It started, like so many other times, with a hesitant knock on the door. Tom Swale sighed and slowly got up from his computer. Maybe it was just a girl scout selling cookies. Or a neighbor wanting to complain about the loud noises late at night. There had been a couple of sloppy teleportations recently, after all.

Looking through the peephole on the door, Tom swore softly. Standing on the doorstep was a young girl. She was holding a very familiar looking book and looking around nervously. To Tom's weary eyes she all but screamed 'new wizard'.

He reached for the doorknob and paused. It would be so simple not to answer. The girl would leave and never be the wiser. He would never have to learn her name. He would never have to talk to her, or hear why she took the Oath, or find out anything about her as a person.

How many kids just like her had already knocked on this door? All of them so very excited, scared, and painfully earnest. Bursting with questions, still doubting what was happening to them. More came for reassurance that wizardry was actually real than for advice. None of them actually understood what was about to happen to them, though. Tom had tried to explain it to them, to describe just what their Ordeal would mean. It never worked - they just weren't old enough to really understand the possibility of their own death. Sometimes he wondered if that was why wizardry was only offered to the young.

Was she going to be one that came back, or was she going to end up just another sad footnote in a daily update? He'd given up trying to guess. He'd even given up keeping track. Originally he had made a point to learn their names, and remember those that disappeared. The first time he had forgotten one had left him depressed for weeks... but the next one had been even easier to forget. That was years ago.

He wanted, just this once, to ignore her. He wanted to tell her to throw her Manual away and run home. How wonderful it would be to tell her that no, there was no such thing as wizardry. It was all an elaborate joke. Go back to your games and your books. Forget all about it.

He didn't have to send her out to save the world. He could save her.

Just this once.

Tom thought about it carefully, as he always did. The children, and their sacrifice, deserved it. He feared the day he stopped thinking about saving them far more than the day he decided to do it.

Putting on his best smile, Tom opened the door.

'Dai stihó, cousin.'