The streets are slick with the rain. The faint drizzle has soaked everything, even my clothes. The air is thick with the scent of damp stone and urine. Some gang enforcers are lingering around the baker’s stall beyond the alley I have been eyeing all evening. One of them is chewing and spitting Kesh leaves all over the place. His movements are twitchy and frantic. He follows the other one inside, rusty iron pipe in hand.

  “Well, well, well, mister Lens. It seems you forgot something," says one of the thugs in a gravel-like voice. He is so loud I can hear him clearly from where I am. “Last week, this week. You think we don’t notice?”

  I press my back against the rough wall, keeping to the shadows, eyes fixed on the last loaves of the day stacked high outside the storefront to attract customers. The streets are empty. The pair of thugs has scared even the stragglers into hiding. We are in Red Hering territory, I think. It’s hard to keep track. They change all the time with each gang war. They won’t like it if they catch me stealing here. Or maybe they would force me into their gang, a fate I have managed to escape until now. They always need fresh blood.

  My stomach twists in pain. Those fucking caretakers of the orphanage don’t give us enough to eat anymore. The only well-fed kids are those young and cute enough for the caretakers to believe they still can find somebody to adopt them. I failed two times because of my temper, and now they say I’m too old. How can I be too old? I’m five, I think, maybe six.

  “I, I meant no disrespect,” stammers the baker in a high pitch. “Business has been slow. The rain keeps the people away. The baron raised the taxes again, and I...”

  A soft thud silences him. I can’t see what is happening inside, but it’s not hard to imagine. I may have a small window of opportunity while those thugs shake that man down, and the risk is highest. The steaming loaves of bread are temptingly close but seem a world away. I stay frozen, rooted to the spot, too scared to step closer. It would be dangerous if some of them came out and saw me. I should have gone with the gatherers to search for acorns in the nearby forest. Some of the older kids know how to recognize which of the oaks have the not bitter ones. Not that I like them that much, but they fill your stomach enough to forget the hunger for a while. What else could you ask for?

  “You ever see some baron, guard, or taxman around here, Biter?”

  “Dunno. I can’t remember. Maybe when they want a feisty one, over by the bawdy house?”

  “You see? Do you think any of them care about what you do? Who do you think has been protecting you, hmm? It’s not like we ask for much. We do want respect, though. We can’t have our clients thinking they can pull one over us. Can we?”

  “No, no, sorry, I would never! Please give me a few days. I’ll have the silver. I swear it over my mother’s grave!”

  “Oh, this is good!” A loud chewing sound reaches the street. “You see, the thing is that I don’t believe you. “Wasn’t it the same last week, Biter?”

  “It was…, or maybe another baker, I can’t remember.” Laughter reaches the street. Laughter and whimpers.

  “What? It was this one! Have you been drinking at work again?”

  “No, no, I would never!”

  “You see, mister Lens. It’s always the same excuse. But you still get plenty of bread around here. Don’t you? And, are those pastries? If you have money to buy sugar, you surely have money to pay us, hmm? You don’t want us to get ugly.”

  “Please, just a day. I’ll have it tomorrow!”

  “See, that’s the thing. We don’t like to wait. You’re late once, we understand. Twice, we get irritated.” There is a sudden, tense silence. I’m still standing in the alley, afraid to go closer. “Three times? We start to break things. You have a boy, don’t you? He is growing fast, isn’t he? I think he is gonna go after them ladies soon. Gonna make you a grandpa, hmm? Or maybe he won’t. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, no, no! I…, I have something. Not the full amount, but…”

  “What the heck is this? Is this guy mocking us?” I hear another thud, followed by a stifled cry.

  A loaf of bread flies out of the window, bounces a few times over the broken cobblestones, and stops right next to my feet, pulling me out of my stupor.

  I pick it up and hide it under my tattered shirt. I look around, like a skittish mouse, for someone who may have seen me. But I’m all alone out here in the rain.

  Before my luck can run out, I clutch the still-warm bread to my chest and disappear into the alley, starting my way back into one of my hideouts. Voices rise in loud shouts in the bakery, but the night is dark, and I’m fast. I know all the passages only a child can twist its way through. The bread is mine.

  I kick a few loose stones away and sit on the second floor of an abandoned building a few blocks from the orphanage. Half of the roof’s shingles are missing. I shift around until I find a relatively dry spot close to a broken window. It comes with the benefit of letting me observe the square without being seen.

