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He’d never found their bones, but then, he’d never gone looking either. Maybe that was why he was here. Another payment fate levied upon him, this one in service to the children who had paved the way for his power—his freedom—the magic they had died to give him.

Soup sloshed over the lip of his bowl to drip down his chin. Orpheus breathed through the buzz in his head and swallowed another gulp.

That wasn’t my fault. But fate had already taught him that fairness was not defined in absolutes, and time often returned full circle.

Air whispered across his cheek and Orpheus froze, bowl halfway towards his mouth.

“Gwen?” he asked, as if it may be a ghost rather than one singular girl.

“Whoa there, Fifi. Moving up in the world I see?”

Gwen immediately flopped on his bed and kicked her feet up the wall. Soot followed in her wake, leaving a dark stain across Orpheus’ pillow where he curled into a tight ball.

“I’ll have to teach you a banishment spell if that creature plans to turn my pillow into an ash tray.”

“But I thought black was your favorite color?” Gwen giggled, rolling onto her stomach and propping her chin on her hands, attention snapping to the notebook Orpheus had left on his bed. “Oh, he gave you a book finally?”

Orpheus went stiff when Gwen reached for his grimoire.

“Bring it here and I’ll show you,” came out frightfully calm.

Gwen clamored off his bed and scooted in beside him, handing the spellbook over without question. Orpheus counted his breaths before carefully opening to the last page and running a finger along the shaky lines of his drawings. His healing fingers had stopped aching, but his grip was still weak—his lines unsure.

“This is for Atticus’ power cell on the wall.”

“I know the one. How’s it work?” Reverent fingers mimicked his when she pressed them to the page.

The sigil was one of the most complicated he’d ever crafted, a sweep of interlocking circles broken by a perfect triangle that managed to touch each critical juncture. Built off the base of the combustion spell he had taught Gwen, it took shape as most good sigils did, dozens of variations put to paper before the nuances of what he needed worked themselves out.

And work, they would. But this wasn’t the spell Orpheus had spent sleepless hours working on. These weren’t the marks he’d filled this book to the brim with. The ones he couldn’t let Gwen see, in case his lessons had taken hold, and his intention read plain.

“Do you recognize anything about it?”

Gwen narrowed her eyes, the room going still while she studied the sigil, Sanctuary’s hymn rising from the night.

“That’s the symbol for Netherflame, and that,” She pointed to the spiral, in kinship to the one from the lantern, “that’s calling on a source, but it’s different from the others. It’s…”

Silence fell, but not a heavy one. Orpheus’ pulse calmed while Gwen lost herself to the spell, the tension in his shoulders bleeding away, the ache in his broken leg fading to a distant, gentle buzz.

“It’s calling on itself, but from a different iteration. Like…a neighbor, or a sibling.”

“Very good.” Orpheus tapped the spiral, this time not crossed through with a line but seated within the intersection of two circles. “By repeating this sigil, I intend for each to feed off each other, creating a kind of Netherflame engine. A propulsion of magic that can build off itself indefinitely.”

“Is that possible?” Gwen asked, eyes wide. “With just my magic?”

“Your raw power may be weak, but it’s still Netherflame, Gwen.”

She leaned back and looked up at him, smile wide, eyes twinkling; Orpheus’ whole chest seized.

“So, does that mean I’ll be a real mage soon?”

You are a real mage, Orpheus wanted to say. The only real mage between them. But he bit his tongue instead, breathing through the building tightness, the uncanny impression that he understood her on a level deeper than made him comfortable.

She knows too much. Yet, for whatever reason, the distrust Orpheus anticipated refused to take hold. In fact, it made him want to talk.

“There are no straight paths in magic,” Orpheus said thoughtfully. “Spells are a guide but not a rule, intention plays a larger part than you’d think, and if you're clever, you can do a lot with very little.”

“Who taught you?” Gwen asked, her curiosity replaced with a hunger he could taste.