(Note: This is not official version and may be removed in the near future. This do not reflect what is read in the podcast version, nor any other version you may encounter. I have preserved the rough form for posterity — or something like that. This novel has since been rewritten.) By the time dinner had come and gone James had a sense of accomplishing absolutely nothing. He hadn’t contributed to the plan to spy on the towers, nor had he been involved. He had simply sat around doing little of anything for an entire day. Even when Iliad, Triska, and Darl had returned from the inner city he remained, to put it simply, antisocial. Something inside him made him not want to be involved with the others. He knew it had to do with the way they looked at him. For some reason it felt much like how he had been looked at when those he had first come to know found out he had been marked by Luthien. He still didn’t know what that meant for sure, but he knew all too well that Luthien wanted to know about him. He wondered what it would be like to know the future. Dinner turned out to be far more respectful than in previous nights. Bourlinch’s shop had a wood stove and a modest supply of wood and kindling. Before long the flames were crackling, pots were steaming, and a meal of rice, eggs, and salted meats were laid out on the wood table. James ate his fill. Mirdur’eth rustled outside, perhaps sympathetically or out of irritation at being tied up for so long. The horses and Blaersteeds had been relieved of their panniers. James proceeded to unpack a blanket, found a spot on the far side of the room, and laid down. He didn’t sleep, or rather, he couldn’t. He watched the walls while the others muttered to themselves, then soon everyone had found a place on the floor and all the talking ceased. Silence did not reign. Bourlinch, still tied up on the opposite side of the room, sobbed and whimpered. The sound traveled over the room as if it were a roar. James could hear Triska sniffling. He sensed the melancholy that had come over the room. He frowned at not being able to see some joy in what they had accomplished. They had crossed the Fire Rim, escaped Luthien, and run all the way to Teirlin’pur. Laura was so close he could almost see her as a real being before him. Her face was forged in his mind, a constant reminder of the one thing he had promised to do and that the entire town of Woodton told him he couldn’t. The night was wearing thin by the time he fell asleep. REM took him for a ride, but it all seemed so short. He dreamt of Luthien again, in the same strange room with the same bizarre transparent ceiling. Then he woke with a start and it was morning, the rays of the new sun sending a soft glow into the room. He wasn’t sure how long he had slept, but he knew that Luthien had tried to read his future again. James sat up and looked around. Bourlinch’s head slumped over to the side and a thin trail of drool wandered from the gag, to his lip, to his chin, and onto the front of his tunic. James might have found it comical if last night had never happened. He looked over at the others. Darl lay with his mouth hanging open and blankets half covering his pasty white upper body. Pea lay curled in a ball like a cat, occasionally fidgeting, and Triska faced away from him, but from the way her chest moved up and down in slow motions he knew she was asleep. Iliad, on the other hand, slept with his back propped up again a wall, bow and arrow in his hands, and his eyes half open, like something from a horror movie. James shivered. He stood up and stretched. He sniffed his armpit and cringed. They smelled distinctly like rotting onions, having not been cleaned in a long while. Somehow he knew he was getting used to his own filth, though, or at least would get used to it soon enough. James walked over to the wooden table in the center of the room. He ran his fingers delicately over the wood, feeling the cracks and bumps. His eyes wandered to the scars on his hands. He flexed his fingers; his left hand was still in the same condition. I wish I were right handed, he thought. Then he looked at Bourlinch. Bourlinch coughed and startled awake and in that brief instant their eyes met, as if Bourlinch had known who was staring at him before waking. Crust had formed under the Daemonkind’s eyes and long streaks where tears had flowed discolored the already grayish skin. James walked over to where Bourlinch was tied; the Daemonkind flinched as if expecting to be struck at any moment. James simply leaned low enough to make eye contact. For a moment he was mesmerized by those eyes, curious even of who this creature was and where he had come from. He pondered what sort of life Bourlinch would have without magic. “I’m…sorry,” James said, for lack of anything else to say. He spoke soft and calm, pulling up a chair and sitting down nearby. “I am. I don’t know what you must be feeling. I don’t know what it must be like to know you have had everything taken away from you. Not in the same way at least.” Bourlinch looked at him with peaked interest, eyes wide and fixed. “Have you eaten?” Bourlinch shook his head. James stood up, went over to the stove and produced a small chunk of bread from a loaf and filled a wood cup with water. He gestured at Bourlinch. “If I remove that gag,
