Chapter 1

"You're charged with breach of license, illegal memory handling, and hostile spell use." His knee pinned her down. "Want to add assault?"

"You started it."

"You ran."

"Three armed men chased me across the examination hall. What did you expect? A thank-you note?"

A boot kicked her fingers apart.

Her exam seal lay beneath her palm, cracked straight through. The silver mark that had once let her cast inside academy walls looked like a dead insect split open.

Above her, students crowded the balconies.

"Zero-rank reject."

"She did it."

"Morn's a disaster."

Ivy turned her head enough to see Headmaster Vale standing in the center of the testing circle. He held her license between two fingers.

He wasn't angry.

He looked pleased.

That made her stomach twist worse than the pain.

"Get your hand off me," Ivy said.

The enforcer laughed. "You don't give orders here."

"No. I give them when people are about to make stupid choices. Like putting a knee on my spine."

His knee drove harder.

Ivy bit down on another curse. The testing circle beneath her hands was still hot. Something had gone wrong inside it. Something had crawled through the spell and touched her mind.

And she could still see the dead boy.

That was the problem.

His body lay three yards away, facedown in the center of the examination ring. It had fallen out of the memory basin when the basin shattered. Nobody had gone near it.

The boy had been alive when he entered the chamber.

Now his skin had turned gray. Black lines crawled from his throat toward his jaw.

Vale pointed at him. "She made contact with the stolen memory."

"I didn't steal anything," Ivy snapped. "You dragged me into the basin."

"You touched it."

"It was falling."

"You reached for it."

"Because it was screaming."

The chamber went silent.

Then the balconies erupted.

"She heard it?"

"Memory objects don't scream."

"She's unstable."

Vale lifted one hand. The noise died.

"You were warned, Ivy Morn," he said. "A zero-rank mage has no right to interfere with licensed testing. You should've left this academy when your brother disappeared. Instead, you kept digging. Breaking seals. Pulling at things no sane mage would touch."

Ivy laughed against the floor. It came out rough and bloody.

"There he is. I was wondering when you'd blame my brother."

Vale's mouth tightened. "Your brother was erased for good reason."

The enforcer yanked Ivy upright by her arm. Her knees slipped, but his grip kept her standing.

"Say that again," she said.

"Your brother was dangerous."

"You erased him."

"The council erased him."

"You signed the order."

A murmur rolled through the chamber.

Vale's eyes sharpened. "Careful."

"What? You want me polite while you put my license on trial and drag my missing brother into it?"

The enforcer slammed her against a stone pillar. His forearm pressed across her collarbone. His breath smelled like old coffee and blood.

"Shut up," he growled.

Ivy looked him straight in the eye. "Make me."

His hand dropped toward the restraint cuff at his belt.

Ivy saw the brass latch.

She saw the tiny crack in the binding rune.

Her magic had been unstable for years. The academy called it dead magic because it didn't behave like a proper rank. No glow. No clean shape. No obedient stream of power.

But Ivy knew what it did.

It found what other magic tried to hide.

She drove her heel into the enforcer's ankle.

He cursed and loosened his grip.

Ivy smashed her forehead into his mouth.

The balconies shrieked.

The enforcer stumbled back, clutching his face. "You little—"

"I warned you."

He reached for his baton.

Ivy slapped her cracked exam seal against the floor.

The broken silver mark sparked.

Every rune in the testing circle lit at once.

Vale took a step back. "Morn, stop."

"Now you want me to stop?"

"You can't control that spell."

"Neither can you."

The seal split beneath her palm.

A thin black thread shot across the stone and wrapped around the enforcer's boot.

He looked down. "What did you do?"

"I found the lie."

The thread tightened.

His baton flew from his hand. The restraint cuff snapped open and clattered across the floor. Around them, the bright academy runes flickered.

A second pattern appeared beneath the official circle.

Hidden runes.

Ivy stared at them. Then she pointed.

"Ask Vale what those are."

The enforcer looked from the floor to the headmaster. "Headmaster?"

Vale's face went cold. "Contain her."

"You heard him," the enforcer said, but his voice had lost its bite. "Release the thread."

"Can't."

"Then break it."

"I said I can't."

Ivy twisted her wrist.

The black thread tore through the hidden pattern.

A sharp crack raced around the circle.

The memory basin exploded.

Glass and blue liquid burst across the chamber. Students screamed and ducked. The enforcer flew sideways. Ivy struck the pillar again, and a hot pulse punched through her chest.

For one breath, the academy vanished.

She stood in a narrow white-stone room.

A boy knelt before a black door. His hands were tied. Dark liquid ran from the corner of his mouth.

Someone stood behind him.

Tall. Silent. Wearing a silver warden's coat.

Ivy tried to move, but the memory dragged her closer.

"Look at me," the boy whispered.

She knew that voice.

Not the face. Not the body.

The voice.

That rough break at the end of a sentence. The way he stretched the first word when he was trying not to cry.

Her brother had sounded like that.

The boy lifted his face.

It wasn't her brother's face.

But it had her brother's eyes.

"Ivy," he said.

Her breath caught. "No. That's not you."

The boy smiled through cracked lips. "You took your time."

"Where are you?"

"Still here."

"Who did this?"

The silver-coated figure moved behind him. Ivy couldn't see the face. Only a gloved hand pressing a small metal disk against the boy's temple.

The boy jerked.

"Ivy, listen. Don't trust the—"

The memory snapped.

