A lazy Henrikian was one who rose from bed at seven in the morning. It was half-past eight and Ashey was still curled up asleep. No matter how much sunlight Schemel dragged into the room, the girl only burrowed deeper under the covers. Schemel was ready to yank her out by the arm, but a better idea came to her: pack Ashey’s clothes and leave her no choice.

  She tore through the closet, flinging aside skirts that were too short and shirts that looked fit for a street girl. A few jeans, some t-shirts, one decent skirt—something Ashey might have worn to church once—made it into the suitcase. Opening the drawer for underwear, her fingers struck something foul. A packet of contraceptives. Schemel nearly collapsed right there on the bedroom floor. She tapped Ashey’s shoulder, pointing.

  “Who bought you those things?”

  “Huh?” Ashey groaned, dragging the pillow over her head. Schemel pressed again and again, even after her daughter fled to the bathroom and locked the door.

  “Are you going to be home all the time now?” Ashey asked. “If you are, then I’m glad I’m leaving for Se Fina.”

  “You’ll have teachers there. I’m one of them. You won’t avoid me.”

  A short while later, Helen stepped out of the house in a suit, hauling one of Ashey’s suitcases. The dossi followed with the rest, loading them into the waiting car. Helen climbed into the backseat beside her granddaughter.

  “Your daughter is going to hate you one day,” Helen said through the open window.

  “Se Fina is the best place for Ashamel,” Schemel answered. “She’ll make new, better friends.”

  “Imaginary friends?” Helen shot back. “We both know Se Fina is home to nothing but ghosts these days.”

  “Hamis will be there,” Schemel said. “Ashey, you like Hamis, don’t you? You were friends once.”

  “Leave me alone,” Ashey muttered.

  Demettle had spoken to Sirios, but Sirios refused to send his son to Se Fina. Schemel disliked ruining relationships to get what she wanted, but sometimes it was necessary. “Mariel is very upset about how we treat the earthen class these days,” she told him. “You wouldn’t want her to remember your name was on that infamous list Talon posted on the Farm a few years ago.”

  And just like that, Hamis was hers. Three new enrolments at Se Fina. Henrikia in safe hands.

  With her least-favourite relatives gone, Schemel could host a proper Sacred Day celebration. She ordered the dossi to haul out the best monster decorations the mansion owned—skeletons, wolf heads, man-bat creatures—hung from doors and balconies. As tradition demanded, six candles burned on the sill of every window, their sticks and flames painted in different colours. In the kitchen, the dossi prepared the spiciest dishes they knew. Others gathered in the backyard, building a fire beneath a great black cauldron. Into it they poured the ingredients for the Dark One’s Soup, a Samos rite every household was bound to taste. With each sip they would commune with spirits said to steal daughters away to rivers and forests to birth a new generation of faeries.

  When night fell, the entire Sorel household assembled in the courtyard. Mats and blankets lined the lawn. For the lady of the house, they set out a stool and poured her a cup of reeds, a liquor brewed in no place but hell. She asked more than once if this was truly what Helen did each year. The servants assured her it was.

  Helen had never read bedtime stories to Schemel or her sisters. Their father, Ashel, had been too busy, and their grandfather only ever told one tale—so often she grew sick of it, refusing to repeat it to anyone. Now, with her audience waiting, Schemel sipped her reeds and searched for a story to give them.

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  The servants bared their teeth, their golden-brown eyes catching the torchlight. Some were as old as she was, but being earthen, their minds had never matured enough to think for themselves. They reminded her of when she first held Ashamel in her arms, when the possibilities of her daughter’s future seemed endless.

  “I have a story,” Schemel said. Her voice did not come out as cleanly as she intended. “It’s not a stellar one.”

  “Will it be enough to satisfy Samos?” asked the Renna Dossi.

  “I don’t know,” Schemel admitted. “But let me tell it. I want someone to listen. If not the spirits, then you.”

  “Yes, Renna.”

