Bea pulls fresh candles from beneath the counter. “As if it doesn’t happen multiple times a week.”

The rolling blackouts are normal, considering how cloudy it gets this time of year, but after an uncommonly sunny fall, people have become accustomed to the ease of sunstone lighting.

It’s not a perfect system, but the Bennetts of East Hold have a blessing from Divine Stellaria that allows them to store light in sunstone. They’ve built a network of it through the city to provide residents with light. It’s a limited resource, and priority goes to the gatehouses—which is just another way of saying it goes to the powerful.

For that reason, every household in the city is supplied with a monthly stipend of beeswax candles. After the attack on Fallen Hold, the wagons of supplies from the outside world slowed and then ground to a halt as the drained population made the woods unsurvivable. The Crookes, a family of beekeepers, sprang into action, teaching people how to keep hives. Most households with gardens also keep bees, and my family supplements the rest by hiring unblessed citizens to keep the hives along the walls of the city.

Guardian’s Crossing has several hives on its rooftop garden, and Bea has used the honey to make her signature Sweet Bea’s Wildflower Honey Ale every spring. The brew is so coveted that people line up around the block on the night of release. Bea once hinted that the brew paid for a year of maintenance and stock in just one month. She makes enough for three months because she’s smart enough to know that there’s no better way to charge a premium in this city than to market something as exclusive.

Bea lights several jarred candles, and I help a waitress pass them around the room. A moment later, the revelers are back to their dancing and the blustering cacophony of sounds resumes as if nothing happened.

I bend over the counter and hold out my ale to be topped off.

Bea takes it and fills it to the brim. She leans in close. “When you leave for Fallen Hold and the killing stops, that brother of yours is going to finally figure out who you are.”

I rub the bridge of my nose. “I know. I’ve been trying to come up with something.”

“And?” Bea looks so hopeful.

I twist my mug around on the bar top, drawing a finger through the beer pooling on the wood.

“Josie wants to help,” Bea says, her voice cautious.

I swallow my shock. “Absolutely not.”

“Just listen,” she says, raising her voice as much as she dares. “We don’t need to do much. You’ll be gone for, what? A couple weeks for the wedding? But I imagine you’ll be back for Dark Star Festival. We’ll continue doing intake. And we’ll take on a job or two.”

I hold up a hand. “I’m touched that you want to help, but you’re already more involved than I’d like. It’s too dangerous.”

Bea shakes her head. “Josie has been asking to help for a while—before all this. You know her history.”

I look away. I know her history well. Josie was one of our first clients ever, and she was so grateful for our help that she took over running all the administrative duties at Guardian’s Crossing.

The more I pulled away, the more Bea leaned on Josie. That was fine with me. Bea and I were casual anyway. I have never been good at letting someone in. It was inevitable.

“She’s trustworthy,” Bea says.

“I don’t doubt her trustworthiness, Bea. I would just be devastated if she got hurt, and so would you,” I snap.

A man a few seats down turns to look at us for a moment before going back to his conversation.

Bea’s face softens. “We know enough women with small magic. The girls at the pleasure houses do enough.”

I sigh. Lunameade’s pleasure district is notorious, or at least it was when we used to have regular tourists and visitors. We get very few outside visitors now since the forest is overrun with Drained and impassable to those who aren’t well-trained.

However, the reason they are so popular is that many of the bastards of the magical houses work in the district, and those who can wield small magic like glamours abound. According to Josie, violet eyes like mine are a very popular request of those blessed by Stellaria.

“We can make it work,” Bea says. “Those women are a huge part of our network and they’ve wanted to help for years if you would just⁠—”

“I’m not putting them at risk,” I say in a harsh whisper. “At least not until I have a strong plan to insulate them from the mess it could make.”

Bea pulls her hand away. She’s not one to sulk, hardened bartender that she is, but I recognize the wounded look in her eyes.

I don’t want to worry her and tell her that Rafe knows about my magic, but the last thing I need is for her and Josie to draw his attention.

“Just give me a little more time and I will come up with something.” I try for placating, but I sound so condescending. “I know you two can handle yourselves, but these are delicate times, especially after the rebel attack. If I’m not here, there’s no way for me to insulate you. Assumptions would be made, and I can’t lose you.”

“We don’t have more time. I’m not asking for your permission. I’m telling you that friendship means having someone’s back, and this is a risk we are both willing to take—and we have backup,” Bea says.

She’s trapped me here and waited until the last minute to spring it on me when I have no other option. I want to argue, but I know she’s right.

Bea looks away and nods. “I’m glad that’s settled. Now you better get going before your mark moves on or finds another lovely lady for the night.”

I grin, drain my ale, and dart out the back door. The night is cold and my breath puffs out in little white clouds as I tug up my hood and walk north, following a series of narrow alleys and quiet side streets.

Ashen Eclipse is a dark bar in the northeast quadrant of the city that is themed around Divine Stellaria and the complete darkness she washed the world with when her husband, Asher, was kidnapped.

I’ve been there a couple of times before. It’s not really my kind of place, but the city is only so big and everyone needs a change of pace sometimes.

Pausing at the end of a dark alleyway, I brush my fingers over my enchanted necklace and close my eyes. I don’t want to waste the limited magic left in it, so I just focus on changing my eyes from violet to bright blue. The familiar press of Aidia’s magic tingling behind my eyelids makes me want to cry.

When I blink my eyes open a moment later, the world looks slightly hazy. The film will clear after my body adjusts to the magic.

Two drunk men stumble by the alley, and their laughter sends me into motion again. I cross the street and take several more twists and turns down alleyways until finally I approach the back of Ashen Eclipse and peek around the side of the building. Several men stand by the door, smoking and laughing with each other.

My preference is to make an entrance, but I’d rather not get too much attention until I’m actually inside. I’ll have to use the back entrance.

I turn and immediately stumble back from a dark, looming figure beside me. Bracing my hand against my thundering heart, I laugh at myself for being so jumpy. With the streetlights out, what looks like a person is actually just a statue of Stellaria clasping Asher’s hand. As my eyes adjust, I realize her face is a mask of narrow-eyed vengeance, while Asher looks at her with total adoration.

I stare at the Divine of Endings. Asher is so rarely depicted in art around the city. People have a strange nervousness about him—as if it were he who cursed the world to darkness and not his wife.

When I was young, I was convinced that wariness came from the rarity of blessings from Divine Asher. Not one of the high houses had a family member with a blessing from the Divine of Endings, and in my lifetime I’d never heard of a New Moon Blessing Ceremony where a child had received a blessing from Asher. But my parents were always saying that the Divine were mysterious and it wasn’t up to us to question their decisions.