Page 52 of A Door in the Dark

Ren spat back, “How brave of you, to walk away from wealth that we can only dream of having. Should we go ahead and knight you? Timmons, did you bring a sword?”

Her friend sighed. “Ren. Ease up.”

She was seething, though. She wanted to tell Theo off, curse him and his entire family to the early graves they deserved. The words burned in her throat. If she spoke now, only smoke would come out. It took her a moment to realize that she was up on her feet, pacing around the fire. Timmons watched with a wary expression. Theo looked like he’d been dealt a massive blow.

“Look. I know you’re used to people liking you,” Ren finally said. “And I do like you. We like you. And we need you to survive out here, but it’s not as easy as just forgiving you for what happened at that party. For what happened to the people in that teahouse…”

“I know,” he said. “It will haunt me forever—”

“Let me finish.”

Theo’s words tangled. She knew he was not used to holding his tongue. It was a fine moment, to watch him learn how to bow to someone else.

“Do you know Mim’s theory of personas?”

He took a steadying breath. “Yes.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Well?”

“What?”

“What’s the theory? Go on. Enlighten us.”

“It states…” He frowned a little. “We’re not one person. We’re thousands of people. Altered by the contexts in which we briefly exist, minute by minute, hour by hour.”

Ren recognized that he’d given the exact definition from the textbook. She held out her right hand like a balancing scale. “Sometimes you are the spoiled fool who nearly murdered people for a party trick. Sometimes you are the son of the man who built canals that killed hundreds of workers, displaced thousands of people, and gutted an entire community all for the sake of filling your family’s coffers. You are the grandson of murderers and tyrants. I can’t help seeing this version of you.” And then she held out her left hand. “But sometimes you’re a boy that I like. A wonderful traveling companion with solid magic. You are a steady hand on a road that promises to only get harder in the coming days. You exist as both of those things for me.”

He stared at her for a long time.

“Solid magic?”

“And there you go, reminding me of the spoiled prat. Look. I’m just trying to give you a chance here. I do like you, Theo. I appreciate the explanation and the context. But it’s going to take some time for the second version of you to loom larger than the first. Earn it.”

He nodded once. He folded his hands, making the traditional sign of a vow.

“I will. You have my word.”

“Good. Then let’s get some sleep and pretend this conversation never happened.”

Timmons looked surprised by Ren’s restraint. She offered a quick nod of approval before adding a few more logs to the dying fire. Theo whispered a “good night” as he settled in for sleep. Ren thought about punishing him, making him feel the weight of that lonely night sky.

Eventually, though, she whispered back, “Good night.”

The stars glinted overhead, like teeth in the dark.

30

The next morning Theo was the textbook definition of servitude.

He helped Cora divide the leftover meat into portions for later, wrapping them tight inside the spare newspaper Ren had in her bag. She didn’t miss the irony of his earnest efforts brushing right back up against his worst mistake. He doused their fire and gathered more kindling. She’d have been more impressed, but her mother had always taught her that it was easy for someone to live out the first few days of an apology. The true test was whether or not they held their course when the sting of correction faded. How quickly would they revert to who they really were?

He also offered to cast the spells and boons. Cora was down to 70 ockleys. Just a handful of spells, really. They’d agreed to save as much of her magic as possible in case another serious injury occurred. After casting protections over their camp in the cave, Ren possessed only 200 ockleys. Timmons had 170. Theo’s number loomed around 900. Ren felt like they were solidly positioned, as long as they didn’t lose Theo’s cache of magic. And they’d already come pretty close to doing exactly that.

They set out—armored with spells and full bellies—for what Ren knew would be the most difficult leg of the journey. Her guesses at how difficult fell well short of the mark. After getting their bearings, the group started upward again. Snow quickly turned to ice. The footing was devilish at first, playing little tricks that would send them sliding back down a few steps. They’d laugh at one another and press on. It wasn’t as funny later in the day, when every foothold was impossibly slick and the wind howled at their backs. Before long the consequences of a fall became far more terrifying too.

Their conversion spells slowly turned into punishments. It was too cold outside the protection of the casting, which meant it grew far too warm within the radius of their spells. Ren was sweating profusely. So were the others. They were eventually forced to switch over to a more costly enhancement spell that made their clothes feel lined with fur. It would deplete their magical stores far faster, even if it felt like a fine solution for the time being.

Each new height exposed them to new dangers. Ren saw birds wheeling in the sky and knew that if the wyvern came for them now, it’d be as easy as plucking oysters off the sides of a dock exposed by a low tide. Theo tasked Vega with flying ahead of them. The bird would set down with a scrape of stone wings, landing on the ledges they needed to reach themselves. It was useful at first to have a guiding beacon, but eventually they came to the point where having something to aim at didn’t mean they could actually reach the location in question.

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