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“Ah, so they fit,” Atticus said some hours later when he arrived to collect Orpheus, Duluth at his side, Serval nowhere to be seen. “Let’s not keep Gwen waiting.”

Atticus forwent the hood but not the collar. It locked into place with a lifeless click, Atticus meeting his eyes with a dip of his chin. Our secret, he seemed to say. Orpheus filed it away alongside the others he’d somehow collected.

Without the hood to blind their path, Orpheus realized how grand Sanctuary truly was.

Obsidian shone iridescent in the shadows, sleek walls soaring several stories tall before arching into vaulted frescos pebbled with silver that glimmered like stars. Columns carved into creatures he knew and others he did not recognize held the ceiling aloft: a dragon atop a clutch of eggs guarded one room while the gnarled arms of some nameless beast did another. Where stairs wound up or down, elaborate balustrades edged, capped by Netherflame lanterns Atticus casually informed him Gwen had repaired some days earlier.

“She’s learned quite a lot,” landed strangely fuzzy in his chest. Orpheus swallowed the unnamed emotion and limped after Atticus, crutch clutched tightly though his broken leg had not yet begun to ache.

The study Atticus led him to was small but well lit. The table, large and sturdy. The notebooks, thick and smelling of ink. The windows overlooked the canals where people milled in the afternoon sunlight, their mood bright, their laughter clear.

“I’ll return after the last bell tolls,” Atticus said somewhat cryptically before closing the door, Duluth remaining in his stead, his half-mast amber eyes glowing faintly from his passive face.

Gwen arrived minutes later. “Hey there, Fifi.”

“You’re late, and on your first day,” Orpheus’ snapped, fighting a smile. “How do you expect to learn anything if you don’t come to class?”

Gwen grinned a toothy, wolfish smile.

“Magic is equal parts intent and sigil-crafting. Creating your own spells is much easier than altering another mage’s because sigils are a shifting pathway, born of the intent the original caster charged them with. What you may understand as meaning one thing, they may have been intended as entirely different.”

Gwen sat across from him, tapping her pen atop her notebook, the end chewed into tiny rigid pits. They’d been working on reverse-engineering sigils for days now, the foundations he’d introduced Gwen to finally beginning to click into place. It wasn’t easy work, but she was catching on, even if she had yet realized herself.

“How in all hells am I supposed to reverse-engineer spells if I don’t understand their intention?”

“Language, Gwen.” She was picking up on more than his lessons. “Context clues. What did the sigil do before? What else do you know of the sigils surrounding it? A mage isn’t reinventing the wheel with each spell. They are working off known foundations.”

“Like the source sigil, the one that looks like a portal?”

“Precisely. The best way to learn is to study existing spells but recreate each with your own interpretation.”

“But if it’s all about intention, what’s preventing me from…”Gwen scribbled out a drawing in her notebook, then summoned her Netherflame. “…doing this?”

The flame dissolved into the page, sigil flaring for a brief moment before dimming dead.

“Shit,” she cursed, slapping her pen down. “Why didn’t that work?”

“It’s going to take more than bravado to convince the sigil of your will. That’s why the foundations are important. They’ll do your heavy lifting, leaving you free to refine them at will.”

“It’s all so nebulous,” Gwen said, slouching. “I’ll never get it right.”

“You will. You’re already making progress.”

“All because of you.”

“That’s what I’m here for, right? To teach you everything I know?”

“I thought we’d work on something actually important,” Gwen whined. “Like the spell to restore your magic. You’re still working on that, right? The one you showed me before?”

Every cell within Orpheus’ body spun cold.

He set his own pen aside and folded his hands under his chin, staring down at his grimoire. Against the far wall, Duluth stood sentinel, as silent and monolithic as ever, watchful if not entirely present.

“He won’t say anything.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it then?” Gwen asked, voice quiet. “Have you given up figuring it out?”