“Of course.”
“Beforehis?”
Ellery’s throat burned. “Are you planning on calling Dom back in here, too? Lecturinghim? We’re both Chosen Ones, we both had feelings, we both acted on them. So when you tell the rest of the Council about this, at least have the decency to punish us both. Equally.”
“Ah, but it’s not the Council’s punishment you should be worried about.” Glynn flicked Aetherium. Newspaper clippings cascaded from a desk drawer, then splayed themselves across the surface.
WINTERGHASTINFILTRATESCITADELINBRUTALATTACK
Then a subheading:DOESWINTER’SCHOSENPOSEADDITIONALRISKS?
“This is tomorrow’s front page of theGallamere Gazette. Seong shared it with me.”
Ellery studied the picture of herself below the headlines, an unflattering shot from a publicity event. “This makes it seem like I could be dangerous. But they’ve never questioned me like this before. Wh-why now? What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything. But Maltherius’s attack has stoked the public’s anxiety,” Glynn said gravely. “Some of your classmates gave fear-mongering interviews. They’ve included several anonymous NDC sources who spoke about your use of Winter magic during the fall of the border. Altogether, it poses a worrisome line of thought about the nature of who you are.”
“But I used my Winter magic to protect those people,” she protested. “I saved them.”
“I know that, of course. But people are frightened. And in their paranoia, they’re searching for something or someone to blame. Valmordion’s destiny to protect Alderland has been proven timeand time again throughout history. I’m sorry, Ellery, but Iskarius’s destiny—yours—doesn’t have such guarantees. You say you want to be punished equally? Well, you and Barrow aren’t equal, not as far as Alderland’s concerned. You never have been.”
A fissure split through Ellery’s heart, and she staggered away from the desk. Ugly, painful sobs clumped in her throat as tears streamed down her cheeks. She clapped a hand across her mouth. It only seemed to make her sobs sound worse.
“Ellery,” Glynn said. “Oh, goodness. Ellery—I did tell you to sit down, didn’t I? Well, if you’ll just—”
He rounded the desk and gestured tentatively to the armchair.
“Stop!” Ellery choked out. “S-stop trying to comfort me.”
“Please, if you’d just sit—”
“You don’t get to be disappointed with me!” she said, still crying. “You don’t get to lecture me about how you expect better and then say that Alderland was never going to accept me anyway. And you know what? Of course it was foolish of me to think I might win the country over when I can’t even winyouover. When somehow I’m still not good enough for you.”
“Why would you ever think that?” Glynn asked, aghast.
“Why?Glynn, I know every wandlorist you admire. I can recite the plot of each important opera in the Aldrish canon and the details of your and your husband’s hunt for the perfect antique dining table, but you’ve never so much as invited me over for dinner. A-and I thought it was fine, I really did, but seeing Dom with Seong, even Peak…”
“You think I don’t love you,” he said, and the look on his face was so wretched that Ellery instantly knew he did.
Maybe it wasn’t so difficult to believe. When Ellery had first arrived in Gallamere, Glynn had tutored her through the academy curriculum, waiting patiently as she worked up the bravery to use her magic again. After she became a student, he’d made a point of seeing her once a week, answering her questions about magic and Citadel life. And although he’d never gone with herto explore Gallamere, he was the one who’d encouraged her to find a home within the city that had always been his home, too. Of course she’d wanted to become his successor. She was living proof of how much his work mattered.
And even after Glynn learned she wielded the magic of Winter itself, he’d stood by her.
But the knowledge that all this time hehadloved her, that anyone had ever loved her, didn’t heal the fissure in her heart. Instead, it cracked her open.
“Why the hell would I think you cared about me that much?” she rasped. “You’ve never said so.”
“No, I haven’t,” Glynn said seriously. “I thought it would be easier that way.”
“Easier,” she echoed. “Why?”
“I…” Glynn muttered a curse. “Did I ever tell you why I took the job as Director of Education and Recruitment?”
Ellery blinked in disbelief. Surely he wasn’t about to lecture heragain. “You have. You took the job because nobody else wanted it.”
“No, they didn’t.” Glynn used Aetherium to arrange two armchairs beneath the window. He sat in one, then gestured to the other. Ellery sat, although she refused to meet his eyes. Instead she stared fixedly at their reflections in the warped, frosty window, his face solemn and drawn, hers blotched and swollen.
“After the Syarthis Disaster, I don’t blame people for being wary of the position,” Glynn continued. “But from the moment I bonded with Aetherium, I understood my greatest strength wouldn’t be my magical aptitude, but the work I could do within our institution. MagiciansareAlderland. We set it apart. We move it forward. And each member of the Order begins as a student at the national academy, a student who deserves to be protected. But we failed in that duty when Syarthis unbonded from its wielder. I know people believe me to be ambitious, andpedantic, and, well… the point is, the primary reason I took this position is because I care about our new recruits. Quite a bit. I audited every wand in the Vault. I made the qualification exams necessary to ensure no student laid a hand on a wand they weren’t ready for. And of course, I attempted to give Hanna Mayes the best support I could.”
