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  “Oriana, what happened to the others, the ones who tried this before?”

  Oriana hesitated, then said, “They died. They couldn’t stop opening their Soulblocks. The euphoria took them and they forgot themselves. They burned through their magic like a bonfire and ended up an empty husk, just like the person they were trying to help. So,” she emphasized. “Stop with five. I’ll tell you if we need more. The key will be in repairing Brom’s fourth. If we can’t do that, it won’t matter. We could pour a thousand souls into him and still fail.”

  “Why do you think we’ll succeed where the others failed?” Vale asked. It was the first time Oriana had seen her timid.

  “Because we are Brilliant,” Oriana stated.

  “We are Brilliant,” Royal echoed.

  A genuine smile spread across Vale’s face. “Yes,” she whispered. “Brilliant.”

  They closed their eyes again and unleashed their Soulblocks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Brom

  Brom felt his Quad mates inside his body. He felt them coming to his rescue in a cacophony of sensation. But this time, he perceived their souls differently than he ever had before. There was no lightning. There were no colored flames, not red or white or blue.

  Instead, Oriana’s soul tasted like sugar and steel. He felt Vale’s soul like oiled skin sliding against him. Royal’s soul blared like trumpets in a canyon. They surrounded him, and they brought memories.

  He should be dead. He’d drained his fourth Soulblock, but they were coming to rescue him.

  This had to be some kind of dream, something happening inside his mind. It certainly wasn’t Oriana’s dorm room, which was the last thing he’d seen before he passed out.

  His dream self floated halfway down the depths of a canyon filled with blaring trumpets, sugar and steel, and sensuous oil. His Quad mates’ nonsensical presences twisted together. Taste, feel, and sound transformed into a raging river of magic, a torrent that poured over the tall cliffs and into the canyon.

  Magic sluiced down. Magic fell from a stormy sky overhead and rushed as rivers over the edges into the canyon. Suddenly, Brom swam desperately in the rush, a drowning man barely keeping his head above water. He thought the torrent would fill the canyon in an instant, bringing him up to level ground above, but no matter how much magic rushed into the canyon, it only filled it halfway, draining away as quickly as it came.

  Swimming desperately within that ocean, Brom twisted about, realizing the canyon could not hold the magic because it was rife with cracks and splits.

  Fear and uncertainty tightened around him. That was wrong. He couldn’t articulate his foreboding at first because of the strange sights, sounds, and sensations, but this was going to end in disaster. His Quad mates were pouring their magic into this canyon...

  ...and it was going to drain away anyway.

  This was his fourth Soulblock. This...canyon was how he perceived it. They were trying to save him by filling up his drained Soulblock, but it couldn’t last. It was temporary, and at the bottom of this attempt was death for all of them.

  As long as he floated on this ocean, he would live. He could think. And perhaps he could work magic as well.

  He concentrated and tried to affect the ocean of magic, to reach out and connect himself to the Soul of the World outside this dream.

  It obeyed instantly. Roiling water grew into a pillar, then into a tentacle, and then into a thin rope that reached into the sky.

  Go, he thought. Reach past the dream. Connect me to the Soul.

  Assurance flowed into him. Certainty.

  He was still trapped within this deadly canyon, but he could somehow feel the dorm room in which his body lay. He could sense his three friends surrounding him, pouring their wills and their magic into him, trying to make him live.

  The Soul of the World opened its wisdom, and Brom knew two things at once: First, he could wake on the power they were giving him, but only to die again in moments. Second, those beautiful fools had thrown their lot in with him, and now they’d drain themselves dry if he didn’t mend this Soulblock.

  Was that even possible? He’d never even heard of a Quadron doing that.

  He studied the cracks in the canyon wall. If he woke, he was dead. The work, if it could be done, had to be done here in this dream. He had to close those cracks. He had to stay inside his fourth Soulblock and somehow heal the damage.

  He stopped swimming and began to sink, but did not panic. He let the ocean of magic soak into him, and he envisioned himself standing on the edge of the canyon.

