Thorn pressed his palm against the academy gate and felt the magic in him surge, then die. Fire wanted to leap from his fingers. It always did. But it had no path out, and it burned back into his chest like swallowed smoke. He coughed. He wiped soot from his lips. Somewhere behind those soaring towers, the archmages of Broken Atlas trained the gifted. Thorn wanted to stand among them. He wanted it more than food, and lately he had gone without plenty of that. The problem was simple and cruel. Thorn owned nothing that could channel his power. Real students carried wands, rings, carved staves. Thorn carried a threadbare coat and holes in his boots. His talent was strong, everyone who touched his hand said so, but strong talent with no tool was just pain. The magic had nowhere to go. It stayed trapped, clawing at his ribs. His dragon nudged his ankle. The little creature was no bigger than a cat, its scales dark blue and scattered with points of light like a night sky. Thorn had found the hatchling half-frozen a month ago and shared his last bread with it. Now it followed him everywhere. It chirped and tugged his sleeve toward a flower cart near the wall. "We can't eat flowers," Thorn said. But the hatchling pulled harder. On the cart sat a bundle of peach blossoms, their petals threaded with fine gold veins that caught the light. Thorn reached out to move them aside. The moment his fingers brushed a golden vein, the trapped fire in his chest rushed forward. It poured down his arm and into the blossoms. The petals glowed. They did not burn. The gold veins drank his magic and held it, steady and bright, like a lamp finally given oil. Thorn gasped. The pain in his ribs was gone. For the first time in his life, his power flowed clean and calm. He curled his fingers, and a thread of flame danced above the blossoms, obeying him. The cart owner turned and saw the light. Her eyes went wide. "Thief," she said. "Those are worth more than you'll earn in a year." Thorn should have set them down. Instead he closed both hands around the stems. The blossoms were the only thing that had ever let his magic breathe. He could not give them back. He backed away, then he ran. His boots slapped the stones. The hatchling flew beside him, chirping. Behind him the woman shouted for the wardens. Thorn clutched the glowing blossoms to his chest and felt his power answer them with every step. He had found his channel at last. He had also made himself a hunted thief outside the gates of the very school he needed to enter.

By dawn the stolen blossoms had begun to fade. Thorn crouched in an alley behind the academy wall and studied the petals. Yesterday they glowed when he touched them. Now the gold veins looked dull, and one flower drooped on its stem. He pressed a finger to a vein and pushed his magic through. The petal flickered, then dimmed. His chest tightened again, the old pain crawling back. If the blossoms died, so did the only calm he had ever known. He needed water and someone who understood living things. He had neither. His hatchling nudged a puddle by the wall, but the water there was gray with soot. Thorn dipped the stems anyway. Nothing changed. The drooping flower shed a petal onto the stones. He had days, maybe less. A shadow fell across the alley. A girl stepped in, and the dim space brightened. Her hair hung down her back and shone like poured sunlight, so bright Thorn shielded his eyes. Armor plated her shoulders in white and gold. She looked at the blossoms in his hands, not at him. "Those are dying," she said. "You cut them wrong. The stems are crushed." Thorn pulled the flowers to his chest. "They're mine." "They're stolen." She said it flat, no anger. "I'm Solara. I came for something taken from my people. I know the look of a thief guarding his prize." She crouched to his level. "But I also know those flowers. Crushed stems can't drink. They'll rot from the bottom." His stomach dropped. "Can you fix them?" "Not fix. Save one, maybe." She drew a small knife. "Trim the stem clean, sink it in clear water, keep it cold. That's all. But you have to choose which to save. The rest are gone." Thorn looked at the bundle. Five blossoms. He had run through the streets clutching all of them, thinking he owned a treasure. Now his treasure was rotting in his fists. He spread the flowers on his coat. Four sagged, brown creeping up their stems. One stood straight, its veins still faintly bright. He cut the good one free and handed the rest to Solara. She set them aside without a word. Then she showed him the clean angle of the cut and where to hold the blade. His hands shook. Hers were steady. He sank the single stem into her waterskin, and the vein brightened a shade. "One flower," Thorn said. "How long will one last?" "Weeks, if you tend it. Not forever." She stood. "Nothing channels magic forever. You'll need to grow more, or find the tree they came from." Thorn stared at the lone blossom in the water. He had traded a whole bundle for a single bloom and a warning. The pain in his chest eased as the vein glowed. But now the clock was clear. One flower stood between him and losing his magic again.

