The light outside Sepha’s window was still dim and bluish when someone pounded on her door the next morning. She wrenched open her eyes, half in a panic, and stumbled to the door. “What?” she croaked through the door.

“Get dressed,” came Destry’s voice. “We’re going to the proving grounds.”

Sepha blinked. Her eyelids were heavy, and she had a dull headache around the base of her skull. “Why?”

“Because you need to learn to defend yourself,” Destry said, and Sepha could practically hear her crossing her arms. “And now is the best time of day to exercise. Get dressed. I’ll wait.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

Sepha shook her head and immediately regretted it as the pain in her head redoubled. She felt strange, sort of stretched, as if during the night her mind had tried to be in two places at once and had ended up being everywhere instead.

With a huff, Sepha shuffled to the dresser and pulled out her clothes. She shrugged into them, pulled on her boots, and opened the door.

“Ready?” Destry asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Sepha grunted, and Destry smirked.

They’d already walked down two flights of stairs before Sepha remembered she ought to be angry at Destry. “Why didn’t you tell me who you are?” she asked, cutting a sharp look at the blond woman beside her.

Destry smiled, not the least bit apologetic. “I like to get the measure of people before I tell them. And they usually treat me differently after I do,” she added with a grimace.

“I won’t,” Sepha said.

“I’d expect nothing less.”

By the time they reached the courtyard, Sepha was awake enough to notice Destry’s eyelids were puffy, her blue eyes rimmed with pink. “Did you sleep at all?” she asked, concerned.

Destry blinked, seeming surprised that Sepha would notice anything about her, and said, “I’ve been quite busy since we got back. As it turns out, our train wasn’t the only one that’s been attacked. A freight train was blown up, over in the southeast. The Detenian rebels must be acting up again. No word of a magician leading that attack, though. At least we can be grateful for that.”

Detenia took up the eastern third of the island of Tirenia. A few centuries ago, it had been its own country; but Tirenia had annexed it in a quick, devastating war, and now it was only a province. Every few years, the Detenians would muster into ill-fated, short-lived rebellions. They were bloody affairs, but Sepha had always been grateful for them. Without Detenia’s rebels, Tirenia’s army would have no need for tanks and guns. Without Detenia’s rebels, Tirenia would have no need for Three Mills.

“What happens next?” Sepha asked as she and Destry skirted the far edge of the mess hall, where a series of archways framed the path to the combat proving grounds. Surrounded by high stone walls, the stone-paved proving grounds only had two accesses: the one through which they were walking, and a doorway that led directly into the clinic.

Which might be a bad sign.

“I’ll dispatch some Military Alchemists,” Destry said. “They’ll find the rebels, deal with them, and report back with information.”

Sepha started at Destry’s nonchalant tone. She’d said, “Deal with them,” but she’d undoubtedly meant, “Kill them.” Would Destry sound so calm ordering the Military Alchemists to deal with Sepha once she found out what Sepha had done? Or rather, what Sepha hadn’t done?

Maybe. Probably. All the more reason to keep her mouth shut.

Sepha followed Destry to the far corner of the proving grounds, where a large transformation alchem was etched into a stone slab. The morning was cool and dim, and the Institute was quiet. Outside the Institute’s walls and a hundred yards below, the ocean’s waves crashed against the base of the cliff.

“All right,” Destry said, striding past a stack of ingots and a line of wooden staves along the wall. She stopped near the transformation alchem and said, “We train under the assumption that you won’t always be armed, but you will always be carrying metal. Every weapon we train with is something that can be made in one go, with one alchem. You can learn to shoot a gun anywhere. The Institute is where you learn to duel.

“For today, we’ll start with the basics: self-defense, no weapons,” she said, squaring up to Sepha. “We can work up to the weapons later.”

Sepha nodded, winced at the throbbing pain in her head, and walked over to Destry. She listened closely as Destry told her how to position her feet, bend her legs, and hold her arms. She tried not to think about Father and what he would’ve done if she’d ever tried to defend herself.

“All right,” Destry said, returning to her own starting position. “I’m going to attack you. Try to block me.”

“All right,” Sepha said, and the words came out thick and quiet.

