At age seven, the boy could already hold the sun in his hands.

Maeve stared down at him, his ink-black hair and fair skin outlined in silver moonlight, his eyes as dark and serious as the sky above. His name was Theo, and he was perfect.

No, Maeve amended. Not perfect. Not yet. But he would be someday—under her guidance he would become so.

“Theo.” Maeve selected each word as carefully as an artist chooses their paints. “Do you know how talented you are at *casting?”

They stood in a thicket of woods, beyond the firelight of his tiny village. It had been quite easy to get him alone—Maeve had simply asked to speak with him for a moment. Although barely out of girlhood herself, to a seven-year-old boy she looked like an adult, and he had not questioned her.

“Casting?” The small boy stared at her, those serious eyes taking in every word with cautious curiosity. His voice barely rose over the rustling of the leaves.

“The sparks you pull from the sunlight,” Maeve explained patiently. “You can form them into globes of light, can’t you? You can set a fire in the hearth without flint.”

If Theo wondered how she knew all this, he did not show it. Instead, he swallowed hard. “I . . . I’m not supposed to do that anymore. The mage hunters would come and take me away.”

Rage and pain flashed white-hot through Maeve at the thought of the hunters, but she knew such emotions would only frighten the boy further, so she smoothed her expression into calm compassion.

Maeve knelt down in front of him and caught his gaze. “But that would be very wrong of them. Those in your village who would harm you are cruel, heartless people. Do you understand?”

Theo nodded uncertainly.

“Theo.” Maeve took his small, pale hand in her own and pressed it gently. “You have far more power and talent in the art of casting than any child I have ever met. Furthermore, you have twice the intelligence of any adult in this barbaric, light-forsaken place!”

Surprise flashed across Theo’s face, as though no one had ever paid him such a compliment before. Bitterness and satisfaction rose within Maeve at the thought. Among these fearful, ignorant peasants, Theo was an anomaly. He was a daisy in the desert—sure to wither and die, potential utterly wasted, unless someone plucked him up and replanted him. Someone like her.

“My name is Maeve.” Maeve painted on a warm smile. “I’m like you. Look!” She opened her free hand, and a flurry of golden sparks burst from her palm. They hovered for a moment, bobbing lazily like fireflies, and then they began to dance.

Theo caught his breath as he watched the little sparks twirl and caper in intricate patterns around Maeve’s fingertips. Spinning in perfect circles, forming into stars, weaving between each other and back again.

“How do you do that?” He glanced back up to Maeve’s face, eyes as wide as saucers. “And how at night? There’s no sun.”

“I use the moonlight.” Maeve laughed quietly. Even ordinary mages knew how to use moonlight—he really had no idea, this boy. “I can teach you this and so much more. I can teach you how to draw lumens from the moonlight and other places as well. Places that no mage but myself knows how to draw from. I can show you how to form light into a weapon, or a healing balm. You have all this power within you”—she pressed his hand again—“and I can teach you how to use it. If you will come with me.”

“Come with you?”

“Yes.” Maeve took a long roll of parchment and a quill pen out of the hidden pocket in her robe. “To a place where you will never have to fear the mage hunters again. All you have to do is sign your name.”

Maeve waved her hand, and parchment and pen floated in midair before him. The boy drew a sharp breath, eyes wide, but made no move towards the paper.

“This is an apprenticeship contract. I am asking you to become my apprentice, Theo.” Maeve made her voice firm. “You should be honored. I can teach you magic many can only dream of.”

The boy shifted half a step backwards, his small brow furrowed.

But he would not turn back. Maeve had watched him from the shadows for weeks now, and she knew he would not. She spoke her next words with all the care of someone fitting a key into a lock. Perhaps, in a way, she was.

“If you come with me, you’ll be among other mages, who would never dream to stifle that spark you have. If you come with me, Theo, you will no longer be alone.”

Maeve held her breath as Theo stared at the paper, her words hanging in the air between them. Had the key fit?

At last he reached out and signed his name on the suspended parchment. Satisfaction settled in Maeve’s chest. She could almost hear the click of that metaphorical lock.

As soon as he finished, Theo froze, his eyes glossing over as the imbued spell erased his memories. Anything and anyone that might connect him to his past, short as it had been, slipped away in seconds.

It was a mercy, really. He would never grow homesick if he could not remember his home. He would have no distractions from learning and growing into the great mage she would form him into.

Maeve rolled up the parchment, feeling lighter than she had in weeks. “Very good. You are officially an apprentice of the Dark Mage.”

A thrill went through her as she said the words aloud. It was the first time she had told a living soul her new identity. It felt powerful. It felt real. It felt like a Beginning.

Theo stared at her, baffled shock written across his face. Having one’s memories erased was a confusing experience, Maeve imagined, but he would recover quickly.

“But the Dark Mage died,” Theo said at last, repeating the well-worn fact.

“He did.” Maeve pulled the hood of her cloak up and took hold of Theo’s arm. “But, as his daughter, I believe I have a right to that title now.”

Then master and apprentice disappeared into the night.