Coals Among the Foliage

In Bluegrove Springs where magic is illegal, Jude Newfield, the resident unassuming nice boy, is seen practicing magic in public. Having spent years of his life dedicated to research on the subject, the only way to truly understand it was to bite the bullet and learn it, at the expense of everything else. Saunder Reynolds is the opposite side of the same coin. As a lonely, introverted breadwinner for his less fortunate broken home, he can't think about anything other than what time his shift at the butcher's begins, and what time his night shift at the police station takes over. When they meet, they are both being chased away: Jude is running for his life from a mob, ripping down back alleys until he bumps into Saunder, who is also running for his life from his ever-angry father. They take pity on each other, and help each other escape into the woods surrounding the town. In their blossoming friendship, deals are made, and right when things are finally looking up for them both, they forget to realise that if you don't pull a weed from the root, it'll simply grow back.