Amelia looked caught between alarm and reluctant amusement.

  “Sean,” she said carefully, eyes tracking the space where I once stood. “You do realise that ability is completely illegal. They stamp blessings like that out super-fast.”

  I grinned, even though she couldn’t see it. Good luck with that, I thought.

  The sword at my hip gave a low, irritated hum.

  “Don’t be so uptight, Am,” Rob said. “You gotta think of the possibilities… We’ve got a scout on our side.”

  She shot him one of those looks. The kind that could strip paint. Then she turned back toward me but faced five feet to my left. She squinted, as if that might help.

  “Sean.”

  “Yeah?”

  She pivoted to my voice, frustration plain. “Can you please turn back? This is impossible.”

  I stepped closer and focused on Rick’s face, my skin prickled as the invisibility dropped a heartbeat later. It felt easier to put of Rick’s face to cut off the invisibility than it was to vanish.

  Rob blinked. “That’s so creepy mate.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” I asked.

  Amelia didn’t answer right away. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small clear vial, holding it up between two fingers. The Foundation Elixir. One of the ones I’d brought back.

  “Did you steal these?” she asked.

  The room went quiet.

  I shook my head, catching her meaning. “Bought. Paid for.”

  She didn’t look convinced. Her eyes stayed on me a second longer, weighing the answer, then she let her hand drop.

  “I swear they are legit,” I said.

  Kind of.

  “Fine,” she said. “But it doesn’t change the rest. That skill will get you in serious trouble.”

  “Or get me out of it,” I said.

  Her arms folded tight across her chest.

  Rob leaned forward, undeterred. “Come on, Am. Look at it properly. Or the clear side. Transparent side… Inconspicuous?” He waved a hand, losing his own train of thought. “Whatever. Point is, this helps. A lot. Especially with training. Someone who can slip ahead, check corners, spot trouble before it spots us. That will help so much.”

  “Yeah, help enough to get dragged in front of a tribunal,” Amelia shot back. “Or worse.”

  Rob shrugged. “Only if they’re caught.”

  “That’s not comforting.”

  The back and forth kept going. Rob pushed every advantage he could think of. Amelia countered each one with a consequence. Guards. Guilds. Laws that didn’t care how useful you were once they decided you were a problem. The air between them tightened, voices edging up, when the door creaked open.

  Doyle rapped his knuckles against the doorframe and stepped inside, lamplight catching in the lines around his eyes.

  “Kids… I mean, Aspirants,” he said. “It’s getting dark.”

  Rob blinked and turned toward the window. The last of the daylight was bleeding out of the sky, the blue already gone flat and grey.

  “Already?” asked Rob.

  Doyle nodded.

  Rob opened his mouth, ready to fire back, then stopped. Whatever argument he’d been building lost its footing and collapsed in on itself. He leaned back in his chair with a huff.

  “And we’ll be starting curfew earlier than usual,” Doyle added.

  Rob sat up again. “What? Why? I wanted to get some training in downstairs first. Just a bit. I want to work on my new blessing.”

  Doyle shook his head once. “Not tonight.”

  Rob scowled. “That’s rubbish.”

  “You can survive a night without swinging something,” Doyle said. “I would have thought you three would want some rest after today. How about you read instead. Grab books. As many as you think you can get through.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Rob muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a complaint, but he pushed his chair back anyway.

  The room slowly came apart around us. Chairs scraped against the floor. Someone knocked over a cup and swore quietly while righting it. Doors opened and shut as Doyle ushered us along, steady and unyielding. We collected food, candles, paper, whatever we thought might be useful, arms filling as the evening caught up.

  As I moved down the hall, Rob’s voice drifted faintly from somewhere below.

  “It’s rubbish,” he was saying. “They rock up and get the run of the place, while we’re grounded like kids.”

  Amelia answered him, calm but firm. “Unlike us, they haven’t broken any city laws yet. The curfew doesn’t apply to them.”

  “That doesn’t make it less annoying,” Rob shot back.

  There was a pause. Then Rob huffed. “Yeah. Yeah, alright. I’m just saying.”

  Doyle moved through the house behind us, methodical. Locks clicked into place. Every sound carried a finality to it.

  He stopped at my door.

  The others were already gone, footsteps fading behind their doors. Doyle waited until the latch was closed before speaking. “We’re heading out tonight,” he said. “Brent and I.”

  I looked up at him.

  His gaze stayed fixed on mine. “You stay put. No heroics. No clever ideas. You hear me?”

  I nodded, though the unease had already started to settle in my gut.

  “Good,” he said. “Because if I come back and find you ignored me…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

  Doyle crossed to the window and locked the panels, turning the key and testing the latch once before letting his hand fall away.

