Caen and Zeris chatted excitedly on the train ride back to Beslin while he worked on his dexterity. They'd learned so much tonight that it was all they could talk about till they disembarked at the train stop.

“It makes me wonder, though,” Caen said as they made their way up the stone steps leading into the commune. He kicked a pebble aside, hands in his pockets. “How do you think Ardor affects Fire magic? I mean, I think I have a faint grasp of the conceptual elements. Sort of. But what would it even look like when used by a typical Fire practician?” Fermien had used the phrase ‘Passionfire’, which Caen had read about somewhere. It was supposed to be a strain of Fire magic or something.

Zeris was playing with three small orbs of flame that danced awkwardly between her fingers, all but rubbing against the skin of her hands. She had a high affinity for Fire magic, which meant that her skin would be harder to burn. Caen was about as vulnerable to fire as one could get. He’d tried this same exercise so many times, but always failed to even keep the spark from extinguishing due to how the spell construct taxed his spirit. “Well, I've been thinking about how much I absolutely loooove fire,” she said loudly to the spark as though she were speaking to an audience. “I mean, this is what I'm moooost passionate about.”

Caen snorted. “Even the spark knows you're lying.” Zeris was far more passionate about Spatial magic than she was about eating food to stay alive.

“Maybe, Ardor just makes flames burn hotter and brighter?” she ventured.

“Maybe,” he agreed. Fire that could burn hotter and brighter the more passionate you got sounded to him like it would be very useful.

She dismissed the spark, and they walked in companionable silence for a while.

Caen's mind drifted towards his situation. For much of his life, he had wanted so dearly to attend the Imperial Citadel of Magic due to the institution’s expertise in bloodline studies. But even now that he'd found his third bloodline, there remained a fourth one that was a complete mystery, and an even more mysterious cumulative effect that allowed him to sense souls and interact with his own. If he wanted to utilize all these advantages, ignorance wasn't an option. Caen needed answers. He needed to understand. He needed more information.

Zeris hemmed. Her brows were creased in a way that told Caen she was contemplating how best to say something.

Caen watched her sidelong. “What is it?”

“Well…” she said in Code, which let him know that this was serious. “It's still months away, but I was wondering… are you going to participate in the Patronage trials this year?”

At the biennial festival on Ser-gwu Island, the Ereshta'al family formally selected ten talented and promising relatives, all of whom would receive sponsorship in any project or venture of their choice. Zeris had earned a slot nearly six years ago and was set to leave for her studies at the Imperial Citadel of Magic within the year.

Caen had wanted to study there too since he was eight, but there was no chance of that ever happening. And as an abject, he had long since abandoned any hope of participating in the Patronage trials. The competitions were fierce and largely slanted towards those with higher affinities. But now…

“Yes,” he said, not at all surprised by how strongly he felt about his answer. “But only if I figure out a way to avoid drawing any unwanted attention.” Participants could hide their identity during the course of the trials, but for Caen, having to explain how he’d cured his abjection afterwards would require more than a few well-thought-out lies.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

He sighed. “Before any of that, I’ll need to replicate that boost to my affinity. There's so much I need to do. Get a better understanding of how Soul-sense works and what it even is. Ardor, that fourth bloodline.”

And maybe even my Edict bloodline too, he thought, though he didn't voice it. This was an opportunity of a lifetime. Before yesterday, he'd been very uncertain about his future, but all this just threw more variables into the mix. Nonetheless, it felt more comforting than overwhelming.

“Well, it's just been a day,” Zeris said.

“Yeah. Feels like longer though.”

They made their way to Aunt Vensha's cottage. She lived in the same house with them, but sometimes sought her own privacy, especially when she was smithing. The cottage was empty. She'd probably gone into the Planes with her party.

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They returned home, and Zeris had Caen look over some more equations she'd been working on. She was a little behind in her studies for the day because of the time she'd spent helping him figure out Soul-sense earlier.

Spatial magic was beautifully complex. Zeris spent most of her day solving long and tedious equations or trying to improve her spatial acuity, which involved the ability to interact with spatial membranes. She had a tutor in Piarton, a city hours away from Drenlin, but Zeris only ever met up with the hermit of a woman once a month, during which she was given a day-long lesson and loaded with assignments. Though she was also teleported to Ser-gwu Island every six months for proper tutorship.

Caen and Zeris worked together for nearly two hours, stopping occasionally to chat about other things—specifically Ardor.

