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H ellebore’s stoat hissed and traveled down her arm to sink its teeth into Ambrose’s wrist. He didn’t flinch. He’d suffered far worse. He held on, the magic glutting itself on the shivers of fragile bones clutched in his fist.

“Let go,” said Hellebore. To the untrained, she sounded commanding, but Ambrose felt her shaking. She spoke to Emery instead. “I know you’re not about to have him break my hand in broad daylight.”

“No, but I wanted you to know he could,” Emery said. “You can let her go now.”

Ambrose did, his stomach souring. Terrifying his master’s enemies had been an old game, one he was good at, and it was hard not to take succor from the victory. But this hunger, when he fed it, left him sick instead of sated.

Emery glanced at his phone. “I’ll see you later at the usual time and place.”

“You can’t bring him ,” said Hellebore.

“Oh? Why ever not?” Emery said with infuriating subtext Ambrose couldn’t grasp.

“He’ll want an explanation if you’re absent, but whatever. On your head be it,” Hellebore said.

She left, her stoat tucked into the collar of her shirt with its mouth still stained in Ambrose’s blood. He removed the glove to suck his wound clean, then put the glove back on. “Women in this era are different from mine.”

“I wouldn’t say Hellebore is necessarily a first ambassador for all modern women,” Emery replied. “Her company doesn’t improve with exposure, either.”

“She is the one you require protection from,” Ambrose said lightly, keeping the judgment from his tone, but Emery was sharp.

“Not only her, but if we’re going to start the gender politics conversation, we might as well rip off this particular plaster.

She’s a threat. Loath as I am to admit it, she’s one of the best witches in this school.

Don’t underestimate her because she’s a woman and you’re from a time when that was erroneously considered a personal failing.

Need I remind you, you aren’t exactly a shining example of patriarchal values yourself. ”

Ambrose braced himself for Emery’s snide denial of his masculinity, but he only said, “I don’t know how you achieved transition in your time, but in this one, that usually requires consistent medication. We can discuss the particulars later if necessary.”

“You think I’m sick.”

“Well, yes. I saw the way you looked while terrifying poor Hellebore. But, no, not because you’re—whatever you called yourself in your age.”

Abomination? Sodomite? Ambrose pasted on a tentative smile. “A man?”

“Yes.”

Well, that was a better response than he’d expected. Still, Ambrose didn’t know what to make of this conversation and would prefer not to have it.

The halls were nearly empty. “I believe we’re running late.”

Emery’s class took them to the other side of the castle grounds, to a wing that once contained the armory.

Some relics of the past still remained, hung from the walls like hunting trophies. Ambrose’s eyes fell immediately upon the sword mounted above the front podium. It had been a long time since it had licked a whetstone, the blade dull from disuse.

Its tip pointed down at the professor, a man of indeterminate age shuffling papers together.

He hummed a tune as he did. Something like a lullaby, haunting and nostalgic.

He’d lived long enough to have laugh lines, but his expressions and posture had the vigor of uncanny youth.

His hair was the same white as Ambrose’s, bleached by necromancy, with a distinct widow’s peak.

A water deer familiar tiptoed at his heel, hooves tapping a staccato rhythm against the stone floor.

Something about the professor’s gait and movements reminded Ambrose of watching someone through a reflection on rippling water rather than in the flesh.

Upon entering the room, his bright gaze struck Ambrose with magnetic curiosity, and Emery gave a chilly nod.

Hellebore arrived, taking a seat at the back next to a demurely pretty girl, whom she slung an arm around, flashing Emery a smile that was half snarl.

“I see we have a new student,” said the professor in a voice that didn’t need spells to cast a charm. It had the mellow vibrancy of a bard’s lyre.

“My cousin, visiting from abroad,” Emery lied. “Ambrose.”

The professor indulged the lie with a smile. “Pleased to have you, Ambrose. I’m Professor Van Moor. I hope you’re enjoying your visit to Bellgrave?”

Ambrose smiled brightly. “The grounds are beautiful.”

“They are, aren’t they?” He looked at Emery as he said it.

Emery’s chilly manner gave the interaction, for all its friendly overtures, an air of enmity Ambrose understood. Bad blood smelled the exact same centuries later.

This must be Emery’s nemesis, Morcant.

“There’s a lot of material to cover today, so I won’t hold us up any longer.

” The professor manipulated the machine at his podium, and a projection appeared on the white wall behind him.

