Part 3

Ammie closed her room door behind her, swinging her backpack out of the door’s reach just in time to avoid a collision. If she didn’t leave now, in five minutes she would run into Sr. Dagarlé, who she knew patrolled La Ville four nights of the week.

A retired gatekeeper, the dependable man had joined the neighborhood watch immediately after retirement. Unfortunately for him and luckily for her, he had an easily exploitable flaw: he took the same path through his rounds every night.

At any given time, Ammie could now tell exactly where the man would be and when.

Juliette truly was a genius, as she’d come up with the idea to stake him out from their houses. She and Juliette had each sent out a miniature golem to follow him around the parts in between.

Strangely though, it was Lis who had first suggested that the man had a routine he stuck to like glue.

“How would you know that? Sneaking off at night on a regular basis, are you?” Ammie had said over the three-way crystal-line she’d magicked for her friends. 

Usually, Ammie didn’t bother experimenting with things outside of her craft books, but it had actually turned out just fine. Although, sometimes the line would pick up the landline in Lis’s neighbor’s house, and they would be subjected to their classmate’s little sister flirting horribly over the phone.

But Lis had just stared at her owlishly, her profile hazy and wobbly, her tail resting still where it poked up behind her back. “I’m usually up at night.”

And that was that.

Whatever her reason, Ammie was grateful. 

Now they had a chance to leave without ever being seen.

Heading down the cottage’s hall, Ammie glimpsed her mother’s form on the couch. Bundled in blankets and leaning awkwardly into the cushions, it was as if she was a melted candle. But Ammie knew her mother was still awake. 

She had been for a week now. 

The potato stew from that morning, when her mother had gotten up for the first time in over a day, sat in a pot on the stove. It was a favorite of the household.

Combining Ammie’s unhealthy love for potatoes with the ever-present gaping stomach that was her brother’s best friend, Ammie’s mother often kept a stew simmering in the house at all times.

“I’m taking some of this with me,” she called to the form illuminated by the blue lighting of late-night TV. 

After a lengthy pause, Ammie’s mother responded, “That’s fine,” and Ammie let out a sigh. The woman’s cat ears--red like her daughter’s--hadn’t so much as twitched.

Not atypical of her mother to forgo questioning where her daughter could possibly be going in the middle of the night, but Ammie forced the familiar disappointment down, down, down.

Tonight, she was glad her mother never looked at her.

Three containers of the stew now tucked safely into her backpack, Ammie headed straight out the door.

She knew she might be woefully unprepared. She’d brought her spellbooks--well, the ones more adapted to combat, at least--and the rickety old wand she used to channel her power. Oh, and she couldn’t forget her army of crystals and stones, but she always kept her pockets stocked with those.

Armed with her books, wand, and soup, Ammie knew she couldn’t let herself fall into any sense of surety.

“You had better keep a clear head,” Juliette had told her, the night she’d convinced them to join her on this crazy mission, “because the moment you stop thinking about yourself, I will drag your a*s back home without a warning.”

Ammie had agreed, and she’d meant it. Then.

Now that the night was upon her, the familiar rage that followed her at all times now was creeping up her throat. The time was ticking down to the moment she’d spent every waking second of the past week thinking about. 

After gaining the hero’s mark, La Ville had counted her brother as dead. The greatest hero of all time, dead by an unknown presence during his visit to Hamsen, the neighboring city beyond the one La Ville’s borders was technically a part of. 

Ammie hadn’t realized the people she’d known all her life could be so faithless.

Her mother, Ammie understood, was still in shock. She didn’t know what to think. 

But even Sylvia, her brother’s sweetheart wife, had taken the town’s side. She had collapsed at the news and had hardly woken more than a few minutes at a time ever since. 

It was betrayal, plain and simple. The people Ammie had known forever--the people who had idolized and respected her brother--they were all faithless. 

It was inexcusable.

There was no way her brother could actually be dead. But if the hero mark appeared on Ammie’s arm, then that meant he must be in serious trouble.

He needed a rescue team, not a memorial.

