Nova was still thinking about the look on Jinx’s face the moment before the flame went out, the way shadows had played over her prominent jaw and cheekbones, both emphasizing her fierceness and softening it too. Novaya had never been one for creative endeavors. She had sought out the position on the seamstress’s staff because she was a fair hand with a needle and it was a step up from being a maid, but it was merely a means to an end. She had always been so busy worrying about how to survive that dreams were not something that often had time to take root and grow in her mind. But that one single memory of Jinx in the light of her flame made her suddenly think of being a painter, of trying a hundred different colors until she found the ones to make it exactly right. It did not seem fair that she was the only one who got to see such a sight. It was too beautiful not to want to share.

“Do you think I could shape a sword from fire?” Nova asked. “Or something smaller to start? A dagger?”

“Goddess, please do. I can imagine it already. You will be glorious.”

Nova’s stomach flopped in that way again—anticipation and anxiety rolled into one mess of confusing, overflowing emotions.

Jinx lay back onto the bed, kicking her feet up against the nearest wall, and they began chatting about the possibilities of different fire weapons, and what Nova might eventually learn to conjure.

Eventually, while Jinx was debating the merits of a fire whip and some weapon she once encountered that could be thrown and would return in the air to its master, not through magic, but design, Nova began to yawn.

She pulled her pillow closer, but did her best to prop herself up on her elbow, not wanting Jinx to stop talking; but the other witch noticed her fading. She leaned over Nova’s knees and pushed her shoulders into the pillows.

“Go to sleep if you are tired,” Jinx said. “I can imagine that bit of magic was enough to settle your mind.”

Nova did not know that it settled anything, but she was always calmer when Jinx was close by, even when she was nervous. Nova liked that about her. Once her shoulders hit the mattress though, there was no pulling them up again. Jinx was still leaning on her knees, and the earth witch reached out, pushing a long strand of black hair off Nova’s face that Nova had been too tired to address herself.

Her heart clenched, the heavy beats plunking like unsuccessful skipping stones into a pond.

“My mother would have loved to meet you,” Jinx said. “She was a witch too, and she … she would be proud, I think, to see what we are doing.”

“Even though we are locked away?”