I swallowed, thinking of all the questionable things strewn about my floor.

“Oh, uh…alright. Your room?”

Erek’s eyes darted toward his door.

“Ah, yes. Just…just give me a moment.”

As I trailed slowly behind him, the Sapphire hustled over to his borrowed chamber and shut himself in. I stopped to wait a few paces away, and moments later he came out again. Holding the door open for me to pass, he yanked it closed the instant my tail was through. Padding forward, I took in my surroundings. The chamber was almost identical to my own.

“It has happened just as you warned it would,” said Erek behind me, and I whirled around to look back at him. “The Rend has opened, and everything’s gone wrong.”

“Yes, well, did you think I was just lying for the fun of it?”

The glossy scales of Erek’s brow furrowed. Then his right hand flew up to rub at his head, hiding them altogether.

“I…lately, I am unsure of exactly what I was thinking, then. It is all…clouded, concerning you. But then you killed Seri, and all of my doubts were justified.”

“That’s because Seri’s friends made a sigil to sully my name. And I didn’t kill her. Not…not really. Is that what you’ve brought me in here to talk about? Or is this about the Rend?”

A look of sudden understanding passed over Erek’s expression as he let his hand fall back to his side. And then he met my eyes again. His gaze was intense, but he didn’t seem to be able to hold it for long—not that I could blame him.

“Yes. Both. Everything. I initially cut ties with you because I thought you were either a liar or delusional or both. But I’m presented now with the possibility that there may have been fault in that conclusion. I must examine it.”

My own tail-tip began to tap at the stone.

“You’ve only just now decided this?”

Erek shifted his stance, and his gaze skirted away from me again. “There is another possibility. One I only this morning mustered the courage and clarity to face.”

My glare bore so hard through his head that he was compelled to meet my eyes again.

“And what would that be?”

“That you opened the Rend yourself.”

I balked.

“Why in the depths would I do that?”

The Sapphire shrugged.

“There are dozens of reasons you might have done such a thing. Are you saying then that you did not?”

When we made eye contact again, the grip of his gaze on mine was cold and firm as steel.

“Of course I didn’t, but are you just going to take my word for it?”

“Not without evidence or confirmation from a genuinely neutral Truthseer,” he answered. “But it’s still worthwhile to ask directly, in its own way. I will find the truth, Zia. This is merely my starting point.”

Teeth biting into my almost-lip again, I considered him. Not only had his name not appeared on the list of Pathmakers, but neither had that of anyone in his clan.

“It…it was Seri. She had them put the sigil on her body. Used her own death to push it further. I think. My father’s Truthseer lied.”

There was a moment of stunned silence as Erek processed that. Slowly, he blinked. Swallowed.

“You think?”

“I’m not exactly the expert I used to be. Don’t talk about what I just said concerning Seri in front of Keshry yet, by the way. I’m not sure if it’s good for her to know that I know.”

Outside, the early-morning sky was darkening as clouds pooled overhead. A heavy rain began, drumming at the stained window panes. Erek frowned, his tail-tip whipping at the floor in agitation.

“Did you hit your head again?”

“No. But I did apparently cast a sigil to wipe out all of my own memories. Which I only even know about because I found and read my journals.”

Very suddenly, Erek dropped into that sort of crouched half-sit the kobolds so often did.

“You…you did what?”

Studying his features as he stared disbelievingly up at me, I considered.

Just how much of the truth is it safe to tell?

“I let go of my memories. All of them, save those which allow me to speak and read. They were torturing me. She—I—couldn’t go on like that. ”

Erek’s face paled.

“I was just doing my best, and everything was working against me, including that damned sigil those…people…made in my name. And then Seri went and jumped off the top of a building, and I—”

“Damned? What is that?”

“Nothing,” I said, waving it off. “I garbled my words. I’m sorry, I’m…thinking about all this is just getting to me.”

That last bit was no lie. It was weirdly difficult, separating my personal envisioning of everything Original Zia had gone through from my own actual memories.

Erek took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh, his hands coming together to worry at each other.

