I couldn’t stop looking at the portrait of Adrian Thane on the wall. The room felt heavy like the walls were closing in on me. Elise saw something beneath the portrait. She said a few words I didn’t hear. Why did Adrian look so much like me?

  I was more confused than curious. I was so drawn to the portrait that I’d only noticed now that Elise held something in her hands. A white box. I acknowledged it briefly, then my attention returned to the painting.

  I could see myself in Adrian’s enigmatic features, his blue eyes that matched mine. Wasn’t it for the valleys of his aged face and the white hair, this could have been my portrait. Unsettling thoughts crept into my mind, and I just had to let them out.

  “Did Adrian have children?” I dared ask. My heart beat faster, anticipating the answer.

  “Not that I know of,” Elise replied. “He was married, however.”

  Disappointing answer.

  Elise held the box close to her face, fiddling with its intricately carved exterior. She seemed captivated by its delicate craftsmanship, or maybe she was looking for a way to open it. I’d get to it in a second, I just had to look at Adrian Thane a little longer.

  Could we be…related somehow? My thoughts wandered. That would be ironic, like someone was playing a strange game. That person probably knew how many days and nights I’d spent alone, in the rain, in the dark, trying to find where I’d come from, who knew me, why I’d been left behind twenty-six years ago! And now, they’d sent me here, to the wizard who looked like me.

  Discordant notes pulled me out of my thoughts. The music box had begun playing, but its tune was distorted.

  “It’s not supposed to do that!” Elise assured, trying to find a way to stop it from making that horrible sound.

  She held her wand beside the box, shouted some words, and her wand began to glow, but the box retaliated. A shocking jolt of magic burst out of the box in a roar of thunder. Elise, startled, dropped the box to the ground, and a dense cloud of smoke billowed out, filling the room.

  I’d learned it was best not to panic in such situations, so I covered my mouth and nose with my cloak and checked on Elise. Her eyes were still locked on the box.

  The smoke invaded the entire room, but we both seemed to notice simultaneously that breathing was safe. Elise did not move, though. I took a step towards the music box on the ground. That event just now had distracted me from my annoying, congregating thoughts.

  “Wait,” Elise firmly said, barring my way with her arm, and now I could see why she seemed so weary.

  A chilling figure stood behind the box, shrouded in the smoke cloud. Its form was veiled in darkness, but its eyes glowed with an eerie, otherworldly light piercing through the smoke. This creature, whatever it was, emitted a deep, continuous sigh. I could see its limbs, twisted and distorted, and I must admit that I was frozen in fear.

  The smoke cleared, but the creature didn’t move. It simply stared at me. It was like a ghost, hovering, seemingly suspended in the air. It took us a few ticks before Elise and I looked at each other, casting perplexed glances. I was about to say something when the ghost finally spoke.

  “Hello, Adrian.”

  Not what I’d expected.

  ~

  I didn’t know what to say. Baffled, I checked Elise, who seemed as confused as I was.

  “You were gone for so long…” the ghost said in a deep voice that I didn’t think could go any deeper.

  Enough with all this! I cleared my throat. “Excuse me,” I began, stepping closer to the ghost. I pointed at the portrait that had emerged out of the smoke. “As you may have noticed, I’m not that fellow. So why are you calling me ‘Adrian’?”

  The ghost stood still, its ominous presence captivating.

  “It isn’t you? It sure looks like you.”

  “What?”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Elise seemed to finally understand. And rather than being weary like she’d just been, her eyes brimmed with excitement. She addressed the ghost:

  “Oh, Morx!” she exclaimed. “You’re a guarding wraith! Necromancy IX—you protect this room, don’t you?” The ghost didn’t acknowledge, but he didn’t contest either. She suddenly turned back to me. “You! Ask him the questions. He’ll answer to you.”

  I shrugged. I would just do what Elise told me to do and stop thinking. My head hurt enough already!

  “Why did you call me Adrian?” I asked.

  “Because you are Adrian.”

  “I can’t believe this! I’m in the presence of Archmage Thane!” She was too excited for a woman trapped in the dark with a thief and a ghost. “Ask him what you commanded him to do!” she whispered quickly to me.

  “What?”

  “Just do it!”

  I cleared my throat again. I wasn’t sure how one talked to ghosts, so I improvised. “Oh, dear…ghost, what did I command you to do?”

  “You summoned me to guard this item,” the ghost replied, unminding my ignorance in speaking to ghosts. “I was to kill anyone who would attempt to steal it. Anyone but you. I’ve killed many since you’ve been gone.”

