The following day was festive. The air was crisp and cool and smelled of pine and sun-dried hay; the sky overhead arched a pellucid blue so bright my eyes watered to look on it. We were whole, we were all apparently magicians, and everything seemed possible to us. Even I was gladsome despite my realization that there remained some miasma in front of us, some wrongness in the land, and that we were riding toward it. I chose instead to embrace everyone’s pleasure, and my knowledge that somewhere behind us, Amhric was riding. How soon would he join us? What news would he bring? Good news, I hoped, or he would not be free.

Even Kelu was in a good mood, and took it out on Radburn with many a well-timed jibe.

We talked of what a risen human population would be like, with magic at every fingertip. We speculated on what we in particular would be capable of. We made jokes about the elven addition to the human government, and how that would play before an audience purportedly grateful for the gifts the elves would bring. “Give people power,” Guy said, “and they’ll forgive you a king.”

“Or call it something else,” Radburn said. “First Minister of Magic.”

Ivy offered, “President of Magical Allocation.”

“Magic Husbandry Expert,” Chester said, mouth quirking.

I shook my head, but allowed them their fun. And who knew? Perhaps they were right. Perhaps humanity would welcome the elder race if it came bearing such gifts.

It was only much later, during our break for lunch, that Seven came to me, ears drooped. The sight of her distress was so surprising that I reached for her at once, took both her tiny hands in mine. “What is it?” I asked.

“Emily was sad,” Seven said. “She couldn’t do magic, though she wants to be like Mistress Ivy. But Mistress Ivy has said they would find something else Emily could do, and that they’d find that way together.” She sighed. “She is kin, Master, but she has already become someone, and I remain no one. Just… a genet slave.”

“You are not just anything,” I said firmly. “Much less a slave.”

“I want a name,” she said. “But I can’t think of anything. If I had a name, maybe I could become something. But I’m afraid if I let you choose my name, Kelu will tell me I will have poisoned the outcome. Will I have?”

God, what a sorry mess. “No,” I said. “Not at all. I’d be honored to name you, Seven, and that name you can keep until you decide it no longer suits you. The way you have decided that Seven doesn’t suit you.”

“Seven isn’t a name,” she said, blushing.

“Neither is Kelu,” I said, “but you don’t see Kelu rushing to exchange her name for another, and hers is far fouler than yours.”

Seven’s ears pricked back up again. “That’s true.” She squared her shoulders. “Then… may I have a name, Master?”

“Yes. And I know just what I would call you, even.” I thought of her talent for finding things and said, “Serendipity.”

“Serendipity!” she exclaimed. “Doesn’t that mean… good luck?”

“Yes,” I said. “It means good things come to your hands without your intending it, and it’s what I wish for you.”

“I like that,” she said, shy. “But it’s a very long name.”

“You could shorten it,” I said. “Serry, maybe.”

“I could shorten it….” She licked her teeth slowly, as if tasting the words. “But… I think I like it long.” She nodded and looked up at me, turquoise eyes resolute. “I will keep it. Thank you, Master.”

“You’re welcome, Serendipity.”

In truth, it was something of a long name. But I hoped giving it to her would make her think of positive things when she thought of herself.

That evening, we all sat to the Vessel’s lessons, and afterwards Chester and I presented ourselves to Last for the armswork, ignoring the good-natured teasing we received about flaunting our endurance. This became our routine: we rode amid banter, had our magical education at the Vessel’s knee and then we parted ways to retire or bout as our consciences drove us. Neither Chester nor I begrudged the others the extra sleep, nor the ribbing. The weather remained beautiful, and we had become accustomed to the pace and the rations, and sleeping outside no longer seemed a hardship. I remember very little of the particulars of those halcyon days, but flashes, now and then: Ivy laughing. Chester helping me off the ground after a hard lesson. The calm of my companions’ faces as they breathed into the discipline of magic.

I could believe that things would be well. That I would be the good prince. That my powers would not corrupt me. How could I believe otherwise with such companions at my side? All around me, I found comfort. I too learned to moderate my breathing by drawing in contentment and letting out fear.

That was what I remembered best forever after of those days. Contentment.

We were two-thirds into our journey to Vigil on one of these breathlessly perfect days, with a cool wind like the breath of angels on our necks; the conversation that day was on the relative merits of governments with and without single heads of state. We’d just peregrinated into a tangent extrapolating a council composed entirely of genets and women when the wind fell away.

