“Me...also,” he rasps, crushing my dreams.

“What?”

Raze clears his throat, settling his weight onto his other foot. “I am also...that. Sorry. For...what I said to you.”

I stare at him, waiting for the but...

When it doesn’t come, I nod once. “Accepted.”

“Likewise.”

We stand facing each other for another moment, just barely close enough for me to feel his presence in an uncomfortable prickle on my skin. Is he going to say something else? What is he waiting for?

“We should go,” I say sharply, turning away. “We don’t want to lose our lead. I promised Olani I’d start magic lessons today.”

I’m already walking, but with his much longer stride, he catches up easily. “Iselia?”

What is it now? Wasn’t one apology enough? My eyes flick over to him in response.

Just in time to catch a grin slipping over his weary features. “Did you miss me?”

I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”

But this time, I smile, too.

The magic lessons aren’t that bad at first.

The first day, it feels almost like we’re having a normal conversation while Isolde fidgets behind the wheel. They tell me about how they tap into their magic, about what they do with it, and what it feels like for them to channel it. At first, just talking about magic makes it jump within me, so I get quiet and stiff and try to focus on pushing it back down.

After a while, it settles down a little. I can talk about it in short, awkward bursts, interrupted occasionally by a terrible joke from Raze—who, unfortunately, finds himself hilarious. No one else laughs.

Three days pass before I have to actually start using my magic. We drive long into the night at a punishing pace, trying to keep our lead, and when I crawl out from refueling the Destiny, Isolde and the others ambush me. They sit me down by our small campfire and tell me to let the magic still pulsing under my skin bubble up. Not to summon it, but to calmly wait for it and see what form it takes. It’s too much to ask of me.

That night, I dream of a pale, faraway form beckoning me closer. His face is blurred, but I know him: the guide, he called himself, the voice of whatever magic transferred from the compass to me. I try to approach, but he never gets any closer. The wind whispers something in a voice that chills me to my core, words I can’t remember the next morning.

I do my best to forget about all of it.

Each day is a little less quiet than the last as my sister slips into familiarity with our traveling companions, even as the uneasy awareness that we’re most likely still being followed hangs over all of us. I add to the conversation when I have to, and I faithfully allow myself to be ordered around during my lessons, but getting along isn’t easy for me like it is for Isolde. She and Olani can swap stories for hours, and before long, she’s laughing along with Raze’s horrible jokes and trying to one-up them.