“Magic circuits are not so different from electrical circuits. Precisely controlling the flow of magic, often using specific materials and symbols to form logic gates, allows for complex calculations to be carried out using vanishingly small quantities of magic.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

Silver stood, facing a stairwell descending down through the heart of the castle. Strange that she knew it for what it was, but was not afraid.

The Castle of Divides.

Not so long ago, she had stood in a hallway like this one, cold stone on every side, the floors carpeted in crimson and the windows set high up in the walls, illuminating the corridor with a hazy glow. Then, she had chased after the Zara, heart in her throat. Now, she looked back, and found Elorian’s emerald gaze meeting hers. The wolf’s silvery ears flared forward, expectant and ready. There were people here. Voices that murmured through her dreams, familiar and strange at the same time. Elorian could also hear them.

But neither of them were interested in those voices.

With one last peek down the hallway, Silver leapt down the stairs, taking them two at a time. At the bottom, there was a dimly lit chamber whose walls were painted with some of the most extravagant artwork she had ever imagined. Silver ignored it all to throw open an unremarkable door in the nearest wall. No hesitation. She simply pelted forward, swallowed up by the shadows on the other side.

Behind her, the door closed too quickly for the wolf to join her. That should have filled her with foreboding, but Silver had no sense of fear now. Instead, her gaze pressed against the complete and utter darkness of the vast, hollow space that stretched ahead of her. She could sense it even if she could not see it, feel it even if she was deprived of sound and light. Breathing deeply, she forged onward, bare toes finding the cold flagstones of the castle floor. Every once in a while, when she exhaled, she could see the smoky white plume of ice crystals that spread with the touch of her breath against the void, as if her breath itself was lit from within.

Once, there had been fire there.

Not now.

Eventually, she found a wall with her fingers, recoiled from the cold, damp bite of stone, and leaned sideways when she realized she could use it to guide her passage. Gradually, the closeness of stone walls around her replaced the void. With the walls came a scent, so faint at first she thought she had imagined it. Silver sniffed.

Smoke? Ash? The scent of the castle. Her nose wrinkled against her will.

But the passage did not end. Her fingers traced wet patterns across the stone walls as she marched straight forward, shivering in the mind-numbing cold, until her hand slipped out into open space. There she froze, aware of the play of a breeze against her skin. Very slowly at first, Silver drew her hand back towards herself, and then reached for the wall again. This time, she followed it until it abruptly ended, and let her fingers find its edge. There were slick, icy growths there, shapeless, folded lumps, dull and buckled like melted candle wax.

Glass? Metal?

As soon as she thought it, Silver knew it was true. Twisted, molten metal. Or it had been. Once. Before the fire. Her eyes traveled the blackness on the other side of the gate, coming to rest on a single, glowing speck of light in the darkness. A mirror...

Silver woke quickly, throwing her hands up to block the shaft of morning sunlight that had evaded the trees just outside their bedroom and come to rest, none too gently, on her sleeping face. In fact, the only place it rested was on her face, and it was irritatingly hot. Groaning, she tilted her head aside. She had dreamt again. Vividly. No strange rooms or lakes, this time, but lately it felt like she remembered more and more of the places she traveled in the hours between sunset and sunrise. Her dream self had a wild sense of adventure, and judging by the goosebumps creeping up her arms, plenty to be afraid of.

Silver sat up slowly, stretching her aching joints. Holtson had promised a change to their routine today – after just over a month of conditioning and familiarizing them with hand-to-hand combat and the various forms of Altian weaponry, he was finally ready to teach them how to use their magic in a coordinated and pre-determined manner. He had spent most of an hour bellowing about how grateful they should be for every bruise and bloody knee. Normally, the school of kivgha required years of conditioning, but he had accelerated the program for them.

