Mira started the day as she always did, with a little bread and cheese, then washing up, then doing some chores. Her father thought she was worthless, but she didn’t have to actually be that way. Her father and two older brothers were probably already at the docks, moving freight. Her mother was cleaning the house at the moment.

  “I’ll see you later, Mom!” Mira announced.

  “Stay out of trouble!” came her mother’s swift reply.

  “I can’t hear you. La la la la la,” Mira sang to cover her mother’s words.

  Mira left her house in the lower city with a spring in her step. She loved to explore. She took it a step further by exploring people. After all, a city isn’t full of dusty old crypts filled with deadly traps, but it is filled with people. Mira made a game of it. She would sit at the market in an unobtrusive spot, then pick a person who looked interesting to her. She would then follow that person around to see what they did and how they acted. Sometimes she would pretend to be that person for a while, trying to get all their mannerisms right. Mimicking an accent and a voice could be great fun, especially when the person in question was a sailor. Her own voice wasn’t very good yet, as she was only ten years old, but she had to amuse herself somehow.

  That was how she initially found Juleen Smithsdotr. Mira saw her at the market one day and followed her around, climbing walls to peek in windows, and such things, and she found that she liked Juleen and her family. She introduced herself the next day at the well, and now she had a new friend. Now, who will it be today?

  Let’s see. There was a housewife. No, she was too boring. Mira didn’t see anyone in exotic clothing, so that made things a lot less interesting. There was a farmer and his sons going to tend their fields. She didn’t want to follow them. Being outside the city walls was incredibly dangerous. Too many people outside the city walls disappeared, eaten by predators. Kids were easy targets, even if the guards let her outside on her own. Nope. She overlooked all the merchants. She didn’t want to follow a child around. There! There was a Seeker buying his food for the day. She’d seen him around before, of course, but never followed him. He had a bag in his arms with some bread sticking out of it, and he had a backpack with a big lump in it on his back. Seekers were rare in Stonekeep, so this fellow must have a very interesting story to tell.

  This Seeker looked different somehow. Seekers were small, around three feet in height, and this one was wearing a leather vest that had a lot of pockets with small tools sticking out of them. He had platinum blonde hair that was turning white, and dark brown skin, and he looked really intriguing. Mira wondered what he did with those tools. The Seeker wandered through the marketplace with Mira shadowing his every move. He stopped at a glassmaker’s stall and bought a couple small flasks. He then put the flasks in one of his larger pockets and moved off away from the marketplace. Mira marked the way he walked with slightly bent knees, like a scribe she knew of, and she thought he must spend a lot of time at a desk or workbench. He walked through the upper city gates and made a left turn. Mira followed as casually as she could, keeping close to the side of the street.

  Mira looked to her left at a rough looking man whose eyes followed the Seeker’s every move. She knew suddenly that he was following the Seeker, too. This was concerning. The other person was dressed in brown and gray clothes, he was a human, and he was keeping a certain amount of distance away from the Seeker. That put the pursuer very close to Mira, herself. She stopped at a shop, peering into the windows to make it look like she was admiring something shiny. She was really looking at the reflection of the man pursuing the Seeker. He signaled to a comrade of his, who signaled to another, and two of them broke off to the left to try to head the Seeker off from another street. The original pursuer was still stalking the Seeker. When she thought it was safe, Mira casually followed the ruffian. The Seeker walked another two blocks, then walked into an alley on the right between a couple houses. Mira knew this street and she knew that the alley led into a back courtyard of sorts shared by a number of houses on that block. Mira saw the pursuer pick up his pace. She kept her own pace steady, however. When she got to the alley that the Seeker stepped into, she saw in her peripheral vision that the three pursuers were in the courtyard scratching their heads and looking around.

  Instead of walking into the midst of them, Mira slowly walked straight down the road past the alley. She could hear the three men walking again, and not in her direction. She thought she was undiscovered. Where did the Seeker go, though? She happened to know most of the people and shops on that block, and a shop owned by a Seeker wasn’t among them. Mira walked around the corner and down the street a ways. She had an itch behind her neck that told her she was being watched. She had learned to pay attention to gut feelings like that one. Being ten years old didn’t make one stupid, after all, just inexperienced.

  Mira saw a shingle fall down in the middle of the street. She stepped closer to a house on her right and peeked into the alley beyond and up to the rooftops. Up on the side of the house she saw the Seeker walking straight down along the side of the house, his little body parallel to the ground, like he was strolling through a park completely at ease. She pulled her head back quickly, and leaned against the house, facing the other direction. She let her ears tell her when the Seeker walked down the wall, out the alleyway and into the street. He was heading in the same direction he was before he turned into the alley. He walked a couple more blocks, then took a left toward the inner walls, then a quick left into an alley. Mira followed.

