Cassie and I left my childhood home walking hand in hand. We had ended up staying for about another hour so that we could properly catch up with my mother, but at the end of the day we’d only been gone for a month. A month in Vernal was like three days anywhere else in terms of activity, so we didn’t have tons to talk about. It was nice to see her again.

  Of course, I wasn’t naive to think that because we’d had one talk my relationship with Cassie was completely stable and without fault. Hells, I imagined that it was gonna take a bit to get back into the swing of things, and we’d been together for like four days.

  Still, I was a lot more confident in our relationship now, and I was certain that she was too. Sure, it seemed bad that we’d had a major fight so early on, but who didn’t fight? Besides, now that we’d gotten it over with we knew better than to avoid communicating about our problems and just bottle everything up. It turned out that was a terrible idea, who knew?

  In any case, I couldn’t help but feel a bit bubbly by the time we started making our way to Almon’s home. Whether it was the idea of sorting things out with Cassie or just a reaction to the emotional release I was feeling was unclear, but whatever it was I liked it.

  It was for that reason that, upon seeing Noren sat dejectedly outside of Almon’s house like a pet that had scratched the carpet, I decided to throw him a bone. “You alright, Noren?”

  He looked up at us from where he was sat against Almon’s front step. “Do I look alright? Your local magus won’t let me into his home. It’s disgraceful.”

  “Why not?” Cassie asked.

  “I would like to know the same thing,” he grumbled.

  “You want us to ask?” I offered, receiving a single nod in response.

  Just like always, it was Cassie that needed to knock on the door. I think it was something to do with the wards, but it had never been explained to me. It didn’t take long until Almon answered it with his usual scowl.

  “Cassandra. Julie. Come in.” With his words spoken he tottered off, the door remaining perfectly still behind him without anything holding it in place. We meandered in, pretty used to his attitude. His home looked exactly the same as it had when we had last been here, which made sense. Almon wasn’t a big fan of change.

  “Hey, Almon?” Cassie spoke up as the door shut behind us, shattering any hopes Noren may have had about sneaking in. “Why aren’t you letting Noren in?”

  “Hmph,” he harrumphed, wandering over to his library. “I’m not risking it. You two may be under the notice of his guardian, but I’m not taking that chance.”

  “...What?” We both asked at the same time.

  “His guardian,” Almon explained as he examined his bookshelves. “He may be a dragon, but in their terms he’s still an adolescent, I would guarantee it. Dragons are raised in communities of five: one guardian to four hatchlings. If he’s alone, that means he gave his guardian the slip. I’m not risking having him stink of my magic when he’s found.”

  “Wait, Noren’s a kid?” I asked, taken aback. He really didn’t seem like a teenager.

  “In a way,” Almon lectured, shuffling over to another shelf. “Only not really. Very different cultural connotations. I imagine that the only reason he’s free to roam is because he’s coming up to maturity. Would you say he has a great respect for those around him?”

  I snorted, and Cassie couldn’t hold back a giggle. “Noren? Not at all.”

  “Ah,” Almon responded. “Probably due for another twenty years or so then. I expect he’ll be found by his guardian soon enough. You may even be lucky enough to witness them. Aha!” He announced, pulling a heavy lavender tome from his shelf. It wasn’t one I recognised, but I knew it was from the ‘advanced wizardry’ portion of his library. It was very well organised, and I could only respect that.

  He turned and marched over to us, pushing the tome into Cassie’s hands. “Read this. Once you’re done, I want you to follow the instructions in chapter seventeen to the letter. If you follow them correctly it will help with the pain. Understood?”

  Cassie glanced uneasily at me. “What pain?”

  “Don’t be coy, Cassandra, it doesn’t suit you. You triggered your Honing early. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re still standing. Then again, I suppose you weren’t to know. Still, I know from experience that casting anything more than a cantrip is going to be hurting you.”

  I spun to face her. “I thought you said it was getting better?”

  She was downcast. “Uh… About that…”

  I huffed. “We just had a talk about not hiding things.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you!”

  “I want to be worried, Cass!”

  “Silence!” Almon shouted. In all the time I’d spent with him, I had never heard him properly raise his voice. Not even once. Then again, I’d never started an argument in his sanctuary. “You two will continue this conversation outside. If it isn’t done by the time you come back in here, I’m keying you both out of my wards. No distractions.” He took the book back from Cassie and pushed us towards the door.

  We shuffled outside, shamefaced. “So, how’d it go?” Noren prompted.

