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It was just enough to be a warning; Raihan didn’t appear to know what she’d done, but he stopped anyway, hands held up. “I’m not going to take it from you, promise. I just want to see it.”

Even if he tried, she could make his heart explode in seconds. Cautiously, Lore handed him the piece.

Raihan took it and immediately hissed in pain, fumbling his grip. It would have fallen to the ground had Lore not caught it.

Shaking his hands like he’d burned them, Raihan grimaced. “How do you stand to touch that thing?”

She shrugged.

He got out his notebook and flipped to a mostly unmarked page, gesturing for Lore to set the Fount shard in the middle.

He studied it, writing down dimensions. “You know, I’m not entirely certain I believe you.

But I saw the finder, so clearly, this is something having to do with the Fount.

” He carefully traced the shape of the piece, not touching the edges.

“How did you know to look for it here? And what are you planning to do?”

She could probably get away with only answering one of those questions, so she chose the one less likely to reveal anything important. “I’m taking it back where it belongs.”

He looked up, juggling his pen and his lighter. “Why?”

Lore shrugged, gave a reply that was as true as it was vague. “Because that’s where it should be.”

Raihan studied her for a moment. “You know,” he said quietly, “you could just leave it with me.”

She spun another strand of his Spiritum around her finger.

“I’ll pay you for it, of course. You can have whatever you want.”

“It’s not for sale.” Another strand of Spiritum. His heart sped up. “And you can’t even touch it.”

He pressed a hand to his chest but seemed to think the sudden uptick in his pulse was due to nerves. “This is exactly what I’ve been searching for. You don’t understand the kind of advances something like this could make.”

“I don’t care.” She could kill him right now. Burst his heart, sunder his veins. But she deeply, deeply didn’t want to. She’d already killed so many.

And if she showed her hand with her power, there’d be no other option, if she wanted to keep him quiet.

So Lore reached into her boot and pulled out her makeshift shiv.

Raihan’s eyes widened, his hands going from his chest to spread in surrender. “Fine, fine. You made your point.”

She kept the shiv in her hand as she reached down and picked up the piece again.

He eyed her warily. “What do you think returning it to the Fount will do, anyway?”

“Fix things.” The piece was too large to fit comfortably in her pocket, but Lore held it close to her chest, covering it from his view. “Make the world right.”

“You have quite a lot of faith in a rock.”

She shrugged again.

He pushed himself up off the forest floor, dusting char from his knees. “Maybe it can start fixing things,” he said. “But I don’t think that putting a fountain back together, even a magic one, is going to right every wrong in the world. People have to be involved in that particular evolution.”

Lore wanted to ask what he meant by that, but she didn’t. The sun was starting to rise; she needed to get back to Dani.

Notes taken, Raihan stood, slipping his book with its drawing back into his pack. “You never told me your name.”

Another opportunity to lie, but Lore didn’t take it. “It’s Lore. Just Lore.”

He nodded. “Well, Lore, I’ll write your name down.

” He turned and started walking up the path.

The sky was lightening, slowly, the sun rising behind the uncleared miasma of the Godsfall.

“You can keep the Mount-finder if you promise to let me study that stone. Only in your presence, obviously. I’m not going to try stealing it from you.

” He gave her a sardonic look. “Not like you tried to steal from me.”

“Done.” Even though she didn’t quite believe him.

When they reached Raihan’s hut, he veered inside silently, raising his hand with a wave. Lore ambled down the path, fingers numb from holding the Fount piece. Behind the huts, the garden sprawled in low shadow, tenacious plants reaching for scraps of sunlight.

She stepped off the path, approaching the garden.

The crops were growing, but they could never be called thriving . Clearly, this was subsistence only, the Harbor community producing what they needed to survive and nothing else.

It made her think of the farmlands in Auverraine. The first time she and Bastian had channeled together, blissfully unaware of where it would lead.

Gently, Lore laid the stone on the ground, blood rushing painfully back into her hands. She shook them out as she knelt, sank her fingers into the soil.

So much death. The black of Mortem crowding out the thin golden threads of Spiritum. But they were there, shining in her reach.

She wanted to make a better world. Maybe she could start here.

Lore tugged at the threads of Spiritum in the earth, trying to strengthen them.

But even though they came to her call, they refused to thicken, the leftover destruction of the Godsfall keeping them fragile.

She channeled them through her body over and over, her will strong but slippery, unable to fix this centuries-old wrong on her own.

“Fuck it.” She sighed, wiping dirt on her trousers. She picked up the Fount piece, defeat making it seem heavier than before, and trudged back to the path.

Dawn blushed the ash as she navigated her way to the empty cottage Sersha had given her and Dani. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Dani was still asleep.

In the corner of the room was a worn leather backpack. Lore placed the Fount piece inside, then put the pack itself back where she’d found it, an unobtrusive bit of detritus from the countless people who’d come through this room.

When the time came to leave, she’d take this bag with her and trust that Dani wouldn’t think too much of it. But she wouldn’t tell her about the stone.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Dani stirred, stretching with a wide yawn. “Did you get it?”

Lore held out the silver instrument in answer, the key to navigating the ash-bound ocean. Dani leaned forward as if she would take it; Lore slipped it into her pocket.

A dark look crossed Dani’s face, but she didn’t press the issue. “Want breakfast? I’m sure it will involve fish somehow, but I’m too hungry to care.” She pulled a face. “Let’s try to avoid Sersha, though. I’m not keen on gardening.”

Lore followed her out of the hut, only casting one glance over her shoulder at the bag in the corner. She could still feel the hum reverberating from the Fount piece, vibrating in her bones.

The song at the edge of her hearing flared again, another tide of melody, and then went silent.