“I’m the worst friend anyone could have,” he said aloud, wishing Seth could still hear him. He had no desire to get up, so he sat in the room for ten minutes or so, until Emory appeared in the doorway. Like the others, he looked wan and pale. Will studied him with critical eyes. He could die at any moment. Then he lowered his head. Would I care?

  “Selene asked me to check on you.”

  Will answered in a voice devoid of emotion. “I’m fine.”

  Emory moved closer, staring at Seth’s morbidly twisted expression. “Is he…?” Will didn’t bother replying, but after a few seconds Emory realized the truth. “Holy Mother, you told us this could happen, but I didn’t think…”

  “No. I suppose I didn’t either.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” Emory’s voice was tentative.

  Today’s physical exercises will involve lots of digging, thought Will darkly. It wouldn’t, of course. It would be a week before the students would be able to think about doing much of anything. I’ll be burying him alone. “Get some rest. Keep breathing.” He slowly got to his feet. “I’ll go tell the others.”

  “I know you were close. If you want to—”

  The young nobleman was just trying to be supportive, but Will wasn’t ready for that. “We were close. Remember that before you make any overtures. Getting too close to me tends to have unhealthy consequences.”

  Emory was no shrinking violet. Despite his fatigue, an angry spark appeared in his eyes. “I’ve already followed you to war and back. I’m well aware of the risks.”

  Will paused, realizing he was being an ass. “That’s true.” He still didn’t feel like apologizing.

  Emory caught his arm before he could leave. “If you don’t want comfort from me, just say so, but if you’re looking for someone to vent your anger on, look elsewhere.”

  Will raised a brow, his eyes on the other man’s hand.

  The young nobleman released him, but his visage was unrepentant. “I know. One word from you and my future would be at an end. I won’t live my life in fear. I won’t apologize for caring, and if you change your mind later, my door will be open.”

  My door, thought Will sourly, but he held his tongue. His mood was beyond foul. “You’re right, and I appreciate the offer.”

  Downstairs, Will didn’t put off the unpleasant task. He shared the news with everyone at the table and continued sharing it with those who came late to breakfast. Inside, he was a mass of guilt and unwelcome emotions, but surprisingly no one else took the news as hard as he expected. There were gasps and exclamations, perhaps a few tears, but none of the others were wracked with sorrow.

  Somehow that made it worse.

  Seth had always been a friend, but never a central one to him, and now he was beginning to realize it was the same for the others. Aside from their newly heightened fears of dying, the others were more worried about Will’s reaction. Does that mean I was his best friend? How awful is that? The realization did nothing to help his guilt. If I had cared more, would I have listened when he wanted to stop?

  Will didn’t share his inner turmoil. He spent the rest of the day handling tasks. They buried Seth in the afternoon, and Selene spent a few minutes saying kind words. It was an unofficial memorial service of sorts. The real funeral would be held later. It would be at least a day before Will’s letter reached Seth’s family, and days more before he received a reply, but the body wouldn’t wait.

  That evening, after supper, everyone tried to find time to talk to him alone, but Will avoided them all. Selene watched him throughout, a faint look of disapproval in her eyes, but she didn’t try to corner him herself. That would come later. At bedtime she would have her moment.

  He shut himself into his office and tried to cry, but tears wouldn’t come. He wished they would, if only to give lie to the idea that he hadn’t cared enough for his old roommate. Instead he sulked, feeling dark and regretful. Will tried to spend some time working on the materials left behind by the Wayfarer’s Society but fell asleep in his chair. He only became aware of the fact that he was sleeping when he woke later, a soothing vibration sinking into his chest.

  He opened his eyes, and after struggling to focus for a moment, realized he wasn’t alone. A warm, furry, and softly vibrating creature was comfortably curled up on his chest, just below his chin.

  Strangely, he wasn’t startled. It felt too natural, too soothing for that. It was a magical moment, accompanied by the feeling of wonderment that came so often during childhood but now seemed so rare. Despite being the preeminent wizard of the day, Will found himself entranced by the magic of the present.

  Will didn’t want to move and disturb the cat, so he remained still, studying his companion. Despite being a stray, she was well groomed and didn’t smell. As he studied her, she opened her eyes and looked back at him. He decided to risk scaring her and lifted one hand to gently scratch between her ears. The cat closed her eyes, and the rumbling on his chest grew stronger.

  I could get used to this, he thought. Relaxing, he let his mind drift while he stroked the cat. “You need a name,” he mused out loud. The feline in question opened her eyes, and he imagined her asking the question, why?

  “It’s a human thing. It helps us keep track of everything. What do you think of Evelyn?” The cat blinked once, then closed her eyes. “I could call you Evie for short,” he added.

  She didn’t object, so he let his thoughts continue to drift. His mind instinctively avoided the subject of Seth, and instead he found himself mulling over the teleportation spell he had learned and its implications. Practicing it to the point of reflex casting would no doubt be useful, but what he really wanted to know was how the Wayfarer’s Society wizards had used it to teleport great distances without a beacon. The book had mentioned ‘the gates of the mind’ but that phrase meant little to him; however, in his relaxed state, his brain began linking together other bits of knowledge he’d learned in recent years.

