Stepping outside to early morning daylight, Lily took stock of her surroundings. They were in a little herb garden squeezed between an alleyway and the windowless wall of another house. Disorganized rows of herbs and blooming flowers overhung little dirt pathways. At the back of the garden sat a raised chicken coop. A few fat chickens were out in the garden, clucking and scratching in the dirt. Lily’s long robe brushed the thriving plants she passed, kicking up their spring aromas.

  “Where is Fae?” she asked, as she came to stand beside Marigold. She had expected to find her panthegrunn housed somewhere near, but she saw now that there was no room anywhere for such a large animal.

  “The great beastie’s staked in the woods outside town,” Marigold replied. “Cantankerous and demanding of fodder as ever.”

  “How near?” asked Lily. “Let us go and see her.”

  “Later,” said Marigold. “When it’s dark and there are less people about. For now, let us concentrate on some practical lessons.”

  “Please, Mari. She has never gone this long without me seeing to her. She’ll have been lonely.”

  Marigold turned a kind smile on her. “Pah! She has not been lonely, dear girl. I and my friend take turns visiting her nightly with food and fresh water. And she has Vetch’s horse to keep her company. A strange pair those two, but they get on well enough.”

  “Vetch’s horse ...” Lily knit her brow. She’d had to leave the horse behind in the building he’d been stabled in with Fae. There’d been no choice at the time. In her desperate rush to break into the castle and seek her teacher and Vetch, she’d completely forgotten about Revenge. “How?” she asked.

  “Ah. Well, once Vetch had finally been convinced you were okay, he moved on to fretting about his damned horse.” Marigold chuckled under her breath. “Raised such a stink about it that my friend finally went to the building he described just to get ‘im to stop asking. The horse was still there, surprisingly. I don’t know how she concocted to take possession of it, but she did. Vetch was much placated to see the beast.”

  Lily’s regard for Vetch swelled at that gesture. The horse had also come from Moonfane Forge, after all. It was just like him to refuse to leave even a single member of their party unaccounted for.

  “So, you see,” Marigold continued, “Fae is fine. Now, if we can concentrate on—”

  “Please, Mage-Matron. All the same, I want to see her. Please, can we go? Afterwards, I will practice whatever lessons you wish. Please?”

  Marigold threw her hands up. To anyone else, the old mage would have appeared annoyed. Lily, however, recognized the hint of amusement in her voice as she said, “Oh, have it your way, girl. You’re as bad as Vetch! Terrible influence, that boy. Terrible.” This was accompanied by a throaty chuckle.

  Lily drew herself up triumphantly.

  “Yes, yes, gloat all you want, but we’re not skipping lessons,” said Marigold. “We’ll have class as we walk. Pull your hood up and follow me.”

  The old mage drew her hood over her head and opened the little gate leading out to the alley. Lily gathered her hair back into a rough tail and pulled up her robe’s hood. She followed her Mage-Matron out of the garden and up the long alleyway, between many similar looking houses with similar gardens. At the end, they came to a narrow street of cobblestone.

  Lily glanced sideways out of her hood at the people going about. She saw hawkers and tradespeople, farmers and shopkeepers. It was a normal morning. She could have been in any town. If anyone was still concerned with, or even knew about, what had happened up in their lady’s castle, she could see no evidence of it. She reminded herself she had been in Slumber for weeks following that day. Perhaps things had blown over.

  “Are we safe out here?” she asked quietly, when there were no people within earshot. “Are there still soldiers looking for us?”

  Marigold grunted. “Wasn’t it you who couldn’t wait until nightfall to go and visit Fae?” To this, Lily could come up with no response. Marigold patted her arm and said reassuringly, “It’s safe enough.”

  “You are certain?”

  “We are dressed as the women who come and go from that house, walking to a place where herbs that are used there are gathered. No locals will even remark us. ‘Sides, anyone still lookin’ for us likely believes we fled town weeks ago. Don’t worry yourself.”

