After surviving the Fortress, returning to my training at Ivory Hall feels false. Like I’m only pretending to practice bone magic.

Master Kyra leans against the table in the training room, watching as I tip a basin full of aviary bones—keel, rib, coracoid—onto the cloth in front of me and study them.

I started flame readings earlier this week. At least Master Kyra thinks I started them.

Master Kyra has given me a series of tasks—divining who would enter the room next, how many Mixer apprentices were crowded into the adjoining room, which bones the Masons were carving across the hall. I haven’t made a mistake yet.

“You’re making wonderful progress, Saskia,” she says. “Your mastery tattoo should appear soon. Any sign of it yet?”

The question knocks me off-balance, as if an hourglass has been tipped over and it’s only a matter of time before the sand stops flowing. How long until she actually checks for the tattoo and realizes I’ve broken the law? How long before I end up on Fang Island?

Or maybe Latham will get to me first. Either way, my fate seems bleak.

I put my hand into the pocket of my cloak and run my fingers over the parchment Avalina gave me. The address is the only lead I have for finding Latham. And finding him is a yawning need inside me. A hole that won’t be filled until one of us is dead.

I look up to see Kyra studying me with a quizzical expression. She’s still waiting for an answer about the mastery tattoo.

“No sign of it yet,” I say.

She smiles. “Don’t worry. It should be there any day now.”

My gaze goes to the window and the rushing water of the Shard below. I feel like a tree branch caught in the current—bobbing along on the swells of fate, powerless to change direction. But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. I need to take control.

It’s time to become the river.

“I’m going to find Latham,” I tell my team later that night over the evening meal.

Talon pauses, a seasoned potato wedge halfway between his plate and his mouth. “Right now?”

“Not this very moment. In the morning. We have a few days before the next challenge, so the timing seems right.”

Tessa wipes her fingers on a napkin. “What’s your plan?”

I hesitate—what if she reports me to Norah? Tessa’s mouth thins. She sets the napkin beside her plate. “I’m on your side, Saskia. I promised no more secrets, and I meant it.”