“Run, boy!” said the teacher, halting in the dust of the country road that ran along the edge of the forest. “Run . . . try to find someone and say what you have to say . . . Run!”

There was no hope in his voice. He was simply doing what he believed had to be done. Not out of high moral principles—he was a Dark One. Perhaps he would have found it abhorrent to live in a world where he had allowed the Executioner to take his pupil. Or perhaps he was simply not used to losing.

The motivations of Dark Ones could be very hard to understand sometimes.

“Hey, Twilight Creature!” he called out. “I am a Higher Magician of the Darkness! You shall not pass me! Go back!”

The Executioner didn’t even slow his stride. Erasmus saw rustling vines of blue fire sprout from his teacher’s hands and settle on the ground. The vines shuddered, as if preparing to pounce at the enemy.

The Executioner still didn’t slow his stride.

Erasmus realized that there was nothing his teacher could do. That he would struggle for a minute or two, or three, that the vines of dark fire would tear at the ground and the air, lash impotently at the Executioner’s body. And then the moment would come when the Executioner would grab his teacher, crush him, toss him aside—and carry on walking. To reach the Prophet.

He didn’t just understand this. He saw it, almost as if it was real.

Erasmus already knew what this was. It was not simply a prediction that might not happen. It was a harbinger of the prophecy . . . he was seeing the fate of an Other, which meant that was how it would be . . . for certain . . . almost for certain—if he did not utter a prophecy, his genuine First Prophecy, which would change the world and alter fate . . .

He swallowed hard to force down the lump in his throat and looked round. There was an old hollow oak growing only three paces away from him. Erasmus dashed to the tree, stood on tiptoe, and pulled himself up—the hole in the trunk was a bit too high for him. He thrust his head into the shadowy opening that smelled of moldy leaves and rotten wood. Something inside it rustled—a wood mouse that was settling down inside the hollow oak went darting into a dark crevice in a panic.

That didn’t bother Erasmus at all. He really didn’t believe that people, animals, and plants were different from each other in any way.