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It did seem like a good idea to meet up with this Mystery Texter, but not without some backup. Before he went, he decided, he’d tell someone where he was going and arrange to have them call him shortly after the meetup time to check in. After all, he still didn’t know who this was—it still might be the witch herself, or even her rumored son.

It shouldn’t be a problem, though. Finding a friend who’d give you a safety call was way easier than finding a friend who knew the Valley inside out.

He texted back: Sure. Beanheadings at 10 or 10:15 then? Who should I look for?

Tam could only hope it’d be safe to hang out in Beanheadings that late at night. It was still a good half hour away from the gate, but that far in was mostly occupied by monsters, and he’d never been in that part of town after dark.

Almost as soon as he hit send, a hand tapped his shoulder. “Tam?”

Even expecting Sahil’s usual quiet approach, he still nearly jumped out of his skin. It had been a rough day, he reminded himself over the panicked racing of his heart. “Sahil! Hi.”

Sahil Kumar was as gorgeous as always. He looked refined and untouchable, a perfect statue of a youth, still soft around the edges. Black curls fell to fine cheekbones, angled to draw attention to his ice gray eyes in a warm, light brown face. His full lips carried the hint of a nervous smile at pretty much all times. The tension and anxiety that always seemed to hang about him only helped the impression somehow, like the mystery in the Mona Lisa’s smile.

Ash had laughed for an hour when Tam had tried to explain that, once. But Sahil and Ash had dated for a few months not long after that, so presumably Ash had seen the point once Tam had explained it.

Of course, Sahil also dressed like a tweedy uncle, or somebody’s absent-minded professor, in woolen sweaters with patches on the elbows, and loose slacks. He hugged his arms now, head tilted as if he was trying to figure something out. “Is everything okay? Sceana said you smelled miserable.”

That was, at least, a quick way to lead into things. “Last night… Ash got taken by a witch.”

The small smile fell off Sahil’s face at once, eyes widening. “What? No, that’s not possible. He was out with us last night—”

“I know, after he got back.” Tam swallowed. “It was my parents. They gave him to her…”

Sahil led him into one of the private study rooms and dragged him to sit down at the table there. He looked pretty miserable himself now, lips drawn off a little from his teeth in a grimace. “Tell me.”

So Tam did, stammering out his explanation until the words poured from him like a waterfall. Sahil got up about halfway through, pacing around the small room and hugging his arms, agitated, but Tam kept going until he’d explained everything he knew so far, everything he’d thought. He even passed the contract across the table so Sahil could read it.

“I was wondering if there was any way to get him back,” Tam finished finally. “I don’t know much about witches, or anything else down here either. I know they can cast spells, and if they write up a contract they’ll stick to it, but otherwise… I don’t know how different it is from old fantasy novels.”

“Not that much different,” Sahil said. He read over the contract for the fifth time, then pushed it back. “They don’t have unlimited power, but they can draw their own life energy, or that of those bound to them like familiars or apprentice or slaves, and convert it to power through the use of verbal and physical components. Gestures, materials, and words, basically. A spell has to be carefully designed to not use too much energy up or they’ll drain themselves before they’ll finish it, which is why they can’t just, I don’t know. Make a spell to become King of the World.”

“Sort of a relief,” Tam said. “So it’s like, if she pulls something out, or starts saying magic words, I know she’s going to try something?”

“Some spell incantations are short or subtle, but yes,” Sahil said. He sank back into the chair, scrubbing at his cheek with one over-sized sleeve. “If you want him back, you’ll need to get her to give him back. Or kill her,” he added, but looked unhappy about the idea. “Basically, you’ll have to remove her claim on him, which means either getting her to nullify the legal contract, or removing her from the equation.”

Tam didn’t much like the idea of killing either. “Convincing her by myself seems like it’d be pretty tough.”

“Getting allies would be good,” Sahil admitted. “A show of force of some kind would definitely make most weaker witches think twice.”

“Is she weak? Have you heard of her?”

“No, but if she hasn’t been active in town for some years, that’s no surprise,” Sahil said. “But…” He gestured around himself. “I’m in a pretty perfect place to do some research. Do you want me to try to dig something up on this Miss Istem?”

“I was going to do it myself,” Tam said, “but I mean, we could do it together. Or I could leave it to you and look into other options… I hadn’t thought about it. I wasn’t sure what you’d be willing or able to do—”

“He’s our coworker,” Sahil said. “No, you know? He’s our friend.” He smiled again, tense and unhappy. “Everyone here’s going to be willing to help you learn anything you need to know. So what will it be?”