Silver was sure she should feel special, knowing that most of the king’s army had trained for years just for the privilege of being taught what Holtson drilled into them daily. Instead, she felt like it would have been a lot easier if she had years to understand, years to learn, years to get into shape. She had muscles now where she had never expected them, and was leaner than she had ever been in her life. It felt awesome…at least when she did not feel like collapsing into a puddle next to the wolf.

Her lips parted in a hearty yawn then, and within seconds she was up and teasing the stray tangles from her hair. She fingered the sun streaks that had appeared in her bangs thoughtfully. It was possible they made her eyes look greener.

When Silver looked back at her sheets once, it was to see that the wolf had sprawled out appreciatively, its tail slowly twitching against the nose of her very irritated crimson dragon. She wondered if her face had looked quite so fierce when she woke to the sunlight.

“Breakfast,” she muttered, leaving them to bask in the sun. Bread and fish and several strange, wild fruits were the breakfast-time norm in the outpost, and that would not change just because of a new training routine, nor because Illian had returned. Holtson had a habit of forcing the spear-men to go spear fishing in the hopes it would improve their aim. Silver appreciated his pragmatism.

Bek joined her shortly, offered a few choice comments about their most recent activities, and gave her a couple of terse answers when she wondered aloud if he had made his way into Illian’s inner circle of strategists yet. He gave her a look, seemed to consider for a moment, and then said, “Did you have trouble sleeping last night? You’re awfully pale this morning.”

“Born and raised in the Northwest,” she quipped.

“Even your freckles are pale this morning.”

“I feel fine.”

“I’ll personally drag you to Sara and watch her force some disgusting herb down your throat,” he threatened seriously. Silver glared at him.

“That old woman could make anything taste delicious, so you’re out of luck,” she replied.

“Hmm,” he said doubtfully, “I’ll take that as a challenge.”

They scoured their dishes in the stream, killing a few extra germs using some of Sara’s herb soaps in a nearby tub specifically for that purpose, and then returned them to a waiting stack on the trestle tables. Holtson caught them as soon as they had finished, and directed them to a line with the other trainees. Sori, Ren, and Hiyein, as usual, made space for the two of them – in the past month and a half, their numbers had swelled to nearly thirty as they caught up to some of the previous trainees. Silver did not know how many people Holtson worked with daily, but she did know there were multiple groups, some much more skilled than others.

“Today, you’ll learn somethin’ new,” the weapons master was already informing them above the din of their breakfast. “Most o’ us are used to usin’ our magic fer the small stuff. Ya’ want to lift somethin’ heavy, start a fire on a cold night, move yer dinner a bit closer when yer muscles are sore…” a few people laughed, and Holtson nodded, apparently pleased. He had become much less gruff in the past few weeks, so Silver assumed he felt like they were making progress. “When I train members o’ the guard I tell ‘em to watch out for what we call kivruvnal sorea, fear casting – that is, when a person is terrified or angry, or both, they emit a blast o’ power above and beyond what they could normally. Fer men o’ the guard, that’s the moment yer most like to get hurt. Fer a soldier, that moment is the moment ya’ die. Ya’ hear?”

“Yessir!” everyone in the line agreed, staring at him.

“Kivruvnal sorea is instinct. Pure, primal preservation. It depletes yer magic stores, and leaves ya’ in a state of relative helplessness. If yer lucky, it kills the person tryin’ to do ya’ in. In battle, there will be five, six men to replace him. Before today, I told ya’ I didn’t care ‘bout yer lean, whatever it may be. Well, today I care. Today we start learnin’ how to focus yer power, usin’ as little as possible, and drawin’ as little notice as possible. First we’ll work on what we all can learn, then, o’er the next few weeks, we’ll start specializin’. Nothin’ changes now. New partner each day, don’t stop movin’ ‘less yer injured and needin’ to see the witch.”

Holtson had been squinting at them all while he spoke. Now he pointed at the first trainee, a man Silver had worked with a few times, and barked, “You start. Tell me yer lean. Ya’ got two, pick one. Ya’ got none, all the better. If ya’ve been classed by the MASO, say so.”

