The trip to Ketzia’s cabin, deep within the northern woods of the Brume Forest, went by much faster when flying than when driving. Long flights like this—nearly 200 miles north of the Last Light’s agency office—were a luxury afforded by Adah’s current FP level. Long gone were the days of stringently rationing her available magic essence outside of battle. Also long gone, thankfully, were the days of taking the bus home from a mission.

  That said, Adah was technically breaking magical regulations by flying to Ketzia’s like this. Outside of training or flying to and from missions, magic flight was governed by fairly strict limitations as pertained to airspace. Much like piloting a drone, a magic user wasn’t supposed to fly wherever and whenever they wanted.

  Adah had surely violated several of those limitations throughout this long journey, but she wasn’t too concerned about that. In the first place, no one could see her for most of the trip, as she was zooming overhead a sea of trees. The whole point of visiting Ketzia was to get advice on undermining Thibault anyway. It was his office that was meant to enforce those regulations, and the purpose of Adah’s flight would surely be of larger concern to him than the flight itself.

  Ketzia’s cabin came into view less than an hour after Adah left home. The speed of flight, combined with the ability to travel in a straight line as opposed to along winding roads, shaved quite a bit of time off the trip.

  The first snow of the season had already fallen this far north, leaving a white border around the edges of the clearing that housed Ketzia’s cabin. The sun and Ketzia’s daily activity had melted away any snow toward the center of the clearing, but Adah was still excited to see evidence of the changing seasons. The way snow accumulated here was one of her favorite parts of living in Region 4 now. In the warmer climate of Region 1, snowfall was less common and, when it did snow, the white blanket quickly turned to gray sludge thanks to the hustle and bustle of the city Adah had grown up in.

  Maybe her team would have less time to play around in the snow like kids this year, but Adah awaited winter with an eager heart all the same.

  She touched down at the edge of the clearing and grabbed a handful of snow from the ground. This was the settled, almost crunchy type—easy to pack into snowballs. So easy, in fact, that she absentmindedly patted the snow into a sphere while she walked toward the cabin. When Ketzia opened the door to greet her, Adah couldn’t resist tossing the ball at the woman.

  Ketzia, unfazed, melted the ball midair with a blast of fire from her fingertip.

  “So that’s the real reason you came here, eh?” she said. “Looking for a battle?”

  Adah shook her head so fast she could’ve given herself whiplash. She had no interest in a battle of any kind with an Untethered magical girl who had a habit of setting clothes on fire.

  “Wise choice,” Ketzia said. “If you wanted to take me on, you’d need to ambush me with all four of you. Speaking of, you should have brought those kids with you. I don’t get many visitors.”

  “There are some things us captains have to do alone,” Adah said as she climbed the steps to the cabin. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Just don’t do too much alone, kid. Else you’re gonna end up alone.”

  As Adah got close, Ketzia embraced her in a hug. Although she wasn’t opposed to the affection, she hadn’t expected it, so it took her a second to return the embrace. For someone who had chosen to be alone, Ketzia clearly needed a break from her isolation from time to time.

  When the two of them broke apart, the mascot Lesh appeared in a burst of flame just above Adah’s shoulder. The fire still made Adah flinch, even though it did her no harm. Once she settled, Lesh perched on her shoulder. His body was still nothing but bone at this hour.

  “The topic of much debate has arrived,” he said.

  Either his words or his presence prompted Izzy to come out of hiding as well, materializing on the cabin’s porch.

  “Your support in those debates was appreciated,” Izzy said to the bird.

  “I simply have no patience for those who fail to recognize the service humanity has already performed for us,” Lesh responded. “It is not an appropriate attitude to take toward such a partnership.”

  “I can’t believe these guys are giving you trouble now, too,” Ketzia said, curling her lip. “I thought they mostly cared about Untethereds, but apparently they’ll bother anybody.”

  Right, Izzy had mentioned that the mascots had wanted other magic users to help them with their “research” in the past. It only made sense that an Untethered like Ketzia would be among them. The freestyle spellcasting she could do was similar to the scythe’s capabilities. That unbounded use of magic essence was exactly what the mascots were interested in learning about.

  “But you didn’t come here to talk about that,” Ketzia went on. “Undo that transformation and come inside. We can chat over lunch—I made your favorite.”

  Adah’s favorite? Oh no.

  ☆☆☆

  The favorite dish in question was indeed the spicy mapo tofu Ketzia had cooked the first time Adah and her teammates had visited. Adah hoped she had built a tolerance to spice after eating Ketzia’s meals that whole week, but unfortunately her palate proved as weak today as it had back then. She quickly ended up like an overworked dog, panting with her tongue hanging out. The pain overrode any embarrassment she might feel in such a position.

