Ellery walked with Julian across the Citadel’s campus, through winding pathways dusted gently with snow. Someone had brought clothes from her apartment to the Citadel, so Ellery wore a familiar wool dress that covered her wounds. She didn’t bother with a jacket.
She gazed down at Gallamere’s skyline, no longer familiar. Several iconic buildings were gone. Others were partial rubble. But much of it, most of it, hummed with life. Smoke puffed from chimneys; lights glowed in apartment windows. The pond at the center of Valley Park gleamed like a hand mirror. Flurries drifted peacefully through the air. And a crystalline layer of ice glistened across the rooftops.
The City of Magic sparkled like a diamond beneath it.
But for however beautiful Gallamere looked dressed in Winter, the Citadel was less so. In the absence of Summer wands, the enchantments that had maintained the compound had faded, although Julian assured her that Winter magicians were already at work replacing them. Yet some things could never be replaced. Every holiday was changed. All the works of Glynn’s favorite magical philosophers, every wand that had made Alderland special, wondrous, great, rendered obsolete. A thousand years of tradition, overturned. Byher.
“I know it’s still a bit rough around the edges, but we’re rebuilding,” he said. “Soon enough, the Citadel will be the pride of Alderland again. Winter magicians can run the country just as well as Summer magicians. Plenty of us were already academy students, anyway.”
Ellery supposed that was true. She glimpsed several new Living Wands as she and Julian walked past, clutched in the hands of some former classmates. The cold of each wand’s magic needled at her skin.
“Have any adults been able to bond with a Winter wand?” she asked.
“No, not yet. I’m pretty sure the window rule still applies.”
People gaped at Ellery as she passed. Their gazes darted from Iskarius in her hand to her bright blue eyes and the shadow that feathered behind her, moving of its own accord. They whispered. They murmured. They stared at her with awe.
At last, they’d decided she was a hero. But Ellery knew better.
She was a monster after all.
They reached the door of a familiar conference room.
“You should have some privacy with them, I think,” Julian said seriously. He stepped aside, and Ellery entered.
Sharpe and Glynn were inside, engaged in an intense discussion. At the sound of the door opening, they both glanced up. Glynn rose from his seat and rushed to her, then wrapped her in a hug. Abruptly, he jolted away, gasping. Frost coalesced on his hand where it had brushed her arm.
Ellery knew that after fulfilling the final prophecy piece, she’d changed. But she hadn’t realized how much. She swallowed and sheathed Iskarius, severing her connection to Winter’s power. Then, surprising herself, she huggedhim.
This time, she wasn’t too cold to be touched.
“You’re truly awake. You’re here,” Glynn said incredulously, drawing away. “When I visited yesterday, Norwood said… Well, we weren’t expecting you back so soon. How are you feeling?”
“Alive,” Ellery answered hoarsely. “Mostly.”
“Caldwell. You pulled through.” Sharpe’s voice was unreadable. He looked different without Ballathim, less imposing—his smoldering cigarette a paltry substitute. Glynn, meanwhile, appeared almost identical without Aetherium.
“Where are Seong and Hanna?” Ellery asked, sitting. It wasthem she dreaded seeing most. She didn’t know how she could look either of them in the eyes.
“Mayes is gone.” Glynn sounded pained. “Seong evacuated her during the cataclysm, and they spoke. But apparently Mayes fled soon after, and we haven’t tracked her down. We believe that she ran to avoid the repercussions of her and Syarthis’s crimes.”
“So you know about Syarthis?” asked Ellery cautiously.
“Yes. A wand as Summer’s traitor. It’s no surprise we didn’t see it coming,” Sharpe muttered. “Seong claims Mayes wasn’t fully aware of what Syarthis was doing to her, that she hadn’t a clue Syarthis tampered with the prophecy until you and Barrow confronted her in the Vault. Seong feels we should’ve caught how badly the girl was managing—felt guilty enough to resign, apparently. Between that and Barrow’s…” He took a drag of his cigarette. “I don’t buy it, though. If Mayes believes herself blameless, why would she run?”
“I don’t know.” Ellery didn’t believe that Hanna herself had truly wanted to hurt Alderland. And she understood what it was like to live with the constant pressure of being judged for what she wielded, rather than who she was. But Syarthis had almost destroyed the country. It had threatened everything Ellery had sworn to protect. And it had put her and Domenic through unimaginable anguish.
“Given what Seong told us, it didn’t take a genius to figure that the true prophecy must’ve compelled you both to duel,” Sharpe continued. “Not to mention the state of you. Guess Barrow put up a fight on his way out.”
Ellery flinched.
“Sharpe,” Glynn said warningly. “Surely evenyoushould know to be more sensitive.”
“What? It’s not like tiptoeing around what happened will make it any better. The only reason the public hasn’t gotten wind that we were wrong about the prophecy is because of how quickly we’ve been salvaging the situation.”
“This is what you call salvaging?” Ellery demanded. “Insisting Domenic was a failure? Blaming the Summer wands on him?”
“I assure you, we didn’t relish it,” Sharpe grunted. “But we had no other choice.”
