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“The man in the depths,” I whisper. I didn’t need further proof of who he was, but it seems I have it. Even though I’ve never met Silas before, he feels like a friendly face. There were few people Arina had mentioned more often than him.

“What?”

“That’s what my sister called you.” I ease into the wingback thanks to Silas’s help.

He chuckles as he crosses the room, retrieving a thin, crusty loaf of bread and salted meat. I can tell it’s of the same quality that’s served in the main hall, but its far simpler presentation puts me more at ease than I’ve been in days. “She would have called me that.”

“She said you knew the deeper passages of the academy.” And those passages were allegedly leading her to something big—bigger than the passage through the bridge. But what? I never had a chance to findout before my arrest. “Were you the one to show her the way out?”

“No.” Silas sighs. “She found that on her own. And, somewhat the opposite, I cautioned her against going too deep.”

“But do you know of the way out?” I ask as I devour the food. I needed sustenance desperately.

“Not her way out.” He catches himself, raising his hands and trying to verbally backtrack. “No, I don’t know of any ways out.”

I narrow my eyes at him. Silas makes it a point to avoid my probing stare.

“Please,” I say.

“I can’t.”

“If you knew Arina, then you already know who I am and what I fought for. What’s happened to me.” There’s no point in attempting the fake noble ruse on him.

Silas averts his eyes, as if the truth of what I’ve endured is too much for him to bear. Yet I force him to anyway.

“No more than five days ago, I was in Halazar.” I’m not sure how long I was unconscious for after Kaelis dragged me out of the water, so I make a guess.

“I was there for almost a year. A year, Silas. I’ve had no contact with the people I care about most in the world.

Arina—” My throat closes, and, for a moment, I choke on emotions I’ve been working so hard to keep in check.

“She is my sister, the only blood family I have left, and I don’t know what happened to her.

Last I knew, she’d lied about her age, made it into the academy and through the Fire Festival, and was eying Cups as her house. ”

“Arina lied about her age?” He seems genuinely surprised. I was right, she didn’t tell him everything.

“Only a little. She was nineteen.” Not that you could tell by looking at her.

And her magic had fully matured. “She was supposed to be here in her second year, but I can’t find her, and I’ve yet to get solid answers I can believe.

The people I love—people I swore to protect—might be in danger.

I don’t know anything about any of them, either.

Every second I spend here, ignorant and at the whim of my enemies, rots me from the inside. ”

I wrap my arms around my sides and dip my head for a second, drawing a shuddering breath.

I’d been doing so well keeping myself together.

But now I’m a ribbon, spinning endlessly.

Waving on the wind. Forcing myself to linger in these feelings, I turn my eyes back to him.

I want him to feel the weight of these emotions threatening to crush me as though they were his own.

“Don’t you want to know what happened to Arina?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then help me get out of here. Do that, and I will do anything you want to repay you.” I continue to keep my eyes locked with his. My voice quiets with severity. “You’ve no idea how rarely I give out an offer like that.”

Silas opens and closes his mouth. He nearly breaks. But ultimately he shakes his head. “I can’t. ”

“Are you some kind of prisoner?” Kaelis clearly has a thing for keeping people locked up.

“No more than any of us are.” Isn’t that the truth?

I pick up on more. He’s hiding something. “But you can’t leave.”

“It’s because of my card.”

The ambiguity. Kaelis keeping this man close and hidden…“You’re a Major.” I piece it together.

“The Chariot.”

“And what does the Chariot do?” I get the sense that the moment I stop asking questions, he’s going to force me to leave.

“Much like you’d expect…Transportation instantly between two known locations.”

I’m on my feet. “So you can get out.”

He continues avoiding my stare. “You’re new. You don’t know all the rules of the Majors yet.”

“Fuck their rules,” I blurt.

Silas’s eyes widen with shock. “The use of the Major cards is only for High Lords and Ladies, or the king himself. We can’t—”

“I don’t care what people who have never spent a day of their lives worrying about me think,” I interrupt him. Anger laces my words, but I keep my composure so it’s clear the rage isn’t directed at him.

“They will punish you.”

“I don’t care,” I repeat.

“You don’t know what they can do to you.”

I bark laughter. “I know exactly what they can do to me.” Silas is silenced. “Eza doesn’t play by the rules. He uses his Majors as he pleases. Don’t be the only one heeding the crown’s limitations on us.”

“Eza’s cost to ink is less than others’. Those of us with rarer requirements are far more scrutinized. We can’t get away with as much.”

“What is your requirement?” I ask, in part to keep him talking. Though, Silas doesn’t seem to be the type of man to respond well to brute force. Soften yourself, Clara. As if I know how to make any part of me “soft” anymore…

“I can only ink my cards in a location I’ve never been before. One new location, one new card. So I’m kept here. The Chariot is too useful to risk me going somewhere new and not getting a card out of it.”

