It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  The Loci trembles in my grip, but my hand doesn’t budge. I think Marlena can sense it, feel the danger radiating off me, because she pulls back a little, like she might run. My other hand shoots out, grabbing her wrist tight, so tight she flinches. I have to do it. I have to. She could expose me. She’s a liability. Wars have casualties. Her life can’t be worth the hundreds of thousands I could save if I bring the Senate down. This is the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do.

  I have to kill her.

  Then I look into her eyes. I expect them to be frightened. But Marlena just stares right back at me, those deep-amber eyes blazing with curiosity and a hint of uncertainty. She’s not afraid of me, I realize, even though she senses the danger. She’s intrigued.

  I swallow hard, even as I keep my grip tight on her wrist, even as my Loci’s point angles her way, even as I can’t pull my eyes away from hers. I can feel the pulse in her wrist beating against my palm, her skin warm and soft. The air feels charged, electric. She should be afraid. Why isn’t she afraid?

  Then her eyebrows raise, just a little. A challenge. A dare. If you’re going to do it, her eyes whisper, then do it.

  I can’t do it. I let go of her wrist and she jerks her hand back, her chest rising and falling fast. She could run now. She could bolt for the door. I wouldn’t stop her.

  But she stays, watching me, rubbing her wrist where I grabbed her. “I won’t tell anyone,” she says. “I promise.”

  “Why would you do that for me?”

  “You defended me to the headmaster,” Marlena replies. “Even though I embarrassed you in front of all the others. You still asked for mercy.” She reaches to her back, wincing just a little. “Most of the students here would’ve demanded I be lashed more. I owe you a debt.”

  I know if Whispers could see this, she’d be livid at my weakness. And maybe I am weak. Maybe I’m naïve and gullible. But I decide I’m going to trust Marlena and take her at her word. “Thank you,” I say, and slide my Loci back into their sheaths. She relaxes a little at that, and I relax at her relaxing.

  “I don’t mean to pry, my lady, but may I ask why?” She kneels, picking up the Codex page. “Why would you do this?”

  “Because I need to win the Great Game,” I say, and at least that’s not a lie. “But I’m not going to do it unless I learn some advanced Glyphs, and fast.”

  “And this was the Glyph you wanted to learn?” She glances down at the page, her eyes darting across the text. “Third-Degree Delayed Elemental Infusion?”

  There is a long moment of silence.

  “You can read Old Marovian?” I say at last.

  “Of course,” she replies, “I assist many of the professors with transcription and note-keeping and…” She stops. “Wait. Can you not read Old Marovian?”

  “It isn’t commonly taught in New Kenshire,” I try. Can everyone else here read it? Am I hopelessly behind?

  “Oh,” Marlena says, studying me carefully, and I can see the glint of suspicion dance across her face. Out of everyone here, the first person to doubt me is a Humble servant. “You’re not like the other students, are you?”

  No, I’m very much not, and since I can’t deny it, I might as well lean into it. “The rest of the students grew up in Arbormont, in old noble Houses. I’m a new Mark. My father was a Humble commoner until he proved himself in the war. I didn’t have a fancy tutor to teach me Old Marovian. I have to learn here, now, as I go.” I swallow deeply, hoping she’s buying it. “That’s why I had to steal the page. That’s why I have to do this.”

  She looks at me thoughtfully, and it feels like the mood between us has changed instantly. The tension is gone, replaced by something else, a shared conspiratorial air. “My lady…” She hands me back the page with one hand, and with the other she brushes her black hair out of her eyes. “I would like to make you a proposition.”

  “A proposition?”

  “I can teach you Old Marovian,” she says. “I can read these pages. And I can get you more. I work in the library, helping with transcription and organization. There are other pages like this. I can get them for you.”

  That is a hell of an offer. Too good. “And in exchange?” I ask.

