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Lore may have been a bitch but there was one thing she had going for her, and that was she didn’t allow people close. She’d forged an Empire from nothing and the most she’d given up were a few thousand soldiers. But Fenrir was an altogether different beast—the storybook hero for so many people. The general who had stood alongside Lore and mitigated her disastrous decisions so the optics of his role in the war were nothing but good.

Which was why Fenrir was her perfect replacement. Red wasn’t wrong, Orpheus simply hated that she was so right.

But could a man be a great king and a partner?

It will always be you, Orpheus. I promise.

Hands shaking, Orpheus stumbled to a stop in the shadow of the crates and squeezed his eyes shut. The buzzing in his head reached a crescendo, the hustle of the fairgrounds beyond the crates a backdrop of chaos he couldn’t escape. He sunk his nails into his wrist to ground himself and ignored the snare of guilt that he was being unreasonable, too tangled in the barbs of his thoughts.

They’d made a mistake, and his window for rectifying it was quickly closing. If he headed back now, he could reach the stage before Fenrir did, ask him to stop this madness and go back home to the Stacks with him. And Fenrir would do it. Orpheus knew he would. All he had to do was ask.

But before he could step from the shadows to do just that, something impossible stopped him dead in his tracks.

A spark of cold, shivering deep beneath his skin.

No, that’s...it can’t be.

He turned back towards the fairgrounds, drawn by some invisible force, following the rope fence until a turn deposited him under the shadow of one of the biggest tents he’d encountered yet.

Three peaks pierced the morning sky alongside a colorful banner featuring art of exotic animals he’d never seen outside books. A long line snaked out the front flap and past the neighboring tent, people of all ages waiting to see whatever marvels were contained inside. Orpheus ignored the line and followed the rope fencing until he reached the side of the furthest corner of the tent cordoned off from the rest of the fairgrounds.

Three distinct voices rose and fell from the other side, a whisper of shocked hisses and sharp gasps, but all Orpheus cared about was sensing that feeling again. The one he knew too well but hadn’t felt in months—the cold creeping ache of raw Netherflame.

And he felt it again. That insidious ice. A cold that lingered. It lanced through his veins like it came from inside him, and Orpheus couldn’t help it when he brought his fingers together and snapped.

Nothing happened. Like every time since he’d closed that enormous chasm, his magic remained dead.

Orpheus blinked the sting from his eyes and swept around the corner.

Three children froze, clustered close together before a small hole in the tent, looking as guilty as if he’d just caught them stealing cookies from Vera’s food crates.

Wait, that was—

“Astrid?” Orpheus barked. “Roland?”

Astrid began to cry while Roland asked, “What are you doing here?” and only then did Orpheus see the impossible—something far more exotic and rare than some should-be extinct animal.

A tiny violet flame balanced on the third child’s palm, small and unassuming, dancing happily in the air as if magic wasn’t entirely gone from their world.

Because it wasn’t. It was right here. With her.

No. No. That couldn’t be right. That couldn’t be true.

The buzzing in his head turned to a vibration and Orpheus lurched forward, breath catching in his throat, his hand lifting as if to reach—touch—take—

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fifi!” Astrid wailed, leaping into his path and clinging to his robes. “We didn’t mean to! We just wanted to see! Gwen said she could help!”

Orpheus staggered to a stop. In the brief second his eyes were on Astrid instead of the flame, it disappeared, the girl backing away with white-rimmed eyes, like he was the rare exotic creature rather than her.

“You can do magic,” he hissed, shoving Astrid to the side with one hand. “That was Netherflame.”

“Are you Orpheus? The mage?” The girl—Gwen—asked. Her voice betrayed her age—older than Roland though she wasn’t all that much taller, closer to her teens rather than preadolescent.

“I’m asking the questions,” he snapped instead of giving an answer.

Astrid had other plans. “He’s Mr. Fifi. That’s what Uncle Fenrir calls him. And he used to be a big, bad wizard, but he lost his magic when he saved the world.”

For reasons that made Orpheus’ stomach turn, this seemed to alarm the girl.