Telling Ember about the Academy was harder than Kael had expected.
He found her in the library, as usual, curled up in the reading alcove with a book that looked far too advanced for a child her age. She glanced up when he entered, then returned to her reading without comment—a habit she'd developed over the past week. Kael had learned it meant "I acknowledge your presence but I'm not done with this page yet."
He waited.
Eventually she set the book aside. "You have news. I can tell from your face."
"How?"
"Your eyebrows do a thing when you're about to say something important." She tilted her head. "Is it bad news?"
"I don't know yet." Kael sat down across from her, trying to figure out how to explain. "Master Vessen has been researching our... situation. She's found some answers, but also some new concerns."
"What kind of concerns?"
"She thinks we might need help that House Mourning can't provide. Training and resources they don't have." He paused. "She wants to send us to the Three Pillars Academy."
Ember's expression didn't change, but something in her eyes shifted. "The big school. The one everyone talks about."
"You've heard of it?"
"People mention it sometimes. When they think I'm not listening." She pulled her knees to her chest—her defensive posture, Kael had learned. "They say it's where powerful people go. Important people."
"That's one way to describe it."
"They also say it's dangerous." Her voice was very quiet. "That people die there sometimes. Or disappear."
Kael couldn't deny it. The Academy had a reputation for producing exceptional graduates—but also for chewing up and spitting out those who couldn't meet its demands.
"It's a risk," he admitted. "But staying here is also a risk. The things we're carrying—the fragments—they're not going to stay quiet forever. Eventually we'll need to understand them, control them. And the Academy has resources that might help with that."
"Resources."
"Teachers. Books. People who have studied things like us for generations."
Ember was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers traced patterns on the book's cover, movements that seemed almost unconscious.
"Do I have a choice?" she asked finally.
The question cut deeper than it should have. Kael remembered Vessen's words: The choice falls to her guardian. At the moment, that appears to be you.
"I want you to have a choice," he said carefully. "But honestly? I don't think either of us has many good options. We can stay here and hope for the best, or we can go to a place that might actually help us. Those are the options."
"That's not really a choice, then. That's just... different kinds of not-choosing."
She was too smart for her own good.
"Maybe," Kael agreed. "But I've already decided I'm going to the Academy. And if you come with me, at least we won't be alone. We'll have each other."
Ember looked at him for a long moment. Her expression was unreadable—that flat, careful look she got when she was processing something important.
"You're not going to leave me behind," she said slowly. "Even if I said I wanted to stay here."
"No."
"Why?"
Because the warmth in my chest screams every time I think about being separated from you. Because something inside me knows we're supposed to be together. Because I bound myself as your collateral and I can't fulfill that obligation if I'm not near you.
He said none of this. Instead:
"Because you're my responsibility now. And because—" He hesitated. "Because I don't want to be alone either."
Something shifted in Ember's expression. Not quite a smile, but close to it.
"Okay," she said. "The Academy. Together."
"Together."
She reached for her book again, then paused. "How long do we have? Before we leave?"
"Vessen said she needs a few weeks to make arrangements. Call in favors, handle the paperwork, that sort of thing."
"A few weeks." Ember nodded slowly. "That's enough time."
"Enough time for what?"
"To finish this book." She held it up—a thick volume titled Principles of Obligation: A Historical Survey. "It's very informative. I want to understand debt theory before we go to a place that specializes in it."
Kael stared at her. "That's a third-year Academy text. How are you even reading it?"
"Carefully." She shrugged. "The words are complicated, but the concepts make sense. Everything is connected to everything else. That's basically what debt is, right? Connections between people, formalized and recorded."
She said it so simply, as though she hadn't just summarized the fundamental principle that took most students years to grasp.
"You're going to terrify the Academy professors," Kael said.
"Good." A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "Maybe they'll be too scared to ask me uncomfortable questions."
The next two weeks passed more quickly than Kael would have liked.
He returned to full Witnessing duties—attending deaths, carrying regrets, filing the endless paperwork that accompanied every passing. It was grim work, but it kept him grounded. Reminded him that whatever cosmic forces were stirring inside him, the world kept turning. People kept living and dying according to the same rhythms they always had.
Ember, meanwhile, devoured the library.
She read voraciously, seemingly without preference for subject matter. Debt theory, historical accounts, geography of the shards, even a dusty volume on the care and maintenance of memorial gardens. Everything went into her mind, processed with that unsettling efficiency that suggested she was either remembering things she'd known before or learning at a rate that defied normal human capability.
