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Orpheus breathed out through his nose and shoved the thought away.

“Sigils command elements and physical components and combine them with ideas. Every sigil has a foundational component or element—the base material which you draw your sigil on or contact with an element you are commanding.”

Something bright clicked in Gwen’s eyes, an instinctual understanding Orpheus had felt when he’d first begun working his magic. “That’s why my sigils didn’t work? Because I was drawing them on paper and they were meant for stone?”

“In theory, and for this lesson” —Gwen’s fear bled away, anxious hunger taking its place— “We will work with that law in mind, though I won’t lie and say it is immutable.”

“So, you’ve agreed? You’re gonna teach me?”

Orpheus’ mouth twisted. “Yes. In exchange for your silence.”

“I knew you’d do it!” Gwen’s grin was vicious, her giggle manic. “Tell me what to do!”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“You said we didn’t have time for magical theory?” Gwen snapped. “Just describe the sigil, I’ll recreate it. I’m good at copying them!”

“Do you want to actually learn something or remain a pawn?”

Gwen glared. “I’m not a pawn.”

“Is that what Atticus tells you at night when he tucks you into bed?”

“Shut up.” Gwen’s hands fisted atop the iron lung, her nostrils flaring. Orpheus was tempted to drag this out despite the time they’d run out of, just to make her hurt, but the pettiness he felt was a mask for the uglier emotion he didn’t care to confront—jealousy—because this proxy of a child was the closest he’d come to using magic again. The two of them were components of their own kind of spell—Gwen was the raw power necessary to cast, and Orpheus was all the knowledge of Hell without the ability to harness it.

Unless he could figure out a way to take it from her, make it his own. Reclaim what he’d lost; what should still be his. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about some small girl keeping his secret. He could become what Atticus wanted, for as long as it took for Fenrir to find him. Survive, as he’d always done, despite the odds that always seemed to be working against him.

Except now. Because, by some strange twist of fate, magic could be his again.

Orpheus shoved down his mirrored hunger and took a step towards the cannon—and Gwen.

“We can use the dust to draw our sigil.”

Blonde hair slid over a bony shoulder and Gwen’s eyes locked on his. “I thought we needed silver?”

“Only for a spell that needs sustained indefinitely. This is a temporary working; the sigil itself will suffice.”

“Right,” Gwen breathed. “Describe what to draw.” She met his eyes and hesitated. “Please.”

Orpheus closed his eyes rather than hold hers and envisioned it: the sigil they needed, the one that might save his—and his enemies’ lives.

All hells, he was doing this, wasn’t he?

“A circle, as large as your hand, with an arrow pointing to two o’clock.”

From the dust it emerged, the alchemical symbol for iron, the foundational component that would give them access to the cannon. Carbon came next, for the dust churning within its hollow lung. And Netherflame, not for the raw power the sigil would harness, but the transformative reaction that would take place within the cannon’s chamber.

Gwen’s hand shook as she drew the symbols Orpheus instructed, his own broken hands aching within the confines of their binds. The world narrowed, Duluth’s looming presence fading to an impossible distance, the heat from the fire and the sting of its embers becoming a passing burn. There was simply him and the magic he had lost, working through this echo of a child, and the gnawing insistence that this would be his, again.

“Every sigil requires an intention,” he breathed when she’d completed the last mark, the hunger inside him a fire now, raging more fiercely than any inferno. “It’s the most important part of all spell casting, what defines a sigil from any old symbol you’ve learned to draw.”

Gwen looked up at him, wide-eyed stare freezing when he met her gaze. Had she seen something of his intent? His hunger? She swallowed like she had, hand hovering over the sigil before pressing into her chest as if wounded. Soot trilled softly from her shoulder. “It’s…it’s not Netherflame?”

“Without an intention, Netherflame is simply that, a mindless fire. Only we can tell it what to do.”

The hesitation from before vanished. Understanding dawned again on Gwen’s face, curiosity returning as the missing pieces moved into position. She looked back at the sigil and inhaled once, twice, before reaching out, palm up.

Netherflame erupted in the cup of her hand, one singular fireball so much smaller than that Orpheus had once summoned.