We spent more time talking and planning, as Adaline only got better at the ritual teleportation magic. We had to spend time foraging for food to fuel Adaline’s intensifying magic use, and she especially craved protein. We had to spend long periods of time resting as the ritual teleportation magic wore Adaline down quickly.

  It was often like that with unfamiliar magic. I had to start setting up the tent, washing our clothes, and taking over cooking, all still without my own magic. As I struggled through the hard physical chores of living life in a tent, I longed for access to my magic again.

  I hadn’t camped since I was a child, and I found myself relying on instruction from Adaline as heavily as she relied on instructions from me for the teleportation spells.

  “You can’t just throw a hook in the water, you have to bait it,” she said as we camped by a river one evening. Her head was in her hands and there were dark circles under her eyes. We might have to give her a day to rest before doing another teleportation spell. “Don’t you remember anything from our old fishing trips?”

  “I remember you being a know-it-all,” I said. “Like you still are. I have bait, I got it while you were napping.” I put it into the end of my hook as we spoke, and threw it into the river. The water was wide and lazy here, and I hoped the fish were biting.

  I stood partway into the water, digging my toes into the mud. The weather had grown colder as I had been in captivity, autumn moving from promise to reality. The water was cold, but otherwise I was decked in extra furs Adaline had shoved into her bag; the cult had plenty to spare. The contrast between the heat of my bundled body and the stark cold of the river was strangely pleasant. It felt completely new after a life spent in the carefully-managed temperature and atmosphere in Mage headquarters. Rain didn’t even fall there unless it had the right approval.

  “Oh, please, you’re just as bad,” she said, pulling her shoulder into a lazy half-shrug.

  “I’m absolutely not,” I said. “You just carry yourself like you know more than the rest of the world. You have the aura of being a pretentious jerk even when you’re not trying.”

  “I suppose I would have made an amazing queen then,” she said, smiling bitterly. “I’ve always thought Calenthe was more like that than I was.”

  “Oh, Calenthe is worse,” I assured her. “I only met her briefly and even I know that. But you’re still bad.”

  “Maybe that’s why we got along so well,” she said, closing her eyes. Her face was too tense to be sleeping, though.

  “Before you stole her man?” I asked.

  “Oh, she wished Friedrich was hers to steal,” she said. “She always intimidated him too much. She didn’t know how to keep a cap on her petty ambitions around them.”

  “Weren’t those the same as your petty ambitions?” I asked. “Being queen of the world?”

  “Ah, but I outgrew it,” she said. “I know how to play the social game better than Calenthe. She was always too deep into it, she couldn’t see outside it. The trick was to keep yourself a bit outside it.”

  I was happy enough to stand with my feet in the river and let her talk. It felt almost like this could be a camping trip, a tiny family reunion years later. I had given up on this, on ever having any of this back, and it felt strange. But nice. I could dig my feet in the mud and get to know my sister again. I could pretend that we were on a brother and sister camping trip, that the future wasn’t a painful uncertainty.

  “I learned that, too,” I said, “eventually. The kids who were born into it, it was their life. They lived and breathed it. I had to keep myself separate, but…”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I thought I held myself separate from it. I thought I was so good at it,” I said. “Good at the game. Good at appealing to the right kind of kids. Good at studying. I had no connections, I was a kid recruited from the middle of nowhere.”

  “Kidnapped,” she hissed. I ignored it to continue.

  “And yet I passed my exams with flying colors and got a position with the Headquarters’ own enforcers,” I said. I was staring down at my toes in the water, the cool clear stream running over my feet. “Do you know how much effort that took? How good I had to be? I had to be above everything. To never get angry, never get too invested.”

  “Exactly,” Adaline said. “I understand that. Must run in the family.”

  “But… if I were above it, I wouldn’t have tried that hard,” I said. I glanced over at her. “I was so deeply invested in the game I couldn’t see past it. My- I had a friend. Someone who actually didn’t care, who focused on what he thought was important. And I didn’t understand it all.”

  “Are you talking about your best friend?” Adaline asked softly. “The one you lost?”

  “Yes,” I said. My voice sounded strangely monotone to my own ears. “The one I loved.”

  I don’t know if she’d judge me for loving another boy. There’s no real approved gender to love when you’re transgender. It didn’t matter now, though. She was already here in the wilderness with me.

  The wilderness was deceptive. I knew that intellectually. Most of these were forests cultivated for hunting and logging between areas of farmlands. Even knowing that, there seemed to be so much of it, and I hadn’t seen another human being besides Adaline in days. It wasn’t like all of this land was truly needed for farming; with magic, relatively little farmland could be made incredibly productive.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Holding the natural resources in reserve and using them as needed made sense. Still, it was startling to remember all this was there. All this had always been there, through every day of my struggles in Mage Headquarters and my recent imprisonment, not affected at all.

  I stared out over the water. The entire world was quiet, except for the water lapping at the shore. It was peaceful and a welcome change from my recent prisons. I stared out to the open horizon, breathing in clear air and trying to ignore Adaline’s silence. I was free. For now, I was free, and focusing on the task in front of me. I’d have to figure out what to do if Adaline started to hate me and what to do about the plans of the Hands and the Cult, but I wasn’t trapped anymore.

  I jumped when Adaline spoke.

  “Sarai and I loved each other,” she said. “Love each other.” She snorted softly, trying to laugh at herself. “It still feels dangerous to say that, even if I’ve already run away for her. I didn’t think I could speak the words aloud.”

