Blood and brains flew everywhere as Jezebel’s portable blew up her head. Some of it got onto me, but because I was lying down at the time, I avoided most of the gore.

  As for the hooded woman, the blood and gore just passed through her like she was made of shadow. She didn’t even flinch. She just lowered her quill to her side, staring at the headless corpse standing in front of her with a quizzical expression.

  The hooded woman then poked Jezebel’s chest with her quill again, and her headless corpse toppled over onto the ground behind me with a thunk.

  Before I could process what just happened, I heard someone cry out, “Miss Jezebel!” and looked over to see who it was.

  It was the bandit whom the hooded woman had paralyzed before, the one with blood coming out of all of his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Blood continued to leak out of his face as he stared with horror at his leader’s dead body. The crimson glyphs etched into his body continued to pulse, adding a slight amount of illumination to the shadows around us, along with Nimbus’s red mana bubble.

  “Miss Jezebel …” The bandit shuddered. Tears mixed with the blood leaking from his eyes as he gazed at the woman. “Who are you, lady?”

  The hooded woman paused, as if carefully considering her next words, before breaking into a smile. “Tell Wolfbrand that the Shadow Scribe sends her regards.”

  “But what does that—”

  Crack.

  The bandit howled with pain and doubled over, though the glyphs had stopped glowing on his body and he had stopped bleeding. I looked at the woman who called herself the Shadow Scribe, but as far as I could tell, she hadn’t moved a muscle. Yet clearly, she had somehow hurt that bandit without actually touching him.

  And I suspected she could kill him without touching him, either.

  “Now leave,” said the Shadow Scribe, her voice much colder than before. “Before I regret sparing your sorry life.”

  This time, the bandit didn’t argue with her. With a messy mixture of tears and blood streaming down his face, the bandit fled into the trees. He was sobbing the whole time like a little boy who had fallen and hurt himself. I thought I even heard him call out for his mommy at one point, but maybe that was just my imagination.

  The Shadow Scribe watched him go, ignoring me, before turning her gaze to Nimbus, who was still trapped in his red mana bubble. He was looking up at her expectantly, one ear up, the other down.

  “Well?” said Nimbus. “Are you going to free me or not?”

  Nimbus’s demanding tone stunned me, especially after the woman’s display of her power, but the Shadow Scribe chuckled. She walked past me and bent over, touching the tip of her quill, which was now gold again, against the red mana bubble. The red mana bubble popped without fanfare, and Nimbus hopped away from her and began licking his fur even though it didn’t look dirty to me.

  “Ugh,” said Nimbus, sitting next to Jezebel’s headless corpse as he groomed his fur. “Humans in general are jerks, but those bandits were a special kind of jerk, if you get my drift.”

  The Shadow Scribe chuckled again as she rose to her feet. “You are welcome, Nimbus.”

  I blinked and stared up at the Shadow Scribe. “You know Nimbus?”

  “We’ve met before,” said Nimbus in a tone that told me he didn’t want to talk about it. “That’s why I wasn’t afraid when she showed up. I knew she’d wipe the floor with those bandits. It wasn’t even a contest. If I were a betting bunny, I’d be rolling in shekels right now.”

  The Shadow Scribe looked at me, seeming to notice me for the first time since she appeared. “And you must be Aaron Thorn. My apologies for not intervening sooner. I was busy.”

  I blinked. I couldn’t imagine what might have kept a Codexer as powerful as she was ‘busy,’ but I suspected it was none of my business. I just sat up and rubbed my cheek, which was still bleeding. “Uh, thanks, Miss Shadow Scribe.”

  “Salome,” said the woman. “That’s my real name. The Shadow Scribe is an alias. A name of hope for some … and a name of fear for others.”

  I had no idea what she meant by that, as I’d never heard of her under any name, but after seeing how the bandits reacted to her magic, I understood why someone might fear her name. Heck, even though Nimbus seemed to trust her, I still didn’t feel entirely comfortable around the woman. While I was pretty sure that Jezebel and her various minions deserved the deaths that they got, I wouldn’t deny that it was still pretty freaky watching them all get picked off one by one like that.

  And Jezebel’s head outright exploding?

  That was even freakier than whatever shadow monster worked for Salome.

  But I didn’t get to say any of that before Salome noticed me rubbing my bleeding cheek and frowned. “Ouch. Let me help.”