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[Completed Parts: Instructions | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30 | Epilogue | Author’s Notes]

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A rush of relief hit Tam hard enough that he had to step off the sidewalk, leaning on the pole of a street light. The texter had said are, not were. Ash was alive—or had been since the texter had last seen him, at any rate.

Tam couldn’t see any point in dissembling further about this, not when he finally had something even vaguely like a lead. He typed furiously: He’s my twin brother. We’re super close, and I’m worried. His throat was aching again and he swallowed roughly a couple of times, quick. It wouldn’t do to get teary out in public, let alone in the Valley, where weakness could mark you as prey.

The feelings leaked into his writing instead. He added, Please. If you know about anything to do with him, I need to know. He’s been taken, and my parents let it happen, and I don’t know what to do.

He stared at the text for a long moment; it might be too much, too raw and too open, but at this point, holding things back might do more harm than good. The texter had been cagey, but not outright shutting him down. If the texter knew anything about Ash, Tam needed to know. Maybe, if the texter realized what he was going through, they’d be more on his side.

Maybe.

He hit send before he could question himself further, and drew a few quick, thick breaths of the strange air. Again, there was nothing he could do with that until he heard more. All he could really do was hope.

Putting his phone on silent, he headed into the library.

Ash had got the job in the library as a student four years earlier. They had put out an ad for library pages, and since Ash already knew he wanted to head into the field of Library and Information Science when he was older, he applied for it. It was apparently a pretty common position for high schoolers to hold, and Ash had done a good job talking about his interest in old tomes and grimoires particularly.

That had always been the slightly weird part to Tam. Ash liked books, and Ash liked libraries, and Ash particularly liked being around magical books. They fascinated him; he was constantly amazed that so much power could be held on ink and paper alone. That even if he himself couldn’t cast spells, other people could simply read them and cause something incredible to happen.

He’d been hired right after his interview, and had worked there part time ever since, sorting, shelving, photocopying, and doing everything else that was needed to free the librarians up to do their jobs more easily. Tam tried not to bother him too much when he was working, but sometimes picked him up after to walk together, and sometimes had gone to the library while Ash was working, to just sit there reading and keeping him company.

There were plenty of normal books outside of the magical sections, after all.

Walking into the building was such a familiar sensation that it felt like he’d see Ash already there, sorting through the cart of returns, looking up with that immediate grin. He wasn’t, of course, and Tam felt embarrassed by his own disappointment.

“Afternoon, Tam,” Sceana said. She tilted her head at him, light catching her amber eyes and the scattering of green scales over her cheeks. “Ash isn’t working today…”

As if he didn’t know it. He forced a smile. Sceana was nice enough, but she made him uncomfortable regardless. “I know. I’m here to see Sahil. Is he in today?”

“He is,” she breathed. “Let me get him for you.”

She slithered out from behind circulations, serpentine body crawling in waves across the floor as she vanished towards the rare tomes collection door.

Tam let out a breath, leaning on the circulations desk. He didn’t want them to think that Ash was just blowing work off when he didn’t show up next week—his years of dedication deserved that discussion, however hard it would be to have. He’d tell Sahil, and Sahil could tell the others that Ash wouldn’t be back. He had to explain something of it to get any useful information and, anyway, Sahil was cute and easy to talk to.

As he waited, he pulled out his phone to check it. It was starting to become an anxious tic, but one that kept being rewarded with new answers.

We should meet, the mystery texter had replied. I can’t get away until 10 pm tonight. Beanheadings is open until midnight. Do you know it?

He did; it was a coffee shop about a fifteen minute walk deeper into the Valley. He hesitated, mind running a mile a minute on what to reply, what to tell and ask Sahil, what research he could do here.

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[Completed Parts: Instructions | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30 | Epilogue | Author’s Notes]

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Tam wasn’t ready to answer yet. He let the phone fall onto Ash’s desk and put his head down on it, chest heaving, burying his face in his folded arms.

He stayed there for a long while, leaking hot tears against his arms, until eventually the crashing waves of his grief just seemed to dry up. That well of distress was still there, a hole where his faith in his family had been, but it was, for now, empty.

Finally, he moved, stretching an arm out blindly until he found a tissue box, tugging one free, and using it to get himself cleaned up.

It wasn’t like he felt better, exactly, but who would? Maybe there’d be more to let out later, but for now, other than his head throbbing and his nose impassibly stuffy, he mostly felt frustrated and impatient for all the time he’d wasted. It would be easy to start beating himself up.

