Later, Quarl Billiams would be the best witness. He was not the one person in best position, but he was used to thinking quickly under duress and noticing details during a crisis.

  He told me about how he was six bodies back from me when I stepped out into the muted starlight and then six explosions ripped through the air, bursting giant slabs of marble like they were children's blocks. Josse was only two arm's-lengths away from me, but we never saw each other. Nathan was safely back in the hallway, out of the line of fire. Skeici Gianwen was even further back, making her usual puppy-dog eyes at Nathan's back.

  The sound from above was point-blank thunder as the ceiling collapsed at us. Twenty feet up, a hundred tons of engraved marble fell straight at a dozen students who barely had time to scream.

  I was already staring up as if I had expected this. The lightning infusing me reacted fast, but not fast enough to save me and anyone else. And instead of choosing between saving myself and saving everyone else, I did something risky.

  The ground underneath my feet ruptured instantly, dagger-sharp marble chunks flung up at angles. My feet drove down into them while my hands flung upwards. My fingers spread out as if they were going to grab all the falling ceiling and hold them up away from everyone. And that's what they did. I sprang up twenty feet tall and then more, my reaching limbs flung up to hit the falling stone and even as they started to bend back under that weight, my body thickened and strengthened to compensate. I was eight feet across, and the sudden growth was enough to bludgeon aside two students that were shoulder-to-shoulder with me. My trunk, brown and gnarled, cast them aside to make room for my expansion.

  Brown spreading limbs, forked and strong, spread fast in a wide arc to intercept every boulder and thrust them back up, pitting my strength against their mass and winning. I was shedding green from my tortured fingers but I smashed my palms up against the awning, holding them up and using sheer force to seal them up and away. Only small rocks would trickle down out of my canopy to fall among the screaming students below. Nearly everyone was thrown from their feet, those who were not shouldered aside lost their balance when the whole marble stoop cracked in half down the middle underneath me. My taproot drilled straight through all that stone to dig into the bare poor dirt beneath, but I had my foundations and my support.

  The bark of my bole was hearty brown and creviced like old growth, and a vast spread of sun-seeking branches were instead supporting a fallen ceiling like Atlas beneath the Earth. A tattered, shattered dress was dangling from a high branch, and a smattering of silver combs were mixed into the pulverized marble.

  "Run run run go go go!" someone was yelling. Nathan was pulling people back from the door, evacuating the area. Screams bombarded the area, and groaning stone laid a rumble underneath the voices. The weight shifted above, limbs sagging. Some people were frozen, panic locking them in place, everything happening too fast. Helpful bystanders grabbed them and pushed or pulled, getting them out of the danger. The crowd backpedaled away from the front doors, and people fled out onto the quad or back into the building.

  Yelling, then. Questions, orders, directions, some nonsensical. Quarl told me that he mostly stood back out of the way and watched what was happening. Nobody knew what to do, or where to go. Nobody in Hearstwhile teaches earthquake safety procedures. Nobody here knew about standing in doorways or anything like that. Some people were climbing out of windows to get away from the building, others running to the back to leave by the service doors. Some were running back up the steps because I guess they figured that if the ceilings were caving in the safest place is to be on top of those ceilings?

  There were people running from nearby buildings, mostly yelling but it all ran together. Marble and plaster dust sifted downward after a long stone-deep groan echoed through the building. There was a shudder and I listed slightly to the side, a crack echoed around as either a root or a branch gave way under pressure.

  "I'll help!" yelled a wizard from Vancy's homeroom, and he formed his spells, aimed right here, to give aid and strength to plants. All over campus grass burst up from golf-course perfection to a shoulder-height wildland. Trees gained decades of growth in seconds. And I straightened back up, recovering from my injuries, shouldering under the massive weight above me.

  My limbs were spread wide like a net or a basket, crisscrossing to support all that cold heavy stone. Two main limbs branched from shoulders, crooked slightly, reaching straight up to shove the portico back into place. Branches like a hundred spreading, overlapping fingers pressed upwards. Leaves were compressed against it, and tiny movements of the wood or the stone would strip the leaves away in a constant pattering rain of green.

  Quarl waited until the evacuation was mostly done, and he listened in as others made their way out. Two girls that had run upstairs were hobbling back down after a while, one of them sobbing and just repeated "her face" over and over.

