More and more kids filtered in, I used much the same lines on each, it started to feel disingenuous and I would half-heartedly keep it out of earshot of those who had already heard them. I felt as though I had made connections with a few other kids, but Tawny remained my favourite. Within minutes he had taken his shoes off and began climbing every tree he could, and a few he couldn’t. It was no wonder he was the lone level 5 Druid.

To keep the kids occupied and out of fights, at least until we sanctioned it, we decided to play a game with them. We gathered them in a circle, with me in the centre

“So, who here can cast Whipping Vines?” I saw most of them raise their hands at the level 2 staple spell. “Well those who can’t, we’ve got actual vines for you and you can use them until you learn. So what I want you to do is pair up, stand back to back, and I’m going to call out random words, and you take a step each time. When I say,” I thought for something that would make them giggle but not blush. “Aubergine, you turn, cast Whipping vines, or if you can’t; just say it, and take a swing at your opponent. Try to keep it above the belt and below the neck huh? Alright Sam, show them how we want it.”

Sam came to the middle of the circle, widened his stance, shuffled his jeans up and widened it a bit more until he resembled a crab. “You don’t have to go this low,” he said, “It’s just for effect.” He raised his arm and, spinning it around him like so many ranch hands before him, yelled: “That belongs in a museum! Whipping Vines!” a vine the thickness of my arm went from not being in his hand, grew almost instantly from his wrist and was suddenly 10 feet in length. It made an appropriate snapping noise as it flailed.

“Got that? Lets see it, Tawny and Sol, you go first.” Tawny happily stood back to back with a boy of 16 nearly twice his height and definitely twice his weight.

Sol turned to me, “That hardly seems fair to him.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Alright. Tomato.” And they took a step. “Apple.” Again. “Grape.” Again. “Aubergine.” They both span on their heels, Sol turning a little faster, but pausing before he spoke. In the end they both cast at the same time, wincing as the vine broke through their skin. It took Sol’s about three seconds to grow to my height and the thickness of my finger and Tawny’s a second less. They both clumsily threw their hands out, Tawny’s whip impotently slapping against Sol’s barrel chest, and Sol’s barely making it off the ground.

“Good, Good!” I didn’t bother keeping the pained expression from my face. Knowing charisma would take up the slack. “Great job guys, Tawny I think you got there just a little faster. Alright, Tilly and Liv? Sister v sister, ooh.”

The game continued with much the same misplaced enthusiasm. No one could approach anything resembling a weapon, whereas I knew Sam would be able to trim my nose hair with his vine. The stock really has grown thin. The mana just can’t properly flow through them, it’s blocked by CFCs, CO2 and radioactive dust.

I let Sam take over. It was too depressing to watch them try. Magic is dead. The world is dead. None of them will have to fight with their magic like we did, because there won’t be anything to fight for. If only they were better. Then maybe they could be in my place one day.

I went to the kitchen to try to eat my fears away. I found Abby making a sandwich.

“Hey Jack, how’s it going?” She nodded towards the kids hitting each other with what may as well have been wet spaghetti.

“Not great honestly Ab. How’s the arena going?”

“Well I was going to say we could really give them a challenge, but by the looks of it we might end up killing them.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have wanted them with me in the Falklands.”

“You fought there? Bit much politics for me.” I said, cutting cheese with a pocket knife.

“Where did you fight you didn’t have to think about politics?”

“Cambodia. Not really much fighting. Phnom Penh.” I moved onto spreading mustard.

“Oh, were you, you know, there?” she stopped mid-bite.

“Yeah, there. Lot of work for Illusionists.”

“Fuck, Jack, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise. I think Sam did mention it actually, I forgot.” She placed her sandwich down and put a rough hand on my shoulder.

“It’s fine Abby, really, Mind Fog works on yourself too. I don’t remember it either. The only clear memory I have is going into one of those French churches, and on the wall one of my uh, colleagues, who must have been a level one Evoker or something, had burnt into it in Khmer: ‘I only knew a man once I saw him open.’ Messy stuff there. Messy.”

“Fuck. Fuck that’s uh, bad. Real bad.” She took her hand away from me, having learnt more about me than she might have wanted.

“Ah well, we all did things we weren’t proud of then. Killed people who didn’t deserve it. Either way I don’t think all these kids together could bring the trees to life in Vietnam like Robin did on his own.” I pointed to Robin, sitting in his normal chair, stroking Metta. “That’s how I met him you know? Or so he says. Reckons I was half-way to wiping his whole mind before he choked me with a loose bamboo pole, bought me back here. Pity even he’s forgetting now. He was a good man in his day, strong man. He was like the iron-spined Druids my dad used to tell me about. I wonder if I should have just finished the job, instead of letting him go down like this.” I trailed off, looking for approval and realising at some point Abby had left, tired of my morbid monologue.

I added a fillet of mackerel to my sandwich, licking the oil from my fingers.