“Zia…I want to believe you. And if it does prove true, what you’ve said of your sister and the Rend, then I owe you an apology. Many apologies. But…but your cowardice disappointments me.”

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My ears pressed back, my tail flicked, and I almost growled at him.

“What?”

“Running from your own memories like that, even if everything that happened wasn’t your fault. Throwing away everything you’d ever learned. All your precious knowledge and techniques…all the memories we once shared,” his voice hitched a bit at that. He cleared his throat before continuing, and the moisture at the corners of his eyes glimmered as he spoke. “It is a coward’s path, Zia. A wasteful path. And whatever else I may have thought of you, I never thought you were a coward. As much as you tried to convince me otherwise.”

My hands clenched into fists, claws piercing the flesh of my palms.

“The person you’re angry with isn’t here to hear you. You lost your chance to speak to her, and I can’t answer for her. All I can do is my best with what she’s left me. If that’s all, I’m going to go eat, now.”

Erek drew another long breath as I pushed past him, heading for the door.

”There is one more thing,” he said.

I paused in my tracks, twisting around to stare at him. He looked away from me at first, but then swallowed and met my eyes.

”This will mean nothing to you now, I suppose.” His tone was bitter as his hands curled into fists and opened again. “But, before everything happened, I…I had my family submit a formal request. I was going to surprise you with it the night you left, but then… then…”

His words trailed off as he choked up on them. I turned around to face him fully again.

”What do you mean, a formal request?”

His brows pulled together, and he grimaced as though the following words pained him.

“That we be assigned to the same coven, of course.”

I didn’t know what to say, and as I stood there processing, Erek rushed to fill the silence.

“There’s no undoing a request like that, but there’s never any knowing whether they’ll honor it, either. I just wanted to finally tell you. But like you said, that you is gone.” He winced. “I…I don’t know. I just needed to say it.”

”I…um, I think that would have meant a lot to her, to me, if—”

He made a sharp gesture, cutting me off.

”Right, right. I’m too late, I know,” he scowled. “Go get your food, I can hear your stomach from here.”

I sighed.

He wasn’t wrong. I was ravenous.

“Alright, then,” I said, turning back toward the exit.

“I hope I do, by the way,” said Erek as I stepped through the door.

Stopping, I looked over my shoulder at him, eyes narrowed.

“Hope you do what?”

Faintly, crookedly, he smiled.

“Owe you an apology,” he said.

“You better make it good,” I shot back. Then I left Erek and all the complicated feelings he stirred up behind me…for now. It was time to finally get my beautiful hands on some breakfast.

And coffee, please, imaginary gods…let there be something like coffee.

Promisingly, there was a pitcher of a drink that smelled sort of similar—but also kind of like pecans and something else I couldn’t place. I poured it into one of the clay cups and found that it was tan colored, with little flecks of darker brown stuff suspended throughout.

As I picked over the tray, Keshry—already finished—drifted off to wander along the walls, brushing her hand lightly against the stone as she went. Thors seemed to have vacated the suite some time ago, a fact that was as much a relief as it was a disappointment. Still, I kept my scarf on. His scent may have been diluted by his absence, but its effect on me was only growing stronger.

With my cup and food selections in arms, I took my meal back to my room with me to eat beside my open window. I tried the drink first, and it made even the finest cold brew I’d ever had taste like discarded swill. Creamy, yes. Nutty, yes. But also faintly spicy in a way that tingled across my taste buds and kicked-started what remained of my brain cells. Of the foods, the roasted fruits that tasted like honey-cured bacon and the stuffed fried fish were my favorites.

But it was on one of those little fish that I nearly choked when I saw it—an enormous shadow plunging through the cloud-cover with streams of the stuff trailing from its wingtips, its horns and tail.

A dragon.

Its wings flared as it leveled out, catching an updraft. I leant forward, pushing my head through the window and gripping the sill so hard it kind of hurt. But I was only distantly aware of that.

A real life, honest-to-gods, motherfucking dragon!

