We all sat in a plush room with plants hanging from the walls and shoved in nearly every free space on the floor. Handwoven carpets and tapestries decorated the walls, their colors drowning out the golden sandstone walls that lay hidden beneath them. A doorman stood at the doorway, prepared to let in Councilman Ere, who would lead us to the Grand Ballroom of the Council's mansion.

Sidra was rubbing her arms up and down while Ambrose squeezed her hand tightly. Blood magic was no joke, and, much like necromancy, had been outlawed within the City of Arden. Everyone came to the agreement that an exception needed to be made for the circumstance. The ritual would require quite a bit of blood, and Ambrose said he was happy to help her, but Sidra said she wasn't sure it would work even for twins.

Fal clutched the chest in his lap. It was simple and no bigger than my head, with dark brown wood and silver locks. Just looking at it made my body tense up. A dull, throbbing pain began in my left arm. It felt as if my hand were still there, holding the sawl ripa as it burned with Deorcae's soul. Except it wasn't. I shook the thought away and gripped the edge of a blue pillow that sat nearby.

A knock. The doorman opened the doors and Sander stepped in. "We're ready."

The walk to the Grand Ballroom was silent. No one was sure of what to say, or, at least, I knew I wasn't. What we were doing had to work. It had to stay secret. If anyone out in the Waystland was anything like Daya, it wouldn't take much for them to find a way to take the chest. The only people allowed in the room would be the Coucilmembers, the Morrigan twins, and Fal and me. Guards who had witnessed or fought in the battle were, as we were told earlier, being taken care of. While I didn't suspect death was in order, I did suspect that there were plenty of secrets being dredged up or spells being used to silence anyone who could possibly spread word of Deorcae's return.

The Grand Ballroom was extravagant. Every corner was filled with lavish plants and statues of previous council members. The floor was shockingly clean, with white tiles that had little evidence of scuffs or marks. Windows with stained glass lined the walls with each one leading into the next. They all reached high, and while little light shone through them, I could see that they were meant to depict a waterfall and river as it wove through orange canyons. In the center of all the beauty, though, sat a roped off section with items that Sidra had requested be acquired for the ritual.

Sidra parted ways with us, and we were all led to seats that circled around where Sidra would be finishing it all. No one looked comfortable. As I looked to the councilmembers, I could see them shift from one second to the other, avoiding the gaze of everyone in the room, or clutching the fabric of their gold-lined robes. A few of them dared whisper in the ears of their neighbors, but the conversations were short, and always ended when one trailed off to watch the witch.

Sidra began setting everything around herself, bowls and candles and a dagger. She didn't ask if everyone was ready and didn't wait to be told to start. She simply rose the dagger to her outstretched arm and cut her flesh, the thick red blood draining into the bowl beneath her. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Ambrose wince, so I reached over and held tightly to his shoulder. Sidra dipped her hand into the blood while the arm continued to run like a river, and she didn't make a sound as she painted a diagram onto the floor, setting each black candle around the edges. She held out her hands. "The chest."

Fal rose from beside me and made his way over to Sidra, handing the chest off with a shakiness that nearly made it fall to the ground. When he sat back down beside me, he let out a low exhale. Sidra sat the chest in the middle, words coming off of her tongue and suffocating everyone in the room. I stared at the chest, my heart pounding in my ears and providing a rhythm for Sidra's spell. She drew her blood over the chest and I felt my stomach turn.

I lost my own mind as the ritual continued, and had to be shaken out of my stupor when it was over. Fal escorted me out of the room while Ambrose tended to his sister's wound and the chest was placed in yet another chest and carried to another location. It didn't feel as if it were over, but perhaps it was because I hadn't watched the ritual finish. I had only been thinking of what the chest contained. The darkness and death and fear. In the back of my mind I knew it was dangerous to even let Sidra and Ambrose continue to live. How could the blood magic be broken if the blood it required had died out? If we had only been able to find a prisoner or person on their deathbed to use, it would be much simpler. I had to shut the ideas out of my head, though. I didn't have to think like that anymore. I didn't want to.

That night, I crawled into my bed, hugging my forgotten limb to my chest. No matter how many times I blinked or lost track of my mind, I would look down and there would still be nothing. There was still a physician who saw me before bed to change my bandages. She would be back in the morning with drugs and concoctions she claimed would help with the pain, but I honestly hadn't thought much of it. It didn't come until I thought too much about what happened, or if I rolled over onto it. Fal wouldn't' believe me at first, but then confessed his wound didn't hurt much either. Not that his injury was close to mine.

