Niall bent over the body of the witch, and yanked his arrow from her back. Blood spurted from the wound, a few drops sprinkling over Niall's boots. He knew, inwardly, that such a thing should upset him, but he was too experienced at killing now to allow a little blood to unnerve him.

He reached down and checked the witch’s wristband – less than eighty units of atern remaining. That paltry amount was hardly even worth worrying about, but Niall tagged the body for removal anyway. The fae kept every witch carcass they could find. They used the bodies in the laboratory for their experiments, hoping to one day crack the formula for easy transferral of magic between fae and witch.

Glancing around the shop, Niall searched for the items he needed. The aura could sometimes be difficult to see, especially with so much junk crowded together. He squinted into a dark corner, where several carved walking sticks had been stacked alongside some old shovels and farm implements – the metal components now caked with rust. He caught the blue glimmer of an aura near the back of the pile, and pulled out a beautifully-polished stick, its handle inlaid with a shimmering moonstone. When he held it up to the window, it thrummed in his fingers, giving off its own energy. In the light, the aura was much clearer – a blue shimmer extending down the length of the shaft.

“Here.” He tossed the stick to Odiana. “Take this outside.”

Without any regard for the beauty of the craftsmanship, Odiana dropped the wooden stick into the wheelbarrow they had brought into the shop, now stacked high with other objects. Odiana was a Quaesitor – a scientist who didn’t much care for beautiful objects. To her, real beauty was in the orbit of a planet, the reaction of chemicals, the perfection of a mathematical equation. This fact was, in itself, odd, for a fae of Odiana’s beauty – ice-white hair, porcelain skin, cheekbones that could carve up a man, eyes like faceted crystal – normally had few aspirations beyond securing a rich husband. But Odiana had dedicated her life to a very different cause.

“I’ll take these to the wagon,” she said in her breathy voice. “You hunt for more imbued junk.” Niall often teased Odiana that she pronounced every syllable as though she were whispering in a lover’s ear. The fae were sexual beings, capable of fierce seductions when the mood so took them, but Odiana was a walking erotic manifestation. Even the way she pushed the wheelbarrow through the door of the shop had men across the street turning their heads toward her.

A few minutes later she returned, the wheelbarrow now empty. Niall handed her a battered toaster and a small carved wooden duck. Odiana held the bird up to the light. “This thing?” she asked, her pretty nose wrinkling in confusion.

“Oh yeah, it’s humming with magic. I’d say at least twelve-hundred units.”

Odiana wrinkled her nose. “It’s ugly. I’ll never understand what would possess a witch to deposit their atern into such mundane objects.”

“I think it’s clever,” Niall said. “If you were a witch, and fae broke into your house to take your magic, the last place they’d expect you to hide it was in a hideous duck.”

“Not so clever.” Odiana grinned, as she tossed the duck into the empty wheelbarrow. It clattered against the metal. “We have you.”

“The witches didn’t exactly know about my abilities when they did this.” Niall was one of the only fae in Scitis who could see the aura of an object or person who held atern. To him, the whole world glowed with different shades of shimmering blue.

“All the better for us.” Odiana grinned her enchanting smile. “Maybe one day soon I’ll actually be able to get the magic from all this junk, and your love for dusty old human crap will be justified.”

Niall punched her playfully in the arm. Like most fae friendships, theirs was built on a foundation of competitiveness, and seasoned liberally with insults. But when they worked together, like today, things seemed to go smoothly.

Quaesitors like Odiana needed people like Niall in order to continue their research. Niall was a Venator – a special regiment of warriors employed by the Conclave of the Magister, responsible for locating atern to supply the needs of the Scitis faction. In the past, that meant traveling through the void into the human world and extracting the atern that dwelled within the lifeforms there – from plants and animals and humans. Atern gave the fae their power, and a constant supply was needed to keep the realm running and their dominance intact.

But when human countries aimed their nuclear weapons at each other and started firing, the fae saw their source of power being destroyed before their eyes. At first, the factions picked sides in the war and battled against each other to retain possession over the charred remains of Earth. Then, they split off from each other entirely to manage the collection and distribution of atern in their own ways. As the magic dwindled, and sources for atern became scarcer, the whole fae realm was thrust deeper into endless winter. Niall's father had talked fondly of his childhood days chasing his siblings through the lush meadows and dense forests of Scitis, and he remembered well the year the ice crept down from the mountains and never retreated. All Niall had ever known was snow and cold.

