Half the day I’ve spent being baked red and scaly by the sun, and half the day I’ve had to spend stopping so that I can adjust the baby harness and fight a toddler who doesn’t want to play nice anymore. I think it’s the heat. Or the hunger. There’s magic in the Barrens, and a lot of magic in the Barrens. It’s a wasteland because of the Archaic Mana that surged out of the Earth the moment the Dread Titans ripped their way through the tectonic plates. I think. Cat is telling me these things as I fight the baby Angel every step of the way, but it’s not the kind of magic that plays nice with Angels. It’s unholy and tainted, disgusting, apparently, to a species that’s used to having their magic perfect.

  “I don’t really see how that’s my problem,” I tell him. “Or how I can actually fix that, either.”

  The baby doesn’t care that I don’t care, and hasn’t stopped wailing for the better half of two hours. Magic is what Angels feed on, and the magic oozing out from the dirt and the single strip of asphalt I avoid walking on because it’ll probably melt my sneakers doesn’t taste good to him apparently. But I guess we’re both not having a good day. He bats away my water, and when I smash up the protein bars and try to get them into his mouth, he bites down hard on my finger—hard enough, most times, to draw blood, even if he’s just using his gums. Little shit, I swear. Never thought of myself as having kids in the future, and I don’t think I’m gonna change my mind any time soon either. No wonder mom only took us in once we could all stand up on our own and communicate without crying: it’s a pain in the neck keeping one of these things alive. I’m past the point of going nuts and giving up.

  I’ve pretty much given in to the hopelessness of trying to walk somewhere. For all I know, I could still have about ten thousand miles between me and the next city or settlement. I might not even be a dot on an aerial map if somebody saw me from above. But I keep going, because my legs do the walking, stumbling along, and my feet do the hurting—all my brain does is keep complaining, but this journey is up to my body to keep struggling.

  “Kid,” Mortimer says on my shoulder. I stir from my daze and say, huh? “I think I see a building.”

  I shade my eyes, since the Angel is wearing my baseball hat now. I squint, rub the grit and dust out of them, then look again. What is that? Concrete slabs, I think, far off into the distance. “Kinda looks like a factory.” It’s the large drilling machines littering the land around it that give it away. Some old forge that shut down ages ago, rust, heat, sand and time eating it all away. “Might as well. Can’t be worse than walking all day long. Might find help.”

  “You really think there’s gonna be help in the Barrens?”

  “No,” I say, heading off the side of the tarmac and into the desert. “But I’ve got a gun.”

  “What if they’ve got more than just a gun?”

  “Then it’s been fun, kitty cat.”

  If he says anything else, I don’t hear it over the unsettling whine of insects chirping and buzzing in the dry brush and kindling surrounding me. Old cola cans are tucked away in the dirt, right alongside bits of metal and shiny bits of plastic. Of course, someone had been here before. Many people. But all of this stuff is old. Maybe older than me, so it’s got no use to anything I’m trying to accomplish right now. I keep walking, my legs getting cut up by small thorn bushes and bitten by stubborn mosquitos that want to feed off the magic in my blood. After a while, I only kill the ones on my arms, leaving blood all over my palms. And then comes my biggest problem yet.

  The desert kind of just…ends.

  Hm.

  I put my hands on my hips and look from my left to my right. There’s a canyon in between myself and the old factory. Closer now, and I can see a small kind of mountain, maybe a very large rocky cliff face, behind the factory. There’s got to be something over there, but right now, I’ve got something over here that’s making that impossible. I swear and massage my temples, then wince, because my skin is sunburnt, red, and very sensitive.

  I glance into the canyon. Doesn’t look appealing. Straight cut rock—not great for climbing down. I’d risk it if I was by myself, but I’ve got a baby who’ll be grinding against the cliff face, and I don’t think he’d like that.

  “What’re you waiting for?” Mortimer asks me.

  “Do you want me to jump my way across the canyon, cat?”

  “You’ve got a manual in your backpack, right? Read it.”

  “What’s that got to do with getting across?”

  “It’s a journal from the previous Blessings holders,” he says, exasperated. “You’re probably not the only Mage in the Blessings’ history to come across a crack in the Earth. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn a new Talent.”

  I hate reading, and I hate learning—but I guess I hate standing in the sun, too.

  I find a rock that I can sit on and rummage through my backpack, the sun beating against my back because the Angel doesn’t like the heat very much. Mortimer, though, is right. I find the journal at the bottom of the bag. A slim leather thing with a quill attached to it and a little red strip of cloth bookmarking the first page. On the inside of the cover, it reads: Property of Angelica Sermons, followed by half a dozen other people. I guess they were all just like me once upon a time. And right there at the bottom was my very own name, Kacey J. Summers. The baby takes an interest in the journal and makes a grabbing motion for it. I relent and let him hold it, watching him shake the thing like it’s a toy he’s trying to turn on. I’ve got to tickle him to make him let go of the book, then I flip through it, and it’s just my luck that the pages are empty. Each and every single one, as if nobody ever owned it.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I look at Mortimer, wondering if I should throw it at him or beat him over the head with it.

