Lucian was surprised to see Damian standing there, beaming a friendly smile. There was something in his demeanor, though, that said this wasn’t just a friendly visit.

  “Mind if I step inside?”

  “I’m pretty tired. Can it wait until tomorrow?”

  Damian’s smile widened. “This won’t take long; I promise. I think you’ll be interested in what I have to say.”

  Lucian suppressed a sigh and nodded toward his room. The swarthy Damian stepped inside, turning his wide upper body just to fit through the half-open door. Damian had the build of a sports star, an effect dampened somewhat by his humble brown Novice robes, which were a bit too tight. Maybe the Academy didn’t have a set large enough for him. Damian was the first person from Luddus Lucian had met, a world with a gravity thirty-three percent greater than Earth’s. He had a thick and muscular frame, which Lucian heard was typical of people from higher-g planets.

  Damian sat in the room’s only chair, made simply of wood. Lucian took a seat on the bed.

  “What’s up?” Lucian asked.

  Damian stared intensely at Lucian for a moment as if he saw him as competition. What a strange thought. Lucian was so far from reaching Damian’s level of skill as to be laughable. Then again, Damian seemed to see everyone as competition. Even today during the lesson, he hadn’t missed an opportunity to compare himself with others. Either he was confident or making up for something lacking.

  “I hoped to offer you a bit of advice if you’ll have it. As a new Novice.”

  “I’ve been here for three months. There are some who are newer than me.”

  “As long as you haven’t streamed yet, you’re new.” Damian leaned back in the chair. “I’ve been here for over a year. I was a slow learner, too. At times, it felt like I would be left behind.”

  Were Lucian’s shortcomings so obvious? “Why are you telling me this?”

  Damian chuckled. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I have a thick skull, and it can take a while for lessons to sink in.” He gave a conspiratorial smile. “Takes one to know one, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Certain things were holding me back. The first six months were the roughest. I hated this place. Cold, miserable. Sea ice as far as the eye can see in the dead of winter. Spring and summer were little better, but at least there was sunshine.” He shook his head. “Luddus is warm and dry. My family has a nice estate by the Gartavian Sea. They grow wine, olives, that sort of thing. Fishing’s good out there. Sea as calm as glass.” His eyes became distant. “My father always wanted me to take things over when the time came.” He shrugged. “Well, my time did come. Just not in the way he imagined.”

  “You took your metaphysical exam.”

  Damian nodded. “That’s right. I went in for my metaphysical one day, and within the week, I was being shipped here. Oh, how I hated that. Still do, sometimes, truth be told.” He shook his head as if the pain of the past was too much to talk about. “I missed home. Hell, I still do. It got in the way of training. Eventually, I learned to let it go. At least, enough to proceed. That was the source of my block.”

  "How did you get past it?”

  “I won’t say there was a eureka moment. I took it day by day. The past recedes if you let it.” He chuckled, though Lucian thought the laughter held a bitter note. “Haven’t heard a thing from back home. Of course, I figured out soon enough they don’t allow that. Only if something drastic happens, like a death. Oh, they’ll let you know then. Then you’re forced to let go. They’ll have you not only in body but in mind, too.”

  “You sound resentful.”

  “Do I?” He shook his head. “Well, I didn’t come in here to talk about myself. And I see I’ve done nothing to encourage you. For all the teaching they give us about letting go of ego, there’s still a lot of ego going on around here. A lot of Novices don’t want to help the newbies. They see them as competition when the Trials come up. Yeah, I’m competitive, but I like competition as motivation to move forward. It’s good for both people. Besides, I don’t think I have much to worry about. My results speak for themselves.” He flashed a smile. “There are Novices here who’ll be nice to your face but trip you up the moment they get the opportunity. Some of them even go on to be Talents. Even Transcends, I suppose.”

  “Not shocking.” Why was Damian sharing all this? Lucian couldn’t help but wonder.

  “What about you?” Damian asked. “What do you think is holding you back?”

  “I don’t know,” Lucian said. “Of course, I miss Earth. I miss home.” He paused. “I miss my mom, too. I still don’t want to be here. Not really.” The following silence was uncomfortable. “I don’t think that will change anytime soon.”

  “That’s tough.” Damian drew a deep breath. “Well, we both chose this place because it was the only real option, right? We have a new life now. No choice but to accept it. The more experienced Talents can leave, but only for a specified purpose. And of course, the damn League must approve it from their offices in Nova Bergen. Visiting family doesn’t fall under that.” Damian’s eyes became distant. “I wonder when I’ll get to leave this place. By the time I get to go back home, what will it be like? My mother and father will be older, maybe even dead. My little sister all grown up, married. It might be a decade or more before it even becomes possible. And that’s only if my mission takes me to my backwater planet.” He shook his head. “Making peace with that is hard. The hardest thing about being here is the past. It’s an anchor weighing you down. If you don’t cut it loose, you’re going to sink.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “I don’t have much of a past,” Lucian said. “I’ve been on my own most of my life.”

  “What about your mom?”

  Lucian didn’t want to talk about that. “It’s complicated.”

  “All right, I get it. Well, remember what I said. Because of what we are, our lives can never be anything close to normal. Maybe one day the Transcends will have everything figured out and the fraying will be a thing of the past. Until that day, we must atone for the wrongs of the past. We mages have a gift. A dangerous gift, but a gift all the same. We have the potential to help a lot of people out there in the galaxy. Something is redeeming in that, don’t you think?”