Each fae faction controlled a different geographical area, and each court contained different fairies with their own unique magic. As is typical of fae, the factions rarely got on. But as the battles on Earth drew to a close, in a last-ditch effort to rescue their source of atern, all sixteen fae factions banded together to channel their magic into the void, opening the rift between their world and Earth, and pulling through every remaining life form, every tiny atern factory to be sucked dry to drive away the endless winter.

What the fae didn’t foresee was that the void would kill most of the remaining humans, and bore through only those whose atern was strongest – the witches. Now all that remained of the human race, these magical workers were the only fresh source of atern for the fae, but their magic was notoriously difficult to extract. Dead or alive, witches were a priceless commodity. In Scitis, it was the job of the Venators to hunt them out.

Unlike his fellow soldiers, Niall didn’t hunt in the wasteland of Nihil, nor torture witches to give up their supplies. He had his special power, inherited from his father and known only to a few key people within the Conclave and the Quaesitor sect. So far, no other faction had discovered what Niall’s father had learned – that the witches who had come from the human realm could hide their magic, or at least traces of it, inside objects they’d brought with them into the fae world. Niall could see that stored magic, and his sole responsibility was to hunt out these magical items before the other factions caught on.

He’d been watching the tiny shop of human artifacts on the outskirts of the city for weeks, waiting for the proof he needed. The owner – a witch who was permitted to live within the city as long as she submitted to a regular extraction of her atern – had been on Niall’s radar for some time, as her atern readings seemed to be decreasing much quicker than her extraction records would indicate. Yesterday, Niall had been spying on her, when he saw her pick up a small necklace from a cabinet, and clasp it in her palm. Her eyes closed, the witch swayed gently, and the numbers on her wristband wound down.

With that kind of evidence, the witch didn’t get a trial. Niall went back to the Conclave with his story, and they assigned Odiana to accompany him on one final extraction. Niall put an arrow in the witch’s back through the window, and now he was inside her shop, pawing through decades of carefully collected artifacts from the broken Earth, searching for his own gold.

As he tore the door off a wooden display cabinet and pawed through the trinket boxes and spice jars inside, a small object in the far corner caught his eye. The tiny pill box had a lid inlaid with mother-of-pearl, its edges shimmering under the strength of its aura. There must be 800 atern in this thing. Niall picked up the box between his thumb and forefinger, admiring the way it thrummed against his touch. Immediately, his mind went to a person, trapped in a cell, and what this box might mean to him.

“Found anything else?” Odiana called out behind him.

His heart pounding, Niall shoved the box into the deep pocket of his hunting coat.

“That’s it,” he told Odiana, brushing his hands on his green trousers. He kept his voice steady, in control, and hoped she wouldn’t notice his shaking hands. “Contact Aedan and let him know there is a body for storage.”

“He’s already on his way.” Odiana grinned. “Let’s wait outside.”

Niall followed her to the wagon, the box in his pocket dragging like a lead weight. The street was deserted, fresh snow from the night covering the ground, its surface puckered only by their retreating bootprints. It was early in the day, and most of the Fae were still sleeping. The only people shuffling in the streets were witches doing the shopping for their masters, and a few fae stumbling from the door of the Aternum den, where they had spent most of the night turning their precious atern into a potent hallucinogenic drug.

The tall horse-drawn wagon waited for them at the end of the street. Niall had parked it there to avoid the witch’s suspicion. Because atern powered every facet of fae society, magic was required in order to operate machines and technology. Scitis had always employed a policy of magical austerity, which meant that they eschewed automobiles and other tech in order to conserve and stockpile huge reserves of atern. This had meant they were in a much better position than many other factions when Earth was destroyed, but it also meant living in a pseudo-medieval society that was the scorn of other fae. Only the university had access to twenty-first century technology.

