Jae nodded.

“ ‘Craft’ might not be the right word,” Elan continued, mulling it over as he spoke. “They built the estate houses by each reservoir, they built the Well, but they can also do things. Like cause earthquakes.”

“Or grow flowers,” Jae said.

“Right. I don’t really understand much about how it works. Those books said mages have their own way of seeing things.”

“Other-vision,” Jae said.

He didn’t know where the phrase had come from, but it was as good as any. “Yes. But I don’t have much more information than that—and there aren’t any more mages to ask,” Elan said.

“I’d love to know why that is,” Tal said.

Elan gave him a confused look, and then realized: it was a question without asking a question. “I don’t know,” Elan confessed, hating that he couldn’t even answer that. For all the research he’d done, all the ancient parchments he’d searched through, he felt as if he’d barely learned anything. Not even why no one in generations had been able to see or use magic except the Highest, and they weren’t really mages. They’d just inherited the ability to command the Well.

Or so Elan had always believed. But that was a lie, too, which meant there had been no new magic in the world in generations—which made it even stranger that Jae had become a mage out of nowhere.

“There are no mages to do new magic, but old magic can still work, if it has a binding,” Elan finally continued. Then he explained, “The mages would bind the magic to a physical object, something that would last for generations. That’s the only way a spell can last beyond the initial casting, or beyond the life of the mage. I do know that when the Well was created, the last step was a binding so that it would last forever.”

Jae said thoughtfully, “But the reservoirs are going dry.”

Elan nodded, heart heavy. His father had sounded so sure when he’d said it was because there were too many people and not enough water to go around. And that made sense—except that the Well was magic. It had never failed before, no matter the size of the population, no matter how bad the drought. Looking back now, Elan could see that when he and the other Highest had effectively signed the death warrants for hundreds of Closest, it had been because it was the only thing they could do. Just walk away from the dry reservoirs and hope for the best. Because they didn’t control the Well, and it shouldn’t be running dry.

Jae had the thought just as he did. “If the Well is drying up, then…that might mean that something is weakening the binding, or that the binding is gone.”

“Makes sense. But no one knows what the Well was bound to. If we did, we could figure out what’s happening to it.” Since he didn’t have anything else to say about bindings, Elan changed subjects slightly. “The lore also said that most mages have an affinity for a particular element, or maybe two. It seemed as if it was very rare that they could use more than that. But some mages, the most powerful, thought there were other kinds of energies, too. That people have their own kind of energy, separate from the elements.”

Jae’s brow furrowed, and Tal said to her, “You can use earth, clearly. I’d love to know if there are others.”

“I think…,” Jae started, then trailed off for a few seconds. “Yes, earth, strongest. And water, too. I had to work harder to pull water out of the plants, but I think it would get easier with practice.”

Elan started to ask her about the others, but stopped himself before it came out.

His restraint was rewarded a moment later when she added, “I’ve sensed the air, but it doesn’t feel right to me. And I don’t think I can feel fire at all. I never have, anyway.”

“Maybe you can try it sometime,” Tal said.

“Maybe.” She went quiet, staring up at the sky, then shook her head and pushed herself up to stand. “We should start moving again.”

Tal nodded, stood, and gave Elan a hand up. Elan shook his head. Letting Tal haul him up would hurt his burn. Instead he stood slowly, carefully, and sighed. He was exhausted and achy, his chest itchy and sore from the burn, and the rest of his muscles were just tired from overuse. But the Well was still at least a few days away, and their water wouldn’t last forever, so they couldn’t dawdle.

As they started walking, Jae said softly, “Thank you. For telling me about the magic.”

Elan glanced at her, surprised, and nodded. “Of course.”

That was all. Walking didn’t leave a lot of energy to chat, and once Elan fell back into the rhythm of it, his whole mind seemed to turn off, and only looking up at the moon in the sky made it feel like they had moved at all.

They walked until dawn, and couldn’t find a boulder to shelter under this time. They pitched the tent at the bottom of a dune, ate quickly, and crawled inside just as the temperature started climbing again.

This time, despite the heat of the day, Elan fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

The third night of walking was nearly as bad. Their water was warm, barely even soothing, and Elan’s water skin had developed a sour taste. They stopped to drink more often, sweating off as much as they took in.

Elan found himself trying to imagine the Well they were walking toward. It would be like Danardae’s reservoir, only much larger: an enormous, glittering oasis, surrounded by bushes and trees that lived off its water. They’d be able to eat and drink their fill, to bathe, to relax.

They just needed to find it.

“You’re sure we’re heading toward it?” he asked, breaking one of their long, tired silences.

“I’m sure,” Jae said, shooting him a glare.

“How far—I mean—” He cleared his throat. “I’d like to know how far it is.”

Tal made an amused noise, and Jae said, “I don’t know. The barrier, though. We’re close to that.”

He frowned. She hadn’t elaborated on what the barrier was, and didn’t seem inclined to. So they just trudged onward, the sand dyed silver by the moon.

—

Shortly before sunup, Jae stopped walking so sharply that Elan almost crashed into her. Before the question finished forming on Elan’s tongue, Tal screamed, impossibly loudly in the expanse of desert around them. He whirled toward Jae, grabbing for her, but missed and fell to his knees, hands clutching his head.