Haddou first had Malou and Gavriel finish their tea and bread while she told them about how she learned to meditate. “Where I’m from, we learn to meditate around your age—the age when we leave our community to find independence. Technically, it’s more of a farewell ceremony. The whole community gets together, usually around a bonfire. Eating. Drinking. Laughing. Singing.”

When their cups and plates were empty, Haddou placed the dishes back on the silver tray as she said, “Then, at zenith moon, everyone settles and our emi—our elders—take turns telling stories meant to teach you about our community's past, using magic, how to meditate. Cautionary tales, heroic tales, coming-of-age tales. Always the same ones, though they’re a bit different each time, and almost always in the same order.” She headed to the kitchen. “The last story is meant to help guide you into meditation. I imagine long ago before magic was sealed, everyone did drift into a true meditative state. Mostly, everyone just falls asleep now. Not me, of course, which is why I know it does work if the mind is willing. Now, get comfortable and close your eyes.”

Gavriel sent Malou a skeptical look, but he leaned back against the cushions and closed his eyes as instructed. Malou crossed her legs and rested her hands on her knees like she’d seen her father do while supposedly meditating. Who had taught her father how to meditate? She wished he'd told her more stories about his life.

“This method isn’t necessarily as tried-and-true as the initiation process at Khalasaj Tower, but at least you’ll have privacy.” Haddou gave an indignant huff.

“Now,” she said, her tone soft, “this is the story told to us millennia ago by Emi Zora, our Mother of Mothers, who taught us all how to meditate. She gathered everyone together just like we're gathered here and told them this. I want you to become aware of your body—aware of how your body is being supported by the cushions, the cushions supported by the floor, the floor supported by the ground.”

Malou did her best, recalling the hyperawareness she’d felt before and pressing herself to feel that same way now. But in the back of her mind, she remembered that she’d heard of Khalasaj Tower before. It was the place Haddou had said she could take the Teir until it was safe at Tousieux again. This meant the Teir had been brought there many times for protection. Malou would have to ask more about it after meditation. She didn’t want it to take her hours just to drop into the right mindset.

“Remember that all of this,” Haddou said, “is to help clear your mind and be present in the moment. Become aware of the magic inside of you and all around you. Feel how you are alive. Take three long, deep breaths—in through your nose and out through your mouth. And take care with each of those breaths. Cause as little disturbance in the air around you as possible. There’s no hurry here. Fill your lungs, big and full. Feel your chest expand. Linger on the scent in the air, the taste of it on your tongue.”

Letting her magic warm her, Malou took in a big breath of the woody frankincense and myrrh, the slight sweetness of Haddou’s cigar, the faint earthy musk of the sage. On her tongue, she could still taste the mint tea’s bitter afternotes. Haddou had said the candles, incense, and sage were all to help the process—cleansing the space and encouraging a state of mind somewhere between imagining and dreaming—but maybe they were part of an effort to conjure the same atmosphere of the ceremony Haddou remembered. Malou could imagine it. Drinking tea from communal pots. Sharing food from plates. Telling stories around a fire. Surrounded by people Haddou must’ve loved dearly.

“Breathe normally now,” Haddou continued in the same soft tone, “but focus on feeling the balance, the cycle, the relaxation. Allow yourself to be present in this moment. Centered. Experience the here and now. Peaceful and calm. This is the state that Emi Zora first came to meditate. She taught us to envision that you’re at the top of a staircase with a door at the bottom. What’s behind that door is a place you feel safe and loved. Picture that place in your mind.”

The only place that came to Malou was the only place she’d ever called home. The house with a name she couldn’t remember where she’d been born, where she’d taken her first steps, where her father had taught her magic, where she’d met Gavriel, where they’d promised to protect each other, where she’d said goodbye to her father before he’d died. A two-story, white-washed stone house with wild ivy overtaking the façade.

“I’m going to count down from ten. For each number, you’ll take a step down, and for each step, you’ll breathe in relaxation and breathe out hesitation. Know that when I reach one, you’ll reach that door, it’ll open for you, and one of your many ancestors will welcome you. Ten—breathe in.” Haddou took a loud inhale, and Gavriel followed. Malou kept her breathing quiet. “And breathe out.” She exhaled just as loudly, then repeated the process for nine and eight and seven.

When Malou opened that door, she’d be back at that house. She breathed with Haddou, wanting so badly for the ancestor waiting for her to be her father saying welcome home rather than asking are you sure you don’t want me to stay? She’d wondered before if her father had known he was going to die when he left, and she felt sure now that he had. He’d wanted her to stop him, but she’d failed because she hadn’t wanted him to think of her as a child. She had been a child, and her childish pride had killed her father.

