It struck her as odd that practicing magic had gotten her parents killed, and now she was about to use it to try to save herself.

“You made it!” Raurie approached from a back room, draping a purple shawl over her shoulders. She smiled as if they were here for a party rather than an illegal magic service. “My aunt is waiting for you. I have a shift at my uncle’s bar after this, but I wanted to be here to introduce you to June.”

There was a hint of protectiveness in her voice, and Aina didn’t blame her. It was already a risk on her part to invite them here at all.

“Are you Inosen yourself?” Aina asked as Raurie led them to the back room.

Nodding again, Raurie said, “Yes, I have been all my life. But I haven’t been blessed to be able to use magic. My aunt says it’s too dangerous.” She gestured into the small back room. “Here she is.”

Her aunt, June Coste, sat in the center of the room on a pillow. Black hair streaked with gray shrouded her face, which was narrow with high cheekbones. Two candles cast golden light onto her ochre-brown skin and her yellow shawl. A black tattoo curved in the center of her forehead like the blade of a scythe. Through the black ink, three small diamonds sat in her forehead, unabashedly revealed to the world. Aina’s breath caught at the sight. The diamonds revealed exactly what she was.

June was a Sacoren, a priest—they were Inosen that the Mothers came to, either in a vision or in their thoughts, and asked them to be leaders of their people and to bless willing Inosen with the ability to use the magic of blood and earth. Then, they pierced three diamonds into an arc on their own foreheads as a gesture of loyalty to the Mothers and a sign that they had been chosen as leaders. Her parents had told her to always trust Sacoren, that they were there to help—except for King Verrain. He’d twisted the power given to him for his own purposes, making it evil instead of the blessing the Mothers had intended it to be.

Ever since the war, any Sacoren who were caught by the Diamond Guards had their diamonds ripped out and these tattoos forcibly inked in their place, so that everyone would know their crime. Instead of being thrown in jail or killed, they were allowed to walk freely with the tattoo as a warning to all other Inosen that steel would always be stronger than blood. June must have restored the diamonds herself.

On June’s left was a tattered copy of the Nos Inoken, the holy text filled with the Mothers’ wisdom, written by Sacoren hundreds of years ago. On her right was a glass jar filled with rough diamonds. Each diamond was only good for one act of magic, so it made sense that she needed a jar full of them. She said nothing as they sat, simply straightened her sleeves and took them in. This woman made a living off performing magic for people who had never been blessed to do so themselves or were too scared to. In the Stacks, older Inosen like June Coste were venerated as long as they could manage to escape the Diamond Guards’ attention.