Chapter 1

Elwyn Hakon had been stuck underground for three months straight. Today, she’d get to smell fresh air again. Better than that, she’d get to be free, if only for a few hours.

Her hand bumped a vial, tipping it over. No!

She caught it as the first bit of ginger extract spilled. She righted the vial, wiped the spill with her rag, then took a calming breath. Focus! Stop thinking about the surface.

She scanned the medic-training room’s glass tables, where her classmates stood at cauldrons working on their own healing drafts. Most of them had their vials of ginger extract in their hands, ready to pour. Good, she was still on track.

She checked her vial. There was enough left—she hoped. She tipped the vial over the cauldron on her work table, which was held above the flames by an adjustable, iron stand, and she carefully let three drops fall. It emptied her vial, and the last drop was smaller than the first two. 

She peered into her cauldron, holding her breath. Please work, please work.

Her healing draft swirled yellow. Yes! She let out her breath. Elwyn watched it until the rich color permeated the whole draft. It was almost time for the next step.

She searched her table, and she had to squint against the light radiating from the floor. Under the glass floor, the lucten river flowed slowly, like glowing, liquid crystal. Its silver light, varied with blues and purples, shone up from the floor and filled the room. The lucten’s warmth radiated into her boots and up her legs.

She found the hexagonal glass bottle that held a silver, pointed petal from the sacred therapeian flower. She carefully uncorked it, and the petal lifted from her bottle into the air.

She caught it delicately, then she turned to the table to her right and rolled her eyes. Her best friend Neilan Eudynam grinned, his dimples standing out. He waved his hand toward her, and again her petal flew up into the air.

She tried to glare at him, but a smirk pulled at the edges of her lips. He moved his fingers, and the petal settled back into the open bottle. He winked at her then turned to his own healing draft.

Her chest warmed. She turned back to her cauldron, the smile still pulling at her lips.

At the table on her left, a draft caught fire. Chief Keeper Wuervik waved a hand toward it, and the burning draft condensed into a rock glowing with heat at the bottom of the cauldron. “Did you lower the stand too far, Jathdi?” Wuervik asked.

Jathdi’s eyes shadowed, and he leaned forward, grumbling. A lock of brown hair fell in front of his eyes.

Elwyn took a deep breath and checked her draft. Yellow, not boiling, okay. Still good.

On her right, Neilan’s eyes were closed, and his hands were under his flameless cauldron, an inch from the metal, raising the temperature with Magic. He didn’t need fire like the rest of the Keepers-in-training who didn’t have Magic yet. The silver glow of lucten light shone on his dark-brown forehead, accentuating the concentration-crease between his eyebrows.

She smiled. It was fascinating to watch him work.

She checked her draft again. There, the first rising bubble. She tipped the hexagonal bottle over her cauldron and the therapeian petal slipped into it. The silver petal floated momentarily, then sank.

The draft swirled, streaked with blue, then faded to cloudy periwinkle. It was working! She was going to do it this time.

Now for the lucten powder. She grabbed the glowing, crystalline nugget of hardened lucten and her pestle. She crushed the nugget into powder then scooped it into the measuring bowl. She ran her knife across the top of the bowl, making sure the measurement was perfect. She had to do this right.

She’d never have Magic, though all her classmates eventually would. She had to learn to do it for herself, to be self-sufficient. If she learned to survive on her own, she’d be halfway toward escaping this place. To being free. Then she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone.

The periwinkle liquid thickened. Almost time. She picked up her wooden spoon as the draft’s swirling slowed. Almost, almost.

It stopped swirling. Now!

She dumped the lucten powder into the cauldron then stirred three times. The color deepened to shining indigo.

Time to lower the cauldron, to help the draft reach just the right temperature. She grabbed the handle of the iron stand.

“Ow!” she cried out and let go. Where was that rag? Her hand pulsed with heat and pain, but she couldn’t worry about that yet. She only had seconds before the draft would be ruined.

She scanned her work table. There! She grabbed it, wrapped it around her hand, and reached for the hot, iron handle again.

Before she touched it, the handle moved on its own. The stand responded, and the cauldron lowered just the right amount. Her heart dropped.

Bubbles rose in the draft, growing to a boil. Just like it was supposed to. The indigo liquid turned translucent and brightened. Her throat tightened, and her eyes burned. She turned to Neilan.

He grinned at her, dark brown eyes sparkling in the lucten light.

She forced a smile onto her face. “Thanks.”

“Couldn’t let you burn yourself again,” he said with a laugh, and he looked down at his own cauldron. His draft was boiling away, perfectly silver.

He’d been trying to help. But her draft turned silver, and her insides knotted. Her flawless draft was a lie. She had to do it on her own, to prove she could. To prove to herself she could stand on her own.

Her hand radiated hot pain. She inspected it, an excuse to avert her eyes from Neilan. Angry red stretched across her palm and fingers, blisters just starting to form. She’d have to ask Wuervik for help. He’d been a Medic-Keeper before he became Chief Keeper of the Haven—the underground safehouse they lived in. Elwyn looked across the room at him.

Wuervik noticed her gaze and walked toward her, his boots clunking on the glass floor. Before she could mention her hand, he looked into her cauldron. “Well done, Elwyn.”

Her face grew hot. Wuervik walked away, glancing into each person’s cauldron as he passed.

From the next table, Jathdi whispered quietly enough for only Elwyn to hear, “Maybe one day you’ll actually do your own work.”

Her chest constricted, but she kept her face ahead, staring at her cauldron while heat rose up her neck and face. Jathdi snickered. Elwyn’s exceptionally pale skin must’ve betrayed her blush. She shook her long, blonde hair into a curtain around her face.

She’d get a break soon. Two more hours then she’d get to go to the surface, alone. Well, alone except for Wuervik, but he wasn’t much in the way of company. Usually, she and Neilan went up together, but Wuervik was still punishing them for sneaking into the Certified Keepers’ Wing. Twice.

It wasn’t so bad, though. Alone, she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else. She wouldn’t have to hold anything in, to pretend—even for Neilan.

“Time to pack up,” Wuervik said. The room filled with movement.

“Your usual instructor will be back from her surface mission by Dawnday for your next lesson,” Wuervik said. “You have three hours until sparring practice. As Elwyn will miss sparring today,” he scanned the room, “Jathdi will partner with Neilan.”

“What? Chief Wuervik!” Jathdi yelled.

Wuervik glared down at him.

Jathdi shrunk from him, but still protested. “Why me?”

“Neilan will not use Magic against you, he knows the rules,” Wuervik said.

“I know, but—”

“Then there can be no objection. Report to the sparring room in three hours.” Wuervik turned to the rest of the room. “You’re dismissed.”

Jathdi opened his mouth again, but Wuervik bore down on him. Jathdi looked down and finished cleaning up, working his jaw muscles.

Elwyn peeked at Neilan out of the corner of her eye. He stood entirely still, glaring at his table. She took a hesitant step toward him, but he turned away and started cleaning up.

Throughout the room, the rest of the Keepers-in-training cleaned up and hustled out. Wuervik strolled from cauldron to cauldron, waving a hand over each of them. The drafts inside condensed into rocks, which he placed into a sack.

