The Tor residence had been built as an impenetrable fortress and inescapable prison with roots that reached deep into the earth. Its gates, door, shutters, and even some walls could be adjusted and fortified to benefit those familiar with its designs, who called this place home.

Alexander should know. He had grown up here; played alleyball in the streets, hide and go seek in the garden out back, and a similar game with an objective: Dryad.

You ran from the big tree while the ‘Dryad’ counted to thirty, hid, and ran back when it yelled go. If you were caught, you had to help catch others. You could lie to fool them, too. If you managed to touch the tree, you won.

Simple.

Some days when the stars had aligned, the dinner table had become the tree and the Dryad been given the keys to reconfigure the halls, if they could spare the time. Then, the game extended across the entire grounds and they could hide by hanging from ropes off the side of the walls that jutted out over the streets below, or use ladders to drop from rooftops above.

Those same walls had arrowslits and trapdoors and if necessary, they could dump alchemical concoctions onto would-be attackers that could wipe out all life in a few blocks’ radius around their house.

He had seen the recipes himself when people opened the safe in front of him. They had practiced drills.

Other households were … different, he knew. Exposed. The rare few times friends had been allowed to visit him, some would look around in wonder with the hint of a crease in their brow.

None of them had ever been able to express why; been able to put their finger on what felt off.

It had taken him years to figure it out himself. They hadn’t been told their home was a stronghold designed with the sum experience of four wars and countless escaped prisoners, not all of which had been human.

It had been made hard for them because onto that iron and stone, warm colors and utilitarian decorations had been layered, more so on the outside to make it blend in with the city.

Windchimes, children’s pottery, garden figurines, potted plants, some hanging from chains, welcome mats with corny jokes on them, and junk they couldn’t be bothered to put away.

If a lattice of vines pointed outward, it was brittle and would snap if you tried to climb it. If it pointed inward, it was good and could be unlatched once you reached the top to be knocked over.

Some hallways had hidden steps he had tripped over so often growing up, he would never do it again. Visitors would. Imposters—spies, thieves, or bodysnatchers—would.

With the right vocation or foreknowledge, you might have noticed something looking from the outside in.

From within, though? Men and women in uniforms and armor lined the high walls and courtyard, clustered in chatting groups. For now.

The teens had to hiss at each other from a distance, because they had been placed far apart in the routes a prisoner was least likely to escape through. They were bait, at best. At worst, decorations.

Or accomplices.

“Psst!” Raphael hissed.

It was a familiar thing, standing here. Like the embarrassing aunt ranting at a family dinner, the bathroom door you had to wrench up to lock shut, the creak of each step. There was a comfort in the familiar.

“Psst! Hey, Alex!”

There was also doubt.

Alexander gave his cousin an upward nod from a distance.

They had some time, still. His mother would be asking final questions. Last chance to give answers, last hope.

“Hey. Long time no see,” Raphael joked when he met his eye. “How have you been?”

He shrugged. “I’m whole.” He hadn’t been seriously wounded in the exam unlike his other teammates. Conrad had nearly lost his feet to a trap and seemed genuinely shaken by it.

He was still unsure whether to feel guilty about that. Objectively, he knew there was nothing more he could have done and they had healed him afterward, physically.

But still … there was always that nagging voice in the back of his head telling him he could have done more.

“Yeah, yeah,” Raphael said. “Me, too. Thanks for asking.”

He rolled his eyes and put on a smile. “I can see you’re fine, idiot. ‘Wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

He smiled a little wider and shuffled closer. “Get any great stuff?”

“Some. I already gave it to my dad. He can find out where it’s needed.”

“Aw. Why don’t you save some stuff for yourself, for once?”

He shrugged. “Nothing much suited me. My teammates picked some things. How about you?”

“Ah, you know. I got some neat gauntlets that work like [Iron Grip]. Not sure if they ‘suit me much’, but they’re awesome.”

He frowned. “Assisted strength, locked grip, or how do they work?”

“The latter. If I don’t move, neither do they. No mana required.”

“Cool,” he said and his frowned deepened. “Awesome. You found those on the sixth floor?”

“Yep. Got lucky, I guess.”

“Huh.”

“Would’ve gotten more lucky if we’d had our sixth member with us. Then we could have faced more dangerous challenges but …”

Alexander sighed.

“… you dipped out. Again. First you helped one half of your roommates, now the other half, and it’d be fine because you’ve run out of roommates to help, but we both know you’re getting new ones next year.”