He slept in the room next door, and it felt odd being so close but so far. All of us. The twins and Fal and I had spent so much time sleeping on sand and rock that being separated by walls and placed in beds of clouds felt foreign. So how was I supposed to deal with what would come next? We couldn't all stay together. It wasn't feasible. I had to leave. I couldn't stay in Arden. I couldn't stand to go back to the sanctuary and help them restart everything.

I couldn't think of what I could do other than leave. To find a place. To take on a name that wasn't connected to Daya. To exist on my own terms. No conditions. No contract. Just me.

The thought made my heart sink. Even I knew that after all of this it would be impossible to leave them. To leave Fal. My fingertips graced the bumpy surface of my bandaged limb. Even if I could leave them, I wasn't sure if I could get used to my new body alone. Getting dressed would be a task. Hunting would be nearly impossible. Balancing on Durabi would require much more training than I had time for. It would be impossible. I had to stay with someone. I simply had to.

A yawn escaped my lips as I settled on my decision. Whether I was lying to myself or not, a part of me was with Fallon. He was all I had left. The Morrigan twins had their own lives to start here in Arden. They had been waiting too long for it. I couldn't pull them away now. Fal, though, he had already made his intentions clear. Perhaps he would realize his mistake once we set out alone. Perhaps he would regret it all. Or perhaps it's what we both needed. A friend and fresh air.

I tossed the pillows of my bed to the ground and lay back on the flat surface, pretending that stars dotted the dark ceiling above me. I pretended that I looked up to a sky with fading indigos and inky blacks seeping upward. Stars were scattered, looking down at me with a reassuring, unwavering light.

If there was one place I knew I would end up, it was under the sky. Surrounded by it on all sides from dusk to dawn. As I lay there and tried to fall asleep, I could feel my mind wandering to what such a place would look like. The Land of Sky. Where the horizon falls away and you're surrounded by nothing but air and clouds. What would it be like to melt into the sky like butter? To join the floral pinks and honeyed golds and drunken purples? Perhaps I was too dark for that sky, though. Perhaps I would fade into the sorrowful blues.

Or, perhaps, I was only worthy of the divine darkness that housed the pure and twinkling lights.

#

Daya sat in her cell, her wrists chained up to the walls and her feet bound to the ground. The way she sat in her little box reminded me of all of her artifacts that she had collected. Dangerous but beautiful. Too important to kill but much too powerful to hand off to just anyone. She was destined to remain in the cell until time took her, which even she wasn't immune to. The only difference between her and her artifacts were the metal gloves that encased her hands. Runes were engraved all along the metal bars, each one surely carved out slowly and painfully to ensure accuracy. If not, what was the purpose? There was hardly any light in the room. The torches were dying down, but since it was the end of the day I was sure the guards planned on simply letting the fire die out completely. Planned on leaving her to bask in the darkness she was once so desperate for.

How the mighty have fallen.

We weren't sure if we would be given permission to visit her, but after a few conversations, Arden's esteemed Council agreed to give us half an hour of supervised discussion. A guard stood nearby, the keys to the cells dangling around his neck. He had brought us much deeper than either of us expected to go and the way he shifted from one foot to the other let me know that he was antsy to reach the ground level of the prison once more.

We weren't able to go in quietly from all of the tinkling of metal on metal from the guard's clothing. So we stood in front of Daya's cell in silence and waited for her to acknowledge our presence. If there was one thing we wouldn't give her right away, it was the pleasure of knowing that we needed her. Not yet, anyway.

Fal stood beside me, his hands clasped behind his back as we faced her. I had approached him just after breakfast about the idea of talking to Daya. We had yet to go through everything of hers in her vault, which the Council had managed to squeeze out of her in return for better care on her part. Still, I figured it was better to retrieve information from the source. That's what I had always been taught, anyway.

When she said nothing for a few minutes, Fal looked at me from the corner of his eyes. I knew he was growing anxious about our time with her, but I shook my head. She had to talk first. And she did.

"What do you two want?" Her voice was ragged and dry. She couldn't even bother to look up at us.

"Tell us what you know about the Land of Sky."

