"Can you hear me?"

There was no response.

Lumina brushed soot from her goggles and paused to catch her breath. She had been cutting for the better part of an hour, she realized -- ever since her volunteer crew had scattered the rioters and begun their search for survivors. But the smoke was still everywhere, and the fumes of smoldering dioxyner still burned her nostrils raw.

Lumina shook her head. She took a deep breath and shouted again:

"Is anyone there? If you still draw breath, answer!"

A moan from somewhere in the curling smoke. It was nearer than before -- but also weaker. Lumina's heart skipped a beat.

"Okay, stay with me. Don't panic. I'm going to cut you free."

She pulled her goggles over her eyes, pressed the initiator sigil on her stylus, and began the harrowing work of drawing another glyph on the rubble blocking her. With her free hand she calculated lengths, angles, intersections. In such cramped quarters, there was no margin for error: if she was even a little bit off, her spell could kill the person she was trying to save.

There. The circle was complete. As Lumina's engraving shimmered in the solid metal, she signaled behind her with her free hand.

"Clear!" she shouted.

"Clear!" came the response.

"Sealing away!"

Lumina pulled a vial from a belt pouch and shattered it upon the glyph. A wave of heat, an aetheric reaction that made her hairs stand on end--

The ruined laboratory exploded with light. White-hot beams lanced outward from Lumina's glyph of disjunction, slicing through fallen arches and sending their pieces sliding to the ground with a mighty crash. Lumina held her breath as the afterimages faded from her goggles...

"Cut is clean," remarked her assistant. "I don't know how you do it."

Lumina exhaled with relief.

"It's nothing, Prima. Just years of practice."

She groped deeper in the wreckage, and her soot-covered hand found another: a sliver of hope. Their fingers felt for purchase -- held tight -- dared not let go.

Lumina glanced at her assistant, who nodded.

"On my count. One. And two--"

And she pulled the survivor into the light.

The man who emerged was shaking, delirious. He was covered from head to toe in blood and rock dust. Lumina half-walked, half-carried him to Prima, who threw a natron shawl over his shoulders and pressed a flask of hot water into his hands.

"L...l...hh...y..." the survivor gasped through chapped lips.

"Don't exert yourself," said Lumina, but it only seemed to agitate the man further. "Take slow breaths. The--"

The man grabbed her shoulder. His wild eyes bored into hers, and he opened and closed his mouth like a fish struggling for air. His lips said something soundlessly; Lumina struggled to catch his words before they died away.

As she grasped their meaning, she froze.

His chest heaved once. Twice.

"Wait!" Lumina cried. "Wait--"

He crumpled into her like a rag doll. His sleeves left bloody trails down her robes and dark stains across the cobblestones. Lumina was left staring at Prima's flask, rolling slowly away from the corpse's open hand.

"No..." she whispered. "Not again."

The wind picked up, speckling the body with swirling ash.

Slowly, Lumina knelt and laid the man to rest at her feet. When she rose, her stylus hand had clenched into a fist.

Prima was still in shock. "So... so what happens next?"

"...We move on. We have to."

Lumina wiped off her goggles, pulled her frock close, and stepped over the body toward the wreckage.

"Prima, get him back to the shelter. Make sure he rests in dignity." She drew her stylus, even as her assistant began tending to the body. "I have a last request to fulfil."

Prima glanced at her. "What did he tell you?"

Lumina returned her gaze with determination.

" 'Leave me. Save my daughter.' "

Prima's eyes widened. She opened her mouth to respond, but Lumina was already moving, running, pushing onward through the rubble and the smoke. And she was gone.

"I don't know how you do it, Lumina."

She sat with head lowered before the magister's desk, her thoughts churning bitterly in her heart. The only sound in the darkened office was the click-click-click of her magister -- her mentor in the alchemical arts -- pacing back and forth across the marble floor.

Lumina squirmed in her seat.

"I'm sorry, Magister Altus."

"I don't recall asking you for an apology."

The magister stopped before his desk, his face half hidden by shadow. He picked up a sheaf of papers and began to thumb through it.

"First-year student, Lumina Revelaris," he read. "Subject: theoretical alchemy. Instructor's notes: Overwhelming unfamiliarity with the most fundamental sigils. No grasp of subject principles despite more than adequate remedial classes. Negative attitude adversely influences the performance of fellow discipuli."

He thumbed to the next sheaf.