Silver was surprised how few people in the line seemed to have a lean or a class, which she recalled was really just a more officially recognized version of the lean. Hiyein was among them. Sori claimed hers was “shaping,” which Holtson seemed to approve of, though Silver had no idea what it was. Ren claimed none, though she knew he at least had an unusual ability to see the future. When she said pyromancy, Holtson blinked and muttered, “explains some things.” Bek claimed no lean or class, and Silver eyed him out of the corner of her eye.

Learning to use magic of any kind did not change the basics of their training, as Holtson had promised. Within minutes, she had amassed new bruises across her arms and shins, including a foul one across her hip. She was surprised, however, at the ease and speed with which Holtson moved when he came to demonstrate the deflection magic he had started them off with, and even more surprised when Illian came to join them, walking up and down the lines of trainees and watching them critically. After a few hours, Holtson called a well-earned reprieve; Silver was not good, it turned out, at deflection. Not at all.

She joined the others in lining up in front of Holtson and Illian, who now held a training sword in one hand.

“Holtson agrees with me that you need to see what exactly you will be facing,” Illian informed them, “Too many of you are scattered and unmotivated. I expected more. This is the level of their captains and generals. Watch carefully.”

Holtson turned and bellowed across the training yard. Without so much as a hint of hesitation, three of the highest-level trainees dropped what they were doing and jogged over. Silver thought from their expressions that they knew what was coming. How, she wondered afterward, could they have looked so calm?

“Gormin,” Illian beckoned a bearded man towards himself, handing Holtson his real sword and taking a wooden one.

The two, Gormin and Illian, gestured respectfully to one another, two fingers over the heart and then down to their weapons. Gormin was the one who attacked first, and Silver felt her mouth drop open. His and Illian’s movements were a series of rapid dodges and sweeping kicks, blocks and faints and leaps that looked impossible. Time after time they shifted out of the way of a strike or kick at the very last moment, as if they had seen it coming. How could they? She had no idea. From her position on the sidelines, every movement was baffling enough. How could they see anything there in the thick of it?

There was a mesmerizing flow to it, the longer she watched. Every time one of them, Illian or Gormin, made the slightest mistake, the other one capitalized. She could sense the lightning flashes of their magic, even if she could not see them. They threw each other into the dirt so many times she was amazed they continued to roll away, rising back to their feet so fast it even made her dizzy. In the end it could not have been more than a few minutes before she realized that she was wrong – Gormin, at least, was not dodging Illian’s attacks completely. He was taking them, and it was taking its toll. He finally raised his hand in defeat, head bowed and chest heaving.

Silver watched Illian clap the trainee on the shoulder as he shuffled breathlessly back to his comrades. There was a part of her that had known all along that Illian could kill her before she had time to even think about deflecting or defending herself. It was still something else for her to see it. Silver felt herself shiver.

Aidree was next. A woman this time, but Illian did not seem to care. Holtson held out the training sword for Aidree, and Silver felt another shiver pass down her spine when Illian grabbed two. He motioned to the final trainee.

“Prius, a spear,” he said.

The man raised his hand, and a padded spear hurtled across the training yard to fit into his palm. Illian nodded, grounding himself. Silver had never seen him like this before. Bathed in his magic, both training swords became sharper, longer, narrower…their edges were a run of liquid magic that burned fiery blue arcs through the air when he twisted to block Prius’s spear or to take a sweep at Aidree’s unprotected neck. Thirty seconds. That was how long the two of them lasted against him, before he had a sword at each of their throats. As they stepped back, he wiped a few beads of sweat from his brow.

“So, now ya’ see how it’s done,” Holtson said brusquely.

“You did well, Aidree, Prius, Gormin,” Illian said, gesturing again at the trainees who had faced them. “Everyone else here has something to learn from you.”

