Lenora waited until she was clear of the sitting room before addressing the book at her hip.
“You took a long time to find me,” she said. “I would like to know why you were looking.”
Pyro stirred against the chain.
She had allowed the question to wait while the palace demanded answers to more immediate problems. Now the War Council offices were empty, the War Office had stopped functioning, and Sinister’s explanation had become something she could no longer afford to treat as useful simply because he had offered it.
The grimoire lifted away from her side. Heat gathered around it, blurring the edge of the room until the cover seemed less substantial than the presence behind it.
Lenora kept her hands loose.
Books should not have required the same care as armed visitors. Calamity books had never respected that distinction.
“You were the only answer I could still reach,” Pyro said.
“An answer to what?”
“Something that has already begun.”
She crossed her arms. “If you wanted someone willing to accept half an explanation, you searched for the wrong person.”
The warmth shifted. A faint smell of smoke reached her, followed by a sweetness that made it unpleasantly specific, like food burning somewhere beyond a crowded room.
“I had to use a body,” Pyro said.
Lenora’s attention settled fully on him.
“Whose?”
“A circus girl. She died. Her thread was loose enough for me to reach, and her grief gave me something to hold.”
Lenora did not move toward her weapon. She wanted the rest of the account before she gave him any reason to stop talking.
“Cinder.”
“I took control of her body and brought her as close to you as I could.”
“You wore her.”
“I carried her.”
“You have just told me you took control. Choose whichever word makes you comfortable, but do not expect me to forget the first one.”
Pyro’s heat pressed outward, then settled.
“She was worried about her friend. When Mina was taken, Cinder wanted to go after her. That desire remained strong enough to move her when other things could not.”
Lenora looked at the suspended book. He spoke of the girl’s need as though it were a road he had found open.
“And you used it to come looking for me.”
“I used what I could reach.”
“Is that what you intend to do with me?”
The question held between them. Pyro did not offer a comforting denial.
Lenora lowered her arms.
“Start with why I matter to you.”
The room warmed another degree.
“Celica is still walking.”
Lenora had expected the name. Hearing it did not make the explanation easier to receive.
“And you want her stopped.”
“I want her embers stopped before they spread any farther. The six calamity books sealed her into another world because leaving her here was too dangerous.”
“You sealed her.”
“Yes.”
“Then I assume you have an account of why she deserved it.”
Pyro’s voice lost its earlier amusement.
“It was not a punishment. We were trying to prevent the Sister-Series from activating.”
Lenora thought of Mk1 walking beside the queen. Of Riven moving through the palace while everyone else waited for permission, information, or an explanation. Of the empty offices and the guards who could report an absence but could not explain where the people had gone.
She made herself remain still.
“Tell me what her embers have to do with them.”
“Each one carries something of her. A signal. Authority. A reminder to things that were meant to remain beyond reach.”
“That is another description. I am asking how it works.”
“You have seen the result. There are boundaries her power does not respect in the way other magic does. The embers spread that influence. Leave enough of them in the world, and a lock can stop being a lock.”
Lenora watched the heat shimmer above the cover.
“I have traveled with her,” she said. “I have also seen people survive because of her.”
“Those facts do not contradict one another.”
It was the first answer he had given that she did not immediately want to challenge.
That made her more careful with it.
“You have told me what you feared,” she said. “You have not told me what Celica says happened, or what the others believed they were doing when they sealed her.”
“Would hearing her defense make the dolls less active?”
“It might tell me which part of this you have left out.”
Pyro remained suspended in front of her.
Lenora moved closer, stopping before the heat became uncomfortable.
“You want me to restrain her.”
“I want you to make a choice before her power leaves you without one.”
“Then you should appreciate that I intend to hear from more than one person before I make it.”
She glanced toward the door. Beyond it, the palace continued trying to understand what had happened to two of its most powerful offices. Waiting for Derpy to wake no longer seemed like a plan.
“Can you get me into the dreamscape?”
The shimmer around Pyro changed.
“You have already touched its edge.”
“I spoke to the one keeping Derpy’s body. I want to reach Derpy himself. Celica and Lewd are in there too.”
“I can take you.”
“Then do it.”
Pyro paused long enough for her to know the answer had not been complete.
“On one condition.”
Lenora sighed through her nose. “Of course there is.”
“Agree to become my user.”
“Not now.”
The heat around him flickered.
She raised a hand before he could speak again.
“You came to me with a warning and asked me to choose. I will consider your offer after I hear what Celica and Derpy have to say. I will not bind myself to your version of events as the price of hearing theirs.”
“And afterward?”
“Afterward, I will consider it. That is what I am promising.”
Pyro held his place in the air.
“Is that fair?” Lenora asked.
The book descended slightly. The room’s warmth eased with it.
“Fair.”
Lenora nodded, accepting the agreement exactly as they had spoken it.
It took longer than she wanted to find a quiet place to lie down.
