His attention fractured, pulled in multiple directions at once. Following the old paths. The ley line convergences. His fingers traced shapes in the air—complex patterns I recognized from dimensional mathematics but twisted somehow. Wrong.
They’re building the network, he continued, his voice shifting between coherent and fragmented. Or maintaining it? No… completing it.
What kind? I asked carefully.
The master’s design transcends space and time… His voice trailed off but then sharpened suddenly. The Lightfords are investigating the resonance. Why heir magic harmonizes. Why the cleaning girl’s necromancy syncs with yours specifically. They want to know if it can be replicated. Weaponized.
My blood chilled. Heir resonance. Our magic working together naturally—something the council had feared from the beginning. We’d known they were looking into it, trying to eradicate it, but weaponized?
And can it?
The black eyes locked on to me. The master thinks so. That’s why he took Raven. Not just to hurt the necromancer but to study the bond, the ties that make witches stronger together. His lips twisted into something too wide to be a smile. He’s learning how to corrupt connection itself.
I thought of Marigold standing in front of hostile students, enforcing orders with authority she’d earned but not yet proven. Of Raven—alive but damaged, her consciousness fighting through months of corruption. Of what four more months might do.
What does long-term corruption look like? I asked. Though I was afraid I was staring right at it. Would Raven become this?
He smiled, the expression weird and alien on his face. The necromancer should kill her friend, Alstone said, reading something in my expression. Mercy. Before the girl realizes how much of herself is already gone. Before she understands that recovery is an illusion, and she’ll spend the rest of her life fighting to remember who she used to be.
Marigold won’t—
Of course she won’t. She’s loyal. Sentimental. She’ll hold on to hope long past the point where hope makes sense. She’ll watch her friend struggle and pretend it’s temporary. Pretend love can fix what the master broke. He tilted his head again, studying me. You understand, though. Don’t you? You lived it. Felt corruption eating through your sense of self. Wondered which thoughts were yours and which were mine.
I had. For months, I’d doubted every impulse, questioned every decision, tried to map the boundary between Keane Alstone and whatever my uncle was making me become.
The difference, I said quietly, is that I had people who fought for me anyway. Who believed I was still worth saving even when I wasn’t sure I believed it myself.
Sentiment. Alstone waved a hand dismissively. The cleaning girl will learn. When her friend wakes screaming from nightmares she can’t explain. When simple conversations require effort she used to manage effortlessly. When the girl they saved looks at them with eyes that recognize but don’t quite remember why she should care.
I thought of Marigold’s face when she talked about Raven—the guilt, the determination, the refusal to give up, even when the evidence suggested she should.
Is there anything else useful you can tell me? I asked. About the network. The convergence points. What the master is actually building.
But Alstone’s coherence had fractured entirely. His gaze went distant, unfocused, seeing something beyond the cell walls.
Guards, I said.
The dimensional barriers reinforced. The black eyes tracked me as I turned to leave.
Keane. In one last moment of lucidity, Alstone’s voice cut through the master’s overlay. The wellspring chose you over me, just like it chose Foster. It sees something I never could. He paused. But I wonder… when the master completes his work and all magic bends to his will… will your worthiness matter then?
I walked out without answering.
I made it to the observation room before my hands started shaking.
Parker was waiting, reviewing the security footage with clinical assessment. She looked up as I entered.
Get what you needed? she asked.
Some of it. My voice stayed level, professional, like I was filing a tactical report instead of processing the fact that my uncle had admitted to murdering his own brother for power.
Parker studied me for a long moment. You okay?
No, I said honestly, but I will be.
She nodded, understanding without pushing. Even here, even under all these wards, he’s still connected to the master somehow.
I nodded.
