"I accept it," Lysane said. Her voice was calm and smooth. "The archives are exactly where I belong right now."Vane frowned. That was not the reaction he wanted. But he waved his hand. "Guards. Take her down. Take her all the way down."Two more guards stepped forward. They did not grab her arms. She was still a lady of high birth. They just pointed toward the door.Lysane turned to leave.As she walked toward the giant golden doors of the chamber, she passed by Caster.The guards holding Caster pulled him back slightly, trying to keep the two "infected" prisoners apart.But for one single second, Lysane and Caster stopped.They looked at each other.The room was full of enemies. The room was full of noise and fear and politics. But in that one second, Lysane and Caster had a perfectly silent conversation.Caster’s eyes were full of apology. He had dragged her down with him. He had cost her everything. Her rank, her power, her life in the sun.But Lysane’s eyes were completely clear.

It was a solid stone wall. It looked completely normal. But to Caster’s ash-filled eyes, the wall was screaming. The magic here was old, heavy, and very wrong.Caster raised his hand. He pushed the dark gray ash from his fingers into the cracks between the stones.The stones shivered. A low grinding noise filled the small space. Slowly, the solid wall split down the middle. It slid open, revealing a dark, terrifying hole.Caster stepped inside. The wall ground shut behind him, trapping him in total darkness.He held up his hand. A small flame of gray magic appeared in his palm, casting pale, sick shadows on the walls.He was standing at the top of a spiral staircase. The stairs were made of rough, black rock. They were very narrow and very steep. They went down in a tight circle, disappearing into the blackness below.Caster began to walk down.The descent was brutal. There were thousands of stairs. The air grew thicker and older with every step. It smelled like dry dirt, burnt wood,

Caster Spellbound walked away from the giant, charred cavern. He left the massive silver Pact Seal behind him. He did not break the ancient anchor. Not yet. The ghost of the First Sage Chancellor had told him a terrible truth. If Caster broke the seal, the Tower would fall. A million innocent people would die in the blink of an eye.Caster needed to know if the ghost was lying. Ghosts lied all the time. He needed to see the math with his own two eyes. He needed proof.He climbed up the narrow, black stone stairs. His legs burned. His chest ached. He was an old man, and his body was running out of time. But his mind was completely clear.When he reached the top of the hidden stairs, the stone wall ground shut behind him. He was back in the dusty, forgotten hallways of the lower Tower.He did not go back to his bright white cell in the Fifth Ring. He turned his boots toward the lowest place in the city. He walked toward the Subterranean Archives.The air grew colder. The smell of wet st

Caster thought about Archmage Vane’s face when the single flake of ash fell onto the white table in the Golden Room. He remembered the pure, naked panic in Vane’s eyes."I do not think Vane knows the deep math," Caster said. "I do not think the modern Council understands the true horror of the Pact Seal. They are politicians, not builders. But..."Caster paused. He remembered how quickly Vane had ordered him to be erased. He remembered how fast Vane had banished Lysane to the dark."But they are not ignorant," Caster finished. "They know enough. They know the Tower is sick. They know the Ashfall is coming from inside the house. And they are hiding it. They are beneficiaries of a lie. The lie worked for a thousand years. It kept them rich and powerful. And now that the lie is breaking, they just want to kill anyone who points at the cracks in the wall.""They are sacrificing the poor people in the lower Rings," Lysane said with deep disgust. "They let the Ashfall eat the common people

"They anchored the Warden there, in the dark," Caster said. He opened his eyes and looked right into Lysane’s face. "They used the massive, heavy gravity of the Warden’s magic to stabilize the broken world. And then... they built the Tower directly on top of the anchor. They used the Warden to hold the Tower in the sky."Lysane stared at him. The silence in the small clearing was absolute. Even the chained books seemed to stop shivering."The Tower is not a shield," Caster said softly. The words tasted like poison in his mouth. "The Tower is a parasite. We are a tick drinking the blood of a sleeping giant. The First Chancellor knew it. He built it this way on purpose. He traded the soul of the world so his people could live in floating white castles."Caster paused, letting the horror sink in. Then he delivered the final, crushing blow."That is why the Tower’s wards look exactly like the Blackthorn roots," Caster explained. "We saw the blueprints on your table, Lysane. The wards do n