The palace kept producing reasons for her to remain standing. A messenger needed an answer. Someone wanted the last instruction repeated. Another person asked whether the wards would return, as though Lenora had merely forgotten to arrange it.
By the time she lay down, her shoulders hurt from holding herself ready.
She kept one hand close to her weapon. Pyro settled near her sternum, his warmth distinct from the cooler air of the room.
“I have not agreed to be your user,” she said.
“You made that clear.”
“I prefer to make it clear twice.”
She closed her eyes.
Sleep did not come immediately. She remained aware of the door, the space beside her, and the faint movements elsewhere in the palace. Then another presence entered that awareness.
It seemed to hover above her without shifting the air.
Lenora kept her breathing even.
She could not identify it, and turning toward it would admit that she had noticed. Her fingers remained near the weapon. She counted the sounds she knew while leaving the unfamiliar pressure unnamed.
Pyro’s warmth gathered more closely against her chest.
The bed seemed to recede beneath her.
Lenora exhaled and allowed the connection to take her weight.
Her boots touched ash.
The shore extended beneath a dark sky crossed with pale threads. Farther away, she could make out Derpy and Lewd moving together. Mia and Sphinx kept close to them. Celica and Blight stood apart, watching the exercise.
Lenora took a step toward them.
A seam brightened in front of her, and Sinister emerged before she could pass.
“You are not supposed to be here.”
She stopped within speaking distance.
“That has become a poor reason to keep me out.”
His gaze moved over her, lingering briefly near the warmth she could still feel at her chest.
“You found another way in.”
“I found someone willing to answer a question.”
“That seems unlikely to have been free.”
“You can ask about the terms after I get answers from Derpy and Celica.”
Sinister glanced toward the distant spar. He looked more irritated than alarmed, as though she had interrupted a process he expected to continue without supervision.
“Do not interfere with the space,” he said.
“I came to speak.”
He moved aside. The seam widened enough for her to pass, then settled behind her into a faint line.
The view of the shore became clearer. Distance remained strange, but she could see the position of Lewd’s feet and hear Derpy speaking to her.
Lenora stopped near the boundary.
For the first time since he had vanished behind his own face, she could watch him move without wondering which person she was seeing.
Lewd rolled her shoulder before raising the shield again.
The skull-faced circle no longer dragged her arm as badly as it had earlier. Fatigue still made itself known, especially after several exchanges, but she had learned to recognize when her grip was tightening for no useful reason.
Derpy waited until she had settled the green sword beside it.
“I want to make the next sequence quicker,” he said. “You are holding the separate movements. Now we need to see what happens when they arrive together.”
Lewd glanced at Mia and Sphinx.
“They are going to do more than walk around me.”
“A little more.”
“You realize how reassuring that sounds.”
Derpy gave her a small smile, then crouched briefly beside the pets.
“Go easy until she understands the pattern. We are giving her things to respond to, not trying to put her on the ground.”
Mia shifted eagerly. Sphinx watched Lewd with his tail moving behind him.
Derpy rose and let Frostburn gather along his arm.
“It feels as though we have been here much longer than we have,” he said. “You have improved. I would not add this if you were still struggling with every first strike.”
Lewd checked the space behind her, then faced him.
“Tell me if my feet cross before you hit the shield again.”
“I will.”
He moved first.
The approach was direct enough for her to recognize. She brought the shield into position, bent her knees, and felt the impact travel through her arm into her stance. Her heels moved half a step through the ash before she held.
Derpy withdrew immediately and changed his angle.
Lewd tilted the shield to follow. Her sword stayed close instead of wandering outward with the correction.
Mia came in low as Derpy moved away.
Lewd’s first impulse was to drop the shield toward her ankle. She started the movement, then remembered what lowering it would give Derpy.
The sword moved instead.
She brought its point down to mark the space Mia was approaching, leaving enough distance that there was no chance of cutting her. Mia skidded short of the line, ears alert, then moved clear.
Lewd barely had time to register that it had worked before Sphinx sprang.
She saw him too late.
Her shield rose, but his weight caught the rim instead of its center. He rolled away from the contact as she twisted, leaving her trying to recover from a force that had already passed.
Her feet crossed.
“Uncross,” Derpy said.
She moved the wrong foot first, caught herself, and planted it again just as he approached.
Frostburn flashed against her guard.
Her arms shook with the impact, but the shield stayed between them.
Derpy stepped back and waited.
Lewd drew a breath. “That was ugly.”
“You recovered before I reached you.”
“Because you told me.”
“That is why we are practicing.”
She looked toward Sphinx. He was already returning to his place, unhurt and apparently willing to repeat the entire exercise as often as she required.
Lewd adjusted her stance.
“Again. The same order.”
Derpy nodded.
Lenora stayed beside the seam longer than she had intended.
She had come with questions that could not wait. Yet watching Lewd correct herself made interrupting feel different from breaking into another conversation in the sitting room.
