Dorian Wraith crouched by a dying fire and watched his own hands like they belonged to someone else. Four nights ago those hands had thrown fire across the bakery counter when two drunks cornered Callie against the flour sacks. He had only wanted them to stop. The bread ovens went up first, then the rafters, then the whole street shouting his name like a curse. Callie had pulled him out the back door before the village could decide what to do with him. They had run into the forest and kept running until their legs failed. Now she slept curled under his coat, and Dorian sat awake because every time he closed his eyes he saw the baker's wife screaming in a burning doorway. He did not know what he was. His mother had never said the word witch. He wanted to live, to protect this girl beside him, to see cities and and things his village only rumored — but first he needed to understand the thing in his hands before it killed someone he loved. A branch cracked. Dorian jerked upright and his palms lit before he told them to. A man stepped into the firelight with his hands raised, shirtless, ivy knotted at his belt, and wings behind him that caught the fire in yellow and blue and pink. "Put it out," the man said calmly. "You'll bring worse than me." Dorian closed his fists. The flame died. Callie sat up and reached for a stick. The stranger ignored the stick. He knelt at the edge of the light and looked at Dorian the way a farrier looks at a hoof. "You're a male witch," he said. "There aren't many. That's why no one told you." Dorian's throat tightened. "I burned a bakery." "You'll burn worse if no one teaches you." The man offered a hand. "My name is Beak. I have a house half a day from here. Food. A bed for the girl. Walls that won't catch." Callie looked at Dorian. Her cheek was scratched and her eyes were steady. Dorian thought of the village behind them and the men who would already be riding. He took the fairy's hand and stood. The choice was made before he finished the motion, and the forest around them felt, for the first time in four days, like somewhere he might be allowed to stay.

Beak's cabin sat in a clearing half a day's walk from where they had met. Sunflowers grew tall by the blue door, and soft yellow light curled around the logs like smoke that would not leave. Callie ate two bowls of stew and slept in a real bed for the first time in a week. Dorian stood outside at dawn with the fairy, palms up, and tried to do what he was told. Fire came easy. He shaped it into a ball, a ribbon, a low steady flame he could hold for a full minute without shaking. Beak nodded once and moved on. Water was next. Dorian could not do water. He could not do wind. He could not coax a single leaf to lift off the ground. Beak set a clay cup on a stump and asked him to fill it from the rain barrel without touching either. Dorian stared until his eyes stung. The cup cracked down the middle and steam hissed out of the barrel. Beak wiped his face and said try again. They tried for three days. Every spell that was not fire turned into fire. On the fourth morning Dorian burned a hole through the porch step and Callie jumped back with a small cry, and he saw the bakery again, the woman in the doorway, the smell. He waited until the cabin was dark. He wrote Callie a note that said Beak will keep you safe. He did not wake her. He took bread and a blanket and walked into the trees. Better to be alone in the woods than to burn another person he loved. He walked until his legs shook, then sat against a trunk and pressed his hands between his knees so they could not do anything. Something snapped in the brush. Dorian stood. A young man stepped into the moonlight with his hands open, blonde hair cut short, a fine blue tunic torn at one sleeve, a small pack on his back. "Don't run," the stranger said. "I'm not chasing you. I'm running too." He looked at Dorian a long moment. "Call me Evander”. Dorian kept his hands behind him. "From what?" "My father. He's a bad man with a lot of soldiers." Evander sat down slow, like he was tired of standing. "There are men on the road behind me. Two, maybe three. I can't lose them alone. You look like someone who knows the woods." Dorian did not know the woods. He knew fire, and fire was the wrong answer to almost everything. But the boy's eyes were steady, and Dorian felt something warm move under his ribs that was not magic it was attraction. He sat down across from him. "I'll help," he said. "I don't know if I'll be any good at it." Evander smiled. "Neither do I."

They walked until they found a pool of clear blue water ringed by mossy stones. Evander drank, splashed his face, and stretched out under a tree with his pack for a pillow. He was asleep in a minute. Dorian sat on a flat rock and watched him breathe. Then he pulled the pink and yellow book from his bag. Beak had pressed it into his hands the night before he left the cabin and said the pages would show him what he needed when he needed it. Dorian had not opened it yet. He was afraid of what a book like that would ask of him. The page fell open to a spell called Ball of Light. The instructions were short. Hold what you love in your mind. Push it out through your hand. Dorian tried his mother. Nothing. He tried Callie asleep in a warm bed. A weak spark, then smoke. He looked up at Evander under the tree, the torn blue sleeve, the slow rise of his chest, the shape of his mouth. Warmth moved under Dorian's ribs again. He held out his hand and a small white sphere bloomed in his palm, steady and cool, no smoke, no burn. He almost laughed. Love was the anchor. Not fear. Not anger. This. A branch cracked. Three men in dark leather stepped out of the trees with swords drawn. One pointed at Evander and said the name Dorian had not heard before, a real name, the wrong name for a man on the run. "Step aside, boy," the leader said. "He's coming with us." Dorian stood. His hand shook. He thought of fire and stopped himself. Fire would kill them and burn the woods and Evander with it. He closed his eyes and did what Beak had told him a hundred times. He pictured Evander safe. He pushed the feeling out through his open palms, not up, not in, but forward. Wind tore out of him. It hit the three men like a wall and threw them back through the brush. One struck a trunk and did not get up. The other two rolled and scrambled and ran. Evander was already sitting up, wide awake, hand on a knife Dorian had not known he carried. "That was you?" Dorian nodded. He could not speak yet. He grabbed Evander's wrist and pulled him to his feet. "More will come. We have to move." They ran. Dorian led them back the way he had come the night before, tree by tree, until the sunflowers by the blue door showed through the leaves. Beak stood on the porch with his arms crossed, and Callie's face appeared at the window. Dorian had sworn he would not come back. He had come back anyway, with a prince behind him and a new kind of magic in his hands.