  Salome reached out with her quill, the tip of which was now glowing blue, and quickly scratched something along my cheek before I could react. I jerked back, afraid that she was going to blow up my head in the same way that she had blown up Jezebel’s head.

  But my head remained intact, and I felt a cooling sensation across my sliced cheek. I tentatively touched my cheek again and felt no injury anymore. It felt as if the wound had completely disappeared all on its own—though clearly Salome’s magic had done the trick.

  Salome chuckled and put a hand over her mouth. “Relieved I didn’t blow up your head?”

  I jerked my head toward Salome, my eyes widening in surprise. “How—?”

  “It’s written all over your face like an open book,” said Nimbus, who had finished grooming his fur and now sat on his hind legs, his golden eyes gazing at me as if he thought I was a bit slow. “Even an illiterate rabbit like myself can see that.”

  I took a deep breath to calm myself and involuntarily glanced at Jezebel’s corpse. “My apologies. I was asking about how you healed my injury.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Salome shrugged as she lowered her quill to her side. “It was simple enough, even though my Discipline is not a healing Discipline. Just a tap of my Quiet Quill with the right spell, and you were healed. Though I would probably wash your face later if I were you. It’s covered in blood.”

  I reached up and touched my face again, feeling the dried blood stains covering it. It seemed a bit odd to me that Salome’s spell, whatever it was, could heal my injury but not clean my face, but if Salome was correct about not being a healing Codexer, then I guess that made sense. It made me wonder where Salome’s portable was, however, because I could not see it.

  Wait… my portable!

  It was still in Jezebel’s grasp. I ripped my portable out of her dead hands, trying to ignore her still-warm hands, and quickly examined it to make sure that it was okay. Fortunately, my portable appeared undamaged, aside from some blood stains from Jezebel’s head, which made sense. I would have to wash that and my face later.

  “Is that your portable?” asked Salome. “It looks quite old.”

  I put the corded necklace of my portable around my neck and was relieved when a notification informing me that my portable was still active flashed in my vision before I dismissed it and looked at Salome. “It belonged to my father. I don’t know where he got it from, but it is pretty old. But it still works and that’s what matters.” I sighed and rubbed my thumb across its cracked surface. “But I didn’t realize how vulnerable having a portable made me. All that Jezebel lady had to do was take my portable from me, and I couldn’t do anything. I was completely useless.”

  Salome tilted her head to the side, narrowing her eyes. “Are you telling me that you haven’t bound your portable to your soul yet?”

  I blinked at Salome. “How do you do that?”

  Salome sighed and shook her head. “Never mind. I forgot that you are still a Chapter One, Page One Codexer. Just know that once you reach Chapter Two in your Discipline, you will have the option of soul-binding your portable to your soul. Then no one will be able to steal it from you ever again. You will still be able to remove it like any other accessory or equipment, but even if someone steals it while you’re not wearing it, it will be locked and useless to them until you get it back. You won’t be able to recall it instantly, however, until Chapter Four.”

  I stared at Salome in utter surprise. “Really? My Codex Keeper didn’t tell me that during my trial. I wish I’d brought a pen and notebook with me so I could write it down.”

  Salome smiled at me. “You seem like a bright kid. I doubt you will have trouble remembering that. It will most likely come up during your Chapter Two simulation when you are ready to turn to the next Chapter in your Codex. In the meantime, I would be more careful about sneaking around in the forest at night, picking fights with bandits.”

  I cringed. “I wasn’t picking a fight with them. I was trying to save Nimbus.”

  Nimbus snorted and rolled his golden eyes. “Look at how well that worked out. You got yourself captured, and both of us probably would have died if Salome hadn’t happened to be in the area at the time.”

  My face burned with embarrassment at Nimbus’s harsh, if true, words, but Salome wagged a finger at Nimbus. “Now, now, Nimbus. It may be true that Aaron picked a fight with an enemy he wasn’t quite ready to face, but I suspect that if he hadn’t distracted those bandits, I wouldn’t have gotten here in time to save you. Most likely, the bandits would have taken you straight to Wolfbrand, where I would not be able to save you.”

  I perked up when Salome defended me. I honestly hadn’t expected her to be so nice. She reminded me of Miriam, although she looked old enough to be our mother. That made me wonder exactly who she was.