Whatever they were supposed to learn, Holtson did not feel like they had learned it. He drove them into the ground after Illian’s exhibition, continuing at first with trying to teach them deflection, and then giving up and bellowing at them to carry a pile of chest-size stones piled at one end of the training yard back and forth, without using magic, until he told them to stop. Silver had always wondered what the stones were for. She did not wonder after that. They had to weigh sixty pounds apiece, and Holtson did not call a stop until her hands, arms, and chest were scraped raw and her forearms cramped whenever she tried to curl her fingers. She was still better off than Hiyein. Holtson had been serious about them not using magic, and she watched the red-head grunting and stumbling across the training yard as the rest of them plodded wearily to the stream – he had tried anyway.

“I don’t envy him,” Sori muttered, seeing the direction of Silver’s stare.

“Bastard brought it on himself,” Ren was glaring at him from ahead of them.

“He always does,” Sori agreed, casting Silver a weary smile when she raised an eyebrow questioningly. “He has a history of making bad decisions.”

“Petty ones like this?” Bek asked as they reached the water and Silver walked straight in, clothes and all.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Sori said.

The cool of the stream’s current was so welcome and refreshing after their training that Silver hardly cared that she would have to go change afterward. For five minutes of bliss, she would gladly walk around sopping wet all night. After a quick scrub down, she took a deep breath, ducking her head under the water and pressing her eyes closed against the stinging sand. When she could not possibly hold her breath a second longer, she surfaced, slogging slowly back to dry land. It took her a moment to find Bek leaning up against a tree several feet from the stream. He looked both cool and utterly dry, talking to Ren about something she could not hear over the gurgle of the stream. For some reason, it irritated her that he already looked so comfortable. Probably frustration. More than two months had passed and she still had not learned the simple magic to dry out her own clothes.

“You’ll be washing for a while, Sori?” she asked, turning to the dark-skinned woman. Sori was completely naked, a thing Silver was slowly growing accustomed to. Being naked in Alti was not at all the social faux pas it was in America, but she still blushed half the time when she saw a little more than she expected of the people around her.

“You could take your time too if you hadn’t agreed to help Sara every day,” Sori reminded her. They had talked about it a few times already. Sori had been all for her going to see the witch for advice on her health, but seemed less enthused about Silver being an apprentice to the woman. Silver had gathered from Hiyein, as they sat outside the house one night enjoying the humid summer evening with their dragons, that Sori was worried having the skillset of a healer on the battlefield would make Silver a target.

“I know,” Silver answered Sori, waving. “See you at dinner.”

Silver had every intention of avoiding the other two on her way back to the house to change, but Bek called her over immediately. She looked at him, hesitating. It was a bit of a mystery even to her why she did not want to talk to him in that moment.

“Seriously, Silver,” he said, standing up when he saw the expression on her face. Ren seemed to get it, even if Bek did not. Ren, however, merely looked away, towards Hiyein. The red-head was still struggling with the stones, bent low under Holtson’s railing demands.

Exhaling slowly, Silver approached, but before she could even say anything, Bek had planted the index finger of his right hand directly against her shoulder. She froze instantly, feeling the tingling brush of his magic against her skin. In an instant, her clothes and skin were scoured dry.

“I told you I hate that feeling,” she paused, sweeping her perfectly dry hair out of her eyes, “You could have at least let me cool off first.”

“You’re welcome,” he answered airily.

“That kind of magic is so frivolous,” she muttered, “I was planning to go change.”

“Why don’t you go back to the house and take a nap instead,” Bek suggested, “I can tell Sara you couldn’t make it today.”

“Are you listening to anything I’m saying?” she demanded.

“Ren agrees with me. You look ill. There were a few times today I thought you were going to pass out,” Bek observed.

“Bek.”

“And telling someone it’s frivolous just because you haven’t figured out how to do it yet is stupid. Your magic would be better put to use doing this sort of thing than fending off Zara or fighting other people’s wars.”

