The sun was setting over the walls of Vera City. Akyr Lev was closing up his forge when he noticed that the orb he set on the counter was glowing blue. He called out for his wife, Lane, who rushed down the stairs. With the forge fires dying behind them, they gathered around the orb.

  Just as he had been instructed, Akyr tapped the orb and recoiled as it blinked like an eye. Immediately, they were surprised to not only hear their daughter, but they could see her too. Leona looked tired and her hair was messy, but it was easy to see her blue-lit grin. She had just made it to Twilight Town. Akyr could tell from the train station lights that twinkled behind Leona’s horns.

  In the silence between their smiles, Akyr could not help thinking that some of the best things in his life had come from Twilight Town. It was the very place where he had met his wife, and adopted their child.

  “Glad to see that you made it to Twilight Town safe,” Akyr affirmed. “It looks like, without our walls in the way, you still have a few more minutes of light.”

  “Yeah, I definitely like that,” Leona said, following Tusund’s lead out of the corner of her eye.

  Lane slid in front of her husband. “How was the train ride?” Leona was distracted for a moment, saying something to Tusund about an inn. “Can you hear me?” Lane asked, putting the orb so close to her face that all her daughter could see was her nose.

  “Yes! Oh my, Tusund look,” Leona rose the orb up to his face.

  “Hello Mrs. Lev’s nose,” Tusund laughed.

  Lane shoved the orb into her husbands hands. She crossed her arms, a strand of black curled in front of her scowl.

  Akyr held the orb like he was playing with a newborn. He held it out with his hands and raised and lowered it around his head. The image created over Leona’s orb was a fun-house mirror distortion of her father. Everyone was laughing. Even Lane was beginning to smile.

  Leona stood outside of an inn, while Tusund entered into it’s noisy lobby. Akyr and Lane could see the name of the inn painted onto a wooden sign.

  Moon Shadow Inn. Nocturnal Guests Welcome.

  To them, it sounded like most of the guests were nocturnal. They could hear the garbled voices of sailors and traders discussing their coming work for the night. Music drifted out the windows and into the street. Leona had to get away from all the noise.

  Leona sat down on a bench outside of a library. The lamp above her was brightening with the coming night.

  “Before dad started being a goof, I was going to tell you about the train,” Leona started again. “We ended up going through the Dead Lands. I don’t know if you’d ever seen it before, but its really eerie. This town is kind of creepy too now that I look at it.”

  Akyr and Lane could see bits of the town around the edges of Leona. Most everything had a dark blue shade to it. The moon glowed like a pearl through a layer of ocean mist. Orange light from lamps illuminated the library’s granite walls, damp and covered with lichen.

  “Anyways,” Leona continued. “Believe it or not, our train hit something.”

  “Really?” Lane gasped.

  “I thought that we had ways of keeping the tracks clear,” Akyr said.

  “Not clear enough,” Leona said, looking behind herself. “When I got off the train, I saw the crew getting up to look at the roof. Tusund thinks that we might have hit a creature, and it was thrown up there.”

  “That’s terrible,” Lane lamented.

  Leona looked behind herself again. “Sorry, I think I keep hearing someone.”

  Akyr and Lane whispered something to each other.

  Turning back to his daughter, Akyr said, “it’s really nice to see you again, but you should go check in on your friend. I don’t like you alone out there.”

  “I understand,” Leona sighed. “I just won’t be able to hear you inside. We’ll have to talk another time.”

  “So we’ll talk another time,” Akyr agreed.

  “Don’t blink until you’re inside,” Lane said, her face in the orb again.

  Leona held the orb in her hand, paying little attention to it as she observed her surroundings. The town had thin streets paved with stone bricks. Looking down, where the houses were packed in, she could see two lanky shadows stepping over a tall lamp. The light seemed to pass through their dark forms like they were nothing more than an imprint on the world. They moved in one direction, out to the sea. Their eyes were as bright as the moon and they never looked away from her.

  Leona backed into the inn, keeping her eyes on the pair of shadows. She was glad that she had not gone too far. Inside the inn, band music was blaring and people were dancing in the lobby.

  “Leona, are you ok?” Akyr asked. Leona had forgotten that she still held the orb.

  “Yeah, I’m at the inn!” Leona shouted over the music. “Tusund should be here, so I’m going to go look for him.”

