From the expression on the boy’s face, it was clear he had not expected it. In fact, all three of her assaints were struck with various levels of shock as their supposed leader, Phil, was lifted into the air. As for Bithi, she was still worried about what the elders were going to say.

  “L-Laura!” Phil screeched as he tried to and failed to hack away at the ever-growing bramble that wrapped itself around his torso. The thorns were magical, and whilst they wouldn’t cut too deep, or cut at all if Bithi willed it, the very sensation felt like matchsticks against the skin.

  “R-Right…!” Laura, the ragged girl, her eyes absent of the earlier bravado repced with uncertainty, raised her arm. A bracelet she wore inset with a clouded yellowish-brown gem began to glow faintly. “[Stone]”

  Inches from the girl's hand, mana began to swirl. To the untrained eye, it appeared as if the air had gained color and begun to solidify. But to a mage, the faint crystallization of mana, the technique of pulling mana from oneself and allowing it to materialize in physical space. If time had slowed, one might even observe the very threads of magic intertwining themselves together.

  But in reality it was a mere second.

  Bithi stepped back, holding her staff out in front of her. She spoke, but not verbally; it was an advanced technique, but one she had trained on since she was little.

  ‘[Nest]’

  A barrier of branches and leaves sprouted from the ground, forming a shield of nature. The stone flew, impacting the barrier and shattering into sparkles of mana as it did.

  “Again!” The burly boy shouted, raising the pipe; he rushed forward, ready to swing. As he brought down the pipe on the twiggy barrier, it expired right before impact, bursting into a blinding glitter of mana. “Aaagh!”

  With the boy blinded, Bithi dashed left, circling around him and dodging another stone aimed for her chest. She whipped her staff, conjuring stepping stones out of magical stumps to leap into the air towards the girl.

  However, with her focus shifted onto the barrier, the bramble holding Phil had vanished, setting the boy free. He fell to the ground with an audible thump but quickly scrambled to his feet.

  “Oi!” The freshly freed leader shouted, but the taunt went ignored. Bithi nded a few steps from the girl, close enough for what she had pnned. She twirled her staff as a magical glow collected at one end.

  Laura stumbled back instinctually, tripping over loose trash as she did. She raised her arms defensively with her eyes squeezed shut, ready for a spell to be fired her way. But nothing came. She opened one eye. “Huh?”

  “[Sleep]” Bithi prodded the girl in the forehead with the end of her staff. The st thing the girl saw before falling into a magically induced slumber.

  With the burly one blinded and the ragged girl slumbering, peaceful Bithi turned to face the leader.

  “What did you do to Bruno!” The leader shouted as he knelt beside the boy writhing in agony.

  “My eyes! I can’t see!” Bruno screamed.

  A small pang of guilt rang through Bithi. From the audacity to lure someone into the dark and try to rob them, she hadn’t expected the fight to be so one-sided.

  “He’ll be fine; it’s only temporary.” Bithi felt the need to say. They were still enemies, but the dim lighting had shadowed their features. It wasn’t until her spell illuminated the lot that she realized they were kids.

  “You killed Laura!” The leader's eyes filled with rage as he stood to face Bithi, finally noticing the fate of his second comrade.

  “Killed? What? She’s asleep, you barkbrain.” Bithi responded, lowering her staff to a neutral position. “Why are you kids even trying to rob me in the first pce?”

  With the adrenaline faded, Bithi wondered why she had been so scared in the first pce. Had the stories of the outside world warped her perception of power? She wasn’t sure what she had expected; her imagination had always run a bit wild.

  But it wasn’t this, because no matter how she framed it, these kids were weak.

  “What would you know!” Phil snapped back, readying his dagger in trembling hands.

  Upon closer inspection, the bde was old. Worn down to the point Bithi wasn’t even sure it had a real edge anymore. And it wasn’t just the dagger, the kids' attire, their taut and greyish skin, or the trashed lot barely a dozen feet away from the retively clean streets.

  “Well, I’m asking because I don’t know. Isn’t that how a question works?” Bithi couldn't contain the snide remark near the end. It was a bad habit of hers she’d developed as a kid. Her never-ending curiosity had birthed an ego she had a hard time containing at the most insensitive of times.

  “You…!” The boy rushed forward with the dagger poised to stab. He was… slow. Slower even than the burly one. If it had been just that, maybe Bithi wouldn’t have ughed. But a few steps into the boy’s ‘sprint,’ his foot caught a crack in the pavement, and he tumbled forward.

  Bithi seriously wondered where the bravado from earlier had come from. She sighed; it was her first day in the city, and not only had she gotten lost, but she had also just beaten up three wannabe hooligan kids.

  “Is everyone in the city like this?” Bithi wondered aloud.

  “Eh, kinda?” An unknown voice replied from behind.

  Bithi whirled around, her staff ready for another fight, but she paused.

  “Who’re you?” Bithi asked.

  It was a woman, an older woman with greying hair and the visible signs of aging decorating her features. Her sturdy build and tattoos that formed a sleeve up both arms barely seemed to match the gentle smile she wore.

  She was strong, Bithi could tell.

  Slung over the older woman’s shoulder was the girl, Laura, still blissfully asleep, unaware of her current predicament. In her other hand, shopping bags bursting with food and necessities.

