“You can speak,” Delilah said. She took in a light breath as if to hide her surprise. The fading light in her eyes revealed her disappointment.

Had she truly hoped the spirit would be innocent against all odds? Micah knew better. He had been expecting this.

A soothing voice played out from Morgana’s metallic jaw, “Of course.”

It broke the silence, and several people spoke at the same time, but Kyle cut through them all without hesitation or apology, “Then why haven’t you said anything?”

More and more questions followed his, and the Pretender took their sweet time as if to ponder their answer. “I saw no need …? I was in character. I did not wish to interrupt the drama of the scene. Then I did not wish to startle the child with a domain in me.”

Micah couldn’t spot a single wisp of emotion essence escape from the spirit, and he pressed his dominion down as hard as he could, but somehow, their voice evoked feelings and memories in him.

When they mentioned being in character, he felt excitement like he was walking toward the Tower next to Lisa and Ryan.

They mentioned the drama of the moment, and he remembered how satisfying it had felt to smash his fist into Shala’s cheekbone.

To listen to them was to be lured in by a [Storyteller], every other word a [Signal] spell layered with hidden meanings.

They mentioned his dominion, and Micah felt bored and annoyed while he listened to his parents go on a tirade and he had to stand still and pretend to listen … Were they rolling their eyes at him?

“Please try to tremble less.” Their voice shifted to address him. “Your every movement causes me pain, and the wounds your kind inflict tend to … linger.”

Micah trembled more. Or rather, he shifted and wiggled his hands a bit because he didn’t know how to fake a tremble. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unintentionally hurt you. It’s hard to stay still when I’m wounded because you tried to murder me.”

They gave a throaty sigh. “I don’t know what I expected.”

“Micah,” Delilah cautioned him.

“Please,” Cathy said.

“No, he’s right.” The bridge planks clattered when Kyle stepped onto the island. “Why the fuck did you attack us?”

“Tuhrie was bored. So was I. She asked if I wanted to go on an adventure. Was I supposed to say no?”

“YES!” Micah wasn’t the only one to shout that. “This— What— How— Do you think murdering us is an adventure!?”

“I do.”

Two words. There was not a hint of hesitation or remorse in them. Micah could feel the despair it elicited when his classmates shut up. People looked to the hills and slowly began to step away. Their illusions about the situation they were in must have been shattered.

And Micah … even he was surprised. Even the golem spirits hadn’t been this ruthless. The Pretender felt as lucid as Shanty. Who were they?

“Ah,” they said, “my vision is somewhat impaired at the moment, but I feel as though I may have widened the rift between us. I would like to clarify. Ajay, they call you?”

The [Archer] jumped in the corner of his eye and scrambled back. “What?”

“You finished reading a book recently. In it, the main character loses an arm in a duel and a city is slaughtered by monsters. Please answer me truthfully, did you enjoy that book?”

“I mean,” he sounded almost distracted, “it wasn’t as good as the third book but—”

“Stop that,” Micah growled and arched a finger within their eye, because when it had said ‘truthfully,’ he hadn’t remembered just one scene of himself telling the truth, he had remembered dozens where he had wanted to tell the truth.

Staring up at his parents, his sister, his brother, vendors, Linda, Ryan, dancing with Anne, his reflection in his dark bedroom window at night—the scenes slammed into him in a rush and for a moment, they almost felt like someone he could trust. A friend.

Immediately, the effect broke and Ajay’s expression twisted. “That is not the same.”

But the Pretender was silent beneath him. He thought he could feel them … humming. Not physically. A muffled aura resonated off from them against his dominion as if from underwater. It felt smug like the Pretender had made their point already and assumed they’d won the argument.

“So read a damn book!” Kyle said.

“It is more difficult to pretend to be a character in a book—”

Brent spoke with something closer to bewilderment, “Join the theatre?”

“I might in time. Some of my kin have. For now, I have other obligations. I do believe we are being waylaid by this line of argument. You demanded thirty-one boons from me … They would have to each be a trifle. It may be cheaper to let the child claw out my eyes and slaughter you all.”

“But that would cause problems!” Delilah scrambled to say. “For your hosts. And you didn’t sound opposed to the idea …? How about we, uh, pretend this is a political drama and we have to resolve negotiations so all parties end up happy?”

