"This is madness."

Seiren resisted all instinct to whip her hands away and, instead, kept them still, not letting Portendorfer sense her unease when he held her hands in front of her, palms up. His gloves were stowed away in his cloak pockets and his cloak lay neatly folded behind him. His skin was surprisingly smooth despite the destruction the hands brought. Outside, the views whizzed by, taking them further and further towards Moakai.

"You just need to look away and I'll blow this thing up," she said through gritted teeth. Portendorfer smiled back, like a child who got his birthday presents early. Without his wide-brimmed hat, his head seemed surprisingly small. His straight black hair was slicked back.

"And why would I do that? I could teach you, or I could kill you. That's up to you."

Seiren's jaw tightened and she stared down at her hands again, recalling the words Portendorfer told her. King's only trained burst and rune mages; flash was another specialty that required at least five further years of sole training and dedication. How on earth could he expect her to master it in however long she had until it was too late to return to Benover?

One great surge of emotion. His examples weren't helping.

"For example, I imagine the crying of newborns, because the incessant noise drives me insane. Then, the desire to wrench them from their mothers and tear their heads off is so strong the power practically explodes from my hands."

Seiren couldn't even put it into words how disturbing Portendorfer's nonchalance was. A source of strong emotions. She had plenty: the guilt of her family's death, the betrayal from her own country, the fury at Karis Bonneville for murdering the only good person in her life, the desperation to rejoin the fray before the end for all mages came. But although she felt those emotions acutely, it was hard to have them at her beck and call. Yet Portendorfer could summon feelings strong enough to power flash magic and cease them as quickly as they came. No wonder he was so impervious to her begging and bargaining; his emotional capacity was wholly binary, black or white.

"Do you trust me?" he said.

"No," she said at once. He grinned.

"Smart girl."

She shut her eyes, keeping her breathing even. What would Madeleine say? She so wished her sister were here to ground her.

Madeleine didn't need to physically be present in her mind. She could be the brake in Seiren's emotions. She thought of the Hannan's fuzzy face in her compromised memories. A wave of fire swept over her. Her sister's life hung on by a thread and Seiren's world was turned upside-down, and she didn't even have the eidetic memory to make up for it. Someone dared to mess with her, toy with her. She gritted her teeth, imagining meeting the murderer and person behind all this puppet game for the first time. She'd love to set those monsters on them.

Her hands warmed. Little sparks of light, red, golden, green, danced on her fingertips. She funnelled the humiliation and vengeance, the increasing jumps of sparks and their intensity.

The frustration overcame her in a storm and with a yell, she wrenched her hands away. Little showers of sparks came away from her fingers, shooting into the sky before dissipating.

"Huh." Portendorfer sounded disappointed.

"What?" Seiren said, defensive.

"When I first met you, I thought you were so promising. I thought you were different from the rest, who are so obsessed with following the rules and restricted by their morals. I thought you could see outside the boundaries. I saw myself in you."

Portendorfer might be attempting to praise her, but he couldn't have insulted her more.

"I'm nothing like you."

"Oh, don't take the haughty road with me." He cackled, making the hairs rise on her arms. "You don't care for repercussions, you're wholly fixated on your own task, and you aren't afraid to skirt the rules to get what you want. I remember when I first saw you in Bicknor. You're just like me."

Seiren's blood ran cold. She stared at him, horrified, recalling the events that unfurled at Bicknor Research Institute. She hadn't cared for Madeleine's feelings. She hadn't thought of the ethical monstrosities she was doing.

She thought back to Portendorfer scorching Seven-One-Three and his house, containing his wife and children. And then she could see herself, in a state mage's cloak, doing that with her own hands. She could see why Madeleine was so terrified, back then. Seiren was on a precipice, and falling off meant she would end up just like Portendorfer.

"What's your motivation, Seiren Nithercott?" said Portendorfer in a soft voice.

"Repentance."

He laughed in her face.

"What an idiotic answer! Nobody repents. They just make do and try to justify their means for making more mistakes, in hopes one of those mistakes rectify the first mess! Wars are started to stop wars from happening. Exterminations happen to stop the greater evil, but those doing it are the greater evil. History might paint you royal blue, but you're forever blood red." His eyes flashed. "You have bloodlust. That's what interested me. You aren't afraid to do what must be done, even if people won't think well of you for it. Someone has to be the bad guy."

"I'm not like you."

"You were quite happy to watch lives perish before you."

"And I saved yours!" she flung back. "At Acrise! If not for me, you'd be dead!"

