Leah jolts awake, falling off of the cot. The nearby militiaman asks something in Olues, concerned. The guard at the door enters and asks if everything is alright.

Judging by the windows, it is a few hours before sunrise. Leah instructs the guard to keep a close eye on Vivitha for her, then asks where Seffon would be at this hour. The guard babbles confusedly, not understanding, and Leah pushes past.

“Never mind; I have something more important to do.”

She runs full-tilt down the halls, down to her laboratory area. Mostly abandoned in the wake of the war declaration, she finds the room empty, and with all of her tools still in the cabinet, including the battery bandolier. She hefts it over a shoulder, checks that it still has acid, then turns around and runs again, up to Jeno’s rooms.

There is a guard at the door, but he stands aside in confusion, then slight disapproval, when Leah approaches with an intense look. Leah ignores him and knocks on the door, entering into the dark.

Jeno fumbles with the sheets, waking suddenly. “What is it? Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” Leah says gently, stepping carefully through the dark room towards the bed.

Jeno leans over to light a candle, and Leah flinches in the light. “Is something happening, are we under attack?”

“No, not quite.” This does not seem to reassure Jeno much. Helping Jeno sit up, Leah takes the bandolier and drapes it over the girl’s shoulder. “I don’t know if this is necessary…it might not help at all, or it might really help and simultaneously fuck up the protections of the Hold…”

Jeno tries to ask, but Leah closes the circuit and Jeno slumps back against the pillows for a moment – a moment only, then sits back up, blinking in confusion.

“Did you feel anything?” Leah asks.

Jeno rubs her head. “Only a little twinge…like a tiny headache that suddenly flared.”

“Is it still there? Back to low-level? Or is it gone entirely?”

Jeno thinks for a few seconds. “Still there. But – ”

Leah removes the bandolier, sitting stiffly back from Jeno. The girl notices, and notices the fearful look on Leah’s face. “Leah? Leah, you’re shaking! What happened, what’s wrong? Leah?”

Leah stands abruptly and goes to the door. “Where can I find Seffon, at this hour?”

The guard swallows his comments, then directs her down a certain hall. Leah sets off before he can say anything further. Jeno calls out once after her.

The door is not guarded, but the hallway is; two guards stop her before she reaches the door. She tells the friendlier-looking one that she has important news, and insists that she must see Seffon right away. The guard does not speak Volsti, but Leah gets through with her limited Olues and a great deal of pointing that it cannot wait until morning.

The guard goes and knocks on the door. Leah shifts restlessly, ears peeled for any strange sounds from the outside of the Hold, despite the fact she couldn’t possibly hear them from so far towards the middle of the building. A few seconds pass, and Seffon emerges, mostly dressed but dishevelled, chin and jaw covered with stubble, expression grumpy but attentive.

“What’s happened to the wards?”

Leah breathes a sigh of relief that he is at least attentive enough to notice – and that her intuition was correct.

“When Solace pulled us all out of Valerin, Eschen cast a spell at us. I thought we’d managed to escape in time, because I didn’t feel any effects, and I guess Solace didn’t either, but – ”

“Is Lady Auzzo well?” Seffon asks immediately, and Leah feels another rush of gratitude that he is following her rambling.

“I don’t know, I used the battery-bandolier on her, to try and end whatever effect there was, but I don’t think it worked, and the wards – ”

Seffon gives a quick order to one of the guards then takes Leah’s arm and starts walking briskly to the tower, muttering a list of ingredients and vague remarks about how exhausting it will be to have to do the whole series twice in three days. “What sort of spell did the captain cast?” he asks as they walk. “And how did you realise something was wrong?”

Leah stumbles, trying to keep up. “I don’t know exactly, it looked like he was throwing or releasing something towards us, but I didn’t see any visual element, it was just the motion. But I think it had something to do with her memories.”

“And the dream?”

“He was there.”

“He was in the room when the murder happened?”

“No, I mean – he was in the memory, but then he was also there. I was a ghost, watching the memories, not an active participant. Nobody in the memory noticed me, but then he did. Another him.”

Seffon turns to look at her sharply. “Another him?”

“He saw me, he spoke directly to me.”

Seffon mutters continually and runs a hand through his bed-head hair, even as he traces a rune to unlock the door to the tower. Inside, he begins pulling a number of supplies off the shelves, never hesitating in his choices despite the apparent chaos in the room. Footsteps rush to the door, and Leah turns to see Teo, bleary-eyed and dressed in a slip and a jacket, holding a metal dish with a thick stub of candle.

“They se e uas urzen,” she says groggily, and with a fair bit of impatience. Seffon summons her over and starts handing her ingredients – herbs, candles, chalk, gemstones, a mortar and pestle. “Uy have teu rydeu th uãs already?”

“Miss Armande took them down, so we have to reapply them, yes.” Seffon’s tone is curt but not angry.

Teo raises an eyebrow at her. “De you have a good ryson?”

“She did.”

Leah looks curiously at Seffon. He’s not mad? I did the right thing? Well maybe not the right thing, but the smart thing?

He finishes fetching all the ingredients necessary, and dumps them all in Teo’s arms. “Get started. I’ll join you in a few minutes. Start at the south and move clockwise.” He sets down a bowl of something on the stone table and traces his fingers through it.

Teo nods and leaves, and Leah is left confused. “Don’t you need to help set up – ”

Seffon interrupts her by stepping forward and taking her face in his hands. Leah flinches back but he doesn’t notice. “Tell me what you saw.” Leah realises he is drawing rune patterns on her face, and relaxes a bit.