“Not entirely happy, I hope. That would be bor—”

“No, no. Of course not. A compromise! We have to leave dangling threads.”

“That does sound entertaining.”

“What is this?” Kerataraian stepped forward. “What is this ‘boon’ you want?”

“Yeah.” Kyle jerked his chin at her and awkwardly pointed the crossbow at the ground below the Pretender. “What she said.”

Micah wasn’t sure either, but he had to remain alert and he didn’t want to look weak in front of enemies by asking questions.

“It’s a gift,” she said. “Powerful enough spirits can grant you a piece of their power. Permanently.”

“High-level people can sometimes get Skills to do it, too!” Cathy added as if to sell the idea to the rest of them. “Though they might lose Skills or even levels if they do, so it’s something of an inheritance of sorts.”

“Essentially, for us, it would be like drinking a bottle of godsmead.”

That got people’s interest, though the look of growing understanding died in Kerataraian’s eyes again. Of course. How could a foreigner understand?

Even Mason spoke up when he had been silent this entire time, “Can you— Do you have any bottles of godsmead instead, if you live inside the Tower? Because a level up isn’t that valuable to us, right now, but as [Alchemists] …? Or even just to sell it?”

Delilah cut that line of thought off, “Even if they have some, do you want them to give us an IOU? They won’t have any with them here.”

“Godsmead,” the Pretender said. “I might know what you mean.”

It was a potion found in the furthest reaches of the Towers which, if someone drank it below a certain level, could guarantee they would level up.

There was always one kid in classroom who claimed they had a bottle lying around at home, that a mysterious aunt or uncle had given them, or that their grandparents had hidden in the attic. Micah could have easily been that kid, had he not seen someone else be called out on the lie first and had Prisha not been in the same classroom as him for people to verify with.

They were a pipe dream to anyone who didn’t have a small fortune to spend, or who wasn’t already above level thirty, and [Alchemists] tried to get their hands on samples, but it was hard. The demand was high, and there was pressure to funnel unique resources to the people who ‘needed’ them most. For the greater good.

“I could not procure any for you,” the Pretender crushed their dreams. “Nor would this be the same. To grant a boon is to grant someone a piece of yourself. The rewards you may reap depend on the tools you foster and the synergy of our spirits.”

“You mean …” Kyle started. “Wait, you want us to take in part of that thing’s spirit?”

“This is safe—”

“What?” he laughed.

“Any part you cannot use, your spirit automatically discards,” Delilah assured him. “It’s like … godsmead but it helps certain Classes and personality types more than others.”

“Like [Witches]?”

Micah recognized his sarcastic bluster, but it must have sounded like an accusation to anyone who didn’t know Kyle.

“That is not always true,” the Pretender said, and he only realized what they meant when they finished the sentence, “but I can make it safe for you. My essence is make-believe. I can pretend to be an alchemist. I can adapt.”

“I don’t like this,” Micah said. “How do we know you won’t try to manipulate us? You sound far too eager to cut off parts of your spirit to give away to others.”

The closest thing he had ever done had been a moment ago, when he clawed the aero out of his veins, and the only reason he wasn’t lying on the ground coughing his lungs out was that he was shoving his pain somewhere far away.

“I am not eager to grant one of your kind any part of me.”

“Great. I don’t want any part of you anyway!”

“This would make you weaker, too, wouldn’t it?” Kerataraian said, and she sounded like she wanted to agree with him.

“For a time. I believe that is part of the intent. If I return in your care, weaker, your superiors would be unhappy with you.”

“That’s not enough? For this?” Micah almost wanted to laugh. Unhappy? He shook his head. “What about Rhul? What about Tuhrie? They aren’t giving anything up this way!”

Micah was trying to find justice here, but he only sounded more and more like he was voicing his frustrations, and he could see some of his classmates becoming frustrated with him.

Most of them were sneaking away, out of his line of sight, and they looked exhausted and afraid, but the occasional annoyed glance felt like a stab in the back. He was doing this for them, too! Had he said something wrong?

Already, he felt the urge to shake some life back into his hands.

Kerataraian scowled. “I do not know how to grant this ‘boon.’”

“They might be too weak, Micah,” Delilah said. “I don’t even know if they are actual spirits …?”