  She hesitates for just one moment, like she’s gathering her courage, like a diver on the edge of a lake bracing herself to jump in. Then she looks up, her eyes again meeting mine. “I want you to take me with you,” she says. Her voice is even, but her gaze burns with an emotion I can’t quite place. “When you graduate and leave this island. Take me with you wherever you go.”

  “Is that permitted?” I ask. “I thought you had to stay on this island.”

  “In special cases, exceptions may be granted,” Marlena explains. “Last year, when Vicus Sinclair graduated, he asked for his favorite servant from the Order of Vanguard to be released from his role here and to join his staff instead. Headmaster Aberdeen granted it. You could ask the same for me.”

  “I don’t know that I’ll have the sway to move the headmaster.…”

  “You will if you take the Order of Nethro to victory,” she says, and then for the first time she smiles, her cheeks dimpling, her eyes dancing with cunning and mischief. For the first time I think I see her, the real Marlena, not the servant humbling herself to please a Wizard, but the cunning, calculating girl behind that facade. She’s smart, I realize, exceptionally smart, wearing a mask just as much as I am.

  Am I manipulating her? Or is she manipulating me?

  Does it matter?

  “All right,” I say. I have no idea if I’m stumbling into a trap, but we’re so far off the rails of strategy that I might as well go with what feels right. Marlena might be using me. She’s probably using me. But the fact is, there’s no way I’m going to read these pages without her, so maybe we can just use each other and hope it works out.

  “You promise?” Marlena asks. “You swear?”

  I nod. “I swear by the Gods, by my mother and father, may my name be cursed and my line ended. When I leave this island, I’ll do everything I can to take you with me.”

  That’s not a lie.

  She smiles again, widely and delightedly, maybe even a little giddily, and I notice for the first time how radiant she looks. My heart beats against my ribs, and I feel something I’ve only felt a few times in my life, the pull of destiny, the sense of significance. This moment matters. This choice matters. “Would you like me to read it now?” she asks. “I don’t have to if you don’t want to, if you’re tired, I just mean, in case…”

  “Please,” I reply. “Let’s do it. I could use a victory tonight.”

  Marlena nods, then turns to the page. “Third-Degree Delayed Elemental Infusion. This Glyph allows the caster to temporarily imbue a given receptacle with the lowest level of power from a base elemental Glyph. The base Glyph and this secondary form must be carved directly into the receptacle, which must weigh less than one stone. The effect will persist for up to seventy-two hours but may go dormant until the receptacle is touched. When carving the second form, carve it in reverse order, starting with the smallest circle and working up.” She turns to look at me. “Did you do that?”

  I blink. “Not necessarily. I mean, not all of it. I didn’t really use a receptacle. I just carved it.”

  Marlena stares at me. “Into the air? You know that treats the air as the receptacle, don’t you?” She looks back into the room, where the last vestiges of my mess are melting away, then back at me with increasing alarm. “You infused the air with ice?”

  My cheeks burn with embarrassment. “You know an awful lot about magic for a Humble,” I manage to get out.

  “And you know shockingly little for a Wizard,” she replies, which is fair but still hurts. “I’ve spent my life here, helping professors and students. I’ve picked up quite a bit.” She walks over to a set of wooden shelves against the hall’s wall and picks up a wide stone plate, the size of a floor tile. “Here. These are meant for infusion practice. Try carving the Glyph in
to this.”

  The plate is surprisingly light, its surface smooth and polished. “Into the slate? Like, right into it?” Marlena nods. “All right. I’ll just go into the room then and try it out.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Are you sure? If I make a mistake, it can be dangerous.”

  She glances over her shoulder with a coy smile. “Then don’t make a mistake,” she says.

  I’m lost as to how quickly the dynamic between us has changed. I don’t understand her, this Humble servant who stared me down without hesitation, who grins as she teases me like an old friend. A part of me wants to jerk away, to run, to take a deep breath and think this all through before committing any deeper. But no. She’s here right now, and if she’s this willing to help me gain an edge, I’m not going to pass that up. I make my way back into the practice room, shivering a little as my bare feet pad over the icy floor. Marlena follows, carrying a small wooden pedestal, which she sets in the center of the room. “For the slate,” she explains.

