'What now?' asked Newt.
I gave no explanation as I studied the abandoned house. It was wholly unexceptional. I climbed the porch steps and pushed open the creaking door to find nothing but dust and spiderwebs inside. It had been a long time since anyone called this place home.
Wyst dismounted. 'Is something wrong?'
We walked around to the back of the overgrown yard. A door in the earth beckoned. The rusted hinges broke when I opened it. The evening twilight refused to enter the darkened hole.
'Are you feeling well?'
The worry in Wyst's voice meant much of my witchly inscrutability had fallen away. I would've reassured him, but I wasn't certain how I felt. There were so many thoughts and emotions welling up that I couldn't pick out just one. I descended into the earth, and in the darkness, I found the past I'd left behind so long ago. This was the countryside of my birth. I hadn't recognized it because I'd only seen it once while living in Ghastly Edna's charge. I'd worn a cowl then and kept my eyes closed most of the time. Sunlight had bothered me much more then. But I knew this place.
My cellar.
Wyst's shadow filled the door. 'Witch?'
I placed my hand against a rotted support beam and found an omen in the splintered grooves. 'We camp here tonight.'
Newt's silhouette appeared between Wyst's feet. 'Here? In the basement?'
'No. You can camp outside.'
'But there's at least another hour of daylight,' said Newt. 'Shouldn't we keep going?'
'Tonight comes the next trial. Here.'
'In the basement?'
I wasn't feeling very witchly at the moment and threw him a glare that never climbed out of the darkness.
'And what do you mean another trial?' he said. 'Already? We just had one yesterday Nothing for weeks and then, two trials right atop one another. Where's the sense of pace to this quest?'
I wasn't in the mood for this. And sometimes, when a witch gets properly annoyed, her magic responds unbidden. A breeze swept through the cellar and up the stairs.
'I would think whatever force was in charge of quests would quack quack quack quack.'
I smiled. Then I frowned because a witch should never allow herself to do magic by accident. Especially malicious magic.
Newt kept on talking. Or trying. 'Quack quack quack.' He cleared his throat. 'Quack quack quack.' He drew in a deep breath and expelled one last disgusted duck call before disappearing from the doorway.
Wyst dared step one foot in the dark that I'd called home so many years. 'Witch, are you certain you're well?'
I glanced up at that handsome face. In the darkness, his eyes seemed to shine. 'Certain? Can anyone be certain of anything?' It sounded vaguely witchful, but I was off my game. I decided not to settle.
'Certainty is for fools and death.' I liked that, even if I didn't really understand it myself. The phrase reminded me of what it was to be a good witch.
I stepped deeper into the dark, where the shadows enveloped me. 'We camp here. Now leave me.'
He hesitated.
My voice grew soft and scratchy. 'Leave me.'
Something must've reminded Wyst of what it was to be a White Knight because he withdrew. His face went blank, and he vanished from the door.
Magic didn't act on its own. It acted on the will and desires of others, and I had to wonder whose will had guided me here. It could've been Nasty Larry or Ghastly Edna from beyond the grave. Or Soulless Gustav. Or even myself. I didn't know the who or why of it, but I trusted to discover it in time.
I stood alone for some time. The light filtering through the door faded. It was an overcast night, and my cellar became a black emptiness. A hole in the ground filled with nothing, just a scarcity of memories.
My childhood hadn't been much to remember. There was the spot at the bottom of the stairs where I'd waited for my meals to be thrown to me. There was the corner where I'd eaten those meals. And there was the other corner where I'd sat and slept between those meals. Countless days, but really the same day over and over and over. This place meant little to me now. It hadn't meant much to me before. I couldn't even remember my family. My life truly began the day Ghastly Edna had pulled me from this hole.
In another world, another time, an explorer of this cellar might easily find a hideous, terrified creature huddling in the dark, abandoned by her family and too frightened to leave this dusty void. A beast to be feared, despised, and pitied. The me that never was but so easily could have been.
Harsh light burned away the dark. Wyst of the West descended the creaking stairs. I kept my back to him. I only knew it was him by scent. I had a predator's nose when it came to men. They were my curse's meal of choice.
The shadows fought against the invading lantern. It had been a long time since their sanctuary had been challenged, but they could only hiss and writhe and fight among themselves.
'Witch?'
I didn't turn to face the White Knight. 'Yes?'
'Will you be spending the night down here?'
I lowered my head and closed my eyes. 'Perhaps I will.'
He moved to the left, judging by the shifting light. I turned my head away. The lantern seemed so terribly bright.
'And the trial, are you certain we face it tonight?' asked Wyst.
'We do not face a trial tonight.' I raised a hand and watched the silhouette play against the wall. 'I do alone.'
'By yourself?'
I offered no reply as none was needed.
Wyst stepped closer. I covered my eyes.
'But...' He stammered. I'd never heard him stammer. '.. . aren't we . . . working together?'
'We are, but this next trial is one that only I can defeat. You, the others, will only get in my way.'
'But.. .'
I turned my face to him and forced my eyes open. I could only squint, but I hoped it was a mysterious squint. 'There are things which must be.'
He raised his lantern higher. The rabid shadows refused to fall across his pleasing face. Wyst of the West held out a hand. He closed it into a fist. Then opened it. Then put it atop his head and shrugged. He turned and moved toward the stairs.
'Wyst.' As much time as we'd spent together, this was the first time I'd spoken his name.
'Yes?'
'I have a favor to ask you.'
The cellar grew so quiet, I could hear the shadows whispering. I was very close to forgetting the whole affair, but he offered me courage.
'You only have to ask.'
I couldn't look directly at him. 'Could you hold me?'
Wyst remained rigid and silent. I tried to read his face and found only earnest sobriety.
I suddenly felt very foolish.
'I'm sorry. But I have glimpsed the creature I might have been, and I was hoping to find the mortal woman I should have been. If only for a moment. But I should've known even simple embraces are against your oath.'
'They are'—He set down his lantern and clasped his hands together—'discouraged.'
'I shouldn't have asked. My apologies.'
He moved before me and put a hand on my shoulder. 'Discouraged. Not forbidden.'
And just like that, he took me in his arms. Gingerly at first. I had little experience in physical affection, and he was pre sumably out of practice. But it wasn't so complicated. We leaned into each other. His arms circled just