The shield and sword were new. The work beneath them was familiar.
Lenora recognized the moment Lewd remembered to move her feet before reaching farther with her arms. She recognized the shortened breath before an expected impact, and the deliberate exhale that followed when Lewd noticed it herself.
Derpy watched those things too.
He changed his pace when she needed room, then closed that room again when she settled. Whatever he had ordered outside, the care he was taking here was visible.
Lenora would have found this easier if it had contradicted what she knew of him.
It did not.
Sinister remained near the boundary, looking toward the same scene.
“She is learning,” he said.
“I can see that.”
“Then perhaps the time was useful.”
Lenora kept her eyes on Derpy.
“That does not answer what paid for it.”
Sinister said nothing further.
On the next sequence, Lewd let Derpy’s strike slide along the shield instead of trying to stop all of it.
The difference surprised her. She still felt the weight, but it did not drive straight through her shoulder. She had enough balance left to step back when Mia darted in.
Mia followed the retreat for a short distance, then veered aside.
Lewd looked up in time to see Sphinx’s pounce.
She turned with him instead of planting herself beneath it, lifting the flat of the sword to guide his approach away from her shoulder. The contact remained light. He landed beside her, and she kept her feet apart as she faced Derpy again.
He was already moving.
This time, the shield bash was a choice she made before he arrived.
She stepped forward and caught his shoulder, turning him out of the line he had chosen. He yielded half a step, then stopped rather than pressing through the opening she had earned.
Lewd felt an apology rise automatically.
Blight saw it forming.
“Keep the guard. You have nothing to apologize for there.”
Lewd closed her mouth and held her position.
Derpy rolled his shoulder once. His smile was small enough that she did not feel he was making a celebration out of something she should already have managed.
“Better. Do you know why?”
“I was still standing properly when you came back.”
“Exactly.”
Celica watched them over folded arms.
“Now see whether you can keep it when the rhythm changes.”
Derpy glanced toward Lewd rather than answering for her.
She lifted the sword a little.
“Go ahead.”
The following sequence arrived faster. He gave her less time between the first strike and his change of angle. Mia approached before Lewd had finished recovering, while Sphinx stayed back a fraction longer than she expected.
She had learned the order too well.
Lewd turned early toward the high attack and caught sight of Sphinx still on the ground. Derpy’s next touch struck the edge of her shield while she was looking away.
She corrected without stopping, more annoyed than frightened now.
“I was waiting for him.”
“I noticed,” Derpy said.
She nearly laughed, though she had little breath to spare.
On the next pass, she watched the movement instead of counting the beats.
Her sword began to do more than emerge whenever she remembered it. She used its reach to mark an approach she did not want Mia to take, then brought it back before Derpy could exploit the gap. The colored haze along its edge thickened when she committed to the movement.
A line of green-gold bubbles shimmered where the blade passed.
They remained harmless markers, carrying no active poison. Derpy respected the space they indicated anyway. If he ignored every warning because this was practice, she would learn the wrong distance.
He angled away.
Lewd saw that she had made him choose another route.
Her next breath came more easily.
The shield remained heavy. Her arm still ached. But she was beginning to decide when to brace behind it and when to use its edge to move an attack aside.
Derpy lunged. She shifted instead of retreating straight back.
Mia followed the opening. Lewd turned enough to close it.
Sphinx sprang, and this time her shield was already where she needed it.
For several exchanges, no one had to tell her where to put her feet.
The heat reached Lenora before Celica looked toward her.
It gathered at her chest, the same concentrated warmth she had felt before falling asleep. She had almost forgotten Pyro’s presence while watching the spar. Now the air around her changed until Sinister turned away from Derpy and studied her directly.
“There it is,” he said.
Lenora did not ask what he meant.
Across the shore, Celica stopped moving.
Blight noticed a moment later. Her attention left Lewd’s blade and settled on the boundary with an intensity that made Lenora straighten.
The warmth spread beyond her, carrying the dry pressure of a fire that had not yet shown its flame.
Derpy checked his next strike before it landed.
Lewd held her shield up for a moment longer, then followed his gaze.
“What is it?” she asked.
Celica’s claws lowered.
“Brother.”
Blight said the name more sharply.
“Pyro.”
Space folded beside Lenora.
Celica appeared first, close enough that the change displaced ash against Lenora’s boots. Blight arrived beside her, watching the heat gathered around their visitor rather than the visitor herself.
Sinister moved just far enough aside to leave the three facing one another.
Lenora met Celica’s eyes.
She had seen her through the veil, heard accounts of her from people who depended on her, and now listened to a calamity book explain why six of them had decided the world could not afford her presence.
None of those accounts would speak for her here.
“Pyro tells me you were sealed away to keep the Sister-Series from activating,” Lenora said. “I would like to hear what you have to say about that.”
Behind Celica, Derpy lowered his weapon.
The lesson had stopped.