  “Can we have a moment, Noren?” Cassie asked.

  He shrugged and wandered around to the other side of the house, which I supposed would have to do. “I thought we’d talked about this, Cass?” I hissed.

  “I know! But I’d already been keeping it from you, and I didn’t think it was a cause for concern.”

  “You didn’t think we should be concerned that you’re in pain every time you’ve cast a spell? What about when I asked you to prod me with force magic, did that hurt? Was I putting you through pain for no reason?” I asked, my mind filling in with all the times I’d seen her cast since we had fought Matthais. That quest with the Pond Gremlin must have been agony.

  “It was fine. Sure it hurt a bit, but I could handle it. I can handle it.”

  “How much is a bit?” I asked. I needed to know.

  She didn’t answer, so I asked again. “How much, Cass?”

  “…Kind of a lot,” she murmured.

  “Dear gods,” I cursed under my breath. “Why didn’t you tell me, Cass?”

  “I already said, I didn’t want to worry you! Besides, how was I supposed to bring it up? ‘Hey, by the way I’ve been in semi-constant pain for the last four days’. I know I should have told you, alright!? I know that I’m an awful hypocrite who can’t take her own advice, and that I keep making the wrong decision and fucking stuff up. I get it!” She threw her hands up in the air and took a few steps away, stopping and hugging herself. She seemed to be refusing to look at me.

  “I… I didn’t mean to upset you,” I tried after a beat of silence. “I just worry about you.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “I know, and I understand. I already got at you for worrying me, all the while I was doing this for no good reason. I just… I know it was the wrong decision. I should have told you, it’s just not that easy sometimes. To tell you stuff.”

  “It isn’t?” I asked, shocked. This was the first I’d heard of it. “Why not?”

  She shook her head, still not looking at me. “It’s not your fault, it’s just… sometimes it’s nice. You’re very constant. You hear something, and if it’s within your power to help, you do. If it isn’t, you just stay with me. And that’s fine,” she rushed to add. “It’s part of the reason I like you so much. You don’t force your way into my problems.”

  “But…” I prompted.

  “But sometimes it feels like you won’t care. Like I’m just bothering you with my issues. Especially when you’re already going through your own stuff,” she completed. “I know that’s not the case, and that you do care, but when your response to hearing my problem is to go ‘huh’ and then move on, just because you can’t do anything, it… I don’t know. It’s dumb. I shouldn’t think that, I know I shouldn’t. I can literally read your emotions at will just by looking at you, I just… I don’t know.”

  I was aghast. I hadn’t realised I was putting her through this, and I felt awful about it. “Oh, Cass,” I whispered, the words barely escaping my throat. “I didn’t know…”

  She finally turned around, her expression sad and her eyes a little wet. “Of course you didn’t. You’ve literally always reacted like that. I should have told you about it, as well as a bunch of other stuff, but-”

  “I should have noticed,” I interrupted her. “I made a point of showing that I understood you earlier, but I missed this. Gods, I feel like an idiot.” I took a deep breath, holding it as I lined my thoughts up. Finally I exhaled slowly, a vague plan forming. “Right. Okay, we can do this. You need to get better at telling me things, I need to be better at being told stuff. What a pair.”

  “Lia, it’s fine-”

  “Nope. Absolutely not. We need to fix this mess. So, I have a solution. If you want to tell me something that you want me to actively commiserate with, tell me. Please. Call it a… I don’t know, we can come up with a snappy code for it or something later, just tell me, and I will do my best to oblige you. In return, you have to promise to actually talk to me about this stuff. Tell me if you’re in pain, or worried about our relationship, or anything else along those lines. Deal?” I laid out the terms, sticking out my hand like I was about to buy a house. I couldn’t say why, it just felt right.

  She looked me in the eye and took my hand, shaking it once. “Deal.”

  I felt a sudden punch in the gut as I felt a huge chunk of mana leave my body. All of a sudden I almost felt like I was being observed by something greater than I. An impassive observer, but an observer nonetheless. The feeling only lasted for a moment, but it was more than enough to send me off balance.

  “Lia? You okay?” Cassie asked hurriedly as I stumbled into her, leaning on her for support. “You just bled out a load of mana.”

  “Yep,” I croaked. “I’m fine. Something definitely just happened, though.”

  In the corner of my vision I saw Almon’s door open, revealing the wizard standing behind it looking somehow more grumpy. “I really can’t leave you two alone for five minutes, can I? A Deal, really?”

