I remember everything.

            "Mr. Copper is unable to meet with us again?"

            Sneaky little mouse, he thinks. What are you up to, he wonders.

            "Yes, he sends both his greetings and genuine apologies," I answered, keeping my head lowered and shoulders slumped. "The task the Community has given him is a serious one, and he wishes to give it his undivided attention."

            The kid in the dark suit's painted on, patient smile wavered to a thin line of discontentment. His mind whirled, conjuring up any and all reasons for Mr. Copper's continual absence to their oh-so-important meetings. He danced around the truth for a moment, but quickly discarded it.

            Too soon, he believes. She wouldn't know, he wrongly assumes.

            "However serious Mr. Copper wants to take his job, we expect him to be present to these meetings." The fat man with the foul smell spoke up. His beady, black eyes appeared to want to burn a hole through my forehead. "And not his little pet."

            If not feared, I used to be intimidated by this bulk of hateful words and cruel glares. How silly. Ever since I discovered my Knowledge, a different picture has been playing out in the minds of the freaks and monsters I believed I had figured out so well.

            Mr. York does not stop worrying about things. How he looks. How he sounds. How he smells. Did I get it right, he frets. Did I do the right thing, he agonizes. A total dichotomy from how he presents himself. Something I could have never have figured out on my own even after years of verbal and physical abuses suffered from him.

            "I'll relay the message," I said, keeping my stance loose and submissive.

            Edgar Crooster's mind worked faster than I would believe someone his age should. He was narrowing down what I could be up to, already knowing that I was planning something. The only thing that kept him from accepting the truth was his own arrogance. But that, too, was only a matter of time.

            "Today marks a full month since we have given Mr. Copper the task of tracking down the runaway familiars," the Overseer finally said, keeping his voice calm and even despite the many cogs turning in his head. "While we appreciate how undivided he has become, we can no longer rely on his talents alone."

            The boy turned to the woman with false skin. The latter perked, already knowing what he was going to ask, but waiting obediently nonetheless. 

            "How are our children coming along?" he asked.

            "Overseer..." Rhenoa Abigail started. She paused, for a moment, and tried to work out what to say that wouldn't risk upsetting her boss. "The oldest, maybe, but they are all still dealing with severe emotional and physiological..."

            Ms. Abigail trailed off and the room was, for a moment, completely silent. She didn't have to be a mind reader to know that her warnings would fall on deaf ears.

            "This is what it's come to, hasn't it?" Edgar said, his words sounding more like a statement than a question. "We have to fix our own mistakes. Whispermist will not afford to give us anymore aid. We have already elected to send out an emotionally unstable teenager to attempt to cull witches far above her abilities. And now, we must send children to eliminate monsters."

             "Yes, Overseer," Ms. Abigail conceded with a short bow of her head.

              They are going to die, she thought. Everything is falling apart, she knew.

              It was only a matter of time before the children were used. I thought about telling Foxy or the others, but it would just give them more to worry about. It would be handled, one way or the other. From what I could glean from Rhenoa's surface thoughts, they wouldn't be able to give us much trouble.

              What was more worrying were the people in this room. Specifically, their leader. The boy who tried to sound so upset about sending children to fight monsters, but whose thoughts were only hopeful.

               It's almost over. Those three words spun around again and again in his head. So much that I couldn't get anything else without risking being discovered. The further I tried to dig, the more it would hurt. If it hurt enough, they would get suspicious. They would know whose stares were giving them the worst headache of their life.

            Am I doing the right thing, Mr. York frets.

            How much longer can we keep this up, Ms. Abigail wonders.

            It's almost over. It's almost over. It's almost over, Edgar Crooster muses.

            My son.

            I nearly jumped and broke my cover at the new voice. Powerfully clear in it's raw pleading. It cut through the mumbles and moans of the others. I turned to the fourth witch, the frail, hunched over man who had been so quiet I had completely forgotten he was there. Somehow, I realized, his mind had been silent as well. Silent until he begged to me those two words.

            I am met with unsettlingly familiar eyes. A bright blue that pierced into the very core of my being.

            Please, he pleads. Protect my son, he begs.

            "I will inform my Master of the new developments," I said as I stood up from the table, silencing the thoughts of everyone in the room as they turned to look at me at once. "And I will remind him of the extreme importance of these meetings."

            "Please do," Edgar said with a pleasant smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I have a feeling we will have another one again very soon."

            I swallowed the lump in my throat as I bowed my head. I fought the urge to dig back inside their heads as I turned and left the room. Nothing else would be learned right now. I knew they were planning the elimination of me and, more than likely, my Master. As soon as the others were out of the way, I would be a liability, and my Master's affection for me would just make him a nuisance.

            We were being phased out. Those children were the start of it.

            I had to blink quite a few times and shield my eyes as I stepped out of the ruined remains of the Overseer's home. No amount of torchlight prepared you for the outside world when you spent hours and days underground. I knew witches took pride in their secrecy, but the ones in Wildwood lived more like animals than the familiars did at this point. Like worms or grubs tucked away beneath the dirt.

            There was nothing but trees and fog that surrounded the mansion of splinters and loose nails. Between this and the lonely barn Kat and Foxy discovered, it was a dream of mine to one day explore the entirety of the woods Wildwood laid claim to. How many more secrets did it's thick limbs and landscape of soggy leaves conceal? The first time I escaped, I wanted nothing more than to disappear into the fog and find them all.

            But, of course, he had to go to the trouble of finding me.

            It didn't take me nearly as long to find him. He was still chained up to the tree, cold and shivering from the damp branches I had used to conceal him.

