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“No one.” It was true. He’d gleaned some understanding of the role sigils played in spell-crafting from the experiments he’d undergone, but the hermits never had a chance to teach him. He’d taught himself through the texts they’d left behind and the research they had documented, but also those ancient dusty grimoires they’d brought from…

It occurred to Orpheus, all at once, that those tomes must have come from here.

“Does Sanctuary have a library?”

Gwen nodded, eyes bright. “I could show you. We’d have to be careful.”

All hells, he imagined it, the kind of wizard’s keep he’d dreamed of, but real, this time.

“May I…” Gwen reached for his notebook, taking it before Orpheus could snatch it away. “Whoa, what do these do?”

It’d be easy to lie. Easier to snatch the book back and drive Gwen through the hole in the wall she’d come from. Instead, Orpheus told the truth. “I’m working through a spell to restore my magic.”

“Really?” Gwen breathed, eyes on fire. “How?”

“I’ve not worked it out entirely, yet.”

“What would you do if you got it back?” was not the question Orpheus expected from Gwen.

He stilled, choosing his words carefully. “I’d…leave,” didn’t sound convincing to either of them. Gwen cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. Orpheus sighed and lied. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to hurt him?” Gwen could mean only one person, and Orpheus’ heart skipped a beat when he thought about how that would feel.

“Maybe.” Yet, as awful as Atticus was, he was no Lore. He had reasons, good reasons, for doing what he did. And as much as he expected from Gwen, it was clear Atticus cared, and that was something Lore had never been capable of. “Only if I had to.”

In the dim light of his prison cell, Gwen held his eyes. “I feel that way too, sometimes.”

Something intangible passed between them. There but not. Real but unreal. As honest as it was one great, desperate lie.

“Gwen—”

“—What does this one do?” she asked before he could finish.

And Orpheus told her. For hour after hour, until the moon bled blue and dawn teased the horizon, he taught Gwen all he knew. Every trick, every nuance, every technique he’d derived from the mysterious grimoires the hermits had collected, every instinct he’d discovered inside himself and the unexplainable burden of knowing—knowing—how much magic meant to not just him, but the world he survived within.

It’s supposed to be mine, Orpheus thought when Gwen’s blonde hair disappeared within the shadows, the stone walls closing in on him. And I’ll make it mine once again.

Because what other choice did he have?

Interlude

Leaving Home

With spring’s arrival Mum’s no longer able to work how she did when Elise was on the way and Fenrir spends most of his day in the fields or with the animals.

“When’s the baby coming?” he asks Mum every morning at breakfast—crusty bread and a bit of honey Dad had traded for the leftover goat meat a couple weeks back. Mum’s reply is a thin-lipped smile, the gray cast of her face remaining despite all the sun spring has brought. Fenrir knows enough now to worry. He’s not the little kid he was when they first arrived at the barn. He’s seen what life is about. The toll it takes, the death it brings. He may not be a man yet, but he pretends to be, helping in the fields rather than going off on his adventures, a plow in hand rather than his stick-turned-sword.

Except, behind the plow it’s easy to pretend he’s a great war steed instead of a young man.

“You’re very strong, Fenrir,” Dad says one day after Fenrir has plowed the entire southern field himself. It took him three days but it’s as good a job as Milo would have done.

“Think I’ll get stronger?” He pushes a hand through his hair and notices how his muscles flex, the way his skin stretches over them, the shapes they make and how they didn’t look like that a year ago.

“Strong as your mum, I bet.” Dad smiles wistfully when he says it, the glance over his shoulder lingering on the fieldstone barn where Mum is hopefully taking a nap because she looked particularly gray that morning.

Dad begins spreading seed while Fenrir moves onto plowing the eastern field, sweat dripping from his brow by the time he hears hoofbeats pounding down the dirt path from the north.

It’s the man again, the one in the dark coat and hat. His coat has changed a little. Gold piping trims the cuffs and collar and a kind of shirt that shines in the light gathers in ruffles below his neck. His boots are as shiny as ever, but they’ve got buckles now too, a gold to match his coat and which make him look a little like the elves in his storybook rather than a human.