Beak opened the blue door and waved them inside before Dorian could speak. The pink-haired fairy folded his colored wings tight against his back and shut the door behind them. Callie stood at the top of the stairs in a nightshirt, arms crossed. She looked at Dorian, then at Evander, then turned and walked into her room. The lock clicked. Dorian took a step after her and stopped. Beak put a hand on his shoulder. "Later," Beak said. "Let her be angry. She earned it." Dorian sat at the table and told Beak everything. The Ball of Light. The three men in the trees. The wind that came out of his hands when he pictured Evander safe. He kept his voice low because Evander was already asleep on the bench by the fire, one arm under his head. Beak listened without moving. When Dorian said the word love out loud, Beak grinned so wide it showed teeth. "I told you," Beak said. "Fear burns. Anger burns. Love holds." He tapped the table. "Keep him close. He is your anchor now. Do not send him away like you sent the girl." The year that followed was long and quiet. Beak trained Dorian every morning in the clearing behind the cabin. He drilled him on wind, water, earth, and the small green things that grew between stones. When Dorian faltered, Beak told him to look at the door of the cabin, where Evander often sat peeling apples in the sun. Dorian would look, and the spell would come. He learned to hold fire in one palm and cold water in the other. He learned to still a spell before it left his hand. The pink and yellow book Beak had given him filled its pages as he read, showing new spells only when he was ready. Evander stayed. He chopped wood. He made Callie laugh again by burning bread on purpose. One night by the fire he took Dorian's hand and did not let go. Dorian kissed him and the room did not catch fire, and that was how Dorian knew he had it, all of it, at last. They shared the small back room after that. Callie rolled her eyes but she smiled when she did it. Beak pretended not to notice and noticed everything. Still, something sat wrong. Evander flinched when riders passed on the far road. He would not say his father's name. Once Dorian woke in the night and found Evander at the window, staring out at the dark trees, hand tight on the sill. When Dorian asked what was wrong, Evander said nothing was wrong and came back to bed. Dorian lay awake after that. He had mastered his magic. He had a home. He had a boy who loved him back. And the boy was hiding something.

Dorian waited until morning to move. Evander had stood at the window again in the night, and Dorian had listened to him breathe wrong. At breakfast Dorian pushed his plate away and said they were going to the pool today, just the two of them. Beak looked up from his tea and said nothing. Callie kicked Dorian's shin under the table and grinned like she knew what he was up to. Evander said fine. He did not ask why. The healing pool sat in a bowl of gray stone a short walk from the cabin. Blue water held still under the sun. Waterfalls fed it from one side. Dorian had heard stories of mermen in the deep part but had never seen one. They changed into short swim trunks behind the rocks and slid in. The water was warm at the top and cold underneath. Evander went under and came up laughing, and for hours that was all they did. They swam. They floated on their backs. Dorian pulled Evander close in the shallow end and kissed him and did not let go for a long time. When the sun tipped west, Dorian climbed onto a flat rock and held his palms up. He thought of Evander safe and warm, and food came. Bread, cheese, cold apples, a jug of something sweet. Evander sat cross-legged across from him, dripping, and ate without talking. Dorian watched him and then said it plain. "I know you're hiding something. I've known a while. Tell me." Evander set the bread down. He looked at the water for a long moment. Then he said, "My father is King Ambrose. I'm the son he lost. The one his men are looking for." He kept his eyes on the pool. "He taxes people until they starve. He also hates witches. He’s the reason no other witch but you is in Starlandus. I ran. If he finds me he drags me back, and he’ll lock me away for loving you." He finally looked up. "That's what I've been hiding. That's why I flinch when riders pass. I'm sorry." Dorian felt the shock hit his chest and sit there. A witch-hating king. Soldiers already on the road. He put down the apple. He crossed the rock and pulled Evander against him. "I don't care whose son you are," Dorian said. "You're mine. He doesn't get you. I'll burn the road down before he gets near this cabin." Evander gripped the back of his neck and did not answer, but his shoulders dropped for the first time in a year. They walked back to the cabin in the last of the light. Dorian held Evander's hand the whole way. At the blue door between the sunflowers, Dorian stopped and squeezed once. "We tell Beak now," he said. "All of it." Evander nodded. Dorian pushed the door open and called Beak's name. Beak appeared wearing nothing but green shorts. He sat and listened to Evander’s story.

Beak listened to Evander finish the story and did not move for a long time. Then he stood, poured a cup of water, and set it in front of Evander without a word. Dorian watched Evander's hands shake around the cup. The cabin felt smaller than it had that morning. Dorian knew what he had to do next, and he knew it could not happen with Evander in the room. He put a hand on Evander's shoulder. "Go take a bath," he said. "Warm water. Take your time." Evander looked up, tired, and nodded. He set the cup down and walked to the back room. The door clicked shut. Dorian waited until he heard water running. Then he turned to Callie and Beak and kept his voice low. "I need to tell you the rest. All of it." He said the name King Ambrose. He said witch-hating. He said soldiers on the roads,how Ambrose wants Evander's loyalty or he’ll be punished, and the cell waiting for him if his father's men found him. He said he was asking them to help him keep Evander safe. He stopped and waited. Beak sat back and rubbed his jaw. His wings twitched once against the chair. "Ambrose burns people like you," Beak said. "If his men trace the boy here, they trace you. They trace her." He looked at Callie. "I have to say it plain. I'm afraid for us." Callie set her palms flat on the table. "He's one of us now," she said. "I don't turn on a friend because his father is a monster. We keep him here with us." Dorian crossed the room and pulled her into a hug before she finished the sentence. She patted his back twice and pushed him off, the way she always did. Beak watched them. Then he exhaled and stood. "Fine," he said. "We keep him. I'll ward the trees again tomorrow. Wider this time." Dorian went to him and hugged him too. Beak's wings brushed his arms, warm as sun. The water shut off in the back room. Dorian stepped away from Beak and wiped his face. "Thank you," he said. "Both of you." Callie shrugged. Beak did not answer. He was already looking at the window, counting the trees between the cabin and the road. Dorian felt the shape of the next problem settle in his chest. He had his people. Now he had to keep the soldiers from ever reaching the sunflowers by the blue door.

The next morning Beak led Dorian out past the sunflowers by the blue door. Dew soaked their boots. Beak stopped at the tree line and rolled his shoulders, and his bright wings caught the sun. "A barrier," he said. "Wider than my old wards. It has to know your people and lock out everyone else." He showed Dorian the shape of the spell with his hands. Draw the circle in your mind. Name the ones you let through. Push the rest out with love, not fear. Dorian listened. He thought of Evander asleep in the back room. He thought of Callie stirring the fire. He thought of Beak standing beside him now, patient as ever. Dorian closed his eyes and cast. The magic rose easy. He named Callie. He named Evander. He named Beak. Then he pushed. He felt the barrier stretch out through the trees, over the healing pool, past the far ridge, and close again behind the cabin in a clean ring. The air settled. A bird landed on the line and hopped through without noticing. Dorian opened his eyes. "It's done," he said. Beak walked to the nearest tree and pressed his palm against nothing. His hand stopped in the air, then passed through. He tried again with his eyes shut. Same result. He turned back to Dorian and smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. He looked tired. He looked sad. "What is it?" Dorian asked. "Did I do it wrong?" Beak shook his head. "You did it perfect." He looked down at the grass. His wings drooped a little. "I have to tell you something, and then I want you to forget I said it." Dorian waited. Beak lifted his eyes. "I love you," he said. "I have for a long time. Watching you love him breaks something in me every day. I thought I could sit with it. I can. But you asked, so there it is." Dorian's mouth opened and did not find a word. His chest went hot, then cold. He had thought of Beak as a teacher, a friend, family. He had never once thought of this. Beak lifted a hand before Dorian could speak. "Don't answer," he said. "I'm not asking you to change anything. The barrier holds. Evander is safe. That's what matters today." He turned toward the cabin and walked back through the sunflowers, wings low. Dorian stood alone in the wet grass. The ring of his own magic hummed around the land he loved, and inside it, everything had just shifted.

