Adah didn’t tell anyone about what she had felt.

  She wasn’t sure why. Maybe she didn’t want to acknowledge it herself.

  When she put away the scythe, storing it in the same kind of magic sub-dimension the mascots hung out in, the heartbeat vanished. That was evidence that there was indeed something pulsing within the weapon, but Adah wanted to believe the heartbeat would stay gone when she resummoned it. She didn’t want to feel that pulsing again.

  She had no reservations about killing Cruelties—she had seen firsthand what they could do to humans. It was the idea that one may be living within her weapon now that bothered her.

  Though, she didn’t know if that was truly the case. Perhaps the scythe itself was alive. Or perhaps something else lived within the scythe, like the demon it was named after. Only, demons weren’t real. Then again, humanity hadn’t thought magic was real until recently either. She couldn’t be sure what she was dealing with here.

  The only thing she was certain of was that the heartbeat she had felt wasn’t just an effect. It was a real, living heartbeat. It belonged to something.

  She went through the rest of the day trying her best to push the memory to the back of her mind and wipe any evidence of it from her face. She was aided by the fact that a wave of drowsiness washed over her team once they returned to Ketzia’s cabin. Between the early wake-up, the training, and the mission, the weight of exhaustion was piling up on them.

  Sundown came early in the woods, and it didn’t take long after dinner before everyone’s eyelids began to droop. Ketzia ushered the four girls to the lush couch in the living room and told them to take it easy the rest of the night. She must have known what she was doing by sending them to such a soft sofa. Not ten minutes later, all of Adah’s teammates fell asleep, curled up in random spots like a family of cats.

  Though she was just as tired, sleep didn’t come for Adah. Despite her best efforts, her mind was still preoccupied by that eerie heartbeat. She was content to sit by as her teammates slept soundly. Their presence eased some of her worry.

  After some time, Ketzia returned from the back half of the cabin to check on the girls. When she saw that Adah was still awake, she smiled and asked, “Care to chat a bit?”

  Adah nodded in response. Maybe an Untethered magical girl could shed some light on what she had felt.

  “Let’s head outside so we don’t disturb them,” Ketzia said, gesturing to the napping girls. “I’ll meet you out front. Just need to grab something important first.”

  She left without waiting for an answer, so Adah got up and went outside through the front door. Once again, the chilly night air shocked her. She suddenly missed the fire Ketzia had lit back at the living room’s hearth.

  Ketzia only kept Adah waiting a minute before joining her out on the cabin porch. There was another pair of rocking chairs out here; Adah had taken a seat in one, and now Ketzia claimed the second. She held out a glass bottle in front of Adah.

  “Drink with me,” she said. “I made these myself.”

  Adah accepted the bottle, but held off on taking a sip. The bottle was uncapped and unmarked, with no label or identifier of any kind. She held it up to the moonlight to get a better look at the amber liquid inside.

  “Relax,” Ketzia said with a laugh. “It’s just cider. Lesh told me you were one of the ones who wasn’t scared of me. What happened to that?”

  Adah looked around, but the bird was nowhere to be found at the moment.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not scared, just…”

  “Brooding?” Ketzia finished.

  “Gotta stay in character,” Adah said.

  She brought the bottle to her lips and took a sip. Even before she got her first taste of the cider, a strong smell of apples flooded her nose. The taste was just as bright and fresh as a bite of the fruit itself, and Adah swore she felt an autumn breeze brush against her face. The first splash of flavor against her tongue was powerfully sweet, but settled at a pleasant level that left an addictive aftertaste. It made her want to take another sip and go through the whole experience again.

  “That right there is why we do it,” Ketzia said to her. “All the effort’s worth it just to see someone’s eyes light up.”

  Adah swallowed her second sip and said, “That’s why you make cider?”

  “That too, but I meant being a magical girl. Nothing compares to seeing someone appreciate your hard work firsthand.”

  “That’s a strange thing for a hermit to say. I wouldn’t have guessed you cared what other people thought of you.”

