While their teacher faced the blackboard, Hanna tossed a square of bubble gum across the aisle into Domenic’s lap. A peace offering.
He gratefully popped it in his mouth and whispered, “I don’t get it. You and I mastered bruise-healing ages ago, but they won’t even let us practice it yet! This whole class is justtheory. I thought the academy was supposed to be hard.”
“Not for the ‘Danmere Duo,’ clearly.”
They’d invented the nickname on the train to Gallamere, when they’d spat on each other’s hands, shaken them, and solemnly vowed to join the Order together. After all, they were lifelong best friends, both powerful, both brilliant, and the only two students from Danmere to pass the academy’s competitive entrance exams. And that was just the beginning, Domenic was sure, because theirs was a great story in the making.
“I bet we’ll be the first in our class to get Living Wands,” Domenic said. “I bet we’ll be the youngest members of the Order ever. What kind of wand do you think you’ll bond with? I think I’ll bond with an enchantment wand. No, anaturewand. But a corporeal wand would be cool, too, I guess. That’s what the guest speaker has, right? Do you think he could healanywound? What about reattach a limb? No, ahead? Maybe if I had a Living Wand, I could—”
“Mr. Barrow, Ms. Mayes, do I need to ask you both to stand outside?” their teacher asked coolly.
Will Haden snorted into his sleeve. Connie Massey twisted around to sneer at them.
Hanna muttered a word Domenic had never dared use before. Then, louder, she answered, “No, ma’am.”
Domenic echoed her and slumped lower in his seat.
He sighed, shifting, fidgeting. His attention drifted to the window, to the dappled sunlight winking through the treetops of the grove.
He startled as the door opened, and even as tall and gangly as he was, from the rear of the room, Domenic had to stand to glimpse the newcomer: a stark-looking man, with a ruddy gaze and a wispy comb-over. But far more captivating than the magician was hiswand.
Syarthis, Domenic thought it was called.
The ugly name suited it; it was an ugly thing, pale and emaciated. Even as the guest introduced himself, Domenic couldn’thear, couldn’t quite look away from it. The dark rings in its shaft disturbed him. They looked like eyes, darting back and forth, up and down. As if searching for something.
Until they froze, locked directly onhim.
Like the wand recognized him, somehow. Like they’d met before.
Hanna smirked. “What’s the matter with him? He looks like he’s gonna keel over.”
Domenic wrenched his focus from the wand to its wielder. Indeed, the magician wore a strangely vacant expression. His face slackened. His mouth sagged ajar.
“Um, sir?” their teacher spoke.
The magician heaved out a strangled gasp. Then, as one, the eyes of both the man and wand rolled back in their sockets. The coiled tip of Syarthis unfurled like a tongue and lashed out in all directions.
“What’s happening?” wailed Annie Page in the front row.
“Each of you, stay calm,” their teacher snapped, drawing her own wand. “We’re going to—”
She exploded in a torrent of red.
Domenic blinked several times, hard and with intention. He touched something undeniably warm and wet and real trickling down his cheek.
In a sudden roar, the windows shattered, and students screamed.
Domenic pressed his forehead against his desk and shielded himself with his arms. When he peeked up, he saw blood: the blood of his teacher splattered across the chalkboard, the ceiling; the blood gushing from the guest magician’s eyes and gaping mouth, puddling onto the floor. Students shrieked and shrieked, but no one did anything. They couldn’t. Even as the magician crumpled, a terrible pressure and heat emanated from Syarthis, writhing in his limp hand. Domenic cried out as it drilled into his eardrums, his eyelids, his chest. And just as he dropped to theground, as he swore his skull would crack, he saw things. Terrible things.
Memories.
A reel of shame and embarrassment, things he’d blurted out when he hadn’t stopped to think. Every fear he’d ever felt, from the brutal monsters of Winter to his dormitory in the dark. The way his parents looked at him that time he’d wandered home coated in wilderness and burned blistered from the sun, like he mystified him, like he wasn’t theirs.
He thoughtlessly kicked out, and pain burst across his back as his chair tumbled onto him. He gasped and opened his eyes, smearing away crimson tears. Five feet away, Kannan Thevar, his roommate, stared at him, his empty stare leaking red.
Domenic shakily pushed himself to all fours. His memories still battered him, all the worse each time he blinked. So he forced himself not to close his eyes. Not as Annie Page collapsed in the center aisle, gory tracks raked down her cheeks from her own fingernails. Not when Connie Massey vomited into her friend’s arms. Not even when Will Haden’s sobbing abruptly cut out.
Domenic twisted his head to glimpse Hanna, who lay curled in a fetal position. He called to her, and to his relief, she craned up her neck.