  “I gathered,” I reply, though honestly I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I lay the slate down on the pedestal, take one last glance at Marlena, then draw my Loci and slip into the Null.

  The room is just the way it had been before, except the Glyphs on the walls are glowing a little brighter in the fog, and I can see fragments of my ice Glyph flickering blue all over the floor. I can vaguely make out Marlena, her shape a dark silhouette, her heart a steady beating beacon in the gray. I take a deep breath, then raise my Loci, pressing its tip right against the cold stone of the slate.

  I’ve never carved a Glyph into anything. I know it’s possible, certainly, but none of the Glyphs Pavel taught me worked that way, and I never dared try on my own. With a wince, I push down, and my knife slides forward, into the slate, like the hard stone is as soft and malleable as butter. It’s amazing but also wrong, profoundly wrong, a violation of everything I know about how physics should work, the uneasy, sickening friction of a nightmare.

  I carve my first elemental base (picking wind this time, after the disaster that was ice), and it glows a gentle white on the surface of the stone, like a tattoo on skin. Then I carve the second, the one from the page, the four concentric circles, taking just a moment to remember the order I’m supposed to carve them in. As I cut the final stroke, the second form merges into the base, melting into it, the soft white of the shapes intertwining. And then the Glyphs expand, blossoming out in a network of luminescent vines that wrap around the slate, crisscrossing over one another again and again like it’s being wrapped up in ribbon. I step back, gaping, and within moments, it’s so enveloped that I don’t see the Glyphs at all, just the slate itself, glowing a beautiful, radiant white.

  I jerk back into the Real. I’m not sure what I expect to see, but the slate is just sitting there on the pedestal, doing absolutely nothing. “It didn’t work?” I ask. “I swear I carved it right.…”

  “Try touching it,” Marlena offers. “I often see students do that after an elemental infusion.”

  I step forward and poke the slate carefully with one finger, like it might explode. It doesn’t. Instead, there’s a soft, low rustling sound, like the wind blowing through the trees, and the slate buzzes with that gentle white light of the Glyph. I jerk back, jaw open, and then before my eyes the slate lifts up, leaving the pedestal, spinning like a leaf as it rises up, up, up over my head toward the ceiling.

  I clasp a hand over my mouth to suppress the laugh. I did it. I actually carved an advanced Glyph, infusing the slate with the element of wind. It’s not the most graceful magic, not by any means. The slate wobbles back and forth uneasily, then after a minute comes crashing down. But I don’t care. I did it.

  I glance back at Marlena, and she’s grinning.“Nicely done,” she beams.

  “I couldn’t have done it without you. Very literally. I probably would have ended up killing myself.”

  “Do you want to try again?”

  I do, in theory, but I’m starting to feel a growing ache in my arms, like someone’s crushing them in a vise. My eyes are starting to burn, too, and my temples throb with an incipient headache. Magic fatigue. Every action you take in the Null causes ten times the exertion the same action would take in the Real. “I think I should rest for now.”

  “All right.” Marlena picks up the slate. “You go to bed. I can clean up here and put everything back the way it was.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “I’m a servant of the Order of Nethro. It’s why I’m here.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “You know what I mean. You’re not my servant anymore, Marlena. Not after this.”

  “Then what am I?”

  It’s a good question, honestly. I take a step back and look at her, really look at her. The way her black hair makes her pale skin look almost ghostly. The way she stands, confident and tall, her white shirt clinging tightly around her lean frame. And above all, her eyes sparkling bright with intelligence, earnest and unknowable and intoxicating all at once. I don’t understand this girl, can’t understand this girl. She’s like a riddle whose solution’s dancing at the edge of my mind, like a word whose definition you can almost recall. I know I should keep my distance, that I should keep up my guard, that I should fear what she knows. But all I want is to get closer. All I want is to understand.

  “You’re my partner,” I say at last.

