The kitchens of the Spire existed in a different world.

  Torvin followed Renn through a series of increasingly narrow service corridors, the polished stone of the main levels giving way to rough hewn walls and bare floors. The air grew warmer, thick with the smells of cooking. Bread, roasting meat, something sweet he couldn't identify. Voices echoed ahead, along with the clatter of pots and the hiss of steam.

  "Here," Renn said, stopping at a junction. "The kitchens are through that door. She works the morning shift, preparing food for the lower levels." She glanced at Torvin. "You'll go alone. She'll sense me, sense how old I am, how many lives I've carried, and it will frighten her. But you." She studied him. "You're like her. New. Confused. She might trust you."

  Torvin looked at the door. "What's her name?"

  "Senna. She's been here six months. No one knows where she came from. She just appeared one day, wandering the lower levels with no memories and no identification. The kitchens took her in because she was willing to work and asked no questions." Renn's ancient eyes softened almost imperceptibly. "She's alone, Torvin. More alone than you've ever been. She doesn't know what she is. Doesn't know why she dreams of a door. Doesn't know why she sometimes wakes with fragments of skills in her mind that she never learned."

  Torvin's chest ached. "She's absorbing too? From the dead?"

  "Not absorbing. Remembering. The fragment in her is different from yours. More intact, less scattered. It carries memories as well as skills. Memories of a life before the Sundering. Memories of being part of something vast and terrible." Renn paused. "She doesn't understand what she's remembering. She thinks they're nightmares. Dreams. Hallucinations." She met his eyes. "You need to tell her the truth."

  Torvin nodded slowly. "And if she doesn't want to come with me? If she chooses to stay?"

  Renn was silent for a long moment. "Then the Reapers will find her. The pull toward the door will grow stronger. Eventually, she'll go to them willingly, or she'll be taken. Either way, she'll become part of what's waiting in the Glimmerdark." Her voice dropped. "And so will her fragment. One more piece of the whole, reunited. One more step toward the Reapers regaining their full power."

  Torvin thought of the voice. The pull. The way it whispered to him in dreams.

  "I'll make her understand," he said. "I'll give her the choice I didn't have."

  He pushed through the door.

  The kitchens were chaos.

  Workers rushed past with trays of bread, pots of soup, platters of meat. Fires blazed in massive hearths. Steam rose from cauldrons large enough to bathe in. The noise was overwhelming. Shouted orders, clanging metal, the constant roar of flames.

  Torvin stood in the doorway, overwhelmed.

  Then a girl nearly ran into him.

  She was small, smaller than Alera, with mousy brown hair pulled back in a hasty knot and flour smeared across one cheek. Her kitchen apron was stained and worn, and her hands were red from washing. She carried a stack of empty trays nearly as tall as she was.

  "Sorry, sorry, I didn't see." She looked up, and her words died.

  Her eyes widened.

  Torvin felt it too. A jolt of recognition that had nothing to do with sight. Something in his chest pulled toward her, the same way it pulled toward the door in his dreams. His shattered sigil blazed hot.

  "You," the girl whispered. "You're like me."

  Torvin nodded. "My name is Torvin. I need to talk to you. Somewhere private."

  The girl, Senna, looked around wildly. The chaos of the kitchens continued around them, oblivious. "I can't just leave. They need me. I have work."

  "It's important. Life or death important." Torvin held her gaze. "Please."

  Something in his expression must have convinced her. She set down the trays, called something to a passing cook about a stomach ache, and led him through a side door into a small storage room lined with sacks of flour and barrels of preserved meat.

  The moment the door closed, she turned on him.

  "What are you?" Her voice shook, but her eyes were fierce. "I felt you the moment you entered the kitchens. Felt something in my chest scream. It's never done that before. Not with anyone." She pressed a hand to her sternum, where Torvin could just make out the faint glow of a sigil hidden beneath her apron. "What's happening to me?"

  Torvin took a breath. "How much do you remember? Before you came here?"

  Senna's fierce expression flickered. "Nothing. I woke up six months ago in a storage room in the lower levels. No memories. No name. Just." She touched her chest again. "Just this. A broken thing inside me that glows sometimes and whispers in my dreams."

  "What does it whisper?"