  Under these inhumane conditions, her discussion with Ketzia didn’t proceed very far. She caught the woman up to date on what had happened with their team since they last met—much of which Ketzia already knew about—then found herself unable to form complete sentences through the heat in her mouth.

  It wasn’t until Adah finished the generous portion Ketzia had served her that their conversation began in earnest.

  “You were good at dealing with whoever was Secretary back when you were working as regular magical girl,” Adah said. “I was hoping you could give me some advice.”

  “Hey now,” Ketzia said, holding up her hands, “let’s be clear. I didn’t ‘deal’ with anyone. That old man’s still alive to this day, I think.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. Just… On paper, the Department of Magic is supposed to be in charge of magic users, right? But it sounded like you were the one in charge back then—at least when it came to your own team.”

  Ketzia leaned back in her chair and took a sip of tea. Apparently the heat from their meal wasn’t enough for her, since steam was still billowing out of her mug as well.

  “What’s your end goal here, kid?” she asked. “I can tell you about how I did things back then, but that was a different world. Me and that old man weren’t at each other’s throats like you and this Kibbles guy are either. I’m happy to give you an old lady’s opinion on things, but I need to understand what exactly you want to happen at the end of all this.”

  “I guess the end goal is to replace Thibault with someone else,” Adah said. “If enough people in the region agree he isn’t the right guy for the job, then we can kick him out.”

  “That it?” Ketzia said. “What if he gets replaced by another person just like him? Or worse? That’s not your goal, is it?”

  “Okay,” Adah said. “Then the goal is to replace him with someone who wants to work with magic users to help them defeat the Cruelties. Someone whose top priority is protecting people, not making a name for themselves.”

  “Getting better,” Ketzia said. “But you need to be more specific than that. When I asked to become Untethered, that was something specific. I knew where I wanted to go, how much money I needed to build what I wanted, and why the old Secretary should want to give it to me. You got somebody in mind to replace this asshole with?”

  Adah felt her face growing red from something other than the food. She shook her head.

  “I mean… not really,” she said. “But there has to be someone like that who can handle the job.”

  “Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t,” Ketzia said with a shrug. “Either way, they’re gonna be appointed by the regional governor. Unless you want to replace him too? Probably not. Or if you are, I certainly don’t wanna hear about a plan like that.”

  “No, but I get what you’re saying,” Adah said. “If I’m going to make a move like this, I need to know how all the dominoes are going to fall, and not just in an abstract way.”

  “That’s how that flower girl caught you by the neck a while back, too,” Ketzia said after downing the rest of her tea. “Rushing in with a good idea can be worse than taking your time with a bad one. At least you’re learning, though.”

  In many ways, Ketzia was right. It was the same mistake as their IndieMagie duel, just in a different arena. Adah had learned a lot in the past few months, and that had allowed her to get the upper hand on Thibault thus far. But a play on this scale—something that would involve other teams, the regional government, and a large chunk of the citizens of Region 4—was still unfamiliar to her.

  Taking an interview with a broad objective like “make Thibault look bad” could work for boosting her team’s popularity or shifting blame away from DreamRise, but that same tactic wouldn’t allow her to accomplish her new goal. Changing the very nature of the Department of Magic was a far more complex objective. To play her cards right, Adah needed to understand all the rules of the game.

  “The way I see it,” Ketzia continued, “you’ve got two problems to solve. First is how you pitch your plan to your potential allies. What exactly do you want to ask these teams to do? Why should they want to do it? What happens if things go wrong? If they go right? These teams might sympathize with you after what happened to that boy—hell, they might even like you—but they aren’t thinking the same way you are yet. If they were, they’d already have joined you on their own, wouldn’t they?”

  “Building our reputation helps,” Adah said, “but we still have to show people what they’re getting into. They have to understand how the Last Light operates.”

  “Bingo," Ketzia said. “They like you, now help them be like you. Once they’re on your side, you run into your second problem. Who do you need to hear you out? Convincing a crowd of fans to support your cause might be easier than the governor, but your message gets diluted. Fans are good at capturing the broad strokes; the people in power are better with the details.”

  “What if I convince both of them to support me?” Adah said. “Hit them at the same time. I can tell the regional government there’s a problem at the same time as I get the public to believe it. The voices of the fans work like a megaphone, but it’ll be my ideas that people like the governor are hearing. They’ll think they have to listen to Heartbreak because she’s got such a big crowd backing her.”

  “Like a magical girl representative,” Ketzia said with a laugh. “It’s a good idea. You’ll have to make sure your allies are trustworthy and your message is consistent, though. The trouble will be getting your ideas out there in a way neither the fans nor the government can ignore. Meeting with someone like the governor behind closed doors won’t get your fans riled up in the way you need them to be. That’s what meetings behind closed doors are for—shutting out all the other voices.”

  “So it needs to be big and loud,” Adah said. “Something that puts Heartbreak—and her voice—front and center. Something like a concert.”