There was a breath.

Then Destry moved, liquid and lightning and danger, and Destry’s gloved hand—or was it Father’s—was swinging toward her. Sepha’s eyes widened as her mind flickered between there and here, then and now, and something greater than panic spiked through her.

She froze.

And so did Destry’s hand, a hair’s breadth from Sepha’s face.

There was an empty moment, then Destry flicked Sepha’s nose. “Why did you freeze?” she asked, straightening and stepping away.

Sepha let her hands drop to her side. There was nothing inside her mind, not even that howling panic. Just a windblown emptiness, a profound smallness. Gods, her head ached. “I just,” she began, and stopped.

Destry frowned at Sepha, then comprehension blazed in her blue eyes. “Is it because of your father?”

Sepha nodded. Destry’s eyes narrowed.

“You couldn’t fight back,” Destry guessed again, and Sepha shook her head.

Something between anger and pity rippled across Destry’s face. Sepha had seen that look before, at the mill when she’d been unable to hide the bruises, and she hated it. Hated it as much as Father, or more.

Humiliation and anger blazed through Sepha, fast and hot. “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t,” she said, lifting a single finger. “And don’t you dare go easy on me.”

She met Destry’s gaze. A grin spread across Destry’s face. “Well, at least you’ll make friends with the medics,” she said.

Then they fought.

Thirty minutes later, Sepha was sweaty and sore, and had become well acquainted with the proving grounds’ paving stones. She was fairly certain she’d added impressive new bruises to the dozen faded ones.

But they were bruises she’d chosen. They were bruises she’d earned. They were bruises that would keep her from ever being hurt again.

Sepha rolled her shoulders, listening to Destry list the reasons why she’d been able to land that most recent hit. Her headache was getting worse—the sparring surely hadn’t helped—and that stretched feeling hadn’t gone away. Destry finished her explanation, and they both sank into a low starting stance.

Then Sepha felt a lurch behind her ribs, as if something had fastened a tether to her bones. Then a tug, as if something was on the other end, reeling in the line as it approached.

The contract flickered, and it felt like a cackle.

A flurry of movement, and Destry swept Sepha’s leg out from under her. Sepha fell hard onto her back, and the air escaped her lungs in a whoosh. Distantly, she heard Destry’s voice, saw Destry’s outstretched hand waiting to help her up.

But her mind, through that stretched and tethered feeling, was focused on the something, which was now approaching. Fast.

She let Destry help her up and took an uncertain step toward the proving grounds’ entrance.

Something was coming. Something was very close. Something was—

Here.

Ruhen sprinted into the proving grounds, feet bare, dark curls disheveled, and only skidded to a stop when there was a clunking sound of metal on stone. As one, Ruhen and Sepha jerked their heads to look at Destry, who’d grabbed an ingot from the stack by the wall and thrown it into the transformation alchem. Her hands were already just so, and she was glaring at Ruhen, watching, waiting.

As if she thought Ruhen was going to attack. As if those hours on the train, that hard-earned familiarity, had never happened. And she hadn’t hesitated for even a fraction of a second.

Panting, Ruhen raised his hands and took a few steps backward. After a tense moment, Destry eased her hands away from the alchem’s edge.

Sepha took a shaky breath, and the moment broke.

Ruhen shifted his eyes from Destry to Sepha and dropped his hands. He scanned her with one sweeping look, as if making sure she was all there.

It was as if—

It was as if he’d somehow felt that same tethered feeling and had come running. Just as she’d felt it and had known he was on his way.

Ruhen opened his mouth, probably to ask her the same question she was asking herself in a panicked refrain. But then he seemed to change his mind. Still out of breath from his sprint, Ruhen closed his mouth and braced both hands on top of his head. He took a deep breath. “Sorry for interrupting. I was just …” he sucked in another breath, “going for a morning run.”

Sepha blinked. He’d said it so convincingly that she could almost believe she’d imagined the whole thing.

“Barefoot?” Destry asked. She was still kneeling beside the alchem, but her gloved hands were resting on her legs.

Ruhen shrugged. Took another deep breath. “Works out different muscles.” He pivoted on the spot, looking around the proving grounds. “Didn’t know this was a dead end.”

