He was in a sullen and sour mood for the days that followed. Victor had no desire to talk to Casey for a while, much to her despair, and resolved instead to work in the family garden to distract himself. Given Gareth’s reputation in the town, he dared not tell anyone, not even Casey, about his return. For some reason, everybody considered him an ‘evil warlock’ or something ridiculous like that. People were so stupid to even believe such people existed. Magic was not real. Victor didn’t want to stay home anymore. He felt so distanced from his parents and Edward lately, and he felt strange after meeting Gareth again. He wondered if he had even gone to see his parents, but he doubted it. The air outside was cool but welcoming, and the early morning sun hugged his neck and arms as he toiled on the land, trying to cast aside the absurd notions that haunt him. The hours went by slowly, but he appeared to make decent work on the front lawn. 

As the sun traced across the noon mark, his mother came out to the front with a tray of sandwiches and milk. Though she looked sad and disappointed, she gave her son a warm smile. 

“You ought to take a break, Victor. The day is getting on now.” He nodded to her and sat on the garden bench that overlooked the path down into the town on the horizon. There was a long silence between the two of them. 

“You don’t believe in any of this bizarre stuff, do you, Mother?” 

She was silent. Only the wind seemed to respond with a gentle whistle, carrying small leaves along in a frenzy down the path. Victor watched them dance aimlessly away from the house, his eyes rising to see their destination, and as he did, he saw the image of the postman with his large bag slung over his shoulder. In his hand, he only had one letter. 

“Perhaps something for your father,” suggested his mother. 

But when he reached the house, it took Victor off-guard when he passed the letter to him. 

The envelope, not addressed to anyone in particular, was simple and not elegantly adorned like many of the letters that seemed to arrive at the Waltz home. He opened it immediately and read its contents. Unsigned by any hand yet stamped with an official seal of unknown origin, there wasn’t much on the page itself, but as Victor read it, he felt an empty, black hole forming in his chest. 

DEAR IRENE WALTZ, IT IS WITH DEEPEST CONDOLENCES THAT WE INFORM YOU OF THE PASSING OF YOUR BROTHER, HIGH WARLOCK GARETH WALTZ, IN SERVICE TO THE VANGUARD REGIME. HIS COMPANY HAS BEEN DECLARED MISSING IN ACTION AND WE PAY GREAT HOMAGE TO HIS MONUMENTAL SKILLS AS A WARLOCK.

 D∴O∴G∴M∴A∴ 

Victor stood still and silent. He was cold as stone, frozen by the feet to the ground. Everything seemed numb and dead. His mother had taken the letter and when he returned to some form of lucid reality again, the evening had already come, and he was inside. The house was uncomfortably silent, but nobody had the courage or wisdom to say anything, least of all Victor. Edward held a solemn expression, staying close to Victor, who felt empty for the whole evening. He retired to his room early and lay wide awake all night with not a sound. 

The next morning, he rose early to find the managers of the Dragon Blood Inn, assuming they would have work for him. Trying to find a diversion and get out of ill thoughts. Most of the morning, he laboured away at moving barrels, feeding the chickens and pig stalls, and sweeping the floors, feeling not much at all. The thoughts that came to his mind concerned the ridiculous manner in which the letter had been written. Occasionally, he even considered it as a joke, but whenever he followed that path of thought he was met with nothing more than confusion. He toiled on through the morning, trying his best to distract himself with hard work. 

As evening came, his energy dipped, and he sat in a deep solemn silence outside the tavern, lost in his depressive musings, and as the quiet of isolation set in, he felt the blanket of despair, weighing him down and pushing him past the point of uncontrollable tears. 

Yet as soon as he became lost in the ocean of melancholy that surrounded him, he was just as quickly thrust out of it by the emergence of a boy, about Victor’s age, in ragged clothes who came wandering up the path towards the tavern. He was covered in cuts and his white-like ashen hair in mud. He seemed somewhat destitute of his attire and yet had a natural, flamboyant confidence about him. 

“Are you alright?” said the boy. 

“Could say the same thing to you!” asserted Victor, looking at his clothes. “What happened to you?” He sighed and shrugged in response. 

“Thieves robbed me on the way to Calne. What’s your name?” To Victor’s surprise, the boy seemed utterly unaffected by his current situation. 

“Victor, and you?” 

“Tyler Windwood, son of one of the greatest gunsmiths in Winchester City! I’m up here to collect some stuff for my pa’s business, but, well, maybe that won’t happen anymore on account of my sudden lack of things.” He grinned at Victor, utterly unabashed and fearless. 

“Have you worked for your father for long?” Tyler shrugged again. 

“No, not really. Just started a few weeks ago. When the weekend is done, I’m going...” He took a moment to check if anyone around the tavern was listening in, and started speaking in a more hushed tone. 

“After the weekend, I’m planning to enlist at Darklight Academy. Do you know it? It’s super prestigious.” Victor’s mood suddenly turned sour. 

“Yeah, I know it. Everyone wants me to join. They say I’m otherworldly or something.” 

Tyler beamed. “Wow! You too? Then you should join me for the entrance exam! I’m sure we’ll do great, especially if we can do it together!” Victor huffed, turning his sight from Tyler. 

“Wh-what’s wrong, Victor?” He seemed dejected. 

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with people. How can they think magic is real?” There was no response for a very long time, and suddenly there came Tyler’s voice, very meek and quiet, like the whisper of a butterfly. 

