Rowan arrived in time to see Kess glowing—a dark, foreboding light awakening the air around her. It spiraled away, and though the sky was still twilight through the clouds, darkness swept in where the storm overhead gathered, the clouds thick, heavy, and black. A few of them drifted down to join that cyclone of power, sucked away into Kess herself, who stood protectively in front of Draven.

  Lightning surged around her, not just from within, but from the sky itself. Rowan shook his head in awe. Neither his brothers nor his mother were capable of anything close to this level, and though he knew his father was skilled in his own right, even his raw displays of power were nothing like this. He couldn’t think of a single red and blue sash that had this level of power—not even on the Council.

  Rowan had his sword drawn, but it was enough to make him take a step back.

  It suddenly dawned on him that he had very little idea what he was actually dealing with. Kess had been controlling herself. Those little slips throughout her life in the manor were handfuls of water from a dam overrun with power. Kess had placed a cap on powers so deep, so raging, that the very nature of them might swallow her alive.

  That cap was apparently gone, now.

  He hadn’t been wrong that night. The Lightstorm had been playing with her, and today, as the wind whipped around the three of them, it came to dance. Lightning twined around Kess but never struck her, the light a carousel of destruction as it struck stones and sent chips flying into the air.

  Kess didn’t register Rowan’s presence as she flung herself at the hooded woman, and Fulminancy snapped in the air. Rowan found himself momentarily at a loss. He’d come here to help Kess, but it seemed she was getting along fine without him.

  He watched their fight for a few moments, staying far away from the Fulminancy as he made his way over to Draven. At first glance, perhaps, Kess was fine, but each flash of Fulminancy told a different story. Blood ran down her side. She held one arm limp and loose, something lodged in it. Her face was pale and drawn, and most shockingly, her arms and legs trembled violently each time she slowed down.

  Rowan hadn’t dealt with much Fulminancy, but he knew the telltale signs of burnout when he saw them. He crouched in front of Draven, felt for a pulse, and realized grimly that Kess wasn’t fighting for Draven at all—but for his body.

  Kess was fast, but she was faltering. Though the power she had brought up was enough to shame every Fulminancer in the city, she had let it out with no dampers, and it was destroying her body as she fought the cloaked woman. Her blows grew sloppier and her legs shakier.

  Rowan saw the panic in her eyes, alongside a grim sort of resignation. She hadn’t meant to draw this much up. Maybe she didn’t even know she had it to begin with. I have to do something, or I’ll be bringing two corpses home, he thought.

  He still wasn’t sure where he stood with Kess. He didn’t really trust her, and her powers were a ticking time bomb. But how different were his experiments, really? Perhaps he and Kess were simply two sides of the same coin—regardless, she didn’t deserve to die here today, as Draven had.

  Rowan straightened, trying not to think too hard about it, then simply launched himself between the women. The cloaked figure gasped and just barely slipped out of his grasp, but his contact with Kess was solid—he’d come from her blind spot. Warmth flowed into his hands from her Fulminancy, and some of the cloaked woman’s power snapped at him, searing his clothes.

  “Rowan,” Kess croaked. She barely seemed to recognize him, though she shook out the arm he’d caught in confusion. The cloaked woman turned to run, and Kess followed, but not before Rowan reached out again, this time catching her bare hand.

  Her Fulminancy snapped against his flesh, stronger this time, searing and burning where it met, and a painful surge of warmth flooded through his body. The aroma of burnt skin filled the night as that Fulminancy snapped through his arm, a sharp pain, but Rowan held on.

  Kess took another step forward, but her eyes lost their light long before she collapsed. Rowan caught her light frame deftly and knew he would pay for it later. At least it worked, he thought. His powers, whatever they were, were hardly predictable, even in the best of times. He was loath to experiment with them on people, but he had dealt with burnout before, and what Kess had just done was damning. He wasn’t sure how much time he had to get her back to Claire, or if the damage was so great that there would be no saving the woman at all. Her breathing was shallow and ragged, and her face pallid. He would have to—

  “Neat trick.” The voice came from behind him. Rowan jumped in spite of himself and whipped his head around to where Kess’s opponent stood nearby, her stance relaxed. I could have sworn she ran off, he thought. And yet, as the woman took a few steps towards him, he realized she’d nearly silenced her footsteps with Fulminancy—Fulminancy that should have been long gone after Rowan’s touch.

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  But it wasn’t.

  She let it crackle to life in her hands, a dark gray, and Rowan realized he’d made a mistake.

