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Until he’d attempted to speak with her mother. She hissed a warning for him to stay back. Landwin Brood feigned surprise. He offered his sincerest condolences. Ren was so embarrassed.
Later that night her mother told her the truth. He was the man Ren’s father had been fighting against. Roland Monroe’s union had stifled his canals and his production. The bridge makers had visited them in the dead of night. Each one had sworn on the lives of their children: the bridge had been stable. Someone had tampered intentionally with its foundations. The collapse was no accident. Her father’s death had been arranged.
Now Ren walked down the aisle of Safe Harbor’s monastery and toward the man who’d authored that horrible event. He was surrounded by other Broods. His gilded wife glided alongside him, looking like she’d been summoned straight out of a painting. Theo’s siblings and cousins prowled in their shadow, each one as golden as the next. Ren thought she was going to have to introduce herself to the whole family before spotting Theo.
He shouldered past the others, picking up his pace, and she felt a brief pulse across their bond. He wore a black doublet with brass buttons. It was an older fashion that might have made him look stiff if he weren’t already smiling at her. Time in recovery had thinned him, drawing out the sharpness of his cheekbones and the point of his chin. Ren felt that strange pull again. Seeing his weakness drew on her strength. She wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him she was glad that he was alive, but she suspected that would be inappropriate at a funeral.
Theo apparently disagreed. He swept Ren into an unexpected hug. She let out a tight gasp before accepting the embrace, easing ever so slightly into him. Ren was just tall enough to get a glimpse over Theo’s shoulder. The Brood family watched the interaction without humor. No exchanged smiles. No playful whispers about young love. She suspected it was more than just funeral decorum. Disapproval was written on each face. Ren pulled back, ignoring their glares.
“Well, that was untoward.”
A brief grin split Theo’s face. “It was a thank-you. For saving me.”
“Oh that?” Ren asked. “Any sophomore student taking Introduction to Anatomy could have done the same. Not exactly rigorous spellwork.”
A second grin surfaced before Theo remembered he was at a funeral. That serious demeanor settled back into his countenance. “You know that’s not true. It was brilliant. The head healer was very clear in the report. I would have died if not for you. I owe you—”
A throat cleared. Landwin Brood had marched forward. He nodded once at Ren.
“I’m so glad you could join us. Theo, let’s keep moving. This is a funeral procession, after all.”
Ren noted the smugness in his voice. This had been a clear test of strength. Which funeral would she choose? Was she a pawn, to be moved on his game board, or something else? For now she let him think that he’d won by forcing her to come. She offered the expected curtsy to him and the others, then followed Theo down the main aisle. The Winters family was entering from a front vestibule. She found herself seated at the end of the third row, her shoulder pressed lightly to Theo’s.
An elder cleric led the mass in singing a psalm. Ren mumbled her way through the liturgy, trying to ignore the way Landwin’s voice dominated everyone else’s. When they reached the time for prayer and reflection, Ren whispered to Theo, “I’ll be right back. I want to light a candle.”
He nodded once. She took the same path she’d taken earlier that morning, entered the same alcove, and ignored the normal prayer candles waiting there. Hidden from the main congregation, Ren walked into the prepared restroom. She glanced at the stalls, making sure there were no witnesses, then strode to the window. Her timing was nearly perfect. The way candle had burned hard and fast. Down to nearly nothing.
Ren reached out for the too-warm wax. She held an image in her mind, and when the flame died between her fingertips, she was drawn out of that monastery, across the city, and set down on a dune she’d chosen the day before. There were people gathering inside a humble chapel. Ocean waves clawed at the staggered shoreline. Ren adjusted her dress and followed the others inside. Ren’s mother had saved her a seat in the second row. Ren took her place, quietly hooking an arm through her mother’s, as the families of the deceased made their entrances. She’d missed the beginning of the ceremony, but not the part she cared about most.