Ambrose couldn’t read the words, but there was an illustration accompanying them. It depicted a face he’d know anywhere.

The witch king. Captured in charcoal impressions of a smile so captivating, it had bewitched a nation.

And Ambrose.

“Last class, we covered the witch king’s rise to power, how he galvanized a war-torn nation whose magical prowess paled in comparison to the southern provinces, and charmed his way into his predecessor’s good graces, to the extent the king named him successor rather than his own son.”

Ambrose knew this history, though he hadn’t met the witch king until after his coronation. It seemed beyond the possibility of coincidence that Morcant would be covering this in his classes while that king’s most loyal servant sat, resurrected, in the audience.

He studied Emery and Morcant for any sign they were aware of this irony, but Emery seemed not to pay the class much mind, and Morcant hardly looked at Ambrose.

He had an odd habit of pausing in his lecture to snack on small tomatoes, which he plucked from the vine and popped in his mouth whole.

The noise, amplified by his microphone, turned Ambrose’s stomach.

He otherwise did nothing to indicate why he and Emery had such enmity, or why he’d taken such an interest in the witch king at such an opportune time. Ambrose would have to ask Emery about this odd “coincidence” later.

“We covered the various theories behind the witch king’s success,” Morcant continued.

“Had the witch king genuinely befriended his predecessor, or ensorcelled him into surrendering his dynasty? As with many things, we can never know for certain. Similarly, we might never know what precisely led to his eventual downfall, but that won’t stop us from picking apart the possibilities during today’s lesson. ”

Ambrose’s stomach turned. Morcant went on to cover a range of reasoning.

The famine that struck poorer regions, leaving people starving and angry with their leaders.

The witch king’s religious advisers, some of whom felt he abused dark magics.

The previous monarch’s heirs, who resented the loss of their birthright and mistrusted the witch king’s intentions.

All the while, Ambrose listened and thought, None of those things led to his death. It was me. If I hadn’t failed him, he’d still be king.

As if in answer to the sting of self-flagellation, a familiar voice once again kissed the shell of his ear.

Ambrose. My Ambrose. Don’t forget why I gave you that name. You haven’t failed me. Not yet. Not while you draw breath.

Ambrose did his best to disguise the effect that voice had on him, but the hair rose on his neck in a pleasant shiver nonetheless. Emery glanced at him curiously.

“Cold,” Ambrose murmured, his breath short.

Was that truly the witch king’s voice? Or was he going mad?

You are not mad, even if there were once fools in our day who’d call you so. I live, insomuch as I can. We are tied, you and I. So long as you draw breath, I can return. You know this.

How? Ambrose thought desperately. How can I bring you back?

We will have to await an opportunity, but it seems this Morcant Van Moor, with all his knowledge, could help. Or, if not the man himself, then the books from which he’s learned so much about me.

Ambrose understood, but that presented its own barriers. His illiteracy prevented him from acquiring any knowledge written down. If he could speak to Morcant … But Emery would never allow it, and Ambrose couldn’t leave Emery’s side to do so in private.

Still, the witch king’s voice gave him hope. He’d find a way to reunite them. He had to.

Emery’s library of books, the devices everyone used to navigate this world, all that power and knowledge was useless to him unless he found a way to access it.

As the lecture ended, and students gathered their things, one student in particular caught Ambrose’s eye.

He hadn’t spent the lecture taking notes like the others.

He held his mobile phone and had black things in his ears.

When he rose, he used a stick, white with a rubber end, to tap his way up the steps.

He was blind. So how could he read the notes on the slides or see the diagrams?

He must have some method. Ambrose attempted to devise an excuse to walk over and ask, but Emery interrupted his thoughts.

“Coffee.”

“Pardon?”

“Coffee. I need one.”

He made his way toward the exit. Ambrose glanced over his shoulder at the blind boy, but he couldn’t very well approach now. He’d need to find an appropriate time when Emery wasn’t paying attention.

Professor Van Moor watched them on their way out with the smile of a man indulging his misbehaving pet.

Minutes later, they stood in a queue at a “café”—a cozy, fragrant-smelling place with students curled up in armchairs taking a break between classes. It felt more like a sitting room than a restaurant.

Ambrose waited dutifully at Emery’s heel while he ordered.

“A large mocha, please. Want anything?”

Ambrose looked askance to see who Emery was speaking to.

“You. I’m asking you. Do you want anything?”