Dorian left the cabin before the others woke. He walked through the wet grass and into the trees. The barrier hummed at the edge of his skin as he passed under it, then settled behind him. He needed somewhere to sit and think. Beak's words followed him the whole way. I love you. I have for a long time. Dorian pressed his palm to his chest and kept walking until he reached the pool. He sat on a flat stone at the water's edge. The pool glowed pale blue in the morning light. He pulled off his boots and put his feet in. The water was warm. He tried to sort the mess in his head. Beak had trained him. Beak had fed him. Beak had helped him build the barrier that kept Evander alive. And Beak was hurting because of him. Dorian did not know how to hold all of it at once. The water rippled. A head broke the surface a few feet out. Short teal hair, a bright grin, a yellow tail flicking behind him under the water. The merman rested his arms on the stone beside Dorian's knee. "You look like a man carrying too much," he said. His name was Tidus. Dorian had seen him once before, from a distance. Dorian told him about Beak. About the confession. About not knowing what to do. Tidus listened without moving. Then he started to hum. The sound was low and sweet, and it slid inside Dorian's ribs before he noticed it. Tidus lifted himself higher on the stone. His eyes held Dorian's. The humming rose into words Dorian could not follow, but his body followed them fine. Dorian leaned in. Tidus met him. Their mouths touched. The second they kissed, Dorian saw Evander's face. Bright hair. Blue tunic. The small smile Evander made in the morning before he spoke. Dorian pulled back so fast he almost fell off the stone. Tidus was already sliding back into the water, palms up. "I'm sorry," he said. "I did that on purpose. You needed to know who to choose. Now you know." Dorian stared at him. His mouth still tingled. His chest felt clear for the first time in a day. "Thank you," he said. Tidus dipped his head and sank under. The pool closed over him. Dorian grabbed his boots and ran. He crossed under the barrier and did not slow until he saw the cabin through the sunflowers. Evander was the answer. Beak would have to hear it plain. Dorian did not know yet how he would say it, but he knew what was true, and that was more than he had at sunrise.

Dorian pushed through the sunflowers and up the steps of the little brown cabin. He shut the blue door behind him. Beak stood by the table, wings folded close, pink hair damp from the morning wash. Dorian pulled his robe off over his head and dropped it on the bench. His chest was bare. It was too warm to wear it. He wanted Beak to see him plain when he said it. "I need to tell you something," Dorian said. "And I need you to hear it once." Beak set down the cup in his hand. His green eyes did not move. Dorian took a breath. "You trained me. You fed me. You helped me build the wards that keep him alive. I owe you my life twice over." He stepped closer. "But my heart belongs to Evander. It has since the first time I saw him. It will not change. You’re a beloved friend but he is more. I wanted to say it to your face." Beak was quiet a long moment. His wings shifted once, yellow and blue and pink catching the light from the window. "I understand," he said. "I do. I only need to kiss you once. So I would stop wondering." Dorian opened his mouth to say no. Beak closed the space and kissed him before the word came out. It was brief. It was soft. Dorian's hands stayed at his sides. A sound at the door. Dorian turned. Evander stood on the threshold in his blue tunic, one hand still on the frame. His face went white, then red. He did not speak. He turned and ran. Dorian shoved past Beak and out into the sunflowers. "Evander, wait," he called. "Evander, please." Evander did not stop. He ran straight for the tree line, boots kicking up dirt. Dorian ran after him. His feet were still bare. "It wasn't what you think. He kissed me. I told him no." Evander kept running. Dorian pushed harder and closed some of the gap. The hum of the barrier rose ahead of them, a thin warm pressure on the skin. "Evander, stop. Don't cross the ward. Please. The soldiers—your father's men—they can't find you in here. Out there they can." Evander crossed under the barrier without slowing. The hum passed over him and settled. He kept going. Dorian stopped at the line, chest heaving. He could follow. He was named through. But the ward's whole use was Evander inside it, and Evander was already out. Dorian looked back once at the cabin. Beak stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, nodding to Dorian, encouraging him to go after his lover. Dorian faced the trees again. He stepped through the barrier and ran after the only person he had ever chosen, into the part of the forest where the king's men were allowed to walk.

Dorian ran into the trees with his bare feet slapping the dirt. He caught glimpses of the blue tunic between trunks, then lost them, then caught them again. "Evander, stop," he called. "Please. Just let me talk." Evander did not turn. He cut left through a stand of pines and vanished. Dorian pushed harder. Branches scraped his chest. He came out on a slope near the forest's edge and slowed, chest heaving. The blue was gone. He turned in a slow circle and heard only his own breath. Then a scream tore through the trees. It was short and sharp and it was Evander. Dorian ran toward it. He shoved through low brush and stopped behind a wide trunk. On the road below, six armored men held Evander by the arms. A tall man in a blue cloak stood in front of him. King Ambrose. The king lifted Evander's chin with one gloved hand and studied his face like a coin. "Let him go," Dorian said, stepping out. His voice shook. "He's not going with you." The king looked up. He did not seem surprised. "You must be the witch," he said. "My son ran from a palace to be with one of your kind. He'll be cured of that at home." His men laughed. Evander shook his head at Dorian, mouthing no. "Take your hands off him," Dorian said. The king smiled. "Or what, boy? You have no power over me. Or over my son! He’ll either renounce you or perish. No son of mine will be with a witch lover!" Something broke in Dorian's chest. Heat rushed up his arms without a word or a shape to hold it. He tried to pull it back and could not. The air around him folded once and then blew outward. A white flash. A hard crack. The soldiers left their feet. Dorian felt himself lift and slam down against a root. His ears rang. He rolled to his side. The armored men lay still in the dirt around him, some groaning, most not moving at all. He tried to stand and his arms would not hold him. Through the ringing he heard boots. He forced his head up. King Ambrose was on his feet, cloak singed, one hand clamped around Evander's arm. Evander was awake and reaching back toward Dorian. "Dorian," Evander said. "Get up. Get up." Dorian pushed at the ground. His body would not answer. The king dragged Evander toward a horse at the tree line and threw him across the saddle. He mounted behind him. Dorian's vision narrowed to a bright point. The last thing he saw was Evander's hand, open, still reaching. Then the point closed and there was nothing.