His eyes flicked to Sepha, and he took a few steps toward her.

Somewhere in a new space that was carving itself into her mind, she felt him come closer, felt the tether between them cinch tighter, so as not to leave any slack in the line.

She hadn’t imagined a damned thing. The godsdamned magician and his horrible contract were up to a new trick, and she had not signed up for this. More importantly, Ruhen hadn’t signed up for this. If he was feeling what she was feeling—if he really had a sense of her, like he seemed to—then what in Darkest After would she say if he asked her about it?

He looked halfway as if he was going to ask her something right now. Which she could not allow.

“Destry was teaching me self-defense,” Sepha said, throwing out a distraction. “That’s why we’re out here.”

“Oh,” Ruhen said. There was a pause as he worked through what she’d said and found it to be unhelpful. “That’s a good idea. Would you mind if I …” he hesitated and looked at Destry to gauge her reaction before going on “… joined you?”

Sepha shook her head and waited for the pain at the base of her skull to punish her for it. But it didn’t. Her headache had gone, and the stretched feeling too.

Destry sighed. “I’m teaching Sepha, but you can follow along if you want to stay. Just—no distractions, please.” She looked at Sepha. “You’re still freezing up, Sepha. I know that’s what you used to—” She stopped and shot a look at Ruhen, who’d drifted to Sepha’s side, then went on, “—that’s been your habit, when faced with a … situation. But you can’t freeze. In a real emergency, that’s time you can’t recover from.”

To Sepha’s relief, neither Destry nor Ruhen wore that terrible pitying face. Destry was studying her, business-like and serious, and Ruhen’s mouth was twisted into a tight half-smile.

“I know,” Sepha said, frowning at the ground. “I guess I’m still adjusting to the fact that I got away.”

She wasn’t brave enough to finish the sentence—from Father—but Ruhen and Destry seemed to understand anyway.

“But you did get away,” Ruhen said.

“And you never have to go back.” There was something sharp about Destry’s grin when she went on, “You’re with the Court Alchemists now.”

Sepha’s smile fell flat at the onrush of happiness and belonging and guilt and fear.

 

 

 

 

After breakfast, Sepha found herself in a large study room with Destry, Ruhen, Henric, and Fio. That tethered feeling had continued all morning, and she could tell from Ruhen’s anxious fidgeting that he still felt it, too.

And she still had no idea what to say to him.

So she’d insisted that Destry and Henric accompany them to the library so that they wouldn’t be alone together.

Right now, Ruhen was sitting across from her, staring down at his book, but Sepha didn’t think he was reading it. He was too tense, too tightly hunched over the page, and Sepha knew why.

This connection was obviously magic. Considering all of the strangeness surrounding Sepha, Ruhen was probably wondering if she was a magician. He might even be weighing the consequences of accusing her. Whether she might attack him, if he did. Whether he was a skilled enough alchemist to defend himself, if she did.

It was better this way. If Ruhen was afraid or suspicious of her, then he wouldn’t—well, he wouldn’t have feelings for her.

As if that were a possibility, scoffed the snide voice.

Sepha leaned back in her chair and felt the tether unspool as she moved. Guilt, hot and nauseating, surged through her. Then, a moment later, fear. If the contract could force a connection like this, then it could easily force a physical connection. Which she’d already known in an abstract sort of way, but things were suddenly feeling much less abstract and much more real.

Sepha shuddered and glared at the sea of letters churning on the open page before her.

The clocks—literal, biological, contractual—were ticking.

She would not be paralyzed by fear. She would figure everything out in time. She would!

Ignoring the others, Sepha bent over the book and located, with difficulty, the place where she’d left off yesterday. The letters jumped and squirmed no matter how closely she looked at them, no matter how fiercely she frowned at the page.

At last, she resorted to the only thing that had ever worked. With two fingers, she blocked off everything but the word she was trying to read, isolating the letters so they could only scurry so far.

“The,” she mouthed to herself as she decrypted the first word. “The. The.”

She slid her fingers to the right. “Most,” she breathed. “Most. Most. The most. The most.”

Slid. Next word. “Common. Common. The most common.”