  When I turned myself to oak, I did not take the time to fully form a tree. The main branches were my two arms, reaching. There were shapes in the root system that showed where my feet had been placed. But the top of the trunk where the limbs divided was where I needed the least strength of the oak, and where most of my identity remained. My face, grown from oak, carved in bark and wood, staring up at the stone I was holding up. My expression at that precise moment was frozen into the growth of the tree.

  Over the next hour the school's groundskeepers brought in heavy wooden timbers to wedge in and help reinforce me, holding up part of the roof. All the students were evacuated and moved to other buildings, and classes resumed somewhat, though nobody could really put in full effort when there were rumors that one of the buildings had collapsed and that one of the students had turned into a tree.

  Quarl was amused by the people who thought that my transformation had broken the building's foundations and caused the collapse.

  There was no other sorcerer on campus that could work in marble, and marble does not answer to stone essence. It's very haughty like that. Someone had to be contracted in and brought onto the campus, and they spent hours building up the remaining pillars, removing the top awning by a couple tons at a time. She would carve away a part of the marble that was best supported and structurally sound, and move it to the ground, and when she had enough she started replacing the broken pillars to add support from underneath. She fused together the broken pieces in my branches so they would not fall, and then started bringing that down safely, starting from the top.

  It took her hours to bring down the roof in a controlled manner, without triggering a collapse. She parted the foundation beneath me to give me more access to soil.

  Messages were sent to find a sorcerer that had affinity to oak. Not surprisingly none were here in Hearstcliff- oaks are not native to this area and anyone with an affinity would move to where the oak trees were.

  Nathan spent the remainder of his day researching the Blight, and worrying about me. After all, he had just watched his sister lose herself again. He had spent years hearing about sorcery, because frequently I would not shut up about it. And he had seen, more than once, that sorcery has a price. When you push too hard, when you try too much, it can take you from yourself. And of the four spells of sorcery, the most dangerous is transformation of the self- replacing one's essence with another element.

  More powerful and practiced sorcerers than I am, had lost themselves forever by transforming. Especially if they were unprepared. And especially if they had a high affinity.

  For sorcerers, there's a certain 'sweet spot' for conversion. Enough affinity to muster the power, but not so much that it overwrites your humanity. Too little and it's impossible, too much and it's too dangerous. And affinities can change, just because it has been safe in the past does not mean it will be safe in the future.

  Years ago, I almost turned myself into a tree by curving essence of oak. This was so, so much worse.

  Magister Braux sent an intern out to Nathan to try to soothe his worries. The school was trying to find a sorcerer that could show affinity to oak, and if they could bring one in then perhaps that sorcerer could reach me, could find my essence inside and help me reverse the change. If the sorcerer could be found. If they could make it here in time. Nobody was sure where to find someone like that, there's no central directory of sorcerers, no depository of information.

  After all, we don't have a guild.

  By the dinner bells, I had my branches clear and my leaves were slowly unkinking and straightening out. Eulogies and memorials were written. Flowers and candles were set out near my roots. All around the campus, conversation was hushed and tense. and wary looks were cast towards the closed-off front of the building, the disassembled veranda and toppled columns. Towards the new tree that had been a princess.

  Quarl had to tell me about all of this after the fact because I was only vaguely aware of it. The awareness of a tree is different. It's vibrations and scents, nothing like being human. I felt like a city, sap running up and down a flow of traffic and highways. I felt like a tuning fork, connected by vibrations to others like myself. I felt like a hound, sifting the air for signals and signs. I felt myself swell or recede, the pressure of wind against me, the warmth and scurry of things that moved darkly in my senses.

  The day passed slowly, I had so much to do. I had dirt to sift, moisture to strain. I had traffic to conduct and supplies to stockpile. The light was wrong but it was enough, I could tell it was not what I was made for but it was doing the same job anyway. I stayed hard at work, and gradually became aware that weight was lifting off of me, that my burden was released. I eased up, tired fibers easing up into a more comfortable position.

  And at a certain bell, the light changed, it grew thinner and weaker, and it told me that the time had come to sleep. I relaxed, and put away the work of the day. And with sleep came a dream.

