Zed opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was early—too early, he could tell by the lack of light peeking from under his door—but his churning thoughts wouldn’t let him return to sleep.

Every time he closed his eyes he saw…terrible things. Ghastly blobs and grinning faces splitting in two. Fanged Dangers striking out at his friends, and the inhuman eyes of the very human-looking monster that Frond had crushed against the wards.

And Old Makiva’s tent, still smoldering in the market.

What had happened to the charm seller? Why had the monster who destroyed the focus been carrying one of her charms? None of it made any sense.

Zed gently pushed himself up into a seated position. Every part of his body ached, a dull but constant grumbling from muscles unused to the strains of these past few days.

He glanced at the book lying closed at his bedside. Bonds of Blood and Fire…Whatever Hexam had hoped Zed would learn from it, the truth was he could barely understand the rambling text. The rites within didn’t make any kind of sense.

Walk a path to its third crossroads, turn left and greet the stranger you meet there.

Watch the first star of evening from a north-facing window until you hear a dog’s howl, then open the door.

And so on.

A month ago if Zed had found this book on the street, he’d have tossed it right back. It seemed full of nonsense.

And yet…

As he lay alone in his bedroom the previous evening, there had been…something. A moment. He was reading an explanation of covens: gatherings where warlocks and witches discussed assorted fiendish topics. The book described a shadowed trail that carved itself slowly through the woods, guiding the witch to her coven like a knife slicing through leather.

Zed hadn’t felt himself falling asleep. He hadn’t even been particularly tired. But he dreamed that he himself was walking down that trail. He smelled the scent of the trees, and saw winking lights flitting between their trunks. Zed heard the creaks of the branches and the unnerving gekker of what he instinctively understood was a fox in the distance. He watched as the carpet of leaves parted before him, a trail drawing itself with every step he took.

Zed had felt a presence in the dream—like eyes watching him—and he knew that this presence was what waited at the end of the trail. With it came a new smell, spoiling the pristine scent of the woods.

Sulfur.

He woke a moment later, with Hexam’s book splayed over his chest, his hand clasped around the elven chain.

The strange dream had unnerved Zed, but somewhere deep down it also excited him. And that unnerved him even more.

Zed now tore his eyes away from the dark leather-bound cover. Enough of dreams. It was time to greet the morning.

He slipped out from his room and found the barracks hallway was still dim with predawn light. There was time, then, before they had to appear before king and council and admit that they had failed. That Zed had failed.

Zed crept to Brock’s door and opened it carefully, peering inside. His friend was fast asleep, splayed out on his bed still fully dressed.

Zed wished he could just unload his worries on Brock, like he had before they’d joined the Sea of Stars. Tell him about the nightmares, and the strange book, and his nagging worry that something was wrong in Freestone. Perhaps terribly wrong.

But Zed wasn’t the only one suffering. Brock had been through just as much these past few days, including the wrath of Frond herself.

Zed closed the door. He would let Brock sleep a while longer.

He padded silently down the corridor, exiting into the guildhall’s common room. He saw a figure standing rigid in the center of the hall, arm raised, and gasped aloud before he realized it was the petrified apprentice.

Zed shook his head and exhaled. The stone boy watched him with a frozen look of horror.

BOOM!

A loud thud sent Zed scrambling backward with a yelp. He scanned the dark room for its source.

After a moment a second BOOM! sounded, this time accompanied by a girl’s shout. Zed realized it was coming from the training yard.

He found Liza alone, her shield gleaming blue and pink in the early dawn. Her dark hair was matted against her olive skin.

“Do nobles not sleep?” Zed called out with a smile. “Is that what makes them so noble?”

Liza glanced at Zed and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Oh, Micah sleeps plenty.”

“What about you?”

Liza shrugged, letting the shield fall to her side. “Mother filled my days with etiquette lessons, but early mornings were always mine. Plus, I like the quiet. Practice dummies don’t make wisecracks.”

