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“You underestimate the Council’s power to control historical narratives,” Bringham said without any relish.

“As far as the public is concerned, you will be forgotten—all your skill and innovation.” His voice seemed to catch on something fragile, and he cleared his throat.

“It’s happening already. Tiran is changing the story as it moves through the city.

Most civilians think you revealed what you did for self-serving reasons.

Many think you cast illusions using dark magic.

Those who believe what you revealed about the source of magic will say that it doesn’t matter.

The Kwen are uncivilized, inhuman brutes—as evidenced by these riots—deserving of whatever fate befalls them.

” Exactly what Thomil had predicted. “A shame.”

“You really sound sad.”

“Should I not?”

“Well, it’s odd, given that you don’t actually care about me or the Kwen,” Sciona said, tired of this act—this kindly mask Bringham showed her to pretend he wasn’t completely empty inside.

“If you cared, you wouldn’t have misled me about magic for years.

If you cared, you couldn’t have built your career on factories that poison Kwen women. ”

Bringham didn’t make any attempt to deny the accusation. Instead, he said quietly, “You never worked directly with my alchemists or toured any of my factories in the Kwen Quarter. I didn’t think you knew.”

“And you didn’t feel that was something you should tell me?”

“Honestly, Freynan, it never occurred to me that you would care.”

Disgust overwhelmed Sciona—but as always, it wasn’t as though his line of thinking was unreasonable.

When had Sciona ever given an indication that she would care about the well-being of working women in Tiran?

She didn’t even treat her own aunt and cousin particularly well; who could guess that her heart could be moved by the plight of women even lower on the social hierarchy, women she hadn’t even met?

“I mean this as a compliment,” Bringham said. “I saw in you a superior mind, one capable of putting progress over emotion when it mattered. I saw greatness. This was how I knew you could succeed where no woman ever had. You could be the woman to make history.”

Sciona’s eyes narrowed. “The other mages were right about you, weren’t they?

You just wanted to go down in history as the man who put the first woman in the High Magistry, who made the barrier expansion possible.

That’s how you want to be known, whether or not it has anything to do with the real effect you’ve had on the world. ”

“I would have done it without taking any of the credit,” Bringham said, and it didn’t have the oversweetened, oversmoothed denial of his lies. “I needed to do this for you, for Tiran.”

Sciona frowned because how did a man with no heart sound so sad? How dare he sound so sad?

“I would hope that you understand this, if nothing else, my dear Freynan,” Bringham said softly. “I never helped you for glory. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do?” Sciona repeated and only then began to understand that her conclusions about her mentor’s apathy had been off. There was a hole in her assessment of Bringham, the void.

For her entire career before the Freynan Mirror, Sciona had neglected empathy in the belief that her work was ultimately more important than her personal relationships, that it represented a good that superseded all the good a woman could affect in her own life.

Maybe she and Bringham had this twisted line of thinking in common.

“I’m not your glory,” Sciona realized aloud. “I’m your penance.”

The quality of Bringham’s silence told her she was on to something.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve taken credit for great magic when it is actually murder. You’ve taken credit for employing women for years when you were actually poisoning them, and deep in your soul, you know that. You know these are terrible things you’ve done.”

“Some dyes have unfortunate side effects, yes.” Bringham’s voice rose slightly. “But my factories pay better than other jobs a Kwen woman might hope to get, and in the end, it’s probably good for them.”

“Good for them?”

“My industry has been instrumental in curbing overpopulation among people who are not competent to control it themselves. It is well-documented that, unchecked, Kwen will multiply beyond their capacity to provide for their young.”

“Because we have stolen every chance they have to prosper,” Sciona said, thinking of how Carra hold two jobs instead of attending school and Thomil did the work of a highmage’s assistant—all so that they could afford an apartment smaller than Bringham’s servants’ quarters.

“You know that perfectly well, Archmage. All these ugly statistics about Kwen employment, or poverty, or crime are moot in the face of the truth: that we rendered these people’s homeland uninhabitable.

