When Bruce returned to the Tower, Dwayne’s eyes were closed, his breathing slow.

  “Clay, report.”

  “Ma’am? Weren’t you in a-”

  “This was too important. Report.”

  “It’s been quiet. He hasn’t moaned or called out at all.”

  So Dwayne’s dreams and nightmares had been that obvious. He should have guessed that.

  “Interesting. Perhaps his body is adjusting.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now,” a scraping, a thump, “he’ll be waking up in three minutes. When he does, you’ll do as we discussed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Dwayne counted ticks of the strange cabinet.

  When he got to forty, Sioned said, “Ma’am, I… I was wondering…”

  A scoff. “What do you have to wonder about?”

  “After tomorrow-”

  “After the Day of Cleansing.”

  “Yes, after that, what do you want me to do?”

  Eighty-five ticks.

  “I don’t see what you’re asking.”

  “After tomorrow, you won’t need me-”

  “Correction, I don’t see why you’re asking. After the Day of Cleansing, you’ll get your reward for ridding the world of filth.”

  One hundred thirteen ticks. “Will I be able to go?”

  “Why would you want to do that? Where would you go?”

  “Maybe back to the Shaderats?”

  “After what you’ve done? No, I think not.”

  “Then just somewhere else.”

  “I think it’s best if you stay here. It’s…safest for you to stay here.”

  “Oh.” One-hundred and seventy-one ticks. “Okay.”

  Dwayne sat up and yawned.

  Click. “Welcome back, Dwayne.” Bruce’s smile had no threat in it now. “Well rested?”

  “Oh, very much so.” Dwayne stretched. “I love being drugged. It’s so restful.”

  Bruce’s smile turned waxen. “I see. Clay, do it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sioned rushed into the circle of tytumber and shoved Dwayne face first into the floor.

  “Why?” asked Dwayne against the floorboards.

  “Because today is the day we make history.” Bruce walked over and unlocked Dwayne’s shackles. “Hasn’t that been your goal this entire time?”

  “I already have. It’s only brought me trouble.”

  “Has it?” Bruce snarled. “What a pity. Get him into position.”

  Sioned hauled Dwayne to his feet then dragged him to the back of the room as Bruce went over to the stairs and pulled a crossbow out of a crate underneath them.

  She aimed the weapon Dwayne’s way. “Don’t move. I’ve applied a most efficacious and lethal poison to the bolt, and even I can’t miss at this range. Clay, go do as I said.”

  After a quick glance at the soil bucket, Sioned rushed away, leaving Dwayne standing on his own feet for the first time in days? Weeks? Longer?

  Note to self: tytumber interfered with balance.

  “You’re not taking me to the College of Martial Magic?” he asked.

  Bruce scowled. “So that your allies can find you? No.” She stepped aside to allow Sioned to pull away one of the boxes of hanging tytumber. “We’ll keep you here. It fits an affront to true magic like you to be kept in the dark. Why they made you Qe master I’ll never understand.”

  Dwayne blinked. “I passed?”

  Bruce’s jaw worked. “Not the point.”

  “I mean, if the Magisterium says I’m-”

  “While your skill is undeniable, your blood will pollute all it touches. Why should you be lauded when I…” Bruce sucked in a breath. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll make history and then you’ll be dead.”

  Dwayne heard what wasn’t said and remembered what was told him what seemed like a lifetime ago: “One has even started her own college.”

  “You’re part Wesen,” he said.

  Bruce’s face flushed. “No.”

  “Yes.” He could see it in the curls of her hair, in the shade of her skin, in the shape of her nose. “Yes, you are.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “I am not,” said Bruce. “I am Souran. Just because my mother had a moment of…” She raised the crossbow. “How dare you condemn me!”

  Dwayne stepped back. “I’m not-”

  “You, who have been cosseted, who have been praised, who has had a noble make him his heir, how dare you condemn me!”

  The pain in her voice demanded sympathy, and despite the shackles, the drugs, and the poisoned crossbow bolt aimed at his heart, Dwayne almost gave it.

  But Bruce continued. “And that story of you being a slave? Oh, that’s just precious.”

  Rage turned Dwayne’s sympathy to ash, leaving behind a desire to burn a lifetime of pain into that smug face.

  “Are you offended that someone saw through your ridiculous fiction?” Bruce didn’t see Sioned staring at her. “You were never a slave.”

  “Believe what you want.” Dwayne slowed his breath, let his fists unclench. She wasn’t worth it. Besides, the more important question was “Why are you building the Spire?” Except he already knew. Day of Cleansing. Vesicant. Plague District. “You want to wipe out all the Wesen and Vanurians in the city.”

  “Not wipe, cleanse. You helped, you know. Without this,” Bruce pulled the License Key out of her pocket, “I couldn’t have made this.” She produced a bottle of yellow liquid. “With this, I will bring Soura into a new age of moral clarity, free of evil.”

  And full of dead.

  “Ma’am, I’m done,” said Sioned.

  Leaving one tytumber box to keep Dwayne’s magic restrained, she’d replaced the others with three tables, a pile of tytumber bricks, and a plinth that held an azade sphere the size of a sabnut. Finally, she’d rotated the ticking cabinet so that Dwayne could see its front.

  “Good. Take this.” Bruce shoved the crossbow into Sioned’s hands. “I need to get his… encouragement from upstairs. If he moves, pull the trigger.”

  Sioned held the crossbow as if it might bite her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Dwayne’s attention drifted to the tytumber bricks as he recalled his notes from last night. They were clearly smaller than the crystals, but at least their regularity would make it easier to anticipate-

  “You used the bucket.”