"Subject: mechanics. Instructor's notes: Utterly distracted. Doesn't have two librae of sense or judgment to rub together. Altus, this girl is a threat to the safety of my students and myself in the workshop. Please have her reassigned."

A choking sound escaped Lumina's throat.

"Subject: galvanics. Instructor's notes: Needs to invest much more time into her study. Hardly worthy of the Revelaris family name--"

"Stop," said Lumina. "Please."

Magister Altus set the papers down. He did not look up.

"Now you understand," he said softly, "what I have to deal with every day."

Altus sighed, lowered his seeing-glasses, and rubbed his graying temples. Then he made his way to the chair at Lumina's side, and very gently, he sat down.

Lumina unballed her fists and wiped a tear from her eye.

"Where did it all go wrong?" she said under her breath. "Why can't I see it like everyone else? I try so hard. I've burned so many hours."

"We all have," said Altus.

"But we have nothing to show for it." Lumina wiped away another tear. "I'm -- I'm just dumb, or something. Everyone else sees it, but I don't. It's not fair. I -- I don't -- it's just not fair!"

They sat in silence, broken only by the occasional sob from Lumina. After a long moment, Magister Altus stood, smoothed his black robes, and very quietly shut the door.

Darkness settled upon the teacher and his student.

"There is a way to help you," he said, "if you are agreeable to it."

"What way?" Lumina was on the verge of hysteria. "I spend all my time studying. I spend everything on remedial. It doesn't work! My results never change!"

"They can."

Lumina looked up at Altus, who was holding a magically sealed scroll. She recognized the crest of the Institute examiners' jury, and her eyes widened.

"It would be simple," said Altus in a low voice. "I make a few adjustments. Falsify a few numbers. No one would have to know. And you would no longer be in danger of dropping from the Institute."

"No," said Lumina. Her voice was trembling. "I can... I can still salvage things..."

"Keep your voice down!" Altus glanced at the shut door. "Salvage things? Pray tell -- what with? Your optics results?"

"I'm good at optics," said Lumina.

Altus chuckled bitterly. "What are you going to do? Blind the examiners with your expertise?" He turned the scroll over in his hands. "No, this is the only way. Not one I would have chosen, but there is no other choice. And with your family name, it will be easier to pull strings. There are many who would lend a discreet hand for a scion of the Revelaris house..."

Icy dread crawled up Lumina's spine.

"No.. Not... not for my name. What would that mean to the rest of them? What would that say about the Institute?"

"The alternative is your expulsion, Lumina--"

Lumina stood with a clatter.

"No! That's not a reason!"

Altus stared at Lumina, and she realized she was shouting. For a moment she glared at him, trembling like a storm front about to break -- then with a deep breath, she took the reins of her anger and drew it to a crystal-clear cutting edge.

"Magister Altus. You would have me abuse my birthright at the expense of my peers? Lie and cheat my way through life? How could you say that? How... how could you even contemplate that? I looked up to you. I always believed you had all the answers. What answers have you been giving me, Magister? How many lies have you fed me to this day?"

Altus rose. "Lumina--"

"Shut up!" She swept her hand through the air, as if to dash away cobwebs. "Do you think you're showing me kindness? What about the rest of my peers? Your peers? They trusted you! They trusted that you would mark us all fairly, pass or fail! What is the Institute for if not that?"

Altus stared at his student, dumbstruck.

"No," Lumina said. "No. I'm sorry. I know your intentions are nothing but good, but I can't go through with this. Not in this darkness, behind locked doors and veiled words."

"Then what?" Altus questioned her. "What will you do? There is no other way. Sometimes the world is simply unfair."

Lumina shook her head. "Even if the world is unfair, we don't have to be. I'm going to do the right thing, Magister. I'm going to fight. Every step of the way."

She placed a hand on the office door.

"Thank you, Magister, but I believe this discussion is over."

Altus watched Lumina vanish down the hallway, his expression unreadable behind his eyeglasses.

He locked the scroll of examination results back in its drawer and began to pace back and forth. He picked up the reports on his desk and thumbed through them one more time.

"Very well, Lumina Revelaris. Very well. She has spirit indeed -- and that just might be enough."

Magister Altus threw the papers aside, scattered across the floor like so much detritus.

"If the girl wants a fight, then she shall have one."

The lower levels were shrouded in a gloom that Lumina's magic could do nothing to dispel. The fire had started there, near the animus lines that crisscrossed the base of the building, and it was there that the damage was worst: wherever Lumina shone her light, it fought blackened metal and impenetrable smoke. Worse, there was a cloying unreality to the air that made her limbs tremble and her head spin -- aetheric distortion. Had the walls between dimensions been damaged here? Lumina didn't want to imagine what might have escaped through the cracks.

