He glances at me, something flickering behind his eyes. A shift, like a mask slipping.
“He had written a letter expressing concern about your powers that were emerging. He wanted my advice. He came here to meet with me, to discuss what could be done.”
My breath catches.
“He came to Whittaker?” I ask, confused. He never told me that. In fact, he almost never left the farm in the months before he died. And definitely not long enough to get to Whittaker and back.
“Never mind this talk of sad things,” Thorne says briskly. “I always believe tragedy has a purpose. Sometimes… it’s the beginning of something greater.”
“What possible purpose could there be for my father dying?” The words escape before I can stop them. My eyes are narrowed, ice sharpening my voice. My hands clench at my sides, but I don’t let him see.
“Only what was inevitable,” he says cryptically. His face is unreadable.
A breeze slips through an open window somewhere, sudden and biting—too cold for spring. The papers on his desk flutter in response.
“Your mother always worried about him,” Thorne murmurs, not quite facing me. “Said he kept too many secrets. Couldn’t let go of his obsession with Magicks. With his hatred of them.” A pause. “She was right, of course. In the end, the weight of it all was too much.”
The words hang in the air like embers on the verge of catching flame.
I heard the rumors—that it wasn’t an accident at all, that he possibly killed himself. But I know better. I knew my father, and while he might have been capable of a lot of things, things I wasn’t even aware of until recently, he wouldneverhave done that.
Thorne steps toward the door, already ending the conversation. “You have great potential, Celeste. More than any student I’ve seen in a long time. I do hope you’ll use it… wisely.”
I stand up and follow him.
The door clicks shut behind me before it dawns on me thathe never gave me the punishment I thought I’d been sent for. No detention. No warning. Just dismissal.
But as I walk back through the hall, the water in my blood pulls tight—like a current yanked against the tide.
Intuition and observation collide, sharp and cold as ice in my blood.
The map.
The evasiveness.
The perfectly timed conversation meant to charm, to disarm.
And the feeling I can’t shake—the way my elemental sense recoiled, the way my ring still burns. Like the water in my veins recognized something older, fouler, more hidden than polished words could mask.
My father’s past. What happened to him on the lake that day…
Thorne knows more than he’s letting on.
CHAPTER 48
It is the nature of shadow to slip past what other magick cannot.
—Veil and Void: Advanced Theory of Shadow Manipulation
“What is his connection to your dad? I don’t buy the childhood friend bullshit your mother seems to think.” Gavrail sits in the common area of the Spanish Steps, posture loose but eyes sharp as he, Noa, and I go over our latest fusion findings. “Why the map of your farm?” he presses, drumming his fingers on the wood of the bar behind us. The motion is casual. The question is not.
“He’s the headmaster of Whittaker with ties to the Service,” Noa replies without looking up from his notes. “I’m sure he has maps of every territory we control. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Doesn’t it?” Gavrail tilts his head toward me. “You said it was tucked behind the others, folded. Not cataloged. Not part of the continent or Whittaker’s history. Just… there.”
I nod. “It wasn’t labeled or marked, but I saw the lake. The lake he died in. My hometown. He also mentioned a blue shirt;the same one my dad happened to be wearing the day he died. That can’t be just coincidence.”
Noa finally looks up, brows drawn, tension already in his jaw. “You don’t know what it means. You’re grasping at shadows.”