Silver stared at him for a moment, wondering if he would talk over her again if she tried to say anything else. He stared back, slowly crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Look, Bek, I’m tired—,” she finally began.

“That’s my point.” She seethed. Bek was staring at her in a painfully superior way, his bronze eyes dark. “Just listen to me this once—,” he began.

“Listen? Just once?” Her voice was rising sharply, enough that a few people had turned to look at them in passing, and Ren could not pretend to be deeply interested in what Hiyein was doing anymore. “I’ve been listening to you for weeks! At least when you bother to give me the time of day.”

When she started to walk away, Bek grabbed her wrist, refusing to let go. “I’m trying to help you, Silver. I’ve been thinking, and there are things I should have done the moment Ryan tested you, and the moment I found out we had ranked you completely wrong. There were decisions I could have made about how I dealt with you. I shouldn’t have let you do what you wanted, for one. I should have dragged you back from Zien and pushed harder on the investigation into the Zara. I should have stopped you from meeting my grandfather no matter—.”

“Your grandfather,” she repeated as he came to an abrupt stop. “I met him…?” Not Ryan, certainly. Not the doctor. She had met quite a few people at the MASO, but she had only really talked to a few, and somehow, from Bek’s face and from everything Illian had said about the Trents and the MASO, she suddenly understood. It must have shown in her expression, because Bek let go.

Jorik, the director, was his grandfather. That was why everyone at the MASO treated him the way they did.

“It isn’t a secret,” Bek said, watching her reaction. Silver just blinked at him. Of course not. He had wanted to hide it, but it was no secret. She was sure because he had the same look in his bronze eyes as he had the day he came to her in the hospital room and laid out her options, all the time begging her without words not to come with him to the MASO. Somehow, it felt like he was trying to shield her from everything, and she had no idea why. “Silver—”

“Stop talking, Bek,” she said, surprised when he did. “You listen to me, for once. You can’t control me. For a little while, it was like you were my supervisor, but we were almost friends before that, and I never saw you as someone I had to answer to. If you had stopped me before I ended up in front of the Zara, it would have been by force, and out there, on that field,” she pointed at the training yard, feeling Ren’s gaze follow her gesture even if Bek’s did not, “are two men who could kill me faster than I can blink. I recognize their strength. You’re nowhere close. So, I dare you to ever think you can actually stop me from doing what I need to do. This was never your choice.”

He stared at her. “You’re wrong.” The words seemed to escape him before he had thought them through, but she threw up her hands in exasperation nonetheless.

“Of course I am,” she growled.

“I willingly dragged you into this mess, Silver, and I will get you back out in one piece. Things would be different if I had kept you away from the mess I was dealing with when we met.”

“Yeah, I’d be dead,” she said flatly, watching his frown deepen. “We’ve had this conversation. We’ve had it a million times. You have nothing to do with my magic. You have nothing to do with what happened to me, or what I might have suffered, or why. It is not, nor will it ever be, your fault. You don’t have to help me, and in fact, you can’t.”

“From years of advising Hiyein, I can say you should probably both take some time to cool off,” Ren interrupted, apparently done listening to them bicker. “If Holtson sees you at each other’s throats, you’ll end up joining Hiyein out on the flats anyway.”

“I have just one more question,” Bek insisted, “you came with me to learn how to kill the Zara.” Silver narrowed her hazel green eyes at him. Ren’s eyebrows rose. “What are you after now? Can you tell me honestly what’s changed since we got here? Because something has.”

Silver glanced at Ren, feeling his dark eyes on her face. The tattoo across the bridge of his nose was darker in the shade. He could not possibly know what they were talking about, but she could tell that he understood enough. She had no answer for either of them. Wordlessly, she turned away.

When she kept walking, no one tried to stop her. Her cheeks burned when she heard Sori join them, asking, “What was that about?” It was bad enough that she could feel Bek’s eyes on the back of her head without everyone else’s eyes as well, following her all the way back to the building they all shared, up the steps, into the darker gloom within. Most of it was probably in her imagination, but then again, everyone knew about everyone else in the outpost. That was just the way it was.