She coughed. The soot was getting to her. It was funny, she thought idly: the daughter of Aeolus Revelaris, author of the groundbreaking Atmospheria, stymied by a bit of foul air.

What if she died alone in here?

No. She had to focus.

Lumina took a prismatic lens from her pocket and held it out before her like a dowsing rod. She closed her eyes. She pushed away the dust, the nausea, the ever-present smell of burning. And in their place, she thought of the clarity of Kardiapolis Bay and the sprawling glyphs drawn across its coast -- glyphs of destination, winding, ever flowing, guiding mariners by the stars that lit the way.

"By mercury, it is sealed," she whispered.

She opened her eyes, and glowing geometric lines traced the world around her. The patterns pulsed in flickering waves that tugged at her temples and pulled her onward.

Careful not to let go of the lens, Lumina picked her way around swirling potholes, through the outlines of doorways, between the angle of one grid line and the next--

And there she was. A crumpled girl's body, lit by the flicker of her heartbeat. Lumina's north star.

Lumina blinked away her spell of destination and hurried to the girl's side. She was pale, almost waifish; on her face and neck she bore the circuitous tattoos of an alchemist's child, just as Lumina did. Her arm was pinned by a twisted electrum pillar. Lumina could only guess at the extent of the girl's injuries.

She rummaged through her belt pouches, found an inhaler, and turned it over so the label was visible. Aer vivificatus. She hoped it would be enough.

She pressed the brass nozzle to the girl's lips and broke the seal.

A long, slow, breath...

The girl coughed violently as her eyelids fluttered open, sending the empty inhaler tumbling. Lumina braced her heaving patient with one hand and wiped sooty spittle from her goggles with the other.

"Wh...h..." the girl croaked, and erupted into another coughing fit. "H...ah..."

Lumina braced her until the coughing subsided, and then gave her a draught of laudanum and wine to numb the pain from her injuries. The girl could not have been more than thirteen, but she endured the ordeal like a soldier. Lumina did her best to purify and bandage her wounds.

At last, as Lumina was capping her flask of spirits, the girl grew well enough to speak. Her voice came to her slowly, timidly, in small bits and echoes.

"Where is my father?" she asked.

Lumina looked away.

It would have been so easy to lie, to give the girl a small measure of comfort. Instead she said:

"Hush. Don't exert yourself -- you're still in danger."

The girl closed her eyes and exhaled; the tattoos around her eyes merged, like a circuit being closed. It was oddly beautiful.

"Are you going to take me to see him?" she asked.

"...Soon. Very soon. I promise."

Lumina licked her suddenly dry lips. She stood and twirled her stylus, squinting at the crumpled metal and melted filigree. "What's your name, young lady?"

"Marid." A small voice, a small name.

"My name is Lumina." She set nib to surface and began to work. "Marid, you're a brave girl, so I'll be honest with you."

She etched the glyph with exact precision as she spoke, but there was a tremor in her voice.

"Your... Your arm is pinned under a pillar. I'm going to cut you free with magic. It will be very sudden and very scary. It might even hurt you."

She looked at Marid, and their eyes met for an instant -- Lumina's golden eyes, and Marid's bloodshot ones.

"Can you be brave, Marid?" Lumina asked.

Marid looked back at her and nodded.

"I can be brave like you."

And just like that, the darkness was gone.

A genuine smile touched Lumina's lips. She twirled her stylus and pointed it at Marid with a flourish.

"Then you can be my assistant," she said.

"What do I do?"

Lumina turned back and completed the glyph with a stroke. She felt power wash over her.

"When I say 'clear,' repeat after me and stay very, very still. Okay?"

"Okay."

Lumina pulled a vial from her pouch, a bright bubbling potion marked Aqua lucerna. She narrowed her eyes...

"Clear!" she shouted.

"Clear!" came the response.

"Sealing away!"

The laboratory shuddered with the power of hundreds of taps of energy focused into a single unbroken line. Lumina's goggles burned white, and she braced herself against the crash of metal and the reverberating aftershock.

With her heart in her throat, she waited for the alchemical residuum to clear...

...not again, please, not again...