Odiana gestured to Niall, who cupped his hands to create a step for her to climb on board. Odiana was used to getting her way with the flip of a hand or the raise of a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

Niall climbed up beside her, settling into the seat to wait for Aedan’s team. The box brushed against his thigh, and his heart pounded against his chest. You shouldn’t have done that. You’re effectively stealing from the faction, by keeping for yourself what could benefit many.

It’s no use. Niall shook his head as his heart rate slowed to normal again. I don’t feel a single stab of guilt over it. I need it more than anyone right now, and any self-respecting fae would do the same. Actually, that’s only half true. Most self-respecting fae would keep the box for themselves, whereas I want it for—

“—and I think we’re very close,” Odiana was saying.

“Huh?” Niall was still thinking about the box in his pocket.

“I said, we’re close to finding a way to extract the magic held inside these items.” Odiana held up the wooden duck and waved it around. “My team have had a bit of a breakthrough. Didn’t I tell you about it?”

“No.” She probably had. Niall had been so distracted lately, he hardly heard anything people said to him. Even Odiana, with her voice like velvet, faded into the background, drowned out by his worry and guilt.

Guilt. Who would have thought? Fae shouldn’t feel guilt. Anything a fae did, he or she did with complete malice of forethought. Niall had never experienced this constricting in his chest or the nauseous tumble of his stomach before, but his medical examination had come back clean, so what else could it be? He fingered the box again. A few more finds like this, and the guilty feeling will go away forever.

Niall jerked his head up. Odiana was talking at him, and he wasn’t even listening. Niall removed his hand from his pocket, and focused on what she was saying.

“—each item has an energy signature, a pattern the atern follows, looping over and over. But there are discrepancies between the patterns. Most people believe the discrepancy is the signature of the witch who left the magic. It’s a way of identifying your own objects. But that doesn’t explain why items you’ve found in possession of one single witch have different signatures.” She grinned. “I figured it out. It’s a seal, Niall. Like the magical equivalent of a combination lock to a safe.”

“A what?”

“A safe. Come on, I thought you were the expert in human artifacts. A safe is a box humans stored items in. They had a lock like a dial with a series of numbers on it. Only by dialing in the right numbers – the code – could the safe be opened.”

“Oh, right. And you reckon the discrepancy thing is like a code?”

“Yeah. All we have to do is crack the code, and the energy will be released.” Odiana grinned. “My first experiment was pretty promising. I managed to get a code match and extract two units from a penknife before the energy from my extraction ray disintegrated the knife. I need to try it on something with a lot more inherent power, but of course, the Conclave banned us from experimenting on the Hollow now without a permit, even though I’ve already matched the code and I can prove it works. I’m hoping to try another code match on this new horde we got today. Isn’t that exciting?”

Niall wasn’t so sure. He didn’t really understand science the way Odiana did, but he did know magic, and he wondered what protections a witch might place on her objects in order to stop them from getting a “code match.” It couldn’t be as simple as all that, could it? Quaesitor scientists had been working on breaking this code for more than forty years. Surely they would have got that far by now? Or maybe Odiana was really just that brilliant. He wouldn’t put it past her.

Niall didn’t want to express any of his condemnations to Odiana, so he just nodded.

Aedan’s wagon rounded the corner. He waved to Odiana, and Niall watched in amusement as her face broke out in her widest, most alluring smile. She just couldn’t help herself.

Odiana nodded toward the building. Aedan was so distracted by staring at her that he didn’t pull on the reins, and his wagon hurtled past at full speed. Such was the power of Odiana.

Odiana laughed as Aedan’s face puffed up as he tried to right his careening vehicle. She leaned back in her seat and gazed out over the city. Niall mirrored her, staring across the rows of neat tenements and ancient university buildings.

Medietes was the largest city in Scitis, home to the university and research facilities and the Conclave chambers. The skyline rose before Niall's eyes, foreboding spires of dark wood piercing the turbid sky, turned white by the unceasing blanket of snow, the streets lined with flickering lamps and piles of dirty ice. Behind the valley, Niall could see the outline of the Hollow high upon the hills, outlined with the black clouds that forever raged around it.

The gothic-style mansion towered over the blackened fields and charred forest that surrounded it. Twin turrets flanked the main wing, high round windows glaring out like two beady eyes. A low porch shaded the front door, the broken stone arches like a row of sharpened fangs.

