My father built his career on reading people. A commander in the Iron Vanguard, the most decorated non-magick soldier of his generation. He would have told me to walk away. But my mother? My mother would tell me to listen to the fire. To pay attention to where it burns brightest. And fuck if it doesn’t become a damn inferno the second I’m around Celeste.
The hairs on the back of my neck lift. Not paranoia—instinct.
I look up. Across the field, Headmaster Thorne is walking the path with Professor Stroud, mid-conversation. Thorne’s eyes meet mine. His chin dips once—quiet approval, a check-in without words. But there is a question there as he reads the tension in my frame.
I nod, giving him nothing, before heading down the steps. The two men keep walking.
With a flick of my hand, fire blooms across the oval.
I strip off my shirt and kick away my shoes before stepping into the circle of heat barefoot, sweat already rising along my spine. Then I move—precision strikes, high-impact bursts of flame, rolls, dodges. Anything to burn through the anger. Anything to drown out the sound of her voice:
“Noa, please. Let me explain.”
I heard the plea. Saw the pain in her eyes.
And still—I walked.
I don’t know if I regret it more because I’m angry… or because I’m terrified that pushing her away might have just been the biggest mistake of my life.
I throw another strike and the flame snaps too hot—white at the core. Heat bites up my forearm, fast enough that it shocks a hiss out of me.Fuck.I shake it out, furious with my own slip.
A quiet cough cuts through the heat from somewhere above me.
I turn, ready to snap at whoever’s watching?—
But there’s no one there.
CHAPTER 20
Some substances, once combined, do not part willingly.
—“Modern Principles of Alchemy and Potions,” Dr. S. Davenport,Journal of Applied Alchemical Sciences
CELESTE
The rest of the month goes by with excruciating mundanity. The gray sky drips rain in cold sheets, with the occasional thunderstorm echoing the tears and ache in my chest that seem to have settled in like a ghost—haunting me.
I’ve been spending my afternoons with Amelia in the Garden Grove, learning about various plants and minerals. There’s something grounding about having the earth beneath my nails, the steady rhythm of pruning and planting, the soft rustle of leaves, the comforting silence of nature. Amelia doesn’t try to talk to me about it. She doesn’t try to console me in my pain. She just sits with me, letting me feel everything. Occasionally, when I fall back from our gardening with silent tearsstreaming down my face, she places a soft hand on mine—quiet, steady, enough.
Rozsen and Elliot are the opposite—constantly trying to cheer me up with funny stories and wild anecdotes, meanwhile sending glares Noa’s way whenever they see him.
I haven’t been sleeping. Because the second I close my eyes, I’m instantly drowning. Sometimes trapped again in a dark cave, looking up at fractured stars as I sink to the bottom of a black pool. The voice that normally coaxes me forward is now mixed with voices from hooded figures that surround me. One sounds like Noa.Liar. Too much. Not enough.I wake soaked, my sheets sticking to me. It’s never as bad as it was before, but enough that I take to sleeping over a towel, just in case.
Food tastes like dust. I can’t stand being around too many people, so I’ve thrown myself into my studies. A desperate attempt to distract myself from the darkness as I try to keep it at bay.
In Advanced Potions, Noa now sits at the back table—much to Stella’s absolute delight and satisfaction. Finn just shrugged when Noa grabbed his stuff and moved. He’s taken to pressing his lips into tight lines, his brows always knit together, flickers of hesitation crossing his face—like he wants to speak, like he wants to break the wall of ice between Noa and me and fix it. But he doesn’t. He can’t. It’s not for him to fix what I broke.
One such Thursday, I manage to hide out in the storeroom of Browning Hall until the rest of the class leaves. The small space smells of damp stone and crushed herbs, rows of narrow shelves stacked with jars of powdered roots and strange hazy liquids. The air is close, heavy with remnants of steam from the potion our class just finished brewing.
I’m halfway through sorting some ingredients for Professor Ching when the door shuts with a click.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Stella leans against the archway, armsfolded, water patch gleaming faintly on her jacket. “How fast loyalties shift at Whittaker.”
I stiffen but keep sorting. I don’t owe her a word.
“It bothers you, doesn’t it? Noa moving to my table.”
Her words are soft, with a hint of what sounds almost like regret, like she knows how and what I’m feeling.
