I’ve tried again and again to rewrite that essay, but every time, it feels like I’m missing something: the emotion, the passion, the exact thing Professor Azula told me to do away with.
“If you need guidance,” she continues, “come see me. Don’t wait until the last minute. Opportunity favors those who come prepared.”
“Yes, Professor,” I say.
Then Lyra is at my side, smiling, her wild red curls bouncing as she tips her head.
“Pretty impressive, huh, Professor?” she asks.
Professor Azula’s gaze slides to Lyra, one brow arching. “You met my expectations, Miss Wilder,” she says, but her tone leaves much room for interpretation.
Lyra, though, is unbothered. She just continues to smile until Professor Azula turns away.
“She doesnotlike me,” she whispers as we grab our bookbags and follow the other students out the door and into the hallway.
“I’m not sure she likes anyone. Fire witches are like that.”
Lyra bumps my shoulder. “Ha. Funny. Alwayssofunny.”
The corridor is crowded with students, and we follow the flow through the hallways.
As I walk, I continue plucking at this idea that’s been building inside me.
I’ve always strived for control without emotion, for leaving my feelings at the door when I wield my magic. It’s safer that way, with more predictable outcomes. Emotions are messy, convoluted, difficult to understand and wade through.
Yet I’m starting to feel like by tamping those emotions down, I may be inadvertently shoving my power down as well. And the idea that a deeper well of magic might be available to me makes my skin pebble with goose bumps.
Lyra and I step out of the elemental magic hallway and into a wider main corridor, where early-autumn sunlight slips through the high stained glass windows, sending mosaics of color across the marble floor.
“What’s your next class?” Lyra asks, glancing at me while she yanks her unruly curls onto the top of her head.
“My elective: Energetic Equilibrium,” I say.
“That’s the meditation class, right?”
“We do more than meditate,” I say. “We—”
A tickle at the base of my spine prompts me to turn, and despite the many bodies moving through the wide hall, my gaze locks on to one in particular.
Severin.
He’s standing in a band of shadow, speaking with a first-year student. He wears a charcoal vest over a long-sleeved button-up, dark slacks, and shoes polished to a shine. I wonder briefly if his entire wardrobe is filled with the exact same items of clothing. Boring, but it’d make it easy to get dressed each morning.
Mostly, I wonder what his body would feel like against mine, what his fangs might feel like piercing my throat.
As if my thought called out to him, he looks up, and his onyx eyes meet mine.
Immediately, my magic reacts, and Lyra gasps.
“Ow! You shocked me!”
I glance down, and sure enough, little sparks of energy are dancing between my fingers.
“Sorry.” I clench my hand into a fist, smothering the sparks until they go out.
Lyra looks in Severin’s direction, and the moment she sees him, a catlike smile curls across her mouth. “You’ve got it bad for the vampire, Miss Vandermere,” she whispers, keeping her voice down so the other students around us won’t hear.
When I look up again, Severin is walking away, being swallowed up by students—many of whom stare after him as he goes.
