I sense the move before I see it. My first knife leaves my hand just as it begins. The commander falls, the pack of batteries going down with him. My second knife lodges deep into the abdomen of the man beside him as the first man hits his knees. I rush in, barreling with all my weight into the third, smashing him against the wall. He’s dazed. I have a moment to grab the batteries–but the remaining soldier has already taken them. I lunge for him, but a hand grasps me from behind. The soldier with the batteries retreats from the room as I turn to face my attacker. Though dazed, the third man is flailing, trying to keep me busy and perhaps land a punch. He tries to pin me and I let him, using his momentum to my advantage. I force him around, press him to the floor, and choke him out. It takes no time, too much time. I should have pulled my third knife.

A solid weight slams against me. Slippery hands grasp my throat, knees press into my back. His grip is strong but slick, and I pull my head free, forcing my elbow behind me with all the force I can manage. It connects solidly. I gain my moment and scramble away.

I turn, lifting my knee. It slams into bone. I kick with my other foot. Solid contact. He falls to the floor with a squeal of pain. Only then do I realize who it is I’m fighting. It’s the commander; my borrowed shoes have dug into the knife wound. The knife itself has fallen out, apparently.

I take a second to breathe. It’s a mere moment. I have to contain three men or I need to leave them and return to Calea. They are incapacitated for now, I decide, one unconscious, one twice beaten, and the last pale-faced in the corner. My aim was good.

I hear her scream. Perhaps I’ve been hearing it, but it finally registers. A spike of panic lacerates my insides. I am already at the door, in the hall. Calea is writhing. I see a form racing away in the darkness. I throw my final knife, but it is too far and I am moving too fast. He escapes.

Calea is screaming, holding nothing back. It is full of pain and anger. I see the wound in her side first, a nasty, bloody gash. Her hand is pressed against it in agony. I retreive towels from the bathroom in her lab. She has quieted a little, but she is cursing, mostly at me. Nothing coherent, just vile, hateful words. I place the first towel against the wound and press firmly. She intakes a painful breath before swinging her arm at me.

“Stay still,” I command.

“Let it bleed, let it! Let it run, let it spurt, let me die!”

I know why she is saying such things. It is not the pain. In a little bit, she will tell me it does not hurt. I see what is missing. I saw it at first, but it was not the most pressing matter. Her leg and arm have been stolen. The stubs glisten with blood. The limbs were removed forcibly, the grafts cut through.

The last soldier–he took my knife from the commander’s body. My knife did this.

I let her wear her tongue out against me. I place another towel on as the first soaks through, and then another. The flow is slowing. I need to move her as soon as I can, but where will I take her? It is a long way over dangerous ground to anyone who might have the skills and resources to help.

“Why won’t you let me die?” she cries. “You’ve failed. It’s over. Now or in a few hours, I die. Let me die. There is nothing left.”

I do not resist. I change the subject. “What will they do with your limbs?”

“Who cares? Study them, wear them, hang them on a wall. The world is ended because of me. Let me die with it.”

“It’s not your fault. Thyrion doesn’t have the resources to destroy a well, and they certainly didn’t do it to get to you.”

“Quiet! Idiot! Fool! Someone destroyed it. Someone did it. Who else? Thyrion is covered in blood, from beginning to end. ‘Red as blood, red as blood, the Thyrion soldier comes.’ They are taking everything with them, all the resources, all the ideas, all the brains they lack.”

“I’ll get you out of here, and when you’re better, you can move to another well.”

I am putting her into a fighting mood. Her words become less emotional, more emphatic, as she argues. “You think this is the end? If they control who has wells, they control who has power. Will they let me live quietly near some backwater pool of a well? No! And I wouldn’t. I will be free to work and to use magic. But Jalseion is dead and the idea of Jalseion is dead and I am dead. You are lying to yourself and to me. Everything I have has been taken from me. You started this journey by coming to find me–you should end it. Take your knife and finish it.”

I stand up, leaving her to press the wound. She is half a woman, covered in blood, and as pale as a corpse.

“Coward!” she shouts. “Leave me then! Run away! Bodyguard, hah! How have you ever protected me? Weak, stupid, useless!”

“If any magic remains, could you use it?”

“The Well is empty!”

“If any remains below, a puddle or a small spring, could you use it to save yourself?” She would have to be quite close to sense a source that small.

“It doesn’t work like that. Magic is brute force. It doesn’t heal. It doesn’t perform miracles. It burns and moves and smashes.”

“You can use needles of fire to close the wound.”

“You are getting desperate, Bron.” But I can tell she is considering the possibility.

“I will see that you live.”

“Then why do you not take me back to the city? How would you find this hypothetical magic, anyway? Go down into the Well?”

“Yes.”

“You want to see me die, then. This Well is the deepest on record. How would we get down? Fall?” She grimaces from pain as she speaks; I think she humors the conversation because it keeps her mind busy.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Why not the city? Don’t I have a better chance of surviving the trip to the city?”

At first, I do not know if I will answer her. Perhaps I am wrong. What does it matter if I am? “You will not make it, because you will not try to make it. You will give up. You think there is nothing left for you.”

She watches me carefully. “And the Well?”

“If there is magic, there is hope for Jalseion–for you.”

She looks at me from behind her mask. “I would rather stay here.”

“You don’t really have a choice. I’m the one carrying you.”

The final approach to the Academy is uneventful. The road is relatively clear, and the nearing goal has reinvigorated me. I know it is a momentary boost, but I will take what I can get.

The Academy seems churned by giant hands, the walls mangled, but the damage seems largely superficial. It is built upon a stone pillar that rises out of the Well, a pillar erected by Select of several centuries past. They christened the well Curiosity’s Fount and set to work with their experiments. I wonder at their ambition, to create a residence in the center of the source of their power. Rumors say they attempted even greater things in their desire to live as near the magic as possible.

As is well known, the laboratory and research center they established evolved into the hub of the Wheel and modern-day Jalseion; now, it is an isolated, empty edifice, stranded above a desolate canyon of no importance.

And I am certain that the Academy is empty. Nothing moves in the exposed rooms. I remember the cars and generators in the city, blown to pieces by the blast, whatever it was. Did men who could feel magic and manipulate magic also fill up and overload on magic?

“We’re almost there,” I say.

“Save your breath,” Calea bites back. She is on the ragged edge of exhaustion.

The entry arch held a vast wall of glass, in which had been set a number of doors. The ground is covered in shards now. I am glad for my shoes. It is as if we are entering some vast cave, dark and forbidding. The Academy is a pensive structure. Within, the rooms are close and cluttered, most cut off from sunlight and illuminated by the building’s generator, which is certainly destroyed. Luckily, Calea’s labs are on the basement floor, which is built into the rock, in the outer ring, since her experiments deal with the actual substance of magic. This places her both closer to the source and deeper into the rock of the pillar. This last is for protection if something were to go wrong with her experiments.

