The heist wasn’t our best work, through no fault of our own. Fuckin’ Rail Snakes. Who derails a train? Still, could’ve been worse. Out of everyone, I felt that the most. But we were alive, made it back to our hideout in the amber zone, and got a few bags of salt for the trouble. Of course, we needed to talk about a few things.

‘Who was that piece of shit?’ Howard seethed from a cot, wincing as Tea cleaned his bullet wound.

Wei didn’t look up from his ledger-journal. ‘Fregin Drakon. Son of Juroga Drakon, underboss of the Fornax crime family. Fregin was going to Daylesford for rehabilitation.’

‘Seriously? Just a coincidence?’

Wei and Stefan shared a look. They’d talk about it later.

‘There was also a Sentinel,’ Stefan told Wei. ‘One of the Faceless Carriers.’

‘Any issues?’

My shame and frustration boiled when Stefan glanced at me. ‘Almost.’

I hoped they’d continue the debrief, and then I could slip away, but Ellie glared at me. ‘Amber tried to steal his goods,’ she said. ‘What were you thinking? Like, really thinking, because I don’t think you were.’

‘I was thinking a bunch of gems were way better than some stupid salt. Sorry I tried making the heist worth it.’

‘But you made it back,’ Stefan said. ‘Now, let’s move on.’

‘How did we survive the Sentinel’s attack?’ Marshal the Marshal asked. The gang turned to him. I swore under my breath. He and Ellie had been in the cargo bed with me. ‘That had to be Taurus-class. A hit hard enough to rock an Auroch and we didn’t feel a thing.’

That blast at the end, which got deflected toward the Rail Snakes.

The gang looked between Marshal, Stefan, and me. I didn’t know what to say, and I wasn’t sure what exactly happened at the end of the heist. Not fully, at least. I had a sense of truth deep inside, but it felt like the thoughts weren’t mine, like I’d learned against my will.

‘What happened, Marshal?’ Stefan asked.

‘The Faceless Carrier tried to blast us. Whoosh!’ He made an outward clapping gesture. ‘Then it went away.’

‘Amber had her hands up,’ Ellie helpfully (unhelpfully) pointed out.

‘’Cause I was scared,’ I said, defending my lie.

Stefan hummed. ‘Seo-Joon, please try binding Amber.’

I recoiled. Not fast enough. Seo-Joon didn’t question the order. He stood nearby and reached.

‘Piss off,’ I yelped, and tried to dodge, but his fingertips made contact. Magic chains appeared around my wrists and ankles. I tensed. Unsteady vibrations ran through my limbs. A second later, the chains were gone, and smells of mint and garlic filled the air.

I breathed heavily.

I’d felt like an outsider in the gang since learning the train heist was supposed to be my last job. Now, I felt worse. There were twenty-five of them, and they’d formed an arc. I shrank from the forty-nine eyes. Everywhere I looked, I found new reactions: Mouths hanging open. Swears. Scowls. Smiles, both sincere and uneasy. But more than anything, it felt like they weren’t looking at a human. I was the whole zoo.

Aoide jogged to our supply shelf and struggled to lift a spare kinetic engine. Arms locked and tense, she wobbled back to us and set the engine on the ground.

‘What’re you—’

Aoide flipped it on and fired. A gentle blast like compressed air shot toward me. I punched at the distortion and the blast went away, knocking over a stack of empty paint cans. Seconds passed. I jumped as wild laughter broke out. I glared at them, until a few cheered. It took a moment to realise they weren’t laughing at me; the alternative was, what, pride? I looked away, not really embarrassed but—hard to explain.

A chunk of the gang crowded me, many talking at once. The mages among them took turns using their magic. First, Seo-Joon tried his binding again, this time with a full cocoon. My muscles strained a bit more, but his binding vanished again. Umar and Dado tried their illusions and shapeshifting, but when I touched them and “pushed” with my mind, they returned to normal. Mina had Circinus-class magic, which made her senses sharper to the point she could hear heartbeats, but she said I was totally quiet. She’d have mistaken me for a corpse.

Last, the Implacable Gudbrand. He had Heracules-class magic, granting him rare levels of strength. I’d seen him hold four-hundred kilos overhead. I weighed sixty-two. He crouched and held my waist. By all accounts, he should’ve been able to—

Gudbrand got me above his shoulders, but he had to put me down after a few seconds. Touching me had blocked his magic. Ironically, his type of magic meant he’d never needed to develop his regular muscles beyond a moderate level of athleticism.

The mages in our gang were strong, and their types of magic were well-documented. I had neither trait. In fact, nobody had ever heard about “blocking” magic, as we’d taken to calling it.