  Guards wander up and down the street. What are they doing here?

  “You gonna share some of that?”

  I whirl around. “Huh? Dogface? What are you doing here?”

  He smiles at me with his crooked teeth. He got the drop on me, and he knows it.

  “I was hiding from the cloaks, then saw you come up here. Thought to check out what ya’ doin’.” His sunken eyes look at me like a pleading puppy.

  “Shht! Keep your voice down, you idiot!” I break a big piece of bread apart with my hand and pass it to him with a sigh. If I don’t, he may decide to fight me for it. Why is he alone here, anyway? “Have you seen Dante?”

  “The cloaks caught him cutting purses over by the market. They said they are gonna chop his hand off later, over by the temple square.” A grin crosses his face. “Wanna go to look?”

  “What? No! Rat-shit! What is wrong with you? We need to help him!”

  The streets of the crafting quarter stretch out before me, endless and shifting like a maze. I should know this way. Why can’t I recognize it? It seems to twist into shapes I almost recognize but never fully grasp. Dogface follows me hot on my heels.

  “Do you know where we are?” I ask, maybe that idiot can be helpful for once.

  “How should I know? You have always been the brain of our operations.”

  I snort, useless as always. Shit! If I can’t find the way, we will be late for Dante’s punishment. How could we even try to help him? We are just two kids, and Dogface doesn’t even care. I should have punched that bastard instead of sharing my bread.

  A red fox crosses the street. “Interesting,” it says. “Don’t get lost.” Strange, it seems familiar somehow. “Hurry up!”

  It disappears into a red blur that melds into the shadows. Dogface acts as if it was never there. I blink. What is happening?

  “Ghar ek’h ina alhenk’ha,” says a disembodied voice somewhere.

  I should know these streets. I passed through them many times once I was older. How can that be?

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

  Time unravels like a frayed tapestry. Its threads slip loose and spin through the void. Moments that should be distant bleed together into a bizarre knot. Past bleeds into the future, into the distant past. I am a toddler, a teenager. The Crow is teaching me to dance, how to blend in, and what to look for. Who is the Crow? The temple bells ring and ring in an earsplitting cacophony. Faces blur. Dogface asks something, but his voice is distorted. More events drift by out of order. Then time snaps back, and I’m standing under the rain again.

  “Come on,” says Dogface. “Don’t you want to see how they cut Dante’s hand off?” His grin seems fake. He doesn’t grin like that.

  What? No! I don’t want to! We need to help him! I start running again.

  Shadows spill from the alleyways, curling like fingers, reaching for the frayed edges of my memory. I know this place. I have been here before. When exactly, I don’t know. The streets blur into clarity under the flickering torches. If we turn at Carpenter Street and go straight from there, we will arrive next to the temples. And then. And then I don’t know. I will think of something.

  The night cold bites through my clothes. The hunger gnaws at my insides again. Didn’t I eat not so long ago? Strange. There is no time. We need to hurry.

  I am small again. I stumble through the filth of the gutter, my bare feet blackened by the grime of the streets. The air is thick with the scent of rotting food and something acrid I can’t identify.

  I can hear the hollering crowd in front of us. A last turn reveals the guillotine on a stage in the distance.

  The wooden frame looms high, its edges are worn smooth by the weather and use. The blade, a dark crescent of steel, trembles in its grooves as if eager for the drop. Under it is Dante, neck fixed in place.

  “What? No! No!” I scream, but no sound leaves my throat. I can’t reach it. I can’t reach it!

  A hush spreads through the gathered crowd. They hold their breath in unison. A scent of damp wood and sweat clings to the air.

  Then, with a sharp clack of release, the blade flashes down. It falls without hesitation nor mercy, dragged down by the cold certainty of gravity.

  There is a sound like an axe parting wet wood. The stage rocks slightly, dampened by fresh warmth. A murmur ripples through the spectators, then they disappear, and only Dante’s head remains. It rolls towards me until it stops at my feet.

  “It’s your fault!” he accuses me, his eyes blank, with something beyond fear.

  I fall to my knees under the pouring rain. “I know! I know! Sorry.” I sob. Regret coils in my chest, thick as smog clogging my lungs. I should have gone back. I should have kept an eye on him and Dogface. It’s my fault. I’m still a child, curled against a crumbling wall, careless, powerless to change destiny. I look at the disembodied head again, life slowly leaving its eyes. He looks at me, through me.

