Max listened to the recording of our meeting, and didn’t seem particularly surprised by any of it. He just gave us a tight, resigned smile, and said, “I’d kind of been hoping that this familiar thing would be the big politcal hurdle we’d have to deal with this semester, you know? I didn’t expect to have to find a way to avert a war.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, at the same time as Kylie asked, “Avert a war?!”

“I’m exaggerating,” Max admitted. “One little town doesn’t have the strength to stand up to Skolala Refujeyo in any kind of, well, military way. But it’s going to be politically dangerous, and we’re going to have to think hard if we want to stop certain people from doing some very desperate and dangerous things.”

“Kylie’s in danger?” I asked.

“No. Kylie, you’re very well protected here. Even without Refujeyo, Fionnrath’s Destiny and it’s chosen mage are borderline sacred to the people of Fionnrath. You’re fine. The problem is your family.”

“What do they have to do with this?” Kylie asked.

Max flipped open a notebook. “While you two were in your meeting, I did some research. It’s well known that Fionnrath’s Destiny can’t leave its locus; it’s been in Fionnrath since the founding of the town. So why, now, can it suddenly leave? That’s the question.”

“Some kind of dramatic world-changing thing that changes how the spell works?” I asked.

“Unlikely. I think the answer is rather simpler. I think that perhaps we’ve all been wrong in our assumption that just because Fionnrath’s Destiny has always been in Fionnrath, it can’t leave. I think the issue is that its potential hosts can’t leave.” He showed us a page in his notebook; a list of eighteen names, with dates spanning the last few centuries next to them, and each with a short note – illness, trampled by horse, poison… causes of death.

“These are the only members of Fionn’s bloodline whom I can find who have ever left Fionnrath. Two things worthy of note – one, it’s not very many people. Two, they all died within days of leaving the town.”

Kylie tapped the name Sean Mac Fionn. “That’s the one they think is my great grandfather. Fell off a cliff, apparently.”

“A good way to fake your death, if you’re trying to get away from a town that won’t let you leave alive,” Max said.

“Wait,” I said. “You think they’re killing them? The townspeople are killing their own?”

“It’s extremely important that Fionnrath keeps hold of their Destiny,” Max said. “Being part of the bloodline carries responsibilities. They cannot afford to let the bloodline propogate elsewhere, so if members of it can’t be contained… yes. I think they might be. But Sean got out, and now he has a handful of descendants living in Australia. So. How is Fionnrath going to respond to this?”

Kylie scowled. “If they even think of laying a hand on – ”

“That won’t be a first resort,” Max assured her. “Most likely, they’ll want to relocate your family to Fionnrath. They’ll offer prestige, money, anything they can to get the whole bloodline home again.”

“It’s not our home! There’s no way my family would agree to that.”

“Then we need to come up with something else,” Max said, “that lets them keep control of their precious spell without resorting to dangerous measures.”

“Will Refujeyo help?” I asked.

“If they can. But thety’re not… in a politically strong position, here. Most of the smaller mage societies are very wary of Refujeyo’s growing monopoly on powerful magic and there isn’t much Refujeyo can do here without looking like they’re deliberately weakening or stealing from Fionnrath. And if anything happens to you, Kylie, Refujeyo would have no reason or justification for getting involved at all, so if you die your family’s in danger. And the spell is dangerous to you outside its locus.”

“But Refujeyo’s a lot stronger than this town, right?” I asked. “So we don’t have anything to worry about?”

“Refujeyo might be a lot stronger, but this spell is a lot more important to Fionnrath. They’d go a lot further for it; for Refujeyo, this would be more a bother than anything. We can’t expect them to do anything more for you than their duties to you as a student, Kylie. Fionnrath’s power, history and identity rely on this spell.”

“So they’ll do anything to get it,” Kylie said quietly. “I was… I don’t want to go to Fionnrath, but I was prepared to if I have to. But there’s no way my family will. Just no way.”

“And this isn’t even taking into account the familiar thing,” I said. “Lydia wasn’t at all happy to hear about that.”

