Flynn walked out of the card shop with mixed feelings. He was filled with hope that he could find a more suitable first card, but he couldn’t ignore the intense feeling of bitter disappointment either. He had worked really hard for a very long time to collect the fragments needed to create a card, and that card had turned out to be a dud.

  But I’m going to fix that, he insisted.

  The Magical Card Emporium was located right on the edge of the nicest part of Aramath, near the river on the north side of the city. It was surrounded by high-end shops and large mansions that overlooked the river but also bordered the common part of town. The location allowed easy access for both rich and not-so-rich card-purchasing clients.

  The shortest route to the docks was through the wealthy part of town, staying near the river as it traveled south, past the large houses, past the watchtower, and past the docks where cargo ships loaded and unloaded cargo.

  The bait shop was close to the river on the far south side of the city near the fish packaging warehouses. He had been there once or twice before but had never suspected it was a hub for black market card sales.

  Flynn glanced down at his raggedy clothes and frowned. He had changed out of the shirt that had been shredded by the Fire Drake, but the replacement wasn’t much better. His pants were torn, dirty, and blood-stained.

  Yeah, trying to go through the wealthiest neighborhood in town looking like this is sure to get me tossed on my head if not thrown in jail, he thought.

  It was going to be getting dark soon, though, and Flynn didn’t know if the bait shop would be open after the sun went down.

  Looks like I need to take a shortcut through the warehouse district, he decided and started off toward the south side of the city, staying away from the mansions and shops where guards and city watchmen would take offense to his presence.

  The finely crafted brick-and-stone houses and shops quickly gave way to wooden structures as Flynn moved south. The houses and reputable businesses then gave way to brothels and run-down saloons. After that, he entered the truly poor part of town before making his way to the warehouse district.

  Flynn turned down an alley that ran between two abandoned and run-down warehouses, their windows broken and the doors falling off the hinges. As he passed between the buildings, he saw multiple small fires burning inside and lots of people who couldn’t afford to live anywhere nicer.

  Aramath was a relatively prosperous frontier town, but there were still a lot of people who didn’t have a good place to live for one reason or another. Just like him.

  Of course, my place is much nicer and way more private, he thought with a little pride.

  The warehouses got nicer and were better maintained the closer he got to the docks, and some of them were even actively being used.

  The shortcut through the warehouses wound up being anything but a shortcut. Flynn ran into multiple dead ends and blocked alleys, and the sun started to set on him before he reached his destination.

  “I should have stuck to the main roads,” he muttered as the alleys between buildings started to get noticeably darker. He picked up his pace, not wanting to find out what might lurk in the shadows. Visions of both monsters—large Wharf Rats were fairly common near the river—and muggers flashed through his mind.

  He sighed in relief when he caught sight of streetlamps ahead and the river beyond. Only two more blocks to go!

  Flynn watched his surroundings carefully and quickly passed between the first set of warehouses. He stopped to look down the alley that ran to the right and left, then continued forward.

  Rays of light caught his attention as he started to cross the alley before reaching the final set of warehouses. Not light shining through a window but a series of lights shining through the wall of the building he had just passed.

  He looked toward the river and the safety of the main street, but the mysterious lights shining through the wall called to him.

  A healthy curiosity had brought many good things to Flynn, including the abandoned shop he called home. That curiosity demanded that he inspect the lights.

  As he approached, he saw that there was a circular pattern made up of twenty or so holes in the wall. Individually, they were perfectly round as if they had been drilled cleanly through the wall of the warehouse, and as a whole, they formed a circle. Light shone through each hole.

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  There was no apparent reason for the holes to be there, and he’d never seen anything quite like it.

  Where did these holes come from?

  Flynn didn’t know why, but he felt a burning need to answer that question.

  I need to get inside!

  It definitely wouldn’t be the first time Flynn broke into an abandoned building, and he started looking for a way in. He quickly searched the outside of the building and realized it didn’t have any windows. At least, none that could be seen from the ground. There were only two doors, and both of them were closed and secured from the inside somehow with no obvious way to open them from the outside.

  His curiosity grew.

  There has to be a way in from the roof, he concluded, then quickly found a spot where he could scamper up the side of the warehouse.

  Once on the roof, he found what he was looking for. There were two long, steepled skylights near the middle of the roof. One section of windows was propped open wide enough for a smallish person to slip through.

