Lirestoke was a study in timber framing. It showed all the signs of a city that had grown rapidly in the last few years with no intention of stopping. They had passed through a few villages on the way that would become districts as soon as the funds for moving the city wall arrived.

  Iwy hadn’t particularly missed being in a city. Even so much farther north it was pretty much exactly like Riestra. Fifty-seven different smells hit your nose all at once. People jostled you. Everyone gave you weird looks. Triand’s day-drinking was not helping. She’d somehow found a wine merchant the minute they stepped through the gate.

  The mage halted a random passer-by by means of a well-placed staff. “‘Scuse me. We’re looking for someone named Heith. Not sure what she looks like now, but I’m almost sure you know her.”

  “Oh, her. Just take a right at the general temple. You’ll find the potion emporium on main street, can’t miss it.”

  “The what now?” Triand said as the local hurried away.

  You really couldn’t miss the sign outside the shop. It was half the size of the double doors, a black kettle with a giddily smiling woman riding out of it on a pig while holding a cup. The cup was perpetually smoking. Someone had clearly thought about the advantages of advertisement.

  Triand shrugged and marched across the courtyard as a harried woman in an apron tried to stop her.

  “Excuse me! Miss! You can’t go back there!”

  “Yes, I can, I know the boss. I think.”

  “If I had a copper piece for every time I heard that ...”

  Triand skipped away towards a door off the anteroom behind which a woman was giving instructions to some young girls. There was a general air of bigness around her, as if she somehow possessed more densely packed mass than regular people. Heith seemed heavy in the same way as the moon.

  Long grey curls swished aside like an ocean tide when Triand knocked on the open door in a strange show of politeness. A series of expressions went over the big witch’s face.

  “Well. Look at what dragged itself in.”

  She’s going to get slapped again, Iwy thought, who had finally caught up. Is that what happens when you don’t write home for a couple of years? I should get back on those letters ...

  The older witch crossed the room in two steps and hugged Triand like a long-lost child. Iwy was sure she heard her master’s spine crack.

  “I had a dream I was going to meet someone who’s been away for a while, but I wouldn’t in a million years have guessed it was you.”

  Triand disentangled herself and massaged her back. “You’d have a million years to guess. Or more.”

  “I’ll have you know I get told all the time I can still pass for two thousand. Let me look at you! Hardly changed, have you?” Heith spun the mage around in a half pirouette which Triand endured with the pained expression of someone meeting very old relatives, the ones that just do that.

  “Heith, I’d like you to meet my apprentice ...” Triand tried on the second spin.

  “Apprentice? So you have changed after all.”

  “I’m Iwy,” Iwy held out a hand. The next thing she saw was a substantial amount of bosom from a perspective that most people would have envied.

  “It’s always nice to meet new girls,” Heith said when she finally released her from her embrace.

  “Speaking of change,” Triand began, now massaging life back into her shoulder. “What’s this talk about a potion emporium?”

  Heith tapped her nose conspiratorially. “You know the area, there are so many people around who need help, the kettle barely has time to cool down. So, I came up with this.”

  The presumably ancient witch opened double doors into a vaulted room.

  “What do you think?”

  Triand looked around at the women busily mixing up potions, at the vats of multicoloured fluids, the cleanly labelled shelves of product, the assembly lines where herbs were cut and ground or bottles filled and thought ... Where was this when I was twenty? Aloud she said: “What did I say about adaptable?” and elbowed Iwy in the ribs.

  Heith seemed eager to show off the factory floor.

  “Triand, I know you probably still make your own healing potion, but I think you’ll also like this one.” She handed her a vial of greying greenish liquid that smoked slightly.

  “What is it?”

  “Little addition. We found out you can actually substitute the nettle. Much more sustainable.”

  “Neat!” Triand let the vial vanish in a robe pocket. Heith led them on across the hall, every now and again greeting or nodding at a passing worker.

  “Here we have the general healing potions, the pain medicine, the midwives swear by it, bit of courage, very popular with the young people ...”

  “What about love potions?” Iwy asked.

  “Of course not! Who’d ever do that?”

  “I only heard about them,” Iwy said quickly, melting under the sudden disappointed teacher stare. “They’re in books.”