  She smiles again, almost glowing, then she gently places the slate, which still feels warm, in my hands. “All right, then,” she says. “Partners.”

  She turns back, bending down to sweep away the last fragments of ice, and I make my way back through the basement, to the flight of stairs up into the common room. Even as my body aches, my mind reels, trying to make sense of it all.

  If Whispers had been here, she would’ve told me to kill Marlena the minute I was exposed. But if I had done that, I wouldn’t have gained her as an ally. If I had done it Whispers’s way, I’d be stuck uselessly staring at the Old Marovian. I’d be alone.

  Maybe Whispers’s way is wrong. Maybe I can do this my own way. Maybe I can carve my own path.

  I collapse hard onto my bed and feel sleep taking me like an enveloping shroud. This could all still backfire, of course. Marlena could still report me. But I don’t think she will. Not after what she did. The moment she broke the rules and read me that page, she sealed her fate alongside mine. Like those vines weaving across the slate, our fates are intertwined, two strands bound together.

  One way or another, we’re in this together.

  CHAPTER 13

  Now

  I spend the next three days in an excited blur, a giddy haze of my newfound strategy and power. During the days, I slog through class, I joke with Fyl, I walk with Talyn, and then I sit alone in my room at night, counting down the hours, minutes, seconds, until I can creep down into the practice rooms with Marlena, until I can learn more forbidden Glyphs, until I can huddle together with her over stolen pages and listen rapt as she translates their secrets. At the end of every session, I feel overwhelmed, exhausted, light-headed. My body aches, but it’s the good kind of ache, the kind of ache where you can feel yourself getting stronger, harder, more skilled.

  Then, on the fourth night, Marlena says, “No.”

  “What?” I ask. We’re both in my room, sitting side by side on my bed with the door shut, the sunset outside lighting up the room with a bright-orange glow. In theory, Marlena is making the rounds through the Order to change sheets and collect silverware, but really, she’s here to talk to me. “What do you mean, no? I need to practice!”

  “We can’t spend every night together,” Marlena explains. “It’ll draw suspicion on me and then on you. Besides, if you want to win the Great Game, there are other skills you’ll need to cultivate.”

  “Like what?”

  “The challenges are all team based,” Marlena says, with just the subtlest hint of do I really have to explain this? “You can be the greatest Wizard in the sch
ool, but if you haven’t built a team that has your back, you’ll still get crushed. Right now, all your fellow Nethros are downstairs in the common room, socializing, mingling, making friends. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to find your allies.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “Are you giving me strategic advice now?”

  Marlena shrugs, but I see that slight twitch in the corner of her lips, the mischievous glint in her eye. “You’re the Wizard, Lady Dewinter. You can make all the strategic decisions you want. I’m just the Humble servant who knows how the game is actually won.”

  Now I’m the one fighting backing a smile. I know I ought to be more wary, more cautious. I know Whispers would be screaming if she could see this. But I can’t help myself. Our sessions together, the two of us huddled together as we pore over stolen pages, as the air around us pulses with magic, are the best part of my day. “All right,” I tell her. “If you insist. But tomorrow night…?”

  “Tomorrow night.” She nods.

  So I get out of bed and throw on my blazer and head downstairs to the common area. Like Marlena said, it’s packed with other Nethros. The dining tables have been stripped of their tablecloths and are now lined with students working, poring together over loose papers and thick tomes. Others lounge on their own in comfortable chairs by the roaring fireplace. Tish is there, their nose buried in a massive leatherbound book titled The Rise and Fall of the Izachi, and they don’t even glance up as I stroll down. On the other side of the common room, there’s a less studious atmosphere. Several Nethros sit around a circular board, brows furrowed in consternation as they slide colored stones around in some elaborate game. Two boys cuddle up, resting their heads together as they read a romance novel. And a few others, like that hulking Velkschen Zigmund, just sit on the couches and chat, laughing noisily with goblets of wine in hand.

  I don’t know where to begin, but I don’t have to. “Alayne!” a voice calls. “Over here!”