I stop in the dark passage. Something is moving.

“What are you doing?” Calea demands. “You’re not going to give out on me.”

I squeeze her to quiet her, straining my ears. I hear it again, a rustling, but no voices. I thought I heard voices the first time. I turn aside, into the nearest room, one with walls taken off. Calea begins to protest, but I set her down in the corner with a firm command: “Don’t make a sound.” Her face is an entire diatribe, but she is silent.

I wait. After a time, Calea begins to speak, but I cut her off. Ten minutes pass. The structure creaks. Wind whispers over the rooms. I am not satisfied.

I have been examining the room. It is an office, with two walls lined with shelves. The books are oddly disordered. Whole sections are untouched, while others lie in disarray across the floor. I cannot see it from where I am, but some form waits behind the desk. I stand, holding one of my knives. I’m certain the pistol is worthless now, its magic charges overloaded. I approach.

The form is a corpse. Another familiar face, a bookworm by the name of Julian. I used to see him in the common room, occasionally. His body is marred by scratches and bruises, but it is uncovered, so there is no evidence of what caused his injuries. It could mean a lot of things, probably, but to my heightened senses, it means this: he died face first and someone turned him over.

“Let’s get this done,” I say. I lift Calea in my arms. She does not protest much.

“What do you think–?”

“I’m carrying you. I’d like you to walk on your own two feet as soon as possible.”

The floor seems uncertain beneath me. The Academy stands, but the foundation has shifted beneath it, somehow. All the well-defined passages have been shaken.

The door to Calea’s labs is open. I stop at a distance and set her down in the frame of a neighboring door. She does not ask what I am doing. She senses it too.

I have a knife in each hand, now, and a third in my belt. After the encounter with mercenaries three years ago, I taught myself how to hit a target at thirty feet. A Select with a grudge is likely to snuff me out without getting close, but I’ll make him hurt.

I step into the room, silently, listening. Muffled voices slip in from the connected room. Stepping carefully, I cross to the next door. I peer around. Two men in dark uniforms wait at the door to Calea’s storage room. They are exchanging words quietly and looking in. Military. A third and fourth exit from storage, one holding a cylinder between his thumb and forefinger for the others to see. Calea’s newest battery. He places it in a padded container with a dozen others of various sizes.

It is time for me to go. I need to return to Calea and hide her.

I step into the room. “I can’t let you leave with those.”

They raise their guns at me. I walk toward them. The guns are useless. I think they are useless. “Those don’t belong to you.”

“We outnumber you. Leave us be, and you’ll live.”

“As I see it, you may very well be responsible for the deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands, of Jalseians. I’ll take my chances.”

“This isn’t your fight.”

I laugh. He doesn’t know how wrong he is. I sold my life to Calea. It was my choice. I don’t back down from a choice.

“You have ten seconds,” I say.

“We’ll shoot.”

“You’re Select. Thyrion wouldn’t send less. And I’m still living. You’re powerless. Five seconds.”

She felt a sense of pride walking among the people–people who did not know that she was making their lives better. It wasn’t a sense of identification with these people; she felt as if she were invisible, walking between them as they lived whatever lives these people lived. She did not look down on them. Not much, anyway. She simply regarded them as agents in her experiments, blind beneficiaries of her work. Driving, as many Guides were wont to do, either from desire of speed or a vague fear of the masses, would draw unwanted attention.

She was beginning to feel eyes upon her, though, but it was a fancy, invented by Bron so he could feel useful. The man was dull, slow, and single-minded, a personality better suited to a dog than a man.

The bicycle shop was two roads over. The sun was hot, the people close, and her hip was beginning to ache, a flaw in her prosthetic. This was a main road, narrow but busy, men and cars working at cross-purpose, neither yielding to the other. Stores crammed close to one another, savory aromas coming from many, shoes and clothes and books and groceries sold in others. It was all a bit quaint, actually, with two-story buildings, apartments over storefronts, a far cry from the tall towers of Section Six and the relentless propaganda of Section Eight. It would almost certainly have to change as technology did, but she had no strong opinions on the direction. She’d keep track of the retail, consumer, and architectural evolutions and let them run their course, whatever that would be.

She pressed her way across the street, hoping to lose Bron in the crush. He wouldn’t reprimand her, but she would smirk and show him how little he meant to her. The crowd quickly thinned a block over. Calea looked back to see if she had lost Bron. Three men surrounded her. Two grabbed her arms and the third spoke. “Come quietly. Your expertise is needed. We have much to offer you.” They pulled her into a narrow alley.

Calea was more affronted than frightened. Her mechanical arm easily freed itself from the grip holding it. “You must be from Thyrion. There is nothing I want. Everyone here knows that.”

“You will come, one way or the other.”

Bron stumbled around the corner. Blood ran from his forehead. He unleashed a shot from his gun, but the blast streaked above their heads. He wobbled badly, fighting for consciousness. The leader of the three tilted his head. A brick pulled loose from the wall. Bron collapsed, groaning.

“A non-Select bodyguard. How useless.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Calea answered. “The Overseer naively believes Thyrion will refrain from armed assault on Jalseion. You know, the treaty. The bodyguard’s for more mundane plots.”

“Who says we’re from Thyrion?” He smiled. “Perhaps we’re just in it for the money.”

Bron kept twitching, as if his will refused to listen to his body. “This is a crowded area,” Calea said. “What if I resist? You wouldn’t want there to be an incident.”

The leader snapped his fingers. Fire sprung to life at their tips, taking the form of a miniature sword. Deft manipulation, that. These three were trained in precision. Perhaps the motion was show, but perhaps he still required it to guide the magic properly. “I have found that heating the brain can have lasting effects. Are you willing to risk losing all that precious knowledge of yours?”

“Are you?” Calea projected confidence, but she was beginning to tremble against her will. Panic shuddered through her at the mention of brain damage. Her mind was all she had. Everything else was already broken. “You need my knowledge.”

“We can take your arm and leg. There are many smart people in the world. One of them will figure out how they work. You haven’t shown the world everything, I think.”

She reacted quickly, almost before she had decided what to do. Digging deep from the Well, absorbing the aura of power that surrounded it, she swelled with magic until she wanted to vomit and then forced it out in torrents of raw power. Electricity emanated from her in waves, beating back the thugs. They reacted, pulling bricks down in heaps to bury her, but the electricity sparked into a wall of flame, burning her, scorching her, the blast of its heat knocking the three off their feet and breaking the bricks to pieces. Calea struggled to keep upright as the broken shards fell upon her. Now air hammered the three, keeping them down, choking and compressing them, battering them. She tapped the stone in the brick, throwing aside all her years of technique, and buried the three beneath the rock, melting it into unbroken mounds, where they were trapped, but alive. Probably.

