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Sciona was aware that she looked perfectly insane when the alchemist arrived, her feet bare, her short hair disheveled, white highmage’s robes pulled over her white nightgown—a seething tangle of static energy barely holding the shape of a woman.

She heard the alchemist before they saw him—the creak of the door, then his deep voice conversing with Aunt Winny’s softer one in the next room.

Trying to breathe slowly, Sciona leaned back in the kitchen chair and idly picked a snarl from her hair.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Alba whispered as the voices drew closer.

Before Sciona could answer, Aunt Winny said, “She’s just in here,” and pushed the kitchen door open.

“Miss Sciona,” the new voice said with the detached calm that was the trademark of a medical alchemist. “My name is Doctor Mellier. I’m here to diagnose your condition and give you something to make you feel all…

” The purple-robed alchemist trailed off as Sciona stood and faced him in her white robe.

“Doctor Mellier.” Stepping around the table, Sciona was relieved to find that her legs indeed held her up and extended a hand. “A pleasure. I’m Highmage Sciona Freynan.”

The doctor froze in shock. Then he turned to Aunt Winny, and his jaw worked uselessly for a moment before he managed, “Madam! Is this a joke?”

“No, Doctor!” Aunt Winny looked stung.

“You didn’t think to tell me that your niece was Highmage Freynan!”

“I-I didn’t think it mattered,” Aunt Winny stammered, going slightly pink with embarrassment. “Yes, she is a mage, but she’s also my niece, and she’s been in so much pain these past two days. Please, would you just sit down with her? Try to treat her?”

The poor alchemist looked unsure what to do.

“It’s fine, Doctor,” Sciona said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“You are?” Mellier glanced back at Aunt Winny. “You told me she was raving, distraught.”

“She is. I mean—she was.”

“Shall we go somewhere private, Doctor?” Sciona suggested.

“Wait,” Alba said, so tense she had started to look quite ill herself. “I think I should go with you.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Sciona gave Alba’s arm a squeeze to let her know that she had the situation under control. “Follow me, Doctor.”

In her room, Sciona dragged her chair from her desk to the bedside. “Have a seat.”

She waited for Doctor Mellier to settle in the chair. Then, instead of sitting on the bed like a patient should, she strode to the open window and perched on the sill, the straight drop to the street at her back.

“What are you doing?” Mellier started to rise, but Sciona held up a warning hand.

“One step and I’ll throw myself onto the street.”

All the color drained from Mellier’s face. “You’ll what?”

“You know from my auntie that I’ll do it. She must have told you I had to be physically stopped from jumping earlier. You may be able to save me, but only if you do as I say.”

“Miss Freynan, please!”

“You treated what’s-his-name, didn’t you?”

“Who?”

“You know…” Sciona gestured vaguely in frustration. “The baker’s first son, Ansel’s older brother, the barrier guard.”

“Carseth Berald?”

Sciona snapped her fingers. “That’s the one. He jumped to his death during the course of your treatments, didn’t he?”

“Is that what this is about, Miss Freynan? Was he a close friend of yours? A paramour?” Mellier must have missed the way Sciona scoffed because he pressed on in absolute earnest. “You must believe me when I tell you there was nothing I could do for him. When I met him, he was too far gone to be saved.”

“I don’t care about that,” Sciona snapped. “I bring it up because I doubt your reputation can afford another dead patient—let alone a highmage.”

As the words sank in, Mellier dropped back into the chair.

“That’s better,” Sciona said. “Stand up again and you’ll have a dead patient. Call for my family and you’ll have a dead patient. Interrupt me and you’ll have a dead patient. Understood?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“It’s not ‘Miss,’ it’s ‘Highmage,’” Sciona snapped. “Try again.”

“Yes, Highmage.”

“Very good.” Sciona leaned into the heels of her hands on the windowsill and slung one leg over the other.

“Now, to be clear with you, Doctor, there is no tool or concoction in your case to treat me. I think we are probably in agreement about what I need to repair my mind: that is a reason not to die, yes?”

“Right,” Mellier said uneasily.

“To that end, I need another advanced magic practitioner to sit right there”—she pointed to him as if to fix him in place—“and let me talk through this conundrum, mage-to-mage, until I have my reasoning straight. If this conversation goes well, I’ll sing your praises to anyone who asks.

