“Fire.” I barely breathed, my mouth agape and heart fluttering as a bird’s. “Feed it, and the flames thrive. But give it drink, and it will die.” As I whispered my voice went high and cracked at the end, as I tried to fight away my fears to keep the tears from flowing.

The Magician remained unmoving, stoic in feel and energy. The vines that held me were persistent; never once did they let up their grasp, and the wisteria that had fasten itself as my choker, with its beautiful blue blossom agog in my left eye, seemed to speak to me in tantalizing, hushed flower tongue, daring me to make a move. Her blue lips voiceless saying, ‘Should you fight, your effort be blight. Should you cry, you may die…’

But my eyes were fixed on the Dark Magician, his face of blacken’d swirling oil so void of…