  He took one look at the confusion evident on our faces and drew the obvious conclusion. “Please don’t tell me this was an accident too.”

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  More silence answered him. “I swear to- fine, get back in here. I had been worried about this. I probably should have told you about this, but if I’m honest I wasn’t sure it was an issue you would even come across.”

  We followed him back inside, and I steeled myself for a complicated explanation about something. Almon seemed to consider looking through his collection of books again, but seemed to decide against it.

  “Congratulations on stumbling onto something I don’t have any written works on,” he commented as he turned back to us. “Looks like I’m doing this one manually. Alright Julie, what you just did, potentially foolishly, was make a Deal. Do you remember when I told you about warlocks?”

  I nodded, not wanting to interrupt him, and he continued smoothly. “Good. A Deal is essentially like a lesser version of a Contract. Rather than an exchange of power, it is usually an exchange of services, often single use rather than the typically longer term Contract. As well as this, it doesn’t have clauses for breaking the deal. It is simply immutable unless one party is vastly more powerful than the other. For example, I imagine your mother made a Deal when she was saving you, rather than a contract. Are you following?”

  “Yep,” I answered quickly, trying to remember all of this. For all of his prickly exterior, Almon was an excellent font of knowledge.

  “Again, good. Now, I imagine you’ll be fine, given that you made a Deal with Cassandra here, but you need to be careful with your words. Most entities that are even capable of making Deals are those like devils and true fey, who must always speak the truth. That clearly doesn’t apply to you, because I assume you would have noticed if you couldn’t lie, but that doesn’t mean that you’re in the clear.” He paused for a moment, like he was gathering his thoughts.

  “Have you made any solemn promises to anyone? Given anyone your word?” He finally asked, like he was running through a mental list of some kind. “That’s all I can think of that would apply here, although I’m certainly not an expert.”

  I thought back. There was that deal with Selene not to talk about what happened in the Fairworthy estate. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I’d let Cassie talk through that whole thing with my mother. Maybe I was subconsciously avoiding breaking the promise? I did almost always prefer to keep my word. “Yeah, there was thi-” my words caught in my throat, as though they were refusing to be spoken.

  After a moment, I tried again. “Sorry, I was saying that we met a-”

  Once more, the words were trapped in my throat. This time I didn’t get another chance to try again before Almon started talking again. “Yes, I thought this might be the case, but we had best check. I want you to repeat after me: I promise not to leave this room for the next thirty seconds.”

  I was a bit confused, but I did as I was asked. “I promise not to leave this room for the next thirty seconds.”

  “Good. Now leave,” Almon ordered.

  I was starting to see where this was going, so I spun on my heel and headed directly out the door. At least, I should have. I had been walking completely straight, but somehow I’d ended up facing back inside again. I tried once more to the same result, somehow getting turned around.

  “But I was walking straight?” I questioned, more muttering to myself than actually asking anyone.

  “No you weren’t,” Cassie pointed out. “You just turned around when you got to the door.”

  “No I didn’t,” I argued. I was certain I hadn’t turned around. I certainly didn’t remember turning. I’d just... ended up facing the other direction anyway somehow. Not that my explanation made any sense, but still.

  “Cassandra is right, Julie. You promised not to leave, so you didn’t. I imagine you prefer to keep your word regardless, correct?” He guessed.

  “I mean, yeah? Who doesn’t?”

  “You would be surprised. Regardless, I believe we have officially discovered another consequence of your heritage. I would be careful with making promises, if I were you.”

  “Great,” I grumbled. I didn’t think I was the kind of person to go making promises while planning to break them, but it was just something else I had to keep in mind.

  “Oh, don’t be too upset. I believe that this is the kind of thing that would have been on a sliding scale for you, if my guesses are correct. You could have ended up forced to always tell the truth, at least from a technical perspective,” Almon explained. “Your relatives all have to deal with that. Well, your fey ones do, in any case.”

  “I could have not had to deal with it at all, either,” I argued. “Still, there’s not much I can do, I guess.”

  “Correct. Now, just out of curiosity, what was your other promise that you couldn’t say? I assume you promised to keep some secret, but you seemed willing to share it, so I am intrigued.”

  “Oh, that was a few hours ago, actually,” Cassie explained. “She promised not to mention anything that happened in a room. The person who she promised it to turned out to be a demon though, which was a bit of a surprise.”

  “Bold-faced liar, too,” I complained. “Said that- hrk.” My words caught again, almost choking me for a moment.