He picked the phone up again and saw a new email notification, but replied first to the text: I’m the owner’s brother. Have you seen him?

If he was being cagey, he knew the person on the other end was too. If someone had just found the phone, why not say as much? Did Ash give them his phone? Did the witch hand it out to someone? Or did this person take it away from Ash themselves? Whoever it was seemed to be trying to feel Tam out just as much as he was trying to feel them out.

But what did that mean?

The witch didn’t stand to gain anything more from Tam’s family. Surely it couldn’t be her. If it was, why wouldn’t she just ignore Tam’s messages.

After sending his response, he took a moment to read the email. It was from Jared:

Hey, dude, long time no talk. Happy birthday! How’s your year off school been? Uni is hell lol. How can I help you out with the Valley? I don’t know too much about it one way or another, but if you need to know anything about vampires, especially the Dupré gang, I’m your dude. Now, I’ve met Rainier Dupré himself before, but that’s about as deep into Valley culture as I’ve been. Dunno if I can help you but willing to try. You and Ash have a good day!

Tam suppressed his initial flinch, forcing himself to focus on the contents. He wasn’t sure off the bat how vampires might be helpful, though he supposed anyone who was deeply involved in Valley social politics might have some information that could help him, or might be able to provide some sort of ally against forces he didn’t know how to deal with. He could make a trade himself, if it came to it.

He decided to mull over how to reply to Jared on his way down to the library.

Getting up, he snagged Ash’s charger—if he found Ash and couldn’t get him out, at least he could hopefully keep his laptop alive and let them communicate—and the folder with the contract. After a moment’s consideration, he slid the card with the tickets in as well and put them all in his backpack. Maybe Ash’s handwriting could be useful to someone somewhere, and if he managed to solve this quickly, they could still make tomorrow’s play.

Then he headed out of the house, ignoring his parents’ calling out to him on the way out the door.  

Tam had walked to the library many times, and hardly needed to pay attention for the few blocks it took him to reach the Valley. As the sidewalk began to slope, he shivered. The air felt different as soon as you crossed the line, entering that territory that surrounded the gate to the Otherworld. He wondered if it felt like this in every city: a district where the air was thick, the ground felt a little different, the scents were subtly wrong.

It still looked normal around here, this far out. Apartments and houses were intermingled, though the apartments were thicker and houses fewer as he headed down into the Valley’s city center. Soon the residential area gave way to storefronts and shops: antique shops, corner stores, office buildings, and all the rest.

It’d look like a regular downtown, except for how the human population dwindled in comparison to the monsters roaming around and going about their business, and how the things the shops offered were not, generally, things humans needed. Charms Charms Charms flashed in one window, with And Hexes written beneath it in window paint. Half a block further, Humanburger sold their fast food through a street-side walkthrough window. Legally, the meat they used wasn’t actually human, but Tam figured there were probably ways to disguise that when the inspectors came around.

He reached the corner of Birch and Mayflower, and tapped the walk button to cross the road. Across the street and to the left, the library’s strange old twisted facade stood; further down to the right was the Theater of Dreams, where he and Ash had sometimes gone to shows. He knew the stores and businesses in this area best, as close as it was to his home and to Ash’s work, but had rarely gone much further down.

Few humans did.

Tam’s phone buzzed. He had to wait until he was across the street to check it, and even so, a wolf-drawn cart’s driver flipped him the bird when he got his phone out halfway across.

The unknown texter had written: I might have seen him. Are you two close?

[Please suggest an action in the Comments.
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[Completed Parts: Instructions | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30 | Epilogue | Author’s Notes]

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Tam stared down at the phone, his hands trembling. Immediately, the worst case scenario flooded in: that something had happened to his brother when he was taken by the witch, that it really was from Ash but that Ash didn’t recognize him any more.

But as soon as he thought that, he dismissed it as unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. Maybe Ash had dropped his phone and a stranger had found it. Maybe it was the witch herself, digging for information.

He had to play it cool. He knew that, and even so, it took an intense act of will to reply casually.

He typed carefully: Wait, isn’t my number in your phone? It seemed like the best option to get some kind of information from whoever this was.

Waiting for the reply, he took a few moment to steady himself, drawing a few deep breaths with his eyes closed, then letting them back out. There was nothing to do but take things step by step. And he needed all the information he could get.

Tam forced himself to move. He rose from the bed with his phone in one hand, leaving his room and heading down the hall to Ash’s. For a moment, he thought he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to turn the knob—but he did, stepping inside just as his phone buzzed again.

