Gray had another Oma dream, and this time, he was even farther away from the shack. It was barely a glimmer of light in the distance. The only way he knew it wasn’t a star was because the gold was a pale yellow and not a glittering white.

  Again, Oma told him he was losing sight of what was important, and though she wouldn’t give him any clues, he thought he knew what the problem was.

  The very next evening, Rynn went to the little palace archive while he walked back into town. He had the ruby bracelet, and so, he didn’t need the elf girl for the scam. He could let the first customer win, so others thought they had a chance. Then, for the rest of the night, he palmed the stone so winning wasn’t possible. At one point, two orcs with horns came up to him stop the game. They weren’t the guards he’d seen at Merrymancers, even though they looked similar.

  Rynn had told him they were cambion orcs, half-demon and half-orc, since there had been demon lords walking the earth before Weeping Well was sealed shut. Unlike angel-headed elves, cambion orcs were considered superior to the normal kind.

  One of the cambion orcs demanded to see his vendor license. They also told him that games of chance were forbidden outside the Dice Markets. Luckily, Gray had already won a few games. He asked them how much it would be to get a special license to do business out in the main market, and they said it would cost him ten shekels for the night. He gave them ten shekels, they wrote up a paper license and gave it to him, and Gray knew that he’d gotten off easy. He would’ve given them twenty if they’d asked. It wasn’t the first time he’d bribed someone in authority, and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the last. He was glad Rynn wasn’t there, or she would’ve been shocked.

  He ran his game until customers grew wary of him, and it was still early, so he went and bought another ruby bracelet from Merrymancer’s. The bald dwarf remembered him, of course, as did the cambion orcs who stood guard. He didn’t spend long in the store, but then hustled back to the wall, where he drummed up more business.

  Gray had another winner right away. What luck! He then worked the game until he had another fifty shekels. With a hundred shekels, he went into Softie’s, hoping to get something that would get him past Captain Settie’s wards.

  Cousin Earl let out a whoop. “Yay! Gray is back! This time, he’s going to buy something, I know it. How is the training going?”

  Cousin Flop grunted laughter. “Hey, Earl, the training is after the testing. He’s going through the pre-testing.”

  Cousin Flip rolled his eyes. “Actually, it’s called the pre-Testing training.”

  Cousin Flap disagreed. “Nope. Y’all are wrong. It’s the summer cram, when you cram in those extra workout ton get past the Testing in the fall. Tell me I’m wrong, Gray. Tell me.”

  Gray shrugged. “Sorry, guys, I’m new in town, but everything you said sounds reasonable to me.”

  Softie called to them. “Hush, now. My sister is with a client. You just all shush for right now. Come in, Mr. Fade, and we can talk about why you’re back. Why aren’t you at Merrymancer’s? Need something better?”

  “I need the best,” Gray said, working his way through the shop. “I’m looking for someone who can get me past a powerful manamancer’s wards.”

  Softie frowned. “First you play that game out in the market, swindling people. Now you’re looking to sneak into somewhere where you shouldn’t be. You sure are fitting in well in Pit City. Can you pay?”

  “I can. And I’ll have you know I had two winners tonight. They left happy. But I left the happiest. How much would a ward breaker cost?”

  Softie grunted. “More than a new recruit spending their summer in the barracks can spend. If you had any real money, you’d be in another city’s academy or working with private tutors paid for by a wealthy patron. But here you are.”

  “Here I am,” Gray agreed. “Speaking of summer, how is it so cool in here?”

  “Magic of course. We have a cooling gem.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is.”

  More grunting. “It’s a manabound piece of crystal. Wrath magic.”

  “I would’ve thought wrath magic would’ve been more aligned with fire.”

  The dwarf grunted. “Then you’ve never been around a woman too angry to even look at you. That’s ice. They sometimes think patience does better with cold magic, like how you can cool off after being upset. I’m not thinking that’s right. I’ve been bonded a long time.”

  An elven woman came out of the back room with something clutched to her chest. Behind her was a wide little woman with midnight black hair, except there was a big tuft of white hair above her forehead. Her face seemed ageless, smooth and with a healthy glow, and yet, around her eyes, there were crow’s feet. The wrinkles were easy to ignore because of the intelligent sparkle in her big, brown eyes.

  This had to the Widow Stone, though she didn’t seem like a widow at all. She had a severe beauty that surprised Gray. Those eyes drank him in.