  It felt wrong for them to risk themselves over me.

  “I could…”

  “No.” He cut me off without looking back. “This isn’t something you can help with. Not yet.” He turned then, eyes sharp. “Not until we figure out how to keep you from being sensed the moment you step into the city. You were lucky last time.”

  He held my gaze.

  “This is one of those jobs,” he said. “Either we do it right, or we don’t do it at all.”

  I nodded. There wasn’t an argument left to make.

  He shut the door and turned the key. The lock clicked, final.

  I stood there for a moment, listening to his footsteps fade. Moonlight crept across the floor as the clouds thinned. I lit the lamp and sat on the bed, the glow settling into the room.

  The rune book lay open in my hands. After the troll fight, two new markings had appeared along the blade. The blade absorbed three in total. Two were duplicates, the third was different. More complex.

  That one had bled from the necklace.

  The new runes sat among the other core runes, but these were more intricate. Denser. Layered. The same kind of work I’d seen in Roy’s shop.

  For some reason, I couldn’t find the duplicated runes in the book. I traced the symbols and worked through the pages until I found the second.

  “Ah, here.”

  A passive rune. Sound-ward.

  Protection against sirens and sonic influence or alteration.

  “Oddly specific,” I muttered.

  “Very,” the sword replied.

  I stilled. “So, you’re talking now?”

  The blade fell quiet. Long enough that I wondered if I’d imagined it. Then, low and measured, it spoke again. “You act without caution.”

  I swallowed. It wasn’t wrong.

  I knew what it was referring to. The mountain troll. Throwing the blade aside. Letting the curse out. Choosing their lives over mine, over its hunger.

  I turned the ring Roy had given me, rolling it around my finger. It didn’t do anything on its own. Not without the suit. Still, the motion steadied me.

  Outside, the night deepened.

  That silence felt heavier than any warning.

  “It was the only way,” I finally said.

  The blade did not answer at once. The hum at my hip deepened, slow and deliberate, like something turning over a thought it had already had before.

  “To save them,” it said at last. “You traded yourself.”

  I swallowed. Calum’s face flickered through my mind, and I pushed it aside. I hadn’t done it for him. Not even close.

  “I won’t do that again,” I said.

  The sword’s weight shifted against my side. Not approval. Not agreement.

  “Our strength is lacking.”

  I nodded. It was hard to argue with that. If we were stronger, I wouldn’t have to make a choice like that again. I turned the problem over, searching for angles that didn’t end in blood. Blessings were out. The soul card that burst into ash had made that clear enough. The idea of soul blades crept in instead, half-formed, dangerous.

  The question slipped out before I could stop it. “Can you eat a soul blade?”

  The sword was quiet. Then, “I do not know.”

  I frowned. “You don’t know, or you can’t remember?”

  Silence.

  The lamp crackled, the wick dipping low before flaring again. Outside, something crossed the roof. Light. Careless. Gone before I could place it.

  “I don’t know,” it said at last. “If I am a soul blade. From the sickly man’s description.”

  “Sebastian?” I added.

  The sword answered with a faint hum.

  I stared at the runes along its edge, tracing shapes that refused to settle. “From his words, it sounded like soul blades are made from creatures that were killed. Broken down. Used.”

  I paused, the thought tightening in my chest. “Slain things do not endure. They don’t hunger.”

  The hum shifted. Deeper. Slower.

  “So you aren’t that,” I said.

  “I endure,” the blade replied. “I feed.”

  “That’s not really an answer,” I said quietly.

  “It is the only one I have.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “I am what remains.”

  I let out a breath and leaned back against the wall, eyes closing for a moment. After the last nightmare, the thought of living another memory scared me but we needed more information.

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “The first shipment of weapons and armour arrives.” I paused, choosing the words carefully. “I will feed you then.”

  I looked out the window, but I didn’t see the moonlight. All I saw was that place. The dark that never ended. The memory that refused to loosen its grip.

  “And tomorrow night,” I said, “we try again. We look where you came from. If it costs me sleep, or blood, or both, we do it properly.”

  The blade answered, not louder, not softer.

  I stayed where I was, staring out the window, waiting for the room to feel like a room again. Waiting for something solid to press back. The hills beyond the cottage lay washed in moonlight, pale and still, the kind of quiet that made you listen for what didn’t belong.

  Movement caught my eye.

  A figure crossed the slope below, hood drawn low, a basket swinging lightly from one arm. I stepped closer to the glass. The figure slowed, then turned, looking back toward the house as if sensing the weight of my gaze.

  Celeste.

  For a heartbeat, she stood there. Then she turned away.

  She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t look back again. She headed downhill, toward the dark line of trees, and the night took her without a sound.