Was I the first to notice because I’d been listening more than talking? Or was it the worldsense that warned me? But the stippled skin that ran up my spine prickled all the way to my scalp. The knot of wrongness toward which we were riding seemed more present, and linked itself to something that made my entire body itch. I looked behind us and knew not why.

“Morgan?” Ivy said, glancing at me.

I held out a hand to still her, and everyone else trailed off. The Vessel had stopped and risen in her saddle, looking back. My hands clenched on the mane of the drake.

Into the silence came a vibration, tapping against skin.

“What the hell is that?” Guy asked.

The tapping became noise: like the rattle of hundreds of beads—

—no, bones.

Over the horizon came a flock of uncanny birds: the skeletons of hundreds of vultures. We knew them for the breadth of their wing arms, and for how they glided, like living vultures, coasting in eternal patience on thermals. The rattle was not the beat of those skeletal arms, but the sound of the wind shivering their hundreds of bones around them as they headed north.

Their shadows dappled the road, fleeting, sliding over us as they passed overhead… and then they were in front of us, receding, vanishing into the perfection of the autumn afternoon.

The silence held. And then the wind returned, soft as an apology between lovers.

“What… what was that?” Radburn asked the Vessel, shaken.

“The carrion eaters are returning home,” Rose replied. She had blanched beneath her dark skin, mouth pressed into a thin line. “We must go. Before it’s too late.”

I nodded and urged the drake onward, and we resumed the journey.

That night after our magical practice, Chester and I were not the only ones to report to Last, who watched the stragglers joining us with mute interest.

“And here are the dilettantes,” Chester said, folding his arms. “Come to play at men’s work.”

“Oh, come off it,” Radburn said. “Like you’re the only man with the right to follow Morgan off into the deep woods and disport yourself with swords.”

I held up a hand before anyone could run with that conversational gambit. “Do you have weapons?” I asked.

Eyre said, “We can cut staves.”

“And we have knives,” Guy said.

“Fat good that will do for you,” Chester began and then halted, staring past my shoulder. “Oh no. No, I will not be a party to this!”

“A party to what?” Radburn asked, irritated, and followed his gaze. “Oh, well, no. All yours, Morgan.”

I turned and found Ivy and Kelu standing there, resolute of purpose. The latter armed only with her teeth and wearing only her collar, and the former….

“My great-grandmother’s,” Ivy said, brushing at the high-waisted pants with their multiple buttons. “A bit out of fashion, but they fit. I thought I might need them, so I packed them.”

I should have made objection when presented with her obvious intention to join a fracas, but the sight of her struck the thoughts quite out of my mouth. Instead, what came out was: “Your great-grandmother’s trousers haven’t been worn threadbare? Given her eventful life, I would have assumed them to be patchwork by now….”

Her peal of laughter delighted me. “Oh, goodness. She went through them so quickly, Morgan, she was forever sewing new ones. These were some of the last she made.” She patted them with pride. “I am fine riding in skirts. But I can’t imagine learning to fight in them.”

“I can’t imagine you learning to fight,” Chester said. “Oh, Ivy! Be reasonable! These are creatures so strong even men will be whelmed by them. If something were to befall you….”

“I imagine something will befall me a lot more easily if I don’t know what to do with a knife!”

Chester said to Eyre, “Professor? Some help, please?”

“I have none to give, I fear,” Eyre said. “Our histories are replete with women warriors, Mister St. Clary, as well you should know given a proper education. You did take history, didn’t you?”

“Morgan, tell her,” Chester said. “It has nothing to do with her being a woman.”

“And everything to do with what?” Guy drawled.

Chester met my eyes and I sighed. I knew exactly what he was intimating, and he was right: the thought of Ivy with a sword in her hand was appalling, not because I thought her incapable of using one, but because the thought of her dying in battle harrowed my heart. But I was saved from deciding on this by the unexpected reprieve.

“I may teach the men,” Last said in Lit. “But the females I cannot.”

“I beg your pardon.” Ivy scowled at me. “You didn’t say your guard captain had some issue with women.”

“He doesn’t,” said a voice behind us. Our evening lessoning was becoming crowded, but I was grateful for the arrival of the Vessel. “He merely observes the irrefutable, which is that men and women use magic differently.”

“What has magic to do with holding a sword?” Ivy asked.

“Everything, when that sword is being wielded against the risen dead,” the priestess replied. “Come with me, and I will teach you how women fight against evil.”