  “I lived in a world covered in darkness. Everywhere I looked, danger lurked. For a very long time, we stood no chance against the monsters that hunted us. We prayed, until Rheina passed down a torch to me from the heavens. It warmed my heart. Without it, I would never have known what it means to be in… jeh. The deep end of peace. How do I say that in English, please?”

  They tittered softly, but no answer came.

  Though her story was unfinished, Schemel thought of ending it here. The spice in her Reeds burned her eyes. Still, she went on. “The torch burned brighter than anything we had ever seen. It pushed away the darkness, and our city was safe. We began to hope again, to dream of a better future. But it couldn’t last.”

  “What happened?” asked one of the dossi.

  “The Sexites stole our flame. Sexton had monsters of its own. They stole my torch to save themselves. We fell back into darkness. Everything was terrible again. I tried to recreate the flame Rheina had given me, again and again, but it was never bright enough. Year after year we tried. What do we do?”

  “War,” they said. “Take back what is yours.”

  “We’ve been fighting Sexton for ten years,” Schemel replied. “If it were so simple, we’d have done it already.”

  She pointed to a girl near the cookfire. “Steal our torch back from Sexton.”

  “That’s not a bad plan,” Schemel said. “I like how you think. What’s your name, love?”

  Silence. The girl ducked behind the others.

  “Come on, don’t be shy,” the Renna Dossi urged. “Tell Renna your name.”

  After much coaxing, the girl lifted her head. Slim, pretty, and young. She stood and bowed. “My name is Clara,” she said.

  “Clara,” Schemel repeated. “Suppose we try to steal the torch and get caught. What then?”

  “We should try again, Renna.”

  “And what if we try again—a hundred more times—and every time we get caught?” Schemel asked. Clara shook her head. “Let me ask you this: who gave me the torch in the first place?”

  “Rheina,” said Clara.

  “Exactly,” Schemel replied. “It was God who gives, and it is God you must turn to in times of trouble. We cannot recreate a blessing. That is why we pray.”

  A moment later, a dossi announced Schemel had a visitor. Leonard waited by his car. The last time she saw him, he looked dreadful. Today he wore a smart jacket, his hair tied back in a ponytail. He saluted when she approached. A smell from the backseat distracted her—the same waxy scent she had noticed in the House of Sentry basement. One glance was enough to spot the boy sitting alone inside the car.

  “Did you face any trouble on the way?” she asked.

  “He only spoke to ask when he would be going home,” Leonard said.

  Earlier that day, Mariel had carried out her threat: she had the I.A.A. strip Leonard of his position and expel him for misconduct. He might have been smiling now, but inside he was broken.

  “Thank you, Leonard,” Schemel said. “For keeping the truth of his power a secret.” She meant the fact that Leonard had never injected the child with ascension, only a harmless chemical. That alone could have absolved him.

  “My career is in your hands, Renna.”

  “How about becoming a teacher at Se Fina?” she suggested. “I need a Bio-ascension tutor, and you’re the only one I can think of.”

  “I’d be more than happy to help train the next generation of Gaverians. Send me a timetable and I’ll be there.”

  Leonard coaxed the boy from the car. After a brief goodbye, he drove away, leaving the earthen behind.

  Her earthen ascender—her newest member of Se Fina—stood a few steps from her. She hadn’t seen him properly before, crouched in shadow. For a while they stared at each other. Then she placed a hand on his back and led him to the courtyard, where the servants scrambled guiltily to their seats, thinking she hadn’t heard them eavesdropping earlier.

  She guided the boy to stand beside her stool. “I prayed to God to give me what I needed to save my city again,” she declared. “And God opened the heavens and handed me His torch. One that shone brighter than the first He gave me.”

  Taking his hand, she rose, bowed, and kissed him on the forehead. He could not know how much he meant to her.

  “God has given me back my son,” she said. “This is my Jenne Aster.”

  The name meant “heaven torch,” but could also be read as “torch from heaven,” “torch brought down from heaven,” or more recently, “heavenly star”—as the English-speaking earthen would say, a “shooting star.”