Magisterium

Glenn leaned back into the hallway. The flame hovering in her palm. The way the others were frozen. Affinity.

Opal had said that because of the bracelet she saw Kevin in her mind but not Glenn. This girl must have sensed the other three as she came through the forest, but to her Glenn was an empty space, a nothing. She had no idea Glenn was there.

Glenn slipped up to the front of the house, hunting for anything that might help her. The kitchen contained little more than some plates and cups and jars of herbs.

The moonlight coming in through the window struck a bit of

metal hanging from the mantel. A locket on a silver chain. What had Opal said about it? Something about that dark thing on the boat.

“It’s bound to the owner of that charm….”

Glenn glanced out the window. The yard was empty. The path

down to the water was clear. She thought for a moment, then snatched the charm off the mantel and took the iron poker from beside the fireplace. Crossing the kitchen, she forced back a gulp of air, then swung the poker as hard as she could at the collection of ceramic plates and glass jars sitting on the table. Glass shattered and plates went flying, smashing on the hardwood floors with a terrible crash. Glenn turned and sprinted out the door and down the stone lane.

It was brighter down by the water, the wide gash in the trees letting the moonlight and starlight pour in and reflect off the slowly moving river. Glenn stopped cold when she saw the boat and the awful thing that stood motionless in the back of it. Even in the low light she could see the undulating forms buried in its cloak.

Glenn held up the charm with a shaking hand, feeling foolish.

Would this even work? Would the bracelet cancel out the locket?

“Hey!” Glenn shouted. “You!”

The hooded thing turned slowly to face her. Glenn’s throat was full of rust. What was she supposed to tell it? What did she want it to do?

Footsteps clattered on the stone walkway behind her. Glenn

turned. The girl in the cloak was racing toward her. Without a word, she thrust her hand at Glenn and the bit of flame in her palm burst into a geyser of yellow-orange fire and roared through the air. Glenn wheeled backward, waiting to feel the flames tear into her, but nothing happened. When Glenn opened her eyes again she saw that the flames had split around her, like a flow of water striking a dam. In the place where the streams diverged, Glenn could just make out an inch-thick border between the flames and her body. The red jewel in the bracelet glowed brightly.

The girl pulled the fire back. First she stared at her own hands but then she fixed her eyes on the bracelet. Glenn saw her chance. She whipped around to the dark boatman and raised the locket over her head.

“Take her away!”

The creature didn’t make a sound as it leapt from the boat and into the air. It seemed to elongate as it came, its arms stretching into tattered, batlike wings with sharpened tree limbs for claws. Its hood split to reveal a misshapen beak. The girl stood her ground. Fire shot from her hands and tore through the creature, but its body was amorphous, shifting as it flew so that it would part and then re-form, unharmed. The girl tried to run but the creature was too fast. It overcame her and together they crashed into the forest. Her screams were high and awful … until they were strangled away to nothing.

Glenn forced herself up the path to the house at a run. She made it through the door just as Kevin and Opal appeared from the hallway.

“Glenn!” Kevin shouted, rushing toward her.

“I’m fine,” Glenn said, backing away from him. “What happened?

Who was that?”

“Abbe Daniel,” Opal said. “The Magistra’s handmaiden. She

isn’t alone, either. Soldiers are approaching now. I can have my woods slow them down but you have to leave. Take the boat.” Opal turned to Kevin. “I have supplies gathered in the back. Aamon will help you.”

Kevin ran back into the hallway. When Glenn went to follow, Opal took her by the wrist.

“There’s still time,” Opal whispered. “Your mother is powerful but slow to rouse. She’ll leave things to servants like Abbe and Garen Tom as long as she can, but if she wakes, it will be too late. Don’t destroy the bracelet. Use it.”

Opal drew Glenn closer. The red glow of the bracelet spread across the lines of her face.

“You can’t trust Aamon Marta,” she said in a hush. “When tens of thousands struggled for their freedom from the Magisterium, he led the armies that cut them down. Men, women, and children were slaughtered like animals. And when it looked like they might prevail, Aamon brought the blight of your mother upon us. If you think that sort of evil is something that can be walked away from, then you’re a fool.

He is an instrument of the Magistra and always has been.”

“Glenn.”

She turned with a start. Aamon filled the hallway behind them, his massive body looming in the dark.

It was him, Glenn thought. That thing in the woods the night my mother left. Why hadn’t he said anything? Why did he keep it from me?

Glenn remembered being warm and safe, lying in that dark water with her mother at her side and the great sky above them. But that was balanced with the sting of ten abandoned years. It was balanced by madness and death. It was too much. Her world had tumbled again and again and she was just now righting herself. Whatever Aamon had done, whatever he had kept from her, he was the only one offering a way home.

Glenn yanked her wrist out of Opal’s grasp. “I told you,” she said.

“This isn’t my world.”

She ran to join Aamon and Kevin by the front door. Aamon knelt in front of them, drawing them aside with his big hands.

“You’re apprentice smiths,” Aamon said. “You’ve been

indentured to Kalle Bromden in Bethany. You’re on your way there now.”

“What about you?” Kevin asked.

“We happened to be heading in the same direction, that’s all. You do not know anything about me. Not even my name. We’ll take Opal’s boat through the night, then get out and follow the path to a town called Armstrong — it’s the first town along the river. We’ll take a wagon east from there. If anything happens to me along the way, if we get separated, just keep going. Whatever you do, don’t stop. Get to Bethany and ask for Kalle Bromden. I’ll find you. Do you understand?”

Glenn and Kevin both said they did.

“Good. It’s time, then. Come.”

Aamon took a pack from beside him and ducked out the door

with Glenn on his heels. When Glenn came down the hill Aamon was already leaning over the boat, loading in the pack and waving her forward. Glenn suddenly realized that Kevin wasn’t behind her. She held up her hand to Aamon and went back up the path to the house.

She found him standing with Opal at the front door, her body mostly hidden by his. They were whispering to each other in a way that seemed heated, as if they were arguing.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said, his voice rising. “She’s …”

Glenn crept closer, partially concealed by the trees. Opal leaned into Kevin and spoke too quietly for Glenn to hear. Kevin nodded, calmer now, and Opal handed him something that Glenn couldn’t see.

Kevin stared at it a moment, then tucked it into his coat.

“Yes,” Kevin said, his voice grave as he backed away from her.

“I will. I promise.”

Kevin left her and started down the lane, buttoning his coat to his neck. He stopped short when he saw Glenn standing there.

“What were you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Kevin said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Kevin disappeared down the path. Opal stood eerily still in the light of the half-closed door. A slant of moonlight cut across her face, making her wrinkled features stark and hard, like cracked marble.