Admittedly, I started to like the attention.

Justin called, ‘Tea! Tea!’ My joy took a hit. Tea stood a little ways back, watching, but I didn’t want her to test her magic. She was Serpens-class. Major venom. She used it to make poisons, toxins, and medicine for the gang. I wasn’t afraid of those, but I didn’t want to risk her reaction. What if my new magic made her poison harmless? What if she thought her role in the gang was useless, so she decided to leave?

Looking back, it was a stupid fear, but it was mine.

Luckily, Tea went to Stefan and Wei, who talked in the hideout’s private mezzanine. Instead, Justin called to Florence. She had Corvus-class magic. Premonitions. She pursed her thin lips and came over. Her flowing burgundy robes dragged dust, and she stared at me from shadows of her hood. She lowered her face to mine. Our noses almost touched. She closed her eyes and began to use her magic…probably. Her eyes flashed open and she hissed. Literally, like a cat.

‘You know not what dire fate awaits you, Amborella Cole.’

‘Yeah,’ Justin laughed, ‘because you’re supposed to tell us.’

Florence whirled to him, jabbing her forefinger like it were a needle. ‘You think I do not, but I am aware how you all think of me, and how you do not care to heed my warnings.’

‘I’ll heed this time,’ Justin said. ‘I’ll heed so hard. Promise.’

Florence looked around the group and, when nobody interrupted, cleared her throat, tilted her head down, and started…

‘Amborella is the eye, and we the storm.

‘He of infanticide, he the arms dealer—Lachesis and Clotho, who left Atropos to perish—then she of flat vision, she of the vengeful flame, and he the hero and villain both with his twin hands who reached far.

‘He the poisoned mountain, he the boa. He of fateful vice, and he of sinful justice. She of Anubis and her scales askew. He and she, puppeteers with bloodless hands.

‘These are the moths, drawn to flame unseen. They will become clean in the light of what you have been.’

Florence raised her head and swayed. Colour had drained from her face. Nobody spoke. Soon after, she stumbled away, to her mattress mounted on milk crates.

‘Well,’ Justin said. ‘I’m trying to heed, really, but that was…’

‘Gibberish,’ Mina finished.

Pretty much, I thought. Not the first time Florence had spouted random, scary things. Most of the gang figured she said vague, spooky stuff to make herself seem mysterious and wise.

We needed a change of subject.

‘What’s that?’ Aoide pointed at my bicep.

Wrong subject.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She’d pointed to where the dark spot had formed after the…? I didn’t know how to tell the gang, let alone what. A spider from the Dusk had crawled under my skin? Well, it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been a snake.

‘A bruise,’ I said, too fast, tugging my sleeve lower. They didn’t look convinced, but there weren’t other reasons to latch onto.

‘Do we know the magic’s constellation?’ Solomon asked.

There. The truth deep inside. Until then I’d known but couldn’t have said it aloud. The answer needed the question. ‘Scutum,’ I replied, as if someone else worked my mouth.

Solomon nodded, stroking his chin. ‘The shield.’

The shield, my mind echoed. That was my magic. Shielding magic. I felt heavier. More serious.

We played around for a while longer, but the combined excitement of the heist and my magic left us tired. I followed Ellie to our sleeping area, and we climbed into our hammocks. Me above, she below. I wanted to speak, but I wasn’t sure what to say. What if I didn’t say things right? That wouldn’t help. Again, I wasn’t scared, but I wasn’t confident. Plus, I was too sleepy. I hadn’t known magic affected your body like a workout.

I slept deeply and didn’t dream. Though, someone talked the whole night. They didn’t make sense, like they jumped between languages and dialects. The weirdest part? The voice didn’t seem to come from inside our hideout.

Our gang’s current hideout had lasted for six months, the longest to date. We’d chosen an old factory. It was situated a bit deep into the amber zone, but so long as the city’s population didn’t congregate too far, the Dusk wouldn’t encroach on us.

Based on the machinery and office files, the factory used to make kitchens. On the factory floor, we converted old wooden boards to pallets for sleeping, and the cabinets made for good storage. Stefan, Wei, and Solomon slept in the office upstairs, while the employee break room downstairs served for heist planning.

Ellie and I had hung our hammocks between a big machine with drill bits and a support beam, before dragging a tall cabinet made of faded yellow wood to act as our shared locker.

Waking up, I felt better rested than I had in months. Sunrise neared and our gang still slept. I climbed out of my hammock and crept across the hideout, not putting in much effort. Justin snored. Somewhere high in the factory, the Implacable Gudbrand would be awake, his single eye watching, but he wouldn’t stop me from wandering outside.

