The grassy road was rough and sloping, riddled with biting insects, and filled with snagging burrs. The sun pounded down overhead like a hammer in a blacksmith's forge, trying its hardest to drown us in our own sweat. We'd been walking for days on end based off Jiaola's rough memory of where Knwharfhelm should have been, and the only hint we'd had of progress was a faint whiff of sea air. For all we knew, we'd been walking in a massive, pointless circle on this itchy, sweaty trail for the past week and a half.

And yet I was the happiest I'd been in months.

Nobody was trying to drive a village into despair for the sake of sheer power, or starting a war on a college campus to pursue some inscrutable agenda. The only things trying to kill me were the insects, the only unshakable stalkers we had were the sticky grass seeds, and the deadliest light being thrown our way was the mundane shine of the sun. The weather was even surprisingly pleasant; a continuous breeze rolled along the endless plains, sending ripples through the grass as it went.

Best of all, I wasn't alone.

Meloai cheerfully skipped ahead of us, stopping to peer down at the grass or palm a new type of rock every now and then, every memory she made shining new and bright on the outside of her growing soul. There was no shortage of wildlife to keep her sustained, and soul shards aligned with insecurity were easy to find in prey animals. For the first time in Meloai's life, she was being fed a steady diet of fresh memories, and she intended to make the most of every moment. We'd once accidentally left her behind while she was studying a flower; Lucet had panicked and sprinted back, only to find that she'd spent the past thirty minutes counting the tiny, delicate tendrils in the flower's core.

Sansen and Jiaola were lying down next to each other and watching the clouds roll by; although they appeared to be lying in empty air, a glance into soulspace revealed the truth. Jiaola had channeled lust into the memory of a cart, hardening the air into a functional vehicle, then tied a spell of freedom to its back, pushing the cart on a steady jet of wind. Once I'd shared the secrets of attunement, everyone had been eager to get their hands on as many schools of magic as they could, and Jiaola's self-propelling cart was the least of the new spells we'd been tinkering with on our own time.

Such as the cloud of cold and darkness that swirled around Lucet as she walked by my side. I'd been raised in the Redlands, and although the plains around the Crystal Coast were ever-so-slightly different, I was no stranger to the sun. Lucet, on the other hand, had been born and raised in the dim, snowy environs of the Silent Peaks, and had chosen to bring a little piece of her birthplace's weather with her.

Out of all of us, Lucet had pushed the furthest in her experiments with magic. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she stirred her soul, dissolving sorrow-salt into fear-blood before pouring the resulting anxiety into a memory of a gushing, severed artery. The result was a continuous spray of darkness and cool air—rifts into a future that would have been, as well as a convenient way to beat the heat.

It was also disturbing as hell to watch. Not because of the gore—I'd seen and lived through worse—but because of what it meant that Lucet had the ability to cast that spell.

So I reached into my own soul and brought forth the fires of hope.

I'd never bothered getting an attunement to hope the normal way, since I still didn't feel like taking hope from any of my friends just to satisfy my curiosity. So with a now-familiar touch of effort, I rotated determination over passion, and channeled hope into a spell.

I still didn't fully understand the Plane of Elemental Possibility. Sansen had said that navigating possible futures meant moving in more directions than three, and my Introduction to Linear Maths course had given me just enough homework that I sort of got what he meant, but the theory was mostly over my head. What mattered in practice was the answer to a simple question. There were so many ranges of possible futures—how did a given spell of hope pick which one to show?

The answer was complex, but boiled down to this: no two flames were the same, and the future a spell of hope chose was dependent on the properties of the flame the spell was based on. As far as we could tell, this was true of any spell, too: its exact function in realspace depended on its exact form in soulspace. There were so many possible variables that we couldn't possibly test them all, but one thing we knew for certain was this: the hotter the flame, the further into the future you could see.