“I’m just making friends,” he lied. “Helping out where I can to make sure everyone is happy.”

Raphael nodded. “Yeah, totally, totally. But it kind of feels like—”

“Stand at guard!” a voice snapped and in a flash, his cousin had snapped back to his post, back straight, eyes forward, one hand on the enchanted baton at his side.

Alexander barely had to move to fall into a similar stance.

Near the back the courtyard, a woman stood next to a door that led to a place where, no matter how many stars aligned, they would never be allowed to play.

She was one of his father’s subordinates, not one of theirs. Their family liked to do that, invite people, train them, adopt some even, oftentimes the ones they had helped as a way to return a sense of security to their lives. But also because those people understood the necessity of their actions.

She had to have done exemplary work to be trusted as second-in-command for this, this morning.

In the silence left by her words, chains rattled over the distant sounds of a struggle and complaints.

He strained his ears but might as well have imagined the words. Where are you taking me?

A man shuffled out of the door, struggling against his bindings and flanked by two more guards. He was in his late twenties in loose-fitting drab clothes, ragged and pale, with the beginnings of a beard around his chin, though they had offered him every comfort in his cell.

A dozen eyes watched his every move, another dozen the area around them, hands on their weapons, Skills ready or used. Nothing he did would escape their notice.

It wasn’t that he was imposing. He had to lean on one of the guards to stand upright, partially the fault of the manacles around his feet, and he tried to lift a hand against the sun but couldn’t reach.

He squinted, looking almost afraid.

No, he was afraid.

Willem Marsh. He was a low-leveled [Gardener] who hadn’t been very good at what he did. He had seven other Classes after bouncing from job to job until he found his place in the Tower. After the changes, his company had sent him outside the city walls to construct fields and an orchard. He’d stuck with them for a few weeks and even leveled once before he quit.

Yes, the changes had been terrifying, Alexander knew, but they had also filled their nation with hope for something new. Like so many others, this man had struck out on his own following a dream that he would make it big in the strange new unknown.

He’d teamed up twice, found a big haul the second time around, and left because of internal disputes. Then … he’d wandered into a place he shouldn’t have; found an item that would have best been left alone.

He had talked to it.

Now, he was in chains with over a dozen highly-trained [Guards] to escort one man out of his cell to a carriage that was hitched and ready to leave.

Alexander knew that all because he had read his file over and over again yesterday after he had been asked to help, looking for some clue, some insight, or oversight on their part.

There were none.

The man’s eyes shrunk in the glare, then grew again when he saw his entourage. He almost missed a step when he noticed the children, but the guards dragged him forward and there, he found his voice again.

Part of Alexander wished he hadn’t.

“Help!” he cried out and jerked his hands toward the nearest person with the kindest face.

That face didn’t move an inch.

“Please, you have to help me. They kidnapped me!” He jerked an elbow at the man holding his arm. “Imprisoned me on false charges. I didn’t even do anything. Please, someone, get the guards! They’re all insane! They’ve been keeping me in a cell for weeks and now—”

He looked from face to face, eyes growing wider, a little wilder around the edges, his voice more and more desperate as it rose.

Nobody moved, not even his thirteen-year-old cousin standing off to the side furthest from it all.

“Please!”

Alexander stared ahead. This is how I got my [Guard] Class, he remembered. Just standing here, watching.

It was no wonder he hadn’t gotten a Skill.

The air smelled like horse apples and something good. Mrs. Perez two houses down was probably cooking with her window open again. It reminded him, he’d only had a banana for breakfast.

The trio passed him and the man saw the carriage. Inevitably, desperation turned into anger.

“You can’t. You can’t do this! Where are you even taking me? Why— Somebody do something! Why is nobody helping me?”

“We are,” someone said.

It was quiet but Willem heard anyway. “What? How?! How is this supposed to help me— Fuck you! Fuck all of you! Let me go you fucking bastards. I’m not—”

He wasn’t a big guy. Alexander could probably hold his own against him. Willem tried to pull himself free but he wasn’t strong enough.

Still, half of the guards remained alert. It was a lesson their family had learned the hard way and that his parents had passed down to him through an even worse way—through mere words.

You never know which depths their ilk might sink to, which bargains they might make in their desperation.

Purple flames began to dance around Willem’s hands as he struggled, swaying like a dance in tune to his anger. “No!” he said. “No, let me go. Let me go!”