  At the end of the street, Marigold cut between two buildings and led them away from town. They followed a winding dirt path that took them up a gentle slope, then down into a copse of trees. Away from the houses and shops that obstructed the view, Lily could catch sight of Black Crux Manor off to their right through the trees. The nearness of the looming castle unnerved her. The house they sheltered in was not that far from it at all. They were hiding directly under Lady Iris’s nose. She shuddered involuntarily.

  “I don’t sense her,” Lily said. “Ir ... Gilliana. Did Vetch? ...”

  “No,” Marigold answered, and glanced once over her shoulder at the castle. “She lives. If you can call it life. Concentrate more and you’ll find ‘er. She Slumbers long. That she does is why we’re still alive. You saw the kind of spellcasting she was doing. Unfettered. Dangerous. Sealed ‘er own fate, I suspect. If she ever wakes, it won’t be as the same person. More ‘n likely, she never does.”

  There was a strange pang of regret in Marigold’s trailing voice. After a moment, she made a small sound in her throat, as if she closed the book on the topic. She waggled a gnarled finger up at Lily. “You, however, showed wisdom and restraint with your Castings up there. I was concerned, of course, but you handled yourself very well, Lily. Tell me, how’d it come about you could cast Barriers in such quick succession like that?”

  “I don’t know, Mage-Matron,” Lily answered haltingly. “There was a time in Bannerman’s Wood when I feared for my life and I had no choice but to come up with a Barrier. It was like that up in the castle. I feared for you and for Vetch, and I just ... did it.”

  “It was magnificent, girl,” Marigold said, and her smile was a proud one. “The reason you were able to do that is what leads us to today’s lesson. Tell me, why do you think you were able to cast Barriers like that in that moment, when normally you must prepare yourself and concentrate first? What were you putting behind that magic rather than concentration? What did you feel at the time?”

  Lily considered the question. “I was afraid,” she stated, after a moment. “For you and for Vetch. And ... I was angry, that that woman had brought such ruin to our home, that she would hurt the people I cared about. Her magic felt wrong. I wanted to stop her from using it.”

  “Anger and fear,” Marigold mused. “Strong emotions, those, eh? Emotions that could influence your spellcasting in unpredictable ways. And why is that, huh?” She prodded Lily in the ribs with her knobby elbow. “Huh? You know the answer, girl. Because Barrier-Casting is ...”

  “An emotionally resonant magic,” Lily recited dutifully.

  “Exactly that,” Marigold said, her voice tempered. “You were putting strong emotions behind those Barriers, in place of considerate thought. Much the same as Gilliana was doing.” Before Lily could protest, Marigold held up a finger. “But, she was casting without restraint, burning through all of her magic, all of herself, without a thought for the consequences.

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  “And you could’ve burned up, too. But, unlike her, you remembered your lessons. In the middle of dangerous and emotional casting, you still used no more magic than was absolutely necessary. I felt that. I might even say that you did a dumb thing wisely.” Marigold chortled. “I’m proud of you, Lily. That right there is why I’ve always pounded it into your head, time and again, to calm yourself and do away with the physical and the emotional before casting. So, you not only get the spell right, but you use no more energy than is exactly required. That’s how we mages minimize Slumber. You know that already, but—”

  Lily opened her mouth to speak. Again, Marigold held up a finger.

  “I’m not done talkin’ yet, girl. Patience.” she cleared her throat. “But, there are times in Barrier-Casting when you need to imbue your spells with emotions. Not just your own, but those of others.”

  Lily was perplexed by this. “How do you put the emotions of others into your own spells?” she asked.

  Before she could receive her answer, they arrived in a glade sheltered on one side by a small hill and on the other by a thicket of brambles. Here, Fae and Revenge were staked. Seeing Lily, Fae heaved herself up from where she’d been resting. The long rope she was tethered by creaked in protest as she pulled against it to meet her. Lily laughed and grasped her horns, pushing her back so she would not break the rope.

