Page 14

Marigold

The day after the ceremony, they had me jumping right into remedial classes.

I couldn’t say I didn’t need it, but it all felt like too much, too fast. The energy from the wellspring still thrummed under my skin, a steady pulse of power, but when I tried to grasp it—to direct it—it slipped through my fingers like water through cracked glass.

Still, I arrived early, nervously fingering my father’s ring as Scout poked his head out of my sleeve to investigate our new surroundings.

Raven was already there, leaning back in a chair and twirling a strand of black hair while staring at a thick book— Third Week Trials: A History of Traditional Challenges. Her beetle was methodically exploring the desk beside her.

“You’re doing tutoring too?” I asked, sliding into the seat next to her.

“Nah, just moral support.” She grinned, closing the book.

“Plus I heard Dr. Reyes is brilliant with theoretical applications. Thought I might pick up some tips before the trials.” She tapped the book meaningfully.

“Did you know they test everything from basic spells to complex magical theory? Everyone’s freaking out about preparation. ”

My stomach twisted. I needed to get my power under control fast if I wanted to avoid raising an army of dead things in front of the entire school.

“Speaking of freaking out,” Raven said, her voice dropping lower, “did you hear about the vampire attack near Fort Collins?”

“What?” I blinked, pulled from my spiral of worry about the trials. “No, I’ve been too focused on…” I gestured vaguely at my stack of remedial texts.

“My cousin’s in the Shroud Guard there. Says they’re getting bolder, coming closer to populated areas,” she continued. “And Fort Collins isn’t that far from here.”

A chill worked its way down my spine. “Great. So I have to master basic magic and avoid getting eaten.” I tried to joke, but my voice wavered. Scout pressed closer, sensing my anxiety. I turned to Raven. “Is that how they work? Drain our blood?”

She shuddered. “Yes, witch blood is particularly sweet to them, I’m told.”

“Are they another species?” I asked, thinking about how I was somehow both human and witch. “Or are they made from humans like in the stories?”

“You don’t know?” Her voice held surprise.

“All this is new to me,” I reminded her.

“Vampires were once human, until they are turned,” she said. “They live in nests with their creator, their sire.”

“Do they look like humans? Could they pass among us?”

“Yes, they can,” she said slowly. “Though I expect we’d notice the difference in their energy.”

I remembered Ms. Wallace’s words about them “not being that organized”. “Do they have a greater government? Like the Council?”

Raven shook her head. “Their sires make treaties and work together sometimes, but mostly the clans are scattered.”

“Then how are they fighting a war?”

“Chaotically,” she said with a grim look. “We never know when or where they will attack.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Just stay inside the wards,” Raven said with forced lightness. “Wickem is the safest place to be.”

Just then the door opened, drawing both our attention. Expecting to see Ms. Wallace escorting the tutor she’d promised, I straightened in my seat. But instead, a woman entered alone—probably in her late twenties, with warm brown skin and her hair pulled back in a neat braid.

“Hello Marigold,” she said with a smile. “I’m Dr. Reyes. Ms. Wallace asked me to help catch you up on magical fundamentals.”

For the next hour, Dr. Reyes led me through increasingly complex magical exercises. Each time she demonstrated, her magic flowed effortlessly, making each spell look easy. Simple illumination—golden light forming in her palm. Basic levitation—her pencil lifting in the air as smoothly as breathing.

When I tried, my illumination spell exploded into a searing flare, making Raven shield her eyes.

The next attempt fizzled out completely.

The levitation charm shot the pencil to the ceiling so fast it got stuck, and when I finally wrestled my magic back under control, it just dropped like a rock onto the desk.

I gritted my teeth. I felt the magic inside me, the raw power humming, but every time I tried to shape it, it either surged too strong or refused to cooperate at all.

Dr. Reyes nodded approvingly. “Your power is impressive. You just need control.”

That was supposed to be reassuring. It wasn’t.

Because control wasn’t something I had ever been taught.

The final straw came when I tried a simple warming spell. Instead of gently heating my tea, the entire desk burst into flames.

