The soldier shows Captain Darian a gold bracelet adorned with garnet stones.

“That’s Liz’s alright,” the captain says.

“Where did you find it?” Quell asks. He reaches out, but Darian takes the bracelet first.

“I’ll let you know what we find,” she tells him, nodding to her soldier to lead the way. “Go grab Earnest, then report back.”

Before Quell has a chance to object, the captain leaves with the guard. Quell’s face falls, and he and I are left alone.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I say, awkwardly attempting to comfort him. “Darian seems capable.”

“Oh, she is,” Quell agrees, glancing away from where the captain had headed off. “Probably the best one to find Liz. But I can’t just do nothing while my sister is out there, you understand?”

“Yes, it would be frustrating to be kept from trying to find your sibling,” I say dryly.

Quell looks at me in surprise. It’s a look he’s given me a couple times now. Like he’s just realized—or been reminded—I’m my own complex person with my own wants and needs, and not just a background character to his life.

“You mentioned your brother yesterday.”

My throat tightens. “Yeah.”

Quell hesitates. “Is he, ah, in a similar situation as you?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I think he’s here, somewhere on this world. He was there when we ended up in that dark place, after we… Well, before we woke up here. Some kind of void. So I figure, if I ended up here, and someone like Hans did, then my brother’s probably somewhere out there, too.”

Quell frowns. “A dark place… a void before you ended up here… Between, maybe?”

I shrug. “It was between our worlds, yeah.”

“No, I mean, The Between,” Quell says. His eyes light up at the opportunity to explain. “It’s another dimension and source of arcanum. Like how the Lull is a dimension which can be accessed as a source of Life arcanum. The Between contains Null magic. Sort of the opposite of Life, in some respects. Not in that it represents Death, but more of… the absence of life. A void. The current magical theory is that souls pass through the Between before continuing to the afterlife. Though, I’m not sure how you would have ended up there in the first place. Truly a fascinating conundrum!”

My stomach turns at his explanation. “You said it’s where souls go before they reach the afterlife.”

“Yes, but that would mean you…” The playful curiosity in Quell’s eyes snuff out, and his face falls. “Ah. Right. I—I forgot that you had mentioned that. I’m sorry.”

I shrug, brushing off his words and fighting down the swell of emotions that threaten to rise within me. “It is what it is, I guess. But what does any of that have to do with how we ended up here? Is this where everyone goes when they die?” The thought makes me pause. “Is this purgatory?”

Quell still looks concerned, but is clearly too uncomfortable to pry—or perhaps he’s just more interested in unraveling the mystery. “I’m not sure what that is,” he says. “But no, people don’t typically come back after death. Even necromancy is just using the echoes of life to animate a corpse—at best, it can cage a soul, preventing it from passing. But dying on another world, entering the Between, and coming here… Well, I suppose it’s not impossible. It stands to reason that if a soul can enter the Between, it can also leave it. And null arcanum is also associated with certain spatial attributes and summoning arcana, so maybe that was involved with transporting you here, somehow. Or perhaps if a mage was tapping into the Between just as you entered it, you’d have a path out. The timing would have to be impeccable, though.”

I frown, trying to recall what this Between place had felt like. What all I had experienced.

“I think I heard voices,” I say. “Someone was speaking, but they seemed a long way off. And besides my brother and I and the other souls, there was this other entity—this sense of malice. I don’t know how else to describe it. I felt trapped. There was a fight going on, I think.” I look at Quell in question.

He helplessly holds up his hands. “I have no idea what any of that could mean. How many other souls were there with you?”

“Not sure,” I admit. The memories are so abstract, it’s hard to make sense of them. “A lot. More than a dozen, at least.”

“Interesting.” Quell scratches at his chin. A fine fuzz of stubble has started to shade his jaw. “So there could be many other people out there like you. I wonder what happened to cause this event? This aberrant event,” he says, dropping his voice as he repeats Zeyaelid’s words.

“The gods must know what happened,” I realize. Even trying to wrap my mind around the concept of foreign gods—physical beings which walk this earth—is bizarre and uncomfortable to me. It contradicts everything I’d grown up believing. Are these really Gods, or only in name? People like Zeyaelid seem too mortal, too small and knowable to be anything like an all-powerful Creator of the universe. And that’s it, right? These gods can’t be all-knowing, or they would have known about me.

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Somehow, I find that comforting.

“You’re right,” Quell says. “What was it she said? She was taking him into the custody of the pantheon.”

“And she asked for our discretion,” I add. “She didn’t want us to know they’re snatching up people like me. And she didn’t want us to go telling anyone else. Why?”

“The gods always have their reasons,” Quell says, but the words sound rote, and even he doesn’t appear certain.

I stare at him for a moment. Exactly how loyal is he to these gods? He didn’t speak up when Zeyaelid was there, but we’d all been a bit caught off guard. “Will you be handing me over at some point, then?”

“What?” Quell says. “No! I mean, I would never do anything to defy the gods’ will. But she only said to be discreet, right? She didn’t say we had to turn over any others we found.”

I can’t help but laugh. That sounds like a loophole he’s spent the last day puzzling out. “So why are you covering for me?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he says, a little flustered. “It seems like the right thing to do, since you didn’t want to go with. And also, we don’t need the gods to figure out what happened to you,” he says, an edge of conviction entering his words. “I’m sure we can learn more about your magic on our own.”