No one greeted her. No one else was in the house, and she could sense that the dragons were still basking near the flats. The wolf would be nearby, but the wolf knew when she needed time to herself. Safe in the silent, still shadows cast by the receding sun, Silver was left to her own thoughts.

Bek was right. Something had changed. From the beginning, she had wanted the world of magic to be a beautiful, magnificent place, full of awe and splendor and possibility. She had come to it under all the wrong circumstances, and yet she had still walked right into it, arms stretched wide, daring to hope. Chasing what she had lost, chasing the Zara, naive…like a child chasing some lethal butterfly deeper and deeper into the woods. Oh, she had caught it. It was there in her palm, crumbling, gossamer wings turning to dust, to a poison that burned her heart and soul. Now she looked around, and all she saw was the malignance, the horror and terror and the awful, cunning blood lust. This world had not only embraced her – it had swallowed her up.

With a dull thunk, she sat in the room she shared with Sori and Cevora, staring at the dusty wood beneath her. All of this was her fault. Bek talked about the choices he could have made, but the truth was, there were so many things she could have done differently. There was not one decision she had made since following him to the MASO that she regretted, but before that…there were so many. There had been opportunities for her to save her mom, her sister, her brother, her dad. So many…

If she had only taken one, things would be so different now.

And yet, she did not want the life she had left behind back anymore. Her family, yes, but not that life. Even the thought of going back to believing magic was not real made her gut twist painfully. How could she ever give up what she had learned in the past few months? How could she ever turn her back on the beasts, leaving the wolf and the dragons behind? How could she go back to living a life that seemed somehow less real than everything she had experienced since? That beautiful, lethal butterfly – it had her trapped in its spell, craving more and more and more from her life. The danger, the pain, the chaos...they were all an eerie sort of validation. She had needed it, all those years.

She buried her head in her hands, curling her knees close to her chin as if she could vanish into the shadows herself. If only she could trade the pain she felt for more scrapes and bruises. Like magic, it hardly seemed real. Invisible, locked inside of her. No one could see. No one could understand. Bek least of all. No tears could make it real enough.

Hissing in pain, she leaned forward until her forehead touched the cool wood, and left it pressed there. There was real pain, she gradually realized. A splitting headache, a searing heat that seemed to spread through her with every pulse of her heart. That horrible, terrible, frightening magic. It poured through her. It was hot, scorching, white against the black of her closed eyelids. It was the first time – the first time she had ever been afraid of it. More so because she could feel her thoughts slipping away from her. For some reason, she imagined Illian, his expression always so calm and cool, his face stony, his eyes cold.

The decisions must be tearing him up inside.

Beasts or men – which side should a human stand on if their loyalties lay on one side, but their species on the other? Should he take one life to save another? Should she kill her heart to maintain peace? How could he weigh the value of a life, particularly that of his princess? Should she uphold laws that seemed in opposition to her very nature, ascribe to a human aesthetic when it threatened to leave her with nothing?

Finally, why…why did she feel that she had already been betrayed? Would it be different this time?

Despite the molten fire in her bones, Silver shuddered. Her skin felt like ice. Shards of ice, digging into her skull.

And then, a moment of clarity.

Suddenly, she remembered her dreams from the previous weeks, raw and vivid – the dark corridors, the absolute silence, the cold, the pressing darkness on every side, and at the end of it all, the only light in anywhere. It was not magic. It was not hope or faith or whatever more spiritual nonsense she could think of. No. It was a mirror. The mirror. A room with a mirror that terrified her more than anything in the world, and she had no idea why.

Silver jerked upward, standing before she knew what she was doing, and swaying as the blood pounded into her head. The mirror. It was there on the wall, the last light from the outdoors reflected in its pale, featureless face. Dreading every step for some unfathomable reason, she approached. Slowly. One step at a time, with her breathing fast and shallow.