So I began assembling a spell. I called up a memory of a smith's forge, filling the bottom with the coal of exhaustion, and concentrated on remembering the bellows pumping. Remembered wind rushed into the forge as I dropped in the hope, stoking it with passion and letting it blaze to white-hot fury. I wasn't entirely sure how hot it was—but trial and error over the last week had shown me that instead of a scant few moments, a fire this hot would cut a hole twelve hours in the future.

Once the fire had grown to my satisfaction, I willed it to the forefront of my soul. Sansen, one eye still eternally peering into the future, sat up, anticipating what I was about to do.

I winked at him.

Then I flung hope into the air, painting the sky with night.

Lucet stopped in her tracks, startled, as a rift into the Plane of Elemental Possibility blotted out the sun. Twelve hours in the future, the lands would be cool and dark, just how she liked it. Twelve hours in the future, the pounding sun would be buried by an endless sea of stars.

And thanks to a touch of magic, twelve hours in the future was now.

Lucet stared up at the glittering rift, the focus on her spell lost for a moment, memories of dying soldiers slipping from her mind. In the shade of the night, the tension in her shoulders melted away, salt and blood sliding off her soul.

"It's pretty," she finally said.

I shrugged, nodding at the twinkling stars. "Nature did all the hard work," I said. "I just showed it off."

"Don't be modest." A smile flickered on Lucet's lips, dewdrops gleaming like diamond in her soul. "You're a great witch, Cienne. Strongest I've ever known."

Ah. "I've known one stronger," I said.

She chuckled. "I'm getting there. You're not the only one making new spells."

"Yeah, I... I noticed." I gestured up at the stars of tomorrow. "I thought... y'know. You might appreciate a break from constantly holding a memory of someone getting stabbed."

"His name was Helit," Lucet absently said. "He died when Odin dumped the Plane of Elemental Cold onto an unsuspecting army. The Silent Peaks aren't large. Odds are, I'd met him before he died."

"We're not under the rifts anymore," I said.

Lucet looked up at the rift I'd opened.

I rolled my eyes. I would've bopped her on the shoulder if she was Meloai, but I could tell she wasn't in the mood to be touched right now. "You know what I mean. We're not there."

"I know. But we're not safe, either. Iola could've killed us all with that spell, and we might not even know it yet."

"My body doesn't feel like it's trying to kill me—any more than usual, at least. And even if it was, forcing yourself to wield those memories... it's not going to undo what Iola's done."

"But it might save us the next time some bullshit tries to kill us," Lucet said, her smile as rueful and weary as the souls of the dead.

I turned to look up at the peaceful night sky, a splash of shade in the heat of the day. "The world will still be here tomorrow, Lucet. We have time. Just... spend some of it on something else. For me."

Lucet tilted her head.

Then she reached out for my hand, and I intertwined my fingers with hers.

"With you," she agreed.

We walked beneath tomorrow's sky, hints of salt on the distant breeze.

#

The Crystal Coast was our hope of asylum. Knwharfhelm had its problems, like any other city, and as Jiaola had warned us, it was far from free of Odin's influence. But it was out of the war, largely stable, and maybe, just maybe... it was safe.

So of course, our introduction to Knwharfhelm was an army of skeletons trying to kill everyone.

Sansen, as always, reacted first. He jolted bolt upright in the cart, swearing and reaching into his soul, feathers swirling into the memory of a pillow as he readied a spell. Lucet was half a second behind, a bow of memory with an arrowhead of salt coalescing in her soul. I swore, preparing the spells I'd hoped I'd never use—

And then Sansen relaxed, dismissing his windbomb and laughing.

A moment later, two children came running up the hill ahead of us, chasing after a clattering pile of bones and sinew. One of them shrieked with laugher as they hurled a stone, bonking off the pathetic skeleton's skull. I let out a sigh of relief. It was just a standard undead, probably ancient—it would have been deadly when first raised, but its muscles had long rotted into uselessness, and all it could do was awkwardly flop with the few strings of tendons it had left.