  Not enough contact, he thought grimly, Kess in arms. Not nearly enough. He stood there for a moment, frozen, trying to figure out how to both dodge Fulminancy and defend himself without leaving Kess helpless.

  He had little time to think. The woman lobbed a bolt towards them both, and Rowan winced, bracing himself for the impact.

  It never came. A snap, crack, and small boom popped in the air nearby. Rowan opened his eyes, shocked, as Kess’s Fulminancy met the strike midair. It was wild and untamed, dancing around the two of them. It had been so spread out before that Rowan hadn’t even noticed that some of it persisted. As it was, it had dimmed considerably in brightness, but phantom tendrils wove out and clashed with the hooded woman’s powers until they snuffed out.

  Rowan glanced at Kess, his heart hammering in his chest from the near miss. She was still out cold. And even odder, her Fulminancy hadn’t touched Rowan at all.

  The other woman hissed. She looked at her hand with distaste as her Fulminancy stuttered and died with a repetitive click. Rowan took another step back just in case, and the woman simply laughed at him.

  “Don’t look so panicked,” she said casually. “You got a good amount of it, even with that light touch.” She nodded towards Kess. “I still don’t know how hers isn’t gone, given that you snuffed her twice. I guess if you have that much of it, it takes a bit for it to fade.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Rowan said carefully. Who was this woman, and why was she after Kess? She gave Rowan an up and down sweep, contemplative.

  “Never seen a trick like that before,” she said. “I bet the Council would kill to have something like that on their side—or at least locked up.”

  Rowan stiffened, and though Kess was in his arms, he fumbled for his sword anyway, jostling her. The woman, however, simply turned away from him.

  “Oh, don’t bother,” she said. “They didn’t hire me for you—just the girl. And seeing how we’re both all tuckered out, I think I’ll simply go home with my tail between my legs. There’s always next time.” She glanced over her shoulder at the Fulminancy snapping around Kess and Rowan protectively. A few tendrils of it snapped towards the woman, though she made no aggressive moves. “It seems to like you, Northmont.”

  Rowan flinched. “How do you know my—wait, it?”

  “The Fulminancy,” the woman amended. “Her Fulminancy, to be precise. And everyone knows you, Northmont. The prodigal son, soon to return Uphill with a new lease on life, and new technology to boot. Justice for the Downhill, progress and wealth for the Uphill. It’s all a very grand fairy tale I don’t have time for. A better tale is why that girl’s Fulminancy bothered protecting you at all with her out cold.”

  “Fulminancy doesn’t have a will of its own,” Rowan said quietly.

  For a moment the woman simply cocked her head, the wind of the Lightstorm whipping at her hood. “Doesn’t it?” she finally asked.

  She raised a single hand and left Rowan behind and the streets empty save for Draven’s body. Rowan took a moment to thank Mariel for his good fortune as the woman disappeared, then took stock of his situation.

  Draven was dead. Kess nearly so. The street was cracked where her Fulminancy had clashed with the hooded woman’s. I need to figure out a way to get him home, Rowan thought, looking around for carriages. It felt good to focus on something practical after the chaos of the evening.

  Draven deserved better, he thought, sparing the man another regretful glance. Rowan hadn’t known him very well, but Draven had always been kind, and he ran the underground with a sense of fatherhood that no one else seemed able to emulate. He had been a good man, and Rowan would make sure his death was treated with some dignity, at least.

  The streets, however, remained empty—no carriages, no runner boys, and no people. It was unsurprising given that the Downhill usually stayed very far away from Fulminancy. He would have to hire someone further up the mountain—if anyone would help at all. Sighing, he began his trek through the streets, Kess in arms.

  As he walked, her Fulminancy continued to snap around him protectively, though within a few minutes, it faded to a whisper, the light dimming rapidly. That scared Rowan, and he glanced at Kess worriedly, but she still breathed for now. Before the last bit of her Fulminancy snuffed out, a tendril of it wrapped gently around his arm, and Rowan felt a distinct sense of gratitude from it. Then it shattered into nothing.

  Rowan paused in the streets, staring at where the Fulminancy had shattered. How could he feel an emotion from something that should have just been energy?

  It’s like someone else has control over it, Kess had said. When I use it, it’s like it wants something. Rowan had paid little attention to her statement at the time, given his frustration with her reluctance to touch such an untapped well of power.

  Now it rang with a truth Rowan couldn’t ignore.

  And at that moment, standing in the streets with Kess in his arms, the Lightstorm flashing above, Rowan realized something crucial about his own experiments with Fulminancy.

  He wasn’t dealing with science—he was dealing with nature.

  And suddenly he felt very very out of his depth.

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