Leaving Esther in an alley behind the building, Silver casually strode in with Andrew at his heels. The entrance was empty. Silver threw a small gun-like object at Andrew. He caught it with some difficulty. Not a great weapon in the face of hundreds of enemies, he thought.

  "You're a magic kid so you'll be fine but keep that just in case," Silver said. Andrew guessed that it slipped his mind that Andrew wasn't a very good 'magic kid' but it was too late to argue. He thought he'd be fine regardless if it were the same people the witches put the hex on. They couldn't, or rather, wouldn't harm him. So with that, they broke into a run.

  Andrew learned from the spell that the witches were kept in some basement room on the right side of the building. So they kept heading right. If they didn't find any stairs going down, they would blast a hole down the floor, Silver had said. Andrew had no idea how he planned to do that but he didn't question it. He just hoped that it wouldn't rely on him knowing any floor-blasting spells.

  A few rooms in, Silver spread his arm out to stop Andrew from running. They peeked into a rather large hallroom from a giant wooden door, slightly ajar. There were several people inside. Their luck with empty rooms and no guards had just about run out.

  "I don't suppose you could make us both invisible?"

  Andrew shook his head. Then, with a sly grin, he asked "I don't suppose you could?"

  Silver chuckled softly. "Sorry, the cloaking devices only work in the sky. I've actually been working on this other type of device but camouflaging isn't actually very- Hmm, not the right time to get into that. Well, what do you think we should do now?"

  "I can't recall the faces of the lackeys they hexed but if these are the same people they shouldn't harm me. Maybe if you stick close to me-"

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  "Don't worry about me."

  "What? But-"

  "No, I'll be fine. If you're sure they won't try to attack you, I guess we could just try to run straight- Hmm, but they might still try to stop us some other way." Silver sighed. "Maybe we should've brought Esther after all..."

  Andrew took a better look into the room. "Okay, I have an idea. Might not work, but-"

  "We don't have a lot of options, really. Go ahead, old sport."

  Andrew turned to Silver. "You really don't plan much ahead, do you?"

  Silver shrugged. Andrew peered again into the hall. He spotted the stairs leading down to the next floor at the other end of the room. Andrew raised his palm and concentrated.

  There was a rather complicated lighting arrangement in the center of the room. The lights hung in varying lengths from the ceiling. They began to swing from side to side slowly. At first the occupants of the room hadn't noticed the movement but a few seconds later, it got harder to miss. In another few seconds, the lights swung about violently. A few of them ripped off the ceiling and started to flit about the room like a swarm of angry insects.

  The goons in the room, unsure how to deal with crazy flying lighting, dove under any large furnishing they could fit under.

  "Now! Let's go!" Andrew cried and pushed the heavy door further open. They dashed through the hall to the stairs on the other side, Silver laughing maniacally the entire time.

  By the time the goons saw them and crawled out to give chase, they seemed to realize who Andrew was. Then they stopped dead in their tracks and some even seemed to back away. 'Cough out blood till you die,' remembered Andrew. They didn't even try to call for help. Such was the terror of the memory of the coughing blood incident.

  Andrew and Silver descended the stairs at a run and arrived at a long hallway with a metallic doorway at the end. Behind them were the sounds of chaos and disorder and a group of people were wild on their tails.

  "Not good. I think they're different from the hexed bunch. I don't think we'll make it-"

  "You go on ahead, I'll be there in a second," Silver said as he stopped, turned, and ran towards the enemy.

  "Hey-!" Andrew was about to follow him, but Silver waved an arm impatiently. "Goooo!" he yelled, and Andrew turned and sprinted. He ran headfirst through the metallic doorway into a large round room, dark, lit up only with a few lamps placed at random throughout the wall. The only other sources of light were narrow windows at the highest point of the ridiculously long wall, letting in scant light from outside.

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