It was a relief to look at that and not the empty room. The reply on the screen read: Yes, of course it is. But who are you?

That made things clearer and less clear all at once. He answered right away: Did you find this phone or something? I’m not sure how I could be in your phone and you not know who I am…

It took him a moment to force himself to look up from his phone to examine the room. He tried to stay critical as he did so, not letting himself think or feel anything, but even so, the ache in his chest was starting again, like there wasn’t enough room in his rib-cage.

There was no sign of a struggle, and the bed didn’t look slept-in. The desk chair was pulled out, and Ash’s laptop was missing—the charger was still there, though, which seemed odd. Did he not have enough time to take it with him, or was he too drunk after the party to realize that he’d need it if he was leaving?

Or had he thought he was only going for a short time, and didn’t realize he wasn’t coming back?

What was on the desk was a birthday card. Tam’s heart stuttered in his chest, and he approached it slowly. His hand felt like it belonged to someone else as he reached for it, running his fingertips over the ridges on the cover. It was an overly cartoonish “You’re 1 years old now!” baby boy card. Ash had scribbled a 2 in front of the one in sharpie, his usual sort of humor.

His phone buzzed again. Trying to swallow the lump, he lifted it again, peering at the screen through the haze forming in his vision.

It’s not my phone, no. Do you need it back? I can take it to a drop-off location if you want.

It sounded like the phone had just been discarded, but Tam wasn’t ready to give up hope yet. He wanted to believe that whoever had it was testing him, or at least that they were still close to wherever Ash might be. He might be able to get into Ash’s account, maybe use Google’s Find My Device feature to at least narrow the area down. And if it had been lost, that itself might provide information. Where did you find it?

He sent the message, then grabbed the card before he could have second thoughts, opening it up.

It didn’t seem to be any sort of clue. Two tickets were folded into the card, both to Lithway’s One Shadow Play: Diary of a Madman. Tam loved the couple of Lithway plays that he’d seen—the shapeshifting shadow-creature was able to mimic multiple parts with ease, though all the characters had that same soft, yearning voice. In the card itself, there was a note, or most of one: Happy birthday, “little” bro! I thought we could see this together. These tickets were the first ones sold for the show this year and come with the chance to meet Lithway themself backstage after the per-

And that was it. Ash’s sort of sloppy handwriting had stopped there, as if he’d been interrupted and hadn’t picked his pen back up.

Tam couldn’t hold it in any more. He folded the card around the tickets and held it in one hand as he sank into Ash’s chair, sobbing. He hated how it felt, the tension in his cheekbones and forehead, the pressure in his nose, the scarring temperature of the tears leaking down his face. But he couldn’t help it, either. All he could do was let this out and then… keep trying. He’d go down to the library once he’d got himself back together. He could talk to Sahil, and maybe try to learn more about the Valley in person.

His phone buzzed again, and he looked at it through a blur of tears:

I didn’t say I found it. Once again, who is this?

[Please suggest an action in the Comments.
As a reminder, it can be thoughts, words, or deeds!]

[Completed Parts: Instructions | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30 | Epilogue | Author’s Notes]

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Even if he’d just been trying to keep his spirits up, it wasn’t necessarily a completely absurd idea; apparently witches did answer ads. Their family’s case had been twenty-one years ago, so Tam imagined this particular witch must have been looking in the newspaper’s classifieds, but that didn’t mean that she, or others like her, hadn’t kept up with the times.

He went to google her directly, then hesitated, pinky finger just slightly depressing the enter key—not enough to send the query through, not yet. It might be stupid of him not to just try to find her name and address directly; for all he knew, she had a storefront somewhere and he could be there within half an hour.

But he didn’t know anywhere near enough about how witches did magic, and if she had some sort of alert set up for searches on her name, maybe he should make sure he wasn’t at his home computer when he did that. If nothing else, if she saw that someone in the family was trying to look her up, she might move his brother somewhere else.

If she hadn’t already.

Tam shook himself, trying to focus. He could at least do some research on witches in general, and protection spells, and that sort of thing.

The next hour went by in an increasingly frustrated haze. It became apparent very quickly that he didn’t have enough grounding in the subject to sort through what was real and what was just rumor. Given how monsters had been popular before anyone had known they were real—presumably some old human memory twisted and confused over the centuries their gates had been closed—there was a huge wealth of misinformation, and narrowing down the truth might take a while.

