Gabriela held her knife in her dainty, almost bony hand. The glaring light had disappeared and the target of her hatred lay unconscious on the ground a few metres in front of her. Self-satisfied, she now took step after step in his direction. Then she stopped in front of him. Looking down at the lad, who lay twisted on his back, she changed her grip on the knife, so that she could plunge it into him in a falling motion! Was Wenzel's journey already over? Either way, the revolution would live on without him. He was neither its origin nor its organiser. But such things were of no importance to the usurper, who was solely obsessed with her ideological goals. Nothing else mattered in her eyes. The woman drew her stabbing weapon. Was that it?

  No! Getting completely blindsided, she suddenly was knocked over from behind by Amalie. The woman fell sideways onto the floor right next to Wenzel, but tried to clutch her knife as tightly as possible so as not to lose it. Amalie ran over and stomped on her hand with the knife with all her might. After a few stomps, she let go of the weapon. Of course, Gabriela immediately tried to grab it with her other hand, but the girl put a spanner in the works. She kicked it as far away as possible. The thing rumbled and bounced across the slightly uneven floor to the other end of the room, where the window was. Unfortunately, it didn't fly out straight away. Gabriela howled and rushed madly after the knife. Within a very short time, she had picked it up again. Then she spoke: "So, you filthy peasant, I..." She immediately interrupted what she was about to say, because when she turned around, she saw Amalie with a sword in her hands! It was the sword that Wenzel had brought with him, which the lady had completely ignored in her obsession.

  The girl now looked at Her Highness with a determined, partly angry expression. Gabriela stood there totally looking crestfallen. She could neither move forwards nor backwards. The reach of her weapon would guarantee that she would also be injured, if she attacked the one who was now standing protectively in front of the boy. That wouldn't matter to her, but her chances of killing the mage now had turned against her. For a while, they stood opposite each other in a standoff. Nobody said anything or made a move. They just stared at each other. Gabriela realised that, like the girl facing her, she wasn't particularly strong. Both were equally bad at eliminating their opponent. But for Amalie it was a matter of life or death. She didn't know whether Wenzel would wake up again, but she knew that protecting him was the right move. The nervousness and desperation increasingly were showing on Mrs Cornel's face.

  Then she walked over. She didn't run forwards towards Amalie, but actually to the side, towards the door that led down from the tower! She had made the decision, that she would seek out the guards in order to win with their help, even if it meant that Amalie might escape. But the girl wasn’t her target anyway. When the lady ran out of the only door in the room, Amalie breathed a sigh of relief. Then she immediately turned to Wenzel. She looked him in the face. His eyes were closed, as if he were asleep. "Hey, Wenzel!" she called his name. There was no answer. She slapped him on the face and called for him again. Still no response. This was very bad. If he didn't wake up soon, they would both be finished!

  A voice could be heard softly from far away. It was a female voice with a beautiful sound, but it sounded sad and desperate. A single, thin ray of light suddenly shone through the darkness. It fell in through a horizontal slit and Wenzel went towards it, wanting to know what was there. The boy regained consciousness and slowly opened his eyes. In front of him he saw Amalie kneeling above him. He looked around the room for a moment. Then he remembered again what had just happened. He saw the pendant on the floor, its red gemstone now broken into two pieces. He was not dead! Then he picked up the object and pocketed it, just as he had always done. "Come on, Wenzel! We have to get out of here!" she urged him. She was right, of course, but the young man was still a little dazed and looked down at his palms. He felt completely different. He was whole again. Inside him, he felt that his soul had returned to him. "What are you doing? Come on!" the girl edged him on, pulling him by the arm.

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  But he refused her urging towards the door and pulled his arm back towards him. Then he finally spoke: "Why go down the door? We have to get out of here." This earned him a confused look from Amalie. Wenzel clarified: "We're flying, of course!" He then jumped up onto the windowsill and held his hand out to her. "Hold on to me. Then we can fly away together." She didn't hesitate for a moment and did so. Indeed, his magic wasn’t lost. On the contrary, it had now returned to him and he would no longer need a pendant to do magic! Wenzel pushed himself off and flew away. Over the buildings and then the walls of the protective castle and then just above the tops of a number of fir trees. They had made it. Wenzel had saved Amalie, but actually Amalie had saved him, too. They had saved each other. The next destination was Greifenburg. He would have a lot to explain to the lads.....

  On the flight to Greifenburg, Wenzel now had plenty of time to think. He felt ......different. It was difficult to describe, but the breaking of the pendant, which had apparently caused his soul to return to his body, meant that he now felt out of the ordinary. He was still the same and he still perceived everything in the same way. Nevertheless, he felt some kind of change in himself. It was probably simply because he was now "normal" again, i.e. no longer separated from his soul. Either way, the journey was exhausting and they had to take a few breaks in between before they would arrive in the city. The fortress town was far away and they had to spend the night in the open air once, even if the journey was much quicker than by any other means of transport.

  In the evening, Wenzel built them a campfire so that they could at least keep warm in the cool of the night. Fortunately, it was no longer winter. Of course, they also chatted a little in the campfire’s light. Amalie now looked much more relaxed than before. "And you're really one of the revolutionaries now?" she asked him. "Yes, but not so much out of conviction as due to them having been the only ones who didn't want to wipe me out," he replied openly and honestly. She nodded at him as if she understood. Wenzel stared into space for a while. Then he finally, somewhat hesitantly but still told her: "I.....I'm sorry about what happened with Aurel back then. It was all just an unfortunate accident. I wish I could go back in time, but regrettably, I can't. I was only using my powers very rarely back then, so I couldn't really control them, yet. It's different now, but back then I didn't realise that magic is apparently linked to emotions. My anger just 'erupted'."

  Amalie could clearly see that this had haunted him. "I get it. And I forgive you, okay?" - "Okay," he returned curtly. Amalie herself actually just wanted to put the matter behind her. Of course, she had been shocked by what had happened back then, but she understood that it was all just an accident. And Wenzel had certainly suffered more than she had. After all, Aurel had been his brother, whereas she hadn't known him that long. "Let's leave the past in the past. I now understand what happened. What's done is done." Wenzel's expression softened a little in response. They were both silent for a moment. But then Amalie asked him the quintessential question: "Why did you come to save me?" This visibly embarrassed the sorcerer and he hesitated a little before answering. "I didn't want anyone else to die because of me. So, I felt it was my duty, even though I knew how dangerous it was." His reply made the girl a little embarrassed.

  As they sat there for a while, something else came to her mind: "What happened to your hair? Is that how it's supposed to be?" - "What do you mean?" Wenzel asked, confused. "Well, I’m talking about your light-coloured streak. It's almost white." The addressee had no idea what she meant. But he also didn't have a mirror to take a look at himself either. When he returned to the city, he would discover himself, that he had actually gotten a white streak. That was very unusual, but probably a result of the stress caused by the escapade with the pendant. For the rest of the evening, Wenzel recounted some of the things thatt he had learnt and done over the past year. He described his swordplay training with Brahm and his progress with magic. He left out most of the sad incidents, such as the one with Isidor. Amalie listened, but didn't want to tell much about herself. There wasn’t that much, that happened during her time in captivity. Soon afterwards, they went to sleep. The next day would be another long and tiring journey.