Dante wasn’t sure how much longer he could manage without sleep.

Each time he gave in to unconsciousness, he would see an inferno scouring the world around him. He wasn’t sure where he was in these dreams. There was only smoke and flame, and before they could clear he would force himself awake. Like before, his vision turned blank upon awakening. Every time it happened, it took longer to return. It was a terrifying few minutes, wondering if he’d lost his sight for good. Falling asleep afterward was next to impossible.

So now he cut to the chase, not bothering to brave sleep in the first place. He spent his nights puttering around his room, or sitting in bed going through the mental focus and meditative exercises he had learned over the past weeks.

The lack of rest combined with the intensity of training wasn’t an ideal combination. Magic, he was finding, was taxing. It drew on every bit of strength he had. The healing arts, while draining, came easily to him at least, and Bronwen’s teachings built upon his herbalism apprenticeship. His lessons with Death were doubly difficult, for much of it was combat-oriented, which Dante didn’t excel at.

As he learned more about magic, he examined his crystal orb once again. It had seemed inert to him after completing its repair, but now that he had honed his senses, he could feel something resonating from it. It was a subtle magic. Across the room, he felt nothing from it. Held in his hands, it had a heartbeat, as tiny as it was. It tickled something in the back of his mind. It took a long time examining it, but suddenly, it clicked.

It was intensifying his visions. Back home, his dreams had become much more vivid after he’d fixed the sphere. Only then had he begun to make sense of anything he saw in them, and they’d gotten stronger since.

If he got rid of the crystal orb, maybe he could finally rest.

But he still couldn’t part with the orb. There was a force connecting him to it. He was bonded to it, with magic. He couldn’t figure out how it had happened, or how to break it, but it was there, and the thought of ridding himself of it was unbearable.

And so it stayed, the bogeyman under his bed. And Dante stayed awake.

Still, he did his best to focus. Today, he was training with Death alongside Scarlet. They were working on combat skills, one of his least favorite lessons. The day would end with him and Scarlet sparing. She was much more enthusiastic on the subject than he was.

Out in the swamp, as usual, they ran drills back and forth, taking turns attacking one another and using quick spot-shields to defend themselves against the blows. Thankfully, Death had Scarlet use energy bolts instead of her fire today. Her flames were much harder to block, and Dante was loath to receive any burns like the ones Scarlet had given herself.

Death set them up to spar at the end of the session. Though his reactions had grown better over the past couple of months, he was still slower than Scarlet. Her movements flowed into one another and she easily swiped away his bolts as she fired her own at him. As he tired, she circled him closer and closer, giving him less time to defend himself against her assault.

By the time Death finally called Scarlet off, Dante was shaking with exhaustion. Scarlet left immediately upon the end of training, like usual. That was the pattern. Scarlet would trounce him in their shared lessons, and then do her best to not be found for the rest of the afternoon.

Dante thought that maybe she was coming around, just a little, after she’d given him the map she had drawn, that day in the library. But since then, she’d been even colder. He’d done his best to keep his distance from her for the past week, thinking that maybe with some space, she might thaw again. Of course, that hadn’t been the case.

He watched Scarlet walk away. Then, he found himself jogging after her. Assertiveness wasn’t his strength, but he was frustrated at her constant dismissal of him; aggravated enough to be bold.

“Hey,” Dante called out. “Wait up.”

Scarlet didn’t slow. He trudged after her through the murky swamp, nearly slipping and embarrassing himself further.

“Hey,” Dante said again, as he managed to catch up to her. She didn’t turn, so he grabbed her shoulder.

Scarlet swung around and swatted his hand away. Her look was fierce. “Don’t touch me.”

“I’m sorry.” He clasped his hands together behind his back. “I just… I wanted to talk to you.”

“That’s nice,” she said, her tone not at all nice. “Look, I’m sorry if you’re offended that I keep trouncing you at the whole ‘being a mage’ thing but I can’t hold back just to—”

“That’s not it. That’s not it at all.”

“So what do you want?”

“To be friends.”

Scarlet crossed her arms and stared up at the gnarled branches of the trees around them. Her body was held tense, like she was about to spring away. “Why?”