I shoved back my chair, heart pounding as Dr. Reyes calmly extinguished the fire with a flick of her wrist.

“Maybe I just don’t belong here,” I whispered, voice tight. The frustration—the humiliation—was too much. “Maybe they were right about me.”

The air went cold.

“Mari—” Raven started, but I barely heard her over the ringing in my ears.

“No, she’s right to doubt.”

I froze.

Dr. Reyes’s voice had changed. Colder. Sharper.

And then I saw it.

In the mirror behind the desk, her reflection moved—just a fraction of a second too late.

The dead things howled their warning. Too late, too late, too late—

My stomach clenched. “Elio.”

The illusion shattered.

Where Dr. Reyes had stood, Elio straightened to his full height, his perfect mask fracturing around the edges. His chameleon’s scales flickered deep red and black—colors I had never seen before.

Fury flared in my chest. “You tricked me.”

Elio’s smirk didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Wouldn’t be much of an illusion if I didn’t.”

“You knew how much this mattered to me,” I spat. “And you—” My throat tightened, rage and humiliation warring inside me. “What? You just wanted to see if I’d break?”

His laugh was bitter, sharp as glass. “Everyone breaks eventually, darling. I just wanted to see how long it would take.”

I wanted to hit him. To claw at his perfect, smug face, and wipe away that knowing expression.

“You’re terrified,” I said instead, my voice dangerously low. “That someone might see past your perfect performance. See the scared little boy desperate for approval.”

His illusions flickered wildly—faces and forms spinning like a kaleidoscope gone mad. For a moment, I glimpsed him as a child, small and reaching for distant parents. Then as he was now, surrounded by admirers but completely alone.

“Well played, little necromancer.” His voice was soft, almost wondering. Then his mask slammed back into place, his smirk sharp and unshaken. “Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”

He turned to leave, every movement calculated for maximum effect. But at the door he paused. “Next time,” he said without turning around, “try not to let the trials consume you. Some of us prefer more creative challenges.”

“Next time,” I shot back, my pulse hammering, “try being yourself instead.”

After he left, I heard Raven release a shaky breath. “Holy shit, Mari,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I thought he was going to… I’ve never seen him that angry.”

I collapsed back into my chair, suddenly exhausted. The weight of his deception—how thoroughly he’d played on my insecurities—hit me hard. Scout climbed into my palm, his tiny bone-feet oddly comforting against my skin.

“Are you okay?” Raven asked quietly, still not quite meeting my eyes. “What he did… that was cruel. And the way he looked at you…”

“Yeah,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure it was true. “Welcome to life in the royal dorm.”

But in the back of my mind, I kept thinking of that moment—when his mask had cracked. And how, for just a second, I had seen him.

The real Dr. Reyes arrived apologizing for the delay. As she began the actual lesson, my mind kept drifting to that crack in Elio’s performance.

My head was still spinning from Dr. Reyes’s actual tutoring session when I made it back to the royal dorm.

She’d been brilliant but demanding, and my brain felt stuffed with magical theory I was struggling to absorb.

Scout had fallen asleep on my shoulder, probably as overwhelmed as I was by trying to learn control over my surge-prone power.

The common room was quiet except for Keane in his usual corner, surrounded by books. His silver fox lay curled at his feet, watching me with unnervingly intelligent eyes as I stepped in. The dead things in the walls stirred more than usual, but I couldn’t tell if it was curiosity… or warning.

“Your familiar?” I asked, nodding toward the fox.

“Her name is Wisp,” Keane said without looking up. His voice was quiet, even. Still, the fox’s ears twitched, like she heard something deeper in the words than I did. “She’s been with me since… for a while.”

There was a pause—like maybe he wasn’t used to talking about her. Or maybe he was choosing his words too carefully.

“Mine’s Scout,” I offered, as the skeletal mouse darted up and perched on the arm of my chair.

Scout twitched his shadow-thread whiskers like he was showing off.