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They flared and one of his guards jerked a hand away.

Alexander ran his mind along his spells and shifted his hand up to his quiver, but the magical experts among the faces in the yard looked unconcerned.

Willem’s other guard stepped behind him and lifted the man up. He tried to kick at the sides of carriage doors to stop them, but the other guard held his legs together.

They tossed him into a black cell that took up the interior space of the carriage and as if a bucket of water had been dumped over him, his flames shrunk and sputtered out.

Willem sagged along with them and they pushed him further in before they shut the cell.

He threw himself at the bars, voice small. “You’ve got the wrong guy. Please, believe me. It’s just fire. I didn’t mean to— I didn’t— I’m not …”

The guards stepped away and he surged up one last time, screaming, “I’m not a [Warlo—!”

The door clicked shut, cutting his voice off. The yard went silent. One of the horses snorted and they let out their individual sighs of relief.

“Took you long enough!” someone shouted. “You could’ve dragged him there a little quicker.”

The man rolled his eyes and turned a key in the lock. When he opened the door again, it revealed a cushioned interior and window. No cell. No sounds of chains striking its bars.

Willem was gone.

“He wasn’t going to do anything.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sure, I do.”

“Oh, because you’re an expert on pacts now?”

They started bickering like family, because that was what they were. One of the two guards was a second uncle of his, ten years older than him. The other a distant cousin.

And the mood lightened. They took these precautions but that didn’t mean every one of them believed in their necessity.

It didn’t matter once he was in the carriage, anyway. It was an artificial relic inside a real relic, enchanted and reinforced by Skills many times over depending on its passengers. Only a handful of people in history beyond the first generation had ever learned how to teleport, let alone how to bend space. Nobody would escape it, not Willem nor a Guest of the City.

Because of that strategic value, the carriage was one of the most singular valuable objects in the five cities.

A few people began to load luggage into it—crates, chests and personal bags—with casual ease. One person leaned against the wood and scratched her nose as she chatted with the others where, inside, Willem was probably banging and screaming in the complete darkness.

Raphael winced as he strode over. “Ugly business, that.”

“Unusually, yeah.”

This didn’t happen often, that they hadn’t been able to help or contain someone here so they had to send them away. When it happened, they would sometimes have been put to sleep beforehand. It was quicker, quieter, and easier all around.

Unfortunately, people like Willem oftentimes had ways to resist spells and metal effects even without a Skill as a side-effect because their minds were not entirely their own.

It meant they had to find other methods.

“But if we can’t help the poor guy,” his cousin said as he watched, “the main branch back home definitely will.”

Alexander stared and was glad Raphael wasn’t looking back. He actually believed that, didn’t he?

“But anyway,” he said and turned with a smile, “back to what’s important. You, me, the other guys, we’re definitely going climbing again this summer.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young man. You made a promise, Alex—”

“That was before the Changes, before everything else that happened.”

“Yeah, and now it’s after. You said you would go climbing with us during the school year.”

He began to walk away. Maybe he would get a second breakfast after all. “Summer isn’t the school year anymore so that promise is broken anyway.”

“Hey, I’m just doing you a favor,” he said and circled ahead. “Someone has to drag you out of your room and make you socialize a little more. And hey, who knows, maybe we can get some of our classmates to join us. Some lovely ladies to impress? Eh? Eh?”

He nudged him.

Alexander thought of Catherine and pushed the thought aside. “Fine. Of course, I’ll go, but no embarrassing ourselves by inviting …”

He trailed off when he noticed a woman approaching over his shoulder before she heard something she better not.

Raphael only heard the first bit and slung an arm over his shoulder. “Great! First day of summer break, we thought we’d go just us at first and then we could—”

“Raphael,” his mother said and the guy shut up. He pulled his arm away and stood a little taller as he turned around.

“Oh. Good morning, Rita.” His cheer didn’t leave but he did act more formal in her presence. Many people did.

Far behind her, two assistants carried a locked and warded safe out of the dungeons toward the wagon. The shrunken head would be inside it.

His mom smiled. “Morning. How are you? How was your exam?”

“Uh, it was cool. I leveled once, got some cool stuff. I, uh … I got some [Iron Grip] gauntlets in case we need them …?”

“Keep them,” she said and smiled wider. “I’m sure they will come in handy. Are you excited for the summer?”

Alexander tried not to cringe.