"Indeed. That was very kind of you."

Seiren's nostrils flared. He was toying with her again. She was so tempted to set him on fire, but she knew his skills far outstripped hers.

"I have no interest in helping you or that pretentious Woodbead, but I do owe you one. You have to admit, though: it's hard to teach a dog to walk on its hind legs."

Seiren flushed with anger. Portendorfer's eyes crinkled with amusement.

"What is your goal in life, Nithercott? What gets you out of bed in the morning?"

"I want..." She shut her eyes. The events of that night flooded back to her. Her eyelids snapped back. A surge of fury exploded from her core, unlike anything she'd felt before. It didn't have the neat spurt of burst magic, nor the gentle ebb and flow of chaos magic. No, this ricocheted within her body before finding an outlet, streaming down her arms and legs and burning her palms before exploding outwards like a cannon firing. Glittering light whirled between her fingers. The ball of sparks sucked in and exploded.

Portendorfer scooted back, a delightful grin stretching across his dark features as the streaks of molten fire soared through the air and dissipated.

"That's more like it!" He sat forward again. "What were you thinking of?"

"Hanna. Destroyed."

"Oh?" His eyebrows rose. It was not the answer he expected. "That's an interesting motivation."

"You have a problem with it?"

"Considering Hanna was initially part of the same country as Karma, you'll have to forgive me for being surprised."

Portendorfer might as well have sprouted wings and pranced around the train carriage.

"I see history is no longer a valued subject at King's Academy."

"They did! Adeleine Berrycloth's 'Karma: A History' taught us--"

"--the endless conflicts between Karma and Hanna, yes. And probably the rise of the Miracles and assassination of the last Pussett king by Laorin Woodbead."

"Woodbead?"

"Oh, dear. The quality of the mages they churn out at King's really is quite a disappointment nowadays. Back in my days, they still taught where magic came from and the truly bloody history in our existence today. I see they've paved over that nicely. I suppose those who erase history meant it's only so easy to repeat past mistakes."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Portendorfer's manner of talking in circles seriously irritated Seiren.

"Wallin Fernsby talked about where magic originated, if you remember your studies."

"He theorised the planetary orbits powered the celestial energy that's around us," said Seiren, the contents of that book clear as day in her mind, "and we as Karman mages are able to harvest that and use it under our control in the form of burst and flash magic, but ultimately it all returns to the earth as it orbits. And rune magic brings out that celestial energy that is lost after burst and flash are used."

"But that's not the only way the celestial energies can be used."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Well, we're able to take the celestial energies and transform it into burst and flash, and use a drawn-out method in the form of runes..."

"Yup. Fleeting. Bam and it's gone. Brilliant, isn't it?"

"From what you're saying, there must then be a lasting version. A solid version."

"Ding-ding!" Portendorfer mimicked the sound of a celebratory bell. "Yup. And we call it summoning magic."

"Sum--" Seiren stopped. "But that means--"

"It's been two thousand years. Magic have evolved since, but there's no mistaking they both came from the same source."

"That makes no sense. They're very different magic."

"Are they? Both use celestial energy -- one converts it to another form and the other solidifies it into a living being. They last as long as the magic user. Their quality depends solely on the magic user. Some would even argue there was never a split to begin with. Karman and Hannan magic are the same."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Working with fools is never fun. It'll just end in tears. Well, for you, at least." He stood up. "Right, you said there's a fun place to be right now, correct?"

Seiren barely managed to dart out of the way. Portendorfer clapped his hands. Seiren saw things in more detail. The light that danced across his palms, the sizzling energy that spun from his fingertips before the white hot flames formed -- but it wasn't the elemental aspect that made it so deadly. There was a shrill whistle before it exploded, directed before them so Seiren only felt the heat of the blast and none of its force. The windows shattered. The entire front half of the train carriage burst into pieces, flying into the air. At once, their half of the carriage and the two carts behind them slowed to a stop.

They were in the middle of a desert. The blaring sun made Seiren squint, but the temperature hadn't improved. A thin sheen of ice lay over the sandstone ground. She was just glad the guards had given her something more robust to wear than the dishcloth in jail.

Portendorfer put on his hat and gloves and hopped down. He extended a hand to Seiren. She hesitated and jumped down without touching him. He chuckled, adjusting his cloak.

"So what now?" she said, staring at the shrinking distant head part of the train. No engine. No train. They were alone in the desert that separated Karma and Moakai.

Portendorfer gestured to the last two carriages and gave her a look, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"We drive, of course."

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