It’s all right, she told him. I’m not really mad. I’m sorry for freaking you out. I know this is weird, but it’s going to be all right.

“Weird generally ends up working out for me,” she added out loud, and went to find Jared, who could not have left the Water Rising, because he was in pajama bottoms and bare feet.

After searching the bar below, and the parlor, and the other guest rooms, Kami had to admit that if anyone was going to be lunatic enough to escape into the public streets in his pajamas, it would be Jared.

She checked again in the big bedroom where Lillian slept, in case he was hiding behind the four-poster or something.

He wasn’t hiding behind or under the bed, but he was standing out on the little balcony, arms crossed over his chest. All you could see from the balcony was a brick wall and the gray square below where the Wrights kept their rubbish, but Jared seemed absorbed by the view. He didn’t react when she came out to join him: he kept looking ahead, jaw tense.

It wasn’t as sunny as it had seemed inside Jared’s small room. February air slid into the thin material of Kami’s dress like a sly pickpocket, warmth stolen before she knew it.

Anyone could go from seeming close to you to being distant, but it was always worse when it was Jared. She was so used to being close to him. He had been closer to her than if they slept cheek to cheek on the same pillow every night, closer than her own thoughts, for their whole lives.

Now was not an especially good time for Jared to seem so far away.

“Sorry,” Jared bit out. His focus on the brick wall remained intent.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Kami said. “Awkward situation. I think Ash is off to rock back and forth in a corner and seriously wonder how his life got to be this way. He’s a sensitive plant.”

Jared nodded. “Might be better than stalking out to a balcony to wrap yourself in a cloak of bitterness and self-hatred like metaphorical Batman, though.”

“Or trying to make light of a situation with awkward constant jokes,” Kami agreed. “Whatever. Emotional health is for losers.”

She put out her hand, but he went even stiffer and she put her hand on the balcony rail instead, cold fingers curled around the strip of cold steel, and stared at the brick wall as well. They must look as if they were at a museum, admiring the brick wall art.

“When Rob—when he had me, he said some things I think we all need to hear,” Jared said. “We have to stop him. That’s more important than anything else. I know that. You don’t have to worry about me sulking over this or being a jerk to you or Ash.”

“What did Rob say?” Kami demanded. “Wait, let me get a notebook. No, you’re right, we need to have a meeting. Okay, do you think we can get everybody assembled in ten minutes, or is it too soon when you’re only just out of bed? Is this why you’re sulking even more than normal?”

She turned to look at Jared, who had his back up against the glass door of the balcony as if he was expecting an attack. She could tell nothing from his face: as if he had been an open book and now he was shut, simple as that, and she did not know how to make it so she could read him again.

“Look,” he said. “I told you I was sorry. I didn’t think about Ash, and how it was between the two of you now. I had other things to think about when I was at Aurimere with Rob, and then you came and—I guess I didn’t want to think about it. But it’s fine. I think it’s going to work out for the best, in the end.”

“Are you talking about the link?” Kami asked. “You said you understood why I made the link with Ash.”

“I do understand,” Jared still wouldn’t look at her. “It’s fine. It was the right thing to do. He’s a good guy.”

Ash was a good guy. Jared, however, was incomprehensible and impossible.

“It’s fine,” Kami repeated.

“Yes,” Jared told her.

“You think it’s going to work out for the best.”

“Yes,” Jared snapped.

Kami said, with slow-gathering fury, “But you’re breaking up with me anyway.”

Jared looked at her at last. His eyes were wide and cold, reminding Kami of ice over the gray waters of the Crying Pools.

He said, “Did you really think we were going out?”

Kami’s hands clenched on the balcony rail, hard enough so that pain lanced through her, palm to elbow. Enough, she thought, enough, enough: nobody was allowed to make her this unhappy. She didn’t have to stay around him, any more than she had to keep her hand in a fire.

Kami heard him say her name, but she turned and walked away. She went home.

Claire’s hours at the bakery and restaurant had meant she always left home early and stayed out late. Kami had not guessed how different it would be to know that her mother was not coming home at all. She realized that her mother’s absence would fill the house, more noticeable than a presence. All four of them—Kami, her dad, and her brothers Ten and Tomo—were always looking to where she was not. Kami had no idea where Mum was, what she was doing, if she even still loved Kami at all.

Kami found her father sitting on the couch. He was not in his study, or even doing graphic design on his laptop: he was just sitting there, as if watching the blank black television. He looked helpless.

She curled up on the couch beside him, and laid her head on his shoulder. They sat and were heartbroken together for a little while.

Chapter Seven

Sharing Power

The next day, they were all finally assembled in the Water Rising. To Kami’s surprise, her father said he was coming with her. Martha Wright, who loved children, had agreed to watch Ten and Tomo while they talked, since ten- and eight-year-olds were seldom brilliant at plotting against evil.

The four of them walked through the quiet streets of Sorry-in-the-Vale, hands linked as if they might be separated from each other in a rush of people who were not there.

Kami saw curtains moving as they passed. She saw one woman lingering in the doorway of her house, as if she was a ghost who could not leave the place where she had died. When she caught Kami looking, she closed the door and shut herself away.