“Ah. Good point,” Max said. “We’ll have to safeguard your family too, Kayden.”

“Why? What do they have to do with anything? Alania said that Kylie and I aren’t related.”

“I heard. But given the stability of the linkage, the people of Fionnrath have to at least suspect she’s lying. They’re probably going to be overcautious, with Sean having slipped through their fingers.”

“Wonderful,” I groaned. “That’s just absolutely fucking wonderful.”

“None of this is an immediate problem,” Max assured us. “Until Kylie graduates, none of this becomes urgent to anybody. The people of Fionnrath are probably going to start proposing things soon, making offers to your families and trying to get them to immigrate, but they won’t get desperate while Kylie is still here and alive.”

“I have no idea how to explain this to my family,” I groaned.

“Me neither,” Kylie added, shaking her head.

“Our more immediate problem is keeping both of you alive,” Max said. “We still have no idea how dangerous this familiarity link is.”

“I think it’s pretty safe,” I said. “We should probably focus on this whole Fionnrath thing. My spell’s still completely dormant and can’t hurt Kylie, and Fionnrath’s Destiny isn’t going to hurt me.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” Max said.

“No. But I’m pretty sure. I have, um… reason to believe I’m probably safe.”

I instantly had the full attention of both of them.

“What kind of reason?” Max asked.

“Nothing half as important as this political thing. We should probably figure out how to protect – ”

“What kind of reason, Kayden?”

I sighed. “Okay, before I get into this, I want to make it clear that I wasn’t keeping anything from you, okay? I wasn’t trying to be difficult on purpose. I am genuinely only just realising this was important right this minute.”

“What are you realising is important?” Kylie asked tightly.

“There was a prophecy.”

“What?! The Eye gave a prophecy and you didn’t tell me?! When – ?!”

“No, no! Not your prophecy! During, um. During my Initiation. It’s… kind of a story.”

“We have time,” Max said, in the carefully level voice of one who is rapidly losing patience.

“In the Pit, there was a thing. Made of spells. I don’t mean an illusory person. Not like the rocks or the trees or my reflection down in the Labyrinth of Dreams or anything like that. It was a bunch of prophecies all, all working together to sort of pretend to be a person.”

“Is that possible?” Kylie asked, glancing at Max.

Max shrugged. “Well, if it happened to Kayden, then by definition, yes. I didn’t see anything like that, but I haven’t exactly gone around quizzing people on their experiences in the Pit. It could be common for all I know. Prophecies are the category of spell most capable of communicating with people, after all.”

I nodded. “When I accused it of being a bunch of spells acting like a person, it accused me of being a bunch of cells acting like a person. So, yeah. I think it was all kind of… look, what’s important is that this wasn’t something pulled from my own mind, alright? It was from outside of me, it had new informtaion. It read my palm and told me my future.” I paused, rubbing at my palm, remembering.

“What did it tell you?” Kylie prompted.

“It… it told me that I was the Chosen One.”

“Chosen by whom?” Kylie asked, at the exact moment that Max asked “Chosen for what?”

“Exactly!” I said. “It said this right in the middle of trying to trap me in the Pit forever, so of course I didn’t think it was important! I figured, ‘oh, it’s trying to play on my ego and distract me, whatever’. I asked questions and it backtracked and said, wait, never mind, I’m not the Chosen One.” I sighed. “It said I will be the Chosen One, but only if I choose first. It said, ‘if you choose her, she will choose you’, and I asked again, who, and it said, ‘Destiny’. Which, of course, just sounds like more nonsense, but then…”

“Then,” Max said, “you ventured down into the Labyrinth, and Kylie was in trouble, and you chose to link youselves together via Fionnrath’s Destiny.”

I nodded. “That thing tried to warn me. We wouldn’t be in this familiar mess if I’d just paid attention.”

“Yes, you would,” Max said. “Kylie was dying. Do you really think you would’ve chosen any differently, even with perfect information?”

“… No. I guess not.”

“And the warning was indecipherable anyway,” Kylie said. “We didn’t learn I had Fionnrath’s Destiny until far too late. Without that, the prophecy doesn’t make sense.”