But hell if anyone was going to listen to her about it.

Ammie decided, after she’d come home that day in a complete daze, after the adults had turned into some kind of helpless piranha frenzy, after her mother had calmly sat down on the couch and hardly moved since, after Sylvia had collapsed…

Ammie would rescue her brother herself. She would bring him home and show everyone how faithless they were. 

They had better beg for his forgiveness when we get back, Ammie smiled darkly.

She walked down the lit, curving streets, passing stone and wooden cottages that truly proved there was something--special--about La Ville. If any normal humans walked in, they would feel like they were transported back in time to about four hundred years ago. Except for the electricity and paved roads, the whole village looked like something out of a Halloween movie.

Ammie was meeting Juliette and Lis at the gate. At that time of night, there were no workers in the gatekeepers’ box. In La Ville, every person was accounted for each night. And when the last witch came back, the gate would lock and the gatekeepers would go home. A strict curfew ensured that the gatekeepers wouldn’t have to wait long into the night for everyone’s safe return.

La Ville had only survived as long as it had because of the strict security measures. And the Hero.

The world of witches was a vast and terrifying place that humans couldn’t possibly imagine. Entire cities filled with cat-eared, dog-eared, antlered, fox-eared, and winged witches could be found in any state and any country of the world.

La Ville was but a blip on the map of witches around the globe, ranked by power. The only reason the gated community hadn’t been absorbed by a larger city was because of the Team of Legend, led by the Hero.

A Hero was marked at birth, by destiny. They would grow powers designed for combat and protect La Ville from any outside threat. The Hero’s Team of Legend were always their best friends, and they learned a curriculum much different from the rest of the witches, based on the teachings left behind by previous generations of heroes. 

If the hero died, then a second child from the same family would fulfill the duties of that generation. After that generation’s time was over, a new family would birth a hero.

Nobody knew why the replacement was a younger sibling from the same family, nor why the hero mark changed families after a generation ended. 

But because it was an established fact, the family with the next hero must have a second child in preparation for the event that the first one died prematurely. 

Even if they didn’t want a second child. Even if, by doing so, a family started on love ended with tragedy and divorce.

Ammie cut through the darkened yards, figuring she would less likely be spotted while shadowed by the houses whose inhabitants were probably asleep. 

Sr. Dagarlé would be curving around the next street in approximately three minutes, so Ammie wanted to get swiftly by the area in case he was ahead of schedule that night.

Tristian had been sent into Hamsen by himself, as his--partner--had had a concert that night in Flintrock, the city La Ville sat in.

Never mind that it was his duty to follow the Hero wherever he may go, Ammie tossed the green-haired caveman out of mind. 

If her mother thought Ammie was going to take being arranged to marry the man that had let her brother go into danger alone, then she was crazier than Ammie thought.

No. The real problem was that nothing concrete was known about the situation before the Hero had responded to it. 

Strange happenings, the best oracle in La Ville had said. Strange happenings in Hamsen. Best to investigate before it reaches our borders.

Tristian had been sent on vague missions before, but clearly, something about this “strangeness” in Hamsen had been too dangerous to respond to without more information first. 

They could have called the local businesses and pretended to be surveying something in the area. They could have waited a few days for the oracle to gain even a hint more of clarity.

Something. Something more than what he had. 

And Five--

Ammie bumped into a tall, muscular figure when turning the corner of a thatched-roof house. 

Oh no.

Had she walked straight past her turn and into the next street of cottages? 

Ammie bounced off the hard chest. She clutched her nose. “Ouch.”

“What in the hell?” A surprised man’s voice answered.

Ammie glared up at him. His long green strands were tied carelessly at the side of his head, now mussed even further by sleep. White ears poked through the mess, their extra tufts of fur mingling with the green like dandelion fluff. “Thanks for that, a*****e.”

The man’s eyes squinted in the dark as if he didn’t have a cat’s vision. “Ammie?”

Ammie sighed impatiently, already inching past the hulking man-beast.

“Five.”

She had no time for this. “Get out of my way.”