  “Doesn’t set a good example, those books, that’s what I say.”

  Triand nudged the older witch slightly. “Don’t get cross with her, Heith, she’s new.”

  “How new? Do you have your basics yet?”

  Heith glided over to a shelf and exchanged some words with the woman stocking it. A few moments later, Iwy held a bag in her hands. It contained a small tin of salt, a bush that turned out to be dried sage, a bottle of green liquid that looked like the healing brew she’d given Triand, a very thin needle, and two small metal half-moons that turned out to be made of silver and iron. She remembered Triand’s aunt had mentioned silver and iron.

  Heith smiled down on her. “Basic ingredients for the beginner witch. It’s on the house.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Now Triand only has to teach me how to use ‘em.”

  Iwy earned herself another elbow to the ribs, but it was worth it.

  “Need to learn everything at once, do you? I like impatient girls. Triand was like that, too, when she was young.”

  There was a silent scream from the huge red eyebrows to not ask the older witch about details. Iwy got very close to disobeying when Heith spoke again: “I can hardly believe you’re here, and all grown up. I remember your mothers. Terrible thing about the one, though, gone so soon.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, I told them they need to wait with the last ritual.”

  “I know the story.”

  “Well, you were born in the end and that’s all that matters.”

  “What’s this all about?” asked Iwy.

  “Weeell, you notice how I never mention if I had a father? It’s ‘cause I literally don’t have one. See, there’s this nine-part ritual and…”

  “Buh-buh-buh!” Heith’s big hand closed briefly over the mage’s mouth. “We don’t tell outsiders about the ritual.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “We don’t want people killing almost the entire coven again, do we?”

  “No’m. We’re here about something else entirely, if you don’t mind?” Triand said quickly.

  Heith’s expression changed immediately. Triand’s own mothers couldn’t have possibly looked more worried. “What’s the matter?”

  “Can we talk somewhere private? Where nothing and nobody can listen in?”

  “Oh, dear. You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

  “We all are.”

  Heith’s office was a large room inhabited by the kind of chaos that came with an intricate system which only one person in the house fully understood. Iwy narrowly avoided a collision with the floor over an errant round-bellied flask while Triand tried to free her boot from a mountain of notes. Heith didn’t seem bothered by any of this.

  Once more Triand rattled off the story, her tone suggesting she was getting tired of repeating herself and thought about printing pamphlets instead. Heith listened patiently and not once suggested to throw the thing down a well. That was progress.

  When Triand finally ended the not very straightforward report, Heith smiled at the both of them as if she’d heard of worse cases. “Oh, well. You’re in luck; if you’d come tomorrow, I’d already be down south in Helia. Pilgrimage time’s starting, you know.”

  “Can I ask what pilgrimage?” Iwy said. She hadn’t taken witches to be overly religious.

  “I’m travelling to the shrine. I do it every hundred years, just as promised. So if you’re trying to ask me to stay ...”

  “No, no, I’m just curious.”

  “Ah. That’s a virtue to have.”

  “So can you help us?” Triand said. “I hate to hurry you, but as I said, we’re being followed. By a right murderous lot.”

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  Heith looked between them for a moment. “Yes, I think I can ... Come here, girl.”

  Iwy stepped forward dutifully while Heith marched around her stroking her chin. This was how horses must feel on market day. Except that horses probably didn’t have to deal with sellers who tried to read their thoughts.

  “Let’s see ... Let me guess, a farm girl with inexplicable powers.”

  “That’s not really ...” Iwy began.

  “And an orphan.”

  “No!”

  “Ah. A family woman, then. Yes, I can see your power’s not that inexplicable. Just held back for about fifteen years, yes?”

  “That’s not ...”

  “No wonder you’re about to explode.”

  “I’m not!”

  “You’re fit to burst. It’s like a muscle, you hold it in one position for too long, it cramps. It wants out. Oh, I have a spell for you, alright. But after that, you will not be the same.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s fancy talk for saying you’ll feel a bit different,” Triand said.

  “There is an easy cure for this,” Heith continued. “But it will be painful.”

  Heith sauntered to her desk and, after a few minutes’ shovelling and shifting of papers, bottles, bits of herb, and yesterday’s lunch, selected a small black bottle from an ebony box.