The rolling shutter door needed electricity and the main door screeched, so I climbed through a window in the break room. Outside, I circled the factory and sat on an old tree stump, which gave me a great view of the red zone. Metal poles topped with red reflective plastic marked the edge. The Dusk loomed a couple hundred meters past that. Faint silhouettes weaved between a troop of kangaroos, both Entities and animals ignorant of the other.

I should’ve worn another layer. Mornings were chilly, especially near the red zone. The city would be coming alive, but almost nobody ventured into the amber zone. Maybe the Rail Snakes, but they kept to the northern parts. That was what I liked most about waking up early: Being alone. Ellie said I was a morning person, but if everybody woke up early, maybe I’d be a night person.

When I was alone, my thoughts were clearer. Around people, I was a walking lie.

But, life had a way of interrupting me.

Stefan and Wei came from the wooded area next to the factory. They whispered and looked like they hadn’t slept. I hoped they’d pass me, but Wei spotted me immediately. ‘Morning,’ he said, and Stefan nodded. I waved, hoping that’d be all, but they came over. I hoped—well, maybe I hoped too often.

‘Lucky you’re here,’ Wei said. ‘We wanted to talk.’

Here it comes.

The sun rose and cast its warmth, and I shivered again.

#

Stefan, Wei, and I talked for an hour. Mostly Wei. My fears were half-valid. They wanted to send me away, but not where I thought. Put simply, they wanted me to attend Vandagriff. If you’re wondering about a second Vandagriff Academy for violent teenagers who could barely read – there wasn’t. Wei meant THAT Vandagriff, as in Vandagriff Mage Academy. That fancy, stuck-up place for the children of old, fancy families. It made some sense, since I was the only member of the gang young enough to enrol at the earliest stage.

Two problems. One, I wasn’t smart enough to get accepted. Two, technically overnight, I’d already become a mage, so wouldn’t Vandagriff be pointless?

For two problems, I got two reasons.

First, since I’d discovered a new category of magic, they figured I’d easily get a Sentinel licence, which would grant the gang a whole lot of opportunities.

Second, a man called Wira Kusuma taught at Vandagriff. He was the Erudite of Flight, meaning he was officially-recognised as the best known mage at Aquila-class magic. He flew supplies to remote towns, did rescue operations, and was considered a pretty cool, handsome guy. Except none of that mattered to Stefan and Wei, who wanted my help in killing him.

We didn’t kill for fun, but Wira Kusuma—according to our sources—was responsible for the death of a good friend, Sergio Nicodemo, who had left the gang a couple years ago to be on the “legit” side of society with his wife and kid. I remembered him like a funny uncle who bought me presents.

The sudden news of his death seized me. Jaw clenched, I idly tore bark from the tree stump. ‘This Weera guy really killed Sergio?’

‘Wira, and yes, I believe so,’ Wei replied. ‘Furthermore, aside from railway patrols and humanitarian missions, he is said to never leave campus. Much of the faculty have housing there. We must figure out how best to approach him.’

‘Fine.’ I crushed bark in my fist. ‘Let’s do it.’

Stefan placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘He is an Erudite. We cannot treat him lightly, and I don’t expect you to commit the act. Your new magic should keep you safe while you gather info on Kusuma.’

‘Think I can’t handle a flying professor?’

‘I think you shouldn’t.’

I scoffed but fell silent.

I didn’t tell either of them the truth. Couldn’t. They asked me to be a Vandagriff student and kill a piece of shit, and I could live with that, but did I actually want to go through with any of it? Fuck no. I’d be alone in there with a bunch of rich pricks who wanted the best way to magically water their rosebushes. Or people who studied the Libra- and Lyra-class magic, hoping to become vapid entertainers. Or…or…

I wasn’t going to fit in.

#

A few weeks later, my guess proved right.

I went to the Vandagriff entrance exams. Stefan and Tea, disguised, posed as my parents. We waited with a crowd of hundreds in a courtyard outside the Academy’s exam hall. Being a short while after sunrise, lots of people wore layers of coats and scarfs, but I stuck with a sweater and jeans. And my crimson hand wraps – for luck.

Stefan drank cold black coffee from a chipped, pre-Dusk travel mug. Tea and I shared a hot chocolate we bought that morning.