Dorian woke to a low ceiling and the smell of clean linen. His head throbbed. His chest felt tight, and when he looked down he saw white bandages wrapped around his ribs and a strip bound at his temple. He lay in a bed in the cabin. A hand pressed a cool cloth to his brow. He turned his head and saw Callie sitting beside him in her white and pink dress, her brown hair pulled back, a bowl of water in her lap. "Don't move," she said. "You tore something inside. I stitched what I could." He tried to sit up anyway. Pain cut across his ribs and he fell back against the pillow. Why am I undressed? Where is Evander," he said. His voice cracked. Callie set the bowl down. "The king took him," she said. "Your magic knocked the soldiers flat, but it knocked you flat too. The king got back on his horse. He rode out with Evander before I could reach you." Dorian shook his head. Tears started before he could stop them. "I have to go. I have to bring him back." He pushed at the blanket. Callie put a hand flat on his shoulder and held him down. She was stronger than she looked. "You can't stand," she said. "You cast something that should have killed you. If you get up now, it will." He grabbed her wrist, not to move her, only to hold on. "He's alone with that man." "I know." "He'll hurt him." "I know." She did not soften it. She let him hear it. Dorian's breath broke. Callie leaned in and pulled him against her shoulder, careful of the bandages. He cried into the cotton of her dress, quiet at first, then not. She held the back of his head with one hand. "Beak left at first light," she said. "He went to the palace road. He's going to find a way in. He said to tell you he would not come back without Evander." Dorian closed his eyes. He pictured Beak's wings against the dark trees, moving toward the man who wanted them all dead. "He shouldn't go alone," he said. "He knew you'd say that," Callie said. "He went anyway." She kept her hand on his head. "You heal. That's the job today. Tomorrow we decide the next one." Dorian nodded against her shoulder. He did not stop crying, but he stopped fighting the bed. Outside the blue door, the sunflowers moved in a small wind. Inside, he let himself be still, and let the people who loved him carry the weight for one more hour.

While Dorian slept in the cabin, Beak flew east alone. The wind pushed against his wings and he pushed back. By midday the black castle rose out of the plain, obsidian walls and steel gates, twin stone warriors flanking the door. Beak climbed higher, cleared the wall, and dropped into a courtyard on the far side. He landed behind a water barrel and spoke the shrinking word under his breath. His body pulled inward until he was the size of a fly. His wings shrank with him. He lifted off and slipped through a crack under a kitchen door. He spent hours listening. He rode the shoulder of a cook who complained about extra bread going down to the cells. He hid in the hem of a maid who whispered to another maid that the prince would not eat. He clung to a beam above two guards on a stair. One guard said the king had given the boy a choice and the boy had said no. The other said the king had put him in the deep cells for it, that the prince would not renounce the witch, that he'd rather rot than lie. Beak had what he needed. He flew down the stair, past torches, past a locked grate he slipped through sideways. The air grew cold. He heard breathing behind the last door on the left. Beak squeezed under the door and grew back to his full size in the dark. Prince Evander sat with his shirt off against the far wall, wrists chained, one eye swollen shut. He flinched at the pink hair and the wide wings, then knew him. "You," Evander said. Beak knelt at the bars from the inside and set his hand flat on the lock. "I kissed him," Beak said. "He told me no and I didn't listen. That is why you ran. That is why you are here. I am sorry." Evander did not answer. Beak pulled a thin iron pick from his ivy belt and worked the cell lock until it clicked. He opened the wrist chains next. Evander stood, unsteady, one hand braced on the wall. "Dorian?" he said. "Alive," Beak said. "Hurt. Waiting." Evander nodded once. Beak put a hand on Evander’s bare chest. In a flash of light Evander was healed. Above them, boots crossed a floor, then crossed it again, closer. A bell began to ring somewhere in the keep. The cell stood open behind them, and the stair up was the only way out.

Dorian slept unclothed under a thin blanket in the cabin loft. The dream took him fast. He saw a stone stair inside the black castle. He saw the winged fairy with pink hair carrying Evander up it. He saw guards flood the landing. He saw the king step forward with a long sword and drive it through the fairy's chest. He saw the pink wings fold. He saw Evander drop to his knees. Dorian gasped awake, sweat on his back, heart pounding. The room was empty. Callie was not in her cot. Dorian swung his legs down and grabbed the pink and yellow grimoire from the floor. He climbed out the loft window bare and dropped into the grass behind the sunflowers by the blue door. He opened the book on his knees and flipped past ward diagrams until he found the teleport page. The words were short. The cost was steep. He read them once, pressed his palm to the page, and thought of Evander's face on the road when the king took him. Yellow light burst around his hands and swallowed him. He landed hard in a village lane, knees in dirt, book against his chest. A woman screamed and covered her eyes. He stumbled up and ran to a laundry cart at the corner. He pulled a long gray robe off the pile and shoved his arms through it. The wool scratched. He tied the belt and kept the book under one arm. The black castle stood on the plain past the last house, its obsidian walls dull in the morning sun. He started walking, then running. Halfway across the field the gates opened. A cart rolled out first, then riders. Dorian dropped flat behind a low stone wall. He watched the king ride in the middle of the column on a black horse. Behind the horse, two soldiers dragged Evander by the arms. His blonde hair was matted. His blue tunic was gone and his bare chest was bruised. He was walking. He was alive. Dorian's chest cracked open with it. He looked for pink wings in the column. He looked at the cart. He looked at every saddle. There was no fairy. There was no body. There was nothing of the mentor who had trained him for a year. Then he looked in the gate and saw it. A bird cage with a shrunken Beak in it. Dorian pressed his forehead to the stone and breathed once. Then he lifted his head. The column was turning south, away from him, Evander walking in the middle of it. Dorian tightened the belt of the stolen robe and moved along the wall, keeping low, keeping the king's back in sight. He would not cast again until he was close enough to touch him. He had come to save two. He would not leave unless both Evander and Beak came with him .

Dorian tracked the column for an hour along the low walls and the ditch beside the south road. The king rode in the middle. Two soldiers dragged Evander behind the black horse. A rider at the rear carried the bird cage on his saddle, and inside it Beak clutched the bars, no bigger than a sparrow. Dorian did not know where the road went. He did not care. He would not let the king reach it. He crouched behind a stand of thin trees, opened the pink and yellow grimoire on his knee, and found the shadow page. He thought of Evander's bruised chest. He thought of Beak shrunk to nothing. His hands warmed. He pressed his palm to the page and pushed. Shadow poured out of the ditch in a black wave and rolled over the column. Horses screamed. Men shouted and clawed at their eyes. Dorian ran forward through the dark, grabbed the king's sleeve, and spoke the teleport word into his own chest. Yellow light cracked around them both. They landed in a field of dry grass, alone, the column and the shadow and the road gone. King Ambrose staggered, drew his sword, and turned on him. "You dare put a witch's hand on me." Dorian held the grimoire against his ribs. "Where are you taking him. Why do you hate us. Tell me." The king's face did not move. "Witches are a threat. That is all." "He is your son." "He chose you." The king stepped in and swung the sword at Dorian's neck. Dorian threw his free hand up and shoved. Wind slammed out of his palm and hit the king in the chest. The sword flew wide. King Ambrose went off his feet and landed on his back in the grass, breath knocked out of him, blade six paces away. Dorian walked to the sword and kicked it further. He stood over the king with the grimoire under his arm and his hand still open. The king wheezed and glared up at him and said nothing. Dorian had him. The column was somewhere on a road he could not see, moving without its king, and Evander was still walking in the middle of it with Beak in a cage on a stranger's saddle. Dorian had traded the man for the miles. He had won the fight and lost the trail. “Tell me where you’re taking him!” Yelled Dorian. “To the fountain of Lethe. To make him drink its enchanted waters so he’ll forget you ever existed.” Said the king with an evil smile.