Maybe when she opened that door in her mind, he’d be waiting for her with a big smile. He’d welcome her with a hug. Maybe he’d tell her all about reincarnation again. The cycle of life and death is timeless and non-linear, he’d explain. When we die, our bodies and our souls return to nature. Nature transforms our old bodies into soil and transfers our souls to a new body. It’s our bodies that die while our souls will always live on. Except that hadn’t made her feel better before and it wouldn’t make her feel better now.

“Two,” Haddou said, again projecting the sound of her breathing in and out. Then, at last, she said, “One. Open the door.”

Rather than opening the door, Malou remembered the feeling of her bed that night. The smoothness of her worn-in linen sheets. The weight of the small glass beads that filled her pastel green comforter. Her armoire and escritoire, its glass doors and drop-down desk both always open, were stained that same green. She’d opened her curtains that night so her view of the crescent moon wouldn’t be obscured, which was why she’d been easy to wake when her father had gently knocked on her door. She’d rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as he’d crouched at her bedside.

“Malou,” Haddou said, voice not so soft this time. “Stop overthinking it. I can tell you are. It’s written all over your face. Relax. Deep breaths. Start back at the top of the steps and count down on your own until you reach the door again.”

She did as told—or tried to, at least. The result was the same. Back in that bed, her father at her side. Sorry for waking you, he’d said, but I have to leave. I wanted to say goodbye before I did though. How could I leave you without saying goodbye? He’d kissed her forehead, and she’d asked where he had to go so late. At that age, his vague answer had been enough for her, but she wished now that she’d pressed him to explain his situation before he’d said, I can stay if you need me, though. What do you think?

Telling him she’d be fine without him had been a mistake. Telling him she was sure she didn’t want him to stay had been a mistake. It didn’t matter that he’d be reincarnated one day. Perhaps his soul had already been reborn. What did that matter, though, when he wouldn’t remember her?

She opened her eyes and looked at Haddou.

“Alright,” Haddou said, clearly understanding from whatever expression Malou had on her face that this approach wasn’t going to work. “Enough. It’s painful watching you. I’ve got something else.”

Her knees cracked when she rose to her feet. She crossed the living room to her kitchen alcove, and when she returned, she had an intricately carved wooden box in her hands. She set it on one of the small stools and took a seat in front of it.

Opening the box to reveal a tea set, Haddou said, “This is the stuff that some say started the Tranquil Era. Almuzayan root tea, have you heard of it?”

“I’ve heard of its effects,” Malou said, watching Haddou press her palm to a small silver teapot. Almuzayan root tea carried the same psychoactive and physiological effects as hash but heightened—deeper relaxation, heightened perception, increased awareness of sensation, altered consciousness, and often a distorted perception of time and space. One cup was said to trap the drinker in their mind, surrounded only by their imagination. She wasn’t sure that sounded like the state of mind needed for meditation.

“Who hasn’t? That’s not what I meant.” Haddou removed her hand once the pot started to release steam. She must’ve used magic to fill the teapot with water and also heat it to a boil, something Malou wouldn’t have thought to use magic to do. While she poured out a small glass through a metal filter laying over its rim, she said, “You’ve heard of Ediz the Destroyer.”

Malou could tell it wasn’t a question, but she still nodded. When Haddou passed her the glass after removing the filter, she accepted it with both hands. The tea smelled of ginger, turmeric, and lemon, but her first sip rested bitter on her tongue.

“Yeah, no one said it tasted good, but the quicker you drink it, the quicker you’ll find your way into meditation.” Haddou picked up her cigar again and sat back on the cushions. “Now, in Merhemetti folklore, Ediz the Destroyer was a wealthy agha. Sometime later in the Erudite Era, likely closer to our time than to the Era of Darkness. They say that he watched his family get slaughtered and that’s why he used magic to harm. But in the folklore local to Özbet, Ediz's supposed hometown?”

A wild laugh burst out of Haddou that somehow didn’t pull Gavriel out of meditation. She slapped her thigh as her laugh faded to a chuckle then a chortle, all while Gavriel looked perfectly serene just like her father had when meditating. Haddou finished her snigger with a sigh then took in a long draw from her cigar.

Malou had only heard the one story from her father about Ediz the Destroyer, that he’d used magic to kill people and it’d turned destructive on a scale never seen before—one that’d destroyed his connection to the cycle of life and death somehow. He’d only been stopped when magic was sealed away. Her father had refused to tell her more than that, not even the simple fact that he was apparently from the Merhemetti city of Özbet. Malou took as long of a drink of the tea as she could manage without gagging.

