The Snuggery was cleaning up after breakfast when Enim realized he had to go back to his room. He had forgotten to bring over the papers, his examples of what reports to the Council should look like. Torly and Yoor were going to look at them too, all while spending their day in the Snuggery.

Enim got as far as his door before he stopped short, freezing in place. A scraping and bumping came from inside, and the harsh clank of an object hitting the ground.

Enim stood motionless, hand on the handle. Cautiously, he bent down to look through the keyhole. A moment later he tore the door open.

"You!" he hissed. "Wrollic!"

A furry little being, no bigger than a hand, straightened up beside a fallen milk bottle. Around him lay, in wild disarray, what must have been the contents of all of Enim's shelves and drawers.

Like a flash of lightening, the little being darted across the room, dodging Enim, and shot across the lane into the Snuggery courtyard. There he stopped, hanging on to the railings of the staircase in the side wall with tiny hands. Enim, who had followed in hot pursuit, came to a halt several paces away. The wrollic looked at him with wide round eyes and an expression of extreme innocence.

Enim growled.

"Yes," he muttered, "you have done nothing wrong. Not that you are aware of, anyway."

The wrollic tilted his head slightly and twitched a little round ear toward Enim. His bushy tail swayed softly back and forth, caressing the baluster. Or getting ready for action. Enim planted his feet firmly on the ground and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Now," he said somewhat menacingly, "are you going to do anything for me? Anything to make up for the mess you have made? Beyond hanging in there, looking cute?"

The wrollic cocked his head the other way and wiggled his ears some more. He held on to the railing with the hands and legs facing his belly. His other pairs of hands and legs, the ones facing his back, were idly playing with the iron bar next to him, and the air in between.

Then the wrollic somersaulted downward, head over tail a number of times, a whirling tumble of hair and air and color, then shot up again on the outside, darted across the length of the stairs and flew up and down the balusters. In movements so swift the eye could hardly follow, he wove a pattern of dance across the air, barely touching the railings, pirouetting lightly, reeling and flitting, shooting up and down, back and forth in a dizzying merry-go-around. In a breathtaking display of nimble lightness, he whirled around the railings like a storm.

Then the wrollic came to a halt. Head down, dangling from just one foot, he hung from the topmost bit of railing. He pressed all his arms tightly against his body, making himself look all stiff, then tilted his head slightly to one side.

"Wow," Enim said admiringly. "That was quite something. I am impressed." He cocked his head in an imitation of the wrollic. "Actually, I have to say that even you hanging in there, looking cute, is quite something. It might indeed make it all worth the while."

The wrollic swayed his tail, contemplating Enim. Then his eyes narrowed as he opened his mouth in a wide grin and let out a sequence of high, cackling laughter.

Enim snorted, but a grin had stolen into his face as well. "Yes," he conceded. "I guess it is all good fun in the end. Nevertheless. Don't do it again, all right? Just come to visit, without all the mess."

The wrollic chuckled some more, then danced up and down the baluster again, more slowly this time, more melodiously.

Then he dropped out of sight. Enim was perplexed. He looked at the bottom of the stairs, at the ground between his feet, the path behind his back. No wrollic. Enim looked up, and the smile came back into his face. Right above him, halfway between the stairs and the roof, a small furry being was hanging in the wall.

"There you are," Enim said, and the wrollic acknowledged that by laughing lightly and by being somewhere else instantly. Enim saw him reappear on the roof a moment later, where he began to tear at the straw with great fervor.

"No!" Enim shouted. "Stop that! No tearing out thatch from our roof! We need it there. It keeps the rain out, you see?" The wrollic looked at Enim, his tiny hands still gripping the straw.

"You are welcome to take a bite, though," Enim added, ready to compromise. "A small one. Off the end, preferably." The wrollic bent down to the straw, his eyes fixed on Enim. Then a tiny pink tongue came out and licked a stalk.

"Yes! Very good! That is the perfect thing!" Enim called out in tones of strong approval. "Just what you should be doing to all the enticements you meet. Give them a small, gentle kiss. Then leave them lie. We will all be very happy this way."

