Seymour shambled onto the shuttle the next morning, drunk off sleep deprivation. He might have liked to catch a couple hours of much-needed shut-eye during the pre-dawn commute, but it wasn’t meant to be. Unlike the day before, an air of excitement rippled through his fellow passengers this morning.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Ermin, the driver, as he slumped into his seat at the front of the shuttle. “If I didn’t know better, I’d guess someone on Heschia invented booger sugar and gave everyone on this shuttle their first bump for free.”

  “‘Booger sugar’?” Ermin wondered.

  “Oh man, how do I explain this?” Seymour scratched his chin and scoured his sleepy brain. “It’s kinda like coffee, but if it was a powder you drink through your nose, and the constable will lock you right up if he catches you with it.”

  “I see; an illicit stimulant, then, is what you’re describing. Something similar to joka nettles.”

  “Yeah, sounds like you get it.”

  “I can, if you’ve got the chits.” Ermin winked. “Just keep that fact between you and me, though. I’d rather not have the constable inspecting my cargo any more than he’s already prone to doing.”

  “Good to know, I guess?” The prospect of hard drugs existing in a fantasy world hadn’t seriously occurred to Seymour before that moment, despite the fact he spent every night knocking back brews at Hedwick’s Home. He wasn’t actually tempted to ask Ermin to score him any of these joka nettles, but the idea that his bus driver might have contacts in the seedier side of Heschia intrigued him. He filed the information away in case it might come in handy down the line.

  “But if they aren’t hopped up on illegal nettles,” he asked, “then what is it? Why’s everyone so chatty today?”

  “It’s Visitors’ Day.” Ermin rolled his eyes. “Once per month, Dragon Dan permits his workers to bring guests along—relatives and friends and what have you—since the depot has a way of attracting tourists from every corner of the realm but not everyone possesses the means to travel all the way down there. If there’s someone you’d like to invite, you must simply give me notice before the next Visitors’ Day so as to prevent any overbooking. I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Little – this is far from my favorite day of the month. But Dan compensates me generously, thus I keep my complaints to myself. Mostly.”

  Suddenly, in the most ear-piercing, sing-songy voice, a little girl seated up front whined to her mother, “are we there yet?”

  Ermin’s neck and shoulders and whole body tensed like someone had just taken his hand against his will and dragged his nails down a chalkboard. He whirled on the girl, eyes wide and nostrils legit flaring.

  “I’m sorry.” The girl’s mother shrugged. “She simply can’t wait to meet Dragon Dan. We’re both so excited.”

  “I’m well aware of her excitement.”

  She laughed. “I imagine you must witness such child-like wonder on a regular basis, likely even from the adults among us, driving this route as you do.”

  “You imagine, do you? Have yourself a powerful imagination?” He grinned, showing his teeth. “Well, Miss, do me a favor now if you would, and imagine for a moment that you were to load a small girl—say, your little girl—into an exceptionally powerful catapult.”

  “Pardon me?” She covered her daughter’s ears and blinked at Ermin.

  “Don’t pretend to be scandalized – just do as I’ve asked and picture it in your mind. Close your eyes if you need to. Sometimes that helps.”

  “Okie-doke,” Seymour blurted. “Done.”

  He had not only closed his eyes like Ermin suggested but went the extra ornery step of covering them both up with his hands, too.

  “Uh, good. Good. Everyone can play along.” Ermin raised his voice slightly, moreso playing a pantomime at directing the passengers than actually doing so. “Eyes closed, people. Right, that’s it. Conjure your little lasses in their catapults now, using the power of your imagination.”

  “Small girl,” Seymour began, “loaded into a comically large trebuchet. And action.”

  The big man had been put slightly off-kilter by Seymour’s sudden interjections, but he seemed encouraged, which had been the goal all along. If Ermin needed some help antagonizing these tourists, then Seymour would be happy to oblige.

  The mother glared at them both now with eyes that were distinctly not closed as Ermin had suggested. He continued to guide her through the imaginary scenario as if they were, anyway:

  “Now picture this, if you launched that little girl southwest from Ghizo’s Crossing—assuming an intelligent trajectory, of course, and a stout tailwind—then it’s not impossible to think that the kid might actually clear the rim of Vol’kara’s crater. And if she were then lucky enough to land upon Dragon Dan rather than splattering all over the unforgiving savannah? Well, you never know – she might even survive. With only major injuries; open fractures and perforated organs and the like. And Dan is truly enormous, as you may have heard, so while the odds of that safe-ish landing happening seem terrible, it’s not altogether impossible.”

  The mother frowned with her entire face but maintained her composure. “I don’t think I like your tone.”

  “I’m just saying, Miss and Little Miss, that the shop is quite near, as the raven flies. Or as Little Miss would fly, in this hypothetical.” Finally, with no trace of humor, he leaned close to the girl and answered her original question: “we’ll get there when we get there.”