  “Care to expin why a druid is beating on my students in a dark alley?” The woman asked with a raised eyebrow. “No, you’re new in town. Too green for a city druid; what’s your name, girl?

  “Bithi.” Despite the woman’s nonchant attitude, Bithi couldn’t help but feel uneasy. If the woman wanted to, she could have defeated her in an instant if she hadn’t spoken. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “M-Madam Fran!” Phil stammered. “I-I can expin…!”

  “Save it, Phil; don’t think I don’t know what you three are up to.” Fran snapped, shooting Phil a deathly gre. “There I was, enjoying a peaceful stroll home after shopping. Only for it to be interrupted by Misses Lee letting me know a certain charming youngster was luring people into the alley.”

  Phil froze, his face drained of color.

  Bithi couldn’t hold in a snicker; they really were kids. Which only begged the question of why they were trying to rob her in the first pce.

  “I knew you were a stupid boy, but robbing someone? What would you have done if she had hurt your kids, or worse? What would you have done if someone called the police?” Fran approached Phil with her hand raised. The boy’s expression tightened as he prepared himself to be hit. But instead, the woman pced her hand in the boy’s hair gently.

  “I’m… I’m sorry…” Phil relented, his shoulders sagging as he welcomed the hand.

  “Bithi, was it? I apologize for these brats.” Fran said with a slight bow. “They’re normally rambunctious but never this daring. Why would you brats try to rob this poor girl in the first pce?”

  “Because…” Phil avoided her gaze, staring down at his feet. He stayed silent for a moment before he continued, “Someone paid us fifty dal to steal her bag for him…”

  “What? Who?” Fran and Bithi demanded in unison.

  “I—I don’t know! He just said if we got the bag for him, he’d give us another fifty!” Phil shielded his face, expecting some form of punishment. “I’d never seen him before!”

  Someone hired the kids to steal her bag? Bithi wondered why they would use such a roundabout method. No, who would want her bag in the first pce? The only ones who should have known why she was in the city were the elders.

  “Did you get his name?” Fran asked. She was right; if they got a name or even a description, maybe someone at the embassy could help.

  “It was… huh? No, but…” Phil’s expression grew worried. “I-I-I can’t remember! That bastard wiped my memory, didn't he? That's illegal!”

  Fran sighed.

  Bithi knew of mental magics that could alter memory, or at least she had heard of them back in the grove. She recalled one of the elders who specialized in that field. It was a difficult magic to master, so whoever had hired the kids to rob her was skilled.

  “I swear you kids…” Fran sighed again, pinching the bridge of her nose as she did. “Well, again, I apologize on their behalf.”

  “It’s alright, I suppose; if anything, I should apologize as well.” Bithi replied, scratching her head. The idea that someone was after her was frightening, but she could worry about that after her mission. By then it wouldn’t be her problem. “I didn’t realize they were just a bunch of kids.”

  “We're not kids!” Phil blurted out before sinking back after a gre from Fran.

  “Sixteen is still a kid in my books. Hell, Laura and Bruno are barely fifteen. Speaking of Bruno, go help him up, and you three head inside. It’s time for dinner.”

  With a reluctant nod Phil walked over and assisted Bruno to his feet, the magical blinding had worn off minutes ago but the boy still struggled to his feet. As if on cue, the magically induced sleep pced upon Laura began to fade, and Fran let her down, instructing her the same as the boys.

  Fran handed the bags she carried to a sulking Bruno after the three had collected themselves from the scuffle. The trio entered a door in the building to the left of the alley they had entered from, leaving Bithi and Fran alone in the lot.

  “Well, I guess I should leave…” Bithi said, breaking the awkward silence.

  “So what’s a druid like yourself doing on this side of town?” Fran inquired with a ft tone. As soon as the kids had entered the building, the motherly attitude vanished. Repced by a darkened seriousness that set Bithi on edge.

  “Uh… that’s not really any of your business?” Bithi replied. Silence filled the air as every hair on Bithi’s body stood on end. Her earlier assessment of the woman was spot on.

  If Fran wanted to, Bithi would be dead.

  “Can I go now?” Bithi asked quietly.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. Bithi instinctually raised her staff, prepared for the worst.

  “Bahahahaha!” Fran cackled. “Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Bahahahahaha!”

  “Huh?” Bithi's expression jumped between a mix of confusion, fear, and bewilderment. “Sorry?”

  “I was testing you; I just wanted to see how you’d react.” Fran replied, wiping a tear from her eye as she stifled her ughter. “You’re looking for the embassy, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, someone was leading me earlier, but I lost them.” Bithi rexed slightly; she thought the woman was strange, but in a sense, she reminded Bithi of her grandmother. If only a bit.

  “Well, the gate would be closed by now, and those guards are a stickler about letting people in past curfew. Tell you what, come on in and have some dinner. I’ll have the brats make you up a bed, and I’ll take you there myself first thing in the morning.” Fran offered with a crooked grin.

  Bithi hesitated to answer. It was te, and frankly, she was exhausted; a month in the forest and a day she would rather forget had left her drained. Part of her wanted to say no, but for some reason she felt she could trust the woman. Maybe it was the fact she reminded her of Baba, or perhaps she was just curious about her in general.

  Bithi wasn’t sure, but she was sure about one thing.

  “Dinner sounds great.”