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ascend in slow circles above the meadow, until it disappeared across the sky. It headed south, to somewhere far from Quin’s life, Edinburgh, perhaps, or London, or somewhere even farther away. Perhaps she would be going to those places soon too. Once she had gone
There
, she might go anywhere. And then the world would be open to her and she would be a player on its enormous stage, fulfilling her destiny.
    She walked toward the woods, thinking she’d meet up with John again, tell him she’d learned nothing about the visitor to the estate. Halfway across the commons, she saw him. John and Briac were walking together. Briac’s hand was on John’s shoulder, and John’s face was turned toward the ground. She could almost feel the heaviness of John’s steps, as though her father were leading him to his execution.
    I know he won’t do the wrong thing, John
, she thought.
You’ll stay on the estate and finish your training. Everything will be all right
.
    It was the last time she would ever think so.

CHAPTER 4

J OHN
    Briac’s hand was resting on John’s shoulder as they walked along the commons. This made John uneasy. It was like having a battle-axe resting on your shoulder, just as hard and unforgiving. They’d been walking in silence, but eventually John couldn’t tolerate the quiet anymore.
    “I failed my mental control,” he said. “I won’t deny it. But it’s only when you have the disruptor—”
    Briac snorted, cutting him off, then walked a full twenty paces in silence. John was trying to decide whether he should simply repeat what he had said or come up with something new, when he felt Briac’s hand squeeze harder on his shoulder. A pair of metal pincers would have been more comfortable.
    “You’ve always thought this was owed to you, John Hart,” Briac told him. His voice was soft, which was frightening. Nothing about Briac was naturally soft.
    “My training
was
—”
    “Not just your training,” Briac interrupted, his voice dropping even lower, and his hand twisting into the flesh at John’s shoulder.“All this.” He made a short gesture with his free hand, which seemed meant to encompass the whole of the two-thousand-acre estate around them.
    “I have never wanted your land, sir.” John kept his voice steady, but he could feel anger rising from the pit of his stomach. He worked hard every day to stay friendly around Briac, but it wasn’t easy.
    “Really?” Briac asked. “And you’ve made my daughter love you for pure and unselfish reasons?”
    “Maybe she just loves me,” John snapped. Quin’s love was the one absolutely true thing in his life, and Briac had no right to take that from him.
    Briac’s fingers were digging into John’s neck, but John refused to pull away. With Quin’s father, fighting back only made the punishment worse and John’s goals harder to reach.
When I get back what was taken, I will not be at your mercy anymore, Briac. And neither will Quin
.
    “She doesn’t belong to you, John.”
    “She doesn’t belong to you either, sir.”
    Briac shoved John ahead of him, releasing his grip.
    “It all belongs to me,” he responded. “Haven’t you realized that by now?”
    They were walking near the edge of the woods on the river side of the commons. The sun had just dipped behind the hills, leaving the estate in twilight. To John’s left, between the meadow and the distant river, lay a broad strip of forest. And at the edge, almost touching the meadow, were the three cottages of the Dreads. In all his years on the estate, they had lain empty, until the arrival of the Young and Big Dreads a few months ago. The third cottage was as dark as it had always been. John wondered if there was a third Dread somewhere, waiting.
    The whole estate was much emptier now than it had been in yearspast. He’d heard from his own mother about there being several apprentices in training when she was a girl. And further back than her time, there had been dozens, filling the