Dorian looked down at the king in the grass and felt his hands shake. This was the man who would burn his own son's mind out to spite a witch. There was no time to make him pay. Every second, soldiers were dragging Evander closer to the water. Dorian curled his fingers and pushed. Wind ripped out of his palm and threw King Ambrose sideways into the trunk of a low oak. The king slumped at its base, breathing but still. Dorian opened the pink and yellow grimoire, pressed his hand to the teleport page, and thought of Evander's face. Yellow light cracked around him. He landed on wet stone at the edge of a wide basin. Water poured from a carved arch into a round pool ringed with old runes. Four soldiers stood at the rim. Two held Evander by the arms. A third had a cup in the water. Evander saw Dorian and his face broke open. "Dorian." The soldier with the cup turned. Dorian did not wait. He threw his hand out and lightning tore from his fingers in a white line. It caught the man in the chest and dropped him. The cup rang on the stones. The other three drew swords and came at him. Dorian struck again. Lightning arced from his palm and knocked one back into the basin wall. The second soldier reached him before he could turn. A gauntleted fist hit the side of his head. Dorian's vision went white. His feet left the stone. He fell backward into the pool. The water closed over his face. It was cold and slow and full of a soft ringing sound. His name went first. Then Evander's. Then everything else. He opened his eyes under the water and saw only pale blue light and did not know why he was there. Above him, Evander drove his elbow into the last soldier's throat and tore free. He ran to the small cage tied at the fallen rider's belt and snapped the door open with both hands. A fairy the size of a sparrow tumbled out, then swelled in a breath of pink and blue light into a full-grown man with wide wings and green leather at his waist. "The fountain," Evander said. Together they hauled Dorian out by the arms. Water poured off him. His head lolled. The fairy pressed a hand to his chest and Dorian coughed, sat up, and stared at them both. "Easy," Evander said. He reached for Dorian's face. Dorian jerked back on the stones. His blue eyes moved from the blond man to the winged one and found nothing to hold onto. "Who are you." His voice was flat. "Who am I." Evander's hand stopped in the air between them. The fairy's wings sank. Water dripped from Dorian's hair onto the runes. The king was miles away in the grass. The soldiers were down. Evander was free. And Dorian did not know his name.

The winged man carried Dorian through the trees while the blond one ran beside them. Dorian did not fight. He did not know how. His head lolled against a bare shoulder streaked with pink hair and green leather at the hip. Wings the color of sunrise beat above him. The blond man kept looking over, jaw tight, saying nothing. After a long time the trees opened onto a small brown cabin with a blue door and sunflowers on either side. Soft yellow light curled around its walls like smoke that would not blow away. Inside, they laid Dorian on a cot by the hearth. The winged man peeled the wet clothes off him with quick, careful hands. The blond man brought wool—thick socks, a gray tunic, loose trousers—and dressed him while he shivered. Dorian watched their faces and found no names for them. When he was warm, the winged man knelt and pressed both palms to Dorian's chest. Pink light spread under his ribs and settled there like a knot pulled tight. "I've bound your magic," the winged man said. "Until we get your memories back, it stays locked. It's for your safety." Dorian nodded because nodding seemed to be what they wanted. The winged man drew the blond one to the far corner. Dorian heard every word anyway. "The fountain took him clean. Nothing burns it out on its own. But memory lives in more than one head. If three people who love him each walk into his mind and give him back a true thing between them, the water breaks." The blond man's shoulders dropped. "Three." "You. Me. And Callie. One at a time. If any of us fails, he stays like this." A pause. "I'll go first." The blond man looked at Dorian on the cot, then back. He nodded. "Go." The winged man came and sat on the floor by Dorian's head. He set two fingers on Dorian's brow. "This won't hurt," he said. "Close your eyes." Dorian closed them. The knot in his chest loosened just enough to let something in. He felt a warm weight press behind his eyes, then a slow pull, like being lowered into still water that did not steal anything this time. Behind him, in the waking room, the blond man sat down on the floor to wait his turn. He prayed that beak succeeded and that he and Callie would as well when it was their turn.

The pull behind Dorian's eyes ended in nothing. He stood in a gray field with no ground under his boots and no sky above him. Mist hung at every side. He turned once and saw the winged man standing a few steps away, pink hair bright against the gray, wings folded low. The fairy raised one hand and the gray began to shape itself. Log walls rose. A blue door set itself into the wood. Two sunflowers pushed up from a floor that had not existed a moment before. A hearth built itself stone by stone and lit. Dorian stood inside a small brown cabin now, warm, and did not know why the sight of it made his throat tight. "Come here," the fairy said. Dorian walked to him. The fairy's green eyes searched his face and found no recognition there. "You came to me a year ago," he said. "You couldn't hold a flame without burning the table. I taught you wind. I taught you light. Somewhere in there I stopped being your teacher and started being your friend." Dorian shook his head. The words landed on him but slid off. "I don't know you," he said. The fairy's jaw tightened. He lifted his hand again. "Then watch." The cabin around them shifted. A second Dorian sat on the floor by the hearth with his hands over his face. A bakery had burned. People had run. He was saying he was a monster, that he should leave before he killed someone he cared about. The fairy from the memory knelt in front of him and pulled his hands down. "You are not a monster," that other fairy said. "A monster wouldn't be sitting here hating what he did. You're a man learning a hard thing." The Dorian on the floor cried without sound. Then he looked up and said, "Thank you, friend." It was the first time he had used the word. Dorian felt it hit. Not as a picture returned to him but as a weight settling back into a place shaped to hold it. He remembered the smell of the hearth. He remembered the fairy's hands on his wrists. He remembered saying friend and meaning it. He turned to the winged man beside him and the gray at the edges of the cabin began to thin. "Beak," Dorian said. The name came out on its own. Beak's shoulders dropped an inch. His eyes went wet and he did not wipe them. "There you are," he said. "Part of you." He stepped back. The cabin around them held. "I have to go now. Evander comes next, then Callie, who has known you the longest. Don't lose what you just found." Dorian nodded. He held the memory in both hands like something breakable, and the mist began to lift.

