The next time I saw Corek, Eumen, and Clecia was the day of the ritual. Like lost puppies, they followed Zann everywhere he went, only ever a few steps behind him at all times. And I tried to be as many steps away from him at all times.

“You look better,” Corek said. Sometime in the last month, she’d finally gotten the hang of it. She was still stoic, lined up against the wall with the rest of the personal guard, eyes facing the middle distance. She spared me only the quickest of glances.

I walked in alone; Enri already having been here preparing the ritual circle. We were in the same room I appeared in when I was first summoned. Time truly is a circle. “Thank you for what you did for me. I was in no place to take care of myself.”

“We all need help sometimes. And sometimes, we don’t know to ask.”

Along with the personal guard were my teachers and Zann. The room was empty otherwise. He likely didn’t want any distractions while Enri was at work. A mess up on her part could end in catastrophe for everyone else.

“How are you feeling?” Eumen asked. “Nervous?”

“No.” If I died, I got to see my sister. If I lived, I got to make Zann’s life hell. It was a win-win for me. I stood next to Enri as she went over the last parts of her notes. I was in a thin cotton dress, freshly scrubbed and unmoisturized. Much like surgery, I needed to have as little excess product on me as possible. “No use in feeling nervous.”

“Still doesn’t always stop the feeling.”

“Kaiya!” Zann walked towards me with a smile and his arms outstretched like he was coming to hug me. He stopped short, knowing better than to touch me. “Are you ready for the big show?”

“Yes.” I didn’t bother looking at him, instead glancing down at Enri’s circle. It was the same one I’d seen on the board, but with a few smaller circles strategically placed around it. From what I could read in her book, they were for grounding and further protection.

Zann cleared his throat. “From what Enri has told me, you’re doing better. I hope you’re rested.”

“I am.”

Silence. I could tell I was getting under his skin, but annoyance was a small price to pay for murdering my sister.

“The ritual will start soon. Is there anything you want to do?”

Kill you. “No.”

“Kaiya, I would appreciate it if you would look at me while I’m speaking to you.” He sounded like a parent trying to reason with their toddler. It only pissed me off more.

I straightened, looking away from the book and stepping forward until I was in his space. Even he looked a bit nervous as I leaned in close, keeping my voice low enough to not carry. “Zann, you’re very lucky I got lost in the woods when I did. Before that, I might not have had a problem with a death on my hands. I’m going to be in a lot of pain for several hours. So, leave me. The fuck. Alone.” I stepped back, taking my place next to Enri.

Zann cleared his throat and backed off. I heard him mutter something about it being a good thing I didn’t have a weapon or training as he wandered to the other side of the room. He was half right about that.

Enri had taken the liberty of retrieving Sayla’s dagger and giving it to me. Though I didn’t share a culture with the asshole, I was grateful for Enri saving the hair he’d cut off. She’d washed and braided it into a short rope and given them both to me after she nearly dropped my breakfast on the ground. I tied her hair to the loop on the handle and slid it into one of the many sheaths on my armor I had previously left empty. Normally I kept first aid items scattered through the many sheaths, and now I had just the opposite in one.

With a long sigh, Enri shut her book. “I’m ready.”

On my part, it was simple. Stand, sit, or lie down in the center of the circle and stay there. I sat, facing Enri as she told everyone else, “There are only two rules: don’t interrupt me and don’t step into any of the circles. If you do, it could kill one or both of you. Guards, this will take four to five hours, so you will rotate every thirty minutes by my side and do exactly as I ask. It will mostly consist of asking you to get me water or food, but when I tell you to do something, don’t hesitate. Denma, you first.”

Denma moved quietly to her side, standing just behind her. She looked at me and nodded. I nodded back, bracing myself.

The ramp up was slow. At first, there was nothing. Just Enri with her hands to the ground and eyes closed. They were moving like she was reading something, but it was quiet. I could hear only the sound of breathing.

She wanted me to mark my pain on a scale of one to ten every hour or once it changed. Right now, it was zero. I was just uncomfortable with being stared at.

