“You… You are going to go to the place they’re holding the children?” she asks, even though she knows my answer. I nod anyway. She falls quiet, thinking. “I’ll go with you. No, don’t say anything. Hear me out.” She squeezes my hand, and I get some of the comfort I need. “I’m scared, of course I am, but now that I know, how can I pretend I don’t?”

Nothing else needs to be said.

We leave the mansion quickly. Luck is on our side as the gates are open; we slip out, unseen by human eyes. After flickering into visibility in the shadows of a mango tree, we find a taxi willing to take us to the park named by Baarish’s son. It is a little after noon, and the sun is at its zenith; the heat crawls on our skin. The taxi driver drops us at the park, and after asking around, we find an enclosed area nearby containing a number of warehouses.

We stand outside, invisible to humans once again, looking at the sun glancing off the corrugated tin roofs of the warehouses. To tell you the truth, even though it reveals me as the coward I am, I wish we had left before I heard what I did in Baarish’s study. I wish I hadn’t eavesdropped on them. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself not to.

People talk a lot about courage and its expressions. But sometimes courage isn’t enough. Sometimes, no matter how much you yearn to do good, you cannot make yourself take that first step.

I go down on my haunches and bury my head between my knees. I know I will have to see this through just as I know that what I will see in the next hour will destroy me a little. I can’t endure it when people exploit and hurt children, and here, they’re doing both.

Hah.

Widad says nothing, but I feel even guiltier. I should have thought harder before I brought her here.

“Let’s go,” she says when I remain unmoving for five minutes.

That first step is one of the most difficult ones I have taken. We walk softly but we needn’t have. No human guards stand at the gates, which are closed but not locked. The entire place has a deserted feel to it that would only fool the humans. You see, we can feel the magic.