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Oraik was awake when I returned, sitting with Kalcedon beside a new fire built from the last night’s embers. Kalcedon, who had spent the night wrapped around me, was savoring the final slice of his garden’s white melon, most of which he’d devoured with frightening speed. The rest of camp was starting to come awake. Oraik looked much more like himself, though he still moved slowly. I watched him clap Kalcedon’s shoulder, then rise to meet me down at the bank.

“Hello, oh fearsome witch.”

“Don’t.” I rolled my eyes, and he smiled softly.

“Karema said they’re headed west today. Away from the Ward.” His voice turned serious.

“Alright.”

“Should we part, and cross home now? If you want to travel with them for a time, I wouldn’t mind seeing more. Whatever you’d like.”

“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Oraik. I’m sorry. The truth is… I can’t go back.”

His face went blank.

“...Can’t?” Oraik said after a moment.

“Won’t,” I corrected. He took a half step back, eyes wide. I looked down so I wouldn’t have to see his pained expression. “We’d have to bring down the Colynes stone. I won’t let the Ward fall further, not on my behalf. And Kalcedon has to stay, now that he’s the Lord here, so…” I drew a deep breath. “But if I wrote a letter to my family. You’d bring it to them, right? And you’d visit me?” I’d felt fine a moment ago. Now I was almost crying.

“Oh, Meda,” Oraik said. He grabbed me in a tight embrace.

“Younglings. There is no need for these passionate dramatics.”

Oraik and I turned around. Tarelay stood a half-dozen paces away, ankle deep in the river, his pants cuffed around his shins. “I apologize for overhearing. But the whole Ward will need to come down and be built anew. The fallen lord damaged it beyond repair.”

It was the first time he had spoken to me since the awful events of the day before.

“You really are Tarelay?” I couldn’t help but ask. “The Tarelay who built the Ward?”

The Tarelay Sorrowsworn craned his head and looked down his green nose at me.

“I am.”

“The Tarelay?” I asked again in disbelief.

He squinted at me.

“Right,” I said. I sniffled. “And you mean to say I could go home? And see my family? Without ruining it?”

“Yes, yes. The Colynes stone will need to come down at some point or other, anyways.”

I could go back. I could see them. My family would know how many times the Ward had fallen. They might have been scared, or worried, or even hurt—though I didn’t let my mind settle on that last one. I wanted to hug them all, more badly than I had in years.

But somehow, I still knew that the Protectorate couldn’t be my home any longer. I didn’t belong on Nis-Illous. I would never trust the Temple again, and I couldn’t leave Kalcedon. But I wanted desperately to see my family. And maybe to take some of the books from Eudoria’s home.

But to only go once… I gulped. Oraik could visit us, and my father, but not the rest of my family.

“Would you consider some changes?” I asked Tarelay shyly. It felt profane to tell him he could do anything better. “If it weren’t so impenetrable. If it didn’t swallow all magic, but just kept out those who meant trouble?”

“Such a thing would be abhorrently complex,” Tarelay informed me, peering down his long nose. “It is not possible to write such a tailored limit.”

“Alright, a different idea,” I said, yanking my hand out of Oraik’s to gesture in front of me. “I thought, if you take—what was it, your seventh phrasing, I think? That defines the scope of the Ward? And add a sequence after. That would only capture a certain magnitude, like a full faerie but not a witch—”

“Insufficient,” Tarelay informed me. “It would not stop lesser spells from entering through the Ward. In such a matter, havoc would still be wreaked.”

“A limit of intention, then,” I insisted. “That only prevents those with ill-will…”

“Magic cannot do that,” Tarelay said. “It is impossible. Who among us does not harbor some small cruelty? Intentions change, or appear differently on one’s perspective.”