Master Foss and Melissa were brought into a large sitting room in Headmaster Lorken’s estate. Mel had never been here before, and she sucked in a breath of anticipation. The place was clean, spotless even, and there were heavy chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Old paintings of landscapes and of well-dressed men adorned the walls. In the middle of the room, a small couch and three armchairs were placed in a circle on top of a blood red rug.

A servant showed them into the room and gestured for Mel and Master Foss to take a seat. They did, in silence. Mel thought Master Foss might be as nervous as she was when she glanced over at him. He was seated next to her on the couch. He kept stroking his beard and tugging at it absentmindedly. His gaze was held down to the floor at all times, and his shoulders seemed to be permanently glued to his ears.

Mel sucked in another breath through clenched teeth and wished Lorken would join them soon. She wanted to have this meeting over with. She didn’t like to be here inside his mansion and she didn’t like the thought of speaking to him, either.

In Mel’s mind, Lorken and the governor were practically the same person. They were cruel and cold people who only wanted to further themselves. Nothing like Master Foss, Gabriella or Austin. People she had grown to respect and trust.

The servant had left them alone in the sitting room and Mel kept glancing over at a distracted Master Foss. He didn’t seem to notice her glances, and Mel tried to get his attention.

“I think Meredith and Will are ready to create a fire imbue.”

“Hmmm.”

“Don’t you think it would be good for them to finish a complete item? For all of us to make something actually useful and not just spend our days in the forge going over the song and the beats.”

“Perhaps. Soon.”

“Really? Why not now?”

Master Foss finally acknowledged her presence, looking over at Mel with a quizzical curve of his brows. “If we push too early, the chance is greater for them to create an unstable item instead. Sure, that is a teaching moment, too. Everyone has to fail sometimes to learn. But I’m not sure they’re ready just yet. It’s barely been a week.”

“But what about the dragon? You said that every day counts. Every day that we haven't solved the double imbue, it’s a day for the dragon to kill people.”

“True. But we are working on it, Melissa. You’ve been working hard on it.”

“No, I haven’t.”

Mel puffed out the air from her lungs, feeling her anger taking over her nerves. She relaxed into the couch for the first time since they’d arrived and let her emotions well over.

“I’ve barely touched metal since we started. They won’t let me touch it. How can we create a double imbue together if I’m not allowed to work with the material?”

“That’s why we're here. To get Headmaster Lorken to ease up on his rules.”

Mel’s head snapped to Master Foss, searching his eyes for signs of lying. “No, we’re here because Lorken wanted a meeting, right?”

“Sure. That too. We need to give him updates. But we can also make requests.”

The air suddenly grew cold in the room, and Mel shivered. Her back straightened and her posture grew rigid again. That’s when she saw Headmaster Lorken stroll into the sitting room with his gaze on Master Foss. His eyes looked hard and Master Foss turned slowly, noticing his presence. He gave Lorken a nod and then Lorken took a seat in front of them on one of the plush armchairs.

He folded his hands in his lap, leaning against the back of the chair. His gaze flew over Mel for just a second and then turned back to Master Foss. Guards entered the room. Even the two Mel had come here with. They stood all around them now, like they expected things to get heated and out of hand.

“Tell me about your progress,” Lorken said.

Master Foss ran a hand through his beard and glanced over at Mel. His eyes seemed to say that he would handle the conversation. Then they slipped back to Headmaster Lorken and a thin smile spread over his lips.

“Progress? There’s only been a week since we started. New magic takes time, you should know that. How long have you worked on perfecting your new weapon by now?”

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Headmaster Lorken’s eyebrows dipped. “What you're telling me is that you have done nothing?”

“No, what I’m telling you is that it’ll take more than a week to show progress.”

“What you’re telling me is that you’re wasting my time and the governor’s resources?”

“Resources, really? Because I could have sworn we’ve been left alone. We have no mage smiths helping us work on this project. No room in the dragon forge and we haven’t even seen the material yet except for a small ingot that a student at Falden provided for us. It almost seems like you want this to fail.”

Lorken’s jaw ticked and his eyes grew even harder as he stared at Master Foss. Mel swallowed hard, looking between the two men and feeling like she could have cut the tension in here with a knife. She looked around the room at the guards and saw that some of them bore expressions of outright shock and worry. Mel didn’t like that.