  “Leona, your eyes, they’re…” Akyr’s voice got cut off. Leona squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them, her orb was foggy blue.

  Her family tried to call her again, but she had already stored her orb in its silk bag. King Alder said that black was his color of choice for ignoring calls. If any ignored messages were important, she could just spin through them later.

  As soon as Leona looked up from her bag, she bumped into Tusund. There’s nothing like running into a tree to get you off a call.

  “Sorry,” Tusund said, kneeling to speak into her ears. “Checking in went fast. I’m quite happy with their Chlorophane accommodations here.”

  Leona noticed that he had been leaning against one of the inn’s tall windows. He hadn’t been dancing like everyone else. He was looking out for her.

  “The receptionist told me that rooms are a bit more soundproof. We should go upstairs,” Tusund suggested.

  Leona agreed.

  The inn was cheaper and that had allowed Tusund to book a suite. Inside their modestly furnished suite, there was a massive living room connected to a kitchen for hosting guests. Tusund let Leona pick her room first. She chose the one that looked out to the sea and dropped her heavy bags there.

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  When Leona was done settling her things she smelled something savory. Walking back into the kitchen, she saw Tusund with his bags open, already cooking. He was chopping up vegetables on the counter with a small knife that he carried.

  Leona pulled herself up to one of the barstools. Because it was made for Chlorophanes, it was like climbing up a small ladder. She rested her chin in her hands.

  “I thought Chlorophanes didn’t need to eat,” She said.

  “You’re right, we don’t,” Tusund replied, pulling a couple of carrots out from one of his bags. “This soup is for you. I’ll drink the broth, if you have any left over.”

  Leona’s claw traced a darkened pattern across the wood bar. She listened to Tusund sliding the chopped carrots into the pot. Then, she asked him the question that had been boiling up in her mind.

  “When you become my guard you won’t be able to practice medicine at the clinic anymore. Is that what you want, or is your chief making you choose?”

  Tusund turned away from the stove and rested his hands on the bar. He turned his head up thoughtfully.

  “These days, what I want to do is not as important as what I need to do.”

  “But you still have a choice.” Leona said, as she watched Tusund’s squirrel bounding off his back. “You have already spent a few days traveling with me. You could be working on a cure for the curses. People like Alder need it before its too late.”

  “Please Leona, don’t tell me what I should be doing,” he said kindly. “My mission with you is one of the few ways that I have found, where I can serve all of my people: both the Chlorophanes and the Verlassians.”

  Going on a quest for money and titles seemed so childish when compared to Tusund’s ambition. If Leona really cared so much about her status, then she would never even think of becoming a dark mage. There was something more to her leaving home, but she felt that she was too afraid to realize it.

  Tusund’s squirrel was hopping about the counter top, sniffing the soup.

  “Sorry, Tusund. I’m putting all of this on you, but I’m the one who is lost. I want to be able to help you, but I’ve never really used dark magic before. What if we get the relic and it doesn’t even work?”

  “If you can get it, it will work,” Tusund affirmed.

  Leona knew there was nothing more that he could say about it, so she accepted it.

  Suddenly, Tusund’s squirrel went scampering across the counter top. The soup was boiling over.

  “No you don’t!” Tusund shouted and grabbed at the stove top.

  He pushed the hot pot away from the flame and onto another metal grate and turned off the stove. The soup was a bit overdone, but that only made the vegetables softer. Leona ate all of it and Tusund absorbed the remaining broth. After that, Tusund went to sleep and Leona stayed up late.

  Tusund left the door to his room cracked, so Leona tried to be quite. She sat on the living room couch running her hands over her card deck. Flipping the cards on the table she imagined that no one would be impressed by her magic tricks. Though, the fact that she needed no magic at all might baffle most mages, especially, those that used magic for every little thing. Their curses would be relentless in higher ranks.

  A tapping at the window interrupted Leona’s game.

  From what she could remember, there was no wind outside. The tapping continued, increasing in frequency. A slight chill of fear brushed across Leona’s spine. She laid out her cards on the table and went to go look out her window.

  Leona entered her room, tripping over her bag in the dark. She stumbled up to look out her window. Outside, she could see the Dread Sea, but there was nothing else there, not even a tree branch scrapping at the glass.

  The same cold chill prickled at the back of her neck. She looked again.

  The two shadows from the library were walking out over the sea. Their legs were like stilts. With each step they rose higher above the sea, passing over the pier and then over the houses. They were moving towards the inn. Leona pulled the curtains shut and stood behind the wall. She considered going to wake Tusund.

