In the back of the house, behind furniture, the boy knew they were discussing him, and something in his stomach grew hollow. He could clearly see them from his position in the darkness, could see their uniforms, and could hear the emotion in his mother's voice. He breathed softly, afraid they might hear him, and he clung to the shadows, wishing with a child's true belief in magic that he might really disappear. Only a few days before, he and his mother had been escorted by two enforcers to a testing center, apparently against his mother's will, and he had been tested for the better part of a day. The enforcers had been less frightening in the daylight. Their power over him was complete and final. He breathed only because they permitted it. They were as powerful as night's ability to steal the day.

"You'll train him," he heard her say. "In your ways."

"He'll want for nothing. Just let us take him. This is not our decision. We are only enforcers."

She opened her mouth to speak again, then paused, her expression softening. "Might I say goodbye to him?"

The enforcer had difficulty hiding his impatience. "You'll see him again after tonight."

"Not like this, I won't," she said. "Never like this, again. He'll change."

"Not long," the enforcer said, finally. "You'll put us behind schedule."

She nodded, looking down at the floor. After a moment, she turned, and walked into the darkness.

"Mother?" he whispered as she grew close.

"I'm here," she answered. "There isn't much time."

"It's the enforcers?" he asked.

"They'll take care of you," his mother said. Even in the darkness, he could see something changing in her face. "You'll be useful," she said. "That's what they value most. For you to be useful."

"I don't know them," he said. "I don't want to go with them. I want to stay here. With you."

"You'll come to know them." She lowered herself to one knee.

"I tried to spare you from this," she said. She sighed, a deep sigh. "Remember that. That I tried to spare you. But I suppose it was inevitable."

"What?" he asked.

She looked into his eyes. "They'll shape you. They'll mold you. But that doesn't mean you must always obey them."

"You're... going to let them take me away?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "I can't stop them." She looked back at them, then to the boy. "But I can make certain you keep a little of me."

He frowned. "I don't understand," he said.

Her eyes closed a moment, then opened. "You won't see me again, after tonight."

Something in him squeezed, deep inside him, and even breathing suddenly became a struggle.

"Why?"

"They believe what they believe. I've taught you what I believe. Those two things won't join together easily, the things I believe and the things they believe." She took hold of his shoulders. "If you choose to forget what I've taught you, then I will cease to be. If you remember, then I will live with you. Wherever you go."

"I want you to come with me."

"I will," she said. "If you let me."

"Don't go," he said.

"I'm not going anywhere."

She led him forward, out of the darkness, until they could see him, and then she knelt behind him. "This is my son," she said.

The lead enforcer looked into his eyes. "You're coming with us."

"Wait," his mother said. Her hands gently moved down his head, pausing at his shoulders in something short of a caress. Her eyes locked with the lead enforcer's. "You know nothing of the bond between mother and son." Her hands moved to the boy's neck. "This is love," she said.

Her hands clenched around his throat.

He grunted once, squirming under her strength, and he could no longer breathe. Panic filled him in moments.

"Stop it!" an enforcer ordered.

"He's coming with me," she said over her exertions. "Feel your mother's love."

"Quickly, take the boy," the lead enforcer said, and in moments, men were trying to pry her hands apart. Her grip grew stronger, and the boy felt his eyes bulging as his body cried for another breath.

"Let him go," the lead enforcer said. "Nothing's worth this."

A sharp blow to his mother's head weakened her hold on him, and as they pulled him away, the boy's eyes filled with tears as he inhaled, gasping for air.

She slid backwards, away from them on the floor. "You think he can be yours, just because you take him." He had never seen this look in her eyes before and he watched her as he still struggled to gain his breath. "You think you own him," she continued. "I gave him life. If he belongs to anyone, he belongs to me."

One of the enforcers lifted the boy from the floor, and he could feel solid muscle beneath the uniform. "It's all right," the enforcer whispered.

He squirmed in the enforcer's grip.

"Which of us is stronger?" his mother said.

She lifted a small package from beneath the furniture. She looked into her son's eyes. "Always remember," she said. "This is what they do."

The package was the size of her hand, but its power and intended use sent the enforcers back.

"Don't do it!" the lead enforcer ordered.

She smiled.

"I leave you," she said to her son, her eyes probing into him with a strength that he could feel in his stomach.

In her art of shaping clay, at the final point, when a new work needed permanence, the fire glaze was meant to engulf the figure in searing heat, baking the clay into its final form. Against flesh, it would do the same.

The glaze spilled over her, and the white hot flash of fire lit the room, sending a blast of heat toward them as the furniture caught fire, and the last image of his mother was a mixture of fire and agony that reached inside of him, never to leave, as the enforcers struggled to bring him to safety.

In her dying thought, she knew it was already too late, that they could never truly claim him. He would carry this night with him for an eternity.