She wants me to get hyped, but I’m entirely distracted by the fact that none of these books I’ve managed to look through has what I need or anything close to it. But Bri’s proud of her gadget, so to be a good friend, I plaster on my most impressed face and that seems to appease her.

She eases it in her bag ever so carefully and I press my book open wider. I guess I have to figure this out myself. I’m not giving up that easily. I don’t believe there’s not a single word written anywhere on what happens if magic is lost. They could never do anything about it because they didn’t have magic to do magic. But I do.

I pull my knees to my chest and flip a few more pages, then flip several more until my back aches. I switch positions and start at the front of the book again. I’m missing something. I have to be. I flip and flip, practically reciting the words, they’re so familiar. And it amounts to nothing. My shoulders sag and Bri scoots closer to me, peering over my shoulder.

“Yeah, I’d hoped in the footnote in this one, maybe there’d be something. I’ve seen a few of these texts before. But I went through them all again… nothing,” she says. “I’m sorry, Rue.”

“It’s like in every instance if magic is lost or not given… it’s intentional. So they wouldn’t need to teach ways to get it back.”

“Yep. Because if it was given back, that’s on the Chancellor. Only he has to restore it. Because he gave it.”

“Oh my god, Bri. That’s it!” If my brain was a light bulb, it would be buzzing. “Magic can only be restored by those who gave it, right?”

“Yep, the Chancellor.” She furrows her brow. “How does that help us?”

How did I not see this before? I stand. “The Chancellor stole magic. He’s not the real magic giver.”

Bri’s eyes widen and she stands, too.

“The Ancestors,” we say at the same time.

It makes perfect sense. If magic can be restored only by the giver because the Chancellor gave the Grays magic, then the Ancestors must be the only ones able to restore Ghizoni magic, since they were the original purveyors of magic.

“Bri, we’ve been looking up the wrong spells! We need to reach the Ancestors.”

“As in raise the dead?”

“Well, when you put it like that… it sounds… creepy. But yes! That’s what we need to do.”

“Hmmm.” She taps her lip and grazes the spines of a stack of tomes piled in a corner. “Do you remember anything about your time locked up that could help us?”