Through the hole in Marten’s torso where his arm once connected to his shoulder, Evin could see hundreds and hundreds of tiny metal gears whirring and spinning, aglow with green magic. The same was true of the severed arm.

Marten wasn’t Marten at all. The boy—the thing—he thought was his brother was some sort of magical machine.

“What in the—” Evin said.

At that moment, the wooden door burst inward, sending splinters flying. Evin stumbled backward and fell. Dozens of cackling gnolls surged through the doorway, their weapons raised high.

Evin couldn’t think.

He couldn’t scream.

He couldn’t fight back.

He couldn’t run.

Nothing made sense: the chimera’s unusual pronouncements; the boy who was a machine; his dream of a home on the other side of the wall; Bet’s strange, one-sided conversation. Everything was off. Everything was confusing.

The gnolls loomed above him, ready to end his life, and at that moment, Evin was absolutely incapable of doing anything about it.

“Eevik!” a voice cried. “Sueee cuedot!”

Evin craned his neck and saw Bet standing right behind him. Gusts of air swirled around her, billowing her robes and her hair as she held her wand high and shouted. Her face seemed stern, older. An orange light sparked from the tip of her wand.

And then, in a shock wave, magic burst in all directions from Bet. It met the gnolls and they stopped, reared back their heads, and burst into millions of ashy particles.

The force of the magic hit Evin like a boulder, and he collapsed into darkness.

Chapter Nineteen

Evin dreamed he was back inside the large, decrepit house full of stinking, screaming children. He sat at the window and looked out onto a bustling city street. Next to him sat another boy. He was tall and lanky like Evin, and he also shared Evin’s shaggy blond hair and pale blue eyes. Evin knew they were not related, but everyone called them brothers anyway because they looked so much alike.

The boy’s name was Marten, and he taught Evin everything he would ever need to know about how to sneak into the inns, shops, and mansions of the prosperous city, to steal just enough to one day escape this horrible orphanage.

Evin stared through the window at the great white wall in the distance. It sloped upward as though curving into a dome. Attached to the northern side of the wall was a keep made of the same stone, a square tower rising into the sky.

Evin wanted to ask Marten about the wall and the house, about why he was here when he was quite certain that just a moment before he’d been a different person altogether, dragging a manic boy who looked like Marten except that he had gears instead of bones.