  “Every old crone has her reasons for being the way she is,” Ketzia said, then downed a big gulp of her own drink.

  This particular old crone was in her late-thirties at worst, but Adah figured she could let Ketzia revel in playing the role of the wise, old mentor if that’s what she wanted.

  The woman looked over her shoulder and through a window to where the other girls were curled up on the couch.

  “Us captains are always first up and last down, huh?” she said.

  “You were a captain?” Adah asked.

  “Still feels wrong to call myself that, but it’s true,” Ketzia said. “Can’t say I was a very good one, though. For a long time, I couldn’t even hold a team together.”

  Ketzia was looking up at the moon now. The pale circle was nearly straight overhead at this point. A few minutes more, and it’d vanish behind the roof that hung above the porch.

  “What do you mean?” Adah asked.

  “We did things a little differently back then,” Ketzia explained. “Agencies built teams around one girl with the intention of making her a superstar. Everyone else had to fall in line and do what that girl said. They had to do whatever it took to prop her up. Not to say there aren’t superstars nowadays, but they don’t usually come at the expense of everyone else on the team.

  “When you’ve got people working hard just for your sake, and giving up their own chance to be the star, it doesn’t take much for emotions to run high. Put a hot-headed kid like me in charge, and things are bound to get out of control. I used to churn through teammates—like a new one every month. I’m not bragging; it’s just the truth. I’d yell at them when they didn’t use a spell the way I wanted, or blame them when my own plans fell apart, so it was no wonder they all quit on me.”

  “You must have done something right to wind up popular enough to become Untethered,” Adah said.

  “That came later,” Ketzia said. “Way later, long after I woke up one day and found I had no team at all.”

  “Everyone had enough of you?”

  “Everyone but me,” Ketzia sighed. “That’s how stupid I was. I still thought I had it all figured out, and if other people couldn’t handle me—well, that’s why I was the star and they weren’t.”

  Remembering all of that prompted Ketzia to finish the last half of her bottle in one go. In solidarity, Adah took a larger swig than usual.

  “What changed for you to turn things around?” Adah asked.

  Ketzia had slouched down and started rocking her chair lazily. In that position, with her features illuminated gently by the moonlight, she really didn’t look much older than Adah herself.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  “Lady by the name of Grace put me in my place,” she said. “Turns out if you’re an asshole at work, you’re probably an asshole outside of work, too. She let me know just how much of an asshole I was being. I don’t know why she was so committed to being my friend—everyone else decided it wasn’t worth it. But she was the last friend I had, and realizing I’d come so close to pushing her away finally got me to grow up. I was still alone for a while after that, but I eventually found teammates again. Those ones—I never let them go.”

  If she never let them go, then where were they?

  Adah almost asked that question aloud, but stopped herself short. There could only be one answer, and she wouldn’t make Ketzia say it.

  Magic users put themselves in danger during every mission. That fact was even more true in the past, when humanity knew less about the Cruelties. With no records to reference, every new Cruelty was a surprise that brought with it new danger.

  The sound of Emi’s shriek that day at the farm replayed in Adah’s mind. She finished her own drink.

  Ketzia grabbed the empty bottle from her and whistled. Lesh appeared in the air between their chairs, glowing orange with about the same intensity as a nightlight. His plumage had nearly grown in proper by this point in the night. Ketzia held out the two empty bottles to him.

  “Do us a favor?” she said.

  Lesh hooked a talon through the mouth of each bottle and inverted them such that they wouldn’t slip out of his grip.

  “You haven’t lost your touch,” he said. “Asking for favors after telling such a story.”

  He flew away, over the top of the cabin and presumably to wherever the rest of Ketzia’s cider was stored.

  “There’s another lesson for you,” Ketzia said, grinning. “Asking for what you want is level one, but knowing when to ask for it is level two.”