Zed glanced at the beleaguered dummy beside Liza. It was painted with a red target on its chest and a dripping frown on its face. Better him than Brock, Zed thought.

“Am I bothering you?” he asked.

Liza shook her head. She stuck her sword into the ground and rested a hand on her hip, looking for all the world like a younger version of Frond herself—not that Zed could truly imagine such a thing. “What about you?” she asked. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Everything hurts,” Zed admitted with a whine.

Liza smirked. “You’re out of shape. The ache goes away as you exercise more.”

“And what about the nightmares?” Zed had asked the question before he could stop himself. Liza’s smirk fell, and his ears began to burn.

“I don’t know,” Liza said gently. “But I hope so. Was it bad…in the shrine?”

“No worse than what came after. Or before.” Zed glanced up. The sun hadn’t yet scaled Freestone’s walls, but its light leaked over—the trickle before the flood. “If I hadn’t cast that spell, I’d be dead.”

Liza tilted her head thoughtfully. “Could you do it again, do you think?”

Zed shrugged. “Not sure.”

Liza’s face split into a grin. “Let’s make sure.” She lifted her shield arm, positioning the already scratched and dented emblem so it pointed right at Zed. “I’ll run at you. See if you can…what did Hexam call it?”

“Elf-step,” Zed said nervously.

“Right. See if you can elf-step out of the way.”

“Liza, I don’t know. What if I can’t do it?”

The girl’s eyes gleamed with a wild light. “Then you get hit,” she said cheerily.

“You and your brother are more alike than I realized,” Zed mumbled.

Liza didn’t answer. Instead, she dug her foot back, preparing to charge. Zed searched the yard, trying to remember how the magic had felt.

But suddenly Liza’s shape filled his line of sight. Shield held high, she rushed at him with a warrior’s scream.

Zed screamed, too, but less warlike. He cast his eyes to the practice dummy and wished desperately to be anywhere but in front of the girl barreling in his direction.

A puff, a pop, a twist of air.

Zed landed heavily against the dummy, then spun on one leg and went sprawling to the ground on his rump. The yard swiveled dizzily. All around him, silvery mist was already dissipating like morning fog. Zed looked up to find Liza watching him from a dozen feet away, grinning madly, as a cloud of the same mist evaporated from where he’d been standing a moment before.

“You did it,” she said with a laugh. “Zed, you’re a mage!”

The two sat together in the yard, enjoying what was left of the morning. After the first bell struck, Zed heard the sounds of people rousing from within the guildhall. His stomach growled. He hoped there would be time for breakfast before they visited the king.

Beside him, Liza was unbuckling the shield from her arm. “Are you angry with Frond?” she asked almost absently. Almost. “For sending you into the shrine? Or for drafting you in the first place?”

Zed thought about it a moment, staring up into the blooming dawn. The sky was the color of the timber lots in spring, when Freestone’s tracts of lumber and fruit trees blossomed into soft clouds of pink and white.

Was he mad? He certainly had been when this all started. His eyes left the lightening sky, falling back into the shadowed courtyard. “You know, the funny thing is, I’m not. Even after everything that’s happened to us…to Jett.” He swallowed. “Do you remember when Frond told the king she thought something was going on?”

Liza’s face became serious. “You believe her.” She spoke softly.

“The things that attacked us looked human. And the one in the shrine had Makiva’s charm,” Zed said.

“It could have found it somewhere,” Liza countered. “No doubt other adventurers have bought charms from Old Makiva. Maybe someone lost it, or died with it outside the wall.”

Zed shook his head. “But then her tent mysteriously burns down on the same day? It’s too much of a coincidence.”

Liza nodded, standing with a grunt. “I agree. I’ve been thinking about it all morning. You said this…Creeper had been sent to sabotage us, right? Why now? The focus has been there for hundreds of years.”

Zed remembered the creature’s taunting voice as it called down from the ruined temple. It said it had been ordered to kill anyone who came for the stone. “It knew we were coming for it,” Zed said with a frown. “So whoever commanded it must have known that our focus was failing.”

