Declan had polished and cleaned the brass door fittings recovered from the ashes, grudgingly spent the rin on new mana locks, and carved the hing recesses by hand with a chisel. It was time to for House Ariloch to grow and heal. “Get that end and I’ve got this one,” Declan said.

  Rohan Taylor was making good on his promise, and had recruited several more ArCore members to carry the heavy oak doors to the second floor, where Declan arranged them. “Why these rooms?”

  “These overlook our maze. There’s a swarm building and I want more places for our arcanists to slay blazed beasts from inside. We could house a few hundred, but we’ve only got forty three livable rooms. The doors make the difference. Some of the difference.” The rest of the difference had been beds, bathtubs, faucets, sinks, toilets, and in one case, a floor that was completely missing, only bare timbers separating the room from the one below. Just because the walls were made of stone didn’t mean the rest of the building was.

  “Ready?” Rohan asked as Declan blocked the hinges up to align and retreived his hand drill. “You should be working on that mana stone right now.”

  “A little busy.” Declan marked and then began to drill.

  “There’s no better time.” Rohan waited for him to finish drilling and set the door down. “Come on, put one in orbit and work on the other.”

  Declan wasn’t ready to have this conversation about a rusted cannon ball. “I promise I will work on it later. Right now I want to be able to offer shelter.”

  “We will work on it.” Rohan seemed like he no longer carried the sky. “We will. And I will make you enjoy conversation. You’ll never survive Taylor Keep for the day if you don’t. We chat constantly.”

  It sounded like hell. “You want to chat? Tell me, what are the super special treament ArCore members get that make you so much more powerful? And hold it still, once I have two in each hinge, it’s good.”

  “First, we receive mana channel hardening. Growing your channels is one process, aligning them another, hardening them prepares them to take the strain. So, you can carry more mana with grown channels, it moves more freely if they’re unblocked, and won’t rupture when you attempt something like overcasting, where you force mana from the arcsoul into a rune.” Rohan stepped back at Declan’s signal, then held screws as he set them. “Very nice. It doesn’t even squeak.”

  “One down, four to go.” Declan was proud of this. “Why would anyone want to be one of the ArCore? The hell doesn’t seem to be worth the benefits.”

  “You’re seeing now. You’re thinking of now. If I serve out my time, I’ll receive a crown bonus so large I could start literally any business. A yearly pension. Priority in permits, favor if I come into conflict before the Crown. And that’s before the benefit multiplies out to House Taylor as someone else runs the business and I’m the representative. Plus, I have the ability. That makes it my duty.”

  “If it’s not secret, what tier are most of you?”

  “Three, just like the majority of the arcanists. But the difference is, most of us have blood runes that are more powerful and almost all of us will make tier four. Five…I’ll get there.”

  As they worked, Declan learned of the other treatments. One enlarged the arcsoul, forcing it to grow more rapidly so the arcanist would store and deploy more powerful runes. Another deepened their natural mana regeneration by stitching their muscles with arcite thread. The last, he couldn’t speak of due to an oath.

  Room by room they moved, and by the time dinner came, Declan was ready for five more house members. He hated turning any away. “I’ll buy you dinner in the town if you can keep the blazed beasts from killing me.”

  “Better idea!” Rohan said with a grin. “The ArCore is having a huge dinner and camping on the scab tonight. There’s a massive blazed beast due to manifest and having a guests without arcsouls will lure it out. How would you like to be a guest?”

  “I think you’re mispronouncing ‘bait.’” Declan considered it a moment. “Is the food good?”

  “Go see. Also, you’ll need to pretend to be injured. The mana at night on the scab is exquisite. You won’t find a better place to practice soul-casting or work on that mana stone. And there’s always conversation, so you might actually succeed.” Rohan attempted to make puppy dog eyes and achieved rabid-dog-eyes.

  “Fine. I’ll be the commons-pie in your rat trap. I’m bringing my sword. And my backpack. And Protect. First I have some unpleasant business to deal with at the door.” Declan ran to gather his pack and prepare, while Rohan followed. “This may be a bit ugly. I have to enforce order. If I make a rule and don’t hold to it, it’s not a rule.”