The Pretender’s interest pique beneath him. “Ah, but I could teach you.” They raised their voice. “I have a counterproposal, Delilah. A way to close this rift I have inadvertently helped to create.”

“You know my name?”

“You have no name.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together, and Rowan gave an insulted squawk, but as before, Micah felt that echo of meaning beneath their words and suddenly felt … a hollowness somewhere deep inside of his chest.

What was that?

“Do not be insulted. None of us have earned names. My idea is such: you demanded a boon for Pijeru, Kerataraian, and Woris. I will grant a boon of knowledge to the four here instead: how to split a piece from yourself in order to grant a boon.”

Without moving an inch, their voice shifted again as if someone sitting inside Morgana had turned their head. “This should leave you as weak as you were when you were twenty, Kerataraian. Left alone, you should recover in three years. Quicker with aid.”

That … Micah hated that he liked the sound of that, and he wasn’t even sure why. He longed for a minute ago when he’d been the one threatening them and the Pretender had shut up.

Kerataraian, at least, looked unhappy. Rhul and Pijeru voiced their disagreement from afar but it was hard to ignore the Pretender when they spoke.

“They will create their boons in the form of an ingredient, a feather, so that you may manipulate it with your craft as much as your spirits, should you wish. I will duplicate each feather sevenfold and we will have peace for twenty-four hours so that I may grant one to each of you before we part ways … until we meet again.”

Their voice painted a scene in their minds: two groups parted ways in front of a silver portal, one wounded but with glittering eyes focused on brilliant prizes held in their hands below, the other defeated but their eyes looking up at something ahead.

And Micah couldn’t find an objection within him to ruin the painting. He wished he could just attack, but he wouldn’t be the only one to pay the price if he did …

He’d lost. Again.

His classmates hammered out the details of their agreement. There were questions they needed answered, like how to collect Tuhrie’s boon when she was asleep, how long they would last as ‘feathers,’ and most importantly, how powerful they would be.

“The usual selling point for a bottle of godsmead,” Forester supplied, “is leveling someone from level thirty to thirty-one, although that is not a guarantee.” It was their best point of comparison.

“And which ‘level’ are you?”

“Huh?” He startled and froze when the spirit addressed him.

Delilah answered for him, “I am level thirteen and three.”

The Pretender hummed and Micah felt their perception press against his dominion like eyes on a glass wall. “Do any of you only have a single one of these … ‘Classes?’”

“I’m level ten,” Mason said. “Pure [Alchemist].” They waited for a moment but nobody else volunteered. Was he the only one with a single Class …?

“Are any of you level ‘nine’ in a Class?” They sounded oddly amused, like the very concept of levels and Classes was a joke to them, but they were humoring them as one would the imagination of children.

“Me.” Andrew lifted a hand next to Cathy. “Nine and three.” Again, nobody else volunteered after him.

“Your concepts are foreign to me. What little I can sense of your spirits is as convoluted as your flesh. If I am to make an estimate, I will need more information.”

Slowly, reluctantly, the people nearest to them began to shout out their levels. Micah didn’t know if he should be more surprised that Cathy was as high-level as him, or that many of their classmates hadn’t even reached level ten yet.

Wasn’t the entire point of attending their school that they could level freely, unrestrained by the demands of trade schools and masters?

“I doubt the avashay could grant most of you a single level,” the Pretender concluded. “I will simply have to add to their boons to ‘make up the difference,’ as you said? They should be roughly as powerful as if you had nurtured up to five levels in a Class, depending on the connection your spirit finds to it. The rest will be discarded.”

At that point, even Kyle had fallen silent and Kerataraian was the last person to voice an objection, “I do not wish to grant a boon to that child.” She pointed her beak at him.

“I don’t want your boon,” Micah hissed but it came out as more of a tired grumble. “I don’t want to steal from Pijeru in any case. She tried to help. Give it back to her. Or Woris …”

Who everyone seemed to think could just come back to life? That was insane.

But Pijeru had looked distraught this entire time without trying to speak up again, as if she were forcing herself to go along with this compromise for the greater good.

“But otherwise,” Delilah said, “you would be fine with this? You’d let the spirit go?”

“As a reminder, with this deal, you are trading away your right to demand any further punishments for the actions we have taken today.”