“Of course! We were actually just making plans, he and I.” Raphael jerked a thumb at him and he awkwardly smiled instead.

“I’m sure you’ll have lots of time to do that with the rest of your team, now that the exams are over, am I right?”

“Uh, right.”

“Better do that when they’re around then, right? Can I have a moment alone with my son, Raphael? Maybe you could go check on your sister in the meantime.”

Together, they glanced at the thirteen-year-old standing next to the front gate in the distance.

If there had been any doubt at all Willem Marsh might be dangerous, her presence here proved otherwise. Her parents wouldn’t have invited her if he had been.

Her dad, his uncle, was already reassuring her and she wore a familiar expression on her face with her head held high even as she inched toward freedom.

No, I wasn’t afraid, it said.

The gate had been opened. The sounds of the city slowly began to trickle back in as the sounds from their yard did the same.

Raphael rolled his eyes and groaned, “Fine.” He wrenched himself away from the conversation to go console the little tyke who probably wanted to leave to hang out with her friends as soon as possible anyway.

“See you later?” Alexander asked.

“Yeah, see you. Bye, Rita!”

“Bye.” She waited until he was a good distance away before she spoke, “I watched, you know.”

They fell into step at the same time, walking toward the house “I know.”

“You flinched.”

He frowned. Had he?

“Just as they closed the door when Willem cried out.”

“Oh.” He walked for a bit in silence, but he could feel the weight of her expectations as she stared at him and admitted, “He doesn’t even have the Class.”

“No, he didn’t. But he made a bargain that neither he nor we could easily break. Not that he was very willing. He received two Skills from that bargain. That was reason enough, Alexander.”

“If you insist.”

“You still have doubts,” she said and reached out to hug his shoulder. She leaned as if sharing a secret and hissed, “That’s good. Doubts keep your eyes open, they keep you from making mistakes. So long as—”

“I don’t let them consume me,” he finished for her. He’d heard this before and none of this was exactly a secret, “so long as I don’t let doubts become fear that blinds me.”

She beamed. “Exactly.”

He hurried so he could turn to look back at her. “I read in his file, mom. He has a girlfriend? Or an on-again, off-again fling type deal.”

She cocked her head, bemused. “She’s fine. After a few weeks of observation, there have been no signs of a pregnancy.”

He winced. That wasn’t exactly what he was asking about, and he was embarrassed she thought he would have, but it still let him put one worry to rest.

The children of [Warlocks] oftentimes became [Sorcerers] or had other inherited skills and abilities. More than one noble house had been founded or influenced that way, a factoid they weren’t supposed to mention in polite company as, from his family’s point of view, it was an insult.

He wasn’t sure the Heswarens saw it that way. But in the end, they were on the same side in their fight. All things considered, they had a … working relationship.

No, he had been worried about the girlfriend. How would she react to his absence? What about his family, no matter how estranged his file said they were? What about contacts or friends?

Those weren’t things they had to concern themselves with much. Climbers weren’t exactly the most accountable people and if one went missing for a month or two, who would notice?

It still seemed a little … callous. If a person had gotten sick or committed a crime, their loved ones would be informed when they were hospitalized or put on trial. Here, only their contacts in the guard, other noble houses, and government would know. At best.

And this was the former not the latter, which made it worse. “Mom, he didn’t even do anything.”

“So we should just let him be until he does?” she asked and pointed away. “If this were anywhere else, Alexander, that might have been fine. Maybe things would have been different and we would have placed him under observation first—”

“Or maybe he would have been our superior,” he snapped. “Empires have risen and fallen on bargains made and broken, you taught me so yourself.”

“Yes, but not here. Those empires were built on a collective, every citizen indentured and together, they stood strong. Until the bargain was broken. But here, the Silver Blessing makes it too easy for the individual to lose themself. And the Gold Blessing rewards them for it. We can't let that happen, even if we have to use force.”

He scowled. She squeezed his shoulder and pulled him closer, rubbing it like he was still a child.

“You still haven’t made up your mind, have you?”

“No.”

Another squeeze. “Good. Give it time, Alexander. You’ll see, what we’re doing is necessary.”

“That was never the issue,” he said. They had had this conversation before and while his mother always listened in the moment, he felt like she walked away having forgotten the words he said.

“Then what is?”

“Just, the how of it all, mom! Willem, he kept on asking where we were taking him. Couldn’t we have answered at least that, to soothe his worries?”

