It didn’t make sense. None at all. So, she checked the ingredients against the recipe Ellio found in the book and her own she’d learned from her parents. Equal parts soil and clean water. One 5 centimeter long jasper of fair quality or better. Eight millimeters of Night Bloom poison. Five small shards of nickel. Four drops of sunflower oil.

  Her recipe was correct. And she knew herself better than to doubt her own measurements when preparing it. So why then, did the results of the soil sample from the Guardian Spirit turn out this way?

  Ellio was busy helping Azhar with whatever, and couldn’t double check her findings with him. It was fine, because again, she knew she wasn’t wrong. As if she could make such mistakes. She wasn’t as clumsy as Ellio, afterall.

  She picked the jar off the table and, without even putting her boots on, swung open the door and ran two doors down. Jule yanked on the handle and slammed it open, only considering the gesture rude after she did so. Thankfully, Mouse didn’t immediately attack her for it, as he was out doing a small mission in south Winolin today. All she faced was Taiga’s glare which, she supposed, was actually scarier than Mouse.

  “What?” Taiga snapped, a hand reaching for his temple.

  The curtains in their room were drawn shut, despite the lovely weather. He sat in bed, purple yarn and the early makings of a cowl in his lap. The weather dipped after their return, as Taiga predicted, and he couldn’t leave the guildhall once over the last two days. Today, a chill swept through that sunk teeth into the warmth of the guild’s interior.

  Jule and the others could get away with a few layers, but the same could not be said for Taiga, who shivered uncontrollably and awoke with a migraine so severe, he vomited three times. She knew, through her learnings in Monx, that Ganakri were highly sensitive to the cold. But she’d never realized the extent.

  “Sorry, I know you aren’t feeling well, but I need you to look at this.” Jule closed the door behind her, walked across the room, and plopped down on the edge of the bed.

  Not bothering to even mask his annoyance, Taiga shifted over in bed, giving her more space. “What is it, then?”

  She held out the jar in her hand, the dirt swirled in the substance, the jasper clacking against the bottom of the jar. The moment the jasper fell away from the edge of the jar, it hazed into the murky dark mixture. “It didn’t solidify. It clouded.”

  He blinked at her. “And?”

  Oh, these fools. She simmered frustration, trying to remember they didn’t have all the same schooling she did and therefore, didn’t know something this simple.

  “Remember when I tested the soil at the rip? The substance gelled. That’s because it reacted to corruption. But this one didn’t. Because it’s saturated not with corruption, but purity.”

  Taiga rubbed across his forehead. “Purity?”

  “Yesssss,” she rocked forward, “don’t you get it??”

  “Jule,” Taiga glared through scrunched eyes. “Do not make my migraine worse.”

  “The Guardians aren’t corrupting. They’re purifying.”

  Taiga froze, slowly refocusing on her. “How’s that possible?”

  “Well, I was hoping you’d tell me. You said you could see the magics in the world. What magics do you see on the Guardians? Is it not corruption?”

  “It is.” Taiga looked down at the unfinished cowl in his lap. “I think.”

  He thinks? Jule tapped two fingers on the jar. Ellio told her how Taiga had to learn to read magics on his own, as he’d only begun learning when the Ganakri died. She doubted he would be entirely wrong, but it did raise questions.

  “Over saturation of either purity or corruption have similar effects on humans, so it’s hard for us to tell the difference without a test like this.” She clacked a couple nails on the glass. “What colors are specifically purity or corruption to you?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Yellow, reds, and pinks are definitely purity. For corruption…. Blues, purples, oranges, and greens, though the last one is closer to neutral.” Taiga pressed a knuckle to his temple, squeezing his eyes shut for a long moment.

  Jule waited until he leaned back and opened his eyes again. She lowered her voice a little, wondering if the sound made his migraine worse. “What colors do you see on the Guardian? I can see all sorts of colors on their talons and feathers. Is it the same for magics?”

  “Not quite. Pink primarily. Since Guardians emit purity, this isn’t all that strange. Pink stays primarily within the Guardian. Orange is the other common color. The corrupted Guardians have released mass amounts of corruption in this color.”

  Jule considered. Orange, then, would be the main magic capable of soaking into the ground based on what Taiga described. If that magic soaked into the soil, the sample would show gelled, not clouded. Could orange, in fact, be purity and not corruption?