            "I'm back, Master," I said, smiling sweetly down at him. "I hope I didn't leave you waiting too long."

            His jaw clenched over the rag tied across his mouth. He had stopped looking at me after the first week, but he couldn't hide the fact that he was still listening. I couldn't express to him how grateful I was for that. It would have been so lonely otherwise.

            "They are very mad that you keep missing their meetings," I went on as I undid the chains that kept him trapped to the tree. My smile returned when he sighed deeply out of his nose. "Mad enough to think that a bunch of kids can do your job better than you, it seems."

            Like I had hoped, that was enough to bring his one, cold eye back to where I could see it. Where it was seeing me. A little jolt of excitement shot through me, but I bit my tongue before I let it control my words.

            "Not here," I said, my voice unnecessarily low as I eyed the direction Edgar's mansion lay some miles away. "I think your office is a good place to talk. What do you think?"

            Oh, he was really glaring at me now. It was great. It was more emotion than he had shown in days. I had to bite my lip to keep from flat out giggling. The anger softened a bit when I patted my hip and his eyes trailed down to his lovely gun I had holstered to the side of it.

            "You've been so obedient up until now, do I really have to use this?" I asked coyly. I pulled the gun out and had it trained to his face faster than his eye could keep up.

            But, when it did catch up, it was popped open. He hadn't spoken to me after the first day, but he was coughing and mumbling something behind the rag. I considered, for the fleetiest of seconds, to probe his mind, but reminded myself of my oath. Not him, and not Foxy. Anyone but them.

            "Why the look, Master?" I asked instead, pushing past the unnecessary thoughts and lowering the bronze gun. "I would never kill you. No." I took a step forward and pressed the barrel of his gun into his right knee, catching his wide, beautiful eye with mine. "But I could make it hurt, a lot. Are you going to make me do that?"

            His hands shook, he refused to look at me again, but my Master made one of his careful, intricate symbols. He carved into a tree with a glowing, golden knife, cutting out patterns of numbers and symbols that I could never hope to understand. Even after staring and studying them for hours, it got me nowhere. Only my Master knew what they meant, and how to control them.

            "I really do love watching you work," I said, resting a hand I meant to be comforting on his shoulder.

            Of course, he flinched. Of course, I knew, without breaking my vow, that he wanted to strike me. Maybe even try to end my life with the knife I had given him.

            But he knew how much stronger I was. He knew, without his voice, he could not command me.

            The only thing he didn't know was why. Why was I doing this? Why now and not any of the years before? Why keep him alive?

            The vow was almost meaningless. I knew what my Master--what Giles Copper was thinking as he sat there sweating and breathing heavily into the dirty cloth. I knew every worry he had, every question that plagued him. He wasn't alive just because he was useful. Not just because I couldn't bring myself to kill a nearly innocent man.

            His whole body tensed when I placed my other hand on his other shoulder. Down on his knees, me hovering behind him, we were both in a prime position. Me to snap his neck, him to whirl around and drive the fading knife into my stomach.

            But neither of us did anything. For a few long seconds, we stayed how we were.

            "I think I love you, just a bit," I finally said.

            My Master did not say anything. Not a grumble or a groan.

            "You're like the father I never had," I said, and felt his shoulders tense again. I smiled. "Yes, nothing like the man who beat me and my mother. Who stabbed him and strangled me."

            A low moan escaped him. His symbol glowed bright and a door appeared as though it had been cut into the bark. The bronze knob waited right in front of his face.

            "Well, enough about me," I said, shoving him slightly forward so he would have to grab the knob to keep from smashing into it. "You know all about that. Let's get inside and make sure you are caught up to more pressing matters."

...

            Our time inside my Master's office was short. He did not look at me, did not try to speak, but I knew he heard every word I said. He knew what Wildwood was planning, and he knew where the familiars were heading.

            He had to wonder why I was risking so much by telling him everything. On the off chance he escaped, he could make things so much worse for the people I was trying to protect. If I ever gave him the option to ask, I would tell him it was a test of where his true feelings lied. Did he think of me as a surrogate daughter, or would he jump at the chance to turn me in to the witches who wanted the smallest excuse to have me killed?

            Not that I would ever give him the option. Not willingly.

            We only shared another hour together in his cluttered little room before I left him chained to the wall. Unless he somehow escaped on his own, I felt very reassured leaving him alone in an office whose door continually changed location. He had told me about it in confidence, a side effect of when he pushed his Knowledge just a little too far. It was only a fresh seal placed by him that would lock the door in one place, but, once that was gone, it was back to random intervals every few minutes.

            Of course, it wasn't truly random. I spent weeks opening and closing that door. There were a set amount of places it went to, and it went to the same doors in those same places. Most of them abandoned. None used very often. It wasn't Knowledge that went awry, but a secret he kept well-hidden from everyone. Never in our two years together did he come out and tell me the truth, and now it was too late.

            My Master couldn't have guessed that little tid-bit would be the catalyst for my betrayal. But it was just too convenient. The perfect place to escape to if the heat ever got too much, and the perfect place to stowaway a prisoner. In the long run, I knew he would forgive me for all of this. He had just made it way too easy.

            "I'll be back soon, Master," I said with a smile and a small wave.

            My Master did not look at me, or try to speak to me.

            The warmth and the excitement from being in his company swiftly drained out of my body when I turned and faced the new symbol drawn in the glass of the door in red marker. The symbol that would lead me back to the others.

            "Maybe sooner than you think," I called back to him without turning around. "When they meet Fawn, maybe I can dump all of my problems on her and be done with them."

            Of course, there was no answer. With a steadying breath, I pushed my way through the door.