  Lesh returned a moment later, carrying one new bottle in his beak and another gripped sideways by both his feet. Ketzia took both from him, popped the caps off them with a spark from her finger, and leaned over to hand one to Adah. Lesh stayed outside with them this time, perching on the back of Adah’s chair.

  What Ketzia had said earlier about old teams propping up a superstar had stuck in Adah’s mind. Giving up their own fame for the sake of one team member sounded a lot like Iris’s [Fleur-de-lis] spell. Ketzia had seen the spell in action during the TV feature on DreamRise they’d watched, so Adah asked her about the connection.

  “It’s a little similar, but not really,” Ketzia said after thinking on it. “Back then, the mindset at most agencies was that teammates were a necessary evil. You couldn’t count on your star to have all the right spells for every scenario, so her teammates were there to help cover the bases. We were fundamentally selfish back then, but that girl does things differently. All she talks about is ‘our team’ this and ‘our team’ that. If not that, then ‘our region.’

  “She’s gotten her fans to buy into that idea of unity, so they aren’t just supporting her or her team but their whole community. That’s where all the power is coming from, not their idolization of her. She’s just figured out a way to turn herself into the spearhead of their dreams. From what you all told me, it sounds like she had some help from the new Secretary on that front.”

  Thinking of her spell in that way, it wasn’t so different from what Adah’s team had done when Emi was healing. Gathering generic support and being generally well-liked could boost your FP, but when the support of fans was unified behind a specific idea or movement, they were bound to be more passionate. If everyone wanted a magical girl to succeed in a particular way, or had particular expectations of her, that could even help shape the kinds of spells she gained.

  The shift in Adah’s spells from [Sparkling Strike] to [Nightwind Whip] was an obvious example of how fan perception could influence spells, but Ami’s [Frigid Fetters] also gave a clear purpose to her perceived role in the team.

  If Iris had built herself up to be viewed as the leader of this underground movement the region was pushing, that might explain where [Fleur-de-lis] came from. She was fighting for everyone, putting all their dreams and expectations on her shoulders, so that’s why she got a spell that pooled her team’s strength. She couldn’t have known such a spell was possible, though, could she?

  Adah posed the question to Ketzia. As an Untethered, she understood the workings of magic better than any magic user at Adah’s level.

  “I can’t say what that girl knows or doesn’t know, but she’s definitely a schemer,” Ketzia said. “She’s the type to look for any advantage she can get, so maybe she noticed a way to get around her FP level. You’re strong enough to feel it now, too, aren’t you? The way magic really works.”

  Adah had noticed a change in her perception of magic once her FP started rising. At the time, she hadn’t been able to put her finger on what exactly was different other than the intensity of the flow of magic into her.

  “It feels different,” she said to Ketzia, “but I still don’t understand it. My spells feel like an extension of my body, but the energy of magic itself is something—I don’t know—outside of me?”

  “You’ve got a better sense of it than you think,” Ketzia said. She beckoned to Lesh, who hopped off Adah’s chair and fluttered over to land on her outstretched arm. His gentle glow lit up her face. “Magic comes from these guys, even for me. I’m just always connected to Lesh here. Our FP level isn’t telling us how much magic we can receive, but how much these guys are allowed to give us. When that number goes up, the nozzle at the end of the hose gets wider and the flow gets stronger. When you’re Untethered, there’s no hose at all. There’s like, uh, an ocean, I guess?”

  Her metaphor fell apart a little at the end, but Adah mostly followed. That had been how this whole journey had started, after all. A certain pig had stomped his foot down on that magic hose and let her tumble out of the sky.

  “Whatever,” Ketzia paused to take a drink. “What I’m trying to say is: maybe that girl came up with a way to bypass her FP limit. If the inflow of magic came from multiple mascots at once, she could add up all that power in her own body. If each hose only gives so much, just add more hoses. And with that spell, her teammates become the hoses. You get what I’m saying?”

  Adah failed to stifle her laugh, and chose a very poor moment to take a sip of her drink; it nearly shot back up her nose. After a small coughing fit, she said, “Yeah, I think so. You have a way with words.”