  The pounding had begun.

  Declan headed out, opening the door and stepping out to block Chen. “You fell asleep today.”

  “Just for three hours,” Chen said, his eyes wide. “Tomorrow I’ll study twice as long.”

  “Library opens at seven,” Declan said. “Be there when it does, you’re spending the night on the porch. There are guards, the ArCore is camping, there’s a decent chance you’ll be fine.”

  Chen ran after Declan as he passed the giant black capstone near House Ariloch. “Don’t do this. I can’t just change. It doesn’t work like that. I need second chances. And I’m shit at protecting myself.”

  “You’re not sleeping in House Ariloch,” Declan said. “That’s final. You can come back when I have a note saying you pulled an eight hour study session on Enchantment. I hear the ArCore are doing a something on the scab, if you stay close they might keep you safe. That right, Rohan?”

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  “It is! And you can change. Everyone can change. That’s one of the best things about us,” Rohan said. “There are three arrows without a guest and it simply won’t be fair if they don’t have a chance. Declan has volunteered for ours.”

  “I volunteered for dinner. And mana. And maybe killing that blazed beast.”

  Rohan slapped him on the back. “It’s a tier five Blasphemous New Moon Stalker and it’s going to take multiple arrows working together, or mine. But I love the willingness.”

  An entire set of tables had been set up around the focus dome at the bottom of the scab by the time Declan and Rohan arrived, with the ArCore arrows spread out all around the dome. Dinner was delicious, and the longer Declan sat in lawn chairs around the small fires servants built, the less like super soldiers the ArCore seemed and the more like super soldiers who were also ‘normal’ people. Lake had tried—and failed—to ‘rescue’ Declan to work with her Arrow, and now Declan sat at a table with Alister, Tegan and Rohan. “Where are the rest of your arrow? Six to an arrow?”

  “We function as an elite unit,” Alister said with surprising politeness. “Additional people would slow us down and prevent rapid response. We’re the tip of the spear.”

  “Odd. ArCore teams are called arrows. You’d think you’d be the arrows of the Queen.”

  Alister nodded. “I suspect Lady Lackey’s barristers would lodge a legal objection.”

  Lawyers had a way of ruining many things. “You’d probably be more effective with support.”

  “We’ve got me for brute force and close range rune slaughter,” Rohan said, “Alister for defense and entrapment, and Tegan to heal and rip. Speaking of which, go on, Tegan. Please be careful this time.”

  She stood and walked to loom over a seated Rohan. “Ok, I got certified on this and I just need all of you to pretend to be dead. Or sick. Or unable to cast, the point is I’m diagnosing mana channel rupture and repairing it. You’d better not have any. If you’ve managed to rupture hardened veins, that’s royally fucked up..”

  “You want me to go overcast an Earthen Strike?” Rohan asked. Then he froze, shuddering. “Ice down the spine. Warm your psychic hands, will you?”

  “Shut up and enjoy it. You’re growing.” Small sparks of mana leaped from each of Tegan’s fingertips as she pressed on the base of Rohan’s skull. “Head down, reaching the core channels is hard.”

  While she worked, Declan asked a question that had been gnawing at him. “Why did the administration let House Ariloch get so decrepit? Lake spent enough rin on a hangover potion that I could have bought a new door for every room in the house and didn’t even blink. You have the money. They have it.”

  “Did you think to ask her for a loan?” Tegan asked, then flinched when Rohan gasped in pain. “Whoops, breathe through it, you’re growing. It’s like a massage for your soul. A massage done by cockroaches. In your soul.”

  “I’ll give you an answer. And a hundred rin for you to shut your mouth, store the attitude and actually listen when your betters speak.” Alister slapped the coin down. “It’s like that because people don’t care for what they’re not invested in. It was once magnificent. My grandfather said his great grandfather told stories of the sculptures. The carved doors. The stone, the inlays, an armory that ensured every house member was equipped. The very people you are attempting to save have no personal reason to preserve it.”

