Ducaz. Are my eyes tricking me or did he swap the horse he stole for ANOTHER stolen horse?

  Ducaz waved at them, his grin wide enough to make any sane person suspicious. “Ah, it’s good to see you all still breathing. Shall we continue?”

  Lena squinted at him. “I thought you ran off. Where did you disappear to?”

  “I thought you needed a pioneer, so I went ahead and blazed the trail for you,” he said, with an ever-present smile on his face.

  Lena narrowed her eyes even further, but before she could respond, Rob spoke up. “Did you just steal another horse?” He glanced at the new mount, which was indeed different from the one Ducaz had ridden earlier. The horse looked even more skittish than before.

  “What? This is still the same fella. We’ve been with each other for years. Right, Richie?” He patted the horse’s neck affectionately, and the poor creature flinched. He swung his leg over the horse and nudged it forward. "Trust me, folks, I know exactly where we’re going. Follow me closely, and we’ll be there in no time.”

  Anders, crouching near the edge of the wagon, turned to a grushkin and leaned in with a piercing gaze that made the creature stiffen. “Is this the right direction?” he asked.

  The grushkin gulped, glancing nervously at Ducaz, then back at Anders. “Yes, yes! It’s the right way!”

  “Don’t ever have to worry about getting lost with me around,” Ducaz boasted. “I’ve been trained by the B-ranked Rogue McGonnell herself, but may I say I have even surpassed her in certain respects! Don’t believe me? McGonnell dreams of becoming the S-ranked legend Wan Cleef, just like me!”

  “You’re as good as the S-ranked legend Wan Cleef?” Rob asked.

  “No. But I also dream of becoming him,” Ducaz kept his grin on his face as he replied.

  Anders' nose wrinkled like he’d just smelled something rancid. “Rogues,” he muttered under his breath.

  Lena, sitting right next to him, whispered back, “What’s wrong with Rogues?” she whispered back.

  Anders let out a quiet scoff. “They’re a pack of thieves. You know how they like to boast about their ‘legendary’ figures? Wan Cleef?” He snorted. “Lucked out. Got famous because he stole some feather and survived a duel against the Archmage of Chickenthorpe—”

  Lena blinked. “The what now?”

  “You don’t need to know more than that,” he waved his hand.

  The path narrowed as they continued. It got suspiciously quiet at one point. The birds stopped chirping and even the leaves stopped rustling. The trees arched to form a subtle enclosure, while the ground lay eerily undisturbed, as if no footsteps had ever touched it.

  This feels odd.

  Rob grabbed his shortsword, and Anders eyed Lena in mutual understanding.

  Then the path ended.

  Or at least, that was what it looked like.

  A massive rockface loomed ahead, stretching endlessly on either side. Ducaz, however, didn’t break stride. “Ah, here we are!” he announced cheerily, swinging off his horse.

  Lena gave him a flat look. “You brought us to a wall.”

  Ducaz only snorted as he drew a thin dagger from the pocket under his belt. “Watch and learn.”

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  He twirled the dagger in his fingers, then jumped down from the horse and stabbed the dagger into the rockface.

  The moment the blade made contact, the illusion ripped. Like fabric being torn, the image of the stone wall split down the middle, revealing the real path hidden beneath: a winding trail descending into a mist-laden hollow, but still wide enough for a wagon to pass through.

  What the heck?

  “Not a bad spell for an orc,” Anders whispered.

  “A cloaking spell,” Ducaz said as he made another stab, tearing the wall further.

  These people can literally magic walls into existence, while I still have to abide by gravity?

  “Stop stabbing!” A grushkin cried out.

  “The Sage is going to bonk us with a spoon if it rips!” Another grushkin bawled.

  Anders slapped both grushkins’ heads. “Quiet! It’s already ripped. Doesn’t matter if it rips more.”

  Lena whistled. “Oooh. That’s some fancy magic. I wanna learn that one!”

  “It’s designed to fool the eye. You wouldn’t know if you didn’t check with something stabby. I am trained by a B-ranked Rogue, so I know a thing or two,” Ducaz said smugly.

  “Surpassed,” Rob reminded him.

  “Indeed.”

  Lena whispered to Anders as he returned to his place, “How can the Spoon Sage also use magic?”

  The old man whispered back, “Mages, Rogues, Sages, Vocalysts… Bah! They all use the same magic! The other schools are just Mage wannabes that are either too pretentious to call themselves Mages or are too bad to get admitted into Mage schools.”

  “What about Paladins?”

  “Paladins are cheats. Their powers don’t even come from themselves.”

  In the moment of silence that followed, a rustling sound cut through the air.

  Everyone turned just in time to see Ducaz’s horse bolting full speed in the opposite direction, tail high, hooves pounding the earth as it vanished into the trees.

  Ducaz, still holding the dagger triumphantly, let out a half-yell. “Mikey!”

  Wasn’t his name Richie?

  Lena stared. “So much for years of companionship.”

  Ducaz cleared his throat, tucking the dagger away. “A necessary sacrifice.”

  Anders laughed once. “Rogues getting what they deserve.”

  They pushed forward. The deeper they traveled, the more the scenery shifted. The trees grew taller here, and the branches were thicker with vines. Some of the trunks had odd carvings on them, the kind of odd that didn’t make sense. There was a carving of a donkey kissing a giant dragon on one of the trees. Again.

  “I definitely haven’t seen this place before,” Lena muttered.

  They passed a rickety wooden bridge that creaked ominously beneath the wagon’s weight. A small wooden sign was nailed to one of the support beams, painted with the words “TROLL BRIDGE – DON’T CROSS WITHOUT PAYING.”

  There was no troll.

  Just a long-dead pile of bones slumped against a tree stump on the other side, clutching a bowl filled with long-rusted coins.

  Lena peered over the wagon’s edge. “Should we leave something?”

  Rob barely spared the remains a glance. “It’s not like he’s going to collect it.”

  Ducaz, walking alongside them now that his horse had tactically retreated, had already bent down to pick up the grunt. “Consider it a toll refund.”

  Anders shook his head. “That’s exactly why people hate Rogues.”

  Ducaz just grinned.

  They moved forward.

  The mist thickened, and the trees became more crooked, their branches forming twisting archways above the path. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted—except it didn’t really sound like a hoot. It sounded too low to be that of a hoot.

  The grushkins, still bound and stuck in the wagon, whimpered quietly. “It’s even quieter than the last time I was here,” one of them muttered.

  “The Sage won’t come here unless he wants to hide,” another one added.

  Lena turned to Rob. “How much further?”

  Rob turned to Anders, who turned to Ducaz, who turned to the grushkins.

  “You think we carry a map?” the first grushkin whined.

  “It’s just up ahead, probably,” the second grushkin offered.

  “That’s a lot of uncertainty,” Lena muttered.

  Then, at last, the path opened into a small clearing.

  And there it was.

  The Spoon Sage’s hut.

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