The moment I felt the blade bite into my side, I tried to reach out to the loop. I could see the threads of time weaving before me like I sat in front of a loom. I’d done it before. If I could reach out and grasp them, I could pull myself just a few moments back, to the breath before I pushed forward despite my doubts. But as I reached for them, they fled my grasp. They were like a broken shell in an eggwhite, close enough to touch but impossible to hold between my fingers. The pain was wrong. Not just like tearing and cutting, but burning. I tried to look for Margaret, but she was unraveling beside me. I tried to chant ‘Still World’, the first spell that always came to my mind when I needed to get away. But my vision was blurring, and the words wouldn’t form on my lips.

  I felt another knife, cutting into my arm, and another sawing through fabric to reach my leg. With each jab and prick, I lost more focus, and the threads I needed drifted further away. And yet, as my senses melted into each other and each thought had to wade through thicker mud before forming, a certain clarity settled over me. An emotional clarity.

  I shouldn’t have walked through that door. That was clear from the result, but it was more than that. It wasn’t just that I shouldn’t have, it was that I wouldn’t have. Mars wouldn’t have trusted Scylla, not after such a strange reaction to her request. I was unsure of myself, but I wasn’t stupid. I was a coward, but I wasn’t a fool. I’d seen the jaws closing around me. I’d seen them, and I hadn’t wanted to walk inside.

  But something had pushed me forward. Margaret, yes, and that was a worry I wouldn’t soon forget. But it was more than that kind of pressure. It was more like compulsion.

  Several sets of hands caught me as my body tried to go limp. All I could see was blurring colors and moving shapes as I felt my boots scrape against uneven stone floors. My clothes were wet and clung to my body with sticky blood, pouring from at least a dozen fresh but shallow wounds. I realized with a dawning horror that killing me, or even wounding me, had never been the point. Sharp as the knives had been, they had only drawn blood for the sake of the poison they carried with them.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn't cast. I was at the mercy of these people, and I didn’t even know who they were. Darkness was broken every few seconds by reds and yellows—torchlight on earthy walls. My arms were around different sets of shoulders, I thought. With every stone my feet kicked as my limp body was dragged, I saw my grandmother. She was the only thing I could see clearly, and for once, she was smirking instead of glaring.

  As I looked the apparition of my grandmother in her satisfied eyes, my captors came to a sudden stop. Rough hands pulled me to the side, and I felt my back press against ancient wood as I was tossed into some kind of chair.

  “A mage, are you?” my grandmother asked. My lips wouldn’t move to respond. I hadn’t heard her voice in years, despite seeing her every day. Now that I was, her voice was heavy with implication. Like I never really earned the title. It made my stomach churn. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to collapse. I wanted these people to just kill me already so I could start all of this over.

  “I said, is it true that you are a mage?” Grandmother repeated, giving me a cold and determined stare. I blinked. It didn’t sound so snide this time. Insistent, perhaps, but not mocking. Something was off about it. It didn’t sound like my grandmother. It didn’t sound like a woman at all, actually.

  Before I couldn’t make sense of it, two fingers pressed against my upper lip, and something on them sent lightning through my body. The world cleared up in an instant, a migraine clamping down on my skull like a vice grip. I still couldn’t move my body. I still couldn’t speak, and I still couldn’t summon my aura. As the world was forced into focus, I realized I wasn’t seeing my grandmother at all. Luke’s face formed in front of me instead.

  ’How did I confuse him for such an old woman?’ I thought, but I didn’t have time to examine the idea further.

  “I asked, are you a mage? I’m told you used Aura to open the fountain this morning. How did you do that?” he questioned. I couldn’t answer if I wanted to, as was evidenced by the lazy bob of my head as I tried to respond in any way I could. Luke scowled, biting his thumb. He looked over his shoulder, making eye contact with his weary mother. She was seated in a chair much like mine—and looked equally in control of her body.

  After an eternal moment, he sighed. “Pick her up again,” he ordered, “we’re going to baptize her.” I barely had a breath to process his words before two men lifted me from the chair again. I could actually make them out after whatever had been held up to my nose, even if the rest of my body refused to comply. My head hung, and I could only glance at their belts. The knives held by worn leather at their belt revealed them as my attackers, which made their touch burn like hot steel. I wasn’t sure if the ability to see them made it better or worse, being dragged like a corpse through… wherever I was.

  I was able to watch Luke’s feet as he walked ahead of me. His mother was with him again, relying nearly as heavily on her cane as I was on the men who moved me. My mind was clouded by the memory of the day before, watching bystanders address her, only for Luke to answer. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was as willing a participant there as I was.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  A thousand doubts assaulted my mind at once. I had been so stupid, and I couldn’t even understand why. It felt like I’d been moved as a game piece. We passed worn but clearly cared-for mosaics on tunnel walls. We passed hallways, doors, and strangers in cloaks. Until finally, we arrived in a central chamber. It was set up much like the garden had been, although more seats were prepared… and more were filled by the dead.

