The realization that Simon might be being manipulated was enough to make him steer well clear of the first Selection he came across since his return to the city, but not enough to make him give up on the plan entirely. Even if the sight of those bright robes and conical hoods weaving through the streets was enough to make Simon steer clear, he’d come too far just to let this go.

That didn’t mean that he had to rush blindly into danger, though. Even as some of the other children ran toward them, he was content to stay very far away. Even if my evil twin is trying to get me into trouble, he can’t control all the details, Simon assured himself.

Even though he skipped that first strange procession entirely, it was only a few weeks later before he saw another. The weather was colder then but not cold enough to keep everyone off the streets by any means.

He considered skipping this one as well, simply out of spite. He’d seen the strange occurrences and their almost carnival-like atmosphere enough times on his last visit to know that he was hardly missing his only chance by doing so. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he couldn’t guarantee he wasn’t about to get himself dissected again for decades, which seemed to be a distinct possibility when his doppelgänger was involved.

Until now, Simon had just assumed the man had been toying with him by poking holes in his worldview. Now, suddenly, he worried there might be more to it than that. Instead of joining in the festivities like a normal child would, he lingered at the fringes, and even when candies in brightly wrapped paper were tossed in his direction, he made no move to retrieve one.

Simon had spent the last few weeks doing his best to learn to have fun, but as much pageantry as he could see in this event it left him cold. He could practically feel the malevolent gaze of these men brush over him behind their colorful masks of painted leather and paper mache.

The boys he’d been playing monster slayers with a moment before the bright entourage and its eerie music did not share his concerns and immediately darted forward to get bits of sugary sweets from where they’d landed on the cobbles.

This time, Simon followed the procession even as it passed him by, but he never got close to it. Instead, he just observed from the edge of the square, where the whole thing came to an end with a few equally brightly colored tents.

The whole thing sort of gave Simon Pied Piper vibes. A few dozen men performing minor magic tricks between songs and occasional pyrotechnics led a growing throng of children through the streets with candy. Then, when they had them all in one place, they chose perhaps half a dozen and led them into various tents for the Selection.

Simon knew from his previous conversations on the subject that less than one in ten children were chosen to be tested, and less than one in ten of those passed whatever those secretive tests. The idea that magic was rare didn’t line up with his own experiences at all. He’d only tried to teach someone else to use magic on one occasion, and while that experience made him conclude that ability certainly wasn’t equal, it didn’t seem to be very hard.

In fact, teaching the population of Zurari a few spells in the form of random graffiti had been one of his thoughts to destabilize the regime and prevent war from breaking out any time soon. The only reason Simon didn’t was because the idea of putting more fire and lightning wielders into the world seemed like a terrible idea. He didn’t like the White Cloaks, but he agreed that it would probably be for the best if magic wasn’t put into everyone’s hands.

Still, it raised the question of what these men were looking for. Was it ability or obedience they were after? Was there any way he could find out before the time came to try his luck?

Simon eventually climbed the facades of one of the closest buildings. It loomed three stories over the tents, but not even that viewpoint gave him any insight. Though he sometimes heard music or even shouts from the largest of the three tents, there was nothing that provided him any insight.

He was tempted to try to use magic to help him learn more, but he was pretty sure that it was his own divinatory efforts that had given him away last time, and he had no wish to flee the city again for weeks or months. Not with winter so close now. It was mild here, but the north was nothing but snow and ice.

Unfortunately, a mild winter did not mean warm, and the Selection still hadn’t finished by sunset, leaving Simon shivering on the rooftop as he looked for any sort of clue that might help him. Unfortunately, he didn’t glimpse anything like that until it was fully dark. It was only after the moon started to rise that the magi emerged from the last tent without any children. They walked back toward the heart of the center of the city with their guards.

After they were gone, the children who hadn’t been selected emerged from the center tent. Simon thought he recognized a couple of the boys, and some of them rubbed their eyes sleepily, and once they got their bearings, they fled. Whether that was from fear or from urgency that it had grown so late, he couldn’t say, but they didn’t seem to be in any danger. Once they were gone, servants emerged from the shadows and began disassembling the whole thing like a different sort of magic.

Simon watched closely then, but he didn’t use magic to heighten his vision. He didn’t know what they could detect, so he didn’t want to risk it. Still, he got some glimpses. One of the tents had several finely dressed women escorted from it, along with foods and sweets like they’d been at a party. Another had paintings, art supplies, and other decorations.

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Both of those were strange, and he couldn’t quite understand the meanings behind either test if that’s indeed what they were. “Maybe I’m overthinking this,” he whispered to himself as he watched everything. “Maybe these are just temptations or distractions, and they gather children based on auras or something else I don’t know about.”

