It was a curious kind of Sunday. Merigold found herself at home, seated in the study. It was the room she loved most out of all the rooms in their house. It dominated the top floor of their abode, and as such the ceilings soared a good twelve feet or more into the air. A full two of its walls were lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves, all full to bursting. The lower shelves had been filled with storybooks when Reese and Merigold were children, and many of those remained to their current day; they lent a warm splotch of color to the lower half of the room. The upper shelves were taken over entirely by books about Drafting, about history, about the geography of Venerith and the inner workings of Hakarth.

The many books lent a weight to the space that was alleviated only slightly by the sunlight that poured in through a gaping window overlooking Hakarth. Leaned on the low sill, one could see as far as the distant mountains. Many times, Merigold and Reese had stood together at that very window, pointing out the people who crawled like ants through the twining streets, the buildings that cast long, straight shadows across the city, and the trains…Reese had always loved the trains. They spewed steam into the sky. When the clouds hung low, hugging the city, they burst from the fog like ghosts, headlights piercing the morning with a blaze of glory.

That Sunday, the study smelled strong of cinnamon, owing to her mother’s favorite candles, which had been set out to burn at the edge of the thick table filling the center of the room. Merigold sat in a lush chair on one side of that table, one leg crossed over the other, eyeing the dark wood. Her mother sat on the other.

Averile Lee was a woman whose beauty defied what Merigold considered the usual rules of beauty. Her skin, a few shades darker than either Merigold’s or Reese’s, was not smooth or perfect, but lined from squinting too long at old books, and forever dry from spending long hours indoors. Like both of her daughters, she had raven-black eyes, quick to narrow, ever scrutinizing. Like Reese, she had a storm of dark hair, which obstinately refused any attempts to tame it. On a normal day, Averile wore it twisted into a loose snake and clipped to the back of her head, and yet managed to appear as if the flyaways that ringed her prominent cheekbones and angular shoulders were entirely intentional. Most everything about Averile Lee seemed entirely intentional.

And yet, contrary to her stern appearance and exceptional work ethic, she was a warm and relatable mother. Merigold respected her, possibly more than Reese did, and they both loved her; Merigold had long ago learned the foibles of trying to decide whether she or her sister loved their mother more.

“How are you holding up, Merigold?” her mother asked, leaning forward a bit on the table and resting her face on one hand. “We haven’t really talked about your Awakening….I wanted to give you space. You know, I’m aware you and Reese are both old enough that you don’t need me looking over your shoulder at all hours of the day. But I was a bit worried when you joined a Combat Guild, and now that you’ve been hospitalized twice as a result of that decision, I’m more worried, not less.”

Merigold was aware that she was frowning, but not of what she should say. Her mother did not seem to mind.

“Since you were a little girl,” Averile said, “you told me you were going to be a Drafter like your father, and like me. I was happy that you had a goal, and you worked so hard towards it. Maybe that was why I never told you that I…I never wanted to be a Drafter. I was so angry after my Awakening. My heart had been set on being a fire elemental, like my mother. I wanted to open…” she paused, looking like she was biting back a smile, “it sounds ridiculous now, but I wanted to open a noodle shop. Right at the heart of the commerce district of Hakarth.”

“What?” Merigold said incredulously.

“That’s right, Merigold. I loved to cook. I spent hours in the kitchen. My mother went to the steam works by day to keep the engines deep in the city running, but by night, she would come home and make the most delicious soups. I wanted to share her recipe with the world. I really did. My father, though, he was a Drafter, and I thought it was the most boring career anyone could have. He spent all his hours with his nose buried in a book, or carefully writing up contract after contract. His big successes were hard for me to understand. They didn’t mean anything.”

Merigold was shaking her head.

“Noodles?” she said quietly. Her mother reached across the table, gently grabbing Merigold’s hand.

“Meri, what I’m trying to tell you is that I do understand some of what you’re feeling. My Awakening felt like a prison sentence. But because of it, I met your father, and I had you and Reese. Over time, I fell in love with those dusty old contracts my father had spent his life writing. I realized I loved the challenge, the rules, the certainty…”

“But necromancers have none of those things,” Merigold stated sharply. “And that’s what I love, mother.”

“Maybe it’s what you think you love, Meri, or maybe it’s just what you’ve always known. It’s what’s safe, and what’s familiar. Reese is an adventurous, bold soul, but you’re not, and that’s alright. Right now, though, maybe you need to be a little bold, and a little adventurous. You need to give necromancy a chance.”

Merigold shook her head and flicked a curl from her eyes irritably. “What if there was a way I could be a Drafter despite my Awakening? One of the researchers at the academy spoke to me recently, and she suggested it’s possible. She said I might have a choice, because of the way a necromancer’s magic works.”

Her mother seemed she surprised. She leaned back, letting go of Merigold’s hand for a moment to look carefully at her face. Drawing in a long, thoughtful breath, she said, “Meri, you should do whatever feels right.”

“Did it feel right, for you, becoming a Drafter when all you wanted was something else,” Merigold asked honestly. Averile shook her head, smiling a bit sadly.