  I turned around to put a hand on hers. My hand had been in the water recently, so it was freezing compared to hers, but the gesture still felt important.

  “You’re free,” I said. “You’re safe now.”

  Her jacket was hooded and she kept her face down so I couldn’t see her expression, but a teardrop fell onto my hand over hers. She pulled away.

  “I’m distracting you from your fishing,” she said. “We should keep our energy up for travel. I’ll set up the camp.”

  I let her leave to go cry on her own out in the woods. When I turned back to the horizon, my own eyes stung with tears. Out here under the open sky I didn’t feel any resentment or anger toward Adaline, but I still desperately wished I could be her. I wished I could run away to my lover and be free with him.

  It took me a long time to catch a fish and we didn’t eat well that night. Adaline didn’t complain.

  The weather got warmer as we jumped further South, until the air was pleasant again, and less rainy. We started warding the areas around us and just laying out blankets under the stars. I often cried, quietly, looking up at the stars. Out here in the wilds my grief for Adain was more intensely present. I often wished he could see how beautiful it all was with me. Yet it also felt more bearable. Like the scope of all the stars in the sky showed me how small I was with my sadness, and that made it easier somehow.

  Adaline had been dropping to sleep immediately, worn out by unfamiliar teleportation magic, but apparently she was growing more used to it. Tonight she spoke to me.

  “Izak,” she said softly. “Are you awake?”

  “Yes,” I said, matching her quiet tone even though we were alone.

  She paused a moment, like she hadn’t actually expected me to respond.

  “I wanted to apologize,” she said, “for the way I’ve been treating you. I’ve been cruel and ignorant about the fact that you’re a man now, and I shouldn't have been.”

  “I’ve dealt with worse,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.

  “That doesn’t matter. I’m going to do better.”

  “Well, that’s good,” I said awkwardly. Trying to be more light, I added: “You really are an actual grown-up now, huh? The Adaline I knew couldn’t apologize for stepping on your foot.”

  She chuckled a bit. “It’s Sarai’s influence, actually. I screamed at Theo one day for no true reason, simply because the transformation spell wasn’t working properly and I was frustrated, and she dressed me down. She didn’t yell herself, she just pointed out how none of it was actually Theo’s fault and it wasn’t right to yell. The way she said it… I just couldn’t argue. She was that kind of person.”

  For a moment I was left only with bittersweet envy and sadness in my throat. I had no idea what to say. Adain had been that kind of person, too.

  “I’ll be glad to meet her,” I said, trying hard to mean it. “Will I be your family representative someday?”

  The “family representative” was a common term for the members of the wedding who represented family of origin, traditionally parents but often siblings as well. It was a mistake to say that. I was trying to be lighthearted, but it just came out wistful and sad.

  “I… I suppose Amdriel does legally recognize the partnership between two women,” she said slowly. “They don’t call it marriage, though, I thought. Would we even have a wedding?”

  Her voice was as wistful as mine, though more hopeful than sad.

  “You would have one if you wanted to,” I said.

  Partnership between two people of the same gender wasn’t recognized everywhere in Westrion, but it was in Lake City, and I’d seen a few weddings between Mages of the same gender. Mostly low-level Mages who didn’t want heirs or marriage alliances. Those partnerships still weren’t as respected, but it was always nice to see the weddings. I’d wondered if I’d have one with Adain one day, sometimes, though other times I imagined marrying a girl with high-status Biralei parents and surprising everyone. I smiled bitterly to myself in the dark.

  “If we even make it that long,” she said darkly. “Once the Heirs do their ritual of power on the Interdimensional Equinox they’ll start their conquest, and they won’t be happy about me.”

  “I suppose there’s no chance of them recognizing same-gender partnerships,” I said with a sigh. “Adaline, shouldn’t we do something about it? What’s the ritual supposed to be? All their sacrifices at that strange mountain tree Drianthenes brought me to?”

  “That’s the buildup,” she said. “There will be another sacrifice the day of. I don’t know how to stop it, Izak. I was a part of it, and the power that flows through you during those rituals… You can’t imagine. And that will only be a taste of the real thing.”

  “Well, we have to do something!” I sat up on my elbows, looking over to where her sleeping bag was set out in the dark.

  She didn’t move, didn’t look at me, and I could only just see the glint of her eyes looking up at the sky above. “I did do something! I stopped being a part of it. I left, Izak. What more can I do?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that. Except that I knew something I could do about it, but I didn’t think she’d like it.

  “Well, let’s talk to Sarai about it,” I said, “and Nalei when we get her.”

  It was a pitiful answer. Sarai was no more powerful than us, probably less so. Adaline and I were both unusually gifted and if we couldn’t do anything, neither could she. It was similar with Nalei. But it was all I could think to say.

  Adaline sighed. She knew the facts as well as I did.

  “We can discuss it with them,” she said. “Now let’s sleep.”

  She rolled over to face away from me. I lowered myself back to lying down and looked up at the moon and stars. I had to stop the Heirs, too, I couldn’t just rescue Nalei. If I didn’t then we’d all simply be prisoners again soon. And there would be all the war and bloodshed I’d seen in my visions when I was in the Machine.

  I closed my eyes and savored my freedom and my life while I still had it. The night air was pleasantly cool on my skin and smelled clear and pure. There was only the slight smell of grass and flowers on the breeze. When I opened my eyes a bright constellation of moon and stars filled my vision.

  I had to do something, and there was only one thing I could do. I let the plan fall into my head, not thinking too hard about it. I didn’t want my dread to ruin this moment.