Like always, when the silence crowded in, I thought of Sayla. She hated silence and would always fill it. With conversation, with music, with random noise. Anything to keep the silence at bay.

“Dad always seems to snap the most when it’s quiet,” Sayla said. In my room while I studied for my high school final, she sat on my bed and crocheted as a podcast played. “I think it just reminds him of the last time he bothered us.”

She was right. Every time the house had settled into a steady rhythm, or we’d kept to ourselves too much, he would find some reason to disturb us. We needed to go on a walk or clean the house or work on homework at the kitchen table instead of our rooms. Anything.

“One.”

There was a buzzing at the base of my skull that seemed to be traveling down my spine. It was similar to the first time I’d felt my magic manifest but foreign. Enri’s magic was something I’d recognize no matter what, but I’d never felt it internally. It was always an outside force that washed over me.

Part of me wondered if Enri still loved me the same. I knew she cared about me still. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have made such an effort to look after the little things while I was grieving. She wouldn’t have saved Sayla’s hair and dagger. But I couldn’t help but question if it was still the same. I was all but gone for a month and I’m certainly not the same person I was before then.

I couldn’t smile without it feeling wrong or indulge with her without feeling like I was forsaking Sayla’s life. A part of me died, and I was remade. I’m not the person Enri fell for and if she decided to step back, I wouldn’t blame her.

It would just be another heartbreak for the tally.

“Two.”

My scalp was burning. It felt like a relaxer was on the verge of being left on too long and I was seven years old, tapping my mom’s leg to let her know. I used to think they were nice. I liked the way my hair fell when it was all said and done, but that wasn’t what I liked the most.

I liked when I sat between her legs, and she would turn on music while she did my hair. We would sit and sing along or make conversation. I wasn’t much of a conversationalist, of course, but I did my best. I just wanted to be near her. Sit with her and spend time with her.

It took her longer to turn into who she was now. Even Sayla remembered the days when Mom would come to our defense after Dad changed. We remembered the screaming matches and the day Mom left with us to Grandma’s house. I was eight, and she was four. We were there for a week and every day I prayed we would stay there forever. Leave Dad to rot in that house he cherished so much while me, Mom, and Sayla lived happily ever after with Grandma Adelice.

We went back, of course. Mom had married him and was determined to fix him. But she got burnt out long before any change happened, and then she was just another accomplice.

“Three.”

My arm felt like it had just been waxed. All hairs pulled aggressively from their homes.

The first time I’d ever gotten waxed was with Claire. At the end of the first semester, we’d gotten close enough to talk about the more personal things.

“I’ve always wanted a Brazilian.”

I had reeled back, laughing at the thought. “Really? Isn’t that super painful?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know since I’ve never got one. Oh! What if we went together?”

“Are you really comfortable with me seeing your coochie?”

Stolen story; please report.

She laughed. “No, I just mean we can get one at the same time.”

“Uh, I don’t know, man. I’m not good with pain.”

“Please? If I help you study for the math test and you pass, will you go with me?”

I raised my eyebrows. I’d begged her to help me before and she would always say ‘no’ on the basis of being a terrible teacher. If all it took was some lost hair… “Sure. We can go. Only if I get an eighty or higher, though. I’m not putting up with that for less.”

“Deal!”

I passed the test. In fact, with her help, I got a ninety-four. It was the highest I’d ever gotten on any math test, and I owed it to her. The wax was just as painful as I thought, but it was a quick enough recovery that I didn’t bitch for too long. We went together often after that. Well, as often as two college students could manage. It was nice. I missed the routine.

“Four.”

It had been a long time since I’d had my period, but I still remembered what the cramps were like. The constant stabbing and cramping that I just had to push through until it was over seven days later. That was the good thing about me, I suppose. I was always very timely.

My entire body felt like that. Like it was seizing, trying to fold into itself while working out what was happening to it.

I asked Enri about my period a month after I arrived and I hadn’t had one. She’d just asked, “Do you want to have kids?”

