At breakfast Astrid was eager to start studying the artifact, and Esmeralda was eager to get the day over with. She was needed at the academy in Rask, teaching students how to fight.

Astrid pat her head tenderly before she left. “There, there. It’ll be over before you know it. And then you can come back here and listen to me talk all about what I’ve figured out.”

With a smile and a kiss Esmeralda swept out into the chilly autumn air. The sky was uniform gray and she sighed as she kicked her motorcycle into gear, frowning under her scarf. A fall chill had fully gripped the hills that morning; Esmeralda felt constricted by it. As she rode she looked ruefully at the Al-Rahba, its sapphire surface robbed of brilliance by the clouds overhead, its surface roiling with cool anger.

Even among the roughshod buildings of the old port, Rask’s academy was especially ugly, and Esmeralda hated spending half her week there. Cut off from the rest of town by walls, its outside was mostly plaster of a stained and sickly eggshell colour, and it had been visibly beaten up in many places. The architecture was jagged and boxy, and a pair of large, crumbling stone stags loomed menacingly on either side of the entrance, faces twisted in vicious anger. Inside the building was mostly a series of empty rooms for practicing combat magic, but on many of its walls hung the black-and-gold flags and decorations that reminded Esmeralda of the capital. She did her best to ignore them.

Esmeralda had no desire to teach anyone how to fight, but this was the only work in a backwater village that suited her. She strode into the building with a scowl, smoothing down her windswept hair and tying it back into a ponytail that hung heavily down her body. She passed by several other teachers on her way to the classroom, greeting no one.

Esmeralda’s specialty was magic-in-place, things that took time and focus to channel and use correctly - like the cleansing charm she had used on the artifact - and which she almost never got to show her students. But she could sling spells, too, nasty ones cooked up by mages of the past to hurt, maim, kill, burn, destroy.

Esmeralda abhorred fighting, but she was one of the most capable instructors Rask had, if not its most engaged. She taught older students, teenagers and young adults, many of whom would soon leave Rask to join the military in the capital. Others would stay in town and volunteer for the militia, and an unknown few would follow some yet unseen path - banditry or private employment, usually.

As she looked out amongst them now, Esmeralda hated to think of the lives of violence many of these children were marching into, and it weighed on her anytime she stood within these walls. But the school provided the food she and Astrid ate, and for as much as she hated violence she was good at it; if these students had to learn from someone, there wasn’t anyone in Rask who could throw a bigger punch than Esmeralda.

Though she held back when sparring them, occasionally one of her students surprised her, with strength or ingenuity or some other intangible quality that can’t be taught but can save one’s life in a fight, and Esmeralda would need to reach a little deeper into her bag of tricks and offer them a taste of actual power, the kind built only on ferocity, nothing more, only as controlled as its wielder is skilled, just as frightening to wield as face.

Esmeralda could lose herself easily in a fight, decisions flowing out of her with grace and inspiration, as natural as breathing. It felt good, and she was ashamed and frightened of it. She sought the same fulfillment from her solitary performances in her and Astrid’s bedroom, her dances of peace where the lulled around her gently. Here, it lashed out, whipping around her in ferocious surges.

Sluggish from poor sleep and the autumn cold settling in her bones, Esmeralda autopiloted her way through her class, mostly allowing her group of 13 free time to practice amongst themselves; if her students needed help, they could ask for it. Esmeralda stood off to the side, consumed in her thoughts.

Her students rarely needed anything from her once she’d shown them something enough; mostly they worked with lower magic, spells that were impactful and dangerous but not overly technical or demanding. They could learn heavier stuff later, somewhere else; Esmeralda had no desire to reveal the depths of the hideous power magic afforded them access to. She would keep that secret to herself.

By mid-afternoon her time with the students was up and she left the academy much as she entered it, lips curled in a frown, hard scarlet eyes fixed forward.

A chill still bit the air, but the afternoon sun was warm on Esmeralda’s face. She swung her leg over her bike and started it, bursting forth from the academy grounds with the wind roaring in her ears. She imagined it cleansing her as she rode away from the crumbling shantytown and toward the lighthouse she knew waited in the distance.

Esmeralda arrived home to Astrid sitting in front of a stack of books. Eager for a break, she helped Esmeralda prepare their supper, which they ate sitting on the balcony outside their bedroom. As they did so Astrid was quick to discuss the artifact.

“I haven’t been able to find a single thing about a device like that, even in the big reference books I have.” Her wavy hair shone gold in the setting sun as she shook her head. “Nothing even close. And we still have no idea what it even does.”

The women sat quietly as the setting sun filled the air around them. Esmeralda’s mind wandered, foggy, until Astrid broke the silence.

“Es, do you want to go for a ride?”

Jolted out of her trance Esmeralda turned to see Astrid smiling mischievously.

“I’m sick of staring at words. It’s not bad out. Let’s go somewhere.”

Esmeralda needed no convincing; the suggestion felt like it lifted a weight off her chest. She smiled. “The Hakala girl’s tired of reading! Hell must’ve gone and frozen over.”

Astrid laughed. “Oh, shush! Go get our coats if we’re riding, it’s chilly.”

The bike jackhammered over the shattered highway as Esmeralda tore south, away from Rask, the twilight sun illuminating the road before them with an angelic glow. Astrid clung to her in a bear hug as she deftly maneuvered around the cliffside.

The women rode until the highway began to trail away from the sea, at which point they pulled over and sat arm-in-arm at the edge of the bluffs, feet sticking out over the waves below. As the cool blue of dusk settled in around them Esmeralda thought of a recent night quite similar to this one, when in front of the Al-Rahba Astrid had nestled up beside her and with glittering eyes whispered sweet things to her.

“You know,” she’d murmured, “I’ve been thinking - Astrid Hakala-Vicario has a nice ring to it.”

And as it had then, it made Esmeralda smile now, and she turned to Astrid and gave her a peck on the cheek.

The women held each other and talked as the cloak of night thickened and the wind’s bite grew savage, pushing them ever closer together. Esmeralda’s eyes wandered over the scene before her, drinking it in greedily; she imagined herself out amongst the waves, gliding along the surface of the water, forging bravely ahead into the mysterious horizon where nothing ever went or came.

“You were so broody before.” Astrid spoke in a sleepy singsong, looking up at Esmeralda. “I was wondering what was wrong.”

“I had the academy today. And I didn’t sleep well last night. It wasn’t fun.”

“I know, I know.” Astrid smiled, a little sadly. “But I worry about you. You always try to do everything on your own.”

“Not this.” With her arms clasped firmly around Astrid, Esmeralda leaned down and kissed her; they lingered together for a long moment. When she pulled away Astrid cupped a hand around her face and their eyes met; Astrid didn’t speak, but Esmeralda felt she understood what she was saying.

When the cold finally chased them back home the half moon’s gentle glow watched over them as they rode. Thanking it as they arrived home, the witches went straight to bed, wrapping themselves tightly in blankets and one another, the lunar glow of the sea splayed out before them.