Lucet glanced at the two of us, then back at the useless zombie, and scowled, forgetting her spell. I winced at the expression on her face.

"False alarm," Sansen sheepishly said. "It's, uh... that's just a local tradition. Lot of buried zombies from when the Outer rifts first opened. Harmless, except maybe for the wildlife."

"You couldn't have warned us before we stumbled on one of the skeletons?" I asked.

"Didn't I tell you about it next week?" Sansen said back.

Everyone stared at him for a moment. Jiaola whispered something in his husband's ear.

Sansen blinked, then shook his head, as if to clear it. "...right. I'll, uh... I'll try to keep better track of our timeline next time."

Hm. Well, Sansen was a grown-up, and Jiaola had been married to him for longer than I'd been alive. They could handle whatever side effects Sansen's oracular magic was having. The kids stopped chasing the skeleton as they saw the four of us, eyes going wide as they took in Jiaola's invisible cart and the starry rift trailing over my head. Meloai cheerfully waved at them, walking over to investigate the skeleton.

"Excuse me!" Meloai called. "Would we happen to be near Knwharfhelm?"

One of the kids pointed down the road. "It's just that way, miss."

The other gaped at the rift above my head; sheepishly, I waved away the spell of hope with a burst of calm. "Are you magic?" the kid asked, their eyes wide.

"Jiaola?" I asked. I was pretty sure the Silent Peaks' particular breed of elitist bullshit was limited to their own sphere of influence, but on the off chance that the Crystal Coast had something against witches...

"Yeah, we're magic," Jiaola said. I sighed, relieved.

"Technically, I'm the only one who's made of magic. You all are just lumps of animated meat," Meloai pointed out. "Sorta like this guy here." She knelt down by the skeleton.

"Are you here for the games?" the first kid asked, still gawking at Jiaola's cart.

I frowned, but Jiaola's eyes lit up. "Actually, that's not a terrible idea. You can win prizes for wiping out enough skeletons."

It was true that our pockets were empty, although I suspected that five competent witches armed with a novel type of magic would find little trouble seeking employment. "To be clear, when you say a game, you mean, like, something safe and fun, right? Not some kind of nightmarish fight to the death for money?"

Jiaola waved a hand. "I get the concern, but we can just ask when we get there. Skullhunting was perfectly safe when I lived here, and the fact that kids are still getting in on the action tells me that there's nothing to be worried about."

"Sounds like a plan, then," I agreed. Jiaola reactivated the wind spell propelling his little cart. I turned to begin walking, then paused as Lucet stayed in place.

She was still staring at the skeleton, even after Meloai and the kids had left. I glanced at Jiaola and Sansen, but they were used to Meloai vanishing for hours at a time; I doubted they were worried about us lingering for a bit. I sat down next to Lucet, and she shook her head.

"I could've shot them," she finally said. "The kids."

"You didn't. And if you did, we'd find a way to make things right again."

"You shouldn't have to." Lucet started walking, and I hopped to my feet. "Better to never let things go wrong in the first place."

I gave her a questioning look, but it seemed she was done elaborating. That was fine. We walked side-by-side, a few paces behind our friends, relaxing in each others' company.

It was another hour's walk before Knwharfhelm came into view, although we passed plenty more skullhunters before then. We were far from the only foreigners, too; I saw the grass robes of Redlanders, the sashes of Coastliners, even the wings and compound eyes of the fey. There were skeletons, too—hundreds and hundreds of the poor, rotted things, flopping around in the dirt like so many helpless worms.

"How are there this many of them?" Meloai asked. "If they destroy hundreds of them every year, and it's been nearly a century..."

"They don't destroy them," Jiaola absently said. "In the old days, destroying an entire skeleton was too much work, and nowadays, it's just tradition. They just throw them back into the harbor, and they make their way to the surface by next year. There's this big ceremony and everything. Afterwards, they serve bone broth."

"Ew," I muttered.