  The mother stared at him for a moment longer and then she stood and pulled the girl to her feet. “Come, Amelie, we’ve ridden up front long enough. Let us go find your cousins.”

  “It was only a joke,” Ermin claimed as the woman led her daughter to the aisle and headed carefully toward the back of the moving shuttle. When she didn’t turn back to acknowledge him, he waved her away dismissively, muttering, “you two have yourselves a Dantastic day now, ye hear?”

  “Clearly,” Seymour said, watching them leave. “That woman has no sense of humor. Nor adventure.”

  Ermin snorted a laugh. “You make a fine partner in crime, Mr. Little.”

  Then he tapped the side of his helmet, materializing the crystalline facemask, and turned to his wheel. The morning commute had officially begun.

  Seymour sat before an open display case with three dozen novelty wands fanned out on the floor in front of him. These were real kitschy little things; Wands of Sneezing and Butterflies and Food Seasoning and the like. As silly as they seemed, though, Seymour had been putting them to good use. First, by capturing their schematics:

  Once he possessed a snapshot of their sacred geometry, he could begin reproducing the wands – if he had access to the proper materials. Fortuitously, every single one of these things was made from simple, soft wood. Over the course of the first half hour of his day, Seymour managed to copy and reproduce twenty-four different wands, allowing each to revert to its original form after five minutes, before a surprising line of text appeared at the bottom of his vision:

  He had no clue how much mana he had actually started out with, but barfing up twenty-four unique wands had emptied out his pool while simultaneously advancing Infringement nearly five percent toward the next rank. Combined with the progress he’d already made, the spell was now over ten percent of the way to Adept. Despite not knowing what would happen if and when it ranked up, Seymour buzzed with anticipation.

  “What if it lets me combine schematics? Like what if I can make a wand that forces my target to sneeze out a whole flock of butterflies?” He spoke to the basket he was filling with less-than-perfect items as if it was a person. On the floor beside him, it sat already close to half full. “That would be kind of sick, not gonna lie.”

  But Seymour had already begun to fantasize about other possibilities, too:

  For instance, he knew from his experience with Ridley yesterday that an adept-ranked Sculpting Wand had occupied five gems just to hold the schematic in his mind, but that left him with thirty remaining. Assuming it then required another five gems to create the actual wand, with enough of the appropriate materials on hand he could potentially produce five more all at once. While he didn’t think five Sculpting Wands would be all that useful, what if they were five wands that shot lightning bolts, instead?

  That could be pretty badass. Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!

  The idea of machinegunning lightning bolts or fireballs or whatever made him feel like a straight up wizard.

  “Like the bastard child of Gandalf and Rambo,” he whispered, careful not to let any of the tourists overhear.

  He still had plenty of questions:

  How much mana do I have?

  How much does it actually take to produce items using Infringement?

  Does it regenerate on its own? Do I need to meditate or something to speed it up, like a goddamned MMO?

  Early on during his time on Heschia, he’d spent almost every waking hour wondering if he’d ever return to Earth. Feeling trapped and helpless, he’d laid in his bed at Hedwick’s Home for the entire first week, depressed by the idea he might never see his mom and little sister again. He had missed his coworkers at the restaurant and even the bookies he’d used to place his bets.

  “Weird ass Gaspar and Janez, from Latvia or whatever.” He chuckled, remembering the foreign-born brothers from whom he’d won a couple thousand bucks in the weeks before coming to Heschia. “Those dudes were straight up gangsters.”

  But now? He could hardly have cared less about any of that. He recognized how lucky he’d been to have wound up here. The opportunity to learn magic—to live some kind of video game fantasy—overwhelmed every other concern. And the idea of becoming more powerful just by grinding on weird little wands while working at a magic shop was downright intoxicating.

  The grind would have to wait, though, because at least for now his mana had all been depleted, and he dove into the task of inventorying the depot’s third floor with renewed focus.

  Because he had another mission he still meant to accomplish that day, too. He needed to talk to Ridley and see if he could tease out any more information about what the artificer—and potentially the directors his guild—were up to. He needed to know why they were maneuvering him. Before the day was even half over, Seymour had filled his basket with items in need of Ridley’s attention, and he headed downstairs to deliver it.

  “You really don’t need to be working so quickly,” Ridley said while standing over the items now spread across a second workbench. “Unless you’re just trying to make me look bad.”

  Seymour couldn’t help but notice that the items he’d brought down the day before were still right where he’d left them, occupying the other workbench.

  “Seems like you could use a hand.” He held out his open palm, flaunting his Sigil of Greed. “Maybe you should talk to Eusebio about hiring me on permanently to be your assistant or something.”