And a ghoulish maw burst from the smoke and clamped down on Lumina's forearm. She screamed -- stabbed with her still-glowing stylus -- an inhuman screech, and she tumbled away as corrosive aetherstuff spattered the ground where she'd been standing just moments ago. Lumina leapt to her feet, cradling an armful of bleeding bite marks, her stylus hand up and ready in a dueling stance.

Writhing segmented forms swam in the darkness around her, tearing space and distorting sound in their wake. AEther-daemons. Lumina cursed inwardly -- with the dimensional weave weakened here, of course the blast would have attracted unwanted attention.

Oh no.

"Marid!" Lumina screamed into the smoke, but the sound of her voice shattered on the spatial eddies and washed back over her. Sensing her panic, the aether-daemons lunged -- Lumina threw up an optical barrier, neatly pinning a squirming voidworm to the ceiling, but the others flickered and reformed behind her. She dodged a scythelike claw -- perforated a pair of attackers with staccato lances of light -- missed the third, and was flung by unseen force into a wall of reagent shelves. Her good hand groped frantically at her belt pouch. The last, a jagged thing of nightmare, advanced upon her--

"Enough!" Lumina yelled. "Heed my call! Lux lucis purgatum!"

A horrific heartbeat--

And a brilliant shockwave swept across the room, shredding the unnatural parasite into its component particles, leaving quiet reality and the prickly smell of ozone. When Lumina had blinked away the stars in her vision, the pieces of her final vial lay smoking and scattered across the floor, and a many-winged figure of light floated effortlessly in the center of a summoning circle.

It bowed its head, as if to say: Excuse my tardiness.

Despite her pain, a smile touched Lumina's lips. "My thanks, aurora. You haven't lost your edge."

It tilted its head. With unfurling wings it spread welcome illumination, revealing the huddled and wide-eyed form of Marid in the far corner of the room.

She was unhurt. Lumina's cut had been perfect.

"The spirit..." Marid breathed. "Your arm..."

Lumina chuckled and pushed up her goggles. A tear rolled down her sooty cheek. "It's yourself you should be worrying about, Marid. I'm glad you're safe. I'm so glad."

With effort, and a hand from the aurora, Lumina rose to her feet. She gave Marid a quick once-over; then, satisfied that the stunned little girl had no pressing wounds, tore off a length of natron bandage and gingerly wrapped her bleeding forearm with it. All the while, the lux lucis purgatum Lumina had summoned stood vigil over them like a guardian angel.

A soft glow. Lumina's wound had been sealed. With a tired smile, she turned and offered her good hand to Marid.

"Come on," she said. "It's time to go home."

Marid nodded faithfully and grasped her hand. "Which way do we go?"

Lumina laughed despite herself. Ahead of them, the angelic aurora was already moving forward, clearing obstacles, opening the path back to civilization. Lumina squeezed Marid's hand and pointed.

"Just follow the light."

Argent the first. Examination day.

The heavy double doors parted at the knock of Magister Altus's cane, revealing a long hall girded in electrum opulence and bustling with jittery examinees. He conferred with the attendant golem at the entrance, then beckoned his student with a wave.

Smiling nervously, smoothing out her ceremonial robes just one last time, Lumina Revelaris took her first step into the shadows of the skylights...

And with a hiss, the doors sealed behind her.

"All discipuli are in attendance," echoed a female voice in emotionless Libria. "The final-year examination for the annum of Cupri will commence shortly. It is henceforth forbidden to leave the Examination Wing. The Institute reminds all examinees that cheating is an offence under the Lex Instituti and is punishable by up to one hundred cycles of incarceration..."

As Lumina trailed Altus through the crowd, she scanned the faces around her -- some apprehensive, some resigned, some hopeful. Some of her annum-mates were prepared, she knew; others were decidedly less so. Regardless, the time for deliberation was long over. The petitioners were going to meet their judgment.

When the announcement ended and the hubbub of conversation began to resurface, Altus placed a hand on his student's shoulder. "Are you nervous, Lumina?"

Lumina took a deep breath. "Deathly so."

"Good," said Altus, "because that is the merest fraction of what I am experiencing right now."

Lumina sighed.

"All our preparation, all the personal tutelage and late-night sessions -- it all comes down to today. This is where my assistance ends." Altus squeezed Lumina's shoulder. "Everything you have learned thus far will be tested, Lumina. Everything."

"I won't disappoint you, Magister."

Altus gave a wan smile. "I know you won't, Lumina. But still--" He wringed his hands. "It pains me, to know we have prepared so much and yet know so little. Even something as basic as the examination format is unknown to us."