  She was silent for a long moment. Then, softly: "Come home. That's all. Just come home." Her eyes met his. "I don't know where home is. I don't know anything. But the whisper gets louder every day. And sometimes, when I sleep, I dream of a door. A big door, covered in runes. And something on the other side is waiting for me."

  Torvin's blood ran cold. The same dream. The same door.

  "It's real," he said. "The door. The whispers. They're not dreams. They're memories. Fragments of something you used to be." He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "You're not human, Senna. Neither am I. We're vessels. Containers. Designed to hold pieces of something ancient. Something that was sealed away four hundred years ago."

  Senna stared at him. Her face had gone pale beneath the flour smears.

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying that the whispers are real. The door is real. And whatever's on the other side wants us back. Wants to absorb us, reunite us with the whole." Torvin stepped closer. "But we have a choice. We don't have to go. We can fight. We can become something else, something ourselves, not just pieces of something older."

  Senna's hand pressed harder against her chest. "Fight? How do you fight something that lives in your head? That whispers to you every night? That pulls at you until you can barely think straight?" Her voice cracked. "I've tried. For six months, I've tried. But it's getting stronger. Every day, it's stronger. And I'm so tired, Torvin. So tired of fighting alone."

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  Before he could respond, the storage room door burst open.

  Three figures stood in the doorway. Wardens. But not the regular ones Torvin had seen before. These wore darker uniforms, almost black, with silver runes embroidered along the collars. Their sigils blazed with power, and their hands rested on weapons that hummed with barely contained energy.

  "Senna Vex," the lead Warden said. "By order of the Spire Council, you are hereby detained for observation and examination. Come quietly, and no one will be hurt."

  Senna shrank back against the flour sacks. "What? Why? I haven't done anything."

  "Your existence is sufficient." The Warden's voice was cold, clinical. "Unidentified awakeners with no memories and anomalous sigils are subject to immediate review. You should have reported yourself months ago." He gestured, and the other two Wardens moved forward. "Come quietly."

  Torvin stepped between them and Senna.

  "She's not going anywhere."

  The lead Warden's eyes flicked to him. Recognition dawned. "You're the Null. The one from the Glimmerdark." His expression didn't change. "Step aside. This doesn't concern you."

  "She's like me. She's not a threat."

  "That's not for you to decide." The Warden's hand moved to his weapon. "Last warning. Step aside, or be detained alongside her."

  Torvin's mind raced. He couldn't fight three trained Wardens. Not even with all his fragments. But he couldn't let them take Senna. If they examined her, they'd find the Reaper fragment. They'd lock her away, study her, maybe destroy her. And the fragment would be lost, or worse, claimed by the Reapers.

  Take them, the voice whispered. Absorb their skills. Become stronger. Protect her.

  "No," Torvin said aloud.

  The Wardens stared at him.

  "I said no." He met the lead Warden's eyes. "You want her? You go through me."

  For a long, breathless moment, no one moved.

  Then Senna's voice came from behind him, small but steady. "Torvin. Let them take me."

  He spun. "What? No."

  "It's okay." She smiled, a sad, tired expression. "You can't fight them. And even if you could, where would we go? We're in the middle of the Spire. Thousands of Wardens. Nowhere to run." She stepped past him, toward the waiting Wardens. "I've been running for six months. I'm tired of running."

  The lead Warden nodded. "Wise choice." He gestured, and the other two moved to flank Senna.

  But as they reached for her, something changed.

  Senna's eyes went wide. Her hand flew to her chest, where her sigil suddenly blazed crimson through her apron. The light was blinding, pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat. And with it came a presence. Ancient, vast, and furious.

  "No," Senna whispered. But her voice wasn't entirely her own. "Not again. Not again. I won't go back."

  The Wardens stumbled back, hands going to their weapons. The lead Warden shouted something, but Torvin couldn't hear him over the roar of blood in his ears.

  Because he could feel it too. The fragment in Senna was waking up. Responding to the threat. And as it woke, it reached out, not toward the door, not toward the Reapers, but toward him.

  Take me, it whispered. Not the voice, but something else. Senna's fragment, speaking directly to his. Take me before they do. Keep me safe. Keep her safe.

  Torvin's shattered sigil blazed in answer.