Beak opened his eyes and stepped back from the cot. He looked tired in a way his small body could barely hold. He motioned the blond man forward. "Your turn. Touch his forehead. I'll open the door." Evander knelt by the cot and pressed two fingers to Dorian's brow. Beak set his own hand over Evander's and spoke a short word. Evander's shoulders jerked once, and then his eyes went still and far away. Inside, Dorian stood in the same gray field. A blond man he did not know walked out of the mist toward him. "Who are you," Dorian said. It came out flat. The man stopped a careful distance away. "Evan. Evander. I don't have long, so I'll show you instead of tell you." He raised his hand the way Beak had, and the gray broke into blue. A wide pool spread between them, ringed by pale stone, steam curling off the surface. Two figures swam in it, both stripped down to speedos. Dorian watched himself surface, laughing, and pull the blond man against his chest. He watched them talk in the shallows about a father, about running, about staying. Then the memory-Dorian's hand hit the water wrong and the whole pool locked into ice around them, sudden and white. The memory-Evander did not flinch. He put his palm flat over the memory-Dorian's palm on the ice and said, "Slow. You know how to melt it. You taught yourself yesterday." The ice went soft. The water moved again. They stood chest to chest in the thaw, and the memory-Dorian said, "I love you," like he had been holding the words in his mouth for weeks. The blond man beside Dorian did not look at the memory. He looked at Dorian. "That was the first time you said it. I've kept it. In case you ever needed it back." Dorian felt the weight settle, heavier than Beak's had. The pool. The cold. The word love shaped in his own throat. He turned to the man beside him and the name arrived whole. "Evander." Evander's face broke. He caught Dorian's wrist hard, as if to make sure the grip was real. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me." The gray at the edges thinned to nothing. Dorian opened his eyes in the cabin. Evander was still holding his wrist. Beak sat slumped against the wall, watching, saying nothing. "I remember you," Dorian said. His voice cracked on it. "Not all of it. Enough." Evander pressed his forehead to Dorian's and did not answer. Beak wiped his face with the back of his hand and stood. "Callie next," he said. "Then we have all of him."

Evander stepped back from the cot and wiped his mouth. Callie came forward without being asked. She wore the same white and pink dress she had run in, mud on the hem. Beak lifted his small hand to her wrist and set it on Dorian's forehead. "Last one," Beak said. "I hold the door. You show him what you know." Callie nodded once. Her fingers were cold on Dorian's brow. Beak spoke the short word again, and her eyes went far. Dorian stood in the gray field and watched Callie walk out of the mist. She looked younger for a second, then herself. "It's me," she said. "I'm going to show you our street. The bakery. Before any of this." She raised her hand the way the others had. The gray thinned. A shape of a shopfront started to form, warm light in a window, the smell of bread almost there. Then it shook. The window blurred. Callie's face tightened. "Something's wrong outside," she said. "Hold on to me. Don't let go." Outside the cottage, hooves hit the clearing. The barrier Dorian had cast was gone with his magic bound. King Ambrose kicked the blue door open and his men poured in behind him with drawn steel. Beak did not turn. His hand stayed on Callie's wrist, his other hand on Dorian's temple, wings flat against the wall. "Evander," Beak said. "Your father. Deal with him. I keep the line open." Evander stood up between the cot and the door and drew the blade Beak had left him. "Get out of my house," he said to the king. Steel met steel. A soldier lunged at the cot. Beak threw one hand out and a burst of yellow light knocked the man into the wall, then Beak's hand was back on Callie before Dorian's mind could slip. Callie's jaw was locked. The bakery window kept breaking apart in the gray. "I can't hold the picture," she said. "But I'm still here. I'm still here, Dorian. Don't lose me." Dorian gripped her wrist inside the vision and held. He tried to remember but couldn’t. Callie hadn’t shown him an actual memory yet. The gray began to close as Callie called to Dorian begging him to stay. In the cabin, Evander drove the king back a step and shouted for Beak not to break contact. Beak's hands were shaking. "Hurry, Callie," beak said. "Please. Both of you. Hurry." Callie focused and the mental landscape changed to a house. Dorian’s childhood home. She was going to try again.

Callie set her jaw and pushed. The gray peeled back and the house rose around them. Dorian knew the shape of it before he knew the name. A low roof. Violet flowers under the windows. A blue front door with a chip near the handle. Callie stood beside him in her muddy pink dress and pointed. "Watch," she said. "This is us." Two children ran across the yard. A boy with black hair and a girl with brown hair and skinned knees. The boy was small and thin and kept looking back at the door of the cottage. The girl grabbed his hand and pulled him behind the woodpile. "They don't see you here," the girl said in the memory. "Stay with me." Dorian felt the hand in his own, older now, tighter. He remembered the smell of the wood. He remembered being afraid of the door. The scene shifted the way Callie made it shift. His mother stood in the kitchen with a wooden spoon and a jar of dried leaves. She crushed the leaves into a bowl of stew. Elara's face was calm. "He will not have it," she said to no one. "Not in my house." The boy at the table ate what she gave him. His hands shook and he did not know why. Callie squeezed Dorian's fingers. "She kept it down for years," Callie said. "She hated you for what you were. That was her, not you." The scene moved again. Elara slapped dorian for a reason he didn’t know. He didn’t know he had lit candles with his mind. Elara gave him more herbs to suppress his magic. Then the scene changed one final time. The boy stood in a field with fire on his palms and tears on his face. Callie ran to him through the grass. "You're not a monster," the girl said. "You're my friend. Put it down. Look at me." The boy looked at her. The fire went out. In the vision Dorian watched his own child face decide to trust her, and something in his chest that had been lost locked back into place. "Callie," he said. His voice came out steady. "I remember you." She let out a breath that broke halfway. The gray came back fast around the edges, but she did not fight it now. "I have to go," she said. "Wake up. They need you out there."

Dorian's body stayed still on the cot inside the cottage. His mind was still coming back from the field of grass and the small girl with skinned knees. He could hear the fight through the walls, but he could not answer it yet. Callie's voice pulled at him from the edge of the vision. Wake up. They need you out there. He tried to move his hand and could not. By the blue front door, Evander kicked a guard in the chest and sent him back into the yard. Two more pushed in behind their shields. Evander swung his blade hard against the top rim of the nearest shield. The steel skidded off. He struck again. Nothing. The guards pressed forward, boots grinding on the boards, driving him back toward the cot where Dorian lay. The fairy stepped between Evander and the door. He spread one hand over the sword and spoke three short words. Light climbed the blade in bands of red and orange and yellow and green and blue and violet and a color Evander had no name for. Evander felt the hilt go warm in his grip. He turned the point at the men in the doorway and the blade fired a wave of light that lifted them off their feet and threw them into the yard. He followed. He brought the blade down on the first shield and the wood split open like dry bread. He cut through the next man's breastplate in one stroke. Armor pieces fell in the dirt. "You will not touch him," Evander said. "He is the man I love. You do not get to touch him." A guard at the edge of the fight reached into a pouch at his belt. He pulled out a fistful of gray powder and threw it in a low arc. It struck the rainbow blade and clung. The colors dulled. The light went out. Evander swung and the sword felt like plain iron again. The guard stepped in under the swing and drove the butt of a spear into Evander's ribs. Evander went down on one knee, then flat on his side in the grass. The sword slid out of his hand. Dorian opened his eyes. He sat up on the cot in one motion. He saw the open door, the broken shields in the yard, the fairy pressed against the frame with blood on his mouth, and Evander on the ground with a boot on his shoulder. Dorian's bound magic pushed against the seal inside him like a held breath. He swung his legs off the cot and stood. His hands were empty. The guard raised the spear over Evander's chest. Dorian took one step toward the door.