After exhaling slowly, Haddou continued, “In Özbetti folklore, they say he betrayed an unspoken peace treaty between the Özbetti Bey and the criminal underground. Something that meant the Bey overlooked the mafyasi’s illicit activity as long as the mafyasi didn’t take from the nobility. Rich, right? But Ediz was trying to bring in Almuzayan root tea for some unreasonably low price. If that were true, though, I suspect something underhanded happened in Almuzay because this stuff is not easy to cultivate, but that’s beside the point.”

Haddou waved off her digression then brushed her locs over her shoulder. Malou could barely take her eyes away from the way her rings caught the flicker of the candlelight. “Anyway, bringing in the tea would undercut the mafyasi’s profits selling hash, so they came to kill him after sinking his ship. I guess they figured their little deal went both ways. The rest of the story is the same. Of course, Özbetti and Merhemetti historians alike recorded an entirely different tale.”

Her father used to say something similar. That this was the true purpose of the Teir—an archive of all history as recorded by magic, not one word false or subjective. Malou tried to finish the tea in her next swallow but couldn’t quite manage it. The taste seemed to have worsened, and the way the smoke of Haddou’s next exhale swirled into the sparkling haze hovering above them was incredibly distracting.

“The history books say the Bey and his city gardiyans wiped out the mafyasi,” Haddou continued, somehow sounding so distant yet still near at the same time. Malou wanted to finish the tea and lie down like Gavriel, so she tipped her head back until every drop was in her mouth as Haddou said, “Taking all the credit for Ediz the Destroyer’s single-handed annihilation of the criminal underworld—of all the fucking people from which to pilfer accomplishments. How’re you feeling?”

Malou gulped hard. For a moment, she thought it might all come back up, but the bitter taste seemed to sink into her instead until her nausea passed into a comfortable warmth that bloomed across her tingling skin. As if magic were dancing along her sense of touch.

“Good, yeah?” Haddou moved closer, her voice softening. Malou felt the glass leave her hands, but then her palms prickled with the taste of the frankincense and myrrh and tobacco and sage. “How about you lean back? I’ll help you.”

The cushions against her back reminded her of that bed again, but she still closed her eyes.

“In the end,” Haddou said, though she sounded much further away this time, “only the Teir truly knows what happened. Remember that you’re at the top of the stairs and that you are safe. You’ll walk down and open the door to the place you pictured before. Your ancestor is waiting to meet you, Malou.”

She didn’t bother to descend the stairs slowly this time because she’d been down them already twice. Her feet were sure, and she opened the door knowing she’d sink into her most recurring nightmare. What she needed to do was imagine past his barely-there smile.

•••

The bed was as comfortable as she remembered, and she almost regretted the hum she gave her dad when he knocked on her door because it meant she had to sit up from her pillow. He looked just as she remembered, but he had no welcome for her.

“Sorry for waking you,” he said, a crease in his brow as he crouched at her bedside, “but I have to leave.” He placed a hand over hers. He was warm—living and breathing. Or at least her memory of him was. “I wanted to say goodbye before I did though. How could I leave you without saying goodbye?”

“Where do you have to go so late?” she asked.

He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Nowhere very important, but I still must go.”

She remembered now that he’d told her this when she’d asked where he went with Gavriel. As much as she wanted to press him, something in her prevented the words from coming out of her mouth. “Okay,” she said, her gut twisted just as it had back then. “I’ll watch over Mom and Gav.”

His blue gaze searched hers then settled on the earring that held the personal assistant software they’d programmed together. She hadn’t noticed that before. Was that just her imagination? He squeezed her hand and said, “I can stay if you need me, though. What do you think?”

Back then, her eyes prickled with the burn of fresh tears. She’d been torn between telling him the truth or trying to convince him she didn’t need him at all.

Every time he’d left, even with Gavriel, she’d wonder why he couldn’t have just stayed. She wanted to know what was that much more important than spending time with her. But she hadn’t wanted to seem as spoiled as Dorian and she’d been so confident in her abilities to protect herself.

“Just leave already,” she said just as she had back then. At least she knew this time that this wouldn’t lead to him bringing her next time. There was no next time. “It’s just one night. I’ll be fine all on my own.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” he asked.

She swallowed and nodded, everything else she wanted to say stuck in her throat.

He smiled. That haunting smile that didn’t shine in his eyes. That barely-there smile that didn’t even raise his cheeks. He stood as her head hit the pillow again. “That’s my girl. Get some rest, and be kind to your mother.”