Henric cleared his throat, and Sepha jerked her head up. He was smirking at her as if he’d never met anyone so amusing. “Did you never go to school?”

Sepha’s cheeks went hot. “What?”

Through the tethered connection, she felt Ruhen sit forward in his chair, squaring himself to face Henric.

“Do you not know how to read?” Henric asked, enunciating each word as if she were deaf as well as stupid.

“Henric!” Destry reprimanded.

Sepha glared at Henric. “I went to school until I was twelve. Then my father pulled me out because I have word blindness, and he didn’t see the point of keeping me in school when I could work at the mill instead.”

There was a brief silence. Sepha could feel Ruhen and Destry staring at her, but she kept her eyes locked on Henric’s face, daring him to ask any more stupid questions.

Henric paled. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, I didn’t realize.” He fiddled with the papers in front of him. “I hope you don’t think—I’m sorry. I mean, I wouldn’t’ve—”

“That’s why you can’t draw alchems,” Destry said, interrupting Henric’s stumbling retreat.

Sepha nodded. “I think so.”

Destry tipped her head at Sepha, studying her as if this new piece of information had changed her appearance. “That makes sense,” Destry said at last. “You aren’t stupid—anyone with a brain could see that. I was wondering why someone with your talent had to trace her alchems.”

Unused to compliments, Sepha only shrugged and looked away. She caught a brief glimpse of Ruhen’s face, which had gone contemplative. Perfect.

Casting about for a way to change the subject, Sepha grabbed a pamphlet from the stack in the middle of the table. “What are these?”

Destry took one and grimaced. “Look at this, Henric,” she said. “Aunt Isolde must be recruiting again.”

Henric grinned and took a pamphlet, too. “Ah, Aunt Isolde,” he said. “So strange. So terrifying.”

“Is this the aunt who runs the Spirit Alchemists?” Sepha asked.

“Yes,” Destry said, flipping through the pamphlet. “The Sanctuary is far south of here, at the southern point of the Bourdanne mountains. No one lives nearby, and hardly anyone has even heard of them. The only way Aunt Isolde can get anyone to go there is through these pamphlets.”

“These actually work?” Ruhen asked, riffling through one.

Destry shrugged. “She has alchemists, so they must.”

“Listen to this,” Henric said, reading a page.

 

“Spirit Alchemists are concerned not with matters of flesh and bone, but with matters of the spirit. We seek to purify the very soul of man—taking from his soul any defects and exchanging them for something far purer and more preferable.”

 

Henric cackled, and his eyes darted to Sepha’s face, as if he’d hoped to make her laugh.

“Well, that sounds sort of nice,” Sepha said. Henric’s smile wilted.

“It does,” Destry said, “and that’s the strange part. Aunt Isolde, as far as I know, is anything but nice. She and my mother are identical twins, you know, and Aunt Isolde raised a dispute a while ago. She got quite a following. She said there was no way to prove Mother had been born first, even though all of the documentation showed …” Destry rolled her eyes and waved her hands. “It’s neither here nor there. The short of it is that Mother, to appease Aunt Isolde, gave her a chunk of land out south, and that’s where she founded the Spirit Alchemists. That land is technically a sovereign nation, although they rely on supplies from us to survive.”

“Mother isn’t allowed there,” Henric said, grinning. “If she goes, or if any Military Alchemists go, it’s an act of war. Not that Aunt Isolde could fight back, but it would be embarrassing, at the very least. But Destry and I are allowed. Aunt Isolde likes us.”

“What happens when Destry becomes Magistrate?” Sepha asked.

“I suppose I won’t be allowed then, either,” Destry said with a shrug. “Which would bother me if there were any incentive to go. Which there isn’t.”

“Another one!” Henric said, staring at the pamphlet with a gleeful smile on his face.

 

“The layperson commonly associates death with the moment the immortal soul reaches the After. This works well enough for the layperson, but is not a precise enough definition for a Spirit Alchemist. We define death as the moment the immortal soul leaves its vessel. Spirit Alchemists must take this into consideration when exchanging the soul’s defects for preferable traits: if too much of the soul is exchanged at one time, death may occur.”