  And as I sifted out from my mind and my body, I looked around at the world from a new vantage point. And once again:

  The fuck was that?!

  I gaped around. I was a tree. Transformed. Mind and body, my essence replaced. But even replaced, I was still Untethered.

  I shaped myself, and formed the gestures. I formed the spell I needed, converting the essence of oak.

  And I transformed back. My feet hit the cold, slanted marble, tiny broken pebbles under my feet dug into the soles and toes. I gasped, breathing hard, my hair was all in my face. Half my dress was dangling off of one wrist, and I grabbed it with both hands and wrapped it around myself. "What the fuck!?" I blurted.

  The campus security guard that was watching over me stared in abject shock. I was covered in plaster dust, and a small patter of marble stones were still raining down onto the ground around me.

  "Shit," I said, and conjured linen, wrapping myself more thoroughly in a swaddling cloak. "Oh, that... that..."

  "Miss?" the watchman said hesitantly, taking a step towards me. "Er, my lady?"

  I looked at him with wild eyes. "I have had the weirdest day," I told him. And then I turned, and hurried away. There was still a deep hole in the ground where my taproots had forced themselves down.

  And a moment later I stepped into a flash of white light and was gone from his sight.

  In a rare display of thoughtfulness to my roommate, I did not reappear inside the room, but out in the hallway. I unlocked the door with essence of brass and let myself in. My thoughtfulness was limited however because I did not think to identify myself right away, I just walked in through a locked door as if that was okay. She, naturally, immediately began screaming her head off.

  "Hey! Hey! Chill out, uh, take it easy, it's just me!" I said, tapping the candle nearest the door to turn it on. "See? Just me!"

  "Y-you died!"

  "Nope! Not a ghost! Just me," I said, holding up my hands to console her, show that I'm not dangerous. She sat up in her bed, clutching her blankets around her chin, eyes perfectly round and huge with shock.

  "But... they said you were stuck like that! That sorcerers who lose control of a transformation can never change back!"

  I leaned against a wall. "Yeah, hah ha, I'm still coming to terms with that myself. Uh, I think I'm an exception?" I looked around the room. Her area rug was set out in the middle of the floor now, and all my things were shoved against one wall.

  Not even a full day?!!

  And then someone was banging on the door right at my back and tugging the handle. I had not relocked it, so it flew open, right behind me.

  "You're alive!" Vancy yelled, and hugged me from behind. Shouts rang up and down the hallways, my name a hundred times in a hundred mouths.

  Obviously I did not get to sleep at a reasonable time that night. After there was a giant uproar in my dorm building, then the campus security and faculty advisers had to come running. Dean Krasp showed up in her nightgown and bathrobe with her hair in curlers. I had to sit in the dorm commons and swear out a statement while a constant stream of onlookers peered around corners to see me. Plenty of them also ran out into the night to go find the spot I'd been standing all day, apparently there was quite some destruction there.

  Someone from the magic department had to come around and take a lot of readings, and then someone from Developing Theories came around to try to test some new magic-measuring device that did not work even a little bit.

  I had to tell my story in about six different ways, even though most of it was very short and to-the-point. I walked out, explosions, roof collapse, tree.

  "Why did the pillars explode?"

  "I dunno, maybe they just did that."

  "Why a tree?"

  "It's the only thing in my repertoire that is big enough, strong enough, and steady enough to do the job."

  "Couldn't you just vanish?"

  "Yes, but only me."

  "Did you know you were going to be able to come back?"

  "I sure hoped I could."

  "How did you realize you could do this before the collapse?"

  "All right, but promise not to laugh."

  And then I told them that I'm using a one-of-a-kind essence affinity for one of the most terrifying forces, so that I can accelerate my thinking while I have conversations with my brother so that I can be witty, thoughtful and wise without looking like I'm trying too hard. When the faculty and guards all understood this, they stared at me in numb dumb shock.

  "What?" I said, defensive now. "If you could have extra time to think during conversations, you'd do it too!"

  Krasp was staring, a marveling smile hanging half-off her face. "The power of lightning just to make a good impression in a very normal friendly conversation?"

  "Ma'am, drop by Developing Theories some time. We're learning how to use the power of lightning to sweep a floor and toast bread."

  "And you had this ability active when the explosion?...."