  He opened his eyes, and there he stood at the edge, looking down at the cascading rain pouring into the canyon, at the dozen rivers rushing over the edge, making the churning ocean that was slowly draining away.

  He closed his eyes again and saw himself floating, flying out over the raging magic and descending partway down one of the walls.

  He opened his eyes to find he’d done exactly that. He hovered before one of the giant cracks visible above the ocean. It was as wide as Brom’s own body, and he set to fixing it.

  Close, he commanded.

  The rock ground together, becoming smaller and smaller, but torrents of magic still flowed through it until it slammed shut. Brom flew to the next crack, set his will to it, and slowly forced it closed. He went to the next, but even as he did, magic coursed through the innumerable other cracks, lowering the ocean faster than it could be filled. He didn’t know how long his Quad mates could keep up this flow of magic, but it couldn’t possibly be for long.

  He turned around and around. There were hundreds of enormous cracks in this canyon, and those were only the ones he could see. He wasn’t going to be fast enough.

  Something nudged him, like someone was poking him with a finger. He turned, and saw nothing but the storm and the ocean, the cracks in the walls.

  Suddenly, the sweet metallic taste of sugar and steel filled his mouth.

  “Brom...”

  “Oriana!”

  “There you are,” she said in relief.

  She materialized from white mist next to him, the sheets of magic rain falling through her like she was a ghost. She wore a high-necked, floor-length white dress studded with indigo jewels on the collar and cuffs of the sleeves.

  “We are giving you the magic from our Soulblocks, but it will not last.”

  “I know! I’m trying to mend the cracks,” he said. “But I...I can’t do it fast enough.”

  “I have an idea.”

  Brom laughed ruefully. “Is this like the stupid idea that made you try to save a dead man?”

  “We can discuss the concept of stupidity later,” she snapped.

  His guilt rushed through him. She was right. He’d put all of his Quad mates at risk. If they couldn’t fix this, he would be responsible for their deaths. Did he think they wouldn’t try to save him?

  “Tell me,” he said, subdued.

  “You control this avatar of yourself, just as I control mine. You control your body, too, everything about it, including your Soulblock. You are picturing this Soulblock as a vast canyon. Make it smaller. Make it manageable. Make yourself the large one, the powerful one, the one who commands how things must be.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “Do you have a another idea?”

  “No,” he said sheepishly. No one had ever repaired a fourth Soulblock. But he couldn’t look at it like that. He had to shift his perspective, use his imagination. He had to see it as possible, not impossible.

  “I’m going to make it a box,” he said. “A proper wooden box.”

  “Make it steel,” she said. “Make it smooth. No cracks.”

  “Help me.” He held out his hand.

  “I am here.” Her fingers clasped his. Steel and sugar filled his nostrils.

  The roaring river continued to spill over the sides of the canyon. Rain plunged down from the sky.

  Brom tried to push the canyon down, to compress it.
It rumbled, but shrank only a little. Boulders and shards of rock fell into the churning water. It seemed like he was trying to push a mountain with his bare hands. He gasped.

  “Your belief in it makes it strong,” Oriana said. “Take that belief away. Remove it from your thinking. Then remake it.”

  He took a deep breath. He cleared his mind of roaring rivers, deep canyons. He removed everything, forcing his mind to be a blank slate.

  “Yes...” Oriana whispered.

  He opened his eyes, and the canyon was gone. Instead, he stood on a white floor that stretched away on all sides, flat as far as he could see. Overhead was a blue sky that faded to dark blue at the horizon.

  Before him stood a perfect glass box, just a head taller than he was. It was flawless and clear, with no cracks, but the entire top was open. On the far side, he saw Royal as a blue mist, hands extended, his face contorted in intense concentration. Blue light flowed from his hands, arcing up and down into the glass box to the sound of trumpets. To his right, a misty red Vale raised her arms, lips pressed together tightly. Red oil shot from her palms like water from a fountain, joining Royal’s blue light, twisting together and filling the box.