It was a good question. It wasn’t like Scarlet had shown him any sort of kindness—quite the opposite. But Dante didn’t buy that her rough exterior was all that was to her. Beneath her aggression, he sensed something else. Fear, maybe. Loneliness?

“We’re both here. It makes sense to get to know each other.”

“I don’t want a pity friend,” Scarlet bit back.

“A pity friend?”

“Bronwen brought you here to keep me company.”

Dante shrugged. “So?”

“So, I don’t need a friend. Especially an assigned one. Okay? I can do this on my own.” Scarlet started back toward Deianira.

“I can’t,” Dante said, quietly. He wasn’t sure if Scarlet would hear him, but she must have, because she stopped. “One way or another, I’m here now. And I can’t do this alone.”

Scarlet turned back to him. Her arms were wrapped around herself, as if she were holding herself in, or maybe just trying to keep warm.

Dante kept going. “Coming here saved my life. I’m grateful for that. But everything is different now. It’s… scary. And lonely.” He hoped that he was right about her. That there was a part of her that could let him in. After being torn from his family with no notice, and thrust into a new World—he needed someone.

In the long silence that followed, Dante had convinced himself that Scarlet was just going to walk away once more. But she didn’t.

She cleared her throat. “I don’t know how to be friends.”

“I don’t know how to be a mage. Maybe we can help each other.”

Scarlet laughed. It startled him—Dante hadn’t seen her so much as smile before this. If that was her reaction, it was possible that he was worse at magic than he thought.

“Yeah,” Scarlet said. Her sly grin made something in his stomach twist. “Maybe we can.”

#

While Dante’s lessons with Death were harrowing, he enjoyed his time learning from Bronwen. Training under Bronwen was much like his apprenticeship with Ferrick, but with a few key differences.

Firstly, Bronwen’s personality and instruction were much different than his former master’s. Ferrick was erratic, somewhat disorganized, and often left Dante with little oversight when he had to run off to do other tasks. Dante had learned a lot from Ferrick, but it hadn’t always been a smooth process.

Meanwhile, Bronwen was careful and purposeful, and didn’t leave Dante to do anything alone until he was sure it would be done properly—even things as simple as caring for the various plants housed in his room, though Dante was familiar with tending many of the species already.

Secondly, there was no one here to disapprove of his training. While Dante missed his family, it was a relief to not worry about his parents pulling him back to the farm. He no longer lived under the constant fear of being caught using magic—though his thoughts often drifted to Jayden. He hoped that she was keeping herself in check, and that Milo was keeping his mouth shut about anything else he saw that ill-fated day in the forest. His friend’s betrayal and his father’s rejection weighed heavily on him.

Lastly, and most significantly: Dante was learning magic. While Bronwen continued Dante’s education in the more mundane aspects of healing—how to set bones, the uses of various herbs, and a million other things—he also began to teach Dante the basics of magical healing.

Whenever Scarlet or Dante got scrapes or bruises in their training with Death—which was often—Bronwen would heal them, and talk Dante through the process as he did so. Dante continued to be captivated by how quickly their wounds faded. It was—well, it was magical.

“Why even bother with all of the non-magical stuff?” Dante asked him one day, as they were mixing a salve meant to disinfect wounds. It smelled like feet. “Healing with magic seems… simpler. More effective.”

Bronwen gave him a wry grin. “Ah, a question each young mage asks at some point: why not use magic for everything? It’s an elegant solution to many problems. Important things too, like healing. An easy ticket to save someone’s life.” Bronwen lowered his voice. “Except, it’s not at all as simple as it seems. Magic can go wrong in all sorts of ways. You’ve seen it already, with Scarlet, and I’m sure Death has lectured you on end about the dangers of magic. But, these warnings are required tenfold for healing. It’s too easy, Dante, to pour yourself into trying to save someone who’s beyond saving. That is a mistake that will end with two losing their lives, instead of one.”

Dante shivered as he recalled Scarlet’s magic backfiring on her, the burns that had stretched across her skin. “That makes sense,” he said. “You try to minimize the magic, do as much as you can without it, to conserve your energy.”

“Precisely. Plus, knowing all the non-magical techniques makes you a better magical healer as well.”