Keane looked up long enough to nod politely. “Elio’s familiar is named Echo. Cyrus calls his Ember.”

That caught me off guard. I hadn’t asked. “Why are you telling me this?”

His gaze returned to his page. “Information is power,” he said simply.

Cryptic. Of course.

But he’d answered anyway. That meant something.

Keane was, objectively, unfairly attractive.

The kind of broody, bone-structure-blessed nonsense that made it hard to think straight, and it was increasingly unfair how that affected me.

Here he was, being decent to me while also managing to remain infuriatingly unreadable.

I couldn’t decide if he was trying to be kind or just keeping his distance in a more subtle way than the others.

Scout scrambled down to the floor, bones clicking softly as he made his way toward Wisp—clearly interested in meeting another familiar.

I expected the fox to ignore him, maybe even bristle or back away.

But instead, Wisp rose to her feet with slow, graceful movements and stepped forward, her misty form shimmering faintly. She lowered her head, nose twitching as she studied Scout with what looked like… curiosity. Maybe even recognition.

Definitely not the reaction I’d braced for.

“She doesn’t mind dead things?” I asked, watching their careful investigation of each other.

“Wisp’s seen enough strange magic to know what’s actually dangerous.” Keane’s hands trembled slightly as he turned a page. “And what just looks that way.”

I dropped into the nearest chair, my shoulders sagging the second I let myself stop pretending to be fine. No one was attacking me, testing me, or shoving me into another magical mind game. For once, I could just... sit.

Between the magical theory overload, Elio’s illusions, and trying to keep my power under control all day, I felt drained in a way that cleaning houses had never managed. And the illusion—that perfect deception Elio had spun around me—still lingered in my mind.

My jaw tightened. “I can’t believe I fell for it. I thought I was getting better at seeing through lies, but he was so convincing. How am I supposed to trust anything I see anymore?” My voice came out sharper than I’d intended.

Keane glanced up, his usually cool expression softening just enough to surprise me.

“Elio’s good at what he does,” he said, not missing a beat. He knew exactly who I meant. “But even the best illusions have cracks. You did see through it. And now you know to be more careful.”

“I thought I was.” I exhaled, pressing my fingers to my temples. “He could’ve kept me fooled for hours. How many times has he done this before? What if I don’t catch it next time?”

Keane studied me for a long moment, then, unexpectedly, a small portal appeared beside my hand, its edges flickering slightly before steadying.

“Tea,” he said quietly… “It helps. With all of…” He gestured vaguely. “This.”

I took a careful sip, focusing on the familiar taste rather than the way his hands still trembled slightly. “This is… just chamomile?”

“Not everything magical requires actual magic,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching in what might have been a smile. “Sometimes the mundane solutions work better.”

I focused on the warmth of the tea, grounding myself. I had almost been tricked, yes—but I had seen through it in the end. That counted for something.

Through the open window, I could hear students practicing in the gardens below, preparing for the Third Week Trials. Their magic felt different than mine—more controlled, more deliberate.

“I should be down there,” I sighed. “Learning to control all this power before I accidentally raise an army of dead things during testing.”

“They’ve had years of preparation,” Keane said. “You’ve had days.” He hesitated, then added, “My mother used to say power isn’t about how much magic you have, but how you use what you’ve got.”

The past tense hung in the air. Wisp pressed against his legs, offering silent comfort. I wanted to ask, but something in Keane’s expression warned me not to push.

“Was she…” I started carefully, but couldn’t find the right words.

“Gone,” he said shortly. Wisp whined, low and mournful. “Both of them. But that’s not—” He stood abruptly, gathering his books. “Focus on the trials. Leave the past where it belongs.”

I thought he’d vanish into his room without another word, but he hesitated—just long enough to look back. His eyes caught mine, darker now, shadowed with something I couldn’t name.

Grief. Anger. Loneliness. All of it, maybe.

He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.

And still, as he turned away, I couldn’t stop noticing—how the lamplight caught in his hair, how still he carried himself, how beautiful he was even when trying to disappear.

Damn it.