At least three times, he found blogs claiming to belong to witches, only to find (in the comments, or on trying to verify through secondary searches) that they were wannabes instead. The other blogs he’d found might be real, but the false results threw the rest into doubt.

What he was pretty sure of, after some time on Wikipedia, was that witches were humans who had some sort of monster bloodline that left them capable of doing real magic—if properly trained. Some had trained under demons or other magical monsters; others, under previous witches. Their bloodline allowed them to call the Valley home, if they wished to, or even enter the Otherworld. A source even lead to an article about a few witches who had become famous in the Otherworld itself; the journalist’s bio listed her as a faun, so presumably, that much was reliable.

Other articles, written by humans, he had to doubt more. From everything he’d heard, and everything he was reading, normal humans, those untouched by the Other, just didn’t enter the Otherworld. The Valley, sure—anyone could go there. But not through the gates itself.

He wondered if being laid claim to by a witch was enough to let one pass through. If so, his brother might already be fully out of his reach.

No. He couldn’t let himself despair. He researched protection spells next, again with mixed results—but in the process of reading the offers people were putting on Craigslist, found a link to what he hoped was a major lead and not some stupid human imitation: Witch Yelp.

“I can’t believe this,” he muttered. They’d even branded it as Welp.

Following that thread got him information on several highly rated witches, whose websites occasionally had bits of depressing information: Don’t make a binding contract if you’re not prepared to have to deal with the outcome, because witches keep their promises, for good or ill. He learned that witches traded for other people’s freedom for all kinds of reasons: because they wanted a servant, because they wanted an apprentice, because they needed a person of this or that description for spell materials.

The only bit of good news he got was how the protection on his family probably worked: a common sort of protection spell was to essentially mark the targets as belonging to one of the denizens of the Otherworld. Most monsters would take that as reason enough to stay hands off, though if antagonized, might still attack. A good practitioner would combine the mark with some sort of alert with auto-triggered spells to deal with attackers, or even to draw the caster’s attention remotely through a far-sight spell.

Tam couldn’t help but notice that his parents’ own contract didn’t specify any of that. Maybe it didn’t need to. Maybe it did, and his parents had gotten the bare minimum without realizing, too soon after the Valley’d shown up to know what to bargain for.

And what he didn’t find during any of his research was the name Istem. Not for Bella, not for anyone who might be her son. Even when he googled it by itself—that at least surely couldn’t let off any alarms—the results were buried under STEM programmes.

Frustrated, he closed Chrome and rubbed his face, breathing into his hands. He felt overwhelmed with information, dizzy with it, but didn’t actually feel any more informed.

And he missed his brother.

He picked up his phone, opening up Ash’s last texts to read them. It’s good! Coming home in about half an hour though. Tam had replied, then Ash again: Of course I’m not driving, Sahil’s the dd. See you soon.

Suddenly, his hands were trembling. He tried to keep them steady as he wrote: Ash, if you get this, please write back to me. I’m scared.

He hit send, even believing that his brother would never see it. Probably he hadn’t been allowed to bring his phone. Probably, even if he had taken it with him, it was confiscated.

Don’t think about that, Tam pleaded with himself.

So the last person to see Ash, minus their parents, was Sahil. Sahil was one of Ash’s coworkers; maybe Tam should talk to him. He could go down to the library in person, or head into Ash’s room and see if he could find an email address on his computer or something.

He didn’t want to go to Ash’s room. He wasn’t sure he could handle seeing it and knowing Ash wasn’t coming back.

“I have to keep moving.” He said it aloud to try to convince himself, but hated how much his voice was trembling. He needed information direct from the Valley; Sahil might be able to help, or might be a dead end. He considered contacting some of the monsters he’d been classmates with in high school, but they’d never been close; he sent a message to Jared instead. Jared had been a pretty good friend of his, although he’d gotten a little awkward after Tam had come out. Still, Jared never said anything about it, just didn’t seem to know how to react, and he had done some interviews with one of the vampire clans for the student paper. Jared had sent him birthday wishes on Facebook too, so it wasn’t like the contact would be out of nowhere.

Jared, can I run some stuff past you about the Valley? It’s sort of urgent. Let me know. He sent his number along with the email.

His phone vibrated almost as soon as he’d sent the email on his computer, and he jumped, fumbling to switch between them and turn the screen on with numb hands. There, in the text thread with Ash, was a reply:

Sorry, who is this?

[Please suggest an action in the Comments.
As a reminder, it can be thoughts, words, or deeds!]

[Completed Parts: Instructions | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30 | Epilogue | Author’s Notes]