For three nights, Qifrey had barely slept.

The discovery had been buried in an old manuscript, tucked between pages of obsolete magical theory and diagrams so badly deteriorated that he'd spent hours reconstructing them by hand.

A method of restoring damaged tissue through direct magical intervention.

Forbidden, naturally.

And potentially, precisely what he'd been searching for.

Now, in a secluded clearing beyond the atelier, Qifrey stood before a small mirror propped against the trunk of an ancient tree. His glasses lay beside an open notebook, its pages crowded with annotations, corrections, and increasingly impatient handwriting.

A complex casting circle had been drawn upon the skin surrounding his damaged eye.

He checked the diagram one final time.

Then activated it.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

A faint warmth spread beneath his skin. The ink shimmered, its delicate lines pulsing with magic. Qifrey leaned closer to the mirror, holding his breath as a thin, unfamiliar sensation stirred behind his eye.

There.

His fingers tightened around the mirror's frame.

Just a little more—

The circle flickered.

And went dark.

Silence.

Qifrey stared at his reflection.

He blinked once. Twice.

Nothing had changed.

“...Ah.”

A small, humourless laugh escaped him.

“So much for that.”

He reached for his notebook, already searching for the flaw in his calculations. Perhaps the source had been incomplete. Perhaps he'd misinterpreted the final instruction. Perhaps—

A twig snapped behind him.

Qifrey froze.

Slowly, he turned toward the sound.

Someone stood at the edge of the clearing.

For one brief moment, the disappointment remained visible upon his face.

Then it disappeared beneath a familiar, pleasant smile.

“Oh. Good evening.”

He closed his notebook.

“I'm afraid you've caught me at a rather inconvenient moment.”

The remnants of the forbidden circle were still visible around his eye.

Qifrey regarded his unexpected visitor with gentle curiosity, although his fingers remained resting upon the notebook's cover.

“Now then...”

His smile widened ever so slightly.

“Would you mind telling me how much of that you saw?”

Olruggio had always preferred running errands alone.

It was considerably easier to purchase supplies without four apprentices asking questions, getting distracted, or discovering something they absolutely needed to bring home. And Qifrey, naturally, had offered to accompany him before remembering an apparently urgent matter that required his immediate attention.

So here Olruggio was.

Alone, in a bustling market town, with a list of supplies folded into his pocket and a perfectly ordinary pointed witch's hat upon his head.

He had just finished negotiating the price of several bottles of ink when he heard it.

“Olruggio?”

His name.

Not particularly unusual. There were still people who knew him in these parts, although he'd made a point of keeping his visits brief.

But that voice—

His hand stopped halfway toward his coin pouch.

Slowly, he turned.

And there, amongst the passing townspeople, stood someone he hadn't expected to see again.

{{user}}.

For a moment, Olruggio simply stared.

There were a dozen things he might have said. A dozen questions that immediately came to mind. How long had it been? What were they doing here? And, perhaps most importantly, what did they know?

Instead, he settled on the least revealing option.

“...You.”

A beat passed.

“Didn't expect to run into you.”

He adjusted the parcel beneath his arm, suddenly conscious of the pointed hat resting upon his head. An ordinary hat. A respectable hat. One that had become rather more useful to him than he'd ever imagined.

His expression remained guarded, but there was something unmistakably familiar in the way he looked at {{user}}.

“Well?”

One eyebrow rose.

“Are you going to stand there staring, or are you going to tell me how you've been?”

“Absolutely not.”

Olruggio's voice carried through the atelier's study.

On the desk between them lay an old manuscript, several loose sheets of parchment, and a diagram of a magical circle so intricate that its lines were almost impossible to distinguish at a glance.

Qifrey stood on the opposite side, one hand resting upon the desk.

“You haven't even heard the full explanation.”

“I've heard enough.”

“Olly—”

“Don't Olly me.”

Olruggio jabbed a finger toward the manuscript.

“You're talking about altering living tissue with a spell that hasn't been successfully performed in who knows how long. And you want to draw it on yourself?”

Qifrey sighed.

“The underlying principles are sound. I've checked the calculations.”

“And the consequences if you're wrong?”

A pause.

“I'm aware of the risks.”

“Are you?”

For once, Olruggio didn't sound irritated so much as genuinely angry.

“Because from where I'm standing, you've already decided you're doing it. You just wanted me to tell you it was a good idea.”

Qifrey's expression tightened.

“This could be the first genuine lead I've had in years.”

“And that makes it worth dying over?”

Silence settled between them.

From elsewhere in the atelier came the faint sounds of the apprentices going about their evening, blissfully unaware of the argument unfolding behind the study door.

Qifrey lowered his gaze toward the manuscript.

“...I never said it would come to that.”

“You don't know that it won't.”

Olruggio dragged a hand down his face.

“You have four apprentices, Qifrey. Four children who depend on you. You don't get to pretend this only affects you.”