“ ‘Chosen by Destiny’,” Max said thoughtfully. “I hesitate to humanise spells enough to say they plan anything, exactly, but this certainly makes me feel better about your safety. Spells try to choose people who can handle them; this one chose Kylie before she was born, and if it’s ‘chosen’ you as a familiar, we can probably assume that you’re at least potentially capable of handling it.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I mean, I’m sure it can faill and kill me, same as any spell can kill someone, or any organ can fail. But I don’t think it’s a big risk.”

“Why, though?” Kylie asked. “Why any of this? Spells gain their use and motivation through practice, right? This one’s tuned to give advice to secure the fortune of a small Scottish town, so when it needed a new host… why leave the town? Why choose either me or Kayden?”

“Kayden’s easy,” Max said. “You would’ve died without a familiar. Right place, right time; it thinks Kayden can handle the link, Kayden was there when you needed something to take the strain, and obviously it ‘wants’ you alive. Why you, though… that is a real question. We can use that.”

“We… can?”

“Spells are… difficult to predict, and fallible, but the people of Fionnrath tend to have a lot of faith in theirs. If we can convince this Lydia that their Destiny chose you, same as any other host it chooses, for the good of Fionnrath, and that clearly it thinks having you here is to the benefit of Fionnrath, somehow… that might keep things calm, at least for a little while. It’ll buy us some time. I think I need to write a letter.”

“Calling in some diplomatic favours?” Kylie asked.

“No. I need information from the internet.”

“You need to google something, so you’re going to write a letter to someone, have them do it, and then they’ll mail you back the results?” Kylie asked. “Am I understanding this right?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Why doesn’t this school have the internet?!”

“To be fair,” I said, “if absolutely anyone in this place had a twitter account, and my parents followed it, there’s no way they would’ve let me come back for the Initiation.”

Max got to work on his letter while Kylie and I started unpacking from the holidays. Well, I tried to unpack. I kept finding my gaze drifting towards Max, sitting at his repaired desk behind his force fielded bed. Max had hated those force fields when we first got here; he’d spent as little time as possible behind them until we’d found the way to bypass them, under the bed. I’d figured it was just part of his general fear of magic, at first. But that was before I’d seen what I’d seen in the Labyrinth of Dreams.

I’d deliberately avoided speculating too hard on anything I’d seen about Max down there. He hadn’t wanted to show me any of it, so drawing conclusions from it seemed like a violation of his privacy, sort of. But there were some pretty obvious connections that it was impossible not to make. A young mage, studying hard to develop a perfect memory, explaining that he’d ‘be let out’ once he got a difficult memory puzzle correct. A small child in a box, crying, while Max pulled me past, saying I couldn’t help him; saying he’d be let out ‘when he learns composure’, with a perfectly composed face. Why does somebody who’s afraid of magic and hates politics work so hard to become the Nonus Acanthos, refuse to take the name Nonus, and balk at the very responsibilities and honours he worked so hard to achieve?

Well. That seemed pretty obvious, now.

He looked relaxed enough, writing quietly. Maybe he’d gotten used to the magic all around us, including the force fields. Or maybe I’d never actually seen him relaxed, and he was tense all the time, and we’d all just gotten used to it. He was surrounded by magic and politics here, and we were just dumping more of it on him all the time. Dating Magista might let her take on some of his family responsibilities, but now he had to deal with being the mage who created a successful human familiarity link. Now he had to try to protect us, and Kylie’s family, and possibly mine.

“The coven!” Kylie exclaimed out of nowhere.

I blinked. “What?”

“They might be able to help. This is the exact kind of problem we came together to help each other with, isn’t it? If on a… bit of a bigger scale.”

“Kylie, if we bring this Fionnrath thing to Talbot, he is going to go absolutely nuts.”

“Yeah, but in a productive way. Do we have some way to contact Cheryl? She’s more on the outside than the rest of us…”

I glanced at Max again. I wasn’t sure how much the other witches would be able to help, but we had to do something.

“Good point,” I said. “Let’s set up a meeting with the Coven.”