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“Adelline Valencia,” Cypherion said, testing it. He searched my face. “It’s beautiful. So are you. But I like Vale.”

“I do, too.”

And if it kept my family protected, I’d never answer to my true name again.

My eyes stung, but I blinked away the tears, clenching my hand with the opal stone of my mother’s ring facing my palm.

“Why don’t you write to your friends?” I suggested. “Tell them where we are and give them an update on our plan.”

“Yeah,” Cypherion said slowly, both of us trying to focus on the present conflicts again. As he reached for his pack, I moved to step away, but his voice cut through the room. “Where are you going?”

A tug on my wrist, and I was falling into his lap with a small squeal, all my mourning from a moment before vanishing with his warmth around me.

“Giving you space?” My words turned up at the end, because what in the Fates did he mean?

Cypherion dumped his supplies on the table, the corked inkwell rolling. “Write the letter with me?”

There was a new vulnerability to his words. An invitation to stand together as we presented new findings and strategies to his friends—his friends that were not only the current leaders of the Mystique Warriors, but a group of individuals who comprised the deepest parts of his heart. The ones he’d fought and sacrificed for. The ones he would risk his life for.

Cypherion raised his brows hesitantly, asking me to be a part of this with him, his care for them bleeding out between us.

I would bottle up that worry for him, widen the room to make space for everything he felt and feared.

“Of course,” I whispered.

And as he sighed, the weight of our mission fell on me again. Yes, this was about untangling my magic, but the implications stretched so much further than that. They extended past the archives, past the walls of this capital, clear across the continent.

They were pressing down on those Cypherion loved most, and though he didn’t say it, I thought he was afraid of what the end would bring.

He shouldn’t have to carry those fears alone. He wouldn’t anymore.

This started with my magic, and I would do whatever was within my power to help him.

Chapter Nineteen

Vale

“Most temples are for worship and reading, with the academies attached to them for residents,” I explained to Cypherion for what must have been the tenth time, though he kept listening attentively.

We strolled as casually as we could through the Second District and toward the largest temple in the capital, which sat above the archives. With the sun having set, some of the less savory parts of Valyn were waking. Nearly every open window emitted puffs of pastel smoke that I did my best to avoid.

It was likely only recreational—not the kind that would trigger a reading—but I didn’t want to find out.

“But there will be guards,” Cypherion said.

As a group of warriors pushed past us, he placed his hand to my lower back, keeping me close. I tried not to look at any of them, didn’t want them peering beneath my hood on the off chance that they remembered the chancellor’s apprentice. Instead, I ducked my head and leaned into Cypherion.

Spirits, being so hidden was strange, but in a way, it awarded a new level of freedom. I didn’t have to be looking over my shoulder every moment. Didn’t have to worry that I’d be recognized so easily. And given that it was winter, it wasn’t suspicious of us to be so concealed.

I answered Cypherion as that group drifted further down the street, “There are guards, but they’re employed by the temples and academies. Everyone who grows up at a temple, or is hired by them, is trained.” I was. “They’re usually unpracticed in real combat—the ones who didn’t join the armies against Kakias at least—but it’s best if we can avoid them.”

I didn’t want to harm innocent Starsearchers. If these guards were like most, Cypherion would destroy them in a battle.

He hummed in agreement, and we continued on. Finally, at the end of a wide street, the temple’s looming silhouette rose into the night.

We stopped at the base of the stairs, the elaborate carved stone facade glaring down at us, pointed towers and stained glass adorning the sacred space.

“Weapons?” Cypherion asked to distract me, craning his neck to see the top of the spires glinting in the moonlight.