[Three months later]

  Oakhaven was being rebuilt. The smell of wet timber and fresh sawdust replaced the stench of rot, but the scars remained.

  Aether sat on a crate outside the temporary supply tent. He was not mixing potions. He was nursing a bottle of cheap, clear spirits. He was "retired."

  The Blazing Vials were gone. Rennick had exploded. Lyra was dead. The squad Aether had built was nothing but names on a memorial stone. He drank to forget the sound of Rennick’s scream.

  "You drink like my father."

  Aether paused, the bottle halfway to his lips. He looked down.

  The boy from the Oakhaven ruins stood there. The survivor Aether had pulled from a collapsed cellar weeks before the squad was wiped out. Odion. He looked thin, scrawny, his clothes too big for him. But his eyes were sharp, calculating.

  "Go away, kid," Aether grunted, taking a swig. "I'm not in the mood for charity."

  "I don't want charity," Odion said. He pointed to the bottle. "I want to know why you're drinking the solvent instead of the reagent."

  Aether choked on his drink. He wiped his mouth, squinting at the boy. "What do you know about reagents?"

  "My mother was an alchemist," Odion said. "Liora. I ground her herbs. I mixed her bases." He pointed to the bottle again. "And my father was Simon. I brewed his mash. I know the smell of a man trying to drown something."

  Aether lowered the bottle. The kid had a mouth on him.

  "Your parents are dead, boy. Go find the orphanage."

  "The orphanage is full," Odion stated flatly. "And I don't want to learn how to weave baskets. Being a weaver isn’t going to change the world. I want to learn how to fight."

  "Then find a sergeant. I'm a chemist."

  "You're the man who melted the ghouls," Odion countered. "I saw you. You threw fire." He stepped closer, invading Aether's personal space. "Teach me. Teach me how to make the fire."

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  "No," Aether snapped. He stood up, towering over the boy. "Fire kills the user, kid. Go home."

  "I have no home!" Odion shouted. The calm facade cracked, revealing the raw, bleeding grief underneath. "They killed them! My father was too drunk to fight, and my mother... she just stood there! She died because she didn't know how to hurt them!"

  Odion’s hands balled into fists. "I don't want to be a healer. I don't want to be a victim. I want to be the one who burns them down."

  Aether looked at the boy. He saw the rage. He saw the desperation. And he saw Rennick.

  "Better to die a healer than to die screaming," Aether whispered.

  He turned his back on the boy. "Get out of here. I have nothing for you."

  He went into his tent and closed the flap. He drank until he passed out. But when he woke the next morning, hungover and squinting against the sun, the boy was still there.

  Odion was sleeping curled up against the crates outside the tent. He hadn't left.

  Aether looked at the sleeping child. He looked at the mortar and pestle sticking out of the boy's pocket—his only inheritance. Aether sighed. It was a long, defeated sound. He nudged the boy with his boot.

  "Wake up."

  Odion scrambled up, instantly alert. He flinched, his arm coming up to cover his head—a reflex honed by years of waking up to a different kind of boot.

  Aether froze. He saw the flinch. He understood it.

  "Will you teach me?" Odion asked, lowering his arm slowly when he realized he wasn't going to be kicked.

  "I will teach you Alchemy," Aether corrected, his voice stern but keeping his hands visible. "I will teach you to mix salves. To brew clotting agents. To make stabilizers."

  "But the fire—"

  "No fire!" Aether roared.

  Odion didn't flinch this time. He just watched Aether's hands.

  Aether lowered his voice, crouching down so he was eye-level with the kid. "I will teach you how to save lives, Odion. I will teach you your mother's trade. That is the only legacy I am offering. Take it or leave it."

  Odion looked at the old soldier. He saw a man who shouted, a man who drank, but a man who kept his hands at his sides.

  "I'll take it," Odion whispered.

  "Good." Aether stood up. "Grab that crate. It's heavy."

  Odion grabbed the crate. He followed Aether toward the new shop location. He looked at the man's back. He didn't see a broken drunk. He saw a lifeline.

  You are the father I never had, Odion thought. Because you are the first one who hasn't hit me.

  He didn't know yet that Aether would spend the next five years replacing his father’s fists with a cold, absolute tyranny of the mind.