  “No, thank you,” Iwy said politely. Triand grabbed her apprentice by the back of her shirt mid-escape.

  The witchard could apparently read her mind. “C’mon, I’ll take it with you. Will be fun.”

  Triand and the ancient witch exchanged a quick look. ?I don’t know, luv. The last time I gave you a potion you accidentally turned the lake upside down ...”

  “That was one time!”

  “... and somehow made all the frogs in the area sing three verses of ‘My sparrow won’t eat hard-boiled eggs’.”

  “I promise I won’t do anything. Do it for her. Please?”

  Heith considered her for a moment. Then she handed her an identical vial and led them out and around the yard to a small separate room. It looked like a guest room that didn’t see much traffic. “Don’t you worry about a thing. There are a lot of protections on this house.” She sized Triand up. “And on you, still. Now, luvs, you just stay in here a while. You’ll know when you’re ready to come out.”

  “I don’t like the sound of ...”

  The door was closed and, yes, locked.

  “... that,” Iwy finished.

  Triand shrugged and uncorked her bottle. She downed it with expertise. “Ugh, tastes like liquorice. I hate liquorice. Do you like liquorice?”

  “No.” Slowly, Iwy tried a sip. Salted liquorice. Arguably worse. “Did she have to lock us in a bedroom?” She looked over at her master. “Why do I even ask you things?”

  Triand, who had taken off her bundle and thrown off her boots in two seconds, bounced up and down on the bed. “Maybe it’s one of those brews that make you pass out.”

  “Oh, wonderful.” She sighed at the overall lack of furniture. “Move over, will you.”

  Iwy drank the rest of the liquid. She had just about enough of this. At this point she wanted her powers to materialise so she could get to destroying the stupid Eye and take a long rest.

  And then go home. And work until she fell unconscious for three days and forgot all about this journey. “I don’t feel any pain yet.”

  “Me neither.”

  Witch magic works slowly because witches know about the virtue of patience. Triand was about as patient as a three-year-old who had inhaled the sugar bowl and also required an urgent trip to the bathroom.

  She fished the cultists’ book out of her bundle.

  Iwy’s eye fell on the cover. “Those destructive spells don’t work. You’ve tried dozens of them.”

  Triand ignored the tone and propped a velvet pillow between her back and the headboard. “I still have hope that something else works. Keeping my options open. That way we won’t need the crucible and you can go home sooner. I know you don’t want to be here.”

  Iwy stared at her. “I thought I tried to not make it that obvious. I mean, I tried not to get on your nerves with it.” She raised a hand to her mouth. “What am I saying?”

  Triand’s face lit up. The book closed with a snap. “Oh, I know what this is. The sly old cat, she’s given us honesty brew! Age-old secret recipe, judging by the taste.”

  “They should use that at trials,” Iwy said without thinking.

  “We’ve been telling them that for years.” Triand stopped. She frowned down at her book for a moment before returning it to her bag. “Ugh. This is so typical. She always made me talk about my feelings. I don’t wanna have feelings. That nonsense hurts.”

  “You’re telling me. I got so much guilt I don’t know where to put it. Is that why you drink?”

  “Nah. I just like booze. I like feeling boozed. Kinda like the power rush too, not gonna lie.”

  “You can’t,” Iwy deadpanned.

  “Yeah. Huh. I know what Heith wants us to do.” She turned to her apprentice with a triumphant eyebrow raised. “Do you even want to control your powers?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know,” Iwy heard herself say, unable to lie. She pressed her lips together until they turned white. It didn’t work for long. “Look, I want to help you fix this. Obviously I want to. But … what if I don’t get good enough? What if I can’t desytroy it and then we run out of time? And even if … I feel like ... if I do manage, if I control the fire, there’s no way back.”

  “What makes you think there’s a way back now?”

  There was probably a trick to withstand this weird potion. Iwy stalled by pulling the second pillow in front of her. It worked for all of five seconds. “I’m scared, alright? I’ve never been so scared in all my life, before I knew… of all this. All I ever wanted was to be a farmer. There’s hundreds of farmers who want to be mages, why couldn’t it be one of them? I just want my old life back.”