She watched his back as he left again, but as soon as the door closed behind him, she was able to push herself out of bed. She followed him down the hall, the cold hardwood cold against her bare feet, and raced down the creaky stairs after him, but when she reached the bottom, he was gone. Instead, her mother gripped the doorframe between the entryway and the living room where the fireplace burned with false flames.

“Malou,” she said but didn’t sound like herself at all. Her mother crossed the distance between them, taking Malou’s hands into her own. Her touch was ice. “I’m so sorry.”

Her mother shouldn’t be in this memory. Or did this mean her mother was dead? Was her mother the ancestor that she was meant to meet? “What are you—”

“Malou, it’s Laure.”

The voice clicked and took Malou's breath away.

“How?” she asked. That was her mother’s lithe frame, her mother’s warm-toned bronze skin, her mother’s full lips, her mother’s angled jaw. The features that even Malou could see she inherited. “Why do you look like my mother?”

“That wasn’t me,” Laure said. “That was you. This is all you, and it’s all under your control. If you wanted your father’s image to come back, you could make him. That’s why I’m sorry that this is how we had to meet, but it was the only way for me to talk to you like this. Face to face.”

“You were gone for so long,” Malou said. Even if Laure’s hands were cold, she could still feel them in her own. She was holding Laure’s hands. She wanted to hug her. “I wish you’d have told me how long it was going to take you to come back. Are you back now?”

“You missed me.” Laure gave a soft laugh, pulling Malou into her embrace that tightened Malou’s chest. “That makes me happy to hear. I didn’t mean to be gone for so long, but it was important that I came into myself—fully. Now that I have, and thanks to you, I’m able to do this. Now, let me look at you properly.”

While Malou kept her arms around Laure’s waist, Laure held Malou’s jaw gently to study her face. Then she squeezed Malou’s shoulders, squeezed down her arms. When she seemed satisfied with her inspection, she pulled Malou to the living room. Everything was just as she remembered. The airy feeling of the light wood floors paired with white furniture. A long cabriole sofa and two chaises longues faced the open fireplace with a stone chimney breast that matched the walls.

“You don’t seem hurt anywhere else,” Laure said. They both sat in front of the burning fire cross-legged. She took only one of Malou’s hands into her own again, palm faced up. This was the one she’d burned while using the marble. Laure pressed it between hers and asked, “Did this hurt?”

Malou didn’t know how to answer that for a moment. When was the last time her mother had asked if she was hurt?

“I hadn’t thought about it. Yes, but everything was happening so quickly, there hadn’t been much time to process what I’d done to myself. I tried to heal it on my own enough. Who needs fingerprints?”

“This is not normal. Magic does not harm. That wasn’t your fault.” Laure leaned forward, her expression imploring Malou to believe her. Brows knitted together—her mother would never wear desperation so deeply on her forehead. Eyes wet—her mother would never let anyone see her so vulnerable. “The Teir is what was used to seal all magic, and when I finished synchronizing with it, the seal broke. While it only took me a moment to figure out how to reseal it again, I wasn’t quick enough to prevent this from happening to you. I’m sorry.”

Malou had wished she hadn’t needed the Almuzayan root tea now because if she were sober, she’d surely have a better reaction. “You’re the Teir. And the Teir is what sealed away magic. So now you’re the seal.”

“Well, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound very complicated.” Laure sat back with a huff.

“How?”

“From the beginning?”

“Where else would you start?”

Laure’s jaw tightened. For some reason, Malou had expected her to roll her eyes although that was something her personal assistant would’ve never been able to do before.

“You’re right," Laure said. "I’ll start from the beginning. The Teir was created to predict when Ediz the Destroyer would be reincarnated again and prevent him from destroying the world. The only way to accurately predict this was to create a complete archive of history—all of it including all that had been forgotten or lost or otherwise impossible for anyone to know—with the use of magic. The Teir’s design advanced over time alongside technology, and eventually, your father transformed it into an operating system, which would be the contact lenses you’re wearing now. Except the Teir kept indicating that the only way to prevent the destruction of the world was to continue advancing its technology, and so he worked on a way to integrate the Teir with artificial intelligence. That’s where Laure comes in.”

“That’s where you come in,” Malou repeated, her mind buzzing with the information she’d been hungry to hear from her father. What else did Laure know? What else could Laure tell her?