She stopped at the edge of a corridor. A hush had descended over everything. The air was still, cold as ice. Only her bones still burned. There was a doorway in front of her, too narrow for more than one person to pass through at once. She had stood here a thousand times. It lay just beyond the melted gates, just beyond the nothingness. A room with endless possibilities.

In that room, the mirror hung directly across from the doorway, so she stared into a stranger’s face. Sickly, weary, hair a knotted mess. She met her own gaze, feeling a shiver go down her spine. Those eyes were not hers. They were a deep, dark, smoldering crimson. Suddenly, she was right in front of the mirror.

With a growl of frustration, Silver slammed her fist into the glass. It buckled beneath her touch, swaying outward with a resounding crack and then shattering, melting like snowfall around her hand. The crash of broken glass raining down on the wood floors of the outpost brought her back to her senses. Then she stood, staring at the destroyed mirror and breathing heavily. Her heart was racing, and there was a sharp pain in her hand. It almost surprised her to look down and see her own bloodied fist, fingers and knuckles lacerated and ragged.

Miraculously, her headache was gone. Her magic had subsided. Only the cold remained, and the confusion. For an instant, she had been somewhere else. For the space of a breath. Just long enough to raise the goosebumps along her arms and terrify the crap out of her. Her hands were shaking.

Before Silver could decide what to do about the mirror, there were footsteps coming up the stairs.

“What happened?”

Cevora’s voice. Silver could feel the woman’s stare on the back of her head, and she brought her hands in front of herself, covering them. Soon it would not be necessary; her wounds were already healing, quicker than ever before. Soon, there would be only the blood to hide.

“Did you bump it?” the woman asked, seeming to misinterpret her silence, “I forget how rare glass mirrors are in Atlantis. They still use copper …” There were more footsteps behind hers.

Silver turned very slowly, keeping her wounded fist to the side where it could not be seen. She saw Bek appear behind Cevora. Why were they even together? She stared at the two in the doorway, unmoving, dazed.

“I have to go and speak with Ibald. Bek, help her clean up the glass,” Cevora commanded, “explain everything. And Silver.” Silver looked at her, seeing the impatience in the older woman’s face. “Don’t worry about the mirror. The glass isn’t so expensive here, and that one was poor quality. Dragon-made glass I would be worried about, but that…” she fluttered her fingers, “peasant’s glass, no one will care.”

Cevora left them, her footsteps quick and sharp on the clay steps. Bek remained, watching her warily. After a moment, he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. Between them, the silence stretched as he walked towards the broken shards of the mirror. Silver stepped away, giving him space, half wishing he would leave, and half afraid he really would. Bek paused, staring at the glass, before turning sharply.

“What did you do?” he demanded, grabbing her shoulder in one hand and forcing her hands apart with the other. Silver did not dare look at what he saw. There was no surprised intake of breath, however, no muttering, nothing but silence as he stared at her hands. When she finally raised her head to face him, she regretted it instantly. His eyes were dark, closed to her in a way they had never been. He looked furious.

“Have I ever told you how amazing your natural healing abilities are?” he finally asked, letting go of her as if disgusted. Silver did not move. “They didn’t use to be quite so good,” he said softly. There was nothing else, she thought, that he needed to say for her to understand, but he kept talking. “Cevora’s right. You probably never realized this, but glass mirrors like the kind you and I are used to are a pretty modern invention. In this era, silver, copper, steel, and iron mirrors decorate the homes of the extravagantly wealthy. But not in Alti. The Altians hold mirrors sacred. They are considered pure because spells can’t be cast on them, and powerful because they can reflect magic. They are the only item you will find in all of Alti made of glass, because glass is the craft of dragons, and it was dragons who taught the Altians glass work for the express purpose of crafting mirrors. You understand? This type of mirror, this type of glass, exists only here.”