At one cauldron, rather than get rid of the contents, Wuervik picked up the empty hexagonal bottle from the table and pressed a hand against it. The glass thinned as the bottle expanded, as though he was glass-blowing it. He tipped the cauldron and filled the now large, hexagonal bottle with translucent, silver liquid.

Wuervik reached Elwyn’s table and glanced into her cauldron. He nodded to her approvingly, enlarged the empty bottle from her table, and filled it with her perfectly silver, disappointment of a draft.

As he turned away, the painful pulsing in her hand forced itself into her consciousness. In a tiny voice, she said, “Wuervik?”

He glanced over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows.

She held up her hand. “I burned myself.”

He came closer and slowly waved a hand over hers. As he did so, the hot pain drained out of it. The redness faded, and the blisters shrank and flattened.

If only Elwyn could be an Heir of Magic, her life would be so much simpler. She could heal people, instead of being a danger to everyone around her. And she wouldn’t be hunted, at least as much.

Wuervik strolled on, emptying the cauldrons. Once he’d bottled up Neilan’s draft, he turned back to Elwyn. “Meet me in the Concourse by noon.”

She nodded. Most kids’ parents chaperoned their monthly trips to the surface, but Elwyn and Neilan didn’t have parents, so Wuervik was in charge of them. Wuervik paused and glanced at Neilan. He looked like he might speak, but instead he turned back to Elwyn and said, “Happy birthday.”

Elwyn’s shoulders tightened. She didn’t want to think about her birthday. She looked down and said, “Thanks.”

Wuervik nodded and strolled out of the room.

Elwyn walked up to Neilan, but before she could speak, he turned to her with a big, forced smile. “Two hours ‘till you go up. What now?”

Elwyn paused, wanting to make him feel better about Jathdi’s mean-heartedness and about having to pair with him for sparring, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. She forced a smile and said, “The library, where else?”

Neilan gave an exaggerated sigh. “We’re always there. It’s your sixteenth birthday! Let’s do something else.”

“My birthday only tells me I’ve spent sixteen years in this place without figuring out how to leave.”

“Well, technically you’re leaving in two hours.” He smirked.

She glared at him. “You know what I mean. I can’t leave for good until I can figure out somewhere to go where I won’t be found by him.”

“Yeah, yeah. But come on, can’t we do something else for once?” He clasped his hands, begging.

“You can. I’m going to the library.”

Neilan’s eyes shadowed. “You know, it isn’t such a big deal. All the things you think are so important. Anyone being here is dangerous. It’s a risk. You being here is no different.” He paused. “You don’t have to leave.”

Elwyn glared at the floor. “You know I’m different. Everyone does. And even if everyone’s in danger either way, I don’t want to be the problem.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I know. I just think you could ease up a bit.”

Elwyn’s insides twisted. She met Neilan’s eyes, but she couldn’t form words. She didn’t know how to explain how desperate she felt, how much she needed to do it. She wouldn’t be the reason people were hurt. She couldn’t. She didn’t know how she’d survive if she was. So she had to leave before anything happened to them. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else, and the pressure inside her could finally let go.

Neilan sighed. “Fine.” He took a step toward the door, then he stopped and looked at her with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

Chapter 2

“What?” Elwyn asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m gonna get something to eat.” But his eyes still sparkled with whatever idea he’d just hatched.

“Of course you are,” she said, laughing. He was always eating. She sometimes wondered if he used Magic to assist that uncanny digestive system.

But what was he really up to? Knowing him, it could be anything. They strolled to the door of the medic-training room, Neilan pretending to be casual. Through the open door, the round tunnel glowed from the natural lucten-vein that ran under the glass floor of the whole Haven. Silver light danced on every surface, moving with the slowly flowing lucten river.

A little kid walked by, holding his mother’s hand, and he looked at Elwyn curiously. She smiled at him, but his mother pulled him closer and passed by with eyes straight ahead.

Elwyn’s stomach tightened, and she dropped her gaze to the floor. She slipped into the hallway, walking as close to the wall as she could.

Averting her eyes from the flow of people, she stared at the wall. One of the few comforts of the Haven for her, along with the ever-flowing lucten, was the roots from live trees that paneled its walls and ceilings. They were cleaned and tightly packed, sealing out every speck of the dirt that lay behind them. The roots’ natural unevenness, their slightly variant color, and their gentle sturdiness soothed her soul. She felt connected to them, grateful for their commitment to seal out the damp soil.

Magic was probably involved, but Elwyn preferred to think that the roots chose to protect the Haveners. She ran her hand along the root-lined wall, reveling in the feel of the uneven cylinders under her fingers. Neilan strolled next to her, head high and gait loping. He practically screamed confidence. How did he do it? If only she could feel as serene as he looked.

They neared the open door of the library and Neilan said, a little too eagerly, “In you go!”

“I need to grab my notebook from my room,” she said, continuing toward the Concourse.

He paused a moment, obviously torn between keeping his plot a secret and wanting to stay with her as long as possible. After a second, he caught up to her. Her chest warmed, and she smiled to herself.

Through the archway ahead glowed a cascade of liquid lucten, falling from the ceiling in the center of the Concourse, giving the impression of a glowing pillar. At its base was a shallow basin, decorated with the Eudaimonian crest: a single therapeian flower with five mature petals and five new petals budding from the center. In the middle of the basin, a wide hole opened through the glass floor and lucten flowed from the pillar under the glass in every direction.

The luctenfall’s light moved on the walls, like the time Elwyn swam in a surface pond and watched the sunlight dance across the pond’s bottom. Haveners flooded the massive Concourse, flowing in and out of the round hall’s six archways, which led to the five branches of the Haven and the exit: the Enex Staircase.

A pair of Certified Keepers headed toward the Enex Staircase with leather bags full of what was probably medical aid. A few Qualified Keepers, those who’d finished training and received their Gift but hadn’t been approved for sensitive assignments yet, followed the Certified Keepers up the Enex Staircase with sacks of grain. The Haven, which kept Heirs of the Eudaimonians safe and trained them to use their Gifts, aided surface-dwellers in the mountains and small towns who couldn’t get adequate care.

Leaving the archway of the Training and Recreation Wing, Elwyn took a breath and waded into the crowd. Neilan joined her, cutting through the throng with his tall, broad frame.

“Why’d they put the K.D. Wing so far from the T.R. Wing?” Neilan complained, a fact he’d grumbled about countless times before. He squinted at the archway directly across the Concourse, the Kitchen and Dining Wing.

Elwyn laughed. “They probably weren’t thinking about hungry teenagers when they designed the place.”

“They were thinking about hungry adults, though,” Neilan said resentfully. Elwyn laughed again. It certainly was suspicious that the K.D. Wing was right next to the Certified Keepers’ Wing.

Across the Concourse, two people stood out from the crowd, heading to the C.K. Wing: Wuervik and a man with long, black braids, silver eyes, and harshly upright posture.

“Astur’s back?” Neilan asked in a low voice.

