“ANAYA!” Rolan screamed. He sprinted across the grass, ignoring Luc’s shouts, ignoring the flames slithering over the ground, ignoring every survival instinct screaming in his bones.
“Rolan, wait!” Luc called.
Rolan barely heard him. He threw open the back door of the house and rushed inside, choking on acrid black smoke. He couldn’t breathe deep enough to summon his voice, and Anaya’s name sputtered and died in his throat.
The fire was concentrated toward the left wall and hadn’t yet spread to the rest of the house, but the smoke blackened the air, making it hard to see. Rolan stumbled forward blindly, fumbling for the back room where his bed was, where Anaya would be. But whenhe reached it, the handle was too hot to touch and the door too firm for him to break down.
He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think.
He acted.
Diving for the chest of relics, he yanked open the lid. Thank the goddess Luc had given up locking it, since the locks had proven an ineffective deterrent to his clever-fingered young apprentice.
Grabbing the first relic he could reach—a shimmery feather—he smashed it under his dagger’s hilt. His eyes shut briefly as he reached for the Hollow Path. He found it in seconds.
Blue light exploded from the delicate barbs as the feather faded away, Arcana flowing up the dagger and trailing over Rolan’s skin. It sunk into his veins, and a flash of strength swelled in his muscles.
Without waiting for the Arcana to fully set in, he charged at the bedroom door.
It snapped from its hinges with a crack, and he was finally in.
Anaya wasn’t there.
Rolan stood blinking for a full minute, his brain clogged with smoke and confusion. He coughed and realized he was on his knees now, his lungs struggling to suck down air. All he could think waswhere is she? Where is she?
Then blackness seized his mind.
At first he thought he’d passed out from inhaling too much smoke. But then he saw a strange pair of dark hands reaching out from the shadows, and he realized it was the secret he’d unleashed from the relic.
The details were vague. He was teetering on the brink of consciousness, his brain too weak to absorb the secret fully. But he knewthe person whose eyes he was seeing through was young, a teenager perhaps. He was stealing something—bread? Fruit? It didn’t matter. None of thismattered.He needed the secret to end so he could find Anaya, save Anaya, where was—
“Breathe, Rolan!”
Luc’s order floated to Rolan as if from some forest depth, warped and indistinct. But he focused on it, hoping it would lead him out of the secret’s vision and back to the real world. He felt Luc’s arms cradling him, as if he were a baby, and he heard Luc’s great heart thumping against his ear.
“You stupid boy,” Luc growled. “Stupid,braveboy.”
Rolan blinked, coughing and choking, ribs aching. As the world faded into view, he saw grass swim up to meet him, illuminated red by the fire.
Luc set him down outside on his hands and knees, where he coughed so hard he tasted blood. “A-Anaya—”
“I’m here, Rolan! I went out the window! Why did you rush in there like that? You could have died!”
“Youcould’ve—” Rolan’s voice cut off as he fell into another coughing fit.
“Roll him over,” Evaine ordered, and he felt Luc’s hands pushing him onto his back.
Anaya knelt over him, pushing back his eyelids. “Why are his eyes glowingblue?”
“By the goddess,” breathed Evaine.
“Fool boy,” Luc growled. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking…,” Rolan rasped. His voice was a rough scrape, rocks over slate. “That we’re Arcanists. That’s what we do. We protect people.”
Luc stared at him for a long moment, then turned away, his eyes red and blinking, probably from the smoke. Rolan remembered then what Anaya had told him about Luc’s wife and son, and how they’d died in a fire. Was Luc reliving that night?
“Keep him breathing, apothecary,” the Arcanist said. “I’ve got to put this fire out.”