Micah limbered up immediately. “Unless you break the peace, which includes theft, or trying to trick us, or detain us, or otherwise coerce us with words or magic like what you tried to do with Ajay earlier—you can’t cast any spells on us at all without permission, got it?”

“Of course,” the Pretender said, “in which case I should probably remind you that this punishment is not permanent. We will recover in time and when they do, the knowledge I will have granted will remain. These four might benefit from that someday down the road.”

Micah frowned, searching for hidden meanings in their words, but his brain was too exhausted to parse them more than twice. Couldn’t the Pretender just teach them whatever it wanted to teach all the time?

He looked to Delilah and Kyle, who gave a hesitant nod and a shrug. “If they learn a lesson from this,” he decided, “that’s fine by me. At least that way, they will never forget.” He knew Delilah thought their memory was perfect, but Micah also knew better than most the lies people told themselves.

It was decided then.

“Everyone head to the portal!” Micah shouted. “Take Pijeru and Tuhrie with you as collateral. I’ll let go when Cathy signals me that you have reached the hills and the rest of us will catch up. That way, if they try anything, you’ll be close enough to escape.”

Some people scoffed at the delay, including Delilah, but Cathy visibly approved. She shepherded their classmates and two prisoners away. Delilah and Kyle left to fetch Rhul.

Mason set a bottle of stamina tea down on the edge of the bridge, where Micah could see him, and said, “See you in a bit.”

The time passed in awkward silence. His skin began to itch. His feet, his stomach, his ear. Micah tried to take deep breaths and coughed instead.

“Kerataraian,” the Pretender spoke up, “would you mind giving the boy a platform? I do not believe his grip will last until his classmates arrive at their destination.”

“Screw you,” Micah said, but his legs felt like they might cramp if he moved a mere millimeter in the wrong direction. He glanced at Kerataraian and looked away. “What kind of platform?”

She raised her hand. The island trembled in answer. A circular stone pillar rose from the ground up over the bridge at an angle and stopped at the border to his dominion.

“There is some kind of resistance,” the bird woman said.

“With your permission?”

Micah eased up the pressure, and the pillar continued to rise at a slow pace until finally, he set his boots down and the stone came to a rest.

He had never seen Kerataraian do anything other than that wind pulse during their fight. She was a geomancer, like him? No, to do something as impressive as that, she was far better than him.

“I’m fine!” Micah called when he heard people shout in alarm. Kyle swiveled on them, crossbow raised.

“Yeah right, you don’t use [Shape Stone]!” Forester complained from somewhere far in the distance.

“That wasn’t …” Micah suppressed a groan when his feet came to life. That wasn’t much better.

Eventually, a whistle blew in the distance, and everyone waited on him. Micah let go and found … overwhelming regret.

The building was burning, and it might have been her fault. Anne wouldn’t know one way or another because she hadn’t been paying attention.

She cut down Draconic Salamanders with nothing but her strength, a weak aura, and a good sword. This attack had been staged by someone, and she had failed to prevent it.

From the blood on Ryan’s hands, she assumed he had found Demir. Navid had already deduced that the special effects director was the attacker. Before she could have any more answers handed to her, Anne tried to find meaning in her failure.

If I can not use my truth sight in the Theatre, I should have paid more attention to my surroundings.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she should have gone about that. She couldn’t play a thousand questions with every stranger she met, assuming one of them would be a criminal the same way Micah assumed every person he met contained hidden knowledge, but there had to be other ways to deduce whether or not someone had ill intentions.

Nonmagical security strategies. Something to research and meditate on later.

At the least, she could have kept an eye on her teammates. Why had she dismissed Lisa’s secret quest out of hand?

Anne could have revealed her own secret quest as an olive branch to investigate the reasoning behind hers, because of course, if hers had been so personal, there would be more to Lisa’s, too …

Except that she hadn’t wanted to reveal her secret quest. And it wasn’t relevant to the challenge of the Theatre anyway. There was no way Anne was prepared to swear even the first line of an oath.

Maybe that had been the trap? She rooted around in other people’s secrets every second that she looked at them. Why did she think she had the right to keep her own hidden?

No.

No, that did not ring true to her. It pushed the thought to an extreme. There had to be a healthier way.

The hypocrisy and emotional burdens of divination. Something else to meditate on.

Besides, even if there had been something personal to discover about Lisa’s quest, could it be worse than the shadow of pain that haunted her simulacrum now?