“I'm going to bed,” Caen eventually said, glancing at the clock on the wall as he massaged his temple. 1 in the morning. “Between the past two nights, I've probably murdered my sleep cycle.”

“Two nights,” Zeris scoffed. “Rookie numbers. I'll stay up a bit longer, but I'll be at Uncle Vai's in three hours or so. Will you go see your parents first or…?”

“No, I’ll see them tomorrow,” he said, getting up and stretching. “I want to bother Uncle Vai a little. He might be able to help me figure out Soul-sense.”

In his room, Caen lit a candle by his door with a quick spell—which right now meant nearly five minutes of casting due to his lingering fatigue. Unsurprisingly, the spell failed a few times before taking. He sat on the cushion at the center of his room and went through his night routine.

Lightly scanning his spirit for slag, he found just a smidge of buildup, which he decided he'd cleanse the next day. He didn’t want to push himself.

After some meditation, he decided to try poking around with Soul-sense. He still felt a few of the symptoms of will fatigue, but that did not exactly tell him how close he was to avolition: a complete depletion of his willpower. So first, he engaged Untor's Boulder. It was a diagnostic mental construct with a slightly complex breathing sequence and an involved visualization that helped determine the state of one's volition.

In it, he stood at the foot of a hill and placed his hands on a large boulder to push it upwards. As soon as he began pushing, his breath became ragged, and it grew increasingly difficult to hold the breathing sequence. Caen dismissed the visualization technique.

Well, I'm sorry, Soul-sense. I'll have to pick this up tomorrow morning.

He could still cast magic if he absolutely needed to, but it was simply healthier and more mindful to hold off on doing any of that till he'd recovered.

He wondered what could have strained his will, though. The annoying thing about will fatigue was that, barring tests like Untor's Boulder, it was very difficult to tell how close you were to avolition. Caen strongly suspected that the current state of his will had something to do with the fact that he'd practiced extensively with Soul-sense today.

Caen had been a creature of routine for most of his life, but today had been the first time in so long that he'd gone the whole day without a plan. He didn't hate it as much as he thought he would. All the same, he might have to restructure his entire weekly schedule later.

Before getting into bed, he performed some deep stretches, then put out his candle.

Most nights, while he slept, Caen projected his consciousness into the Astral Realm. A more skilled Dream-guardian than he could do this without needing to sleep. But Caen had never managed that in all his years of practicing Dream-guarding, due to his abjection. Only after gaining lucidity during peak sleep hours could he project his consciousness.

He usually preferred to cast a very simple Dream-guarding spell to help him fall asleep, but he did not want to strain his will. So instead, he adopted a very calming breathing sequence and began to engage in some progressive muscle relaxation. He filled his mind with a visualization of soporific twirling and looping shapes, each one linked together by streaks of spiraling colors and hypnotic vortices. He could feel himself drifting into sleep with each passing breath.

* * *

Caen ol' jolly chap sat at the wooden table in a suit, drinking tea and eating biscuits with Rlarlarla and their other friends. They had all taken the forms of one-tailed shadelings, except for Rlarlarla, who had recently gotten its second tail last night in the Drenlin Plane. Their suits were of exquisite make, showing the culture and refinement of Redshadow's elite society.

“These biscuits are just so very incredible, Rlarlarla,” Caen said, adjusting his monocle and taking another bite as his tail swished behind him. “I must say, I'm very impressed with how—” Caen blinked.

He was awake.

“Impressed with what, good friend?” Rlarlarla asked, adjusting its top hat.

“Ah, I'm sorry to cut this short, gentlefolk,” Caen said, standing up and taking off the napkin tucked into his collar, “but I have somewhere else to be.” The thick, roiling fog of the Seam had already started enveloping him.

Caen quickly split his mind in two. The first half focused on Uncle Vai's Astral locus—the precise location of his domain within the Astral Realm—while the other half of his mind held painfully complex visualizations that bore a strong semblance to spirit patterns. Here, so far from sensing his spirit with as much awareness as he usually could, he felt only half of the strain that spell casting always entailed for him. In a way, it was freeing. Still, his mind toiled to maintain the visualizations, and he had to recast the spell after each failure.

The world around him broke away all at once, revealing a dark purple void.

Caen fell through the void with the force of a hypnic jerk and the next moment, found himself seated in a comfy, brown armchair.

“What took you so long, runt?” Uncle Vai asked. “I was about to come scoop you out of your little tea party myself.”