“What? No? Why are you asking?”

“Then don’t worry about it. It will come back when you’re ready.”

I didn’t push her on it, but it had sent me into a rabbit hole of questions that never got answered. After a while, I had just forgotten about it. It was one less thing to worry about and I didn’t mind not having to go through clothes because I’d accidentally bled through them.

It was one of the few good things to come from this endeavor.

“Five.”

I had a clear memory of the first time someone slapped me hard enough to knock me over. I was ten years old, and Sayla still didn’t fully understand how our parents were changing.

At the kitchen table, I did my homework and tried to help Sayla with hers. She had a hard time keeping still and was standing behind her chair instead of sitting. Her homework was handwriting and cursive. I was showing her how to write our last name when Dad walked in.

“Sit down.”

Sayla ignored him, continuing to move around. “I like standing when I work.”

“Sit down, Sayla, before I come over there and make you.”

She grumbled about it, but sat, kicking her feet. She took her pencil and started to copy what I did. My handwriting wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing.

Dad left after getting water, and a few minutes after, Sayla was up again. Dancing in place as she leaned onto the table to write. She was working. Of course, she was working. Sayla had always been a hard worker.

Mom walked in this time. She looked, but said nothing, grabbing something and leaving.

Shortly after, Dad walked in again. He didn’t say anything, just walked over to Sayla and raised his hand. For a second, I was frozen in place. I watched as he started to move, and then I moved. I stood in his path and the sting of a hard slap fell across my cheek and I fell to the floor. He stared down at me, then at Sayla’s scared expression.

“Sit down.”

She sat, tears rolling down her cheeks as her hand started to shake. I stood and took my seat again, showing her how to write her name in cursive.

That’s how my skin felt. Every part of me felt that sting of a hard slap down to my bones and cells. Everything stung.

“Six.”

It was hard to keep still. My body felt wrong. Like it was still me, but two steps to the left. I couldn’t feel anything from my neck down, but I could feel the migraine sinking into my head.

I hadn’t had one since they had summoned me, but I used to get migraines regularly. I wasn’t addicted to caffeine, but I didn’t sleep much. Even after I went to college and didn’t have to worry about being harassed awake, my dreams were vivid and weird. I never fully remembered them, but it was enough that I never slept well, and the migraines would claim me at least once every two weeks.

I would be bedridden, the lights off and absolute silence from Claire. A migraine was the first time she’d seen me cry. Until then, she thought I wasn’t capable.

“Seriously?”

“Well, in my defense, you’re not the type to cry. I cry all the time, and I’ve never once seen you get misty eyed. Not even over the saddest movies.”

“Yeah, I guess you weren’t here when Sayla arrived. I cried then.”

“It would have scared me just as much.”

“Seven.”

The ache of migraines moved to the feeling of a full body sprain.

The one and only time Dad had allowed Sayla to come visit me was during my first few months gone. Before that, we’d never spent more than a few days away from each other at a time. It was that fact that almost stopped me from going to college in the first place. I could handle Dad telling me I was wasting my potential, but I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Sayla alone with him.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. At fourteen, she was far tougher than I ever was, but it still didn’t sit right with me. “This means so much to you. If you gave this up because of me, I’d never be able to live with myself.”

It took a lot of convincing on her end, but I went. I escaped and left her behind. It hurt just as much as it relieved me.

When she came to visit, we went roller skating. I introduced her to Claire and Enrique, and we went in slow circles around the rink until Sayla started to bully me. She would race around the rink and crash into me on the bench, not slowing down until her hip rammed into mine.

At one point, I saw her coming and tried to get away in time, but it went wrong. The rubber stopper on her skate caught one of my wheels and I went down. Despite the music, chatter, and sound of wheels on wood, I heard something in my ankle crack.

I didn’t cry, but it hurt more than I cared to admit. Sayla was near tears fussing over me and a few strangers helped us to the side of the rink. A nice nurse helped me take off my skate and gave it a quick assessment.

