The spicy-sweet taste of Cary’s lips lingered on Emilia’s tongue. That savor did nothing to staunch the flow of tears as she realized what they would most likely do to Cary. In the moment, she had been brave and certain of the Fae Queen’s compassion. But shackled beneath this magically enchanted hood, she could no longer sense Cary.

It made no sense, why imprison her if they intended to execute Cary? Why go through any of this farce? Those thoughts did nothing to assure Emilia, not anymore. Unlike the Fel Slave she’d first seen brought into the black spire, she wept like a child the whole way.

Minutes passed as the group slowly processed Emilia through the camp. With her hood covering her sight, Emilia couldn’t tell if it was day or night. The masters wanted to keep the black spire from the rest of the students, but maybe they wanted to make an example of Emilia more?

The tears flowed harder and Emilia stumbled with the manacles around her legs tangling in her feet. After a short pause, during which her escort untangled the chains and shoved her on, Emilia discovered she could still hear. And Cary’s gift of preternatural hearing had not yet left her. The discovery filled Emilia with hope, as did each soft chirp and hum from the insects surrounding her.

A night filled with buzzing announcements of the hour told Emilia they had arrived back on Earth quite late, so late the sun would soon rise. No other students crossed their path; her escort most likely saw to that.

They stopped her early, as a voice hailed the men from up ahead. “Wait! I would see the prisoner before you confine her!” It was Joshua’s voice.

“You are master no more Joshua of the Cabal. Stand aside for the Fell Prisoner.” The voice belonged to one of the other masters, not Boris. In a way the fact her teacher was not necessarily one of the men leading her away reassured Emilia.

“Yes, Elijah. You are correct of course. I bear a missive from our queen. Here.”

Emilia prayed this was her escape attempt. Right about now, Joshua would activate some secret magic to free her from her hood and chains. The man who’d challenged Joshua clicked his tongue. “We will change the hood once we have entered the Fel Prison.”

“Ah, did you read the note? To switch the hood within the prison poses a significant risk. Surely you know this, Master Elijah?”

A growl answered Joshua’s provocation. But after a moment’s pause, the hoodwink came off. To Emilia’s dismay, Boris was one of the men bringing her to the black spire — she refused to use their name for the place.

Joshua avoided looking at her as Boris and another master wove a cooperative spell. After a few seconds, the black caul vanished and a red one replaced it. Emilia shivered at the presence of that caul. But no amount of sinister cloth could cause her real pain now. Through the connection between their hearts, Emilia could feel Cary. Her beloved lived, they hadn’t executed her. The longer that remained true, the more certain Cary’s chances became.

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It was all that mattered to Emilia. Before she met her, Cary had suffered more than eight thousand years of forced slavery. If it meant Cary survived, Emilia could suffer twice that term of imprisonment. The only pain there would be the very separation from Cary.

Joshua nodded to the other masters and flicked his eyes to Emilia as they unfolded the cloth. A faint whisper reached her hears. “Tikkun Ollam. Say the words, emblazon them on your heart, child. Tikkun Olam. The Shamir prefer their native tongue.”

Joshua’s lips didn’t move, but none of the masters around Emilia noticed him speaking. As the red shroud covered Emilia’s head and shoulders, she shivered again in surprise. She’d paid the connection between herself and Mirabel far less attention than she had the connection between her and Cary. Once the red shroud blocked out her sight, both connections sheared away as if cut by a knife. With the change to her awareness, Emilia noted that the black shroud had not cut off her connection to Mirabel. Joshua’s presence made far more sense now, though he’d apparently given her something she could use with the Shamir.

The red shroud dulled Emilia’s hearing, but not absolutely. Sound faded to the background, but the hum from the black spire could not have been more distinct. It resonated in Emilia’s bones, the green light from the spire leaked into the red shroud as surely as the sound vibrated Emilia’s body.

“Tikkun Olam.” She prayed she’d heard Joshua right and had pronounced the words correctly. But the green mist did not respond. She’d hoped it would melt the red shroud around her body and throw off her chains, but a brighter glow was all she got. And Emilia was uncertain about even that. Still, she repeated the words at low breath over and over. For all she knew, she was insulting the Shamir or the ancestry of the masters who escorted her. But Emilia clutched at any lifeline, anything to give her hope.

Around her, the masters jerked her chains and brought her to a stop. The clanking of the chains in a circle around her made Emilia’s chant falter. As if the masters had been awaiting her mistake, they began their own loud chant, a kind of call and response that would seal Emilia into the black stone forever. Desperation brought renewed tears to Emilia’s eyes and made her own repeating phrase quake between her lips. She didn’t know how they would put her in the stone, what would happen to her when the spire took her. Rather than hoping it wouldn’t hurt, Emilia only hoped that Cary would be safe.

With a final “Tikkun Olam,” the stone at Emilia’s feet began the slow, inexorable process of crawling up her bare legs. A darkened part of her soul flickered in response and Emilia remembered her shadow robes, the ones she’d absorbed into her body before leaving the Infernim. As a final desperate move, she tried to expel those robes to bring them out as vestments to protect herself. A tiny sliver of shadow emerged from her throat as the stone rushed to cover her.

For an agonizing second, Emilia was certain she’d choke to death. Suddenly, air filled her lungs and she could breathe. But she could not move a muscle. A red field covered her vision with tiny darting lights on the other side. Gold and black runes obscured Emilia’s sight as she watched the masters shuffle her through the deck of imprisoned magicians like some kind of toy on display.

When she opened her mouth to scream, one of the lights appeared and blinked at her. “Tikkun Olam?” She could imagine it cocking its head to the side like a dog or cat trying to understand its owner’s inscrutable ways.

Emilia’s mouth worked suddenly and she said the only words she thought would matter: “Yes! Tikkun Olam!”

The green light flared to brilliance and Emilia passed out, lost to awareness.