“No, Meri, it felt awful. But carrying around the weight of trying to be something I wasn’t felt just as bad. To give you one piece of advice – and just one, because I had a conversation like this with my mother, and let me tell you, I left the room fit to explode – take a moment and try to understand why you wanted so badly to be a Drafter. For me, I loved the process of cooking. I loved the recipes…building them out, finding the perfect ingredients, in the perfect amounts, and realizing that I could get the same outcome every time if I followed the same set of steps. When I realized Drafters do the same thing, I finally understood what I had been trying to find in all my dreams of the noodle shop.”

“And what was that?”

Her mother smiled.

“It doesn’t matter, Meri. It really doesn’t. Your answer will be different.”

Merigold furrowed her brows. Her mother was standing up, heading for the door of the study with a glance at the mechanical watch strapped to her wrist.

“I have a client expecting me, but I’ll always make time for you, Meri. Always. And so will your sister,” her mother said, opening the door and leaning back slightly to make way for Reese, who stood there with a ridiculous look on her face. “Have a good time, girls.”

“What did she mean by that?” Merigold asked when their mother had left and Reese walked into the room, hands shoved in the pockets of her checkered overalls.

“Well, I may have run into Alecia last night while I was out with some friends, and she may have told me what happened with your…well, your face, and her hair, and the erowist.” Reese walked to the window, peering sideways down towards the street beneath their house. “And I may have suggested that we all need to blow of some steam like we used to, by heading down town to do a little shopping and maybe….grab some noodles?”

“Don’t tell me you were listening to that entire conversation,” Merigold said sternly. “Honestly, Reese. Eavesdropping is a terrible habit.”

“We’ve all got flaws,” Reese said with a grin. “Alecia’s here. Let’s go.”

Merigold sighed, but she let herself be led out of the house and down towards the streets, and even onto the packed train leading towards the commerce district. At first, her conversation with Alecia was a bit stilted; Alecia rubbed the back of her head pointedly, and Merigold sniffed through her thankfully healed and still straight nose. But Reese had spent years with both of them, and had been there in the aftermath of most of their squabbles – almost as many as Garret. Before long, she had them relaxed, and somehow, in the intervening hours between their meeting on the street and lunch at a pleasant café that looked out over a small arbor, everything seemed to snap back to normal.

The three of them wandered through boutiques, browsing their wares, flaunting to each other, clucking their tongues when one or the other held up some outfit that was too safe, or too risqué, or too something. They found a tiny shop that specialized in brushes, and both Merigold and Alecia selected a few to use in their crafts. They wound through a stationary store, where Merigold purchased a small stack of silvery paper for her friend, and picked out a barrette to give Reese later in the evening – while her sister was not looking, of course.

It was heading towards evening, and the sun was sinking with a brilliant golden glare down over the mountains to the west, when the sound of someone shouting Merigold’s name stopped her in her tracks. She looked around, eyes trained towards the mountains. Reese and Alecia stopped to look back at her.

“What’s up, Meri?” Reese asked.

“Did you hear that?” Merigold responded. Alecia was about to add something, but was stopped by the squealing of a train’s brakes, ripping through the ordinary noises of the boisterous afternoon. It was followed by a crash, and smoke and dust billowed up between the buildings just a few blocks away.

“What the Hell?” Alecia said in place of whatever she had intended to say before.

Alien sounds split the air. More explosions. The roar of falling stone. Shouts. Screams. More dust shot into the air, closer than before. From nowhere, sirens began to blare – the sirens that indicated an avalanche, on most days, but could be used for other emergencies as well. They were a signal to get indoors, to tune in a radio, to make harried preparations for a potential evacuation.

“We need to get inside,” Merigold said, pointing towards the nearest building, which was a broad-faced brick behemoth that had been there for at least a few decades, untouched.

“We need to figure out what’s happening. The guilds have to respond to those sirens,” Alecia argued.

“Um, maybe I’m going to side with Meri this time,” Reese said, indicating the direction of another explosion, much closer than before. A bolt of lightning shot down the alley between buildings, ripping up the cobbled street and tearing through a cart laden with cabbage as if it were a steel spear tossed through a paper target.

“MERIGOLD LEE,” a voice roared.

“Do you hear that?” Merigold asked as they turned and pressed into the crowd of other street-goers that shared their sudden interest in being indoors.

“Hear what?” Reese asked, cursing as someone nearly caught her in the face with their elbow. Alecia was raking the smoky alley from which the bolt of lightning had come, eyes hard as diamonds.

“Someone shouted my name!” Merigold said, grabbing Reese by the wrist and pulling her closer so they could both look down the alley with Alecia.

Someone was emerging from it with a stilted, unnatural gate. They shambled, they lurched, they tripped, they shambled, they lurched again, seemingly progressing at a simultaneously awkward and preternaturally fast pace.

“Gods,” Alecia said, seeing who it was. Merigold echoed her sentiment, while Reese just covered her mouth in horror, and made a sound halfway between gagging and disgust. Someone screamed as the figure held up one hand, and a ball of neon green electricity began to form there, fizzling and sparking into the afternoon air. Around the figure, the dust was clearing just enough to make out their face, and the sickly green light that shone out through the place where their eyes and mouth should have been.

In the middle of the street, leering murderously, was a man Merigold had never expected to see again.

Zip.