Fog formed with each breath, and I pretended to be a dragon. But while I bragged to myself about not being too cold, it made me notice the other kids. Sure, everyone tried to stay warm, but the ways they did it was different. Dirty jackets or sleek coats. Scarfs of hand-knitted wool or cashmere. I spun back and forth, taking in the kinds of people I needed to beat. I didn’t spend much time in the city, but even I could tell what was happening: Some kids figured they had a shot at enrolment, and others knew they did.

I spotted one of the second kind. A girl around my age. She stood really straight and looked annoyed.

Instinctively, I tried to straighten my hunched posture, but it felt unnatural.

The girl wore a wool beret and pea coat, and around her neck hung a gold pendant in the shape of a furnace. Huh, I thought. Like the pendant on the train. She caught me staring, which made her look more annoyed, so I went back to exhaling fog.

My leg began to twitch. Bad sign. I shouldn’t have been nervous. Yet…

The Academy accepted new students every four months, which sounded like a lot, but most didn’t get in, and others dropped out regularly. Most of the kids around me were random hopefuls who wanted access to magic, but they couldn’t see how they’d already failed.

To get inside the exam hall, you needed a bunch of papers. All sorts of stuff, like family background, relevant training, and goals for after graduation. But they didn’t tell people about other, optional papers, which included details like family resources, prior training, and connections to alumni.

‘What’s alumni?’ I asked Tea.

‘Former graduates.’ She scowled at nothing in particular. ‘Nepotism’s only gotten worse. Can’t reverse-engineer magic, so it’s all about who knows who and is willing to share.’

A lot of what Tea said confused me, but I’d learned to remember and hope it made sense later.

After what felt like hours, we reached the entrance to the exam hall, where bored Academy staff sat behind rows of desks, took papers, and pretended to read them. Then they either stamped the forms or handed them back with an explanation of errors. Stefan gave our papers, along with a couple extra. Wei’s sources had gotten them. I studied the exam hall. It was like a missile silo, a domed building of concrete and glass built in an old crater. The architecture didn’t interest me. More like fear kept me twitchy. If I didn’t hear the stamp—

The sound of ink slapping paper came. We got waved through. Tea had to tug my arm. My feet moved on their own. Without realising, I’d expected to be turned away. Hoped, too. If the Academy turned us away, it wasn’t my fault. But if I screwed up the exam, that was all me. Worse still – I wanted to fail.

Past the entrance, we went down a few concrete steps into the vast, domed chamber. Single-person tables ringed the space. Stefan and Tea spoke to someone, got a slip of paper, and that was all. Time for them to leave. I almost asked them to stay, but obviously they weren’t allowed, and it would’ve sounded childish. So I walked around the tables and sat at my number. Seventy-nine. Around a hundred kids were inside so far, and kids loitered in groups, chatting like they’d already gotten accepted. They knew each other, and they didn’t know me. The clothes. The fucking clothes. I tugged at my sweater and wished I’d picked something more…more…

I didn’t have anything like the other kids wore, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to choose the correct pieces to form an outfit. They looked at me. Or, it felt that way. And if they looked at me it was because they knew I didn’t belong. I’d entered their territory.

It wasn’t only my clothes. My dark red hair must have caught their attention. Tourists from Sydney or Brisbane wouldn’t have the same prejudice, but Melbourne’s history during the Chaotic Era meant red hair had certain…connotations.

I breathed harder. The air felt stale. I chewed my nails and checked the stationery Wei gave me, but in the process I snapped the tip off a pencil. As I furiously sharpened it, staff told everyone to be seated, and within a minute the exam papers were placed on our tables. The pencil’s tip snapped off again, so I sharpened it, which was stupid because I had other pencils. But it felt like they all needed to be sharp for any to work.

‘In a gunfight you’re cool as a zucchini, but now you’re freaking out?’

I shot to my feet and whipped my head around. Someone had whispered in my ear, but nobody was close enough. Kids stared at me, and a staff member came to ask if I felt unwell. Sweat stuck my clothes and skin together. I must’ve looked deranged, but I shook my head and slowly sat down.

‘So, you speak English. I should’ve tried languages alphabetically. I spent the whole night trying to reach you.’

Eyes wide, it took all my focus to not react. Where did the voice come from? Shit, I thought. I’d gone insane and not noticed. Papers flipped over. The announcement to start had been made. I flipped over my papers too roughly and tore the stapled corner.

‘Haste makes wastefulness.’ That voice again.

‘…Who are you?’ I said under my breath, hands trembling.

Then – I felt it. Coldness crept up my bicep, along my shoulder, and stopped at the nape of my neck. The thing from the Dusk. The spider. The bruise. Whatever it was. It…talked?

‘Call me Xandria, ’kay?’