Disclaimer: see chapter 1

Chapter 3

Kodi felt considerable relief when she felt that she was in her real body once again. After spending a while as just a wisp of spirit, it was nice to feel solid. She lay still with her eyes closed, basking in the sun's warmth. Then she felt a pressure on her arm.

She quickly opened her eyes. The green-eyed man from the castle was standing over her, one hand placed on her arm. "Hello," he said conversationally.

Kodi struggled furiously. Her years in Deadman's District had taught her to be wary of strangers. More than anything, she wanted to break his grip. Until she'd done that, she couldn't run back into the slums, or down through the sewers that made a web under Hajra's streets.

"Please stop," the man told her impatiently. "I don't want to hurt you."

Kodi stopped struggling. Something about his directness made her want to believe him. Besides, even though he was younger than she'd thought- still in his late teens- he was a good deal stronger than she was.

He waited for a minute to see if she was done, then continued. "What are you doing on my rooftop?"

His rooftop? That was ironic. Kodi scowled at him. "Some, some odirs were chasing me," she spat.

"Why?" he asked. If her raw language bothered him, he didn't show it.

"I nicked some gold from the Thief Lord," she muttered.

He gaped at her. "You're lucky to be alive," he replied finally.

"What would you know about it," she retorted. "You one of his?"

To her surprise, he laughed. "No, not for a long time. How'd you get up here?"

She shrugged. "I climbed the trellis. It's real stupid, having that trellis there. Anybody could just go through

there-,"she nodded towards a trapdoor leading inside the house, "and rob you blind."

"I have wards," he told her. "No one can get up here til I break them. You shouldn't have been able to get up here. How'd you do it?"

"Wards," she murmured. "That explains a lot."

"Explains what?"

"When I got up on the ivy, I thought those kids were gonna pull the trellis down. They couldn't though. I don't know how I did it."

"Well, it's possible that your fear caused you to punch through the spells. That takes power though. Would you mind if I tested you?"

She scowled and looked meaningfully at his hand, which still encircled her arm. "Why should I?" she asked. "I still don't know who you are, or what you want."

"Sorry," he said ruefully. He let go of her arm. "I wanted to make sure you wouldn't run off before I could talk to you. I'm Briar Moss, a mage from Emelan."

She rolled her eyes. Mages were tricksters who did fancy tricks for stupid tourists in the squares, and they were all at least twenty-five. This Briar was still a kid, and probably only an apprentice. "I'm Kodi," she told him. "What kind of testing do you have in mind?" It might be best to just play along until she saw her chance to run. Just in case, she maneuvered so that she could easily reach the trellis and escape.  

"I want to see if you can break my wards," he replied.

"Might come in useful," she shrugged, "bein' able to break rich bag's spells."

 "Alright. I'm going to cast a ward right here." He pointed to the roof's smooth floor, and pale green fire spread from his fingers to visibly mark the boundaries of his invisible spell. Kodi gulped. A kid who sprouted fire from his fingers? Maybe he was more powerful then she'd thought.

"How do I break it?" she asked.

"Use your mind. Imagine it in your head and use your thoughts and your will to get past."

Kodi sighed skeptically, but she shaped her mind like a battering ram, and tried to break through the ward. She strained and pushed, but the ward was too strong. It remained solidly in place despite her best efforts.

"I can't," she said flatly. She flinched, but the smack she was expecting never came.

Instead, he said patiently, "Don't try to break through it. You did that when you were scared, and your fear gave you energy. Try to- unravel the spell. Feel for how it fits together, and take it apart."

Unravel it? Well that was like her visions wasn't it? She unraveled the threads of time to move through it. She could unravel the wards. Kodi reached again with her mind, feeling for the threads of magic that made up the ward. Sure enough, she could feel them there. She bit her lip, and reached until she could feel the magic with her mind, and pull it apart. Bit by bit, the spell came undone, and Kodi walked through.

"Good!" he told her. "That was really good." He handed her a water flask, which she accepted gratefully. She was exhausted. She hadn't realized how hard she had been straining.

When she had finished gulping down the water, she turned to Briar. "What was that, that unraveling thing I just did?"

"Magic," he replied.

"Was never!" she exclaimed. "Magic's a wizard's trick, and I don't have it."

"Yes you do," he said impatiently. "Powerful magic too. Not many kids could do what you just did, especially with no training. And you can do more when you do get training."

"What training?" she asked alarm. This sounded an awful lot like work. "I don't want training."

"You have to have training," he said firmly. "Your magic is going to fight you if you don't. It's already breaking away from you, isn't it?"

Kodi looked at the floor. "You saw me, didn't you?"

"Not saw you, saw the power you were using. I see magic, and I followed your magical trail back to here. Took forever too."

 "Oh."

"So how did you get to the castle?"

"It just happened. It's been doing that since I was real little. I black out, and then its like my body is lying there, but I'm not. And then I feel this- tug, taking me to where I need to go. I can't leave til it's over. I call 'em visions."

"But they're not visions, not in the usual sense." He sounded intrigued. "It sounds like spirit traveling, only through time. That meeting with King Rididar was hours ago, but you saw it only a little while ago, right?"

 "Yeah."

"Niko's gonna want to hear about this," he murmured.