 

“Hokum,” Destry said, shaking her head.

“Wait,” Ruhen said. “They actually try Spirit Alchemy on living people? This isn’t just theoretical?”

“Yes,” Destry said. “But only on serial criminals. Mother sends her the worst ones from our prisons.” She paused. “Now that I think of it, I’m not sure how many of them have ever come back. I never thought to ask. The Spirit Alchemists have always been something of a joke at home. Hmm. I’ll have to find out.”

The light streaming through the room’s small window dimmed as a cloud passed in front of the sun, and Sepha shivered. The things Henric read had clanged unpleasantly in a corner of her mind, but she couldn’t place why.

Ruhen seemed to feel uncomfortable too, and said, “It’s a little dark in here.”

“No, it isn’t,” Henric snapped, at the same moment that Sepha said, “Yes, I suppose it is.”

Still eager to placate Sepha, Henric said, “You’re right, Sepha. Homunculus, turn on the light.”

Sepha looked over at Fio, who’d taken a seat near the door. Fio’s eyes flicked to hers, as if he was unsure what to do, and Sepha said, “Go ahead, Fio. Thanks.”

Fio obeyed, sliding off the chair and striding to the push-button that controlled the lights. With one jam, the electric bulbs lit up behind their sconces.

Vaguely unsettled, Sepha turned back to her book.

“That was rude, Henric,” Destry chided. “That’s not your homunculus.”

“Well, it was just sitting there,” Henric said, glaring at Destry. “Why shouldn’t I tell it what to do?”

Sepha felt surge of annoyance and was about to snap “He’s not an it!” when Ruhen said, “Where’s your homunculus?”

Henric’s eyes flashed, and he twisted his lips to one side before saying, sullenly, “I don’t know.”

Sepha raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know?”

Henric heaved an irritated sigh. “I lost mine, all right?”

“You lost three,” Destry corrected, a disapproving frown etched onto her face. “After the third one, Mother forbade him from getting another homunculus.”

Sepha risked a peek at Ruhen. From his small smile, she could tell this was more than he’d hoped for.

“How do you lose three homunculi?” he asked, sounding scandalized.

“How do you lose anything?” Henric asked, sounding persecuted. “One moment they were there, the next moment they weren’t. And you could’ve given me yours, Destry, instead of refusing to accept one.”

“You don’t have a homunculus either?” Sepha asked, raising her eyebrows at Destry.

“No,” Destry said, tugging at the wrist of her glove. “I find them … unnecessary.”

“Well, I don’t,” Henric said, tapping his fingers against the table. “And if I have to be a Court Alchemist, as Mother insists, then it’s only fair for me to have a homunculus. Yet here I am, homunculus-less.” He shook his head, leaned back in his seat, and muttered, “You can’t become Magistrate soon enough, Destry.”

“Hush,” Destry said.

“Why does she need to become Magistrate?” Sepha asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“The sooner she becomes Magistrate, the sooner I can give up this Guild and Military nonsense. Then I can be nothing and no one, and never open a book again.”

“But doesn’t your mother have to die before Destry becomes Magistrate?” Ruhen asked.

Henric smirked. “Astute, Ruhen. Truly, that’s more than I expected from you. Anyway, long live Destry, the next Magistrate.”

“Henric!” Destry was glaring now, her hands pressed flat against the table. “If anyone heard you say that—”

“I know, I know,” Henric said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.

Sepha studied Henric as he flipped through the stack of loose papers in front of him. He wished his own mother dead, had said as much out loud, unabashed. He wished his mother dead, but she was alive. And Sepha’s mother—

Sepha stood and tucked her book under her arm. “I’m going to study somewhere else,” she said. Her voice shook. “That way I won’t distract you all with my loud reading. See you later.”

Without waiting for them to speak, she strode off across the library, Fio in tow. Destry hissed something at Henric, who grumbled in response.

The tether stretched and shortened, and Ruhen caught up with her.

“Can I study with you?”

It was a request, but it wasn’t. Sepha would’ve avoided Ruhen for a hundred years rather than have the conversation they needed to have, but it appeared he wasn’t willing to do the same.