  In particular, Arrogan’s lesson regarding congruent planes came to the foreground of his mind. Two planes of existence were congruent with every part of his native plane, the ethereal and the astral planes. The ethereal was physical, and as far as anyone knew, every plane had its own ethereal plane that copied longstanding features. By contrast, the astral plane was purely mental with no real geography. It connected minds and souls, and the only places to be found within it were those that related to other individuals with whom one had formed a bond of some significance: friends, family, and even enemies.

  The realization that came to him was slow and gentle, but nonetheless profound. ‘The gates of the mind’ had to refer to the astral plane. “If I can teleport to a place I can see nearby, maybe I can also teleport to a place I can see through the astral plane,” he muttered quietly. If so, that would mean he could travel anywhere, assuming someone he was connected to was there already.

  But how to do it in actual practice. That was the question. Will had gotten much better at slipping into the astral plane. In the beginning, it had taken complete sensory deprivation and sheer terror to enable him to leave his body, but during the recent war he had spent a lot of evenings practicing so he could check on Selene and his friends while he was far from home. Lately he had gotten good enough he no longer had to block off his senses at all.

  Will closed his eyes, relaxed in the particular way he had become accustomed to, and thought of his father. The sensation of his body, of the purring cat, the sounds of Rimberlin House, all of it faded away, and after a momentary darkness, the image of Mark Nerrow came to life in front of him.

  His father sat in the office he had commandeered in Myrsta, the former capital of Darrow. As the newly installed governor, it would have been customary to take the palace of the former Prophet, but it had been completely destroyed during Will’s final battle against the demons invading their world. Will studied the furnishings around the room and decided that his father had probably taken the residence of one of the city’s noblemen. The office was appointed with tasteful and expensive decorations, well-made furniture, and glass windows.

  He probably looked at all the best houses before picking one that suited his tastes, thought Will. His father had impeccable taste, something that Will would never share. From a nobleman’s perspective, he was handicapped by his pauper’s upbringing.

  Despite their differences, Will had faith that his father was one of the best possible choices for the job of governing the new province.

  Mark Nerrow frowned at the letter he was reading, then looked up as a messenger entered the room. “Has the eastern patrol returned?”

  “No, milord.”

  Mark rubbed his forehead, massaging what was probably the beginning of a headache. “They should have returned yesterday.”

  “Should we send another?”

  “Tell Commander Hargast I want to see him. If half a company isn’t enough, we need to go out in force. Whatever wiped out that village is obviously a serious threat. I’m going to send Second Division, and I’ll ride with them.”

  The messenger left, and Will’s father sat brooding in the dimly lit office. Will desperately wanted to ask him what was going on, but unfortunately Mark Nerrow had never developed a sense of the astral, so it was impossible for him to see or hear Will. But if I could teleport to him that wouldn’t be a problem, thought Will hopefully.

  He spent several minutes trying to cast the spell, but all his efforts were fruitless. Without a body, hands, or any sort of physical form, he simply couldn’t manipulate the turyn that floated in the air within his father’s office. He was quite literally hundreds of miles away, and his only connection was to Mark Nerrow himself. The objects and energy within the room were completely beyond his ability to touch or influence.

  Stubborn as ever, Will continued to try for ten minutes more, before finally giving up and returning to his body. He opened his eyes to find Evie staring seriously at his face. Seeing that he had returned, she relaxed and returned to her nap. He wondered idly whether she had sensed his departure and been waiting for him to return, but quickly dismissed the thought.

  Returning his thoughts to teleportation, Will realized he wouldn’t have been able to complete the spell even if he had found a way to cast it. He still needed to perfect his memorization of it. Sitting up, he put Evie on the desk and summoned the journal so he could look it over once more.

  Anything to avoid thinking about what had happened to Seth.

  Chapter 7

  The next week was a miserable one. Will and Selene were both on edge, worrying over whether any of the other students would succumb to turyn starvation. Seth’s father responded to Will’s letter with cordial and polite language, but that did little to ease his guilt. No one showed ill will toward the king’s daughter or her husband. It was impossible to know whether Seth’s family blamed him or not.

  Ten days after the third compression, Will began to relax. Sammy was already beginning to recover her normal energy and activity levels, and the other students, while not so quick, also seemed to be recovering.

  Matthew Holmgren was found dead the next morning. As before, Will was the first to find the body when the young crafter’s son failed to turn up for breakfast. This time he didn’t wait. Without pause, he went back downstairs and made an announcement at the table. “Matthew passed away during the night.” Everyone fell silent, and it almost felt as though no one dared breathe.

  Will continued. “I had thought we were past the danger period, but obviously I was wrong. If any of you feel as though you aren’t making progress, I urge you to tell me and I will undo the spell cage. Reaching second-order is accomplishment enough and I’d rather not lose anyone else.”