“Perhaps the complication is that I’m no longer just Laure. Nor am I simply the Teir. I’m both and I’m also more. I don’t know how to explain it. Quite possibly because I’m still adjusting to it all.” Laure flashed a smile, one that looked even genuine on Malou’s mother’s face. “But that’s the problem. This is why I’ve stolen what could’ve been your first meditation. It’s not possible for me to keep magic sealed for much longer.” The rest she said so quietly that Malou almost couldn’t hear her. “And Ediz is back.”

For a moment, Malou felt the ground fall from beneath her. Or perhaps like she’d been dropped into the ocean with an anchor tied to her ankle, sinking her deeper and deeper underwater. She whispered back, “What do you mean he’s back?”

“Your father had worried that if I synchronized with the Teir, the seal would break, and he had been right. When the seal broke, I felt him return.” Laure swallowed. “It shouldn’t even be possible, but I know that it’s true. I’m afraid that he might be able to tell where the seal broke. You must leave as soon as you can.”

Malou rubbed her forehead. Both the empire and Ediz were after the Teir. Her compulsion to pace made her legs restless. “We’ll leave, but what if that isn’t enough? What if he still finds us? How can I protect you?”

Laure opened her mouth but then closed it. She dropped her gaze. “Those are the same questions I ask myself about you. I wish I had answers for us both, but I can help you in ways that I couldn’t before. I just hope that will be enough.” She returned Malou’s hand. “All better.”

The gnarled burn scar on her palm had been replaced with familiar branching creases and whirling fingerprints. Even comparing between her hands, although she couldn’t be sure of any exact replication, there was no way to tell if there’d ever been a scar. Malou hadn’t even felt her use any magic. No tickling, no tingling, no warmth at all.

Before she could ask Laure to teach her how to heal like that, Laure covered her eyes with a hand and said, “Gavriel has come out of his meditation, and so I think it’s time for you to return as well. I’ll help you. Remember the door Professor Haddou described. Imagine it now, open it, and count up while you climb the stairs back up. I’ll be there with you.”

Malou found that it was much easier to synchronize her breaths with her steps going up the stairs than when she’d descended.

•••

Waking up was no easy task. Malou's eyes were so dry her eyelids felt like they were scratching against the surface of them. Her throat was no better, each breath coming painfully as if her throat was raw. Then there was the headache. She pressed her fingertips to her temples in an effort to ease the throbbing with magic, but her concentration was too shot.

“This is why I don’t like to use Almuzayan root tea,” Haddou said. “It’s disorienting enough to come back. You don’t also need a head-splitting headache and a throat as dry as the Jadaali desert. The stuff can fuck you up real good with frequent use. Here, some water.”

A cold glass touched her cheek, and she quickly took it and drank it down. Then Haddou’s fingers went to Malou’s temples and gave her some mercy from the pain. She groaned in appreciation.

“Malou,” Laure said in her ear. She really was back. Finally.

“How was it?” Haddou asked. She jabbed a thumb in Gavriel’s direction. He looked exhausted, weariness sitting on his shoulders with a deep slouch. “That brat won’t cough up a single detail, so it’s up to you to humor me. It’s been hours. You must have something to give me.”

“I stole the Teir,” Malou said because Haddou deserved to know the truth, especially now, and because she didn't know how to talk about reliving the moment she condemned her father to death. The confession even seemed to shock some of the fatigue out of Gavriel. “The personal secretary named Laure that I programmed with my father synchronized with the Teir, and when that happened, they merged in some way. She interfered with my meditation somehow so we could meet. Ediz is back and he might be able to find us. We have to leave.”

Haddou’s frown relaxed as her jaw dropped, and she stared at Malou for a few long moments. Then nodded. “Of course, you stole it. Fuck. I knew Lavrras was working on the Teir somehow, but I did not know that was what he’d planned. This Laure is sure Ediz is back? Did she say who he’d been reincarnated as?”

“Positive,” Laure said.

“Very sure,” Malou said, “but she doesn’t know who yet. We don’t need to know where we’re going. We can even stay at the Valois Manor until we have a solid plan. But we need to leave as soon as possible.”

Haddou’s brow was set in determination now. “Khalasaj is the safest place for the Teir now. I was planning on asking you both if you wanted to travel to Khalasaj Tower with me, but travel does take a while to set up. Your family's name should at least keep us safe from the empire until I have that sorted. We’ll leave after breakfast so we don’t draw attention. We'll meet in the entry hall here.”

“About time for us to make our courtship official,” Gavriel said, “with your family.” A vague smile ghosted his lips, but something she couldn’t read flashed in his eyes.

Haddou scoffed—a deep husky sound that conveyed exactly how ridiculous she thought that was. Didn’t mean that it wouldn’t make a great cover story, though.