  Oh, come on. They get to break a deal because they lied about it, but I still have to keep my word? That's hardly fair.

  “Yeah, maybe let me tell this one,” Cassie commented. “They said that they were a human that had been enslaved by a local merchant to spy on the competition, apparently because of some ability they gained from being ‘altered’ somehow. They were kind of vague.”

  Almon listened with interest. “Yes, that does sound like a demon. They love lying, especially if they actually get something out of it. I imagine they actually were being used, possibly even for their supposed purpose, they were just playing on your sympathies to get out of it. This demon clearly knew about you if they knew to push you into a promise.”

  “Then they decided to use some kind of magic to mess with our emotions, explained that they had managed to break their bindings and vanished,” I finished the story. “Oh, and they gave us this.”

  I rummaged around in my pockets until I found the coin that Selene had given me, pulling it out and handing it to Almon, who eyed it but didn’t touch it. “I can’t take that, Julie.”

  “Why not?” I asked, arm still outstretched to give it to him.

  “It’s cursed,” he explained. “Nothing major, but if someone that isn’t you touches it, something will happen. I can't tell what, but it probably isn't lethal.”

  “...Great. Anyway, they said that they owed us a favour and said to snap the coin, so I figured we might as well hold onto it.”

  “I would be careful playing games with demons. They may be more upfront than devils, but they are no less cunning.”

  “I’m not sure if lying about basically everything counts as cunning. Or upfront, for that matter,” Cassie pointed out.

  “It worked, didn’t it?” Almon retorted. “In any case, just beware. I can’t fathom what you’d need a demon for anyway, so you should be fine.”

  “Could be useful with the vampires,” I offered.

  “Yeah,” Cassie agreed. “Although we don’t really know what Selene can do, so it could just as easily not be.”

  “Pardon, what vampires?” Almon asked.

  “Oh, right. We got dragged into a Revenant’s revenge quest. It’s a whole thing. Basically, there are these vampires running a conspiracy over in Meria, and we have to help the Revenant take them down,” Cassie explained.

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” Almon exclaimed with wide eyes, suddenly active. He gathered up a few seemingly arbitrary ingredients which had been lying around the room, collecting a vial along the way. “Of course, it makes sense.”

  “I mean, it’s kind of like our day job,” Cassie joked. “A bit more interesting than running alchemy experiments or sorting taxes, but still. We’re only here for the day, we wanted to catch up, not talk about work.”

  “You should have told me sooner,” Almon insisted as he frantically prepared the ingredients. He snapped his fingers and water boiled in an instant, ready to receive hastily crushed herbs and mushrooms. “It fits, of course it fits. It was the bloody vampires!”

  “What are you talking about, Almon?” Cassie questioned.

  Almon didn’t respond, instead closing his eyes and muttering something unintelligible. We watched on as the pot of water began to glow, bathing the room in a soft green light. I smelled fresh tea leaves and moss, and I was sure that I heard a river somehow.

  The green light grew brighter, beginning to turn orange and then shifting all the way to crimson before finally dying out. Almon opened his eyes and scooped the red mixture into two small vials, each only the size of a thumb. “Drink. Now,” he ordered, holding one vial out to each of us.

  Not entirely sure what was going on, I took my vial and downed it in one. I had to repress the urge to gag, because by the gods was it foul. It tasted like bloodied dirt, and it was strangely gritty. Still, it went down my throat just the same, and by the time I was done Almon was ready with some water, presumably to wash it down with. How considerate.

  Cassie hesitated a bit longer, but seeing me come out fine seemed to push her forward. It didn’t take her long to finish off her vial either, although by the faces she made she enjoyed it even less than I did. Seeing both of us drink his offerings appeared to calm Almon a little, but he still seemed a bit manic.

  “Good, good,” he murmured, turning on the spot as he looked around the room. “I’ll need to get over to Valmere first, that’ll take a few days…”

  “Almon, what’s wrong? Almon!” Cassie yelled, snapping him out of his thoughts. “What are you going on about? What did we just drink?”

  “Nothing harmful,” he answered quickly. “Vampirism is a very patient disease, and fairly easily transmitted. If either of you had any in your system, I should have just eliminated it. Only if it was in it’s early stages, though,” he explained. “Of course, I have no idea if Julie can even be infected, but it’s better safe than sorry.”

  “Okay…” Cassie dragged out. “I guess that’s fine. What has you so worried though?”

