Lira knew of a town only a few hours walk away, and we hurried through the woods to make it there in record time. 

We slowed as we reached the edge of the town. I had expected a wall or gate of sorts—most places that bordered the woods had protections of that kind—but this one had the same marks that had been around the mountain, skirting around the entire town. Marks to ward off magical creatures.

Marks to ward off those like me.

I put my hand out and felt the magic of the runes pushing against me, like a magnet. "Does this mean I can't go in?" I asked, a rush of panic welling up in my throat.

Nathan knelt to the ground, translating the marks with quick glances. After a few seconds, he shook his head. "We're in luck. This is just a partial barrier. There's a special entrance for mages about a quarter mile in this direction." He gestured to the right.

Mage, I thought with a laugh. I was no mage. But with the lightning crawling up and down my arms, I knew I must look strange.

"Krista," Nathan said with a hint of hesitation in his voice, "if that shape shifter is coming this way, I think someone should warn the villagers. I mean, I could walk with you to the mage entrance, but I just feel like we could be wasting time..."

"Yeah," I said, understanding. "Go run in and alert them. I'll walk to the gate on my own."

"I'll stay with you," Lira insisted, squeezing my arm. I tried to tell her she could head in herself, warned her that the longer she stayed outside the barrier, the bigger the chance of the shape shifter happening upon us, but she refused to leave.

I smiled, relieved for her company. "Okay. Thanks."

After exchanging quick hugs with us, Nathan ran through the magical barrier and jogged into the town.

Lira and I hurried along the edge of the magic marks, and within a few minutes, we found the mage's entrance. It was nothing fancy; in fact, there wasn't even an actual gate. The only thing that designated this as the correct spot was the lack of the magical symbols for a stretch of about two feet and the company of two guards, one male and one female.

"Who goes there?" the male guard asked. He was the older of the two, with a greying mustache and a slight paunch.

I didn't know what to say at first. "Hi," I started, giving a quick wave. "I can't get through the marks so I think this is where I get in?"

He looked down at my arms, at the lightning scurrying across my flesh, and frowned. "Turn that off."

"Um, I can't."

His eyes narrowed, but he didn't ask about the lightning again. Instead, he barked out, "Name." It was more of a command than a question.

"Krista Far," I said, fidgeting with my hands.

"Association?"

"Um..." I didn't know what the meant. "Sorry?"

"Which guild are you associated with?"

Oh. Mage terminology. "I'm not a mage."

The guard's eyes narrowed. "Then what are you?" His eyes scanned my whole body now, looking for signs of otherness: the pointed ears of the elves, the flawless skin of the fae, the black marks of shape shifters...

"I'm a human," I said when his stare grew uncomfortable. "I found a magic jar and... look, I'm having magical lightning problems and I really need to get into your town. We just had a run-in with a shape shifter and it is not pleased with us. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it was coming after us now."

This caught the guard's attention. "A shape shifter!"

Lira nodded. "Krista's telling the truth. We ran into one not too far from here. We managed to knock it out, but we don't know for how long it'll be down."

The guard's eyes fell on Lira. "Are you a mage as well?"

I'm not a mage, I thought stubbornly, but Lira shook her head. "No. See." She jumped inside the marks, uninhibited, and then stepped back out.

The guard bit his cheek, conferred with his notes, and then made a decision.
"All right then. Krista Far?"

I nodded.

"Strip down."

I blinked, convinced I had heard him wrong. "Excuse me?"

"If there's a shape shifter on the loose, you need to get inside the town walls at once. However, since you're not on the list of mages who frequent here and since you're supposedly unaffiliated, we need to be sure you aren't a shape shifter yourself trying to infiltrate our town."

"They're going to check you for marks," Lira realized.

I knew my face was bright red; I could feel the heat on my cheeks. "Really? Right now. Out here?" I gestured at the woods behind me, and then swept my arms to the town behind them. "This is highly inappropriate—"

"Krista," Lira said, grabbing my arm and squeezing it tightly, "if you want to get in, you need to do it."

