The next morning, the four students gather in Ishaza’s office, sitting cross-legged around her circur table.

  “All of you are ready to be kindled,” Ishaza says. Her tail is curled into her p, resting in her left hand. “As such, it is my duty to once again impress upon you the facts. Kindling is not for the faint of heart. Even among competent trainees with good control, three out of every hundred aspirants are reduced to an animalistic mindset by the process, so out of control that the Courtesan’s Guild is obliged to pce them within Bckstone Sanctum for their own protection, or even, in rare cases, kill them so that they do not become a danger to the kingdom itself.”

  Camellia swallows at Ishaza’s procmation, and Ember reaches out and takes her hand.

  Ishaza continues uninterrupted. “Kindling wreaks havoc on the body, mind and soul. It massively intensifies the emotions and libido, causes intense emotional swings, strengthens every sense, grants new senses that are entirely alien to the unkindled, transforms the body to be more like the aspirant’s true self-image, and on top of all that grants instinctive control over fire.”

  Yeah, Ember thinks, squeezing Camellia’s hand. That’s… a lot. Even before the immortality part.

  Ishaza runs her thumb along the tip of her arrowhead tail. “You may physically transform into an animal or a mythological creature, or even something entirely out of your own imaginings. You may lose access to emotions or gain access to new ones. You may develop fixations, obsessions, or kinks that you do not endorse. You may become permanently happy or permanently aroused, regardless of circumstances. You may develop symptoms or manifestations of your power that even I have not seen before and cannot aid you directly with.”

  Is it fear that makes her fidget with her tail? No, it couldn’t be…

  “No one goes unmarked by the process. You will be transformed. If you are careful and maintain control, it will be for the better. If you ck control, it may well be for the worse.” Ishaza meets each student’s gaze in turn. “Think carefully on whether you wish to proceed from here. There is no unkindling once you have kindled.”

  She gestures with her free hand, a slow curved motion. “As to the actual process, it is a simple touch. One soul igniting another. The immediate symptoms are intense lust, confusion, and accidental working of magic. As such, your kindlings will take pce in a stone room set aside for the purpose, locked with a keyed ward only trained Courtesans can lift. Most candidates are not able to retain their faculties through the process, and require a Courtesan to perform a guiding and crifying technique that requires physical penetration of the sex with the fingers. By proceeding you assent that this technique may be used on you, if it proves necessary. It is better to retain control if you can, but few aspirants manage it.”

  Ishaza looks around the table. “Any questions?”

  The four students look at each other, then back at Ishaza.

  Ember speaks. “None, Courtesan.”

  “Very well. Take the day to consider your answer: those who wish to kindle will do so tomorrow morning. You are dismissed.”

  The students look at each other, and clear the room.

  ~*~

  “Sho,” Ember says a few hours ter, a piece of bckberry pie half-stuffed in her mouth. She chews, swallows. “What do you girls think about what Ishaza said this morning?”

  Camellia looks back at her from the other side of the table: for this trip into town she’s wearing a soft beige sweater and a pair of simple trousers, along with her usual hoop earrings. “Sobering,” she says. “But it’s not anything the three of us haven’t heard a dozen times before. I’m willing to risk that three percent chance.”

  Fianna nods, her crisp white shirt just as formal as when she was back at school. For the sake of not being identified as a student, she’s traded her uniform skirt for a pin bck one. “I need the guild,” she says. “I’m not going to give up my shot just because it’s difficult.”

  Maeve nods as well. She’s wearing a deep green blouse with a pattern of leaves on it. She keeps her voice low, so it won’t be overheard. “I mean, it’s a three percent chance of insanity against a ninety-seven percent chance of immortality. You’d have to be crazy to give up those odds. Old age gets everyone in the end… except Courtesans.” She shakes her head. “Better to try and fail than wither away into obscurity.”

  “It’s maybe not the three percent chance I’m worried about,” Ember says after a long moment. “It’s the… fact it marks everyone. I mean, you all know how I started out as a boy, and… making the social transition from man to woman was hard enough, you know? What happens if I end up with horns, like Ishaza has? A tail? Turn into a bird? There’s a lot of space for things to go wrong that isn’t ‘permanent insanity’ but still would… seriously impact your life.”

  That makes the whole table go quiet.

  “Yeah,” Maeve says. She adjusts the temple of her gsses and takes a long breath. “I didn’t want to say it, but… The st thing I’d want is to become happy regardless of what happens. It’s like being drugged forever. Increased libido I could maybe manage, or a change of body, but the possible emotional changes scare me.”

  “I definitely wouldn’t want to become some kind of animal,” Fianna says. “I like having hands. And it’s kind of necessary to be able to fit in buildings if you want to run a business. I think being happy all the time wouldn’t be so bad; it’s the physical changes that get me.”

  Camellia tilts her head to the side. “Yeah, but Ishaza’s seen all that before. She knows how to handle those situations. I think I could manage most things… It’s stumbling into some area that Ishaza herself doesn’t know how to handle that really scares me.”

  The four girls pick at their pie slices for a moment, none of them really saying anything.

  “... It’s not like it’s going to be that bad for everyone, though, right?” Ember forces a smile. “Camellia, you’re really good at control drills. You’ve got the skill to manage it. And Maeve, you’re the one who taught me how to not rationalize. And Fianna, you’re very practical and thoughtful. I just can’t see all of you… losing big pieces of yourselves. You’d fight, and you’d win. I know you all well enough to see that.”

  Camellia nods. “Yeah. Ishaza says we’re ready. We’ll change, but… We’ve got this. Together.”

  “Together,” Maeve echoes. She raises her gss of milk. “The four of us.”

  Ember nods and raises her gss. “The four of us.”

  Camellia raises her gss as well. “The four of us.”

  Fianna clinks her gss against each of the other three students’ gsses. “The four of us. May we kindle well.”

  Ember smiles. “See you all in the morning?”

  Everyone nods back, almost as one.