When they broke the third tent down, it made slightly more sense to him. That one, at least, he saw a large glass orb being carried out of and a number of arcane-looking diagrams. When they packed those up in a wagon, he was tempted to go down there and steal what he could, but he held back.

Instead of doing anything too risky, he resolved to keep on as he had up until now. In the days that followed, he managed to track down two different boys who had been tested but selected. Neither of them could remember a thing, though. That, more than anything, turned out to be the real reason everyone had run off like they’d been spooked.

“One moment I was about to walk in the tent, and the next I was outside it, and… Well, the sun was just gone. It was like no time had passed, but they’d plucked it from the sky.” Ajala explained.

“That's very strange,” Simon nodded, feigning concern. “Because you definitely went in.”

“I… I believe that. I just think that maybe it was too horrific, and I blocked it out, you know?” the other boy said. “Why, were you there at the selection too?”

“Me? No way,” Simon lied. “They’d never pick me.” Simon had been working on his streetwise orphan routine for weeks, and by this point, no one thought he was anything special, which was exactly the way he liked it.

The other conversation went slightly worse, but it didn’t tell him anything new. Neither did lurking around several other selections. Each time, they had the same strange parade with the same pipers and animal masks. Each time, they disassembled the colorful tents late at night when he couldn’t see exactly what it was they were packing up. Once, he took a chance and used a word of lesser light focusing to give himself night vision, but all that told him was that his guesses had been pretty close to right.

Sometimes, the selections had three tents, and sometimes, they had four. Sometimes, they had a whole band instead of just an eerie piper, but those differences were fairly marginal. Other details were always the same. They always chose a handful of children no matter how many of them gathered, but there were very few patterns he could see for which children they actually chose.

There seemed to be no preference for boys or girls, even though Simon had never seen a female Magi. Sometimes they chose a noble if they were present, but not enough for Simon to take the time to buy finery. That was strange, too, since Simon had initially believed that the Magi were a type of nobility. In this case, though, there seemed to be some separation between material and spiritual wealth. That made sense if the whole thing really was a cult to the God-King, of course.

“Doesn’t actual talent or power come into the equation, though?” Simon asked himself.

After thinking about that for days, he decided the only way he’d really be able to see that was with the help of a mirror. Given that his eyes couldn’t see everything there was to see in this world. Once he decided that, he actively sought out the next Selection. Still, it took a week to find one, and he had to race to the opposite side of the inner ring fast enough to attract the approbation of the guards.

By the time he arrived at that one, the parade was done, but the choosing of the lucky children hadn’t happened yet. “Mirror, show me their auras,” he whispered as he turned away from the group and used the shiny silver disk to look over his shoulder, careful to mind its reflection.

It took the magic mirror a few seconds to comply, but then the air around everyone shimmer to life. Except for the Magi, the effects were subtle, and Simon could only look for a few seconds not to draw too much attention, but he didn't see anything unexpected. The Magi had dark or very dark auras, and most of the children either didn’t have one or had a little light swirling around them. Few of them showed any signs of darkness, and as Simon put away the mirror again, he noted with some disappointment that not one of them had as much gray surrounding them as he did.

I guess I still stand out too much, he thought to himself as he stood in a ray of sunlight between two columns and watched the Selection occur.

As the Magi with a red dragon mask picked out a few of the children, Simon raised an eyebrow. Though most of them looked quite poor, he was pretty sure he saw a pattern develop. He wasn’t willing to say for sure until they released the children they didn’t pick later that evening, but when he saw those results, he wasn’t surprised. Every one of the boys and girls that the Magi had selected were those that had been touched by darkness.

“Well, isn’t that interesting,” Simon said to himself as he made the long trek back to the little office he slept in. “They aren’t interested in bloodlines or talent… they want bad people.”

He noticed one other thing too. The four women that were escorted out of the tent that always contained the food, weren’t nearly as dark as the Magi. One of them even had a bit of a glow about her, indicating that she was a far better person than her peers, but they were still much darker than the children or the other servants.

Are they female Magi, Simon wondered. Or is something else going on here?

All of these revelations made a twisted sort of sense, he supposed. Good people weren’t likely to show much interest in human sacrifice, and they would run screaming when they found out what miracles really cost.

It was also good news in a way. That development made it much more likely that he’d be picked. For a moment, that excited him, but that excitement made him hesitate again as he tried to second-guess himself.

No, he decided. The only way I’m ever going to find out is if I go for it.

There was no certainty that he’d be picked, of course, but he lingered closer and closer to the parades as time had gone on, and no one had ever given him a second look, but part of him knew that if he clambered at the front with the rest of the children they would test him, and despite the danger, he needed to do that much, at least.