Nobody was panicking. There was just this sense of persistent, lurking unease: the lives of all the people in town faded so that they could escape notice, and Kami felt it would not be long until they faded away completely.

Everyone was talking in whispers, and it made Kami want to scream.

By the time they walked in, the parlor was already crammed with people. Angela and Rusty were on the sofa and looked prepared to defend it to the death.

Jared was sitting on the arm of Ash’s chair, fully dressed. His eyes went to Kami when she walked in, but after one glance at him Kami looked away.

Lillian Lynburn, Ash’s mother and Jared’s aunt, the woman who still regarded herself as the Lynburn who should rule the town, was standing at the mantelpiece. She started slightly when she saw Kami’s father; Kami was glad to see she still felt guilty about putting Ten in danger.

“Jon, Kami,” she said, and sounded slightly proud that she remembered both their names.

“It’s Lydia, isn’t it?” Jon asked. “No, don’t tell me, I’ll get it. It’s Laini, I’m almost positive.” He went over to Angela and Rusty’s sofa. “Move, you lazy brats,” he said, and when they made room for him he patted Angela’s shoulder.

Holly was standing at the window with Henry Thornton, the sorcerer newest to Sorry-in-the-Vale, the stranger from London who had come to help them for no reason other than that Kami had asked. He looked worried as usual, but he was leaning against her a little, and she was smiling—at him, at Kami when she came in, and all around. Looking at Holly’s determinedly sunny smile made Kami feel stronger.

There was no place for Kami to sit, but she didn’t want to sit. She walked over to stand at the mantelpiece beside Lillian.

Lillian gave her a faintly quizzical look, down Lillian’s aristocratic nose since that seemed to be the only way Lillian knew how to look at people, but she did not object to Kami’s presence.

“Here’s the situation,” said Jared. “Rob talked to me about his plans, and he said we had no idea what was coming.”

“Did he get any more specific than that?” Angela asked skeptically.

“He said,” Jared said, and hesitated, his voice changing. “He said, ‘So many people are going to die.’ ”

There was a pause.

“I don’t want to make jokes about people dying, since people actually are,” said Rusty. “But doesn’t it sound like a fairly standard evil overlord speech? ‘Mwhahaha! You have no idea what you’re dealing with, Mr. Bond! You have gravely underestimated me. You have no idea of the depth of my iniquity! Tremble, for you and all the puny forces of good will be utterly vanquished.’ Et cetera, et cetera, megalomaniacal cackle optional. Does Rob have a cat to stroke?”

“He’s not great with animals,” said Jared, mouth curling up at one side. “I take your point. But he seemed so smug, so sure. He told me I didn’t understand yet. I really believed that there was something else he knew and didn’t want me to know, but couldn’t resist crowing about. When he was torturing me—”

Kami felt Ash’s distress flicker through her, like a scarlet fish through clear blue water. “You don’t have to talk about that,” Ash said.

“Wait,” said Kami. She remembered how Jared had perceived the goodness in Holly before she had; if he thought there was something more to what Rob had done or said, she trusted his instincts. “Rob once said, to Jared, when we were linked—”

Jared flinched, and the sudden movement caught her eye. They looked at each other for a painful minute.

Kami swallowed and continued, “Rob said that enough magic could do a lot of things. He said that it could make you live forever.”

Lillian raised her eyebrows.

“It can’t,” she said sharply. “Theoretically, magic could do that once, but the whole town could submit to Rob, he could demand sacrifices four times a year for ten years, and he would still not have enough power to make himself immortal. It’s not a reasonable concern.”

Lillian was the expert on magic, the sorcerer who had been trained to lead Sorry-in-the-Vale. Kami had only known that magic existed for a handful of months. She didn’t know how to argue with Lillian, but she did know that she wanted to try.

“He asked for his first sacrifice on the winter solstice,” Kami said slowly. “Now he’s asking for one on the spring equinox. You guys, you set up shop hundreds of years ago in Sorry-in-the-Vale because the woods and the lakes power your magic—”

“We are not batteries!” protested Lillian, but Kami waved a hand at her dismissively.

“And you get sick in the autumn, when the year dies,” Kami said. “It’s all seasonal. He’ll get more power if he does it on a certain day. He’s willing to wait and wait until the right time. What’s he waiting for? What does he want all that power for?”

“What do any of us want power for?” Lillian demanded. “To rule and to be feared, so your rule will be long.”

“There’s a campaign slogan,” Jon muttered.

“But I am glad you assembled us all here nonetheless,” said Lillian. “I wanted to talk about magical power, in fact, and who has the most power among us: namely, the source and her sorcerer.”

She nodded to Kami and Ash. Kami met Lillian’s eyes, regarding her dispassionately. She did not look over at Ash, though she could feel his flare of mingled worry and pride.

“What about us?” Kami asked, for both of them.

“Very few of our number can do magic now,” Lillian said. “I have mentioned before that I shared power with Rob, once, so he could complete a magical ceremony. There are ways of setting up a magical bond, between one sorcerer and another. The bond is …” Lillian set her teeth. “It is uncomfortably intimate, though not to the same degree as that between a source and a sorcerer. Given the choice, I would not engage in the link again. But we have few choices and little hope left now.”