I’m thinking of Rasmus. Of Bram. Of how my entire team is in danger because of me. I’ve been so selfish, so focused on defeating Latham, I haven’t appreciated how devastating the consequences would be if my friends were caught helping me. What would Jacey’s punishment be for dosing Rasmus with a walking sedative? Or Talon’s penalty for using training birds to spy for me?

They’ve taken such good care of me and I haven’t returned the favor. I sink my teeth into my lower lip.

“It’s late,” Master Kyra says. “Should we call it quits for today? Perhaps try again when you’re not so preoccupied?”

The question makes my throat feel thick. Because I’m quite certain there will never be a time when I’m not weighed down by worry. And with the third bone game approaching next week, I don’t have time to waste. I need to find my mother’s bones. To stop Latham.

“No,” I say, “let’s keep going.”

I barely listen to her instructions. I have no intention of trying to see anything except Latham.

Master Kyra drops a handful of bones into the stone basin in front of me, and I set them alight. Extinguish the flames. Tip the bones onto the cloth in front of me. The magic leaps in my belly and I’m sucked into a vision.

It takes me a moment to get my bearings, but then the familiar bone-white walls of Ivory Hall come into focus. The dripping chandeliers. The curving dual staircases.

Norah hurries through the foyer, a bundle of packages tucked under her arm. I can’t tell if I’m in the past, present, or future. The capital is quiet. No apprentices bustling between classes, no clanging of dishes in the dining hall, no one lounging on benches or studying spells. Maybe everyone is in training sessions. Or maybe the term is over, and everyone has already gone home.

I follow Norah up the stairs, down the corridor, toward the men’s dormitory. She stops at one door, and sorts through her stack until she finds a parchment marked Notice of Exam Failure. She presses her lips together and shakes her head as she folds the paper and slides it under the door. Then she makes her way down the corridor, delivering letters from home, invoices for damaged library books, instructions to attend extra training sessions. She finishes in the men’s dormitory and heads toward the women’s. When she stops at my door, my heart clenches. Maybe we’re in the future and I’ve failed the bone games. But Norah doesn’t pull a paper from her stack. Instead she reaches for the doorknob. It turns easily at her touch.