When Margaret was controlling the quiet dead, it took me a long time to recognize the agony on their faces. It was hidden behind such rage. After my baptism, I was ashamed. I couldn’t feel it immediately. Never have I felt so caged as I did after strings were attached to my movements. Every movement my body made without a command felt like a choked scream. It was like being home with my grandmother again, but totally aware of how she was directing me. It was a familiar pain, but with a deeper cut.

  As soon as my baptism was done, I’d been sent to a side room to change my clothes, and my body dutifully obeyed. I barely noticed the ill-fitting undergarments or the strangely expensive silk of the robe I was given. I had a hard time noticing anything at all as I slammed my fists against the walls of my own mind. No signal I sent my body was acknowledged, and no protest was heard. It did as it was told, leaving my hair loose as it pulled a large hood over my head and tied an elegant sash around my waist.

  I did notice the lack of cuts or even bruises, like the water had healed me even as it chained me. But not quite. The skin was healed. Clean, even. Cleaner than it usually was. My hair, too, was smooth and free of oils, despite no efforts being made to wash it while I was in the water basin. As my body finished dressing, it looked in the mirror with a bright and toothy smile. In my reflection, I saw a woman like I could have been. A woman like I had believed myself to be, once. Not naturally beautiful by feature alone, but filled with enough brightness and joy to be stunning. I lacked the heavy bags under my eyes and the untimely wrinkles. My skin was smooth and my eyes were sharp.

  It tilted my head and giggled, taunting me in my captivity. ’Look how beautiful you are, when you aren’t in control.’ It hurt. It was who I would have been, had I told the truth all those years ago. Had I not tried to murder the only person in my life who loved me. But it was sewage and bile and sick at the same time. It wasn’t just a glimpse at who I could have been; it was a reminder of why I wasn’t. Because I had submitted myself to someone who hated me. There was no real beauty in a mask tied around my face by someone else.

  All I could think was that it was still early in the second day. The only escape I could think of was death at the end of the third day. I tried to reach for my aura, but it was too far. Too elusive. I couldn’t chant, and I couldn’t touch even my own magic. I truly was a completely powerless prisoner in my own head. Watching through my own eyes as obedience directed every move I made. I had more than a day and a half to live in a cell where I couldn’t scream, or weep, or breathe of my own accord.

  My steps nearly had a bounce to them as I cheerfully made my way to what must have been Luke’s office. He was waiting inside with his hands clasped in his lap, projecting calm confidence. An illusion ruined by the tremble in his jaw and the white of his knuckles. His mother sat in a comfortable rocking chair to the left of his desk, as silent as ever.

  “Elder Luke,” I greeted. “I am dressed and ready to share Aethon’s Grace, as you have advised.” The words were foreign, and they tasted sour on my tongue. But they carried a tone of excitement, and they came from a youthful and eager face, and that was all Luke required. He took an exasperated breath through his nose and flicked his eyes up to mine.

  “Perhaps now you’ll be willing to answer my questions?” he pressed.

  “I am eager to follow your example and Aethon’s commands," I replied readily. He gave a single, curt nod.

  “You are a mage, correct?” he asked again. I nodded eagerly.

  “I am, Elder,” I agreed.

  “What is your rank and focus?” he asked.

  “I am officially a master mage, and my focus is time,” I replied. His eyes climbed to his hairline at both answers, but it was the only reaction he gave.

  “Officially?” he asked. “As in, it does not accurately reflect your abilities?”

  I nodded. “That’s correct, yes,” I replied.

  “Can you elaborate?” he said. I nodded again, not even a hint of hesitation in my answer.

  “I have met and far exceeded the requirements of an archmage. I was never promoted, however, as my spells were presented as exaggerations and impossibilities. Since then, my abilities have steadily fallen, and many of my current spells are performed at closer to an apprentice level,” I explained. I didn’t explain the emotional component of that struggling performance, nor the recent spells I’d been involved in. I supposed he needed to ask more directly to compel such details.

  He examined me for a long moment. “Can you show me this time magic?” he asked. I nodded, glancing around the room. My hand went to my grimoire, inspiring a surprising spark of rage. It may have been my hand, but it felt like Luke was the one touching it, and it wasn’t his grimoire to touch. But furious or not, I was under his control. So I ran my hand along the intricate tree on the cover and began to chant. I reached out and touched Luke, using the contact to ease the difficulty of including him in ‘Still World’.

