She had been burned to death. But not by an external fire, for the dress wasn’t even singed. In his life on Mittlegard before he closed the gates, Wad had seen what murder looked like when a Firemaster heated someone’s body from the inside until it was utterly consumed. It was Anonoei’s dress, and what was left of her dead body was still wearing it.

Keel had been partly right, when he thought he was spied on. When Anonoei went to talk to him, it wasn’t a spy who waited to intercept her. It was Queen Bexoi herself. Bexoi the Firemaster.

Intimacy

21

INTIMACY

Danny knew that his parents expected him to come back to the compound after everyone got back from their instantaneous trip to Westil. There was a war about to start, using magery with a scope and intensity that had not been seen in Mittlegard since the seventh century.

But Danny had no intention of taking part in the war—not the way they would expect him to. They would hold councils and plan strategies. They would be practicing to see what they could do with their newly enhanced magery.

Danny also knew that he couldn’t just go back to high school and sit it out. He would have to be involved in this war, like it or not.

But war or no war, he was not going to drop out of high school.

He had not slept in thirty-four hours when he came back to Parry McCluer just as school was letting out. Nobody noticed him, in their rush to get to the buses or the parking lot or just plain out.

That is, they noticed him enough to not bump into him, but few of them realized, as they passed him in the halls, that he had been absent all day. Whatever their normal response would be to seeing this normal kid on a normal day, they did. A wave, a nod, nothing.

He didn’t see any of his friends. Had they all ditched? Had something happened to them?

“Danny,” said a girl. Someone touched his back.

Danny turned. It was Nicki Lieder.

“Dad was so worried when you didn’t come to practice this morning and then you weren’t at school and nobody answered your phone.”

“Sorry,” said Danny. “Family emergency.”

“I was sure it was something like that.” Her hand was resting on his waist. He almost hadn’t noticed it, the move had been so subtle. But it was a girlfriend thing, he knew that—a possessive gesture that communicated to anybody passing by, “He’s mine, I have the right to do this.”

He didn’t want to hurt her feelings by removing her hand. So he turned partly away, then back again; it broke the contact. “I should have called,” he said.