  Flynn cautiously looked through the skylights. The fading light of the setting sun did little to illuminate the interior of the building but did provide enough light to show that the warehouse was mostly empty. He peered into the dimly lit depths for a few minutes without seeing any movement and decided it was likely abandoned. There was nothing at all interesting that he could see.

  He frowned and knew that most people, especially those that were on a personally important mission, would have given up on this impromptu reconnaissance mission and continued on to their planned destination.

  But he couldn’t get the mysterious circle of light out of his mind.

  A quick look and then I’m off to the bait shop, Flynn promised himself, then squeezed through the open skylight. He dropped down onto one of the rafter beams as quietly as possible, then crouched there in the shadows and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust.

  As details emerged from the darkness, Flynn could see that the warehouse was just as empty as it had appeared from the outside. If anything, it was too empty and too clean.

  The lightest part of the building was in the center, directly below the skylights. From his current vantage point, much of that area was obscured by a wall. Flynn didn’t have much hope that there would be anything there, but he’d already gone through the trouble of breaking into the building, so there was no reason not to check it out.

  He shimmied down the closest support beam and glanced around to make sure nothing had changed now that he was on the ground. Nothing had, so he moved toward the wall in the middle of the building. When he reached the edge of the wall, he took a deep breath, then slowly peered around the edge to see if there was anything in the middle of the warehouse.

  Flynn froze, sucking in an involuntary breath. He clasped a hand over his mouth and jumped back behind a wall. His mind tried to comprehend what he had seen.

  That couldn’t have been a person, he insisted, but the image in his mind told him it had been. He frowned, then gathered his courage and slowly looked around the corner again.

  Sure enough, there was an unconscious man tied to a wooden chair.

  A sense of danger spiked inside of Flynn, urging him to flee, but he pushed it aside. This was even more curious than the holes in the warehouse wall.

  The man’s arms and legs were tied to the chair, and his head rested on his chest.

  Is he dead? Flynn wondered, unable to see if the man was breathing.

  He looked around the warehouse nervously, studying both the dark outer areas and the better-lit central area. Nothing moved, but there was a wall opposite where he stood with a door in it.

  An office or room, maybe?

  Flynn shrugged. Whatever might be behind that door was probably less interesting than the unconscious—or dead—man in front of him.

  What if there’s someone else behind that door?

  Fear surged through him. The man obviously didn’t tie himself in the chair then knock himself out. Flynn was suddenly certain that there was someone else behind that door. Maybe more than one person.

  He glanced at the prisoner and studied the man for a moment. The man wore high-quality leather armor, and tattoos were visible on his hands. This man was obviously way more powerful than Flynn, and that meant that whoever had captured him was either more powerful still or had outnumbered him.

  And that meant that they were all way more powerful than he was.

  Flynn glanced at the open skylight high above. I could be out of here in an instant and on my way to Bert’s Bait and Tackle.

  That idea comforted him as he turned his attention back to the bound prisoner. I can leave anytime I want.

  Flynn was confident that nobody could catch him once he was out of the warehouse.

  Buoyed with that false sense of security, he stepped out from behind the wall and slowly approached the prisoner. As he got closer, he could see a slight rise and fall to the man’s chest and knew he was alive.

  The bound prisoner didn’t move as Flynn approached then cautiously circled the man, evaluating the situation. He kept an eye on the door, determined to bolt at the first sign of the door opening.

  Flynn stopped in front of the prisoner and studied him. The man had shoulder length brown hair and tanned skin. Stubble covered his face and gave him a rough appearance, but the man’s apparel was anything but rough. His finely crafted leather armor had complex designs stitched around the neck and wrists, plus a double line of symbols stitched down the middle of his chest. Plates had been incorporated into the armor to protect vital organs.

  The man also had gold bands around his neck and wrists that had glowing designs carved into them.

  I wonder why his captors didn’t take the jewelry, Flynn thought but then shrugged. This was definitely more than a simple mugging.

  The only sign of injury on the man was some dried blood on the side of his neck that had run down from a wound on the back of his head. Other than that, he looked unharmed . . . if you ignored the fact that he was bound and unconscious.

  Who did you piss off? Flynn wondered.

  The prisoner’s head suddenly shot up, and he stared right at Flynn, a crazed look in his eyes. “You have to help me get out of here!” he said in a fierce whisper.