Last night's snow covers everything outside the window in a thick layer of white. I wince, imagining sludging through that on my way home—worse, camping in it on my way to the next town. What kind of idiot was I to come north just before winter? Frustration seethes at the heavy clouds that promise another storm soon. I have to get back, and I can't do it sitting in an inn a mile from where I was captured!

But I can't do it if I get lost in the Draón wilderness either. My jaw clenches. Whether I'm trapped weathering the snowstorms or frozen to death in one, Amarris gets to wreak whatever havoc she has planned, and my family has no warning to prepare. There has to be another way.

Steps tap down the stairs, and I glance over to see Leavi. I greet her from my spot on the couch, and she walks over. "What happened last night?" I ask. "I never saw you after you went to change." Between her disappearance yesterday and her thievery of my materials, I am lost with this girl.

Unease sparks in her eyes, and she fumbles for an explanation. "I didn't feel much like dancing anymore," she finally answers.

Not understanding but also not wanting to press her, I nod.

"Speaking of things that didn't happen," she says, "we never got a chance to talk about what happened the night-before-last. You said you'd explain."

"I'm sorry. With the appearance of the kra'kaa, I suppose we forgot. What would you like to know?"

She sits beside me. "How did any of it happen? How was it possible?"

I look at her helplessly. "I'm not sure what you want me to say, Leavi. I've told you before—it's magic."

"But how?"

"'How' what? All of magic? That's quite a lot." I give her a small smile.

"How does it work?" she bursts.

I run a hand through my hair. "Well, there's a lot of magic theory I could try to explain, but it might take a while. Where do you want me to begin?"

She pauses, eyes wide, as if flummoxed by the infinite number of starting places. "How is it possible?" she stresses.

I drop my hand, realizing for the first time what an interesting situation this is. Here is someone without any biases truly asking about the workings of magic. And as much as I don't know the answer for certain, this is a chance to have an open, honest discussion about it. No prejudices, no fear, no theories baked in from lifelong scholarship—just an open mind.

I lean forward. "There are many theories as to how magic is initially able to work. The one I suppose I believe the most is that magic is a fundamental part of how the world works, just like science. But it's different than science, since it operates on certain different rules—that is to say, magic has several rules outside of and that go against science."

She pauses, quiet, lips tight.

"Are you alright?"

She takes a deep breath and nods. "Yes, I am. I just—" She breaks off, and I wait patiently until she eventually continues with, "What were those voices I heard?"

"Ah." My face falls slightly. Not only would telling break the unspoken code of all Second Sons gifted a Book, it would completely disregard the instructions of the Voices themselves. "They, ahm. They are just the Voices of the Book."

"That much I figured out myself." She raises her eyebrows. "You promised explanations."

Frustrated, I say, "I am trying to explain. But that's what they're called. Sometimes it is shortened to the Voices, but that's it. We don't talk about them much."

She presses her lips together, exasperation clearly rising. Finally, the dam of her lips break, releasing her vexation as a flood of questions. "So what happened that night? What was that... pressure? Why did it hurt? How did it make my nose bleed? That shouldn't be—"

A wave of cold air rushes into the room as Marcí steps onto the porch. Outside, she calls the cat's name, stepping away from the doorway. I turn back toward Leavi.

A noise like sliding snow sounds, followed by a thud. Marcí cries out, and all eyes turn to the open door. Sean hurries to the window. "She fell." Bukki rushes to the door, but the words call me back to my vision. Leavi's gaze snaps to me, startled and scared.

Then her eyes flash. Silver. The same color the fire behind her flashes before dying in the hearth.

Fear swirls through me like the winter air through the room. It's impossible, but I know I saw it—the signs Agraund taught me for a—

But she doesn't even know what magic is! How could she have done that?

She has the same wild look in her eyes as a doe suddenly realizing it's cornered. But even a gentle deer's hooves can be hard and fast, striking true when it needs them. When it's spooked.

"Why don't we go somewhere else?" I suggest, standing.

Her eyes dart from the door back to mine. Through them, I can see her mind whirring to rationalize the events. "Where?"

Somewhere everyone else is safe. "How about the porch? It'll be more private."

She nods, and I help Maejuer Bukki get the maedame of the house to her couch. Leavi brushes past us outside.

When I come out, her arms are wrapped around her to block the cold, and her black hair falls around her shoulders in messy, untouched waves. She hasn't any makeup on and her hair is unstyled, yet her raw appearance is somehow more regal and appealing than the stuffy, 'refined' women of my mother's court. She seems natural, vulnerable almost, as she stares off at the snow-covered trees.

She turns as I come out.