A shiver ran through Niall’s body as he stared at that strange house. The Hollow was a place of mystery and superstition to the fae. It had been pulled through the void from the human realm fifty-one years ago, when the fae factions banded together to make one final assault on the human world. They had poured their magic into the void, but it had been too much, or not enough, and the void had collapsed. When the people of Scitis recovered from the shock, they noticed the house had simply appeared at the edge of the city, standing like a sentinel, straddling the two worlds – a terrifying specter that loomed over them, beguiling in its promise as a conduit of unlimited power.

Although the skies over Medietes were always cold and gray – the same broken sky they encountered every day since the Eternal Winter began – above the Hollow, black storm clouds constantly swirled, raging and crashing against each other as the energy of the void between the realms collided. As Niall watched, lightning arced down from the sky and struck the iron fence surrounding the house. The fence crackled loudly, but did not break.

Odiana shuddered, placing her hand over Niall’s. “It’s not natural,” she said. “That much raw power. It’s no wonder it’s still standing after all this time.”

“They should just burn that place down,” Niall said, the words harsher than he intended. The Hollow held a special plate of hatred within his heart. If it wasn’t for that house, he wouldn’t be in the position he was in now, with guilt clutching his chest and a box in his pocket.

“Are you kidding? They wouldn’t dare waste it. The Conclave is just hoping we can get one of our extractors working, so they can drain the place completely. That much raw atern would probably power the whole faction for the next twenty years.”

Odiana’s words pounded against his head … I’ve already matched the code and I can prove it works … The first faint flicker of an idea rubbed against the edge of Niall’s mind. He turned them over, giving them form, weighing his options against the possible risks.

“Personally, I think they should just smoke the place out with poison gas …” Odiana scoffed. “If you kill what’s inside, you kill its source of power, and it will let go of its secrets. But the Conclave won’t agree to that. They don’t want to risk losing a single witch, especially not one that powerful.”

Niall nodded. Everyone knew the Hollow was still occupied. Lights went on and off in the manor’s windows. Sometimes, smoke could be seen pouring from the chimney, and once or twice the door even creaked open a crack. As a teenager, he and his brother Eamon used to dare each other to run up the scorched hill and peer over the garden wall. Once, they’d seen a dark-cloaked figure float slowly across the upstairs window. The image of the figure gliding with aching slowness across their vision appeared in Niall's dreams whenever he was frightened or upset. He’d been seeing it a lot ever since his father’s death.

“Maybe they’d be willing to share the atern. You know, if you asked nicely?” It was a question he used to tease his father with, back when his father was still alive and shit like that was funny.

Odiana snorted. “Sometimes, you really are hilarious.”

Just then, Aedan exited the shop, carrying a heavy sack over his shoulder. He nodded to Niall, who started to get down from the carriage, patting his pockets to find his tinderbox. Venators always burned these places, as a deterrent to other witches, to keep their slaves in their place.

Odiana shoved his hand away. She closed her eyes, and raised her hand toward the door of the shop. Niall watched as thin tendrils of blue smoke poured from her fingers, touching the wooden building. A few seconds later, flames burst out of the windows, and glass objects crashed inside.

“You could use a match, you know,” Niall said, as he settled back in his seat to watch the blaze. The fire spell had cost Odiana ten atern.

She shrugged. “You’re such a skinflint.” She punched him playfully in the arm, then grabbed his hand and flipped his wrist over, her eyes glossing over his number: 4,252. “Why do you save so much of yours? You can’t take it with you when you die, you know.”

“No.” Niall shook his head. The corner of the tiny pill box brushed his leg. “You certainly can’t.”

* * *

“That’s good, Niall,” Laneth said, as he turned the tiny box over in his hands. “That’s very good, indeed.”

“It’s worth 800 units, at least,” Niall said, his chest heavy. As he sat across from Laneth, watching the enormous man paw at the tiny box, he felt small, helpless. He always felt like that when he met with Laneth.

Laneth placed the box down on the table. “I was thinking 400.” He grinned. Laneth rarely smiled, which made his grin all the more alarming. He wiped a sticky hand across his face, leaving a trail of grease. Laneth repaired vehicles and large machines for the university. He always seemed to be covered with grease. It oozed from his pores.