Silver listened in silence as he grabbed the ceramic wash basin and began to fill it with glass. She went to join him, thankful when he did not tell her off.

“Cevora came to tell us Illian requested out presence outside the gates before sunrise. They have something planned, something I gather will take us away from the outpost for at least a few days.”

Silver still said nothing. With the two of them working together, they were making short work of the mess she had made.

“You need to wash the blood off your hands,” he finally said, kneeling next to the basin and fixing his gaze on her. He wanted her to meet his eyes, she was sure, but Silver just stared at the broken glass. It felt like those shards represented her whole world. Shattered. Shattered, and no magic in the world could mend them.

“Sara won’t be expecting you tonight. Cevora wants us to prepare. We’ll be traveling light, and most likely the dragons will insist on coming with us,” Bek continued.

“It’ll eat me from the inside,” she finally said, still not meeting his eyes. Bek paused, seeming to look past her for a moment.

“You’re stronger than that,” was all he said. In a moment, he was gone, the door slammed shut behind him, and the weight of his presence descended the stairs with him.

Shortly, Cevora returned with Sori. Neither of them commented on the missing mirror – they were all business. It was clear Sori was also in Illian’s chosen party, or more likely, Cevora’s.

Silver joined them, straightening blankets and packing a few choice belongings, including a small amount of clothing and the dark wood canteen Illian had given her. After a moment’s hesitation, she added the tenyan. Cevora gave her some sort of thick paper and a stick of charcoal, one of Cara’s carefully braided ropes, and a tin of the mint salve popular in treating small wounds at the outpost. She knew it must have come from Sara.

There were few words between them until they had settled in for the night, and Elorian had returned with a sheepish expression that made it all too clear the wolf had been sleeping near the kitchens. Then, it was the princess who broke the silence.

“Sara informed me there is currently nothing wrong with your health, Silver. Illian seemed insistent that you should be with us tomorrow, but I’m less sure. Where we’re going…if you’re unwell, it will put us all at risk.”

Silver did not answer right away, and Sori sat cross-legged between them, looking grim. “She hasn’t slowed down on the training grounds, Cevora. No one could keep up Holtson’s pace if there was some sort of issue.”

Cevora looked unconvinced. “I’ve spoken to Holtson. But this isn’t about putting on a brave front. My instincts are rarely wrong,” she stated carefully, trailing into silence as if inviting Silver to admit that she should be left behind. If Illian wanted her to come, however, Silver had no intention of bowing out.

“I’m doing well,” she said, meeting the princess’s gaze even though she knew it was a lie. The wolf was watching her peaceably from the bed, the only one in the room who would know without a shadow of a doubt when she did not tell the truth. And yet, for a moment, Silver thought Cevora would tell her to remain behind in the outpost.

“You know, Cev, probably half the people here go to Sara for help sleeping at night. It’s not like I don’t trust your gut, but Silver is pretty dependable for an Atlantian,” Sori said.

Silver averted her gaze, somehow more uncomfortable having her lie defended by Sori than by Cevora’s concern.

“You just want someone you can beat at cards to come with us,” Cevora said with a disdainful snort. They both knew she was teasing, but it lightened the mood enough for Silver to lay back, stretching out on top of the wolf. Its chest vibrated every once in a while as they talked, akin to a human muttering commentary on the side of the main conversation. Silver answered with her hands, stroking the beast’s silvery ears, its broad skull, its slender paws.

Elorian did not like that she lied to her pack. But the wolf also did not want her to remain behind alone.

“I cannot protect you from your kind easily,” the beast huffed, “the dragons would die defending you. You are not safe here with only the witch for company.”

“I know,” Silver agreed silently.

“Once we are afoot, human, share your weakness. A pack is stronger than any one of its members alone because every burden is shared.”

“I know,” Silver repeated, but her breath caught in her throat when she did. Now it just felt like she was lying to the wolf, too.