“Well, well, well,” said the woman in a voice rougher than her clothes. “What have we here? A little boy lost in the woods all by himself? Where’s your mommy? Did you lose her?”

  The men laughed at the woman’s poor idea of a joke, but I just gritted my teeth and glanced at Nimbus. The cloud rabbit was looking at me with surprise in his golden eyes from inside the red mana bubble, but there might have been something else in them.

  Something like hope.

  I looked back at the woman, twisting my neck to look up at her from my position under her boot. “You don’t want to mess with me, lady. Name’s Aaron Thorn. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m an officially licensed Chapter One Codexer recognized by the Shinar Node Authority. If you hurt me, you’ll bring the entire SNA down on you. Not a smart idea.”

  That probably wasn’t true—at least, Isaac hadn’t said anything one way or another about how the SNA responded to their licensed Codexers being murdered—but these people were obviously criminals. This woman, in particular, had to be a rogue Codexer who certainly wasn’t registered with any government or regulatory body. Maybe they would let me and Nimbus go if they thought that hurting us might get them arrested.

  But the woman just chuckled like I’d told a poor joke myself. “Oh, I’m shaking in me boots at the idea of those chuckleheads in Hebron getting angry that we killed a mommy’s boy in some backwoods town in the middle of nowhere. Though thanks for letting us know about you bein’ a Codexer, and a Chapter One Codexer at that. How terrifying. This must be your portable.”

  The woman bent down and yanked my portable off my neck without hesitation. I cried out, but I couldn’t stop her. She just stood upright and held my portable by its now-broken cord, inspecting it like it was a treasure she had just found.

  “Well, ain’t this a worthless piece of trash.” The woman shook her head. She looked down at me. “Does this crap even work?”

  I shouldn’t have responded, but I couldn’t stand her insulting my family’s portable or my accomplishment in repairing it. “It does. I fixed it myself.”

  The woman raised an eyebrow. She spun my portable around like a sling by its cord. “Interesting. Well, portables always sell well on the black market, even barely functioning ones like this. So I think I’ll be keepin’ it, at least until Wolfbrand can take a look. He’ll know if it’s worth selling or not anyway.”

  My eyes widened. “But that’s my portable.”

  The woman chuckled. “Not anymore, boy. This portable now officially belongs to the Wolfbrand Bandits. Just like that bunny over there.”

  The woman waved my portable at the still-trapped Nimbus, who seemed to be trying to make himself smaller than usual. I tried to smile reassuringly at Nimbus, but I felt like my expression came across more like a grimace than anything.

  This was bad. I didn’t know what the consequences of losing my portable were, but at a minimum, that meant I couldn’t use my spells or any of my associated Codexer skills. I couldn’t even use Inkwyrm, which was lying a few feet away from me.

  I tried to reach for my stylus anyway, but one of the male bandits closest to me and the woman snatched it up before I could get it and held it out to the woman. She took my stylus in her other hand and eyed it quizzically. “A Codex Stylus? Never heard of it.”

  She must have scanned it with her portable, which I assumed was her glowing red earring. That was the only way she could have known what it was called without me telling her. She was definitely a rogue Codexer, though without my portable, I couldn’t tell what her Chapter or Discipline was. Based on her previous mocking comments about my Chapter, however, I figured she had to be stronger than me, at least Chapter 2.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “That is also mine,” I said with a grunt. “I’d like it back. Along with my portable.”

  The woman shook her head. “No. Unlike your portable, this little metal rod is definitely worthless. We don’t need it.”

  She hurled my stylus into the darkness beyond the trees—so fast I couldn’t tell where it landed to retrieve it later.

  Though given how badly the situation was deteriorating, I wasn’t sure there would be time for me to retrieve my stylus later.

  Now I had neither my stylus nor my portable. My odds of surviving this situation just kept getting worse.

  But something the woman said sparked a question in me, making me grit my teeth and look up at the woman again. “Wait, you said you guys are the Wolfbrand Bandits? The same ones that have been attacking travelers near North Forest?”

  The woman looked down at me with a smug expression on her face. “That’s us, all right! And don’t you dare forget it. If you want, I could carve our name into your back. Probably will after we kill ya. That way, your family will know better than to come after us to avenge ya.”

  I gulped. These were the same bandits that my Scribbled Quest had described. A quest I was almost certain to fail at this point, though hopefully, if I kept the woman talking, I could buy myself time to think of a plan to save me and Nimbus. “Are you … are you Wolfbrand?”

  The woman threw her hair back defiantly. “Of course not! I’m his sister, Jezebel, though most people who I don’t kill call me the Bandit Witch.”

  I grimaced. “Gee, I wonder why.”

  Jezebel stomped her boot on my back again, nearly breaking my spine. “For that comment alone, boy, I should permanently silence your pretty little mouth. Though perhaps I’ll let some of my boys have fun with you first.”

  “But Jezebel, what if the boy isn’t alone?” asked one of the bandits, glancing around the clearing with an uncertain expression on his face. “He might have allies.”

  Jezebel shook her head. “I checked. There’s no one else nearby. There’s the Codexium, but I bet that old drunkard is fast asleep by now. Even if he isn’t, he’s not going to get to us in time to save this brat. No one is.”

  As if to emphasize her point, Jezebel bent over and swiped at my cheek with her knife. The blade cut through my cheek as easily as butter, making me cry out in pain and clutch my cheek, which was now bleeding freely. It didn’t feel like a deep wound, but it hurt nonetheless.

  Jezebel stepped off my back, snapped her fingers, and a couple of the burlier-looking bandits rushed over and grabbed my arms. They hauled me to my feet roughly, pulling my arms backward so much that it felt like they would break if they pulled them back any further. Between the strain put on my arms and shoulders by the bandits, my bleeding cheek, and my general exhaustion from a long day, I feared for my life at this point.

  I heard a grunt and looked over to see Nimbus stomping his foot on the ground inside the bubble. He looked upset at how the bandits were handling me, but his golden eyes were fixed on Jezebel rather than me. I didn’t know why he wasn’t talking when I knew that he could, but maybe he was just too afraid of the bandits to speak.

  Jezebel seemed to notice Nimbus’s grunts and growls and raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s your problem, rabbit? Do you wanna die, too? Well, you can’t. Big Brother says we need a Codex Beast for our plans. He’d be pissed as Sheol if I killed you now.”

  My mind raced at the mention of the bandits needing Nimbus. “Why do you guys need him?”

  Jezebel looked back at me as if she’d forgotten I was there. “That ain’t none of your business, boy. Which is also the reason I’m gonna slit your throat and have my boys drop your body where it stands. Best way to scare off anyone who might want to try to stop us.”

  I took a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm me as Jezebel walked toward me, twirling her gleaming knife in her hand. I heard more thumps from Nimbus, but neither Jezebel nor her ‘boys,’ as she called them, seemed to notice or care about them. They sounded like warning thumps, though, given how Nimbus was even more powerless than I was at the moment, his warnings went unheeded by the bandits.

  Jezebel stopped in front of me, stinking of pipe smoke and sweat, and gazed down at me with glittering dark eyes. “Time to show you why people call me the Bandit Witch.”

  I gulped but struggled against my captors, at least until one of them punched me in the back of my head. That blow sent my head shooting forward, making my head ache from the impact. It also blurred my vision slightly, though when Jezebel grabbed my chin and forced my face to look at hers, I could still see her smirking, scarred face—

  And the knife driving straight for me.

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