  Dwayne’s attention snapped to Sioned. “Ah.”

  Hours before, he had woken up, feeling, if not more refreshed, then more whole. Waiting for him was nothing, no food wrap, no scowl, no pill. For the first time since he’d been hauled out of Latia Arena, he’d been alone. Rodion had come through.

  Not knowing how long he had, he’d moved quickly, casting Ri’a’tha exactly three hundred and sixty-seven times to create a space in the tytumber a half wir by half wir wide where he could cast. He could have freed himself, but he hadn’t been keen to take on an unknown number of guards. Besides, his best chance, if his friends weren’t coming, was the moment the Ri core was born.

  Apparently, after extending Bruce’s data and making a small yet crucial discovery, Dwayne had made one mistake: relieving himself in the soil bucket.

  Sioned’s hold on the crossbow steadied. “How?”

  Dwayne gave her an honest shrug.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What are you planning?”

  Dwayne shrugged again. “To make history.”

  “Which you will.” Bruce ignored Sioned’s yelp of surprise and passed her to hand Dwayne a thick book. “So you won’t have an excuse.”

  The book was Na’cch. In truth, he didn’t need it, but it felt so good to have it back, he nearly cried, but he couldn’t, not in front of Bruce.

  “Thank you.” Dwayne tucked the book under his arm, as if it were only a common reference text. “Do you have more data for me?”

  “You have all the data you need.” Bruce snatched the crossbow back from Sioned. “Now, set up the experiment. You have fifteen minutes.”

  Dwayne let himself squeak, “Fifteen minutes? How will I know?”

  Bruce rolled her eyes and gestured at the strange cabinet. “That’s a clock.”

  Looking closely, the front of the ticking cabinet had three concentric rings, each turning at different rates, the fastest as quick as a blink, the slowest as sluggish as the dawn.

  “Outer is hours, middle is minutes, inner is seconds.” Bruce adjusted her aim. “Now work.”

  For the show of it, Dwayne muttered further protests under his breath as he pretended to recalculate distances and timings.

  After ten minutes had passed, Bruce said, “Explain your methodology.”

  “First, the tables.” Dwayne moved them so that they radiated out lengthwise from the azade. “Now, I’ll place tytumber at even intervals along their length.”

  He loaded his arms with five tytumber bricks, all for the first table. By his best estimates, each tytumber block would add seven seconds to a spell’s transit time.

  As he placed them, Bruce asked, “Why not just shove them together?”

  Instead of the real answer, “because that would screw up the angles,” Dwayne replied, “So that the distance between the series, myself, and the target is minimized.”

  “I see.”

  Once Dwayne was done with the first table, he grabbed four more bricks, arranged three of them on the second table, and left one on the last.

  “There.” He stepped back and dusted his hands. “Now I’ll have fourteen seconds between each round to cast.”

  “Right.” Bruce eyed the array, searching for some flaw, as if this was something either of them had done before. “It’s an acceptable first attempt. Now, where will you stand?”

  Dwayne started at the end of the second table then took five long steps back. “Here.”

  “Good.” Her crossbow steady, Bruce put Dwayne between herself and the array. “Face the azade.”

  Dwayne turned, putting the poisoned bolt behind him.

  “You will not turn around. If you do, I will shoot. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “Clay.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sioned took away the extra tytumber bricks then hauled away the hanging tytumber, leaving Dwayne with a clear head and a clear purpose.

  “Clay, give it to him.”

  Sioned walked up to Dwayne and hesitated. Now was her last chance to tell Bruce that Dwayne had slipped his chains, that he was up to something. It was too late for appeals; all Dwayne could do was hope.

  “Clay.”

  “Sorry, ma’am.” Sioned pressed something small into Dwayne’s hand. “Good luck,” she muttered before stepping away.

  She’d given Dwayne a small blue sphere with a tiny flaw in its center: the Qe core Magdala had made for him. With this and Na’cch, he was complete.

  “Dwayne,” Bruce rattled the crossbow for emphasis, “get on with it.”

  “Understood.”

  Dwayne went over to the first table with its five tytumber bricks. Low on sleep and still ill from long tytumber exposure, he wasn’t really in any condition to cast any Qe spell, let alone an nQe one, but it was now or never.

  He recalled azade’s components, aimed high over the tytumber, and called out, “nQerikwem.”

  At once, his magic reeled, tried to instead cast Ri, but he wrestled with it until it was under control, and he could, at six seconds, aim high over the second station and call out “nQeanum!”

  “You’re going too fast.”

  “Sorry, nervous.” Dwayne moved over to the last table. “I think I can adjust. Ten seconds to last cast.”

  But really it was three, two, one, Dwayne closed his eyes, Ri.

  Last night, he’d discovered a curious thing about tytumber: it didn’t only slow magic, it bent it. Any spell cast at an angle to the tytumber ended up off target by degrees towards the material. This effect could be canceled out by other tytumber, which is why Dwayne’s first delayed casting hadn’t missed.

  What it meant for this experiment was that, four seconds ahead of schedule, a blast of light, static, and raw heat heralded the birth of a new Ri core. As Bruce cried out in shock and pain, Dwayne pushed into the heat, snatched the hot Ri core off the plinth, then knocked over a table and hid behind it. A crossbow bolt, hastily shot, shattered against the back wall, its pieces pittering onto the floor and the tabletops.

  Someone rushed downstairs. “What happened?”

  “He's tricked us,” shouted Bruce. “Harris, kill him. Retrieve the-”

  A horn sounded. “She’s here!”