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JEM taught Aleen all he knew of magic. First he made her a proper staff and showed her how to carry it and how to touch it and how to enchant it with the power of endless transformation so that it would not attract the notice of the village people. Her staff turned into a basket. His turned into a hat made of wood that one would only notice if one were close enough to admire the unique fibers.

Then Jem moved on to the magic instruction. Aleen learned quickly, and when he had reached the end of his knowledge, he said, “Now. It is time to make our plans.”

And they did.

But it was not so easy as they had thought.

The night she was intended to meet Jem in their spot in the woods, Aleen’s father came swinging, yelling about a man in the village who had told him his daughter was leaving with a boy and they had plans to never come back. And though Aleen looked at her father and stood her ground and shook her head and told him all the lies she could possibly tell him in the few moments it took him to move from their front door to her place at the table, still he raged. He smacked a fist into her jaw and sent her reeling back. He took another swing and another, knocking Aleen to the floor. She got back up. He did it again. She got back up. He did it once more, and this time she stayed down. He took out a rope and tied her to a chair. She could not even move.

Her father leaned close to her and said, “You will never leave.” His breath smelled of onions. His eyes were hard black rocks. “You will never leave me. I will hunt this boy down. I will kill him.”

“No, Father,” she said. “Please.”

He did not listen, of course. He was caught in a rage from which he could not escape. He stormed out of their cottage. Aleen shook the ropes, trying desperately to free herself. Her father did not know about her magic, and magic, fortunately, can slice a rope in two. So she stole away and ran faster than her father, all the way to the hill where Jem lived. She pounded on the door, hardly able to see, begging him to open it before her father reached him.

She fell into Jem’s arms when he appeared behind the door. “You must go,” she said. “Without me. You must go now. My father is on his way. He knows.”

Jem took her in his arms and looked out toward the village, where the flames were gathering. He looked back at Aleen, and took both her cheeks in his hands. “You will come with me,” he said.

“No,” she said. “I cannot. He will never stop until he finds you, and if I am there...” She pulled away from his arms. “Go. Without me. You must if you would keep your life.”

“Perhaps I do not want my life without you,” Jem said quietly.

Oh, Aleen loved this boy so much that she was willing to let him go, never to see him again, so he might simply live.

And yet Jem loved her enough to risk his life to take her with him.

What could these star-crossed lovers do?

But there was not enough time to consider it, for Aleen’s father came crashing into the yard, with what seemed like the entire village behind him. His eyes turned confused and angry when he saw her guarding the door, but he stood surprised for only a moment. She glanced behind her. Jem had not fled. She could not let them past her. She would die before they got inside.

“You,” her father said. “How did you get out?”

Aleen shook her head. Her father pointed a long, skinny finger at her. “She is a sorceress,” he said. “Seize her!” And the swarm of people moved forward, and then Jem jumped out from behind the door, and suddenly there were hands everywhere, scratching and pulling and she could not see where Jem had gone and then she closed her eyes and flicked her arm. Her basket hit the ground and lengthened into a staff. The people around her fell flat, and there was only her father, near Jem, his knife poised at Jem’s throat.

“No, Father!” Aleen screamed. She could not keep the tears from falling. “Please, no. He will leave. He will never come back.”

Her father looked at her with eyes that saw no reason. In fact, they saw nothing at all. “I cannot even trust my own daughter,” he said in her general direction. He grabbed Jem’s shirt and pulled him closer, and before Aleen could do anything, he drew the knife across her beloved’s throat. Aleen screamed and closed her eyes, and the whole world shook.

When she opened her eyes again, her father was lying on the ground. She could see him breathing in great gasps, but she only had eyes for Jem. She rushed to Jem’s side and knelt. He looked at her, his eyes growing glassy. His face was pale. Blood, everywhere.

“Oh, Jem,” she said. “My love.” She kissed him on the mouth. “I must make you vanish. It is the only way to save you.” He looked at her again, but his eyes were swiftly turning dark. Her staff hit the ground again. Where Jem had been there was nothing.

She felt the loss in the deepest places of her heart. He would not die, for a vanishing spell, timed at just the right moment, can save a life, though not many know this. He would merely reappear in some distant land as someone else, perhaps a man much older or much younger, with only a scar across his neck that could be easily hidden with the right kind of cloth, which is precisely what he would do. He would change his name and live his life and, for a time, search for her, but he would never see her again, until a day much, much later in time than any of them had ever thought possible.

She had lost. But he had lived.