Declan stood, cloak whipped in the wind, so far up atop the keep it hurt. “I can’t breathe!” The edge of the keep stood not fifty feet off.

  Rohan stood perhaps ten inches from the edge, an artifice strapped to his chest. It resembled a metal spider, with a rune-stone in the center and legs that hugged him.

  Once more, Declan checked his. The grip was absolute. So was the terror. “What is the point?”

  “Fun.” Rohan didn’t seem to mind the wind or the biting cold or the lack of air. “We could start lower. But that wouldn’t be fun, and when my older brother finds I’ve taken two of the emergency artifices again, we won’t get a second chance.”

  Step after step, Declan approached the edge. “What if it fails?”

  “Then collecting house dues will be someone else’s problem. What if a tier zero bolter hits you in the chest with a Pierce and you die? What if an swarm spawns and you’re torn to shreds by a horde of monsters? You didn’t become an arcanist to die boring.” Rohan offered Declan a hand. “It’s automatic. It’s easy. It’s painless if it fails. At least that’s what I tell myself. The moment I know the answer I won’t be able to confirm it to anyone else.”

  The Foundry was the largest building where Declan grew up and the highest point the top of Foreman Scythe’s home. Men weren’t meant to be above the clouds or where the air grew thin. They were meant to cling to safety not leap from it. Arcanists were not like other men. He took another step. The edge awaited, the wind terrifying. There were decisions he couldn’t unmake and this was one.

  He leaned, arms outspread and let gravity embrace him.

  “Wooooooooooooooooooo!” Rohan screamed as he shot past, arms folded tight against his body for maximum speed.

  The wind burned Declan’s eyes, every ounce of his body had been doused in terror and then set on fire with adrenaline. Then the speed slowed. Declan wasn’t flying he was falling. The keep, it was the one moving, racing upward past him. He knew now, why the ArCore were so eager to use Wind Lift. It was a pale imitation of this, pure freedom.

  Then his brain connected a few distant facts. The first was that the keep wasn’t moving, he was. The second was that the patterns far below of fields and ants were now clearly people and wagons. The last was that the ground was not so distant as it seemed and was eager for a high-speed reunion.

  Far below, a brilliant bubble of red mana exploded out along with a rune. Rising Wind, Declan thought. The same modifier combination that turned Healing into Healing Bloom. His heart beat faster and faster, like it might explode. The pressure in his chest grew by the second—no, that was the artifice, settling its grip.

  Mana surged and snapped into existence, tinting the world red and the rush of wind became a roar which tumbled him end over end…then slowing and easing. Ten feet from the ground, the bubble burst and Declan over corrected, but kept his feet.

  The artifice shrieked an alarm over and over as Declan removed it. The legs curled up to touch the center and it hung limp in his grip.

  “Now you have lived. Now, you can die to a swarm of blazed beasts,” Rohan said as he laughed. “Also I should warn you we’ll be introduced to my oldest brother in about five minutes. That’s how long it’ll take him to get the report. Want to meet my family?”

  “I just jumped out of the sky. I think I can handle your family.”

  Rohan’s face turned red as he looked to Declan. “I’m going to quote you on that in about thirty minutes.”

  ###

  It didn’t take thirty minutes for Declan to revise his opinion. If House Domine was somber and serious, quiet and careful, House Taylor were constantly on the edge of laughing, or screaming, and constantly talking. Constantly.

  Even the guards who had come to escort them to explain the stunt chatted with Rohan, asking how many beasts he’d slain, why he hadn’t killed more and why some ArCore from House Domine had a higher kill count than him when he was quite obviously the more talented and handsome.

  Workmen were usually calm, only celebrating in small groups except LongDark. Declan sat quietly and tried to avoid notice. That lasted about ten minutes, when a older Taylor burst through the doors of the inner dining hall where they’d gathered. “Where is he?”

  “Harold, I’m right here. Come give me a hug!” Rohan called out. “It was just a couple of safety artifices. You don’t want your best brother and his friend to die when they fall off the keep, do you?”

  Harold Tayler was built like Rohan probably wished he was, muscles on muscles, with the same golden hair and dashing looks, but matured and tempered by time, with the first strands of white in his beard and near his ears. He wore brilliant red that was almost offensive to the eye and yet he projected a warmth that wasn’t like the Sun Queen. Until he looked at Rohan. “My best brother? That would be Eris, wouldn’t it? Or Tor? Salvador? I’m fairly sure all of them rank higher than you. When I asked ‘Where is he?’ I meant the Ariloch Arcanist. Greeted by the Sun Queen herself. Father wants to speak to you.”

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  “Pass,” Declan volunteered. “I’m here to provide what I promised in the voucher. I’ve had enough house lords and ladies for a lifetime. You want Rohan. He’s the walk-into-a-swarm, ArCore leader who confronts power and laughs in its face. I’m the house arcanist who studies runes. And I’m going to go study a rune.”

  “Lies, all lies!” Rohan shouted before anyone could answer. “The Foundry swarm, it was Declan out with a sword and a Deflect, meeting the manape. It was Declan negotiating with Lady Domine. It was Declan who told cousin Joshi, and I quote, ‘It’s a shit rune and if I made it I’d be ashamed.’”

  Declan stared, his mouth open. “I didn’t say that.”

  “I think you did,” Rohan answered.