  “What makes you sure that orange is corruption? When did you first connect the two?”

  “Hmm.” Taiga shivered, sinking into his blankets. A cold sweat dripped from his forehead. He’s feverish. Jule stood, placing her jar down on the nightstand and reaching for a warmed teapot on the table.

  She readied it while Taiga spoke. “The corrupted lands north of Leryn Forest. After escaping, I fled to where I knew the mercenaries couldn’t follow.”

  Jule froze, nearly spilling the tea. She shouldn’t be hearing this. Sure, she was highly interested. But mercenaries? Was that who attacked the Ganakri? She’d heard bandits killed them all. No, she was sure. Everyone knew it was bandits. She bit her lip, trying to focus on the tea.

  Did not feeling well cause him to reveal something he normally wouldn’t? Part of her wondered what else she could slither out of him. But no, no. She wouldn’t do something so underhanded. Right? Could she? She shook her head, no, no.

  “I stumbled onto Pnendua and Mouse. I think I still held a bloodied sword? I don’t know.”

  Ooooookay. She definitely shouldn’t have heard that. She placed a hurried cup of tea in her hand, and nearly shoved it into Taiga’s when he reached for it. “The magic, Taiga?”

  “Ah. The corruption? Yeah. When I found them, a small plume of orange floated about the Guardian. I mean, it makes sense for corruption to be in the corrupted lands and for Pnendua to consume it.”

  She sat back down, watching Taiga’s hands as they stilled around the cup. “Taiga, what if it wasn’t corruption then. But purity? You said it was near the Guardian. Could it be possible that the orange was purity the Guardian emitted instead?”

  He blinked at her, fingers rubbing against the ceramic cup. “I don’t think… I don’t know.” His eyes glanced around the room, studying something she couldn’t see. Then his eyes landed back towards the jar. “Maybe. I just assumed and it never proved wrong but… I don’t know how else to explain your test.”

  Neither said anything for a long moment. Laughter from down the hall echoed into the small room. Taiga sipped from the cup, squeezing his eyes shut at the noise. “If we go with that line of thinking then we may have the issue with the Guardians backwards.”

  Jule, who’d begun wondering if she should pour herself a cup of tea, startled, turning back to Taiga. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s pink twisting and cracking from the Guardian. You probably saw the pink blood bubbling from the mask, right?”

  She nodded. “Even I can see such solidified magics.”

  “I can see the same magic squirming beneath their scales. Assuming the Guardian were corrupting, I thought the Guardian’s innate corruption was forcing out any purity they created, causing those cracks and bleeding. But if it’s purity that the Guardian’s are pluming uncontrollably…”

  The realization nearly numbed her. “You think they’re losing their innate corruption?”

  “We thought the Guardian Spirits were being overwhelmed by corruption. But if orange is really the color of purity, then it’s not corruption saturating the Guardian and poisoning them. Purity is imploding them from within after their innate corruption is gone.”

  “But, that—”

  “You’ve said it yourself, Jule. The two main magics are always intertwined. One doesn’t exist without the other naturally. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So the question remains,” Taiga nearly mumbled, then directed back to Jule, “what can cause the absence of innate magic within a Guardian Spirit?”

  She picked her jar back up, rolling the mess around a bit. She didn’t know what she searched for, if anything. Maybe to check, once more, that the contents didn’t congeal in any way? They hadn’t.

  “There’s another question aside from that one, if this is all true.” They almost missed the obvious. Maybe she’d need to take a nap after this. Her lack of sleep pouring over books seemed to be affecting her mind. “Guardian’s consume corruption, hence why Pnendua lives in the corrupted zone. How can they lose all that corruption they’re constantly consuming to the point that purity would overtake them?”

  “I don’t know.” Taiga rested his head back on his pillows. “But this means there’s hope, right? For Pnendua?”

  Jule paused, and Taiga asked again. “Pnendua lives in the corrupted zone. Being surrounded by all that corruption means they’ll be safe from purifying, right?”

  She didn’t know how to answer. Logically, yes. But they barely figured this much out. Pinning hope on assumptions, maybes, and unverified knowledge would be foolish. And yet hope persisted, noneless. “Let’s make sure of it.”