“Except you’re not. You just keep pushing me away. And maybe you’re fine pretending otherwise, but I want to fix whatever’s going on with you.”
But she was no hangover or headache, easily mended by atraining wand or a tender word. Ellery squeezed the alban pit so hard, it stabbed into her palm.
“It was never about us,” she murmured, then rubbed at her eyes. “So please. Leave this alone.”
Julian sighed in surrender and turned away from her. “If that’s what you want.”
Ellery watched miserably as candidate number five filed out. Only three people remained between her and Valmordion.
A scream rang out from beyond the wall, followed by muffled commotion. Several students lurched to their feet; others stiffened. Ellery thought anxiously of the fifth candidate—a nineteen-year-old who’d smuggled wine into last year’s Winter solstice party.
Glynn returned, ash dusting his jacket. “Do not be alarmed,” he said, sounding harried. “I’ll return for the next candidate as soon as possible.”
“What happened to her?” Ellery demanded. “Is she all right?”
Glynn didn’t make eye contact. “She’ll be fine.”
He slipped away before anyone could get another question out. But the mood in the room had changed. Ellery’s classmates fretted to their neighbors. Some fiddled with their clothes or hair.
Candidate six left the room, but when no sound came from beyond the walls, the room’s tension began to subside.
At last, it was Julian’s turn. Once he rose, he spun around and studied her. The last five years hung between them, and Ellery felt something crack, then crumble, as the moments ticked by, as the right words didn’t come.
Ellery bowed her head, defeated, as he disappeared into the vigil chamber.
She tried to focus on what it would mean if Valmordion Chose Julian. He could be an excellent hero. And selfishly, if he bonded with Valmordion, it would mean she hadn’t.
A gigantic burst of heat exploded from the vigil chamber.Smoke billowed beneath the door. Then it flung open, crashing wildly into the wall.
Julian stood at the threshold, screaming and coated in flames.
Ellery cried out as he collapsed. She leapt up and reached for her training wand, but it wasn’t there.
She couldn’t help him.
People shrieked and scattered, overturning chairs as they stampeded for the exit. A dark haze suffocated the room, rendering students into silhouettes. Healers charged through the smoke.
“Everyone out!” one of them hollered. But Ellery froze. She couldn’t leave him.
Two healers knelt beside Julian as he thrashed upon the ground, flames still flaring across his clothes. He wailed, the sound so raw he scarcely sounded human. Healing magic surrounded him, a golden, shimmering mist that hovered over his skin. But even as his burns closed, the flames smoldered as fiercely as ever.
“Why haven’t you put the flames out?” a healer snapped at her nearby colleague.
“I can’t,” he hissed back.
Horror surged in Ellery as Julian clawed at his face with blistered fingers.
Glynn rushed up beside her, panting. “Ellery! Get out!Go!”
But it didn’t matter that Valmordion’s magic was greater than any Ellery had ever felt. That these magicians had Living Wands and she didn’t.
Her fear dulled, replaced by something else, something stronger.
“The training wands,” she gasped. “Give them to me.”
Glynn hesitated, then pulled them from his jacket. She snatched them and lunged toward Julian.
Healers shouted protests, but she ignored them as she crouched beside her best friend. One of his eyes was swollen shut; thecorner of his lip had ripped away, revealing bloodied teeth and jaw. The fabric of his academy uniform was melded gruesomely into his flesh. The heat was nearly unbearable, as was the smell, hot and thick as tar. His wand hand, the hand that had grasped Valmordion, was charred nearly to the bone. Ellery forced her nausea down.