  Wait! It doesn’t make any sense! Some of the faults that led to Dante’s death may have been mine. But it didn’t happen this way. What is this? Where am I?

  I want to tell him I’m sorry, sorry for leaving him. Sorry for forgetting, even for a moment, all the moments we shared.

  “It seems you still have some lingering regrets about something,” says the Fox. “You need to get a grip on yourself and let them go if you want to wake up.”

  The Fox? Bae! Now I remember. She made me take the last pill this morning. Said something about pulling through the hallucination it would induce. I’m not a child anymore. I am in some kind of induced nightmare. But how do I wake up?

  The world bends in ways it shouldn’t. It folds on itself like a crumpled sheet of paper, edges tear, buildings distort into liquid ink that bleeds into the gutter.

  “Ghar ek’h ina alhenk’ha.”

  I understand some of this language. Bae taught me. May the ceiling never fall onto your head or something like that. If I remember correctly, it’s a greeting in one of the Underdark tongues. But who is calling?

  My hands stretch through the void before me, but they are not my hands but those of a tiger. I blink. The empty sky ripples and distorts. It shatters into millions of shifting reflections. Each one shows me a version of myself. Some differences are subtle, some grotesque and bizarre. My other selves start speaking. The air hums with their voices. The sound drifts around my ears like white noise, words too distorted to make out anything. I need to find my way out of here before some of them do it ahead of me. I don’t want to find out what would happen then. Maybe I’ll be left behind, trapped in one of those broken mirror shards.

  How would that make sense? I’m the dreamer. I should be in control. I will the other shards to disappear. They burst and melt like dripping wax. Some of my reflections shrink into nothing, others drift out of their shards and dart towards me. I almost flinch back, but they only merge into my body. A flurry of ideas I never thought about assaults me. Mental connections I hadn’t made, new ways to connect runes. It’s so much. Too much. Light fractures in the corner of my vision, pulsing, throbbing. I can feel my heart gallop wildly in my chest. My real heart, my real body. No, no. I can’t wake up yet. There is still so much to learn.

  I submerge myself again into the dream. I try to hold onto the world of ideas as long as I can. I tune everything else out. Faces and memories don’t matter right now. I let them twist and dissolve before discovering who they belong to.

  I can hear birds chirping in the waking world. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to hold a little longer until the last vestiges of the pill’s effect burn out.

  It happens in an instant. The world resets. I can feel myself return to my body, my tired limbs. The dream cracks apart and spits me back into the valley.

  “Uff!” I say, opening my eyes to the blindingly bright sun.

  Bae stands before me, grinning. “So? How was it?”

  “Intense,” I confess. I try to catch my breath and order my thoughts. “I thought I still was a child living in the streets.” I feel a bit dizzy. My head is still spinning.

  “Well, that is one of the possible effects that can happen. Everybody reacts a bit differently.” She catches me before I can stumble. “Wanna check your gains?”

  “Sure,” I answer. “As soon as I can walk without falling over.”

  “How did it go?” asks Master Wen. Was he waiting for us in the library or just minding his own business? I still don’t know how to read him. “Come, the tablet is ready.”

  “Very nice,” praises Master Wen. “Those are solid gains, good work.”

  Bae dances around us like an overexcited cub, swirling and weaving between the books, the illusion of a cactus with eyes trails behind her. “You are almost ready to rank up!” she exclaims. “Isn’t it exciting?”

  “Sure!” I say, still feeling a bit out of place.

  “In the time she needs to recover from the pill, she will reach the peak of her stage for sure.” He sits down, stroking his beardless chin. “We should prepare for the presentation. Can you take her to the village’s tailor tomorrow, Bae?

  Oh, shit! I almost forgot about this. I scrap every bit of courage I can together and ask. “Do we need to?”

  Their gazes lock onto me.

  “But of course, silly,” says Bae stubbing my nose with one of her fingers. “It will be sooo fun seeing their faces,” she snickers and cackles probably planning something wicked and scandalous.

  “Lamentably we need to,” sighs Master Wen. “I need to present you as my new apprentice, or all those pesky little nobles won’t stop pestering me.”

  Oh, so it is like that. I sigh. There is no way around it then. Wait? All of them? How many will there be?