  “Aww, have you missed me, Fae?” Lily cooed. She kissed the panthegrunn on the nose and ruffled her shaggy fur. Near at hand, Vetch’s horse knickered his recognition of her. She went to him and rubbed his snout the way she had seen Vetch do many a time during their travels.

  “There, you see? They’re fine,” Marigold said. “Plenty of food and water, and Fae has been much less prone to yanking her stake out of the ground since Revenge was brought to keep ‘er company. Such a name your man gave his mount.” Marigold pressed her hands to her back and stretched. “Now that you know where they are, you can take over my turns fillin’ their water buckets and bringing ‘em fodder.”

  “Gladly,” said Lily. She returned to Fae and appraised her. “You and Revenge could both use some brushing, couldn’t you? I suppose your brush is gone, along with everything else Vetch and I left at the inn.”

  “Things can be replaced,” said Marigold. “A brush, very easily. Now, let’s return before we’re missed. Lessons in the garden.”

  Stroking Fae’s shaggy face, Lily turned to her teacher. “You were going to tell me about imbuing spells with the emotions of others.”

  Marigold chewed her lip for a beat. Clasping her hands behind her back, she walked closer to Lily and Fae. With a smile, she reached her gnarled hand out to stroke the panthegrunn’s fur. “Wonderous beast. If walkin’ down to the stables wasn’t such an ordeal, I’d visit ‘er more often. Tell me, apprentice, why can’t you ever cast a Permission that’d allow Fae through a Barrier?”

  “Children’s lessons now, Mage-Matron?” Lily teased.

  “Humor me, girl,” said Marigold with a lift of her brows.

  Lily recited, “We cannot guess at the thoughts of animals with the same familiarity as we can other humans. It’s our ability to discern the minds of other people that allows us to create Permissions for them. So ...” Here, she took Fae by the horns and gave her head a playful shake. “You, unfortunately, cannot be permitted through a Barrier.”

  “So ...” Marigold said, mimicking Lily. “As to your question about how one can imbue their spells with the emotions of others: if we can discern how another human might think or feel, then we could infer from that what they might do or want to do, yes?”

  Intrigued, Lily nodded. “Yes.”

  Marigold smiled the familiar smile of a Mage-Matron gradually unraveling her lesson for her pupil. “Then,” she began, a spark showing in her steely eyes, “if you could reasonably guess what someone else wants to do, you could imbue your Barriers with Conditions of your own based upon the emotions of another. You could design a Barrier that reacted to another’s intentions.”

  “Intent!” Lily breathed.

  “Just so. What do you recall from your readings about Intent?”

  “Only that it is a very advanced technique,” Lily answered. She felt a stab of sadness recalling that all of the books she had learned from were now gone, burned up with Marigold’s home. Had Vetch told her about that? It didn’t seem to Lily that Marigold yet knew.

  Her Mage-Matron forged on in her lesson. “It’s very difficult to get down. Sharp-minded Journeyers begin learnin’ about Intent, but rarely does anyone get the trick of it until they’ve been a master mage for some years. It’s somethin’ you begin to learn after you’ve grasped leaving your emotions out of you casting,” Marigold explained. “Once you’ve mastered that, you can begin introducing emotions into your spells in a controlled fashion. You’ve experienced now how that can be used to augment the speed of your Castings. Eventually, far down the road, it will allow you to learn casting with Intent.

  “For now, understand that mastering your magic is about being fully aware of who you are and what you want.” A wry smile came to Marigold’s lips. “In Barrier-Casting specifically, it’s also about your empathy for the wants of others. That’s why I think it’s something you’ll excel at one day, Lily. To this old mage’s eyes, the bridge between now and that day is a clear one.”