Four hundred was ridiculously low. Niall knew he could get triple that if he took it the box to a reputable dealer. Laneth knew it too, which was why he was grinning. “Fine. Take 400 off. That means he still owes—”

“Five thousand eighty atern,” Laneth responded, quickly calculating the math in his head. He may have been large and greasy, but he wasn’t stupid. Far from it, which was what made him so dangerous.

The number buzzed inside Niall's head, so huge and impossible. Even though he’d been paying Laneth off in installments for months now, the debt didn’t seem to get any smaller. But he had no alternative. He couldn’t go to the authorities. He had no other family to turn to.

“Can I see him?” Niall asked.

Laneth waved his hand. He was already engrossed in his new prize. He placed the box on his workbench, and aimed one of his bright lights at it, inspecting it from all angles. Even though he was an Aedifex (a builder) and not a Quaesitor, Laneth had the same goal as Odiana and every other great mind in Scitis: to find a way to extract atern from objects. Only, if Laneth discovered a way to extract magic first, he wouldn’t share it. He’d sell it to the highest bidder, or worse.

Niall left Laneth admiring his new acquisition and wandered down the stone steps into the cellar beneath Laneth's residence. The old witch Laneth kept as a servant waved him through without asking his business. Niall was such a frequent visitor that he was well-known in Laneth’s labyrinthine lair. As he passed, the witch gazed up at him with pleading eyes.

“Please …” she begged, holding out her arm so Niall could see the ugly scars that marked Laneth’s experiments on her. Niall didn’t even slow down. What did he care what Laneth did to some witch? That wasn’t why he was here.

One … two … three … Niall trudged past the empty cells, his boots clanking against the stone cobbles. Down here, the air hung heavy with damp, the smell of bodily fluids flaring in his nostrils. A pitiful place for pitiable men.

“Eamon,” Niall spoke into the darkness.

“My brother.” A hand reached carefully through the bars, and clasped his. The fingers felt thin, brittle. Not at all like the fine hands of the great man that Eamon had once been.

Eamon was once the head scientist at the university’s atern research laboratory. Their father’s treasured son, Eamon was set to inherit their father’s vast store of atern, along with his position as Chancellor of the university.

Then, two years ago, their father had grown increasingly ill – a wasting disease that had robbed him of his vitality in a matter of weeks, worsened by the intense chill that permeated all of Scitis. Eamon gambled away his sorrow and numbed his pain with atern-drugs, so that he could focus on learning all he could from their father while he was still alive. Niall, who as the second son could count on no inheritance of atern, had no such luxury. His grief had been raw, unhindered, free to ravage his mind wherever he sought refuge.

With Odiana’s help, Niall prepared himself for his father’s slow descent into the afterlife. He prepared to one day have to say goodbye. But then, his father was killed in an experiment up by the Hollow – the first test of an atern extraction ray he’d designed. As the beam from the ray hit the house, it created a reverse pole, sending back a huge surge that drained the power from the entire array. Niall's father – who was standing on the array at the time – died instantly, the last of his magic sucked completely into the house, without a chance to pass it on to his son. Eamon’s entire inheritance, gone in a flash, and with it any chance he had at repaying his gambling and drug debts.

But Laneth – the secret chemist and supplier of the most sought-after drugs at the Aternum – was nothing if not enterprising. He knew that exposing Eamon would do no good – the Conclave would have made an example of him, and Laneth would never have got his payment, or the chance to access all Eamon’s scientific knowledge.

Instead, Laneth paid off Eamon’s gambling debts. He arranged for Eamon to “disappear” on an invented Conclave assignment. The only people in the city who knew Eamon was alive were Laneth and Niall, and it would stay that way until Niall finished paying Laneth the 10,000 atern he demanded for his services.

Now, Niall's brother rotted in the old prison cells beneath Laneth's workshop, forced to help Laneth with his studies, and Niall stole magical items in order to pay down Laneth's fee.

“I have taken another 400 units from your debt,” Niall said.

“I’ve told you before, don’t do this,” Eamon’s voice pleaded. “I made this mess. I was the one who gambled away all my atern, thinking Father’s inheritance would bring it back up again. You have so much to live for, Niall. Don’t destroy your future for me.”