The energy dissipated, emptying her. It had lasted less than a minute. She stood up straight, testing her limbs. A little stiff. She was covered in bruises and cuts. Blood trickled down her cheek, but she didn’t care. She felt barren, with a hint of sorrow and anger and joy somewhere beneath. Nothing else seemed necessary, no action, no thought. She felt she could stand there, frozen, for a long, long time, wanting nothing, needing nothing.

She saw Bron rising to his knees.

“I didn’t need you,” she said. “What use are you? I told you I didn’t need you.”

Three Years Earlier

Calea gave Bron credit for one thing–he was quiet.

Most days she spent in her lab, sometimes working forty-eight hours non-stop, oblivious to time, fatigue, and hunger. She’d drop deep into the problem before her until she understood the contours of the dilemma, its form and shape and idiosyncrasies. Her theories and the symbols on her whiteboard and the experimental applications of magical transference played one off the other, each held loosely so that it could change with the situation. She tested, dissected, recombined, discarded, and retried. Bron very well might leave for hours at a time when these moods took her, but she knew he did not. He took his required days off, but he watched and waited endless hours. Sometimes she returned to her surroundings with him in the other room, a tray with warm food sitting beside her.

If that had been all a bodyguard was, she could almost have dealt with it, if only because she wouldn’t have to deal with it at all. A shadow was the most forgettable thing in the world as long as it kept quiet. And Bron did admirably–but not perfectly. He urged her to eat or to socialize. He hovered over her, prodded her, gave her looks that showed he thought she was wrong. He did it softly, and subtly, but she noticed.

It was the principal of the thing, too. She remembered that first night. She knew the perception: she needed protecting, because she could not protect herself.

Today, Calea was out of the lab and out of the Tower. She had begun introducing cheap, efficient personal transports into the Section Four economy, as well as a host of less visible but more important upgrades to the power grid. Occasionally, she found it necessary to look over her project personally, if only because she didn’t trust others to tell her the whole truth. Her assistants were largely upper-level students who were both frightened of and in awe of her. They performed the task of administrative paperwork well enough, but they certainly could not judge the results of her current experiments with as critical an eye as she demanded.

So, once a month, on schedule, she descended into the city. She went without announcement. She did not like to draw attention to herself, whatever the rumors in the Wheel claimed. She’d heard the muttering. It was caused by envy. That pleased her.

Though she walked inconspicuously among the people, she could not come alone as she desired. Bron was at her side, quiet, yes, but still there, on alert, like a hawk. He walked coolly enough, but his eyes roamed back and forth.

“You do a poor job of remaining hidden,” she said.

“I am not trying to hide.”

“I wish you would. I do not need you here, anxious to throw yourself in front of some energy blast. There was a study some years ago showing that less than twenty percent of the population could identify the Overseer by sight, and I’m not the Overseer. I do not think I’ll have an angry citizen see me and attempt to punch me in the face.”

Bron said nothing, and this, more than some excuse or explanation, aggravated Calea. She was already in a bitter mood. She had woken up that way. Now, she was beginning to roil within.

“When can I be rid of you?” She tried to say it lightly. Sometimes he seemed to be hiding a smile when she became furious at him.

“When I am no longer needed.”

“Ha! Needed? No one’s needed in this world. We’re all extraneous, accidents. Men live and die. Their names sometimes linger a few generations. For what? I’ll be forgotten soon enough, even if I change the whole world with my mind. I’ll hang on as a name in a book and a picture on a wall, if that.”

Bron nodded. “Then why do you do what you do?”

“They think they need me. It’s a lie. Someone else would do what I’m doing, if not now, then within a decade. But I might as well do it. It gives me a way to spend my time, and it pleases them.”

“Well, protecting you gives me something to do as well. Let’s leave it at that.”

Calea wanted to scream at him. She had rattled off that little speech to make him uncomfortable–and from some uncomfortable emotion of her own. He had accepted it without question. He was either an unthinking brute or he was mocking her. It was possible both were true.

Her destination was a retailer she’d recently partnered with, a bicycle shop she was using to sell the new motorcycle she’d help develop. With the newest battery, streamlined, magic-powered vehicles were now possible. Most cars were still clunky and over-large, but that was slowly changing. Calea wanted to shock the people with her compact two-wheeled vehicle. She hoped to do some interviews with customers today.

“This is going to be a nice place to live,” Bron said. He did not often start conversations.

“The metrics of happiness and prosperity have been rising steadily in this section. Technology is the most efficient means of changing a person’s position in life.”

“Not the only way.”

“The most efficient.”

“Will you spread your work to the rest of the city?”

“I don’t have much say in other sections. In time, others might borrow from my work, as long as it doesn’t contradict with their own experiments. The technology will spread to Thyrion before it’s publicly released, if history teaches us anything. They’re tech-grubby, and it causes them more than a few problems. The minor villages will get it in time. But my work needs tested over years, and verified by others, then repeated, before the socio-economic blueprint will be made officially available.”

He did not respond. He was a normal, a native of routinely poor Section Three. He likely disagreed with the process. The non-Select always took the short view of things. “We’re doing this for your own good, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

He seemed to tense up. That encouraged her. He had been hurt in some way.

People and traffic crammed down the street. This section had more cars per household than any other, not a particularly difficult feat considering how few civilian cars had been allowed in the city. By her estimation, in three years nearly half of all households in Section Four would own one. Her newest battery was more compact, efficient, and long-lasting than any before it, and the method of creation safer. Manufacturing costs would drop, and the retail price to civilians would fall. Previous administrators of Section Four had run a moderately open economy. Calea didn’t plan to make any changes. Let the people work, earn money, and purchase what they would. They’d purchase her work.

Bron leaned over casually. “We are being followed.”

So perhaps his earlier stiffness had not been from affront but paranoia. “It’s lunch hour in the busiest part of downtown. You’d have to work not to follow someone.”

And if she was being followed, what did it matter? She could handle it. It didn’t concern her much.

As we head down again, I can feel my focus slipping. I think clearest with a single goal. Calea muddies all that. I need to protect her. I want to remove her from this place. But she needs her limbs, so I’m forced to either protect her physically or aid her in the way she needs most, which is repairing her arm and leg.

Worse, she’s already convinced herself she’s heading to the Academy not for intensely personal reasons but to protect scientific property. In another twenty minutes, she’ll say she’s doing it for the good of the city.

My body drags. Adrenaline drove me to the eighteenth floor, pushed me to the Column, but now the immediate danger has passed. I feel empty.

“Faster, Bron. I want to be away from all these people.”

