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“I’m curious as to whether he could use it to hurt me,” I confessed.

“So, you are related to Gideon after all,” Lucian replied with a laugh. “Listen to Ronan. For once, he’s right. He just had a taste of it, and it took him half an hour to stop shaking.”

“You wish,” the dark-haired man snapped. Then he stage-whispered to me, “Actually I’m still fucking shaking. I just hide it well. Don’t do it, Valesco.”

I shook my head, baffled to find that not one but two of those posh gits were so pleasant from up close. I would never have guessed from the other end of a ballroom.

“Gideon’s an idiot, I’m not.” Again, I offered him my hand. “I’m shielded against harmful magic. It’s an innate ability,” I explained, in case he thought I believed a cheap charm or temporary spell could deflect his family’s legendary power.

It wasn’t completely accurate though. Innate abilities, or core powers, were the magic sorcerers were born with.

By contrast, witches and wizards learned magic.

Sorcerers were just the way they were. In my case, I wasn’t born that way, but it didn’t change the fact that my powers weren’t learned, earned, or bought.

Up until earlier today, I never understood how I could have been so irrevocably changed, my very being rewritten by three runes. Deborah’s answer should have been obvious, if it hadn’t been so impossible to grasp, to accept.

I encountered a god when I was about to die. And he brought me back. It was still hard to wrap my head around the fact, but that was the only possible conclusion.

“I’d love to know if I’m immune to you. Please, go on.”

Slowly, seeming to regret it already, Lucian extended his hand, and ever so lightly touched the tip of my finger—a barely-there brush, so much quicker than this afternoon. I could feel him nonetheless, like the tiny space where his skin met mine was the center of my existence.

Yes, I felt him. But no pain. No change of energy. Just the awareness of Lucian Regis touching me for the second time today.

He was so strong his force tuned out the rest of the world, demanding all my attention. I no longer felt any of the headaches, stomach bugs, or shoulder pain that other people were always emanating. Only him.

“Am I supposed to feel something?” I checked.

Lucian’s jaw hit the floor.

“Yes. Yes, you are.” The light touch intensified as he actually took my hand.

Still nothing. I smiled. “You’re certainly not the first man with performance issues. Don’t sweat it, it’s perfectly normal.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Lucian whispered.

Ronan doubled over, cracking up.

Meanwhile, I attempted to stay in the moment, but my mind returned to the runes under my clothes.

This was the true reason the spell on my shoulders and arms freaked me out so much.

The reason I wasn’t used to pain although I lived in Highvale and had been schooled with two dozen of my peers.

Defensive magic—and consequently, being attacked—was a full part of our education, so plenty of students had attempted it in my practice classes. People couldn’t hex me.

That didn’t mean I was immune to everything; if someone was chucking a boulder, a fireball, a rock, or a jet of water my way, I couldn’t deflect elements.

I was also affected by potions. But hexes hadn’t been able to pierce my skin since that day in the library.

I could take in good things, warming charms in the winter, impermeability when it rained, and whatever Lucian had done to me earlier. Nothing harmful.

Thankfully, I had a distraction at hand. “Stay still and let me finish.”

I reached for him again. This time, he didn’t stop me.

Hyperaware of my palm against his forehead, I absorbed the darkness, golden strands of light burning through it.

“There. Better?”

“A million times,” he admitted, leaning in. “Did you do this so I would be added to that list of minions after all?”

“Maybe.”

“Well played, witch. Now you’ll find me at your doorstep for stationery and health emergencies.”

“And one day, I might just have a favor to ask of you .” Batting my eyelashes innocently, I waved before making my way to Gideon.

He was still being a casual buffoon about the many ways he almost died today, so I swatted the back of his head. “Your mother would have your hide if she heard half of this.”

“Which is why you’ll never, ever tell her.”

“You don’t think she reads your reports, idiots? She’s your boss.”

He was undeterred. “She hates reports. Unless they’re bad enough for her assistant to demand clarification, she completely ignores them.”

