She spied a deer trail—the smallest thing, really, barely any path at all—and guided Triany down the ridge. Hlav’s Trail was narrower back home, she thought. These paths had no names, though neither had the path she had taken with her brother’s horse Slicer, fleeing Kula Toron’s henchmen, a year-and-a-half ago. But that felt like a past life. She wondered if Kula, Horvath, and the inhuman Dreck still served her brother.

Two throws distance, Roen emerged into a clearing hedged on two sides with thick trees and a cleft at the western edge. Another smaller trail opened along the cleft’s edge, leading down into a longer valley beneath. Twilight’s shadows would eventually swallow her, but not before the woods below might. I would be free for the first time in so long, she realized. Free of Malacai, free of the Blackstone and all it had taken from her, all it had imposed. She could spur Triany down, ride the line of trees until she found a break to her liking, and then just disappear. For good.

She already knew she would not take that path. As rare and delightful as the wind in her hair and a horse beneath her felt, freedom would not come today. She wanted to run, of course, but had suspected the truth in her heart before riding out the gate, four riders in tow; she knew it as a certainty before cresting the high hill, leaving the shouting men in the far distance. The Blackstone’s best horsemen were no match for a daughter of Dorn. She could escape easily. But in her heart, Roen knew she could not leave yet. Her friends needed her. Chayand needed her, Filch needed her. Varael and Sunny and Jodd and Aditi and Jander needed her. Jander especially; the Avalonian boy saw her as a guiding light in the dark. To snatch this easy fruit would gain naught for anyone but her and would not abandon any of them.

Perhaps that was why Malacai allowed this merit. He had a habit of dangling things ungraspable before his students, perhaps to see if they recognized a futile endeavor before reaching for it. If Roen had learned one thing, it was that there were tests in everything—rewards especially.

But if he truly knew Roen’s mind, he would also have to know she was the furthest thing from true to his cause. The Blackstone had done only part of what he had intended: It had made her stronger, assuredly, but it had not broken her down, not as it had some. And for all the things it did to her benefit—as loathe as she was to admit even that—the Blackstone never gained any purchase on her loyalty.

Many of the students felt differently, however. Some had never seen this as captivity at all; for some it was a new start, an opportunity to forge themselves into something greater than their birth might have ever offered. Some of the students parroted Malacai’s various mantras eagerly, while a few remained staunchly adversarial to the Blackstone’s teachings. Most acted as though they were simply neutral to it all; Malacai has succeeded in making himself nearly invisible, with most barely noting his presence or absence any more. But Roen heard the echoes of his words in everything here—and suspected his influence in places many might not. Even now, there seemed odd factions and friendships within the students of the Blackstone, some cutting across lines that made little sense to her; it would not be beneath Malacai to influence even the most benign details of personal interactions. But that is not her puzzle to solve right now. Roen had greater concerns.

A glance back down the steep ridge that had brought her zig-zagging along its edge, narrow but sure to the hill’s broad summit, told her all she needed to know: The specks that equated to her pursuit, still trying to navigate the trail’s origin, were still a long time in coming; four guards and their mounts, none of whom had half her skill on a horse. They were stopped one quarter of the way up, and it looked as though the two lead riders were locked in some sort of heated disagreement.

You could at least try harder, she thought with a sigh. Good soldiers were as hard to come by as good riders.

Roen nudged Triany back into the woods. She hoped none of the guards injured their horses in this fruitless attempt to catch her. Roen guided Triany down a hard-angled ridge, to the base of Red Hill… and from there she rode hard for the Blackstone’s silhouette.

“Where are the men?” the captain finally asked as she strode by, boots echoing on the uneven cobble.

Trying to decide which one of them will be the unfortunate one to inform Malacai that they lost me, Roen thought. “They could not keep up,” was all she said, not pausing in her steps; she moved past him and all the rest. No one asked any more questions or made a move to stop her.

Roen strode past the keep’s front stair and facade, the ghosts of that terrifying first day rising all around her as they always did: Lord Foed and his twiddling fingers; Malacai’s black stare; skinny Mara, sobbing and frightened. Roen still had no idea what had become of the girl, whose only reason for being there was as a lesson to the others. None of the other students had ever seen her again.

She passed the stables, spying three guards dicing in an empty stall near the back—the lack of attentiveness irking her, oddly, much as the inept riders had. Do they think that another year is ending, winter is nigh, and that all they did to try and break us has been forgotten? It seemed an almost perverse assumption.