Faster, Bron. New goal–the Academy, before the citizens mob the Towers, before the last spoke collapses, before the batteries are stolen. To protect Calea, I must repair her. That is enough for now.

I move quickly, nearly dragging Calea along, narrowly avoiding lifting her off the ground. I no longer want to speak with the others. They will present other options, additional needs.

I’ve chosen Calea. I will not choose another.

We enter the main hall. It’s a disaster. We take roundabout passages, mostly staying on level ground. Twice we navigate heaps of broken masonry, Calea stubbornly at my side, cursing beneath her breath. I stop once to move debris and dig a path through. When we finally reach the spoke and see the sky again, it is early evening.

I set Calea against the decorative wrought iron that acts as a barrier between the road leading to the Academy and the Well below. Calea is pale and can hardly catch her breath. Her injuries are superficial, but her body has been pushed beyond its normal limits. I watch her discreetly as I study the road before us. She is thin, almost frail. I have always thought her weaker than she presented herself, but now she looks broken, like a doll thrown in a corner. “We’ll keep moving after a moment’s rest,” I say. She will not want me to think her weak, but I will delay for more than a moment.

The road itself, two lanes plus wide avenues for walking on either side, seems sturdy enough. Ahead I can see some gaps, but I think we will manage if we keep an eye out. The trees lining the avenues are half bare, green trees with naked branches. The land is harsh away from the wells, verdant within its reach. What happens now?

I can see most of the Towers, too, or what is left of them. Three have completely collapsed. Tower Six stands nearly intact. Tower Five leans precariously over the Well, rooms open to the pit below.

It is hard to comprehend what has happened. I examine each Tower in turn, thoughtless and overwhelmed.

I become aware that Calea is crying. I do not look, to look would be cruel, but my eyes are drawn in that direction. It is then I finally see what I should have seen at first sight.

I had not even thought to look into the Well. It is below and our path is above. Now I step to the railing and stare into the gaping pit. It is huge, immensely deep, more than two miles end to end, and it is empty.

The sight is shocking. All my life, I have seen the shifting colors of magic as they hummed beneath the Wheel. Nothing remains. It is hollowed out. The contrast strikes me cold. And yet, I do not understand what it means. I have lost nothing. It is an emptiness in the landscape, but it has not removed a thing from my life.

But Calea’s life has been drained out.

I glance at her. I am afraid of what she might do, and I want somehow to connect with her. She is sobbing, eyes closed, hand pressed against her lips, trying to keep the sounds from escaping.

“Let’s keep moving.” It’s not what I want to say. It’s the only thing I can say.

She stands slowly, pulling herself up with her one arm, balancing on her one foot. I do not help her. She waits a long time, hand clenched on the railing, trying to breath. I give her time.

“Are you ready?”

“Of course.” She manages to control her voice. “Are you going to help me or not?”

I support her once again and lead her forward. We take to the center of the road, so as to avoid the barren depths of the Well. And we walk.

About midway to the Academy, the spoke starts to show evidence of fractures. I step carefully, watching the cracks. The avenues along the edges fall away for a time, first one side, then the other, the road like a garment with moth-eaten edges. I see the break long before we reach it, but even with time to consider, I have no plan to get across. The road disappears for twelve feet or more, except for girders exposed by the blast and a few thin walkways of unsupported concrete.

“We are not turning back,” she says. I support her almost entirely by my own strength. She has nothing left.

“We aren’t.”

There is no good way to do this. “Calea, I need you to hang on to my back. Can you do that?”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Tightly.”

That gets a little smile from her. She must be exhausted. “All right. I’ll hang on if you promise not to fall.”

“Deal.”

I choose the girder that seems the sturdiest. That’s a guess at best. The girder runs a few feet below the surface of the road. I lower Calea onto her belly and climb down onto the girder. It is barely wider than my shoulders. “Lay your arm over my chest. I’ll grab it and keep you leveraged.”

“You’ll pull my arm out of socket. Here, this’ll work.”

She wraps her arm around my neck, my throat in the crook of her elbow. It’s suspiciously like a choke hold.

“Can you hold tight?”

“I’ll hold. Now go.”

I bend forward, easing her off the road and onto my back as smoothly as possible. I stare at the metal beneath my feet, not into the abyss below. She settles. I raise up, finding my balance. It is difficult to breath with her weight pulling down on my esophagus.

I take my first step. I waver a moment, wait, rediscover my center. Another step. Slow breathing. The wind picks up and I stop. Another step.

“Hurry,” Calea says.

“Don’t look down.”

“Stop talking and go!” she shouts.

Another step.

Since I woke this morning, everything is another step–just one more step. That’s enough. That’s all that matters. One more step.

I find my rhythm. Only for a moment, at the start, did I allow thoughts of falling. After that, it is only the next step. A step is easy. And after that, only one more. And one more.

I am at the other end. I climb the short ascent, leaning forward to ease the pressure of Calea’s weight. I crawl onto the road, lower myself, and allow Calea to roll off.

“Help me up,” she says. “And stop wheezing. You sound like an asthmatic dog.”

I laugh, or try to. I rub my neck. Not crushed, but it might be bruised. Calea held on very tightly.

We resume our journey. The Academy looms before us, the facade broken to pieces but still hanging on. It is an octagonal building, thickly built, squat. The road is pocked and mangled, but it looks as if it will hold, as long as we are careful. “We’ll be there soon,” I tell her.

“Not soon enough.”

The trail of blood is faint. This means she is not badly injured, but it also means I may lose her. I cannot assume she has taken the path of least resistance. It is almost certain she has not.

Even so, such thoughts give me hope, a strange thing when I was nearly convinced she had died. I rein in the expansive thoughts. Hope makes one believe things a more sober judgment would not. I will hope when I have found her. It will be far too hard to let her go if I hope now.

She is heading toward the central stairwell. As I travel the winding halls, I become certain of it. The stairwell of the Column is a long way from her room, but the most protected from outside attacks. She is taking the long view. It is perhaps a wiser choice than my headlong rush upward. Wiser, perhaps, but not faster. I prefer a straight line, even with roadblocks.

Still, it has taken me a long time to reach this place. She could be long gone by now. The marks of blood have vanished. I stop. The floors above have collapsed, blocking the entire hall. I backtrack, taking the first passage I find. It is only a small detour, one she must have taken.

My assumptions are compounding. It may not even have been her blood.

I stop again. I force myself to stop. It is difficult. I have been pressing and pressing; it seems a sin to stop. I wait a whole minute, impatiently trying to reevaluate my options. One thought overrides the others: I must protect her.

It is not just a thought. It is a belief, a decision, an ethic.

I continue forward. My path is set.

Another collapsed hall. I turn again, now veering farther from my original path. And I see her.

