I blink up at Lekan, shock cooling me. I know what question to ask the conduit magic.
But it barely takes any effort to shove that to the back of my mind, the bulk of my focus going to Ceridwen.
“But where did she go?” Lekan asks.
My face tightens. “She’s gone to stop her brother.”
Conall and Garrigan protest when I order them to split up. Garrigan to stay here with Dendera and Nessa, should anything happen while I’m gone, and Conall to come with Lekan and me. Conall argues that Garrigan should accompany me, since Conall’s arm, while not broken, is still sprained. That’s the reason I want Garrigan to stay, though—he’s more capable of protecting Dendera and Nessa.
Besides, I have my chakram now. That’s all the support I need.
Nessa gives us a little wave as we slip out of my room, the soft, worn leather of my boots noiseless on the marble floor. Lekan knows where the Summerian caravan set up, so the moment we break free of the palace, he rushes in front of Conall and me and takes off down the twistingcobbled streets of Rintiero. He wears baggy orange pants and little else under his rough brown cloak, but he makes no move to grab different clothes or more weapons. I hope he’s as prepared as he needs to be. Even Conall only needed to remove his mask before he was ready.
I follow Lekan as he ducks down an alley, scales a wall, drops down another street. Maybe we should have gotten more of Ceridwen’s allies to help—didn’t she have at least a dozen bandits when I first met her outside of Juli? Surely she brought more than just Lekan with her. But if she didn’t plan on attacking her brother, maybe she doesn’t have her whole retinue.
The odds of the four of us against one dozen, two dozen, an endless number of soldiers remind me of the other issue at hand: the question I want to ask the conduit magic.
As Lekan, Conall, and I twist back and forth through Rintiero’s medley of colored buildings and parks, as we pass Ventrallans wandering through markets or sweeping patios or drawing water from wells under the afternoon sun, the question surges through me, tight and relentless, until it’s all I can think, and I can’t believe I didn’t ask it sooner.
Cautiously, desperately, I roll the words through my mind and push them one by one into the waiting ball of ice and magic and wonder.
How do I save everyone?
Because I want to save the world, not just Winter. I wanteveryone in Primoria to be free from Angra and magic and evil—to at least have achanceagainst such threats.
Maybe asking this question will give me a way to save Ceridwen from her brother’s men. Maybe it will show me how to help Winter without needing to find the Order. Maybe it will fix everything, itwillfix everything, because it is the right question. I know this through every part of me, even the parts that still quiver and quake in fear of the magic. This is right, just like what I’m doing now. This is how it was always meant to be.
The magic hears my question. I feel it react to me, to the way I relax in the wake of my words, a gentle surrender that shakes through me. The answer pushes into my head like I’ve known it all along, an instant recognition that consumes every other thought I’ve ever had.
I stop running, unable to move beneath the answer. The answer that will save everyone. The answer that I wanted . . .
No. No, I don’t want it.I don’t want it, and I fall to my knees, gripping my head as if I can dig into my mind and pull out the knowledge.
Hannah asked how to save her people, and the magic told herhow to save Winter. She let Angra break the locket and kill her because she wanted to share the magic with everyone in our kingdom. She sacrificed herself without realizing there was another question to ask, a bigger sacrifice that could be made.
Sacrifice.
The word undoes me, and I think I feel Conall’s hand on my arms, Lekan’s voice telling me we’re only a few streets away. My body moves while my mind whirls, and I’m running again, flying through Rintiero.
Magic is all about choice. Choosing to use it, choosing to surrender to it, choosing to take it from the chasm—choosing to let it break in defense of a kingdom. The most powerful magic of all is choice, and of that power, the strongest choice anyone can make is an act of sacrifice.
People took magic from the chasm. Just like it never occurred to anyone but Hannah to surrender to their conduit, it never occurred to anyone to put the magic back.
That is the most powerful choice anyone can make: relinquishing a conduit back to the chasm. Saying that I would rather be weak and human than stronger than others. I would rather the world be safe and magic free than deadly and powerful.
That ultimate of choices, an act of selfless sacrifice, returning a conduit to the magic chasm, will force the chasm to disintegrate and all magic with it. And since the Decay is magic, it will be destroyed too.
It should be easy, for a conduit-wielder who wants to save the world. Just finding the chasm, tossing their conduit in, and walking out into a new existence.
But I am Winter’s conduit.
And to destroy all magic I would have to willingly throw myself into the fathomless chasm of energy and power. The source of magic that, when people first made conduits, was found tokill peopleif they got too close.
I would have to die.
Lekan stops along a wall and I have no idea where we are. Somewhere deep in Rintiero, the sun pulsing above us, and I can’t see anything but the blinding light of late afternoon casting golden rays. It’s warmer now, not the sweltering heat of Summer, but enough that sweat breaks across my body—though I can’t tell if it’s from the sun or my own panic.
Lekan’s eyes flick over my face. “Are you all right?”
