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death cancels all debts.”
    “You don’t have to die today. I can tell you how to beat that curse. That’s how I aim to pay my debt.” She took a step forward, determination giving her courage.
    Harric suppressed a roll of his eyes. “Another surefire cure for curses? Look, I’ve seen her victims try a few dozen of those, and they don’t even delay their deaths. So, thank you, but if you don’t mind…” He gestured to the door to usher her out, but she stamped her foot, making a surprisingly loud bang. Her eyes blazed, wilting any remaining fear in them.
    “Look, Lyla—”
    “You better listen or you’re gonna be dead by sunset. You survived that fog, didn’t you? Her doom didn’t claim you. Why do you think that is?”
    “The doom has till sunset.”
    She put her hands on her hips as if addressing a dense or stubborn child. “And this crawly talky fog was just normal weather around came here? That doom came for you this morning, but you survived, and I know why.”
    Harric blinked. “So do I: because Caris intervened.”
    “Hah! You Northies wouldn’t know magic if it fell from the sky and hit you. Answer me this: all them other cursed boys had friends to help them. Mother Ganner told me all about it. But did any of them survive the fog?”
    Harric frowned. She had a point. The fog had come for Davos on the foretold day that spring, and Davos had a hired company of bodyguards to protect him; the fog slipped right past and did its work all the same. Gravin’s day came shortly after, and he encircled his cabin with a posse of witch hunters, who by morning lay strangled or decapitated with Gravin. Why had Harric alone survived?
    Lyla stepped toward him, eyes bright and earnest. “It was the power of your nineteenth Naming Day, Master Harric. That’s what I’m here to show you. You know about the Naming Day? You know about the Proof?”
    Harric grimaced. “The apprentice proof? Some kind of West Isle superstition?”
    She glared. “That superstition just saved your life, and it’ll keep you alive past sunset if you make your Proof today.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I’m here to explain it, ain’t I? The nineteenth Naming Day is called the Day of Proof because it’s the day a prentice proves he’s a master by doing something only a master can do. Once he proves that, he’s free, and his master has no power over him. See?”
    “Yes, it works that way here, too. But how does that apply to me? I’m not an apprentice anymore. I quit two years before my training was complete, when Mother’s madness got so—” His voice hitched. He swallowed and shrugged. “She chose this day for my doom because it’s the day I would have completed her training. Her way of saying I brought it on myself.”
    “You can’t quit what you already learned. You still know what she taught you, so you can still Prove it.” She studied Harric from the corners of her eyes. “I asked Mother Ganner if your mama prenticed you as a witch, but she said your mama was never a witch. Said she was a lady of the court who went mad from visions of the future, but that your mama taught you how to be a courtier. Did I learn that right?”
    Harric smiled. “As far as it goes.”
    She nodded. “All right then, for your Proof you have to pick a courtly art of hers—something only a master could do—and show you can perform it like a master. When you do that, you break her power over you. See?”
    “And this ‘Proof,’ if I perform it, will somehow break my mother’s curse, too?”
    “Stop smiling at me like I’m some tickle-brained peasant. The curse is part of her power, ain’t it? So, promise.”
    An ember of hope sparked in Harric. Break her curse and live? Live to see the sunrise again? Embrace Caris? Dream—
    No. He snuffed it savagely. Her dooms always come true . Hope would only make him pathetic, scrambling after every witch charm and counter potion.
    But the ember wouldn’t snuff. It grew. He couldn’t