  When she tip toed back into the living room she froze. Long shadow tendrils were phasing through the living room wall. She hid behind her door, peaking out at them. The shadows were moving the cards around the table. They were slow and deliberate, shuffling through the deck to find the right cards. Leona’s danger sense did not let up, even though the creatures seemed harmless.

  A few minutes later, they retracted their dark limbs from the inn. Leona remained frozen, hoping that they were really gone. She returned to her room and peaked between her curtains. The shadows were sinking back into the Dread Sea. Emboldened, Leona went to investigate.

  The shadow couple had phased right through the inn, leaving two rows of cards on the table and a necklace. Leona, still stunned, could not make sense of any of it.

  “Tusund!” She shouted.

  Not a minute later, the tree-man crashed through his door. He clutched two over-sized axes, drawing one back to throw it. His eyes raced around the room, before locking onto Leona. He lowered his weapons.

  “Why did you yell like that?” Tusund was still breathing heavily.

  “Look,” Leona said.

  She pointed at the table and Tusund lumbered over to investigate. He swept his gaze over the cards, a confused expression on his face. The necklace was between the card sets. A thin wire wrapped around pieces of glass, smoothed over by years in the tides. It looked like a cheap trinket from a beach-side shop.

  When Tusund attempted to pick up the necklace, his hands burst into flames.

  Instead of reacting with fear and pain, Tusund froze. He looked at his hands, as the smell of burning wood filled the room. An orange glow lit up everything, except for the shadow prints left on the cards. His hands were shaking.

  Tusund dashed to the kitchen sink and doused his hands in water. He reacted quick and little damage was done beyond singed bark.

  Tusund hunched his shoulders over the sink. Smoke rose from his singed hands. “I can’t believe it,” he shook his head. “Leona. I don’t even care; I’m going to punch our little twig of a king in the face if he thinks this is funny.”

  Leona stood, dumbstruck. She didn’t think that she’d ever see Tusund get angry, let alone willing to take it out on anyone.

  Anxiety crept into her voice, “what do you mean? Are you alright?”

  “I’m sorry,” Tusund replied, crossing his arms. “Do you know how that necklace got here? It has at least a monarch-level enchantment on it. With a thousand warding crystals, I would not touch it.”

  Leona did her best to explain the shadow duo to Tusund. He sat on the couch across the table and listened while analyzing the cards. Occasionally, he would brush a layer of ash off the backs of his hands.

  “I’m somewhat familiar with those creatures. The people of my tribe call them Voidlings. We have spotted them wandering all over the Emerald Coast, even onto the Finne Islands where I used to live,” he said, gesturing with his branches. “No one knows exactly what they are or what they do. The only thing we know is that the Dread Sea is their territory and they’ll drag any trespasser to it’s depths.”

  Crouching onto the floor, Leona became eye level with the necklace. “Can we move it with a stick or something?”

  “That’s unlikely to work.” Tusund waved his burnt hands. “These enchantments can be very intentional.”

  Tusund returned to the kitchen and filled the soup pot with water, setting it on the table. “Have you tried touching the necklace yet? If it is a gift to you, the enchantment should be friendlier.”

  “You don’t seem so confident,” Leona replied.

  Still, Leona felt she had to try, so she gave it a little tap. In the absence of flames, she picked it up.

  In her hands the necklace didn’t hurt, in fact, it seemed to awaken something within her. It was like an inviting embrace. She was compelled not just to hold it, but to put it on. She latched it around her neck. Seven glass fragments rested warmly over her chest.

  Before wearing the necklace, Leona had never understood the feeling that mages had in relation to their magic. Her spirit was always still and locked within her body. It felt like death rotting in place. Now, it was as if she had shed off a layer of rock. Magic flowed out from her.

  “It’s magic! It’s mine and I can control it!” Leona rejoiced.

  The dark magic was so thin. She directed it with her hands making it dance like ribbons. She spun around in a mist of shadows. It was unbelievable. For years, she had felt so alien. She lived in a world of magic, yet was a shadow against it all. Only now, that shadow was becoming her power.

  “Leona!” Tusund yelled, but she could not hear him.

  Laughing, Leona’s eyes became dark pools. Tusund tried to reach out for her, but Leona slipped right though the ground and disappeared.