Prue sat behind a cluster of boxes in the memory lab and tapped a pencil on her journal. “The ghost machines process the movement data and thought data within the frequency … but somehow the pre-harnessing history data is blocked,” she muttered to herself.

Her journal was filling up fast with notes. She was convinced that the memory of the personifates still existed somewhere; either it needed pulling back from the spirit world, or it was in the wildspark harnessed by the qwortzite, possibly hidden in some way.

Sighing, she laid back on the floor and stared at the ceiling. Francis and home were on her mind. Her parents had written again on Monday, wanting to know why she hadn’t been home for a weekend yet. She’d sent a note back with Luella explaining that they could only go on certain weekends and they were very busy at the moment with the hundred and promised to visit soon. Prue felt she was getting closer to finding a way to Francis, but there was one big problem; she would need a personifate test subject to get frequency readings from in order to take a closer look. Edwin was the obvious choice, and she thought he would probably leap at the chance of unlocking his past memories, but then again, she wasn’t entirely sure on how he would take it after the Inventors Parade incident, or that she could ask him to risk his apprenticeship position, if they were ever found out. She had almost finished fixing the broken connections on the GODAR and she planned a few adjustments to make it more transportable, so next week she would be able to analyse the frequency and see if what she suspected from her research matched up.

At the end of the week, when they arrived back after lessons, Lavender had a hearty vegetable broth and still-warm sourdough bread ready for them. All the apprentices’ winter cloaks were hanging on the pegs and there was a line of what looked like fishing nets, the sort Prue would use to skim the pond back at the farm.

“Everyone eat up quickly, then collect the light jars from the shelves and check your nets before we leave. You don’t want any holes, or you’ll have a very disappointing evening,” she said, taking one of the light jars from the shelf.

“What in all of Medlock is she up to?” said Agapantha.

Martha, a year two apprentice, smiled. “Oh, it’s the first new moon since you’ve been here, isn’t it?”

“What does that mean?” said Prue.

“It’s the collecting of the spirit lights.”

“Spirit lights?”

She looked at the chaos lamps on the shelf – and realized they weren’t chaos lamps at all!