“Sure,” Sepha said, not looking at him. Godsdamned Henric and his selfishness, ruining things. If Henric had just kept his mouth shut, then she could’ve put this conversation off for longer. Long enough to plan her lie, at least.

Sepha found an empty study room, jammed her thumb onto the push-button to turn on the lights, and slumped into a seat. Fio sat in the chair farthest from her with a look that was only a shade away from annoyance. If Fio had been a person with feelings, then she’d have thought he was angry with her for letting Henric tell him what to do. But Fio wasn’t a person with feelings. He was a homunculus. A thing, living.

Ruhen shut the study room door and sat opposite Sepha, where he’d have a view not just of Sepha but also of the library behind her. Preparing for a private conversation. Gods damn it all.

Hoping that he would wait for her to speak first, Sepha opened her book to a random page and stared down at it. The letters swam and swirled, meaningless. Mocking.

“Are you all right?”

Damn Ruhen and his need to communicate.

“Yes,” she said. “No.” She scowled. “Henric.”

Ruhen’s voice was hesitant. “But that’s not all, is it?”

He thought he was being smart. Trying to goad her into broaching the subject herself. Well, she was smart, too.

“My arms hurt from sparring with Destry.”

Ruhen clicked his tongue. “Come on, Sepha.”

Being smart wouldn’t work, then. But she’d lied to him so much already—about the straw, the magician’s attack, the contract’s strange magic when they’d held hands. How long until he stopped believing her? What could she possibly say about this latest bit of magic?

Sepha tried to answer and ended up making a series of half-movements: she shrugged, tipped her head, twisted her mouth to one side.

Ruhen had both elbows on the table with his hands clasped in front of him. He was wearing a faded blue shirt today, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The shirt’s straining shoulders looked as if one good shrug would split them wide open. After a long moment, he sighed. “Fine. I’ll say it, then. Do you feel this thing? Between us?”

For half a second, Sepha considered being smart again. What, the table? she’d say. Maybe then Ruhen would give up out of sheer exasperation. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She wiped her face with her hand and nodded. “I guess you do, too?”

Ruhen buried his face in his hands and let out a string of relieved-sounding swears. “Gods, I thought I was going insane,” he said, dropping his hands to the table again. He leaned forward. “What is it, do you think? Does it feel like a map to you? Because that’s what it feels like to me—a map to where you are.”

“A map?” Sepha asked, surprised. “Mine feels like a tether. One end between my ribs, and at the other end …” She waved a hand at Ruhen, unable to voice the rest. A daring thought occurred to Sepha. She acted on it. “I don’t know what it could be, but it—it feels like magic.”

“It does,” Ruhen said. “I mean, I assume.”

“Right,” Sepha said, relieved. It was working. “But how could this have happened? Where could this,” she gestured between them, “have come from? And why?”

Ruhen shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it since I found you in the proving grounds, and I don’t understand it.”

“And it’s not like we can ask anyone about it,” Sepha said, trying very hard not to seem suspicious. “Because they’ll think one of us is a magician. Or maybe even both of us!”

Ruhen looked skeptical. “Do you think so?”

“We are surrounded by Military Alchemists.” Sepha was the worst person in the world for using his fear against him. But this was life or death for her; it wasn’t for him. “It’s their job to catch magicians. Who knows what they’ll do if they suspect anything strange is happening?”

Ruhen rubbed his mouth before answering. “You’re probably right,” he said at last. “So, what do we do?”

He is definitely as stupid as you are, said the snide voice, and Sepha pursed her lips. That had been easier than she’d expected it to be.

Sepha shrugged. “Act like everything is normal, I think,” she said. “Keep our eyes open, see if we can find out what’s happening. But otherwise—we both have work to do, and we can’t let ourselves be distracted. Right?”

“Right.” There was a deep, worried frown on Ruhen’s face now, and Sepha tried to ignore the guilt that surged in response. After a moment, Ruhen fixed his gaze on her and said, earnestly, “Don’t worry, Sepha. We’ll figure out what’s happening. And I promise I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. All right?”

Wicked, manipulative girl, whispered the snide voice.

Sepha bit her lip and nodded, barely able to meet his eyes. “All right.”