Sounds of prowling pulled my attention from the green-orange color of the hearth. Padded footsteps—paws—pounded the earth, slowly creeping towards us from the dense forest.

Knox had recovered. He wiped the last of the mud from his miserable face and focused intently on me. He spoke, full of wounded authority. I saw the power leak from him, like how heat distorts air. “An eventful night this has been. And of course, tonight of all nights, you would become this difficult.”

“Why are you so desperate to bring him there?” Wilbur demanded.

Knox merely responded with relief. “It is time to dispose of Erin. Finally, we can truly begin.” Then he looked at Wilbur, considering. “You can still rejoin our ranks, brother Wilbur. Let not your talents be wasted. Even Woodrow can be forgiven. You both are very welcome to see the new world we are about to create.”

That was more information than he said to us in all our days and nights together. They truly did not care anymore if they confessed their sins, as the clergy says.

Knox barely acknowledged Wilbur during our time together. Their respective stations kept them separate; Wilbur to his dungeon experiments, and Knox scribbling in his dusty scriptorium. Whenever they do meet, however, they meet as reluctant academic equals. Or the level of equality that Knox can muster.

Academics like them share a passion for discovery that diminish the animosity they hold for each other, especially if a particular discovery aligns with both their interests. I can count on one hand how many times they interacted, how Knox forces himself to walk down the dark damp tunnels of Wilbur’s dungeon, or endure the many perfumed scents of his garden. As such, I only witnessed the rare sight of the gray and long-haired scholar with the young, dark, brooding alchemist from afar. They looked like old colleagues from a university hunched together like that; forced to work together, tolerating each other in close proximity.

I relished at the sight of Knox’s face contorting with both respect and repulsion as if it caused him great pain to acknowledge that Wilbur possessed knowledge beyond his scope. Or maybe he just did not want to be near him, even though he needed his skill. Or maybe he just did not want to ask for help. It was so childish.

Wilbur weighed Knox’s statement under his trademark pose; one knuckle placed under his chin, another knuckle supporting his elbow. “How generous of you to invite us back,” Wilbur began, sounding grateful and remorseful. Then he shifted it to a tone of disgust and disdain. “However, I must decline and insist that you never call me your brother again, you stuck-up bastard.”

Wilbur raised his right hand to Knox, flicking an obscene gesture. He spat on the ground for equal measure. It was so far removed from his personality that Knox forgot himself for an instant. I made a congratulatory surprised sound. What a release. That must have felt good.

Knox recovered slowly. I saw his hands cover his teeth. I saw him struggle to arrange his features. His shoulders rose. His voice shook with restraint. “Hand him over. There are many that can take his place, Wilbur. You will have many acolytes of your choosing, students who are worthier of your time and talent. You can even pick the most deserving among them to bestow a portion of your power to.”

I was stunned by yet another piece of information. To pass on your skills to a suitable participant; one who can actually exhibit your abilities and not just memorize them. To speak as Wilbur speaks and command compounds to change their structure. Turn liquid into vapor. Make more healing elixirs from nature.

But Wilbur’s reply came easy. “Is that what Blake told you? You fool.” Wilbur shook his head. Knox was usually the one throwing the word fool in every other sentence. Being on the receiving end took him aback. Just as he was going to hurl more insults, Wilbur stops. I saw something pass his face; a look of realization. When next he spoke, his words sank like a stone. “You need us.”

Knox’s nose flared and he pursed his lips. He did not respond. Wilbur looked at me, then back at Knox.

“That’s why you haven’t killed us yet,” Wilbur continued. “Blake can’t just pick anyone off the street to be his dark disciples. He picked us off deliberately, based on what we were or what we did in our past lives.” I stared at him. He must have worked out all this from the information he had in his journals, or whatever piece of information he kept in his mind. Knox must have given him the final clues to the puzzle he was trying to sort out.

Wilbur shook his head. “We were reborn as this to serve Blake. And he keeps wiping our memories every time to keep us docile.” Again, Wilbur looks at me, his eyes frantic. “And Erin can give our memories back.”