“Exactly,” Liza said, pacing back and forth. “So unless there’s someone living outside the walls—sewing leather pants and sniffing the wards for weaknesses—the saboteur is working from inside Freestone.” She paused and turned to Zed. “Actually, is that possible?”

He sighed. “I’d be willing to believe anything at this point, unless Fife said it. But it just seems unlikely that someone beyond the city would know exactly where to find the replacement crystal, so they could destroy it right when we needed it.” Zed frowned. “Makiva’s the most likely suspect. But why would she want the wards to fail?” he asked. “Why would anyone? It doesn’t make sense.”

Liza paused and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, looking down at him. “If the wards fall, then all of Freestone falls. The walls wouldn’t protect us forever on their own. Fie, a single dragon could probably take down this whole city. I can’t think of why anyone would want that. But there’s one thing I do know…Frond was right. Something weird is going on.”

Zed nodded slowly. “Frond was right,” he repeated.

“Tell me I’m still asleep and this is just a nightmare.” Brock’s voice cut through the yard. Zed turned and saw his friend padding through the open doorway, his short hair a disheveled mess. “Those are not the words I wanted to hear first thing in the morning.”

“Is it still morning?” Liza said breezily, tossing her shield to the side.

Brock opened his mouth to respond, but bit it back. He glanced at his feet. “Uh, listen, you guys might want to come inside. Especially you, Liza. Someone’s just arrived.”

“Someone?” Zed asked.

Brock let out a long, slow exhale. “It’s probably better that you see for yourselves,” he said. “Don’t want anyone pummeling the messenger.” His eyes flicked up nervously to Liza, then back down to his feet.

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Liza grumbled, striding forward.

The guildhall was still quiet when they entered, but Zed was surprised to find it was actually full of people. Pockets of guild members stood together, gawking at the entrance door and snickering among themselves. Zed couldn’t see much over their heads.

They found Jett near the back, carefully laid out on what must have been the guildhall’s most undamaged chair. The sight of the dwarf out of bed nearly took the breath from Zed. His bitten leg was carefully wrapped in rolls of linen, and the boy looked thinner than Zed had ever seen him, but he was smiling with the rest of the guild, shaking his head at whatever was going on.

When Jett caught sight of the three, though, his smile dropped fast.

“I can’t believe you’re up already!” Zed gushed, springing to Jett’s side. It was all he could do to restrain himself from grabbing him up out of the chair for a gigantic hug.

“Dwarven constitution,” said Jett, puffing his chest a little. “Also, dwarven boredom. Hank set me up here, but don’t tell Frond. I’m not technically supposed to be out of bed until…well, not yet.”

“What’s happening?” Liza whispered, tilting her head toward the front of the room.

“Lotte’s talking with a visitor,” Jett mumbled, suddenly shy. His face pinkened a shade. “A recruit.”

“Who?” asked Liza.

Jett’s face reddened even further. Unable or unwilling to answer, he just pointed toward the door with his thumb and looked away.

Liza, Zed, and Brock wormed through the crowd, peering between bodies to get a better look. Zed spotted Jayna standing alone in a far corner, but when he raised his eyebrows questioningly, the girl simply ignored him. Then he heard Lotte’s clear voice rise above the whispers.

“And why should we take you, then?” the quartermaster asked wryly.

“Because you have to!” demanded a familiar voice. “That’s your deal, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Fie,” Liza cursed, just as a clump of journeywomen parted to reveal Micah, formerly of the Guerras, standing in the open doorway. He was carrying nothing and wearing the shabbiest set of Golden Way robes Zed had ever seen. They were faded and threadbare, the once-vibrant sunburst blanched from gold to beige.

The former noble’s hair had been shorn since Zed had last seen him, cropped close to the skull. His face was dirty—had he been sleeping outside? Despite it all, though, he was still as handsome and arrogant as ever, and the full force of that aristocratic gaze was now leveled at Lotte.