"Cienne, you drink ground meat," Lucet said. "I don't think you get to make fun of other peoples' food choices."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't knock it 'til you try it." I scanned the nearby hills with my soulsight—the clusters of memories that animated the skeletons shone dimly in soulspace. "Speaking of trying things... race you to five skeletons?"

Lucet raised an eyebrow, a competitive glint entering her eyes. "Five? You killed an eldritch horror, and you want to stop at five measly skeletons? I'll race you to twenty."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Jiaola sat up, watching with a grin. "I'll bet you a wooden carving of your choice that Cienne gets there first," he said, nudging Sansen.

"You weren't there when Lucet froze half a hilltop solid," Sansen said, lounging on the cart. "I'll wager an embarrassing story about a kid of your choice that Lucet kicks his butt."

"I'm not much for bets, but whoever wins, I've got a half-eaten squirrel soul with your name on it!" Meloai chimed in.

"Great," I muttered. "I'm glad we're earning some real money soon, so that you guys can stop betting with the worst currencies ever."

"We?" Lucet gave me a teasing smile, and I realized with a start that she'd sent a pulse of love towards the nearest skeleton, inexorably dragging it towards her. "Seems like I'm the only one who's gotten to work."

I grinned back at her. "Yeah?" I called up a ball of disgust—easy enough, I just had to think back to the bone broth tradition—and flung it at her skeleton, hurling it backwards. "Sure would be a shame if something happened to all that hard work."

"Oh, you want to play dirty, huh?" Lucet's eyes twinkled. "I'm game." She spun up a cloud of fear, flicking it towards me to drench me in darkness—but I sliced a rift between worlds and sidled into the Plane of Insecurity, giving her a jaunty little wave as I sealed the rift once more.

The rolling hills were made of cardboard on this side, flimsy enough that merely standing on it buckled it inward. Thoughtspace was weird. It was predictable, though, and I was relying on it. I hopped over to where I last remembered one of the skeletons that were still buried, then dug down and clawed open a rift back into realspace. A wave of dirt poured through, followed by a skeleton—

"Gotcha!" Lucet stuck her tongue out at me from the other end of the rift, hope blazing over one eye as Sansen had taught her. Her futuresight must have given her an edge, because she yanked the skeleton towards her before I could react. I tumbled through the rift, chasing after her. The hill that had once held the skeleton was half-upturned, chunks of soil blown every which way by whatever spell Lucet had used to excavate it.

I eschewed magic for once, tackling Lucet with a laugh. She turned around, eyes wide with merriment as we collided, the skeleton clattering away as we rolled down the hill end-over-end. She poked my ribs, tickling me, and I burst out in giggles as we bounced to the bottom of the—

Thunk.

Something slammed into the back of my head, sending my nose crashing into Lucet's forehead, and I blinked stars out of my eyes as she jerked back. I reached out to feel my nose, wincing at the wetness and the pain, then held my fingers in front of my face. Bloody nose, huh. Didn't feel broken, though. So why was Lucet looking at me like...

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Lucet whispered, hands over her mouth. "Cienne. Cienne, are you okay?"

Oh.

I sat up, head still spinning, and blinked stars out of my eyes. "Yeah. Just a bloody nose," I tried to say. The words were a little thick, but I'd had worse.

Lucet got to her feet, shakily. "Maybe—maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I should... I shouldn't have let myself get carried away. I—"

"Hey. Hey. Look at me." I concentrated, and vines snaked out of my soul. Wrapping around my bloodied nose, regrowing the damage. Forgiveness. "I'm okay. It's okay."

She took in a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah. You're okay."

I wiped the blood off my face and stood. "C'mon. We've still got twenty skeletons to fish out of the mud."

Lucet nodded, and I saw a flash of that confidence spark back into her eyes. "Alright. Race you to the top of the hill?"

"Always."

We got to our feet, brushing the dirt off our clothes, and sprinted to our next destination.