And yet the students of the Blackstone were given more freedoms these days than ever before. Merits begat strange rewards; not just the brief taste of freedom Roen had won, but nearly any whim was sated for any student mindful enough to work towards it. Ansar had a dozen rare scrolls delivered from afar; Bai had a special tugo made to remind her of a garment she had owned as a child; Wentin had a dancing girl brought to his room… though that conjugal visit had not precisely gone as he had probably hoped. (Not with Varael spying and, ultimately, meddling in the affair.)

In the back drill yard, she passed Jodd and Sunny, bare-armed despite the chill, sparring with staves. They each gave only cursory nods to her, which she returned, before returning to readied positions and set to besetting one another with furious flurries, staves clacking.

Roen had to smile a little. That Sunny had found such a staunch and stalwart friend in the powerfully athletic boy heartened her. They called the dark-skinned boy “Bastion” now, which of course brought to Roen’s mind Zhadra’s military school. It also pleased her to see little Sunny, not quite as little as before, giving as good as she got. The blond girl blended techniques honed through the year-and-a-half spent a Blackstone prisoner along with short bursts of power channeled through her blood gift; Jodd would take his natural advantage, height, weight, reach, strength, pressing an attack, but it would avail him naught when the small girl brought her gift to bear. He seemed to enjoy the challenge, however, grinning his broad grin whenever she struck true. They would reset, and then begin again. Sunny had no seeming limit to her strength; Jodd had no measure to his stamina. Roen knew their contests could last for hours.

Good, she thought with grim satisfaction. They would need every advantage there was to be had. Sunny and Jodd were just pieces to a much larger puzzle, one that would require skill, determination, and at least a little fortune.

Roen went down the back stair and into Hollow Hall, taking up a lantern that had been set on a hook near the door, lighting the oil with a hanging taper. The hallway’s torches had been permanently removed from their sconces following the “Infernal incident”; the ash-skinned girl with the pyrotechnic gift had been placed in a small solitary cell for nearly three months before being allowed to rejoin her classmates, though that had not curbed the wild girl’s fiery temperament. Infernal—the only student Roen had never learned the given name of—set Rolla’s hair on fire with but a glance, three days after she was released, and it was quickly back into the Bin for her. She was still there today.

Roen’s steps took her past the blackened windows of cells that now stood empty. They had lost more than a few students, and each loss hurt. Delena Azulo, so poised and beautiful; Delena, one of Roen’s first friends, who had bound Roen’s hand when it was broken, and who counselled her in those dark, early days. She was lost to them, slain by a goblin during a maze trial. They were not even aware she had been killed until the goblin plodded out of the maze dragging Delena’s corpse by one of her blood-streaked arms, demanding the silver it had been promised as its reward. Roen had been one of the horrified and furious students who had immediately set upon the goblin, though it was quickly slain before she could even get a blow in. Later, she realized her reaction had been unwarranted, and probably unfair; despite her grief in Delena’s loss, the creature had merely done what they themselves were told to do—kill or be killed.

“Sometimes the goblins win,” Domiév had said quietly in the after. Roen thought there was no truer adage. Though its victory was assuredly short-lived. Just as every one of theirs had been.

They lost three students to freedom—Enunuk channeled his spirit and changed himself into a hawk not two weeks after the last class had been brought in, shooting past a stunned guard and out an open door, soaring off into the night sky while many of the children cheered. Clever young Shamsid placed an illusion over his room, making it appear empty, and then tricked a guard away from the stairway door in order to make his escape. And Juliei, she of the knee-length dark green tresses, simply discovered a sapling pushing through a crack in the Blackstone courtyard. With the smallest gesture, she doubled its size, then doubled it again, and again, until it was a massive maple tree, ripping its way from the earth and shattered cobble; the fae-blooded girl then stepped into the tree’s waiting boughs and disappeared forever as the tree shrunk back down into the miniature chasm she had created, leaving only her tattered tugo lying empty on the shattered stone, and the memory of her winsome smile on the wind.

Each escape was inevitably followed by an announcement by the Leftenant or the Lashmaster that the escapees had been caught; a body was always paraded before the students, always disfigured beyond recognition in some way—usually charred by fire—so that, coincidentally, they could not truly tell if they were who the instructors said they were.

The paltry attempts disgusted Roen. She wondered who the wasted souls were—these poor children whose lives were snuffed for the charade to play out. “Best not push back too hard,” Chayand once warned her. “Let them think we believe their lies. They won’t work to improve them.” And Roen supposed that was true. It was hard to not push back, however.

