Olivia frowned at Hina. "It's complicated," she said. "I can't share secrets, you understand?"

"Of course," said Hina, trying to keep her frustration out of her voice. All she'd asked was how Olivia was drawing the line when she put up her wards. A major limitation of Hina's barrier was that she could only use it on surfaces soft enough to draw on with a stick. "Any hints you can share will help keep us both safe."

"Okay, yes, that’s true."

"And am I not going to learn all of this when we get to the academy anyway?"

"Hmm. It's possible. But regardless, I am going to be required to justify anything I tell you, both by my family and potentially by the academy itself," Olivia said. "They don't like information being shared with non-initiates, and I understand their position given what's at stake.

"But—"

Olivia raised a finger to cut off Hina's objections and continued talking. "The ward working you've been using is unquestionably the more effective of the two we have access to between us, so it's better that you continue to be the one protecting our campsites. And with that in mind, I think I am justified in giving you a few hints without giving you the working." She looked satisfied with her explanation.

Now they were getting somewhere. "So what can you tell me?"

"My ward includes a pattern that physically cuts a line into the ground while I walk the boundary. I can't share any part of the working, and in any case, I don't think it would be within your abilities right now, not with your current level of ambit development—"

"—what's wrong with my ambit?"

"It's very healthy looking for what, a few weeks of practice?"

Hina nodded.

"But you can't expect too much in so little time."

"How long have you been developing yours?"

"Four years."

"Four years!" Olivia was at least a year younger than her, and she'd already been practising for four years? Hina's face flushed. She had no idea she was so far behind.

"So you can't expect too much just yet, but give it some time." Olivia gave her a gentle smile. "We all have to start somewhere, as my father says. And many of the students at the Academy will be just as inexperienced as you are." She coughed. "In any case, my assessment is that the technique I'm using isn't a possibility for you right now, even if I could share it, which I can't. Sorry."

"That's a shame."

"But, if you have other questions, I can try to answer some of them?"

They were sitting on the ground at their campsite outside Blandmanch, heads just under the height of the yellowed stalks of grass. Out of sight from the road, until they stood up at least. Kai was on the other side of the small clearing, sitting cross legged with a book in his lap. Bean perched on his shoulder.

Hina thought quickly. There were so many things she wanted to know, ever since she'd found the invitation on her pillow. And then she'd gotten the other one. She still hadn't figured that one out. "Any ideas about this?" She fished out the invitation from The Grove and passed it over to Olivia.

Olivia frowned at it, and her eyes widened as she read. "How—where did you get this, Hina?"

"A man came into the bakery and dropped it off. Weird old guy. He said his name was, uh. Ian? No. Ivan. Morr—marlow. Ivan Marlow," Hina said. "Why?"

"You didn't"—Olivia looked alarmed—"tell me you didn't make a deal with this man."

"I haven't made any deals." Except the debt to Gerda, but that wasn't exactly a deal, was it? "I just accepted a sealed envelope."

"Are you sure?" Olivia's voice rose. "You didn't agree to do any favours? You didn't promise anything? Any deals at all?"

"No." Hina shook her head. "He said he was a messenger?"

"For The Grove, Hina." She gave the phrase a weight that Hina didn't understand. "The blasted Grove."

"What—what is the grove, exactly?"

Olivia wasn’t listening. "Are you completely sure you didn't make any deals? Even something that didn't seem like a big deal at the time?"

"I think I said thank you?"

"Well, that—that's stupid, but probably not enough." Olivia sighed and muttered, "I wish Mother was here. I know she can detect a pact, even in the early stages."

"What?" Hina didn’t like that. She had just thanked the messenger like she would anyone delivering a parcel, she hadn’t agreed to anything.

"Listen, Hina," Olivia's blue eyes looked straight into hers. "You must never, ever answer that invitation. I don't know what you've done to draw its attention, but you have to avoid any further interactions." She waved the envelope in the air. "The academy might deny you admission if they heard a rumour about this, no matter how good you are," she said. "Certainly they would have nothing to do with you if you'd had any further contact, let alone made any deals. They'll screen you during the admissions process, and they'll find out. They always do."

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"But, but—why?"

"These things," she gestured with the invitation, "are our enemies. The enemies of all humanity. They offer power, yes, but at a great price."

"The invitation?" It was an ordinary letter, in an ordinary envelope.

"The Houses, Hina. The Grove is one of them. They twist the souls of people—anyone who interacts with them. You might look the same, but everyone who bonds with a living House ends up a killer and a monster, no exceptions. If you meet someone who is bound to a House, you are duty-bound to kill them—any practitioner is. And if you can't kill them, you should run away and find someone who can." She held the invitation out to Hina. "Burn this. Please."

"O—okay," Hina said, taking the invitation back.

"If they found that on you in Om Qalar, you'd be executed on suspicion of treason. Hina, you have to get rid of this!"

"Okay, I'll—I'll destroy it. We won't be making any fires tonight. But the first chance I get, I'll burn it."

"Good." Olivia's face was serious. "I'm glad you understand."

Hina did not feel like she understood. "But, what even is a House?"

