Twilit Mage

Chapter 2: The Unknown

"So here's where they live." The gray-haired man in the navy blue coat looked around, taking in the small, peaceful street. "Nice little place. Might just go buy myself a house here when I retire."

His companion, a tall, looming figure in all black and sunglasses, gave a snort and stuck his hands into his pockets. "You say that like you're planning to retire."

"That's the joke, Nero, that's the joke." The older man smirked at his companion's humorless face. "Now would you mind staying here while I talk to the girl? Kid might have a heart attack if she sees you, and we don't have Bonnie or Hecate with us today. Healing's not my specialty."

Nero frowned. "I still think it's a bad idea to talk to her in the first place."

"Why?"

"It's illegal to talk to an exile. We are supposed to treat them like they don't exist."

"But I'm not talking to an exile. That would be the girl's mother– her hypothetical mother, Nero, don't make that face." The man snorted. "No rule against talking to Twilits anymore, remember?"

"But what you want to do–"

"Shush, it's not forbidden. And what else are we supposed to do, leave a whole group of mages to their own devices? No training or education? That's the fast lane to creating people who can't control their powers, or worse, people who hate us and want to kill us." The old man tucked his hands into his pockets. "If they plan to come for me for countering that, I'd like to see them try."

Nero adjusted his sunglasses. "As you like, Principal. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"All right, all right. I'm a warned man. Can I go now?"

"Mind the distance limit. You know what happened last time."

"Nero, it's ten feet away. Don't be so fussy." The man shrugged and turned into the street, hands in his pockets, walking up to one of the houses just as a girl of about fourteen years came walking his way. Her eyes were glued to the pages of a notebook she was writing into, perfectly unaware of her surroundings.

The man was just getting ready to approach her when she walked straight past her garden gate, still scribbling forlornly into her notebook, and knocked right into him.

The girl stumbled back. The notebook and pencil fell out of her hands, clattering to the ground. Her eyes went wide as she suddenly grew aware of the situations, blushing with shame and frantically stumbling to pick up her notebook and stuff it into her backpack, hiding its contents from sight. The man thought he briefly caught the words, How many frogs would fit into a shopping cart?

"S-Sorry!" she burst out, flailing her hands about and almost dropping the pencil she had only just retrieved. "So sorry! I wasn't paying attention...sorry...I shouldn't have done that, I'll be more careful in the future...Are you all right?"

"Better than ever," the man replied casually, his eyes taking in every detail of her face.

She looked every bit like the picture, but even without the aid of a photo he would have known he was standing in front of the right person. She wasn't very tall and neither fat nor skinny, her brown skin and shoulder-length black curls a carbon copy of her mother's, with her father's bright gray eyes forming a jarring contrast to the rest of her, almost like she was wearing contacts. Her face was honest and friendly, with full lips and chubby cheeks and a kind-hearted, thoughtful expression in her wide eyes. Part of her hair was pulled out of her face with a flower clip, and there were bits of grass and leaves all over her pink hoodie.

A simple, ordinary, good-natured girl. That was what she looked like.

"Excuse me," the man said, and she inadvertently took a step back. "Are you Mercury Day? The daughter of Gabriel and Regina Day?"