“Does it have to do with sitting well behind the line of battle and wringing my hands?” Ivy’s voice dripped scorn; I hadn’t ever heard it thus, and wondered how deep to the quick her fear pierced to anger her at the loss of this opportunity.

“It has to do with commanding the dead to lie down by calling to their bones,” Rose said, her voice gone clipped and her eyes hard. “With healing those so wounded they would die. With making our bodies so inimical to evil our touch burns the unnatural armies raised by demonic might.” She lifted her brows. “Or is that somehow less power than waving a blade about?”

Startled, Ivy stared at her. Then she lifted her chin and said with admirable composure, “I would like to learn those things.”

“Then leave the tools to the men, who cannot do without them. I will teach you true power.” Rose held out a hand and Ivy glanced at me with a rueful smile before following.

“She makes us sound crippled,” Radburn muttered.

“We are, by her lights,” Last said, unperturbed. He looked at Kelu. “You are neither male nor female, magically.”

“I know,” Kelu said. “I’m one of those ‘tools’ everyone uses. But this tool has teeth, and I’d prefer to know how to use them if I need to.”

Last sighed. “There will not be much I can give you.”

“Then give me what you can.” She paused, ears flattening. “Um, please.”

My captain looked at his would-be pupils: a professor, three students, a bloodthirsty genet, and me. I could almost see the sigh he was suppressing. “My prince,” he said, “I will teach them if you tell me so. Though I will have to speak with the human captain about the guard duties. Shall I?”

“Positively feudal arrangement,” Guy said, shaking his head. “Tell him to do it, Morgan.”

“I will,” I said. “If you’ll divulge why you’ve changed your minds.”

“You know why we’re here,” Radburn murmured. I met his eyes.

“As long as you’re committed,” I said. “I get the feeling demons and unquiet dead are not impressed by half-hearted measures.”

“We’re committed,” Radburn said with feeling.

“Undead birds,” Guy said, shaking his head.

“Maybe we really will run into an angel, eh?” Chester said, and since that was a joke I was surprised when Guy replied.

“At the rate we’re going on, maybe we will.”

I sighed and said to Last, “Teach them.”

“Very well,” Last said. “Let us find them weapons.”

Last summoned two of his men and put them to work, one with Chester and one with the remainder. Me he kept to himself, though he left me to do drills on more than one occasion so he could watch his juniors at their instruction. It was Last who called the end of the session, in fact.

“Will they serve?” I asked after they’d trudged away.

Last rolled his shoulders. “Your teacher is better than either of the two youths—slower but more practiced, and magic can compensate for speed once he’s been taught the battlecant. Your friends have more enthusiasm than useful knowledge, but that can be remedied, particularly since they have dedicated themselves to learning. Your knight, of course, could best them all. You included.” He grinned. “But it’s not a sorry lot. Thankfully the priestess is teaching them the Angel’s Gift… that will make my work easier.”

“Because you’ll be able to explain the concepts to them better, in your own tongue?”

He glanced at me, perplexed. “I am not speaking of language, my prince. I meant the Angel’s Gift.” At my expression, he prompted, “The ability to call magic to heel and use it as one sees fit? That is the gift.”

“I thought… but wasn’t the Angel’s Gift literal?”

“Yes,” he said, bemused. “The gift of an angel to us. The ability to wield magic. One may use words for it, if one wishes. Most do, as a way of focusing the intention.”

And all this time I’d thought otherwise...what else was I missing or confusing in my ignorance? “I see. And Kelu?”

“Faster and more aggressive than any of your friends,” Last said. “One might mistake her for male, the way she fights. She would make a good guard candidate, if her bitterness could be assuaged. As it is….” He shrugged.

As it was, yes. “Thank you, Last,” I said.

“My prince,” he said. “I only hope it will be enough.”

Not words calculated to soothe my fears, but I preferred his candor all the same.

Ivy roused enough to murmur a greeting when I returned to my bedroll, though not enough to lift her head. I brushed the hair from her brow and said, “You are well with the lot you’ve been granted?”

Her cheek mounded, the only visible evidence of the smile she had hidden under her blanket. “S’good. Shortly I shall be more dangerous—” She paused for a yawn. “—than any of you.”

“Good,” I said, and slid down to join her. My friends slept around us, the genets, the Vessel. I could sense the knights and the elves maintaining the perimeter. We were come to terms at last with what we must become. Eyre was right: the story was falling into place. I suppressed my shiver and tugged the blanket over my shoulder.