It would likely have gone differently, had Malacai actually been here. The Master seemed the only person at the Blackstone with any sense of actual command, as loath as Roen was to admit it. Though none of the students would have likely escaped either. But the Master had been absent for an extended time; there were whispers that he was still seeking something, but no one could say what it might be.

And when Malacai was not around, chaos reigned.

Roen passed Ravage’s foul-smelling room; Lurue with the sea-colored hair and Randol had apparently been speaking quietly just outside the door, but seeing Roen’s approaching lantern, ceased. They only glanced away as she strode by. She thought there was added color to Lurue’s tanned cheeks, but Roen was of no mind to play nursemaid; Randol reminded her a little of her brother Ralton, so it would not shock her to find out he was trying to steal kisses.

Roen approached the corner to Horror Hall where another lantern hung. Chayand was there, speaking quietly through one of the doors to Vheret.

“Back so soon?” Chayand asked curiously. “I’d assumed once you got a whiff of real trees, you’d be gone for good.”

“No,” Roen answered. “That would leave you alone with Vheret, and I do not trust the two of you together.”

“Ha,” Vheret stated his non-laugh, muffled by the door. “And they say you have no sense of humor.”

“Who are they,” Roen asked with rare wryness. “Tell me their names so that I might offer them honorable deaths.”

Chayand smirked and punched her shoulder. “I don’t suppose you saw anything of interest.”

“Actually,” Roen said, voice lowering, “there is a ridge on Red Hill that offers a clear view of the northern and the western walls.”

“And the northwest tower?” Chayand asked. Roen nodded.

“If you’re still counting on Randol getting you from one point to the next, don’t,” Vheret said quietly behind the door. “He can’t even reach a quarter of that distance without passing out.”

“Which is why we’re not planning on testing it tomorrow, or any time soon,” Chayand said with a hint of exasperation. Roen wondered if they had been arguing before she walked up.

“Good,” Vheret retorted, somewhat tersely. “I can sleep soundly. Plot away then.” Roen heard his footsteps echoing away from the door. It was true, though; Randol was the furthest thing from reliable, both in his gift to create shadow doors, and in his frenetic and fragile confidence. And in his loyalty, she reminded herself. Randol had been the first to run to Malacai with information if he thought it would earn him a merit, though Filch—of all people—assured them both recently that Randol was trustworthy these days. She was still not quite ready to trust him fully. She made a mental note to perhaps speak with Lurue later.

They still had time, but she could hardly say how much. We just need to survive until we are all ready. She would do her best to ensure the rest had a chance. Roen knew any chance they had would rely on Malacai being not quite as omniscient as most believed.

And he was not. Malacai had already made one mistake. And it was there for the students to see, every day.

He looked as filthy as she’d ever seen him, having just finished training with Rolla. Dried mud and ectoplasm covered him from head to toe. A tuft of matted, mud-clumped hair was sticking straight up from his head. “Big girl’s got a new trick,” he said with his usual grin, exhausted though he looked. “I hit her ninety-two times with three different practice blades, then gave a shiv to her ribs, and she’s fine!”

“You did not shiv her.” Roen leveled a look at him.

“Nah, I wanted to see if you were paying attention.” He paused, likely for effect, then smiled. “I’m saving the shiv for someone who really deserves it.”

She was not actually certain if he indeed had a hidden shiv or not. She chose not to pursue it. She stepped closer, intent on asking Filch—

A man’s looming shadow darkened the doorway. “Time you were back in ya box,” Gangly Shanks muttered. He shook his keys at Filch impatiently, and squinted in irritation, as though already knowing a retort was imminent.

“Yeah, I was just gonna wash up in the tempering barrel—” Filch started.

“You went past time. Let’s go.” The guard’s protruding throat-knot bobbed excessively when he was bothered, which seemed often.

“I was actually seeking him out for additional drills,” Roen put in.

Gangly Shanks rounded on her. “Rules is rules,” he spat. “And the Battlemaster said the gauge is done for the day.”

Roen opened her mouth to retort but Filch just gave her a look and shook his head. “It’s fine,” was all he said. Gangly Shanks led Filch out of the room and into the hall proper. Roen followed as far as the doorway, watching; the guard gave her one more suspicious glare before dragging Filch around the corner.

She didn’t have to follow to know. Gangly Shanks would take Filch to Horror Hall, where the specimens were all kept. He would unlock Specimen Chamber 5 and make sure the boy was well within the cell before slamming the door and locking it, probably with a parting expletive.

And Filch, a remarkable yet ultimately normal boy, would be locked down in the dark with all the other specimens until such time as his presence was once again required.