Lumina cocked her head, brow furrowed. "Then the rumors of the Spatia..."

"...May be true, or may not be. The examining jury has attempted the strangest stunts in my magisterial tenure -- although that would be a feat, even for them."

Lumina bowed her head. "Well... I suppose we'll see soon enough."

They sat in silence, the teacher and his student. Lumina fingered her opaline entry badge and went through the syllabus over and over in her mind. It was a comforting distraction from the ticking of the clock, from the dwindling number of waiting examinees around her.

At least... at least she had something to cling to for guidance.

To think the end was in sight...

"...Magister?" she asked. "Magister Altus?"

"...Oh! Hmm." Altus blinked and turned to her. "Yes, Lumina?"

Lumina gazed up at him. For the first time in a while, Lumina looked at her mentor -- really looked at him, and saw into his soul.

The years had not been kind to Magister Altus. Written in his face were the scars of countless nights without sleep, the wrinkles of years lost and never to be found again.

Altus's eyes met her gaze. Lumina smiled wearily, sadly.

"I just wanted to say... thank you, Magister. I was wrong about you all those years ago. You're a good man. Even when I was hopelessly lost, you..."

Lumina's voice cracked, and she looked down.

"You sacrificed everything for me. To be my guiding light."

She took his weathered hand and gripped it in hers. There was a tremble to it; Lumina made it still.

"...I..." Altus managed. His eyes were glistening. "I... You..."

He closed his eyes and squeezed Lumina's hand back.

"Lumina Revelaris, never forget that you were my best student."

"Magister--"

A chime reverberated through the hall. "Attention Discipulus Lumina Revelaris. Your examination commences in Auditorium the Twelfth in one minute."

Lumina glanced fearfully at her mentor, but he had already let go of her hand. His palm was on her back, bidding her to rise.

"Go, Lumina," said Altus. "Go and make me proud."

The student took a deep breath and stood. Her ceremonial robes caught the light; her pocket lenses clinked and glittered brilliant gold. She looked at Altus with a timid smile.

"I will, Magister," she said. "Just you watch."

And Lumina Revelaris turned and walked down the hall, and the great double doors of the Institute closed behind her.

The white banners of the shelter fluttered in the rising squall. They stood out above the morass of decay that was the Lower Perioch, illuminated by caloric braziers in the absence of lamplight: bright beacons against a desolate sky.

Lumina led Marid through the ruined streets. Groups of volunteers and refugees moved out of their way, tipping their caps to the pair as they passed. Marid noticed white scarves and paper bands, white lapel pins on their coat pockets.

"Are they your friends?" she whispered.

Lumina smiled wryly. "You could say that."

They rounded a corner and came to a great stone archway, one guarded by crystalline golems and inscribed with complex sigils. At the behest of the gatekeeper, Lumina left Marid and walked through first. When the girl followed, a wave of tingling warmth washed over her, like heat radiating from a furnace.

Marid started, but the feeling passed as quickly as it came.

"Calomel curtain," said Lumina when the girl had caught up. "It's for protection. Don't worry about it."

"Okay."

Lumina patted her head. "Let's keep going."

I have a promise to keep, Lumina thought.

They found Prima at the stockroom, where she was sorting barrels of oil and sacks of grain. When she saw Lumina with the girl in tow, her eyes widened.

"Lumina!"

Lumina smiled despite herself. Her assistant dropped her manifest and rushed to catch her in a hug.

"Decorum, Prima," Lumina said when they had parted. "You'll scare Marid here if you jump on me like that. Besides, it sets a bad example."

Prima chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind, chief." Her voice softened. "Is that...?"

Lumina nodded soberly. "The daughter."

"Oh. Oh."

Prima exhaled slowly.

"Does she... does she know?"

Lumina shook her head.

"Then you..."

Lumina nodded.

"By the Primes, that's harsh."

Prima looked down. After a long pause, she said quietly:

"Downstairs. Cask the twenty-third."

Lumina stepped forward and hugged her. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Good luck," Prima whispered back. "Be strong for her."

Lumina hugged her tighter before breaking away.

When the assistant had returned to her work, Lunina took Marid's hand. She led the girl inside the shelter, across the common hall, towards the stairway.

Deep breaths. It was now or never.

"Marid," she said.

"Lumina?"

The mage paused. When she spoke, it was tense, with deliberation.