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  While blue aura was still cascading off of me, I grabbed a paperweight from his desk and tossed it in the air. The spell completed before it had reached the peak of my toss, and it froze in the air. Luke watched it with wide, almost fearful eyes as the entire world stopped around him. He didn’t know to hold his breath, so my body released the spell after an incredibly brief moment. As my aura evaporated and the world resumed, I deftly caught the weight and handed it to him. Whatever awe or fear had painted his face a moment before vanished as soon as the spell did.

  He stared at the weight for a moment, until I awkwardly replaced it on the desk myself. “I don’t want to believe you. I wonder why that is,” he mused. “You can’t lie to me. Not right now. I just saw your magic myself. And yet, I feel an intense certainty that you must be deceiving me somehow. I am both certain you are honest and unmistaken about your abilities, and certain that you are either lying or delusional. Do you have any idea what might cause that?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t. No one believes me, especially if I show them too much. They haven’t in a long time,” I replied. He watched me, searching my eyes as I spoke and letting the moment drag on for an impossibly long time. I felt his mother’s eyes scraping across my skin at the same time, but I just smiled sweetly, like nothing in the world had ever been wrong.

  Finally, he sighed. “There are three types of people in this city…” he trailed off, glancing at me again. “I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?”

  “I go by Mars,” I answered. He raised an eyebrow at the phrasing, but seemed to care very little, instead returning to his interrupted thought.

  “There are three types of people in this city, Mars. There are the faithful. Servants of Aethon who believe in his plan and won’t be led astray by the stories and the lies and the fables of doom. Those who do not allow themselves to be divided by such obvious trickery. Such people are unfortunately rare, but those who exist have gathered here and formed something of a congregation. A group that wants to help the other two types, if we can,” he said. The cadence of his words sounded so familiar. Like a hundred people I’d met before, each so certain of their wisdom.

  “Another type is people like you. The lost—who never truly knew Aethon. Those who live their lives believing they alone can face the dark. Who believe the light they wear in their hair will keep the paths before them bright and safe. The deluded fools, so sure of their own prowess that they place themselves above Aethon himself. They are blind, and they are weak, and they hurt themselves with vain attempts to carry more than they can bear.

  “These people need guidance. They need us, as Aethon’s children, to go out into the world and share with them the truth. For them, my heart bleeds. For them, I mourn—every single day. They suffer in their pride, and through them, so too do their children suffer. We want to offer them something better. The same water we offered you. The same freedom from their constant power struggle with Aethon. We want to offer them direction. And that’s where my children are. Reaching out to them. Bringing them to the light and offering them and their children the firm guidance they have been missing.”

  My stomach lurched at this. A realization was settling over me as my lips curled up and a smile I didn’t own clung to my face like a leech. A realization about my own awareness while under the control of the kindness this man wanted to offer everyone. On my face, I looked like a steadfast believer. Like a willing new member of whatever cult I had stumbled upon. But I was screaming inside my mind the entire time. And if I was aware. If I was desperate to escape this office, and this cave, and this unnaturally healthy body… then what about Margaret’s mother, bringing people to service and asking them to sit in an audience of the dead? What about Livia, leaving her her inn, and Marcus, unable to speak his fears aloud?

  What about Junia, sitting and starving by her dead mother’s side? What about Millie, stuck in cold arms?

  “The last type of person, however. They are far worse. A greater shame on Aethon’s name than any lost soul ever could be. They are those who proclaim faith. Who came to the temple, week after week and year after year. Those who proclaimed their love of Aethon and hid darkness in their hearts. They are the people who wore Aethon like a badge, but ignored his commands the entire time. Those who now live in fear. Those who let the lies of Luna rule their lives. Who spread rumors of some ‘Quiet’ plague, or curse, or death. There is no such death. But they let these stories drive a wedge between them and Aethon.

  “Do you know what I want you to do, Mars?” He finally asked. My heart was calm and slow, like I was back home with a book and a warm breakfast. I wanted to scream. Even my heart wouldn’t beat with the fear in my mind. There was nothing of myself I was still allowed to own, and even my heartbeat felt like a violation.

  “No, but I am ready to serve in whatever way spreads Aethon’s grace the furthest,” I replied.

  “To the lost, we offer safety and guidance. This is what we gave you. For they are young, and Aethon has chosen for them a second chance. But those he already called his children? Those who have chosen disobedience, and fear, and adultery? He has something else in mind for them. Because they have spent their second chance. They have squandered it. Aethon is not patient enough to offer a third, even as they work to drive more people away from his light. That is what I think you can help with, Mars. You and your curious time magic.

  “My other children may act as the light and the signs on the road. They stand vigilant in their offer of help and guidance. And you will stand at the other end, waiting for those who flee from the light. Those who turn their back on the sun. You, Mars, my master mage. You will offer something else entirely. You will offer judgment.”