In the darkness, the manor rises in front of us like a foreboding master I've only just escaped. Glaring down, it seems to mock me. Coming back, are you? Did you not learn the first time?

I set my jaw. We will accomplish what we came to.

Sean and the witch walk beside me. She is relatively quiet, but Sean's steps are like thunder in my ears. She tries to shush him, but he doesn't seem to understand how to be quieter.

The thick clouds weigh so heavy above us, it feels as though the bottom could drop out any minute. My nerves itch to get this over with before the storm overtakes us, but my training has taught me better. A hundred yards from the manor, I gesture for my companions to stop. Pulling my cloak up, I lightfoot through the snow, grateful now for the cloud's cover. Once I reach the gate, I relax. No guards. I wave the others on.

As they catch up, I survey the gate. Metal decorations stretch from bar to bar, making it impossible to reach through and lift the crosspiece that locks the gate.

"What do we do now?" Idyne whispers.

I adjust my angle so I can see the bar better.

"We can't lift it from this side," Sean says.

"Clearly," I reply. "Leavi and I planned everything out. Remember?"

His nostrils flare, but he stays quiet.

Satisfied with the amount of the crosspiece that I can see, I take a pinch of powder from its pouch and cast. "Et væ." My outstretched hands direct the bar up and off the notch supporting it.

This spell is my favorite. Relatively simple for even a beginner to cast, its ability to move objects within sight has many applications. All I have to do is practice them.

The bar is in the air now, and my fingers guide it to the snow beside the gate. I end the spell with a sharp gesture, and the bar drops into the drift. Idyne claps her hands together soundlessly.

"Thanks!" she breathes, pushing the gate open. We slip through.

I lead the way, sneaking from shadow to shadow across the snow. Lights flicker from the manor windows, but the bare trees just outside the wall throw reaching darkness. It's as if they're previous victims of Amarris, begging us to turn back and escape the danger ahead.

Sean points the way to the servants' entrance, and we ghost up to it. We cram into the shadows surrounding the door, hopefully invisible to anyone that might be around.

Idyne whispers, "When's Leavi going to get here?"

"When she knows it's safe."

"If that's the case, she'll never come," Sean snarks.

I ignore him, returning my attention to the door. Several minutes more pass before the lock clicks. The door swings open, revealing Leavi behind it.

Tension I didn't realize I had drains away. She didn't get caught.

She ushers us up the lightless staircase and into the halls beyond. Silence pervades the empty halls and seeps into every crack and alcove. The only interruption of the soundlessness is the soft slap of Sean's boots against the floor and the faint shuffle of Leavi and Idyne's footsteps. Minutes later, Leavi stops in front of a door, gesturing.

This is it.

Sean steps forward, uncorking a vial filled with cloudy liquid. He squeezes a few clear drops from an eyedropper into the vial. The mixture begins to grey and expand, and he hastily pours it into the lock.

Tense, we watch as the liquid transforms into a dark, hard material, larger than the lock allows. A sharp crack rings as a split runs from the opening of the lock outward.

It worked.

Sean gently pulls the door open, and everyone slips into the silent room. All is still except a dying fire clinging to what life it has left. Ignoring the sitting area and room decor, I sneak toward the back of the room. As I near it, though, I realize something.

Amarris isn't in her bed.

Panicked, I scan the room. My eyes come to rest on a faint form in a high-backed chair turned away from the fire. Amarris grins, and suddenly, the fire doesn't look so pathetic. Rather, it appears to hurl tendrils of snapping light, chasing my companions and the shadows away from the traitor in the chair.

"Thank you for coming to see me, and for sending little Miss... Riveirre, is it?" The grin spreads wider as she glances at Leavi. On the coffee table, I notice a tray of food, untouched. "To warn me."

From the shadows on either side of the entrance, two guards step forward and swing the door shut. Dismay grips me. We're trapped.

"Drop your weapons and your powder," Amarris commands.

Tension charges the silence. With two guards in the room and her somehow awake, our odds of making it out of here by fighting are less than slim. Leavi and Sean aren't fighters, and the only weapon I have is magic. I can't be sure to protect them, but if we surrender...

Everyone is paused, like a strange statue collection, watching, waiting. Amarris smiles.

If they take us, they'll kill us.

"Et væ!" I spray powder, and a heavy candle flies from the wall at Amarris.

She copies my call. Her hand flicks, and the candle flies to the side. Blood courses from my nose as my spell backlashes, and terror cuts into my stomach. She's a caster.

Near the door, Sean, Leavi, and Idyne attempt to fend off the guards. Idyne whirls toward one, drawing out a long shard of silverglass. Sean flips out a folding knife, and Leavi snatches a silver candleholder from an alcove.

Amarris casts again, and the water in the basin streams into the air. Cold fear surges inside me. I can't beat a caster with this much experience.

The water splits into two masses, the larger one hovering in the air and the other splashing across the floor.

I also can't let this traitor win.

I cast, yanking a candlestick from behind her toward her head. She mutters, and the water on the floor begins to freeze. When I release my spell, the candlestick's momentum carries. Concentrated on her own spell, Amarris doesn't notice. The stick connects. Her hand shoots to the wound, disrupting her incantation, and she calls out.

Blood dripping from her nose, she snarls and gestures. Some of the water hovering in the air breaks off, freezing as it flies toward my gut. I dart away, but my feet fly out from under me, and I land sprawled on the thin ice.

Amarris casts to catch her ice-shard before it crashes into the floor. It changes direction and charges for me.

I roll to the side, off the ice, and scramble up. "Et væ!" The rug beneath her feet shoots to the side. She tumbles to the ground, yelling, and her water globe falls in time with her.

I grit my teeth. Maybe I can do this.

She gathers the water back into the air, and my confidence disappears. All I managed was to stall her. My mind whirs for a solution as I reach for another candle holder. "Et v—"

Leavi screams. My head whips around, words cut short, and my spell backlashes. I stagger. Her arm is bleeding. One of the guards moves to attack her again, and Idyne darts forward.

On chance, Leavi glances toward me. Her eyes dart behind me. "Aster!"

I spin. Ice streaks toward me from all around, an army of inch-long frozen daggers. Behind them, Amarris prepares a second attack.

Time slows. This is it. I can't jump out of the way this time, and though those might not kill me straight off, whatever she hits me with next surely will.

Fear invigorates instinct—my mind scrambles for a spell to stop her for good. No. My stomach plummets. No, not that. But my desperate hands rise, making the motions as quickly as the spell allows, lips forming words I know now by heart.

The time is now. If I'm not strong enough, it's all over anyway.

The shards home in, and as Amarris releases them, I twist under, still incanting. Ice cuts my scalp, and more shears my sleeves and grazes my skin. Blood pours over my left eye as Amarris prepares another round.

Powder flies from my fingers.

The terrifying pull of the magic rages within me, and I throw myself into it. Agraund's words ring in my ears. A spell you should have mastered long ago!

My veins are acid as the magic burns through me. Black dances across my vision as I fight to stay conscious to the end, but awareness slips from my mind like water from cupped hands. More ice arcs toward me as I fight to finish the spell, dropping to my knees.

If the ice makes it any closer, it won't matter if I can't finish the spell. The momentum will carry the shards into me anyway. It's now or not all.

The magic explodes from me, channeling into Amarris. My scope of vision shrinks to a pinpoint, but exhausted triumph fills me as Amarris goes unnaturally still, blood trickling down her lip. The shards dip as they lose momentum and crash harmless against the ground. Released from my spell, I fall too.

Darkness claims me.