"We..." she began. "We learned of your father through an echo in the correspondence. A call for help left by relay, a makeshift anchor broadcasting into the unknown. Like a message in a bottle."

Marid was silent as they descended the steps.

"He told us where to find him. He told us..."

Lumina squeezed Marid's hand, her voice breaking.

"He told us your mother didn't make it. The laboratory was burning. He said to hurry while we still had time."

Marid nodded, her eyes glistening. "I... I remember."

Lumina halted in her tracks. They had reached the door at the end of the stairway.

"I was nearest when we discovered the message. I... I had to go. I couldn't not go."

Lumina realized her free hand was trembling. She clenched it, stilled it before Marid could see.

"We ran all the way. Four blocks. He was unreachable on the correspondence. Later we found the whole building had collapsed, and we had to gear up and cut through the rubble. So many precious minutes lost."

Marid's heart was pounding. She looked up at the door, but couldn't read the inscription in the darkness.

"I..." Lumina began. "I... He..."

She faltered. She shut her eyes, but tears were already welling up.

This is my duty.

"I'm sorry, Marid," she said in a hoarse whisper. "I couldn't save him. I'm so sorry."

The words hung in the air, unsaid.

Your father is dead.

Marid breathed heavily. Her breathing turned to sobbing. She clung to Lumina's arm and bawled. Lumina hugged her close, her own tears staining her cheeks with ashen trails.

The wind rose. The wind fell.

Marid's voice died with the wind, hoarse with despair. She sat and quaked soundlessly in Lumina's arms.

Then even that subsided, and she was still.

Lumina felt sick.

Too many hadn't made it. Too many had to live with the grief.

Marid's breathing was slow and even. Empty.

Lumina took a deep breath. Exhaled.

"Marid," she said.

The girl tensed.

"Marid." Lumina's voice was quiet. "I know you're scared. It's okay to be scared."

Marid began to tremble.

"I'm scared too," she said. "People everywhere are dying, losing their families. They say Hydropolis has already been consumed, that Furopolis is next to fall. Everything is happening too fast. Even I don't know if we'll live to see another day."

Lumina gazed up to the roof of the stairway, feeling hot tears flowing down her face.

"But we have to go on. We have to stay strong, because if we don't, we can never live."

She wiped her tears with her free arm, winced at the pang of injury.

"We have to stand up. We have to keep walking forward and believe that somewhere at the end of this dark tunnel, there's a light. There's hope. There's a future."

Lumina looked down at Marid and realized the girl was looking up at her. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face as much of a mess as Lumina's.

Lumina bowed her head, put her forehead to Marid's. Then she rose to one knee, and to her feet, letting her coat fall free.

"I believe in the future," she said softly. "I believe there's a way."

She bowed her head and closed her eyes.

"I built that dream."

When Lumina opened her eyes again, Marid was looking up at her, her lower lip quivering.

Their eyes met for an instant -- Lumina's golden eyes, and Marid's deep blue ones.

Lumina knelt and put a hand on Marid's shoulder.

"Can you be brave, Marid? Brave enough to see this through?"

Slowly, with pain in her eyes, Marid nodded.

She stood on unsteady legs. Lumina watched her, helped her up.

"I want to see him," Marid said, in a voice that was barely a whisper. "My father. One last time."

Lumina took her hand. With a tap of her stylus, the door to the morgue opened, and they passed quietly into that gentle light.

Lumina walked alone.

She made her way down the darkened auditorium steps, her breathing a whisper that seemed to echo all around her. As she pushed deeper into the cavernous chamber, her eyes adjusted to the light: all was in shadow except for the dead center of the stage, where a lone cathode lamp glittered coldly against the polished stone.

What was this place?

Lumina shivered and looked up at the great steel lettering mounted above the stage. AVDITORIVM XII. There was no mistake -- it was the examination venue that had been assigned to her. But it was unlike any facility Lumina had ever seen.

The silence grew taut.

Lumina looked all around, but only shadows and foreign shapes met her eyes.

"Hello?" she tried, but only empty echoes reached her ears.

Her heart was pounding. Was her minute up yet?

Maybe--

The lamp flickered and died. The hiss of a hermetic lock issued from the doors.

"Discipulus Lumina Revelaris. Your attendance is recorded. You shall have one hour for your examination. The clock begins in three..."

Lumina looked around in a panic, but there was nothing to see.

"Two..."

Nothing but the dark.

"One."

There was a chime from somewhere on high--

Followed by ticking. The sound of seconds slipping away.

