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PROLOGUE
For a few seconds Ren stood there, bent over, her chest heaving. Even the smallest motion threatened to rock her stomach. She waited until she was certain she wasn’t going to throw up again. Then she pulled her scarf up over her nose and turned back to face the dark scene.
Timmons looked like a dying flower. She was kneeling in the dirt, face buried in her hands, her entire body shaking uncontrollably. Theo stood with one hand pressed to the base of a giant tree, struggling to keep his feet. He’d turned his back to them. Anything to avoid looking at what was lying on the forest floor between them. Ren’s eyes skipped over that same spot.
She looked at Avy instead. He was on his back, staring up at the thick canopy. His chest rose and fell, and she remembered he’d been hit by a stunner before the portal spell activated. Likely its effect had amplified. She suspected the magic felt like a two-ton anvil now.
Only Cora remained calm. Of course. The medical student would know what to do when everyone else was panicking. Ren watched her navigate through the maze of bone-thick roots. She knelt down to take vitals and announced unhelpfully, “He’s dead.”
Those words finally brought the image back into focus. Ren couldn’t ignore it now. Clyde Winters was sprawled at a strange angle on the forest floor—and he looked very, very dead. Cora was fishing through her bag. She unpacked a small medical kit. The sound of her tools clinking together finally forced Theo to turn around. He wiped his mouth with one sleeve.
“Knock it off. That’s an heir of House Winters. He’s not a test cadaver.”
Cora paused in the middle of her preparations. Even though the forest was thick with shadows, Ren saw the girl’s expression clearly. She looked like she wanted to tell Theo that was exactly what Clyde was now. Instead she offered a begrudging nod.
“You’re right. It’s just… unlike any death I’ve ever seen… knowing the cause.…”
Ren saw the sharpness in Theo’s expression. She decided to intervene.
“Not now, Cora. We need to figure out where we are first.”
Avy finally sat up. He blinked a few times. When he saw Clyde’s body on the ground, both hands went up defensively. “I… I didn’t do that. I swear! There’s no way.…”
For some reason his denial dragged Timmons back into the conversation.
“I told you not to do magic in there. Look at that. Look what happened to him!”
Avy shook his head. “I didn’t even cast a spell. That’s what I’m saying. It couldn’t have been me. I didn’t use any magic.…”
There was a moment of silence. No retching or heaving or sobbing. It was just long enough for the forest to press in around them like a shadow. A sharp breeze stirred the branches, clacking them together like spears. Ren heard dying birdsong and the distant shuffling of larger creatures. The group looked around, unnerved. The quiet was a reminder that this place—wherever they were—was also a threat to them. She’d never felt so exposed. It didn’t help that one of them was already dead. That thought was followed by a darker one.
And one of us killed him.
1
Wind prowled wolflike through the waiting crowd, sinking its teeth into exposed necks and bare ankles. Ren kept her hood up and her eyes down. Still, it found every threadbare hole and feasted. There was an unspoken camaraderie to how everyone in line huddled closer together as it howled. On the first day of every month, Ren left her dormitory on Balmerick’s campus and traveled down to wait in line in the Lower Quarter.
She knew the place by memory now. The patterns on the stone walkway. How decades of passing boots had rounded its edges. The rows of windows that were always boarded shut. Even the other people who waited in line with her, assigned to this particular magic-house.
Sunlight might have warded off the chill, but there wasn’t sunlight in this section of the Lower Quarter. Not at this hour. Not in her lifetime. Ren couldn’t resist looking up.
The Heights hovered magically overhead. When she was a child, it had been a marvel to her. An awe that only grew when she studied the actual magical theories involved. It was no small task for the Proctor family to create an entire neighborhood of glinting buildings in the clouds. Her favorite part had been the relocation of Balmerick University. The building’s foundations had proven rather tricky. Decades of residual magic had made the walls more or less sentient. It turned out they liked where they’d settled down in the Lower Quarter. A team of wizards had used veracity alteration spells to convince each individual rock that the sky was actually the earth. Ren liked to imagine them spending hours underground, lying to the stones.
“Eyes ahead, dear.”
Ren startled. She’d allowed a gap to form in the line. Two strides brought her back into position. She glanced at the woman who’d spoken, an apology ready, before recognizing her.
“Aunt Sloan.”
Not her real aunt. Her mother was an only child, just as Ren was an only child. But every woman who lived in their building was an aunt. Every man an uncle. The other kids were all cousins, until they were old enough to start flirting and figuring out where they could sneak kisses without being seen. Aunt Sloan lived up on the third floor. She worked on the wharf.
“Little Monroe,” she said. “How’s your mother?”
“Doing well. Strong and happy and willful.”
Sloan laughed. “Of course. I hate that our shifts changed. It’s been too long since she and I sat down to play a few hands of barons together. About four years now. Agnes was always such a good time, too. It’s a shame she’s all alone these days.”
Barons was a rotating card game that Ren’s mother loved. It involved seven suits, and the winner was usually the one who got away with the most cheating. Ren quietly took note of the other implications hidden beneath Aunt Sloan’s words. She kept her tone neutral, polite.
