her, when she was still a child.
âDonât forget,â it said on one side of the stone.
âI mean it,â it said on the other.
Donât forget what?
You mean what, Zosimos?
She wasnât sure. Despite the spottiness of her memories, one thing she
did
remember was his tendency toward the obscure. And his assumption that because vague words and insinuations were clear enough for him, they must be perfectly comprehensible to all.
And after all these years, Xan remembered how
annoying
she had found it then.
âConfound that man,â she said.
She approached the stone and leaned her forehead against the deeply carved words, as if the stone might be Zosimos himself.
âOh, Zosimos,â she said, feeling a surge of emotion that she hadnât felt in nearly five centuries. âIâm sorry. Iâve forgotten. I didnât mean to, butââ
The surge of magic hit her like a falling boulder, knocking her backward. She landed with a thud on her creaking hips. She stared at the stone, openmouthed.
The stone is enmagicked!
she thought to herself.
Of course!
And she looked up at the stone just as a seam appeared down the middle and the two sides swung inward, like great stone doors.
Not
like
stone doors,
Xan thought.
They
are
stone doors.
The shape of the stone still stood like a doorway against the blue sky, but the entrance itself opened into a very dim corridor where a set of stone steps disappeared into the dark.
And in a flash, Xan remembered that day. She was thirteen years old and terribly impressed with her own witchy cleverness. And her teacherâonce so strong and powerfulâwas fading by the day.
âBe careful of your sorrow,â he had said. He was so old then. Impossibly old. He was all angles and bones and papery skin, like a cricket. âYour sorrow is dangerous. Donât forget that
she
is still about.â And so Xan had swallowed her sorrow. And her memories, too. She buried both so deep that she would never find them. Or so she thought.
But now she remembered the castleâ
she remembered!
Its crumbly strangeness. Its nonsensical corridors. And the people who lived in the castleânot just the wizards and scholars, but the cooks and scribes and assistants as well. She remembered how they scattered into the forest when the volcano erupted. She remembered how she put protective spells on each of themâwell, each of them but
oneâ
and prayed to the stars that each spell would hold as they ran. She remembered how Zosimos hid the castle within each stone in the circle. Each stone was a door. âSame castle, different doors. Donât forget. I mean it.â
âI wonât forget,â she said at thirteen.
âYou will surely forget, Xan. Have you not met yourself?â He was so old then. How did he get so old? He had practically withered to dust. âBut not to worry. I have built that into the spell. Now if you donât mind, my dear. I have treasured knowing you, and lamented knowing you, and found myself laughing in spite of myself each day we were together. But that is all past now, and you and I must part. I have many thousands of people to protect from that blasted volcano, and I do hope youâll make sure they are ever so thankful, wonât you dear?â He shook his head sadly. âWhat am I saying? Of course you wonât.â And he and the Simply Enormous Dragon disappeared into the smoke and plunged themselves into the heart of the mountain, stopping the eruption, forcing the volcano into a restless sleep.
And both were gone forever.
Xan never did anything to protect his memory, or to explain what he had done.
Indeed, within a year, she could barely remember him. It never occurred to her to find it strangeâthe part of her that
would
have found it strange was on the other side of the curtain. Lost in the fog.
She peered into the gloom of the hidden castle. Her old bones ached, and her
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