“We could make more progress,” Mel said, feeling all eyes in the room turn to her. “If I was allowed to even touch metal or stand near the dragon stones.”

Master Foss’ gaze cut to Lorken. “Yes, we can’t do this if someone in our incredibly small team isn’t even allowed to touch the material. You’re consciously sabotaging us.”

Lorken huffed out a puff of air and his expression looked indignant. “Why would I do that? I’m not. She can’t touch the metal because she would communicate through it with the void. You know that, Foss. It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what she’s planning, and she’s pushing you to let her do this. Isn’t that suspicious?”

He was talking about her like she wasn’t even here, and a sting of anger shot through her chest. Mel wasn’t communicating with the void. In fact, she hadn’t heard the dragons speak to her in a while. This was the least she’d communicated with any ethereal force since she came to Aldrion.

“What do you want me to do?” Master Foss asked. “Show you a progress report? Well, in that case, the progress is; we have nothing because you are allowing us to do nothing.”

Headmaster Lorken rolled his jaw. “Then go ahead. Let her touch the metal, let her stand near our dragon stones. But what happens is on you then.”

“Okay,” Master Foss said.

Mel’s heart beat fast in her chest, and she looked between them again. They were still staring at each other, but Mel guessed this was progress. Lorken had, after all, agreed to let her touch the metal and Mel knew she would never try to contact the void, anyway. So there was no risk in letting her.

“But I have one more condition.”

“What?”

“You’ll make a first experiment in the coming week.”

“You can’t be serious? That’s too dangerous.”

Headmaster Lorken’s gaze slipped to Mel again and then back to Master Foss. “We need results. You know that. If you’re serious about saving people from the dragon. Then you’ll do the experiment. You’ll push forward despite the odds for Aldrion.”

“It could blow up the dragon forge, kill people, it would be unstable—”

“Then do it when there’s no one in the forge. Do it during an attack when everyone is safe in the bunker.”

“We wouldn’t be safe, though. I would be risking my own life and that of my students.”

“Yes.”

Master Foss’ eyebrows dipped, and he tugged hard at his beard. His eyes were filled with hatred. A silence stretched between them, and Mel’s gaze flickered back and forth.

“Don’t you think your life is worth less than the lives of all the people in Aldrion?” Lorken asked.

Master Foss huffed and glanced over at Mel. Her eyes were wide and she could barely drag in a breath now.

“Fine. We’ll do the experiment. But then no more holding Melissa back from working in the forge. No more guards grabbing her shoulder and pulling her away from her job.”

“Deal.”

The room grew quiet and Mel dragged in a deep breath all the way down into her lungs. She felt like she was gasping. She’d held her breath almost the entire time. These were huge consequences they were talking about. How could their voices sound so distant when they spoke of such things?

This was their lives they were talking about, her life.

She swallowed hard and forced herself to trust. Trust in Master Foss and that what he was doing was for the best. He had her interests in mind; she was sure of it. But also his own and Aldrion’s. She needed to stop being so selfish and put the people before herself. She just didn’t want to.

Her mind returned to the last time she’d seen Austin in her dorm room. She’d promised him she wouldn’t do anything dangerous. She’d promised him to be careful. He’d said explicitly no explosions. Wasn’t that exactly what they would be risking now?

An explosion in the dragon forge could happen if they experimented with double imbues and it didn’t work.

Master Foss and Mel were led out of Headmaster Lorken’s mansion by the same servant who had guided them inside the sitting room. They were dropped off by the gate, only her and Foss, with her two guards trailing behind her. They’d heard Lorken’s orders, she knew it. She felt sure they couldn’t hold her back now.

Mel leaned in toward Master Foss, making him stop on the Falden grounds and look at her. His brows held a quizzical shape.

“Are we really doing this?” Mel asked. “What happens if the experiment fails?”

Master Foss’ mouth turned into a grim line. “Yes. We’re doing this. We have to. As much as I hate what Headmaster Lorken is doing. We need to make an experiment soon. We owe it to the people who’re dying out there every night. We owe it to the soldiers.”

Mel nodded. She understood what he was saying, even though she didn’t want to.

“If we fail, we try again,” he continued. “We’ll make the experiment purposefully small. No chance of explosion. No chance of damage. He wants us to be reckless, but we won’t.”