Anne couldn’t even imagine what her true expression must look like. She was the only one who understood why Lisa hurt as much as she did, and Lisa hadn’t even chosen to share that truth with her. Anne had had that answer handed to her like so much else.

If, if, if. What if …?

She touched a thought in her mind like a knife’s edge and jerked her arm back—and up, bisecting a Salamander that strafed by.

Their group moved up the central stairs of the auditorium in a tight formation. She cut Salamanders down in passing, one after the other, and used her arm to ward off a breath attack before she hurled a chair. It took two Salamanders out of the air.

They disappeared with painful cries, Lisa winced behind her, and the chair left a sinking hole in the smokescreen over their head before it shattered on the ground somewhere in the distant flames.

Anne breathed heavily into her arm from the exertion, but the smoke snaked its way into her lungs. She coughed and made herself look at her friend’s miserable expression.

Meaning in failure.

For the first time in my life, I was faced with a situation where I did not have the truths of the world handed to me. And rather than try to adapt, to seek a solution, I masqueraded in the moment and kept my teammates in the dark.

It had been a lie of omission, born of fear and indulgence, and now the building burned down around them.

The confession ran her through like a torn muscle, and Anne shrunk together into a ball of pain on the steps, steadying herself on the armrest of a chair.

Jason nearly ran into her. A Draconic Salamander jumped out from the seats to capitalize on her weakness, and Ryan and she both rammed the butt-ends of their weapons into it. The monster crunched between sword and spear, and her gloved hand smarted as it twisted away from his strike in her moment of weakness.

“I’m fine,” she assured them.

“Are you seriously meditating right now?” Navid laughed.

Anne nodded and forged onward. She would not let this moment pass her by. If she failed, she would come out the other side better for it.

She reveled in the pain as she would the ache after a workout. The confession had weakened her now, but she was already tapped, and confessions like these would only help strengthen her spirit in the future.

I am grateful for my failure, Anne forged onward in her thoughts as well, and for Lisa. It is through her pain that I can understand Garen better.

So much had changed since the young dragon had come to Hadica. All her life, no matter how much she had tried to help him, Garen had been a lonely, hollow shell of a man, but Lisa had somehow woken him up.

I am grateful for the Theatre because it gave me the chance to see this.

Draconic Salamanders. They were beautiful.

The monsters of the Towers were nothing more than puppets to her. The semblance of life that animated them was too blatant a lie for her to immerse herself in their fantasy. But without her sight, she could suspend her disbelief.

The rows of seats burned, and she carved through a swarm of bodies, every step and every swing of her sword harder than the last, but in her mind, she was six again and huddled under the covers while her parents read her a bedtime story.

Once, she had believed the Towers were wondrous things, filled with adventures waiting to be found. That was before her parents had taken her into the Tower for the first time and she had seen the truth of them with her own eyes.

She had almost forgotten what that wonder had felt like. She traced the scales of the Draconic Salamanders around her, their vibrant eyes and sharp teeth, the skin of their wings, and she could only imagine what Lisa must look like.

The Theatre had let her live out that fantasy again, however briefly. She endeavored not to forget so quickly this time because it was through that dream that she could understand how some people could let themselves be fooled by a false promise of adventure—and her eyes glanced from Lisa to Jason—and she could even better understand how some people could find themselves stepping onto a [Salamander Path].

She looked from Ryan ahead to Sam below them.

We have to kill them all.

What am I doing …? What had she done?

Her sword wavered—not out of weakness, this time—and as her eyes fell, they caught on a wing wiggling beneath a seat.

A Draconic Salamander had found its way into a briefcase someone had left behind and snacked on something there.

Anne hesitated for a heartbeat, then dashed forward. She leaned her sword against a seat and shoved the Salamander fully into the briefcase before she slammed it shut. It took her a moment to figure out how the latches worked, and the Salamander knocked against the lid, but she pressed her elbow down on it.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked in a neutral tone as her team repositioned to defend her.

In answer, Anne held the briefcase up to Lisa. She still clutched the Salamanders she’d already caught in spheres of wind. With a small cough and a shaky smile, she said, “The briefcase might vanish when we leave.”

