When I close the door behind me, they all glance in my direction.
“She lives,” Maeve says dryly. Her eyes narrow a bit as I pull off my muddy boots and deposit them beside the door. “Does the academy offer mud baths that I’m unaware of? Because that would be amazing.”
I roll my eyes. “I slipped and fell. Made quite a scene.”
Poppy pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Are you all right?”
“Mostly. Just wounded my pride.” I hold up my arm. “And sprained my wrist.”
Alina puts her quill down and turns in her chair to regard me. Concern furrows her smooth brow. “Who wrapped it for you?”
It’s a simple question, one that shouldn’t take any effort to answer. Yet I find myself growing warm, like there’s a candle flickering just inside my rib cage. And I have to make an effort to shrug nonchalantly, avoiding eye contact as I say, “The minotaur.”
A moment of quiet passes. I can see the girls glancing at one another in my periphery as I pull my muddy sweater off over my head. I’ll need to do laundry earlier this week than I typically do.
“That was... nice of him,” Poppy says. Her voice lilts a bit, as if trying to entice me into saying more.
But I refuse. Instead, I force a scoff. “It was the least he could do. It’s his fault I fell in the first place.”
There’s a whisper of little paws on wooden floorboards, and when I look up, Juniper is peering down at me from our loft.
“You got hurt?” she asks, her voice a quiet squeak.
“Barely,” I tell her. Then, before the girls—or Juniper—can interrogate me further, I announce, “I’m going to take a bath. Then anyone want to get lunch?”
“Me!” Maeve sits up on the couch as Isis slithers around her shoulders and twines about her neck.
That still creeps me out.
“I could eat,” Alina agrees. “How about you, Pops?”
Poppy smiles. “I’ve got an even better idea.”
We all exchange looks, then say at the same time, “The Wandering Cup!”
Just like that, I’m able to slip away, having escaped being asked more questions about the minotaur than I want to answer. But as I gather what I’ll need for my bath, I find myself looking out the window in the loft, over the spires of the castle and down to what I can see of the campus below.
And I find myself thinking of him, wondering what he does in the quiet when no one is around. It makes the candle behind my ribs burn ever brighter.
Chapter 13
Lyra
THE AUTUMN SUNLIGHT WARMS MY face as I stand in the courtyard with all the other students in my Elemental Magic 201 class. With midterms fast approaching, we’re spending our classroom time outdoors, practicing for our elemental magic exam. Students are sprinkled about the courtyard, all practicing their magic a safe distance from one another.
Maeve is in this class with me—I had Introduction to Elemental Magic with Alina last year—but she’s on the other side of the courtyard, a few warlocks gathered around her as she creates a dark purple storm cloud and makes it rain. The guys all smile and laugh and try to move closer to her, as if she’s interested in any of them. Maeve could probably have her pick of the warlocks in Coven Crest, but she mostly seems bored by them. I just roll my eyes.
All around me, flames whisper, wind sends skirts and robes billowing, vines rise from the earth, and droplets ofwater shimmer in the air. And I stand in the center of it all, palms outstretched, brows pinched in frustration.
This class issupposedto be easy for me. I’m an elemental witch, a fire witch. The other elemental witches and warlocks seem to excel in this class, but I certainly don’t.
Air and earth magic aren’t so bad to learn, and while my water magic could still use some practice, it’s my fire magic that’s making me so nervous for midterms. Because it’s my fire that’s uncontrollable, that flares at the smallest provocation, that makes me dangerous to the other students and any flammable thing within my reach. And it’s my fire magic that’s on the brink of getting me expelled.
I clench my teeth and flex my fingers. Thankfully, my sprained wrist is very nearly healed, and I’m no longer wearing the bandage Cairn gave me. Though that hasn’t stopped me from keeping it close—in the nightstand beside my bed, to be precise. I tell myself it’s just because I want to give it back to him next time I see him, but part of me whispers that it’s more than that. But I can’t think about that right now.
Hands held out, I take a breath and call to my fire magic. This didn’t used to make me nervous, but as of late, the flames that used to be my friends now give me a tingle of fear whenever I summon them. A small arc of fire leaps from my fingertips, then flares too bright, too hot. The flames crackle and spark brighter. I wince and draw back instinctively, and the fire sputters out with a hiss.
“Too forceful again, Miss Wilder,” Professor Stone says from off to my right, arms crossed, watching with the wearypatience of someone who’s seen too many singed sleeves and flaming textbooks—at least a few of which were because of me. He narrows his brown eyes. “You’re trying to bend it to your will. Fire doesn’t like to be bent. It doesn’t like to follow rules. Guide it. Invite it instead of forcing it.”
