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“They test everything,” Lucas confirmed, his scholarly tone slipping through. “Magical theory, practical application, control under pressure. The Third Week Trials are meant to ensure everyone is challenged appropriately.”

“Which is exactly why we should be celebrating now,” Raven added quickly. “Because next week will be nothing but studying and practicing.”

A bartender with arms covered in snaking black tattoos that seemed to move separately from his skin was mixing something that changed colors. “Freshman? Try the Novice’s Blush. Goes down easy.”

Lucas paid despite my protest. The drink looked like liquid sunset and tasted like summer berries. Warmth spread through my chest as Scout explored the counter. “Alcohol?”

Raven grinned.

In full tour guide mode, Lucas explained, “The Cauldron is a student-run bar, and serves everyone regardless of age. The older students say it’s tradition, and as long as no one causes real trouble, the Wickem staff ignore it.”

I took another swallow. “It’s delicious.” We crossed to one of the tall tables with our drinks, away from the crush of the bar.

“Where’s Keane?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Over there.” Lucas pointed to a shadowy corner. “Though he shouldn’t be. He’s a freshman like us.”

Keane sat alone at a small table, but near Elio and Cyrus. There was a carved wooden box in front of him and he seemed to be studying it intently. Several of his portal windows were open showing pages of text, and Wisp drifted between them.

The corner of my lip lifted. I didn’t think he quite got the point of going out to a nightclub.

“He’s not like us,” Raven corrected Lucas. “He’s a royal…” She trailed off, glancing at me. “Of course you’re… one of us too, Mari.”

“Thanks,” I said with an awkward smile.

The distance between regular students and heirs was stark, woven into every look, every whisper. The way people moved around them like planets caught in their orbit, careful, reverent. And me? I was caught somewhere in between, neither truly part of them nor truly apart. It left me feeling untethered, a misplaced puzzle piece forced into the wrong picture.

I hadn’t chosen this. I hadn’t asked to be an heir. And yet, despite their circles of admirers, I saw the loneliness in them, too. A gilded isolation, the price of power.

Maybe it was better to be on this side of the room. With people who saw me, rather than what I represented.

Climbing onto one of the bar stools, I let the thrum of the indie rock music settle into my bones and took a sip of my drink. The edge started to dull—just a little. Some of the tightness in my shoulders unraveled. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad.

The dead things were quiet here, buried beneath layers of magic. For once, they didn’t crowd my senses with whispers of forgotten secrets or tug at my awareness with unseen hands. I almost felt… comfortable.

Scout skittered across the bar top with Boris. Raven and Lucas were deep in debate over which professors would be judging the trials.

Then Elio’s voice sliced through the noise. “Well, well. Look who thinks she belongs here.”

My fingers tightened around my glass, the warmth from the drink instantly forgotten.

Elio appeared beside me. He looked as effortlessly poised as ever, but I knew the cruelty lurking beneath the illusion. Knew how easily he played people like a musician with an instrument, plucking at their vulnerabilities until they bled.

The memory of that damned maid’s uniform—the way he’d reduced me to nothing but an object of mockery, the way he’d watched, waiting for me to break—made my stomach turn.

“I didn’t realize they served cleaning staff,” he continued, voice dripping with false concern. “Though I suppose someone has to mop up after hours.”

The words landed sharper than they should have, because wasn’t that still how they saw me?

His illusions started to swirl. The dead things stirred, recognizing the artifice just as they had in the classroom, and I did too. But my victory in seeing through his magic felt hollow now.

“What’s wrong, Elio?” I tried to sound defiant, but my voice wavered. “Afraid I’ll see through your magic again?”

For just a moment, the mask cracked. Just a fraction of a second where something darker, something real, slipped through.

But before he could answer, Cyrus’s fire wards surged closer, heat rolling off him in waves. The temperature spiked, clashing against my own magic in a suffocating press of heat and cold.

“Problem?” Cyrus asked, his voice all slow-burning amusement. His magic wrapped around mine, fire pressing against ice, heat curling in places I didn’t want to acknowledge. His amber eyes dragged over me, deliberate, like he was peeling back layers—burning away the pieces of me that still thought I could belong here.