  “You’re an interesting one,” she said. “I was Emilia Stone, but now I’m the Widow Stone. Come on back. I heard a little of what you talked about. I don’t deal much with recruits. Too much scrutiny from the Watchfire families. We keep this shop quiet for a variety of reasons.”

  She turned and pulled a shawl over her shoulder.

  “He can’t pay much, sis,” Softie said. “This is the guy running the cup game outside.”

  The Widow Stone smiled and touched her brother’s arm. “Not right away, Softie. But this might be a wise investment. The Testing this year is going to be interesting.”

  “You see something, sis?” Softie asked.

  “Yes, brother. I have. Come. Come.”

  Gray was led back to a workroom, where there were half-finished projects lying around, everything from little toy recruits in First Field uniforms to large polearms. A silver axe head lay near half-made arrows. Clothes hung in racks next to a cabinet of little drawers. There was storage everywhere and a long work stable with tools hanging over it. An alcove with a stained-glass window held a worn leather seat in front of a table covered with a cloth as colorful as the window. On it burned a candle that somehow filled the room with a warm, comfortable glow. In the air hung a golden mist.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The Widow Stone waddled over and climbed up into the leather seat. It was clear that this was where she spent most of her life, working on all the weapons, clothes, jewelry, and other knickknacks that the shop sold, the inventory that Softie was so proud of.

  She motioned to him. “Sit. You’ve come looking for help with something. It’s dangerous. But all life is dangerous. No one gets out alive.”

  Gray sat in a wooden chair that glowed with that mystical yellow light. He felt the power rising from it. “Why is the chair magical?”

  She smiled. “How do you know it’s manabound?”

  “There’s a yellow mist in this room. Everything is glowing yellow. I’ve never seen it so clearly.”

  The Widow Stone lost her smile. “You can’t see the mana. No one can see it. You have to feel it.”

  “Sometimes I can see it,” Gray admitted.

  “It’s because of your core.” The little woman frowned. “It’s like you are a sun walking around candleflames. I felt it when you walked into the shop for the first time. This will cause you trouble. You’ll be a target.”

  Gray felt a cold fear touch him. “Not everyone will be able to feel it.”

  “Those who deal with mana will. Not your peers, who will be neophytes and acolytes, but the greater magi will. It’s undeniable. Did you not hear my eloquent words? I found them rather poetic.”

  “A sun walking around candleflames.” He paused, thinking hard. Hiding behind his weak body had been his main tactic in surviving in Cradleport. He had thought to do the same thing in First Field, but that might not be possible.

  “You do know the seven sacred levels of mana mastery, do you not?”

  Gray nodded, remembering his talks with Rynn. “Neophyte, Acolyte, Adept, Magus, Archmagus, Sovereign Master, and Grandmaster Magus, though there are some who don’t believe they exist. Each level is burned into the flesh in mana marks. Every mark is similar but not the same for each person, though no one gets to decide where the marks appear. As one progresses, they start to feel the itch. There’s the itch, the burn, and then the ink once the level is achieved.”

  The Widow Stone gazed at him like she was picking apart his very soul. “You recite the information well, but you just learned all this, didn’t you?”

  “How did you know?” he asked. Then he raised a hand. “No, wait. I know the answer. Magic. It all goes back to magic.”

  “Mana and the seven instincts,” she corrected. “I’ve never liked calling what I can do magic. I’ve trained my whole life to be able to do what I can do. Your accent is as odd as your core. You aren’t from the Null Breaks, are you?”

  “Cradleport,” he admitted. “I’m a nully.”

  “Not anymore. This explains a lot. Your very powerful core was starved for mana but there was none to be found. When it did get mana, your core made up for lost time, and here we are.”

  He didn’t correct her, but the truth was, Captain Settie had ignited his core after fixing his heart. He owed his magic to her.

  Gray tried to change subjects. “If you have secondsight, you must know what warding I am trying to break through.”

  She smiled. “It doesn’t work that way. The future is never fixed until we breathe in the moment that is happening as it happens. We are pinned in time, like butterflies on a collector’s board. What level is the magi who cast the warding.”

  “I don’t know he said.” He went to say more but stopped himself.

  She saw him hesitate. “The more I know, the more I’ll be able to help you.”

  He inhaled and again tried to direct the conversation. “What is it that you do in this store?”

