“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Cruzal hissed at me in a low whisper. Then, she turned on one heel and strode sharply from the room. Her high heels tapped down the hallway, a rhythmic clatter that grew more distant by the moment. When it finally faded away, I shut the door and gave my students my full attention.
“It’s up to you, now,” I said.
“How do we do it?” Christina asked.
“You already know,” I told her. “Practice your cycling. Strengthen your cores. When you find your path, you’ll know how to heal yourselves.”
“What if your path is the only path?” Christina asked. “What if we heal ourselves and then end up unraveling, just like you?”
“Then we’ll figure it out together.” I let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was exhausted by what I’d done, sick to my stomach that I’d made a mistake. I didn’t see any other option, though. I had to save these kids. “Whatever happens next, I won’t leave you. We’re in this together. If you do your best, I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”
The students nodded solemnly, and I felt a glimmer of hope in the conviction I saw there. I’d done all I could. The rest was up to them. They could heal their cores, I knew it.
I only hoped they did it in time.
The Meet
IT WAS TWO WEEKS BEFORE the other teams agreed to talk to us. When they finally reached out to Hagar, they set very specific conditions for our little summit. They only allowed me to bring one person with me, and they selected the meeting spot. My team argued for what felt like hours before we finally settled on Clem as the second member of our negotiating team. Hagar nearly won until she switched her vote to Clem.
“She’s got more experience with this kind of thing,” Hagar had said, shrugging. “Her dad’s a politician and her mom’s an Adjudicator. Making deals runs in her blood.”
“Thank you,” Clem said, though I wasn’t sure she’d really cared for Hagar’s compliment.
Clem and I set out to find the meeting location well before the appointed meeting time, only to discover that the room didn’t want to be found. We struggled to guide our path, and found ourselves in a strange, sinister part of the school. There were no windows, and the doors were barred and, in some places, sealed with jinsei wards.
“What even is this place?” Clem wondered. “I’ve never been here before.”
That wasn’t all that surprising. The School of Swords and Serpents was enormous. Its architecture shifted and changed around the students according to their will and its needs.
“Someplace they didn’t want anyone to see,” I replied quietly.
We’d reached a long wooden hallway with niches that were two feet tall and three feet wide. Each space was marked by a simple bronze plaque. At first, I’d thought it was a mortuary. But the plaques held no names and there seemed to be no way to open the tombs. That was creepy but what was far creepier was the complete lack of aspects around us. It was unnatural, and I didn’t like it one little bit.
I double-checked the medallions I’d stitched to my body before setting out for the meeting. After the last failure, I’d made bigger and, hopefully, better talismans that could hold more jinsei or aspects without melting to slag. If I ran into a fire-breathing dragon in the next challenge, I’d be ready.
First, though, I had to get through whatever this place was. Every passing second was fraught with tension, and I couldn’t keep dark thoughts out of my head. My imagination showed me eerie shadows slithering out of those niches and coiling around our throats.
Enough of that. I shook my head and pressed on.
“This is it,” Clem said.
We’d finally found a tall, narrow door that just felt like the right place. Its top and bottom ends were both slightly curved, an unusual design I hadn’t seen anywhere else in the School. Heavy scrivenings covered every inch of that door, and Clem studied them with a skeptical eye.
“Anything dangerous?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Mostly privacy stuff. Things to bar scrying and prevent sound from leaking through the door. This patch here looks like it can dampen farcasters inside the room. No one will ever know what happens inside this room.”
I wondered why the school had a room like this one. Maybe this was where Cruzal had agreed to turn a bunch of initiates into a money factory for her investors.
I bit back on my anger. I didn’t need to go into this meeting with my black eyes blazing. The other teams clearly didn’t trust me. If I went in there looking like a monster, they’d never agree to work with us.
“Ready?” I asked.
“We’ve got this,” Clem reassured me. “Just lay it all out like you did for us. They’ll understand.”
I hoped Clem was right. The fact that the rest of the human teams had taken so long to get back to me didn’t fill me with confidence. If they really wanted to work together, they would’ve reached out to me sooner.
Before doubts and second thoughts could sour my mood any further, I pushed the door open.
The low-ceilinged room held a heavy rectangular table crouched on ivory legs carved into the scaly haunches of a dragon. The wooden surface was stained dark and polished to a mirror finish. Five chairs sat on the far side of the table, their legs sunken into the deep carpet that covered the floor. Each of those chairs held a member of the opposing teams. A regal young woman sat in the center chair, her black-feathered cloak hanging from her shoulders like a pair of folded wings. Her lustrous hair was tied up in an ornate braid coiled around the top of her head, bound in place by thick plaits of yellow and red ribbon. She