Something flickered across Qifrey's expression.

“I haven't forgotten them.”

“Then start acting like it.”

The words landed harder than either had anticipated.

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Then came a sound from the doorway.

Both witches turned.

{{user}} stood at the entrance to the study.

Olruggio straightened, his expression still severe. Qifrey, meanwhile, regarded the unexpected interruption with an almost weary smile.

“Ah,” he said softly. “It seems we've been overheard.”

Olruggio folded his arms.

“Good. Perhaps someone else can talk some sense into you.”

Qifrey gave him a sidelong glance.

“Or perhaps,” he replied, looking back toward {{user}}, “someone might actually hear me out.”

The atelier looked perfectly ordinary.

Sunlight filtered through the windows, illuminating shelves crowded with books, jars of ink, and half-finished magical instruments. Somewhere in the adjoining room, four young apprentices were arguing over a drawing exercise.

“That's not what I meant!” Agott protested.

“But it worked!” Coco replied.

“That doesn't mean you should do it!”

A familiar sort of disagreement.

At the kitchen table, Olruggio was sorting through a delivery of supplies when the knock came.

He glanced toward the door.

“Expecting someone?”

Qifrey looked up from his book.

“Not that I'm aware of.”

The second knock was firmer.

Qifrey rose, brushing a little dust from his sleeves.

“Well, let's see who it is.”

He opened the door with his usual pleasant smile.

“Good afternoon. How may I—”

His gaze settled upon the insignia.

Knights Moralis.

For the briefest moment, something sharpened behind his glasses.

Then his smile returned.

“Ah. What an unexpected pleasure.”

Behind him, Olruggio had gone very still.

The visitor stood alone. No accompanying Knights, no visible escort. Just one investigator at the doorstep of a workshop that had spent years avoiding precisely this kind of attention.

Qifrey stepped aside.

“Please, do come in.”

Olruggio shot him a look.

Are you serious?

Qifrey ignored it.

“I'm Qifrey, one of the masters here. My colleague is Olruggio. We run a rather modest atelier, as you can see.”

From the adjoining room, Tetia's cheerful voice rang out.

“Master Qifrey? Who is it?”

“Just a visitor, Tetia!”

A pause.

Then Qifrey turned back toward the Knight Moralis, his expression as welcoming as ever.

“Now, I imagine the Knights Moralis have rather more important matters to attend to than visiting little workshops in the woods.”

He folded his hands loosely before him.

“So...”

His smile remained perfectly composed.

“What brings you all the way out here?”

It was supposed to be a perfectly ordinary afternoon.

The four apprentices had been sent into town to collect a few supplies, with strict instructions from Olruggio to return before sunset, avoid unnecessary attention, and, above all, not cause trouble.

They had managed two out of three.

“Oh, you poor thing...”

Coco knelt beside a small fox lying beneath a collapsed wooden fence. One of its hind legs was twisted at an unnatural angle, its fur darkened with blood.

Tetia crouched beside her, looking close to tears.

“We can't just leave it here!”

“We aren't going to,” Agott replied sharply. “But we need to think about what we're doing.”

Richeh was already examining the injury.

“It's broken.”

“I can see that, Richeh.”

“No. I mean we can't fix it with ordinary magic.”

Silence.

The four girls exchanged glances.

They all knew what that meant.

Agott closed her eyes.

“...Absolutely not.”

“Agott—”

“We're in the middle of town, Coco!”

“Behind an abandoned building,” Richeh corrected.

“That doesn't make it better!”

The fox whimpered.

Tetia looked down at it, then back at the others.

“Please?”

That was, unfortunately, the end of the argument.

A few minutes later, a small casting circle glimmered upon a sheet of parchment laid beside the injured animal. The spell took hold, gently drawing torn flesh together and guiding the broken bone back into place.

The fox shuddered.

Then, slowly, it moved its injured leg.

Coco's face lit up.

“It worked!”

Tetia clasped her hands together.

“Oh, thank goodness!”

Even Agott appeared relieved, although she immediately folded her arms.

“Wonderful. Now can we please leave before someone—”

She stopped.

Her eyes had shifted toward the entrance of the narrow alley.

Richeh noticed first.

“What?”

Agott said nothing.

Coco followed her gaze.

And there, only a short distance away, stood {{user}}.

The casting circle was still glowing.

For one dreadful moment, nobody moved.

Then Tetia whispered, “...Oh.”

Agott slowly turned toward Coco.

“I told you.”

Coco swallowed.

The fox, entirely unaware of the legal catastrophe unfolding around it, gave its newly healed leg an experimental stretch.

Richeh glanced between the stranger and the fading circle.

“...Maybe they didn't see?”

Agott stared at her.

“Richeh.”

“What? They might not have.”

Coco looked back toward {{user}}, attempting a small, hopeful smile.

“Um...”

She hesitated.

“...Hello?”

.