  “I said something like that. Anyway, it was wonderful watching Rohan get yelled at, everything was his idea, and I’m going to go make sure I do my part of the bargain.” Declan gave a short bow. “I need a bloodline member to go with me to the armory but it doesn’t have to be the one who’s also a member of the ArCore.”

  “Duty.” Harold pronounced it like a blessing, and every Taylor repeated it. “It is the cornerstone of our house. Hard work is the mortar that holds us together, and we stand firm when others crumble. But what is your obsession with this? Tonight’s a night for celebrating my brat brother, even if he’s just made twice the work for me with his stunt.”

  “I owe a debt. I pay my debts,” Declan said. It was a point of pride.

  Rohan began to answer, but his brother overrode him. “What exactly do you think we bargained for? Roland Farwen will one day make an excellent service broker but he’s a decade away from proper relationships, powerful connections, and the ability to make his dreams happen.”

  “One session of Insight, eight hours?” Declan had written it himself. “Not that it works right. I expected a beautiful magic box of words, the answers in writing. Instead most of what I get are hunches, feelings about how it works. And higher tier runes are difficult, I have to study them.”

  It was one of the elder Taylors who spoke next. “We demand duty. We expect better. We will not accept less than the best anyone is capable of, but surely you think better of House Taylor than that. There hasn’t been a case of Insight for decades. Father was more curious how it would work and what it would reveal than interested in some wasting disease treatment from Phu Don. We don’t let wasting disease get started, so we don’t need to treat it.”

  “He figured out the Storm Tentacle,” Rohan added. “What did you mean about the second one being better?”

  “Can we do this privately?” Declan asked, conscious of the fifty eyes on him. “I told you, guesses and gut feelings that eventually unlock Insight to reveal the truth. Except about that. The first Storm Tentacle was forged from better source runes. The second one, you’re lucky it doesn’t leak mana and explode. Anything you combine it with will be weaker at the end and while it might not matter if it’s one of seventy at tier nine, it sure as hell matters at tier three.”

  That set off a round of questions from the table, but these were easy, gentle, curious ones.

  Harold orbited a rune and plucked it with his hand, sliding it down the long table. “Do this one. I know what it is. I want your opinion. It’s technically a low tier rune. Technically.”

  It was. The rune strokes weren’t blurry, the roots and modifiers clearly defined, the interaction between the three sets fascinating. “You better eat. Or yell at Rohan. Or whatever you were doing. This isn’t fast. Why does it have two Gather roots? Isn’t one enough? And why aren’t they reinforcing each other? And what’s the point of the Wind rune? It’s not gathering mana, and it’s not gathering raw wind.” The longer he looked at it, the stranger the interaction became. “Does it work? Is this actually a functioning rune?”

  Harold held out his hands, beckoning, and caught the rune as Declan threw it. It blazed bright and began to orbit him, then locked into place. But it didn’t activate. No, the arcanist removed it again and returned it to Declan. “It’s real. It works.”

  What a magnificent puzzle.

  This was better than any meal, more fun than blinding himself with a tier five rune and so entrancing Declan fell into a focus that let the flow of conversation wash around and over him like a stone in a river. Each symbol by itself was clear, each operation simple. The magic was where they intersected, and delicate modifiers that barely brushed the mana that would filter through the rune. “This…it’s not—you don’t cast it by itself.” He spoke and was certain in that moment. “That’s why you didn’t demonstrate. This isn’t a direct use rune, it’s one you lock in a sequence. It’s so gentle because it’s not shaping raw mana, it’s preserving an existing imprint and enforcing it. Did you make it? Did it come from a blazed beast? And what comes next in the sequence? That last interaction doesn’t seal the imprint.” He’d blurted out the last of it and still couldn’t say why he knew that.

  Harold gave a slow clap. “We use three sets of runes, primarily. Storm are our favorites, but the other half of the family uses light or sword runes. I just enjoy the storm ones more. And the answer is, it’s followed by whatever I choose, making it more powerful.”

  “That can’t be right. I mean, it probably works but that’s not what it’s for. They’re your runes. You know how to use them, and using them wrong is still using them, but this is meant to be followed by something specific. I just don’t understand what.” Declan passed it back and sat down, lost in thought. Such artistry. Such care. It was like looking at a masterpiece painting and finding new details. “And another thing! If it was meant to be a general booster, how the hell would it function properly? You can’t—I don’t know. It’s just not right.”

  Harold stood, arms crossed, a dubious look on his face. “Go on, tell me how to use my great grandfather’s runes.”

  Ash and shit, he’d done it again. “It’s like the Frozen Storm Blade. It works. It’s elegant. There’s so few flaws in the work, but the extra bits aren’t extra. They aren’t errors, they aren’t left over. I just don’t know what they’re supposed to do and until I figure it out, Insight won’t fill in the rest. Now, it’s going to keep me up all night.”

  “See?” Harold asked. He wasn’t talking to Declan. “Imagine that skill in three decades.”

  “No more!” Rohan shouted, pounding the table and raising his hands. “I have to be on duty tomorrow. I refuse to spend the last night I’m free talking about errors in runes or which ones are part of a set. We’re going to celebrate me being the best brother of House Taylor!”

  “Duty tomorrow, tonight, family,” Harold said. “Come on, little brother. Let me school you at the axe-throwing range again. Declan, have you ever thrown an axe?”

  “Not intentionally. Unintentionally I put one through a window.”

  “That makes you better than Rohan. Everyone to the axe range!” Harold shouted.