Elwyn’s skin prickled. Why was the Protector of the Haven here? Was something wrong? She asked aloud, “It’s been what, two years, since the last time he came back?”

“At least,” Neilan said, unconsciously moving closer to Elwyn and putting himself between her and Astur. Despite her own apprehension, Elwyn sighed to herself. Neilan’s protective instincts were intense.

They didn’t know exactly what Astur did on the surface, but they thought it was something to do with preserving the secrecy and security of their safehouse. All they really knew was that he was important, and he was unsettling.

Seeing Astur and Wuervik together made the gray in Wuervik’s hair stand out. There was much more of it since the last time Astur was here. But Astur looked exactly the same, as always. As long as Elwyn could remember, Astur hadn’t aged. When she was a kid, she would’ve sworn Astur was years older than Wuervik, but if she met them now, she’d be sure Astur was the younger of the two.

“How does he do it?” Neilan asked, apparently to himself.

“Hmm?” Elwyn raised her eyebrows at him.

“The Magic. It’s gotta be Magic that keeps him from aging. He must be crazy powerful.”

Elwyn shrugged, uneasy talking about it out loud. “Must be.”

“I wonder if I’ll be able to do that,” Neilan said, his eyes bright with the idea.

Neilan certainly was powerful, exceptionally so, but she wasn’t sure if she liked the idea of him being able to do that. “So you’d be the next Astur and only come around every couple of years?” she asked.

“Nah. I’d stay with you.”

“But what if everybody needed you to do whatever it is that Astur does?”

Neilan shrugged. “Nobody but you matters.”

A shiver ran down Elwyn’s arms. She forced a smile and tried to laugh, but pressure settled in her chest. That was a lot of responsibility. Too much. Being the only thing that mattered to him meant she held all of his happiness in her hands.

What if she hurt him? She would. It was inevitable, no matter how hard she tried to protect his happiness.

He was the most important to her, too, but he wasn’t the only thing that mattered. She had her own needs, was her own being. She cared for him, and she also wanted to be her own self. Couldn’t both of those happen at the same time?

They neared the Residential Wing archway, which pulled Elwyn from her spiraling thoughts. “See you in a few,” she said.

Neilan started, then his mischievous grin returned in full-force. “Until then, my queen.” He bent into a mock bow, his dimples deepening.

She rolled her eyes and turned into the Res. Wing, picking her way through the flow of Haveners. The long residential tunnel, full of people coming and going, was lined with shut doors. It curved left and right until it disappeared around a bend forty paces ahead.

Beyond the bend were the couples’ and families’ apartments, which held whole homes with several sleeping rooms branching from a main room. At least, that’s what Elwyn had heard. She’d never seen past that first bend. The rooms for lone inhabitants were right here, just inside the archway. The lone inhabitants each had a sleeping room that opened straight off the main tunnel, at the outskirts of the Res. Wing.

Elwyn’s room was the third door on the right, directly across the tunnel from Neilan’s, which was right next to Wuervik’s. She lifted the latch and slipped into her room, quickly shutting the door behind her, which muffled the ceaseless sound from the tunnel outside. As soon as it closed, tension flowed out of her body. She was alone.

Her little, round room was unlit. The Hospitality-Keepers hadn’t come in yet, so the darkening mat still covered the floor. She bent and rolled up the woolen mat that covered the small patch of lucten-lit floor between her narrow sleeping pallet and her washstand. Silver lucten-light flooded the room, which was barely three paces across. She’d heard that the common rooms in family apartments could be up to fifteen paces across, but she loved her little room. It was cozy. But more than that, it was hers: the one place she could be entirely alone.

She sat down on the edge of her pallet and reached under it for her small, spiralbound notebook, where she’d catalogued all the scattered information she’d gleaned about the surface world, especially anything that showed potentially safe routes and destinations.

She pocketed her notebook, but she didn’t get up. She sat there, taking long, slow breaths. The muffled sounds drifting to her from the tunnel outside somehow made the peace of being in here more poignant.

She was alone, what a luxury. No one knew or cared where she was at this exact moment.

A gentle tingle arose deep inside her chest, the familiar reverberation of the High King’s Magic. It was a reminder that she was never entirely alone. The High King always knew where she was, and his presence was always with her. But that didn’t detract from the peace. His presence was as much a part of her as her own heart—it was what made aloneness not loneliness.

She laid back on her pallet, her ankle-length white dress wrapping around her legs like a blanket, and she watched the lucten light play on her root-lined ceiling. It moved so slowly it wasn’t trackable unless she stayed perfectly still.

She should get going. She didn’t have much time to research before her surface trip, but it was so peaceful here. The tension in her chest was almost unnoticeable. What a life it would be to have it completely gone.

That thought was the motivation she needed. The only way for her tension to be gone for good was if she wasn’t here risking everyone’s safety. The only way to be gone from here was to figure out where to go, and how to travel there, without being caught. She pushed herself up from her pallet and headed for the library.

Chapter 3

Balancing a pile of scrolls and books in her arms, Elwyn scanned the T.R. Wing library. Rows of shelves reaching to the ceiling covered the root-lined walls, which were packed with scrolls, spiralbound books, lucten lenses, and leatherbound books.

Lucten-light from the floor glinted off the packed shelves, most of which were in a state of disorder from the negligence of the Keepers-in-training. The top shelf was orderly, since few of the Haveners were tall enough to get anything down from it.

The open space between the shelves was scattered with glass study tables. Elwyn’s usual table, the one in the corner, was open. But at the table just in front of it, Vacca held court. Her silky, auburn hair fell down her back like a shiny waterfall, and her followers fawned and giggled. Just what Elwyn needed.

She skirted the shelves closest to her usual spot, staying out of Vacca’s line of sight. She set her materials down quietly to avoid catching Vacca’s attention and slipped sideways into the chair. Shelves blocked her right side, and the root-lined wall blocked her back. She was only exposed from two directions, and she could watch both of those at the same time.

She pushed her small pile of materials to one side of her table and unrolled a topographical map. Terralum expanded onto the table, backlit through the glass from the lucten light below. The map’s ink lines stood out sharply against the glow.

She leaned over the map. It was the crowndom she was born in, the crowndom she technically still lived under. But it felt separate from her, like she didn’t belong there, even though she was descended from its ancient rulers.

Elwyn pushed those thoughts away and studied the map’s topography lines. She fingered the stretch of uninhabited forest on the western coast between the mountains and the sea. Right now, she was somewhere beneath that forest, but the Haven wasn’t marked, even on its own maps.

She looked closer and found the spot she’d left off yesterday, a point just inland from the narrow mountain range that divided the coast from the valley.

She reached for the travel log she’d been studying. The Keeper who wrote it decades ago had tried traveling without using any of the homes or inns known to be safe, which Keepers usually stayed in. She’d wanted to see if she could travel without staying in any human dwellings at all—to travel Terralum without putting anyone’s home or business at risk.

There weren’t any records in the library of the dwellings regularly used by Keepers as temporary safehouses. Unqualified Keepers-in-training weren’t trusted with that sensitive of information, yet. This log didn’t reveal any of them, which was probably why it was kept where trainees could find it.