Dante nodded. He was done stirring together the components of the salve, and began to spoon it into a glass jar. “So,” he said carefully, “do I get to try it soon?”

“The salve? Well, I hope you won’t need it, though that’s probably a bit too optimistic—”

“I don’t mean that, I mean healing. With magic.”

Dante had been in the Crossworld for weeks now, and Bronwen had yet to let him attempt to heal even the smallest of scratches. All of their lessons had been theory, demonstrations, or more general magic exercises. Healing was the one part of magic that he was actually interested in learning, so if he was going to be a mage, he wanted to at least find out if he even had the capability of healing. Bronwen continued to assure him he did, but Dante wouldn’t quite believe it until it was put to the test.

“Right. Of course. I have been a little hesitant, but I do think you have a solid enough base to work from, now.” Bronwen held up a finger. “I nicked my finger clipping herbs this morning, if you want to give it a go.”

“N-now?” Dante hadn’t expected Bronwen to cave to his request so easily.

“If you feel ready.”

Bronwen held his hand out to Dante. Dante took it into his, and examined the tip of his mentor’s finger. It was indeed a small cut, shallow—something that magic could instantly repair. If done right. If Dante could heal. Dante wiped the nervous sweat from his brow.

Bronwen nodded. “Go ahead. It’s okay. I know you remember what I’ve told you.”

A vote of confidence from Bronwen was almost enough to overwhelm Dante all by itself. He had to do this. He took a long breath as he called forth his power. Energy pooled in his hand, and carefully, he tried to coax it to flow into Bronwen’s wound.

The magic trickled slowly at first, but Dante could feel it—it was working. In his excitement, he let the flow increase. He saw Bronwen tense.

“Too fast,” his mentor warned. “Keep it controlled.”

Dante panicked, jumping back from Bronwen and cutting the flow completely. “I—did it…?”

Bronwen glanced at his fingertip, then held it up, grinning. Dante couldn’t even see where the cut had been.

He’d done it.

He could heal.

In that moment, he was filled with bittersweet relief. Magic had taken so much from him. It was about time it gave something back.

#

Scarlet was less flighty after their agreement to help each other. She still didn’t seek Dante out, but she also didn’t immediately turn on her heel as soon as she saw him, so that was an improvement. On the days they shared lessons, they engaged in small talk on the way to and from the training grounds. Occasionally, when they came across one another in the afternoon, she would coach him on some of the finer details of magic. Sometimes, she would smile. Even rarer, he would elicit another laugh from her. That too, seemed like a kind of magic.

It was nice.

But as the days drew on, Dante knew he was reaching a breaking point. Though his loneliness had dulled, his exhaustion was a monster that was fed each day. Every hour he could feel himself fading, overshadowed by fatigue.

He had to sleep. Desperately. More than an hour stolen here or there, forcing himself awake as soon as a dream came. There was a vision determined to be seen, he could feel it bubbling out of him. He had to sleep. He needed to see it through, no matter what he saw. He knew deep in his gut that he didn’t want to know what his subconscious was begging to show him.

After a particularly tiring day of training, he settled into bed. He hugged one of his pillows tight into his chest, where his heart pounded ferociously. It felt entirely wrong to be letting himself sleep after so long of putting all of his energy into avoiding it. Regardless, his exhaustion ran so deep that he couldn’t fight it for long.

In his dream, he opened his eyes to see flames all around him. Embers licked at his heels. Fire can’t hurt me here, he tried to remind himself. But between the smoke and the panic racing through his veins, he couldn’t breathe. He had to see whatever he needed to see and get out of here as fast as possible. Coughing, he began fighting his way through the inferno.

A gust of wind cleared the smoke in front of him, and Dante stopped to take the sight in. Before him, burnt nearly to the ground, was his house. It was nearly unrecognizable, but in the way that you know things in dreams, Dante knew this was his home. All around him, destruction reigned. Briarglen was gone.

A scream pierced through his shock. He recognized that voice. He dashed towards it, around the back of his destroyed home.

Two figures stood behind the house, and a third, smaller one was on the ground at their feet. The two men were outfitted soldiers. The girl knocked onto her stomach was his sister.