...

Lumina's head hurt.

Her bones ached dully. Her heartbeat rang in her ears.

She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. It made no difference. She was blind.

Light. She needed light. Of course.

Lumina knelt and groped in the darkness. For a terrifying moment she felt only cold stone -- then her fingers brushed the still-warm metal of the extinguished cathode lamp. She seized it eagerly, turning it over and over, feeling for the crucial pinhole in the lines of power covering its base...

And there it was.

She struck the fuse. The cathode lamp's bound aurora flickered to life... and slowly, slowly, artificial illumination spread across Lumina's testing ground.

For it was an auditorium no more. The lamplight crept across warped geometries, was reflected in shards from grinding gears and curving tubes. It shone across a floor that swam with pinpricks of starlight -- and fell away at the edge of the lamp's glow, a singularity collapsing into itself end upon end. Through it all wound a titanic machine that was conspicuously unfinished, like a great steel serpent missing its heart.

A labyrinthine puzzle. A space designed to measure her abilities. So the rumors of the Spatia Mensurum had been true.

A massive clock loomed in the sky, counting down the seconds. You shall have one hour for your examination.

Lumina's eyes darted across the puzzle pieces. A wry smile tugged at her lips. Now this was something she could understand.

If she focused, the answer would come.

She set to work. She untethered herself from her conceptions. Floating unbound by space, she traced the enigma of mechanics, alchemy, physics, natural inquiry -- an endless recursive chain of links, a serpent eating its own tail. She seized the chain, laid bare its segments and sigils. And for the span of a quantum moment, she saw the words of power that tied everything together.

Of course!

Theorems and diagrams burst galloping from her mind, whispering and coiling through that dreamlike space as though they had souls of their own. Her eyes glittered alight. With skillful stylus strokes she invoked their true names and claimed mastery over them, and one by one showed them their rightful places in the grand equation.

Closer. Closer.

And just like that, with a click, it all came--

apart.

The serpent twisted, and Lumina's perfect solution shattered.

It was all wrong. Somehow the puzzle had changed.

Impossible.

Lumina did her best to salvage the fragments of her reasoning, but her hands were trembling. Her head throbbed like a spike had been driven through her skull.

Where had she gone wrong?

From above the clock chimed: thirty minutes.

She took a deep breath. "I can do this," she told herself. "I have to do this."

The steel serpent eyed Lumina as she retread its length, as she reread the inscribed glyphs and struggled to make sense of it all. Her theories darted around her like frightened fish, uneasy in the presence of the awakened beast.

With her free hand she double-checked pressure, voltage, mana flow. With her stylus hand, she conjured new test parts for the machine--

But it seethed against her. The machine bucked and snapped at her touch, spitting out her handiwork and tearing her calculations to ribbons.

Again.

And again.

And again.

The clock chimed: fifteen minutes.

Lumina wiped cold sweat from her chin. She couldn't think. She could hardly breathe. How much time had she sunk into that damned puzzle?

Had she been wrong all the while?

How long had she been deluding herself?

She sank to her knees. The steel serpent stirred and reared to its full height, eclipsing Lumina in its shadow.

Lumina looked into the serpent's maw, and saw only a roiling mass of unintelligible glyphs, stretching on and on and on into the darkness of infinity--

And it came to her.

Unsteadily, but with growing conviction, Lumina Revelaris rose and looked the serpent in the eye.

"You don't scare me."

The steel serpent roared a cacophony of screeching machinery and howling fulmination and excruciating brown noise. But Lumina raised a hand, and the sound died down to a record-scratch whimper.

"Infinity is a concept," she told it. "It isn't real. Not any more than an equals sign or a written sentence is real."

She cut off the serpent's roar and stabbed at it with an accusatory finger.

"You aren't real. You're just an equation. A metaphor."

Lumina swept her hands wide, and the foundations of the Spatia flickered before her. False. Illusory.

"None of this is real. This whole world is removed from reality. Logic and causality have no weight here."

Even as Lumina spoke, white sparks ignited at her feet and seared glowing lines into the Spatia Mensurum. The serpent convulsed as the alchemical apparatus that formed its body began to unwind and crash to the ground.

"Why would that be, if your purpose was to test my faculties of reason?" Lumina's eyes blazed white. "Why construct this black box and pull wool over the eyes of students? The puzzle was designed to get harder each time I solved it. There was never a solution to begin with, was there?"