Dorian crossed the room in three strides. Beak leaned against the doorframe with blood on his mouth and one wing hanging low. Dorian caught him by the shoulder before he slid to the boards. "Are you still with me?," Dorian asked. Beak looked up, saw his face, and smiled. He lifted a hand and touched Dorian's cheek. A small flash of yellow light passed between them. Dorian felt the seal inside him break open like ice under a boot. His magic came back into his chest in one long pull. He stepped past Beak into the yard. The guard still had his boot on Evander's shoulder and the spear raised. Dorian threw out his hand. A white line of lightning cut from his palm and struck the guard in the chest. The man flew back across the grass and did not get up. "No one touches him," Dorian said. He walked to Evander and helped him sit up. "He is the man I love. Anyone who forgets that goes down." Evander held onto his arm and did not let go. More soldiers came around the side of the cottage with shields up. Dorian counted eight, then more behind them at the tree line. He looked over his shoulder. Beak had pushed off the doorframe and stepped out into the sun, pink hair bright, wings opening wide in bands of yellow and blue and pink. "Together," Beak said. Dorian nodded. He raised both hands and pulled wind up from the ground. Beak raised his hands with him and fed green light into the current. The two magics twisted around each other and climbed. A tornado opened above the yard and dropped into the line of soldiers. It lifted them off their feet, shields, spears, and all, and carried them out over the trees. The funnel thinned. It broke apart. The yard went quiet except for the sunflowers by the blue door shaking on their stalks. Dorian dropped his hands. His knees held. He turned to Evander, who was already on his feet. Dorian took his face in both hands and kissed him. Evander kissed him back and pulled him close by the open front of his robe. They stayed that way while Beak sat down on the cottage step and let his wings rest. "I remember you," Dorian said against Evander’s mouth. "Everything. Thanks to you, beak and Callie." Evander laughed once, rough. "I couldn’t let you go," he said. "My father is still out there. He knows where we are now." Dorian looked past him at the empty tree line and knew the man was right.

Dorian carried Beak inside and laid him on the cot by the window. Callie came in with a bowl of water and a clean cloth. She looked at the fairy's torn wing and got to work without asking questions. Dorian knelt down. "Tend to him," he said. "I have to end this before more come." Callie nodded once and pressed the cloth to Beak's mouth. Dorian stood and turned to Evander, who waited in the doorway with the dulled blade in his hand. "We go now," Dorian said. "To your father. Together." Evander did not argue. Dorian took Evander's wrist and teleported them both. In a flash of yellow light they appeared in front of the black castle, on the flagstones between two tall obsidian statues. The iron door stood open. A line of guards spilled out of it with spears down. More came from around the walls until the yard was full of them. Dorian counted twenty, then stopped counting. Evander lifted his blade. The rainbow light in it was gone, choked out by the gray powder from the fight at the cottage. "Hold still," Dorian said. He put his palm flat against the flat of the sword. He thought of Evander's mouth against his. Seven colors rolled back up the steel from hilt to point. Evander looked at him. "Thank you," he said. The first line of guards ran at them. Evander swung the bright blade in a low arc and cut through three shields at once. Light burst off the edge and knocked two more men back into the wall. Dorian raised both hands and pulled shadow up out of the flagstones. He shaped it into long, coiling forms with wings and teeth. Three dragon spirits climbed into the air above the yard, black and shining. He sent them down. They tore through the ranks, snapping guards off their feet and pinning them to the ground. Evander moved through the gaps the spirits opened. Every stroke of the rainbow blade left a wide, clean line of men behind him. It did not take long. The last guard dropped his spear and ran. Dorian let the dragon spirits thin out and fade into the stones. His hands shook. Evander was breathing hard beside him, blood on one sleeve that was not his own. The yard was quiet. Sun hit the black walls and made them shine like wet glass. The iron door swung wider. King Ambrose stepped out alone, in silver armor, no sword drawn. He looked over the field of his fallen men without changing his face. "You came," he said. "Good." Dorian raised a hand, ready. Ambrose lifted one finger. "Wait. Before you burn me down." He tilted his head toward the dark hall behind him. "There is someone inside you are going to want to see." Evander went still. Dorian lowered his hand. They followed the king in.

Dorian stopped at the threshold and turned to Evander. "Stay here," he said. "If this is a trap, I need you clear of it." Evander opened his mouth to argue. Dorian pressed the flat of his hand to Evander's chest. "Please. Watch the yard." Evander stepped back into the sun. Dorian followed the king into the dark hall alone. The corridor was lined with tall stone men. Each statue stood bare chested their pecs and and carved in great detail, arms thick, faces blank. Their shadows fell across Dorian as he walked. King Ambrose said nothing. He led Dorian through a second iron door into a wide room with a high seat at the far end. A woman stood beside the seat. She wore a white dress with a lavender sash. Her black hair fell past her waist. Her eyes were the same color as the sash. Dorian stopped walking. "Mother," he said. His voice came out thin. "What are you doing here?" Elara did not answer at first. She reached into a fold of her dress and drew out a curved black knife. She held it flat across her palm so he could see it. "I am taking your magic," she said. "I always wanted to be a witch. You were born with what should have been mine. Now I will have it." Dorian shook his head. "Put that down. Please. It's me." He took a step toward her. King Ambrose moved fast for a man in armor. He caught Dorian from behind, one arm across the chest, the other locking his wrist down. Dorian tried to pull shadow up through the floor. Nothing came. His hand was pinned flat and his focus was gone. "Mother, don't. Don't do this." Elara looked at him without moving her face. Then she laughed, one short sound. Ambrose laughed too, low against Dorian's ear. Elara stepped down from the seat and walked toward him with the knife. Dorian threw his weight against the king's hold and it did not give. He thought of Evander in the sun outside. Heat rolled up his arm. A thin line of fire ran from his shoulder to his wrist and burned across the king's gauntlet. Ambrose swore and let go. Dorian dropped to one knee. He raised his free hand toward his mother. He could not make himself close it. She was already on him. The blade came down and drew a shallow cut across the back of his hand. Cold went up his arm to his shoulder and into his chest. His fire went out. His fingers would not move. Elara looked at the knife. A thread of blue light crawled up the black edge and sank into the metal. "There," she said. She stepped back. "Some of it. The rest will take time." Ambrose hauled Dorian up by the collar and dragged him toward a low door in the wall. “You had your chance to steal his magic woman. You failed. Now it’s my turn to hurt him.Dorian tried to call Evander's name. His voice would not come.

