After her fateful meeting with Isemberd the noble daughter of House Morgan had nothing interesting to do and ended up returning to her room in the inn. When passing by, she greeted the innkeeper, the waiters and sometimes one or another patron that she had already spoken a few words with.

  She walked upstairs and entered her room, closing the door behind her.

  Otterwesh’s inns were comfortable. A bit too simple for her taste, but the lady learned with her mother to not complain too much on things that weren’t that bad.

  Erika opened one of her two big backpacks, searching for a small box with writing tools. She had now a very annoying neck pain, which she was sure wasn’t there before. Someone knocked on her door, and she set both her search and her worries about Otterwesh’s apothecary aside to open it.

  She opened the door and moved a step aside.

  “Milady” one of Lord Wells's knights were there, and he bowed politely, with no intention of coming inside “Lady Eloane and I came to the inn to take care of some business. We thought it was a good idea to check in on you.”

  Erika nodded.

  “I'm doing fine, thanks sir. Is she still here?”

  “Downstairs.”

  She hesitated for a moment. Sir Alard instructed here to take her legal doubts to Eloane or Sir Karl, his second in command.

  “Would it trouble if you two accompanied me to a meal, sir?” she asked. “I have some questions.”

  The knight frowned.

  “I cannot accept it, milady. Lady Eloane, on the other hand, can.”

  The clearly distant treatment was reasonable. The knight left, promising to extend the noble's invitation to the sorceress downstairs. Erika kept the door half-opened while grabbing a small leather purse where she kept her money.

  Feeling uneasy, she looked over her shoulder. The room was empty, the little furniture it had in its proper place, the wooden floor cleaned and polished. The small portion of the corridor she could see was also empty.

  Having goosebumps, Erika rubbed her face. Her magic eye was a little itchy, and she grabbed a mirror which was a gift from her brother, to take a look at it. She would never get used to her magic eye's weird independence from her, and it was occasionally moving by itself. The eye glanced downwards, making her feel the magic presence of Eloane on the floor underneath her feet.

  Before leaving, she checked her hairpin, that for some odd reason was a little loose. Opting for leaving it at her room, she quickly fixed her hair before leaving downstairs.

  Neoria's weather were warmer than Soryn at that time of the year, and she was very bothered by it. Her sleeves were meticulously tucked all the way to her elbows and she was using her lighter dress, even so, the heat was annoying.

  The mage apprentice was sitting at a table near the stairs, chit-chatting with the knight. They were laughing, and the knight walked away to talk to the innkeeper when Erika approached them.

  “Lady Eloane.” she greeted. “How have you been?”

  The mage frowned for a moment. The uneasiness Erika's magic eye caused to mages were something she didn’t have any control over.

  “Sorry.” she said, sitting down.

  “I just need to get used to it.” Eloane tried explaining, brushing off the topic: “It is just… distracting.”

  That were the point.

  A waiter came to serve them after talking a bit with the knight and bringing him a big wooden box. The ladies asked for tea and the employee left quickly, they resumed their conversation:

  “Sir Alard is a little worried we're taking too long to introduce you to our healer.” Eloane said. “I thought it was a good idea to check in on you.”

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  Erika glanced at the almost empty dinner hall of the inn.

  “Otterwesh is very warm and people are a lot more distrustful than I was expecting.” she replied. “But… I think I'll just get used to it. About our delay, I believe it must be a very delicate matter so there is no problem.”

  “Eloane!” the knight interrupted them, “I'll be taking our crate back. See you later.”

  “Thanks, Robert!” the mage smiled.

  After a short moment, Erika said:

  “You two seem to get along well.”

  “Not at all. Robert is not exactly a supporter of magic, quite the opposite.” Eloane sighed and added: “People tend to trust me more because of my master's local reputation.”

  The foreigner lady lowered her voice and said:

  “Your people's relationship with magic is intriguing.”