“From the way you’re moving it and how swollen it’s gotten, I would say it’s just a sprain, but go see a doctor about it.”

“And if you’re talking to a broke college student?”

He sighed, shaking his head. I couldn’t tell if he was sad at the fact I didn’t have insurance or that I wasn’t going to go.

“I would say buy an ankle brace, some ibuprofen, and rest as much as possible.”

The on-campus doctor took one look at Enrique holding my weight and the brace and rolled her eyes, giving me crutches and sending us on our way. It wouldn’t be the last time she gave one of us that look.

“Eight.”

I broke my leg when I was thirteen. Sayla and I had been climbing trees all our lives, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. We would run after school to the wooded area behind it and run around and climb trees until just before sunset, when we would rush home.

There was a tree we never climbed. It wasn’t flimsy or too tall or even a home to an animal. There was just something about the tree that made us wary of it. Maybe the way the shadows moved or how the wind blew through it.

“Today’s the day,” I said, sizing up the tree. “I’m gonna climb it.”

“Really?” Sayla started to bounce on her feet, excitement and fear mixing on her face. “Are you gonna go to the top?”

“All the way, Lala.” I kicked off my shoes and jumped to the lowest branch.

I made it pretty high up. All the way to the middle, where the branches were thick and sturdy. My heart raced as I stood on the branch, the view beautiful. Sayla was clapping and dancing and cheering. I grinned, everything in that moment perfect.

And then the wind blew in strong, and I lost balance. I remember every second of that fall. The realization and the way my stomach was left behind. The only thing that crossed my mind was the hope that Sayla had the sense to move out of the way. It was that day my fear of heights formed.

I screamed then, my bone broken in two places, as Sayla cried. It had taken everything to get her to calm down and help me.

I didn’t scream now. As my body felt like it was getting broken piece by piece and reset, I clenched my teeth and stayed silent.

“Nine.”

There was nothing to compare it to. Everything hurt with every type of pain, and I could feel myself being remade atom by atom.

“Nine.”

I gripped my legs, my nails pushing through skin and blood began to run down my leg and to the floor. My teeth felt like they were going to crack from how hard I was biting down.

“Nine.”

My head was bowed, tears flowing as the pain began to crescendo. My vision began to fade, but I anchored myself. I refused to faint.

“Nine.”

I began to dry heave, my stomach trying to empty itself as if that would stop the pain. It felt like it would never end, but I knew there would be. It had to end eventually.

“Nine.”

I could hear someone speaking. Someone so far away and so quiet, but I could still make out the words. I opened my eyes to see Enrique kneeling in front of me. Time seemed to have stilled as he smiled, looking at me as if he never thought he’d see me again. “Perk up, bud. You can handle this.” He cupped my face, his hand cool against my burning skin as he kissed my forehead, and all at once, the pain vanished. Time seemed to catch up and I fell forward, feeling like my strings had been cut. I was free and could breathe again. I sat up and there was Enri. She was sweaty, her hair frizzy from the heat she was giving off, and looked like she needed a ten-year nap.

My legs should have been asleep, but I felt invigorated for the first time in a long time. Everything in me had shifted as if finally in the correct spot.

I stood, and the world seemingly shifted along with me. Enri was still kneeling, her face sweaty and flushed as her eyes rolled back and she collapsed. I didn’t even have to hold out my hand to catch her; the wind coming to cushion her fall as if waiting for me to need it.

When I turned to Denma, who was once again at her side, he flinched. “Take her to a doctor.” He just nodded and began to lift her. He seemed to be treating her with far more care than a soldier normally would. Maybe he could tell I would have something to say if he didn’t.

Zann cleared his throat and walked around to see me, keeping his distance from the circle. He also seemed startled, but didn’t flinch. “It worked?”

Fire flared up along my arms and wind whipped as I began to move forward. The floor shook with every step and the moisture from the room came to me until there was a sheer wall of water between us. I stopped just short of touching him.

“It worked.”