Micah collapsed to his hands and knees. His head nearly smacked into the stone. His elbows bent at an odd angle where his hands were trapped in the gauntlets, but those crumbled to pieces at the same moment as a migraine snaked up his spine to rock his skull.

He groaned, sucked in a deep breath, and whined as he fought off a wracking cough.

A tiny bismuth hand attached to a giant centipede leg offered him a bottle of stamina tea.

He almost smacked it away.

This was why he hadn’t wanted to let go. This was not what he pictured when he daydreamed about what he would do if he ever met the Rat Hermit again.

But Mason, he, and a few of their classmates had brewed that tea together. To refuse it would be to refuse them. He snatched it out of the air and drank to let it soothe his wounded spirit like honeyed tea would a sore throat.

The hand retracted, and Micah wiped his mouth and thought, I shouldn’t have let go.

He heaved himself over the edge. The Pretender offered their assistance, but he ignored them and dropped like a bundle of wet clothes to the bridge below. He landed on one leg and steadied himself against the pillar. His voice was a croak, “Let’s get this over with.”

“A moment, please,” the Pretender told him. Their great bulk sucked inward with a twirl of black and emerald green colors. They flowed like water down the drain but sounded like a fluttering cloak. That cloak slipped away behind their back to reveal a new form.

Where their form of Morgana had stretched across the length of the bridge, it now took on the form of a person. They had an androgynous, petite human face with dark green human eyes. They wore a creme-colored silk shirt. Its spaghetti straps left their collarbones and shoulders bare and revealed winged arms that faded from skin to feathers. And they wore baggy black cloth pants that ended at their knees. Their legs ended in gnarled chicken feet.

Were they supposed to be some kind of hybrid between a bird person and a human?

“Better?” They smiled. Their skin and clothes glittered like gem dust.

Why couldn’t they have taken on this form sooner? It would have been far easier to hold them hostage.

Micah started walking.

Far in the distance, a blurry group of twenty-three figures stood on top of the wooden road that had been carved through the Root, holding torches and lanterns as they waited. Micah only glanced at them. Their hands were on their weapons, and his limp gave him an excuse to walk with a slight tilt and keep one eye on the spirit behind him.

Navid guarded the rear of their group. Lisa stood in the center, protected by a ring of bodies for once. Jason was ahead to his right, Frederick to his left, and Anne and Ryan had taken the lead—as if they would accept anything less. Peas in a pod, the two of them.

He did as was expected of him and not much else—strike down any ‘Draconic Salamanders’ that came close. Defend Lisa and watch their backs. It was boring work.

The threat level of these monsters only seemed to be around the old third floor, and most of them died to a single good strike from an enchanted weapon. Their only advantages came from their flight and numbers. And the smoke, though only against his teammates.

Navid had three different trinkets working against the smoke he breathed in, one to neutralize poisons, the second to ward off malicious magics, and the third to dismantle unwanted alchemical effects in him.

The smoke was a mix of all three to some degree or another. Everything in this Theatre was made of the same magic as the golden blessing, which was curious.

Another thing that was expected of him: to keep his eyes peeled and take it all in so his family could go over his Theatre experience scene by scene later. Review and evaluate.

To that end, and in a moment of boredom, his eyes swept over the room as they climbed the stairs. He took in the burning walls and seats, the purportedly ancient stone beneath those, and sighed. It was a shame to see a beautiful building burning. The stage especially—

The stage.

Huh.

Navid cocked his head as he watched the spot where Lisa had wrangled one of the monsters earlier. There, a small splatter of blood hissed and boiled as it unraveled. Say, as a simulacrum would.

That was interesting, though he was in the wrong time and place to consider it, and in the wrong company. Something to think over later. Navid turned back to the group and struck down a Salamander.

Anne winced and shrunk together ahead of him. She and Ryan pulverized another Salamander that tried to attack her, but that was after she had winced.

So why …? Oh. Navid laughed. “Are you seriously meditating right now?”

Insane, the lot of them. Well, if she could do it, he would not let himself be shown up.

Navid pulled up Lisa’s social file in his mind and added his new information. He struck down Salamanders as he considered various hypotheses and matched them to some of the many, many questions he had collected about her, and kept to himself, over the years.

He watched as Anne captured a Draconic Salamander in a briefcase of all things and sensed an opportunity; added a note to Lisa’s file. A possible connection.

