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The ripped fabric of the tents flapped in the cold winter air. The warming spells had long faded. For the first time in years, the reality around her matched how she felt. A battlefield.

So far, she had been alone in her fight. But now they could see. Now everyone could see.

It wasn’t in her head.

Rakkley had returned, and he was coming for her.

The base magic she had extracted from her arm danced in the glass container on Obryn’s desk. The Highmage stood by the window, looking out, hands clasped tightly behind his back.

The silence suffocated her. It allowed for everything that had just transpired to come crashing down on her.

“Rakkley got away, I presume?” the Highmage asked.

Aidric sat in the chair next to her. “Yes.” His leg bounced. “He said Mira had something of his. What do you think he meant?”

Obryn cleared his throat. “I fear the extracted base magic holds the answer.”

As if stirred by the mention of it, the base magic in the glass container shot from one side of the jar to the other.

“What base magic?” Aidric asked.

Obryn lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

Aidric’s leg stilled at once. Mira knew it was rare for him not to have all the facts.

The Highmage turned and pointed at the container with the base magic. “Mr. Harrington extracted base magic from Miss Winters’s scar the night you crashed into his mansion with injuries.”

Aidric sat up taller. The muscle on his jaw twitched. “He what?”

Dawson will kill you for this, Amelia had said to her boyfriend.

“It wasn’t Harrington,” Mira quickly added, trying to minimize the damage.

The wooden floor beneath the Highmage groaned with each step.

“I performed an additional test on your base magic,” Obryn said as he sat down. “My tests for magic residue didn’t work because what is left behind in your scar is not magic residue.”

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“Are you familiar with the stories about the lost dose of Synth?”

Was this another lecture? Did he have to speak in riddles? “Yes. While the rebellion destroyed all Synth, many are convinced that one dose got away. If Rakkley ever got to it, he would be able to reproduce it.”

Aidric closed his eyes, and it was just as she finished her sentence that she understood what Obryn was saying.

The Highmage’s demeanor didn’t change. “I believe we have found the final dose of Synth.”

It felt like the floor had fallen out from underneath her. Her chest was tight with every shallow breath.

The only remaining dose of Synth was trapped within her own magic.

Aidric exhaled, leaned forward, and rested his head in his hands.

Her hand tightened around her scar. Instead of some residue, she had Synth in her. Active and alive. Attaching itself to her own magic and feeding off it. But as panic threatened to close her throat, she felt something other than despair. She felt relief. Like a patient who finally knows what disease they have.

All this time, she hadn’t been imagining things. There was a reason she couldn’t move on from the war.

“I’m not crazy,” she whispered to herself, and wiped away a silent tear.