  Eloane raised an eyebrow and dodged the subject:

  “Have you ever met someone from the Crystal Octahedron?”

  Erika shook her head.

  “No. I remember seeing them from afar when my family was signing our peace treaty.”

  She had another wave of goosebumps while remembering it. The mage replied:

  “Anyway, stay away from problems, for both your well-being and ours.”

  Lady Morgan bit the tip of her lip to kept her anger to herself. She wanted to get up, pack her things and leave, but she retorted, in a low tone:

  “In this horrible heat, far away from home, alone and without a guide, I think the last thing I want is to cause problems.”

  “And you're doing a great job.” Eloane said, trying to steer the talk to a more positive energy.

  The waiter interrupted them again, bringing tea and a fresh loaf of bread cut in thin slices.

  “Thank you!” Erika said to him, turning then to the sorceress. “I'm actually anxious to start my treatment.”

  Eloane didn't reply. Erika noticed the mage's gaze were wandering over her silver bracelets.

  “Your jewelry.” she started, trying to not be impolite. “Are they enchanted?”

  Erika smiled.

  “Yes! They are. A gift from one of my brothers. It keeps me protected from illusions and things from the Mind Sphere.”

  “We call them Constellations here.” Eloane said. “You don't see enchanted wares that delicate too often. Be careful to not lose them or to have them pick pocketed. They look great on you by the way!”

  The two of them started chatting about Erika's doubts about Neoria's laws and Otterwhesh's customs. The noble lady's eye kept itching, which was very uncommon since she had lost all sensation in it when it was surgically implanted.

  Shortly after, the mage had to leave and the huntress decided to go back to her room after paying for the tea and chatting a little with the innkeeper about his small vegetable garden.

  Now back at her room, Erika closed the door behind her, immediately feeling exhausted. Without thinking too much about it, she took her silver bracelets and left them together with her half-moon shaped hairpin.

  Sitting on edge of the bed, she took the mirror again. She gently caressed the metallic side of it and mumbled a short plea. The mirror's reflected image of her face started turning blue and begin spinning, quickly morphing into another image. Now she was looking at Marquis Morgan office.

  She was out of luck at that day, since the office was empty. Sometimes, when missing her home, she asked the magic mirror to show her the office and to check if she could catch her parents together, chatting nonsense or working together on long boring documents.

  With her chest tight and feeling sad, Erika sighed and touched the side of the mirror once again, undoing the spell and making it going back to reflecting her face. She could swear she saw something moving behind her, but brushed the thought off. She must’ve been exhausted.

  Stretching out, she laid down for a nap, focusing a little of her magic at her fingertips. The door locked by itself, the window opened and her belongings floated for a short moment before entering her backpack at their respective places.

  After the spell was over, her eye ached horribly as she felt dizzy. A sign of using too much magic power, which were weird since she was feeling well before. Deciding to insist on her nap, she thought of visiting Isemberd in the morning to have her eye checked up.

  Erika woke up from her nap a few hours later, the sun already down and the noise of people having dinner in the hall downstairs was loud enough to be annoying. Feeling sick, she walked to the window and took a look outside, looking for some fresh air. She observed the nice, picturesque town, poorly lit by some torches here and there or big oil lamps hanging on top of metal shafts.

  She held off the strong desire to flee back home and moved away from the window, towards a small jar of water and a glass she kept nearby. Taking a quick look at her face in the mirror, she filled the glass with water and drank it all in one go.

  Looking herself again in the mirror. Her image contorted, revealing angry black eyes, a wild messy hair, an unsettling smile with cruel-looking sharp crooked teeth.

  In a blink of an eye, a bony hand moved out of the mirror, covering both her mouth and nose. She tried fighting back against the powerful illusion that was striking her, to no avail. Erika fell down back at the bed, pushed down by an evil invisible force.

  She heard a voice, as if someone were right behind her:

  “Be a good girl and don’t scream, okay? I promise I won't hurt you… Not too much...”