It was strange to see their faces. Like potions that, when combined and stirred, had created the friends that Ren had lost. Avy’s mother came down the aisle with her other son—Pree Williams—on her arm. She looked so thin compared with her boys, no more substantial than a whisper. Ren remembered Cora’s confession, that Avy had bonded with his mother and allowed her to siphon his magic to stay alive. Rumor was that Pree had volunteered to take his brother’s place. It was a taxing magic, but that didn’t stop Pree from winking at Ren when he spied her at the end of the row.
Ren smiled back, but deep down she knew his life was no longer his own.
Cora’s family came next. Her father had the same dark hair and olive skin as Cora. In an attempt to look dapper, he’d slicked it all back. The decision exposed a pale line at the top of his forehead, which Ren knew had been earned the same way farmers earned anything, through time and repetition. Her mother was slight of frame, hunched in on herself. Her eyes mirrored Cora’s blade-sharp focus. Ren noticed she also bit her fingers in the same nervous way her daughter had. The two of them herded three children, all younger than Cora, down the row.
The next pair was the most painful to see. She’d met the Devines many times now. There was so much of Timmons in both of them. Her mother’s silver-white hair was the same. Her father looked down their row with those familiar faded-blue eyes. She saw Timmons in the way that he gestured with his hand. In the way her mother leaned in to whisper something before raising the same challenging eyebrow that Timmons would have. It was like looking into a future that had been promised once and knowing the prophecy for a lie now.
“We are gathered here today to celebrate the lives of three brilliant young students.…”
All the same liturgy that was read for Clyde Winters was now read for them. Most Delveans did not know what to do with death. The Tusk had beliefs about the next life that offered far more comfort. Beliefs that were central tenets to how they lived in this world. Ren knew that wasn’t the case for her—or for most Delveans. They’d left a lot of their religion in the old country, which meant their only comfort was in the other mourners standing in the aisles with them.
Ren cried two times during the funeral. First, when Mrs. Devine told the story of how they’d discovered their daughter’s ability as an enhancer.
“My poor husband, bless him, cannot cook. He makes the effort, and that’s about all he can make. Effort. And dishes, I suppose. One night, though, he made the most delicious soup I’d ever tasted. It was shocking. And then the next night, a fried fish beyond compare. It kept happening until Timmons spent the night at a friend’s house. That night he served the most poorly salted rice I’d ever had the chance to meet.” She laughed through her tears. “She’d been making the food taste better. Rather than hurt her father’s feelings, she’d decided to help in her own way. And that was Timmons. Always lending her strength. Always making everyone else a little better.”
Ren cried a second time when Cora’s mother burst into tears before she could even speak her opening comments. Unable to summon eloquence, she reduced her speech to a single line.
“She was a good girl with steady hands.”
Pree spoke on his brother’s behalf. Telling wild stories that had the group laughing away some—but not all—of their tears. Ren looked around at that point and noted most of their peers at Balmerick weren’t present. Also forced to choose by Landwin’s decision, they’d gone to the monastery on the other side of town. A mark she intended to count against all of them. She settled back in her seat and followed the liturgy until her time had run out. She needed to get back.
She whispered a kiss onto her mother’s cheek, then headed for the lonely alcove near the front right of the chapel. There was plenty of movement—small children ducking under pews and bored uncles pacing the back rows—so no one marked her departure. Ren found a second way candle waiting for her, set out as planned, lit that morning by her mother. An abandoned match sat beside it. Ren mimicked the motion of lighting it.
She fixed her mind on the image of that bathroom at Safe Harbor’s monastery. After a long minute she closed her eyes and pressed both fingers to the waiting flame. There was a brief hiss, and then that power dragged her through space and time again.
A sharp scream shocked Ren back a few steps. It muffled quickly, but Ren spotted the source. A woman was sitting on a toilet with the door slightly ajar. She had one hand up to cover her mouth. Both of her eyes were wide as moons. She looked rather indecorous with her dress hiked up and her body twisting to keep everything covered.
“I thought I locked the door!” she exclaimed, half a whisper. “How the hell…”