  "Oh, yes. And that was why I had enough time to cast a spell. Ordinarily that would have killed me stone dead," I said, with a bright smile. "By the way, on that subject, do we have any way to know who the fuck has tried twice to kill me on the school grounds!?"

  She looked pained. "We do not. Nobody was watching for this, it was a surprise to us all.. and any evidence that would have been left behind was destroyed when the groundskeepers and that sorceress were trying to stabilize you and the building."

  I took a deep breath, and let it out. I glanced around at the investigators, guards, wardens, sentries, detectives, functionaries and fussbuckets that were crowding this space. "Could we have the room?" I asked with a particular tone. They taught me this tone so I can say something that is technically a question but without making it a question.

  Everyone trooped out, leaving the dean and I alone in the commons. Instead all these people put themselves to work getting all the giddy teenagers back to their dorm rooms and out of the way.

  "Dean Krasp, you're aware of my background and my history?"

  "Safe to say," she said cautiously. Even cagily.

  "And you recall that historically, I do not respond well to attacks against me and my family? Especially in locations I am meant to feel safe? That, in fact, I am well known across every duchy for how ruthless and unchecked my actions are under those conditions?"

  "I do see what you are knocking at, Lady Harigold, but I must say that sympathizing with your plight does not lead to me condoning any sort of violent response, especially if we cannot ascertain that any injured parties or casualties are actually at fault for your circumstances." She was speaking very carefully, and I could see the House Skyback influences now. She was not in any way discouraging me from a warpath, she was just distancing herself from fallout.

  I scowled into the middle distance. "Perhaps, instead of funerals and fatalities, we could just discuss some leniency. For example, if I do a commendable job of not killing nearly as many people as last time, we can discuss some clemency for the rules and statutes I'm about to slaughter in their multitudes."

  She almost snickered. "Why that would show great growth and maturity on your part, Lady Harigold."

  "Especially since I've almost died twice here in the past two weeks and no authorities at all seem to be any closer to finding an answer?"

  She considered her answer. "The disciplinary committee and injunction board do not have any equivalent to the Vendetta Defense, Lady Harigold. But I'm sure they could see their way to understanding your position, for purposes of avoiding an embarrassing incident. It would not do for the Academy of Hearstcliff to become known for not being able to keep its students safe."

  "I think I shall retire to my quarters now. Could you have a messenger go knock on my brother's door and tell him that I am alive and recovered? It would likely help him sleep."

  I walked up to my bedroom. And in my own defense, I'm going to point out that I'm not being unreasonable. I would be well within my rights to react very violently to this. And most anyone would understand, surely, if I were to start murdering my way down a suspects list until I felt better about myself. But I'm not lashing out from fear or from anger. I would be very willing to forgive and forget. But if I allow people to attempt to murder me, it just encourages everyone else down the line who might be inclined to try to murder me. And there's likely to be a lot of them. And furthermore- I need to live through this. I have to help Nathan. I have to save the world. There is every life in this whole world counting on me, whether they know it or not.

  When I got to my room, the lights were still on, and Elica and Vancy were sitting up fully dressed. Larianne was reclining on the sofa with a sleep-mask blindfold on, and she sat up when I opened the door and pushed the mask up on her forehead.

  "Hey," I said. "Sorry, I didn't think they'd keep me so late."

  "Are you all right?" Vancy squeaked, hands knitted together.

  Hmm. Most of my things have been put back in their place. That's sweet of them.

  "I'm mostly all right," I said. "Turns out, it's a lot easier for me to transform myself than I thought."

  "Is that good news?" Elica said, rubbing at her upper arms.

  I grinned so hard. "This is going to be a huge power boost for me. It's not going to be the end of all my problems, and even with this new information this is not something I should do lightly... but this is something I've wanted for a long time. And now it's here and it's going to be so much safer and so much easier than I thought it would ever be."

  "Swell," Larianne said. "You're not dead, you're not injured, and you're even better than before. So, I can go sleep in my bed now?"

  Vancy looked guilty, ducked her head. "Sorry. Yeah. Let's get out of here. Good night! See you both in the morning!"

  They left, and I locked it behind them. Elica was still staring straight at me. I started back. "What?"

  "I was so sure I was going to have a room to myself," she said, all but heartbroken.