weaver looked up at the barred window separating the jail cells from the rest of the station. She couldn't shadow-walk unless it was dark enough for her to blend in. Shadow Weaver didn't know why this was; perhaps the darkness acted as a lubricant of sorts.

So she clenched her fist, and the lights went out. The alarms continued to blare; shouting crescendoed around her. Shadow Weaver faded into the darkness, slipping between the bars and exiting on the other side.

Almost immediately, a flashlight shone through the window. Orders to unlock the door echoed down the corridor. Shadow Weaver looked ahead, spotting Carmen in a magic prison on the west wall. Blood stained her clothes. Hopefully, someone else's. Oh, moons... Shadow Weaver's mind snapped to the failed coup as she shadow-walked to her servant. If they had laid a finger on Carmen...

She reached the prison; hacking protection spells took great skill, but Shadow Weaver had taught herself how. The Spell gave her many unnatural abilities, new wisdom she had never known before.

Carmen collapsed in her arms. "I knew you'd come," she said softly.

The door opened; Shadow Weaver clenched her teeth. Picking Carmen up princess-style, she mustered all the magic she'd just drank and teleported them away – far away. Unfortunately, they had no idea where they would end up.

❂❂❂

Did you know...

- In Starwalker: PRIME, Shadow Weaver and Carmen originally had a very hostile relationship. However, I think that I changed it for a couple reasons in this copy. One, I think Shadow Weaver is reminded of Micah in a lot of ways when she looks at Carmen. They have a lot of the same idiosyncrasies and whatnot. Two, the conflict felt contrived in Starwalker: PRIME. Three...I forgot. Just assume there's some sort of reason there.

- Nell's meltdowns are another thing that may have readers coding him as autistic. That wasn't intentional, as I've mentioned before, but I can definitely see how someone might think that.

Tell me what you think...

- Why might Nell freeze up in tense situations?

- How do you think Carmen and Shadow Weaver's relationship will develop over the course of the story?