“I can’t do much but…” 

“Fire.” Victor reeled around and froze in shock. Sure enough, there was a fierce red blaze looming over and across the meadows. He recognised and immediately knew where the fire was; Cardnell Farm. Without a second of hesitation, he began sprinting across the meadows to the farmland, Tyler close in tow. 

A crowd had already formed just beyond the roasting grip of the fire, and as the two boys pushed their way to the front, Victor’s eyes darted around in search of Casey and her grandparents. The home itself was already fiercely ablaze, its foundations cracking into a blistering ember. Slightly beyond the line of onlookers, a crumpled figure knelt silent and still on the unpaved ground. 

Victor ran to Casey. Her clothes were torn, face dirty and cut, and her red, puffy eyes seemed fixed and unmoving towards the fire, tears evaporating from the fire’s heat as quickly as they streamed from her. Her skin was bright pink from how close she was to the outward blaze of heat, and Tyler helped Victor pull her back and away from the crowds of idle pedestrians. 

“Casey,” said Victor to his friend, who seemed in complete and total shock. “Casey! It’s Victor.” 

“V-Victor...” she uttered, seemingly unable to think, let alone speak. Her eyes moved towards the farmhouse again. 

“Th-they’re...” Victor stopped her. “Don’t think about it. We’re here now, Casey.” 

A voice came from behind Victor, brutish and standoffish, “There he is! That is the kid! The one who tried to poison us! I bet his accomplices did this! I am sure of it! The one in the middle is a Waltz! He is related to that old crazy bastard that deals in black magic!” The crowd had suddenly turned their attention to them, and the man with the eye patch that had spoken held a clenched fist and bore a disgusted expression toward Tyler. 

“They have to pay! Get them!” 

The crowd moved in on them, and Victor was prepared to fight them all. They had it all wrong. There was no such thing as magic, and the fact that even the fools of Calne believed it was enough to infuriate him beyond belief. He clenched his fists and prepared to defend himself and Casey, prompting Tyler to do the same. But as the crowd got closer, a noise came that shattered any resolve that may have arisen. It was the shriek of something unfathomable. Not a man or a beast, but something much more, it seemed. It was a roar that shook the very ground beneath Victor’s feet and caused him to instinctively crouch out of fear, along with everyone else. 

Victor looked up into the smoke-shrouded skies from where the noise had seemingly come, and through the smog, he saw the black figure of a winged beast so huge and fearsome that something awoke inside of Victor upon seeing it. As it glided through the blackened sky, it bore its terrible jaws wide open, and its fierce red eyes glared viciously at all who looked upon him. For a long time, Victor tried to fight against all evidence that was before him, as the dragon soared along the skyline, but he could not any longer. His eye fixated on the beast, and only after it turned back and flew back towards him and the other denizens of Calne did he finally awaken to what was about to happen. 

Grabbing Casey by the arm, he pulled her up and, shouting to Tyler to follow, retreated in-between the crowd far from the farmhouse and up the hills that surrounded the farmland. 

“We have to get out of here!” he told them, helping Casey to walk as Tyler followed closely behind, watching in horror as the dragon began burning all of Calne. When they stopped to rest atop the hillside, they looked on to what was happening back in the town. As the dragon set down onto the burning fields, the flames revealed its black onyx gemstone-scaled skin, and they all narrowed their eyes as a man seemed to dismount from the top of the colossal monster. 

From the distance they stood, they could make out that the man wore glorious armour over a black double-breasted hooded mediaeval-looking military trench coat and a full-face mask that covered his head, except for his white platinum hair that fell far past his shoulders and halfway down his back. He dawdled among the bodies, looking for someone. 

“That’s Lucian the Silvermoon Sword,” said Tyler. 

Victor looked at him, perplexed. 

“Who?” asked Victor. 

“He is a High Warlock for the kingdom of Etenia. He works for the Division of Global Magic Affairs, and one of the Seven Swords of Baron the Fourth, the Imperial Wizard.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Victor told him, “but I believe you.” He stared at the distant figure of the man who seemed not to notice them, at least for the time being. 

“You can come to my family’s house just outside of Winchester. We can hide there and figure out what to do,” said Tyler. Victor put an arm around Casey who was now halfway between shivering and weeping, yet still unable to speak. 

“I need to see my family first.” If this guy was in any way related to his parents, they would have to move again. Therefore, hiding in another area would not be a bad idea at the moment. 

When they arrived at the Waltz household, Victor’s mother ran out and promptly gave him a tight hug, tears streaming from her eyes. 

“I thought... I thought the worst!” She could barely plan her words as she blubbered at him despairingly. Even his father held a sullen and weak face. Behind his parents, Edward crept into view, his expression extremely concerned as he went to help Victor with carrying Casey. 

“It would do well to send young Victor into hiding, sir, ma’am, to keep him safe,” he suggested to them. 

“I’ve decided to go to Tyler’s place in Winchester,” Victor told them. The response was mixed. His mother, clearly devastated from the entire ordeal, held an expression of intense distress yet eventual acceptance, as his father maintained a stern yet mournful agreement. Edward seemed the most level-headed of them all and spoke on behalf of his parents. He eyed Tyler. 

“Tyler, is it, young sir? You can all stay here for the night, and we will arrange for transport to take you tomorrow to Winchester. Now, come inside young ones. We will discuss all that we need in the morning.” 

Victor, Casey, and Tyler spent the night at the Waltz Estate. They said little during their time there, but when they did talk, they found a great deal in common between each other. To distract themselves from the horrors they had seen that night, they talked about the future. Victor was unsettled, but let his thoughts run away with him throughout the night until, at long last, sleep came to him.