  He sighs and climbs onto my lap. “All these empty pages are yours,” he explains, pawing them aside. “It’s for you to keep track of anything you think is important. New techniques. Map outlines. Phone numbers. Places you should visit and ones you should avoid. Spells, hexes, whatever—it’s like a phone but a lot more useful, because that’s what they pay me to say. But between me and you, kid, I think they should get rid of these things and modernize.” He sits and looks up at me. “But if you want to make sure the person after you makes it anywhere in life, I suggest you just write down a few things here and there. How you killed Monsters or something heroic helps.”

  “What’s stopping me from lying?” I ask. He tilts his head, confused. “I can write down that I went and won Mageforge three times in a row and killed a Dread Titan whilst I was at it, and then the next person is gonna go out there and think I was great.” I shrug. “Think about it, why would I trust what any of these people say, Mortimer?”

  “They’re heroes, righteous of heart and vertous of spirit. Lying doesn’t even cross their mind.”

  “So you’re telling me if one of them said they jumped across a canyon, I do it too?”

  “Sure,” he says. “Just make sure you aren’t holding me when you try that out.”

  Not very convincing, kitty cat.

  “How do I work this thing, anyway?”

  “Tap the name you think might help you the most, imbue it with some magic, and you’re good to go.” He smiles a little, almost cockily. “This is where it helps if you know your history. Being educated is a skill, too.”

  I brush him off my lap and lay the book onto my knees. I trace my finger down the names, chewing on the quill, not really knowing what I’m looking for. I’ll have to rely on sheer dumb luck (if the universe is feeling a little more generous today than it’s been in the past few weeks of my life) to get this right. Angelica sounds like someone important. If you’re the first Blessing holder, then you’re probably going to be someone who learnt a hell of alot on the go—a little like me. I do as Mortimer says and tap the name, letting a dash of magic flow from my finger. I wait, and wait, and then stop and look at the cat. The baby Angel stopped wailing, but now he just looks confused, too.

  “Hm,” he hums. “Too little magic, probably not that potent. I guess I should’ve opened with the fact that some of these guys can refuse to be summoned, too. Considering the rate a lot of young Blessings holders die in their first week, it’s almost impossible to get a lot of the previous contract holders to take ‘em seriously, either.”

  “So what you’re saying is that I just wasted my magic on something useless?” I ask him.

  Mortimer makes a good decision to step back before I throw the book at him. “I mean, technically—”

  A shrieking sound tears through the sky, echoing so loudly I’m on my feet, bag over my shoulders, and book inside of it in a heartbeat. I pull the gun out, flick the safety, scan the sky, the canyon—nothing. Not anything I can see. It’s almost second nature now, moving this way. But I’m out in the open. Not a single thing for miles. If I can hear it, I’ll definitely see it long before it gets here. The only problem is that I do see it—them, actually. A large black cloud of beating wings and ferocious shrieking. Of course, I think, taking several steps backward. Fallen Angels, that’s exactly what I needed to make this day even better. Awesome! I turn, think about running, then stop.

  Because there’s nowhere that I can run, but there’s something that I can do right now.

  “Hey,” I say to Mortimer. The hairs along his spine are standing on end, ears darting and tail flicking. “You said that this is my Trial period, right? And I’m meant to get training from someone who knows their shit, right?”

  “What’s that gotta do with the Fallen Angels,” he asks, leaping into my hands.

  “I need the broad who got me here,” I say. “The one who sold me the Blessing.”

  “Andrea?” he asks. “She’s not gonna be—”

  “I signed a fucking contract, so she’s gonna hold up her end of the bargain. She’s supposed to be here, and unless you want to get torn apart by a horde of Fallen Angels, kitty cat, then keep stalling and keep trembling!”

  He opens his mouth. A Fallen Angel, its wings massive, its bellow turning my stomach around, folding it into tight coils, breaks away from the pack and gets closer. Not enough bullets. Nowhere near. “Fine,” he says. “Fine! Just put me down!” I drop him. He shakes himself off, then says, “Have you ever performed a Summoning?”

  “Teach me how and the answer’s gonna be yes.” I get to my knees. The baby is crying again, even louder.

  “Luckily for you, she’ll be more inclined to listen,” he says. “Lots and lots riding on you, kid.” I want to ask him what that means, but instead, he cuts open my hand with his claws. I swear and nearly grab him by the throat out of reflex, then he says, “Follow my paws, draw the incantation, and say exactly what I say, alright?”

  “What happens if she doesn’t bother coming?” I ask him, blood spilling between my fingers. The ground is so painfully hot that it dries as soon as it hits the stone, simmering and burning. “‘cause we’d be pretty screwed.”

  “Let’s hope she’s going to play ball,” he mutters. “Besides, she owes me one.”

  Here goes, I think, pressing my thumb to the stone. This better work.

  Because dying in the middle of nowhere, ultimately for nothing, would be such a Kacey way to die. I think I’ve already had my fair share of getting put down, so the mystical lady with the giant sword better pull through.

  Because if I end up dying again, the afterlife isn’t gonna hear the end of it, believe me.