Dead leaves floated from above, landing around us.

We sat on a wooden bench, a bit away from the dying, gnarled tree at the town’s center and by a rotting train station. No one was outside around here, it seemed. Voices echoed throughout the lonely streets, and sometimes shadows peaked out in the corner of our eyes, but no one ever appeared.

“Maybe there was a festival,” I mumbled to my brother.

“Yeah, maybe there was,” he hummed. “Everything’s still tended to.”

I looked around. For the most part, he was right. All the hedges were trimmed and flowers were still growing, despite the season and the recent cold spell. I wasn’t sure if there had even been a cold spell here – my brother and I had gone as far as the train could take us. It was four, six, or eight hours north, south, or east of wherever we had been. We lost track of our time and place long ago, and now we roamed in search of something worth staying for like some pair of lazy vagrants.

“The tree is the only thing dead,” my brother regarded.

“Odd.”

Around us, the town remained hushed.

There was certainly something here; my brother and I could feel the intensity in the air. It was as if the second we walked away, the town would exhale. People or otherwise, we weren’t sure. But they’d reveal themselves eventually.

I finally got up, stretching my legs and glancing up at the rotting tree. Its remaining leaves were coming off in patches, as if it had been terribly diseased by something. Part of it looked like damage from flame, as if something had spat out embers on the top of the branches and let burn.

Shadows continued to swarm around quiet allies, but they disappeared as soon as I looked directly at any one of them. Out of habit, I reached down and pressed my palm to the pistol tucked in my belt.

“This is one of them,” I mumbled to my brother with some confidence.

“It’s been a long week. It might just be the paranoia setting in,” he said from the bench.

“No, this place is teeming with it, I’m sure of it. Can’t you feel in the air and at your feet?”

If he had taken more than a single moment, he would have heard the hiss, felt the electricity, or the buzz of nervousness; he couldn’t feel the magic. He never could.

“I can’t. It feels like everywhere else.”

“You’re wrong,” I snapped. “We should burn this place to the ground.”

He still sat lazily at the bench, rolling his head back to look at the deeply cloudy sky. He groaned, “We aren’t doing anything without proof, anymore, Aleks. We’re better than that.”

“Alright, the tree is proof.”

“Sometimes things die. The tree is not proof.”

I glanced around at the town around us. I could hear their whispers more clearly now; the people here certainly knew what we were doing and wouldn’t wait in the shadows for much longer.

“Okay.”

In an instant, I removed my pistol and shot it at one of the shadows. Its shot rang out, violent and painful, but it didn’t land.

The lone bullet floated in the air for a second, and not a moment more, before dropping to the cobblestone ground with a small clatter.

I looked back at my brother, who stared at the bullet with a mournful gaze. That single slip up would cost this town their lives. For now, we were sure that this town held magic.

“We’ll burn it all,” I snapped.

“We’ll burn it,” he managed quietly. He toyed with a weed that was growing through the cobble at his feet, now looking anywhere but at the city that would be no more in a few hours.

“Well, we’re off then,” I chirped, picking up my bag from the bench, blindy expecting him to follow. When his footsteps didn’t ring out behind me, I turned. He sat at the bench languidly, as he often did when we explored towns like these. He sat there quietly for a long moment, deciding if this town was worth fighting for.

He got up without a word.

- - - - -

We rode back on the train in silence. We weren’t sure where we were going, or where we had been. Our only indication of direction was the glow of violent embers through the inky black of the night that would soon be well behind us.

We would move on to another town and check for mages there. We would move on to another after that, and burn it to the ground if we found any indication. Until then, we waited.

The train rode on into the night.