Until a cool draft kissed his neck, and someone claimed the spot several seats to his right.
Domenic startled at the latecomer, one of his own classmates.
Ellery Caldwell.
He sat up abruptly and smoothed his rumpled shirt. Yet Caldwell hadn’t noticed him, her gaze fixed on the screen. And despite all his efforts to avoid his classmates, Domenic graspeddesperately for something to say. He could nearly hear Hanna’s howl of laughter, that he should find himself alone with the very girl he’d been infatuated with for five straight years.
But he was hardly the only student infatuated with Ellery Caldwell. When she entered a room, everyone craned for a glimpse of her, hushed so they could hear her. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, an arresting, dizzying sort of beautiful that made everything around her seem lackluster in comparison. And it wasn’t just that she was famous—at thirteen years old, during the fall of Nordmere, she’d slain a winterghast with only a training wand. It was that, from a feeling that ran deeper than gossip or reputation or the insufferable politics of Order favorites, everyone knew that to be in the presence of Ellery Caldwell was to behold someone extraordinary.
From her first day at the academy, Domenic had been enamored by her. She was everything he’d proven not to be.
But before he could conceive of anything remotely clever, the credits ended, and he gave up and turned his attention to the film. Within minutes, he was enthralled. The movie featured his favorite premise: a smalltown boy discovers he has magic. A heroic quest. A femme fatale. A triumphant finale. It was predictable in exactly the way he adored, grand in a way that had always thrilled him, ever since he was a child. Because it didn’t matter if the whole country associated his name with tragedy: Domenic Barrow would always crave a happy ending.
Once the movie finished, he rose and stretched. Subtly, he glanced at Caldwell, who stood clutching an empty bag of popcorn and a well-loved purse, its leather crinkled with smile lines.
Now or never,he heard Hanna goad.
“Um, extraordinary times we’re living in,” he blurted, then immediately cursed himself. Nothing set the mood better than the nation’s impending doom.
It took Caldwell longer than he would’ve liked to place him. “Barrow? What are you doing here?”
“Where would you have expected to find me? The library?”
She peered at the empty chair beside him, as if skeptical of finding him alone. Although the gossip about Domenic might’ve been exaggerated, it was true he didn’t always attend the movies by himself. On several occasions, he and his date had claimed seats in this very row, where no one would notice how little attention they paid to the screen.
Not that such experience proved any help now. He resisted the urge to fiddle with the flowers in his pocket, just to have something to do with his hands.
Caldwell slung her purse over her shoulder. “Sorry… What was it you said before?”
Domenic’s ego shriveled more by the second. “The times,” he repeated weakly.
“Oh. Yeah, history’s really in the making, I guess.”
Domenic might’ve known Caldwell’s seat in their shared lecture, the names of her friends, the people she’d reportedly kissed at parties. But he didn’tknowher, not really. Yet he was still stunned at her stilted tone. Domenic didn’t buy into that destiny bullshit, that the magicians who’d bonded with Valmordion were predetermined from diaperdom. But in his mind, the Chosen One ought to be valiant. Someone with the strength to wield Summer’s fire, the selflessness to suit a hero.
If he were a betting man, he would’ve staked everything on her.
But maybe she, like him, had come to the movies seeking escape.
He changed course. “I mean, a movie about a blandly likable kid who goes from humble schoolboy to the greatest magician in the world? That’s unprecedented all right.”
Her mouth tilted into something awfully close to a smile.“Yeah, what a bold new perspective. And the magic—completely accurate. You can really tell how painstakingly they researched.”
“I’m floored, actually. Who knew our Order education was so flawed?”
Now she laughed, exposing the gap between her front teeth. It was wider than he’d ever realized, up close. “My favorite part was when the main character used his friend’s wand. Can you imagine touching a Living Wand bonded to someone else?”
“How about when he found out both his father and sister were magicians?”
“Right? What family has two magicians in it, let alone three?”
“A surprisingly functional one, considering.” Domenic shuddered to imagine either of his parents or older brothers wielding magic. “Actually,myfavorite part was how he didn’t realize he had magic until he was sixteen. I mean, come on. I know the average age is seven, but even before I knew—”
“I knew.”
Domenic had never heard anyone echo that before, and he could tell from the curious tilt of her head that she hadn’t either.
He warned himself to be careful. Hope was such a painful thing to prune.