  He sighed and sat heavily in the seat that he kept by his alchemy station. “It’s a long story. A few months ago I received a message from… let’s say from an old colleague. She was a divinator stationed in Meria, and a good one. Terrified of public attention though, so she was never really well known. So when she sends me a message with a prophecy, I was somewhat concerned, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I kept it, but in her message she begged me not to tell anybody, and I trust her. Trusted her, anyway.”

  “Trusted?” I picked up on the tense of his words. “Is she…?”

  Almon turned away, staring dead at the floor. “Yes. About a week after you two went gallivanting off on adventure, I received another message, this time from a different colleague. She was found killed in her home, which had been burned down. Whatever she had found out she took to the grave, except for my note.”

  “I’m so sorry, Almon,” I commiserated. It sounded like he’d lost a friend, even if he only called her a colleague.

  “Why? You didn’t kill her,” he grumbled. I decided not to press him.

  “So what was the prophecy?” Cassie asked, clearly curious. She only just beat me to the punch, too. If it was something to do with the Cabal, I wanted to know.

  Almon looked between us and seemed to consider his options. “No. I won’t be telling you, I don’t think.”

  “What!? Why not?” Cassie challenged.

  “We’re talking about a prediction of the future, Cassandra. It’s already shaky and vague as it is. I believe that two of the figures mentioned refer to you, so you knowing the details may throw the entire prediction out the window,” he elaborated.

  “Wouldn’t that already be the case?” I tried. “I mean, we already know that there is a prophecy, so...”

  “Good try, Julie. All you know is that something will happen, and that I personally interpret that to have something to do with a group of vampires. You can’t know what to look out for or change your actions based on this knowledge. Normally I would commend your search for knowledge, but in this scenario I have to insist that you do not continue it.”

  Cassie and I shared a look, and she answered for us. “Fine. But after all of this, you’re telling us what it was. One way or another.”

  A small, barely noticeable grin briefly graced Almon’s lips before it vanished under the weight of whatever was on his mind at the moment. “How threatening. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare a few things before I leave.”

  “You’re leaving? Why? Actually, nevermind, I think we know why. But where?” I questioned.

  “Valmere,” he answered as he stood, scanning the room for something. “I need to gather a few old colleagues. I’ll be leaving immediately, so this will have to be goodbye for now.”

  We watched as he shuffled over to his bookshelves, taking out a book that was somehow simultaneously eye-catching and nondescript. It seemed to draw the eye most adamantly, but at the same time I was certain that I had never noticed it before.

  He flipped through the book, muttering under his breath as he scanned each page. After a few seconds he found what he was looking for, tearing a page from the book in a motion that made me wince. Yet he somehow ended up not holding a torn page in his hand but a key. A key that was promptly inserted into another book, which suddenly bore a keyhole.

  Oh, right. Ren had said he was an Archmage specialising in illusions. I wonder how many secrets there are around this hut.

  With a single twist, the entire wall of books packed up, bookshelves folding like origami into a travel-sized box. The various books that were lying around the house all flew into the box on command, before it sealed itself completely. The box was immediately lifted into the air with a single spell, trailing after Almon like a well-trained dog.

  He took one last glance around the room before seemingly deciding that the rest of his home was expendable and turning back to us.

  “What happened to your limits, Almon?” Cassie wondered aloud.

  He stared at her for a moment but clearly decided against trying to weasel out of it, instead just sighing in resignation. “A conversation for another time. I imagine I’ll see you two again before this whole thing is over. Until then, though, I hope you take care. Do not overestimate yourselves, underestimate your opponents, and look after each other. Farewell.”

  Without another word, he clicked his fingers and vanished, his box disappearing a moment after. We stood in silence for a moment, absorbing the contents of the last fifteen minutes.

  I miss when he actually explained things.

  “Well,” I finally broke the silence. “I can honestly say I didn’t expect the conversation to end like that.”

  “Not a chance in any of the hells we would have guessed that,” Cassie agreed before glancing around Almon’s house. “Anyway, you want to see what’s wrong with me?”

  She picked up the only book that remained in the building, the one that Almon had pressed into her hands before we’d started bickering. I just shrugged and made for a chair. It seemed like we had some studying to do.

  probably think it's going. Whether or not the twist that actually happens is better or worse than what you expect to happen I can't say.

  more accomplished? Like, you aren't a real author until someone disagrees with something you write so much they feel the need to warn others away from it. I don't know, in any case I'm kinda proud of it. ;D

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