Ambrose had one hand on the low door when the light hit him. A beam of rainbow color punched through the hall and struck the king square in the back. He grunted and pitched forward. His grip on Dorian's collar slipped. Dorian dropped to the floor and rolled onto his side. He turned his head toward the doorway. Evander stood there with the rainbow blade raised, his chest heaving. Behind him the yard was bright and empty. "Get away from him," Evander said. He walked in fast, blade low. "This ends now. Today. Here." Ambrose pushed off the wall and drew his own sword. It was plain steel, long and gray. Elara backed toward the high seat with the black knife pressed to her chest. Evander did not look at her. He swung the rainbow blade at the row of bare chested stone men along the wall. Colored light cut through the first statue at the waist. It fell into the second. The second fell into the third. Ambrose ducked under the falling stone and came up swinging. The two swords met and rang. Ambrose was heavier and drove Evander back three steps. Evander held. He turned the king's blade aside and cut across his father's shoulder plate. Sparks flew. Ambrose swung for the neck. Evander dropped low and the blade passed over his hair. He came up inside the king's guard and drove his shoulder into Ambrose's chest. The king staggered. Dorian tried to push himself up on his cut hand. His arm shook. He watched from the floor. Ambrose came again. He hammered down on Evander's guard once, twice, three times. Evander's arms shook under it. On the fourth strike Evander stepped aside instead of blocking. The king's sword hit stone. Evander brought the rainbow blade up under his father's arm and through the gap in the plate. Ambrose stopped. He looked down at the light coming out of his side. He tried to lift his sword. His fingers opened. The blade clanged on the floor. He went down on one knee and then onto his face. Elara made a small sound and ran through a side door. Evander did not chase her. He crossed the room and dropped to his knees beside Dorian. He put the blade down. "Show me your hand," he said. Dorian lifted it. The cut was thin and cold. Evander pressed his palm over it. "You're alright. You're alright." Dorian tried his fire again. A weak flame lit at his fingertip and died. Some of it was still gone. Most of it was still his. He closed his hand around Evander's. "He's dead," he said. Evander nodded once. "He's dead. Let's go find your mother."

Dorian stood up on his own. His cut hand throbbed where Evander had pressed it, but his legs held. Ambrose lay dead and face down by the low door. Elara was gone through the side passage. Dorian picked up his own weight and looked at Evander. "She went that way," he said. Evander lifted the rainbow blade. The colored light washed the dark walls and made their shadows jump. They stepped through the side door together. The halls of the black keep ran long and cold. Evander held the blade out ahead like a torch. Rainbow light slid over obsidian and steel. They passed empty rooms with overturned chairs. They passed a kitchen where a pot still steamed on the hearth. Dorian tried a small flame in his palm as they walked. It came, thin but steady. Most of his magic was still his. He kept the flame low and moved on. "Grand hall," Evander said. "It’s the only place we haven’t looked." They found the grand hall at the end of a wide corridor. Tall stone male statues, unadorned, lined both walls. The ceiling ran up into dark. Dorian took three steps in and his mother came out from behind the nearest statue with the black knife raised. She drove it at his chest. Evander swung. The rainbow blade cracked across her wrist and the knife spun away across the floor. Elara screamed. She threw both hands at Dorian's face and grabbed his jaw. Cold ran into his skin. He felt his fire pulling toward her palms like water down a drain. He caught her wrists. He held them. "No," he said. He pushed heat back through his arms into her hands. She let go and stumbled back. Dorian bent, picked up the black knife by its handle, and stood between her and the door. She looked at him with her lavender eyes wide. "Why?" he said. "Why did you let it turn you into this. I was a child." Elara wiped her mouth. "You were a thief the day you were born," she said. "You took what should have been mine. Look at you. A weakling in a robe. You cannot even hold what you stole." "I held it just now," Dorian said. Her face changed. She lunged for the knife in his hand. Dorian stepped aside and Evander caught her from behind, one arm across her shoulders, the blade held wide so its light did not touch her. She thrashed once and stopped. Dorian looked at the knife. He set it flat on the stone floor and brought his boot down. The black blade snapped in two. The cold in his hand eased. He looked up at his mother in Evander's grip. "I'm not killing you," he said. "You are my mother. However I won’t forgive you. I banish you from this land." Elara said nothing. For the first time in his life, she had nothing to say. He cast a spell and Elara vanished from the realm.

Dorian and Evander left the black keep behind and walked the road until the trees closed around them. Dorian took Evander's hand and teleported them in a flash of yellow light. They appeared at the edge of the clearing where the brown cabin stood with its blue door and its sunflowers tall on either side. The yellow swirls of the ward still moved along its walls. The door opened before they reached the step. Beak came out. His wings spread wide, yellow and blue and pink, whole again, no tear, no burn. He crossed the grass and pulled them both into his arms at once. Dorian felt the pink hair against his cheek and the green leather of Beak's belt press to his hip. No one spoke for a long moment. Callie came down the steps behind Beak and put a hand on Dorian's back. "He's dead?" she said. "He's dead," Evander said. "And my mother is gone," Dorian said. "Banished." Beak stepped back and looked at them. His green eyes were wet. "Then it's over," he said. He lifted his hands and closed his eyes. A low sound moved out from him through the trees. Dorian felt it in his ribs. Within minutes the clearing filled. A merman crawled from the healing pool at the tree line. Small winged folk drifted down from the branches. Deer with silver antlers stepped out of the ferns. They came because Beak called, and because the king who hunted them was dead. Evander looked at Dorian and did not let go of his hand. "Marry me," he said. "Today. Here." Dorian laughed once, surprised, and said yes before he thought about it. Callie clapped a hand over her mouth. Beak's face moved through many things and settled on a smile that was small and real. "I'll do it," he said. "If you'll let me." "I want you to," Dorian said. Callie ran into the cabin and came back with what she had. She brought two silver rings. She found white leather in a trunk and pressed it into Dorian's hands. They changed at the tree line. Dorian came back barefoot in white leather pants and a fitted white shirt. Evander wore the same. Beak wrapped a green cord around their joined hands and spoke the old words plainly. He tied one knot, then another, then a third. "By your will," he said, "and mine, and theirs." He nodded at the gathered creatures. "You are bound." Dorian kissed Evander, and the clearing went up in sound. The fairies threw petals. Callie cried and laughed at once. Beak stepped back and let them have the moment. Dorian held his husband's hand tight and did not hide any of it. The war was done. The rest of his life had just begun.