Three days later, the single blossom still glowed in its water. But Thorn knew it would not last. One flower could not make him strong enough to earn a place among the archmages who guarded this broken world. He needed the tree. Only Solara knew where it stood. So he waited for her outside the crystal garden, where faceted walls threw colored light across the path. Solara found him there. She stopped when she saw him. Her golden hair lit the crystal walls brighter. She had taught him to save the flower, but her eyes still said thief. "You followed me," she said. "I need the tree," Thorn said. "One flower runs out. You know where it grows." "I know." She crossed her arms. "And you stole from a cart owner. Why would I lead a thief to something that matters?" Thorn had no clever answer. So he pulled the blossom from his coat and held it out. "Then take it back. If you don't trust me, take my only one. I'll manage." Her eyes moved from the flower to his face. She did not take it. A tiny winged bear dropped from the crystal spires. It landed on Thorn's shoulder and sniffed the blossom. More followed, small brown shapes with clear wings, circling him. Solara watched them settle on his arms without fear. "They don't go to liars," she said. "Or thieves who plan to steal again." "I stole because the pain would have killed me," Thorn said. "Not for gold. I'd give this back before I'd hurt someone else for it." A voice cut in from the path. "There he is." Virgil Creech stepped from behind the crystal wall. He was Tristan's lackey, thick-browed and grinning. He had trailed Thorn since the alley. "The warden pays coin for thieves. And I know one." Solara moved before Thorn could. She stepped between them, one hand raised, light gathering in her palm. "Walk away," she said. Just two words. Virgil looked at the glow, then at the bears baring small teeth. He backed off and ran. Solara turned to Thorn. She lowered her hand. "You gave up your flower to a stranger. And you didn't run just now." She took a breath. "The tree grows deep in the Sunken Vaults. Where the thing stolen from my people is hidden too." Thorn's chest tightened, but not from pain. "You'll take me?" "I'll take you." She met his eyes. "But we go together, and you help me find what's mine. Break that, and I leave you in the dark." Thorn slid the blossom back into his coat. He had traded nothing and gained a guide. But the Vaults meant wardens, and Virgil now had a name and a place to sell. The clock had not stopped. It had only moved underground.

The road to the Sunken Vaults ran through dead country. On the second morning, Thorn pulled the blossom from his coat to check it. The petals had gone soft. The gold veins in them had dimmed to a dull brown. He touched the water in the little jar and found it warm and thick. The flower was dying again, and faster now. Solara stopped beside him. She looked at the blossom, then at his hands. His fingers had begun to shake. That was how the pain started, before his magic broke loose. "It won't last the day," Thorn said. "When it dies, I lose control. You don't want to be near me then." "How long do you have?" she asked. "Hours. Maybe less." Solara knelt and studied the wilting petals. "The water's gone bad. You need clean water and a fresh cut. Both. Now." She said it like a fact, not a comfort. That was her way. She had taught him to preserve the flower once. She had also stood between him and a bounty hunter. He had learned to trust the flat sound of her voice. But there was no stream in the dead country. Thorn turned in a slow circle and found only cracked ground and gray brush. Then he saw the small dragon. It had followed him from the crystal garden for two days, a blue hatchling no bigger than a cat. Stars glittered across its scales. It landed on a rock now, wings spread, and dipped its head. Water beaded along the edges of its wings. Clean water, cold and bright, dripping from every feathered scale. Thorn moved fast. He held the jar under the hatchling's wing and caught the falling drops until the glass ran full and clear. Then he drew his knife and cut the blossom's stem clean, the way Solara had shown him. He slid the fresh-cut flower into the new water. He waited. His hands still shook. Solara watched without a word. The brown veins in the petals warmed. Gold crept back into them, thin lines catching the morning light. The petals firmed. The shaking in Thorn's fingers eased, then stopped. The pain drained out of his chest. The hatchling chirped and climbed onto his shoulder. Solara stood. "It saved you. You should name it." "Later." Thorn wrapped the jar in cloth and held it close. The flower would hold a few more days. But he had watched it nearly die on open road, and clean water would not always fall from a dragon's wing. "One flower still runs out," he said. "We need the tree before this one goes for good." "Then we don't stop again," Solara said. She turned toward the low country ahead, where the ground fell away into dark. The Vaults waited down there. So did the wardens, and whatever Solara meant to take back.