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The cathedral’s hymn rose, bell tower tolling, and for once…it didn’t sound strange. It sounded—

“Beautiful.”

Gwen smiled, then looked away.

“It’s all so beautiful,” he repeated, unable to stop his voice from shaking.

“There are others, but this one is my favorite.”

It occurred to Orpheus then that the library’s mess was all Gwen’s doing.

“Sorry I didn’t bring you here sooner.”

“Hard at work on your own, I see.” He spotted a nest of blankets in a corner where a Netherflame lantern glowed, an empty bowl of soup on the floor, a pool of moisture collecting at its bottom.

Oh. Oh.

Gwen tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and wouldn’t look at him.

“I lived in a library once too, you know.” The memory didn’t hurt as much as he expected—the memory of Fenrir’s Keep.

“Really?” Gwen asked, understanding he had a story.

He didn’t have a reason to tell her, but he wanted to. Like by reliving the memory he could keep it alive, somehow. “Fenrir brought me to one. We spent nearly a month there. It was very beautiful, and very cold. We called it The Keep.”

“The Keep,” Gwen breathed, eyes distant. “Was it very big?”

“Enormous. But this one is much prettier.”

Gwen twisted her hands together again, then spun towards an empty stretch of floor at the base of the stairs. He saw it, then. The sigil—a cousin to the one in his grimoire that he knew too well. Orpheus sucked in a breath, ignoring how it shook.

“I want to try something,” Gwen said quietly. Matching his stare. “If you’ll let me. I want to try a spell.”

“What will it do?” But he already knew the answer. Knew, without a doubt, what Gwen intended to do.

It wouldn’t work, but the sentiment was enough to bring him to his knees. Orpheus slowly lowered to the ground and reached a finger out to trace a stretch of silver-gilt paint.

“I’m hoping it’ll…maybe it’ll restore your magic.”

Orpheus would have laughed if he didn’t know Gwen would take it the wrong way.

“What about Sanctuary’s magic?”

Their eyes met and she shrugged. “Yours first, then Sanctuary’s, right?”

It was a child’s logic, but all hells, he didn’t have the heart to not let her try. There were worse ways to die than a spell gone awry; he would know, because he’d lived through several of them already.

“Tell me what to do,” he whispered.

She had him sit at the center of the sigil, like a black hole at the center of a vortex of silver. He watched while she charged series of smaller sigils nested within her larger drawing, a version of his shattering spell but poignantly different: a portal within a self-contained sphere with the alchemical symbols for Earth; another for Netherflame; and those he did not recognize. Sigils of her own creation made from a foundation Orpheus had constructed. He did not guide her. He did not correct her. He sat at the center of her work with her cane across his knees, watching the furthest window where night dripped like ink.

Something bright crossed the storm-swollen sky. A shooting star? It looked so close…

Make a wish.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re okay, Fenrir.

“Ready?”