  When she got to the alley, which led to another small courtyard shared by the houses around it, the Seeker was nowhere to be seen. She looked straight up, then looked in all the alleys connecting to the courtyard, but she had lost track of the little man. Well, she wasn’t about to be thwarted now. She sat down in a doorway to wait and watch. There was still no movement on any of the walls or rooftops that she could see.

  There! A light started shining from the second-floor window of the house across from her. The bottom floor of this house was made of stone, and the second and third floors were made of wood, with diagonal beams crisscrossing the whitewashed outer walls. She casually walked over to his house, then climbed up the stone wall like a humanoid spider, her fingers and toes finding grips between the stones. Even at ten years old, this was like a ladder to Mira with all the practice she had. When she got to the second floor, she had enough room on the beams to get her fingers over the wood, and up she went. When she was hanging by a diagonal beam with her feet now solidly on the bottom beam, she reached up to the corner of the windowsill. She slowly, carefully, peeked over the sill to find the Seeker standing right in front of her face, looking her in the eye. Mira’s eyes opened wide in fright and she almost fell off her perch in surprise.

  The Seeker casually opened the window and said, “You aren’t with those other ruffians, are you?”

  “Um, no, sir! No, sir! I saw them follow you, and I followed you to make sure you were all right!” Mira said.

  “Likely story,” he said. “Any last words?” He had a wand in his left hand that he pointed right at Mira’s face. Wizards are extremely rare in Aldon.

  Stolen story; please report.

  The look on Mira’s face was of complete surprise. All she could think to say was “You looked interesting!”

  The Seeker thought about that for a few moments. “Tea?” he asked.

  “W-w-what?” Mira stammered. She was breathing fast and her heart must have been racing.

  “Would you like some tea?” He asked again.

  Mira couldn’t imagine a more unlikely set of words coming out of his mouth. She was hanging outside his window, caught red-handed in her spying. Even without the wand, the reaction she was expecting was to be punched in the face, followed by a quick trip to the cobbles below. She was always a quick thinker, though.

  “Uh, sure. I mean, yes, sir, I would be delighted,” she said in her most cultured voice.

  “Well, then, do come in, please. And don’t touch anything. I’ll know if you do,” he said.

  The Seeker opened the window a little wider and Mira pulled herself inside. Her hands were sweaty and a little shaky, whether from nerves or from the strain of climbing she didn’t know. He stuck out his right hand and said “My name is Timperis Golemgear of Goldsprocket, but my friends call me Whizzbang. A bit unfortunate, really, that story. It had to do with the destruction of my mentor’s laboratory and my expulsion from Goldsprocket, but that’s neither here nor there. You can call me Whizzbang.”

  “Thanks. Um, I’m Mira Portersdotr,” Mira said. They shook hands.

  “Ah, truth again. From a sneaky little devil like yourself, I expected lies, but you’ve told me only truth. Most people lie a lot, and I always know. I’m quite good at reading people, you see. It’s like magic. Well, right this way,” Whizzbang said.

  He turned to go into the next room, which finally gave Mira a chance to glance at the room she was in. It looked like a rich person’s study, if that person was very, very short. There was a desk and a wall full of books with a ladder close by. There was also a low table against the wall that had a lot of strange things on it that Mira didn’t have time to examine. Instead, she followed Whizzbang into his little kitchen and living area, which were all in one room. There was a table with four chairs, a countertop with a cabinet underneath it, a basin of water on the countertop, a pair of comfortable looking armchairs with a small table between them, and a lamp on the table, all of which were sized to be comfortable for Seekers. There was a normally sized wood burning stove close to the cabinets with a pipe going through the exterior wall and a stool next to it. There was also a stairway going down and a stairway going up. All in all, it looked like a very comfortable place to live.

  Whizzbang went about putting the fruit, bread and cheese from his bag onto the table, then put a pot of water on the stove and carefully place some more wood inside.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, gesturing to one of the small chairs at the table. Mira sat. “Why don’t you tell me what you were really doing out there?” He said casually as he started setting the table.

  Mira gave him the whole story, and by the time she finished, the water was boiling. He stood on the stool at the stove, took the pot off and poured the steaming water into two cups. He then brought out little mesh strainers with pockets for tea leaves inside and put them in the cups. Mira hadn’t seen tea served before, and she was staring at the water changing color with interest.

  “So how did you climb up and down that wall like you were walking on a street?” Mira asked.