Lisa looked almost relieved, but also burdened, to accept the briefcase, and Navid made a show of rolling his eyes and groaning. “Fine.” He borrowed the words he had heard Jason and Ryan say before, snapped, and held out a hand. “Mana ring …? Oh, wait. Unlike you, I don’t need that. [Transfer Mana]. Bop.”

He gave her shoulder a light push and pushed a surge of mana into her at the same time.

He had cast buffs on the group when they’d hunted down the cauldrons earlier, excluding Ryan, so he didn’t have much. A few points, but Lisa was a prodigal spellcaster. She could make do.

Her expression froze, eyes and eyebrows twisting in anger with an obvious question on her lips. He could have done that all this time!? But then that expression broke and softened, and Lisa gave him a shaky smile.

“Don’t get used to it,” he warned her. He was out of mana now and he disliked mana depletion headaches.

The Pretender didn’t try anything. Neither did Kerataraian or Rhul. A few monsters attacked his classmates in the distance, but superior numbers could take care of most threats. Even then, when they were distracted, their enemies didn’t try to attack them or run.

They were safe. His classmates were all going home tonight. So was Micah. That should have been the most important thing, and it was, and yet …

They had even secured a prize for themselves and a punishment for their enemies. Three years. It wasn’t a life sentence for attempted murder, but it wouldn’t be their entire punishment either—they had promised to lock Tuhrie up and still had to face their superiors.

And it was three years of power. If Micah had to give that up, he would be right back where he’d started. [Alchemist] level one. He already felt awful when he made a mistake and had to start a potion over from the beginning, wasting hours of work and limited resources. That? He couldn’t imagine.

So why did he feel so unhappy? Why did he feel like he’d lost something, again?

What am I missing?

They faced each other at the end of the Root’s road, at the base of the hill, four of them: Delilah, the Pretender, Kerataraian, and him.

His classmates watched from between the log-sized roots and boulders above, Pijeru and Tuhrie halfway between them—none of them cared about using them as collateral.

The woman who had orchestrated their attack slept peacefully on a grassy hill with a friend next to her, stroking the feathers on their head.

They reiterated the terms of their agreement, but Micah barely registered the words he said. Delilah had to prompt him and clarify here and there. He met the Pretender’s eyes with a distant look, asking himself the same questions over and over.

What was he missing?

… Who was he missing?

A different shade of green. For a moment, he saw someone else’s eyes, blinked, and they were gone. Micah woke up. “—a boon to be granted to my classmates,” he said, “everyone here … and all of my friends.”

The Pretender cocked their head a millimeter to the left.

Delilah explained the parameters of what the boons should be. The Pretender agreed with her and explained how they would go about creating them.

“—and duplicate the feathers … so there is enough for everyone.”

Micah’s heart rate spiked as he listened intently, turning every word they said over and over again. Had there been the slightest of pauses in their voice just now? Did they know? He looked to Delilah and then his classmates on the hill, but nobody pointed out any trickery in their words. He found no riposte.

Kerataraian reminded them that one boon would be returned to Pijeru rather than be given to him.

Micah nodded eagerly. He was past caring about that.

Unlike the last half hour before, he stood tall now and felt aware of this moment. His eyes were open and pushed a little further, “Those of these boons that can be granted immediately will be, here and now. For everyone else, for example, as should be the case with two of our junior classmates who left the Tower ahead of us, representatives for both of our groups will be chosen by us, and when your people reach out to the Five Cities, so will they reach out to arrange a meeting in a safe location where they, too, can receive their boon under these same conditions.”

Mischief danced in the Pretender’s green eyes.

Micah chewed on his lips and swallowed past a frog in his throat. Was this the right thing to do? Was he even doing ‘anything’ here?

Just to be safe, he added, “Do you fully understand and agree to these terms?”

The Pretender grinned. “I do.”

“Then the four of us, as representatives of our groups, will shake hands to seal this pact,” Delilah said and she once again reminded them of the cease-fire they had promised to commit to and the actions they would take after they shook hands. “Deal?”

“Deal,” Kerataraian grumbled.

Micah and the Pretender both echoed the same words and when the four of them reached out, the spirit seized his left hand with its own, delicate feathered limb and mouthed, Fascinating.

Delilah had said it herself. Dangling threads.