  The proportions of everything—the magic, the Soulblock—were the same, but it was manageable now. This container, unlike the canyon, could hold the magic. Everything they were putting into it was staying.

  “We aren’t finished,” Oriana said, standing on the opposite side of the glass box from Vale. A river of liquid steel and white sugar poured from her outstretched palms. She nodded at the open top. “Finish it.”

  Brom floated up over his pristine, glass Soulblock. It wasn’t steel, as he had imagined, but at least it wasn’t cracked. It seemed sensible that this box would have a top, perhaps something that had been opened, but could still close. He shut his eyes and imagined it so.

  At first, he couldn’t. It was as though his very body resisted him. His mind kept sliding off to think of something else. Escaping The Four. The frigid water of the stream. Vale kissing him for the first time. His mother and father fighting...

  “Brom. Hurry,” Oriana’s voice came to him. “Royal has fallen.”

  Brom forced his wandering, slippery mind back, made it focus. A great keening sound began, far away, and seemed to be coming closer. It was like air being forced through a crack in a drafty house.

  Do it, Brom thought. Make it! Make a lid!

  Suddenly, something ripped. Deep inside, it felt like a muscle coming away from bone.

  He screamed at the pain, but suddenly he could envision the lid.

  He gasped and opened his eyes.

  A lid of glass poised upright over the box, so perfectly clear that it could have always been there, and he simply hadn’t noticed it.

  Close, he commanded, and the lid slowly descended, cutting off the flows of red and white. Finally, it clicked shut, filled with blue, red and white colors, swirling and twisting together, but never blending.

  The misty blue Royal, now unconscious and prone on the floor, dissolved. The misty red Vale, on her knees but still pushing red oily magic from her fingertips, finally stopped. She, too, vanished.

  Oriana, stooped in exhaustion, turned to look at him. A triumphant smile flickered across her lips. She gave a little shake to her head, like she couldn’t believe he’d done it, then she vanished too.

  “It is done...” Her voice faded away.

  Brom gasped and fell to his knees. The edges of the blue horizon blurred, and he began to float upward. He continued rising into that blue sky, floating toward consciousness. The blue surrounded him.

  He drew a breath and opened his eyes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Brom

  Brom drew a sharp breath. His eyes fluttered open, and he saw Oriana’s room. He lay on her soft feather bed, pulled into the center of the room.

  The tapestry of a red dragon stared fiercely at him from across the room, its furious face lit with the fire about to come out of its mouth. To his left was a painting of the Hallowed Woods, with the scaly bark of the Lyantrees rendered in meticulous detail, stretching into the misty distance, purple and silver leaves glimmering.

  He felt bruised all over, like his Quad mates had taken turns beating him with a cudgel. Nausea bubbled in his stomach, and he felt drained of all strength.

  Royal lay on the floor to his left, unconscious. Vale knelt at his right, her head against his chest and her fists twisted into the white sheets beneath him.

  “He is back,” Oriana said in exhaustion from behind him, letting out a soft breath. She knelt behind the head of the bed, lightly touching Brom’s temples with her fingers.

  Vale raised her head. “Well, that’s something no one has ever done before.” She grinned wearily.

  “Royal?” Brom said, looking at the big man, felled like a tree. “Is he okay?”

  “He will live,” Oriana said. “The man unleashed four Soulblocks at once, then stopped immediately. I think he has never opened two Soulblocks at once before, let alone four. I suspect the shock felled him. But he is Impetu. He will recover.”

  “Gods...” Brom gritted his teeth. He struggled to sit up. The room tilted unexpectedly, and he almost threw up.

  He settled back down on the bed, clenching his teeth and forcing himself not to vomit. Oriana slid her hands underneath his head again and slowly, gently helped him sit up. He let out a shuddering breath. “I feel awful.”

  “You’re the healthiest dead man I’ve ever seen,” Vale said wryly.

  What his Quad mates had done was miraculous. He was going to live. Gods... He was—

  Cold fear slithered through him. His narrow escape from the tower. His flight into the snowstorm. He’d threatened The Four. They would come for him. They’d come for his Quad.