  Lucian nodded to show that there was, but he wasn’t sure how he truly felt. The galaxy was a messed-up place, so what could one person do to right the wrongs of the past? It seemed a senseless errand. Better to love and protect those close to you than to try to be a hero.

  That thought just made him think of Emma. She was something he had to let go of, too. Could that be what was holding him back, his wish that things would be different?

  All he knew was that he was tired, and he just wished Damian would go.

  But Damian seemed inured to Lucian’s wishes. “My main advice is to forget the past, Lucian. I took long walks around the island. Did a lot of meditation. I had to let go of who I thought I was. Sometimes, who we think we are doesn’t line up with who we need to be. It’s funny. We can decide who we get to be any time, any day. And yet we don’t want to let go and change. But that’s the path to peace. No, it’s never easy. It can be downright painful. I’ll leave you with something Talent Relisa has always told me. She’s my main mentor here. Ego is the enemy.”

  “Talent Relisa. She’s the Psion of Transcend Red, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m lucky she’s patient with me. Without that, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

  A stab of jealousy pierced his chest. Khairu was anything but patient, and she was far from being a mentor. No other Talent had seemed to take to him, either. He only had himself to blame for that, walking around as if his life were over.

  “Where would you be without her?” Lucian asked.

  Damian whistled. “Man, you’re going to make me go there, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Damian’s eyes widened. “What? You don’t know?”

  At Lucian’s look of confusion, Damian’s expression sobered. “Well, I guess it’s not talked about much. I knew coming in what would happen if I didn’t prove myself. That’s part of the reason I felt so pressured to succeed.”

  Lucian wanted Damian to just spit it out. And he also didn’t want him to. A tendril of fear snaked in his stomach.

  In the end, Lucian had to prod Damian to continue. “If there’s something everyone here knows that I don’t, then it’s only fair that I know, too. Especially if your whole reason for coming here was to help me.”

  From Damian’s guilty expression, Lucian knew he had him.

  “You’re right,” Damian said. “Well, here it goes. The timing of it varies, but after a certain point, if you haven’t made enough progress . . .” Damian snapped his fingers. “You get on a boat, and you don’t come back.”

  Lucian went quiet as he considered his words. They didn’t make sense at first.

  “You get on a boat? To go where?”

  “The place mages go if they can’t be in an academy."

  The realization struck Lucian like a thunderbolt. “No. That can’t be right.”

  But as he thought about it, it was the only possibility that made sense. All mages outside an Academy’s purview were bound for the Mad Moon. And that included those who couldn’t make it here.

  “I’m sorry,” Damian said. “I thought you knew.”

  “Have you . . .” Lucian trailed off. “Has anyone left since you’ve been here?”

  Damian was quiet for a while, his face solemn. “Several times. The biggest cuts come a few weeks after the Trials. They cut you slack the first few years, of course, but if you fail repeatedly?” He snapped his fingers. “Gone. We don’t say their names anymore. We try to forget them as soon as possible. The most recent was this guy named Biru. Traveled all the way from Hephaestus. A nervous guy who didn’t talk much. He and Talent Khairu set off on the boat a few months back. A couple of days later, she came back . . . with you and Emma.”

  That gave Lucian a chill. Khairu, of course, hadn’t said a word about that. He wondered if Emma knew.

  “I don’t know more than that,” Damian said, his face falling. “Biru went without a word or struggle. I’m sure it’s not a decision made lightly. We’re told the Transcends try not to admit Novices who can’t make the cut. Sometimes, though, even they make mistakes.”

  All Lucian could think about was how they almost hadn’t admitted him. At this very moment, his position hung on the edge of a knife. One wrong move, one misplaced word, might be all it took. If they hadn’t accepted him, he might even be on Psyche now. The moon was three Gates away, in the Cupid system. About three months of interstellar travel.

  Damian was getting ready to leave, but Lucian remained seated, paralyzed. Damian looked down at him with a somber expression.

  “Do what they say,” Damian said. “Everything. Without question. There’s no room for error, no room to do things your way. I almost made that mistake. Without Relisa, I would’ve been on a prison barge by now.” He gave a nod as if to confirm that immutable fact. “I hate to leave you with this. I came here to lift your spirits, not drain them.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Lucian said, half-dazed. “I appreciate knowing the truth. It . . . puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

  Damian nodded. “That it does. I wish you well, Lucian. I truly do.”

  At last, Damian closed the door behind him.

  Lucian sat there, a numb shock permeating his entire being. He sat there for a good ten minutes without moving a single muscle. And when he finally did move, it was only to pace the tiny room back and forth. This cell reminded him of his time in the brig on the Burung. Coldly, he wondered how this was any different from that.

  Of course, someone who couldn’t be trained couldn’t stay here, just as someone who showed signs of fraying couldn’t. Lucian had barely been admitted into the Academy. And the only reason was because of Transcend White’s mysterious rivalry with her twin sister. At least, that was Lucian’s reckoning.

  He had been a fool to give up that opportunity. Then again, the penalty for failing Vera might have been even steeper. If he had known this beforehand, would it have changed his decision? It was impossible to say.

  He couldn’t change the past. He was here, locked in, and had no choice but to try his best.

  The other option would be to suffer a fate worse than death. A mage prison world, doomed to fray without the proper training, was the last place he wanted to spend his life.

  A life that would, no doubt, be short-lived.