Instead, it’s a guy I do not recognize. He appears to be our age, or maybe a few years older. He wears only shades of maroon and dark green, the palette of the desert itself, but it’s his utility belt that really draws my attention. It’s where a phoenix-shaped lighter and a wooden baseball bat both hang.

Fear churns in my stomach. As a kid, I didn’t have nightmares about monsters in the closet and boogeymen under the bed. Instead, from the moment I understood I wasn’t like other boys, I had nightmares about a life trapped in the closet and “faithful” men coming to take away the things that matter most. Men who look quite a bit like this.

One second later I feel Logan at my side and remember to exhale.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the guy begins, “but you all have something I’ve been searching for for a very long time.”

Before I can utter a word in response, the door to the adjacent room opens and Amelia and Cleo poke their heads out. Their eyes widen when they see the guy before me. Upon second inspection, he looks not unlike a wand come to life, between his reedy clothes and lean limbs.

“Who are you?” I ask. “What do you want?”

“My name is Cain. I might be the first one here, but other Wanderers could start arriving soon. There’s no telling how many others Maggie called. He is offering a pretty penny for your Perillian deck, along with the missing Prince of Wands and the toolset he loaned you.”

I glance over at Cleo and can tell she’s fighting the urge to break out an “I told you so” look. So Maggie sold us out after all. Suddenly, the pieces come together. He needed the coordinates written in our deck to find the missing cards. Since we weren’t handing that over, he must have given us the toolset to find the coordinates on our own, then he sent his people to follow us. And we played right into his hands.

A hot feeling radiates up my spine. How long has this so-called Wanderer been following us? How many more like him are coming? My instinct tells me to slam the door shut, but then we’d just be trapped in this room and separated from Amelia and Cleo, who have the deck. I need to keep this guy talking to learn as much as possible, as much as I hate the idea.

“I’m sorry, but Maggie never meant for you to leave the desert with everything he gave you,” Cain continues. “But you’re lucky I got here first. Ancient Maggie and his one-track mind, thinking all of us would only want the money.”

“If you don’t want the money, then what do you want?” Amelia asks.