  The Four would still be looking. They wouldn’t just stop, not for a threat inside their own tower. They would overturn every stone to catch him, and this time they would search inside the school too.

  “You should have run...” he said.

  “You should have told us what you were attempting,” Oriana replied. “We cannot work as a Quad if you keep secrets.”

  Royal stirred. With a grunt, he sat up like some mythical bear, growling as he shook his head to clear it. The big man regained his senses, blinked, then focused on Brom.

  “He’s alive,” Royal rumbled, and a fatigued smile spread across his handsome face.

  “No, Oriana, you don’t understand,” Brom said. “How long until morning?” He had no idea how much time had passed, and every second counted. “The Four are looking for me right now. Gods damn me, I told you to run!”

  “The gods may damn you after I am finished,” Oriana said coldly. “Right now, we have decisions to make. And this time...” She gave a meaningful look at him and then at Vale. “We’re going to do it together.”

  “Listen to me,” Brom protested. “Olivaard was inside my mind. He probably knows who I am—”

  “If Olivaard knew who you were,” Oriana cut him off, “The Four would already be here. No. They’re searching for you in that blizzard.” She gestured at the window. “And your advice is to run into the blizzard?”

  Brom blinked, and he saw how ridiculous that must seem. But if they stayed here, they were simply waiting for the inevitable.

  “We stay calm,” Oriana said firmly. “We use our heads. And if we do flee, we do it according to a plan.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Brom said. “Staying here means death. Or slavery.”

  “I want to know what happened, from Brom’s lips,” Royal rumbled. “Suddenly, I have come to a slaughterhouse, not an academy. Suddenly, I am a criminal instead of a student. I want to know why.”

  “Tell us what happened, Brom,” Oriana said. “The scatter of your thoughts and memories hardly makes a full picture.”

  Brom gave Vale a quick glance. She shrugged. She was undoubtedly curious about the parts she didn’t know.

  So he told them everythin
g. Well, almost everything. He didn’t mention his love affair with Vale. He described the approach to the tower, spying on The Four, and their entire nefarious conversation as best as he could recall it.

  He told them about the Sacinto, and how The Four feared the branch-heads, that the foreigners were more magical than anyone had guessed. He described how he and Vale had secretly researched The Four because of their suspicions.

  He ended with the news that The Four had decided Oriana, Royal, and Brom were to pass the Test of Separation, and that Vale was to fail and become...a meal for Arsinoe. Brom shuddered, thinking of the lascivious look in the fiend’s eyes.

  Royal wrinkled his nose. Vale looked impassive.

  “They devour those who fail,” Brom said. “I think they drain them, kind of the opposite of what you just did for me. The Four don’t repair Soulblocks. They eat them.”

  “I still don’t understand how you escaped them,” Royal said. “The Four are...well, they’re omnipotent.”

  “Obviously they are not,” Oriana said.

  “I was lucky,” Brom said honestly, thinking about his narrow escape: the luck of the blizzard hiding him, of Wulfric passing beneath his branch without noticing him. If Brom had shifted even a little, Wulfric would have glanced up. “I surprised them. And I was quick enough, fortunate enough, to get away before they brought their full power to bear.”

  Vale snorted.

  They all looked at her. Oriana raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “He’s not lucky,” Vale said.

  “What do you mean?” Oriana said.

  “I mean he didn’t escape because he’s lucky. He escaped because he’s ridiculously powerful.” She looked from one to the other, then she rolled her eyes as though she was explaining to children. “Brom is so strong with Anima magic that he pulled me into the Soul of the World, so powerful he uncovered something The Four have successfully hidden for a century. Kelto, he slipped into the Soul of the World so deeply he was invisible to magic.” She paused, waiting for a reaction. “Invisible,” she emphasized. “Fully graduated Quadrons can’t do that. I’ve never even read about anyone who could do that. The Soul of the World dances with him in a way it’s never danced with anyone.”