  “Well, you won’t get that. We don’t get what we want in life. We don’t even get what we deserve. We just get what we get.”

  “What if it’s not a barn next time? What if it’s a field, or a house, or a city? What if ...”

  “What are you scared of?”

  The pillow was squeezed tight. “I could hurt people!”

  But at this point, Triand had seen her deck a guy more than once. “You can hurt people with your fist, are you going to chain yourself somewhere forever?”

  “This isn’t the first time I used my powers.” Iwy clasped her hand in front of her mouth but the words just kept coming. This was exactly what she never had wanted to tell her. Or anyone, for that matter. She hadn’t even told her mother. Not even her best friends. “When I was seven ... I don’t know why, but I woke up and my pillow was smoking. I swatted it out, but ... my sisters were sleeping in the same room. My younger sister was only just born. I could have set our bedroom on fire.”

  It was strange to see how much Triand’s expression could change. Iwy had half expected a long talking-to about how she should have said something before, how that would have made everything easier, how they wouldn’t have had to look through all those books to find a way. Instead, Iwy saw something that came close to both pity and understanding. “Was that the only time that happened?”

  “No. I tried to ... make it go away, but it kept happening.” She’d thought if she just ignored it, it would vanish, just like the ash of shirts and wooden bowls and, on one occasion, Josie’s knitting that wandered guiltily into the fireplace. She had a reputation for losing things. And during the cruel lasting cold of last year she had caught herself hoping, praying even for the fire, but she’d lie if she said she wasn’t glad it hadn’t shown itself. Now she realised she had ignored the problem until it became too big to handle. “I didn’t want to be a witch. Or a mage. I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt my family. I knew if someone found out I’d have to leave. I never wanted to leave.”

  “But you’ve already left. And you already burned something down. The worst thing possible has already happened. You can stop now.”

  Iwy stared. For all her flaws, the mage was an excellent common sense filter.

  “Look. This is all yours. It’s not a strange outside thing. It flows through you whether you use it or not. You can use it or not. You don’t need to like it. But you need to remember it’s yours.”

  Iwy’s arms released the pillow before the stuffing popped out. “You know, when we find the artefact you could just absorb it out of me and use it yourself. Maybe to destroy the thing if you want.”

  “I wouldn’t do that. Even if I had that amount of blood handy. Magic’s a part of you, you’re basically offering me your liver. No one ever said you can’t be a farmer and a mage. Just because no one does it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Ever think you could do something useful with fire? How many people you could help? Why can’t you see that instead of whining? Think about it, you’ll cut down on matches, you never have to use a stove again, you could really keep someone warm at night, wait, right, you’re not interested, sorry, you could melt snow, you could ...”

  “What do you think would have happened if I told anyone?”

  Triand shrugged. “Probably nothing. They’d tell you not to do it again. Maybe send you to Riestra or someplace else to study.”

  “That’s just what I didn’t want.”

  “You would have come back. You still can. And this time there’ll be no accident. You control this, your family will be safe.”

  “Yeah, but will anyone want me back anymore?”

  “Why not? Your family will. You just need to prove you’re useful and mostly harmless. Ain’t there anyone else in your village that’s a bit dodgy?”

  Well, there was that rumour that Scarface Marni used to be a mercenary. She might or she mightn’t, but she made the best cheese in the area. No one had a problem with her. Granted, maybe no one dared to.

  “But one thing’s for sure ... no one’s ever going to mess with you again. Definitely no witch hunters. Probably no wizards.”

  “And the tax people might go easy on us.” This earned a snort from Triand.

  A tiny glimmer of hope dared to spark up inside Iwy. There was the minute possibility that this wouldn’t be completely awful.

  But since they were being honest ... “Your turn.”

  Triand looked at her like a startled owl. “What? No!”

  “Yes. You never told me anything about ...”

  The mage pressed her hands over her ears and shut her eyes for good measure. “Not listening.”

  “Come on, you know you can’t lie.” Iwy managed to pry one thin hand loose. “What is it with you and this Acarald?”

  “We were friends, I told you that.”

  “Are you going to kill him?”