My stomach churns with the poison of his solitude. “Kaelis keeps you locked up because of your card?”

“I’m free to wander most of the academy so long as I stay out of sight; that way, no suspicions are roused, or questions asked, about why I don’t look like a student.” He speaks as if that should be enough.

“How long has it been like this?”

“Since I entered the academy four years ago. As soon as my Major and the cost of inking it was known, I was put here.” A man of roughly twenty-four years…I was right that he’s a little older than Kaelis.

“One year in Halazar and I nearly broke.”

“This is far more comfortable than Halazar, I assure you.”

“A prison is a prison.”

He pauses, eyes drifting to a shadowed corner, where they linger. I know all too well the look of a man consumed by his ghosts. It prompts me to close the gap. The touch of my fingertips on his elbow brings him back to the present.

“If you can go anywhere, Silas, then leave,” I say gently.

“I must first know a place to go to it with the Chariot.”

“Your floor is a map.”

He pauses, and the soft lighting casts shadows over the chiseled planes of his face. “It’s not a matter of what I do or don’t want…It’s what must be done for the good of the kingdom.”

“You don’t believe that.” It’s a far nicer thing for me to say than the first several thoughts that crossed my mind in response to the phrase “good of the kingdom.”

“You don’t know me,” he reminds me. My hand drops from his person. He’s right.

“I don’t. But no one should be forced to give up the world.”

“The World is precisely what we’re all fighting for.

” He gives me a reassuring smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, which only makes my heart ache more.

“Once we have unlocked the twenty-first Major, Oricalis will prosper, more than it ever has before. We will usher in a new age.” The words sound recited. Hollow.

“You believe all that nonsense?”

“I assure you, it’s not ‘nonsense.’?” The solemn severity of his words…his grave expression. It strikes me more than any of Kaelis’s claims have to date: Silas truly believes it’s real.

The World, the ultimate wish card. If it does exist, then I could use it for myself…The frantic hope that flared in me when Kaelis first mentioned it returns. It could change my life—put everything back to the way it was before Mother died, the way it should have been.

“Leave this place with me, tonight.”

He sighs, realizing we’re back at the start. “I can’t. You can’t.”

I bite back a groan of frustration. “If not for me, then for my sister and any fondness you had for her.”

“It’s not—”

“Two cards, Silas. We go and come back. No one will be any wiser that we even left.” The words are ash in my mouth, and I still don’t know if I mean them.

But I’ll say anything to get out of here.

Silas’s skeptical expression is well placed.

I shift tactics slightly. “What constitutes a ‘new place’ for you?”

“Standing in a location where nothing I see is something I’ve seen before.”

“Excellent. Then you’ll be in lots of new places as we go to find my family; you can ink two new cards—more than two, probably.” I take his hand in both of mine, staring up at him, pleading with my expression and words. “Please.”

He sighs and withdraws his hand, crossing to his desk.

I think I’ve lost until he plucks two tarot cards from among the clutter and inking supplies scattered across the surface of his desk.

He places the first into a nearby satchel along with the inking supplies before rolling upthe sleeves of his shirt, exposing the ropey muscles of his forearms.

He takes a moment to admire the second card before turning to me. I notice that the ink shines with a silver sheen.

“I’ve never seen ink that color before.”

“When a Major inks their Major card successfully, the ink turns silver. It’s how you know you’ve done it true,” he explains.

“No matter what ink is used?” Myrion had said as much earlier, but I want to verify everything I’m told. If two people tell me the same thing, it’s more likely to be true, I think.

He nods.

“Fascinating…” At least I have a marker for success should I make another serious attempt at inking a Major Arcana.

“Are you ready?” His voice is steady. But his eyes are shining with what could just as easily be excitement as fear. “We go, and we come back.”

“Give me the card and I can—”

“No.” Even though he’s firmly shot me down, he wears a slight grin.

“I know how Arina was when it came to being sneaky and getting her way; I assume you’re even worse.

I’m not letting you touch this card and disappear.

I’m coming with you and I’m bringing you back.

It’s too risky for me if you go missing. ”

“Fine.” I nod. “I’m not going to put you at risk. Not when you’re the one who’s being kind enough to help me.”

He must believe me, because he holds out the Chariot. The opportunity to see a Major in action—when it isn’t being used to hurt me— and get out of this place? My dizziness is from a lot more than blood loss now. Hope is a potent draught.

With practiced ease, he exhales softly. The card rises, balancing on its corner at the tip of his finger.

It shines, and I hear the distant whinny of a horse.

The paper unravels into thousands of shimmering strands of white light.

The ribbons of glowing silver fall into a circle around us.

Silas’s expression turns almost nefarious as the haze casts eerie shadows across his face.

But I don’t doubt him. Not for a second. Arina trusted him, and so shall I.

As the circle engulfs us, the world shifts, and Silas’s haven fades from view, replaced by somewhere far beyond the academy’s walls.