She is on the ground, on her belly. I stop a third time, this time to say, carefully, “Calea?”

She starts to turn her head–yes, she’s alive. “Go away.”

I somehow expected the response.

“Are you hurt?”

“I said, go away.”

I step forward to help her to her feet.

“Go away!” she screams. Her body shudders.

I think she is crying. That silences me. I wait until she calms herself. It takes longer than I expect. Then I wait. I wait for her to speak.

Finally, she does. “Why are you here?” she accuses me.

I do not answer. She knows why I am here. Any answer I give will infuriate her.

I have been studying her closely. She does not seem injured, but her mechanical limbs have not moved. Something is wrong with them.

“I don’t need you.”

“Apparently.” I decide to try a different angle. “Is no one left on this floor?’

“I heard them evacuating, heading to the Column.”

“They didn’t come looking for you?”

“No. Why would they?”

A cold answer. She had long ago taught the other Select to avoid her except in precisely defined circumstances.

“I know the truth. They did come.”

“One. I told her to leave. I had something I needed to do.”

“And you’ve crawled all this way?”

She cursed. “Idiot. You think it’s funny.”

“I think it’s unnecessary.”

“What’s happened? Tell me that.”

“I don’t know. The city’s in ruins.”

“The city? I don’t care about the city. Let the city burn and the people bury their dead. I hope they die. I–” But she catches herself.

“You what?”

A long, scathing pause. Then: “I want to die. Is that fine with you? I want to die! Are you happy now?”

“We can repair your limbs. Whatever happened to them–”

She screams at me. It’s a shriek of rage and pain, cutting off my words. I take a step back. I have never heard such emotion from her. I begin to doubt my previous conclusions. Perhaps she is mortally wounded or she is suffering from some delusion. The cry passes, like a siren dying away. She takes in lungfuls of air. I dare not speak. I want her to let me help her; I do not want to force the issue. It will make things unpleasant. More so, it will injure her deeply, and I have vowed to protect her.

“What?” she demands after a time. “What do you think of me?”

“I think you are holding something back.”

“Are you so dull? You’ve made a mad dash from whatever smoke-filled den you frequent and you don’t know? I knew it from the first. It’s gone. I can’t feel it anymore.”

She wants me to ask. I do. I don’t mind playing the fool; most times, with her, I’m not playing. “What is gone?”

“Magic. The Well is empty. It’s gone. All of it. Jalseion has fallen.”

I am not sure I believe her. I don’t know how to believe such a statement. But she is supremely confident. I understand, too, what Select Grigor meant. He believed it, too.

Another person might ask how this happened. But that is a question unrelated to what must still be done. “It hasn’t fallen yet. Let me get you out of here.”

“I’m going to the Academy.”

The Academy is in the center of the Wheel. If the rest of the Wheel is as battered as Tower Three, it will be a difficult journey. “After the dust settles, we’ll come back.”

“No! My work is there–my batteries.”

And now I understand what is left unsaid. Her limbs have ceased to work because the magic in them has run dry. Throughout the city, vehicles and devices powered by magic were destroyed, overloaded when…when what? What had happened? A shockwave?

Her laboratory in the Academy holds the most advanced magic storage tech in the known world. And she will not leave without it. Not for reasons of science, but because without her batteries, she’s…incomplete.

It is an unwise decision to continue on. Calea’s knowledge is irreplaceable. If the Select community loses her, advancement in the field of magical containment hits a roadblock. Going deeper into the ruin of the Wheel is foolishness.

I have not forgotten that someone is killing Select.

“I’ll help you.” I walk around, coming to her front and kneeling down. “Let me help you.”

“You can’t carry me.”

“I’m strong.”

“I won’t let you.”

“I won’t let you crawl. It’s ridiculous.”

She makes a face, like a child mocking me. “Lift me up and support me. Under the shoulders. I’m not lame. I can walk. It’s just heavy.”

This is the best compromise I can manage for the time. I offer my hand and wait for her to extend hers. Finally, she does. Pulling her arm is not enough. I lift her bodily. Her mechanical limbs are inordinately heavy. I lean her body against mine, positioning her carefully. When she finds her balance, we begin to move forward. I feel out the rhythm, not looking to her or speaking. She is ashamed, and she does not want me to know. She is shaking, not just from effort, but from emotion. She hates this.

I don’t like it much either. We move in fits and starts, Calea pushing forward faster than she can manage and forcing me to provide the extra balance needed. We work as one only as far as I am able to react to her motions. We weave back and forth between hallways, searching for an open path, like mice in a maze. I avoid obstacles whenever possible, and so wind a tortuously slow route toward the center. The closer we come to the Column, the less structural damage we find, until we finally emerge into the center of the tower. The stairwell of the Column is nearly undamaged. Glass shards from the glass dome above sprinkle the carpeted steps, and black stains show the remnant of fires. The central column is filled with a haze of smoke and dust and light.

“If you let me—” I begin. The expression on her face is the answer. No carrying her.

Here, there is movement. I can see people farther below, looking up and down between the floors, sometimes small groups being led or two or three together on some errand. The activity is focused. These are efforts to recover those who have not yet evacuated, or perhaps to assess the damage. Within a week, the Architects will have plans to rebuild–maybe not the means to rebuild, but certainly the plans.

There is no reason Calea must go to the Academy herself. I do not tell her that. I look for the opportunity to bring the issue up with one of those searching the Tower.

Down, down, we go, step by step. Calea is red-faced from exertion and breathing heavily. A Select I do not know sees us and hurries to help.

“You may go about your business,” Calea says before he can reach us.

“Um…yes, of course.” He stands there, uncertain. “What floor have you come from?”

“Eighteen,” I say. “We didn’t see anyone else.”

“I’d heard they’d started at the top, or as far up as they could reach. I’m glad you two are safe.”

“Safe, yes,” Calea says. “And what do they say about the magic?”

The man squirmed. “Nothing, except that it’s gone.”

“And where has it gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly. That is the vital question. If you’d get out of my way, I’ll be determining the answer to that as soon as I can walk properly.”

“Is our spoke intact?” I ask. If we can’t get to the Academy from Tower Three, I may be able to dissuade Calea from the journey altogether.

“I’ve been told it’s dangerous. I haven’t seen it myself. I know some of the other spokes are completely gone. I watched number four collapse.”

“It’ll be fine. Bron here is strong,” Calea says, forcing a wretched smile. “It’s about all he’s good for. He’ll get me there.”

The man is older than Calea but obviously recently graduated, still used to obeying, probably below 50 Falsan in skill. Calea, on the other hand, commands. You can see clearly the moment when he realizes he’s out of his depth. “Of course,” he says quickly. He turns, walking away uncertainly.