Leah recounts the memory as quickly as she can, then goes into detail. “I was wondering why it didn’t end, what more there was Jeno wanted me to see – wanted us to see. And then a voice asked who the ‘us’ was, and I turned, and there was a second Eschen.”

“Identical to the first?”

“More tired, like you would expect someone to look who had been laying siege to a city for two days now.”

Seffon finishes tracing the runes, the liquid icy cold and kind of tingly. He starts reciting something, and Leah does not interrupt him, watching his face. The wet marks over her face and forehead freeze solid for a second, then disappear. “What was that?” she asks, after a few moments of silence have passed.

Seffon frowns in focused thought, then relaxes with relief, dropping his hands from her face. “It didn’t transfer to you. The memories were enough to form a temporary link, during the dream-state, but not after you woke up. You said the battery didn’t seem to work? How could you tell? Is the girl well?”

Leah slumps in relief. “She’s fine, but she sort of passed out for a second when I turned the battery on…and she mentioned a headache. I figured the battery would break whatever spell there was, but I don’t think it did. What if the battery only works to prevent a spell, not to break it after it’s cast?”

“It definitely still works after a spell has been cast,” Seffon says, still looking a little shaken even as he puts away the bowl.

“Oh?”

Seffon gestures around them at the walls. “The wards.” He sighs and rubs his face, tired. “I think it only works if the caster is within range, not if the effect is within range.”

“How can you know?”

“Because I woke up about thirty seconds before the knock at my door. It felt like someone had dropped a brick on my head.” He glares a bit at her, and Leah shrugs.

“I promise I won’t turn it on again without warning,” she says, and Seffon chuckles dryly.

“I understand why you did it. However, since that option didn’t work, we won’t be able to break the spell until we identify it.”

“And you can do that?” Leah says, but uncertainty creeps in.

“Probably. Born-magic follows different rules, but a spell that looked thrown or released, without any visual indicator of purpose…not evocative, certainly…triggered by the memory exchange…from your description I’d say it was a beacon spell, with elements of mind-reading.”

Leah waits for him to explain further, but he seems too distracted to notice. “Elaborate?”

“A beacon. Like a lighthouse, or a bonfire signal. It’s a way of transferring information over great distances…it makes sense. He would want to know where our guest was being kept, if it was at all important for them to eventually recapture their heir…”

Leah waits, and then gets impatient again. “And the mind-reading?”

Seffon flutters his hand at her, gesturing to be patient, that he’s still thinking. “It’s one thing to communicate with someone through a beacon, and another to be able to forcibly observe them. Jeno is hardly a willing part of their plot, clearly, so if he thought she was likely to overhear some vital information on her arrival, he might have tried to mix the spells…and then when she gave you the memories, a bit of the spell transferred to you temporarily. Hold on, I remember reading something about that…”

Seffon starts toward the stairs, and Leah follows uninvited – Seffon hardly seems aware of her, deep in thought.

Sewheil opens the door to the tower, dressed in day-clothes, looking confused. Seffon looks over his shoulder and notices her; he shoots off a string of information in Olues, and Sewheil nods along, her eyes widening.

“Ce th diyrys of Bren,” she says, following him up the stairs alongside Leah.

Seffon pulls a book off a shelf, mouthing words as he flips through, finally landing on a passage. “Delayed-trigger mind-link,” he declares. He shows Leah the passage, written in Olues, and she waits impatiently for him to clue in, which he does only at length. “Oh, yes, right. Bren was a born-magic user from about sixty years ago, who taught at this school briefly, and dabbled in learned-magic as well. He developed a spell for…warding, a person’s thoughts. It was possible for both types of caster to use, but very tricky.”

“What does it do?”

“It…traps certain memories. You maintain a link with a target person, anchored in the memories you wish to track. If anyone tries to access or alter those memories, it sends you a signal, and you can choose to act or not.”

“So Eschen did that to some of Jeno’s memories?”

“It’s good tactical sense; he wants to know what we know, and whatever it is we look for is what we don’t know. I’ve never seen it used in conflict, but then again, this is shaping up to be a unique war.”

Leah is shaking, and Sewheil notices. She lays a reassuring hand on Leah’s shoulder, but can’t seem to understand exactly what has upset her.

“Was he in her mind?” Leah asks. “If he had that link, and we don’t know exactly which memories he trapped…could he have seen through her eyes, felt what she was…could he have made her do things, or watched as she…”

“It’s not a good spell for turning someone into a spy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, that’s not – ” Leah is stammering too much to continue. Seffon finally notices something is wrong. “Through this spell, was he ever…in…Jeno’s body? The signal that the spell sends out, could it have allowed him to influence her, or feel through her, or…act…through her?”

Seffon is still clueless, but Sewheil’s hand flies to her mouth. She pulls Leah into a tight hug and pets her back. Seffon clues in, and the blood drains from his face.

“No. Gods, no. The spell can’t do that.” He reaches out to offer a gesture of support, but stops almost immediately. “Only a magical attempt to reach the memories would have triggered it. Before we did the spell, nothing that Jeno did was accessible to him.”

Leah is still trembling a bit, but she settles down.

Seffon becomes a little more professional. “I must help with the wards. Sewheil, could you check up on Lady Au – Lady Valerid? And you, Leah; she’ll want your explanation as well.”

“Can you undo it?” Leah asks as he leaves, and Seffon hesitates, hand frozen mid-muss of his hair.

“With care,” he says finally. “But I will start as soon as the wards are back up.” He continues out of the room, to follow wherever Teo went.