"You don't—okay. I suppose that's to be expected." Olivia paused, thinking. "You know about the church of the Holy Flame, right?" She paused. "The Torch?"

Hina nodded slowly. "Yeah. They have a shrine in Grambe. Some people use them to send messages, but I don't know anyone who is a serious devotee. Except the priest, I suppose. "

Olivia continued, "so you take an ordinary flame, a campfire, a candle, whatever. You let that burn for long enough, maybe decades. Eventually, the flame takes on a life of its own. And if you let a living flame grow big enough..."

"It becomes a House?" Kai chimed in. Apparently he'd been listening.

Bean croaked disapprovingly.

"It becomes the Torch?" Hina tried.

"It becomes intelligent. Many of them gain the ability to work power in their own right. If you feed a flame like that, allow it to grow for long enough, it might become like the Torch."

"And the Torch is a god?"

"Maybe a demi-god? No, no. I don't think the Torch is a god of any sort, but it's certainly powerful. I think it's technically a greater spirit."

"And any other flames from it are the Torch itself?" Kai asked. "They're linked?"

"That's what they say—and there's definitely a link. And that's why there's a Torch shrine in every major town. You can gain power from a bond with any living flame, but the academy, uh, discourages it."

"Huh," Hina said. "You just have to let a fire burn for a long time? And you can gain power from it?"

"And feed it the right things, unless you want to wait fifty years before it's useful. But that's beside the point, and don’t sound so excited. What I'm getting at is that the current theory about the Houses is that they're similar to the Torch," Olivia said. "They're something that has been allowed, maybe encouraged, to grow and grow until they've grown beyond their original limitations into something completely different, something strange and alive. And unlike the Holy Flame, they want to destroy humanity—or at least enslave us."

"Wait, what?" Hina said. "Why?"

"I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. But that's what they do. Like I said, they offer power, but it changes you. Every time. The only good House is a dead House. And even then, you have to be careful, because even dead, they'll still change you. It's just that without a guiding intelligence behind it, you can delay the change long enough to do some good."

"So the ruin in the forest?"

Olivia nodded solemnly. "Dead House."

"What about the trinkets we found?"

"Those are usually okay, like I said before. As I understand it, the dead Houses are allowed to exist because they're useful. The things you find there, trinkets, artefacts, trials: they make humanity stronger. The Lesser Signs too, I suppose."

"The signs are from the Houses?"

"Where else would they come from?"

Hina didn't know. "Somewhere... else?"

"Maybe. But I don't think so. Most new sigil 'discoveries' come from expeditions into the dead Houses. The Lesser Signs are the least dangerous, but... well, you would know better than me, Hina. You've touched one."

"It was horrible," Hina said, shuddering with the memory. "Like something huge and alien was pushing its way into the world, into me."

"Exactly. And that was a Lesser Sign. The Academy has a whole department dedicated to studying them, and we're still not sure what they really are. The workings come from that research, or at least many of them do."

"Wait, if there are Lesser Signs, are there greater ones too? Do they study those at the academy?"

"No."

"No, there aren’t? Or no, they don’t?"

"The Greater Signs are too dangerous. Anyone found with a bond to a Greater Sign is executed on the spot. Even possessing a card like the one you have would be considered treason, if it was a Greater Sign. From the city, they send out teams to hunt down rumours of the Greater Signs across the whole world."

"So, worse than an invitation from a House?" There were apparently quite a lot of seemingly benign things you could be executed for in Om Qalar.

"Much worse. The Houses are enemies of humanity, but the Greater Signs, well, they could destroy cities, convert whole populations into monsters, or worse."

"Huh."

"I hope that puts things in perspective."

"Kind of. So exploring the ruin in the forest was okay, and touching the lesser sign was okay, and the trinkets are useful and valuable, but the invitation is bad?"

"Exactly. I mean, the sign isn't great—it's dangerous to you. But the invitation is both bad and dangerous."

"Okay." Hina shook her head. "Thank you for explaining, I guess."

"You're welcome."

"Forest fires. Are they smart then, too?" Kai asked.

Olivia thought for a moment. "Probably not? It would have to be a really big fire, and most of the time they burn themselves out before they reach the threshold. Apparently it does happen sometimes, though. Not in the valley, but I've heard stories of it happening sometimes in the forests of Quetta."

Kai gave her a blank look.

"A long way to the south. In any case, not something we need to worry about up here." Olivia yawned, and Hina realised how late it was already. The sun would be setting soon.

"Okay, one more question." Hina took a deep breath. "At the farm, what happened to Humphrey?"

Olivia looked uncomfortable. "I think... He lost control of his working, and the sign took him. Transformed him. Or that's what it looked like from where I was standing. It’s complicated."

"Transformed him?"

Olivia nodded. "It happens sometimes. It's why— Oh, never mind. It's not important." She started undoing the buckles on her satchel.

"What?"

"Nothing. Now, If there's nothing else, I need to catch up on some study while we have the light." She pulled out a heavy tome with a worn blue cover and started reading, apparently already done with the conversation.

"Okay. Thanks." Hina frowned and stood up. She supposed she had her own work to be doing, and she shouldn't push too hard. They had a long journey ahead. There would be time to ask more questions later.