  But before I could ask that question, Salome suddenly dug through her robes and held out Inkwyrm to me. “Before I forget—this stylus is yours. I found it in the trees when Jezebel threw it. It’s a very cool tool, and your Discipline sounds very interesting. Reminds me of my Quiet Quill.”

  I took my stylus back from Salome quickly, briefly inspecting it to make sure it wasn’t broken or damaged or anything, before I looked up at Salome and said, “Actually, I noticed the similarities, too. How does your Quiet Quill work, exactly? Does it also allow you to alter or create—”

  “So you did take the stylus, after all,” said Nimbus, interrupting me before I could finish asking Salome my question. He hopped over and stood up on his hind legs to get a better look at it. He sniffed it once. “Yep, that’s definitely the same piece of metal that I was assigned to give to you. Hopefully that means I will get my—oh boy! It says I completed my quest and got my rewards. Yay!”

  Nimbus hopped into the air and tapped his hind legs together mid-jump. It was impressive how high he could jump. I had never seen a wild rabbit jump as high as he could, making me suspect that his jumping skills had to be magically enhanced in some way.

  But his mention of a quest caused me to turn my attention to him instead. “Wait a second, you had a quest from the Codex to deliver my stylus to me?”

  Nimbus stopped hopping and looked at me again with a rather cross expression, as if I had just rudely interrupted his celebrations. “Yeah, so? I mean, I was a bit surprised myself when I got the quest notification after leaving your trial simulation, but—”

  Salome turned away from us as she chuckled. “I think I will leave you two alone right now. I have somewhere else I need to be tonight, and I sincerely doubt that the bandits will be coming after either of you again for a while. Especially if they think that I am still protecting you both.”

  I whipped my head toward Salome, my jaw dropping open. “You’re leaving? But I have so many questions about your Discipline and your Quiet Quill and all of the things that you did tonight. I’ve never even seen a Codexer do even half of the things that you did. You are amazing.”

  Salome looked over her shoulder at me with an amused smile. “You are very sweet, Aaron, and I am glad that we met. But the truth is that we probably shouldn’t have, and the more time we spend together, the more danger your life is in. I have a lot of enemies, and I prefer not to get other people involved in my conflicts if I can avoid it.”

  I blinked at Salome and glanced at Nimbus, but the rabbit didn’t seem to understand her meaning any better than I did. “Enemies? Are you referring to the bandits?”

  Salome laughed. It was a beautiful, if slightly terrifying and eerie, sound coming from her. “Those silly bandits are the least of my worries, although I imagine they will be a much bigger problem for you soon. Still, I think you have real potential, Aaron Thorn. I see why the Codex gave you that Discipline and that stylus. It will be fascinating to see how you shape not just your future, but the future of the world itself. But if you want to stay in contact, I will be happy to link contact details with you.”

  Salome removed a silver tiara from under her hood that I hadn’t noticed her wearing and held it out toward me. I quickly linked my portable to hers by physically pressing my Node to hers and got the following notification:

  You have added Salome the Shadow Scribe to your NodeLink contact list! To send her messages, navigate to the NodeLink option in your interface and select her name.

  “Ignore the notification,” said Salome as she put her portable back on her head underneath her hood. “Even though we are linked now, I rarely respond to NodeLink messages unless I have to. So please don’t spam my inbox with all of your questions about everything you saw me do tonight. I’m not going to answer them.”

  Salome had to be telepathic because I had been planning to do exactly that as soon as we parted ways. I deflated slightly when she said that, but nodded. “Okay, but when would it be appropriate for me to contact you? Maybe if the bandits come after me and Nimbus again?”

  Salome smiled at me mysteriously. “You remind me so much of myself when I was your age. Even our Disciplines and equipment are similar. But for now, I must leave. I’m sure that your family is worried about you, Aaron, so I suggest you return to your village. I’ve left markers to guide you through the dark trees back to the main road.”

  As Salome said that, glowing circles appeared on the ground in a straight line through the trees surrounding us. My sense of direction was a bit off thanks to the shadows and the dangers I had just experienced, but it looked like the mana markers did indeed lead back to the main road to the village.

  “Thanks, Salome,” I said as I turned my gaze back at her, “but could you at least tell me where you plan to—”

  I stopped speaking because Salome was gone. I whipped my head this way and that, but I didn’t see any hint of her. It was like she had just vanished into thin air.

  Sitting beside me, Nimbus grunted and scratched his ear with one of his back paws. “I hate it when she does that.”

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