He thrashes—and I squeeze tighter.
A thread of water finds his mouth just as he begins to shout. The sound cuts off. The water surges in. And down. His body jerks, eyes wide, bubbles shattering against the cold.
I stand there and watch, my pulse a steady drum, my fingers trembling—not from weakness but from choice.
Part of me wants to stop it. To ease my grip, to let him breathe.
But part of me doesn’t.
Because it isn’t just him anymore. It’s every Magick who took things from me. Every hand that hurt my father. Every blade raised against those like my family.
The water isn’t just drowning him—it’s drowningthem. All of them. And gods help me, for one terrible heartbeat, I want it to.
“Enough!” Headmaster Thorne’s voice cracks across the courtyard like a thunderclap.
Professors Graves and Ashar are already moving. Shields form in a flash, severing the magick before I can respond. Vihar collapses, coughing, sputtering, drenched and shivering in the sunlit sand. He looks shaken. The brush with death clings to him in the form of thin icicles still hanging from his coat.
The water hisses as it falls away, not satisfied. Or maybe it’s me that’s not.
The grove is silent except for the broken trickle of the aqueduct. Professor Ashar is staring at me as if I’m a piece of a puzzle he wasn’t aware he was missing. His head is tilted to the side, his eyes cold, a question in them.
Amelia groans from where she lies, half sheltered beneath alattice beam. Rozsen and Elliot are already with her. Peter crouches beside them, anxious and worried as he holds Amelia’s small hand in his. Ian stands over Vihar, fists clenched, vibrating with fury.
“She’s okay,” Elliot says, her voice shaking. “We’ve got her.”
“She’s not okay,” Ian snaps, anger bristling, fire magick sparking at his knuckles. “He could have killed her!” But Professor Kael is there, holding a hand up to Ian, a command to stand down.
Then the whispers start. Everywhere. All around me. I can hear them beneath the buzzing of the crowd.
“Did you see what she did?”
“The water—did you see how it moved?”
“Did she mean to do that?”
I can feel my squad’s eyes flicking between Amelia, Vihar, and me. A mixture of awe and disbelief and something else… Fear.
At the power I just displayed.
Rozsen’s look is sharp, almost accusatory. Not anger, exactly, but hurt. That I didn’t trust her to know this part of me. But even through the sting of her gaze, I feel the pride behind it. Of watching me finally let go and show what I’m capable of. Like she’s always known it was there, under the surface.
I stare at my hands. They’re still wet, still vibrating faintly with residual magick. Water shimmers on my wrists like silver veins. The sapphire of my ring glistens, the water clinging to it like a veil. Water didn’t just come when I called—it surged, with more force than I meant. More instinct than control.
I feel Gavrail before I see him, standing next to me, shoulders squared. His gaze is focused, a lethal stillness echoing in the space he takes—eyes fixed on Vihar like he’s already planning the next move if mine didn’t land hard enough.
Noa moves through the crowd in seconds, silent until he’s standing in front of me. “Celeste.”
I flinch. I don’t look away from my hands.
“You almost…” He touches my wrist, his voice quiet, gentle—but edged. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.” My shoulders tense, shame suddenly curling cold in my chest.
“She nearly drowned a student,” Professor Graves barks, stepping into the ring. “In front of half the school.”
“Because you let it get that far,” Gavrail says coldly, taking up a defensive stance next to me. “Maybe don’t lecture the one who stepped in when you should have.”
Graves stiffens, but doesn’t respond.