But breathe a word of what I say here outside this room, and I will end your career. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, M—” He caught himself. “Yes, Highmage. Of course, we should talk about what is troubling you. But once I’ve made my diagnosis, you must let me treat you.”

“Alright, so you don’t understand,” Sciona said wearily. “You are not here to give me a solution. I assure you, you are not equal to the task.”

“It is my job to provide a solution for you, Miss—Highmage. You may be immensely talented in the field of energy sourcing, but the greatest of mages are not immune to evils of the mind.”

“Oh, I’m very aware, Doctor.”

“Then you must also be aware that, as a female, you face unique mental challenges that do not afflict your colleagues. Mania is very common in women, especially those of great intelligence. With respect to your brilliance, Highmage, you are not stable.”

“No,” Sciona laughed. “No, I’m not. But let me pose you a question that’s been troubling me for hours: must I forgo brilliance—no, not even brilliance; must I forgo any sort of intelligence; must I forgo the baseline mental functions that come with being alive—for stability?

What is the point of stability then, Doctor? What is the point of anything?”

“To fulfill your God-given role as a woman, of course,” he said with irritating confidence. “To be a positive and pleasing presence to others, your husband, your family.”

“Except that I’m not anyone’s wife,” Sciona said, “nor am I anyone’s daughter, really. And I’ve never been very good at pleasing . The things I have to offer are greater than that.”

“Ah,” Mellier said with a sad and knowing nod.

“This is a classic example of how dangerous it is for a female to have a career and ambitions like yours.” He kept up that air of paternal confidence—as though that would disguise the fact that he was reciting Ayerman verbatim like any brainless university student could.

“It’s understandable, with a mind as great as yours, that you have aspirations beyond your sex, but the scientific truth is that these pursuits unsettle your mind and defy your nature. ”

“Do they defy my nature, Doctor?” It was an honest question.

As far as Sciona could remember, from the first time she had grasped the concept of magical power, her academic aspirations had been the crux of her being.

If there was a version of her that yearned for motherhood, subservience, and domestic life, it had never made itself known—and she knew for certain now that it never would.

What woman with a heart could settle into a home full of magic-powered appliances and push out future mages for her mage husband, knowing what Sciona knew?

“All I know is that if you make me a stable woman now, Doctor, you destroy me. You destroy any chance at salvation.”

“What do you mean?”

“I may not be a medical alchemist,” Sciona conceded, “but on the highmage track, one does complete fundamental courses in every magical discipline. I know the remedies you have in that case for women.” She nodded to the leather briefcase resting at the doctor’s feet.

“They’ll make me lethargic, make me compliant”—amenable to the evil all around her.

“You will slow my brain, and, failing that, you will destroy it.” Lobotomy was Ayerman’s recommended treatment for women experiencing ‘fits of emotion,’ a condition Sciona had always thought disturbingly broad.

“I fear you may not have understood your fundamental medical courses, then. If you had, you would know that my work is not to destroy but to improve.”

“Meaning that you make docile housewives of discontented women.”

“Precisely.” The doctor smiled as though Sciona had just paid him a compliment.

“Right,” Sciona said coolly. “The problem is that I have a presentation before the High Magistry this coming week. If you would improve my mind, then surely, you would have no reservations sending me to present before the Council under the influence of your remedies?”

“Well—no, Highmage. But if your condition is as serious as your aunt says, you should spend the next week resting under close professional supervision. There are ninety-nine other mages in the High Magistry, are there not? Men with more resilient minds than your own. Surely, they can proceed in their business without you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Sciona said flatly to quell a laugh of indignation. “My role in the High Magistry is rather distinctive. I wouldn’t expect you to understand—especially when I consider that letting you lead this conversation has taken us all of nowhere.”

“On the contrary, Highmage, I think—”

“No, that’s the problem, Doctor,” Sciona said in frustration.

“You don’t really think anything. Because you don’t listen.

You’re not taking the information coming out of my mouth and processing it.

You haven’t seriously engaged a single question I’ve posed.

All you seem to be capable of doing is bludgeoning me with textbooks—ones I’ve already read, I might add.

So, for now, you just listen while I do the thinking. ”

“That’s not—”