The wrollic cackled, gave the thatch a good slap and disappeared over the ridge. Enim kept craning his head, looking for the wrollic on various parts of the roof. Beside him, Som, who had come out the door in a cloud of colors a moment earlier, was doing the same. They bent down, scouring the ground. The corners. The nooks by the windows. No wrollic.

But all the children were in the loop by now, and all excited. "A wrollic! How cute! How wonderful!" Everyone was searching the courtyard once again. "Perhaps he is still here somewhere! Will he come back? Why didn't you call us! What did he do? Will he come again?"

Cahuan had also stepped outside, her moss-green skin shimmering in the gentle light.

"Wrollic! Wrollic!" Several children were calling out in low, coaxing voices, or strong, audible voices, or something in between and beyond. They were waving and signaling, running and jumping, crawling and scouring. If the wrollic was indeed still anywhere near, he could not possibly have missed the excitement.

"What if we left potatoes out here for the wrollic?" Som suggested. "Maybe he would come back, and even without causing a mess inside."

"That's a nice thought." Cahuan put an arm around Som's shoulder. "I'm not sure it would work, though. As far as I know, wrollics don't actually need to eat anything. But they need to taste everything. They thrive on experience. They need to dip their nose in, touch everything, smell everything. Lick and swallow. See and hear. Climb up and down and in and out again. That is how they live. That is what they live on. Even in a meadow, they will take just one bite out of every plant. Drink nectar from each flower, taste each petal, just once. Then they move on. I guess that is why they empty all the drawers in a room too. They do not need any of the things in there. But they need to know what they are. To sniff them, squeeze them, try them all out, just once, then dance away."

"'Just once' are the key words in that sentence, I would say," Enim muttered, thinking of his ravaged room. "Let's hope you are right."

But Som was not interested in keeping it at 'just once.' Quite the opposite. "But then," she suggested eagerly, "we could put something interesting onto that staircase, something new every day. So the wrollic will always find something worth coming back for." She demonstratively tugged at the myriad colored flaps and ribbons on her tunic.

Cahuan smiled and pulled the girl close. "Maybe," she nodded. "You can certainly try. Maybe the wrollic will be interested in what you put there. Or in you, if you keep wooing him so persistently. They can be befriended, I believe. In a loose, open, freedom-loving sort of way."

* * *

In the outer quarter, dust devils were wheezing through the lanes on gusty winds, stifling people's breath. Fetid smells rose off patches of refuse, miasmas of sickness and misery. A mangy dog limped away, tail between his legs. His thin whine lingered on, hovering like an omen over an overgrown pile of rubble and the two children hiding behind it. Taking up the whine, the small girl hid her face in her brother's arm.

Cautiously, the boy peered out over the weed and debris. From the house across the lane came clamor and angry wails. A thud, and a piercing scream. A shutter banged hard against the frame before the door flew open and a man stomped out with an air of furious determination, dragging a wiry girl of about ten behind him.

He shouted straight into her face. "Shut up, Yunda! Be grateful to go to a work cabin! In the mine you'd end up like this," he raised the stump of his left arm. "Or dead."

His right hand gripped Yunda's arm like an iron claw. Red-eyed, her mouth a thin, straight line, the girl let herself be pulled along.

*

Terrified silence filled the cabin. All children had their hands on the workbench, fingers laced, head bowed. They could not see the mage. Not clearly. But they knew enough. Reliving the nightmare of their own initiation, they were petrified into rigid stillness.

Smoke billowed up, filling the lungs of the newcomers with choking bitterness. A grim incantation rolled out over the mage's tongue, arcane words of power, harsh and guttural, commanding and relentless.

Yunda shivered as she felt the ring of fire descend from the crown of her head over her whole body down to her feet, where magical chains locked her to the ground. In the depth of the earth, Yunda could see a deep dark pit, and the face of the demon that would be set loose should she ever try to leave.

But Yunda was a witch. She knew how to protect herself against dark magic! Keeping her tongue in her cheek, her fingers crossed inside her pocket, she bent her head down low, looking to all the world like a cowed, terrified child.

But beneath her dark lashes, her eyes were ablaze.