“You saw that right?” one of the soldiers said to the other. “She was using magic. Enhancement, I think?”

The second soldier nodded. “Probably so she could get away faster. Good thing we got to her first.” He looked around. “We should get out of here. Let’s just throw her in. No point taking her to burn at the capital when there’s perfectly good fire right here.”

“No!” Dante ignored the oppressive heat of the flames around him as he rushed towards the men, telling himself the blaze wasn’t real. Of course, the soldiers weren’t real either, at least not in this space and time.

“The king wants to question mages, remember? We’d better take her back.”

“Fine. You’re carrying her though.”

Dante reached Jayden just before the soldier hoisted her up. She had been pretending to be unconscious, but as the man grabbed her, she opened her mouth wide and bit his arm. He yelped and dropped her.

“Oh, come on,” the other soldier said. Before Jayden could get back on her feet, he kicked her in the gut decisively. Jayden flopped to her side, and the soldier grabbed her, this time successfully throwing her over his shoulder.

“Stop!” Dante cried as they carried her off. “Let her go!”

They disappeared into the smoke. Dante looked around, desperate. There was nothing he could do. He jogged after them, but there was only smoke now. Smoke, and fire, and more smoke, endless as he ran through it. He imagined them taking her to the square in Kingsmount, the one his father brought him to so they could watch that girl burn, except now that girl was Jayden. It was his sister and there was nothing he could do to save her.

Though the smoke filled his lungs, he yelled. He screamed after his sister, he shouted his rage.

He could hear another voice, overlapping with his own. His reality split into two. In one of them, he was choking, yelling, flailing. In the other, he could feel someone shaking him in his bed.

“Dante, wake up. You’re dreaming. You’re… you’re screaming. It’s just a dream.”

Dante opened his eyes to the other world. Reality. Everything was white. He pulled himself up, blinking and rubbing his eyes, uselessly trying to clear the blindness from them. “Who… who’s there?”

“It’s Scarlet. Are you okay?”

He wasn’t. But how could he explain that, right now? He was vibrating, his body still recovering from complete panic. Struggling to find a start, he realized she probably had conjured an orb of light to wash away the darkness, and there was no reason for him to not know who she was. He tried to push out a few words. “I can’t see.”

“You can’t see?”

“No. I can’t see. After this happens.”

“‘This’? Dreaming?”

“I have visions. Of the future. And the past, I think. I keep seeing… all sorts of things. And then I’m blind after. Only for a bit, at least so far. And meanwhile, I’m just sitting here—feeling like all the horrible things I’ve been seeing are… I don’t know, coming for me, happening all around me, I don’t know I—” Dante stopped. He tucked his knees close to his chest. Everything was pouring out and he needed to hold it in, somehow.

“That sounds horrible.” Scarlet spoke more gently than he’d ever heard her before. “I can stay until your vision comes back. If you want.”

Dante wondered if her kindness was genuine. It was a stark change from her prickliness when they’d first met, and even the careful friendship they’d been cultivating the past couple of weeks.

Dante nodded into his knees. He wasn’t sure Scarlet could see it, but he couldn’t make words come out anymore. It took all of his concentration to focus on forcing air into and out of his lungs. But she must have seen his affirmation despite his head being buried into his knees, because she took his hand and squeezed it lightly.

He’d never had someone with him in the aftermath of his visions before. Having a point of contact with someone helped ground him back into reality. He could feel her prodding worry, but she didn’t ask him anything more. In the minutes it took for his vision to return, he decided that her concern did in fact seem sincere.

As the whiteness faded, Scarlet came into sight. She was perched on the edge of his bed. She had indeed summoned a light, a blue glowing sphere floating gently in the hand she wasn’t using to hold his. Once his vision was fully restored, he was suddenly self-conscious about touching her. Now that he was less in need of immediate comfort, it seemed much more awkward and intimate. Scarlet must have felt the same way, because when they made eye contact and she realized his vision was back, her hand flinched away.

“I should go back to bed. If… if you’re okay now.”

“Yeah. I’m alright.”

Scarlet got up.

“Thank you,” Dante managed to call out before she was gone.

Scarlet paused in the doorway. She looked back at him. “Yeah,” she said softly, before slipping out of his room.