"Do you sleep?" Kael asked one evening, finding her still in the reading alcove long after the compound had gone quiet.
"Sometimes." She didn't look up from her book. "Dreams are strange. I don't like them."
"What do you dream about?"
"Fire, mostly. And falling. And a voice that says things I can't quite hear." She turned a page. "I'd rather read."
Kael couldn't argue with that. His own dreams had grown stranger since the encounter in the alley—vast, shapeless experiences that left him feeling exhausted rather than rested. The warmth in his chest seemed to pulse more intensely when he woke from these dreams, as though something had been happening while he slept.
He sat down across from her, as had become their habit.
"I've been practicing," he said. "The communication exercises. With the... presence."
Ember set her book aside immediately. "What have you learned?"
"It's getting clearer. Not easier exactly, but clearer." He closed his eyes, focusing on the warmth. "I've been mapping the sensations to concepts. Building a kind of vocabulary."
"Show me."
He took a breath and ran through his mental catalogue:
"Safety." Warmth, strong and steady.
"Danger." Cold, sharp and insistent.
"Yes." A gentle pulse of warmth.
"No." A subtle cooling, not sharp but definite.
"Ember." Warmth, immediate and overwhelming—stronger than any other response he'd catalogued.
He opened his eyes. "It knows you. Recognizes your name, somehow. When I think about you or say your name, the response is... intense."
Ember's expression was complicated. "Is that good or bad?"
"I don't know. But it's consistent. Every time." He paused. "Have you tried? Communicating with whatever you carry?"
She shook her head. "I don't feel warmth like you do. Just... pressure. Weight. Like something enormous is pressing against me from the inside."
"But it's not painful?"
"No. Just heavy." She touched her chest. "Sometimes I think I hear something. Not words exactly, but... patterns. Like someone trying to talk through a wall."
"Maybe you need to do what I did. Establish a vocabulary. Give it ways to respond that you can recognize."
Ember considered this. "I could try. But it's not as simple for me. You feel changes in temperature. I just feel... more pressure or less pressure. It's harder to interpret."
"Still worth trying."
She nodded slowly. "Maybe. When we get to the Academy. When there are people who might actually be able to help."
It was a reasonable approach. Kael had to admit that his own experiments, while useful, had been largely guesswork. Professional guidance could make all the difference.
Three days before their scheduled departure, a messenger arrived at House Mourning.
Kael was in the filing room when the summons came—a junior Witness, breathless from running, telling him that Master Vessen required his presence immediately. He found Ember already waiting in Vessen's chambers, her expression tense.
Vessen stood by the window, holding a sealed document.
"There's been a complication," she said without preamble. "The Academy has responded to my inquiries, but not in the way I expected."
"What kind of complication?"
"They're aware of you." Vessen's hollow eyes were troubled. "Not the details—not what you carry. But someone there has been watching House Mourning. They noticed the incident in the alley, noticed Ember's arrival, noticed your sudden change in behavior."
Kael felt the cold thread through his chest. Danger. Caution.
"Who?"
"I don't know. The Academy has many factions, many interests. Any number of them might be paying attention to unusual events in minor Houses." She set down the document. "The complication is this: they've offered you both admission. Expedited, with full scholarships. They're waiving the normal entrance requirements."
That sounded like good news. The warmth pulsed uncertainty.
"Why is that a complication?"
"Because it's too easy." Vessen's voice was flat. "The Academy doesn't give things away. If they're offering expedited admission with no strings attached, it means they want something. And they're willing to invest significant resources to get it."
"So we're walking into a trap."
"Possibly. Or possibly they're simply curious and want to observe you up close." She shook her head. "Either way, the choice remains the same. You can refuse the offer and stay here, or accept it and face whatever they're planning."
Kael looked at Ember. She met his eyes steadily, her face revealing nothing.
"What do you think?" he asked her.
"I think we were always going to be hunted," she said quietly. "At least at the Academy, we'll have access to resources. Knowledge. Maybe even allies." A pause. "And running doesn't seem to be working very well."
She had a point. Whatever was coming, they couldn't avoid it by hiding in the House Mourning library.
"We accept," Kael said, turning back to Vessen. "Whatever they're planning, we'll deal with it when we get there."
Vessen nodded slowly.
"Then I'll send word. You leave in three days."