Ivy hit the floor on both hands. Cold liquid soaked her sleeves. Broken glass scraped the stone beside her.

The chamber had gone insane.

Students shoved toward the exits. Instructors yelled orders nobody followed. The corpse in the circle rolled onto its side.

Its eyes opened.

Vale pointed at Ivy. "Seal the chamber!"

"You can't lock me in here!"

"I can do worse."

"Try."

The great iron doors slammed shut.

The remaining enforcers formed a line between Ivy and the exits. Light gathered around their hands and spell-bracers.

Ivy's own magic crawled over her fingers in thin black threads.

No license. No rank. No legal protection.

If they subdued her, Vale could call the whole thing a hostile breach and send her straight to the council's execution cells.

The corpse scraped one hand across the floor.

One inch.

Then another.

It dragged itself toward her.

"Get away from it!" an instructor shouted.

"You first!" Ivy yelled.

The corpse's nails split against the stone. Black liquid ran through the cracks.

Vale raised both hands. "Ivy Morn, by authority of the academy council, surrender now."

"You already took my license."

"I can take your life."

"Then why are you waiting?"

The corpse stopped crawling.

Its head turned toward Vale.

Its mouth opened.

No sound came out.

Vale went pale.

Ivy saw it. The fear. The quick glance toward the ceiling. The way his thumb pressed against the ring on his right hand.

She smiled without humor.

"You know him."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You know what he is."

"He's a failed memory vessel. Nothing more."

"Then why do you look scared?"

Vale's ring flashed.

The corpse convulsed.

Ivy moved before she could think. She threw herself across the circle and caught the boy's wrist.

His skin was ice-cold. The black lines beneath it burned against her palm.

A shock tore up her arm.

The chamber disappeared again.

This memory came in pieces.

A locked room.

A table covered in silver tools.

A boy strapped to a chair.

A woman crying behind a glass wall.

"The reset can't start without a living anchor," someone said.

Another voice answered, "Then make one."

The boy screamed.

Ivy knew that scream.

She'd heard it once through a wall when she was eleven. Her brother had come home afterward with a burn across his palm and refused to explain it.

The memory shifted.

The silver-coated figure leaned close to the boy.

This time, Ivy saw the face.

Not Vale.

A younger man. Hard jaw. Dark hair. A narrow scar under one eye.

Cade Rourke.

Ivy knew him by reputation. Everyone did. Cade hunted unstable mages for the council. He'd shut down riots, broken illegal circles, and dragged three licensed professors out of the academy in chains.

The city's locked door with a man's face.

Memory-Cade pressed the metal disk against the boy's head.

"Say the name," he ordered.

The boy shook so hard the chair rattled. "Ivy."

"The other name."

"I don't know it."

"You do."

"Ivy, run."

Cade's hand tightened.

The memory broke apart.

Ivy came back screaming.

The corpse still had her wrist.

Its fingers dug in with dead strength. The black lines on its face had spread toward its eyes.

"Let go!"

She struck its hand once. Twice.

Nothing.

The enforcers aimed their spell-bracers at her.

"Move away from the body!" one shouted.

"It won't let me go!"

"She's linked to it," another said.

Vale's voice cut through the chamber.

"Kill the vessel."

Ivy looked up. "If you kill him, whatever's inside him stays in me."

Vale hesitated.

That was enough.

Ivy drove her free hand into the corpse's chest.

Her dead magic opened.

It didn't explode. It didn't shine.

It pulled.

The black lines jumped from the boy's skin into her palm. Pain tore through her shoulder as the hidden spell poured into her. Voices scraped across her thoughts. Names. Numbers. A countdown she couldn't understand.

The corpse's grip loosened.

Ivy dragged herself backward, taking him with her.

"Stop her!" Vale yelled.

An enforcer fired.

A white bolt struck the floor inches from Ivy's head. Stone burst against her cheek.

"You said kill the vessel!" the enforcer shouted. "Not her!"

"I changed my order."

"That isn't how the seal works!"

"Do it!"

Ivy shoved the corpse toward the broken edge of the circle. The hidden drain rune caught his back and flared red.

The boy screamed.

Not the corpse's voice this time.

Her brother's.

Ivy froze.

The sound punched through every wall she'd built around herself. Her knees hit the floor.

"Ivy," the corpse rasped. "Don't let him—"

Vale snapped his fingers.

The corpse's jaw locked shut.

Ivy stared at him. "What did you just do?"

"You're confused."

"You shut him up."

"The vessel is producing false impressions."

"He said my name."

"A trick of your damaged magic."

"He knew about the room."

"You imagined a room."

"I saw Cade Rourke."

The name struck the chamber like a thrown blade.

Several instructors exchanged quick looks.

Vale's ring flashed again.

The corpse's body jerked toward the floor.

Ivy lunged and grabbed his coat.

"Don't touch him," Vale said.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

"That's not an answer."

Vale stepped closer. His shoes stopped just outside the broken circle. His face had gone pale, but his voice stayed calm.

"It is the only answer you're getting."

Ivy tightened her grip on the corpse's coat. Cold liquid dripped from his sleeve onto her hand.

She looked past Vale, toward the sealed doors.

Then back at his ring.

"No," she said. "It's the only answer you can afford."

Vale's eyes narrowed.

Ivy leaned forward, ignoring the dead boy's weight and the spell chewing through her arm.

"What are you hiding?"