  Declan wanted to protest. But he wanted the coin and shut his mouth. “Go on.”

  “You can’t give to people, they have to earn it. People respect and care for what they earn and yours don’t. Repair what you will. Clean as you can. It won’t matter because there is one of you and dozens of them. You can’t care for a person more than they do for themselves. In House Rush, there is reward for caring, there is punishment for not and there is pride as the backbone of duty. You have none of that. Enjoy the coin.”

  It would mean another room.

  He accepted the rin and considered both the message and the source. House duties were on his todo list but they weren’t uniformly enfored. Punishment wasn’t something Declan could personally dish out and reward was scarce in a house where coin was rarer. “I’ll think about it rather than answer.”

  “Perhaps you can be taught.” Alister drew a book and lay it out, conspicuously ignoring them.

  A scream shattered the conversations as someone convulsed in a chair.

  “Sorry,” Anissa shouted. “Channels are a little bit tender for someone with an arcsoul. You’re growing, Chen!”

  Laughter rose across the entire gathering and slowly the meals continued. A Medical director came table to table, checking the work and spent an hour examining Rohan. “You need to practice the lightest psychic touch you can,” he chided her. “Move on, this was a good job but you can do better. Convince more civillians next time, you need more practice.”

  Declan moved his chair and sat down close enough that the fire drove back the night chill and dropped his mana bearing in his lap, then orbited the other stone. He started with soul-casting, drawing Gather as an arc. Here, mana refilled as fast as he used it, but Declan’s aim was to use so little it didn’t matter.

  The arc of Gather rose to its peak and began to descend, and this time, he had a solid grip on the imprint, a steady path toward completion. This part was easier, he wasn’t pushing on the mana, it was simply guiding it all the way down. The imprint flashed, the outline solid in his mind, and the line began to drink mana, growing thicker and thicker.

  Declan fed it until he was terrified. The mind-rune was fully charged. All that remained was to gently push it into existence. A shining, brilliant blue circle carved itself into existence before Declan, tracing the exact path he’d used.

  It didn’t so much as rotate or spin, and held its position perfectly.

  Then Declan activated it.

  The circle gently rotated sideways, not out of control, but like machinery had engaged. Then it expanded out and kept expanding wider and wider, passing far over Declan’s head to stretch out over the bonfire and into the distance. Then a spark of light lit up on the edge of the ring, and burned its way around the outside, drawing ooohs and ahs from all around.

  “Stop the rune,” Tegan said, her voice almost a whisper. “Don’t let it complete! You’re sitting at the heart of the scab, that rune will fucking drown you. Stop it!”

  He couldn’t. It wasn’t a lack of desire, it was lack of control. The fuse had been lit, the rune set in motion and now it crawled the last few steps to where it had started. The rune faded, the night grew dark.

  Then a wave of mana crashed down over Declan, a blast like drinking from the supply pipe that overwhelmed him. He let most of it flow over into the ground and yet most wasn’t nearly enough. A soul-cast Deflect blazed into existence and was a good start but not enough. Declan poured mana into a new shape, this time intentionally wrenching the outline at right angles and forcing it to lock back together. Gushing mana into Protect was a great idea and more difficult to do when every moment, thinking grew more difficult. The rune activated, dragging away enough mana for Declan to gasp.

  His lungs could get air, it was his soul that couldn’t breathe, crushed under the weight.

  “Just Deflect,” Alister barked. “You’re ten times faster with it and you won’t last long enough for another Protect. Soul-casting on the scab, what will this idiot do to die next?”

  The desire to punch Alister was tempered by his soul writhing and the fact that Alister was correct. The rune he cast was only tangentially a Deflect. The angles were wrong, the lines too thick and he’d sprayed mana into it like he was puking, but when it triggered, it gave him another moment to gasp.

  Another chance to Deflect.

  And now, he could breathe, both his body and soul. “Gather might not be good to use on the scab,” he said.

  “No shit!” Tegan said. “Hey, I need Medical to oversee this. Good news for me? I get to check for actual ruptures. Bad news for you? You might actually have ruptured your mana channels.”