It was a magnificent thing, like glittering smoke made flesh—fluid as it twisted through the sky, more sheer force of nature than animal. Terrifying and awe-inspiring. It was hard to judge its size without knowing exactly how far away it was, but I guessed it could have swallowed at least six of me at once.

All too quickly, it had flown from my range of view. I sprinted from the room.

“I just saw a dragon!” I called over to Keshry, my snout-scarf blowing out and sucking inward with every breath. “It…it was flying southwest. I think.”

“Oh really?” wondered the Jade, not bothering to glance away from the bit of rock she’d been examining. “Which one—ah, no. What did it look like?”

As I did my best to describe what I’d just seen, Keshry began to nod. “That was Vesdri’ess. They are a mate of the Sovereign of Thenetos…the territory to the north.”

“Is…is it some kind of attack?”

Erek’s scent of cold rain and cedar asserted itself, and there was a soft scoff from behind me.

“No, they are an ally. They’ll be here to discuss strategy in light of recent events, no doubt.”

“Oh, good,” I breathed, forgetting, for a moment, that I was angry. Then, remembering, I turned my back on him—going over to one of the mossy spots to sit down. Completing her circling of the room, Keshry wandered over to settle in beside me.

There was a padding of feet from behind us, and then to my surprise, Erek brushed by to settle into a spot facing the both of us at the other side of the scoop.

I raised an eyebrow-equivalent at him.

“What, you’re staying out here with the rabble, now?”

He straightened his back.

“The first day of the Moon is always the worst for me,” he said. “By the second, the tonic starts to kick in and my head clears right up.”

Keshry’s eyes went from dreamy and distant to wide and incredulous in an instant.

“Truly, Odros-an?”

I stared from one to the other of them. “There’s a tonic for this? And no one told me?”

“They are very bad for you,” said Keshry in a hush.

“That’s a myth,” shot back Erek. “For people like me, whose Moons are especially severe otherwise, it’s worth a few minor side effects. Besides, I’ve tweaked the formula.”

But Keshry just silently shook her head.

“What are the side effects?”

The Jade began to answer, but Erek spoke over her, and she snapped her mouth shut to glare at him.

“In addition to all the other symptoms, Moon tonic suppresses the mana flare,” he explained. “There’s this pernicious belief that suppression damages one’s Aetheric system, but the evidence is spotty at best. There have been a few instances of random bursts of uncontrolled power, even Frenzies, that were attributed to Moon suppression, but those connections were never adequately proven. It’s all just fear-mongering on the part of people who find the act spiritually offensive,” at this, he threw a look to Keshry, whose brows had drawn together—though she seemed almost more thoughtful now than angry. Almost.

”The worst I’ve ever experienced was some mild discomfort, sometimes bouts of fatigue between periods of hyperactivity. Hardly enough to condemn the entire practice,” he concluded.

“Just because you have not experienced a thing, does not mean there is no danger of it,” said Keshry, and Erek’s hackles rose.

They bickered for a long time, and I just sort of sat back and listened, fascinated, amused and frustrated in equal turns as I waited for an opening in the conversation.

“Can I have some?” I managed at last, butting in as Erek paused to breathe. He scoffed.

“No. It is difficult to make and only works if you take it on the first day.”

Damnit. My shoulders fell. Two more days in horny jail for me.

“Oh.”

As Keshry, Erek and I fell into the flow of conversation, the day passed surprisingly quickly. Each of us took our time away from the others for our own reasons. Afterwards though, we kept winding up back in that mossy scoop and deep in conversation—or argument, as frequently became the case between the other two. When at last our final meal of the day arrived, the three of us ate it right there, together.

But there was an edge of mistrust and hurt between Erek and I that never dulled, nearly as obvious as the distance of a few paces we maintained between us at all times. It prevented me from sinking completely into the innate familiarity and comfort of his presence, a ghost of nostalgia that had somehow survived in me even when the first Zia’s memories had not.

It must have been hours since our dinner when the main door to the suite cracked open and Thors leant in…though it had felt like much less.

The Jasper cleared his throat.

“It is nearly midnight,” he announced. “We must all gather in GreatHall for placement declarations.”