Seventy Seconds To Sunrise

Part 2

I walked along the ice path looking down onto the roofs of the stalls below me, most of the browsers chose to walk along the paths that go through the market but I know what I'm looking for and I don't like wasting time having to navigate through the crowds of supposed witches and sorcerers trying to sell you a "good" deal on a "good" fortune or spell. I know all the good stalls by either name, staff or roof, so I walk along the ice paths built, floating, above the market and look down at all the smiling groups of laughing families. Sometimes I lose myself people watching and wander aimlessly for hours having to race back along the paths or use a spell just to make it back to the house on time. Living on the outskirts of town has its advantages but it also has its drawbacks.

Today though, I was looking for something specific so I raced along the empty paths trying to get to the tent I knew sold true spells. The black roofs I noticed below me signaled I had reached the part of the markets I hated the most, hated and feared. Ugly magic covered the roofs, dark spells lying in wait for someone to stray past. I had learned how to avoid them a long time ago, through experience and pain. I wove a mental block between myself and the dark magicians, effectively blocking their magic from sensing me. Sometimes I wonder if it would just be easier to fully block off my mind, but I have to admit my Mind Reading can be useful. Whenever Keres or Sero is planning a new punishment I know, and I know how to avoid them.

I have to physically shake myself of to avoid that line of thinking, I leaned a long time ago its useless thinking about that sort of thing. I start jogging away from the black tents before anyone comes out and spots me, unaffected by the magic, there's a good reason I don't like this area and it's not just its reputation.

When I finally reach the tents I was searching for I jump, trusting the safety web below the ice paths to be effecting and working, I remember it failing more than once but I don't have time to find a descender, a servant of the public who had the ability to fly and had to stay on the ice paths for hours on end to help people get down safely. It catches me. I walk up to the small, blue colored tent just out of view if the main paths, that was another reason I had to use the ice paths, the shop I was searching for was easy to miss. As soon as I crossed into the shade of the roof the glamour I now know to be there disappears, and I can see it's bustling with life as the people who work there run around crafting potions and weaving magic. None of them approach me. None of them look my way. But that's the way it always is, since they stopped being openly hostile to me and when they realized I would be a regular customer and trader, they basically started to ignore me.

I smile as I watch them scramble around, shoving and reaching around each other to get the thing they need, the only time I knew this stall the be still was, well to be honest never. Not once pausing in his work Adapa, the man in charge of the entire stall which unlike what it looks like from the glamour is huge, calls over to me. I walk over to him where he is working on a small bench working on, I'm guessing from the ingredients piled next to him; Rosemary, Lavender and Sage, a protection spell.

Relaxing against the smell of the herbs and the kind but busy thoughts that flow from this place I face him. When I meet his eyes I can tell he's been watching me and I know he knows I'm reading everyone thoughts. Though as much as he disapproves of my gift never once has he turned me away, I kind of think of him as the father I could have had. If only I hadn't been given to Glacia - I cut off my train of thought by shaking my head, it's useless thinking of what ifs, even with the magnitude of magic there is there is no time travelling and no changing the past. Because if you change the past who knew what could happen. I could have-

I cut my thoughts off again and focus on Adapa's face, his kind but cruel looking ice-blue eyes surrounded by age marks and wisdom lines, his striking nose that must have once made him look handsome but now stood out of his face like a fire-hydrant stood out of the sidewalks in the time before magic, And his thin unsmiling lips pulled either into a permanent frown or a grimace. Never once had I seen him smile, never once had I seen him anywhere other than in this, giant-tiny, hidden away stall but he must have a family, right, he has to have someone or at least something other than this stall.

I remember the first time I had stumbled in here I had been running from the owners of one of the black tents who had seen me standing, unharmed above his stall. He had been shooting at me with invisible stunners called pains, these ones had been enhanced. I had sensed a glamour and run straight towards it hoping it would hide me. When I stumbled in here the shock of seeing the glamour disappear had stopped me where I stood and the effect of the pains had intensified. I had started convulsing on the floor, everyone had stopped. They pulled out protection spells and a spell I loved called 'fight or flee' but Adapa had for some reason stopped them and had helped me. Ever since then the people here had respected me, and Adapa became almost like a replacement father even though I think he acted more like a protector to me.