The lines at Lumina's feet had formed a shimmering glyph of disjunction, crackling with potential, awaiting the spark of catalysis.

"Well, you can't fool me any more. This is a null premise, sans any sliver of honesty or truth. I reject you. I reject this whole meaningless pretense."

Lumina lifted her chin and smiled.

"Quod erat demonstrandum. So it is sealed."

She closed her eyes. She felt brilliant rays erupt from the glyph and lance outward, cutting away the trappings of false reality. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself on a darkened auditorium stage, cradling a softly glowing cathode lamp.

The ticking of the clock had stopped. A gaggle of black-robed examiners in the audience seats had been huddled over a scrying glass. Now they turned as one to stare at her, their faces inscrutable in the darkness.

Lumina chuckled nervously.

"So..." she tried. "How did I fare?"

The examiners watched her, unmoving.

At length, one of the examiners stood. He put his hands together and began to clap.

Another rose and followed suit. And another. And another. More and more joined in the standing ovation, until every corner of the examining hall resounded with applause.

"...and it is my great honor--"

A wave of applause rippled through the auditorium, mingled with whoops and cries of adoration. Philosopher Lumina smiled and raised her hand for order.

"As I was saying," she continued. "It is my great honor to preside at the reopening of this great institution, and to be present at this landmark moment in our collective history. The Institute of the Alchemical Arts has always been a symbol of the changing times for the perioch of Furopolis. A symbol of the future, and of our hope for a better tomorrow."

She paused to let the words sink in and looked across the grand assembly of discipuli. Here and there were familiar faces: volunteers, rescuers, refugees. Lives she had touched.

And one very special one, standing in the fore of the crowd to hear her speak.

"We have emerged from a time of crisis," she said, more softly. "From a time when the reputation of this Institution was imperiled, when the foundations of Reason itself were shaken, to a time when our survival as a civilization was in doubt. In those hard times, we lost many of our finest. Each of us has someone to mourn."

The audience was silent, enraptured.

"But it was that hardship that allowed us, the people of Furopolis, to band together. It gave all the people of Solphos a singular purpose. For once we were truly undivided. We stood together. In the crucible, we found anew our purpose, a glimpse of our eternal dream.

"And here we are. The children of tomorrow. We have emerged from the fires of calcination reborn. We have proven that we can change lives for the better."

There were nodding faces in the crowd. Some wore white earrings, others white scarves. Lumina felt a flush of pride at that. Her people.

The one in the front row touched a pendant at her collarbone. It was a white circuit stone, alight with the telltale pulse of a animus. Her father lived on.

"We can change this world for the better," Lumina declared. "We have seen what is possible if we work together. With the right skills, and the right mindset, there is nothing we cannot achieve. That is what it means to be an alchemist. That is the meaning of every sign and sigil, and the true grandeur of the Great Work."

Lumina raised her stylus in cue. Light speared out from the tip and was refracted by prisms suspended in the rafters, tracing the crest of the Furopolis Institute magnified a thousandfold. The assembly went wild, a tidal wave of cheers that washed over Lumina and her entourage.

She couldn't stop smiling. She had been proud of that one.

Again she raised her hand, and the applause died down.

"To all who are assembled here. To the Magistery, the sanctified bedrock of this institution. To the alumni. The board of investors. The examiners' jury. And yes, to the annum of Auritum, my juniors looking forward to a bright new dawn. I have a message for you. A decree of the ages, from Philosopher to populi."

She let the words hang in the air.

"Remake this world. Repave our roads, rebuild our cities, reforge our destiny. Carry the torch, and let it shine brighter than it ever has before. This is our mission. This is our legacy. To rise up from the darkness, and become the guiding light for generations to come.

"I have nothing more to say. From here on, I return the stage to you. But before I finish, I'd like to end my speech with a quote from the Planetaria.

" 'The world is within your grasp. You have only to seize it, and it is yours.'

"Thank you. Thank you all. Per radium sophia."

Lumina smiled and stepped away from the podium. As the applause rose to a deafening pitch, she stole a glance at Marid, the apprentice apothecary, the brave new disciple of the ars vitalis. The girl who dreamed of saving lives through alchemy.

Marid met her gaze and smiled shyly. Lumina felt her heart overflow with pride.

"Good luck," she said, though she knew no one would hear her over the din. "Don't let our sacrifice be in vain. Build a future we can be proud of."

She bowed her head, put her scarred hand over her heart.

And she departed the auditorium, entourage in tow, and stepped out into the brave new world.