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Brenda elbows me, smiling as she gestures to the two women. Jìngyi has her forehead pressed to Clara’s, holding her close, her hand stroking the small of Clara’s back. Clara’s eyes are closed, and she’s breathing steadily, like Jìngyi is grounding her.

“They’re in love,” Brenda says wistfully. “That’s beautiful.”

“I always wondered who she was, in the photo,” I say quietly.

“Jìngyi didn’t leave any personal journals, so we never knew.

” Everything we’ve always talked about was her legacy, her research, her contribution to keeping our city safe.

I didn’t give much thought to her as a person who lived, who loved.

Clarabelle presses her face into Jìngyi’s neck. “Jìngjìng,” she whispers, my ancestor’s nickname falling from her lips with deep affection as they hold each other like a second chance. “You shouldn’t have come. My letter—”

“Your letter was full of self-sacrificial noble goodbyes.” Jìngyi sniffs. “I knew you’d been planning something, but there must be another way to stop Richard Mayfield. You don’t have to do this alone!”

Brenda gasps.

“What does Richard Mayfield have to do with this?” I wonder. “The breakthrough happened around now, but that can’t be it.”

I watch Mom’s eyebrows knit together as she puzzles this fact as well, but she doesn’t say anything. She studies the chalkboards, and I stand next to her, reading as quickly as I can, but I get distracted when I realize I’m as tall as she is now.

Clarabelle laughs, but there’s no mirth in it. “I’d brave this a thousand times over alone if it meant you were safe.”

Jìngyi smiles, soft and gentle, and she strokes Clarabelle’s cheek before her voice goes stern again. “You can’t do this—I couldn’t bear it if you—”

“That is why I had to say goodbye; I couldn’t get you tangled up in this. They’re going to put you on the council, you know Richard has them all in his pocket—”

“There has to be another way. The council will listen to reason, and the mayor understands my concerns about Richard’s factory…”

Brenda is writing in her notebook, eyes wide as she takes it in. I’m still processing that my ancestor and the fabled villain of our time were in love. And that she wasn’t the villain we were taught she was in the first place.

I pace around the room as the lovers embrace, reading Clarabelle’s research. She’s working with deep cataclysmic forces of the earth, which makes sense given what Clarabelle is famous for—but I realize quickly this is not at all what I expected.

“She’s trying to stop the earthquake? Or Mayfield? Both?” Brenda brainstorms. “Is there anything in the spell?”

Mom gasps. “This spell isn’t about absorbing power—”

“It’s about channeling it,” I say, with new understanding.

Mom nods, and for a moment I forget that she can’t see or hear me, and it feels just like before, us working together to solve a problem, perfectly in tune. She traces a section of parchment that’s been scribbled over multiple times. “It looks like she was trying to figure out the storage issue.”

“Some of this looks familiar from the history book,” Brenda says.

“It’s what the Mayfield Breakthrough tackled—how to cast spells without an energy cost to the mage,” I explain, studying her work.

Mom glances at her watch, the familiar motion sending a cascade of memories through me: Mom laughing and letting me know she’d work for only five more minutes and then come play with me, her teasing Dad about being late. How much of my life was measured in those warm glances she would save for us?

I make a fist, clenching my fingers together. The Order took Mom from me. And for what?

Jìngyi kisses Clara, and she makes a noise of desperate anguish, kissing her fiercely back as if she were about to disappear. The kiss seems full of pain and love, of acknowledgment of what they feel for each other, and a dreadful solemnity that it may likely be the last.

Clara pulls away, her eyes shining as tears start to fall.

“It’s too late. Richard’s been planning this ever since he got that prediction for the earthquake, the epicenter is right next to his factory, it’s perfect for his experiment.

” She starts bustling around the room, gathering things in determination.

“Those poor souls working there—there are some novices as young as twelve! They have no idea what he’s asking of them, the sheer force of power he’s making them a conduit for.

Over three hundred workers, Jìngjìng, I have to do something . ”

“Let me help you! I was so worried, please, love, let me—” Jìngyi starts gathering pieces of parchment, reading through the draft on the chalkboard and Clarabelle’s notes so quickly it makes my head spin.

Mom has her thinking face on, the one I was so used to seeing when she worked on problems. Her eyes widen with realization. “If the Ritual is happening soon, that must mean…”

The earth trembles again.

Jìngyi gasps and drops the piece of paper she’s holding, staring at her lover with new understanding. “This can’t be it. Let me help, why are you always—”

Clarabelle shakes her head. “There is no helping, Jìngjìng. This is the only way.” She sighs. “This is why I left. I knew you would stop me.”

“Clara, you can’t take all this power into yourself, it’ll destroy you—”

Jìngyi points to the parchment, finger shaking with anger. “You promised me you would never use that technique again.”

“It’s the only way to save them.”

“Please, Clara—”

“I have to stop him. This technique of Richard’s—you know people with means are going to use it to take advantage of people without. If this factory is a success, it’ll change everything.”

I swallow hard, and across the room Mom nods in grim agreement. We’ve seen it happen, overworked mages who spend their lives perfecting one spell and using all their energy for the benefit of others.

“I don’t like it, either; I can’t imagine asking someone else to pay the cost of my spellwork.” Jìngyi shudders.

“Exactly. It would lead to a major imbalance in the world.”

“I know,” Jìngyi says. “Especially—” She glances out the window. “With Richard’s technique, I’m afraid people will not be afraid to use others, and mages without so much as two coins to rub together will happily give up their life force to bottle these spells…”

I listen to them voice their fears over events that have already happened. My heart feels heavy, that this—all this in the past—is still affecting us today.

Jìngyi reaches for Clarabelle’s hands and holds them. “My love, you don’t have to do this. Come home with me, and we’ll bring our findings to the council, let them know what Richard has planned for the earthquake tomorrow, and he’ll face consequences—”

Clarabelle shakes her head. “Richard reported to the council that Yazmin’s prediction was for tomorrow, but it’s actually tonight.

You know she gets into these fugue states when she makes prophecies, and she didn’t remember.

But I was there. I didn’t realize the significance of the date then, but I do now.

He’s going to use the quake to power his factory, and I have to stop him. ”

Clarabelle stuffs a jar of glowing stones into her bag, latches it shut with conviction, and walks around Jìngyi toward the door.

“I calculated the energy from a quake of this magnitude, and even if Richard had three hundred thousand spells ready to be bottled, that wouldn’t be enough to store all this energy. ”

Clarabelle hesitates in the doorway. It’s funny, how their positions were reversed when we first got here.

Jìngyi frozen in shock in the doorway, trying to understand Clarabelle’s intentions in the center of the diagram.

Now Jìngyi is in the diagram, comprehension and horror on her face, and Clarabelle set and resolute in her path.

Clarabelle’s voice is quiet, steady. “It will need to go somewhere, and it could make the earthquake a hundred times more powerful, and… I don’t even know how much that raw power could do .

There’s an evacuation order for the earthquake already, but there’s still too many people here.

You have to leave the city, Jìngjìng, there’s still time… ”

Somewhere outside, a clock begins to chime.

Jìngyi’s eyes brim with tears. “When you—when you channeled that flood last year, I know you were doing it to protect those who lived on the riverbanks, but that was five years of your life. This could be—this could be everything. All the years you have left.”

“I’m going to do it. I’m going to take it so he can’t. And these factories will never become a reality.”

“No!” Jìngyi reaches for her.

Clarabelle shakes her head, draws a rune, speaks the release word, and disappears.

The clock chimes again.

The earth begins to convulse furiously now, unlike the quick warning shakes before.

It’s happening. The Great Earthquake of 1909 has officially begun.