We have done a great evil, and you’re smart enough to know that, deep in your soul, no matter what lies you spin around it. You know. And

I’m your attempt to get out of that feeling, aren’t I? After years of being a ‘leading employer of women,’ you thought if you got one into the High Magistry, you might feel better about that title. You might feel that you deserve it.”

Bringham didn’t meet her eyes. “We all bear the burden of knowledge in different ways, Freynan. Some of us endeavor to do good.”

“Good?” Sciona’s broken voice went shrill in indignation.

“Do you honestly think this balances your scales, Archmage? Do you think that helping to advance me—or the dozen women who might have come after me or the hundred women after them—really makes up for mass slaughter? And, in your case, mass sterilization?”

“Can you blame me for trying?”

“Of course I blame you! Even taking the cost of siphoning itself out of the equation, you bought your success—and by extension, mine—at the cost of women’s lives, their health, their ability to have children! How could you do that?”

What Thomil had told Sciona about the women in Bringham’s factories had hardly been a surprise, knowing where Tiranish magic itself came from.

It just stripped back another layer of the illusion, making it clear that there was nothing innocent or unknowing about those who practiced the magic—even the gentlest among them, even removed from the source of his magic.

Because Bringham might not look on the Kwen as his sourcers siphoned it, but he had seen his own factories, and there was no writing in the Leonid or the Tirasid mandating the sterilization of women in poverty.

Yet here Bringham was trying to play the caring father figure to Sciona’s face like she was a complete fool.

“How dare you make me a part of this!” Sciona hissed. “And how delusional do you have to be to convince yourself that the answer to women being unequal in our society is to make murderers of them as well? Your solution to being a monster was to drag a woman into the abyss with you!”

“Freynan,” Bringham said wearily, “have I dragged you anywhere you weren’t determined to go by your own power?”

The answer was ‘no,’ of course but, “That’s not the point,” Sciona growled, venom seeping into her voice.

“I may have done all my work of my own free will, but you took your own actions—of your own will—to get me into the High Magistry, hoping it would balance all the harm you’ve done the women in your factories.

If I was to be your penance for that, is it working, Archmage?

” she sneered—because if she was to suffer, she wanted him to suffer as well. “Do you feel absolved?”

Bringham didn’t answer. “Your trial is tomorrow,” he said instead, without affect. “You should get some rest.”

“Rest?” Sciona let out a mirthless laugh. “If that was possible, what would it accomplish?”

“You need to be able to defend yourself before the High Magistry tomorrow morning. You’ll never work as a mage again, but I don’t want you to die.”

“Is that even a possibility?” Here, Sciona suspected that Bringham had wrapped himself in one of his comforting delusions. There was no way the High Magistry would spare her after what she had done.

“Of course, it’s a possibility,” he insisted, “if you repent, throw yourself on the mercy of the Council, and agree to publicly recant all the claims you’ve made about the Otherrealm. No one wants to execute a young woman.”

“You want me to throw away honesty in exchange for my life?”

“You must . Please. For me.”

Sciona was shaking her head.

“They are going to kill you, Sciona.” And with her, his absolution. Hence the fear in his eyes.

A malicious smile split Sciona’s face. “Then I’ll die.”

“No.” He was begging now, which only served to turn Sciona’s cruel smile into a grin. “Don’t do this to me, Sciona. I need—” Pride seemed to stop him from saying: I need you to live. I need you to do something to salvage my legacy. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Of course it does,” Sciona said. “You’re asking me to go back on my own work to save my life.”

“Have you not already gone back on your work?” Bringham asked. “On the idea of magic altogether?”

“I haven’t gone back on truth,” she returned. “I stand by the potential my spells have to better society, and this is where we are at an impasse, Archmage. I might be your absolution, but my work is mine. I’ll gladly die standing by it.”

Bringham let out a slow breath and lowered his head. “If this is really your choice, then you should write a last letter to your family.”