To the quartermaster’s credit, she didn’t seem ruffled.

The woman shrugged. “We certainly can take anyone. Whether we have to is another matter.”

Micah’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t play games with me, you fey-brained dolt. I know the laws of this city.”

Lotte just smirked. “‘Fey-brained,’ is it? Perhaps my mind has gone to Fey. Tell me again why the Healers Guild would relinquish such a promising young novice into the streets?”

“That hag Brenner has it out for me!” Micah barked. “I didn’t even do anything.”

“Ah, perhaps that was the problem, then,” Lotte said, clapping her hands. “Most guilds expect you to do a thing or two.”

Micah’s eyes burned. Zed saw desperation creeping in behind the boy’s bluster. It was the same look he’d had at the Guildculling, when he’d begged Ser Brent in front of practically the whole city. Zed had never heard of a guildless noble before, but then he’d never heard of anyone getting kicked out of the kind and tolerant Healers Guild. There was more to Micah’s expulsion than he was saying.

Micah searched the faces of the assembled guild. Zed steeled himself as the boy’s gaze passed over him, but it didn’t linger long. Micah soon caught sight of his sister, and his face brightened with recognition.

“Liza!” He practically shouted the name. “Tell this idiot the Adventurers Guild has to accept me!”

Every eye in the guildhall turned to Liza. The girl’s cheeks flushed and she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, Micah,” she sighed. “What have you done now?”

“Nothing!” Micah insisted. “I was just walking around after curfew. Two nights ago I ran into Brenner and some guildless guy who came in for healing, and I said he stunk—which was true.”

“Ah, then that must be irony I smell wafting up from your robes,” Lotte cracked.

A door crashed open above them. Frond stood at the top of a stairway leading up to the guildmistress’s private chambers, buckling her glove. She took a long, stony look at the proceedings.

“What’s this?” she asked, her eyes landing on Lotte.

The quartermaster’s smirk was gone. She nodded toward Micah. “This one’s newly guildless, dropped by the Golden Way.”

Frond studied the visitor, no doubt also remembering the events of the Guildculling. Micah’s face would be a hard one to forget. “Can he heal?” she asked.

Lotte snorted and shook her head. “He’s been a novice for less than—”

“I can heal!” Micah spoke over her, staring imploringly up at Frond. “I healed a bird on my second day—Sister Maeve said I was a natural at tapping into my anima.”

“And yet here he is, guildless at our doorstep,” Lotte marveled. “The most talented young bird healer that the Golden Way has ever seen.”

Frond finished buckling her glove and crossed her arms. She glared down at Micah for a moment.

“He’s in,” she said finally. “Set him to work with Hank, and see that he does whatever healers have to do to get their power. Meditation, starvation, flagellation—I don’t care. Within a moon, I want him healing more than pigeons.”

Micah let out a celebratory howl that had most of the guild hooting and cackling after him.

“We’re out of apprentice quarters,” Lotte said officiously, calling over the laughter. She pointedly ignored the smug face Micah was making right beside her. “He’ll need to double up until one opens.”

Zed was already sinking into the crowd when Frond said, “Give him a cot and put him with Zed.”

She began walking briskly down the stairs. “In the meantime, I’ll need Hexam, Zed, Liza, Brock, Syd, and Fife. Get dressed fast, people. We’re leaving for the castle before second bell.”

Zed held the copy of Bonds of Blood and Fire to his chest, frowning over his already cramped room.

Where could he possibly hide the book from Micah?

Hexam had said that members of the Adventurers Guild had freedoms that others didn’t, but he didn’t exactly say that witchcraft was permitted. And somehow Zed doubted Micah would be very understanding if he discovered his elf-blooded roommate was squirreling away forbidden tomes.

Zed thought about hiding it under his mattress again, but decided that was too obvious. For all he knew, the first thing Micah would do was snoop around.

Eventually he wrapped the book inside a clean bit of linen, then placed the bundle under his dirty laundry. If there was anywhere Micah was likely to avoid, this would be it.

