I pull back and stare up at him. “You don’t believe me?” My voice slices too sharp, too fast. A blade I can’t sheathe, its edge cutting me and at the same time sharpening in preparation for others to bleed.
Noa flinches, guilt flashing in his eyes. “No—it’s not that. I believe you. I do.”
“Then why do you sound like you’re trying to convince yourself?”
The edge hasn’t dulled. I don’t want it to.
He exhales, visibly trying to steady himself. “I’m trying to stay calm here. Because from the sounds of it, you nearly just drowned in your own magick. Because if what you saw in that vision about Thorne is true… everything changes.” His knuckles are clenched and his mouth is set. Determined. “If Thorne really killed your father—if he’s behind all of it… Cel, we can’t just storm in after him. He’s powerful. Connected. If we charge in, he’ll destroy us before we even speak.”
Gavrail leans back in the chair, one leg stretched out, posture loose—almost bored. His eyes are anything but. They narrow, dark and cutting, as his head tilts with quiet, dangerous interest. “Then tell me,soldier,” he says, the words low and razor-edged. “What do you suggest?” His knuckles drum against the desk in a slow, deliberate tap. “What’s your plan—beg the system that bred monsters to rescue us from one?”
Noa meets his gaze without flinching. “We be smart. Strategic. I’m in the Service now—I can reach out to General Vaylor. Tell him everything. He’ll want to help.”
“And how do you know he’s not part of this?” Gavrail’s eyes turn dark and lethal, piercing through Noa like a sword of shadow. “Men like Thorne don’t move in isolation.”
Noa stiffens. “He wouldn’t be. I cannot believe he would have anything to do with what happened to Celeste’s father.”
“You sound sure.” Gavrail’s tone cuts. “But you’re still new to war. Faith is a luxury it burns out of you.”
Noa’s eyes darken. “Not everyone’s a liar, Gavrail. Not everyone’s the enemy.” His eyes flash with fire. “Maybe you’ve walked in darkness so long, you’ve started to think everyone’s a shadow.”
Gavrail doesn’t blink, his silence colder than words.
Their stares clash like flint and steel. I can almost feel thespark catch. One still trying to believe in the system. The other already scorched by it.
I press the mug to my lips, the warmth of the tea a lie.
I rise. “Enough.” My voice lands like a stone in the silence—final. Cold. Measured. “We write to the general,” I say, meeting Noa’s eyes first—because strategy matters. Then I turn to Gavrail—because so does fear. “But we also watch the shadows.”
Water remembers.
And I’m ready to make the world remember too.
* * *
The restof the week is excruciating—pretending nothing is wrong, going about our days like nothing has changed.
When the truth is—everything has.
Noa wrote to Vaylor. He didn’t claim discoveries. He didn’t mention conversations. He positioned it as a routine review that raised flags: my father’s record didn’t align with the narrative Thorne was pushing. He asked Vaylor for clarification the way soldiers do when they suspect rot in the chain of command—calm on paper, alarm underneath. My name barely appeared, and only where it had to: next-of-kin. Context. Nothing more. Noa didn’t make me the source of anything. He made himself the witness. Just an officer watching the edges of a system fray, and choosing the one person dangerous enough to pull on that thread and snap it without the whole thing unraveling.
Thursday passes in a blur.
I visit Amelia in the infirmary—her wounds are healing faster now that all the glass has been removed. Her breathing is steadier. The cuts are clean.
Professor Ching and I brew a fresh batch of Eir’s Shadowbark, steeped with the frostbloom thistle Amelia and I gathered earlier this year in the grove. The potion dulls her pain, slowsthe bleeding, and lets her finally rest. Our Weldver Salt does its job too, mending the worst of the damage.
I feel like a ghost wearing skin. A shell going through the motions.
Friday brings Elemental Mastery with Professor Neris at the Lakehouse. After my display in the Garden Grove, she’s taken to working with me privately—teaching me the finer threads of water magick that Noa and Gavrail cannot.
Her pale eyes are too knowing.
She watches me as I shift water between its three states: solid, liquid, vapor. Later, she shows me how to shape a ribbon of water into something separate, almost sentient, yet still tethered to its maker. It weaves around her in a graceful dance, taking the shape of a sea otter—mesmerizing. Enchanting. Like my water horses when they play.
I try to shape one to match hers, but something in me falters. My hand hovers above the surface of the lake, but a memory surges up: drowning in the dark, the way the water held me. I nearly pull back.
But then I feel it—her water. Calming, soft, intertwining with mine. Like an embrace.