“We did tell him where we were sending him,” she said, “he wouldn’t listen. You can ask the good Captain for a transcript, if you want.”

“No, but … the carriage. It has to be pitch black in there. Couldn’t we at least put two light crystals in there or something?”

“It’s not pitch black,” she said. “It’s an illuminated void, much like meditation. Which is good. Introspection is often a necessary step in the healing process. Which Willem was not interested in. He denied being a [Warlock] at all and I doubt he would give up the power if he had the chance.”

“Great, because days of forced meditation is so much better.” He scowled and began to move away, but a single tug on his shoulder was all it took for him to turn back around.

“Alexander, listen, some people just have to be forced to do what’s best for them. You know this.”

He did. He just wished it didn’t have to be that way, or that they could explore other options first.

“If you have any suggestions at all, you can always come to us or hand them in formally if you want. Conversations like this are good, too. Things always can be improved. They have to if we want to keep up with new threats out there.”

Nevermind that they’d had this exact conversation three times before and it felt like the first.

“But what if they don’t?” he asked and the words were a substitute for something else he could never voice. “What if I do decide to leave, someday?”

She shrugged. “Then you leave and you do something else. Whatever you choose, I’m sure you’ll do well and you’ll do good. Maybe you’ll be a climber, maybe you’ll join a search and rescue team, be a regular guard, join the navy. You’ll still be a part of this family. You’ll always be my son.”

He searched her eyes, willing her to see what was beneath but … she didn’t get it, did she? His mother was an interrogator and yet, Alexander doubted she had ever used her Skills on him or listened to what they said.

It wasn’t a question of whether he would leave or not. The question was, if he couldn’t change his family from within, how would he be forced to change it from without?

He didn’t like his options.

But there was no hint of that same worry in her eyes and briefly, he thought maybe she had noticed his concerns and just wasn’t saying anything because she wanted to give him the illusion of a choice.

Either way, he didn’t want to start a fight before he’d even had a proper breakfast.

Alexander sighed and said, “Thank you.”

She ruffled his hair and something crinkled as she pulled it out of her pocket. “Now, I have a shopping list for you and there are some chores you need to do around the house while you’re here—”

He immediately groaned.

“What? You think just because you only visit every other week, you don’t have to do chores anymore?”

She shoved the note at him and went inside. “And the groceries are for dinner this evening so we need to get those if you want to eat. Or do you want to starve?”

He didn’t want the note, but he couldn’t just drop it. “But I wanted to head back to school.”

“Today? No, we haven’t had a proper family dinner in ages.”

“We ate together last time and I’ve barely hung out with everyone after the exam! My roommate found a spellbook and he’s been reading it all the time while he mopes around. I don’t even know yet which spells are in it yet.”

Her eyebrows shut up. “A spellbook? Are you interested in becoming a [Mage] after all?”

“No. No.” Why did they always jump to conclusions whenever he expressed interest in something? “It’s just … spellbook.”

“We have spellbooks in the library.”

“Those are different.”

“How so?”

“They’ve always been there.” And he still remembered the headaches and hot feeling of bile in his throat when he looked at them.

“So what?” She stepped into the kitchen. “The moment you leave for school you’re just going to abandon your poor family?” She placed the back of her hand against her head and looked away in fake dismay, leaning against the large kitchen island.

“No but …” he said and tried to think of a solution, “maybe we could have dinner a little early and then I could go to school and hang out with the others for theirs?”

It could actually be the best of both worlds.

She sighed, considered, and said, “Fine. But, we also have to talk about some plans for your summer break before then. Internship options, or you could join a group on a Hunt or investigation, or maybe even go visit the main family in Anevos …?”

He immediately regretted his decision.

“ … mom.”

She stepped toward him. “I know, I know. We’ve had enough ugliness this morning and you want to relax after your exam. But we have to talk about this. Maybe next time, then?”

“Right. Thank you.”

“Now, there’s money on the counter. Make sure to get everything on the list. You can keep what’s leftover. And eat something before you leave. Have you even had breakfast?” She pinched his cheek and shook her head. "Kids these days."

She left.

He stared at the pile of coins, around the empty kitchen, and sighed. Twenty minutes later, he headed out the gate with a bagel in his mouth and a copious amount of shopping bags.

He squinted at the list in the glaring sunlight, looked around and made a plan of which places to hit first, and left before his mom remembered some other chore he still had to do.

All things considered, though, Alex was looking forward to the summer.