It was very dark inside; the only light was the vague glimmer that leaked in around the door. I'd seen enough, however, before Jascin shut me in to know I wasn't alone. There was a girl in the room of about the same age as myself. I hadn't gotten a close look, but I'd caught a glimpse of reddish brown hair. I'd also seen that she wore the serpent mark and collar as I did. I picked myself up and felt my way to one wall. My hand brushed against the girl and she let out a yelp.

"Who are you?" Her voice held mistrust and fear.

"My name's Ashen," I responded. "What's yours?"

"Amelia." Her answer was curt and her voice still suspicious. "Why are you here? What does Lucius want with you?"

"I don't know. He..." I choked suddenly over the thought of what had become of me, but continued. "He bought me today, and he didn't tell me anything."

Suddenly her tone was sharp, accusatory. "You're a latent, aren't you?"

I didn't understand what that had to do with anything, but I answered, "Yes."

Then she flung herself at me and started hitting me. "I hate you! I hate you!" She was screaming now, and I raised my hands to try and stop her blows, though I couldn't see them coming in the dark. Then as suddenly as her anger had come, it went and she collapsed and started to cry on my shoulder. I awkwardly put an arm around her and held her as she sobbed.

When she had cried herself out I cautiously asked, “What’s wrong? I don’t understand. What does my latency have to do with anything?” I didn’t want to set her off again, but I wanted to know what was going on. Knowledge was power, and the more I knew the more hope I had of finding some way out of this mess.

I couldn’t see her face in the dark, but her tone clearly conveyed abject misery. “Master Lucius has found a way to draw power from latent mages. He’d been drawing power from me, but now that you’re here, he’ll use you instead.”

I was still puzzled. “I don’t understand.” I repeated. “You want him to take power from you?”

“Yes! No! I… I don’t know. I don’t like it. It’s horrible, but it means he needs me. Now that he has you, I’m expendable. Master Lucius doesn’t care about slaves. We’re just things to be used. But as long as he needed me I knew that at least he wouldn’t kill me. And now…” she started sobbing again, and all I could do was hold her and think.

Too much had happened. It seemed like my whole life had been turned upside down all at once. I sat in the dark and thought, trying to figure out what I could do. My mind raced through a thousand unlikely options and came up with nothing. For one moment I entertained the fantasy that if I told Lucius who I was, that I was the son of a colleague, he would take off the slave mark and send me home. But no, I knew better. I had no proof of who I was, and if what Amelia said was true he needed me. He wasn’t going to let me go. All the other ideas I came up with were even less likely to succeed. I was a slave now. My life wasn’t my own. There was nothing I could do but wait and see what tomorrow brought me.