A chuckle escaped her lips. "That old story? Everyone knows it's fake. There is no Land of Sky. And, if there is, it's no afterlife." She stretched her neck from one side to the other. "I thought you would be smart enough to figure that much."

"There have been so many tellings of unrelated people coming across it," Fal argued. "That can't be a coincidence."

Daya sighed and lifted her head up. She looked terrible. Her black kohl and purple lipstick were smeared across and down her face, blending in with the darkening bruises that Fal had left on her. "It's not. What you're talking about is not a magical occurrence. It's just a salt flat."

"What do you mean?"

"To the west. The dessert turns white and craggy. Occasionally, and I mean rarely, rain will arrive and coat the flat. The water reflects the sky. Those tellings are all from salt laborers. I'm sure it's as beautiful as the afterlife, but not the one we're all going to."

I looked to Fal. "Do you need anything else?" He shook his head. "Perfect. We're done here."

"What do I get out of this?"

"Nothing. You can keep rotting for all anyone cares."

"I've given you all everything. I'm the reason you were able to take Deorcae down," she growled.

"You're also the reason we had to deal with him in the first place."

I didn't say anything else as we walked out, the guard shutting the door on Daya as she raged behind us. Chills went down my arms at the sound of her screams as they traveled through the metal door. We began to ascend the staircase, with Fal coming up behind me. It wasn't until we reached the surface that he said a word.

"How do you feel?"

"Me? I'm well. Why do you ask?"

"I can't imagine what that must have been like for you."

"It's in the past." I averted my gaze from his and looked around to admire the building we were in. The cells were situated just beneath a building at the back of Kafali, with guards all around the edges. There weren't as many prisoners as one would think, but most were awaiting their executions or for someone somewhere to help them escape. "We should go eat."

Fal grunted in agreement and began to follow me as I strode towards the small entryway of the building. Guards crossed our names off in a book and allowed us to step outside into the cool cavern air. "Has your opinion changed?"

I thought it over for a minute. Whether I wanted to believe it or not, I trusted that Daya had the correct information. If she didn't, any and all of her work wouldn't have gone as far as it had. Perhaps the Land of Sky was no afterlife. I would have to live with that. I could live with that. But I owed it to Fal to have hope. "I think it's best we judge with our own eyes." A smile flickered across his lips, but was tossed away when he met the eyes of someone crossing our paths. He looked down to the ground and pulled his hood tighter over his head.

I wanted to reach out to him. Touch his arm to let him know it was okay. Except he was on my left side where my arm no longer dangled. I too felt a flush of shame come over me as the person passed us. I had been looked down upon before, but this was different. I held my left arm close to my waist and covered it with my other arm. My good arm.

"We must be quite the sight," I muttered.

"If you ask me, we always have been."

I couldn't help but laugh. Leave it to Fal to make it all better. "How are we going to tell Ambrose and Sidra?"

Fal's lips twisted as he thought it over. "They'll understand. We all did this for a fresh start. They have theirs, and we're still on the search for ours. We just need to be honest."

"We've never been great at that."

He beamed down at me, his smile one of the only things I could see from under the hood of his shadow. "And we may never be."

#

Fal and I stood before the Morrigan twins. The sun had yet to set over the horizon and it cast our shadows down onto the sand, stretching us thin. They had agreed to help us pack, and we now leaned against the edge of our new cam-van. It was no saladassi, but Durabi was wary of this new, fleshy Fallon.

Fal and Ambrose had been making small talk the whole way through Lower Arden. Sidra and I chose silence. They had understood us wanting to go, but I could still feel the tension between us. We were leaving them. After everything we had been through together.

Fal reassured me that they knew us well enough to know that we couldn't stay in Arden and stay sane. He was probably right, but it felt different. It still felt wrong.

So we stood in silence, soaking in the dying warmth of the sand and wind and light.

Sidra had her wild hair loose around her shoulders, and was wearing fine robes that she had been gifted for everything she'd done. The turquoise colors complemented her skin, but her eyes were focused on the ground. She looked up as I was staring but I didn't break eye contact. "How do you feel being the Keeper of Magic?"

Sidra turned a deep shade of red. "I feel like I'm going to be lit on fire. I'm nervous that I'm going to mess up. I suppose that's a good thing. I just... it will be quite strange to go from a witch on the run to the official witch of Arden." She crossed her arms over herself but her brother slapped her on the back.