  The biggest difference was the shallow bath at the far end of the room, positioned in front of the rows of pews. It was ornate and wide, like a public bathhouse only open to the wealthy. Despite this, the surface of the water was littered with flowers and lily pads. As I was dragged to it, I made out a sun, patterned into the tile under the water. The play I’d seen that morning flashed through my head as I was dragged into the water. Aethon’s sun—and the grace he offered. The thought sent a shiver through me.

  Finally, we slowed, my limp feet actually starting to float as Luke’s men held me up. Luke turned and held out his hand, and I was passed to him like a sleeping child. My back rested against one arm, and my legs were dipping into the water. His presence felt like fever chills against my spine.

  “Disobedience,” he announced in a stage voice. I’d seen no one living in the pews, and the only three witnesses were close. I don’t know where Scylla had gone. Home, perhaps, her role in my punishment fulfilled. It was entirely a sermon for the dead. And for me, I suppose. “Aethon is a kind god, but not a patient one. We were not called to question him. We were not called to skulk in the shadows and stalk his servants. He did not create shelter for our souls so we could scheme, and plot, and disobey.”

  His hand grew tight against my arm as he spoke. I could feel his rage with each word as fingers dug into my already aching arm.

  “He is a god of light and life. He offers us such kindness. Families to sing with and feet to feel the grass! But this does not make him a patient god. Have you not all noticed the overcast skies? The way Aethon hides from us his face? It’s because he is ashamed. Because we have grown complacent.

  Because we have grown self-obsessed. Because we have grown disobedient.”

  As he preached, I allowed my eyes to slide to the side. His mother was just outside of the water. Silent, but with frustration clear in her posture. She glared at her son as he spoke, and his arm flexed against my back as she did. I made eye contact with her, silently pleading for help. But she had only fury in her eyes, and only for her son.

  “Aethon has put leaders over each of us. He has chosen for every person a guiding light to be the sun in our lives, even as he rests. Bedenmor has leaders for us to follow, and they have asked for calm. Yet we panic. We try to run. We reject the guidance Aethon has placed over us.

  “The temple has priests and elders, chosen by Aethon like rooftops in the rain. To protect his children from the wind and the lightning. To guide them to warmth and safety. And we reject them. We suspect them. We stalk them, and we try to stab them in the back in their own homes. We reject the guidance Aethon has placed over us.

  “Children have parents, older and wiser in the world. Closer to the warmth of the sun. Wrapped more tightly in Aethon’s Grace. They have mothers and fathers to care for them, as Aethon would care for them. To share wisdom as Aethon would share his wisdom. But we have grown too tall. Too proud. To certain of our own wit and clever little ideas, and we have chosen to look down on our parents. We reject the guidance Aethon has placed over us.” As he lectured, he slowly lowered me to the water until I could feel it at my neck.

  He looked down and met my eyes, a certain desperation pouring out of them and dripping across my cheeks.

  “You, Mage,” he whispered, running his hand through my hair and pulling my ribbon free, allowing my loose hair to fall into the water. “Has Aethon not granted you confidence? Has he not allowed festering wounds to heal? Why did you try to undermine him even as he was helping you? You have rejected my wisdom, and so you have rejected Aethon’s wisdom. You have mistreated me, and so you have mistreated Aethon. You have elevated yourself above the authority chosen to guide you, and thus you have spit on Aethon’s grace. And so today… today, you must start your redemption.”

  As he spoke, too many things started to make sense. And yet they clashed with reality. I had been more confident. I realized in that moment that I hadn’t needed to count my way out of bed in days. I hadn’t found myself outside of my body, and I hadn’t needed to choose a color to count just to find my way back. All while Junia hadn’t been grieving her mother. I realized it was obvious they were related. And yet, my heart rejected the idea. I couldn’t find my way to the root of the change, and my mind wanted to believe two different things at once.

  “You will atone with service. With all of your heart and all of your aura. Until Aethon accepts your repentance, you will join the ranks of his servants. You will remember your parents, and your elders, and your city’s leader. And you will behave. You will behave as Aethon has commanded, and you will lead others to do the same.”

  As Luke commanded me, he finally lowered me the rest of the way into the water, letting me go as my blood colored the cool liquid around me. I thought I was going to drown as he released me. I still couldn’t control my body, and the water was too deep. My head submerged and I didn’t even have the strength to hold my breath. My body started to convulse as coppery water filled my mouth and ran down my throat. I was almost ready for it. If I could drown, I could return to my bed at the inn. I could see Junia. I could just… cry.

  But I didn’t. My body finally moved, and my head broke free from the water, allowing breath to enter my lungs. I was not relieved. I was terrified by my own survival.

  Because I had not tried to do either. When my body stood in the middle of the water and began walking to Luke’s mother at the edge, I was not the one controlling it.