The log was a starting point at least. Elwyn was mapping the route the Keeper took exactly as she had taken it, then she’d make adjustments.

Many of the places the Keeper stayed in wouldn’t be safe enough for her. Plus, Elwyn could only travel on Darkday, when Fainor eclipsed the sun, for extra cover. She’d need places she could stay hidden for the three light days of the week: Dawnday, Brightday, and Twilitday, in between Darkdays. Sometimes she could maybe push it and travel from full-dark on Twilitnight to first light on Dawnday morning, but that could be more dangerous, as well as tough to travel straight through for a night, a day, and a night.

She’d also have to be careful of the types of people who tended to be out during Darkday. From what she’d read, most people stayed home or at least inside on the day of rest, but some used it like she intended to, for cover. Then, of course, she still didn’t have a final destination. She’d yet to discover a place to stay long-term where she wouldn’t be found.

Her heart ached with the futility, but she kept going. She had to keep going, had to do something.

She pulled her spiralbound notebook from her dress pocket and opened it to the next available page. She folded the rest back along the spiral and laid the open page on the glass table. She made a note of the spot she’d left off yesterday, then turned back to the travel log.

It was a leatherbound book, crafted with beautiful precision. All those words, handwritten with such care. The letters were consistent, the edges crisp, the margins straight. Elwyn had only made one attempt to craft a leatherbound book so far in her training, but the final product hadn’t come close to the ones in the library. Keepers probably used Magic for such precision.

The precision steadied her. However, being leatherbound, it was more difficult to read than the spiralbound ones that could be backlit. She opened the page and held it above her head, to reflect the light from below.

A giggle rang through the room. Vacca glanced over her shoulder at Elwyn, her eyes glinting. Then she leaned toward the girl next to her and whispered. Her followers burst out laughing, then Vacca looked back at Elwyn and smirked.

Elwyn’s face grew hot, and she put the book down. The giggling dragged on.

Once again, her traitorously pale skin advertised her blush. She shook her hair around her face, and she reached into her dress’s left-hand pocket. She found the wooden sancan that Neilan had whittled for her so long ago and rubbed the smooth head with her thumb. She felt the outstretched wings, the feathery back, the clawed forelegs, and the webbed hindlegs. She remembered the live sancan he’d based it on, the one they’d seen flying overhead during a surface trip when she was eight and he was nine. It was the only three-domain animal she’d seen in real life. It had looked so free and peaceful. 

She took a long, slow breath. She could take it. At least, she’d have to take it. She refused to become the danger that everyone told her she was, that her Gifts made her.

Her worthless Gifts. What she wouldn’t give to abandon them, but there was nothing she could do about her ancestry.

She was descended from two of the ancestral Gifts: Logic and Linguistic. There were five ancestral lines: Logic, Linguistic, Magic, Music, and Aesthetic. Everyone else in the Haven was born of the Gifted line of Magic. As far as anyone knew, Elwyn was the first person ever to bring together two Gifted bloodlines—Solun took great care that the genetic lines never crossed.

From the moment of her conception, her Gifts were dangerous. Her parents hadn’t known—how could they? They didn’t know they had Gifts, let alone that their Gifts would make their baby a target.

Solun had stalked her parents until the day Elwyn was born, then he came for her. He killed her parents, but before he could get to Elwyn, Astur and Wuervik stepped in. They took her to the Haven and raised her there, supposedly to protect her, but Elwyn knew her imprisonment in the Haven was mostly to protect everyone else from what she would become if Solun had her.

As far as Elwyn understood, Solun thought she was dead. But if he found out she’d survived, he would hunt her and destroy everyone who’d kept her from him. The lie of her supposed death hung over her like an hourglass, the sand ever pouring through. It was only a matter of time before he found out the truth.

If he found her, he would either kill her or make her use her Gifts to serve him. If given an option, she’d pick the first one. She refused to be used to hurt anyone, but she didn’t know what kinds of power he had to force her compliance. The only way everyone was absolutely safe from her was if she didn’t exist. Or if she disappeared.

The Haven couldn’t be the only place she was safe. There had to be somewhere she could go, some way of evading him. Being an Heir of Logic and an Heir of Linguistic, maybe she could figure it out—when her Gifts came to her. They were still dormant, like they were for all her unqualified peers except Neilan.

At the open library door, a figure in a floor-length, hooded cloak appeared and swept in. Elwyn’s shoulders tensed. Why a winter cloak? The lucten river under the floor kept the Haven warm. Besides that, it was summer.

The figure, tall with broad shoulders, wound between the study tables scattered throughout the room. The hood slipped, revealing the back of a head with close-cropped black curls, and he turned toward Elwyn and grinned. Her muscles relaxed. Even across the vast library, Neilan’s dimples stood out.

With one hand, he pulled the cloak tighter around himself and made his way toward her. What was he doing? He plopped into the chair across the table from her and grinned again.

“What?” she asked, not sure whether she was more curious or apprehensive.

He opened the front of his cloak. Inside it, he held a thick slice of bread spread with jam. “Happy birthday,” he whispered, grinning.

She smacked a hand to her mouth to stifle her gasp and laughed. “Where’d you get that?”

“I have my ways.” His dimples deepened, and he held the bread and jam out to her.

She laughed. “I can’t eat it in here.”

He gaped. “But that’s the whole point!”

“We’re in the library!” she said, half-laughing, half-aghast.

“We’re always in the library. Live a little.”

She looked down, trying to pretend that didn’t sting. That’s what she was trying to do, to find a way to live. To be free.

She wished she could be easygoing like him, but the pressure in her chest never let go. “I don’t want to ruin anything,” she said, gesturing to the materials on her table. “And I can’t risk getting in trouble before my surface trip today.”

He looked down and shrugged. “Yeah, I know. Just wanted to do something for your birthday.”

Her chest constricted. Why’d she have to hurt his feelings? All she wanted was to not hurt anyone, but here she was, hurting her favorite person in the world. She caught his eye and tried to smile. “Thanks.”

He gave a half smile.

She took the bread and jam from him and took a bite. Sweetness burst across her tongue. “So good!”

He laughed, and his dimples showed up again. Then he looked down at the map. “Any luck today?”

Elwyn set the bread on the edge of her study table and glanced at the travel journal. She sighed and said, “Course not.”

“What’s this one?” He reached for a spiralbound book, opened a page, and folded the rest back along the spiral.

“Terralum’s Crown-Protected Primary, Secondary, and Ancillary Road Systems,” Elwyn recited.

He scanned the page. “I doubt the Crown-protected roads will be an effective escape route from, you know, the Crown.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Solun isn’t the Crown.”

“Fine, an effective escape route from the Crown’s overlord.” He caught her eye and smirked.

“Knowing where the roads are might be some help,” she said defensively.

Neilan flipped through the spiralbound book, but he was only pretending to look. He knew as well as she did that it wouldn’t make a difference. They’d been scouring this library for years, but there wasn’t enough information here to form a real escape plan, one in which they actually had a destination. The meaningful resources were tucked away in the Treasury in the C.K. Wing, the most restricted branch of the Haven.