She looks at me. “I’m not turning back. My lab contains the largest collection of batteries in the city, outside the factory. This may not be Thyrion, as everyone’s so fond of saying, but Jalseion isn’t Paradise, either. I’ll protect what’s mine.”

She fished two more coins from her pocket and tossed them in to see which would vaporize quickest. Oddly enough, the bigger coin disappeared fastest. She thought she caught a whiff almost like static electricity or a dry day beneath rain-filled clouds. She searched her pockets for something else to toss. A pen and some crumbled paper went in. These burned up in a flash.

Calea looked around. The teacher was engaged in conversation with Laurie, a particular favorite. Satisfied, Calea took the ribbon out of her hair, knelt down, and dangled the red strip over the magic. Slowly, she lowered it. The end crumpled on the surface as if on a table, but only for a second. Then the magic engulfed the end, tugging it softly like a fish on a pole. With a little jerk, Caea pulled, but the length that had entered the magic was gone. She started to lower it again, reaching her arm through the space between the railing, letting the magic eat away at the ribbon, bit by bit….

“Calea!” The voice was pitched an octave higher than usual. In a flash, the teacher was forcefully dragging Calea from edge. “You idiot girl! You horrible brat! You could have died! Stand up! I said, stand up!”

Calea did so in the shock of the moment, though she later regretted not delaying and getting up at her own leisure. A deep fear had taken hold of her, ignited by the panic in the teacher’s voice. Tears came unbidden to her eyes, and the shame of them, in front of so many, made her want to cry harder.

“What did I tell you? What did I say?” The teacher was screaming. “You do not play with magic. People have lost arms. They’ve died.”

“I didn’t die.” Calea was regaining her composure, but she hated herself for breaking down in front of the class. “I was being careful.”

The teacher laughed in her face. “Careful? You? I want you to go back through security and wait for us. Now.”

Calea wiped the last vestige of tears from her face. “No. I want to stay.”

“It’s not up for debate.” She extended her arm and pointed. “Go.”

Calea just looked at her, then turned away, returning to her place along the guardrail. The teacher grabbed her hard on her bony shoulder. She pulled away viciously, breaking into a run. She headed toward the far end of the platform. She didn’t have a plan; she was angry and hurt and wanted to frustrate the teacher. Let them talk about her antics, as long as they didn’t talk about her crying.

A few of the kids blocked her path. They didn’t really know what they were doing. They had been farthest away and heading to the commotion when Calea made her escape. She dodged around them, slammed into the fence. She enjoyed the hard, unforgiving pain.

She’d reached the far corner, and in the corner was a small gate that opened to allow tools and probes easier access to the magic. It was normally latched securely and locked. It jarred beneath Calea’s impact with the fence. Something came loose. Calea had almost regained her balance when the door swung open.

She teetered on the edge. She could see the expressions on her classmates’ faces. She seemed to remain precariously perched for a long time. Part of her tried to stop her fall; part of her watched the events unfold with crystal clarity. She was falling and she would fall and she would land in the magic and she would die.

And she did fall. She landed hard on the magic. It knocked the breath out of her. Her thoughts were slow, but she reacted quickly, trying to stand and grab the edge of the platform. Her limbs wouldn’t react. She couldn’t get traction. It was like trying to push off air.

Then her arm began to sink below the surface.

Calea screamed. She stopped thinking. Afterward, she couldn’t remember anything except pain–not just fire and burning, but pulling, sucking, ripping. Her body was being torn apart at the most basic level. Her classmates reported later that she had managed to get to her knees, but her arm was being devoured. By this time, it had sunk up to the elbow. Then her foot slipped in.

Her classmates turned away. Her shrieks forced them to recoil. A few were crying; at least one vomited. They said it lasted a long, long time, but the clock said otherwise. Her teacher watched in horror, unable to move or speak or offer help.

Then the screams changed pitch. The agony drained away. A desperate, battered moan remained.

Calea knelt upon the magic, twisted, her right arm sunken to the shoulder, her left leg gone nearly to the hip, but her descent had stopped. She managed in a weak voice: “Help me.”

Her teacher rushed forward, throwing herself down on her belly. “Give me your hand.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Calea’s body trembled from effort. Slowly, she lifted her unaffected arm. Her hand was clenched in a fist. Her teacher lowered herself farther out. “Give me your hand.”

“I can’t. I can’t.”

“You have to, Calea. Give me your hand.”

“I can’t let go. It’ll eat me.”

“Laurie!” The teacher yelled. “Get help!”

A few minutes later, a guard hung suspended over the magic, his legs firmly secured on the deck by another, as he reached out and grabbed Calea’s wrist. With effort, they pulled her up. Stumps remained where limbs had been, cauterized. Calea remained rigid, sitting oddly on towels brought to clean up the blood that didn’t come. They brought out a stretcher and began to lay her on it.

“No,” she said.

“Calea, you’re in shock. You need to be taken to a doctor.”

“I have to let go.” She scooted off the stretcher, half crawling. When one of the guards moved to stop her, she screamed, “Don’t!”

“Calea, what are you doing?” asked the teacher. Calea continued to scoot-crawl to the edge. “Calea?”

Calea extended her clenched hand through the fence and opened it. A ball of shimmering colors sat on her palm, vibrating. She turned her hand over, and it fell to rejoin the rest of the magic.

Calea’s body relaxed. Then her head smacked hard against the floor as she passed out.

Fourteen Years Earlier

“All right, class, line up.”

The nineteen young girls stood quietly from their desks and formed a line in front of the door. Except for the two in the back, all waited with their hands at their sides. In Classroom Two, the students were given more freedom of self-expression and fewer rules, but here in Classroom One, the prevailing theory was that discipline, particularly at an early age, sharpened the mind and cultivated a lifestyle of industriousness.

That was the theory, at least.

“Calea, stop whispering, unless you want to share it with the whole class.”

The eight-year-old stood at attention, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “I was just saying that Donava didn’t wash her hands last time she was in the bathroom.” She turned to the other girls in the line. “We all know how germs spread. If anyone gets sick, it’ll be her fault. Remember that.”

“That’s enough, Calea.”

Calea opened her eyes wide, as if shocked, faked a shudder, and stood rigidly at attention. She was taller than any of the other girls. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Enough.” Their teacher took a deep breath. “We’re going down to examine the Well. We’ll be on the Greinham Observation Deck this time, so stay together and watch your step.”

The girls glanced at one another excitedly.

They took the main staircase down, a long, curving expanse around the open air center of the Tower. Calea wanted to ride the elevator. She had been on it twice in Tower Three since coming to school earlier in the year, once on her way to see the Headmaster. She tapped on Sindi’s shoulder as they descended.

“Don’t. You’re going to get me in trouble,” Sindi whispered.

