Emray sat in her room among the boxes of possessions that she had been allowed to take out of the lab, odds and ends stacked haphazardly in rough wooden crates. Her gauntlet and any remaining oriculum she had accumulated had been confiscated. The movers had promised her that the gauntlet would be handled well, that it was to be placed in a safe room in the basements. Other than that, the rest of her possessions had been handed over for her to go through at her leisure.

She had woken up early that morning, just as the pale blue of morning had begun to creep up the horizon. The last night’s sleep had been fitful and restless, and eventually she decided to just stop fighting it and do something with her newfound free time. Without practicals to prepare for she had the next few days to spend stewing over her impending punishment and going through the effluvium of her shattered dreams.

A spare cog wheel worked its way through Emray’s fingers as she pondered her fate. The patinated bronze surface glinted in the first few rays of sunlight as they streamed in, shining with a bright hue. The tiny teeth, set so perfectly apart, started the gears in Emray’s brain turning as she stared at it.

Soon Emray found herself slapping together spare parts, driving screws and using some of her fire spells to weld together scrap brass into the shapes she needed it to be. A spring here, a winding key there, and hours passed her by as she tinkered on the floor.

Slowly Emray’s barely contained frustration, anger, and sadness ebbed away as she worked. Her father had been a hard working artificer before he was drafted, and she had learned her craft sitting on his knee as a child. Her mother had been a warm and caring homemaker before her draft, and had taught her that anger makes the best bread since kneading helps work out tension.

So many little memories of her old life, still teaching her long after they had gone.

Emray remembered the day the soldiers came to her door. Her Aunt Myrta had been taking care of herself and her younger brother that week, trading off from Uncle Trivul. It had been unseasonably sunny that day, brighter than it should’ve been for as close to winter as it was. Myrta had answered the door, and was ultimately the one to break the news about her parents’ deaths.

Emray remembered little Ardrax not quite understanding, thinking that Mom and Dad were playing hide and seek. She remembered him crying his little eyes out when Myrta finally got it through to him that they weren’t ever coming back. She remembered crying hers out too, but privately, away from anyone else and in the dead of night. She was the big sister, she had to be strong for Ardrax.

Emray didn’t learn the details until she was much older, just before she had applied to the Tower. It had been a routine scouting assignment out in the Wayward Expanse, according to Aunt Myrta, when their scout ketch had been beset by stolen vessels piloted by groundlings. The crew had been taken captive and either killed or forced to walk off the ship so it could be taken over. She never learned what became of her parents other than that, but Emray always hoped they’d chosen to walk.

After that she applied to the Tower, and her submission was readily accepted. She was a star pupil, one that the Tower would be proud to call their own. Her skill at arcane energy alignment and artificing was second to none in her entrance exam, and she was quickly placed on the fast track through the artificery course. She picked up evocation as her secondary since the two disciplines were so intrinsically linked, and a years worth of study combined with one stupid mistake led to where she was now.

As Emray turned the winding key on her small brass bird, she felt a few tears stream down her face. Nothing like that deluge that she had let loose the previous day in Irhüm’s office, but the kind that came from bitter nostalgia. Slowly the bird clicked and clinked to life on the rug, bobbing forward with precise hops.

Whether Elifas knew it or not, what she had said touched on a very powerful nerve in Emray’s heart. Perhaps she had overreacted with hitting her, but if her divination magic was so good then she should’ve been able to tell that what she was about to say would have dire consequences.

The devil-girl would be waking up soon enough, no doubt to get ready for the practicals at noon. The thought of Elifas being able to go forward after what her magic had put Emray through left a bitter pit in Emray’s gut. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair as far as she was concerned.

The bird wound down after half-a-minute’s worth of hopping around, and Emray carefully set it on her nightstand. The sun had been fully up for nearly two hours now, and the time spent working had finally given her the tiredness that she had missed from last night. She swiftly drew her curtains shut, shrouding the room in comforting darkness that would be perfect for getting some sorely needed rest in.