If only she could get in. But she couldn’t try today, she’d risk her trip to the surface again.

She glanced at the book Neilan held and asked unenthusiastically, “Maybe I could hide in the Tensmon Mountains?”

“Unsafe,” Neilan said. “Gangs roam the mountains.”

He pulled out another map and unrolled it. The whole continent, Mirterr, glowed from the lucten-light underneath it. He leaned over it and scanned the eastern edge, as far from Terralum as they could get on land. “Maybe the Punipyr Desert?” he suggested dully.

“How could we get there without being spotted?” she asked in the same tone. They’d been through this conversation a million times. It was almost a script, now. They’d probably go on like this for another sixteen years. But maybe by then they’d be Certified Keepers and could get into the Treasury.

Neilan had always said he’d go with her. He didn’t have any reason to stay. But she was pretty sure it was just a daydream to him, something fun to think about and plan together.

It didn’t keep him awake at night, like it did her.

Chapter 4

Elwyn watched Neilan trace the map from Terralum toward the Punipyr Desert, crossing the Benetroph Plains. “Any idea what the Plains are like?” he asked.

Elwyn hopped up and crossed to a row of lucten lenses on a shelf labeled “Relinquished Heirs.” She followed the row to the section labeled “Benetroph Plains,” and she gingerly picked up the first lucten lens, a palm-sized disk of hardened lucten manipulated by Magic to hold memory.

She hustled back to her table, closed one eye, and drew the lucten lens up to her open one. Through it shone the glass table, underlit with silver lucten light, then colors swirled inside the lucten lens and formed a scene.

A woman in the simple, commoner’s dress typical of Haveners stood in a half-harvested wheat field watching a man working the field. Unaware of her presence, he lifted an impossibly large sheaf and balanced it across his shoulders. He strolled toward a pile of equally large sheaves across the field, apparently as easily as if it were a single stalk.

The woman followed him. He noticed her, his eyes widening, and he dropped the sheaf. She bowed slightly and approached him. “Excuse me, sir. I’m here to offer you sanctuary. You have power, so you will soon be targeted—if you aren’t already.”

The man frowned. “Power?”

The woman squinted against the bright sun. “You’re an Heir of Magic, as I am.”

The man shifted uncomfortably. “Magic? I don’t know what you mean.”

She pointed to the massive bundle of wheat. “When you prepared to lift that sheaf, what did you do?”

He avoided her eyes. “I willed my legs to be strong, and they were.”

She nodded. “You pushed Magic into your legs, and probably the rest of your muscles, whether or not you knew exactly what you were doing. You’re powerful enough to be observed as a Magic user. If we can discover you, Solun will too. He tracks the Heirs of the Eudaimonians. Everyone who proves to be powerful or appears aware of their Gifts, he enslaves. If you come with me, you’ll be protected and trained. But we need to leave immediately. You can’t return home to pack or say goodbye to your family.”

The man started, and his eyebrows drew together.

The Keeper continued, “They must believe you had an accident in the fields, or a wild animal dragged you off. You can’t tell them that you intend to leave. If you do, they won’t grieve properly, and Solun will notice. He will get the information out of them and hold them responsible for your disappearance.”

“Hey, now,” the man said. “This is a bit sudden. I have nieces and nephews to think of, you know. My sister and her husband need the money I bring in. I can’t just abandon them.”

The Keeper stiffened. “If you choose not to come with me, I won’t come back again. And I trust you won’t share this conversation with anyone. If you do, you’ll put yourself and your family in even more danger. If you don’t come with me, you leave yourself to the mercy of Solun. He will find you, and he will enslave you. And what might happen to your family, then?”

Elwyn squinted past the man into the far distance. The land around the two figures was a wide expanse of flat farmland, checkered with smooth fields. She spun in a slow circle with the lucten lens, so more of the scene took shape around her, but it was just more and more of the same flat farmland. No cover anywhere.

She sighed and pulled the lucten lens away from her eye. The glowing floor of the library seemed dim compared to the bright sunlight of the memory.

“Anything?” Neilan asked.

Elwyn shook her head.

He played with the crinkled edge of the map, his cloak still on. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, sparkling silver in the lucten light against his dark brown skin. He wiped his forehead.

“Why’re you still wearing that thing?” she asked.

He grinned, surreptitiously reached into his cloak, and dipped his head in. Then he emerged, chewing, and winked. Elwyn rolled her eyes, but a smirk pulled at her lips. Of course, if he was going to go to the trouble of sneaking her a treat out of the K.D. Wing, he couldn’t resist getting himself something, too.

“You just ate,” she said.

“Yeah, but I need extra fuel. I’m an Heir of Magic,” he said mock-importantly.

“Along with everyone else here.”

“Except you.”

Her stomach tightened. “Except me.”

He dipped his head in for another bite.

“Don’t get caught,” she said, trying to make her voice sound light. “I’m not going down with you this time.”

He opened his mouth wide in fake shock. “As though I’m the bad influence here.”

She let her hair fall in front of her face. “Fine. But be careful. We don’t want to ruin any of these materials.”

She turned back to the map, but she didn’t take any of it in. Tension pulled at her neck and shoulders, but she tried to keep it off her face.

A boot and the hem of a tan trouser leg came into her line of sight. “Look who it is,” Jathdi said, his derisive voice settling onto Elwyn like frost. “Pretending to work again?”

Vacca and her followers giggled.

“Leave her alone,” Neilan said, his voice low and angry.

“You do her work for her. Do you speak for her now, too?” Jathdi asked. He stepped closer. “Oh what’s this? Ah ah, not supposed to eat in the library.”

He reached out and flipped her bread onto the map, jam-side down. Elwyn’s heart dropped, and she gasped.

“Hey!” Neilan yelled and jumped up. He lunged at Jathdi.

Jathdi snorted and sprang back, out of his reach. Laughter erupted from Vacca’s table.

Elwyn’s neck, ears, and cheeks burned. She grabbed the jam-spread bread and shoved it into her pocket, but the damage was done. She wiped frantically at the jam with the long sleeves of her white dress, but it just smeared the sticky mess all over the map. Jathdi strolled away, laughing under his breath.

“Ignore him,” Neilan said, glaring at Jathdi’s back. “He isn’t worth the time.”

Elwyn kept her eyes resolutely down, at the sticky map. The corners of her eyes burned and pressure rose in her face as she tried to hold back the tears. She blinked and kept her face averted from Neilan as she steadied her voice. “Yeah, I know.”

That was much easier to say than to do. She doubted he could’ve ignored it, though he might’ve been able to hide his reaction. He had plenty of practice with that. He was unusual, like she was. An anomaly, in lots of ways.

He was parentless like Elwyn, but not an orphan. He’d been a Magic user already at six years old—more than a decade younger than anyone else Elwyn had heard of using the Gift. His parents gave him up to Astur and Wuervik, and they brought him to the Haven to be raised with Elwyn as Wuervik’s wards.

Usually, at least in the Haven, the dormant Gift was received at the Qualification Ceremony to become a Keeper. Neither of them knew how Neilan had the Gift so young. Plus, he was extremely powerful. Only Wuervik and maybe a few of the most skilled Certified Keepers could come close to combating Neilan.