  Remembering something, Lily turned an inquisitive look upon her teacher. “If I had been throwing my emotions into my Castings ...” she began. “The night Vetch snuck into the castle, we’d made a bargain with some farmers who also had reason to get inside. I cast a Barrier over a gap in the earth behind the castle wall, so they could all walk across. It worked for the farmers, but not for Vetch. He went straight through my Barrier and almost plunged into the fissure. No matter how I tried, I could not cast a Barrier that would affect him. He had to be carried across in the end. I don’t know what happened. They were simple Barriers, as I’ve cast many times. At least, so I felt ...”

  Marigold knit her brow. “That is a curious thing, girl,” she agreed. “Nothing complex about it? No Conditions, no attempts at a Permission or a Restriction, perhaps?”

  Lily shook her head. “None. It was the most basic of Barriers I could cast. It should’ve applied to everyone, without exception.” She frowned, thinking back. “It felt no different than any other time. I mean, if we ... if I had somehow not kept my emotions in check ...”

  “Any other of your Barriers work on ‘im?”

  This gave Lily pause. “Now that I think of it, that was the first time he’d ever come into contact with one of my spells.”

  “Hmm ...” Marigold breathed, chewing the side of her cheek in thought. After a moment, a different light came into her eyes. She looked up at Lily with a growing grin. “Did ya roll ‘im that night?”

  Lily blanched, then blushed.

  “You did!” Marigold cackled, wagging her finger under Lily’s nose in mirth. “There is your answer, and a right obvious one! Nicely done, girl,” she added, heaping upon Lily’s embarrassment. “It’s good havin’ an apprentice who heeds my advice.”

  Flustered and wanting to steer the conversation someplace else, yet still needing to know, Lily pressed herself to ask, “Then you are saying ... it really does diminish magic? That it was because we’d? ...”

  “Been screwin’ like teenagers?”

  “Mari!”

  Again, Marigold cackled. At the sound, Fae grunted and Revenge pawed the earth with his hoof, as if the animals joined in on the merry torment.

  Marigold dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. “Bah! Of course not. It doesn’t diminish magic at all. That’s only old wives’s tales. No. I think I see what happened.” Her voice settled into its teaching cadence. “It’s about Vetch and Intent. Without even knowing it, you were adding Imbuements to your Barriers that will always permit him through. Because your intention is to always permit him through.”

  Despite Lily’s embarrassment, she listened with avid curiosity as Marigold went on explaining. “Barrier magic holds people back emotionally, girl, not physically. And you’d never want to hold that boy back from you, would ya? Especially not that night, I gather. That’s why no Barrier you cast was goin’ to work on ‘im. Because, deep down, you’d never want it to. See how powerful Intent can be?” She chuckled.

  “It’s not funny,” said Lily meekly.

  “Ah, I don’t mean to needle ya, girl,” said Marigold. “I’m happy for you. I am, truly. Though, do make certain to remember that about your own magic, should you two ever find yourselves in a situation like that again. Your feelings for Vetch may cause your spells to apply differently to him than to others. Don’t forget that.”

  Lily nodded quickly. She could feel how she was still blushing. At least Vetch wasn’t present to hear all this. Then again, she could imagine his unshy laughter if he were. A little smile came to her face.

  “I will remember, Mage-Matron,” she said, in order to disguise it.

  “I know you will,” Marigold said decidedly. “Because you are the type of student a master mage can feel proud to have taught. I mean that, Lily. I am proud to be your instructor in magic. Teaching you Barrier-Casting has been the most rewarding work of my life. I believe you have what it takes to become a master mage one day.”

  Lily was taken aback by the suddenness of the heartfelt words. Flattered, she could only utter a humble “Thank you, Mage-Matron.”

  Marigold tapped her wrinkled lips, observing Lily, her eyes creasing in thought. Suddenly, she nodded to herself. “I knew this time would be coming about soon,” she said. “After what I saw of your spellcasting in tandem with your man’s fighting, well ... I’m quite sure of it, now. You know I’m not one for pomp and ceremony. So, I will simply declare this: Mage Lily, as your Mage-Matron, I deem you ready to advance. You have graduated from your apprenticeship. You are a Journeyer-Mage now.”