Ah, there it is. The real reason he’s reluctant to hand me over: It would be a missed opportunity to learn about a strange, possibly undiscovered field of magic. He’s as hungry for knowledge as his brother is for might. In a way, they’re both keeping me around for the same reason. Not the best reason, but one that I can use to my advantage for now. As long as I have something they want, at least I won’t have to worry about either of them outing me to the gods.

I’m given some tough jerky to chew on around midnight, which I realize was lunch when I get nothing else. I catch glimpses of Darian occasionally, hurrying about, talking to Constance, and gathering packs of supplies. She prepares one of the star drakes for travel, moving most of its contents to other beasts of burden. Looks like she’ll be traveling light.

After a time, she and two of her guards, the arachnoid Xamireb and the human Earnest, approach Quell once more.

“We’ll be leaving in pursuit of the princess now,” Darian informs him. “I promise I’ll send word as soon as she’s safe within our company once more.”

“Be careful, Captain.” Quell clasps her arm. “Godspeed.”

Quell is taking this suspiciously well, given his previous objections. I watch him with narrowed eyes, but he doesn’t notice, instead keeping his attention on Darian as she and her guards speak with Constance once more, then retrieve their star drake and depart. It doesn’t take long for them to vanish in the dunes.

Only a few more hours pass before Constance calls for the army to stop for the night, and we begin to set up camp once more. The tents go up quickly, and the fire pits and bowls appear as if by magic—actually they probably do. Quell is quiet and fidgety, but scarfs down a quick meal and retreats to his tent as the first streaks of dawn begin brightening the sky. My feet are sore from walking all day, so I’m more than happy to eat a meal of watery meat soup and retire as well. This is going to be a long march.

----------------------------------------

The ghostly touch of a hand on my shoulder wakes me. I sit up with a jolt, heart lurching in surprise as I grab the wrist and twist it around.

“Ow!” Quell jerks forward. “Hey! It’s just me.”

He’s whispering. I let go of his hand and squint around the tent for an indication of the time. It’s dark inside, but I’d noticed the cloth’s unnatural ability to block out the sunlight the night before when I’d fallen asleep. Probably magic. Everything seems to be magic around here.

“What is it?” I ask, also keeping my voice low. “What’s going on?”

“Follow me,” he says. “Grab your things. Move quietly.”

I quickly pull the last pieces of my armor on. “Is it an attack?”

Quell ducks out the tent, and bright, white light lances in. I hiss, squeezing my eyes shut as they sting and water. Blinking the tears away, I squint against the painful light and follow Quell out.

The heat hits me like a physical force. It’s like I’ve stuck my head in an oven. My skin burns and prickles, and no matter where I look—sand or sky—it’s impossibly bright. The sun shimmers overhead.

Quell takes my wrist and leads me around the back of a rock formation my tent was pitched against. I stumble over the uneven ground, hiding my eyes in my arm. It’s unnaturally bright. And the sun is insufferable—I bet I’d bake alive out here after only an hour. No wonder they only move at night.

“Here.” Quell presses something into my hands. “Put them on, they’ll help.”

I fumble with the object for a moment before I realize it’s a pair of goggles. Slipping them onto my head, the world dims, and I immediately feel relief. I blink, finally able to take in our surroundings. The camp is still and quiet.

“Quell,” I say, my stomach sinking in anticipation. “What are we doing out here?”

“We’re following Captain Darian,” he says.

I try to run a hand down my face, but the goggles get in the way. “No. She and your brother already said that wasn’t a good idea. Besides, she’s got to be hours away from us at this point.”

“Six hours,” Quell agrees. “But don’t worry, I snuck a tracker into her cloak so we can find her.”

“You what?”

“Well I’m not just going to wander aimless around the desert trying to track her down, am I?” he says.

I shake my head. “This is a terrible idea. What do you think you can do, anyway? You’ll just slow her down.”

He presses his mouth into a thin, determined line. “She’s my sister. You wouldn’t do the same for your brother?”

Guilt twists in me like a knife, quickly followed by anger at him using my brother against me. “Watch it,” I growl.

Quell doesn’t appear ashamed in the least. “But you would, wouldn’t you?”

I would have if Prince Charming here hadn’t dragged me away. “It doesn’t matter what I would or wouldn’t do. The camp’s going to wake up in a few hours, notice you’re gone, and track you down.”

“By then we’ll be hours away,” Quell says.

“Not unless I wake them up now,” I counter. “Just one yell is all it would take.”

His expression goes steely, and for a moment he looks just like his brother. “You could try, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Is that a threat?” What exactly does he think he can do to stop me?

He holds the look for another few seconds. I don’t know if you’ve ever stared at anyone without saying anything for several seconds, but it feels a lot longer than it sounds. Then, he glances away, deflating.

“Look, I’m going to go whether you come or not,” Quell says. “I only told you because it seemed cruel to leave without saying anything, what with your curse. But I’m not going to let anything stop me from making sure Liz gets home safe.”

I bite back a groan. If I yelled to wake up the camp, and he ran, what would happen? Would he do something reckless? Get himself into danger in his attempt to flee? And what would happen if he did manage to get away, and then got into trouble somewhere too far for me to reach?

He’s damn stubborn about this. More than I would have given him credit for. Part of me wants to throttle him, and part of me kind of respects him for it.

“Dammit,” I hiss. “Alright. What’s your plan?”