Elwyn kept wiping at the jam-smeared map, but her sleeves were as sticky as it was. She looked up at Neilan, despairing. He chuckled. “Here, let me help.” He waved a hand lazily over the map and her arms, and most of the jam disappeared.

Her dress looked like it’d been laundered, with stains still but no stickiness. The map looked like it’d been wiped with a rag. It was much better than it had been, but it still had a tacky red stain across it. Elwyn wiped at it more with her freshly un-jammed sleeves. Neilan laughed and leaned back in his chair.

A mass of Keepers streamed into the library, and Elwyn’s chest tightened. She couldn’t get caught, not today. In a flash of panic, she rolled up the slightly sticky map.

Her stomach dropped. She pictured the leftover bit of jam sticking the layers of the rolled map together. The jam would dry inside it and fuse the roll together. It’d be impossible to open without tearing, and the damage would be irreversible. Here she was, yet again, hurting something. She couldn’t stop causing harm.

She picked up the map and hustled it back to its shelf, her gut prickling. Neilan watched her return to the table, then he took off his cloak and draped it over her shoulders. She pulled the front closed to hide the stains on her dress.

She started sweating from its unnecessary heat, but she ignored it and kept an eye on the Keepers. There were dozens of them. It had to be most of the Certified Keepers. They crowded around a shelf of spiralbound books, then dispersed throughout the room, looking disgruntled.

Elwyn had never seen this many Certified Keepers in one place. Even at mealtimes, they came in waves. With all of them here right now, the C.K. Wing would be emptier than ever. This was the best chance she’d had yet to get into the Treasury.

She pocketed her notebook, but then she hesitated for a moment. A tingly tug pulled at her chest—a sign of the High King’s guidance. Her chest rose. He knew what he was doing. If he was guiding her this time, she might finally succeed.

She stood and whispered to Neilan, “Come on.”

He smirked. “Here we go again.”

Chapter 5

Elwyn paused with Neilan in a shadowed curve of the C.K. Wing's main tunnel, the one that led to the Treasury. Neilan’s cloak was still draped around her shoulders, but it was more comfortable now because it wasn’t as warm in the C.K. Wing.

The lucten vein under the glass floor was thinner here. Rather than one solid river of lucten stretching under the whole floor, the vein here split into lots of thin brooks. Lucten lamps were hung in the ceiling at regular intervals to make up for the lack of natural light, so most of the round tunnel was flooded with silver lucten light. All except for this one curve.

Elwyn took a few steps forward, running her fingers along the smooth cylinders of the roots. Ahead, the bend that led to the Treasury loomed nearer and nearer. She’d never made it this close before.

A tiny thunk rang from up ahead, like the closing of a door. Elwyn froze. Maybe she’d imagined it.

An elbow bumped into her back. She spun around and raised her eyebrows. Neilan stared at her wide eyed and mouthed, “What?”

She put her finger to her lips. A soft clomp, clomp grew from around the bend in the tunnel. She waved her arms at Neilan, whispering frantically, “Back! Go back!”

Neilan retreated a few steps then stopped, staring at her with wild eyes. If they ran, they’d definitely be caught. Elwyn’s heart raced, but the tingly tug in her chest pulled her toward the shadowed curve. She hurried toward the curve, jamming into Neilan in her panic. He lost his balance and tipped toward the root-lined wall.

He reached out to catch himself on the wall, but instead he fell right through the roots.

Elwyn blinked. She reached out and pushed on the vertically-lined roots where Neilan should have been. The roots swung backward. She pushed the roots apart and squeezed through them into pitch black emptiness. The glass floor gave way to hard-packed mud.

Elwyn listened hard, but she couldn’t make out anything through the curtain of roots. She couldn’t just stand here and wait to be caught, so she turned away from the roots and felt into the dark emptiness. She took a tentative, blind step, then she felt in the dark for Neilan. She touched an arm, then she found his hand and held on. Keeping one hand in front of her, she pulled on Neilan’s with her opposite one. His hand tightened in hers, and he followed her deeper into the pitch black hole.

Engulfed in darkness, Elwyn counted her steps to keep some track of the way. Ten, eleven. It was more than a hole. The air was stagnant and heavy, and cold. The lack of lucten made her shiver, inside and out. What was this place? Her mind spun with possibilities.

But Neilan’s deep breathing and his hand inside hers grounded her. They were the only real things in the world.

The hand she held out in front hit damp, hard-packed soil. She paused and ran her fingers along it both ways. The tunnel turned. Keeping her fingers on the wall as a guide, she set off again.

Ahead, a tiny murmur rang out in the darkness. She stopped mid-step. Neilan took one step more, but she pulled on his hand to hold him back. He stopped, and she held her breath.

Two voices murmured back and forth, too far ahead to be understood. Elwyn tiptoed toward them. A faint, vague glow showed a curve in the tunnel ahead. Elwyn inched toward it, pulling Neilan’s hand with her.

Around the curve, spiderweb-thin lucten veins ran in the wall, growing in density around a door fifty paces away. The thin crack between the door and its frame, lit from behind the door, blazed like a torch in the darkness.

Elwyn and Neilan crept toward it. It was unlike any door Elwyn had seen before. It’s dark metal surface was so smooth that it shone like glass. Detailed symbols, like boxy characters, were etched into the frame all around it.

The voices grew louder as Elwyn and Neilan neared the door. They solidified into two voices: Astur’s and Wuervik’s. Elwyn shivered. She and Neilan held their breath and listened hard, their ears as close as they could get to the cracks around door without touching the door itself.

Astur’s voice carried through the cracks, clear in the otherwise silent space. “—changing. It’s time to forward her training. We need her Gifts.”

Wuervik’s voice said, “She doesn’t have them yet.”

Elwyn’s chest trembled. She caught Neilan’s eyes, which were wide and tense.

“Yes, but she has the imprints of them.” Astur’s voice was contemplative. “Only having access to Magic all these years, we’re stagnant. We’re still in hiding, still incapable of taking action. We need something more, which Logic and Linguistic could give us. I sense that she’s supposed to be involved.”

“She’s unpredictable,” Wuervik said. “We can’t risk it.”

“I am not asking,” Astur said, firm and low. Elwyn pictured his silver eyes flashing. “You will inform her of our real situation, and you will train her to use whatever amount of Gifting her lineage has yet provided her to seek the way we have not found.”

Elwyn’s shoulders tensed. What was the “real situation”? What did Astur want her to do? She breathed as shallowly as she could, straining to catch every word.

“It would be a mistake,” Wuervik said.

“We’ve made a mistake with her already,” Astur said. There was a pause, and Wuervik didn’t respond. “Though I’m not sure which of our actions was the mistake,” Astur continued.

“What do you mean,” Wuervik said flatly. It didn’t sound like a question.

“I’m not sure what’s happening,” Astur said, without heeding Wuervik’s tone, “but I feel a change coming.”

He paused again. A chair creaked, but Wuervik didn’t speak. Astur continued, “I’ve felt the High King pulling my thoughts toward her parents lately, quite often.”