  “It’s a magic trinket I have. The sort of thing those buffoons were trying to waylay me to take. Lately, someone tries once or twice a month. I’ve never had a third party involved before, though. You see, you’re alive now because I think you’re interesting too, Mira. Tell me more about yourself,” Whizzbang said. He sat back and sipped tea.

  “There isn’t much to tell yet, I’m afraid, but I’ll do my best.” Mira told him about her family (which she tried to put in flattering terms), her friends, and the spying game she liked to play.

  “I think we’re a lot alike, Mira,” Whizzbang said after a little thought.

  “I don’t see how,” Mira said as she considered. “You’re a wizard, aren’t you?”

  “Refreshingly direct. I prefer to tell people I’m an artificer, as that sounds a lot less scary than what I can really do, but yes, I’m a wizard. And yes, I can cast magic spells and blow someone’s head off with this wand and do many wondrous and dangerous things. But I’m not sure yet that I would want to teach you about any of that, if that’s what you’re hoping for. I can see the hope in your eyes, the lure of adventure, and all that rubbish. Learning wizardry is a very serious thing, and it’s not for flighty little children. It took me many years of diligent study and practice to get where I am. Though I don’t look like it, I’m older than your great grandfather would be if he were still alive, and a Seeker doesn’t get this old by doing foolish things, like teaching a ten-year-old child how to burn things with her mind. Besides, casting spells requires spell components, and they’re usually very expensive or hard to get.”

  “What are spell components?” Mira asked. Her mind was racing.

  “You’ve heard of the Mordonians, right?”

  Mira nodded.

  “The Mordonian sorcerers had a connection with the forces of this world that allowed them to manipulate magic by instinct and will. Those of us without that connection had to learn to use a crutch to bind those forces to our will. A spell component is that focus and is often something closely related to the desired effect. For example, a bit of spider web will allow a spell that allows the wizard to climb a wall like a spider. The components are not all as easy to come by as spider webs, though,” Whizzbang explained.

  “Can you teach me to be a wizard like you?” Mira asked excitedly.

  “I’ve already told you. Haven’t you been listening? Probably not. It takes a sensitivity to magic that I don’t know if you possess.” He got a shifty look in his eyes, then. “But… I think we can come to an arrangement, if you have the courage for it. You see, I want to live in peace, without those imbecilic thieves trying to rob me every time I go to the market. I would very much like to, shall we say, catch those robbers off guard, and I do not want to stick my own nose into any traps they may have prepared. I think this is a perfect job for you to scout out, as no one would suspect a small girl, and you’ve already been practicing for it. I barely even noticed you myself. If you can tell me who they are, who they work with, and where they operate from, maybe I could teach you some minor magical spells if you have the talent and intellect for it. What do you say?” Whizzbang asked.

  “I’m in! When do we start?” Mira asked, smiling widely. She bounced on her chair, hardly able to contain her excitement.

  “I’ll go to the market on Sevenday at the same time as is my custom,” Whizzbang said. “I’ll be the bait and then I’ll lose them in an alley like I did today. You follow them around, then come see me the next day and tell me what you learned.”

  “I can do that. Easy-Peezy.”

  “We have a deal, then.”

  “Yay! I’m gonna learn magic!”

  “Maybe learn.”

  “Whatever. I’m definitely doing this.”

  He gestured to the kitchen. “Hungry?”

  “I’d better not. But thank you, Whizzbang. I have a lunch date already,” Mira said.

  “Ah. Very well, then. Say, I have a little mirror on a stick sitting on the table by the window that may prove to be of use to you,” Whizzbang said.

  Mira could immediately see the use such a tool could be put to. “That’ll come in handy. Thanks!” Mira replied.

  “It’s a small investment made to keep you from being caught. You do know what happens if you get caught, right?”

  “Yeah, but I never get caught. I’m way too sneaky.”

  “All right, then. Off with you.”

  “Bye! I won’t let you down!”

  Mire walked into the other room to look at the table. She looked back, but Whizzbang wasn’t in sight. Mira looked around the room, then looked up to the ceiling, wondering where Whizzbang went. She saw the little mirror on the table and picked it up. It was very nice and gave a clear image of what was behind her. She looked at some of the other things on the table but didn’t touch them. There was a small, brass horse with joints that looked like they moved that was especially tempting. Mira climbed out the window and shut it behind her with practiced motions, and in mere moments she was down the wall and walking down the street.

  Whizzbang watched her go from his invisible perch. He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he catalogued his observations. “Sneaky, but honest. She didn’t steal anything. She has friends, but spends a lot of time alone. Resilient. Courageous. Polite, but direct. A very interesting person, indeed. Very promising. I hope she has an aptitude for magic. If so, little Mira could have a lot of potential.”