The rest of the Council’s voices drifted in from an office down the hallway. Though Domenic couldn’t make out their words, their furor exploded off the stone walls, each echo sharp as shrapnel. The Council’s wing was considered the most revered sanctum of the Citadel, and despite the few occasions Domenic had visited to deliver Iseul or Hanna a late-night dinner, he hadn’t truly explored it. If not for the Gallamere skyline glittering out the windows, he would’ve felt transported back in time. Here, electricity didn’t dare disgrace any shared workspace or cubicle, each sconce and chandelier instead alit by motionless flame. Every piece of furniture was antique. Even the vending machines were enchanted and framed in ornate panels of hardwood.
Suddenly, the argument quieted as a single word rang out, ugly and immaculately clear.
Peak hastily shut the conference room door.
Councilor Tennyson Peak headed the Nature Defense Corps, and Domenic had heard countless tales of Peak at the academy. That he held the record for more winterghasts slain than any member of the Order, living or dead. That he’d once taken on ahorde of them single-handedly, with an unconscious rookie slung over his shoulder. That he’d staggered upright even after a ghast had torn the flesh right off his leg—then he’d decapitated it.
Domenic would’ve bet anything that the people who spread those rumors had never actually met Peak. Peak had impulse-purchased a swanky penthouse condo but still slept most nights in his truck in the Citadel parking garage. He knew the names of nearly every magician in the Order as well as their spouses, children, and pets, yet he misplaced his wallet so often that Domenic had once witnessed him try to bribe a hot dog vendor with his own autograph. He sneezed like a bomb. He had an unseasonable devotion to shorts. And he was the only person other than Hanna and Iseul who called Domenic by his nickname, despite them being barely acquaintances—Peak and Iseul had divorced the year before she’d taken in him and Hanna.
Then, despite the many empty chairs in the room, Peak chose the one beside him, groaning as he did so. He smiled, dimples creasing his pale skin at the corners of his beard, and he clapped Domenic’s shoulder—hard. “Between you and I, I always knew you had it in you.”
Domenic choked out a deranged laugh. “Did you?”
“What, you never had a hunch growing up that you were Chosen? Not even an inkling?”
After hours spent refusing to acknowledge it, finally, Domenic’s gaze swiveled to Valmordion. It looked surreal, a millennium-old relic of incomprehensible power resting on a conference table beside a forgotten fountain pen and a sooty ashtray. His blood still stained its thorns, and his wounds still ached, wounds no wand had managed to heal. Yet his magic reached for it, like flowers craning toward the sun.
Again, Domenic’s stomach lurched violently.
“If destiny really Chose me,” he rasped, “it Chose wrong.”
Peak’s smile snuffed out, replaced by an expression he didn’t recognize. Domenic didn’t care. In all the time since he andCaldwell had been removed from the grove and Domenic had been instructed to wait here, he’d been told nothing.Nothing.It was growing harder to convince himself that this was all a nightmare when the nightmare refused to end.
At last, the door opened, and Iseul and Hanna hovered at the threshold.
Both Domenic and Peak stood with a start.
“They all done?” Peak asked.
“Not quite,” Iseul answered. “But Tenney, would you mind giving us three a moment alone?”
“Yeah, sure thing. You need anything, though? A drink? Those crackers you like?”
Iseul smiled weakly. “No, but thank you.”
As soon as Peak closed the door behind him, Iseul threw her arms around Domenic. Domenic leaned into her, inhaling her gardenia perfume. A sob shuddered through him.
It was a relief, to finally break.
“I can’t be the Chosen One. I-I can’t,” he blubbered. “And that’s why they’re all arguing, isn’t it? Because I’m the last person anyone would want near that wand, let alone wielding it. And—”
“Dom.”Iseul drew away, her features etched deep with concern. “I know you’re upset right now, but we need you to calm down—”
“Calm down? I watched that wand torch one of my classmates tonight!”
“I know. But it’s not so much you the Council has been arguing about. For Caldwell to create a Living Wand—it’s unprecedented. We haven’t told anyone yet, but Sharpe’s been on the phone with the Prime Minister about you for the past hour, and I’ve been fielding calls from radio stations—”
“Theradio stations? They— They already know about me?”
“They’re already airing the story, and—oh no. Hold on. Here.”
With a swish of Calynia, the waste bin launched across theroom into Domenic’s arms—a second too late. He puked all over the historic hardwood.
After Iseul enchanted the puddle away, she steered him back into his chair. He hunched over the bin.
Cautiously, he glanced up at Hanna, who lurked utterly still in the corner holding a leather-bound book. Though Hanna spent nearly all her time in the Council wing—Syarthis’s wielder was a permanent member of the Council, regardless of age—she looked childlike amidst the vaulted ceilings, the track-hung oil paintings, the candelabras several heads taller than her. Like a student lost on a field trip. Like a girl playing dress-up in a blazer and waistcoat.
Yet as he stared, his best friend didn’t offer him any words of reassurance—not even a smile. Instead, she clutched Syarthis against her heart. Its heat pulsed, suffocating. When she squeezed her eyes shut, so, too, did the eyes of the wand.
