Chapter 4

                                    

                                          
The stranger led Joakim through the midnight streets, past closed doors and shuttered windows. Here and there, taverns spilled light and drunken laughter into the chill air. Outside these warm oases, they passed the occasional patrolling guard, or stumbling lout. Some held lanterns. Others walked beside lookaway boys, those slim shadows who risked cold and innocence for the coppers earned by guiding their patrons home. None lingered long in the darkness. Nobles and drunkards, thieves and whores, all moved by Joakim's blank eyes. Not a thought passed through his head until a rapping sound startled him from his stupor.
Joakim's guide knocked on the door of a building indistinguishable from the dozens they'd passed.
A pale man answered, his face made all the more ghostly by the candle he carried. He wore shabby grey robes that reached neither his sandalled feet nor his spindly hands. Thin white lines ran up and down his arms, as though he'd been burned by a hot wire. The crown of his bald head—so scarred it looked like an egg on the verge of cracking—brushed the lintel of the doorway. Joakim's nose crinkled at his smell.
"What are you doing here, Restus? Your instructions were to follow a caster, not kidnap one," the pale man said. 
"Turick, old boy." Restus smiled like a hunting shark. "Don't tell me your senses are so weak you actually believe the boy's a caster."
"No." Turick stood aside. "But I believed you'd do as Varrus instructed. An unlikely proposition, now that I think about it."
Unlike Restus, Joakim had to bow his head as he shuffled into the dark, narrow corridor, with rooms off to either side. Turick ignored both doors, leading them down a dim staircase, its shallow steps lit from below.
A smokeless fire crackled in the centre of the musty basement, painting crates, both large and small, in a sickly orange light. A strange circle of darkness floated on the other side of the fire, like a shadow thrown by something invisible. Joakim found it difficult to focus on, his attention shunted away, his jaw left hurting.
"You've started the summoning without me, old boy?" Restus said. "I'm hurt. Were you planning to report without my input?"
"You have your mission. I have mine." Turick sneered. "I managed to complete mine without improvising."
"You're the soul of duty, old boy, the very soul," Restus replied.
Turick grunted. He pulled a black medallion out of his robes. "Are you going to help, or just stand there making snide remarks?" 
"I'll follow your lead," Restus said, pulling something shiny from the breast pocket of his waistcoat. 
Joakim, knees wobbling, found his eyes drawn to the glimmer. Only a few inches wide, and flickering with red light, he first took it to be a metal and glass lantern. Looking closer he recognised a cage enclosing a glowing woman no bigger than his pinkie finger.
 A sprite! Joakim remembered his mother's bedtime tales. Those stories spoke of bright, dancing creatures, but this one showed only misery, her tiny shoulders slumped like a condemned woman's. Her face, too big for her body, glistened with tears. 
Her eyes found his face, her body rising in desperation, her fists flailing against the glass.
The fog over Joakim cleared. He was about to reach out to her. To do what? He didn't know. Restus raised the lantern prison and waved his hand, wiping any motivation from Joakim's head. Dumbly, he watched as the red light surrounding the sprite brightened and expanded, covering Restus. The glow didn't seem to hurt the man; he smirked as he reached out his hand. The light shot along it to the shadow on which Joakim's eyes had avoided looking at.