Elwyn’s arms prickled. They’d barely mentioned her parents all her life. All she knew was that her father was an Heir of Logic, her mother was an Heir of Linguistic, and Solun had killed them. She tried to catch Neilan’s eyes, but he was staring hard at the floor.

“What could it have to do with them?” Wuervik asked incredulously. “We haven’t seen them in sixteen years!”

The back of Elwyn’s mind twinged. She tried to ignore it, to focus on the all-important conversation happening on the opposite side of the door.

Astur’s voice grew lower. “That day still pains me to remember.”

“We did what we did and it’s done.” Wuervik’s voice was harsh. “There’s no point looking back.”

Pressure rose in Elwyn’s chest. What did they do?

“You’re wrong there, young Wuervik.”

Elwyn was momentarily sidetracked. Young Wuervik? He had to be in his fifties.

Astur’s voice rang out again, “I believe it’s time for us to revisit Regsenfrag.”

There was a long pause, then Wuervik said in a small voice, “I’m not going back there.”

“Yes you are.” Astur’s voice was even, but his tone was stern. “I must first pay an overdue visit to the Heads. But you will go to Regsenfrag, and you will find her parents. Last I heard, they still lived there. You will—”

Elwyn’s heart screamed in her chest and drowned out her senses. Her parents? Her parents ‘still lived’?

They’d lied to her! Her mind flashed with white hot anger, then muddied with confusion. What did they do to her parents?

An image shot through her mind and took root, more vivid and feasible than ever before: a life away from here. A life with her parents. Her chest burned, and her face grew hot. They’d always said her parents were dead. Why did they lie to her?

‘Still lived.’ Where? She strained her memory for what Astur had said. Regsenfrag, that’s where her parents were.

She pulled away from the door. Neilan looked at her, his eyebrows furrowed but eyes wide. She turned and ran back down the tunnel. A hand caught hers before she reached the first curve. She grabbed on tight and bolted into the pitch blackness around the curve.

She smacked into the wall of the tunnel and crashed to the ground, pulling Neilan down with her. The sound of it echoed throughout the tunnel. The distant voices paused.

“We gotta go!” Neilan whispered as he scrambled to his feet.

She reached in the darkness for him and grabbed hold of his hand again. She pressed her opposite hand against the wall and ran, using the wall as a guide. They’re alive! rang over and over in her mind.

A bang like a door bursting open echoed from behind them. Voices yelled.

Around the next turn, light seeped between the roots ahead, and Elwyn pounded toward it. She burst through the roots, landing on her hands and knees, and Neilan dove through after her.

She jumped up.

“Wait—your boots!” Neilan yelled.

She looked down. Muddy footprints trailed her on the glass floor. She and Neilan yanked off their boots, while footfalls pounded in the tunnel behind the curtain of roots. Elwyn took off, boots in hand, Neilan a step behind.

Chapter 6

Elwyn’s heart and feet raced, but she focused on the single pair of boots thumping behind them. They were getting louder. Neilan’s cloak, still tied around her shoulders, flapped behind her as she ran, and the hem of her dress flapped around her ankles.

At the next fork, the left-hand tunnel went to the Concourse. She took the right.

She rounded a sharp turn, and a door ahead stood slightly ajar. Elwyn launched herself through it, and she grabbed Neilan’s arm as he nearly ran past it, dragging him in after her.

She shut the door quietly, and leaned her ear against it, holding her breath. She strained her ears. The boots were almost at the fork.

One, two, three seconds passed. The boots pounded down the left-hand tunnel. Elwyn let out her breath, her legs shaking. She sunk to the lucten-lit floor and dropped her face onto her knees.

Neilan’s voice whispered, “El?”

“My parents!” she whispered into her knees, voice trembling. “My parents!” She lifted her eyes but couldn’t meet his. She stared at his hands, which were clenched in his lap as he knelt facing her.

She turned away. The round room was bare except for a chest of wide, shallow drawers along one wall, covered in a thin layer of dust, and there was a closed door on the opposite side from them. Astur’s voice replayed in Elwyn’s mind, ‘—they still lived there.’

She stared at her knees and whispered, “They lied.” And now they wanted her to help them. They needed her Gifts. They wanted her for the same reason Solun did.

No. She wouldn’t do it. Her parents were alive! She had to find them. For once in her life, she’d do what she wanted without worrying about everyone else.

Tension radiated from Neilan, but he didn’t speak. Elwyn looked up into his face. His brow was furrowed, and he was staring at his lap with his jaw clenched.

She’d expected a reaction, but not this one. “What?” she whispered.

He shifted.

Her chest prickled. Something was off. “What?” she asked again, louder.

He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Are you sure?”

Heat rose in Elwyn’s face. “You heard the same thing I did.”

“Yeah, but…” He closed his eyes and dropped his face into his hands.

Why was he reacting like this? She’d expected anger, and shock, like she was feeling, not… whatever this was. A thought took form and rose to the surface of her mind. “Wait, you knew?”

His eyes shot to hers. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. His eyes were wide, pleading.

“You knew? And you didn’t tell me? How could you?” Her voice broke.

“I didn’t!” Neilan burst out. “Well, I thought maybe, but I didn’t know for sure!” He held her eyes, his face and shoulders straining. “When they came for me…” He looked down. “They day they took me, I overheard men—Astur and Wuervik—talking with my parents. They said ‘he will be raised with another child, one year younger than him.’ My parents asked about the child’s family, and the men said, ‘Her parents don’t live with us. She has no siblings.’ That was all they said about you. If your parents were dead, I figure they would’ve just said so.”

Elwyn stared at him, her mind racing. All this time, he hadn’t even given her a hint. “How could you not tell me?”

“I didn’t know you yet!” He paused, then whispered, “I didn’t know for sure… I could’ve been wrong. And I didn’t want…”

“Didn’t want what? Didn’t want me to have a family!”

“Who wants parents?” he whispered fiercely. Then the heat dropped out of his voice. “Thinking you were abandoned on accident is better than knowing it was on purpose.”

Elwyn glared at him. Her thoughts swirled, and she couldn’t get a hold of any of them.

“They gave us up,” he said so low she could barely hear him. “If they don’t want us, why should we want them?”

Neilan met her eyes. His were red, and tears welled in them. His jaw was clenched, and his hands were balled in his lap. Elwyn’s chest ached, and her stomach burned. She wanted to scream at him, and to hug him. To punch him, and to hold him. But she dropped her eyes to her lap and sat there, frozen.

The silence stretched, and her own heartbeat pounded in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I want to know my parents,” she whispered. “Even if they don’t want to know me.”

“I know,” he whispered bitterly. He took a deep breath, then let it out resignedly. “What about Solun?”

“What about him?”

“If you surface to find them, he’ll find you.”

He was right, but she said defiantly, “Maybe.”

Neilan’s voice rose slightly. “Then he’ll find out about the Haven.”

“My parents are Gifted. Maybe they can help me avoid him.” And actually be free.

The life that had flashed through her mind in the hidden tunnel rose again. A life with her parents, free of the Haven. Free of Solun, free of her fear of hurting everyone. Free of everything she had known.

