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Jesy released her, and Margot was almost disappointed. She put enough space between them for her to breathe, watching warily as Jesy combed her hands through her hair until her wayward curls began to curve toward the ceiling.

“I know,” Jesy finally said. She was standing now, her hands in her pockets. “I wasn’t expecting—I wasn’t my best that day, and I took it out on you. I’ve wanted to apologize, but I also wanted to respect your boundaries.”

“Until now.”

At this, Jesy’s lips ticked into a smile. “I’m not here because of you. I just didn’t avoid it knowing you’d likely be here.”

“Why do you want to be the Archmage’s assistant? You have everything in the world! Why do you have to have this, too?”

“Everything in the world?” Jesy scoffed. “You say that I don’t know you, but it’s you who doesn’t seem to know me.”

I don’t remember my parents , Jesy had written her once.

But I know they were magicians. When I left the group home to go to university, I read as much as I could about them.

I want to follow in their footsteps, to become the best magician in all the world.

Maybe then I’ll feel close to them. Maybe then I’ll remember that they loved me. Or at least what it’s like to be loved.

Jesy Bellchant was always surrounded by admirers, but they had bonded over that once, how easy it was to feel alone in a crowd.

Margot’s loving parents and supportive siblings had always been underfoot, but there had been so many of them that her family had once forgotten her birthday.

Meanwhile, Jesy had shuffled from home to home, surrounded by children who came in and out and guardians that never quite felt like parents.

Both of them had felt reduced to their accomplishments, defined by them, chained to them.

It wasn’t that Margot had forgotten. It was just that she hadn’t wanted to care anymore.

Guilt churned in her stomach. “I didn’t mean it like that. I know – I know, all right? But I need this.”

“So do I,” said Jesy, and now her tone was cold. “I’m not leaving, Stern. Get used to it.”

And then she was gone, leaving a ringing silence in her wake.

***

If he noticed the glacial tension between them at the start of their final month, Archmage Langford elected to ignore it.

“Magic on this scale,” he said, gesturing at the island behind him, “requires more than words and will. It requires delusion.”

They were on the beach, a cheerful sun bearing down on a miserable Margot.

She hadn’t slept, so she knew that Jesy hadn’t returned to the cottage the night before.

She also knew she had no right to ask where she’d been instead, especially not when Jesy hadn’t even looked at her since they’d gotten there.

Water licked at the sand, leaving behind colorful shells and strings of algae every time it retreated, but there was no sign of St Izabeta in the distance.

Just the endless horizon, wreathed by clouds.

“You must reject reality as you know it so you can build your own,” Langford continued. One foot tapped against the sand. “In the right mindset, this can all become glass with only a thought. Bellchant, you can go first.”

Jesy stepped forward. She was in another one of her suits today, this one rose pink with a beige collared shirt beneath.

The jacket tapered at her narrow waist, emphasizing her curves in a way that Margot hated to notice.

Jesy’s eyes fluttered shut, her chin tipped toward the sand.

It remained a glittering gold, indifferent to her efforts.

“Stern,” Langford said after five painful minutes of silence.

Margot didn’t step forward and didn’t close her eyes.

She had never needed to block out the world to reject her reality.

She lived in a one-room cottage with nothing but plants for company, had more siblings than she could count and exhausted if well-meaning parents who frequently forgot to visit.

She got one of every twenty field research trips she applied for, and she’d failed to land a grant on her own every day since graduating Hexenhall.

It was only by rejecting reality that Margot had gotten this far, so if she wanted the sand to be glass, then she would damn well force it to be glass.

At first, nothing happened, other than sweat beading across her forehead, as though the sun were laughing at her efforts. Then, a spiral of crystal-clear glass swirled out from under her foot, stopping a meter away from Langford.

He made an approving sound. “Very good.” And then: “Bellchant, try again.”

Jesy tried and tried until the sun began to set.

She had no effect on the sand at all. At one point, she begged to use words – a word anchor to direct magic was the most common form of spell-work – but Langford refused.

“Magic can’t be limited to the words of any language.

You contain your power and, in so doing, you weaken it. ”

“Yes, Archmage,” was all Jesy said, but Margot could read her frustration in the lines of her body.

When the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the ocean gold, Langford dismissed them for the day.

His townhouse, and the dinner he’d been looking forward to cooking, were waiting, and spells cast by the light of the moon were an entirely different lesson.

He wound his way up the path without waiting for them, and Jesy began to follow.

This time, Margot caught her hand. “Let’s work on it together.”

“What’s the point?” Jesy scoffed.

“A wise magician once said that we’ve always worked well together. And I know you can do this.” She paused, allowing Jesy to see her earnestness, her contrition. “I know you .”

Jesy studied her for a long moment before nodding minutely.

Margot nudged her toward the high tide, kicking off her shoes so she could sit in the sand with the water streaming over her bare feet.

Jesy followed at a more measured pace, shedding her suit jacket and rolling up the sleeves of her shirt.

Margot’s gaze bounced off her bared skin, focusing intently on the rippling black sheen of the ocean.

“I think Langford was right about rejecting reality, but it’s not just for magic of his scale.

