The bandits laughed, loud and careless. They didn’t expect a toddler lurking in the shadows.

  I told myself this would be simple.

  Creep in.

  Knock them out.

  Search their loot.

  Like a video game.

  They must have something.

  Artifacts, relics - hostages, maybe?

  I whispered a stronger version of the wind spell: “Shu-Kari.”

  A violent gust roared through the campsite - not enough to hurt, but enough to snuff every flame. Torches hissed out. Lantern glass shattered. The campfire choked, coughing smoke.

  Darkness swallowed them whole.

  Shouts erupted:

  “Who’s there?!”

  “Light- get light!”

  I smiled - just a little. Success.

  Then my heart started pounding. The magic book pressed hot against my ribs, as if urging me onward.

  I needed another spell. Something to keep them down.

  A spell came to mind - I’d seen it scrawled once in the margins of a damaged tome when I was very young. A few pages had been torn and burned at the edges; some text was illegible. Maybe it was a warning?

  It didn’t matter.

  “Set-Zis!”

  Lightning.

  There was an explosion.

  Lightning didn’t come from the sky - it erupted from me. Blinding white-yellow light tore the night open. Electricity arced through the clearing.

  When the flash ended, I stood trembling.

  Air thick with smoke and the smell of fire.

  My eyes adjusted, and-

  They weren’t moving.

  Any of them.

  The smell hit me next: roasted flesh and hair.

  I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting.

  I didn’t check pulses. I didn’t need to.

  I had killed them.

  Me: a toddler.

  I had wiped out people.

  Did I know they were bandits? Not really.

  But it didn’t matter whether they were bandits.

  This wasn’t justice.

  It was slaughter.

  I forced myself to calm down. I was calm.

  The part of me that used to panic would have done so. But this version only… looked.

  Focus.

  I came for a reason.

  I stepped carefully between the bodies, my tiny feet avoiding hands, weapons and crisped leather. Anything useful would still be intact… hopefully.

  I crouched beside the first corpse - a man whose chain shirt had melted into his skin. His belt pouch felt solid but light; inside, molten lumps of metal, blackened by heat. Maybe coin? Useless to me. I tossed it into the grass.

  I searcher the second and the third, but they had nothing either. One had a crossbow lying nearby. The quiver had two bolts left, but both were bent from the blast.

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  There were scraps of paper, maybe they were a map? When I, as gently as I could, unfolded it, it disintegrated into fluttering ash at my touch.

  The fourth - a woman with a scarf fused to her throat, which almost made me gag. Around her neck was a pendant; just a necklace. Decorative, not magical. I pocketed it anyway - a trophy, I guess.

  Searching the rest wasn’t any better.

  I tried not to sigh. But I still let out a bit of frustration.

  “Fuck.”

  Bandits were supposed to have loot.

  Why else be a criminal?

  I rifled through saddlebags - mostly moldy bread, half-eaten meat, a small tube of hand balm that smelled like tallow. A clay jug, miraculously intact, sat in one corner.

  I pried it open and sniffed.

  …Wine? Maybe. More like vinegar.

  I dumped it onto the dirt.

  Then a crate - partially scorched, hinges melted. Inside: nails, rope, and a deck of cards whose faces had fused into a single lump.

  A whole camp - and nothing valuable. No money, no treasure, not even weapons I could use. Especially nothing magical.

  I looked around again.

  Inside one carriage, half hidden beneath a tarp, was a trunk.

  It was massive - larger than me - bound in iron bands and sealed with a giant lock.

  I rattled it.

  Nothing. I pushed it, but I couldn't move it.

  I pushed harder, fingers trembling, feet digging into dirt.

  “Magni,” I whispered - a spell for strength.

  I pushed again. It moved - barely. But it moved.

  Sweat gathered on my forehead as I shoved again, inch by inch. The trunk scraped against earth with a heavy groan.

  Locked. Too heavy to carry. Too suspicious to leave behind.

  “There has to be something in you,” I said to the trunk.

  I looked around - nothing else of value. No hidden scrolls, no enchanted weapons, no stolen treasure. Just ash. Just bodies.

  Just death I had made.

  I shuddered.