  Sammy was the first to respond. “I’ve come this far. I won’t quit now.” There was solid determination in her voice.

  Will had expected as much from his cousin, especially considering how fast she was recovering. She looked almost normal. Her cheeks held a rosy glow, and her eyes were bright with vitality. Emory Tallowen, watching her as always, followed right along. “I don’t intend to stop either.”

  Will’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward the young nobleman. Emory’s face was pale, and there was a visible tremor in his fingers when he casually reached for the butter. If anyone should give up, Emory should. But Will knew the young man’s pride wouldn’t allow it, especially now that Sammy had cast her lot. He’s going to die. Will felt a heavy rock settle at the bottom of his stomach, but he knew he couldn’t force Emory to change his mind.

  He turned his eyes instead to the last remaining student, Shawn Campbell. “Well, Shawn, how do you feel?”

  Shawn answered with a strange look on his face. “I don’t feel very well.” Opening his mouth once more, he froze for a second, seeming to struggle internally, then vomited onto the table. A second later, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the floor.

  Selene was closer, and it was her spell-cage on Shawn’s source, which turned out to be fortunate, for it made it easier for her to remove it. If it had been Will’s spell, she might have struggled. Within seconds she had released the spell, and by then Will had reached Shawn’s other side, where he began channeling a tiny stream of turyn into the unconscious wizard. Foreign turyn would only have made matters worse, so Will matched Shawn’s natural turyn resonance as he trickled energy into the young man.

  Servants came and went, offering help and cleaning up the mess at the table, but Will refused to move anyone until it was clear that Shawn was regaining consciousness.

  The rest of the day passed with agonizing slowness as they waited to see if Shawn would recover. According to Arrogan, it was rare for an apprentice to survive once compression sickness had taken hold, but it was equally rare for the source-cage to be removed so quickly, so they had some hope.

  Days passed, and Shawn remained weak before finally beginning to show signs of recovery a week later. As with Seth, Will sent a letter to the Holmgren family, and they had a small service when the body was buried. Rimberlin House was likely to have yet another sad visit in the future when Matthew’s family came to see the place their son was interred.

  On the brighter side of things, Sammy continued to regain her strength, and while Emory was coming along more slowly, he had definitely passed through the worst of it. Both were almost certain to survive, despite Will’s dark worries.

  Will finally began to relax, though his feelings of guilt remained strong. He tried to explain to Arrogan one evening the week after Matthew’s death. He was sitting in his study, with Evie curled up on the desk in front of him. The cat had become a regular part of his life, though she remained elusively out of sight when others were around.

  “It’s a miracle any of them survived,” said Will, reiterating his thoughts once again.

  “Stop whining,” snapped Arrogan. “You’ve successfully gotten three through the third compression, possibly five if both of your sisters succeed. In my day it was rare to hear of a master training more than one or two.”

  “Now I understand why they were so reluctant.”

  “It was partly fear, but ego also had a lot to do with it,” clarified his grandfather. “Quite a few of my contemporaries felt the rarity increased their own prestige. That turned out to be a poor planning choice when the Shimerans started bringing demons over, and soon after that sorcery seemed like the only answer to the problem.”

  “Killing half my students with extreme training doesn’t feel like a good solution either,” said Will.

  “You’re reviving the art, and these makeshift apprentices are a little older than I’d prefer. Once you’re past this, you can relax and be more selective. Insist on early teens who still haven’t learned to use spells. The survival rate will be much higher, and you can refuse to let any attempt the third compression unless they’re dead set on it.”

  Will ground his teeth. “I don’t think I want to do this again.”

  “That’s just abdicating your responsibility. If you don’t do it, one of your students will have to do so. Are you willing to shift the blame to someone else so early? Or would you rather they wait until they’re past their first century? Sorcery has to end, and the only way to end it, without putting humanity in danger, is to make certain there are enough capable wizards to keep the world safe. Lots of first-order wizards, lots of second-order, and whether you like it or not, more like you. Second-order wizards are good for most things, but they don’t usually acquire the same talents that third-order wizards do.”

  His scalp itched just thinking about it, but he knew Arrogan was probably correct. “Can we just not talk about it right now? Give me a year to put my head back together after this first batch.”

  “Fair enough, and William—”

  It was rare for the old man to refer to him by his given name. “Yeah?”

  “You’ve done well, don’t forget that. I don’t think I could have done half as well at your age, with so little support. I know I’ve been hard on you, but don’t take it to heart. You’re turning into a better wizard than I ever expected, possibly better than any I ever knew.”

  Will’s chest tightened at the words. Praise from Arrogan was rarer than hen’s teeth. “Thanks,” he managed to reply.

  “Tell anyone I said that, and I’ll call you a liar,” added the ring in a gruff tone.

  He smirked. “No one would believe me. They’d take it as a sure sign that I had become delusional.” He felt moderately better, but the conversation had reminded him of other concerns he had neglected for too long. “I’ll talk to you later. I need to attend to other duties.” With that said, Will deactivated the limnthal and closed his eyes.