The men of Blackwood dug graves while the women dragged broken furniture from the chapel. They swept shards of glass from shattered windows, scrubbed blood and plasma stains from the deck. A small man leaned against a tree with his hand over his mouth. His shoulders trembled as he pressed his fingers into his eyes.

  No one should live in Blackwood. No one should remain so close to the forest where Fren Rheina had met her end. Some stories deserved to be forgotten. But that was not why Regilon had come. He had returned to Blackwood to find the other ascender hiding among the Blackens.

  Oddly, the villagers noticed him but did not react. Did they think he was only a phantom? Or were they too drained to care that a Gaverian stood among them? Most likely, they had endured too much in too little time to be startled by the sight of great men. All the better. He preferred their silence.

  He came upon a group of children hunched over with hands braced on their knees, watching one boy scratch symbols into the dirt with a stick. A crude Ripper hex, misshapen and useless. When Regilon’s shadow fell over them, they looked up and froze.

  “Out of all the people here,” Regilon asked, “who do you think is hiding something?”

  The children glanced at one another before pointing, almost in unison, toward a certain apartment.

  “The Shepherds,” the oldest girl said. She lifted her hand higher, to a hole in the wall of the upper floor. “My mother says they’re cultists.”

  Regilon shoved his freezing hands deeper into his coat pockets, loathing the southern cold more with each minute. The only thing the Gaverian coat excelled at was being green.

  “Thank you,” he said, and moved on.

  They followed him. Of course they did. Not only those few, but others who had been listening from a distance. A trail of children. A trail of eyes. The scent of ascension thickened in the air, a waxy fragrance reminiscent of Genevie’s. The earthen boy carried that same scent. Coincidence? Not likely.

  Out of respect—or fear—the Blackens did not follow him up the apartment stairwell. A young woman stepped from her room, laundry basket in hand. She bumped into Regilon, froze when their eyes met, then backed silently inside. Faces peered from cracked windows, tracking his ascent. Each sigh of relief came only after he had passed.

  This generation of earthens was too young to remember the Great Oppression, but their parents had made sure they never forgot him.

  Debris littered the landing. Regilon picked his way through bent iron rods, his boots crunching broken cement as he stopped before a gaping hole in the wall. The smell was strongest here. He stood at the mouth of the ruin and peered in.

  The boy must be Maselli. He and his parents had taken their places, waiting for the visitor they could not refuse. Nothing about them seemed unusual.

  He nudged a pebble aside with his boot and stepped into the house, the ceiling nearly brushing his head. He could hear their hearts thundering as he stepped closer. Regilon gave them some time to accustom themselves to the monster from their stories standing in their living room.

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  They never settled.

  Breaking the silence, Regilon said, “I have questions.”

  “Please,” the woman answered. “Haven’t we been through enough?”

  The earthen ascender’s mother. The Assembly had handed her son to Schemel. It was certain this woman would never see her son again.

  A portrait balanced on the broken television. A young couple, barely in their teens, dressed in suit and gown. The woman held a child in her arms, another boy standing proudly at her side. Two sons. One killed by the government. Another stolen. And yet Maselli remained.

  Regilon brushed the dust from the frame and lifted it to his nose.

  Nothing.

  Maselli’s room told a different story. Girl’s clothing, hairbrushes tangled with long black strands, handbooks, detergent bottles. The hair was too dark and too long to belong to an earthen.

  The family sat still in the living room, pretending not to notice his every movement.

  Regilon rubbed his temples and left the bedroom behind. The kitchen counter had a line of locked cabinets beneath it. One. Two. Three. He stopped at the third, crouched, and pulled it open.

  Nothing.

  Not nothing.

  The inside was crawling with hexes. Purple triangles painted along the cabinet walls, repeated and layered, one after another. Triangles upon triangles.

  Lowering himself fully, he sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, humming as he studied the markings. The father, against his wife’s hushed protests, edged into the kitchen. He stopped behind Regilon and exhaled in relief when he saw the cabinet was empty.

  Something was in here after all.

  “Who drew these?” the Gaverian asked.

  “My son,” the earthen man said at once. “The one you came for. He started… acting strangely, before it happened.” Few would dare lie to a Gaverian.

  Regilon stifled a yawn. “May I speak to your son in private?”

  Maselli and Regilon descended the stairs together, leaving the apartment behind. They moved past the drying lines, past the community’s water tanks, the boy’s flip-flops slapping against the mud. Neighbours fetching water glanced up, only to turn away just as quickly, pretending not to see the Gaverian in their midst.

  They walked on, out beyond the community, past a pair of boots drying in the dirt. The ground softened beneath their feet as they neared the boundary of Blackwood: the forest itself.

  Trees seldom spoke, but these whispered without end. They told Regilon he ought to hang himself, promising their branches would hold the rope. They recited the names of the dead and those yet to die. Fren Rheina’s soul, they murmured, would never find rest in this cursed place.

  Regilon halted and the boy stopped beside him.

  “Your heart doesn’t race like the others,” said Regilon. “Are you not afraid of me?”

  “I am, Sir.”

  “Did your father teach you to lie, or does it run in your blood?” Regilon’s tone hardened. “I know you’re hiding someone. I could have you all arrested and executed for conspiring with foreign powers. Own up, and I may consider mercy. Do not try to lie.” He pressed a finger against Maselli’s temple. “I can read your mind.”

  “You can’t, Sir,” Maselli said, eyes turning away. “Only swayers can read minds, and…” He trailed off, distracted. The forest pulled at him. His gaze searched between the black trunks, as if something waited there, obvious yet unseen. “You’re no swayer, Sir.”

  Perhaps the boy wasn’t lying. Perhaps there truly was something in the trees. No branch stirred, no leaves rustled — yet the child looked on, transfixed.

  “What are you looking for?” Regilon asked.

  Maselli swallowed. “What we were hiding, Sir. I don’t know how to describe it, but… it’s blacker than the trees.”

  “Is that what’s been hiding in your home?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Maselli said. “It’s a fae.”

  Some soldiers had died in the forest only days ago. Regilon had assumed Genevie was the culprit. But Genevie wasn’t here — much as he wished she were.

  “Will you kill it when you find it?” the boy asked.

  Regilon gave a short, derisive snort. Without another word, he turned his back and strode away, putting as much distance between himself and Blackwood as he could.