“You’re my brother.”

“And a lot of use that relationship has done you. Please, Niall. Don’t do this. Laneth will not let me go, even if you do pay the full 10,000. Keep the atern for yourself. Save it to buy Odiana’s hand in marriage. I know she would agree in a heartbeat.”

“Her father would die before wedding her into our disgraced family,” Niall said. And I don’t feel for her what she does for me. Odiana is a good friend, but as a wife … He’d never seen her as more than a friend. Besides, he had little to offer a wife, especially one of Odiana’s rank and sect.

“Odiana is strong. She would find a way.”

Niall smiled at that. He was right. Odiana wasn’t used to not getting her way. “You’re right about that.”

“Tell me what else has been going on. Has Odiana had any success with her ray?” The hope in Eamon’s voice made Niall’s chest ache. Although neither of them were particular fans of the Quaesitors, they didn’t want Laneth to crack the formula before the university did.

“How do you know about that?”

“I heard Laneth talking about it,” Eamon said. “Apparently, they’ve had some kind of breakthrough, but he can’t get anyone to tell him what it is.”

“She believes she may have finally come across the right equation to tap into stored magic. She’s putting the final touches on the new extraction ray. Of course, it needs testing.”

“Of course. Quaesitors do so love their tests. Do you remember when Dad blew up the kitchen?”

The memory flicked across Niall’s vision. He and Eamon had been playing on the upper floor of their stately home when suddenly the whole house shook. A loud boom thudded in his ears. Niall dived for the floor, convinced the void was collapsing and dragging the whole fae realm into the darkness along with it. After a few seconds the shaking subsided, and their father poked his head sheepishly around the door to check they were okay, his face black with soot and his eyes gleaming with mischief.

“Of course,” Niall said, keeping his voice light. “Mom never could get the soot stains from the walls.”

“I miss him,” Eamon said.

Niall started to say something, but his words caught in his throat. The guilt clenched at his chest. He took a couple of deep breaths, then said, “I’ve been thinking about how to get you out of here, and I’ve come up with a plan.”

Eamon sighed. Niall knew why: he’d had a lot of ideas before that hadn’t worked. “Let’s hear it, then.”

“Laneth is becoming more and more greedy. He offers me less and less for the items I bring to him. He knows he has me by the balls, and that as long as you hold debt, I will continue to bring him atern. He’s building up a store of items. I need to find a way to pay him off in one swoop, to reverse the power dynamic between us.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Eamon threw his hands up. “Laneth has tens of thousands of units. You’d have to drain the Hollow to get enough power to overcome him.”

“Exactly.”

Eamon’s eyes burned into his. “Brother, no.”

“Odiana needs to test her device, right? But the university has forbidden Quaesitors to test there after what happened to Dad, so I figure I’ll volunteer and—”

“No. No no no no no no NO.” Eamon rattled the bars for emphasis.

“But—”

“NO. Don’t go near that place. You saw what happened to Father. It sucked the life from him, as easy as knocking back a glass of aternum. If the same thing happens to you …”

“Don’t fear, brother. Odiana knows what she’s doing. She’s learned from Dad’s mistakes.”

“Of course she has. But she’s going to make all new ones.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“You’ll be careful?” Eamon was screaming. He slammed his palm against the iron, rattling the cage. Niall winced as he saw the crisscrossed burns across Eamon’s hand from where he’d touched the bars. Touching iron hurt. “You’re trying to commit suicide and you tell me you’ll be careful? We already lost Dad to that evil place. Don’t you get yourself killed, too.”

“I won’t get killed. I trust Odiana. You were just saying how clever she is—”

“Dad was clever, too. I’m sure he’s enjoying using his intellect in the afterlife.”

Niall narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Like it or not, there’s nothing you can do from in there. Remember, while you’re a prisoner here, I’m a prisoner alongside you. Laneth will never stop coming after me for what he wants. This is the only way I’m ever going to free myself.”

“It’s not worth it. I’m your older brother, and I demand you obey me—”

“Don’t give me that crap. I’m doing this, whether you like it or not. I’m going to the Hollow, and I’m coming back with enough atern to set us both free.” Niall shot his brother a final, rebellious stare. “You’ll see.”