He closed his eyes but insisted on talking, although his speech was slurred and slow, like he had to piece the sentence together word by word. “Aqueous bombs . . . explode . . . when they touch . . . water . . . but . . . they really explode . . . when they hit . . . ice.”

Oh. So that’s how he’d gotten blown into the lake. No wonder his head hurt. Sora was amazed Broomstick had gotten away with only that.

Well, other than almost drowning. She let out a long exhale, relieved she hadn’t lost him.

“Tell me . . . the vault?” Broomstick asked.

Sora reached into the hidden pocket just inside her collar, pulled out the gold soul pearl, and held it out to him. “I got Prince Gin’s soul.”

Broomstick’s face contorted, and he jerked away from the pearl as if it were a plague.

Sora frowned. “It won’t hurt you.”

“N-no,” Broomstick said, shaking his head vigorously. “Get it away from me. You can’t trust me with it. I’m a bad person.”

“What are you talking about?”

Suddenly, the words spilled out in a nearly delirious flood. “I’m going to kill a lot of people in the coming war, Spirit. The Dragon Prince is going to use me as a weapon on the mainland to slaughter city after city, country after country. I’ll pretend to be friendly and plan big parties for them, and entire towns will show up, excited to be invited. Because, you know, people trust me. I’m nice. I like talking to them and hearing about their families and their hobbies and their dreams. But once I’ve lured them in, I’ll blow them up. All their loved ones they just introduced me to. All their hopes and wishes blasted into ashes. I’m an evil person. Keep that soul pearl safe from me.”

Maybe he still has water in his lungs. Broomstick was out of the water, but the lake’s effects lingered, refusing to relinquish its hold on him.

Sora tucked the golden pearl away, not because she didn’t trust Broomstick but to calm him down. “You’re a good person,” she said. “One of the best I know. The visions you saw weren’t real—”

“But they could be!” He jumped up.

Her heart ached for him. Broomstick was the kind of person who threw surprise parties for his dormmates and sent birthday gifts to his coworkers’ children. All he wanted was to bring joy into others’ lives. The idea that his charisma could be used to cause harm was an assault on his very being.

If there’s water in his lungs, can you get it out? Sora thought to the emerald dust that now floated lazily in the air.

But the magic just eddied for a few seconds around Broomstick before returning to doing nothing.

Did that mean it couldn’t help? Or that Sora was wrong and there was no water in Broomstick’s lungs?