  I grabbed the trunk again. I was going to move it.

  “Magni-Geb,” I said, drawing superhuman strength. Superhuman for a toddler maybe - it seemed to scale with my own, because it was just enough to lift the trunk.

  I couldn’t do more. Most of my stamina was gone; I couldn’t manage another spell.

  Using every ounce of strength and the magic in my veins, slowly and painfully I carried the trunk into an underbrush - deeper into the forest where trees grew thicker and shadows were safer.

  By the time I’d pulled it into a small hollow between roots and rock, my arms were shaking like twigs in a storm. My vision blurred, black dots flickering at the edges.

  I collapsed beside the trunk, panting.

  “This is mine now,” I said, half-delirious. “My secret. My… camp.”

  A laugh bubbled out of me - tired and manic.

  I pressed a hand to my ribs; the book still beneath my shirt. It seemed to be waiting for a story.

  But not tonight.

  I didn’t want to write about this, not yet.

  I staggered to my feet and turned toward Endil, toward home, toward safety. Each step grew heavier.

  By the time the manor’s walls came into sight, the sky had paled with the earliest light. A single bird chirped.

  My crib waited for me.

  I slipped into my room through an open window just as sleep reached for me. I climbed into bed, or fell, more like it, and yanked the blankets over my head.

  Nobody saw.

  Nobody knew.

  I was safe.

  When morning came, I felt… nothing.

  No nightmares. No guilt ripping my insides apart.

  I hoped I wasn’t losing my mind to repressed feelings.

  I needed to return to the camp.

  I waited until night again, waiting through breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  Jakob practiced spark spells in the courtyard.

  Maren swung wooden swords that were too big for her.

  Father was mostly absent.

  They hadn’t gotten over Mother yet. I hadn’t either, I wasn’t some kind of monster. I just had other things to worry about.

  Making sure no one noticed me, I slipped away into the night.

  The bodies were still where I left them.

  Blackened skin peeled like overcooked meat. Eyes had burst or melted. The air smelled of burnt pork and iron.

  It didn’t make me flinch. I was more… grossed out.

  I whispered a short incantation I’d found in a medical volume, meant to sterilize sickrooms, but it would do here:

  “Eir.”

  A wave of pale fire swept outward, cleansing the surroundings.

  It was a perfectly blank page for me to start cleaning up.

  I tore a canvas tarp from the bandits’ supplies and laid it beside the nearest corpse. It was stiff, almost crispy, when I grabbed the man’s wrist and dragged, but my tiny arms strained; he was too heavy.

  So instead, I rolled him.

  Then the next. Then the next.

  Sweat dripped into my eyes. Dirt caked my knees as I crawled and shoved and pushed. Sometimes fingers broke off like burnt twigs. I brushed them into the bundle with the rest.

  Once the bodies were gathered, I pulled another tarp over them, wrapping and twisting the corners. The package became shapeless, like luggage. Easier to pretend they weren’t people.

  Then I set it on fire with the strongest spell I knew. I stayed, watching it burn.

  When it was over, I scattered the ashes until the ground looked like it had been scarred by lightning - nothing more.

  did the same with the wagons; they burned easier than the bodies had.

  No one would ever know there had been people here.

  Afterwards I pushed deeper into the trees, to where I’d hidden the trunk.

  A single owl watched me, tilting its head as if judging me.

  “Don’t judge me,” I muttered.

  The trunk waited.

  I knelt and touched the lock. It didn’t feel like metal. Now that I thought about it, the whole trunk was made of something I didn’t recognize; not metal, not wood. I don’t think stuff like plastic exists in this world.

  I sure as shit ain't gonna invent it.

  Anyway, I tried spells.

  “Ra.”

  Nothing.

  “Agni.”

  Nothing.

  “Shu.”

  Nothing.

  What the hell? I expected a little something. I didn’t want to use any stronger spells in fear or repeating the same mistake I did with the bandits.

  I didn’t want to explode whatever was in the trunk. Or melt it. Or let it be swept away in the wind. And I didn’t have many other spells in my repertoire that could handle the situation.

  Clearly, brute-forcing magic wasn’t the answer.

  What about plain brute force?