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BESSA

Ambrose pulled off the bag he’d strapped across his chest and rummaged through it on the sodden ground, snowmelt making everything damp and muddy around us, but he didn’t seem to notice or care that it was seeping into the knees of his woolen hose. He came up with a candle that took my breath away, giving me a sharp stabbing sensation in my lungs.

The thin taper was black nacre, glittering darkly. Its wick was also black, and as thin as a thread of fate. I didn’t see any of his usual additions, no dried herbs, nor flowers. It stood pure and unadulterated. It felt… menacing.

Ambrose laid it across his hands, holding it out to me as reverently as an acolyte of Gelid. “I want you to go somewhere quiet and light this candle. It will show you… everything. Me. Who I am and why. I didn’t always know I was a Ghillie Dhu, but this candle should show you how. That’s the last thing I’ll ask of you.”

I gripped the smooth candle, painstakingly hand-dipped instead of molded, Ambrose’s fingerprints visible in the soft beeswax, and held it close to my chest. “Why can’t you just tell me?”

His eyes were pools of uncertainty. “Because this is a memory-wick candle. It will show you much better than I can tell you.” From his bag he pulled out another. This candle was the opposite of the first in every way. The thicker taper shimmered opalescent, like moonlight on a frozen river trapped in wax and waiting to be freed. “Light this candle second and only after the first has burnt all the way down. Will you do that?”

I nodded.

“Thank you. And Bessa, there’s one more thing. The fire at the castle. It wasn’t an accident. I found the remnants of a candle crafted by another magician. There is magic in the land, stored in bits and bobs like unicorn horns and fire foxes and magic rings. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s only us.”

“Who set it?” I demanded.

“I’m still trying to piece it together. I will let you know when I do. I swear it.”

And with that, he was gone.

My mind was still a-whirl two hours later when Cassia knocked softly to help me undress and brush out my hair for the night. “I can manage on my own,” I told her, shooing her away. “Go rest.”

She looked dubiously at my hair, a wild nest of red, and then at my chamber, where my fire was already low and smoldering.

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted, going to add a few more coals from the bucket hanging near my bed.

I secured the door and sat on the edge of my mattress, brushing and plaiting my hair, but mostly I stared at the two candles side by side, one black, one white. I tapped my toe against the cold stone of the floor.

“Well.”

Eska lifted her nose and sniffed the air.

“Well,” I repeated, “I guess I should go to sleep.”

Even if Eska didn’t speak words, I could tell exactly what she was saying. She was not impressed with my theatrics.

“Fine!” I threw up my hands and stood. “I’ll light them. Black first, I remember,” I said as she nosed the dark one. I couldn’t manage to light the wick, however, as my hands were shaking too violently. Eska jumped off my shoulder and stretched her warm body along the length of my forearm, calming and steadying me in equal measure. It was a work of art. A work of magic and art.

Gripping the base with one hand, I held the thin wick over the flames until it caught, taking nearly twice as long to catch as a normal one despite its thinness. Quickly, I dripped some of the pearly black wax into the base of a single candlestick holder before holding it steady to dry upright. “Now we wait,” I whispered to Eska, the moment feeling heavy and solemn.

For a few heartbeats, nothing happened, and I felt a stab of disappointment. Then, it happened all at once. My warm and cozy chambers smelled of something harsher, something damp and metallic with an acrid under note of burning incense and herbs. There was a steady drip, drip, drip of water nearby. The air itself thickened around me, pressing inward like the weight of buried secrets.

Then, the light expanded, and my walls dissolved into shadows. In their place rose a dimly lit chamber—a cavern of stone, its air stale with age and ancient magic. A dark-haired boy stood in the center bound in shimmering chains that pulsed with a golden light. His hands trembled, fingers clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms. I knew immediately who it was, his eyes the same intelligent, moss-green eyes he questioned me with in the present. It was Ambrose. But younger. Smaller. Afraid. A boy on the cusp of being a man, but not yet.

A voice slithered through the air, sickly sweet and drenched in power.

“Magic is nothing but obedience, child. It is everywhere. Even within you. Let me show you.”

“Uncle, please, let me go. I want to go home.”

From the shadows stepped a figure draped in blackened silk, rings glinting on long, skeletal fingers. One ring in particular—a polished obsidian band carved with ancient sigils—gleamed as it was lifted toward the boy. Ambrose flinched, but the chains held him fast. The magician did not hesitate.

The ring slid onto his finger.

Instantly, the chamber shook. Cracks splintered through the stone beneath Ambrose’s feet. The air churned with dust as jagged spires of rock erupted from the ground, tearing through the floor like something long-buried clawing its way free. The magician laughed, stepping back as the boy gasped in shock, his hands outstretched, trying to suppress the force now roaring inside him like an earthquake of power.

“Yes,” the magician murmured, eyes gleaming. “Remember who you are, dear boy.”

Ambrose’s past self struggled, his breath ragged, his tiny boy muscles straining against the chains. But the ring burned against his skin, anchoring the magic inside him. Binding it. Bringing it forth. Reminding the magic in his blood, long dormant, of who he was. A Ghillie Dhu. A creature of the woods. A creature of the old gods as impossible as me.

The candle flickered, the memory wavered. But the scents of split open earth, of damp stone, of magic burning like an open wound remained, lingering in the air, heavy with the weight of what had been returned—and what had been stolen: his boyish innocence.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the vision shattered like a falling icicle. The chamber faded, the scents dissolved, and I found myself back in the present, the flickering candle the only reminder of what had just unfolded.

And then even that flickered out.