All of magic is a rejection of the world as it is, a creation of the world as we want it to be.

” Margot drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin atop them.

“Think of what you want most and what you would do to get it. Somewhere between desire and desperation is the ember of power you need for this.”

“What I want most,” Jesy repeated slowly. Margot glanced at her to find that Jesy was already looking at her, eyes half-lidded and mouth quirked into a small smile. “I’ve never heard magic put like that before.”

Margot’s cheeks reddened. “Archmage Langford said it first.”

“No, he didn’t. Not like that. Why do you always diminish yourself like that, Stern?”

You know why , Margot wanted to say. Instead, she licked her lips. “Are you going to try the spell or not?”

Jesy was still looking at her, but that intensity was back, the focus that pinned Margot in place until Jesy decided to let her go.

She saw movement from the corner of her eye and realized a second too late that it was Jesy’s hand, rising to cup her hot cheek.

She watched Jesy’s throat bob as she swallowed.

When she leaned into the touch, Jesy’s lips parted in wonder.

“What I want most,” she breathed. “Why would anyone want anything other than you?”

Margot had no response, because that smiling mouth was pressed against hers in a kiss both sudden and inevitable.

Jesy tasted like bergamot. She kissed like this was a debate and she was responding well to Margot’s arguments.

Her other hand grabbed a fistful of Margot’s braids and tilted her head so that Jesy could slide her tongue into Margot’s mouth, claiming her beneath the watchful moon.

Heat flared in Margot’s chest, that sense of rightness settling into her bones.

Every success and every failure had led her to the golden beach of Elixane Isle, to be kissed by Jesy Bellchant, and in that moment every painful experience was worth it.

She groaned as Jesy pressed her back against the beach, her brief flash of annoyance over the sand she would get in her braids immediately overwritten by the feel of Jesy’s hand on her breast.

“Don’t think this means I’m going home,” Jesy murmured against her neck, followed by a hint of teeth that made Margot whimper. “If anything, I’ll be more determined to beat you.”

“I expected nothing less,” Margot breathed, dragging her nails down Jesy’s back. “I can’t work if you’re here, putting your hands all over me.”

Jesy’s thigh slid between her legs, pushing up her skirts to press right against where Margot needed her most. “We won’t need to work for a few more hours yet. And my hands aren’t the only things I want to put all over you.”

Margot ground against her thigh, sparks of pleasure lighting up every nerve ending. “Do it, then.” She yanked at Jesy’s collar, and three buttons popped free. “We have a lot to make up to each other, don’t we?”

Jesy laughed into the next kiss. Then Margot’s hand found its way inside her trousers, and there was no more laughter at all.

***

If he noticed the searing tension between them the next morning, Archmage Langford had elected to ignore it.

He walked the length of the beach, making thoughtful sounds at the way the sun reflected off the ridge of glass that now marked the line of high tide.

As it turned out, Jesy’s desire to master the spell was equal to her desperation to get Margot fully undressed.

With that motivation, Jesy had turned her stretch of sand to glass with hours left to go until sunrise – hours she subsequently spent making Margot cry out with pleasure until her voice had gone hoarse.

Now Margot’s spiral of glass and Jesy’s ridge cut through the grains that Langford studied, crystal proof of exactly how well they worked when they did it together.

“Very good, Bellchant,” Langford finally said, stroking his beard again. “Next, I’ll have you both change it back. Who wants to go first?”

This was only their second real lesson, and already Margot could see the future that raced toward her.

The rest of the month would bring more lessons rooted in monotony, enough to learn from but not enough to engage them for longer than a few weeks.

Langford would continue to avoid the pair outside of his daily magic practices, as if he were allergic to the company of other people, leaving them to their own devices.

She would still be forced to spend her nights and mornings in Jesy Bellchant’s company, perhaps teaching her how to cook, perhaps turning to her for magical help, perhaps performing a different kind of magic all together.

But for the first time since she had arrived, Margot didn’t look ahead and feel anxious about what was next.

The prospect of the competition didn’t seem daunting.

She still planned to win, but the desperate edge to her want had eased.

She didn’t need Archmage Langford to make her feel important, not when Jesy Bellchant gazed up at her from between her spread legs as though she were worshipping her own personal god.

She didn’t need to prove that she had leadership qualities when she knew now that she had only ever cared to be a support system, a part of something greater than herself.

She didn’t need to return to St Izabeta a hero, because she had already seen things that no magician in her lifetime had seen just by being here, right now.

The sun emerged from behind a thin cover of clouds, making the glass too bright to look at.

Margot turned away from her spiral to catch Jesy looking at her with mischief in her eyes.

She remembered the first time she had seen her again, a month ago, and how she’d taken that look as a challenge.

Now, she saw the warmth that softened Jesy’s expression, the way that gleam in her gaze said play with me, play with me.

Margot smirked, gesturing imperiously toward the glass. “You go ahead, Bellchant. I need to know what not to do.”

Jesy laughed, that twinkling, addictive noise which had quickly become Margot’s favorite sound.

“All right,” said Archmage Langford, and for a moment Margot could have sworn that he was smiling, too, “begin.”