Page 5 of Spark of Sorcery

“Nah.”

“You know why she was in there so long? Why it happened?” Dray asks.

He shakes his head.

“Did you report it? To Madame Bardin, to one of the officials?”

He shuffles on his feet uncomfortably. “Not yet.”

I take a step closer to him. “But you will, won’t you?”

“Sure,” he says.

“Do things go wrong like this often with the trials?” Dray asks next.

They look at each other and shrug.

Yeah, I think they are as dumb as they look.

“Hector, honey,” a female voice squeaks from somewhere behind them. Is that the potion mistress’ voice? Fuck me! “You done yet? We’re waiting.”

“Anything else?” the first twin asks, his hand now tight on the door.

“No,” I say. “But if you hear anything, you be sure to tell us.”

They both nod obediently, then slam the door in our faces.

“What do you think?” I ask Dray. With his nose, he can sniff out a lie a mile away.

“I don’t think they know what’s going on,” he says carefully, “but if they find out, they won’t be telling us.”

Which means their loyalty lies somewhere else. With who? I glare at the door. If it’s someone at the academy, it won’t be any of the kids from Iron, Granite, or Slate.

“I think it’s time we show our faces at the shadow weaver party,” I tell my bond brother.

Chapter Two

Thorne

I linger in the shadows at the base of her tower like some forlorn story-tale prince waiting for the princess to take pity on him and lower her hair. Except – though they may call us the princes – I am not one. And the princess in this story does not know I even exist.

Rain pours from the sky, soaking through my clothes until my skin is sopping wet. Water runs into my eyes and into my mouth. The sting of it is brutally cold. But I don’t shiver.

Up above and through the curtain of rain, I see the weak light of her window, flickering every so often as she passes by. However, the distance is too great and the window too narrow for me to peer inside, to watch her like I yearn to do. I know she is in there, though. Hurting, suffering, in pain. I swear I can feel it in my aching bones.

Theimage of her battered body flickers in front of my face and the shadows roar inside my blood. They want to burst free and rampage through the academy, burning everyone and everything to the ground. They demand to be set loose. To make them all suffer like she has. They are bloodthirsty for revenge and retribution.

I bunch my hands into tight fists and wrestle them down.

That isn’t going to help the girl. It will only make things worse.

But the image of her won’t leave me alone. She needs to be healed. Damn Beaufort and his stupid arrogance. Damn Dray and his stupid antics.

And damn me.

She doesn’t trust us enough to let us heal her. She’d rather suffer instead. And there isn’t one single thing I can do about it. I can’t even drag her to the commoner’s clinic and insist she be seen to.

I’m useless. All I can do is stand here and watch over her. The rain falls heavily on my head and slides down my face.