"Ah, you'll be dandy. High ranking, well respected, and feared."

Fal sighed. "Don't thrive on the fear. That's all I can ask."

Sidra rolled her eyes. "I'm not Daya."

"Well, I'll be apprenticing under Councilman Ere."

"As an errand boy."

"Regardless of what my title is," he said with a glare towards his sister, "I'll soon be a Councilman myself. I've already done some reading-- though you shouldn't mention this to anyone because I wasn't reading it with permission-- about a flourishing city up north." He looked around for reactions but when he found none he continued, trying to bait us with his words. "They apparently have built camouflaged walls around their city. Arden has been in contact with them, but it seems the city wants nothing to do with the rest of the Wayst."

"That seems ridiculous," Fal scoffed. "Why wouldn't they?"

"They say they don't mess with magic, and they don't need help. They apparently get their trade elsewhere."

"That makes no sense."

"I'm just telling you what I've read."

How strange. "Perhaps those are the men that patrol the foot of the mountains. Besides, if they have hidden from view for this long, I can't imagine what they have for themselves on the other side. I wouldn't be surprised if Arden decided to try and overthrow them for another foothold on the other side of the Wayst."

"You think so?"

"It's not a bad idea. Even if it is just to put them in their place."

"What if Arden is put into their place?"

Fal clapped his hands and smiled broadly. "Then invite me for the show."

I nudged him with a smile on my lips. "It's time for us to head off." Without asking, I pulled the twins into a hug. "I know I wanted to kill you both a few times, but I grew quite fond of you. I'll miss your bitter attitude and terrible sense of humor."

"What about me?" Ambrose pulled away. "What will you miss about me?"

I laughed and slapped his arm. "Your terrible sense of humor. That was funny, though." Ambrose scowled at me.

We all pretended that it wasn't the last time we may have been seeing one another.

We all pretended to get back together and update one another on our lives at some point.

Sidra promised she would keep working on Fal's spell, but Fal politely declined. He didn't want to pretend as if it never happened.

And then we left.

And my heart ached.

I would never see them again.

#

The scent of grilled prickly pear reached my nose. Fal took joy in cooking me cactus fruit, as he was able to snag them off of the green towers with little to no issue thanks to his cursed arm. He had used a knife to peel it for me, leaving only the red fruit. It was soft to the touch and its juices began leaking down my hands as my teeth sank in. It was sweet and seemed to almost melt in my mouth, leaving a few seeds behind. I spit them out into my hand, just in case we would need them later on if we wanted to keep our cam-van stocked.

"How are they today?"

"Delicious," I said with a full mouth. I wiped my right sleeve across my lips.

Fal plopped down beside me, looking to the desert sunset that loomed before us. "I'm becoming quite good at cooking for you. I can't say you return the favor much."

"Is that so?"

"It is."

"I would like to think I offer quite a bit in terms of map reading and cultivating our plants. Or in hunting." At these words, Fal rolled his eyes and leaned back, resting against the warm rocks that we had set camp up around.

"That arm is my doing."

"Oh, hush."

I looked down to my left arm. While the flesh stopped beneath the elbow, Fal had spoken with a friend of his friends to craft a special attachment for me. It was heavy and clunky from the wood, but the top could be replaced by any number of things: a prop for an arrow, a makeshift blade, and even a canteen if I was feeling particularly strong that day. It would never make up for what I had lost, but Fal tried his best. For that I was grateful.

We sat in silence for a moment and just listened to the crackling of fire and the whirring of wind off in the distance. We had left Durabi behind to the twins, but collected a cam-van for slow and sweet travel. The back hatch of our wagon hung open now, and I could see all of our potted plants and trees growing just beside our rugs and storage space.

Fal broke the silence. "When did Sidra predict rain this way?"

"A few more weeks."

The salt flat stretched out before us. We were just at the edge, south of where a few salt farmers had set up camp. In the light of the sunset, the salt was a lilac color. It was dry and crumbling, and the workers we passed had said they usually just patrol the area in case of rain. Daya was right. It rarely occurred. With four occurrences in the last hundred years, the salt farmers often salvaged every bit they could, but often had to rely on their own methods of heading for the sea or bringing water to the flats in hopes that it would work the same way.

"What do we do in the meantime?"

I leaned into Fal, resting my head on his shoulder. I took in a deep breath of the salt and sand filled air.

"Absolutely nothing."