“Why’re we going to the Well again? It’s not going to change.”

“We’re going close. I mean, Greinham almost sits on top of the Well. I hear you can touch the magic if you want.”

“Yeah, and burn your fingers off.”

“I said if you want,” Sindi complained.

The line stopped. “Calea, come up here.”

Calea obeyed the teacher, flashing Sindi an exaggerated look of terror as she made her leisurely way to the front.

“I want you here beside me. I don’t want you playing games. We’re very lucky to have a chance to visit the Greinham Observation Deck. Most times, there are too many experiments being conducted for students to be allowed onto it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s very important.”

A sour look crossed the teacher’s face. “If you do not behave, I will put you in solitary for the entire evening session.”

This did worry Calea. Three hours in that spotless, soundless, lonely room was horrible. “I’ll behave, ma’am.”

“Now, step in line behind me.”

They continued down, and Calea kept quiet. She was sullen at first, but as they passed through the first security door, it was hard not to be excited. Before they passed through the second security point, a man with a mustache and clipboard gave a stern lecture about the dangers of magic. Calea didn’t listen. She’d heard it from the teacher before. Like ten times.

There was a gun fastened securely to the wall, however, and she could not take her eyes off it. It was thick and heavy. She did not think she could pick it up, and she saw where a soldier could flip out handles on the sides so that two people could lug it around quickly. The shoulder straps were hidden nicely, too. She’d seen a gun fired, once, while passing through the Academy on an errand. With current capacity, it could get off twenty shots before draining the pack. But what shots!

The girl behind prodded her and she followed the teacher down a final staircase and onto the Greinham Observation Deck.

Everyone knew what the Well was–the lake of magic at the center of Jalseion. The Select, who were able to draw power from the Well, had built the Wheel over the top of it. Calea could see the eight spokes above her, radiating from the Academy in the center and terminating in each of the eight towers. And below was the magic.

Approaching the edge, she stared. Sindi had been right. Magic pulsed just beneath the platform they stood upon. It shimmered, its surface something like a soap bubble, seemingly thin and filled with flittering colors. She had never looked so closely into it. Though it seemed clear, like glass, it showed no reflection. It projected an illusion of clarity, but the longer Calea looked at it, the more it seemed to resonate with hidden meanings, like a strand of music snatched and lost.

“The Well is nearly at its high point,” the teacher said. “As you know, it rises and falls according to the use we put it to. Given time, it always regenerates. Even if it didn’t, at our current consumption rates it would take more than a year the expend the energy.”

“Have you ever been to Thyrion’s Well?” asked one student.

“I haven’t, but it is many times larger than ours. Ours has its own unique properties, though. For instance, we have determined that our Well is deeper than any other known well.”

Calea had a coin in the pocket of her dress, and she had an idea.

“The wells sustain our way of life in so many ways,” the teacher continued, “but they are also our limitation. We Select cannot manipulate the power we find here unless we are nearby. Outside of a certain range, the ecosystem becomes bare, and vegetation and animal life is very difficult. That is why continued research into the battery is so vital. Next week we will be touring a battery facility, and you can see what amazing work our Architects are doing.”

Calea turned away from the group, leaned over the guardrail, and tossed in her coin.

It hissed as it touched the magic, not sinking, but setting on the surface, or even, it seemed, just above the surface. Then, it sank, disintegrating, and was gone.

“Neat-o,” Calea whispered.

The nearest stairs are used by the maids who keep the Tower clean. I see it in my head: Down the hall, turn right, fourth door on the left is the stairwell. I am to the turn as quick as conscious thought can recount the location. Dust and plaster fly up as I hurry along the hall. It is oddly preserved, like an old house, dusty and skewed, but largely intact. Footsteps stand out on the filthy carpet.

Calea’s apartment is on the eighteenth floor. I throw open the stairwell door, rush up the stairs. The steps are steep, the flight narrow. I ascend easily, up, up, but the passage is unnaturally bright. The lights are dead, so it must be the sun. By the sixth floor, I can see the scar above me, a slash that cuts the stairwell in half, opening the column to rooms on either side. I stop at the eighth. Beyond, the steps are twisted by the spasm that has compressed this whole area. Four floors are wedged together, collapsing into one another, but hanging delicately, waiting for a final tickle to destroy the balancing act.

I return to the seventh and exit. Students live on this floor and the one above. Or lived. I don’t know which, after today. I hear movement, talking, anxious sounds. The nearest classroom is packed with young girls, with three teenage mentors soothing them. The nearest sees me first. She freezes, then boldly asks, “Are you here to help us?”

“I have someone I need to find.”

“We need to get these children down.”

“Use the stairs.”

All the girls are staring at me now, wide-eyed and fearful. “Is it safe?” the first, the one who has decided to lead, asks. Lowering her voice, she says, “We heard screams. We’ve been waiting for someone to find us, to show us the way….”

“Yes, it’s safe.” I remember Essendr’s wound. “For now. Don’t stay here. Get to ground level. Get out of the Tower. The stairs are fine.”

Another of the older girls speaks up. “You’re looking for Guide Lisan.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. I…I just recognized you.”

It is a strange thing to say. A bodyguard is not meant to be noticed. “How?”

She turns red. “I just… Guide Lisan lectured in our class one day. You were there. That’s all.” She is embarrassed for some reason. Teen girls are strange creatures.

“Can one of you power the elevator for me?” It’s a stupid question. They would have tried that first, if they tried anything.

“It won’t work,” the first says. “Not anymore.”

“Get out of here. All right?”

The three leaders nod their heads. So do all the little ones. I am anxious to keep moving. Mentioning the elevator triggered something. Farther down the hallway, the floor is badly damaged, one wall blown out and blocking my way. I work my way over carefully. To head to another elevator would take too much time.

The mass slips beneath me. The floor shudders. I pause, muscles tense. For a minute I wait. Nothing. I slowly shift my weight, take a step. I move more slowly now, placing each step carefully. Perhaps there is no floor beneath me, but only wood and steel wedged in a hole.

I am not quite over the mound when I reach the elevator door. I clear away enough broken material to slide through the opening. The lift is gone, probably in pieces on the first floor. Normally, there is a rope in the center of the shaft, a crude mechanism to prevent injury if some accident or error should happen while a Select manipulates the air pressure in the chamber. Any sudden jerk, and the rope locks up, halting the lift’s downward progression.

Light filters from above. The rope runs along the right wall. With the top levels of the Tower gone, what is holding the rope? Any number of things, certainly. It must be wedged tight somewhere. This is what I hope. I eyeball the jump. It’ll hold. It will. I launch myself. My calloused hands burn as I catch the rope. It slips a few horrible feet, then holds.

