It took a few moments for the noise to tunnel through eight-year-old Tisha’s concentration. She was supposed to be out playing, but she’d snuck off with a book and a huge, tart apple instead. She’d discovered back during the spring that one of the second-floor windows in the Library had a loose screen that she could pry open enough to allow her to crawl out onto one of the lower battlements. She kept two old pillows in the carrel next to that window now, and on these sunny early-autumn days she curled up on the nice warm stone. She’d sit on one pillow and put the other behind her head as she leaned against the tower wall.

Now, though, she could hear a commotion below. A shrill little voice was crying for help, while another voice was laughing and jeering. Tisha got to her feet and peered over the parapet. Uh-oh! That was Immy down there, and Foldran had the back of her jumper hung on one of the pegs on the outside of the stable wall. Her sister was hanging high enough that if the strap gave, she’d fall far enough to hurt herself. Immy was kicking hard, either trying to free herself or hurt Foldran, but the bigger boy was staying just out of reach. He laughed again every time she jumped.

“Froglegs! Kick, you baby, kick! Immy’s got frog legs!”

Tisha was fed up with that brat. Just because he was twelve, he thought he could lord it over all the smaller kids. In the six months he’d been at Candlekeep, the boy had effectively terrorized the children into an uneasy submission. She and Immy had already had to evade their parents’ questions about a few knots on their heads and bruises from where he’d pinched them so hard. Nobody wanted to rat on him; that would break the unwritten laws of childhood. A fink stank, everybody knew that.

She was already back through the window and halfway down the Library stairs before she realized what she was doing. Even all the way up on the battlement she’d been able to feel the misery and humiliation radiating from Immy’s small figure, and it was only getting worse the closer she got. It had to stop! She couldn’t stand to feel all the mental suffering everyone else went through because of Foldran anymore. Must make it stop, she thought grimly, as the waves of misery grew higher. She knew Foldran would turn his attention to her at once. She didn’t care if he hit her, as long as it would make him stop hurting Immy. Getting bruised never bothered her; it was feeling someone else’s agony of spirit that ripped her apart. It happened most often with her sister, less often with their parents, and only rarely with strangers. Unluckily, Immy’s red hair seemed to make the six-year-old Foldran’s favorite target.

All the pain that had been building up within them both for months seemed to boil up inside Tisha’s heart just as she reached the stable.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” she shouted in a hoarse voice that didn’t seem to be her own.

Foldran whipped around, a nasty grin spreading across his face. “Well, if it isn’t little miss goody two-shoes come to save her sissy sister!” He chuckled creepily. “You want her down? Do the chicken dance!”

“No,” Tisha found herself saying, to her utter astonishment. Not angrily, not fearfully, just as a calm rejection of the idea.

She was between him and Immy now, her back against the barn wall. Tisha saw the sudden anger flare in Foldran’s face. The bigger boy came closer, until she had to stare up at his blazing blue eyes. His fists balled, and he repeated his demand.

“Do the chicken dance now, you skinny little dog-faced kobold, or I’ll give you a matching pair of shiners!”

Tisha seemed to be watching herself from a distance now, as if her spirit hovered some ten or fifteen feet above her body. Her mind flinched as she saw the pigtailed girl below wordlessly shake her head. The motion seemed to take an eternity to complete, and even as it began Foldran’s right arm started to cock back for a rocking blow. Then Tisha was back in her body again, just as suddenly as she had left it. Now she was staring at the knuckles of Foldran’s right hand, bleached white because he was holding his fist so tight. Her senses seemed heightened; she saw the dirty, ragged fingernails and the small scab of a healing cut on his thumb, and yet the whole scene still seemed curiously removed from her, as if happening to someone else.

At the last moment Foldran paused. An even crueler smile flitted over his mouth, never reaching his eyes. “Nah. You don’t cry enough. I think I’ll just make your sister pay for your disrespect!” He lunged past Tisha and punched Immy hard in the stomach, so hard the smaller girl let out her breath in one startled gasp and reflexively gagged. The vomit splattered all over Foldran, and as it draped over him, a red curtain seemed to fall over Tisha’s vision.

She knew nothing more until she heard Dreppin’s voice shouting at her. “Stop! Stop, Tisha, stop!” The mist cleared then, and Tisha found herself pinioned in the stablemaster’s arms.

“Immy!” she gasped, as soon as she recognized him. “Foldran hit her real hard! Is she gonna be okay? They’ll be so mad at me when they know I let her get hurt! It’s my fault, I wouldn’t do the chicken dance when he told me to!”

Dreppin gave her a strange look, then quietly said, “I don’t think you need worry about your sister, lass. Imoen saw it all, and I think a little talk with Foldran’s parents is in order. Phlydia’s taken her to the temple now; the priest will make sure she’s not gravely injured.”

Tisha let out a long, sobbing breath that she didn’t even know she’d been holding. For the first time, she looked down and saw that she was gripping the handle of a pitchfork a good two feet taller than herself. She stared at it uncomprehendingly.

“What? Why?” she whispered. There were still a few wisps of hay clinging to the tines, and some of the stalks were stained red.

“NO! NO!” she screamed.

“Hush, child!” Dreppin’s voice cut through her hysteria like a knife. “You didn’t gore the boy.” He’d found them just in time, though. Patricia had somehow gotten the heavy tool poised above her head, and had been just about to ram it down on the bully’s stomach when the stablemaster grabbed her. It had taken a full ten minutes for her to calm down enough to realize who was holding her. It was a good thing that little Tisha had still been ranting when one of the other stablehands had carried Foldran off to Oghma’s shrine at the same time Phlydia took Imoen.

Tisha didn’t find out until much later about the scene that had greeted Dreppin upon his arrival. Foldran had been beaten severely. His nose had bled copiously where he’d fallen unconscious against the pile of hay. It seemed a little crooked, and Tisha had probably broken it. His eyes had already swollen shut, and his hands bore multiple scratches where he’d tried futilely to ward off the smaller child’s blows. Coupled with the vomit covering his hair and clothes, the boy had been a fearsome sight. Dreppin told her years later that he had hoped sincerely that the priest would decide to let some of Foldran’s injuries heal the slow, natural way. After Imoen’s story came out, even his parents felt the boy richly deserved a small taste of the pain he’d regularly been dishing out to the other children.

But Patricia didn’t know that yet, so she slumped against the stablemaster in pure relief. “Can… can you take me home, Dreppin? I don’t feel so good,” she said, and sagged to the ground. The curtain didn’t come all the way down this time, though, and she felt the joggling sway as Dreppin carried her in his arms to the inn and saw the pale autumn sun riding low in the deep blue sky. One thing she knew, she never wanted to feel that out of control again. It was even scarier than watching Immy get hurt.