  Iwy watched the mage fidget with the edge of the blanket for a while. She clearly couldn’t withstand the honesty brew, but by the gods she was trying. “I don’t wanna kill him. Well, maybe a little. I guess I sort of have to now. Y’know, I liked him. He was like a weird older brother. And then he pulls something like this. I thought I knew him and it turns out I don’t, and he doesn’t see anything wrong with that. He ruined people for me, is what he did.”

  “You’re over forty, shouldn’t you know that people aren’t always good?”

  “Oh, listen to Miss Here-let’s-trust-the-cultists!”

  “That was one time and I thought it was urgent!”

  “And Miss Oh-we’re-off-to-see-the-wizard! You’re too trusting of the wrong people yourself. That’s why it really hurts that you don’t trust me. Oh, dammit! I didn’t mean to say that! I can’t stop speaking. This is horrible.”

  Iwy had pulled her knees under her chin and glowered at her master. “It’s only because you’re weird and impulsive.”

  “Alright, that is true.”

  “And irresponsible and easily distracted.”

  “That is also true.”

  “And I’m getting uncomfortable because you’re not getting angry.”

  “I don’t like being angry. Anger has its time and place, and this ain’t it.”

  “But you’re angry at your aunt.”

  “Nah. Other way round.”

  “I don’t get it. You used to live here. Why aren’t you happy to be home again?”

  “‘Cause it don’t feel like home. It’s just the place where my last relations live. It’s got nothing to do with me. I’ve always been a travelling gal. No one understood that. And aunt Ilsra still won’t.”

  “Maybe they just wanted to keep you around.”

  “Then they could have asked nicely. I’m not a mind reader. And thinking about that makes me sad. I need a distraction.”

  “No,” Iwy said automatically when Triand gave her that look.

  “But I really want to know who you’re interested in!”

  “No one. Ever.”

  “Well, why didn’t you just say that?”

  “Because you would have kept bothering me.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. You always seemed a bit down, is all. Thought maybe it’s the fire thing again. Y’know, fire of passion igniting at the worst moment.”

  Iwy made the mistake of picturing this in her head. Well, at least it would have been a good story to tell the girls.

  She noticed Triand’s eyebrows doing the up-and-down wiggle that heralded the arrival of another pun, joke, or worse. Iwy sighed. “And before you ask, yes. I’ve slept with some boys back home. Don’t know why everyone’s making such a fuss about it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, even Evered. Both Vin and Millie said he was good at it, but I don’t know. Maybe he was having an off day.”

  At this, Triand laughed so hard she fell backwards off the bed and Iwy reached for the healing potion just in case.

  “Just one question,” she said from the floor. “Ever thought about girls?”

  “My friend Ailsa keeps saying that, too.”

  “Well, have ya?”

  Iwy half-shrugged. “They all offered, but it’s the same. Boys, girls, I can do that on my own, and faster. I suppose it’ll stay that way and that’s fine.”

  “You’ve some great friends, you know that?” Triand said, rubbing her still-throbbing head.

  “Yeah. I miss them like anything. Not because of that, just in general. And I miss home. And if you carry on like that, I’m not sure I’m ever gonna miss you.”

  “That hurt,” Triand frowned at her.

  “Good, maybe that way it’ll stick.”

  “Yeah, yeah. For at least five minutes.” The mage got up. “I think the brew’s almost worn off anyway. I’m gonna tell Heith.”

  “I could ask you where you’re really hiding the artefact.”

  Triand froze halfway to the door. “You could do that,” she said slowly. A bead of sweat ran down the side of her face.

  Iwy held her pleading gaze for a while. It was spiteful. She did want to know, and seeing the secretive mage flustered was astoundingly satisfying. “But actually, I think you’re right. I think I get it now. It’s actually kind of sweet, you trying to protect me even though you’ve only known me for four weeks. I can’t believe I just said that.”

  “Aw, that’s so ...”

  “I also don’t believe magic is just pointing and visualising,” Iwy added quickly.

  “You’re right. The pointing is optional.”

  “My gods, you really are serious about that part.”

  “Yeah. Feeling better?”

  “A bit.”

  Triand turned to knock on the door, which opened before she had even touched the wood, and ran directly into Heith, who smiled into the room like a mother hen. “Done talking?”

  They nodded solemnly.

  “Wonderful. Now for the real magic ...”