Bristling, I groaned, but then nodded. "Okay. I'll do it. But I'm lodging a complaint when I get in..."

Thankfully, this was a one-guard task, and it was the female who took on the job as the other guard pretended to look the other way. The woman appraised my naked form quickly and without much fuss; I had a feeling she had done this many times before and was no longer shocked by nudity. She worried about a birthmark on my lower stomach for a few seconds, but eventually, I was cleared to enter.

"Try to get that lightning under control before you get into town," the man called after me as Lira and I hurried inside.

I puffed out my cheeks. I wish.

- - -

The outer edges of the town was just farmland, stretches of land filled with cows and sheep, an occasional barn, and a small pond with what looked like kelpies swimming in the depths. But eventually, the houses grew closer together, until they were wedged against each other like bricks in a wall.

And that's when we saw people—or rather, that's when the people saw us. There had been a few folks in the farmland, but they were often far away in the distance, working hard on something or other and not worried about the two girls walking down the rocky paths.

But in the heart of the town, where the streets were worn cobblestones, people were out and about. There were chores to do, places to be, things to see—and I was one of those things apparently.

I think the first person to notice the lightning on my arms was a child. He couldn't have been older than five, and maybe his diminished height was the reason he noticed the lightning—it was right at eye level for him. He reached out a chubby hand to touch my skin, and I jerked away from him, shouting, "Hey!"

That caught his mother's attention, who saw my arms, pulled her son away, and hurried off—but not without first shooting me a dirty look.

And then the other looks began. Some fascinated, some disgusted, some curious, some confused. It was an array of emotions that made me feel sick to my stomach.

"Where exactly are we going?" I murmured to Lira when I couldn't take it anymore. I was doing my best to use my soft focus, make everything around me look blurred. Blurs didn't have faces. Blurs didn't stare at the lightning on your skin.

Lira squeezed my shoulder in solidarity, careful of the lightning. "I figured we could re-stock on some salt first. There's a butcher shop down here, I think, which will probably sell us some salt for cheap--no need to find a mage shop. Then maybe we can grab something from the market to eat? And then, of course, we need to find Nathan."

"Okay, salt first. Let's do that."

However, as we walked up to the butcher shop, a large beefy man promptly stepped in front of us, barring our entrance. "Shield your magic, mage," he said to me, gesturing to my arms.

Frustration welled in my chest for the umpteenth time that day. "I can't," I said.

His dark eyes narrowed and he leaned in towards me. "Can't or won't?"

I sighed, about to launch into an explanation, but he must have thought I was about to hex him as suddenly there was a knife to my throat.

"Not one word, mage," he hissed through rotted teeth.

My heart pounded in my chest, so loudly that I could barely hear Lira begging him to let me go. My eyes watered—I could feel the tears threatening to overflow. All I wanted was for the lightning to go away. Why was everyone so cruel? Was this what my life was going to be like from now on? Constantly attacked for something I couldn't control?

"Gavin, what are you doing?"

The voice was unfamiliar, and I was afraid to turn my head for fear of the knife slicing through my neck. Still, out of the corner of my eye, I could see an old man sliding through the crowd. He wore a long, rough robe.

Gavin kept the knife at my throat. "Mage won't unarm."

The man walked closer to us, then hunched down to stare me in the eyes. His were a blue so deep they were nearly green. "Gavin here has a point. Power must be restrained prior to entering any of the shops in Middleboro. It's the law."

I swallowed, trying to hold back tears. The knife grazed my skin. "I can't."

The man frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"I can't control the lightning. I'm sorry. I don't know what to do."

The man's frown deepened and he didn't say anything for a while. We just stood there in silence.  After what felt like an eternity, he finally turned to Gavin. "Let her go."

Gaven kept the knife at my throat, unmoving. "She's not coming into my shop like that." His words were like venom, clearly directed at my arms.

The man smiled slightly, placed his hand on Gavin's, and guided the knife away from me. "Don't worry about that. She won't be going into your shop. She's coming with me." And with that, he grabbed me by the shoulders and led me away.