  Ketzia turned her face away, but Adah could guess what color her cheeks were turning. “You ask me to explain something complicated and then you laugh at me,” she said.

  “You explained it well enough,” Lesh joined their conversation. “I must admit there are details regarding humanity’s use of magic that even our kind do not fully understand. The relationship between our races is not much older than you, Ketzia, and I learn new things about both every day.”

  “Would you—or the other mascots—allow a spell like that, though?” Adah asked. “If FP is some kind of safety gauge, why give a human a loophole to that system?”

  “From what I know of the spell, it follows the principles of the system. The girl cannot draw magic from her teammates if they refuse to entrust it to her. That decision is left to their judgment, and humanity will grant them whatever level of magic it wishes for them to control. Do not mistake FP for a safety measure. The system is only concerned with what the will of humanity is, not what that will may be used for.”

  Lesh’s rejuvenating body had gained eyes earlier in the day. They glowed yellow like Ketzia’s sometimes did, though their glow was constant. They stared at Adah now, and she tried to look past their light, but it proved pointless. Lesh was nearly as bright as a light bulb now; she’d only hurt her eyes by staring.

  “You get so dramatic whenever you get your feathers,” Ketzia said, shaking her arm until Lesh flew off. “If a magical girl went on a rampage, her FP would drop to zero like that.”

  She snapped, launching a small spray of sparks into the air. Adah couldn’t tell if she’d done it for added effect, or if finishing her second bottle had loosened up her control of magic.

  “That is what we expect,” Lesh confirmed. “Naturally, we would also intervene in the most extreme scenarios. Our kind are allied with humanity, but in the event one of our allies seeks to disrupt that harmony, we would put an end to their attempt. Thus far, humanity’s judgment has proved reasonable.”

  “Is that why my scythe can store energy, then?” Adah asked. “Some people trust me enough to let me build up all that power? What about the will of all the people who don’t know me?”

  Lesh stared at Adah the same way she had looked at him a moment ago.

  “You siphon only a fraction of the power of those you slay,” he said. “If you defeat enough Cruelties to gain power that exceeds your normal limits, then perhaps that is a reward you will have earned in exchange for ridding this world of them.”

  “What fraction?” Adah asked immediately. “What exactly am I siphoning? It’s not magic essence, is it?”

  “It is.”

  Adah shook her head and stood up. “That can’t be true,” she said. “I can feel it. Whatever it is, it’s alive.”

  The nature of magic essence was never explained to magic users. They were told it was a resource, a form of energy the mascots possessed, but nothing about what it was. Adah had always thought of it like electricity—it functioned similarly enough, and she had no reason to think deeper about it.

  But what she had felt pulsing within the scythe was something very different from an electrical current. What’s more, Lesh’s confirmation implied that the same magic essence that coursed through her body when she transformed also lived within the Cruelties. Something about that felt… horribly wrong.

  “It is not alive,” Lesh said. “It is a remnant of life. What you feel within your weapon is nothing more than a memory. A retelling of an old tale. Be not bothered by it.”

  “I am bothered by it,” Adah said. “It’s like I’ve trapped something inside the scythe. I want to know what that something is.”

  Lesh looked to Ketzia, who had stayed silent throughout his and Adah’s exchange. She clutched her empty bottle between both hands.

  “It’s not like it’s confidential info,” she said after a long silence. “I think we should tell her.”

  Adah hadn’t noticed before, but Izzy had materialized on the porch as well at some point during the conversation. He had been standing by her side like a guard dog, though now he walked between her and Ketzia.

  “If we’re going to have this discussion,” he said, “please allow me to explain it. Magic essence, in all its forms, comes from the same place. Whether it is the energy that powers your spells or that gives shape to the Cruelties, it all originates from the same source. It is a byproduct of every living being. It is something left behind when the physical form has been otherwise destroyed.”

  “You mean…?”

  “When a being dies, the essence of what it was in life can be harvested. That is the source of magic.”