I reach out a hand, trying to calm the flames, to coax them into submission, but they don’t listen to me. Theyneverlisten to me. I’m just their conduit.
All I succeed in doing is sending out another burst of fire, and the other students working around this raised bed yelp and jump away, their frightened expressions painted in red and orange from my flickering flames.
Now the whole bed of exotic plants is burning.
“Professor!” someone yells. I don’t know who. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like our professorwasn’tgoing to notice. I’m never that lucky.
All I can do is watch as the flames demolish every living thing in their path. And it’s already too late when Alina sends a burst of frost dancing across my flames, smothering them in cold. She successfully puts out the fire—impressive, considering she struggles with her magic almost as much as I struggle with mine—but what’s left behind can’t be saved.
“Miss Wilder!” Professor Fleur whips around the end of the bed, a mixture of anger, horror, and grief twisting her delicate features. The other students step away from me, giving me a wide berth, like they’re afraid to be associated with the impulsive fire witch who leaves nothing but ash in her path.
I get it. I don’t want to be associated with me either.
Against my chest, tucked inside my white button-down, my spirit companion, Juniper, shifts, climbing up to peek over my collar to see what I’ve done.
At least she’s still here with me. No matter how many times I mess up, she’s still my friend. Her warm furry body gives me comfort, even if I’m still burning up from the sun and the stifling air and now my flames and the smoking remains of Professor Fleur’s pretty little flowers.
The professor whirls around to face me. Her dark cheeks flare with a touch of red, and her pale green eyes go misty. These flowers are her babies; I get it. So I also get it when she seethes, “Kindly take yourself to the headmistress’s office.Now.”
Over the professor’s shoulder, Alina frowns, her forehead furrowed.
“Sorry,” she mouths at me.
But this isn’t her fault. It’s mine. Like always.
I grab my academy robe—trimmed in yellow now that I’m a second-year—and stride from the greenhouse amidst stares and whispers from my fellow classmates. It makes my skin crawl, and I resist the urge to scrunch my shoulders up to my ears in shame, opting instead to lift my chin and stalk past them as if their words and sharp expressions don’t leave wounds in their wake.
Shoving the door to the greenhouse open, I’m greeted by a chill breeze, and it immediately cools the sweat snaking down my back. Raelan looks down at me, one brow arched quizzically.
“Don’t ask,” I snap.
His expression doesn’t change. “Okay, I won’t.”
Now that he and Alina aretogethertogether—as in she wears his shifter claiming mark like her most prized diamond necklace and told us that she’s going tomarryhim once we graduate—Raelan has become a lot more talkative, and he’s not nearly so cold and stoic. He’s actuallyfunto be around... sometimes. But I don’t feel like talking right now, even to him.
I start across the exterior gardens, and Raelan calls out, “You’ve got some dirt on your face.”
With a grumble, I angrily reach up to scrub it away with the heel of my palm. At the same time, Juniper wriggles around and climbs up onto my shoulder, where she hides herself beneath my messy curls.
“Are you okay?” she asks. If anyone else were to hear her, they’d just hear little rat chirps and chattering. Witches can communicate with their own spirit companions, but not with anyone else’s.
“I’m fine.” My loafers strike the stone as I ascend the stairs to the side entrance into Coven Crest Academy. Another witch—a first-year, judging by her blue-trimmed robe—is just exiting the building and squeaks in surprise as I shoulder past her and into the cool hallways of the academy.
“You’re not,” Juniper says. She knows me too well to be so easily tricked.
But I’m not in the mood to talk about it.
Though I’m pretty sure Headmistress Moonhart isn’t going to give me the option to say no.
THIS ISN’T MY FIRST TIME in the headmistress’s office. It’s not even my second. Last time I was in here, it was for very nearly burning the library down. That was a close call. My nerves still spike when I think of how close I came to destroying everything.
Headmistress Moonhart sits at her wide mahogany desk, a thin pair of spectacles perched upon her nose. She draws aquill across a piece of parchment, the scratch of the sharp tip meeting with the ticking of the clock standing atop the mantel and the low crackle of flames from the hearth. The big windows let in bright yellow-gold sunlight, and leaves twirl past the glass, caught in an autumn breeze. A thin strand of smoke twines from a lit stick of sage sitting on the desk.
Seated in a chair across the desk from the headmistress, I knot my fingers in my lap and try not to let my leg bounce like crazy. Juniper shifts inside the pocket of my robe, which I’m now wearing despite the warmth in the office. Thought it would better my chances if I at least tried to make myself look presentable, though I can feel how frizzy my curly hair is from the mugginess in the greenhouse. Nothing to be done about it now.
With a quick flourish, the headmistress signs her name on the parchment, then gives it a moment to dry before folding it up and sealing it with purple wax. She holds the letter up, and the great horned owl who was resting on a perch near the windows swoops over and snatches the letter from her fingers.
“Thank you, Barron.” The headmistress twirls her fingers, and the door to her office opens with a brush of air magic.