  Ridley looked at him sideways. “You clearly possess an out-sized affinity for self-promotion, but I must admit: your idea is intriguing.”

  “We’d bang these repairs out in a jiffy.”

  “We could get started right now if you had any mana left. What have you been doing up there?”

  Seymour froze. He’d forgotten that Ridley could evidently see his mana reserves better than he could himself. But instead of showing his surprise, he recovered to flash a smile, instead.

  “I’ve just been practicing with Infringement, working on getting it ranked up, you know? I tell you what, man, I’m finding this whole artificery thing extremely interesting. I think I might even want to make it my career and whatnot – since it seems like I’m going to be living here on Heschia for the foreseeable future.” He lifted a magical feather duster from the workbench and made a show of capturing its schematic. “I’ve been thinking: maybe the Guild of Artificers would want me?”

  Ridley shot him that same, skeptical, sideways glare, but remained silent.

  “You think maybe you could introduce me to the directors?” Seymour pressed. “Maybe net yourself a fat finder’s fee or something for recruiting me, while you’re at it.”

  The artificer laughed but Seymour didn’t sense any humor.

  “No,” he finally said. “The guild wouldn’t want you.”

  “Why not?”

  “We are full for the current season.”

  “What about next season?”

  “We are full then, as well.”

  “Well, maybe I could convince the directors, if I just had a chance to talk to them. Would you put me in touch?”

  “No.” Ridley turned away. “Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”

  “Sure,” Seymour said to his back, smirking. “I don’t mind.”

  He left the workshop, suddenly confident that Ridley was working alone and—more importantly—didn’t want the directors of his guild knowing that he’d used Seymour to fashion an illicit Sculpting Wand.

  Eusebio bowed to Adara upon finding the old woman behind her desk in the library.

  “Do you know if the Riftborn is upstairs?”

  “He is.” Her silky, silver hair swayed as she slipped off her spectacles and looked up from her work. “And he intends to blackmail the artificer.”

  “Ch’idi told you that?”

  “She did.”

  “Can I speak to her?”

  “Can it wait? I have important matters this afternoon.”

  “No worries.” Eusebio smiled at his old friend. “It will wait until tonight.”

  He understood; channeling Ch’idi had become too taxing for Adara to perform on a whim. She needed time to prepare – and time to recover. He hated to think about needing to replace her some day. "Head Librarian of Dragon Dan’s Adventure Depot" was an illustrious title, but it only went so far when you were asking a prospective employee to not only work twelve hours each day but also to let the resident ghost inhabit their body from time to time.

  He nodded to Adara and left her. As he crossed the second floor, he also nodded in turn to Gordon and Feshka. And he laughed to himself. Poor Ridley. Seymour Little was going to be at least the third entity blackmailing him now, by Eusebio’s count.

  By the time he reached the stairwell up to the next floor he had already begun to devise a test to tease out a confession from the Riftborn. To ascertain where his loyalties leaned; to himself or the shop. But just as Eusebio arrived on the landing at the top of the stairs, a huge snowflake suddenly flitted down from the ceiling and wiped the entire scenario from his mind.

  Eusebio closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Gorgudan had been right all along. The Sigil of Greed was the key. What did it say about the hedge maze, that Greed alone could make it open?

  He retrieved his wand from his pocket and held it close to his mouth. When he spoke at normal volume, the wand amplified his voice to carry throughout the entire store:

  “Attention esteemed guests,” he began, “due to an impending extradimensional incident, the entirety of the third floor of the depot will close immediately and until further notice. Please make your way at once to a lower level in a calm and orderly fashion. Failure to evacuate in a timely manner may result in entrapment within an endless hedge maze filled with living topiary monsters. Dragon Dan’s Adventure Depot will not be held responsible for any damages which may be inflicted upon parties trapped within the hedge maze, as it technically exists in a dimension parallel to our own and is therefore not covered by our insurance policy.”

  The snow was really coming down already. Roots and vines snaked out from between and beneath the shelves, and the floor itself was no longer made from cedar planks as it had been only moments earlier, but had instead become a rough, dirt path. While Eusebio stood and waited and watched, the transformation accelerated. Curios sprouted leaves all over and then melded into the walls. After all this time, the hedge maze had finally returned. Gorgudan had been right.

  Customers streamed past, brushing off snow and hurrying to get back downstairs before whatever bizarre event was taking place had a chance to complete. Many of these shoppers weren’t adventurers so much as simple collectors, drawn to this floor in particular for its eclectic oddities.

  Eusebio did his best to apologize to each and every one of them as they passed. He invited all to enjoy a free tea at the apothecary, or a cider at Gordon’s cafe.

  But he found himself distracted as he watched the customers go by, more than a few in mild panic.

  The dragon knew all along that this would happen, he thought. The Riftborn truly is the key.