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Rumor hadit the heartless fae ate the hearts of children and stole the souls of the innocent in order to satiate their wicked hunger for chaos and evil. Kolfinna thought that was rubbish because she never once wanted to do either of those things. The only thing she wanted was to stay hidden, like she was doing now. Instead of traipsing through enchanted forests and kidnapping children, she was scrubbing dried bird poop off the windows of the prestigious Hiskal academy.

The summer heat blazed around her in a thick, humid blanket and rivulets of sweat slid down her back, dampening her clothes. Kolfinna’s fingers hummed with the familiar twinge of mana as grass tickled her ankles. If she wanted to, she could manipulate them to grow tall, or she could call forth the roots of the nearby willow trees to do her bidding. But doing so would reveal her true nature because only the fae could manipulate nature itself.

So she quelled the feeling of wanting to connect with the trees, the grass, and the plants surrounding her, just like how the blazing heat dried the cleaning rag in her hand. One small slipup and everyone would hunt her down. She couldn’t allow that. Never again.

Kolfinna dipped her rag into the bucket of warm water and dragged it across the opaque glass windows once more. The ancient building had a crumbling foundation with the occasional renovation littered across it like a patchwork quilt. Even with all the wealth it brought in, all she had to do was run her hand along the aging walls and flecks of yellowed paint would chip away. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to clean off the peeling paint to reveal the natural gray stones underneath it, so she pretended she didn’t notice. Just like how she pretended not to notice the students running laps on the school training grounds a hundred feet behind her.

The school had once been legendary for training powerful hunters, but now that the number of fae was sparse in the world, it shifted its attention to raising soldiers. She regarded them warily. Was she close to their level, or was she worse? She couldn’t tell.

“Inga!” Dalla called out sharply.

Kolfinna jumped when Dalla poked her ribcage. Dalla raised a graying eyebrow and placed one hand on her hip while the other held a bucket of dirty, brown water. “I’ve been calling your name for a while now,” her boss said, undertones of annoyance coloring her nasally voice. “We’re moving to the next section of the building.”

“Ah, right. Sorry.” Kolfinna still wasn’t used to her new name.

She dropped her rag in her own bucket of grimy water and hoisted it up by the wire handle, which bent at the weight. Tepid water sloshed over the rim and splashed against her feet. Dalla lurched back, face twisting.

“Watch where you’re moving that thing!” She huffed in exasperation. “Let’s go. You too, Jofurr.”

Jofurr was hunkered over a bench, scrubbing it with a thick bristle brush. The afternoon sun reflected off his balding head as he jumped to his feet, all too eager to move on. “I was waiting to move to the next part,” he said with a laugh as he gathered his cleaning supplies.

Kolfinna’s bucket hit her leg with every step she took. Even after a year, her leg was still stiff, the muscles resisting the movement as she walked forward and a sharp pain shooting up her ankle and shin.She felt like all the students and teachers were watching her limp forward, possibly whispering among themselves about why she had such a broken gait.

They shuffled along the side of the building until they reached another section of it, this time closer to the students. Some of them wrestled each other while teachers overlooked them, and another group threw daggers at a dozen threadbare dummies with targets on their chests. Their uniforms were drenched in sweat and their faces were red in the scalding heat.

Jofurr watched them silently, a faraway look in his eyes. Maybe that was the life he wanted, Kolfinna thought. Most people wanted to go to a prestigious military school.

“I used to want to be a student,” he confided with a sigh, confirming her suspicions. He turned back to cleaning the windows running along the side of the building. “I was born an Elemental, but my powers were too weak for me to have been accepted in any military school.”

Before Kolfinna could ask what type of Elemental he was—fire, water, air, lightning, or ice—he answered her unasked question by raising his hands over her bucket. A trickle of water rose in a straight line until he waved his hand and it streaked back in.

“Everyone wants to be in the military.” Dalla wiped down the window carefully. “Those kids are going to make way more money than the three of us combined. You’re lucky you were born an Elemental. At least you had a chance to become something.”

His cheeks tinted red. “It’s embarrassing I wasn’t able to become anything.”

Kolfinna quickly dunked her hands in the water to hide how she trembled. In the past, she would’ve thought she could defeat everyone in her immediate vicinity—the students and the teachers alike, regardless of the yellow or purple shiny badges hanging on their breast pockets. But now, if any of them attacked, she would escape into the folds of the city surrounding the academy and never look back.Hehad shown her just how terrifying the military could be.

“You’re the same age as them, aren’t you, Inga?” Jofurr’s kind eyes searched Kolfinna’s face. He lowered his cleaning rag when she didn’t answer immediately, and it took her a second to realize he was talking to her.

Kolfinna nodded.

“That’s a shame.” He sighed again and glanced at the training students. Sweat trickled down the side of his face and stained the collar of his shirt. “You should be in school, don’t you think? Instead of working out here.”

“She’s not gifted,” Dalla scoffed. “What’s the point of wasting tax money on people who won’t contribute?”

“Hey, she’s contributing! She cleans—”

“Oh, please. We don’t contribute. The military, the soldiers, the Royal Guards—the people who make differences—contribute.”

“I think we’re just as—”

Kolfinna drowned them out and stared at the window in front of her. She wiped up and down, up and down, over and over until the smudges were gone. A year ago, Dalla’s remarks would’ve sparked her fury and she would’ve shown her just how much she could contribute, but she had since learned to calm her anger. It had been like a wildfire, burning and raging and smothering everything, but now she kept it like a steady bonfire. Contained.

It was better for everyone when Kolfinna was calm.

Inga, Kolfinna chided herself. Her name was Inga now.