She’d do it. She’d find them.

Neilan’s shaking, whispered voice broke in, “I can’t let you leave me, too.”

Her stomach knotted. She was all he had in the world. She avoided his eyes as she said, “I have to find them. Now, before they can stop me.”

Tension rolled off him, but she kept her eyes down. She wiped the mud from her boots and put them on, then she took off his cloak and tentatively handed it to him.

Neilan sat still for a moment, then rolled the cloak into a ball and clutched it. He wiped his boots and put them on, too. Then, without looking at her, he pushed himself up and pressed his ear to the door. “There’s movement out there,” he said flatly.

She stared around the room. The door on the opposite side drew her eye. She hustled to it and tried the latch. It was locked. She glanced across at Neilan. “Could you help me?”

He waved a hand toward it, but nothing happened.

Elwyn pulled the latch again, but it remained closed fast. “It isn’t working.”

Neilan frowned and strode across the room to her. He reached toward the latch, stopping with his hand an inch from it, and closed his eyes. His face tightened, and his arm muscles strained.

But again, nothing happened. He opened his eyes. “It’s fortified against Magic.”

Elwyn stared at it. “Can you undo it?”

“Fighting Magic with Magic would drain me way more than normal use. This door can’t be used much—the Keepers would have to take down the fortification then reinstate it again every time they used it.”

Elwyn’s mind spun. What were they hiding? But that brought her back: her parents. She hustled to the opposite door, the one to the main tunnel, and she pressed an ear to it.

Silence reigned immediately on the opposite side. Good enough. She raised her eyebrows at Neilan and asked, “Come with me?”

He paused and looked down at his feet.

She couldn’t wait for him to decide. She threw open the door and ran into the tunnel.

Chapter 7

Neilan fought to keep up with Elwyn, who was hustling toward the Concourse. He wouldn’t let her leave him.

He clutched his cloak in his fist, which made running awkward, but he couldn’t drop it or they’d know he was the one there. A set of muddy footprints were stamped along the glass floor, running parallel with Neilan and Elwyn.

They rounded a curve and the door out of the C.K. Wing appeared. Through the opening, the luctenfall in the Concourse glowed. Elwyn slowed enough to be as inconspicuous as an unqualified trainee coming from the C.K. Wing could be, and slipped through it. Neilan followed her through the doorway and through the wide arch into the crowded Concourse.

The muddy footprints ran on the glass floor from the C.K. Wing all the way to the Training and Recreation Wing, across the Hall. A Certified Keeper yelled out, pointing at Elwyn, and a few more started running toward her.

Elwyn burst into a sprint, heading for the next archway: the Enex staircase, which led out into the wild forestland above the Haven. Neilan sprinted hard to catch up.

He could help them stop her, but his chest tightened. No, he couldn’t. She’d never forgive him.

“Stop!” rang through the room. Wuervik burst from the T.R. Wing and reached toward them.

Without thinking, Neilan threw a Magical shield in front of Wuervik. The shimmering, translucently purple shield exploded into being and expanded across the room. Wuervik’s Magic slammed into it and reverberated off the walls.

Elwyn paused, looking from Neilan to Wuervik. Neilan hesitated. His chest ached at the thought, but he couldn’t force her to stay. He yelled at her, “Run!”

She spun around and sprinted toward the Enex staircase. She was almost to the archway. Neilan surged more power into the shield, then he sped after her, his heart racing.

The Keepers on this side of the shield took off after her, too. One reached forward, so Neilan threw up another shield, blocking Elwyn and him from everyone else. Magic assaulted the shield, slamming into it again and again. Keepers threw all their strength at it. He surged energy into it, sapping him. He stumbled.

Elwyn reached the bottom step of the Enex staircase, and she hurled herself up. Neilan tried to follow, but his legs felt like they were moving through water. His chest and arms shook—holding up both shields was too much. He let go of the one blocking Wuervik, then he dragged his legs into motion, to the first step of the staircase.

Wuervik sped to the second shield and attacked it. Blow after blow weakened it, and the edges wavered. Neilan threw his strength into it, then pushed himself up the stairs. Elwyn was halfway up.

Magic punctured his shield. Neilan strained to close it, but before he could, a wave of Magic flew through the hole. It surged past Neilan, up the staircase. A shimmering, slightly green shield burst into existence ahead of Elwyn. She slammed into it and fell backward, down several steps.

Neilan’s heart dropped. He sent a burst of Magic, which buffeted her fall. He dragged himself up the steps between them and pulled her to her feet.

She met his eyes, hers wide. She nodded to him, probably the best ‘thanks’ she could manage. Neilan’s legs shook, and his body dragged. The excessive use of Magic was draining him too fast.

Wuervik’s shield held strong ahead of them. Neilan stared down the staircase at his own weakening shield. They were stuck, and he didn’t have enough left in him to battle on both sides at once. He took a deep breath, and dropped his shield.

Wuervik and the Keepers streamed up the staircase.

Neilan surged his strength at the shield ahead of them. It wavered. He closed his eyes and yanked at it.

Sprinting footsteps echoed up the stairs behind him. The shield shook, then disintegrated.

Elwyn grabbed Neilan’s hand and pulled him up the stairs. He tried to climb, but he stumbled, then fell. She tugged at him.

He pushed Magic into his legs, renewing their strength. Unwise, being so drained already, but what else could he do?

He ran up the steps in her wake, then his mind fogged. The staircase felt like it was spinning.

The Enex hole opened above them, revealing the inside of the hollow, fallen tree trunk that masked the Enex hole. Brightday’s sunlight, streaming into the trunk from one side, flooded the staircase.

Elwyn surged toward the hole, Neilan just behind her, but then it started to close. Elwyn looked down the staircase past Neilan, and her face tightened with fear. “Wuervik’s closing it!”

Neilan yelled, “Go!”

Elwyn spun from him and squeezed herself through the closing hole. She clambered to her feet, almost able to stand straight up in the massive, hollow trunk. Neilan threw himself into it after her, forcing his arms and shoulders through.

Elwyn yanked his cloak from his hands, grabbed his arms, and pulled, but the hole closed on his waist. He was pinned. He forced his remaining strength into fighting Wuervik’s Magic to open the hole. He strained, as stars danced at the edges of his vision.

The hole loosened a tiny bit. Elwyn heaved at his arms, dragging his hips through.

The hole tightened on his legs. His shoulders ached as Elwyn yanked on his arms.

His vision blurred at the edges. Blackness began closing in, and his torso grew heavy. He couldn’t hold it up anymore.

He bent forward, close to collapsing. Elwyn grabbed his waist and strained against the hole. Neilan’s knees scraped through. She let go of his waist and pulled on one leg, which slipped out of the hole.

Hands closed around the ankle still inside.

Elwyn heaved, but it didn’t budge. The hands inside held him fast.

The blackness at the edges of Neilan’s vision crept inward. He let go of all caution and threw one last burst of Magic into his leg and yanked.

His boot slipped off, and blackness overwhelmed his mind. He had a falling sensation, then nothing.

Elwyn continues:

Elwyn: Heir of the Eudaimonians

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