I shook my head, but honestly, I was worried about Gideon. He enjoyed danger far too much, and near-death experiences were becoming far too frequent.

“You want to tell me what that was about?” Silver asked me, when my cousin returned to his tale.

“I know. Gideon’s getting completely irresponsible. I’m considering chatting with his dad. Not Hilda, she’d kick his ass, but Uncle Leo could talk some sense into him.”

“I mean,” my friend said, “you and two dark wizards. Flirting .”

“Hardly.” I snorted at the notion. “We were just friendly.”

“You were flirting. Look at your hair.”

I glanced down, finding locks of red hair neatly braided, and flushed.

Silver knew I started to absentmindedly braid my mess of curls whenever I was anxious.

“Just because I was a bit nervous doesn’t mean I was flirting,” I retorted primly.

She snorted, glaring at the two wizards.

“Besides, even if I were flirting a little, which I am not admitting to, it would have been harmless. They were both pleasant. It’s a shame no one else is trying to talk to them.”

“They seem to be enjoying themselves.”

That was true. The pair chatted and laughed together like there wasn’t a purposeful space between us and them.

I realized something. All these years, I always believed the elder bloods, the founders’ kids, stayed away from us because they thought they were better than us.

But tonight, I started to understand it was a two-way street.

We were just as guilty for that distance.

When we did chat with them, they were just…

normal. As normal as a dark sorcerer trying to suck the life out of me—at my request—could be, in any case.

Their younger friend, Lucky, was playing poker with a clerk and two runners, and wiping the floor with them, by the looks of it.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have such a strong divide between us.”

“Or maybe you should be careful with dark wizards,” she countered. “Even when they look like that .”

I rolled my eyes at Silver. “You were sitting next to me through seven years of our magical theory lessons, were you not? Dark magic is just a word to define any and all obscure branches of magic too complex to fit in other categories.”

There were several greater principles of magic.

Elemental magic, the most common across the world, spoke for itself.

Using the elements was generally the first thing any wizard learned.

Then, there were spells—which included hexes and curses, but also protection shields; anything that took the energy of the universe and morphed it into a concrete thing.

Spells were interesting. Hard to execute, precise, demanding focus, spellcasting and spellcraft—the art of writing something entirely new—was a direct communication between an individual and the universe. Spells could be good, or devastating. One look at my arms made that clear.

The third primary principle was enchantments: the manipulation of objects and minds , could be seriously morally questionable, and yet, all three of these were dubbed “light” magic—a stupid word in itself, given the fact that actual light powers existed.

Everything else was considered arcane—or dark—magic. In short, the kind of magic that couldn’t solely be explained in a book.

The exception was blood magic—anything perpetrated on or using living things.

The uninitiated freaked at the very name, but technically, healing fell into that category.

So did many potions, if they required the bone or blood of organs of something previously alive.

Blood magic was its own thing, neutral, neither light or dark, as it could be used for good or ill.

Summoning, the ability to instantly grab someone or something and bringing them before us, its little sister, telekinesis, and their cousin, portalling—actually opening a doorway to another place in this world or another one, wasn’t in any way good, or bad, but these were all considered dark magic.

These days there were enough spells to move small objects within reach that it was considered no big deal, but it didn’t change the fact that the magic was technically considered dark.

So were prophetic powers, binding magic, and a large variety of skills anyone would use if they knew how.

“Dark,” I proclaimed, “basically means arcane, not necessarily evil.”

“Yes, well, I’m not a complete idiot,” Silver said. “But those people get away with literal murder. Proudly. Not a week passes without the runners having to hunt down someone from the underside for crazy craps none of us lots would ever think of doing. Be careful.”

I sighed. All of that was true. It didn’t necessarily apply to Lucian, however. Yes, he had killed before, but Gideon told me who, and why. Gently, I said, “You know the guy he killed—the one that landed him in the Guard—was a rapist? And a murderer. And he also lived in the vale, not unders.”

Silver chewed on her tongue, annoyed. “Yes, well. There are bad eggs everywhere.”

She almost got the point. That’d do for tonight.