  Elise’s sharp mind quickly connected the fragmented pieces of the puzzle while I still stared at the ghost.

  “Ask him what it is!” she commanded me.

  “Hey, ghost!” I called. “Can you answer her questions so I don’t have to be the middleman?”

  The ghost shifted his gaze to her.

  Elise first hesitated, then took a deep breath and welled up some confidence. “What is it you’re guarding?”

  “The Silent Accords.”

  Elise frowned. “What are those?”

  “As Adrian put it…” The ghost’s voice suddenly changed. It sounded like mine, albeit a little distorted. “It’s a contract that binds together the forces shaping the veiled machinations of Perlgate.” It was like Adrian, or me—I still couldn’t believe it—was saying the words.

  “Oh, I get it!” Elise was definitely not someone to hide her excitement. “Adrian Thane found something that could get the Academy in real trouble, didn’t he?” She didn’t let the ghost answer. “And the Crown, the Lords, everybody in charge of ruling this bloody city! You realise what this means?” She was talking to me now. “I was right! Adrian found something that could disrupt the balance of power and was killed for it! I bet he wanted to reveal it all to the public. He was a good man—you were a good man! Despite what everybody is saying.”

  Is what she’d been after? Proof that Adrian Thane had been a good person?

  “What was Adrian’s plan?” she asked the ghost.

  “He sought to exploit the Silent Accords to eliminate his rivals and consolidate his control over the Crown,” the ghost replied, and it was as if Elise’s reality had just shattered.

  Elise would learn a valuable lesson this day: everyone, even a powerful mage, is a blockhead. Disillusioned, her enthusiastic voice had dimmed, but she kept interviewing the ghost.

  “So what did Adrian do after he summoned you?” she asked, her voice neutral now.

  “He was hunted, so he wanted to disappear,” the ghost replied. “And so he wove a transmutation spell. He would change his appearance so his pursuers wouldn’t find him.”

  “Well, it clearly went wrong.” She nonchalantly pointed at me.

  The ghost turned to me. “You weren’t supposed to be gone this long.”

  “Transmutation is dangerous,” Elise said, turning her head to me. She sounded disappointed. “Even an archmage can fail. He should have known that.” Everyone was looking at me now.

  “Adrian enjoyed taking risks,” the ghost added. “That is what got him this far. That is what got him to summon me.”

  They both were still, staring at me, bringing the uneasy feelings back into my chest. I had to cut this short. I had to process all that had been said, true or not. Whoever I was, Lucien, Adrian Thane, it didn’t matter. Not for now, at least. I didn’t understand it anyway. I shrugged to myself. I needed to get that document and my hundred thousand gold pieces.

  “Alright!” I exclaimed, interrupting their contemplations. “I’ve heard enough. Time to go.”

  I walked to the music box, picked it up from the cold floor and opened it. Inside was a leather scroll case. I touched it, ignoring Elise’s glare warning me not to. Upon touching it, I felt its magic briefly, a bright flash of purple in my mind, and then it dissipated as instantly as my breath. I now held the Silent Accords in my hand and felt oddly powerful doing so. I opened the case, and the instant I touched the thick paper inside, everything I’d ever known collapsed, and memories flooded my mind with an overwhelming force. I remembered who I truly was, my forgotten past, and why that document had been so important to me. The Silent Accords were not just a secret document but my leverage to reach where I truly belonged. As I stood there, overflowing with newfound knowledge, I realised that my journey had only been on pause for all these years, and the fate of Perlgate itself was finally back in my hands.

  A blade suddenly pierced through my heart. Shocked, I gasped and spat blood. I looked at the blackened spire rising from my chest. Elise’s wand had become a sharp thorn, her lethal weapon. Bewildered, I peered at her. It wasn’t Elise anymore. Her face was of an older woman, a face I’d forgotten for twenty-six years.

  “E…li…zabeth…” I stuttered, gurgling blood.

  “You weren’t supposed to touch it,” she said, pulling the Silent Accords out of my hand. “You should have stayed in your thieves’ den, my love. I’m going to pay a visit to who sent you.”

  She pulled out her wand, discarded it and me with it. I was on the floor, my life slowly slipping away, watching my wife go. She knew everything. She’d bested me once again. The last time had been with a sabotaged transmutation spell.

  I could have died there, and I really thought I would, but fortunately, her wand was still within reach…