Wilbur was talking to me now more than Knox. His hands grabbed my shoulders. He was sharing what he knew with me, in this field. The plan of waiting until we reached the monastery before he revealed all were scrapped. Woodrow was gone, and he was letting me know the little bits that he knew before… before he and I perished. I held his shaking hand, my eyes staring into his hazel ones. “He is the only one that has no memory of the dark chanting. Erin, you aren’t really one of us! That’s why you have no powers. Not our powers. You have your own!” He whispered that last part to me.

Ealhstan said the same thing in the memory. Knox abandoned his composure. He was furious, the air shifting further around him. I thought he was going to attack right then, so I covered Wilbur’s eyes and my own. Cruel, humorless laughter boomed in the night air. Knox hadn’t moved an inch.

“I told Blake not to underestimate you.” What Knox did not say was that he knew Wilbur would figure some of it out eventually. It was cutting it close, but still.

Something clicked yet again in Wilbur’s mind. He removed my hand from his eyes and stared at the empty space between us and Knox. He whispered to me hurriedly. “Blake needs your blood while you still live. He intends to sacrifice you so that he can conquer the world. Blake failed the first time, all those years ago, and he kept you close by for fear that you might understand your origins. You had a life too. A life that was stolen. He will try to steal it again, Erin.”

The question of how he worked that out was already on my lips when Wilbur held me close again, his arm trembling. I gripped his arm back. He was more father-like now than mere guardian. He faced Knox. “He’s going to kill us all. Do you think Blake would allow anyone with powers in his new world?” Wilbur corrected himself. “He is the darkness that consumes all, Knox. We were just pawns to help him wreak havoc across the land. There won’t be any acolytes, no dark monks. There won’t be a new world for any of us. He would dispose of us as he disposes of anyone that fulfills their purpose.”

Knox considered this, fixing Wilbur with a guarded expression. But then he winced in pain. He turned away from us, covering his head with both hands. Wilbur and I took this chance to subdue him. We had a few good paces in when he recovered. He bared his pointed teeth, looked at me disdainfully as he bristled with that new power of his.

His eyes glowed golden-red. “You made your choice.” Then he whistled; a long tune that barreled through us, reaching far to the forest. “Grab them, Swithin!”

We immediately whipped around, holding each other close. Wilbur’s hands protected the back of my neck and shoulders, while I grabbed his arms, bracing him for an attack.

But it was Knox’s miserable face that filled our vision. He forced us to face him, to look into his glassy eyes. And then we were blind.

Knox simply materializes shapes and all manner of small apparitions through focus. He can convince you that the world was burning, but only through tricks of sight. The other senses, he had trouble with. There was one time he tried to conceal flowers behind an illusion of pastries in front of Swithin. The spell was broken when the latter correctly identified each distinct perfume.

This time, as he grabbed us, his illusions became reality. He stared us down with those new eyes of his. It was an approach similar to Woodrow’s; channeling his powers through words and eye contact. Similar even to Wilbur when he speaks to his experiments.

The ground was a carpet swept from under our feet, and Wilbur and I lost our balance once more. We did not collide with the earth, however. We were hanging in the air, our cowls tied to some imaginary hooks. “Wilbur!” I shouted. I even called Knox’s name out of terror.

I breathed. I forced myself to calm down. Wilbur told me once that part of a soldier’s demise was losing his wits in battle. I needed to regain mine. So, I focused on the air passing through my nose, filling my lungs, then out my mouth. This is just a strong mind trick. We are not blind and weightless. I heard Wilbur doing the same.

Unfortunately, Knox saw our strategy and reinforced his trick. Our bodies jerked apart and swirled inside a vortex, making our heads spin.

The one good thing from this new trick was that the blindfold effect had gone. Maybe Knox can only focus on one trick at a time. It was short-lived relief: I saw Wilbur caged in a prison of earth. Since Knox linked us to the same vision, I saw what he was doing to him. Wilbur was sinking on the ground rapidly, his mouth disappearing from his face like how an artist erases a sketch. Then the earth turned to black sludge, to tar, and Wilbur couldn’t even cry out. Knox licked his lips, smiling all the while. He meant for Wilbur and I to pass out until we reached the monastery.

The growls of inhuman noise were closer now. It did not roar, for Swithin knew that he will break Knox’s hold on us. I can feel hot, horrid breath getting closer. I can see in this vision eyes that glowed hateful red, spiteful green, ominous, sickly yellow. I can hear the sound of every animal in the world, every predator that wanted to hunt us.