  "I don't. I can't." He didn't know what he was saying. The pull was overwhelming, stronger than anything he'd felt before. Not the Reaper voice, but something purer. A choice. An offer.

  Senna's eyes met his through the crimson light. And in them, he saw understanding.

  "Do it," she said. "Before I change my mind. Before it changes my mind." She reached toward him. "I'd rather be part of you than become one of them."

  Torvin's hand moved of its own accord.

  The moment their fingers touched, the world exploded.

  He was inside her.

  Not metaphorically. Literally. Torvin existed in a space that was Senna's mind, her soul, her fragment. And it was vast. So much vaster than he'd expected. The fragment in her wasn't a small piece like his. It was nearly whole, nearly complete. A Reaper almost fully formed, held back only by Senna's desperate resistance.

  She's strong, he realized. Stronger than me. She's been fighting this alone for six months and she's still herself.

  Around him, memories swirled. Senna's six months in the Spire. Kindness from kitchen workers. Fear of discovery. Loneliness so deep it was a physical ache. And beneath that, older memories. Much older. A woman in ancient armor, fighting alongside Wardens against shadows. A betrayal. A sealing. A fragment torn away and placed in a vessel, meant to be a weapon but instead becoming her.

  I remember, Senna's voice echoed in the space. I remember everything. The war. The Sundering. The moment I was made. A pause. I remember being afraid. So afraid. And then I woke up here, with no memories, and I was afraid all over again.

  "You don't have to be afraid anymore," Torvin said. "I'm here. I'll carry you. We'll face it together."

  Promise?

  "Promise."

  The fragment surged toward him.

  And Torvin absorbed.

  He opened his eyes.

  The storage room was chaos. The Wardens lay on the floor, unconscious but alive. Senna stood before him, except it wasn't Senna anymore. It was her body, yes, but empty. Vacant. The light in her eyes was gone.

  But Torvin felt her. Inside him. A warm presence nestled among the fragments, stronger than all of them combined.

  I'm here, her voice whispered. I'm with you.

  Torvin looked at his hands. They were glowing. Not golden like before, but a deep, rich crimson. Senna's color. Senna's power.

  And he knew, suddenly, what he could do.

  He raised one hand toward the unconscious Wardens. Not to harm, never to harm, but to erase. To remove their memories of the last few minutes. To protect Senna's secret, even now.

  Let me, Senna's voice offered. I know how. The fragment remembers.

  Torvin let her guide him. Crimson light flowed from his fingers, washing over the Wardens. When it faded, they stirred, groaning, sitting up with confused expressions.

  "What happened?" the lead Warden muttered. "We were patrolling? Did we fall?"

  The other two shook their heads, equally bewildered. None of them looked at Torvin. None of them remembered Senna.

  Torvin slipped out of the storage room while they were still disoriented, moving through the kitchens, through the service corridors, back toward the main levels.

  Behind him, he left an empty body and three confused Wardens.

  Inside him, Senna wept.

  Renn waited at the junction where they'd parted.

  She studied him as he approached. His glowing hands, his changed eyes, the new weight in his bearing. And she nodded slowly.

  "You did it. You absorbed her."

  Torvin nodded. His throat was too tight for words.

  "How does it feel?"

  He considered the question. The warmth of Senna's presence. The grief in her whispers. The power that now flowed through him like a second heartbeat.

  "Like I'm carrying something precious," he said finally. "Something I have to protect. Something I can't let anyone take."

  Renn's ancient eyes softened. "Good. That's how it should feel." She turned, gesturing for him to follow. "Two more, Torvin. Two more fragments before the Reapers find them. Rest tonight. We search again tomorrow."

  Torvin followed her into the depths of the Spire, carrying Senna's grief and Senna's power and Senna's desperate hope.

  I'm here, she whispered again. I'll help you. I'll fight with you. Just don't let me go.

  "I won't," Torvin whispered back. "I promise."

  In the Glimmerdark, behind a door that was open wider than ever, something ancient and patient frowned.

  One fragment lost. One piece of the whole absorbed by the vessel instead of reclaimed.

  Clever, it murmured. Clever little weapon. But there are more fragments. And in the end, they will all come home.

  It settled back to wait.