Suddenly unsure of what to do with myself, I cross one foot in front of the other and lean against the wall. "What, ahm, was your question again? Sorry."

She looks down and to the side, lips motionless. There's something lost in her eyes, but searching, like she's been dropped in the middle of an endless maze but refuses to stand still.

I rub the back of my neck. "You must be cold." I nip in and grab a throw blanket. The warmth of the house revitalizes my sense. There is a reason I took her outside, and it wasn't to gawk at her like a besotted courtier. Slipping back onto the porch, I hold out the blanket. "Here you go." She accepts it wordlessly. "What did you want to ask me?" I prompt again.

Her attention slides back to me. "Oh." Her eyes search the floor as she tries to decide what to say. Finally, as if the desperate flurry of questions earlier left her drained, she says slowly, "How was any of that possible?" She pulls the blanket around her shoulders. "How did you get Tavion's image in the bowl? And—and how did you know she would slip?"

My thoughts attempt to twist into something that she might accept, despite never having had to explain it before. Every child in Morineaux knows about magic.

I bite my lip, turning to what I know of magic. "There's this... deep, raw power within many people. An ability to manipulate the natural world."

A ghost feeling of magic's surging sensation sweeps through me at the memory, but that's not the kind of explanation I can offer Leavi. It's not one she would accept. My mind drifts to the words of the Old Mages, to dusty tomes and long hours at the library. "There are questions about the source of the phenomenon, but many rules are constant—there are things you can't even break in magic. For instance, you can't ever use magic to directly injure somebody. The spell will invariably backlash if you try to. It's almost as if the magic rebukes you for your action."

Confusion clouds her face. "Backlash?"

I nod. Right. Baby steps. "When you do a spell incorrectly, it backlashes. The spell will terminate, causing physical consequences like..." I think, trying to put concrete examples to things I've always known and experienced. "Like a bleeding nose, blurred vision, headache. These can happen any time you cast, but backlash is worse, much worse if the spell failed because you hurt someone."

The holding spell, the last one Agraund tried to teach me, slips into mind. "Sometimes, though, it's a good idea to force the spell to backlash, purposefully messing it up, if you realize while casting that the spell is too strong for you." If he hadn't been there, I would have needed to make it fail.

"What happens if it's too strong?" Her expression is one of scientific inquiry, her eyes yearning to learn, but her stance is withdrawn, as if she still does not fully believe me. As if she only wants to know what I believe.

"If it's strong enough," I say, capturing her unsure gaze with my steady, serious one, "it could kill you."

Her eyes widen, but disbelief clouds them again. "But you just said that backlash is worse than the cost of the spell. So wouldn't the backlash kill you too? You're," she says, searching for her word, "contradicting yourself."

I shake my head and sit down against the wall, where the snow has only barely touched. She settles cross-legged in front of me. "Backlash... backlash takes from you differently than casting does. It punishes your body. But casting..." I close my eyes, imagining how drained I feel after mastering a difficult spell, the empty weakness emanating from my very core. "Casting draws from something deep inside you, your life force almost. If it draws enough from you, you die."

The corners of her mouth turn down, but I keep on. "There are some rare situations in which the spell is so powerful that even the backlash would take your life, but they're few and far between. Plus, it wouldn't be death because of siphoned life. It would be from blood loss, fever, et cetera, all of which can be counteracted with the help of a good physician."

She pauses, digesting what I've said, and I let her think. Finally, she flattens her hands against the porch. "But you still haven't explained how magic is pos—"

White flashes around me.

An aerial view of a snow-covered roof spreads out below. Sunlight bounces off the white, sending fractals of blinding light in every direction. A dark-haired girl stands at the edge of the roof as a cloaked form picks its way through the forest, coming straight toward the house.

The picture changes. As if floating in mid-air, I now face the girl. She glances back, alarmed, and her foot slips.

She tips forward.

White flashes.

I open my eyes, inhaling deeply as I attempt to regather myself from the vision. As the Second Son to come, I've only had a few of them, and it's still jarring to slip into seeing the future. Normal casters don't have to worry about it, but sometimes it feels like the responsibilities of the Second are endless.

The form of the girl in the vision is almost perfectly replicated in these different surroundings; she's leaned toward me, eyes-wide.

"Are you alright?" she asks.

"Don't go on the roof," I say, darkly serious.

She looks startled. "What?"

"Do you go on the roof very often?"

"Sometimes," she replies slowly, confused.

"Don't. Not until after the thaw."

"Why?"

I look deep into her autumn eyes, flecks of gold and orange swimming in the brown near her pupil. Her dark lashes waver as she waits for my reply, and I take a deep breath, trying to pour as much sincerity into my words as possible.

"Because I saw you fall off."