  “We bind mana to items, we fix manabound items, and we offer other services that someone with better connections might get if they were a member of one of the six Watchfire families. But you didn’t come here to talk about our little shop. You came here to get past a warding. Why do you need to get past the warding?”

  “There’s a dog I want to see,” Gray said.

  The Widow Stone’s smile was uncertain. “A dog? You’re doing this for a pet? You must love this pet.”

  “He’s a great dog. His home is in a…dangerous place, but he seems to like it there. He’s been able to survive there for a long time.”

  “Like you,” the dwarf woman said softly. “You’re able to survive in dangerous places. Both Pit City and First Field are proving grounds to make the weak strong and to make the foolish wise. You’re neither weak nor foolish, but you certainly have a lot to learn.”

  The pretty dwarf woman got off her chair and went and stood before a rack of scarves. She selected one that was a pure white silk. “You are not where you should be, Grayson Fade. You know that to your bones. But you are not one to accept your fate. You are good at designing the life you want to lead. You did it in Cradleport, and you’ll do it here. However, in the end, no matter how comfortable you get, you’ll always hate this world and everyone in it. Maybe if I help you, we can do something about that bitter, bitter hate.”

  Her words made him shiver. His fear felt like ice in his heart. He longed to get outside, back into the heat, because he understood the heat. He didn’t understand this woman and her workroom.

  “It’s a nice trick.” Gray forced himself to keep his voice even.

  “What trick?” The dwarven woman came back to him and offered him the scarf.

  “There were palm readers in Cradleport who could do the same thing. You make generalities about me, but you don’t know me. You might be a powerful manamancer, but you don’t know if I hate the world or not.”

  “You swindle people out the market without a drop of guilt.”

  “I offer a service. I give them a game, so they can have a moment of hope that maybe they can win a precious necklace.”

  That made her laugh. “Hope cuts both ways. It can strengthen or it can weaken. Some people come into my store seeking hope but what they really want is comfort. They want a guarantee that they’ll get everything they want and that they’ll never hurt again. No, I’m right about your hate. You’ll figure that out eventually. Take this scarf, bring it to the ward, and then bring it back to me.”

  “How much will this cost?” he asked.

  “Free.”

  “Nothing is free. I’d rather pay you in shekels than in favors. There’s an end to money.”

  The woman smiled at him. “You can’t afford me, no matter how much money you make in your game. Finding a way through a ward is thousands if not tens of thousands of shekels. And if the person who cast the ward is a higher level than I am, then it won’t matter. You won’t get through.”

  “What level are you?”

  She pushed the sleeve of her dress up, revealing five tattoos trailing down her arm. Gray had seen marks before, they’d all been black, but these were a multiple of colors. He found himself getting lost in the intricate patterns until she drew her sleeve back down.

  Five mana marks meant she was an archmagus.

  The widow’s laughter was musical. “A very impolite thing to ask. Next, you’ll ask about my resonances, of which, I have many. I’ve let the secret slip. Oh, whatever shall I do? It is thrilling to talk about the taboo. Should I strip for you? Do you want to know about my toilet habits?”

  He chuckled. “No, but thank you. I’m still learning how things work in the Belly of the World. And I don’t think Softie would like you stripping for customers.”

  “It wouldn’t matter,” the Widow Stone said softly. “My bonded is dead. My core might be unique, but it cannot handle multiple bonds, however sweet the idea. I’m destined to be alone until I die. But you, Mr. Grayson Fade, your core is limitless and could probably handle multiple bonds.”

  “What do you mean multiple bonds?” Gray asked.

  She shrugged. “You have many adventures awaiting you, but I fear for you, for your poor mind, and your fragile soul.”

  “I’m not fragile.”

  “It’s the hate that makes you fragile. But you can’t see it yet. Let’s hope you can before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  She shrugged. “Apocalypses come and go. And here we are, still breathing. Here we are in Pit City, where the last Armageddon happened. Don’t worry, you won’t have to save the world. The world doesn’t want to be saved, but you know that.”

  “Do I?”

  “If not now, you will.” She escorted him back into the main room of the shop. Softie and the cousins were all looking at him expectedly.

  Softie grunted, “Is he going to buy anything?”

  “Not yet,” the Widow Stone said. “We’re still in negotiations. We had a very interesting conversation, though. Oh yes, the Testing is going to be very interesting this year. Very interesting indeed.”