Anima turns towards the door of her father’s office. She opens the door and walks out, Sion right outside in the hall. From over the railing, they can see people still bustling around in the storefront on the ground floor. Anima looks at Sion.

  “Sion, would you like to walk around the city with me?” Sion smiles at her.

  “Of course.”

  The two of them begin to walk towards the staircase. As they begin to walk down, a stout and burly man zips by on the other side. He suddenly stops, then turns to face them. He has short, well-kept hair and a giant scar covering one eye. He looks at Sion, then begins to talk.

  “It’s nice to see you back, Anima. Is this your friend? Can I borrow him for just a little bit? Ah, I suppose introductions are in order. I’m Holt Faran, a friend of Weald’s.” Holt puts out his large hand to Sion. Sion shakes his hand as he responds.

  “I’m Sion. What do you need me for?”

  “One of our guys is supposed to be getting back soon with a big haul for the festival. You look strong, so I thought you might make the whole process go a little faster.” Anima, curious, asks a question.

  “Has it really gotten so busy?”

  “It has. But being busy is good, so we’re not complaining.”

  “It is. I’m happy to hear that business is going well.” Sion now responds to Holt’s initial request.

  “If I can help, then I’d like to help. Is that alright, Anima?” Anima pauses for a moment before answering.

  “Of course it is.” She looks to Holt. “Are there enough people running the store, if it’s this busy?”

  “Well, if you’re offering then I’m sure they wouldn’t say no!” The three of them walk to the bottom of the stairs. “Come with me, Sion!”

  Leaving Anima behind, Sion follows Holt out of the store. They walk down the street in silence. As they approach the gate along the main road, they begin to see more and more carriages, crates being loaded on to and out of them all. Seeing the preparations for the festival, Holt begins to talk.

  “So, Sion, have any plans for while you’re in Ecg?”

  “Anima had asked me to walk around the city with her.”

  “Ah, so I interrupted, did I? Sorry about that. I should apologize to Anima too, when we finish this.”

  “Well, it’s fine. I want to help.”

  “Come on now! I’m sure you would rather be with her than here! What a waste, to be helping some old man!” Sion shakes his head slightly.

  “No, it’s not a waste. It’s good to help people, so it’s not a waste at all.” Holt sighs.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “No wonder Weald seems so frustrated about you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ah, no, if you don’t understand then it doesn’t matter. Just an old man talking to himself.”

  The two of them reach a pair of carriages. A young man hops off from the driver’s seat, one arm in a sling and a sword at his waist.

  “We’re back, Mr. Faran.”

  “Welcome back. Go get your arm treated.”

  “You’ve gone out of your way to do my job for me. The least I can do is watch over our stuff. And I’ve been hurt worse anyway.” Holt sighs.

  “Fine then. Sion, I’ll start with this carriage, so you start getting the cargo from the other one.”

  “Okay!”

  Sion goes to the other carriage and looks inside. The entire back of the carriage has been filled with crates. Sion picks one up. It’s not too heavy; it wouldn’t be hard to carry a few of the crates at once. Using his soul magic to make his reach long enough, Sion picks up crates and stacks them up onto his shoulders until there are three on each. The crates feel balanced enough, but Sion is sure that if he jerked himself around too quickly, they would fall right then. He considers fastening them in place with his soul magic, but reconsiders when he thinks of another solution. He tries to cast a spell, attempting to use his spatial magic for the first time since he fell from the spire. With his magic, he fixes the crates in place atop his shoulders then begins to move. Sion can feel the crates are steady on top of him. Holt grabs two crates from his carriage.

  With the cargo in tow, the two of them walk back to the store. When they arrive, they walk around to a back entrance. They place the crates on the ground there, then somebody opens the door to start bringing the crates inside. Sion and Holt make several more trips between the carriages and the store. When they finish, though far before Holt had expected, especially with only two people, the sun has begun to set. He takes a rag and wipes his sweat.

  “It looks like we were unprepared this year. Seems we finally have some ground to stand on when it comes to trading. We’ll have to hire people next year if this keeps up.” He laughs to himself. “Thank you, Sion. And I really am sorry that I took up your whole day.”

  “And it really is fine. I got a lot out of it.”

  Sion, not tired at all, rushes into the store. He sees Anima sitting behind the counter, working on something just out of sight. The store has largely emptied out now. Sion walks across the store, then leans over the counter to see what Anima is doing. She’s writing on some kind of form, a small stack of other papers to the side.

  “We’ve finished, Anima.” Anima answers while still writing.

  “Okay. I’ll finish this, then we can go walk around.”

  “Alright.”

  Sion backs away from the counter to leave her to her work. He starts to look around the store to pass the time. Near the window, Sion finds a rack of trinkets. He looks through them out of interest, then looks out the window. Sion looks at the darkening sky, then back to the trinkets. Among them are several small accessories. The one that catches his eye is a simple hair clip adorned with a purple crystalline flower, a common ornament made as magic practice. He picks it up then returns to Anima.

  “Anima, I want to buy this.” Anima looks at the hair clip.

  “Did Holt pay you?”

  “No, why?”

  “It’s not that expensive, so you can just take it and we’ll call it part of the payment.” Sion smiles as he pockets the hair clip.

  “Thank you.” Sion looks back towards the window once more. “And I think the time is right now, so I need to go.”

  “Ah! So that’s…” Anima looks slightly downcast. “Of course. I’ll be waiting for you to get back then.”

  “Sorry, Anima.”

  At that, Sion rushes out of the store. The night sky overhead, he makes his way to the minister’s home.