Farian leans out from behind his camera long enough to roll his eyes at my chosen title. I kneel down, hiding my laughter as I take a healthy pinch of locust dust.

“You’re going to start with an outer ring of locust,” I explain, letting the powder feed between my fingers and highlighting the circle’s border with a deep tan color. “Keep the circle unbroken. You want your locust to burn hard and quick. You’ll know you did it right if there’s the faintest trace of sandstone coloring just as sunrise hits.

“Next: gypsum and limestone.” I empty those containers into a central pile on my ashes, mixing them slowly with both fingers. “You’ll want to lightly mix them, but don’t spread them out too far. Three fingers of height will guarantee your mixture doesn’t burn away.”

As I hold up the last cube, I throw a wicked grin at the camera.

“Now, unborn ashes are as vintage as it gets. Our ancestors lived in a crueler world. Blood sacrifices every month and gods roaming the land. Unborn ashes aren’t the cheapest component in the storeroom, but they’re what you need if you want to call on the powers of old. Make another circle.” I take a handful of the dead ashes. They’re so cold that the hairs on that arm start to rise. “Place them inside the locust powder, but ringed outside the mixture of gypsum and limestone. Make the circle thick and add them just before sunlight hits.”

I stand back, wiping my hands clean and gesturing past the camera.

“Which is about…right…now.”

Sunlight spills over the plain. I take a step back and hear the obvious gasp of a creature coming to life. My piled ash stirs with movement. The wind turns the ashes in quick circles before raising them up, where they howl into a sudden dust devil. In all that chaos, I see my phoenix starting to take form, a dark, inconsistent mass. Then sunlight fractures against the growing magic, sudden and blinding.

I shield my eyes as a glorious figure staggers free of the storm. Farian keeps the film rolling, but I know the phoenix is still too bright to see. I can’t even look at it without squinting and shielding my eyes with both hands. The horse itself isn’t all that marvelous. As the light begins to fade, I note that it’s Martial’s gray pinto with the steel-tipped tail. Stand her up next to any Ashlord-bred stallion and you’d think she was a miniature horse, but Farian’s filming will make her look twenty feet tall, and my alchemy will add what his filming can’t.