Out of nowhere, a pleasant voice called me.

“You are being tied down. Fortify your mind.” I startled. A woman’s voice. My head turned at where the sound was, but it sounded like it came from my head, as if the words were my own thoughts. Her voice was like splashes of clear water. A voice between frost and springtime. A voice that twinkled in the night sky. “We will help you. Listen to us.”

“We?” I whispered. “Us?”

Their voices broke through the strong illusion, tearing it like old cloth. Each tear was a window of actual reality; slits of the night sky and blades of grass. One tear was big enough to show Knox on an elevated hill. It seemed that the farmland rolled downward as it got closer to the forest. He faltered; the smile wiped from his face.

But then we moved. The sensation of being suspended from our cowls—that bit was real. We were being dragged away, our arms helplessly bound to our sides. The cottage blurred on the landscape where it stood and was about to disappear from view as we descended. I took one last look at it, and searched, too, for the entities that helped me out of Knox’s illusion. No one was there.

“I am here,” another voice spoke. This one began as a stirring of ash, barely audible. Now she was a crescendo of roaring flames. The fireplace!

If not for the presence that resided there, I would have thought that the house was being consumed by those odd-colored, flames. I would have thought for a frantic second that they set it ablaze. But there was no splintering of wood, no anguished screams. Even the farm animals did not cry. My eyes widened. The fire pulsed like a heartbeat, burning bright orange, bright green against black. It was pulsing.

All those folktales were true. I felt wild and hopeful and scared. They spoke to me. They were helping us.

Knox was struggling to keep me from escaping his trick, for I was not completely out of it yet. He did not notice the burning heartbeat behind him. Wilbur struggled beside me, his lips clamped shut. He could not open it. I shouted right in his ear. “Do not let him win, Wilbur!”

I yelled at the top of my lungs. I screamed and protested and shouted gibberish. I even barked like a dog. Knox gritted his teeth and raised his fist to punch me. I wriggled against the ropes that bound me. I bit the one closest to my chest.

It was not a rope. It was a thick slithering thing armored with scales. and when I bit into the softest part of its skin, the beast we heard moments ago howled. It was the one pulling us. Both it and Knox released us from their respective bindings.

Wilbur clutched his neck and gasped for air. His eyes opened wide, staring at me. His hands flew to my face, checking if I was hurt. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I reassured him.

The beast slinked back towards the shadows, whimpering as Claude’s cottage brightened behind us. I saw the green-orange flame in its eyes as it retreated, waiting for a chance to attack again. Swithin. I did not even get to see him, save for the black slithering thing that bound our bodies, which I assumed was his tail. I remembered Woodrow’s description of him. Running on all fours.

Knox was on the ground, screaming-groaning in agony. Swithin’s otherworldly howl not only brought him to his knees like us, but I imagine that it had the undesirable effect of a walloping migraine as he was wrenched away from his powers. He was this close to a real concussion.

When he finally formed words, he shouted, “why do you continue to resist? You can’t win!” His eyes were unfocused, staring at me and Wilbur and at the ground. “You’ve always been so difficult. I told him that it was better if we just caged you for all these years until we prepared the world for what is about to come!” Knox was visibly furious now. He was fuming like an affronted lord.

It seems that my brothers not only became monsters when they deplete most of their powers, but they also lose control when given too much. They needed blood to sustain themselves. But this enhanced power… it must have come only from the perverted source. Blake. But where is he? I felt the chill, but perhaps it was the power he bestowed upon Knox and Swithin.

We should act now, right now while he was incapacitated. Before we could retaliate, though, a familiar flash of red hair swooshed into the scene, with all the flair of a seasoned entertainer. Woodrow, all bare thighs and torso, his hands carrying a thick cloth. He was almost completely naked if not for his underwear. He resurfaced from whatever hole he was hiding in and covered Knox’s face with what I assumed was his cowl.

“There is a use for this, after all!” He hollered. His face grinning like a cat. Knox swore and immediately began to kick and claw, but Woodrow pinned Knox to the ground, knees on his back. He secured the cowl around Knox’s neck so that he looked like a snarling criminal about to be hanged.