For a moment, it was completely silent between us. Cipher stared at me blankly. And then something unexpected happened. She burst into laughter. Like, full-throttle laughter, rocking back and forth laughter. It livened up her features so much and gave a fresh glow to her skin. Cipher wove her hand in the air, trying to stop herself, and her brunette hair cascaded down but that didn’t change the laughter.

It was contagious. I felt a grin threaten to make an appearance.

Sure, I was on my guard. There was the door in the corner, a few candlesticks on a dresser, and Cipher was willowy and soft, I could’ve taken her in an instant. But there was something comforting about her presence. I was still alert but I had a sneaking suspicion she was once again glad to see me.

“What monstrous impression did I impress you with to press a title of the mother of monsters?” Cipher hiccuped.

“Sorry.” My lips twitched again. It was hard not to grin. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Her eyes caught mine. “In lifetimes upon lifetimes, I’d never live to see the time. You couldn’t possibly offend me, Warrick, breaker of thrones.”

“You know who I am.”

She tapped her temple. Correct.

I leaned forward with my hands pressed together. “You called me to come here.”

“Before, yes. For now? No.” She stretched back in her chair and tucked a lock of chocolate-brown hair behind her ear, contemplating. “To how you arrived here, I haven’t arrived at a conclusion, and here is where the problem lies. How did you come here?”

“It’s some kind of magic?” I suggested.

“Your magic, not mine.” Cipher raised an eyebrow. “Come seek, come find, but I did not see you finding so soon.”

I thought back to when I’d first discovered my fire powers. “When I discovered my magic, it was more powerful than I could control.” I held up my hand and snapped a finger. A bright flame flickered above, dancing over my thumb. “What kind of magic is this?”

“It is not your magic that you can not control,” Cipher pointed out and drew back to her bookshelf, retrieving a thick book, dusty with age. She flipped past a few pages and showed one with a drawing of a person and long designs flowing around them. “The control you seek falls with yourself.”

“You’re suggesting I can’t control myself?”

Cipher glanced at me over her book and a secret smile fluttered across her face before she turned back, facing away from me. She slipped the book where it came from. “What control does a child have when it first learns to walk?”

“Could you teach me this kind of control?” I pressed.

“Could I…?” Cipher hesitated, her fingers drifting over the spines of her books before she strode back to the chair and sank down. “I could not. Not again. It is the—the nature of myself and the nature of my predicament. I would bring you nothing but—but ruin.”

“But you trained others.”

Her eyes drew back to mine and quickly away. “And they never succeeded.”

“Cipher?” I said softly. “I’ve got a feeling I’m coming back here.”

“You will not.”

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“I will.”

“To come here at all takes an enormous amount of magic,” Cipher quickly explained. “I told you. To find me again, you must begin at the beginning. I do not understand what is happening or how this is happening or why this is happening, but it will not—”

“It is going to happen again.” My tone was firm. It was just like I knew that I’d eat breakfast in the morning or Xalap would yell at me to get another helping because in her words, I was nothing more than bones. It was how I knew the sun would rise and Byrid would rile up everybody on the coronation day. I just knew it. “Can you teach me how to control it?”

All was quiet. Cipher touched her forehead like she had the biggest migraine in the world and shook her head. “The more powerful you become, the more you beckon enemies to your door.”

“I’d rather have them at my door then lurking in the shadows.”

Cipher cocked her head to the side and her dark hair spilled over her shoulder. “You mean this? Every word you say?”

“Haven’t told a lie yet.”

“You are…unusual, Warrick, breaker of thrones,” she admitted before she stood up and walked over to a plain looking trunk. She fished around inside for a moment, items clinked together until she drew a skull so large, she had to hold it with both hands. The teeth were sharp as could be and she was very careful with it when she took her seat again.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, but I knew a little before she said anything. The power that radiated off of that skull reminded me of all of the items we’d collected for our portal magic. This was something powerful.

“In the Böttr Kingdom, monsters were driven from the kingdom long ago, but across the lands, you’ll find them long in age and deep in anger,” she remarked. “If are to control yourself, you must control your intake of magic.” Cipher placed the skull on the small table next to her. “You must allow yourself to intake the magic and understand its cost. Understand its price.”

“How do I do that?”

“The same way you draw fire from yourself.”

That was a completely different situation. Creating fire was second nature to me now. All it required was a little concentration, and bam, I could burn down a fortress. Now, taming that feeling and keeping it close to avoid catastrophe, that wasn’t in the cards. But I’d never even thought of magic like that.

I closed my eyes and sought out the power in the room. The moment I’d stepped in here, I could feel it.

And there it was, the skull. A hungry, primitive magic, not very powerful, not much of anything. It was a good start.

My attention was taken for a moment. I felt something else.

The endless, boundless magic, twisting into itself. It wasn’t something I could see, it was something I could experience, like walking through an exhibit at a planetarium. I recognized this as something older than myself, in a rich tapestry of life. It wasn’t simple though. Life could be simple but this was gorgeous and wild, curling into itself in endless patterns, determined to race along a clock that I couldn’t understand.

Gently, I probed with my mind and I made my being known. I touched the magic with who I was, with who I’d always would be, and wrapped against me. It wasn’t malicious, it was warm and inviting. Adrenaline coursed through my veins.

A sharp gasp echoed in the room. “Warrick!”

The sensations vanished in an instant and I opened my eyes to see Cipher, pressed back in her chair, panting heavily, a wild look in her eyes.

I frowned. “What—?”

“How did you—?” she blurted out, her voice at a new octave. A shudder ran through her body and the blush was the heaviest I’d ever seen across her face. She drew her dress closer together, like I could see underneath it. “That was my—you cannot just—how did you—?”

“What did I do?”

Cipher was rendered speechless. She stammered a few times but couldn’t quite get an answer out. “Warrick, we cannot…I cannot…” She swallowed, hard and pressed her thighs together. “How did you ever…?”

Those were the last words I heard from her. Smoke poured into the room and Cipher watched me, stunned, but frozen in time. The last things to disappear was her chocolate hair, beautifully framing her face, and her eyes, stunning constellations.

I breathed deep, lying in the bed, in the master bedroom. A face peered over me, with flickering cat ears.

“Warrick?!” Byrid shook my shoulders. “We have a big problem!”