I do not look forward to the climb. Never again, I tell myself. I have muscle, but I am a heavy man. She will be happy to learn of my pain.

Hand over hand I pull myself, using my feet against the wall. Eleven levels. My muscles burn after seven. I do not stop to rest. Movement is life. My feet slip, but my arms hold. Eight levels. I have no thought, no emotion. Just pain and mission. Hand over hand. Ten levels. Hand over hand. I would go ten more if it would take me to her. My arms will not fail until I let them; I will not let them.

I work myself back and forth, pedaling the best I can against the wall, try to work up the speed to reach the shaft entrance. Back and forth, now, back and forth. I will get no closer than I now reach. I release and hang over the darkness for a moment. Then I crash into the door. It does not quite open at my impact, and I snatch the ledge of the threshold with my hand just in time. The bottom of the door is at my fingertips. One-handed, I try to push it open. Something is blocking it.

I consider. It would be wisest to drop down a level and try that door. Instead, I pull myself up, gripping now the inside frame of the door. Using toeholds and fingertips, I wedge my head into the opening, hoping to force the door with my body. I manage to bring one of my shoulders through. I can see around the door. A discarded suitcase is all that stops my entry, its spilt contents gathered beneath the door, shoes and clothes acting as a doorstop.

I let out a murmur of a laugh and bully my way through the tight space. She would laugh, too, to see me moving like a cat in a tight space.

I take a moment to rest on the other side, sparing the time to try the abandoned shoes on. My feet emerge from the old ones with a squelch of blood, but it’s worth it. The new pair is nearly perfect after the vise of the others. My feet are larger than the average man’s.

This is the elevator near her rooms. I could have pressed on and returned for the shoes. I am afraid to continue and almost unable to admit it.

Her apartment is demolished. Splinters of furniture and broken glass cover the ground. She is not in the foyer. I think I see blood, but I press on, looking for her body. The bedroom has collapsed into the floor below. I cannot see her in what remains. The living room is pocked with smaller holes, the floor bent like a half-closed book, her possessions collecting in the fold and weighing heavily. I wait, searching with my eyes. The room opens onto the balcony, the frames of the glass door empty. Smoke rises slowly from the city. It’s almost peaceful.

I retrace my steps before daring my way across the precarious living room floor. I examine the blood more closely. It’s a smear–a trail. Not much, but I can follow it. It leads out of the room.

She was alive, alive enough to crawl.

I stop. Fatigue has failed to slow me. The scene before me succeeds.

Her tower rises above me, decapitated. It has loomed over me, broken, puffing, beckoning. The sun is warm now, the air still. The smoke billows; I can see fire lazily licking the bones of its meal. The tower is tilted, nudged, but it stands.

Separating me from what remains of the wide entrance is a trench. The generators that provided power to Section Four hummed here, fussed over by Architects. Dreary, overworked Select. Dead now. I think I see pieces of them here and there. The power facility sat in the barrier wall between Section and Tower. Gone, all of it. Obliterated into powder and junk. The tower entrance reveals the rooms within, like the side of a doll house.

Where are the Select? With magic they move rock, wield wind, control fire. I hear none of it. If regular man survives and begins to dig his way out, Select will too. But I do not see them; I do not see them working.

The trench is deep, its walls steep. My fingers hold my weight; my battered feet find toeholds. I work slowly, unused to climbing, but my will is strong. I have no fear of falling; therefore, I will not fall. I reach the bottom, begin up the other side. I reach level ground. Done.

I peer up as I enter beneath the shattered structure. If it has not fallen, it will not, but even I cannot escape the sense of inexorable gravity pulling down, down, down. I pass through the foyer. Men here died instantly, the ceiling beams and furniture from the floor above crushing them. I listen. There is sound, a voice, nearby. Not hers. It might know where she is, though.

I search it out, moving into the main hall, turning aside into a room designated for drinking and lounging. A club for Guides and their assistants, a place where men who decide the fate of thousands toss dice and wild ideas. One is dead at the threshold. He sprawls across the carpeted floor. The room is miraculously untouched. I step inside, wary. I check behind the door, open the cabinets. No one else is there.

I return to the body. His blood stiffens the carpet. I turn him over. I know him. Essendr, an amiable fellow as Guides go. She hated him. A gash runs along his abdomen, a wound in his chest. Weapons. Blades? Unconventional in Jalseion. I would know.

I say a prayer for his soul. I have largely forgotten my mother’s faith, but old habits die hard. I’ve seen death. The city stinks with it today. But I was to protect ones such as this. And her. Above all, her.

I stand. My hand is shaking. It’s beginning to sink in. She is dead. I don’t know it for certain yet, but it’s becoming reality. Jalseion has been shaken until anything that could move, did. And someone is using it to cover the murder of Select.

No–hesitation is delay. Delay is death. I move on.

I still hear that voice, faint but constant. I force the door to the next room open, the hinges protesting. The floor above is visible. Two more dead, and one alive beneath the rubble. Grigor. He likes tea. That’s all I can remember of him at the moment, all that sticks. He stares up at the third-floor ceiling. His legs are pinned beneath a cabinet. He’s cut somehow; I see blood pooled beneath his lower body. His lips are moving, and sometimes they make noise. I come to him.

“Do you know where Calea Lisan is?”

He stares at me, confused. Suddenly, his hand is at my neck, fumbling for my collar.

“I had a dream,” he says. “I knew I would die this way.”

I let him speak. I am impatient, but by patience I might get an answer. He is not in his right mind; direct questions will yield nothing.

“I die with the world,” he mutters. “I cannot even lift my….” He lifts his neck, craning to see his legs. “The power is gone. Can you sense it? Gone. The world is empty. Do you remember what they used to tell us as kids, about the world dying? It’s hollowed out, emptied. I can’t even….” Again, he looks at his legs.

I understand. A Select should be able to move the cabinet with a push of magic. Shock does strange things. I’ve heard of a mother lifting a car to reach her trapped child; I’ve heard of men going mute after a traumatic experience. Perhaps he is no longer able to reach the magic. My first instinct is to help. My second is that moving the burden would injure him worse.

My third is that I’ve abandoned so many already. What’s one more?

“Do you know where Calea is? Calea Lisan? Guide Lisan?”

His eyes focus on me. “Poor girl. Without magic….”

“Where is she?”

“It’s only a matter of time. Everything will waste away now. Everything. The earth is a corpse. The spirit has fled. We should have known. It was bound to happen someday. Today….”

I stand. It’s useless. I will go where she must be. If she is to be found, it will be in her rooms.

If she is not there…it doesn’t matter yet. Ifs will kill a man and have.

I know every passage in all eight Towers. I studied the maps and walked them to be sure. Just in case.

I don’t know how damaged the rest of the Tower is. I’ll take my chances with the most direct route.