When Zed was satisfied that the book was as safe as he could make it, he pulled open the drawer to his bedside table, where his small collection of keepsakes blinked up at him: the wooden fox on the silvery chain and his Adventurers Guild token. He scooped up the chain, fastening it around his neck and tucking the charm underneath his shirt—better to keep it on him for now—then glanced down at the remaining token.

Scuffed and dull, the Adventurers Guild coin looked pretty drab. The blue and white paint depicting the Sea of Stars emblem had faded long before Zed ever held the thing. His mind flashed briefly to the pristine token he’d been forced to return to the mages when he was drafted, still literally glowing with promise.

Zed closed the drawer and left the room.

He paused in the hall. A pair of hushed voices crested and fell in quiet conversation. They weren’t whispering, exactly, but the low tones indicated a private conversation.

He started down the corridor toward the barracks’ exit. The others would be waiting—and besides, his mother had taught him better than to eavesdrop.

“You shouldn’t be out there.” Frond’s voice cut through the hall.

Zed snapped around, an apology already on his lips, when the guildmistress spoke again.

“You aren’t well enough, Jett. With what’s to come…your body needs rest.”

Zed realized the voice was coming from Jett’s room. Frond’s tone held a softness that Zed had never heard the woman produce. She didn’t sound angry or scolding. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that she sounded worried.

“It was only the main hall,” Jett grumbled. “Hardly a dangerous journey. Yesterday you took the others out past the wards.”

A long moment of silence passed between the two.

“Once I return, I’ll have Hank look you over,” Frond said coolly. “In the meantime, stay in bed. That’s an order, Jett.”

The door creaked as Frond moved to depart. Zed nearly scrambled away, but Jett’s voice brought him up short.

“An order?”

The dwarf’s usually sturdy voice cracked with naked despair. In all the time Zed had known Jett, he’d never once heard the boy so much as whimper or whine.

“Why am I even still here?” Jett continued. “I’m no use to the guild anymore. I’m broken.”

The last word echoed through the hall like shattering glass. Zed’s shoulders slumped and his arms went limp.

Jett. All that confidence and optimism. All the dwarven bluster. Was this what he’d really been feeling this whole time?

Zed saw Frond’s shadow pause at the door. He heard the shift and scuffle of boots as she turned around.

“Jett, I don’t ever want to hear you say anything like that again.”

The boy’s voice broke into a sob. “It’s true! Just send me to the Golden Way and give my room to Micah. At least then it can go to someone useful—someone who’s whole!”

Frond’s shadow disappeared from the door. A moment later, Zed heard Jett’s bed creak as the guildmistress sat down.

When she spoke, her voice was gentler than Zed had ever imagined it could be.

“I’m going to tell you something, dwarfson,” Frond said. “Something my guildmaster told me when I was first drafted into this infernal guild. The truth is, not a single member of the Sea of Stars is whole. And I’m not talking about our injuries. Or our scars. These…” Frond paused and let out a husky sigh. “These are nothing.

“Every one of us,” she continued. “Liza, Brock, Zed, me, and you—we are all just small points of light, burning desperately against the darkness that surrounds this city. Separately, none of us could ever hope to survive that much darkness for long. But together…together those points of light can become something more. Something truly whole. A handful of stars working together can make a constellation to guide the lost. A skyful could illuminate the world.”

The bed groaned as Frond rose again. “You acted to protect your friend and fellow guild member,” she said kindly. “You did it without hesitation, and may very well have saved his life. Nothing is broken in you, Jett. You are the heart of this guild, and I have never been more proud to call someone my apprentice.”

The door creaked open as Frond exited Jett’s room. She closed it gently, muffling the sounds of the dwarf’s quiet weeping. Frond turned and her eyes found Zed’s, which were wet with tears of his own.

She passed by him without a word, but as she did the guildmistress rested a hand on Zed’s shoulder and gave it a single squeeze. Then she strode briskly into the main hall.